CHAPTER 6

Monday morning came and Tony got out of the elevator. He saw Kate sitting at her desk. Tim hadn't arrived yet, and Gibbs had gone upstairs to get some files.

"Hey Kate." Tony said smiling at her.

"Hi, Tony." Kate said smiling back at him, but looking a little confused.

"How are you?" Tony asked.

"Good." Kate said sitting at her desk and searching his eyes for something that told her he didn't regret what he had said the other night. Tony realized the question she was asking with her expression and walked over to her, he leaned down and whispered into her ear:

"I meant it Kate." She turned her face up to Tony he was right there, she was about to kiss him when Tim walked in the room. She quickly shot back in her chair and gave Tony an awkward smile. Tony gave her an evil grin; she tried to hide her smile. Gibbs walked into the room.

"Ok we've got the murder of a petty officer to solve and his two closest friends from the service are missing and it doesn't look like they committed the homicide." Gibbs said handing everyone a report.

"Not exactly good news." Tony said.

"Well lets try and get these other guys back." Said Gibbs.

The rest of the day went slowly. They interviewed family members, other petty officers and several people that over saw the groups training. Abby called them down because she found out what type poison it was that killed the petty officer.

"Hey Abby." Tim said and Tony tried not to laugh.

Kate hit Tony in the side and Tony grinned at her.

"Ok well the poison Ducky found is common in household cleaners, now the only way that could have got into his system was if he ingested it; which he did. We found chemicals in his stomach; his food was poisoned." Abby finished.

"Good work Abbs." Gibbs said to her.

"And…?" asked Abby.

"And what?" said Gibbs.

"Do you know how much poison it takes to kill a male bull elephant?" she asked

"Abby?" She looked at him "No idea." said Gibbs

"A lot, and a lot is roughly the amount of caffeine I consume in a day."

"Does this have any relevance to the case?" Gibbs demanded.

"Um… no. Its just that usually a good work abs comes with a Caf-Pow." Gibbs smiled and handed her the Caf-Pow from behind his back, he got onto the elevator.

"Thanx!" Abby yelled, as she made a slurping noise and hopped over to her computer.

The team spent the rest of the day looking over records. Tim and Gibbs went to the cafeteria to ask the cooks a few questions. Tony and Kate looked over the evidence but nothing jumped out at them. Gibbs and Tim returned and they said that the cooks didn't see anyone but they brought back film from one of their security cameras. It didn't show anything that could be useful. It was well into the night that and everyone was still in the office. Gibbs had gone out to get coffee and Tony had been drifting off to sleep when he woke up and saw Tim leave, heading down to Abby's lab; Abby was still working away. Tony got up and went over to see Kate who was also still working.

"You should think about getting some sleep." Tony said putting his hand around her shoulders.

"I know but I think I'm onto something with this video." Kate said.

That's when Tony noticed one of the cooks that were working on the video bend over a stove and pour something into a pot.

"Wonder what that is." Tony said.

"Where's Tim?" Kate asked looking around.

"He just went down to the lab." Tony had a small smile playing with at the ends of his lips.

"Come on." Kate said. They were just outside the lab and as Tony looked around the corner he saw Tim and Abby in the corner, Abby had Tim pinned up against the wall and they were kissing passionately.

"Oh, you gotta see this." Tony whispered to Kate.

Kate looked around the corner.

"Tony. We need to get their attention." Kate said quietly.

"Ok I have an idea. Tim! Tim you down here?" Tony said loudly. Tim shot away from Abby so fast he hit his head

"Oww… um…Yes I'm here what's up?" Tim said quickly, still trying to catch his breath.

Kate was half expecting him to say something totally irrelevant to the question, jumpy fro, almost being caught with Abby.

"Kate found something on the security tape, we need you two to see what it is." Tony said.

"Ok send it down, Tony can you stay with us to show us where it is." Abby said.

Kate went back up stairs and sent it down to them. Gibbs showed up and Kate filled him in. After confirming who the cook was and that it was not an edible substance that he was pouring into the food, Gibbs said that he was going to go bring him in. Everyone fell asleep waiting for Gibbs to come in with the cook.

A couple hours later, I was morning now, Gibbs walked into the office coffee in hand. He was not happy, "He ran." Said Gibbs. "I'm going after him. You two question anyone who had anything to do with this man."

"We'll leave now." Said Kate. They drove along in silence until Tony broke it.

"Ha I can't wait to tease McGee about what we saw last night." Tony said.

"Tony, maybe we should keep it to ourselves, I mean if Gibbs found out about them it wouldn't go down so good. Besides, it could have been Abby and Tim finding out about us just as easily." Tony smiled at her. Kate persuaded Tony to keep quiet about it for now.

"So when should we go out for dinner?" Tony asked looking at Kate affectionately.

"Um well I dunno whenever we are both free I guess." Kate said, she had almost forgotten about going to dinner with Tony. All of a sudden it seemed so real and scary, her and Tony.

"You still want to go right?" Tony asked getting worried.

"Yes." Kate said smiling at him, she was happy about being with Tony, she wanted to do this.