Still don't own them and if I tell you that this chapter contains small spoilers for 'Leap of Faith' you will probably guess who the next arrival is.

Gibbs sat quietly for a few moments after Pam had left. Then his cell vibrated indicating that another text message had come in. Sighing, he took it out of his pocket and squinted at the screen. In the scramble to get Tony to hospital the day before, grabbing his readers hadn't been one of his priorities but now it meant that he couldn't read the text messages. He thought he'd ask McGee if it was possible to get large print versions of texts on his what his team called his "dumb phone". He guessed that if it was urgent the texter would phone and he thought the messages probably came from Ziva, Tim and Abby wanting updates on their co-worker.

He continued to squint and hold the cell as far away as possible in an effort to decipher the message when he heard a squirting sound and looked up to see Nikki Jardine from the NCIS diligently cleaning her hands using the gel dispenser on the wall outside Tony's room. A plastic sack stood at her feet. He almost asked her what she was doing there but he thought he probably knew the answer.

"Agent Gibbs, er ... good morning sir, I mean, Agent Gibbs."

"Come in, Jardine. What you got there?", pointing at the bag,

"These were on Tony's desk this morning ... get well cards and messages. Abby put them into a bag and asked me to bring them down because she's tied up in the lab all morning." As she spoke, Nikki tipped the bag upside-down over the locker, carefully avoiding touching anything, so that the cards tumbled out in a heap.

"That's good of you, Jardine. How did Abby persuade you to come here? Thought a hospital with all these sick people and germs around would be the last place you'd want to be."

"Agent Gibbs, hospitals are about the only places I know where people are encouraged to use hand sanitiser and it's available for nothing! What's not to like?"

Gibbs directed one of his milder stares at her, knowing that it would be enough in her case. Sure enough, Nikki caved quite quickly.

"I wanted to come, Agent Gibbs. I couldn't quite believe the story everyone's telling about the bees?" Gibbs sighed, and told the well-rehearsed story once more.

"So it is true. I guess you can't rule anything out with Tony. Considering he's so accident prone it's amazing we got back from Iraq with nothing more than a sunburned nose."

"Not sure that was down to you, Jardine, from what you and DiNozzo wrote in your reports after that."

"You meant, what I wrote in my report and what Tony left out. How I jumped out of the jeep without thinking and put everyone in danger? And that Tony stopped me when I tried to do it again? I don't quite understand why Tony didn't put it in his report."

"You were his responsibility while you were in Iraq so it was his job to look after you. I figure he felt that carried on when you came back," Gibbs explained, "he dealt with the issue out there, no need to rehash it when you came back."

"He did a good job," said Nikki, "when I found out that Tony was going with me I thought he'd be easy to fool so I could get on with meeting up with the family that saved Eric."

Gibbs responded with a bark of laughter and waved to Nikki to carry on.

"I soon discovered I was wrong. He was on my case from the beginning, wanting to know what my real motive was for going and he kept me safe. And ..."

"And ...?" prodded Gibbs when she hesitated.

"And it turned out that he was a fun guy to be around and that we had similar senses of humor. I was surprised in lots of ways on that trip. Agent Gibbs, I don't want to speak out of turn or be disrespectful, but part of the reason I didn't expect Tony to be so good at his job was the way that Agents McGee and David sometimes treat him at work. I mean, I know they're both really good at their jobs but they do seem rather, well, reluctant to take him seriously." Nikki blurted out the last few words and then looked a bit shocked at her own outspokenness. Gibbs smiled to think that Tony had yet another unexpected champion.

"Nikki, team er ... dynamics can be difficult to understand from the outside. They're a bit like a marriage, you can't really tell what's going on in the relationship if you're not living it." He stopped, not sure that he'd explained it properly and reflecting that, after three divorces, he might not be the best person to use marriage as a metaphor ... or was it simile? He tried again, "Nikki, I think when you dig deep down, under all the jokes and banter, you'll find that Ziva and McGee do respect Tony." He hoped it was true.

"OK ... and I know that Tony doesn't always make it easy. He does like playing tricks on them. He's even got me involved sometimes."

And that was a surprise, reflected Gibbs remembering McGee telling him that, during a particular lively prank war, Tony had enlisted Nikki to pretend to Ziva that she had seen Tony putting something under her car. Not many people would have thought to recruit Nikki to play a joke, her germophobia tended to be the thing people saw in Nikki; trust Tony to spot something deeper.

"I brought this for Tony," Nikki produced a CD, "it's a digitally re-mastered copy of an early Frank Sinatra album. I think he'll like it. I swear that if, when, Eric wakes up he'll be an expert on Alfred Hitchcock films and addicted to Frank Sinatra and it'll be all Tony's fault."

Gibbs knew that Nikki's brother was still in a coma as a result of being wounded in Iraq but he didn't quite see how Tony fitted in. He looked questioningly at Nikki.

"I told Tony about Eric being in hospital. He said he knew that lonely it could be visiting people in hospital so he volunteered to come with me sometimes. He thought it might be good for Eric to be involved in a three way conversation rather than just have one voice to listen to. One time that I was away at a conference he went instead of me. The nurses told me that he took this Alfred Hitchcock film with him, played it to Eric and gave him a running commentary!"

"And the Sinatra?"

"He was horrified when he found out that neither of us had ever really listened to Sinatra so he decided to 'educate' us. So, like I say, when Eric wakes up the first words he says will probably be a line from a movie." Gibbs could see that she thought it would be a small price to pay.

Nikki found a space for the CD on the crowded locker top and then, to Gibbs's surprise, blew Tony a kiss.

"Wake up soon, Tony. Oh, and Agent Gibbs, I've been doing some research. Touching human hair is very unhygienic – for your own health you should cut back on those head slaps." And she went, leaving Gibbs to wonder if he had just been subtly threatened and also to wonder what Tony would think if he was told that his scrupulously maintained hair was a breeding place for bacterial

TBC