Hi All – Please know I have not forgotten this story, just lost my groove. In honor of tonight's Tony flashback ep and in order to try to get my butt in gear, I've asked the incomparable AlkalineTeegan to write a guest chapter, presented below. Ain't she great?

Tony could see Gibbs wanted to ask him why he had been standing on his doorstep at 3 in the morning. He was surprised Gibbs hadn't asked—or maybe not, considering the agent tended to speak to him more and more in glares as the days went on. Did that mean Gibbs knew he could rely on him to interpret those glares? Or did the guy just hate words that much? Not prone to betting, but versed in the ways of bookmaking thanks to an undercover stint in Philadelphia, Tony put the odds at about even.

Gibbs didn't return from the kitchen even after the sounds of grinding beans and pouring water faded into the drip-drop of brewing caffeine, and Tony wondered if his host was hoping he'd fall asleep on the floor he was still sitting on. Exhausted as he was, Tony didn't give in and flop over for some much-needed rest. He found his way upright and strolled into the drab kitchen like it was a café in summer, bright smile included.

Gibbs gave him a look.

Tony let the smile melt as he dropped into a chair by a window overlooking a good-size backyard that the agent obviously found time to take care of. Or at least the hedges looked healthy enough under the snow. Tony's own experiences with plants always ended badly. Ironic that he should end up with pots full of nothing but roots when he had none of his own.

"Hey."

He looked up to find a mug in front of him on the table. The stillness of the liquid inside bothered him. Just how long had he been staring at the snow?

"Thanks," he said, eyeing the coffee with trepidation.

Gibbs sighed and got up, returning from a cabinet to plunk down a bag of sugar and a spoon.

"I should arrest you for what you're about to do to my coffee."

Tony's smile was tired but genuine as he spooned in heap after heap. He considered dumping it straight from the bag, but that seemed unwise.

"You sure you want that?" Gibbs asked before his first sip.

"I think it's safe now."

Gibbs cracked an actual smile. Weird. Or maybe Gibbs was just more human at that time of morning, in the dark before dawn.

"You should sleep," Gibbs clarified. He paused, sipping his own sugarless brew. "That's why you're here."

Tony wasn't sure if he hated that it wasn't a question. He didn't want Gibbs to know that after they had parted ways, agreeing nothing could be done before Abby and Ducky did their magic on the new evidence, he'd sat in his beloved Corvette in the NCIS lot for ten minutes before getting up the energy to start the car. He didn't want Gibbs to know that he couldn't summon the mental strength to battle shitty traffic in shitty weather to get back to Baltimore. He didn't want Gibbs to know that he'd driven to get shitty fast food that he didn't eat. He didn't want Gibbs to know that he'd found an overnight parking garage, but his battered body couldn't handle sleeping in the small, freezing car.

But Gibbs seemed to know all that. Somehow.

"Good," Gibbs said. "Won't have to wait on you to get started in the morning."

Tony looked up from his untouched mug. If it was surprising that Gibbs was paying him a kindness, not calling him out for being weak, then his implication that they would have waited for him was downright shocking.

He tipped his head in thanks, unsure what else to do. Gibbs drank. Tony fiddled with the mug, a bright yellow one with a cupcake on it. He tried not to think about how long that detail had escaped him.

He brushed stray crystals off the crumpled, nearly empty bag of sugar.

"Gibbs," he said, mustering a few watts for a smile, "please tell me you spend your weekends baking. Agent Hines, Duncan Hines." The accent was off. But he doubted Gibbs was familiar with his Bond actors.

Gibbs' blue eyes darted to his left hand and back to his mug in a movement Tony wasn't sure he was supposed to see. Shit. The ex-wife.

"I'm sorry," Tony said sincerely. Then the quiet got to him. "I've never been married, but I can imagine—well, no, I can't imagine, but my dad got married a lot, and I know—"

"You got your sugar, DiNozzo. Let's skip the saccharine."

Tony studied his partner's—no, not partner, he reminded himself, though he couldn't come up with a better term—face, noting the sadness there that didn't match the look of resignation that had accompanied previous mentions of the ex. The investigator in him wanted to know why, wanted to press and nag and chip away until all that was left was the truth. The man in him knew it would be cruel. Whatever had Gibbs looking sad tonight was deeply painful. Whatever it was hurt.

"Sugar," Tony said, speaking more to the cupcake mug than Gibbs.

"You haven't touched the sludge you got."

He looked up. "Huh? Oh, no."

Gibbs waited.

Holy shit. Gibbs was waiting. For him.

"I bagged a Werther's wrapper at the scene today. You know, those gold-foiled not-quite-caramel thingies that you never see outside a grandmother's house? Candy. One of the guys from the tattoo shop—Glenn, I think—mentioned candy when he ID'd one of the victim's tattoos." He put the heel of his hand to his forehead, picturing the shop, summoning the antiseptic smell to jar the memory loose. He raised his eyes to find Gibbs watching him with concern. Huh. No time to process that. "Tootsie Roll Pops. The victim brought Tootsie Pops from his store to the guys at the shop."

His high was short-lived, and he spoke before Gibbs could open his mouth.

"But that doesn't tell us anything." He let go of the mug, the liquid inside having cooled enough that it wasn't comforting anymore.

"Yet."

Tony yawned. Not an I'm-feigning-boredom yawn, or even an overly dramatic attention-seeking yawn. A real one. And it hurt. He fought not to wince at the pull in the abused muscles from his bruised side down to his sore hip, but he lost the battle when the yawn drew a line of fire across his skin at the site of the bullet wound. Adrenaline had kept him from registering the bullet grazing his body, but now it felt like he was being branded with hot iron in the most boring design ever.

He didn't look up for fear of finding concern again. He was way too tired for that shit.

"Yet."

He did look up then. Gibbs didn't always speak when words should be necessary. Tony doubted he ever repeated himself.

"We don't know what it means," Gibbs said, his voice lacking any sort of bite, "yet."

Tony nodded, and he could see Gibbs might not be convinced. He wondered if he should be worried when Gibbs spoke again.

"Hell, we don't know what all those papers we found in Collins' dorm room say. Yet. Our translators are going over them, but they're backlogged with helping evaluate terror threats."

Shifting in his seat on the sturdy wooden chair, Tony wondered how much of the work at NCIS had to do with terror plots, wondered if he would be any good at that kind of work. It would be a hell of a change of pace, and he liked those. Might possibly need a change after the shit went down with Mallace.

"You think any of it is related to his murder?" Tony asked. He wanted to stretch out his bad leg under the table but the risk of yelping—or hell, screaming, if anything important gave way—was just too high. "I don't see how it connects to any of the other victims."

"The languages don't, but Abby said some of the Chinese might be a journal."

Tony's gaze went straight to Gibbs' face. "Holy shit."

Gibbs nodded.

"And holy shit," Tony said, a touch of a smile forming, "Abby can read Chinese?"

"She recognized a few characters. First one was 'alcohol,' " he said, shaking his head.

Holy shit. Gibbs looked something like paternal—or what passed for paternal in movies. Proud, then a little exasperated. He didn't bother wondering how great it must feel to earn that look from Gibbs.

But all he said was, "Weird. Collins didn't seem like a drinker. His friend we interviewed at the academy—what was his name, Patrick, the tall one—he told us Collins wasn't."

"Right, Patrick Givens," Gibbs mused, "the one with story about Collins getting him into AA."

They were both silent, and Tony could see they were thinking the same thing. Collins had been a good kid. He hadn't deserved to die, strangled in an alley, his throat crushed by some maniac who clearly enjoyed demeaning his victims, even in death.

Something clicked in Tony's overtired mind and it took him a long moment to pull enough coherent thoughts into a sentence Gibbs wouldn't smack him for. He didn't want to sound like one of the dumbass probies Gibbs discarded like uncomfortable shoes that could never be broken in.

"Before the sun comes up, DiNozzo?"

Tony took a breath. Not a deep one, because those fucking hurt.

"Michael Martin," he said, fighting to stay calm. "He was strangled and run over. Wife said he had been out. At an AA meeting."

"And Ella Cross," Gibbs said, draining the last of his coffee and scooping up Tony's cup to dump in the sink.

"Hey." The protest was token.

Gibbs snorted. "I'd say you think better without it."

Tony was too tired to be offended. Even this possibly promising lead that would normally have him dancing couldn't lift the exhaustion from his voice. "I don't remember anything about AA in her file."

"Wasn't anything in there to remember," Gibbs said, sinking back into his chair with a tightening of his mouth that reminded Tony he wasn't the only one who had taken damage. "Saw a fifteen-year sobriety chip propped against her photo on the mantel when we interviewed Teddy. Unless her dear grandson started boozing at five, it's not his."

Gibbs gave a pointed look at the clock above the sink.

But Tony wasn't done yet. "The building on the other side of the alley. From the restaurant where Collins was found."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow. Was he almost smiling? Or just properly caffeinated?

"A church," Gibbs said. "We'll find out today if they hold AA meetings."

Despite the aches, the soreness, the outright pain, and the bone-deep, gritty-eyed exhaustion, Tony conjured some hope.

"Did we just find a way to link our victims?"

Gibbs looked at him for too long a moment, and Tony knew his tired brain was missing something. He needed to sleep, soon, and since it would be light in an hour, he doubted he'd be getting that rest anytime tonight. Today. Whatever.

Gibbs spoke and crushed his fledgling hope.

"Alcoholics Anonymous, Tony."

Again it took him too long. And when it hit, it hurt.

Anonymous. Fuck.

"Come on."

Tony looked up. Gibbs' face read unfazed but his eyes did not. But apparently the agent had something more important in mind. Tony nearly moaned at the thought of heading into the office. That wasn't how this was supposed to be. This wasn't him. He'd sleep when dead.

He pushed back from the table, noting that Gibbs stood first, moving around the table. Tony wondered with a kick in his pride if Gibbs was waiting for him to collapse.

Fuck that. They had work to do. And a lead to work on.

"You feds sure start bright and early," Tony said, glancing out into the still-dark yard, the untouched snow glowing under full moonlight. "I can do mornings. But 0400?" A part of him was repulsed by the way the military time slid off his tongue. His traitorous body had even straightened a bit when he said it.

"Start?"

Gibbs was looking at him strangely.

"Shit, DiNozzo."

Tony didn't know what that meant. It couldn't be anything good.

"You're not going anywhere but straight upstairs, first door on the right, to an actual bed."

Tony thought about protesting.

"And if you bitch, I will shoot you."

Tony still thought about protesting.

"Ducky and Abby are good. But combing over bodies and all that tech shit take time."

Tony opened his mouth to protest.

"You know what I did in the Marines?"

"Provide the inspiration for Sergeant Hartman?"

Gibbs either didn't get or didn't give a shit about the Full Metal Jacket reference. Or both.

"Gunnery sergeant."

"Heh."

He was lucky Gibbs didn't smack him.

But no, Gibbs actually softened.

"It was my job to make sure those under my command were fit for duty. In every way possible. Go get some rest. Now."

Tony blinked at him.

"I will kick your ass from here to Sunday and start screaming the loudest and most creative profanity you've ever heard. If that helps."

A less exhausted Tony would have loved that.

A less exhausted Tony would have wheedled and whined or straight-up refused.

But on this morning, an exhausted Tony just heeded his pissed-off Gunny, and trudged toward the stairs.