When all is said and done, Gibbs is left standing in the pulsing lights of emergency vehicles, soot and debris in his eyes and snow in his hair. Tony's retreating back is wide and strong and dark in the night. Gibbs watches him walk away from the small pool of light, shoulders hunched in his jacket, stride purposeful. He watches Tony turn left and disappear from sight, and knows that he will see Tony's smirking face when he returns home that evening.

Gibbs breathes in the cold night air, pulls his hands from the pockets of his jacket and turns to Kate. She's sitting with her tear-streaked face held high, gray blanket clutched in her shaking fists. Gibbs sighs, pushes at his brows with the pads of his fingers, then makes his way through the melting snow to the other Special Agent. Kate startles slightly when Gibbs looms in her line of sight.

"Come on, Agent Todd. I'll give you a ride home," Gibbs offers gruffly, eyes fixing somewhere past her right ear to allow her time to pull herself together. Kate breathes in, rubs a corner of the blanket over the bridge of her nose. She pulls in a shaky breath, eyes blinking open and closed, cheeks red from the cold and the sorrow and the imagined remains of the warmth of the explosion.

Eventually she nods, and Gibbs slides his eyes back to hers. Kate doesn't avert her gaze. "I'm not going to repeat myself," Gibbs says, pushing the blanket from Kate's shoulders and brushing his thumbs over her cheeks. "You coming?"

Kate searches his eyes for something, doesn't find it, but nods anyway. She stands up, smoothes her slightly shaking hands over her sides, and clears her throat.

"I'm... I'm just going to go home. My car... My car's here somewhere." Kate squints her eyes against the flickering lights, blinks furiously at Gibbs even as her voice cracks. She looks momentarily furious with herself. Gibbs smiles at her briefly, grabs ahold of her elbow and steers her towards his car. She yanks her arm from his grip halfway to Gibbs' car, but stays close to his warmth.

The ride to Kate's apartment is quiet. Kate rests her head against the window of the car, stares through her own reflection into the black quiet of the night. When they arrive at the darkened courtyard of Kate's apartment complex, Gibbs stops the car and turns to Kate. Her eyes are big and dark and vulnerable. Gibbs doesn't want to see her like this ever again. He brushes his fingers against her cheek, tucking a lock of long, dark hair behind her ear, and leans over her to open the door. Kate stares at him for a heartbeat then gets out of the car.

When Gibbs pulls away from the building, he glances in the rear view mirror only to see that Kate has already disappeared inside.

~~~

There are big footsteps in the snow dusted lightly over the ground like fingerprint powder, leading to Gibbs' front door. The handle feels heavy in his hand when he feels the door click open. The house is dark and quiet.

Gibbs stumbles over DiNozzo's haphazardly thrown boots in the entryway, mumbles a curse and removes his coat. He hangs it next to Tony's still damp one, knuckles brushing against the heavy material. Gibbs smirks at nothing at all.

Tony is sprawled all over Gibbs' couch, his face pressed sideways into a pillow placed in one end, feet dangling off the other. He's snoring, eyes closed and lashes dark on his cheeks. Gibbs snorts at this, takes in the heavy blanket that doesn't quite cover Tony's ankles. His things are in two big bags leaning against the back of the sofa, his clothes folded on one of Gibbs' kitchen chairs he must have dragged over.

Gibbs presses his thumbs into his eyes, stands there in the entrance to his living room for a moment. He's too tired to drag himself downstairs to his boat, too tired to make it to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. He lowers his hand when Tony snorts and pushes his head deeper into the pillow like a big cat, the muscles in his back moving under the skin.

For a moment Gibbs doesn't want to move, but after a while of listening to DiNozzo's snoring, Gibbs has to. His knees are protesting again, joints aching from the cold and the damp and the dark. He makes his way to the bathroom on the other side of the house. When he flicks on the light, he sees Tony's bright green toothbrush and a dozen bottles of different hair care products strewn over the counter and small shelf under his bathroom mirror.

Gibbs decides on that cup of coffee, anyway, and makes his way to the kitchen. While it's brewing he stares out the window at the quiet street outside. Snow is still falling, and there is a similar kind of hush over everything Gibbs has felt during the long hours of the early morning with the wood of his boat whispering under his hands. He moves a used mug off the counter into the sink.

Gibbs carries his steaming drink back to the living room, glancing sideways at DiNozzo as he passes. Tony has turned his head, forehead pressed against the back of the couch, arms bent and long fingers curled next to his cheeks. The corner of Gibbs' mouth twitches when he sets his mug on the living room table and fetches his glasses from their secret compartment in the wood paneling. He settles down in the armchair next to Tony's big, bare feet and folds open the previous day's newspaper.

For a while he concentrates on politics and war and international news, sipping coffee from time to time. Tony's presence is strangely comforting in the golden glow of the solitary lamp Gibbs has turned on.

Gradually Gibbs finds his attention slipping from the black ink, the words blurring in his eyes, and with a frustrated huff he folds the paper and sets it on the table. There's a moment's silence where the only sound in the dark house is Tony's soft, soft snore. Gibbs glances over at him again, lips curling up at the corners, hand reaching out without conscious effort.

His fingers close around Tony's ankle.

Tony twitches in his sleep but does not wake.

His skin is smooth and warm underneath the pads of Gibbs' fingers. His thumb starts a slow rubbing motion, circles going around and around the bulging bone in Tony's ankle. It feels relaxing. He can't seem to be able to stop.

Gibbs falls asleep like that; hair wild and dusted with a fine layer of crumbling concrete, his suit reeking of explosives and fire, and his hand wrapped around DiNozzo's ankle, fingers slipping in sleep but not letting go.

~~~

He wakes up to the blessed smell of coffee. Squinting in the early morning sunlight, he's able make out a wildly grinning DiNozzo who's standing next to the couch, holding a cup of coffee. Gibbs grunts, straightens his back from the sideways list he's adopted during the few hours of sleep he's had. His reading glasses (the ones no one really knows about, or at least doesn't speak a word about under pain of death) are digging into the side of his face painfully and his mouth tastes like death warmed twice over.

DiNozzo's brown hair is standing out in tufts in every possible direction, his eyes tired but smiling, and his white cotton boxers are hanging low on his hips. It takes Gibbs a moment to realize there's a half-naked DiNozzo standing in his living room, holding coffee hostage. He grunts at the man.

Tony's smirk widens, but he hands over the mug without a word. His fingers brush Gibbs' as the mug changes hands. Gibbs glares painful death at him over the rim of his white ceramic mug with the US Navy emblem on the side. Tony makes a zipping motion over his lips, tilts his head to the side, then whirls around and makes his way straight to the cupboard where Gibbs keeps his linens and his towels.

Gibbs watches him disappear into the bathroom, whistling a jaunty tune as he goes, and for a moment feels warm. He tells himself it's the coffee.