a/n -enjoy.
One look from Gibbs and Palmer was back outside rechecking the oil levels in the coroner's van while Ducky smirked. "Really, Jethro, you're going to wear the poor boy out. What is it this time?"
"McGee's still sick."
For a fleeting moment Ducky wondered if he could go help Palmer. "Of course he's still sick. He had the beginnings of a cold yesterday. I would imagine he feels even worse today. Good heavens, it's not the first time you've had a team member with the sniffles."
Gibbs was not in the mood to be placated. "If it was just the sniffles, why did Fornell send a bag of medicine over here for him?"
"Well, if you could tell me the names of the drugs he was given…"
"It was stuff like vitamin C and Zinc something." Gibbs was pacing between two of the autopsy tables. "The point is that Fornell knows more about one of my people than I do. He sent some sort of homemade tonic, for God's sake."
"Jethro, listen to yourself; you sound like a child who doesn't want to share his toys. Is Timothy not allowed to have friends outside of NCIS?"
"It's Fornell! He went to Fornell about something and now the man is all over him."
Ducky was trying desperately to keep up. "Are you worried because he's sick or are you worried because he's confided in someone else?" He replayed the last few minutes of conversation in his head. "What tonic?"
Gibbs waved his hand in the air as he dismissed it as unimportant. "Some concoction made by Agent Sacks' mother. The point is that we don't know what's in it."
"Unless you are accusing the FBI of trying to poison one of your agents, I believe that the point is that one of your children needed something and he didn't come to you." Ducky watched as his old friend refused to acknowledge what was in front of him.
"I'm not his father, he has a father. I'm his boss, and he didn't go through the proper chain of command." Suddenly spent, Gibbs leaned against one of the tables. "He didn't come to me, Ducky. Something is wrong and he didn't come to me. How can I fix it if I don't know what it is?"
Knowing how hard what he was about to say would be for Gibbs to accept, Ducky moved closer and leaned back against the table next to him. "Perhaps, this time the problem is something you can't fix. Would you begrudge Timothy the chance to go to someone who could help him?" When he didn't seem convinced, Ducky tried again. "I did some checking, and Agent McGee had his last official physical approximately seven months ago. There were no problems noted in the records. I could determine nothing when I examined him yesterday except the beginnings of a rather nasty upper respiratory infection. Until he comes to me with other symptoms or something noticeable happens to him out in the field, my hands are tied, Jethro, as are yours. The best we can do is wait for him to come to one of us."
"I hate waiting."
"I noticed." It was a struggle, but Ducky kept a straight face. Shaking his head, he turned serious. "Just don't push him about this. You may end up pushing him away from all of us."
---NCIS---
Just a few miles down the road from the park where he would meet with Gibbs was the park where Tobias would meet with his contact in the Federal Marshals Service. Walt Harrison had taken a wide-eyed rookie FBI agent and turned him into the man Fornell was today. Just like that first case together, Walt was sitting on the bench, a package of cookies opened next to him. Handing his mentor one of the cups he carried, Fornell sat down and helped himself to the cookies.
"We're going to need some protection details, but we need to keep it under wraps for the time being."
Harrison studied him for a moment while he sipped his coffee. "Is there a reason why you aren't using your own people?"
"We've got a lead on Moore." Fornell waited to see the reaction.
"Moore? Edmund Moore? Are you serious?" If it wasn't so serious, the hissed reaction might have been funny.
"Yeah, I'm serious. Thing is, our investigation is only a few days old and it may have been compromised already. I need a couple of teams in place to protect my man's family. They need to stay in the background enough that they don't tip Moore off, but be ready to rescue and relocate his family in a moment's notice." Fornell resumed the wait while Harrison considered the options.
"Are you telling me that you've got a mole inside his organization?"
"Better," Tobias allowed himself a small grin. "I've got an agent that found a way to take him down."
"Tell me what you need." Harrison took out a pad and started taking notes
---NCIS---
It had been raining almost an hour by the time the call came in. Gibbs slammed his phone shut as he grabbed his coat. "DiNozzo, gas the truck. Pipe bomb just went off at a recruiter's office." When the rest of the team stood, Gibbs snapped his fingers and pointed at McGee. "Stay here, McGee. The three of us can pick up shrapnel pieces as well as four can. You can start tracking manufactures as soon as we have the pieces." When McGee looked like he was going to argue, Gibbs let a little bit of his worry show through. "Sacks was right about one thing, you don't need bronchitis."
Only slightly annoyed, McGee watched the rest of his team leave before he called his father's doctor. Fornell's lab had left him a message that he needed to take care of right away. After twenty minutes of listening to music that nearly lulled him to sleep, the receptionist came back on the line.
"I'm sorry to make you wait, but Dr. Charbonneau is running a little late. We were so sorry to hear about your dad, how's your mom doing?"
"She's doing all right under the circumstances. Actually, you can probably help me; I know the doc's pretty busy." He looked around to make sure no one was close enough to hear him.
"All right, what can I do for you?"
It was a little lie, but under the circumstances, he didn't want to arouse suspicion at the research hospital that had treated his father until the last few years. "My doctor here would like to see copies of Dad's records so he had a better idea of what's coming down the road."
Even over the phone he could hear the concern in the older woman's voice. "You're not showing symptoms yet are you?"
"No, no I'm fine. They just want to know a little more about it, since there are not too many cases in the world."
"All right, give me the address and we'll get it sent out this afternoon." He could hear her writing down the address. "Remember that we're here if you need us."
"I know, Marcie, thanks." Once he hung up the phone, McGee started setting up the search parameters he would need when Gibbs called in.