Chapter 2: Chapter 2

A few minutes before 9 everyone was present. Ziva had just a normal bag pack, claiming that she would sleep under the stars, just like she had did with Mossad. Abby and McGee both had a brand new survival backpack and Gibbs had a military issue weekend bag. Tony had the largest backpack of all, claiming that he needed a lot of stuff to look good evey morning.

Everyone wore hiking shoes and even Abby did not wore her usually platform boots. All the teammembers had also chosen some fitting close with enough freedom to move. A black van stopped at a parkingspot outside of the gate and a the driver came out.

The driver introduced himself as John and told them to sit in the back of the car. They drove for 2 hours before it stopped. When they got out the only thing they saw was trees and green hills. They where in the middle of a forest.

"Hello, my name is Greg. I am your guide this weekend." The man who came out of a little house started to talk. "Here is a safe, you need to leave you phones, blackberries, watches and stuff like that behind. One of you will close it with a combination of numbers, you will get all your belongings back Monday afternoon, once you returned here."

A few minutes after that everyone had dropped their things in the safe and Greg started to talk again. "We will leave in 10 minutes, go to the toilet if you need to. Our first hike is almost 10 miles, we have one stop. I will not lower my pace, help each other out if you have to."

The first mile Tony made jokes, and Abby and McGee chatted, after that they became more silent, only speaking when they really needed to, Tired from the day they already had. The last mile everyone but Ziva was about to drop down dead. When they finally reached the place where they would stay the night everyone set up their tents and fell a sleep within 5 minutes after their arrival.

At 8 am that morning, after roughly five and a half hours of sleep Greg woke them all up. "Good morning people. In this box is your breakfast, we will leave in half an hour, make sure that you have everything packed because I don't wait."

In the box, placed under a tree there were 5 baguettes and an equal number of water bottles. Each of them ate their part quickely before packing up and cleaning themselves. Everybody, including Tony managed to be ready within the time limit.

They walked for an hour and then arrived at a small river. Over the river where 2 slim but rigid for them to hold on to, one to walk over. There was a thirth rope to tie all the team members together, they had a few minutes to determinant the order. They decided that Gibbs would go first, after him would come Abby, McGee, Ziva and Tony last. They all had to carry there own luggage and Tony cursed at the amount he had taken with him.

If one of them would fall down, he or she would probably take the others down to. The only one with problems was McGee, which was to be expected. Ziva almost danced over the rope without any problem. The 30 meter cross over took them almost half an hour, but they made it all save and dry to the other side of the river. Tony was just a little bit angry when he discovered a bridge just 200 meters to their right. But even he knew why they didn't take the bridge and stopped complaining about it.

Free from the ropes the team had no time to get their breathing back to normal and her heartrate a little down. Greg continued to walk, leaving the team no other option then to follow. Sometime around 2 pm the leader handed everyone a new baguette and they found a little stream to fill their bottles again.

They had a small pause to eat their food and have some rest. After twenty minutes the leader told them that they would walk 7 more miles and then settle for the night. They walked not as fast as first and at the end of the afternoon they arrived at a small open place in the woods. They set up their tents and took a little break.

When they were all settled Greg started to talk. Tony sighed loudly and rolled with his eyes. "This next mission is for your own luxury. You can earn points with the next game. The amount of points you earn depends on the task and if you finish it or not. You can spend them on food, shower time or a phone call. You are going to spend these points together so think and talk about it."

Greg gave them a few minutes to talk and relax. After 10 minutes they gathered around in the middle between their tents. "This is the mission." Greg started. "I have different cards with exercises, every card has a task. If you preform the task as noted you earn the number of points as noted at the bottom of the card. Those points can you exchange for the things listed on this card. You must spend all your points, you can't keep them till tomorrow."

Abby and Tim choose the first card. They started with an easy exercise. Abby was blindfolded and she needed to walk a route trough the trees, Tim had to use his voice to guide Abby. She took tiny steps and made it without falling down.

When the blindfold was removed she jumped excitingly up and down hugging Tim. After that one they did a group. Ziva had to stand on a box and fall backwards, the rest of the team had to catch her.

Ziva stood at the box with her arms crossed before her chest and her eyes closes. She hesitated. "I've got you, we've got you Ziva" Tony whispered. Ziva took a deep breath and let her self fall back. Mossad had learned her not to trust anyone. The team applauded and Tony hugged Ziva briefly, this earned the team a lot of points.

Abby did an task with Gibbs and McGee with Tony. Ziva walked up to Tony, "We can do one together" she said. Tony was happy that she proposed that they would do a task together. He knew that his strained relation with Ziva was the reason that they were send on this camp.

She blindly picked a card.

Person A has to carry person B.
Person A is blindfolded.
Person B tells person A how to walk
Person B also needs to collect all the red
colored flags I will hang in the trees.
Good luck.

Ziva obviously would be person B, but carried around in the woods by Tony, she wasn't sure about it. She hesitated just a minute but she saw the hurt look in Tony's eyes and didn't want to hurt him anymore.

She had not trusted him, he had promised to keep her save that one time then she was being accused of killing federal agents. And a few months she was shipped of back to Israel, Tony had not called her once. She was disappointed in him, she had really thought that they had something special. Now they where both back on the team he had acted like nothing had changed, that had hurt her.

She blindfolded him and jumped on his back. "If you drop me, I will kill you with this blindfold" she whispered in his ear. Tony chuckled,"Relax Ziva, you know me, I always sleep with a woman before I let her fall." Ziva pushed her finger in his cheek and started to guide him trough the forest. It took them a while but after 45 minutes they had found all of the 20 flags.

"Ziva, I know I am not aloud to let you touch the ground, but I'm, um, I am getting a little tired, so you can get of my back? "

Ziva carefully slid around to his back and Tony let himself sink on the ground.

The team had collected enough points to buy them a nice dinner, Mac and Cheese with steak and they also bought a campfire for that night.

After dinner Abby sat between Gibbs and McGee and she was holding McGee's hand. McGee looked pretty happy Tony thought. He was sitting with Ziva at the other sit of the fire.

He knew why she was angry. It was not like he had not tried, but every time he thought about her, he immediately saw Jenny, dead, on the ground. And it that wasn't bad enough his mind always flashed back to the conversation he had with her in autopsy. 'we are all alone'.

Until that point he had believed that he and Ziva had something special, a connection. He could call it love, or just deep friendship, but they had a special bond. And all of that had been blown away when she went back to Israel. He had waited for her to come by and say their goodbye's maybe a goodbye kiss that evening. He had waited until the last moment. Then it was clear to him that he was all alone. She was right, nobody can be trusted.

When he looked sideways he saw that she was now sitting next to Gibbs, probably talking about the best way to attack and enemy in close combat. His gaze shifted tot Abby and McGee, they looked pretty happy together. Maybe it was just him, Anthony DiNozzo, never really loved, and never will be.

With a sad smile he went to his tent, not noticing the pair of brown eyes that burned almost a hole in his back.

Not long after Tony went in his tent the rest of the team decided to call it the night. Tomorrow was going to be an other long, tiring day.