Gibbs shut the trunk on the convertible, bending to retrieve both his bags and Tony's. "No, DiNozzo." He waved a finger in Tony's direction as the younger man stooped down. "You are not carrying anything. Doctor's orders."

"I'm fine, boss."

Shuffling bags, Gibbs balanced the load of luggage. "You've got stitches in your damn artery, Tony."

Tony gingerly fingered the square of tape and gauze. "Right."

Ducky gave a passing pat to his back and Abby handed him a bag of pralines. "You can carry this. Don't eat 'em," she warned. "They're for McGee."

"Gee, thanks, Abby." He waited for a straggling Kate. "I just don't get the whole McGee appeal."

"Love is blind."

"With McGee, it better be," grinned Tony. As they ambled toward the terminal, he frowned at the tight-lipped expression on Kate's face. "What is it with you lately?"

When she stopped, abruptly, it took a few steps before Tony realized he'd passed her. He turned back, raising his hands, one of them still dangling Abby's pralines, in a kind of what-the-hell-is-up expression.

"All right," confessed Kate, "I need to tell you something."

"So," shrugged Tony, "tell me and get it out of your system. You're turning into Gibbs on one of his bad days."

"I lost you." The words came out fast, as if she had to get them all out at once or lose the opportunity. "At the ball. I got distracted and I lost track of you. Ducky still had you on the wire, at least for a while, and Abby managed to track you down but she ran into Goethe and ..."

"So?"

"That Sergei got as far as he did is my fault."

"Well," Tony pointed out, "you put ten nine-mil slugs in the bastard. I'd say he got what he deserved." When this didn't get a reply he continued. "What distracted you?"

Kate blushed. "A ... man."

"Ah." Tony grinned. "So the professional Agent Todd succumbed to the charms of the opposite sex and got 'distracted'."

"Yeah," said Kate tightly, moving again towards their destination.

"And this is disturbing because you've always thought you were better than me."

Kate stiffened. "It's not a question of 'better', DiNozzo."

"More professional, then," substituted Tony.

"All right." Kate halted again. "Yes. I've always thought I was beyond that sort of thing."

"I, uh, thought so."

Kate peered at him, surprised by the quiet tone.

"I don't know what to tell you, Kate. I've lived with being a screw-up all my life. Actually, most of the time I'm surprised that stuff comes out right."

"You're not a screw-up, Tony."

Tony's free hand combed through his hair. "I'll debate that, but here's not the place to be listing examples. Just trust me on this one."

"I didn't used to make these kinds of mistakes, but then I got too close to Major Kerry," Kate shook her head. "I got way too close to Suzane."

"And now you got too close to some – what -- Goth vampire-wannabe?"

"You could have died, Tony."

"I didn't." Tony held out his arms and turned a full three-sixty on the asphalt. "I'm still here. So, you're human. Hate to tell you this Kate, but the club of screw-ups is pretty big -- just me and all the rest of the population. So you're just like the rest of us? Suck it up. You'll live."

"Yeah," Kate agreed glumly. "I suppose I will."

"So, just out of curiousity, what was this distracting guy like?"

"I don't know. Tall. Black cloak. Kind of an odd accent. Had this weird armored jewelry on his finger. Kind of like the one Sergei had, but more like a claw topped with some kind of red stone."

"Dragon's claw," murmured Tony.

"What?"

"The other night, the guy with the furniture-fetish who said he knew me in another life ... He had this weird, armored claw-thing on his index finger. There's only so long I can talk about scrolled toes on chairs, so I asked him about it. Even tried it on. He called it a dragon's claw."

"The psychic vampire?"

Tony self-consciously cupped a palm to the wound at his neck. "If you believe Abby."

"No," said Kate, shaking her head. "There may be a few weirdos out there getting off on sucking down erythrocytes, but I draw the line at believing some guy is sucking at my aura. Not," she considered, "that I believe I have an aura."

They started walking again, Kate frowning in thought. "He knew about your mom's furniture?"

"No," corrected Tony, "he said he'd 'visited' me in another incarnation and there was a canopy bed."

"And then he wanted to talk about Madame Pompadour's dining chairs?"

"Kate, I really don't want to relive the whole furniture thing again."

"Right," agreed Kate. She slipped through the terminal door Tony held open and almost ran headlong into a waiting Gibbs.

"About time."

"We had a few things to ... talk out," explained Kate.

"Figured." Gibbs gathered the bags from the floor.

"Uh, wait," said Kate, dropping the ones she carried to the tile, for once ignoring Gibbs' impatient glare. 'I need to ..." her fingers deftly skimmed the length of the gold chain around her neck, fixing on the clasp. The plain gold cross glinted beneath the bright artificial lighting. "I haven't had it off since I graduated." She transferred it to Tony's neck, tucking it under his shirt. "But, somehow, I think you need it more."

She expected Tony to laugh, but instead, he settled the small crucifix comfortably against his skin. "Thanks, Kate."

Gibbs knocked one of the bags noisily against a nearby pillar, "Can we go now?"

"Yeah," said Kate, "we're good."

"DiNozzo?"

"I'm ready, boss. What are we standing around for?"

Gibbs sighed dramatically, "DiNozzo..."

"Yes, boss?"

"Get your butt in the plane."

oOooOooOooOooOooOooOo

Sleeping on planes was something of a specialty with Gibbs. He'd learned to nap wherever he could, whenever he could, and the tension that often haunted him at night oddly didn't seem to keep him from dropping off during a flight. Still, he was a light sleeper. Some part of him always on guard duty.

And something had woken him now.

He rolled his head to release the stiffness in his neck and took in the plush interior of the Lear that Morrow had borrowed from departments unknown. Nothing felt off. The vibrations from the engines were steady. The interior of the plane was filled only with the echo of their sleeping breaths. Still, he felt compelled to make a quick headcheck.

Kate was bedded down in the seat directly across from him, deep in quiet sleep. Across the aisle, Ducky was likewise oblivious: head tipped back, snoring softly. Abby was curled like a sleeping black cat on the two conjoined seats that stretched against the bulkhead behind the cabin door.

DiNozzo just looked -- uncomfortable, his long legs were stretched out across the space that separated him and Ducky, but his hands were fisted, even in sleep. As Gibbs watched him, he stiffened against the leather seat as if he was trying to back away from whatever vision was playing out for his closed eyes.

Unbuckling the seatbelt, Gibbs got up.

"Yo, DiNozzo." He shook a lax arm. "Tony."

The action had more effect on Ducky, who snorted and mumbled something about liver probes before falling back into his slumbers, than it did on the object of the ministrations.

"Tony," Gibbs said, more urgently this time.

Blue eyes sprang open and Gibbs had to quickly clasp the hand that Tony automatically reached for his weapon. "Not a good idea on a plane," said Gibbs, shaking his head.

"Oh. Whoa." Tony disentangled himself from Gibbs' grip. "Sorry." He pulled back, his hands worrying each other. "Bad dream. Bad, bad dream."

"Vampires?" Gibbs tried to add a touch of humor to it but Tony winced anyway.

"Nah." Tony quickly banished the pained expression, replacing it with what turned out to be a pitifully fake smile. "Nothing to worry about, boss."

"Come here." Gibbs motioned him over to the other small sofa in the back of the cabin. "Sit down." When Tony didn't sit, he repeated the order.

"The mind can conjure up our best fantasies and our worst nightmares."

DiNozzo threw an envious look in the direction of Kate. "Kate's doesn't."

"Well, mine does," said Gibbs. He looked at Tony squarely. "Mainly, at the moment, they're all Ari. His victim is in a body bag on one of the autopsy tables. I reach to unzip it. Sometimes the body I find is Kate's. Sometimes it's Abby's. And sometimes it's yours, DiNozzo."

Tony peered up at him, surprised by the personal disclosure. "What do you do?"

"In the dream?" The muscles along Gibbs' jaw tightened and released. "In the dream I don't do anything. Haven't done anything. That's the problem."

"You wouldn't let us be hurt," stated Tony.

"Like I didn't let Gerald be hurt?"

Tony blinked at the self-contempt poorly hidden in Gibbs' voice. "If this is meant to reassure me, Gibbs--"

"It's not. It's just meant to show you that you can go on. That it's not as big a weakness as you might think. If Kate's sleep is peaceful," he glanced over at Kate's tranquil face, "then I'm thankful. She fights her demons some other way. Some of us don't get that choice."

Tony nodded toward the medical examiner. "What do you think Ducky dreams about?"

"Things we don't want to contemplate," responded Gibbs with the tiniest bit of a smile. "Trust me, you don't want to know."

Tony rubbed a hand over the soft leather of the seat. "So, this was a pep talk, huh, boss?"

"Best I can do," admitted Gibbs.

Tony smiled genuinely. "Thanks. I'll try to remember it when things go bump in the night."