You guys know what to do. Read. Review, if motivated. Reassure my sad little self that it is not boring (assuming true). Hopefully - enjoy!


The vending guy's missing assistant was named Larry Adams. He was a masters student at Georgetown in applied mathematics. Clean record. His mother was extremely worried. As were his grandmother, his four older sisters, various female aunts and cousins, and his research partner, Lucy.

After speaking with a dozen Adams women, Tony could envision Larry running away from home. But kidnapping Gibbs… That didn't feel right. No motive.

It could be a coincidence. The kid could have disappeared due to some circumstances unrelated to Gibbs' disappearance. DiNozzo believed in the occasional coincidence.

Well, he used to.

Tony's cell rang. Afraid to lose more time to acquaintances fishing for dirt on Gibbs' disappearance, well-wishers offering help (but who could not at this time be of any help) or any additional Adams' women, Tony had started screening his calls. His heartbeat hitched when he saw Prifey's name on the readout. "Tell me you've got something."

"Uniforms canvassing the area around the upturned car found a lady who heard the crash and peered out her curtains. Couldn't see much, said there were maybe three or four dark haired young guys who came back and picked up the unconscious driver."

"No chance of an ID?"

"No, she didn't see faces."

Damn.

"But she did hear voices."

"What've you got?" Ziva and McGee picked up on the excitement in his voice, and both stopped what they were doing, watching Tony's face and hoping for good news.

"Well, don't know what they were talking about, 'cause they weren't speaking English."

"Arabic? Persian? Russian?"

"French, seems like. Never did like fancy French food."

"French?" Tony readjusted his line of thinking. "Okay, French. So she saw a handful of young, dark-haired guys speaking in French."

"Yep. That's all we got."

"That's more than I hoped for. Thank you, Andy."

"Good luck, kid. Call me if you need me."

"Actually, since you offered…" Tony plastered on a winning smile, never mind that Prifey wasn't here in person. Surely his charm translated over cellular waves.

He took the rough rumble of laughter on the other side as assent to continue. "I need a missing persons file on Larry Adams. Can you send it over?"

"Will do." Prifey hung up.

Tony speculated for a moment on just how few people he knew who were incapable of saying hello or goodbye.

"French does not mean France, necessarily," Ziva offered. "We could still be looking at Canadians…or Africans."

"McGee, call Abby. Tell her to expand the search on the prints she found from both the cars to include Interpol matches."

As McGee moved to follow Tony's instructions, Ziva and Tony caught each other's gaze, both thinking the same thing.

How did a pack of French thugs driving stolen cars to northern Maryland, Larry the missing vending guy, purple satin envelopes and Gibbs tie together?


Gibbs was slowly coming to realize that some of the rocking in his head was not in time to the rocking of the chair. If he screwed his face up he could feel dried blood crackle off the right side of his face, and see the dark red flakes, like dandruff from hell, scatter across his black shirt.

Head wound.

It must have been from the car wreck. Though…he couldn't quite recall the wreck itself. He recalled looking back, thinking someone might be tailing him. Then realizing they really were tailing him, and that there were two cars, not one. He tried to evade, but another one came at him from head on and –

Well, things get fuzzy after a head wound. Hopefully that was the only repercussion. He felt more or less clear-headed.

Unless pity was the result of head trauma. Because he sure as hell pitied this poor creature in front of him.

She looked at the empty coffee pot and back down towards the floor. Back at the coffee pot and then to his arm. Her mouth turned down into a pretty frown. She used the side of the empty pot to lightly tap the side of his leg.

Seeing no reason not to comply, he moved his leg as far to the side as he could, given the restraints.

"Oh that is just so sad," she said softly, plunking the coffee pot down on the floor. "This beautiful tapestry seat – ruined. I just ruined it." Her right hand came up to her mouth, and her left traced just above the coffee stains on the rocking chair's seat.

"Family heirloom?" Gibbs asked.

"No. Not mine at least. But oh, it does look old. It must be someone's piece of history." Her hand made contact with the fabric, which she stroked slowly.

Interesting. Not her house, then. Not her stuff.

He continued to ignore the pounding of his head and the burning sensation eating through several patches of skin.

One big fat tear plopped down from Siri's face and landed on Gibbs' raw skin.

Damn. Hopefully she wouldn't think to pour salt water over him on her next go-round.

She stood up daintily and dried her face on the apron, then scooped up the coffee pot and filled it with water.

Oh, good. Free refills.


Palmer was on a refill round.

He may be an ME, but he liked to think of himself as having regular rounds during the day, checking in with his people. When he arrived in the morning, he took the same route past the security desk, to the coffee cart, a detour through human resources, then down to the morgue. When he took breaks throughout the day, he ducked into Abby's lab or the work spaces of the other forensic and lab techs down in the basement. When he left for the day, he walked by the mail room then out through the evidence garage.

But that was a normal day.

He would never say any of this out loud. It would sound totally nerdy. But internally, he thought of days like today as emergency rounds.

He didn't really have any ME-related work to do. There were no bodies. So he got refills. He made Dr. Mallard tea, got Abby Caf-Pows, and got the field team coffee.

A few hours ago he ordered bagel sandwiches. He left a sack full in the squad room with bottles of juice, brought the Doctor a turkey and swiss, cut in quarters and nicely presented on a china plate he kept for just such an occasion (Ducky ate better when food was presented well) and took two sandwiches to Abby in the evidence garage, staying and pestering her until she ate one.

He swept through the squad room now, as he did every two hours, tossing wrappers and empty cups, leaving refills, bottles of water and energy bars in clear sight. Rarely did anyone acknowledge his presence. This time through no one did.

Jimmy didn't mind.

McGee's face was nearly plastered to his computer screen; he was entirely geeked out, and wouldn't have noticed if Gibbs himself walked off the elevator. Ziva was matching something from paper to the computer screen, holding papers up near the monitor and using her finger to trace some factoid back and forth. He could tell she had a raging headache by the way she kept scrunching her eyes shut, and he left two ibuprofen on the corner of her desk. Tony, momentarily between phone calls, had dropped his head into his hands and sat motionless.

Palmer knew he was just thinking, letting his mind sort through data.

He moved on silently, arms full of trash.

As he approached the garbage can near the elevator, the doors dinged and he found himself looking hopefully up, as though Gibbs might appear.

Vance came through the doors. He looked rested and vaguely irritated, as usual. He must have gone home to get some sleep at some point last night.

Jimmy smiled and nodded at the director, dumped his trash in the bin, and moved towards the back elevator, intending to go down and spend a few minutes with Abby. Unlike the others, Abby needed regular conversation to keep herself alert and awake. And in a pinch, he would suffice.

"Palmer."

The director had followed him into the hallway that led to the smaller elevator.

Gulp.

"Director? How may I assist you today?"

Argh, stupid stupid stupid. Who says stuff like that?

"You are a well-paid member of our scientific staff. You do not have to gopher for this team."

"Oh, it's fine director. They aren't demanding that I do anything. I'm just trying to help out."

"You've got more years of education behind you than even McGee. Surely there must be something more academic you could be doing."

Jimmy shrugged nervously, and felt that nasty old uncomfortable doofy grin plaster itself across his face.

Vance's eyes narrowed. "I'll tell DiNozzo to knock it off. They can get their own damn snacks." He started to turn.

"No!" How could he explain? What he did was important too, even if not everyone understood.

"Are you afraid you'll get kicked out of the cool kids' club if you don't fetch and carry for them? Seems to me they barely tolerate you anyway."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Jimmy snapped back.

Oops.

Crap.

"Um, I mean just because they seem a little harsh at times doesn't mean…what it seems to mean…"

Vance frowned down at him and gave him The Raised Eyebrow of Inquiry. So named by Tony, of course.

Jimmy tried again, attempting not to stutter. "I watched the team my first year here. I did my job as Dr. Mallard's assistant. But I didn't really get a chance to help them – not beyond the scope of my duties. And at the time, I wasn't even all that good at my own job yet. And I was terrified of Gibbs, really really terrified. So I stuck by Dr. Mallard's side, like a kid.

"When Gibbs left for Mexico, Agent DiNozzo drew me into the group a little more, and I was really happy to be included, even if I didn't usually have much to offer. Tony told me not to worry, that family was family and eventually I'd find my own way to feel helpful. I thought maybe when I finished medical school that I would go on to get a psychology degree and help with profiling when there were no bodies, like Dr. Mallard, or that I'd help stitch the team up when they were injured. But, I noticed something…

"The thing is – they don't pay attention to themselves very well. They pay attention to the case, to the suspects, sometimes to each other. But there were cases where none of them would sleep for days. They wouldn't eat, or hydrate. I don't even think they took bathroom breaks. They're hardy people. Determined federal investigators. They survived those cases, and caught their bad guys. But afterwards…sometimes they just collapsed. Slept for a day straight. Got sick. Certainly they were nasty-tempered, especially to each other."

Vance was just staring at him. Probably in shock that anyone had the audacity to spew out this much verbal diarrhea. But he couldn't shut his mouth up!

"So Tony asked me once to be in charge of supplies, and I just sorta saw where I could help. I can make sure they eat. I can save them time by bringing them their caffeine, so they don't have to go get it. I can make sure Dr. Mallard is as comfortable as he can be, and I can monitor Abby and talk to her, because she's all by herself downstairs during the worst of cases, and she needs human interaction more than any of the others. If anyone seems too close to breaking, I tell Tony, and he'll step in and take care of it."

Vance looked disgusted.

"Don't you understand? Tony – Agent DiNozzo – trusts me to take care of his people while they're working. He trusts me."

Palmer could have gone on. He could have mentioned that Tony bounced ideas off of him, used him to work out plans before he brought them to the team sometimes. That Tony said part of his success in handling the team when Gibbs was in Mexico was directly due to the fact that he knew Palmer would intervene if any of them pushed too hard, for too long, so didn't have to worry about it. And it was a huge worry off of his mind, freeing it up for more useful pursuits.

That he, Jimmy Palmer, would intervene with the gun-wielding action stars that were this field team.

And know what? He would. He had. And he would again if warranted.

Jimmy Palmer jerked his chin up proudly and actually looked the director of NCIS in the eye before turning around and marching to the elevator to continue his rounds.

Thankfully the elevator doors closed before his knees started knocking together.


Siri had half-heartedly poured some more coffee over Gibbs. She finally realized that she wasn't getting the reaction she expected.

She took the pot back to the sink, where he expected to see her dump it out. Instead, she peered at it, pushed up her left sleeve, and poured some over her own arm as if testing the temperature of baby formula.

She screamed and dropped the pot, turned on the cold water and thrust her arm under the flow.

Screamed again when the force of the cold water hit it, and then started sobbing.

Through her tears she looked over at Gibbs as though he had hurt her. As though he had forced her to hurt herself.

Usually he funneled the crazy female suspects to Tony these days.

Siri shut the water off and slid open the drawer next to the sink. "I just want to know where my fiancée is!" She wailed.

Still crying, she approached him with a cheese grater in her hand.

A really big, shiny, solid-looking cheese grater.