Tropical Nightmare- Chapter 7: Signals (Abby´s POV)

Disclaimer: I don´t own any characters or anything!

Summary: Tony and Kate are sent to Argentina for an undercover mission, but they have to take a detour.They are bound to find out that atropical island can be a real nightmare -at least if you´re on your own out there...

Additional note: I usually don´t write 1st-person narrator, but it seemed to fit rather well for this little story as the POV changes with each chapter.Also, the use of present-tense is wanted here, eventhough it may seem a bit odd. I hope it´s still readable.

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It´s been six weeks now since they disappeared. My computer crashed more than a dozen times, but I refuse to throw it out for a new one. Setting up the search routines would take hours. Tim has offered to let me use his computer for the time I have to program the routines on a new machine, but I know he needs it for his own work. We got substitutes for Kate and Tony a week ago. They were gone within a day, I guess they didn´t get along with Gibbs too well.

He´s changed a lot lately. All here know that second b in his name is for bastard, but I didn´t know the first b was for big. Tim has to keep his head down a lot lately. He´s doing a great job up there, I think, but I prefer being down here. Usually, the time Gibbs needs to come down here is sufficient to let him cool down. I heard him get at Ducky for something yesterday -that´s certainly not normal. Both of them used to be some kind of friends.

I stare at the computer screen, but there´s nothing. The door opens and I see Tim coming in with two large cups of Caf-Pow. I take one and look at him. "How are the new agents holding up?" I inquire and he grins. I know that kind of grin. He´s up to something that will get him in trouble if Gibbs finds out.

"He keeps sending me off to run errants, but I put my webcam up so it gets their desks." He starts typing something and the monitor switches to his webcam-view. I can see Greg Newton and Felicia McCarr sitting at their temporary desks. I hate to see them as their desks just yet. Both are talking, I don´t know what about, but obviously, they´re not happy with something. It´s easy to guess that reason as he´s walking in right this moment. Both pull a face before he gets to them.

Those two lasted two days after all. Tim and I could watch the whole end of it over his webcam, but it sure wasn´t pretty. Gibbs yelled at them, they yelled back and then left the building. Tim is on his way to the elevator to see what has happened up there, but I call him back. The picture I get from the camera startles me somehow. "What?" Tim asks, but I just motion him to come over. I can´t take my eyes of the screen just now.

Gibbs is standing behind Kate´s desk. I can see his mouth move as if he´s talking to someone, but nobody is there with him. It´s not so much the fact that he´s talking to himself -he´s done that plenty of times. It´s his way of thinking about certain things. We´ve learned to deal with that. It´s the look on his face that startles me. First I thought it was because of the quality we got from the cam, but then I realize it´s really there. "Is it just my eyes or is he really worried, Abbs?" Tim asks and looks at me.

"It´s not your eyes. I think we just saw his heart break. Or the stonewall around it." I state dryly, but deep inside, I´m shaken. I don´t want Tim to see that, but he´s walking to the elevator anyway. "See you later." I call after him and he just nods. I turn my attention back to the screen. I remember the few times I have ever seen him thoughtful, but it´s never been like this. We have this special thing going, Gibbs and me. He usually comes down to the lab to let off some steam or sort his thoughts. That´s how I know that there´s not only a large rock in his chest. He doesn´t like to show it, but I know there´s more.

I wish I could do more than just checking those frequencies for their signals, but I just can´t. I wish I had given them one of the new GPRS chips, but I decided to test them further. Those new chips are waterproof -they would have survived even the longest dive in salt water. The old ones broke down immediately when the salt washed into the circuits. Maybe this is all my fault.