Disclaimer: NCIS is not mine. Damn.

Sometime between leaving the gym and getting to Ducky's morgue, Kate had had a head-on collision with reality. She had a killer headache that was registering off the richter scale in pain, plus Tony refused to set her down, only telling her that he 'knew she was secretly enjoying their closeness'.

He was also taking every opportunity to remind her of the embarrassing comments she had made when she was spaced out in the gym. Worst of all, she could hear Abby unsuccessfully trying not to laugh behind them.

Kate was at boiling point and Tony was on a high. It was not a good combination.

As Tony set her down on one of the morgue trolleys, her temper snapped and she twisted his ear. His immediate reaction was to pull her hair. Kate's scalp, already highly sensitive from her 'meeting' with a wall, erupted in pain, causing Kate to kick out instinctively, catching Tony in the groin.

"Hey, no fair!" Tony bit out from his foetal position on the floor.

"Seriously DiNozzo, no-one's gonna say the world would be deprived if you were unable to procreate."

Tony made to pull Kate off the table, only to be thwarted by Abby stepping firmly between them.

"Cut it out you guys!" Pain is only to be inflicted when I say so."

Tony slowly rose and backed over to lean by the sink, before saying, "She started it."

"Only because you were being totally juvenile, Tony."

"Me? Excuse me for being a gentleman and helping you out."

"The only way you could ever help me DiNozzo is by dropping dead."

"Nice try Todd. And ordinarily I'd be hurt, but everyone heard you admit your true feelings for me in the gym."

Before Kate could respond, an angry voice interrupted.

"Anthony, Caitlin that is ENOUGH!"

Ducky had entered the room and was extremely displeased at having his sanctum disturbed by the bickering agents. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, the eccentric pathologist took in the appearance of the two agents.

"Agents Todd and DiNozzo, I shall seriously be displeased if I find out that you have allowed your disagreements to descend into an all out fight."

As neither Kate, Tony nor Abby would meet his eye, Ducky realised that he had hit the nail on the head.

"Good grief! Why on… What… How do you think Gibbs'll react when he finds out? And Abby, I'm surprised at you, allowing the situation to degenerate so far."

"Actually Ducky, the fight option has Gibbs' blessing. He's the one who ordered me to referee."

If it had been any other set of agents Ducky might have been taken aback, but Gibbs' team was unique and worked to its own rules. He'd know Gibbs a long time. Enough to not question his judgement on these matters, despite his misgivings. He looked closely at the three young adults in front of him. Kate was still avoiding making eye contact and Abby and Tony seemed to be engaged in a furious silent argument between themselves, judging by the waggling eyebrows and head twitches in Kate's direction.

Fearing he could be waiting all afternoon for someone to speak, he took the initiative and moved closer to Kate, who was still regarding her shoes with concentrated intensity. As he peered beneath the curtain of hair enclosing her face he could just make out the beginnings of an ugly red lump on her forehead.

"A head injury!" Ducky was seriously disconcerted. Although he knew that Kate and Tony wound each other up, he never believed that it would lead to malicious violence between the two.

Abby could pretty much read Ducky's thoughts and decided to fill him in on the story so far. She could see from Kate's posture that her friend couldn't quite bring herself to admit out loud what had actually happened.

As the story was related to him, Ducky continued his exam of Kate. He couldn't help but feel that there was slightly more to the tale than was being told. Kate was uncharacteristically quiet and still seemed to be upset. Tony, as usual, wasn't giving any of his real thoughts away.

"Well Caitlin, I'm afraid it's to bed with you. Tony take her home and stay with her. She needs to rest."

"What? No. Uh-uh, no way. Tony is NOT taking me home. Abby'll do it."

The elder man shook his head, "Sorry Agent Todd, but I need to be certain that there's no internal bleeding. Your pupils were a bit sluggish reacting to the light, someone has to stay with you for the next 24 hours, unless you want to stay in hospital."

"But why Tony?"

"Really my dear, I know that you agents are having a slow week, but we scientists are actually pretty busy down here. Abby just can't be spared."

Abby looked apologetically at her best friend. "Sorry Kate, it's true. I didn't really have time to referee, but since Gibbs gave the order and I figured it'd be over pretty quick…"

"Hey!" Tony knew that if people had to put money on the fight, most would've backed Kate, but he felt he needed to put on at least a little show of indignation.

"What? It's true, you wouldn't last five minutes." Abby rolled her eyes at him and turned back to Kate, "I'll make it up to you. I promise."

She turned and gave Tony one of her super-glares, "You better take good care of her mister!" She poked him in the chest for effect, before walking out of the morgue.

"Quite right Agent DiNozzo. Agent Todd is to take it easy for the next day. I am entrusting you to make sure of that."

"Awww, Ducky," whined Tony

"Anthony, I'm deadly serious. For the next 24hours you are to cater to Kate's every whim and make sure she rests. If I hear otherwise…"

Ducky left the threat unspoken and chose to inspect his very sharp scalpels, holding them up, twisting and turning them so the light bounced onto Tony's face.

Tony gulped. Kate smirked.

Author's note: Okay, first off, apologies for any typos / errors. I'm typing at breakneck speed at a very expensive computer hire place and I can't afford to check this thoroughly.

Second, thanks to everyone who's reviewed. Again, because of time / money factors I can't go through and individually list reviewers. However, if you review and have any suggestions of what evil tasks Kate can make Tony do while he's caring for her, I'll try and get them into the next chapter by way of thanks!

Next update in a week (hopefully).