Tony raced into Abby's lab with McGee's cell phone in his hand, "Abbs, I need you to get a record of McGee's calls."
Abby looked up at him from her computer, "Does McGee know you have his cell?" she inquired casually.
"No", Tony panted handing it over, "He doesn't need it right now."
"Tony!" Abby stared at him, "where is McGee?"
"Surgery", said Tony distractedly, "Comon, Abby, this is important."
Abby continued staring; there must be something she had missed. "Surgery?" she queried.
"Yeah, yeah, he got shot," Tony dismissed her, "the PHONE Abbs."
"Tony!"
"What!"
"Is he OK?"
"Who?"
"McGee; the guy who got shot and whose cell phone you want me to hack."
"Oh, yeah, I think so."
"So is Ziva with him?"
"Yeah, well, no, not really, she's probably in surgery too."
"Oh my God, Tony!" Abby flung her arms around his neck and squeezed hard enough to cut of his air supply, "you're in shock, or denial or something. Maybe its survivor's guilt."
Tony gently peeled her arms away, "McGee had a big date tonight and I need to find her," he explained.
"Where's Gibbs?"
"MTAC: chewing out the director about why one of her contacts landed two of his agents in hospital."
"So Gibbs thinks that you're…"
"Hunting down the bad guy…."
"When in actuality you are.."
"Trying to find out what McGee had planned for tonight."
"OK. Cool. So why don't you just check his Datebook", she suggested.
"Great idea! Forget the cell phone; I need you to hack into McGee's computer"
"There's no hacking, Tony, it's publicly accessible. Let's check his calendar. He doesn't protect most of his work stuff," said Abby cheerfully, "Just check his Datebook" She clicked on an icon on the desktop. "See!"
"What is he doing tonight?" Tony peered at the screen over her shoulder.
"Ahhh, something at 19:30", said Abby uncertainly squinting at the listing.
"What do you mean something?"
"It's a private entry, it's password protected", Abby explained.
"Well, can you hack into it?"
Abby laughed at him, "No" she said definitively.
"Why not?"
"Because it's McGee and he has set up a password specifically to guard this entry from people like you or me."
"Can we get Ducky to profile him and just pop out a magic password?"
"I repeat, 'its McGee'", Abby emphasized, "Its going to be a minimum of 10 characters long, mixed case alpha numeric with special characters. The room full of monkeys with the typewriters would be onto their third novel by the time they hit on McGee's password."
Tony gave an exasperated sigh and ran his hand through his hair. "OK, so we've at least got a time", he consoled himself, "so what sort of places would McGee take someone to dinner".
"You're planning to hit on his dinner date while he's in surgery? That's low, Tony?" even Abby was shocked.
"No!" he was indignant, "I want to tell her he's not coming."
"I think she'll kind of figure that out", Abby pointed out.
"No, you don't understand, it was like an important dinner."
"Whoa", Abby interest was piqued, "how important?"
Tony looked at her for a moment and then withdrew the ring box from his pocket and showed it to her.
"No way!" Abby screamed.
"Yeah", Tony confirmed, "and the chance of finding her after 48 hours diminishes to almost zero…where would he take her?"
"Who is she?"
"No idea, some Navy computer geek. I checked through the list of last numbers on his cell phone and there's only one possibility: someone called 'Sully' but it may be his drycleaner. Did he ever mention a Sully to you Abbs?"
"No", said Abby distractedly, "Why didn't he tell, me?" she pouted at Tony.
"Probably the same reason he didn't tell me", said Tony ruefully.
"OK", said Abby in a business like tone, "First let's see who this phone has called recently."
It took less than a minute for Abby to give Tony her smug smile of satisfaction, "McGee has been calling one Lieutenant Anne Sullivan, Navy geek extraordinaire."
Tony looked over at the screen where a rather severe Navy headshot was glaring at him. A twinge of recognition niggled at him, "Isn't that the five thousand dollar Gibblet morphing woman?"
"Hey yeah", Abby exclaimed, "You're right."
Tony pondered the photo thoughtfully for a moment, "You think she's a virgin?"
"Tony!" Abby punched him on the arm, "The term is 'coitully challenged'"
"You're making that up!"
"So what", she said defiantly, "All words are made up."
Tony raised an eyebrow at her.
"Coitually challenged, hmm, well I think it's a challenge McGee is willing to accept", Tony commented, "I'll give her a call".
He swore when he found the cell phone had been turned off. He left a curt message and looked at Abby for inspiration.
"When was he going to pick her up?" she tried.
"He's not, they're meeting there…."
Tony had a sudden idea. He looked at his watch, "They might have all gone home by now but I'll make a few calls to some of my more social Navy buds and see if they know this geek".
"Right", said Abby, "I'll go through the restaurants looking for some of his favourite haunts."
"Check out the chick places", said Tony suddenly, "He said it was somewhere special to her".
Tony glanced at his watch. It was going to be close. He flicked out his little black book and started phoning. It only took two phone calls for Tony to find someone who knew Lieutenant Sullivan and only one more to get onto a personal friend.
"Abbs, our Lieutenant is a sucker for little Italian restaurants", he said.
"Ohh, how very Billy Joel of her, I'm on, it", said Abby excitedly, "There are 45 Italian restaurants in the local area, I'll do a phone search for bookings under McGee."
"Give me half the list", said Tony frantically.
They compared notes 15 minutes later. "I never realised how many McGee's there were in this town", said Abby in awe. There were 5 possibilities and 10 minutes until showtime.
"Give me the list", said Tony, "I'll take them one by one".
"Ok, I'll meet you at the hospital"
Tony stopped short as he walked in the front door of the third restaurant. There was someone who looked vaguely familiar. Tie her hair up in a severe Navy bun and add some thick glasses and Bingo: singles lady. He smiled widely, McGee had got in while she was vulnerable. He was so proud of him. She looked a lot more feminine with her hair down and a flattering dress. McGee did have good taste after all.
"Lieutenant Anne Sullivan?" Tony started flipping out his badge.
"Yes?" she looked hesitant;
Tony slid discretely into the chair across from her, "We've been trying to reach you for a couple of hours," he started.
"What's wrong? Tell me Tim didn't send you to break up with me."
"No! No, no, no, no!", Tony held up his hands in surrender, "he's in hospital. He took a bullet this afternoon."
Her eyes opened wide in fear.
"He'll be fine", he assured her, paraphrasing what Abby had actually said when she had called from the hospital, "but he might not be able to make dinner."
She nodded tearfully and rose, "Let's go".