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CHAPTER 2
Tony was not all that happy the following morning and he knew Ziva wasn't doing any better when he got into work. They hadn't been able to do their Monday night dog pile due to Abby and McGee staying late at work and Tony hadn't wanted to press his luck with a two man dog pile. He tended to do some grabbing in his sleep and he refused to be let that happen without Abby and McGee there to distract Ziva while he made a run for the shower.
He was used to the dog piles and now felt off without one, and as he showed up to work to see Ziva stretching—a pleasing sight—he could automatically tell she hadn't had the best of sleep either. Tony vaguely wondered if she had eaten as he had to do with a breakfast burrito, oppose to the usual breakfast the team had the morning after their dog pile and before work.
At least they had had a small take-out dinner together the previous night before he headed home.
"Tony," Ziva greeted and waved him over to the screen. "Farris claims he didn't know Lieutenant Sullivan was in the vehicle when he stole it. When she started screaming he dumped it here with her still in it." She pointed to the screen where a map was up and destination to and from was highlighted. "Which means whoever kidnapped her must have followed Farris to get the Lieutenant back."
"If he's telling the truth—it still doesn't explain why she was profiling people."
"Blackmail, espionage, assassination." Tony jerked when she clicked the clicker at his face before stretching forward. And call him a pig, but he checked her ass out.
"All good reasons why…someone would want to make her disappear." He knew she could kill him with a paperclip eighteen different ways, but he didn't care at the moment. Ziva was sexy and her ass was right there.
"We could be missing something."
"Believe me, not from this angle."
He quickly looked at the screen—with probably more interest than required—when Ziva straightened and looked at him. "She could be a covert operative."
"She's a Navy computer geek who worked on software for base housing. According to her coworkers, she's a female version of McGee." And no offense to his little brother, but no way could Tim pull off being a spy.
"Being a geek makes a good cover."
Gibbs decided to show up at that moment with a coffee and Caf-Pow! "Cover for what?"
"We're still trying to figure that out, Boss."
"You pull security tapes from the gas station?" he asked as he walked to his desk.
They both turned to face him as Ziva answered, "There weren't any—the system's been broken for a month."
"Tire marks from the lot check out Farris' story—they're a match for a factory-standard Honda Accord."
"Let's hope that Abby and McGee had better luck—come on."
Ziva followed Gibbs and Tony regretfully looked at his breakfast before throwing it away and catching up with the others. It didn't take long for them to get down to the lab to find Abby asleep with her head propped up on her hands and McGee on his folded arms.
"I wouldn't call this luck."
They watched Gibbs lean close to Abby's ear and softly talk to her. "Your computer's on fire."
"McGee, my baby's French-frying!" Tony nearly laughed as McGee snapped awake and both geeks started typing frantically.
"Checking internal core temperature."
Slowly the typing slowed down and both McGee and Abby blinked into consciousness and turned to glare at Gibbs who smirked. Abby's glare was the hardest though as it was known not to mess with her and her babies. Tony grinned.
"That is so not funny, Gibbs."
"We must have nodded off."
Ziva and Tony shared a smile. Tony wouldn't admit it out loud, but McGee looked adorable with the way he pouted at being woken. He was like a sleepy toddler who woke up too soon from his nap. Made him want to hug his little Probie, especially after the way he apologized for his comment the day before.
"Tell me that you two have something," Gibbs demanded.
"We have something; just don't know what it is." Abby brought up what looked like a timetable on the screen and both Gibbs and Ziva walked over to look at it closer.
"Looks like a timetable for an operation."
"The problem is, the events on the axis are encrypted."
"We've been trying to crack it all night," Tim admitted with a small yawn.
"Well, try harder, McGee." Tony walked over to join Gibbs and Ziva. "Chances of finding her alive drop to almost zero after 48 hours." Damn, he did it again. "Sorry. I'm sure you knew that, Boss."
"Don't apologize, DiNozzo."
"Right. Sign of weakness."
"Not to mention annoying."
Tony threw a glare Ziva's way before Abby spoke.
"We were able to pull some programs off our directory. This is the only one that stands out. MorphPro." A program came to the screen with the Lieutenant's face on. "It's super-high-end imaging software. It's unusual, because it retails for over $5,000."
He frowned. "Big bucks on a lieutenant's salary."
"What's it for?"
"Morphing human features. Um, we pulled some test runs out of her cache."
They watched the face of Lieutenant Anne Sullivan age a few years, graying hair and wrinkles appearing.
Tony smiled. "Ah, yeah, this like the end of Saving Private Ryan, you know, where Matt Damon morphs into his older self. Anybody else get head-faked by that? 'Cause Tom Hanks was who I thought…" Gibbs stared at him and he clamped his mouth shut while Ziva pointed at the screen.
"I've seen software like this before, Abby. Mossad used earlier versions to age Nazi war criminals. It was a great asset to hunting them down."
Gibbs walked over to Abby. "So basically, what you're saying to me is, we have nothing."
Tony smiled at the look Abby gave. "Gibbs! Ziva's talking about Nazis. I wouldn't exactly call Nazis nothing."
"Abby…"
"We have nothing. Until we crack her encryptions."
"You mean if," Tim cut in. "It's high-level, it's extremely sophisticated."
Ducky decided to show up with his usual cup of tea. The man really liked his tea. "Would her password help?"
"Well, yeah, Ducky, but we don't have it."
"Yeah, well, I just spent a long night in our lieutenant's head. I may be able to offer some suggestions. Try "Coral Gables."" Tim typed but was denied. "Uh, "Fiddlers green."" Again he tried and denied. ""Hampton Inn."" Third time wasn't a charm.
Gibbs started heading out. "Nice try. Tony, Ziva, with me."
""Spanish Rose.""
They all paused at the ding that went off when he was granted access. "Whoa!"
"We're in. Ducky, that was…"
"Mind-blowingly amazing," Abby grinned.
Ducky grinned. "It's more of an art than a science." He headed over to the bigger screen as Probie cleared the timeline to be readable. "Oh. Lieutenant Sullivan was indeed into targeting people. She was using all her military knowledge and skills to find a husband."
"Well, it looks like she found herself a psycho instead…Dr. Mallard."
"Now that we have access to her files, we can see she was using MorphPro to predict the appearance of her adult offspring." Tim went through all the potentials that Sullivan did, Tony and Ziva beside him to see, though Tony didn't stay long.
"Creepy." He walked back to his desk. "No wonder she couldn't find a husband."
Tim paused. "You know, choosing someone to spend the rest of your life with is not easy." He was a prime example of that. "Who wouldn't want to know all the facts before deciding?"
"Isn't that what dating's all about?"
"Yeah," and didn't Tony look suddenly serious as he looked at him, "you should try that sometime, McGee."
Tim frowned and glanced at Ziva before looking at Tony again. "What?"
"You. Should. Date."
He blinked. "But…I'm seeing Gibbs."
"Barely, and I didn't say see someone else."
"Though I am not against the idea," Ziva cut in from her position beside him.
Tony rolled his eyes. "Anyway, you should date Gibbs again. If he's serious about staying and with you, he needs to do this."
It wasn't a bad idea, but he didn't want to think about it at the moment. So, he changed the subject. "I wonder would happen if you two hooked up." Since they were all in his relationship. He brought up the program on the big screen and their photos before combining them. Ziva and Tony stood to watch. "Guys, meet your love child."
It was an…interesting looking child to say the least. Grouchy, like Tony, so yeah, it definitely took after Tony. The two looked at each other before they requested, "Do Gibbs and the director."
Only pausing for a second, it was a legitimate curious request as everyone knew the two used to be lovers. So pulling up the photos, he combined them and the female that was the result was quite beautiful. Tim stared at the photo on his computer.
"Hmm," Ziva hummed, "now, that's not a bad combination."
"I'd date her."
Tim chuckled—'Of course Tony would.'—and froze at Ziva's next request. "How about you and Gibbs?"
"Uh…"
"Just for fun."
"Yeah, I'm sure it wouldn't even turn out too good, Probie, with you both being guys."
Tony and Ziva both continued to stare at him and blushing up a storm, and having no idea why he was complying, he switched Director Shepard's picture out with his own and with a deep breath, pressed enter.
The morph seemed to go slow motion and when it finished, a very handsome man with Jethro's strong face, Tim's soft mouth with a hint of a smirk, and eyes of bright blue green stared back at them. 'Well then.'
"Wow," Ziva whispered. "Very…very handsome."
"Yeah. Even with Gibbs as his father, and being straight, I'd date him."
Gibbs walked into the bullpen with Abby trailing behind him. "Never more than once, DiNozzo."
"Aww," Abby cooed, "you and McGee make nice Gibblets, Gibbs."
Tim felt his face get hotter when Gibbs looked at the picture before looking at him, heat, love, lust, and more all in a single look. He quickly took down the picture as Gibbs walked over and his breath hitched when those blue eyes bored into him before his lips half smirked and he handed over a piece of paper. Fingers brushing.
"McGee, pull up that Web site-while you three were playing, Abby found out where our lieutenant was the day she was abducted."
He pulled up the site and it was a site for speed dating.
"Speed dating?"
Abby faced them to explain. "There was an e-mail invitation on her computer. It's a three-day event, and she went missing after the first day."
"Gas station where Farris stole her SUV was two blocks from the hotel hosting it."
"So she wasn't screaming about being singled out by a guy."
"She was talking about this," Ziva stated.
"I've heard of VSO," Tim admitted. "Apparently, they have an 85% success rate."
Ziva turned to look up at him. "For what?"
"For marriages."
Gibbs looked at him. "What about kidnappings, McGee?"
"…I will work on getting a list of clients attending the event."
Abby shook her head. "I tried it—their lawyers says that Virginia's Singled Out is a confidential service, so they keep their client list under lock and key."
"Warrant. On it, Boss." Tony started to head back to his desk to make a call but was stopped by Gibbs.
"Not enough time; it ends tonight."
"I can't tell you who is there, but I can tell you that it's the same guys from Sunday night. You want to know how I know?"
A voice from behind them cut in and they turned around. Tim softly gasped as he saw Damon standing there as he hadn't seen Damon since the last case they had because of a job that came up. "VSO is designed to introduce successful men to a wide assortment of eligible women. Each night brings the promise of romance and a chance of finding your soul mate." Tim knew he wasn't the only one to look at him oddly for knowing that. "My sister tried getting me to go and constantly informed me of the facts." He shrugged before giving a small wave. "Hey guys."
Abby laughed and pulled their attention back to her though Tim couldn't help glancing back at Damon who smiled. "So, the men remain the same, but the women chance every night."
"We're doing this the old-fashioned way," Gibbs informed, throwing Damon a look before talking to Ziva. "So, Ziva, you still think being a geek makes for a good cover?"
Ziva smiled. "Absolutely."
"Good. Head on down to Abby's lab."
"Come on Ziva," Abby smiled while grabbing Ziva's hand and dragging her off to the elevator. "It'll be fun."
Ziva looked back at them before disappearing with Abby still talking a mile a minute.
Tim turned back to Damon who was closer than he had been before and was smiling. He couldn't help that he took a small step back, instinct with having someone so close. "Hey Damon."
"Hello Tim."
A small blush came to him at the way Damon's eyes traveled up and down his body. He tried to distract himself and saw that both Gibbs and Tony were watching them; Tony cheekily smiling and Gibbs' face blank. But not so blank that Tim could see the irritation at Damon being back. Grabbing Damon's elbow, he led him away from the bullpen and to the large windows.
Before he could, Damon spoke. "How are you Tim?"
"I'm doing fine. You?"
He shrugged. "Good. Just got back from our job and thought I'd stop by and say hi."
"Well, we have a case."
"Yeah," he smiled and Tim felt a smile tugging at his own lips, "I saw. Listen, would you like to go out to dinner when you finish the case?"
"Oh." He glanced back to see Gibbs still watching them, his hands fisted by his side.
Damon's hand came up and he gently cupped his face to pull his face back to him, to look at him. "Hey. It's just dinner. Though I really want it to be a date, we can just go as friends."
Nibbling on his lip in thought, he finally nodded his head after a while. "Sure. I'd love to."
A/N: Uh oh! Damon's back!
Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!
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