Tony yawned and reached up to rub the sleep out of his eyes as he awoke, a little surprised to find the movement took very little effort. Stretching his neck was simply not going to happen, and his voice was broken – temporarily, he tried to remind himself – but the rest of him was relatively intact.

Tony never really realized how much he relied on wisecracks and film references with varying degrees of appropriateness until he couldn't talk. Even when he'd had laryngitis, when he shouldn't have been talking, he still managed it – then just used his most sheepish expression when shushed. His favorite coping mechanisms had been taken away, and he was stuck with a lot of time to think.

Ziva was still there, and Tony was mildly disappointed to find that she hadn't fallen asleep. While he had been sleeping, someone left a notepad and pencil on the nightstand, just within his reach. Tony figured it was better than nothing, but he was also sorely tempted to find out how Ziva's ninja reflexes would handle a paper ball missile. It wouldn't be half as fun if she were awake, though.

Even though she was awake, Ziva looked a million miles away, and Tony knew something had to be bugging her. They needed to talk, but since that was likely going to involve him teasing and poking at her until she finally gave in and told him what was on her mind, a real conversation would have to wait. In the meantime, Tony would have to settle for his second-best option: the paper ball missile.

Ziva turned as Tony crumpled up the sheet of paper he'd torn off the pad. "You know, that was meant to be used for communication, not reliving your basketball glory days. Besides, the trashcan is at too much of an angle. You would never make the shot."

Perfect. She suspects nothing. Tony grinned at her, then pretended to line up his shot to the trashcan. At the last second, he changed trajectory and threw the paper ball, aiming for the side of Ziva's head.

Ziva turned and caught the ball with lightning speed. "How very mature, Tony." She took a shot for the trashcan as well, but her aim with a weapon was better. The ball stayed on course, but fell short of its goal. Ziva calmly rose from her chair and put the paper in the trash, then resumed her position at Tony's side. It gave Tony a warm, fuzzy feeling that she'd stayed with him, though he'd have done the same for her in a heartbeat, but even if he could speak, he wouldn't have admitted to that. He and Ziva played a game, each move carefully thought out. They harassed each other, flirted shamelessly, and they had each other's backs. But admitting real affection in so many words was expressly against the rules. Actions spoke louder than words.

There had been low points for them, but the good outweighed the bad. They treated each other like crap on occasion, but they always made up eventually and didn't speak of it again. Tony had his sore spots and Ziva had hers, but they tried to avoid those most of the time. The rest of the time...well, they were human.

Somehow, the thought of not being able to speak always reminded Tony of the time he, Ziva, and McGee had spent at a camp in the woods of southern Virginia. It was one of those "togetherness" camps that had become legendary among NCIS agents; everyone supposedly got sent to one eventually. The point of it was supposed to teach teamwork and creative solutions. For agents who already excelled at that, it was three days of saccharine frustration. Tony thought the exercises would have been excellent for some people, assuming those people were twelve year olds.

During one of the exercises, Tony had been accused of having too many ideas, so the leader had muted him with a blindfold around the mouth. The point was supposedly to let other, quieter, agents volunteer solutions. A couple did. The rest of the time, the group looked to Tony despite the gag and he had to attempt to communicate his ideas with gestures.

Tony grabbed the pencil and notepad and wrote, "Remember Camp Happy-Crappy?" It had taken him about four hours to assign the camp a nickname. McGee and Ziva found it fitting, and so it had stuck.

Ziva's laugh came out as more of a snort. "As if I could forget." She cocked her head for a moment, assessing Tony, and then she got it. "And here you are, muted again."

Tony nodded and wrote, "At least there aren't any wolves this time." One of the scenarios had involved the group being pursued by an imaginary pack of wolves and needing to escape. Ziva had suggested they shoot the wolves, which had outraged Agent Castile, an animal lover.

Ziva smiled. "Yes, at least there is that."

Tony was trying to think of something witty to say when there was a knock at the door. He turned and smiled when he saw Abby.

"Tony!" Abby hurried in, setting a laptop down at the foot of the bed, then gave Tony a gentler version of one of her enthusiastic hugs. When she straightened up, she waved at Ziva. "Hey, Ziva."

"Hello." Ziva returned the wave.

Abby looked at the pad of paper that was now on Tony's lap, and her smile widened. "Oh, I've got something even better than that for you." She picked up the laptop, and handed it to Tony. "Text-to-speech software. McGee and I set it all up, so you just have to type and it'll say whatever you want. He wanted to come, too, but he's helping Gibbs with a case."

Tony didn't have to ask which case; knowing Gibbs, he already knew it was about Petrov. He opened the laptop and quickly found the software. Despite professing ignorance when it was convenient, he did know a thing or two about computers. When the text box popped up, he typed in an experimental sentence. There was a brief pause after he clicked "Enter," before a feminine voice said, "Say hello to my little friend." It was stilted, like the computer voices in some YouTube videos Tony had watched, but it worked. Tony was surprised by the voice, however. He typed again, smiling at the computer's awkward diction. "It's a chick?"

Abby laughed. "That's Beth, the default voice."

Ziva poked Tony's shoulder. "And that is what you are going to sound like for the next few days."

"I feel pretty," Beth said at Tony's command.

"Oh, there's others." Abby sat down on the edge of the bed, pointing to the corner of the screen. "McGee downloaded a bunch more. Go where that little microphone is, and you can pick whatever you want. We even put in Darth Vader."

Tony grinned, and immediately searched the drop-down menu for the Vader voice. He typed in, Luke, I am your father, but then paused. Too expected. He erased it, then had it say, "I feel pretty," again. It did, complete with Darth Vader's voice, computer intonation, and pauses for heavy breathing. Tony laughed soundlessly as Abby giggled.

Ziva shook her head, but it didn't hide her smile. "Now that he has a new toy, I suspect it will keep him occupied the rest of the day."

She was pretty much right about that. The next day, however, would be a different story.