A/N: I actually wrote this a long, long time ago...in a galaxy far away...but anyways, it's the response to Challenge 21 on the NCIS Special Ops Board. I might write a prequel, but only if you people want me to. I'm not about to spend time on something other people won't read.

Disclaimer (I remembered this time! See Alexia the Murderer, you'll get it): I don't own them. That's it? Ha! I wish I did, I really wish I did, but the show would have horrible plots...at least it would be exciting with lots of shooting but no storyline...

Broken glass crunched underfoot. Special Agent Gibbs looked at the disaster area with wincing eyes- over three hundred people had been killed in the blast, he had surmised. Kate was nowhere to be seen- another bad sign, though she'd be easy to spot, with the get-up she was wearing.

Gibbs sighed and started walking through the rubble of the former Las Vegas casino with a heavy heart. He didn't even know if Kate had been "working" that night, and now regretted putting the agent undercover, though Tony had thought it was highly amusing. Kate, of course, had been outraged, but it was for the best of the case...

"I'm doing WHAT!"

"Well, we need someone who-"

"You are NOT putting me undercover as a cocktail waitress!"

"Sorry, but it's our last option now. Thank Tony, he had the idea."

Gibbs smiled at the memory- then his smile fell as he remembered that Tony had been in the casino as well. He just hoped they both got to safety, although there was only a slim chance both agents had made it- very slim.

Tony, of course, had been gambling, with Kate pointedly not going near him (she was sure he'd tease her about what she was wearing). Not that he was really gambling, he was undercover, but Kate thought it was a little unfair. After all, he got to sit at a machine and gamble while she had to trounce around in a red leather skimpy thing trimmed with fake fur- but not that she had let Tony see her anyway, she wouldn't give him any chance to –but it was obvious that he was having much more fun.

Gibbs snapped out of his memories while moving debris away from another person- dead at first glance –and breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn't either of his two agents. Of course, he felt a little guilty after that, but Gibbs shook it off and continued searching. He was helping the search team even though he wasn't supposed to- but they let him when he told them about Kate and Tony –so he was told to search for people who were alive. Obviously his top priority was his own people, but he pushed it to the back of his mind as he heard coughing and moved towards the sound.

Kate's eyes opened slowly as she tried to move but couldn't.

As soon as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she looked at what was blocking her, and saw it was a concrete block. It was efficiently stopping her from getting up, covering her entire left side.

She surmised that at least one bone was broken; she tried to lift the concrete but couldn't get it up enough to even get her arm out. So she was stuck.

Plus, it was cold out, and the dress she was wearing- if you could call it that- wasn't covering much, and she was freezing. Las Vegas nights weren't that cold, but in the winter at about two in the morning, it's cold enough for someone in almost nothing to freeze. Which was exactly what she was doing.

Her left side had numbed from a blinding pain to nothing at all, which was surely disrupting blood flow, and her head was throbbing with a pounding headache, and she fell back unconscious.

Tony's eyes fluttered open as he groaned. He, though, was by the search and rescue team, so there was light enough for him to be amazed at the irony.

The object that had no doubt cracked across his head and onto his arm was no other than...

The slot machine he'd been playing right before the building blew up.

Even though he was in a sticky situation, he couldn't help but laugh. The machine was still dispensing coins as if he'd won, but he hadn't won, so he was sure that the bomb had set off some trigger in the machine.

Tony felt someone sticky dripping down his forehead, and reached up to feel it. His suspicions were right: it was blood.

He heard someone above his head say, "This one's alive" and felt the slot machine being pulled off of him.

He looked up at the face of his rescuer and tried to say "Thank you", but the dust in his throat caused him to gag and cough some more.

"Good, DiNozzo," his rescuer supplied with a smile. "Well, that's half found."

Tony looked up again and this time recognized his superior. Coughing slightly, he said, "Always glad to oblige."

Then the latter part of Gibbs's statement caught on. "Who else is missing?"

Gibbs sighed. "Kate."

"What happened?"

"The casino blew up. Are you hurt?"

Tony raised his eyebrows and winced at the move. "Uh, yeah, seeing as there's blood dripping down my forehead."

Gibbs rolled his eyes. "Medical help!"

An hour later, Kate was still missing, and both agents were still worried. The search and rescue team were still finding people alive, so they still had hope. Some.

The percentage of people they were finding dead was going higher and higher with every passing second, every waking minute. The odds of finding Kate alive were becoming slimmer and slimmer, especially if she had injuries along with probably freezing.

The person in question was currently unconscious, with numerous injuries due to the concrete block cutting off the blood flow to her left side. She had been propelled farther away from the initial blown-up site then the other victims, and crushed by the concrete. Her life was ebbing away slowly, and no one stood a hope of finding her- if it hadn't been for one small life...

The life in question was currently sniffing the red leather Gibbs had provided, when the search and rescue team had dragged all the dead and alive bodies in the area. Gibbs wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing that they hadn't found Kate yet, but he was leaning towards bad.

The search and rescue dog barked once and ran towards the parking lot, with Gibbs, Tony, and the search and rescue team close behind. The EMT was still screaming at Tony to get back so he could properly bandage his head.

"Are you sure he knows where he's going?" Tony asked no one in particular.

It earned him a lengthy explanation from one of the rescue team members about how their dogs were trained. It also got him a glare from Gibbs, who was determined to find the remaining member of his team alive.

The dog barked again, and stopped. In front of him was a large block of concrete, with half of a red leather, fake fur trim dress showing.

Gibbs and the rescue team moved the block off of the woman (Tony wasn't allowed to help as he was injured- the rescue team wouldn't let him), and all saw that it was, indeed, Kate.

Gibbs screamed for the second time "Medical help!" and checked her pulse. She had one, faint, but definitely had one.

The EMTs came running, pursued by the search and rescue dog that had found Kate. Without delay, they tried to resuscitate her, and got an immediate response.

She started coughing, after inhaling the dust from the building blow-up, but came around well enough.

"Can you move anything on your left side?" one of the EMTs said.

She shook her head ever so slightly.

"Right?"

She could move her right side, and Gibbs let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Any- anything broken?" she gasped out.

The EMTs quickly did a test and decreed that indeed, her left arm was broken in at least three places.

After the blood flow was normal to her left side, they helped her up and started giving her medical attention. At this time, Tony finally saw what she was wearing.

"Nice dress," he said, raising an eyebrow.

A/N: Yeah, I know, pretty pathetic, but the idea was floating around in my head (Kate as a cocktail waitress) and it was too good to pass up...