"You feeling okay, Probie?"

Tim shot his co-worker a weary glare. "We just spent twenty-four hours on a rocking ship with no sleep, Tony. How do you think I feel?" His stomach churned as he recalled the Chimera, remembering every sway and bob he'd felt while aboard. He'd be lying if he said he hadn't gotten a slight satisfaction out of seeing the evil thing destroyed.

"Seasickness brings out the snark in you," Tony commented, giving the young agent a slap on the back. "We've been given the okay to leave and catch up on our forty winks."

Sleep! Oh, how Tim would love to fall into his comfortable bed and not awake until the next morning. He almost drooled imagining the soft, luscious pillow beneath his head and the fluffy and warm comforter wrapped around his large frame. The mattress was beginning to sag a bit, but he hadn't a doubt that his glorious mattress would ease every touch of pain and soreness which resonated within his body. He could be a regular Rip Van Winkle, falling asleep for a hundred years!

But Tim's luck, as per usual, was poor.

"I've got a date," he grumbled.

"Well, that should be cause for celebration, right? I mean, how often do you have contact with members of the female sex? It is a she, isn't it?"

"Yes, Tony, it's a date with a girl," Tim replied bitterly. "Her name is Jana. We met at the library."

The older agent rolled his eyes. "Of course you did."

"The problem is we're supposed to be meeting in two hours and I look and feel like crap!"

"Well, if she actually agreed to this date she obviously doesn't care so much about looks, now does she?"

"Don't listen to Tony, McGee," Ziva said. "He's only jealous that he has no woman waiting eagerly for him."

"Thanks, Ziva," Tim said, placing a hand over his still queasy stomach. "I only wish that I felt better."

"You have time. Perhaps you should go see a doctor and get something to quell your rumbling tummy."

"Just don't ask Ducky," Tony suggested. "He's as tired as we are and he has to go home to a pack of yapping canines."

Tim checked his watch. Sure, he could slip in quickly at the doctor's office and get a check-up, rush home to make himself presentable, and then high-tail it to the small restaurant where he and Jana were to meet, but he knew he'd be cutting it close. "I don't know. Maybe I'll be okay to just..." His words were cut off as he rushed to a nearby trash bin and empties what little remained in his stomach.

"You were saying, McGee?" Ziva asked when he finally lifted his head.

"Okay," he groaned. "To the doctor it is..."


AN: This will be a short one (four chapters). One chapter per day as usual!