Making Up for Lost Time Chapter 13: Hide and Seek, a ncis fanfic

Of course I don't own any of the original characters, stories, concepts etc. of NCIS or otherwise, they belong to their respective owners. However, any characters and/or storylines that I have created for this story are mine.

Making Up for Lost Time

Chapter 13: Hide and Seek

A/N:

Also, yet again, I'd like to bow in the general direction of Austria, thanking WannaBeLikeZiva for being such an excellent beta!

Washington D.C., two days after Tony and Ziva went on the run.

"Leroy – Jethro - Gibbs!" an extremely pissed off Abby shouted across the bullpen, causing quite a few heads to turn in her direction. Gibbs jumped up and ran towards her. "What were you thinking when you ..."

At that point Gibbs had reached Abby and silenced her with one of his patented glares. He then grabbed her by the elbow and was basically pushing her towards the elevator, his own personal conference room. He pressed the call button and when the elevator doors slid open, he and Abby entered the elevator. Moments later the elevator car came to a sudden stop in between floors, as Gibbs had pushed the emergency switch, temporarily separating them from the outside world.

"Damn it, Abby! What is going on?" Gibbs demanded. "And you better keep your voice down if you even want me to consider listening to your explanation!"

Abby crossed her arms in front of her chest in a defensive gesture, yet her facial expression made it clear that she still was very angry at Gibbs, which was something that hadn't happened before. Ever!

"How do you explain that Tony's credit card was used in Germany yesterday?" She stared him right in the face, not faltering at all. "There is something you're not telling me!" Abby barely managed to keep her voice at an acceptable level.

Gibbs responded to her question by asking one of his own. "Why would you think that his credit card was used?"

"Tim has been monitoring all immigration and financial activity since you told us they were dead and he found out that the card was used in Frankfurt/Germany to rent a car."

Gibbs shushed her, his expression not allowing for any kind of protest.

He flicked the emergency switch back off and waited for the elevator to start moving again. After what seemed like an eternity they finally reached Abby's floor and rushed into her lab. Gibbs immediately closed it off and started to dial a number on his cell. Abby was standing next to him, her confusion about his reactions evident in her facial expression.

"Special Agent McGee," the person on the other end of the line answered.

"McGee! Get to Abby's lab, ASAP!" Gibbs barked into his phone and immediately disconnected the call.

A little bit more than 6 minutes later a hurried looking McGee had made his way over from the Cyber Crimes division to Abby's lab.

"You two really have outdone yourselves this time!" Gibbs barked at them. "What the hell were you thinking, putting all those beacons on Tony and Ziva's papers, do you really want them to get killed?"

They both looked at him, stunned and shell shocked at the same time, not immediately understanding what he was getting at. Abby still seemed frozen when McGee snapped out of it, started to move and logged into the trace system, using his Cyber Crimes account. Seconds later he had removed all tracking orders on their papers, credit cards and such.

He stood next to Abby, who now was crying, sobbing uncontrollably. Tim took her into his arms, at the same time staring at Gibbs and, for the first time since he had joined NCIS, he overcame the urge to obey Gibbs and demanded, "What is going on here, Gibbs? Are Tony and Ziva okay? Why did you lie to us?

Gibbs sighed, "We should not discuss this here, come to my house after work. I will ask Ducky to come, too. McGee, take care of Abby while I fetch him."

McGee nodded and turned his full attention back to Abby, who was still fighting for her composure, but so far had lost that battle.

Gibbs' heart was breaking when he left his two broken up team members. He shouldn't have underestimated the two. He should have known that withholding information, even in order to protect someone, always hurt other people and he mentally kicked himself for having done it.

Dr. Mallard was leaning over the body of a dead Petty Officer. He had been killed in what looked like a training accident. Ducky was talking into his voice recorder as he was examining the body, collaborating with his assistant, Jimmy Palmer. When he heard the doors to the autopsy suite open and close behind him, he turned around, just to see an obviously upset Gibbs storming into the room.

Ducky looked at Palmer. What Jethro probably had to say wouldn't be intended for his young assistant's ears.

"Mr. Palmer, would you please be so kind as to fetch a copy of our guest's service record, so we can exclude possible preexisting injuries from the damage that occurred during the fall."

Palmer looked up in surprise, he was sure he'd already gotten those. Ducky could see the confusion in his young assistant's face. He decided it would be better to be blunt.

"Or I could just ask you to leave, so Special Agent Gibbs and I can have a private conversation," he elaborated.

It took Jimmy about a second to process this information before he started to move, leaving the morgue.

"Duck, they found out!" Jethro exclaimed.

Ducky put his hand on Gibbs' right shoulder, trying to calm his friend and stated, "Jethro, slow down! Who found out? Mossad?"

"No, McGee and Abby! They started digging for information and came across Tony's credit card, which was used in Germany yesterday, by the way!"

For a second, Ducky was tempted to supplement that information with an interesting bit from his past, but before he could start telling the story, Gibbs spoke again.

"I told them we would meet at my house after work. Could you come, too? I don't know if I can handle this alone!"

"Of course, Jethro, I will be there!" Ducky promised his friend, also fearing that this would become quite the painful and complicated evening.

The last hour of the workday crept by excruciatingly slowly. Nobody had been able to focus on work, rather than the meeting that would happen later that evening.

When they finally left, McGee decided he would take Abby in his car. She had been lost in thought all afternoon, bursting out into tears from time to time, just to go back to her usual cheery self within moments of each outburst. Tim was really worried about her!

A little after five, everybody was sitting in Gibbs' basement and McGee was looking back and forth between Ducky and Gibbs. Gibbs had spent the last half an hour sweeping his house for bugs but had come up empty, something that had equally surprised and worried him. Finally, he decided to announce that he thought it was safe for them to talk.

Ducky looked at Jethro, who seemed torn and unsure where to start, so Ducky decided to begin.

"Abby, Tim, we are sorry, we lied to you about some things concerning Tony and Ziva's accident," he started.

"We don't know many things for sure, anyway. We have a theory of what might have happened. And we knew that, if we were right about it, Tony and Ziva needed all the help available to them," Gibbs continued.

"There was no positive ID of the bodies. Fingerprints were out of the question and dental or DNA matching weren't possible because the bodies were too badly burned and crushed from the fall," Ducky supplemented Gibbs' explanation with a few facts from his area of expertise.

Abby started sobbing again and McGee hugged her tightly, which calmed her down after a few more sobs.

"Basically, all we have is Ducky's opinion that the male body is built too slight to be Tony - and my gut," Gibbs explained to them.

Abby surprised everybody when she pressed out a question in between sobs.

"What does your gut tell you, Gibbs?"

"I think that the two of them did a lot of thinking after Vance split up the team. They probably finally realized their feelings for each other and then decided to run together. Ziva probably would have had to do anyway. Mossad wouldn't exactly have welcomed her back."

"So, they are in Germany now?" Abby asked.

"I think they are probably anywhere else but Germany. They will have planted the credit card as a false lead."

"I have something on that, boss!" McGee stated, snapping back into Special Agent mode, getting everyone's attention. "Before I could delete the traces on Tony and Ziva's papers, the system had already found a few more hits: the rental car re-surfaced in Poland this morning, stripped for parts and dumped just outside Warsaw. Also, somebody used the credit card in Switzerland to try and buy some tickets for EURO 2008 yesterday evening!"

Gibbs' face lit up slightly; all the new information pointed towards them actually being on the run. Ziva still knew how to set false trails pretty well.

"I think our two friends are hiding somewhere in Europe and by now they should have a comfortable head start on their pursuers. All we can do right now is to wish them luck and hope they find a way to let us know how they are doing in the near future," Ducky suggested.

"You're right. All that is left for us to do is to apologize for keeping you two in the dark," Gibbs suggested, looking at McGee holding Abby.

Which he and Ducky did right then and there, telling Abby and McGee they were sorry and Gibbs even surprising the two and Ducky by hugging each and everyone of them, something nobody would have expected of him.

They continued to talk about where Tony and Ziva might be until late that night. When everybody finally left for home, they felt a little more optimistic about their friends' situation.