just a very short one-shot, hope you like it. I also want to say a huge thanks to crokettsgirl for reading and reviewing every single NCIS story of mine - i'm so glad you liked them all!!

How do you live with the mother of all secrets?

Exhausted wasn't a strong enough description of how Tony was feeling. It had been one thing after another non stop, drugs and being held hostage and head injuries, guns, confessions and explosions. He didn't remember the last time he'd slept.

Luckily he'd spent most of the last two days too hyped up on adrenaline to even notice, but now that everything was over he had nothing left in him to keep him going.

He trudged up the stairs to his apartment after being ordered home by Gibbs. He was no use to them right now, not with everything else going on. Part of Tony wondered if him being sent home was more to do with Gibbs not liking that he'd been lied to, again.

He unlocked his apartment door and stepped into the darkness, nearly tripping over a pile of mail which had once been on the side table. But the pile had grown until the unsteady mountain of unopened bills and junk mail had slid off the table and into a mess in the hallway. Tony stepped over them and continued into the living room.

It just showed how little time Tony had spent in his place. In the past couple of months he'd used the bed and shower and that was it. His stack of DVDs now stood covered in dust, his phone was blinking at him, his voicemail filled to the brim with messages he'd yet to return, and he knew if he looked in his fridge he'd find some milk trying to turn itself into yoghurt and a carton of week old Chinese.

Tony jumped at a knock on the door. He turned and made his way back to the door, cursing under his breath when he tripped over the mail for a second time. He flung open the door to find Abby grinning at him. She wound her arms around his neck and pulled him into a tight hug.

"I never got to tell you how happy I was that you were alive."

You don't. It consumes you, it eats you like a cancer, from the inside. First there's the guilt, and then there's the excruciating urge to blab your secret even though you know it's gonna spell your doom. Have you gotten to that stage yet?

"You need a little company?" She asked as she pulled away. Tony really didn't, but he nodded silently and stepped back to let her in. As soon as she stepped in she bent down and gathered the stray mail, piling it neatly back on the side table. "You got any food?"

"I might have some tinned pineapple somewhere," Tony replied with a shrug.

"Never mind," Abby said, moving into the living room and immediately picking up the phone, "I'll get pizza," Tony hoped he still had some beer in his apartment, he was going to need it.

It's a hypothetical situation we're talkin' about

"So" Abby began after an hour of silence and pizza. That was what Tony liked about Abby, for a woman that probably held the world record babbling incessantly for the longest, she knew when to be quiet.

"So what?" Tony replied before taking a sip of beer, putting the bottle down on the coffee table next two an empty one.

"Was that it?" She asked.

Tony frowned, his mind was too buzzed from beer and meat feast pizza to follow Abby's vague question. "Huh?"

"You're MOAS."

Tony frowned again "My ass?"

"No you idiot," Abby said, taking the half finished beer away from Tony before he could get any drunker. "Your MOAS, your mother of all secrets, was she it?"

Still in the guilt stage huh? And then you know, you can't take it anymore, it drives you insane, so you blab your secret to your best friend, or your mother, or your lover and it sets you free!

Jeanne Benoit, daughter of one of the worlds biggest arms dealers. Tony had jumped at the undercover operation when Director Sheppard had first offered it to him. A case he could sink his teeth into, a case that would end with a commendation. People would see him and not Gibbs for the first time.

It had started off easily enough, a chance meeting at a coffee shop, but then Tony suddenly found himself deeper into the operation than he ever anticipated, and he was only sinking deeper by the day. There was no way out of it, no way to explain to her who he was, no way to keep himself from falling for her. He knew it was dangerous, but by then he just didn't care.

He didn't know what he expected would happen when she knew the truth about him.

"Yeah," Tony breathed, his eyes dropping to the carpet. "She was my MOAS" He reached over and snatched his beer back "Doesn't mean she's the only one" He added before gulping down the rest of the beer, avoiding Abby's gaze.

How do you live with the mother of all secrets?