A/N: I promised this for Friday night but failed. It's been a very long week, and I feel sort of crushed under the weight of a lot of work responsibilities right now. It took me awhile to get my head in the right place to write this. I could've sent out a 1000 word chapter last night, but I really feel a need to tell a story with each chapter. I appreciate your patience. At 46, I'm getting very set in my ways. Please read and let me know what you're thinking. My mind took me in some unusual directions this time. Sheila

P.S. gave me error messages all Saturday night. Couldn't post until now.

Surviving Winter

Chapter 8

It took a day for Ziva to find him. Tony had spent the first night walking from bar to bar, drinking anything that could promise him a dreamless night. Around dawn, he started walking along the river in Georgetown; too drunk to drive but too stubborn to call anyone for help. She found him sleeping on a park bench around noon. He wrestled with her when she tried to wake him, but she was Ziva and so it took only minutes to deposit him in her car. She brought him home and poured him into her bed.

The act of caring for him distracted her from her sorrow and she took time undressing him and putting his clothes in the wash. Throughout the afternoon, she sat with him while he vomited his guts into a pail, she helped him drink water, and she sang to him softly. It was late afternoon before he fell into a deep sleep. She curled up with him, leaving the rest of the world behind.

He woke quite early in the morning, and he was leaning on his side staring at her when she woke. She stroked his cheek and spoke to him in Hebrew. Tony hung on her every word. Then she pushed him toward the shower while she made breakfast.

Hyperactive, extroverted Tony was mute sitting across from her, eating what she offered and watching her silently. When breakfast was over, he helped her bus dishes, but then grabbed her hand before she could wash them. He led her into the bedroom and sat on the bed. At first, she shook her head. She worried about unleashing any more emotions. Tony pulled her down until she was sitting beside him. He reached for her ear. "I don't what this is, but I need to be with you. This isn't about sex, Ziva. It's about not being alone right now. I feel so lonely with the thought that he's never coming home…In many ways, he was the only true friend I ever had. He always liked me just the way I was even when I was a complete ass."

Ziva pulled off her shirt and her jeans and crawled in beside him. "Tony, I need to not miss him for a while too. Please."

He was very gentle with her, kissing her softly, while giving her all the time she needed for her tears.

…

Fornell walked out of the warehouse at dawn. He had just had 36 hours of crazy with a mob boss who decided to clean house. There were six dead bodies, four crime scenes, and two rival crime families looking for revenge. Fornell knew enough of the players to schedule a meet and hammer out a ceasefire. He hadn't been home in 2 ½ days.

A junior agent named Maggie handed him a cup of coffee and his cell phone. He frowned at her and she said, "You left this in the car a couple of days ago. It's been ringing off the hook. I wasn't authorized to interrupt you."

Fornell closed his eyes and his body deflated. He hadn't talked to Dunham in three days. He grabbed the phone from Maggie and leaned against the car. "Dunham? Goddamn, I'm sorry. I've been in the middle of a mob war, if you can believe it."

He listened for a few minutes, and then leaned forward as if someone just punched him in the gut. When he hung up, he was breathing hard. Maggie with the soft brown eyes was still standing there, waiting. He looked up, "They cut off his head."

She didn't know what he was talking about, but she'd been watching him for the last few days, and had witnessed how remarkable he was. Fornell could walk into a room and get crime bosses to sit down and listen. She couldn't keep her eyes off him.

"So what do we do next, Sir?"

He squinted at her. "What unit are you with?"

"I'm in Terrorism, but things have been soft, and the agent-in-charge sent me down here to help out. He told me to make sure you had everything you needed."

He nodded. "You've done a nice job, Agent…Maggie."

"I'm actually Agent Faust, but I let everyone call me Maggie."

"You should go back to your unit now."

She shook her head. "I'm in no hurry. You need sleep and food. I suspect that phone call means that neither of those things are happening anytime soon. Just tell me where you need to go. I'll drive, make phone calls, whatever you need, and you can close your eyes. I have energy bars in the car."

She was young and eager, and he couldn't remember the last time he was either of those things. He nodded. "All right, Agent Maggie. You're driving me to the Navy Yard. Come on."

…..

Gibbs walked into the Director's office a few hours later. Fornell was slumped in a chair, snoring at the ceiling. Jethro had little patience for him and his instinct was to shake him awake. Fornell hadn't returned any of his phone calls in two days, but the level of exhaustion radiating off him left Gibbs feeling some empathy. Without disturbing him, he sat in the chair across from him. He looked at the Director's Aide. "When is Leon ready?"

"He's on a conference call right now. I'll let you know."

Gibbs settled back in the chair and watched Fornell snore. He hadn't been back to the Navy Yard in two days. Ducky's sedative put him out for almost 18 hours. And when he finally woke, there was the matter of Abby. She'd stopped crying but what was left behind was an echo of her former self. For an entire day, she did nothing but sit on Ducky's porch leaning against him, and look out at the garden. She resisted all attempts at conversation. She reminded him of what Kelly was like when she was running a high fever: hot, quiet, and limp. He knew he should check on Tony and Ziva, but he himself felt too drained to do anything but sit and rock Abby on the porch swing.

A young woman came in with a bag and looked down at Fornell. She seemed conflicted. Gibbs nodded at her. "Let him sleep."

She sat down. "He's been working for two days straight. I brought him a sandwich. I imagine he needs the sleep more."

"He was in the middle of something big?"

She nodded. "Mob war. It wasn't his case, but he had the kind of long time connections with these guys needed to stop a bloodbath."

Gibbs closed his eyes. "No time to answer his phone."

She didn't quite know how to respond so she smiled softly and set the sandwich in her lap. A few minutes later, a dream startled Fornell and he jerked forward, eyes open. "Gibbs!"

He no longer had any energy to be angry with Fornell. "Hey Tobias."

Fornell rubbed his face and noticed Agent Maggie sitting next to him. "You still here?"

She nodded and handed him the bag. "Called my boss. They don't have anything new on the docket. I'm your agent for the day."

Gibbs blinked at her and Fornell looked up at the ceiling. "Okay. Faust, right? Um, why don't you go sit down stairs in the bullpen? Ah, it's a group of empty desks near the stairs. I'll let you know when I need you."

She couldn't quite read the men in front of her, but she knew that it was time to get scarce so she got up. "I'll just be downstairs, Sir."

After she left, Gibbs smiled lightly. "Your very own girl agent. Moving up in the world, Tobias."

Fornell pushed the sandwich back in the chair next to him. "I didn't know about McGee until this morning. I am so damned sorry, Jethro."

"Me too."

Fornell sighed. "I know some things about this that you don't."

Gibbs straightened.

"I've been in contact with Dunham the last two weeks. He had some…concerns. Wanted me to follow up. He didn't want to burden you with hunches."

"You didn't tell me?"

Fornell looked around and realized his new girl Friday hadn't thought to bring him coffee. "I didn't tell you, Jethro. There wasn't anything you could do about it, and you were already pretty heated about McGee being over there. It's still only a hunch."

"Is that why we're sitting here waiting for Leon?"

"I called Dunham when I was reunited with my phone this morning. I talked to his partner, Wilson. Winter has jailed Dunham on charges of making terroristic threats."

"Winter jailed him? What the hell?"

"Jethro, I don't know if this is anything, but I'm not crazy about coincidences."

"Have you met me before?"

Leon put his head around the door. "Let's bring this party into my office."

…..

It took Gibbs only ten minutes to start pacing the office. "This happened to an FBI agent and you didn't say anything! And now I gotta' hear that Winter already had computer hackers in training here in the states for the last six months."

"McGee was already captured by then. We were in a process of finding something solid for you. I wanted to give your outrage a little more direction than unconnected facts."

"You really think Hussain's group might have been responsible for the attack on McGee and the Marines? Hussain has American connections!" Gibbs felt his body coming to life again.

"It's Dunham's hunch. Hussain's got friends in D.C. I've had agents on them for the last week. I, um…haven't talked to them in a few days."

"Well, that's number one on our list, Tobias. It's too bad you're sleep-deprived 'cause we gotta' a lot of work to do."

Leon sighed. "So what does this all mean? Are you trying to say that Winter is responsible for McGee's death?"

Fornell threw up his arms. "We were bouncing half-baked ideas back and forth. I don't know what the hell this means. It's his gut, and then it's my gut. Why is Winter's staff meeting with Hussain? Winter spun fairy tales to get McGee over there. Then he sends him to every hot spot in the country. If he's running this and had McGee kidnapped, there would no way McGee would be dead; he needs him too much. Those hackers don't drop in country for another six weeks."

Gibbs nodded. "McGee was Winter's stopgap until trained Marine hackers could get into country. If he's pulling the strings, it makes no sense that McGee is dead."

"You've watched the tape?" Fornell asked.

Gibbs closed his eyes. "More times than I could stomach."

"Can I?"

Gibbs looked at the ceiling. "Knock yourself right the hell out, Toby."

"We have a lot of unanswered questions, Gentlemen." Vance said, getting up, "But that young man deserve answers from us."

Gibbs snorted. "Don't worry, Leon. I promise you that I will find out what happened to that boy with or without NCIS resources."

"And Sec Nav will expect me to keep you on a leash. So we're going to compromise. Keep me in the loop, and I'll let you do exactly what you need to do."

…

Abby found her phone on the floor in Ducky's guest bedroom. There were tons of messages, mostly from Sister Rosita and the girls, but there was also one from NCIS. It was from Murdoch, a new tech up in MTAC. He was green and had latched onto Abby for help when the hazing from his co-workers got too much.

Abby was too drained to really talk to anybody, but Murdoch would be a simple fix. He always was and there was no way he would ask her about anything but programming. She lay back in her bed and dialed him.

"Abby! I can't believe you called back! I was so stupid to call you!"

Abby blinked and sat up. "Calm down, Murdoch."

"I didn't realize you were close friends with McGee, and then Brownie found out I called you for advice and he ripped me a new one."

Hearing the sound of Tim's name pulled at her gut. "Murdoch, what did you need from me?"

"Brownie would kill me if I told you."

"Murdoch, you called me and I know I will kill you if you don't tell me why!"

The line was silent. "Can you promise me Brownie never finds out it was me?"

Abby was sitting up, her head still cloudy. "I promise, Murdoch. What did you want to know?"

"I'm analyzing the tape…and I got confused. I knew you would give me ideas but then I remembered that you weren't supposed to look at it."

Abby felt anger rise in her. She was being treated like a child. Everyone else had been part of this, but it was too much for her. Part of her understood that her feelings for McGee were special, but it still rankled that she'd been kept out of the loop.

"Murdoch, what is the problem?"

"Well, I think it's fixed."

"Tell me anyway."

"We've determined that two cameras were used. The video from the camera up to the point of the…crime is different than the camera used to film the crime."

"Wow! That means it's all doctored! Timmy could still be alive."

"Not so fast, Abby. Afghani dust and sand are hard on digital cameras. There is a good chance that camera one lost resolution and another camera had to be employed. We did our homework. There are at least two other beheadings where this happened. In our situation, the second camera has a much grainier resolution and it is set further away than the first. We're trying to analyze the second part of the video to see if we can determine whether or not, it was McGee. Even if it isn't, there's still no proof that they didn't doctor the video because they didn't have a second camera when the first one failed. It's inconclusive no matter we find. I mean it's hard to figure why they went to all this trouble if they weren't going to follow through."

Abby squeezed her eyes shut, trying to keep her composure. "I should be looking at that video. Nobody knows McGee better than I do."

"Right. I let you help and I'll be applying at Walmart within a week."

"I understand. No problem. Thanks for thinking of me. Bye Murdoch."

She hung up quickly and considered her options. Going to NCIS wasn't going to work. They'd kick her out of the lab within minutes. Ducky had a dusty old laptop that made her sneeze. Then she remembered a place where she could find everything she needed. She pulled on some clothes and grabbed her car keys.

…

The rest of the day passed in a fog for Fornell. He slept in the car, and let Agent Maggie drive. Gibbs was consigned to the backseat and this left him grouchy, but Fornell didn't care. There was no sleeping if Gibbs drove. The car would be careening around every corner, and Fornell would spend all of his time hanging on for dear life.

They checked out the agents watching Hussain's people. Without Fornell's constant direction, they had uncovered little, and impatience radiated off Gibbs. Fornell got them back on track with some orders for phone taps and extra agents. Still, it was clear that he was disappointed in their performance as well.

Gibbs made phone calls, and they all met up at Ducky's house. Fornell collapsed on a sofa, and his agent Maggie went into the kitchen in search of coffee. Gibbs found Ducky pruning roses in the back. "Hey Duck, I brought Fornell and one of his agents with me. They're ransacking your house."

Ducky sat back and regarded him. "You've got energy, Jethro. Has something happened?"

"Maybe."

"I talked to Tim's parents today. The Navy wants to fly them in next week for a memorial."

Gibbs reddened. "I never called them."

"Vance told you he would take care of it."

"Still, I should have been the one."

Ducky got up, dusting off his knees. "Perhaps, but none of us are at our best right now. You'll call them tomorrow. It's been quite a shock. Tim never told them he had taken a temporary assignment to Afghanistan. His father especially is pretty devastated."

"I got it, Duck."

"How's Abby been today?"

Gibbs shrugged. "I haven't seen her since this morning."

Ducky frowned. "That's strange. She was gone when I went to the house around noon. There was a note saying that she was with you."

Gibbs shook his head.

Ducky sighed. "Our Ms. Scuito has decided to take us for a little ride, I can see. She's probably with the nuns or maybe she's at home. I'll call her as soon as we get back to the house."

"I don't like it."

"We'll check with the main gate to see if she tried to get back into her lab. I'm sure someone would have called us."

…

Abby had spent so many hours with Tim's computers that it took no time for her to find what she needed. The video hadn't gone viral, and for this, she was grateful, but she knew enough about Murdoch to be able to access NCIS and hack into his computer. It took her only fifteen minutes to find it. Abby wasn't squeamish. She modeled most of her persona around a fascination with death. She saw gruesome and cruel things every day. Still, she knew that she would need to take care with this. McGee had been special to her in a way she could never easily articulate.

She transferred the video to McGee's big screen. Then, with hands trembling, she watched it for the first time.

….

DiNozzo stood over a snoring Fornell and frowned. "What's he doing here?"

"That's Agent Fornell. He's helping Special Agent Gibbs with a case." He hadn't noticed the young woman in the corner. She was pretty but not elegant. Her soft brown hair was captured in a ponytail and her large dark eyes carried no makeup.

"Who are you?"

"Agent Maggie Faust. I'm attached to Fornell for the week."

"You talked your boss into a whole week," Gibbs observed from the doorway.

She flushed. "It seems to me that Agent Fornell could use the assistance. His responsibilities are myriad."

Gibbs nodded. He didn't know her endgame, but she was clearly enamored with Fornell. He held no judgment. She was eager to help him navigate the chaos of working for both FBI and Homeland Security and it was clear he would benefit from the assistance. Plus, she knew when to stay out of the way and she made a wonderfully deep and bitter cup of coffee.

Tony smiled a bit if just realizing her interest in the older man. He looked ready to say something when Gibbs cleared his throat and frowned at him. Tony deflated and dropped into a chair. "Why are we here, Boss?"

"I have some updates. Where's Ziva?"

"She's talking to Ducky out on the porch."

Gibbs nodded. "I'm…uh, glad that you weren't alone when I called. I should checked on you before this."

Tony shook his head. "I made it all about me and left the team behind. Buried myself in a little liquid therapy. Ziva had to peel me off a park bench yesterday morning. I should have checked in with you and Abby and Ziva instead of isolating and making myself a problem."

"Sounds like you took a page from my playbook. You live and learn, Tony."

Gibbs suddenly found himself hugging Ziva. She smiled up at him. "I know it's not protocol, but I needed to do that."

He squeezed her hard and nodded, watching Ducky as he came in behind her. "You reach Abby?"

He shook his head. "I'm getting worried. I even called the nuns. No one has seen her."

Tony frowned. "If I know Abby, she's probably back at the lab working."

"I had security go down there twice. She's not there."

"Abby wouldn't hurt herself. She's too stable for that."

"Yeah, I have a key to her apartment. Probably better go over there." Gibbs said.

"Come on, Boss. You had us come over here for a reason. Can we take a few minutes to hear your news before we go Abby hunting?"

Gibbs gestured to a sleeping Fornell. "Fornell and Dunham got a lead on the group that may have kidnapped McGee. Dunham got some intel in Kabul, and Fornell followed it up here. Apparently, members of this group may be working out of D.C. Fornell's got a team on them, and he's invited us to join in."

"The bastards might be living less than 30 minutes away from here? You think I want a piece of that? Damn straight, I do." DiNozzo was on his feet.

Ziva looked at Gibbs with fevered eyes. "How soon can we meet with Fornell's team?"

"It's set up for tomorrow."

"Is that all you know, Gibbs?" Ziva's instincts were as sharp as his.

He sighed. "That's all that's relevant for right now."

Tony narrowed his eyes. "Come on, Boss. Don't leave us hanging."

Gibbs stared at him, motionless. "I don't have anything else you need to know right now. Let's go find Abby."

…

She'd watched it 18 times before she turned off the sound. After her fifth viewing, she thought it was getting easier. The tears had stopped flowing. A strange sense of calm settled over her. She studied the second video frame by frame with as much resolution as McGee's equipment afforded her. She had isolated and studied the prone form lying on the stone with a hood over his head. Some moments, she felt sure it wasn't McGee, but as time went on, she found characteristics that reminded her of McGee. A couple of times, she was convinced she could see his face through the hood. Things started to deteriorate after that. The 16th time through the video, McGee stood up after he was beheaded and spoke to her. "Abby, don't forget about me."

Her rational mind knew it wasn't possible, but she saw him do it plain as day. It was as if watching it so many times revealed deeper layers of content. Twice more, she watched, and once he got out of the chair where they were interrogating him and asked, "Was I ever really important to you?" She screamed, "Yes!" at the screen over and over.

The 18th time, he stood up and said, "I wish we'd had a real chance, Abby." She yelled at the screen that they had a chance, that it wasn't over. This time McGee's disembodied head dripping blood out of his neck was in his hands and he said, "Too late, Abs."

That was too much for here and she screamed until she was hoarse, turning off the sound in desperation. She continued to watch without the sound, and found that he was still able to talk to her at different moments. It horrified her, but she couldn't look away. It was the only connection that she had left to him. If she kept watching, if they kept talking, maybe he could find a way to rejoin her.

Her eyes burned from lack of blinking, and she held no thoughts about food or drink. She curled up with a pillow and a blanket, careful to make sure she never lost sight of the running video, and waited for him to come home.

…

His eyes opened in an impossibly bright room. It took awhile to recognize it as some sort of clinic. He moved body parts, but everything ached desperately. He wasn't chained to anything so the chance for escape was possible and he prayed that his wounded muscles would cooperate when the time came. Before he could formulate a plan, the door opened and a female in fatigues walked in.

"Finch?" He asked. Her hair was grown impossibly long and it was blonde now.

"No, Mr. McGee, my name is Kathy. Colonel Winter wanted me to let me know when you woke. Do you feel like you're well enough to talk with him?"

McGee frowned. It seemed unlikely that Winter was involved with the Taliban. "Where am I?"

"You're in a mobile clinic near Kandahar. You were rescued a couple of days ago."

He shook his head. "That's not what I remember. There were four Marines with me. Where are they?"

She sighed. "The Colonel will talk to you about all that. Are you ready to see him?"

Tim hesitated. He would have like it more if she'd announced Gibbs was waiting for him. He wanted to like Winter. Clearly, he owed him everything, but the man always left him unbalanced and confused. "He has information on the Marines?"

"If anyone does, he would."

For the first time, he noticed that he was hooked up to an IV and a heart monitor. This was a lot to digest. "You better send in Winter. I have no idea what's going on here."

…..

TBC