So I am currently working on Chapter twenty, and I figured since I'm on that one, why not post chapter 18? Now I would like to apologize (I know I know, sign of weakness) but the next couple of chapters have a few point of view shifts. When I see this in my head, I see it like the show, so everything's happening at once, and it's a little difficult to translate that to text. I'm trying to slow it down, but it is also necessary for the plot.

On a selfish note, I am officially a yellow belt! I passed my belt test yesterday, and my body is going to hate me for a week. Seriously, my arm is threatening to pull itself off and whack me over the head it hurts so bad. But it was totally worth it. I am one step closer to getting my black belt, granted it's going to take a couple of years, I'm closer than I was three months ago.

Now, to my last Author's Note about everyone's favorite Tibbs moments. I got a lot of good ones. Dead Man Talking (Tony wiping the stuff off of Gibbs jacket and Gibbs doesn't even bat an eyelash and the super's response) Frame Up, another classic Tibbs moment. Flesh and Blood got a lot of votes, as well as Requiem. Now, I have another question, what is your favorite one sided Tibbs moment? I ask because the other night before I went to bed, I was thinking about the episode SWAK, when Abby shows Gibbs the security footage from the night before and they see Tony came back in around midnight. And Gibbs looks like he's almost glowing as he says that Tony does his best work at night. So, pretty much a Tibbs moment of Gibbs or Tony with someone else. Which one is your favorite?

Chapter Eighteen

McGee and Abby were passed out on the floor, Abby's head resting on McGee's shoulder. It was absolutely adorable.

Ziva just sat and watched them as her mind was plagued with too many thoughts for her to hold. All of them were concerning Gibbs and Tony. The two of them being in love, maybe having sex with each other.

She could not deny that a part of her was hurt. She always had feelings for Tony. She never knew why, he upset her more than anyone else at NCIS. Actually, he annoyed her more than anyone she had ever met in her life. But whenever he sent a smile her way, she always felt a little warmer inside.

Gibbs and Tony.

How could she have not noticed anything before? The years that she worked with them, she never once had a clue that there was anything romantic between the two of them. She knew they were close, everybody at NCIS could tell the two of them were close. She just never expected love.

She heard a grunt right before McGee jerked awake. He looked down at Abby passed out on his shoulder. For a moment, Ziva just watched McGee watch Abby. He was… shining. No, glowing, that was the word. Yes he was glowing. It brought a smile to Ziva's lips. Abby would never know how lucky she was. A good man deeply cared about her. McGee wanted to be with Abby. Ziva would never have that. The man that she loved was in love with a man.

She never knew why Abby and McGee broke up. They seemed so perfect for each other. True, Abby had strange tastes in music, McGee was more green collar—no, that was not the word either, blue collar, yes, that one—but they completed each other.

McGee finally crawled out from under Abby and joined Ziva across the room. He leaned against the wall. For a while neither of them moved, they did not even look at each other. They kept their eyes glued to Abby.

"Are you ok?" McGee finally asked after five minutes like that.

"Fine," Ziva snapped out. McGee turned to look at her. His eyes bore into her. He knew. She sighed heavily. "You were right, McGee. Well, not completely, I do not have a scrapbook of secret photos that I have taken of Tony over the years." She paused to glare at him. He shrank a little. She sighed again. "But," she trailed off.

McGee figured it out for her. "You love him."

"I would not say that it is love, necessarily, but, attraction. Fondness, maybe." She gazed into nothing as her mind focused on images of Tony. When they were undercover, him lying on top of her, his face only inches from hers. "Lust." She shook her head to clear it. "Coming to save me from Somalia was his idea. Everything that he did, because he 'couldn't live without me.'" Tony risked his life to save hers, who would do that for someone they didn't love? She stared at McGee, pleading him to make sense of everything. She hoped that he could explain this mess to her.

He shrugged. "Maybe he does feel the same way about you, but, Gibbs acted first." He shook his head. "I've watched the two of you interact, I've seen Tony get jealous when some guy flirts with you. He does care about you, Ziva."

"But he loves Gibbs."

They were silent again, again lost in their own thoughts. This time though, Ziva was the one who broke it. "I keep getting mental images of that."

McGee laughed. "I know. The other night I was trying to work on…" he trailed off. Ziva turned to him, waiting patiently. Finally he sighed. "I was working on a new book. About L.J. Tibbs and his team." Ziva just nodded. She had figured that he kept writing. So long as he didn't plan on publishing these new books she did not have a problem with him having a hobby. "I ended up writing this very descriptive scene about Tibbs and Tommy having sex."

That got Ziva laughing again. "How did that go?"

He shook his head. "I went back and reread it and… I didn't even know that was what I was writing it! I mean it just snuck up on me!" That sent the two of them into a giggling fit again.

"I wonder how your fans would take that."

"Oh my god, I don't even want to think about that!"

"Hey you never know McGee, your fans might see something between L.J. Tibbs and Tommy that you did not."

McGee shrugged. "Yeah, it makes sense. I didn't notice something between Gibbs and Tony." That finally sobered them.

"You don't think they're really," Ziva paused.

Before she could finish her sentence, something pinged on the computers. Abby jumped up from where she was slumped. "What pinged?" She sounded much more awake than she should have.

McGee and Ziva stared at her for a moment in awe. Not even her makeup was smudged. There was no difference between her just waking up and how she normally looked at any given moment. And she had not yet even had a Caf-Pow.

She jumped in front of her computer and immediately starting typing, still without a drop of caffeine in her system. Ziva stared in wonder. A part of her still couldn't wrap her head that a person like Abby could even exist, and she had been working with the woman for four years now.

Abby squealed. "Yes!"

That got the two agents up. "What, what is it?" McGee asked, standing on Abby's left.

Ziva took the right. "What have you found?"

Abby gave them her victory grin. "I found the sniper's nest."

Ziva stared at the coordinates on the screen. Whoever took the shot had to have been a trained sniper. It was the only way for someone to make a shot from over twelve hundred yards away into a moving vehicle. They were probably looking for somebody military. "That is good work Abby."

*~*

He traced the creases on his forehead again. Tony was half sprawled across his chest, sleeping peacefully. His hand was still over Jethro's heart, over his mark.

Jethro had been awake for about a half an hour so far. A half an hour and he hadn't even started the coffee machine. That would have required getting up, moving, waking DiNozzo, and he just couldn't find it in him to do any of that.

He knew he should get up. He only had one more day to find who killed Spano and Keller before the director took over. Today should have been a hectic day, pulling in all of their suspects and questioning them like cops, or snooping around trying to find the rifle. But—and he hated to admit it—a part of him wanted the director to take over the case. If he brought in Agents, questioned, threatened, did whatever it was that he wanted, then Jethro and Tony could go home. He could have the younger man at his house, in his bed, instead of the cabin. Hell if that happened Jethro probably wouldn't get out of bed for days.

His cell phone rang. Tony groaned and snuggled more into his chest. Damn it, he hated that stupid contraption. He didn't want to wake up Tony, and eventually the younger man would wake up if that stupid piece of useless technology didn't stop.

With a groan he grabbed his cell phone and flipped it open. The Caller I.D. said it was Abby's lab.

"What?" He hissed into the phone.

"Gibbs!" He pulled the phone away from his ear at the sound of Abby's excited squeal. "Gibbs, we got it, we got it!"

"Lower your voice Abs, DiNozzo's still asleep."

That comment was met with silence.

"You're letting him sleep in?" It had to have been his imagination, but he could have sworn that Abby sounded almost smug about that.

He groaned again. He really did not want to get up, but he didn't think he had much of a choice.

Slowly and carefully, he slid out from underneath his companion. Tony mumbled a few things in his sleep before face planting into a pillow. Jethro couldn't help but chuckle before he crept into the bathroom.

He sat down on the toilet lid. "What've you got, Abs?" He didn't say it with his usual enthusiasm, or serious. It came out much more exasperated.

"Only the location of the sniper's nest!"

That got his full attention. He jumped to his feet again. "Coordinates." Abby relayed the exact position. "Thanks Abs." He was about to hang up when he thought of something. "Hey, Abby get McGee to—"

"Cross check which one of the guests has a military background?" She sounded smug again, only this time for a completely different reason.

"Don't just get the guests, some of the employees are a little fishy too. Oh and there was a security guard named Bernie who says he was hired by a guest to follow us around, I want you to check him out especially."

"Does Bernie have a last name?"

"These people get paid Abby. Somebody's gotta cut their paychecks."

"Too right you are Gibbsman!" Jethro rolled his eyes. She kept talking, oblivious to his aggravation. "Alright, I'll see if I can find the guy. Hey, do you have a name for the guest who hired him?"

Jethro nodded, even though she wouldn't be able to see it. He thought for a second, trying to remember the name that Tony gave him yesterday. But every time he thought of Tony, he thought of last night. "Tobias Filliman." Maybe sleeping with an employee while on the job wasn't a smart thing to do.

"I'll check him out too."

"Thanks Abs."

He was about to hang up again, but this time Abby stopped him. "Hey Gibbs!"

"What?"

"Have you and Tony had sex yet?"

That confused the older man. Tony told him last night that McGee asked him that same question. What was with his team all of a sudden wanting to know about his sex life?

"Yeah, you wanna watch?"

Abby squealed. "Only every day since you hired Tony from Baltimore! Was it good? Was it hot? I bet it was really hot, I mean Tony's too much of a sex machine to be vanilla in the bedroom. Does Tony have any kinks? Any fetishes? Did he want you to handcuff him? Ooh, that would be sexy. You seriously have to let me watch if that happens. Tell me Gibbs, who tops? Is it you? I bet it's you. Not that I don't think Tony's manly enough for the job, I just think that you're too much of a Marine."

Jethro rolled his eyes. "Goodbye Abby." He finally hung up. He really couldn't understand why Abby would actually want to watch him have sex with Tony. Who the hell would actually want to sit on the sidelines as their coworkers went at it? He shook his head. Some things he would probably never understand.

He went back in the main room. Tony was still asleep, half sprawled out on his side of the bed. Jethro smiled. He so desperately wanted to crawl under those covers again. But he had a job to do, and unfortunately that took precedent over great sex with hot employees.

Jethro dressed quietly, not wanting to wake the younger man. He was being nice for a change. Tony had had a rough time during their stay, he figured after everything he's done so far, he deserved a little rest. Jethro threw on his jacket and, sparing one last glance at the naked man on his bed, he walked out the door before he could change his mind.

The first place he went was the drug store. They had a coffee machine. Hopefully it tasted better than three day old burnt black water like he found in most drug stores.

Much to his surprise, it actually tasted pretty good. It was strong. He paid in cash and went on his way.

According to his map, the sniper's nest was actually a lot closer to the resort than his meeting site with McGee. He calculated that—on foot—it was only about an hour walk, compared to his meet site which took the better part of the day, to and back.

He tossed out his coffee cup before he hopped the fence. From there, another thirty minutes to get to the road, and then another fifteen to climb up the hill on the side of the road. It was a hike and his knees hated him for it—actually his entire lower body hated him—but he refused to slow down. He was not that old.

He finally made it to the top and made his way to the coordinates that Abby gave him. He couldn't help but smile. The bastard didn't police his brass, he didn't even bother to take his rifle. He shook his head. At this point, Tony would probably make some crack, like "leave the gun, take the cannoli." But Tony wasn't here, and even though that upset him, he wasn't going to let it prevent him from doing his job.

He was about to pull out his cell phone to give McGee a call when his phone started to ring. It was Abby again.

"Abs, I found—"

"Gibbs, we screwed up!" She all but screamed into his ear.

"What do you mean?"

"We know who did it, who killed Keller and Spano. And we know why."

*~*

Contentment filled the planner's body. The plan had finally come to this point. The prize was won.

Creeping into the building, slowly and carefully. There. The lover was fast asleep. A smile crossed the planner's lips. So Beautiful.

Running a hand through that soft hair caused the lover to stir. Slowly, bright green eyes opened to face the day, and the person standing before him.

With a warm, glowing smile, the planner spoke. "Hello Tony."

Eyes still full of sleep filled with confusion. "What are you doing here?"

I told you the story was almost done. It's really getting there. Well, let me know what you think, I hope this chapter made sense, I was a little afraid it wouldn't. If it doesn't, then I can repost it. Let me know!

Bob