Disclaimer: I don't own any of them and I don't make money from them either.

A/N:This series consists of self-contained stories that only have two things in common. First off they are AU and examine Tony ships with his team mates from a unorthodox point of view. Have to say this series is very different from what I usually write and I'm a bit stumped about how to classify them.

I've never been a fan of shipping Tony with anyone from his team. In my humble opinion every ship conveniently ignores the abusive and toxic nature of their working relationship with Tony. The first Abandon Ship explored what I think would have happen if he was foolish enough to begin a relationship with one of them - in this case Ziva. In this story I wanted to explore another common trope in the shipping realm that drives me totally crazy, which is that Tony is some lovelorn idiot that has spent the last 15 years sitting on his ass pining away for a love he thinks he'll never have. Sorry but I can't accept that he would be so pathetic – I can't believe anyone would. This is my twist on the much used plot device in this three part story. It takes place in season eleven.

My thanks To Aress for Beta'ing this story and Frakking Toasters for her feedback.

Abandon Ship: Misguided Loyalty

I'm driving over to Gibbs' house with a case of Canadian beer and trepidation as my passengers. The boss invited me over for dinner and to watch the game, but I suspect that his motive is much more than a couple of co-workers unwinding together at the end of a hard week. Sure, I used to come over to his house to hang out with him frequently, but I haven't been here for a long time. When I did drop by, it wasn't as if I ever expected to be entertained – Gibbs doesn't feel the need to entertain or even make conversation. I used to follow him around like an eager to please puppy, hoping that he might direct a look or a word in my direction, but in lieu of attention, perfectly happy to watch him do the stuff that he did. I've come to the conclusion lately that it was probably paternal crap left over from childhood rejection and effectively being ignored by Senior my whole life.

I guess there are things about Gibbs that have always reminded me of my father. They both have RULES, although Gibbs has a helluva lot more explicit ones than my father - over fifty of them, and then there are the unnumbered ones as well like there is no such thing as coincidence. My father's rules, apart from DiNozzos don't cry, don't faint, or let anyone see your weakness, are all subtle and fluid, while Gibbs', like the man, are pretty much set in concrete. Yet for all their differences, there are a lot of commonalities about the pair too.

Gibbs and Senior's expectations are unattainably high, both absolutely abhor appearing weak and vulnerable in front of people – even those people who are closest to them. They both have a Machiavellian nature, and while they use it for rather different objectives, that little gleam in the eye or crinkle of the lip, the subtlest of tells when they play someone is still spookily similar as they hook their prey.

They both have an unshakeable self-confidence and self-belief that I totally envy and can only dream about possessing. Then there is the fact that both of them lost the love of their lives and then married multiple times trying to recapture what was simply irreplaceable.

Of course, there is one thing that makes Gibbs a very different animal from my father, and no, it isn't that he shops at Sears or wears his silver-gray hair shorn high and tight while Senior wears bespoke suits costing thousands of dollars and has a stylist from an exclusive hair salon cut his hair. It isn't that Gibbs' idea of a good time is working on his boat or some other wood working project in his basement while Senior's is schmoozing with a bunch of wealthy business people trying to get them to invest in his next big thing. Or that my father is as facile and fluent as Gibbs is taciturn and terse. It isn't even the biggy that Anthony DiNozzo Senior is all about how to feather his own nest and Gibbs has always served his country and doesn't care about money, as important and impressive as that distinction might be.

No, what set them apart from my personal point of view, and call me self-absorbed if you must, was something much more fundamental and pivotal in my life. Gibbs, unlike my father, told me once upon a time that I had value when he offered me a job at NCIS and taught me what became my most sacred rule – even more sacrosanct than Rule 1 that I've try to live by even before I joined his team. Partners are inviolable even when I've sometimes been burnt by them.

People always wondered why I've stayed loyal, many would say pathetically so, to Gibbs who is a hard man. Hard to work for, I can't deny that, but it was his Rule 5 – you don't waste good - that kept me coming back for all this time despite all the crap he's thrown at me over the years.

I'd never had anyone believe in me like that before – apart from football and basketball, but I don't really count that cuz people flattered me because I had something they needed. They wanted to take advantage of my skills for their own agendas. So we could win the game, win the championship, get noticed and win a place on a pro team. I was always happy to help make the team look good, but somehow towards the end, I realised it was no longer as important as I thought. After the reality check when I failed to save an innocent little girl from being burnt to death, playing games somehow seemed pretty frivolous in comparison.

Of course, growing up, Senior had never once given any indication that I was good enough; quite the opposite. I've never been able to earn my father's approval for my achievements, but believe me, it hasn't been for the want of trying. Although, towards the end I'd stopped aiming for approval and settled on any kind of attention, even of the negative kind, rather than out and out being an irrelevance. At least when he was pissed off with me, I felt like I actually existed. I guess that's where I developed my irritating, obnoxious personality that my co-workers are at pains to point out to me on a daily basis.

Then there was my mother who died when I was eight, and I never managed to secure her approval either, but then her rules were far more mercurial than Senior's or Gibbs', depending on her mood or how many prescription medications she'd imbibed. There were days when she was all lightness and love, and then the darkness would overpower her and she could be cruel, cutting, and dismissive. Occasionally, she would be filled with rage or depression and I would hug the shadows, trying to stay out of her way because it never ended well for me.

Still, the point is, that between a father with unattainable standards that I couldn't ever reach and a mother who couldn't seem to make up her mind what she wanted from me, I always felt adrift and was often confused. I was never sure what role I was supposed to fill in her life – a noisy, hyperactive, curious little boy, a living doll that she could dress up in sailor suits or miniature lounge suits and tuxedos, or a musical prodigy through which she could achieve her own thwarted ambitions or gain the acceptance she craved from segments of New York society. To be honest, I felt a bit like Sybil, never knowing what part my mother was going to need me to play on any given day. The paradox was my father ignored me while my mother gave me way too much attention – most of it the wrong sort.

The most important lesson I learnt as a child was that appearances are all important. First impressions were critical and you can't ever afford to show weakness. I guess that's why Gibbs and I gelled so quickly since his fundamental message about being weak was similar to my father's. My childhood consisted of learning how to fit in in the society crowd that my parents' lives revolved around with a religious -like fervour. I had elocution lessons to ensure that I didn't speak like a brash New Yorker or a third-generation Italian-American, both of which were considered terribly vulgar by my parents and my elocution teacher. I swear, I was the only kid in my elementary school to sound like a miniature Charles Emerson Winchester III with my carefully coached Bostonian accent that my mother with her upper crust English roots approved of.

Even in snooty Long Island, none of my peers had tutors for ballroom dancing – Mother loved to dress me up for competitions. Then there were the daily piano lessons with the knuckle cracking piano teacher, and I had started fencing classes because, according to Senior, little savages played soccer and T-ball, while tomorrow's movers and shakers fenced and played polo. So, I also had a riding tutor for polo, even if my Shetland pony Topsy Turvy was too dumpy to be able to run fast. My mother adored kitting me out in riding garb too, and there were times when I felt a bit like those paper dolls that little girls used to play with, with the paper outfits that they could swap to their hearts' content. I loved Topsy, my pony, but I wanted to do stunts like the Lone Ranger and Trigger, not chase around after a stupid ball with a mallet. And I'd much rather have played soccer or T-ball like the other kids than learn to fence.

So, little wonder I became skilled in keeping up with appearances, since I figured out before I could talk properly that if I wanted approval - and I did want it, craved it like a drug addict - that appearances were all that mattered in my parents' world. A good grade wasn't acknowledged because of a job well done, but because it could eventually lead to an Ivy League college where you could meet the right people who would help you make more money. One of Senior's favourite saying was 'you are who you know, Junior. Don't ever forget…you are who you know.'

Of course, knowing what I do about Senior now, this makes a lot more sense, but back then I never really got to choose my friends; they were chosen for me on the basis of what their parents could provide my father. By the time he'd disowned me, I was such a mess I had no damned idea who Anthony Daniel DiNozzo really was and which parts of me, if any, were real or simply fabricated for my parents' approval.

So, by the time I was ended up in Baltimore and my partner, Danny, who I felt was like a brother to me, betrayed our partnership, meeting Gibbs was like being tossed a life preserver when I was drowning and going under for the last time. The federal agent telling me I was good was an enormous life changer and I hankered after the feelings it evoked like a junkie craves another hit of their drug, willing to do almost anything to recreate that endorphin high of earning Gibbs' approval. The fact he saw past all the crap I used to protect myself with and saw beyond it to my worth, to my potential, someone who didn't care about who I was, only what I was capable of doing was a heady experience. Little wonder he won my loyalty pretty much instantaneously.

Oh, I admit there have been times when my loyalty's been sorely tested. God knows, Gibbs can push my buttons like no one else, and there've been many a time where I longed to tell him where he could stick it and resign. After he took off to Mexico and then came back just as abruptly after giving me the team and taking it back again with just as little warning, for example. Then there was his petulance over the ill-fated La Grenouille undercover mission and his childish payback with Domino, just to name a few of the elephants lurking in the room. Plenty of other fodder too - like his bad temper, his cruel habit of making cutting comments about me in front of the team and other people, which he didn't do with anyone else on the team. His insistence that I needed his head slaps to concentrate caused plenty of tension in our relationship, especially after I had led the team and then had to accept a demotion complete with head slaps that were frankly belittling and disrespectful. Yet I stayed!

Still, despite my loyalty, in the last few years, Gibbs has become increasingly distant, not sure why – perhaps because I challenged him over E.J. Barrett and he wasn't used to me defying him. And although it was a shock to find out that she was the niece of the former SecNav Philip Davenport, she isn't the only one to keep huge secrets - Gibbs can hardly afford to throw stones since he's lived in a glass house for most of his time at NCIS. I sometimes wonder if Gibbs even lets himself know what he's up to most of the time, he's so fond of keeping us all in the dark. I swear, he thinks we're mushrooms!

So, as our personal relationship seemed to slowly deteriorate, I'd pretty much stopped going to his place. Then as Ziva spun further and further out of control after Eli's death and I didn't want to confront the situation at work, I'd sucked it up and manufactured an excuse to go over to his place. When he asked sardonically if I needed an excuse to drop in, I never answered him - not out loud, but mentally I responded. Hell, yes, Gibbs. Damned straight I need a goddamned excuse.

Of course, I might as well have saved my breath for all the good it did trying to talk about her. Everyone but me knew that she'd appropriated government resources (McGee) and agency equipment, that they set up a secret war room to track down her prey, and they all turned a blind eye as Ziva went on her merry way. Seems it was fine for her to hop on board the revenge train, inviting Director Leon Vance along too, and since Gibbs was a seasoned traveler on that particular track, he turned a blind eye to what was going on.

So, then the whole Bodnar mess hit the fan, giving Richard Parsons the opening he'd been waiting for to enable him to go after Gibbs, ending up with McGee, Ziva, and I taking a dive to save Gibbs' job. Okay, so I admit I wasn't the one to come up with the idea of resigning, but I still had enough team spirit to go along with it, and what else but loyalty for Gibbs would possess me to make that sacrifice?

I mean, if you look at it logically, it didn't make any sense at all. Gibbs is close to retirement… who knows how close because he will never tell us how old he is, but he's got to be damned close. I'd even go so far as to say he's probably long over retirement age. And the three of us have years left to run on our careers, and yet we collectively threw away roughly forty years of our professional lives to protect Gibbs' job. I'd invested a lot of years and sacrificed a lot for the team over the years, knocking back Rota, Spain, but for loyalty to him, I threw it all away. And sure, it all worked out and McGee and I got our badges back again, but we didn't know that when we resigned to save Gibbs' ass.

All that crap we went through just so Ziva could avenge her father, the paragon of virtue who sent her on a suicide mission and left her to rot in a terrorist camp. The paterfamilias who ordered her to kill her half-brother. The father who slunk into the US on a mission to promote peace and never blinked about killing an American citizen who was unfortunate enough to recognise him when Eli wanted to be here incognito.

Oh, yeah, such a worthy recipient of loyalty and vengeance, if ever there was one. Seems to me that Ilan did the world a freakin' huge favour if he was Eli's killer, and since there was never a proper trial, who knows if he was actually guilty or not. You have to wonder, though, if Bodnar's family – his brother, will decide to avenge his death and go after Ziva in retaliation. Makes one question where it will end.

So, I've stayed faithful to my boss for over a decade, despite the escalating tension and distance between us. I'm not even sure exactly when Gibbs last invited me over to his home, probably when he invited Senior, who was stone broke at that point, to stay for Thanksgiving. So, I think that I'm permitted to be thrown by an invitation to Gibbs' home out of the blue, since I haven't felt welcome there in a long time.

Of course, it goes without saying that it must be my fault... something I've done or said, or perhaps the gilt is just off the gingerbread. There are no outstanding issues at work that I know of – well, nothing that Gibbs would consider worth mentioning anyway. To the best of my knowledge, I haven't screwed up anything lately, but with my track record, I concede that anything is possible. It's probably a mistake to get too complacent.

Plus, Gibbs has been giving me weird looks for several weeks now. Well, to be honest, ever since I returned from Tel Aviv he's been acting strange. I'm normally pretty good at decoding the Gibbs-speak, but the stuff he's been broadcasting lately? Hell No! Every time I turn around he's watching me, and why is it I keep humming The Police song, Every Breath You Take? Yeah, okay, it's creepy, even for him but I'm trying to put it out of my head as I figure out the motivation behind the looks.

It seems speculative to me, but really, I'm not up to anything that might explain it. No undercover ops, no job interviews, no plans to pull any pranks. Yet Gibbs and his staring have been making me antsy for weeks now. Is he going to kick me to the curb? If he is, I really wish he'd just get it over and done with. I can't take the suspense, especially as his eyes seem to follow me wherever I go. Reminds me of those spooky portraits in the horror movies with the eyes cut out where some sicko can perv on people undetected, with eyes following you all around the room. Yep, definitely skin crawling creepy.

Then today after all the hinky Gibbs, out of the blue he invited me over to his place for dinner and to watch the game with him, and his cryptic invite has me pondering if someone is slipping something into his coffee. Replaying in my head the conversation that took place when I first arrived in the bullpen this morning as I now head out to his home in Alexandria, I try in vain to make sense of the nonsensical.

"DiNozzo."

"Yes, Boss?"

"You're late."

Yeah two minutes. "Sorry, Boss."

"Don't apologise – it's a sign of weakness. My place, tonight 2000. Bring beer."

"Um… okay. What's up?"

"Dinner, then watching football or we can do something else. Figure it's time to stop beatin' 'round the bush. Lay our cards on the table."

"Um… cryptic much, Gibbs? What have I told you about doing those crossword puzzles?" I joked feebly, trying to figure out what the hell he meant by laying our cards out on the table.

Scowling at me, he announced his intention to get fresh coffee. What a shock!

Maybe Gibbs was going to explain why in the last few years he'd pushed me away, treating me as a stranger, one that he obviously didn't like very much. Maybe he was going to give me my marching orders – I should probably consider myself lucky he wasn't going to do it in the bullpen with everyone listening. I spent a few minutes after he left making sure my CV was up to date. Better to be prepared.

~o0o~

So, here I was outside Gibbs' front door, feeling awkward. In years gone by, I'd have bounded up onto his porch and breezed through the unlocked front door, making myself at home as I put the beer in Gibbs' relic of a fridge and descended down to his lair to hang out. After the last few years, where I stopped coming over since I felt as about as welcome as a pork chop at a Shabbat dinner and he stopped asking me over for the occasional cowboy steak, I froze on the front step, debating if I should knock. In the end, it felt wrong me just walking in and I ended up knocking. And didn't that speak volumes about where our 'working relationship' had headed, and wasn't it sad that even mentally, I didn't even dare to label it as a friendship anymore?

Gibbs flung open the front door, obviously pissed that I'd forced him to answer the door. Hmm… not getting off to a great start here, but honestly, if I'd walked right on in, I'll bet it would have been the wrong thing. These days it feels like I can't seem to do the right thing no matter how hard I try.

Sometimes, I wonder why he hasn't taken advantage of circumstances at various times, like when I was assigned agent afloat or after I resigned, to get me transferred onto another team. He could have recommended me for a promotion, but then again, he would only do so if he thought I had what it takes to lead a team. While promoting a 'problem' off your team was an age old way to get rid of troublesome personnel, Gibbs is too honourable to go that track, and maybe he felt it was wrong to try and palm your rejects off onto other teams. If I was truly being honest with myself, something I usually avoid at all costs because it's too painful to confront all my flaws, one of the reasons why I knocked back the Rota job when Shepard offered it to me is because of the niggling, okay, the huge doubts, about my ability to lead a team. Gibbs clearly agrees.

Let's face it, my colleagues were quick to let me know what a crap job of leading the team I'd done, but still I'd always hoped one day Gibbs would pull me aside and give me the nod – tell me that Rule 5 still applied. That I was wasted in the role of SFA, and through my loyalty, leadership, and investigative skills, I'd finally earned my own team. I guess I wanted his blessing, wanted his approval since the 'you'll do' then his abrupt repossessing of my… no, his, team had left me as insecure as hell. Yeah, like I wasn't self-doubting before that!

The logical part of my brain recognises that Gibbs left the agency in a fit of pique because of the death of all those sailors on the Cape Fear thanks to a stupidly ambitious bureaucrat. That he got his shit together down in Baja and dealt with his memory and grief issues…not… was bored out of his gourd and came back because he decided he was too young to retire. The insecure part of me always felt he'd had to come back and reclaim the team because it was falling apart since I was doing such a crap job leading it.

Of course, since he never discussed my sojourn as team leader after he staged his coup and demoted me, it was hard not to feel like an abject failure. Especially when Ziva and McGee were deliriously happy to have him back and to have me 'put in my place' as they'd expressed it. They accused me of letting the promotion go to my head and strutting round like a peacock, but damn it, 'Gibbs the team leader' is the epitome of an arrogant bastard – his photo is in the dictionary beside arrogance, and they never once complained about him and he struts. And let's face it, Mr. I Went to MIT and Johns Hopkins and am a Certified Computer Genius McGee and Little Ms. Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better Because I'm Mossad-Trained David, it isn't like you who live in glass houses should have been throwing stones at me.

Realising that Gibbs had snatched the case of beer out of my arms and was barking at me to get my attention, I attempted to refocus myself on the present. Staring at his furious expression, I sighed mentally; obviously, I should have just walked in. Dumbass – I silently berated myself. Can't you do anything right?

"DiNozzo! Wanna get your head out of your ass? Since when did you start knocking on the door, anyway?"

I shrugged. Figured whatever I said it would just make Gibbs madder, so I decided to take a leaf out of his book and stay mute. It was safer that way, and one reason why I played the fool since everyone expected me to be dumb. And because they leave me alone – except after all these years it was getting pretty lonely, I'm often tempted to drop the act, except when I tried in the past, people (i.e. Team Gibbs) couldn't deal with it.

So, I have to say that dinner was a somewhat surreal affair. Gibbs was in the weirdest mood, I have to say. He was trying to banter with me, but unsuccessfully because I was too freaked out by 'Pod Gibbs' to reciprocate. Plus, he kept shooting me looks that I couldn't interpret… well, if it hadn't been my bastard of a boss, I'd swear that he was… nope! There's no way.

I'm dreaming… yep, this is a dream. A really bizarre one, but a dream nevertheless. There was no way that Gibbs was coming on to me – for a whole raft of reasons. If it isn't a dream, then I'm obviously feverish and hallucinating.

Deciding on the off chance that this is really happening and not a figment of my fevered imagination, I remained pretty poker-faced, sure I was reading the situation wrong. After dinner when we moved to the couch with a beer to watch the game, the 'X Files weirdness' escalated when Gibbs parked himself down beside me. He skipped right past the boss and subordinate personal distance zone, the two work buddies chillaxing together distance, ignoring completely the more intimate personal space relaxation of boundaries for really close friends and leapt into the I really like ya and want to get to know you better proximity. Okay, I admit I was shocked and I guess I stiffened up, and not in a that's not a gun in my pocket, I'm just really happy to see you sort of good way, either. I must have sent out some pretty unequivocal nonverbal cues because Gibbs responded, frowning.

"You really wanna play hard to get with me, DiNozzo? Don't you think we've played enough games with each other over the years? Let's just cut to the chase."

OMG, did Gibbs just suggest we should hook-up? In a totally functional mute sort of way, or am I losing my mind? Admittedly, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed so I'm probably losing my marbles.