A/N Once again I am overcome with the response and support I have received for my first story. I didn't expect anything like this so thank you so much everyone for the reviews, alerts and and faves. I hope I managed to reply to all your sheer volume of alerts made it impossible to respond individually unfortunately.

This is the final chapter of my story and it has been a heady experience, learning how to upload and navigate around the site. Hopefully I'll be uploading more stories soon.

This story is unbeta'ed but I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Kalvinanne for her support and help in improving the epilogue; the whole dang story actually. She kindly offered her help while trying to finish her own first piece 'Don't Go Gently Into The Night.' If you like competent Tony then you will love her story. Any mistakes that occur are mine alone.

Finally to update on my other work. I am hopeful that I have found a Beta for my series Anthony's Angels, so hopefully I will be able to begin uploading chapters sooner rather than later. I am still looking for someone to Beta my Agent Afloat series which is ready to go. At this stage there are four unrelated AU scenarios to explain why Tony was sent away to sea if it really wasn't as a punishment as stated by Director Vance. I am totally loathe to post stories without a beta or at least someone to proof my work. If anyone is interested let me.

I'm Better Than That

Epilogue

Several months later

Ducky

I stared down at the elegantly handwritten invitation on heavy card, inviting Mrs Victoria Mallard and Dr Donald Mallard to dinner at Anthony DiNozzo's home to celebrate Dr Mallard's birthday. I am highly moved that Anthony would take it upon himself to do this for me. He knows that Mother has been quite poorly recently and so I probably wouldn't be inviting the team to my place this year, as is my custom on my birthday. The dear boy has been making almost weekly visits to the Mallard family home to cheer Mother up and give me a break. I have to laugh when the team question him about his latest paramour and he regales them with stories about his English rose.

I smiled at his subtle choice of flowers as we sat around his elegantly set table. A floral centrepiece is adorned with yellow hybrid tea roses, Peer Gynt if I'm not mistaken which are Mother's favourites. The silver service and antique candelabra, inherited from his maternal grandmother all gleamed in the glow of the candlelight. Vivaldi's Four Seasons played softly in the background, contributing to the ambience and sophistication of the meal.

I wonder if anyone else is aware of the irony of this first team dinner since Ziva's dinner party. Anthony has extended his hospitality to the whole team including my youthful assistant Mr Palmer, Abigail and even McGee's cousin who is visiting young Timothy and he is a relaxed and convivial host. Perfect wines accompany simple but delicious Italian food which Ziva and co assume he has had professionally catered. Anthony merely smiled although he neither confirmed nor denied her statement. Seeing a certain gleam in his eye, I am convinced that he has indeed prepared it himself.

After dinner when he served us tea and coffee in the living room, the team all presented me with gifts, which was very kind of them. Anthony's was especially poignant for me though; a red, leather bound First Edition copy of the Alexander Dumas' literary classic, The Three Musketeers. I smiled across at Anthony when I saw his gift, remembering how when he first joined us at NCIS he often joked that Jethro, Abigail and I were like The Three Musketeers. I also knew that there were further complexities to his gift, consistent with his own exceedingly multifaceted personality. One of his secrets entrusted to me is his passion for the classics, which I share too. I chuckled as I remember Anthony's apt comparison of the obsessed Captain Ahab in the classic Moby Dick to his curmudgeonly boss Jethro, when he was hunting down Ari. Not only did the young agent draw the analogy but he had been courageous enough, some would say stupidly, suicidal enough to tell Jethro to his face.

Even more subtly though, is that he wanted to thank me for supporting him, after his exclusion from Ziva's party. The others are probably diverted by his extravagance, wrongly labelling it as flaunting his (non- existent) wealth or just trying to show off but I understood the message he was sending me. Anthony is quite a chivalrous young fellow. The credo of the heroes of the classic tale; that of 'all for one and one for all' is one he adopted as his own. Anthony is also acknowledging that I too share that ethos.

He was thanking me for having his 'six' and letting me know that it was reciprocated. I nodded seriously to him to let him know that I received the unspoken message and he flashed me a truly genuine, mask free smile that almost stopped my heart with its joyfulness before he winked and carefully masked his expression once more. He really was a chameleon like no one I have encountered and I wonder how long it would take for someone to unravel this enigma of a man.

As we all mutually decided to call it a night and depart, Anthony surprised me again by asking me to stay a little longer as he had something that he wished to show me. He politely steered everyone else apart from Mother toward the front door of his apartment, gathering coats and handbags for his guests from his spare room before saying good night to the extended team. He had a mischievous gleam to his eyes that he made no attempt to hide.

No doubt he was enjoying the team's unabashed curiosity, understanding intuitively, that they as investigators but most particularly Jethro hated not knowing what was going on. He smiled at me and said he wouldn't be a minute and went down with the team. I presumed to make sure they got into their cars and left before he showed me whatever it was that was obviously very private. As I waited, it occurred to me that although it probably hadn't been his intention, he had just managed to give the rest of the team a tiny taste of the exclusion that they had delivered to him.

I could tell that when he returned he was nervous and I wondered what he was going to show me. He walked over to the piano in the corner of the room and sat down before sighing deeply and began to play. I had long wondered about the piano in his apartment but it was not something he ever wished to discuss as far as I am aware. I had always thought his elegant hands were those of a pianist and as they glided across the keys while he played, first Mozart's Piano Concerto No 6 in B-flat major before moving to Beethoven Piano Sonata number 8 in C minor, I could scarcely take my eyes off him. He was exceedingly talented but he obviously didn't wish for people to know that. I glanced at Mother and found by her rapturous expression, she was enjoying the special performance as much as I was.

When Anthony finally ceased playing, he turned and offered me a shy smile that somehow was tinged with nervous pleading. This was no act, he had dropped his hard outer shell to let me glimpse at his true nature. Even though both of us are verbal by nature, we are like yin and yang. Anthony uses his tongue as a protective cloak while managing to reveal very little of consequence when it comes to his real self. He conceals himself by deflection and by the sheer volume of what he says.

I on the other hand love to prattle on and love parables as a form of communication; they give insight into my inner Duck. I am a man who views the world in all its subtlety and not as a series of neat bullet points. I look at life and see a richly hued palate of greys, not simple black or white. I am the epitome of the road less travelled rather than a Type- A goal focused sort of person. The older I become, the less I feel the need to pretend or to hide my eccentricities. I guess I am becoming comfortable in my skin

Ironically, Tony finds it almost impossible to express in words, anything that is truly important to him. That is probably why he is so good at understanding Gibbs and anticipating his needs so well. With a flash of intuition I knew he had decided to show me a very important but intensely private part of himself, when he played for me but he was nervous that I would want more than he could give.

Unlike Jethro who will pick away at Anthony when he thinks he is holding back secrets from him, I am quite content to let Anthony decide how much or how little of his personal life he reveals. He knows that I will listen if he needs me to. So I crossed to him and gave him a heartfelt hug and told him how honoured I was that he has shared his gift with me. I told him it is one of the best gifts I have ever received and will treasure it forever.

Then I turned to Mother and suggested that we head home. As I smiled at him he hurried off to gather our things for us. I thought back to the time in Autopsy when I asked him why he cared about protecting his teammates when they had treated him so shabbily and what he said to me. 'Yes Anthony you are so much better than that and I am proud to call you family.'

Tonight had been a revelation. Anthony had chosen to share an intensely private part of his inner self; to let me know that I am an important and trusted part of his life. I made a vow to myself to ensure that I never betray his trust in me. It had been hard won but what I saw tonight assures me that he is definitely worth the effort.

Endnotes: Well that's it folks. The end of my first story! I know some people were wanting to see Ducky flay the team on Tony's behalf and I think that you can take as given that he did indeed take Gibbs, most especially to task . Also, I'm sure that the others would have felt the effects of his disapproval too but I wrote this story some time ago with the express intend of exploring how Ducky's support helped Tony cope with his hurt. This was only ever going to be a short piece. I felt that any exploration of 'The Road to Damascus ' type realisations by the team of the enormity of their trangression and any resulting mea culpus, would require a much longer writte piece to do justice to the story and make it believable. I may pick up the topic again or write a companion piece sometime in the future. So I hope that the fact that Tony was able to come through a very hurtful incident with his integrity intact and still manage to get a little of his own back again will not leave you all too disappointed. :)

For those of you that liked said how much they enjoyed the pairing of Ducky and Tony, I'm glad because I love Ducky! I already have some additional Ducky and Tony frienship pieces written and have others in the works. I hope you enjoy them them. I agree that there isn't a lot of this particular pairing and I love to be different. LOL

Adieu SASundance