April Fool´s Day again

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

Summary: It´s the end of March again and Tony starts to plan a new attack on his boss for April Fool´s day. (As I have not watched Twilight, I will assume that this is happening pre-twilightish)

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2- Let the Games begin

On Monday morning, Gibbs studied them closely as he walked in. "Before you think of going near my house today, Dinozzo: I got a guard standing in front ofit with your picture and the order to shoot you immediately." He informed Tony, who merely smiled.

"Well, good morning to you too, boss. And no, I have no intention of going near your house, your boat or any other of your belongings for the time being." He replied and continued to work on his report. They had a lot of paperwork to finish, so it seemed like a normal day in the office.

"Good morning, Jethro." Sounded a voice from the elevator a while later. Kate checked her watch. It was 9 am already-the time they had set to get started. Ducky came walking in with a tray of coffee on top. All knew that Gibbs only drank one specific type of coffee, so everyone else had ordered latte or something that he would never touch. "I thought, I should bring you some coffee -it seems to be a long day with all that paperwork you have there." The doctor said, sounding cheerfully as usual.

Kate took her soy latte and watched closely as Ducky approached Gibbs. "Good thinking, Duck. I can really use some of Starbuck´s homeblend this morning. It is homeblend, isn´t it?" He asked skeptically before taking the largest cup off the tray.

"And extra strong. Well, of course. What kind of a friend would I be not knowing your preferences in coffee?" Ducky said and handed the last latte to McGee. "I have an autopsy waiting, so please excuse me now." He said and vanished into the elevator. He had told them that the sedative in the coffee wouldneed about 10 minutes to take effect. It was used for small surgical routines on people who were afraid of needles.

After about 8 minutes, Kate noticed that Gibbs had a hard time to keep his eyes open. She had a hard time hiding her grin and dropped her pen a couple of times to get out of his sightfor a moment.Not quite three minuteslater, his head rolled back and he was sound asleep. Tony got up slowly. "Hey, Gibbs, I´ll go take your boat for a ride then." He said, but there was no reaction. Before getting too close, he decided on a last test."Wow...who is that on the picture in your drawer, boss? Out cold. We got about 15 minutes now."

Within seconds, the bullpen started to buzz with people. Eventhough not everyone was in on the exact plan, Jenny Shepard had made sure that nobody would spoil the fun.Everyone grabbedsome stuff and moved to another desk. They exchanged name signsand cell phone cards among other things. Kate called up Abby to make sure she was putting the faked files up into the database. After a mere 10 minutes, the office was rearranged and all were ready. "Okay, name signs changed...everyone in the right place...Did you get that other jacket for Gibbs? The one with the probie thing on the back? Oh, and did you swap his ID and badge?" Kate asked and Jimmy Palmer nodded. He had exchanged his lab coat for a normal suit and an NCIS basecap. He seemed a bit uncomfortable, but they had briefed him well enough to get him into a certain routine there.

They started to work on their case again when they noticed that Gibbs was slowly coming around again. Kate really had to pull herself together and she could see that Palmer was just as nervous. "Don´t worry, Jimmy. We´ll be fine." She told him only seconds before Gibbs shot up in his seat. They had replaced his coffee with anew cupto make sure he absolutely didn´t notice.

"Boss, I got that call tracked down." Palmer said and walked over to the large desk, where Tony was sitting. "It´s been a bit scrambled, but I went over it with Jenny and got it cleared. She said we can run another scan if we need to." Kate nodded at him and looked over at Gibbs, who was rubbing his eyes now.

"Hey, Gibbs. Where´s thatphone list? I´ve been waiting for 20 minutes. Maybe you should be sleeping here if that would help you getting your work done." Tony called at him right this moment and she had to hide her smile. "Kate? What do you have on that license plate?"

"I´m still running a search on the database. Another 20 minutes." She replied. They had planned the first hour of this act timidly to make it look real enough. It was a nice break from their usual routine and the thought of having all of it on video afterwards made it worth the effort.

"5 minutes and I have it on my desk. Where´s Abbs? Is she really taking that long on the body?" Tony asked and started to walk around the bullpen, stopping in front of Gibbs´ desk. "Do I have a black spot on my nose, Gibbs?" Tony glared at his boss, which was a wonderful reinactment of the way Gibbs came up to McGee most days.

Gibbs swallowed hard and Kate could see how the vein in his temple started to twitch. "No, you don´t, Tony...what in this world is going on around here?" He demanded and everyone stared at him. "What on earth are you doing at MY desk? And what exactly is Palmer doing at Kate´s desk? Where is McGee?"

Palmer walked up and looked at Gibbs. "That´s been my desk for the past year, Jethro. Are you feeling okay?" He asked and Tony could tell that the young man had a hard time calling Gibbs by his first name. Nobody ever did that, except Ducky perhaps.

Gibbs stared at them for a moment. Nobody was allowed to use his first name in public, especially not around here. He watched as Kate walked over to him. "You know, Jethro, you do look a bit pale. Maybe you should step off that coffee a bit." She advised him and let another file drop onto his desk. "I need the report on this by noon. Oh, and if you got time, could you get the DNA results from Jen? We need those to get the warrant issued." She added and turned back to the desk that used to be Dinozzo´s.

With soft knees and shaking hands, Gibbs headed for the elevator. When the doors closed, he looked at his reflection on the shiny wall. "I must be hallucinating...I shouldn´t be drinking so much coffee...this has to be a nightmare...this can´t get any worse." He muttered to himself and turned back around when the elevator doors opened to reveal the lab. It was about that second when he was ready to take his last statement back.