A/N: Thank you for all your wonderful reviews for this mini-series, and sorry for the delay in getting this posted. This will be the last chapter as all things must come to an end at some point. Please enjoy.

Tending bar at a spot popular with both local law enforcement and military means you see a lot of life. You see people buoyant and jubilant, celebrating a successful case or a return from deployment. You see people at their lowest after the loss of a brother-in-arms, or the release of a criminal they arrested. You get very good at reading body language, able to judge when someone needs an ear to bend or a bottle to empty. You pride yourself on knowing what these regulars drink, where they are likely to sit or under what circumstances you are likely to see them. You also get really good at recognising who is military and who is law enforcement, whether they are in uniform or not. Most are easy to work out – military are strong, abrupt, project an aura of strength in the way they stand. Law enforcement has an edge to them, you can see they miss nothing and there is no way you want to encounter some of them in a dark alley on their bad side.

Some of patrons, however, are not so easy to read. Three guys come in often, almost always as part of a group. You know Abby, the Goth girl, and Ziva, the scary assassin, as strong women always make a quick impression. Experience has taught you not to mess with a woman who has more weaponry about her person than is immediately apparent so you are always extra helpful to these two. The older man that occasionally accompanies them is a real talker, you'd love the chance to sit and listen to him properly one day, but for now you have to make do with the snippets you catch when serving them. Then the three guys with them. The youngest is fairly easy to read once you spend a few evenings surreptitiously studying him. He may look like a harmless geek; however the hard edge you glimpse behind his eyes some nights makes you think he could be very dangerous to anger. He's always polite and friendly however, and you notice the good natured way he tolerates the teasing from who you assume to be his teammates. Next is the salt-and-pepper tough guy who looks military but is actually law enforcement. From your vantage point behind the bar, you can feel the defensive walls around him and have to stop yourself from shrinking away from his steely gaze. You get the impression that absolutely nothing gets past this man and are convinced that you will not be the one to test this theory. Your observations though reveal contradictions to your first impressions of this man. For one thing, the rest of the team evidently like and respect him, and for another, there seems to be no fear of him from those immediately surrounding him. It is a different matter for those who cautiously approach the group on occasion. You have seen genuine fear in the eyes of some tough-looking feds upon seeing this guy in the bar. The other guy, the jock, the joker, you had initially disregarded as harmless if not a little dim-witted, but this you quickly revised. Watching him you see the masks he wears, the personas he uses to hide his real identity. You idly wonder if he is who he says he is, and not some sort of undercover imposter out to catch someone in a lie. You notice he talks a lot, yet says so very little. Watching him flirt with any passing female, you begin to notice when he is genuine and when he is simply passing time. You also notice the way he looks at the salt-and-pepper guy.

Admiration, fear, affection, respect…on occasion, anger, betrayal, jealousy, sadness. The desire to touch, yet lacking the conviction to do so. You witness aborted movements and gestures for many years. Something stops this man displaying his emotions around salt-and-pepper, you see the battle rage between emotion and practicality. You don't doubt for a minute that there is genuine affection between the two, but it puzzles you as to how it will materialise and what it means. They are difficult to read, emotions blowing hot and cold, misdirection, misinterpretations…all standing between them. You can usually predict the nature and ultimate outcome of relationships which play out in front of you. Years of tending bar does that to your perception; however these two are not following any pattern you have seen before. At first you thought they were lovers, or that the younger guy wished they were, however this didn't fit. Then you thought they were rivals for some unidentified prize, but that was wrong too. Once you learned they were boss and subordinate you figured that explained everything, but it didn't. Just when you thought you'd finally worked them out, something happened to change your mind. Then you didn't see the older guy for a while. While he was gone, the group still came in but the dynamic was different. The younger guy was darker somehow, more intense. Abby and Ziva seemed low, and the geeky guy unsure all the time. Time passed and the older guy returned, looking and sounding different. All you felt from the not-jock was anger and resentment, radiating off him on waves so strong you were constantly amazed it didn't cause some sort of natural disaster. The two men no longer sat side-by-side as previously; in fact it was becoming increasing rare that you saw them together at all.

One night, things changed. The older guy came in alone, ordering his usual then sitting contemplating a photograph he produced from a pocket. Watching from the corner of your eye whilst you went about serving others, you watch him approach the memorial wall and tuck the photograph in amongst the frames. As he stands in front of the wall, his subordinate enters the bar, eyes scanning the room evidently looking for someone. Briefly your eyes meet and you tip your head in the direction of the photographs. He nods his thanks and pushes his way through the crowd. Although it is too loud for you to eavesdrop on the conversation, their body language yells at you over the raucous laughter from a group in the corner. The younger guy seems to barely contain the anger directed at his boss, you see him trying not to draw attention to their conversation, yet you can feel the vibrations. The older guy seems defeated, yet unwilling to back down, allowing his subordinate to invade his personal space yet not cowering from the rage directed at him. You keep an eye on the situation, the last thing you need with this headache tonight is to have to spilt a fight between two angry feds. However, the older guy suddenly diffuses the situation with one simple action you thought you'd never see…he reaches out and lays a hand on the arm of the seething man in front of him. The vibrations stop, you watch as he visibly deflates and stares, aghast. It looked like an apology to you.

All those aborted touches, all the bottled in emotions, all that angst wrapped up in one simple gesture. Giving up any pretence of indifference, you watch openly as they touch foreheads, feeling as they do the change in their relationship. The nature of their relationship hits you with the force of a freight train…they are father and son. You remember battling with your own feelings toward your father as a teenager, desperate for his attention, yet unsure how to get it. You remember your arguments as he did the best he could to raise you right. You remember the day you made your peace and saw him as the man he really was. A man, not just a father, with his own insecurities, his own weaknesses, his own fallibility. Playing out in the corner of your bar was a relationship undergoing the same transformation. You turn back to your waiting customers, headache forgotten.