i>Kisses are like tears. The only ones that are real are the ones you can't hold back.

He couldn't deny it any longer. It was more than just sex.

Making love to and with Ducky, kissing him, holding him, spending time with him was far more than something that just happened when he hadn't got a wife or a girlfriend.

It always had been.

He'd always known it.

He'd just never admitted it. Not to himself and certainly not to Ducky.

It was time he did.

It was time he stopped denying what he'd always known.

It was time he told Ducky and showed Ducky just what he meant to him.

It was time he told Ducky and showed Ducky just who he intended to spend the rest of his life with.

And it was time he told and showed everyone else too.

So he did.

The team was all in Autopsy listening to Ducky updating them on current procedures for something or other when he did so.

He didn't do it with pretty words; pretty words were not his thing.

He did it with action; action was his thing.

He kissed Ducky.

There in front of DiNozzo, McGee, Ziva, Abby and Palmer, he took Ducky into his arms and kissed him. And went on kissing him.