Here is the first installment of a multi-chaptered story encompassing the events of "SWAK" and "Twilight." This first part is pre-episode, along with a handful of scenes from the beginning of "SWAK" from Gibbs' point-of-view and then from Tony's – mostly laying the groundwork for things to come. The next one will be more "filler" for the middle portion of the episode, particularly for the hours Kate and Tony spend together in isolation.

I didn't expect to have a whole first chapter up quite this soon, but once I started writing the first few things I wanted to cover, I realized before I knew it that I had enough for a chapter already. This could be a long story :)

"Darkest Hours – Part I"

As he absentmindedly peeked out the window, he realized it was still thoroughly dark outside. Not even the first hints of dawn had yet made their appearance, yet he was wide awake and not at all likely to see any additional sleep before the first light of morning arrived.

He took a couple of slow, deep, cleansing breaths, closing his eyes momentarily in the process. The pounding in his chest had subsided to a dull throbbing finally, but as he opened his eyes and looked down at his hands, he realized the trembling was still present. He was brewing his first cup of coffee of what already promised to be a long day, and he fully intended it to provide a remedy to the shaking of his hands. Of course, most people didn't look to coffee to calm their frayed nerves. Leroy Jethro Gibbs had never been "most people."

Deciding he couldn't wait a moment longer, he grabbed the pot and poured the rich brew into his waiting mug. He'd never claimed patience as one of his virtues and was therefore accustomed to the sound of the still-brewing liquid hitting the hot base of his coffee maker, bereft of the pot that was supposed to be waiting to catch the liquid. The hiss was oddly comforting this morning. It matched his mood.

He took the life-sustaining brew over to the bare couch that sat in his living room and sat down, leaning heavily into the cushions. For a moment, he lay his head back and closed his eyes. He rarely felt this out-of-control. Trying to remember the last time, he recalled the string of recurring nightmares that had plagued him about a year ago. Then, he'd been assaulted with a string of dreams that always involved a trip down to autopsy, a body bag, and a member of his team inside, dead, with a bullet through the forehead.

Nightmares were commonplace for him, but those had been something that Abby would probably call a premonition. He'd debated the existence of supernatural phenomena with the young forensic scientist on numerous occasions, and she'd often reminded him that what he affectionately referred to as his "gut" could be considered one of these occurrences. He'd argued instead that it simply involved good instincts and acute powers of observation. However, since those dreams last year, accompanied by the arrival of the object of his obsession soon thereafter, even he had experienced some wonder at the coincidental timing. He didn't believe in premonitions, but he also didn't believe in coincidences. It presented quite a quandary, one he'd decided better left alone.

That quandary had made its reappearance in his life over the past couple of nights. For the third night in a row, he'd found himself awakened by something that was more than just a nightmare. It was a clenching – of his gut, of his chest, of his heart. Each time, he'd awoken with his heart pounding, knowing he needed to breathe and yet strangely unable to do so until he'd been so dizzy his body's natural responses had subconsciously forced the issue.

This one had been different. The last two nights, he'd simply awoken with that feeling, but when he'd tried to recapture the images and the substance of the dream, the details had slipped just out of his grasp. Now that he finally recalled the specifics of one of these night terrors, he realized his lack of memory had been a blessing in disguise.

In the quiet of the pre-dawn hours, there was nothing to do other than to replay the details until they were permanently etched in his conscious mind.

They had been in a warehouse – himself, Kate and Tony. For a while, the only sounds had been their 3 sets of footsteps, quietly searching the spaces. The object of the search was unknown to him. At some point he became aware that he'd ceased to hear the other two sets of footsteps, as the sounds of his own echoed almost painfully in his ears. He stopped to look for his team, but couldn't locate them. Somewhere above his head, he thought he heard the very faint sound of laughter.

Suddenly, the room was flooded with light. He was in the middle of the warehouse and in the wide open space in front of him stood his agents. They were facing him, Tony on the left and Kate on the right, approximately six feet apart. Behind each of them stood two identical figures cloaked in shadows, their faces completely obscured, each holding a gun to the temple of one of his agents.

Kate was looking at him, her eyes wild with fear, pleading with him. Do something, Gibbs. I don't want to die!

Conversely, Tony was looking everywhere except at him. The ground, the ceiling, some unseen fixed point over his shoulder. Finally Tony simply closed his eyes as if bracing himself for the inevitable.

Then there was a voice, once again emanating from some vague location above his head instead of a fixed location. "Hello, Agent Gibbs. Did you miss me?"

It was smug, amused. The familiar rage and hatred engulfed him. "Let them go! I'm the one you want."

He'd meant it to sound like an order. It came out as a weak, needy, desperate plea. The laughter returned. "Poor Gibbs. Not used to not being the one in control. I know how difficult this must be for you. Since I'm a reasonable man, I'm going to take pity on you. I'll allow you to keep one of them."

The alarming realization of just what the voice was asking of him caused him to lose control of his temper. He practically screamed, "Let them go, you sick…"

No matter what he said, the voice above him wasn't rattled. It simply grew more smug, more arrogant, and exponentially more amused at his predicament. "Now, now. No need for name calling. I may be tempted to withdraw my generous offer. So, which one?"

"What?" The voice couldn't be possibly asking him what he thought it may be asking.

The voice made a dramatic exasperated sigh. "I'm losing my patience, Agent Gibbs. This game is ceasing to be fun. I'm asking you to choose which one of your agents you get to keep. Please decide soon, or I may be forced to choose for you."

He caught Kate's eyes, even more panicked than before. Tony was tense, clenching his eyes together impossibly tight. He'd opened his mouth to speak, but the next thing about the dream he could remember was that everything went black again and he was violently shaken out of his sleep by the sound of a single gunshot.

No matter how many times he went through the events in his mind, the very end of the dream was the one part that remained fuzzy. He kept telling himself, "It was a dream. It wasn't real. It doesn't matter what happened."

Yet, it seemed vitally important. Had he really managed to choose one of his agents, effectively ending the life of the other? Would he do that? Could he ever do that? The rational part of his mind said no, but there was a tiny bit of doubt. Does anyone ever know for certain what they would do under desperate circumstances?

There was one thing for certain, and it was the element of the dream that had elevated it from a simple nightmare to the cold fingers of fear that were wrapping themselves around his entire body. He knew the voice as assuredly as he recognized his own.

Ari Haswari.

When morning was finally in full bloom that day, it was a thing of beauty. They were right in the middle of spring, the cold bite had disappeared from the air – replaced by a refreshing coolness that contained just enough hint of the warmth to come, and the skies were clear.

Most that knew him would have been surprised to learn that Gibbs' favorite time of day was during the morning. Not sunrise and, amazingly, not even his first cup of coffee of the day. It was the first few minutes of his team's workday, when his agents were just arriving for work and their conversation had not yet been forcibly turned to the darker things concerning pain and death that necessarily filled their working hours.

In those first few moments, his agents shared things that happened outside of these walls. What they liked to do, who they spent time with, their hopes, sometimes their dreams. It was a necessary reminder for him that there was still a world out there beyond the Navy Yard, and that his agents were still able to enjoy that world when they were released from the confines of a job that encompassed so much sorrow.

Gibbs enjoyed the aura of mystery that surrounded his ability to sneak up on his agents, having heard things they'd never intended for his ears. The truth was much less interesting. He simply enjoyed listening to their morning banter, particularly when they weren't restrained by his presence, and sometimes he simply lay in wait to catch pieces of their conversation before making his presence known. Other times, he would sit at his desk but simply pretend not to be listening, all the while secretly picking up on every nuance. This was one of those mornings where he'd actually walked right in when his team was already in the middle of whatever discussion they'd been having before, and he hadn't made it in time to hear all of it.

His agents seemed particularly energetic today, and it didn't surprise him. In spite of the ominous feeling that had surrounded him the past few days, his agents were blissfully unaware that anything was amiss. Things had been going incredibly well lately. His team, a group of agents with vast differences in background and personality, was finally functioning as a true team, something he'd wondered if he'd ever see. Agent McGee was still very inexperienced, but finally coming into his own as an agent. Kate seemed to be more open to learning and taking direction, while improving on her profiling skills. And Tony had been the happiest of all. Finally attaining the Senior Field Agent position, there was a confident air and enthusiasm of spirit in the young man that he'd never seen before. And his other two agents seemed to be developing a grudging respect for him, though the banter and the bickering was something he knew would never quite disappear. And he didn't truly want it to. It kept them all on their toes, including himself.

Gibbs stopped in his tracks when Kate greeted him with a noticeably stuffy, "Good morning."

Concerned, he'd stopped and asked, "Cold or flu?"

He felt slightly better when she'd assured him it was simply a cold, returning to his desk and teasing them about how he'd never had a cold or flu. He was secretly still contemplating whether or not to send Kate home. He had no doubt that she'd be able to perform her duties today just fine in spite of feeling under the weather. They didn't have a hot case at the moment. Still, he could imagine a scenario where Kate passed along her cold to Tony and then to McGee, all three of his agents were sick, cranky, and bickering incessantly, and then being pulled into an urgent case. It would be just his luck – the perfect storm of bad luck which might very well end with someone being sorely tempted to strangle someone else. Or, more likely, himself being tempted to strangle all three of them.

As he was still contemplating the best course of action, and checking his voice mail, Gibbs noticed his agents' attention had turned to the mail. Something about a letter addressed to "NCIS Special Agent" with a set of lip prints on it. Naturally, DiNozzo assumed it must be for him and his boss smiled inwardly.

If he hadn't let himself be so distracted by Kate's cold and his agents' good-natured banter, he'd have arrived at his next thought process a few seconds sooner, and it may have made all the difference in the world. That envelope needs to be checked out before we open it. It was a harsh reality in the post-9/11 world they lived in that you don't open mysterious packages or envelopes, particularly when you work for the Federal Government. It was a reality they'd momentarily let their guard down against, and they were about to pay dearly.

Gibbs had glanced up with an intention to say something. It was too late. Tony's face was already partially obscured by the cloud of white powder.

The cold fingers that had gripped him earlier that morning had returned, squeezing his heart, his throat, his lungs with twice the force now. And they weren't going to let go anytime soon.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to hide his fear. He'd already had a moment of near panic in the showers. It didn't help that the Probie had given a laundry list of diseases that could be contained in that powder. In addition to anthrax, he'd been reminded that he could also be infected with smallpox, bubonic plague, cholera. He was certain that wasn't a complete list either.

He'd covered with nervous chatter, fretting about the loss of his expensive designer clothes. Why had he decided to dress up today?

Now they were in autopsy and they were just waiting. Any moment now, someone was going to arrive to take him away. To the hospital – one of his least favorite places on the face of the earth. He remembered all the past times he'd been there and complained about Gibbs' demand to stay there with him, no matter the injury, great or small. This time he was going to be completely alone, and he now wondered what could have possessed him to complain all those other times. He'd give anything if Gibbs could go with him.

Looking around at his teammates, the people he was currently closest to on this earth, he had a horrible thought. They were all being tested. He was the idiot who opened that envelope. He supposed he deserved whatever he got. But if his recklessness had endangered his teammates – or Gibbs – he didn't think he could ever forgive himself. If he lived long enough to have the chance.

Some Senior Field Agent I've turned out to be. Gibbs must be so disappointed in me.

If Tony was aware on any level that it was odd to be fretting over such a thing when his very life was currently at stake, it wasn't a conscious one.

Even as he was giving himself a mental beating, his defensive mechanisms inexplicably caused him to try to blame the Probie aloud. McGee had unwittingly become his favorite target whenever Tony was feeling angry or vulnerable. He couldn't seem to help himself, and it would cause untold future conflict between them. For the time being, it was fanning the flames of a guilt already present in McGee's overactive imagination, even though it would be several days before Tony would become aware of the full effects of his thoughtless comments.

"Who opened the envelope?" They were here to take him away. In a last-ditch attempt to postpone the inevitable, he pointed at McGee, but he very quickly corrected the situation.

"Did you inhale any powder?"

"I might have." I might have? How about – well, yeah, I was covered in the stuff. Whatever awful thing that was in that powder is now coursing through my body ready to attack me at any moment. How can everybody be so calm? How is it that I seem so calm?

When he heard Gibbs order Kate to go with him, he could have cried with relief. He wondered when he'd become such a sissy, feeling like he needed a familiar face, even if it was Kate's. Like he was suddenly eight years old again, wishing Daddy would come out of the stupor he was in and hold his hand, tell him everything was going to be okay, do something.

As if his wish had been answered, well over twenty years later, he felt the familiar feeling of a swat to the back of the head. It wasn't Gibbs' hand – they weren't supposed to have direct contact with each other - but it had the same effect. It got his attention, pulled him out of the sea of fear he was drowning in.

"If I get anthrax, how will you feel?" I'm really, really scared this time, Boss.

"Not as bad as you, DiNozzo." I've still got your six Tony. Even if I can't physically be there.

He chanced a look at his boss, dropping the mask for just a brief moment. Long enough for Gibbs to read the full extent of his fear. Gibbs answered with a smile. Not the usual one. This one was warm, affectionate. Strong, calming.

As frightened as he was, he smiled back. I'll be strong, Boss. Just please hurry. He didn't even know what he expected Gibbs to do. But he trusted the man. More than perhaps he'd ever trusted another human being. Whatever Gibbs was going to do, it would be everything that could be done to help him.

And that thought along with the smile of reassurance he'd just received were simply going to have to be enough to sustain him. At least for now.

That along with the familiar comfort of arguing with Kate. Cause he could always count on her to fight back.

Gibbs was one of the few people who could recognize almost immediately when Tony was scared, despite the numerous smokescreens the younger man held at his disposal.

He knew it immediately in the bullpen, when Tony walked by him muttering a despondent, "Sorry, Boss," breaking rule #6 and not even giving it a second thought. He'd known it when Tony despaired at the loss of his designer clothing. He was certain of it when the younger man had teasingly tried to blame Agent McGee for their current situation, oblivious to the fact that the other man was taking his words quite seriously.

If there had been any lingering doubt, it would have been wiped away by the look Tony had given him just before being led away. It had very nearly broken his heart.

He began analyzing the events of the last few moments in his mind. Had he done enough? Said enough? Was a headslap and a smile really enough support to offer a young man who could be dying.

Don't get carried away, Probie. It could still be a hoax. Stuff like that goes on all the time. Maybe he was going crazy. He was hearing Mike Franks' voice in his head, a voice he hadn't heard in years. A voice that made him feel anger and comfort at the same time.

His gut argued back. It's not a hoax. This is the real thing. Tony's in trouble and I'm stuck here in this room waiting on results of a stupid blood test. There isn't a thing I can do to help him right now. He's all alone.

Mike was back again. He never would back down from a fight. Or at least he hadn't until it had mattered and he'd taken his toys and left NCIS for good. He's not alone. You sent that pretty agent with him. She's a lot better lookin' than you, Probie. You did him a favor.

Kate. He'd sent Kate to extra cautious, right? Because she had a cold and she might be more susceptible to germs. It was a precaution to protect her. Wasn't it? Or maybe you were being selfish. Because you didn't want to send Tony alone. You felt guilty that you couldn't go, so you sent her.

The voices were getting confusing now. He thought that one was probably his conscience. Had he actually endangered Kate without meaning to? What if she didn't have anything other than a cold and Tony was infected with something? Couldn't he infect her?

The unwanted memory of his dream reared its ugly head. As if he didn't have enough to be upset about. Now Ari's voice was in his head. Which one, Agent Gibbs?

Enough! He didn't know which voice that one was, and he didn't care anymore. He couldn't stand around here and listen to imaginary voices. He needed to know what they were dealing with, and he needed to know it now. He needed to do something and quickly.

He looked towards the doors to autopsy, attempting to plan his escape, but Ducky, as if reading his mind, stood there with folded arms and the look that said, "I know what you're thinking and you're not going anywhere until I say so."

In frustration, he threw the items he'd been holding on to the nearest autopsy table.

Kate's and Tony's bickering voices had died away now. Sparing another glance towards the sliding doors, he tried to hold on to the image of his two agents leaving a few moments earlier, their usual good-natured sparring providing a lighthearted image that masked the seriousness of their situation.

Once again, his mind momentarily betrayed him. He wondered if that would be his last memory of Tony. Or perhaps even his last memory of them both.

To be continued…