Big thanks to my incredible beta, VanishingP2000. And I still own none of the NCIS or NUMB3RS stuff.

Chapter 25

David was the first one to wake up the next morning, sprawled across a couch that they had shoved into the NCIS conference room turned FBI war room the night before. They didn't actually have enough room for all seven of them, so they had the couches pressed up against each other, Megan and Larry and Charlie and Amita had theirs facing each other so that they could snuggle up together, while Don's was up against the back of Charlie's and Colby's was up against the wall with David's in front of his, the back of David's couch separating them.

Abby was on her makeshift bed in her lab, insisting that she was running some very complex tests that she needed to attend to, though no one was exactly clear on what they might be, but no one pressed, while Dr. Mallard had simply headed home as he had to attend to his elderly mother and Gibbs' had sent his team, minus Tony, on whom he wanted to keep an eye, home at around 2100. The others had insisted that Colby, with his gunshot wound and still lingering fatigue, sleep on something that at least somewhat resembled a bed, but he had refused to sleep on something nice and comfy while the rest of them slept in incredibly uncomfortable positions at the table.

Then Abby had mentioned that there were a ton of couches in the lounges along the hallway and suggested that they move some of them into the conference room. The conference table had been pushed into the corner to make room for the couches, but it was still nearly impossible to move around the room. Colby had insisted that he take the only couch that was boxed in. He had absolutely refused to budge on the issue, saying that he didn't feel like falling off the couch if he forgot that he was on a tiny couch and not a bed and David, the only other one who was actually in the debate, had finally given in after almost 10 minutes. It had been a given Don would be stuck next to his brother and girlfriend and that David and Colby would be, for lack of a better term, bunking together on the other two separate couches. Colby had quipped that since Charlie was Don's brother he would have to listen to whatever they did all night, be it talking about complex math stuff or other, more, well, interesting activities. This caused Don to whack him lightly on the head, barely suppressing a shudder at the thought of what those 'other, more interesting activities' might be.

David quietly sat up on the couch, being careful not to wake Colby or anyone else. However, when he glanced at his friend behind him, he saw that he was not, in fact sleeping, but reading a case file and sipping at some coffee.

"What-how did you…without waking me… where did you get the coffee?" David asked in an inarticulate whisper and Colby looked up at him and smiled.

"One, David, seriously: spy, it's kind of in the job description to be all sneaky and two, I ran into Agent Gibbs on the way to the john and, long story short, he said he was going for coffee and did I want one, I said yes and then he went for coffee, I went to the john then I talked to Agent DiNozzo till he got back with the coffee ten minutes later and then I came back here," Colby recapped quietly and thoroughly.

"I thought you hated Gibbs. When did you get all buddy buddy with him?"

"I didn't. I just wanted coffee and you didn't show any sign of waking up anytime soon and I knew you'd kill me if I went out without telling you and the coffee in the break room here is nasty. Honestly, I'll be nice to anyone in the morning if it'll get me some good brew," Colby told him shrugging and quietly turning the page of the file.

"Okay. Sure. So how long have you been up, anyway?" David whispered curiously and Colby rolled his eyes slightly.

"Okay, man, seriously, get your ass back here; I can't deal with this whole whisper over the top of the couch like we're ten year old girls at a slumber party thing," Colby said and David quietly hopped over the back of the couch to sit cross legged next to Colby, who promptly sank back down into the couch and swung his legs up over the back of the couch, jackknifing himself in. "And I've been up since around 0600. And for your personal knowledge it's about 0730 now. So about an hour and a half."

"You know, sleeping is probably a good idea, man," David suggested lightly.

"Well, considering the fact that I got about six hours more than you and about ten more than everyone else did last night, and I was asleep well before the rest of you last night. I'm good to go," Colby insisted, keeping his voice low so that he didn't wake anyone else up.

"Oh, well, if you got more sleep than a bunch of sleep deprived feds you must be getting more than enough sleep for someone who was, literally, at the point of collapsing from exhaustion and was shot two days ago. Seriously, Colby?" David hissed at him, sarcastically.

"Look, I've run on a lot less sleep with much worse injuries in the past. And it's kind of hard to sleep with all this crap running through my head, anyway. Some psycho killing us off, one by one. Maybe even someone I knew and trusted," Colby said morosely, taking another sip of his coffee.

"Hey, man, you know that we're not gonna let anyone kill you, right. We've got your back, bud," David assured him, giving his shoulder a squeeze.

"Yeah, I know, man, thanks. It's just that, you know, I trusted her. I played right into her hand. I'm supposed to know better than that. After all these years, people shouldn't be able to pull the wool over my eyes that thoroughly," Colby sunk down lower into the couch and closed his eyes wearily.

"Hey, if it's any consolation she obviously fooled a lot of other spies, seeing as how they put her in charge of all CIA Black Ops operations. Gave her access to files that the president of the United States himself couldn't get access to if he tried," David told him.

"It's not. Bureaucrats can't tell if they're being lied to by a little school girl. But it probably should be some consolation that none of the Black Ops agents never caught on. Unless they did and that's why they were killed!" Colby whispered excitedly, trying to sit up straight and just falling back comically.

"Nice! You might have a point about working best when most of the general population is sleeping," David agreed, laughing quietly at Colby's failed attempts to get out of his jackknifed position.

"Shut up," Colby hissed as he did some kind of weird contortionist sort of jumping motion, which resulted in him having his legs hanging over the end of the couch and his head slamming against David's shoulder. "Sorry 'bout that, David," he said as he pulled his legs down onto the couch and imitated David's Indian style position.

"You know, that was, quite possibly the most ungraceful and just the most generally pathetic thing that I have ever, in my entire life, seen," David said, silently laughing at his friends antics and rubbing his shoulder where Colby's head had connected hard with his bone.

"Thank you so much for your kind and encouraging words of wisdom, Yoda boy," Colby said sarcastically and grumpily.

"Sorry, man, it's just, you know, if you'd have seen it, you'd be laughing, too," David defended himself feebly.

"Uh hunh," Colby said, but the rest of his retort was forestalled by the door banging open loudly, causing David and Colby to jump slightly and everyone else to shoot straight up, Megan and Don with their guns out and slightly raised out of habit. Amanda rushed into the room, looking extremely pissed off.

"You are never going to believe whose prints the latent's came back as," she addressed the entire room- most of who weren't quite awake still, but the actual comment was directed only to her husband.

"Allison Mortensen," Colby said blandly and Amanda whipped her head around to stare at him in shock.

"Okay, what the hell? Did you develop the gift of telepathy since the last time I saw you?"

"Long story, Ams. Basically, she's the reason I got shot the other day. She's the one that set the trap. She was the one I was going to meet, but I just assumed that someone had followed us or something, then we got onto other stuff I just kinda forgot about it until Don reminded me last night after you left. But then the evidence fell into place," Colby explained, taking another swig of his coffee.

"How did you get coffee, Colby?" Don asked drowsily, clearly no where near awake yet.

Colby and David both ignored him and David and turned to Colby. "Well, now that we've confirmed the theory that you and our fearless leader came up with last night from absolutely nothing is correct. Impressive" David smirked as he snagged Colby's coffee out of his hand and took a gulp of the luke warm beverage.

"Hey! I had to brown nose Special Agent Gibbs for that caffeine fix!" Colby protested and David handed the coffee back to him, smirking.

"Coffee?" Don muttered again, still staring around groggily and once again David and Colby ignored him. Charlie and Amita had gone back to sleep as soon as they realized that it was just one of the agent's making a too-loud-for-0800 (0400 in LA)-entrance and were once again snuggled up under the blanket, Charlie's arms wrapped around Amita's shoulders. Larry was the only one who hadn't yet stirred at the commotion, apparently completely unaware of the drama unfolding around him and Megan had flopped back down onto the couch with a groan and now had her head buried in a pillow.