A/N: First of all, wow, I never thought this story would be quite that long. xD Secondly, I can't even begin to tell you how much I love(d) the feedback from you guys. I never thought I would get so many reviews and favorites and alerts. So, thank you so much for reading this! :) Really, thank you!

I hope you like this little epilogue, too. :)

Epilogue: Ten Months Later

Gibbs looked out the window for a moment and wiped the sweat from his forehead. The world outside had turned white over the last couple of days and it didn't seem like it would stop snowing any time soon.

As much as he used to hate snow ever since Shannon and Kelly had died, he couldn't quite stop the corners of his mouth to twitch now. He had despised the cold weather and the snow that usually came along with it for too many reasons, all of them directly connected to the life he had once had. Snow would remind him of the day when he had gone down on one knee in front of Shannon in her backyard, coming back from a winter walk. It would remind him of Kelly and him making snow angels and building a snowman in the middle of his front yard just for the sake of surprising Mommy when she got home from the grocery store. Whenever he had seen a snowman ever since or a family building one, the old ache would free itself and painfully remind him what he had lost and would never get back.

He subtly shook his head as his eyes fell upon the rather crooked excuse of a snowman that was currently standing in his front yard. Ever since he had first laid eyes on it two days earlier he was waiting for the regret to hit him, but oddly enough he found himself grinning every time he thought about Tony's big smile when he had welcomed him home from his short stint in the hospital. The goddamn snowman had even held a sign saying welcome in his snow-made hands. Sometimes Gibbs wondered in earnest whether Tony was actually the 43 years old as his ID card claimed. But then, he remembered that it was exactly the playful side of the other man that had made him fall in love with him after all. It had been Tony who had saved him from his usual winter funk last year and had turned his well-planned life upside down ever since they had shared a bed for the first time in that small motel-room over a year ago. It had been Tony who had made him see the beautiful side of winter – long walks, ice-skating and even an occasional silly snowball fight. And it had been Tony who, while he was still driving him crazy at work just for the fun of it, had repaired something inside of him that he hadn't even known it needed to be fixed. Gibbs didn't know a lot about feelings, but he knew that he was happy for once and not only on the surface either.

He turned around now and awkwardly started to pull out random stuff from one of Tony's boxes. It was mostly useless as far as Gibbs could see, but if the guy wanted it here, he'd have to deal. He smiled as he retrieved a model of his own Challenger along with a green '68 Mustang and a bright red Ferrari. He placed them on the windowsill for the moment, not sure where Tony would want them, then reached into the box again and found two framed photographs at the very bottom of it. He looked at the first one for a while until he realized that it was one of Tony's parents. They were smiling brightly at the camera in front of them and for a short moment Gibbs wondered how the guy could look so much alike his father and at the same time could have so many features in common with his mother. He gently put the photograph onto the mantelpiece next to the one of himself and his girls from Christmas so many years ago. He gave it a sad smile before he finally turned to look at the second photograph and was momentarily taken aback as he spotted himself and Tony smiling at each other. He had never seen it before and briefly wondered where the younger man had hidden it in his apartment until now. Gibbs guessed the photo had been taken that night at the bowling alley when Abby had insisted to go. With a smile on his lips, he ran a thumb over the picture before it joined the other two on the mantelpiece.

"Hey Boss," he was startled out of his thoughts by McGee who was currently carrying a rather heavy looking box into the living room. "Where do you want this?"

"Just drop it here, we'll figure it out."

"Tony's art of packing seems like his brain," McGee grinned at him as he put the box down on the ground.

"Messy?" Gibbs replied and smirked, causing Tim to let out a surprised bark of a laugh, which in turn was rudely interrupted by Tony's voice that traveled down the stairs towards them.

"Hey, I've heard that," he shouted. "I know it's a bit chaotic, but I know exactly where everything is, so shut up."

"Sorry," Tim just replied with a roll of his eyes as he turned around again, presumably to get the next one of the moving boxes, but stopped dead when Tony walked down the stairs and fixed him with a mild glare.

"Besides, what are you still doing here, McMover? Shouldn't you already be at home, getting ready for that date?"

"It's not that late," McGee sighed. "I still got an hour and we're almost finished here. No big deal."

"No, go home," Tony replied rather solemnly. "We'll manage the rest. I don't want it to be our fault to keep you from having a good time."

"Well, if it weren't for me, you wouldn't even need my help in the first place," Tim just shrugged and then got to move again, but Gibbs walked towards him and stopped him.

"How many times do I have to tell you that it wasn't your fault that I dislocated my shoulder?"

"Well, you pushed me away from that car to save me. Again. So it is kinda my fault."

"That's my job, McGee, and you would have done the same for any of us. So, shut up and go home. I don't want to see you till Monday, you got that?"

"Okay, fine," McGee finally gave in, holding up his hands in surrender.

"Yeah," Tony quipped as the younger agent was already halfway out the door. "Go get yourself laid tonight!"

McGee mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like 'ass', but didn't turn around and then he was out the door, leaving Tony and Gibbs standing there next to each other.

"He's right though," Gibbs said. "Your stuff's a mess. Why would you put your model cars in a box with your photos?"

"Oh, you already found that, huh?" Tony grinned as he turned to look at him. "Well it was the stuff that I've kept hidden in the drawers of my nightstand."

"Why?" Gibbs asked as he followed the younger man back into the living room.

"Well, I'm not six years old anymore to play with those cars in public, am I?"

"That's not what I meant," Gibbs answered and came to a halt right next to him in front of the mantelpiece. "I was talking about the photos. I've never seen them before."

"I don't know," Tony shrugged before he pulled an arm around Gibbs' waist. "I wasn't particular keen on having to look at my dad's face every day. But this is the only one my mom's not a total mess, so I kept it."

"Okay, I get that. We got a perfectly fine nightstand to stash it away upstairs, too."

"Nah," Tony shook his head after a moment of silence and squeezed him. "They look good up there."

"Alright then," Gibbs just replied and placed a soft kiss on the other man's cheek.

"Talking about hiding stuff," Tony said as he flopped down on his couch that they had moved into the living room earlier that day, much to the younger man's delight. "I was just up in the attic to put away the boxes and stuff. I swear I didn't mean to snoop around or anything, but you know me, I'm curious."

"It's okay," Gibbs just replied, sitting down next to him. "But I wasn't really hiding Kelly and Shan's stuff. It just, you know, I don't really like looking at it all the time, but I like to go up there and look at it for a while whenever I feel… like it."

"Sounds about right," Tony just replied and wrapped an arm around Gibbs' shoulders, carefully avoiding touching the recently injured one. "Maybe we're not that different after all, huh?"

"I guess not," Gibbs grinned and realized that despite all their obvious differences they really weren't all that different, not when it came to the important matters.

He knew that they both would do anything for their families, for the team and friends and they both had trouble to trust other people, but once they did, they'd hardly ever lose that trust again. And above all, Gibbs knew that he could always count on Tony, no matter what. The guy had been frantic three days ago, when he had called him on the ride to the hospital and even though he had assured him that it was just his shoulder and that he didn't need to come over, Tony had been there only minutes after him and McGee, making sure that he hadn't downplayed his injuries.

"You know what," he finally started to talk again, when Tony had already laid his head upon his uninjured shoulder. "If you want, we can look at Kelly's stuff some time or I'll show you those photo albums that Shannon used to obsess over to make them perfect."

"I'd love to," Tony turned to look at him, a wide smile on his lips.

They remained silent after that for a long while and Gibbs secretly savored in the warmth that the other man was providing. Sometimes he really wondered how the two most stubborn men on earth had been able to make this work over the last year. They rarely ever had a fight and if they fought, it always ended with the most amazing make-up-sex and promises to work on their relationship. And they had never failed to keep them. He had never thought that he would open his house to anyone ever again, but Tony had just waltzed into his very private life and had made all of Gibbs' intentions of living a solitary life obsolete. He had still no idea how he had managed to do that, but Gibbs couldn't care less. He was just happy that he had done it and that broad smile that had threatened to split the younger man's face apart when Gibbs had asked him to move in with him a month earlier was really all what Gibbs had been missing over the last couple of very long and lonely years.

"We should probably get back to work, huh? Otherwise I'll never fully move in here," Tony sighed as he got up and stretched himself a couple of minutes later.

"Hmm," Gibbs just replied, reluctantly getting up, too. "What if we just bring in the rest of the boxes and then call it a night for today? We could go for a walk or something to unwind a bit."

"Sounds good," Tony nodded his approval. "But I've got a better idea."

"Yeah?" Gibbs replied, raising an eyebrow at the mischievous smile on the younger man's face.

"We could play matchmaker for our snowman. I'm sure he would love to have a Mrs. Snowman right next to him. Or a Mister if you think that'd be more appropriate considering the circumstances."

Gibbs let out a laugh and subtly shook his head at Tony's antics as he answered. "Okay, we'll do that, but if anyone asks, that is all your doing."

"I hear you, Boss," Tony just grinned and then jogged outside to bring in the last of the boxes.

Gibbs watched him carry them inside and then saw himself dragged outside into the front yard. He wasn't much help building the snowman as he had only useful arm after all, but he provided the carrot and the buttons that served as the eyes and the mouth of the snow lady. When they were done, they just stood there for a while, looking at their creations.

"So, you still don't like the snow?" Tony finally asked, the tone of his voice rather serious for once.

"I'm starting to like it again," he admitted. "Without it, we wouldn't be here, right?"

"Yeah," Tony replied and took his hand. "Hey, we should make a weekend trip to Higginsville some time to celebrate our anniversary or something."

"You really want to spend our anniversary in that filthy motel room?"

"Guess not," Tony made a face. "But you can't deny that without that snowstorm a year ago, we probably wouldn't be here now, living together and all."

"Yeah," Gibbs just replied and smiled at him, causing Tony to blush ever so slightly.

"You think we would have ever gotten our heads out of our asses if it hadn't been for that flu back then?"

"I don't know," Gibbs replied shrugging. "I'd like to think so."

"Yeah, me, too," Tony sighed as he let go of Gibbs' hand for a moment to put the carrot nose back into its place as it had fallen to the ground a few moments before. "Sometimes I just wonder how stupid we've been to take eleven years to realize just how good we could be, you know. It doesn't make much sense, does it?"

"Yeah, well," Gibbs just replied. "Maybe we needed that time to realize what we really wanted."

Tony smiled at him and took his hand again and Gibbs realized that common sense and logic really had nothing to do with it. Most of the stuff they had been doing over the past year wouldn't have made much sense to him only two years previously and yet they had made it work. Nothing had felt so real to Gibbs in a long time and even though he knew that other people were still thinking that he was crazy for putting up with Tony, he knew better. He knew that while their relationship didn't seem to make much sense from the outside, it did make sense from the inside. And whenever one of them would cross the edge of their inner logic, the other one would just pull them back in. It was their way of dealing with their relationship and it had worked perfectly fine that past year and Gibbs was sure that it would work just as well for all the days to come.

Moving Tony in with him was just the first step into a hopefully bright future for the two of them. Sometimes late at night when Tony's snoring kept him up, Gibbs would think about the time when they were both retired and old, sailing on one of the boats that he had built, with nothing to worry about and no one to disturb their peace of mind. It wasn't like he had voiced that particular idea to Tony yet and he probably wouldn't for at least another few years, but Gibbs was sure that the younger man would love the thought of it, would love the thought of growing old together.

But for the time being, Gibbs was perfectly fine with just standing there in their front yard with snow falling down on him, looking at two crooked-shaped snowmen and holding on to Tony's hand tightly.

-THE END-

A/N: I would love to hear your thoughts and thanks again ;)