Chapter 11

Tim pulled away from Abby's comforting embrace, but she left her hand on the nape of his neck, fingers gently toying with the short hairs there.

Tim looked into her eyes, leaning his forehead against hers. His hand came up to her face, his thumb rubbing gently across her cheekbone just under her eye, "You've been crying." It wasn't a question, she didn't respond they just stood there for a long moment.

McGee dropped his hand immediately and took a small step back as he heard Gibbs call through the open door as he entered, "Get me a location on DiNozzo and David's cell phones."

Abby turned white as a ghost and Tim reached out a hand to steady her, sat her in a chair near the computer and went to work pulling open what he would need to track their phones.

The minutes passed in silence, until Abby finally rose on shaky legs and joined him at the computer. Her hands were shaking, so she didn't offer to help, but hovered close, feeling his reassuring warmth against her arm.

"Sorry, Boss." Tim said, as soon as the words were out of his mouth he waited for the 'sign of weakness' lecture at the slip of his tongue. It never came and he continued, "Their phones must be switched off." he added.

He felt Abby's hand latch onto his forearm and squeeze, "They wouldn't do that." she spoke, her voice wavering as she fell back into the seat she had been in a moment before.

They stayed there in silence staring at the screen blinking 'No Signal' at them.

Suddenly, "MTAC." Abby bounded to her feet, and started for the door speaking quickly. "We can get a shot of that boat dock on the satellite."

McGee took his duffel from Gibbs as they rode the elevator up in silence.

Entering MTAC a moment later he set his bag in an empty chair and moved to an unoccupied console searching for an available satellite while Director Vance watched a military operation in progress on the screen.

McGee turned away from the large picture portraying a familiar scene of capturing a suspected terrorist on a deserted desert road. The satellite followed a suspect car until it rounded a blind corner and was overtaken by several military vehicles. The soldiers in desert camo pulled the two occupants of the car out just as McGee found a satellite that would get them a shot of their coordinates.

Abby had been leaning over McGee's shoulder. Taking a sidelong glance at her he could see she wasn't even watching the screen as he worked, but instead seemed to be taking comfort from the contact as she embraced him from behind.

His heart was pounding as adrenaline coursed through his veins and the blood pounding through his ears nearly drowned out Abby's quiet whisper, "Please not fire and water."

He looked at her strangely, and was about the ask her what she was talking about , when as soon as Vance signaled to end the transmission and the room filled with the soft glow of multiple colored bars on the giant screen, McGee forwarded the coordinates and the satellite info he had isolated to a young man sitting at another console. "I need eyes on those coordinates." he said as he and Abby joined Gibbs to stand in front of the large screen.

Gibbs was filling the director in quickly as they waited for the picture to come up on the screen.

As soon as the distant picture filled the screen, Abby gasped and fell into Tim. His arm immediately went around her shoulders and he held her as he watched the distant picture slowly zoom in.

There, just left of the middle of the screen was a long thick trail of black smoke, billowing up towards the sky.

As the technician zoomed in closer they could start seeing the details and wreckage. A boat had been, nearly literally, blown to bits. All three thought, but no one spoke, on the oddity of the boat still being afloat with so much damage as they noticed that there were boats on either side of the demolished one that had caught fire and were lending their smoke to the growing cloud of black.

Abby was crying into Tim's shoulder and Gibbs stood on the other side of him silently brooding.

A few minutes later, they all stood in the vacant space between Tony and Ziva's desks. McGee pulled the shaken Abby back into his arms and held her. He didn't feel as she reached into his suit jacket pocket and pulled out his phone, fingers on her right hand working quickly.

She pulled away from her friend, turned and pointed the phone at Gibbs, showing him there were still 3 seats available on their flight to Miami. "I'm going."

"Abs." his tone said they were not going to have this conversation. "We need you working the evidence here, finding the piece of the puzzle we're missing."

"I'm going, Gibbs." her voice broke as she pleaded with him. "The evidence here is all ready to go into the machines, you made sure of that earlier. From here it's so easy a monkey could do it. I can have the results emailed to me and we won't miss a thing. The evidence I need to get my hands on is on that boat. Palmer can run the lab while I'm gone. I need to get my hands on that evidence." she finished pointing towards MTAC.

Abby squeezed McGee's arm as she glared hard at Gibbs

Abby stood her ground and Gibbs felt his heart tugging as she gave him a look of strength while her lower lip trembled. Right now he would give anything to already be in Miami, and he knew she felt the same way. Either way, she was the best at what she did and if anyone was going to find evidence in what little was left of that ship it would be her.

He knew he would probably regret it. He may not be good with technology, but with a layman's grasp of the concept (and having just watched Tim do it earlier) he reached into her hand and touched the word 'Confirm' on the screen.

Abby flew into his arms, "You got a Go Bag?" he whispered into her hair, feeling her nod against his chest.

"Meet us at the car in 10 minutes."

Abby raced for the elevator and to her lab, and made it outside in 5 minutes. No one said a single word on the entire drive to the airport, not wanting to put voice to what they all were thinking.

xoxo

* * *Perhaps I could just rest here a moment. Tony thought as his body felt suddenly heavy and his eyes slowly drifted closed.* * *

Tony felt himself slipping out of consciousness as the adrenaline faded, eyes closing briefly before a sharp pain shot across his cheek, forcing his head to the side. The nausea returned with the spinning earth as his eyes snapped open and there was Ziva grabbing him by the front of his shirt her small fist wrinkling tightly clinging to the wet material.

"Did you just slap me?"

"It was necessary."

"Yeah, right," he added sarcastically, voice barely a whisper as he felt her free hand running along his shoulder inside his suit jacket.

She pushed the jacket off one shoulder, "You are being uncooperative."

"Maybe you could buy me dinner first?"

She twisted the fist that was holding him up and his shirt tightened uncomfortably around him, it was a warning, and her tone was threatening. "We need to get you out of these wet clothes."

Tony pulled his right arm out of the suit jacket, but grumbled "I saw this going differently in my mind."

Ziva didn't respond to his innuendo as she switched the hand that was holding him up so she could repeat her motions at his other shoulder, slipping his jacket off and letting the soaking wet, now very heavy garment sink into the water.

Just as she turned him away from her and pulled him flush to her body he realized she had done the same thing. Now clad in just a simple undershirt, he wondered briefly if she had ditched her pants, too. Her arm wrapping around him in a classic Baywatch rescue position. As she started swimming them both towards shore.

"I think I'm OK, now." He stated, his voice not nearly as strong as he had intended it to sound.

Tony wiggled free and began to swim towards the shore, however, his head started spinning again almost immediately.

Ziva let her stubborn partner get three strokes toward shore before she grabbed him again, stopping his movements. "I do not think I can make it that far alone." She lied gesturing towards the shore. "Could we go together?" She hated playing the damsel in distress, but she knew it was a necessary means to an end.

Tony nodded, a fresh wave of adrenaline coursing through his body at the thought that perhaps she was as damaged as he and somehow they had to work together to make it to shore or they'd both find themselves sleeping with the fishes.

Each wrapped an arm around the other, she directed them and they began to swim towards shore in earnest. From where they had jumped, the shore was definitely further then the dock, but Ziva knew going to shore soon their feet would touch ground, where if they moved towards the dock they would soon find they had to haul themselves up on the dock and she didn't think he would make it up there.

Somewhere in his muddled brain it registered that her swimming strokes were strong and even as his free arm seemed to move and flop sporadically, feet kicking with as much energy as he had, but at the same time, without the liquid grace she seemed to posses. Despite her comment of being unable to make it back to shore she was basically dragging him through the water.

Upon reaching the shallows where they could stand and walk out, Tony attempted to stand and his tired legs collapsed from under him. Ziva was there to catch him and keep them upright, and she slowed the pace, leading the other agent from the sea, one halting footstep at a time.

Once he felt the waves lapping at his knees he shook her off and sank into the water, barely registering the sand that somehow instantly made it through several layers of clothes and started to settle into all his sensitive nooks and crannies as he sat. He could no longer stand under his own power and his head was throbbing mercilessly. It was out of his hands.

Breathing heavily, Tony focused on the waves lapping at his belly as he rested. Tony laid his head against his left shoulder and watched the flames die down and black smoke continue upwards. He wasn't sure how long he sat there, but he registered movement behind him.

Tony didn't dare to turn his head for fear he would further pollute the debris filled waters with the contents of his stomach. Before he knew what was happening , Ziva had grabbed him under his arms and was slowly dragging him out of the water.

"It is too cold to just sit here."

Registering that, despite his desire to just sit and not move, she was actually making sense and he could feel that his teeth were chattering even if he could no longer actually feel the cold. According to the weather channel in their hotel room that morning the temperature was going to be nearly 70 degree, but the water had only warmed up to a teeth chattering 53 degrees. He had been bummed upon hearing that, thinking it would have been nice to go to the beach before they left, get in a swim.

Suddenly he laughed. They had managed the swim, after all.

"This is not funny, you will get hypothermia."

If not already, the chilly water would start to have an effect on him. More importantly, this stop and go dragging motion was causing copious amounts of sand to be lodged in his clothes, raking across his skin, so he forced his feet under himself and, draping an arm around her shoulders, began trudging the final steps to shore.

Despite his exhaustion, he continued about 50 feet past the waters edge to where the sand ended and grass began before he sat. He had enough sand all over him without adding more.

People had begun to gather near the burning ship and close enough to see them pulling their tired bodies out of the water, but no one seemed inclined to come and lend a hand. If he hadn't been spinning in his own head he would have admonished them for such uncivil behavior, but not now. He lay back on the coarse grass and let his eyes slip closed, feeling her drop to her knees beside him breathing heavily.

"Someone call..." Ziva began to yell over her shoulder before her voice trailed off as the faint hint of sirens wailing in the distance indicated that someone had already called 911. "Tony, open your eyes."

"Are you going to slap me again, Hoff?"

"Perhaps." she replied, a playful lilt to her voice, as if finally realizing they had not been killed and allowing herself to relax. "What is a Hoff?"

"You know. Baywatch? David Hasselhoff?"

"The singer, no?"

"No." he opened one eye, suddenly very serious as he took in her face. He couldn't tell if she was asking him that question seriously or if she was messing with him. "Well, perhaps in Europe, but not here in America where good music is appreciated and Hoff music just doesn't fly."

He closed his eye again as the sirens grew louder.

When the emergency vehicles pulled up near the boat he rolled to his side, using his arms to support himself a moment while his head calmed. No more putting it off, Tony pulled himself to a sitting position, the world swimming more intensely around him.

As he sat a moment, his head started to calm itself, but in anticipation of a head-slap he groaned. Gibbs was not going to be happy that they had let every scrap of evidence in that boat get blown to tiny bits.

They just couldn't catch a break on this one.

xoxo

A/N: Thanks for reading, here is the second update I promised this weekend and may get another out before the end of Sunday.

I am very excited to have broke 25,000 words last chapter. Considering I haven't written more then 10,000 words combined in the last 6 years, this has been an amazing roller-coaster couple of weeks and I am having the time of my life here. I hope you're all enjoying it as much as I am. Thanks!