CHAPTER FOUR

Gibbs walked into the office the next morning with a slight smile on his face and a round of coffees for the house. He dropped one on each desk and sat down to work. Tony was the first one to follow him in. He saw the coffees, noticed Gibbs' relaxed demeanor, and reminded himself to call Jess later.

"'Mornin', Boss," Tony said. "Thanks for the coffee."

"Well," Gibbs said pleasantly, not really looking up from the screen, "it was on the way, and it was a nice morning."

Tony started mentally running a scenario. Jess lived pretty far outside the Beltway … he didn't remember seeing any Capital Coffee places near her apartment or on the ride between there and here, but then, he'd never really looked. Still … he was pretty observant and they had a distinctive logo. He pulled up a map of Jess' neighborhood and searched "Capital Coffee" – the closest one was eight miles out of the way. Then he pulled up Gibbs' place. One almost next door, but not another one between his place and work. If he'd stayed at Jess' place, he'd have had to leave before dawn to get home, change clothes and then stop by the coffee place. That would be early, even for Gibbs, and he'd miss breakfast with Jess, which he couldn't see Gibbs doing. Breakfast was one of Jess' best things. Of course … prepared Marine that he was, Gibbs would have had a change of clothes with him, but he would have never driven through rush hour traffic, eight miles out of the way, to bring coffee for the team unless …

Tony's thoughts were interrupted by a voice in front of him, much closer than he'd have expected. Gibbs was standing over Tony's desk. "If you want to know, DiNozzo, just ask," Gibbs said with a deadpan smile, as he watched Tony nearly jump out of his skin.

"Ask what, Boss?" Tony said, innocently, as he cleared his computer screen and went to e-mail. The first one on the incoming list was from Jess. Tony looked up into Gibbs' eyes and smiled the 'patented DiNozzo smile'. "I've got no questions."

Gibbs turned and sat down, smiling. Tony clicked on Jess' e-mail.

"We didn't," it read. "Get back to work." Tony laughed to himself, deleted the e-mail and looked across the room.

"Thanks again for the coffee, Boss," he said.

"My pleasure, Dino," Gibbs replied.

The next sound Gibbs heard was Tony's head hitting the desk, over and over and over again.

Ziva was the second one into the squad room that morning, followed by McGee. Both were surprised, but pleased, by their boss' offering of coffee. They looked at Tony for explanation; he just smiled and shrugged.

"Did anything come in yet this morning?" Ziva asked, hopefully. If there wasn't a case, it was going to be a day filled with paperwork. She hated filing.

"Not yet," Gibbs said. "But if you don't want to be at your desk, you can check with Abby to see if the ballistics results are in yet on that cold case." Ziva eagerly jumped at the chance to spend some time in the lab. Any time in the lab was time away from filing.

"I'm going to get the autopsy results from Ducky so that I can finish the Henderson file," McGee said, as he turned to leave.

"Mmm hmm," Gibbs responded, absently. McGee followed Ziva to the elevator.

"Uh … Boss," Tony began. "Not to leave you totally alone here, but I need to do a quick bank run – I promised Jess I'd drop some stuff for her in my …"

"Go ahead, DiNozzo," Gibbs cut him off. "Make it quick, and bring back some coffee."

"On it."

Gibbs didn't mind the solitude. He had some thinking to do anyway.

Tony sauntered across the street and up the block to the Virginia Savings and Loan branch that had recently been built in the office park near NCIS. He had transferred his safe deposit box here right after the bank had opened, since it was far more convenient than the next closest location and a lot easier to get to during the day. Plus, the teller who worked the safe deposit vault was cute, single, and totally had a crush on him.

The relative quiet of the squad room gave Gibbs some needed time to think about the prior evening. The kiss at Jess' apartment hadn't lead to anything; sure, they'd made out a little, but neither one of them was pressing for more. He'd pretty much finished his coffee and left – home early even by his standards.

He couldn't understand it. He liked Jess – she was funny and smart and didn't give an inch when she thought she was right. She had the look and the personality and the sensibilities that he usually went for in a woman (with the exception of the red hair), but there was something that didn't click. He wasn't sure what it was, but it left him with a dilemma. He was the man – he had to decide what the next step was. Gibbs chuckled to himself. Both Abby and Kate (and probably Ziva too, now that he thought about it) would roll their eyes at his antiquated dating methods. "It doesn't have to be you, you know," Abby would say. "This is the two thousands; you can wait for her to call you after a date." Kate would give him a lecture on a woman's role in society and how the woman had just as much right to make the first move as the man did; and Ziva would probably pick up the phone and call Jess herself, to find out if the relationship was going anywhere.

But that was the thing. It wasn't. At least, not in Gibbs' head. Jess, on the other hand, had been happy and animated all night. She'd enjoyed herself – he knew she had. But hell, she'd spent most of her life hanging out with Tony. He suspected that she could have fun anywhere and with anyone. She and DiNozzo were like two sides of the same person. They probably shared a brain. Maybe that was it. He couldn't click with Jess because dating Jess meant bringing Tony along for the ride too. And the last thing he needed was DiNozzo getting the inside scoop on his love life.

Gibbs sighed and looked at his watch. It had been almost an hour since Ziva, McGee and Tony had all headed out on their respective errands. They should have all been back by now. He tossed his coffee cup, stood and stretched. Then he headed to the lab to round up his wayward crew. They would be in the lab. It was always the first place any of them went when they wanted to hide.

Ziva, McGee and Abby were all enthralled by something on a computer when Gibbs walked in. No one even looked up when the airdoors swished.

"WHAT is that again?" Ziva said, squinting at the screen. McGee had the same look on his face. Abby was standing behind them. As she opened her mouth to speak, Gibbs cut her off.

"It's the reason two of my agents are about to get fired," he said gruffly.

McGee and Ziva both jumped and looked guiltily at Gibbs.

"Sorry, Gibbs," Abby said with a perky smile. "Totally my fault. I was doing a cross-section on these weird crystals that were scraped off the side of the brick wall outside the deli where that cold case murder took place, and when I put them up on the screen they looked exactly like this piece of artwork I saw in an on-line exhibit that was streaming live from this underground Chinese art gallery that McGee and I …"

"Abbs …" Gibbs warned. She stopped talking immediately. Gibbs turned to Ziva. "Ballistics?" Ziva scrambled to assemble the file. He looked at McGee. "Autopsy results?" McGee gathered them up off of Abby's desk. Ziva and McGee stood there with their hands full, looking like two college freshmen coming back from the first day of classes.

"Go," Gibbs said, his quiet tone not quite masking his annoyance.

Just then, the sound of the multiple sirens echoed off the streets and into the lab, making far more of an impact on the team than they would have had the team still been upstairs.

"Wow," Abby said. "Something's going down somewhere."

Gibbs' phone rang. "Fornell?" Gibbs said in surprise. There was a pause. "Yeah, Fornell, I hear the sirens. They're right outside the window. What did you do now?"

Gibbs listened for a minute more, as Abby, Ziva and McGee looked on with curious expressions. Then he snapped the phone closed.

"Three armed gunmen have taken over the Virginia Savings and Loan branch across the street," he said. "They're holding sixteen people hostage. They released one – a pregnant woman – and sent her out with a list of demands. Clipped to the list was DiNozzo's badge."

Gibbs turned and walked through the lab doors towards the elevator, with Ziva and McGee on his heels.