Federal Express

by Swellison

Gibbs sat behind his desk, watching as McGee logged off his PC and stepped away from his own desk. It was barely two minutes past five Friday evening and already the entire floor was deserted, the place as lifeless as a morgue.

"Night, boss," McGee said in passing. "Have a nice weekend."

"You, too."

"Oh, we will," a new voice said enthusiastically and Abby Sciuto walked briskly down the aisle in her stacked heels. Her slinky black t-shirt with a pink rhinestone-outlined skull and crossbones on it matched the exposed pink-lined pleats of her leather mini-skirt as she approached. She wrapped a hand around McGee's arm. "We're gonna see my friend's band, Brainz Afire, play at the Black Door Club. It's a great group! They play heavy metal-techno-punk—you'd love it, Gibbs. Why don't you join us? There are plenty of tickets still available."

She paused to take a breath and Gibbs answered. "Sorry, Abs, I'm busy tonight. But I'm sure you two will enjoy yourselves."

"One of these days, I'm going to succeed in dragging you to a concert, Gibbs," Abby mock-threatened, and then grinned, dark pigtails bouncing. "And you'll even have fun, wait and see." She turned her attention to the younger agent, tsking. "You can't go looking like that, Timmy. C'mon, let's go." They headed for the elevator to the parking garage. "I've got something in the hearse that'll suit you just fine."

"I thought I was driving," Gibbs heard McGee's protest as the couple walked away.

He waited until he heard the elevator doors close, and then rummaged around his desktop. Not finding what he was looking for, he frowned and then opened the middle desk drawer. Spotting an unmarked manila file folder, he pulled it out, nodding his approval. The first thing he noticed inside the file was a pair of mug shots, close-ups with the identifying placard removed. He scanned the paper underneath and learned that the pictures were from the Green River County Detention Center in Arkansas. He raised his eyes, took in the date—less than a fortnight ago—and then thoughtfully perused the rest of the copied file.

SN-NCIS-SN-NCIS-SN-NCIS

"Pull over here." Dean indicated the empty space along the street, and Sam obligingly slid into the curbside parking space.

Sam put the Impala in park and turned to face Dean. "I still don't see why I can't come with you."

"Sammy." Dean sighed. "Look, Dad trusts Gibbs and I'm pretty sure I do, too. But, we need a Plan B if I'm wrong. I need someone dumb and crazy enough to snatch me back from under the Fed's nose—and that's you, little brother."

"You're pretty sure you trust Gibbs?" Sam echoed, skeptically.

"Really pretty sure. Now, circle around the block and then go park in that lot on Jermantown, like we talked about. It's across the street from the taco place, so you should be able to keep an eye on things." Dean opened the passenger door and stepped out. He started walking down the sidewalk, relaxing when he heard the rumble of the Impala as Sam pulled back into the street and drove past him.

Dean walked briskly down Rust Road, the closest residential street to Tippy's Taco House, about three blocks removed from the intersection with Lee Highway. He stepped up to the busy intersection and pushed the button to trigger the pedestrian walk sign. After several seconds the light changed, and he crossed the street, and then turned into the strip center parking lot in front of the Taco House.

Dean entered the restaurant and quickly surveyed the interior. The dining area was one large seat-yourself room, with an ordering bar along the far wall. The place was about a quarter full, and even as he surveyed the room, two couples entered behind him. His eyes flicked to the table with the best view of the entrance. It was occupied by a middle-aged man wearing a long-sleeved USMC tee-shirt. Gibbs, he was certain.

Walking toward the table, Dean halted by the empty chair opposite Gibbs. He glanced at the mosaic table top, noting the Washington Post newspaper, a stylized cactus-shaped order holder spouting a card with the number 17, and two rolled-up napkins with silverware placed on top of it. His eyes swung up to Gibbs' face.

"So, you made it. Go and order before the lunch crowd gets here." Gibbs motioned behind him.

Dean found himself responding to Gibbs' tone, the familiar tone of a man in charge. Nodding, he walked over to the ordering counter. A lady with two kids was in front of him, giving him plenty of time to study the menu. Dean ordered a combination dinner for himself and a Senora dinner for Sam—he just couldn't resist the name, besides it was food that Sam would eat: a burrito and two chicken enchiladas, rice and beans. He made the order to go, collected his change and a number, and then returned to Gibbs' table.

While he was gone, Gibbs' food had arrived and the older man had changed seats, leaving the one with the bird's eye view of the room and the door for Dean. Dean slipped his number 24 in the cactus order holder and sat down. In addition to Gibbs' chimichanga, a bowl of tortilla chips and a smaller bowl of hot sauce now graced the table. Sam would've been worried about leaving DNA traces, Dean thought as he reached for a tortilla chip. But Dean figured as long as he ate the top chips and didn't double-dip, he'd be eating all the evidence.

"Nice to meet you in person, Dean."

Dean hastily swallowed a mouthful of chips and snatched his hand back from the chip bowl, startled by the similarity to Henriksen's comment to him in Arkansas.

"Your dad mentioned you a few times, over the years," Gibbs said. "Said he was proud of you."

"He did?" And damn it all if Dean didn't sound like Sam had, when Jerry Panowski had told him Dad was proud of him, way back when they were investigating that airplane crash. Dean got himself back under control. "He mentioned you, too. Said you were the only Fed he ever hunted with."

A wry grin crossed Gibbs' face. "It wasn't by choice."

Dean really didn't want to go any further down memory lane. "So," he checked the surrounding tables, but no one seemed to be overly concerned with them, "did you get the file?"

Gibbs nodded, while chewing a bite of his chimichanga. "You a baseball fan?" he asked after swallowing.

Dean was familiar with all sports, as sports talk was a staple of bar room conversation. "Local team's the Washington Senators, right? I'm more interested in the Redskins, myself."

"The Senators won a close game last night. There's a good write-up in the paper. I've already read it, so you can take it with you."

"Thanks, I will."

A waiter approached their table, asking "Number 24?"

Dean nodded and the guy placed a white plastic bag on the tabletop and left.

A little awkwardly, Dean opened his mouth to explain to Gibbs.

"It's okay, son. I figured you'd get take-out. I know you've got other places to be."

"Thanks, sir. I really appreciate this—it'll help a lot."

"Let me know if you need anything else."

Dean nodded and rose to his feet. He tucked the newspaper under his arm and picked up the bag of food. "Bye, sir."

"Say 'hi' to your brother for me, and take care of yourselves, kid."

Eyes wide, Dean nodded numbly, thinking, Damn he really is a lot like Dad—nothing gets past him. Then he straightened, strode down the aisle and walked out of Tippy's Taco House. Once he hit the street, he cut through the parking lot and left, down Jermantown Road. After a minute or so, Dean heard a familiar rumbling, and Sam pulled in behind him.

Dean hopped in the passenger side and slammed the door, setting the bag of food on the floor.

"How'd it go?" Sam asked anxiously.

"No problems," Dean assured him. "I got it." He unfolded the newspaper and picked out the sports section.

"Where to now?"

"Well, we've gone about as far east as we can," Dean said as he slid a legal-sized manila envelope out between the pages of the sports section. He undid the flap and took out a stack of copied pages. The top page was a Xerox of their mug shots.

"Guess Henriksen didn't like my 'blue steel' pose, either," Dean grumbled lightly. He glanced at some older shots of them from the bank in Milwaukee and then read Henriksen's notes. He bristled at their description as Satan-worshipping nutbag killers, deciding not to read that portion of the file out loud to Sam. He glanced at his brother. "You're driving, where do you want to go?"

"West," Sam said as he pulled back onto the road. "I surfed the net while I was waiting for you and I saw something that might be our thing."

"Something?" Dean prodded.

"A twenty year-old girl disappeared a couple of days ago, from her hometown in Joliet, Illinois. College kid, solid B-plus student, definitely not a runaway. I did some checking, and this isn't the first unexpected disappearance there. Over the past fifteen years, seven people, mostly young women, have gone missing in Joliet."

"If most of the victims are girls, it's not likely to be a woman in white."

"There are lots of other supernatural possibilities. It could be a ghoul or a ghost. The disappearances are widespread—not specific to any one road or area. It could even be the work of a djinn."

"A djinn? Trust you to go for the exotic," Dean teased. "Okay, lunch first, and then we head for Illinois."

The End

A/N Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this meeting of the two fandoms. Comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated. I am a mondo Supernatural fan, so I hope it doesn't feel like the NCIS team got short shrift, due to crossover tilt. Tippy's Taco House is a real restaurant, although when I lived in the DC area, the only one I knew about was in Silver Springs, MD. Awesome Tex-Mex.