Chapter 4

So sorry it took so long this time, everyone. I tried to make it longer to make up for it. So, here's chapter 4, with angst! . . . yeah, that's not really that exciting. . . any who, enjoy!

"He actually said that? To Gibbs?" Abby's eyes bugged out at me in shock. After the 'incident' with the FBI agent, Gibbs had told McGee and me to go to the victims' shared apartment with the local LEO's and a couple of FBI agents. Gibbs himself had stayed at the crime scene, watching the rest of the FBI agents and making sure NCIS got a copy of the report.

The agents we worked with seemed nice enough. Agents Prentiss and Rossi. They were brisk and to the point, but something had seemed…cold about them. Detached. There had been one instance where Agent Prentiss eyes had gotten a far away look and she had a troubled expression on her face. But they worked well, so I had no real complaints.

"Yep." I answered Abby's question, "Anyway, we got an address from one of the bodies. One of them had a bill from the landlord in their pocket. Could you run the prints to see if any of them don't match the victims'? I know it's a slim chance, but it's worth a shot."

"You bet! If there's anything hinky, I'll find it." Abby promised, "Now, what's bugging you?"

"What?" I ask, feinting shock. I know Ziva had picked up something, but Abby too? Jeeze, my acting skill must be slipping.

"Don't what me, mister, something's up. What is it?" she stared at me with those deviously intelligent eyes, hands on her hips. Damn.

"I just haven't been sleeping well lately, it's nothing to worry about Abby." There, a half-truth. She can't say I lied to her, at least.

She glared at me for what felt like an hour, but was really only 30 seconds before saying, "Well, ok. But you know you can talk to me about anything, right?"

I nodded, smiled, hugged her and left. As I got into the elevator, one thought persisted in my mind. I would talk, if only I knew what to say.

"Have you run into any problems with your assignment?" Vance asked. Tony was, once again, sitting across form him in his office, due to the fact that Gibbs had interrupted them earlier.

"No sir. Everything's running smoothly." Vance nodded.

"And Gibbs doesn't know?" Tony nodded, then hesitated.

"Sir?"

"Yes?"

"Do you… do you think that this is a good idea? Keeping it from Gibbs, I mean."

"His involvement right now might jeopardize the mission. The fewer who know about this, the better." Vance looked at Tony sternly, to make sure he understood.

"Yes sir." Tony nodded, got up, and left.

I sat in the driver's seat. The engine was turned off. I stared out into the street, thinking. I hated lying to Gibbs. I hated it. The last time hadn't exactly ended well, either. And now, Vance was acting exactly like Jenny. Well, not exactly. This was no arms dealer, there was no Jeanne; just a potentially hostile sleeper cell operating right here in DC. No biggie. Right.

Who cares that the director has practically turned me into a CIA agent, or that he still expects me to do my regular job as if nothing is different? Why should it matter that I'm living off two hours of sleep a night and a shit load of coffee? Sigh. I'm angsting. I seem to be doing that a lot lately.

I turn on the engine and begin my nightly sweep of the area.

I couldn't sleep. It was two in the morning, we were in the middle of a case, and I can't sleep. Damn it.

I rolled out of bed and got dressed. I had to get out of the hotel for awhile, clear my head. Get some fresh air, something, anything, to take my mind off him. I walked out of the lobby and into the night. It wasn't actually that dark out, not with all the street lamps and lights form various hotels in the area.

I walked and kept walking, yet I couldn't get it, get him, out of my head. Three weeks. Three agonizing weeks of sleepless nights, little food and hopeless worrying. It was driving me crazy. I couldn't think, couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, not while I wonder if I'll ever get to hear his voice again.

I roamed the streets of downtown Washington, oblivious to my surroundings. What did it matter where I was, anyway? Nothing mattered anymore.

I wandered around with my head down and my feet dragging. Somewhere in the back of my mind I'm wondering why no one has tried to mug me or something. Maybe the gun on my hip was enough of a deterrent.

I finally sat down at a bus stop and looked around at where the hell I was. My eyes widened. This was the hospital that…oh gods. Fate must really hate me right now if it dumped me here. I … I can't … I have to get away from this place. Now. This place, more than anything else caused me to remember what I was so desperately trying to forget out here. And of course, wanting to forget made me think of the two unused bottles sitting in my medicine cabinet at home, two bottles that I haven't had a reason to think about in years.

I hailed the first cab that approached and got in, giving the cabbie the hotel address. I had to get out of there.

The driver's voice brought me out of my head, "Hey, I remember you."

I look up and notice the name on the back of the seat in front of me. "Tony." I reply ruefully. Honestly, of all the cabs I could have gotten….

"So," he hesitated, as if unsure of what to say.

"Yes?" I asked, because I knew that with Tony a conversation was inevitable. Who knows, maybe talking to Tony will help me clear my head. It worked last time.

"How's your friend?"

I sighed. I knew this would be difficult, but still……if it helped… "Bad. He slipped into a coma during surgery. It's been three weeks."

"I'm sorry." He sounded truly sincere. "My boss, once, was injured on the job, really badly. He was in a coma for a few days. When he woke up, he didn't remember anything, or anyone. Not me, not the rest of our team. It was hard. But, he got his memory back, and everything's ok again now. I'm sure that it'll be the same for you. Thing's may seem really shitty right now, but they get better. They have to." He said the last line under his breath, as if it was more to himself than to me. Yet I couldn't help but feel a small spark of hope at his words. Although…one part of his story seemed off…

"I didn't know cab drivers worked in teams." It would be just my luck to stumble across an operative in an Al-Qaeda sleeper cell or something.

He bit his lip nervously, "Er, well, we really don't. Not usually. But our company's small, and we're a closer group than most, so our boss calls us a team."

I nodded. I know he's lying; I was trained to recognize that sort of thing after all, but I decided to not press the issue. It wasn't my place to ask about his business.

"So, you in town waiting for him to wake up?"

"No, actually. After he reached stable condition, the doctors transferred him to a hospital in Quantico. That's actually where we're from."

"How come you're here, then?" Tony certainly didn't have any inhibitions about other people business. I probably should have remembered that…

"Working on a case." It slipped out before I realized what I was saying.

"What, you a cop or something?" Tony joked. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

"FBI, actually. I work with a team of profilers in the BAU. That stands for Behavioral Analy-"

"Behavioral Analysis Unit." Tony finished for me. Something flickered in the back of my mind.

"Yeah. How did you know?" Not many people have heard of the BAU, and even fewer knew what the acronym meant. Maybe he was Al-Qaeda after all….

"I- uh…" Tony sighed, as if resigning himself to something. Maybe I wasn't the only one who needed someone to talk to. I hope that's all it is… and that he's not going to try and kill me or something. I really don't want to have to shoot someone right now… "I work for NCIS."

Well, at least he's not a terrorist. "But then why are you driving a cab? Isn't that sort of undercover thing usually done by the CIA or Internal Affairs or- oh, there's a navy guy you're tracking that's high up so you can't arrest him without solid evidence." I nodded to myself. That made sense.

He chuckled a bit then sighed. "Nope. Well, not really. We arrested a Lieutenant who worked in supply a couple years back. He was passing off weapons and supplies to a sleeper cell here in DC. All we could get out of him was that the cell was in this general area. What's worse, Intel suggests that the cell still might be getting equipment from somewhere again. So, the director has me drive around here picking up all radio frequencies to see if we can hear anything. And to top it all off, I can't tell my boss 'cause he's doesn't know about the cell or the arrest or anything."

How…? "Isn't the director your boss?"

"Technically. But see, usually I work in Major Crimes, and my team leader is… possessive. Sort of. He doesn't really like it when the director uses his agent without asking."

"Ouch. That's rough." I thought about what Hotch would say if I did work for Strauss and didn't tell him… I shuddered.

Tony chuckled. "It's not so bad. Gibbs understood the last time I did something like this. He was a bit mad, sure, but he understood."

I nodded, then thought about what he said. "The last time?"

"It…didn't end well." Was all he said. I left it at that.

Tony pulled up in front of the hotel. I reached for my wallet but Tony said "No charge for a colleague."

I sat there confused for a moment before it clicked. He said he worked on Gibbs' team. That meant- "Oh."

He smiled and chuckled as I got out. Then his smiled turned into more of a grin as he said, "See you in a couple of hours."

Despite everything, I found myself grinning too, "Yup."

He drove off, and I walked into the hotel, thinking that maybe I might get a couple hours of sleep tonight after all.

What the hell was I thinking? I completely refuse to tell my team why I've been weird lately, and yet I'll tell a totally random FBI agent? What the fuck is wrong with me? Gibbs wouldn't have been so careless. Gibbs wouldn't have taken the job in the first place: he would have told the director to shove the whole damn thing up his ass. But, then again, as the team is so eager to point out, I'm not Gibbs. I'm just the moronic, idiotic second in command. Sigh. I know what I was thinking. I was hoping, praying, for some kind of recognition for a job well done. Recognition I would never get from Gibbs, but that I just might get from the director.

Everything changed after Gibbs 'retired.' The team changed. I tried to keep the team together, I really did. It's difficult when McGee and Ziva hardly ever listened to a word I said, questioning every order I gave and second guessing me like the never did with Gibbs. And Abby, practically wallpapering her lab with any picture of him that she could find. I knew they missed him. I did too. I missed him sometimes so much that it hurt.

When he came back, I was as happy as they were. We had our boss back, and the team could be a team again. But not even a word of thanks for holding down the fort while he was gone? That hurt.

But everything went back to normal, and everyone else was so happy. Truthfully, I was to. It was hard leading a team that didn't respect you. Ever harder when I missed our boss just as much as they did. And then, just when things were getting back to normal, the undercover mission blew up, quite literally. Gibbs was back to mistrusting me, McGee and Ziva were saying that the only way I could get a girl to like me was by pretending to be someone else, and, to top it all off, the director was royally pissed that the op had fallen through without us catching La Frog.

We got over that, though . . . just in time for everything to go to hell in L.A. Ziva had told me that we should have tailed the director, but I, of course, didn't want to listen. Didn't she ever stop to consider the fact that if Jenny wanted to lose us, she definitely would have, and that Ducky might've had three bodies instead of one had we followed her? She never saw it that way. None of the team did. The new director certainly hadn't. Why else would he make me Agent Afloat, if not to 'teach me a lesson?' 6 months of torture as the only cop on a city if a thousand. All that time on those damned ships and Abby was the only one who tried to contact me, until work was involved.

Gibbs had brought us all back, but we weren't a family anymore. Ziva's heart was still in Israel. McGee, for all his enthusiasm, lacked true investigative skills from too much time in Cyber Crimes. Gibbs was hard on all of us, expecting the team that he had before everything went to shit.

I knew he was pissed about everything, all that had happened in what felt like such a short time, but for him and Vance to leave me for the Israelis, and then leaving Ziva there? Just when had he stopped caring about his team? Why was it that I had to be the one to demand that we bring her back? Was he just pretending for her sake, to give her time to sort things out, or did he really not give a damn?

Five months we've all been back, and it still doesn't feel right. Something's missing. We don't trust each other anymore. Not truly. We trust the team with cases and work and watching our backs, but not with who we are. Not with ourselves. We're a team, but we're not a family anymore.

"Gibbs!" Abby called out as I walked into the lab.

"Sorry Abs, just me." I grinned at her.

She smiled back and poked me in the chest, "No just about it, mister. Where's Gibbs?"

"Upstairs talking with the FBI, why?" I ignored her comment. Abby was always being nice to me. I know that she's right, about a lot of things, but if I was so special, why was she the only one to notice?

Abby bounced over to her computer monitor, "Because Tony, I found something. When I ran the prints from the latest victims, I got a hit. The Jane Doe on Ducky's table is one Talia Harper. She was arrested a couple of years back for illegal gambling. Naughty girl."

"Thanks Abs!" I turned to leave.

"Wait! There's more!" Abby turned back to her monitor, "I also checked those poker chips you and Ziva brought in earlier, because they looked too authentic to be part of your garden variety run of the mill $2 set courtesy of your local drug store. It turns out, they're the official chips from The Midas Casino."

"Good work, Abby." I gave her a hug and walked out the door to the elevator. I finally had something good to tell Gibbs.

So, you've read, please review? Please? I need feedback guys, especially on pairings, or I'll write something really cracktastic, like Gibbs/Abby!!!!