Gibbs checked the rearview mirror.
Abby had done a good job staying behind them but if she did get lost, she had directions.
He smiled, remembering the argument she had with Ziva on who was going to drive.
(flashback)
"So…" Ziva said slowly, trying to make sure she understood what Gibbs had just said, "we are all going to …New Hampshire for a week? Together?"
Abby turned her music completely off, while McGee and Tony stood around Abby's table with their lower jaws on the floor.
"Yep." Gibbs smiled, ever so slightly.
"Boss-" Tony began, overlapped by McGee.
"In one house? For a week?" McGee said incredulously. "We'll kill Tony. I mean, eachother."
Tony shot daggers at him with his eyes and hissed, "Nice, Probie."
"OH MY GOD!" Abby squealed and then jumped up and down, knocking into Ziva as she jumped on Gibbs, hugging him. "This is gonna be sooooo great! We'll all be together ! No danger!"
"Speak for yourself," Tony mumbled.
"Why does Vance want us to go on this…" Ziva struggled to understand what Gibbs had said in the first place.
"Team building retreat," Gibbs said, sourly, although he enjoyed Abby's enthusiasm.
"It's gonna be GREAT! We can go hiking, and swimming, and play games, and collect bugs-" Abby was vibrating with excitement.
Gibbs was given the directive by Vance, to take them all for a week, to Sandown, New Hampshire, to a cottage occasionally used as a safe house by NCIS. There they would spend time working on their team relationships and generally unwind. It was apparent they'd all been suffering some burnout of late…
Gibbs had been angrier than usual, ZIva more violent, having gone a bit overboard and almost killing a suspect. And Tony, drinking a bit too much after a case that involved the neglect and death of a six year old child…with McGee looking miserable in the mix, and Ducky, Abby, and Palmer worried.
Gibbs fought the director on it. But not too hard, because secretly, he knew he was right. But a week? With this crew? He smiled once again to himself as everyone was complaining except Abby. This is gonna' be crazy.
"…and I can bring Bert, and my sketchpad, and my music –"
"No!" They almost all said in unison.
She suddenly looked very hurt, pulling her chin up. "Fine," she said, twisting a pigtail, "I'll just bring the opera."
"Oh God," Tony said, rubbing his hands over his face. "Abs, you better bring more than just Carmen."
"Come on, Tony! It wasn't my fault that time. I didn't know the song was on a loop…"Abby said innocently.
Gibbs didn't want to know.
"Rental cars, tomorrow morning, early, and then we drive up."He made it a solid statement. No room for argument.
More groans.
"All part of the decompress, no flying," he smiled. "Tony and McGee with me, and Ziva and Abby you'll take up a second car."
"I will drive, yes?" Ziva looked at Abby, who suddenly looked alarmed.
"Ah, no, Ziva. The idea is to go on retreat. Not to your death," Abby said, at least trying to smile sweetly to Ziva as she scowled.
"That is not fair, Abby. I am a very good driver, and I can get there more quickly than Gibbs." Suddenly Ziva remembered Gibbs was standing there.
"That so?" he asked her softly, while he caught Tony and McGee smirking from the corner of his eye.
"Ahh…well I-" she began, dark eyes roaming around, motioning with her hands a little.
"No, Abby will drive. Behind us," Gibbs said smoothly, walking away and laughing to himself.
(end flashback)
"Tony, c'mon!" McGee almost whined from the back seat. "We're almost in Massachusettes. You said you would switch."
"What is your problem, McPushy? We're almost there for God's sake."
"I get car sick. I told you that. On long trips, Tony. I can't take it,"McGee huffed, rubbing his eyes.
"You puke in the car, McGee," Gibbs warned, "you clean it up." He looked in the rearview mirror. He raised a brow in concern. McGee did look green. He started looking for a rest stop, where he would make DiNozzo switch places with him.
McGee leaned forward, gripping the seat by Tony's headrest.
"Tony, I can't-"
And suddenly, McGee lost it, mostly all over Tony, with a horrible, gasping retch.
"Jesus Tim!" Tony yelled angrily, while Gibbs bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing his head off.
McGee sat back with a moan. "Sorry Tony…I didn't know that was gonna' happen…"
"Proabably why girls don't return your calls, McGee," Tony said, still annoyed, but trying to make light of it somehow.
They opened the windows, which helped with the vomit stench, but let in the humid eighty degree air into the car.
Tony was desperately looking in the glove box of the rental card for napkins.
He slammed it shut. "Great," he quipped. "If I don't get this off me…I'm gonna' puke myself."
"Here," McGee handed him something from the back.
"Thanks," Tony took it, but then realized it was his sweatshirt. "Nice Probie. You're really trying to get on my good side for this trip."Tony frowned while using the sweatshirt to clean himself up as best he could.
"Probably should'a let him switch before," Gibbs said smoothly, and felt Tony glaring at him, through the sunglasses he had on.
McGee moaned from the back again.
After the rest stop where Tony completely changed clothes, they headed up to Sandown, New Hampshire, stopping one more time to buy groceries to bring to the cottage.
McGee was still sheepishly apologizing to Tony, who had been the one to clean up the front seat as well as himself. Gibbs knew Tony had felt bad that McGee had gotten sick, so even though he was angry about getting his clothes ruined, he still cleaned it up for McGee to keep him from getting sick all over again.
By the time they rolled in to the road leading around Lake Sandown, it was 18:00 hours.
The roads through upper Massachusettes and lower New Hampshire, which had been littered with little houses and truck cabs, had become more wild with rocky hills and woods.
The roads became slivers carved through high clusters of assorted pine trees, and they glowed orange at the tops in the light of the setting summer sun.
A few small signs alerted Gibbs that they had arrived at the proper turn.
Tony sighed from the back seat, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
Gibbs smiled. "It's not that desolate out here, DiNozzo. You just can't see the houses because they have a good amount of space between them."The way it should be, Gibbs thought.
Gibbs let the windows down since the air was cooler here, and they could all smell the scent of fresh water and pine woods.
"There's a lake here Boss?" McGee asked, sounding much more normal than earlier.
"Yep. Five miles around. Only two places on it. A B&B on the other side, and our retreat on this."
As they made a right turn onto a narrow but still paved road, they caught glances of the lake on their left, glistening in some places where separations in the trees allowed the view to peek through.
A few moments later, a tree with a large red number two appeared, marking the driveway that was theirs.
Gibbs pulled left into it, while Tony and McGee curiously looked around as they crept along the drive that sloped gently down towards the lake.
Gibbs saw Abby and Ziva pulling into the drive behind them.
They passed innumerable trees, some with large mushrooms growing out their sides, and on their right a clearing with a huge fire pit in the center of it. Some cut off tree stumps, used for benches around the fire, were strewn around it.
"Awesome!" Tony said. "We could do a whole cowboy style cow over that one, Boss!"
"You promise to eat it all, and I'll cook it, DiNozzo," Gibbs said, amused.
After another small patch of woods, they saw the white cottage on the right, and the driveway, which stopped before a breathtaking view of the lake.
From the driveway, they could see a path that ran along down from the house, through the trees, to a dock right on the water. Attached to it were two canoes and one paddleboat.
In between some of the trees were hammocks, swaying lazily in the slight breeze.
The lake itself, though small by most standards, was majestic. It was a mirror for the sunset, and the silhouettes of the darkened tall pines and rocky ledges that surrounded it.
It could have been a postcard shot.
"It's beautiful here," breathed McGee.
"Yes," Gibbs said, already feeling some of his usual tension slipping away from the serenity of the scene before them, "it is."