Sorry for the late hour. Here's the final chapter…

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE TONY
By TIPPER

"Slap some bacon on a biscuit and let's go! We're burning daylight." – The Cowboys, 1972

CHAPTER EIGHT: HOME

"Tony! Tony, wake up! It's a dream! I'm not dead! Wake up!"

His eyes snapped open, his whole body snapping in time, nearly jumping out of the bed he was lying on. Streaks of bright color assaulted him, blurring into a spinning mass as pain burst behind his eyes, blinding him. Gasping for air, he slammed his eyelids shut, willing down the adrenalin, the dizziness and the shockiness, burying it until it gave way, leaving only a throbbing, dull pain in his head. After a time, he realized he was being restrained by a shaking hand to his chest, and, when he risked opening his eyes again, it was to find a pair of incredibly familiar green eyes staring at him in fearful worry.

"Tony?" Tim begged, as if not expecting an answer. "Tony?"

Tony breathed slowly, trying to remain calm as he studied his surroundings, trying to understand where he was. Galatea was gone, not even a shred of it remained. Instead, he saw yellow walls, blue curtains and white trim—Bethesda Naval Hospital. Sun streamed through vinyl blinds, and somewhere, a church bell finished chiming ten o'clock.

Tugging sensations on both arms also suggested IVs and scratchy, white sheets confirmed it.

He was back.

He just wasn't sure it was real.

"Tony?" Tim was sounding seriously freaked out now, still holding a hand to his chest as if he expected Tony to run out of the room. Which, considering McGee was sitting in a bathrobe and scrub bottoms in a wheelchair next to his bed, suggested that he was partly worried because he wouldn't be able to run after him.

Tony blinked at him, and grabbed at the hand pressed to his chest, digging his fingers into the pulse point.

"McGee?" It came out as a croak, almost inaudible, his voice rough from disuse.

Tim jerked initially, surprised, but then he huffed a relieved laugh, letting Tony grip his wrist even though it had to hurt. "Yeah. It's me. Are you all there?"

Tony ignored that. "You're alive?"

Tim just smiled weakly, as if not surprised by the question.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah. I'm okay. Nearly wasn't, but…well, you know. They got to us in time."

Bleeding on the sand-packed street in Galatea…on the concrete floor in the warehouse, blood pooling under his body after Tim had thrown himself at Tony, saving Tony's life.

"They?" Tony asked.

"Gibbs and Ziva? They found us in the warehouse. Me, bleeding all over the place apparently, and you with…" Tim looked up at Tony's forehead. "That."

Tony finally let go of McGee's wrist to touch at his forehead. A bandage was taped to his skull. He should probably care about his hair, but, right now, he really didn't. Tim rubbed at his wrist for a moment, and then reached over and grabbed a plastic cup, quickly filling it with water from a small jug. He handed it to Tony.

"Do you remember what happened?" Tim asked as Tony sipped the water. "I mean, by all rights, with a head wound like yours, you shouldn't, but the docs told us it's case by case." He tilted his head. "Do you remember?"

Tony put the cup down, and inclined his head. He not only remembered, he remembered every last detail, set in two different worlds.

"Yeah," he answered, imparting as much misery into that one word as he could. "I remember." I saw you die. He shut his eyes, trying desperately to compartmentalize, to stop feeling the pain from that moment.

"Oh."

Tony glanced at him, grimaced a little at the somber expression on McGee's face, and looked away.

"You've , uh…" Tim cleared his throat. "You've been out for a long time. Well, that is, you've been waking up on and off, but…." He swallowed. "But you were never here, never seeing any of us."

Tony blinked at him, not sure how to answer that. Fact was, he was still feeling displaced, lost in this bed in this oddly bright room. To cover up his discomfort, and since he didn't trust his voice at the moment, he pointed at the bandage wrapped thickly around Tim's chest under the bathrobe. It crossed at an angle, as if it covered his shoulder. There was also bandages running up around his neck. Tim blushed.

"Vest took the brunt of the bullets fired at me," he explained. "But I got clipped in both the shoulder and the side, and…." He touched at a bandage pressed to his right collar bone, just under his neck, "here. Bullets didn't do much damage—flesh wounds, you'd call them—but I nearly bled out from this. I was…" He licked his lips. "I was lucky the paramedics were just outside, waiting nearby with the ambulance. Ducky too. He saved my life."

Tony was just staring at him now, finding he didn't want to let him out of his sight, just in case this all went away. The kid was growing uncomfortable under the scrutiny, and he rolled his wheelchair back about a foot from the bed.

"Um…" Tim blushed more. "I need to call the others. They've been going nuts, waiting for you to wake up. I—"

"Can you stand up?" Tony asked suddenly.

"What?" Tim asked.

"You're in a wheelchair. Can you stand up?"

"Oh," Tim looked down at the chair. "Yeah. I'm actually sharing these fabulous hospital accommodations with you." He gestured towards a bed on the other side of the room. "But they're letting me wheel over here and sit next to you for a little while every day. This chair is pretty comfortable—a lot more comfortable than the other chairs. Plus," he rolled back a bit, and then tilted the chair back on its rear wheels. "I can pop wheelies!"

Tony couldn't help but smile at that, knowing Tim was just doing it to make him laugh.

"Come back," he said, waving him to return to the bedside. Tim did so, trying to hold onto a smile as he returned.

"Stand up," Tony said.

Tim frowned. "I already said I could—"

"I'm not asking if you can. I'm asking you to stand up."

"Why?"

"Because I am. Now stand."

Tim frowned more deeply, his expression distrustful, but, with a slight tremor, he got to his feet, leaning slightly over Tony's bed, holding onto it for purchase.

Which was perfect, because it allowed Tony to grab him into the tightest hug he could manage. Tim gasped, but didn't immediately pull away, though it was probably torturing his wounds.

"I thought you were dead," Tony croaked into the fluffy bathrobe, closing his eyes. "I thought you'd died."

He felt Tim swallow. "I—"

"Don't," Tony snarled, cutting him off. "Just shut up a minute…."

After a long moment, he felt Tim's hands pat his back awkwardly. "You know," the younger man said softly, "it wasn't just me. I wasn't the only one left for dead on the floor of that warehouse." And, for perhaps the first time ever, Tony felt Tim actually hug him back.

But almost immediately thereafter, Tim shifted his hands to Tony's arms, as if to pry them off. "Okay," he said weakly. "This is beginning to hurt. A lot." He grunted and pushed a little at Tony's arms. "Tony, damn it, let go!"

Tony held on a for a moment longer, and then let go. Tim practically fell back into the chair, looking like a startled deer in headlights. But he did smile crookedly after a moment, probably in response to the fact that Tony was grinning. Grinning, because, finally, Tony knew this was real—knew it as soon as McGee tried to pry him loose.

"You're really insane sometimes," Tim stated, still smiling crookedly.

"I know," Tony replied, lying back against the bed.

"I need to tell the others you're awake," Tim said then.

"Okay."

Tim gave a nod, and rolled back from the bed, looking fairly adept at the maneuver, as if he'd done it often.

"Hey," Tony called out, stopping McGee mid-turn. Tim's eyebrows lifted, and Tony continued. "How long was I out of it exactly? A day? Two?"

"Nearly four."

"Four days," Tony breathed, soaking that in. Tim finished maneuvering, and rolled around the end of his bed to the door of the hospital room. Once there, he stood and opened it, gathering his bathrobe close for modesty. Tony was surprised to see a guard outside, a young, freckled face kid. He looked vaguely familiar, but Tony wasn't sure from where.

"Can you inform Agent Gibbs that Tony is awake?" Tim asked. "And that he remembers what happened?" The guard nodded and Tim shut the door. Sitting back down, he wheeled back to Tony's bedside and reached for the button to call the doctor, but Tony raised a hand, stopping him.

"Why is there a guard?" he asked.

"Oh," Tim frowned slightly, looking briefly towards the door and back again. "Because I don't know who shot at us. I remember seeing the rifle, and pushing you out of the way, but I didn't see the guy's face. Gibbs is hoping you might have, since the shooter obviously got close enough to you to try to shoot you in the head."

Tony just stared at him, wide-eyed. "Are you saying," he said slowly, "that Castille is still out there?"

Tim blinked. "Castille?" He leaned forward. "The informant? He shot at us?" He frowned in confusion. "Why?"

"Yeah, Castille and…." He stopped, staring at the door, suddenly. Freckles…red hair. The guard had red hair. "Tim, do we have any weapons?"

"What?"

As if on cue, the door opened and the red-headed guard walked in, all smiles. On his heels was Roger Castille, looking somewhat ridiculous in an obviously borrowed doctor's uniform.

"Agent Dinozzo," the black haired bastard greeted. "I was wondering if you'd rejoin reality."

"Castille."

"What's going on?" Tim demanded, backing up slightly. "Why did you shoot at us?"

"Ah," Castille said, sounding almost sad. "So you do remember. Shame." As he spoke, he pulled a gun out from beneath his coat.

Tim shook his head. "But you informed on Acres for us! Why would you—?"

"Two reasons, Probie," Tony answered for Castille, who was now pulling out a silencer to screw on the gun barrel. "First, because we went after him. He thinks we should have just let him go. Second, because he wanted revenge."

"Revenge," Tim repeated, still looking perplexed, and Tony realized, quite proudly, that McGee was actually doing this to stall for time.

"We took out Acres a little too well, McGee," Tony said. "He wanted Acres taken down, but had hoped for the rest of his little pirating operation to stay intact, so Castille could take it over. When we ended up destroying the whole thing, including blowing up Acres' ship of weapons, but not, unfortunately, killing Acres himself, well…." He shrugged. "Castille saw all his best laid plans fall to pieces. Isn't that right, Roger?"

Castille's eyes flicked up from the gun, pale blue and cold. He regarded Tony briefly, then returned to finishing putting the weapon together.

"And, to add insult to injury," Tony continued, "when Castille escaped, probably to go after whatever he could find to steal in the dregs of Johnny Acres' empire, we went after him."

Castille snorted. "That's about right." Cocking the gun, he raised it and pointed it at Tony's head. "You and your Agent Gibbs should have just let me go."

"Maybe he could have,'' Tony conceded. "But it wouldn't have been right. Strangely," he gave a shrug, "he doesn't believe in letting murdering bastards get away scot free."

Castille sneered. "He signed your death-warrants when he did that. Taking out two of Gibbs' precious team was just fair recompense for everything I lost."

"You did it to yourself, Castille."

"As did you, Agent Dinozzo, for following someone like him." He smiled snidely. "Now, say goodbye."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Tim said, standing up, only to find himself blocked by the red-head, who also had a gun, pointed right at Tim's sternum. "Wait!"

"For what?" Castille asked.

Tim's eyes widened. He didn't have a good answer, and, frankly, neither did Tony. All he could hope for now was….

A knock on the door. All four men glanced towards it as a young man in a blue, nurse scrubs looked inside. "Hey," the nurse called, "is everything okay? I thought there was supposed to be a gua….oh shit!"

Castille turned and shot towards the door as the nurse slammed the door shut, screaming for help, bullets splintering the wood where his head had just been. Tony didn't think, just launched himself out of the bed at Castille, catching him in the side and bringing him to the ground. Castille threw him off easily; Tony was just too weak, flung across the cold linoleum floor like he weighed nothing at all.

Black spots swam in his vision as he lost his sense of balance, pressing his hands on the cold floor for purchase. Shaking his head, he lifted it up in time to see Castille getting back to his feet, still pointing his gun at Tony.

"Hey!" Tim shouted. Castille turned, and Tim shot him in the shoulder with the gun he'd obviously wrested away from the red-headed kid. Castille gasped, staggering backwards towards Tony, his gun lowering in deference to the obvious pain and loss of motor control. When he tried to bring the gun back up again, Tim shot him in the leg, and Castille went down, hitting the floor next to Tony.

Dinozzo quickly pulled the gun from Castille's grasp and stood, pointing the weapon now at now the subdued former informant. Castille blinked muzzily, holding onto his bleeding leg and glaring at both of the NCIS agents with pure hatred.

Tim quirked a smile, and glanced at Tony. Tony just raised his eyebrows, impressed. By Tim's feet, the red-headed kid was out cold, splayed out like puppet.

And unlike how he saw his brother in Galatea, he realized that Ducky had been right; Tim could handle himself just fine.

"Wrestled in high school, eh?" Tony asked cheekily.

Tim laughed.

The door burst open a moment later, revealing a furious looking Gibbs and Ziva along with about three other cops, all with guns raised. When they saw Tony and Tim, they lowered their guns.

"Huh," Gibbs said, smiling slightly as he put his gun away. "Nice job."

"How did you get their guns away from them?" Ziva asked, looking surprised as she directed the cops with them to take charge of Castille and the red-head.

Tony pushed himself up against the wall he was leaning against, and shrugged. "Got lucky," he replied, feeling it echo in his mind's eye.

A few hours later, in a different room in the hospital, Tony was lying back on the bed, one hand tucked under his head, enjoying the quiet. Ziva had rolled Tim out of here a few minutes ago to get some fresh air, the two of them bickering lightly as they'd left. She'd done it because she could tell Tony needed some time alone, and he was grateful.

He was thinking about Galatea, about how real it had seemed. He'd never had a dream that intense in his life, one that, for a time, had made Washington seem like the dream.

The door slid open, and he glanced that way, watching as Gibbs entered and closed the door behind him.

"Hey," his boss called, giving him a nod as he approached the bed. "You okay?"

Tony tried to smile, but it came out forced. Gibbs obviously saw right through him, because he gave another nod as he pulled up a chair to sit next to the bed.

"You want to talk about it?" he asked quietly.

Tony swallowed, not quite meeting those too knowing blue eyes. "Talk about what?"

"Where you've been for the last few days?"

Tony lowered his gaze, not sure if he did want to talk about it. In some ways, it felt like a gift, in others….

"I don't know," he admitted eventually. "Ducky already…."

"Came to see you earlier. I know."

Tony just nodded. He hadn't been able to talk to Ducky. He'd wanted to, but....

How could Ducky understand?

"You know," Gibbs began slowly, sitting forward on his knees, his head down, "I don't remember much about that time after the explosion on the Bakir Kamir, about what I dreamed, but I know that I had them, and I know…." He looked up, "that they felt real."

Surprised by the admission, Tony caught Gibbs' eyes once before his boss looked away. He returned his gaze to the ceiling, and, after a moment, replied roughly.

"Yeah. They do."

Gibbs said nothing to that. Content, apparently, to just listen.

And so Tony talked.

"Ducky told me that, sometimes…," Tony paused, frowning a little. "Sometimes dreams can take us to a place we want to be. More often, though…" He grimaced slightly. "More often they amplify the things we are afraid of being, or afraid of happening…."

Gibbs lowered his head. "Ducky is a smart man."

"Yeah."

"Is that what happened to you?"

Tony nodded. "Yeah," he admitted. "All those things."

Gibbs gave an uncomfortable nod in return. He lowered his head again. "Was it about Jeanne?"

Tony's eyebrows shot up, too surprised to reply at first. Jeanne. She hadn't been there. Not even a little. And wasn't that weird.

"No," he admitted weakly, "it wasn't. I never even…." He trailed off, realizing with a bit of a shock that he hadn't dreamed of any of his past loves and losses—not Jeanne, not Cassie, not even Kate. It hadn't been about that. It had been about something else. "It wasn't about that," he said.

Gibbs titled his head slightly at the silence. Waiting.

"It was…." Tony blinked slowly, seeing those wooden buildings in his mind, the dusty street and the faded signs. They were already disappearing from his memory, like the dream they were. All that was left behind were his family. Watching him. Happy for him. Caring about him. It was the thing he'd never really had.

No, the dream hadn't been about love. It was deeper than that. It was about finding….

"Home," he realized. "It was about home." He licked his lips, staring up at the ceiling of the hospital room as if for answers. "And being terrified of losing it."

Gibbs closed his eyes for a long moment, before opening them again.

"I thought I'd lost Tim," Tony whispered, still feeling the agony of that loss in his chest. "That he'd died in that warehouse."

Gibbs said nothing, just continued to watch him.

"And so I dreamt that he was still alive. That we were all alive, someplace…someplace far from here and safe. But then…."

"You lost him again," Gibbs finished for him, again with that too knowing air, like someone who had been there and back himself.

A tear tracked down Tony's face, but he didn't care. "Yeah."

Gibbs nodded, looking down again. "I know."

Tony glanced at him, and realized that he probably did know. Too well.

"I got lucky," he said then, watching Gibbs carefully. "Real lucky."

Gibbs didn't respond, just nodded again.

"Thanks, Boss," Tony said then. "Thanks for everything."

Gibbs frowned, looking up. "I didn't save you, Tony. You did that yourself. You and Tim."

"No," Tony said, shaking his head. "You did. When you hired me."

A tiny smile graced Gibbs lips at that, almost invisible, but there. He closed his eyes again, and then opened them. When he looked up, his expression was open again, and he shrugged.

"This is not a vacation, you know. You're going to have to come back to work soon. Both of you."

Tony smiled. "I know."

Gibbs gave a more forceful nod now, one indicating that this conversation was over. He stood, patted Tony on the knee, and turned to leave. A sudden thought hit Tony then, and he suddenly couldn't resist asking the question.

"Oh, hey, Boss?"

Gibbs glanced back at him, eyebrows raised in question.

"Have you ever, um…?" Tony pressed his lips together, thinking a little too late that this was sort of a ridiculous question.

"Have I ever…?" Gibbs prompted.

"Have you ever heard of a town called Galatea, Colorado?"

Gibbs' brow furrowed. "Galatea? As in the statue?"

Tony blinked. "Statue?"

"Yeah. Pygmalion and Galatea? Man falls in love with the statue he made, and she comes to life."

"Pygmalion…" Tony breathed. "Right, the classic story of transformation, made into a play by Shaw and then a film with the great Lesley Howard, and then redone as a musical in My Fair Lady, with Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn. Eliza Doolittle was Galatea."

"Figured you might know it," Gibbs said, smiling again.

"Huh," Tony said, pondering this as he leaned back on the bed again. Was Galatea, Colorado a place he'd transformed into something he wanted?

Gibbs seemed to think the question answered, so he started towards the door again. And then stopped.

"Wait," he said, his expression thoughtful. He looked back at Tony on the bed. "Did you say, Galatea, Colorado?"

Tony's eyebrows perked. "Yeah."

"No," Gibbs mused, "I have been there. It's near Eads, on Route 96."

Tony sat up again, surprised. "Really? It's a real town?"

"Uh, no. Not a town." Gibbs huffed a laugh, as if remembering some long ago memory. "It's just a ramshackle train depot. I don't think there was ever a town there, though I think one must have been planned."

"A train depot," Tony repeated, trying to hide the disappointment from his voice.

"Yeah. That stretch of highway is popular with bikers. Galatea is a place to stop, because it has one of those famous crossroads. You can sit in the middle, with four straight as arrow roads heading directly north, south, east and west." He smiled again, and shook his head. "Yeah. It's an interesting place." He looked at Tony, and his expression softened. "Is that where you were?" he asked quietly. "Standing in a crossroads?"

Tony watched him for a long moment, before answering, "No."

Gibbs studied his face, obviously reading it, and then gave a nod. "Okay." He shrugged. "See you back at the yard."

Tony gave him a nod, and watched him leave.

After a minute, he leaned back again on the pillows, hands behind his head again, still trying to understand it all.

Galatea, Colorado.

He wondered if Tim and Ziva would be interested in a road trip.

There was a soft tap at the door, and he looked up as a nurse bustled into the room, carrying a tray of food and a stack of DVDs.

"Hi, gorgeous," she crooned, rolling the tray up next to his bed. "You're looking much better. How are you feeling?"

Tony smiled, letting her tip the bed up so he could eat. "Better," he said as she handed him a glass of water, looking at the DVDs with a sense of longing. "Those for me?"

"Oh, yes. Your neighbor over there stopped by with his girlfriend and picked some out for you."

He nearly spit out the water he was drinking. "Girlfriend?" he spluttered.

"Oh, sorry, did I get that wrong?" the nurse asked, setting the tray on his lap. "They seemed so familial, but without being clearly related, so I just assumed…."

"Ha, no, definitely no," Tony protested, trying to get the image of Tim and Ziva together out of his mind. "Gah!"

She just smiled. "I will say, your friends do have a strange sense of humor. They kept picking movies about comatose patients. I finally put my foot down, and told them to behave and pick out nice movies for you." She handed him the stack to look through. Tony blinked at the first one, not sure what to make of this particular choice.

"The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas?" he asked weakly, looking up at the nurse for the first time. He knew her, he realized.

"That one cracks me up so much," she said, grinning from ear to ear. "And I'm sure you could use a good comedy after all you've been through, sweetie."

"Uh huh," Tony agreed weakly. "Um…can I ask…what's your name?"

"Me? Oh, apologies, sweet-cheeks. Of course you wouldn't remember from when I told you before." She held out a soft looking hand. "I'm Mirabel. I've been looking after you since you came in."

And that, Tony thought, was just about perfect.

The End

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed this little romp through Tony's subconscious!

Or was it? :)