Authors note:

Ok Kate and Tony are back!

and I am also going to be changing the romance catergory...the romance just isnt happening, I just changed the ending I am afraid...but I think it is much better. But I hope you are enjoying the rest of the story. Let me know what you think!

Chapter 15

Gibbs entered the bullpen to see Kate and Tony sitting at there desks obviously having returned from Ducky home whilst he was fetching Coffee, he spoke to neither of them just sat at his desk to see who spoke first. Kate sprang to her feet and stood before Gibbs, Tony hot on her heels. Gibbs smiled to himself inside, it was good to know that no matter what else was going on in the world these two and their competitiveness didn't change. It was comforting with its familiarity but Gibbs would rather have had his teeth pulled by all of his ex wives than admit it to them.

"We found very little Gibbs, and what we did get is with Abby now" Kate said first

"But we did find some traces of dried mud in the study, Mrs Mallard swears it wasn't there earlier but lets face it she's as batty as it gets boss" Tony cut in

"Not that bats, she recognised you as an Italian gigolo didn't she?" Kate said sweetly to Tony. Gibbs sighed more at the situation than at the two bickering as usual.

"Get Abby to analysis the mud as soon as she has finished with my phone" Gibbs told them, hoping that it might lead them somewhere. At that moment Gibbs' desk phone rang, he snatched it up hoping it was Abby with good news

"Get down here boss" Abby said, and then hung up the phone on him, Gibbs looked at it for a moment then stood

"Come on, Abby has something" he said to Tony, Kate and McGee

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Ducky lay still, trying to make sense of where he was and why his head hurt so much, he tired to move his hand to rub at his head, trying to rub the pain away but his hand wouldn't move. At first he thought he was paralysed but he felt the restraints on his wrists and slowly it all came back to him.

He tested his arms and legs and found them all restrained, he twisted his head trying to make out Restin, but he could not see him in his limited vision, nor could he hear him. Ducky lay still, trying to stop the thumping in his temples, he remembered walking into the cabin and stopping at what he saw before him. Then he had felt a sharp blow to his head and then nothing. Ducky wished he could erase what he had seen and what it meant for him if Gibbs did not find him in time.

He turned his head slowly again to his right and saw the instruments laid out neatly, on a sterile sliver tray. They were all there, all the instruments he would use in an autopsy; and they were all planned for him, but he didn't think he would be dead when the autopsy began, he believed he would be very much alive and very much in agony. Ducky closed his eyes again and prayed Gibbs would get her soon.

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Abby had turned off her music, and the lab was strangely silent giving it an alien feel, Abby turned as she heard them approach and threw Gibbs his phone back. She didn't wait to be asked; she was only too aware that time was against Ducky on this one.

"The text came from a mobile phone bought in Burlington, Vermont yesterday, it is registered to none other than Scott Restin, and I also checked it was purchased with his credit card." Abby typed on her keyboard and a map appeared on the large plasma screen

"I have been able to trace the signal from the phone too. At present he is in the Great Falls area" she pointed to the map and then looked at Gibbs

"Boss man, he is making this too easy, if he is ex NCIS then he has to know that we can trace his phone" she added worriedly.

Gibbs stared at her for a moment, and then nodded his head

"Yeah Abs, I figured that one out already, its me he wants and he's using Ducky to get me" Gibbs said slowly.

"I was the reason he was fired, and I don't think he has forgiven me" Gibbs added "But I think Ducky is alive, at least for now, but we don't have long" he added absently staring at the map.

"McGee get the sedan, Abby I want you to keep tracking the phone signal and give me any Intel you can on the area in question." He turned to the other two agents standing behind him "Lets go bring Ducky home" he said then strode out of the room. Abby watched them go for a moment, saddened at eh burdens Gibbs carried on his own, she then turned back to her screen and got busy.