McGee was half awake, practising his kidnapped technique. It was still dark. Of course. He was curled up in the foetal position on a mattress on the floor snuggled into a quilt of some kind. Something warm lay in his hand. It felt like flesh. He opened one eye blearily and saw Gibbs sitting beside him on the floor. He had his glasses perched on his nose and he seemed to be reading a report of some kind by lamplight. He followed the line of Gibbs' arm and traced it back to himself. The warm thing in his hand was Gibbs' hand.

"You did OK, out there today," said Gibbs quietly without looking up.

"It didn't feel OK," McGee replied sullenly.

"It never does," Gibbs told him. "Get some sleep".

"I'm not tired, Boss," he said drowsily, his eyes sliding closed again.

He sighed contentedly. It mightn't be the clean white hospital with the cute nurse, but it would certainly do for now. He wondered vaguely how many times Gibbs had sat like this with Tony, holding his hand after one of his many adventures. He never could work out how Tony bounced back from such experiences. Now he was finding out. Slowly, he drifted off to sleep.

The low English accents roused him from sleep. It was still dark but the lights from the lab gave the darkness a homey quality. It was Ducky, he noted vaguely, and he had someone with him.

"We're just going to look at you wrists, Timothy," he heard Ducky's reassuring voice and they rolled him onto his back.

He dozed while they unwrapped his bandages and prodded his wrists. Every now and again, they would wake him to ask him a question or get him to move his fingers, but in the main he was tired enough to sleep through major surgery. He didn't even notice them leave.

When he woke properly, he practised feigning sleep and checking out his surroundings. He was lying on his back with his wrists crossed protectively in front of him: Probably where Ducky had left them. It was finally light and there was a strange clicking noise near his head. He opened his eyes a crack and was surprised to see Abby sitting beside him knitting.

"Abby?"

"Oh, hey McGee."

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing, crochet? I'm knitting; it's a great tension reliever."

She stopped and looked down at him. "You're pretty talkative for a dead guy, you know. You made the news."

McGee gave her a puzzled look.

"They found your body at the scene of the fire; someone's trying to ID you even as we speak."

"Will they?" he was getting confused.

"Doesn't really matter so long as the bad guys think you're dead."

He considered this for a moment: Dead meant safe. OK, he could handle that for now. Then a hunger pang stabbed him like a knife.

"Anything to eat," he asked. "I'm starving".

Abby smiled down at him. "That's a good sign McGee! Tony left you a burrito."

"Yes!" he cheered. "Thank you Tony."

Then he tried to get up. An agonizing pain shot across the entire upper half of his body causing him to grunt in pain and fall back again. He lay panting for a moment. Next he tried rolling to one side but that was the side with the sore ribs. He stopped and rolled back the other way but at the last minute he realised he would have to use his elbows to lever himself up rather than his wrists and he nearly fell flat on his face trying to support himself. The pain from his injured ribs made him gasp. In a few minutes he had struggled theatrically to a sitting position.

The routine earned him a round of applause from Abby: "Do it again," she urged.

He shot her a withering look and reached for the burrito. He stopped suddenly; his eyes open wide in horror.

"Abby," he said quietly. "I can't feel my fingers."

"Yeah, I know," she said happily picking up her knitting.

"What?" he said incredulously.

"Don't you remember what Ducky told you last night?"

He scanned his memory banks, no matches.

"Ah no," he said tentatively hoping whatever Ducky had said was going to make him feel a hell of a lot better.

"Carpal tunnel syndrome," she explained in a 'this is soooo obvious' voice.

"What?"

"The little tunnel that all the tendons in your wrists have to travel through is all swollen which pinches the nerves and you can't feel anything. It's the same thing old people get from" ….she help up her work victoriously…. "..knitting. My grandmother used to get it all the time."

"Well, will it go away?" he was not happy, he was hoping for so much more out of Ducky.

"Well, eventually," she shrugged. "I wouldn't hold your breath."

McGee sighed miserably, took the burrito carefully in both hands and took a hungry bite.

"You know what I've been thinking?" Abby tempted him.

"That we could triangulate on the spike?" he suggested through a mouthful of food.

She gave him a wide smile. "Yes! That's exactly what I was thinking."

"I imagine they've changed frequency by now," he mumbled through his food.

"Oh, they tried to run," said Abby excitedly. "But they couldn't hide. I found them again."

McGee stopped chewing and smiled at her. "Really?"

"Really, really."

"Show me." He attempted to get up half a dozen times before she took pity on him and helped.