And here it is! The long awaited sequel to "I'm Sorry". IDK what it is with me and listening to songs and thinking of Tony and Gibbs but this one was based on another song, "Trying Not To Love You" by Nickelback, lyrics at bottom. Hope you all enjoy!

It had been two months since Tony had walked out of Jethro's house. Two months of trying to forget their lost relationship and working on their friendship.

At the beginning, they avoided each other, only talking about work and never seeing each other outside of those orange walls.

Until a case came up with a Colonel's daughter being kidnapped. Thanks to McGee, they were able to trace the calls for ransom and found the girl in time but not before her assailant had roughed her up a bit. Knowing how cases like that affected the older man, Tony had made a visit to the basement that night.

Tony sat down on the bottom step and just waited. Jethro knew he was there but showed no signs of acknowledgment. He was too caught up in his thoughts about the case and in turn, thoughts of his own little girl. Somehow in the midst of those thoughts he kept remembering what happened last time Dinozzo came down to the basement. Neither one of them had talked about that night nor did they want to. Abby had spread the word about the breakup and made sure everybody knew not to address either man about it.

So as Tony sat on the stairs and Gibbs worked on his boat, no words were spoken. They didn't need them. Just being near each other was enough of a calming effect. A few hours later Tony stood up to leave and Gibbs silently walked with him to the door.

"Thanks,"

Tony turned around with a small smile on his face, "Anytime Je…Gibbs."

Gibbs frowned at the use of his last name. "Door's always open."

"I know. I'll try to come by more often. You need a friend around."

"I'm glad it's you."

With the smile still on his face Tony walked to his car and drove to his apartment, thoughts running through his mind that he tried to ignore.

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Gibbs couldn't work on the boat anymore. Too many thoughts were running through his mind and they all revolved around the same thing.

Tony.

He lay on the couch, not able to stand sleeping in the room he once shared with the Italian, staring at the ceiling. No matter what he told himself he couldn't stop thinking about the way things used to be. He kept repeating to himself that they weren't together and he needed to move on but the more he thought about why he shouldn't love Tony, the more he did love him.

He knew it was his fault that he didn't have Tony anymore. He had spent the last two months wondering why he ever thought them being apart was a good idea. Gibbs sat up and kicked off his blanket. There was no way he was going to be able to sleep now.

Walking upstairs to the master bedroom with en suite bathroom, he grabbed his clothes and headed for the shower, never once looking at the empty bed. He was going into work early and would hopefully get a chance to stop by the gym. Going a couple rounds with the punching bag would help him release some of his frustrations with himself.

It couldn't hurt!

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Tony walked into the bullpen with ten minutes to spare. He spent half the night sitting up in bed, too many thoughts rolling around in his head. The other half was spent in a fitful sleep with too many dreams of a certain blue eyed Marine.

"Good morning, Tony," Ziva spoke up when he sat at his desk.

"Morning."

"You are early."

"Just because I'm not late? I'm hurt Ziva."

"But it is true. Why are you early?"

"McGoo help me out here?"

"Sorry Tony but you're never into work this early. Why is that?"

Tony sighed before running his hands down his face. "Where's Bossman?"

"On a coffee jog."

"Coffee run Ziva. And I'm just early because I couldn't sleep. I had some…upsetting dreams last night." Tony involuntarily glanced at Gibbs' desk. Ziva didn't notice but McGee did.

Ziva let the matter drop when she got a look from McGee, wondering what he knew and she did not.

"Don't wanna know the details Dinozzo," the gruff voice that Tony could identify in a room full of people echoed through the bullpen.

"Of course not Boss."

The rest of the day was uneventful as no cases came in and Gibbs was called up to MTAC. After playing every game on his computer at least twice and staring at a cold case file for three hours, still coming up blank, Tony decided to visit Abby. Taking one step into her lab he stopped and smiled. Abby, not aware of her audience, was dancing around her lab. Doing a spin move she ran right into Tony.

"Ahhh! Oh Tony, what are you doing down here?"

"Watching the free show," he answered with a smirk.

"Hope you enjoyed it. What's up?"

"Nothing. I'm just bored and McGee keeps sending me weird looks. It's driving me crazy."

"Weird? How?"

"I don't know. It's like he knows something I don't know."

"Hmmm. Has he been acting differently?"

"No. I came in, Ziva and Tim harassed me about being early until I told them it was because of the dreams I had last night about-" Tony quickly snapped his mouth shut and looked away from Abby's puppy dog eyes.

"Dreams about what Tony?" Abby asked quietly.

Tony looked back up, making eye contact, and saw the moment recognition flashed in her eyes, immediately followed by a bear hug." I thought you put him behind you?"

"Tried. Didn't work. Every time I try to tell myself he's a selfish bastard, I just think about all the times he wasn't a bastard. I want to hate him so bad but I just love him more whenever I see him! I'm pathetic!"

"Anthony Dinozzo, you stop thinking like that! It's not pathetic to still love him, you guys were great together and it's HIS fault!"

"You're going against Gibbs?" Tony asked, astonished.

"Well it's never happened before but he is completely, absolutely, totally wrong! You both have been terrible the past couple months. Have you talked to him about any of this?"

Tony couldn't help but chuckle at the idea "Yeah, I can see that now. Hey boss, I know I said I didn't want this but every time I see you I have an incredible urge to jump your bones!"

"Is it just the sex you miss?"

"Of course not! I miss him."

"Well then if you just reword that a little bit then I don't see a problem!"

"I don't know Abbs. I went over there last night after the case and I couldn't help but want things back. Too bad I fucked myself over by telling him no all those months ago."

"It's worth a try Tony!" Abby wrapped her arms around him again. "I wanna see you guys together."

"We don't share well Abby," Tony joked, trying to lighten the mood.

"I didn't mean that! Although…"

"Abbs," Tony shook his head with a grin. "Thanks for listening to my rant."

"Anytime loverboy!"

"Gotta get back to work. Talk to ya later."

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Walking out of MTAC, Gibbs stood at the rail and looked down at the bullpen. Ziva was looking at something on her computer while McGee was staring off into space, seemingly deep in thought. Moving his eyes to the desk closest to him, Gibbs frowned at seeing it unoccupied. In a past life Tony would send Jethro a text when he was leaving the bullpen while he was held up in MTAC, to remind him not to worry about him too much when he came out and found him missing. Looking down at his phone and seeing no new messages sent another pang of guilt through his chest.

Clipping the phone back onto his belt, Gibbs saw Tony heading back into the bullpen from the direction of Abby's lab. Tony glanced up at him and stopped dead in his tracks as their eyes locked on each other. The emotions played across both faces as neither man was able to put up a mask after having thoughts of what used to be. Tony smiled as he tried to tear his gaze away. Gibbs smiled back and nodded his head, acknowledging the unspoken words between them. And just like that the air cleared between them and they both walked to their desks, not letting on to the exchange that just occurred.

An hour later, after witnessing the tenth ball of paper bouncing off McGee's head coming from his Senior Field Agent, Gibbs released them all to go home. Tony was the first one in the elevator, Ziva and McGee right behind him.

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Dropping his backpack by the door, Tony made his way to the kitchen and grabbed a beer out of the fridge before heading to the couch. He was exhausted from the emotions running rampant through him all day long. He dropped his head back and closed his eyes, trying to relax. Just as he started to doze off a loud knock resonated through his apartment. Being as quiet as he could he went to look through the peephole, hoping against hope it wasn't the cougar from across the hall, he didn't want to deal with her now. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw the familiar faces on the other side of the door. Opening it up he let them in.

"Want a drink?"

"No. We are not planning to stay long."

"What are you doing here?"

"We know." McGee simply stated as he looked Tony in the eye.

"You know what? What are you talking about?"

"We know what your dreams were about last night and what you've been trying to keep hidden."

"I'm going to kill Abby!" Tony exclaimed.

"She did not tell us anything, we figured it out." Ziva explained.

"How?"

"Ziva and I both have been paying close attention to you and Gibbs since the breakup. You guys aren't very good at hiding how you're feeling. How you're hurting. I saw you glance at Gibbs' desk this morning when you mentioned your dream. And whenever one of you isn't paying attention the other one is constantly staring."

"You don't know what you're talking about McNosey."

"Tony, stop lying to us and yourself! Look, I don't know what happened between the two of you and I'm not asking but obviously you both want to be back together. Was it something so bad that it can't be fixed?" Tim asked, concern for his friend seeping through every word.

Tony walked past McGee and sat heavily onto the couch, Tim and Ziva following.

"That's the problem; I don't even know what happened. He just decided one day he was done."

"I do not believe that Gibbs would just stop loving you."

"I never said that. He still loves me and I still love him. That's not the issue. He might love me but he didn't trust me."

"Tony, of course he trusts you. He trusts you more than anyone!" McGee was trying to put the pieces together about the breakup but Tony wasn't helping much.

"He didn't trust me with his worries about us! He was worried he 'loved me too much' and would get hurt in the end but never told me until it was too late. Did he not realize I was worried too?"

"You knew he could be a bastard. You also know how closed off he is with any emotion."

"Perhaps he didn't want to worry you?" Ziva tried to help.

"He was a cold, heartless bastard and didn't give a damn about the repercussions. Well he got what he wanted; now we can both be miserable and it's all his damn fault!" Tony exploded, jumping off the couch, and pacing back and forth across the living room.

Ziva and McGee shared a look before nodding, they were gonna do their best to fix this.

"Tony, did you tell him you were worried too?" Ziva asked quietly.

Tony looked up at her and some of his anger slipped away. His friends saw it and knew the answer.

"How did you expect him to completely open up to you when you had not done the same with him?"

Tony fell back onto the couch, his elbows on his knees and his head dropped. Playing with the label on his beer.

"Why are you guys doing this?" He whispered.

"Because, you two are still in love with each other and it doesn't make sense for you not to be together. Tony, if you really don't want to be with him then just tell us and we'll leave, otherwise," McGee paused as Tony lifted his head to look at his friend, "get your ass over there and fix it."

Tony smiled as it hit him how much these two really cared about him and Gibbs and they just wanted the best for them.

"Thanks guys. I think I just needed to hear all of this from someone else. You're sure he will still want this?"

"Definitely."

"He can never take his eyes off of you Tony. And every time he looks at you, love is the first thing in his eyes." Ziva shared as she hugged Tony.

The famous DiNozzo smile spread across his face as he was finally given the hope he had been searching for for months.

"Now get over there and get your man!" McGee joked, smiling at the first sign of life on Tony's face.

"Yes sir." Tony saluted as he walked them to the door.

2nd part to this is already in the works! Had to split it up, this had more emotion and talking in it than I originally planned for. Next chapter is gonna be posted either later today or tomorrow! Let me know how this was ;)