a/n - Everyone enjoy the double chapters yesterday?

One look at his expression and Abby scrambled to turn down the music the minute Gibbs stormed into her lab. "Hey, Gibbs."

"Well?"

It was obvious he was not happy with her. Rather than waste time with an apology he didn't want, she handed him the readout from the mass spectrometer. "Here's the results from that tonic you asked me to test. It's mostly comprised of various herbs. Everything in is used in folk medicine for colds and flu, nothing that is toxic or dangerous." Abby handed the bottle back to Gibbs. "I only used a little bit to run the tests."

Gibbs took the offered bottle. "This would be most effective at the start of a cold?" She wouldn't look him in the eye.

"Umm, yeah. But Timmy gets colds all the time, it's never been a big deal."

The unspoken 'this time it was' circled around the room. Instead of a kiss to her cheek, she felt a wave of disappointment. "What about the blood tests he had done?" This time she did apologize.

"I'm sorry, Gibbs. By the time I called her, someone had purged the data from the system. She tried, but she couldn't get it back."

Gibbs closed his eyes as another avenue was lost. "Why would they do that?"

"I don't know." She moved closer, hoping for her hug, but he just started moving towards the door. "What's going on Gibbs? Did I mess up?"

"Yeah, you did, you really did, Abs." Gibbs walked out without telling her anything else.

---NCIS---

After sending Sacks to follow McGee back to the apartment Fornell walked into the secure lab at Quantico, twenty minutes early for his meeting with Mildred Novak, the director of laboratory services. Despite that, she was ready and waiting for him. This may be the most secure lab in the country, but he was expecting her to step it up another notch for this case. Mildred may have smiled at first, but she took his concerns very seriously and he was impressed with the changes in protocol she had made for this case. Once the tour was finished, they retreated to her office for coffee.

"How soon will we start getting samples, Tobias? If I need to tell my people to cancel their weekend plans, I'd better do it first thing this morning." She stood up to refill their coffee mugs. "How many samples will be coming in?"

"Honestly, I have no idea. The more we look into this, the bigger it gets. Plan on a worse case scenario. Nobody get time off until this case is put to bed."

Mildred had reached retirement age years ago and briefly wondered why she had never taken it. Retirement sounded better every day. "Ill break the news to them, but you'd better warn Director Haas that we will be discussing our overtime budget again. By the way, thank your Agent McGee for me please. The doctor's office sent his father's file overnight mail. That is going to help sort out those test results. Poor kid."

Her last comment caught Fornell by surprise. "Why poor kid?"

"His father was already terminal before they killed him." She pulled a file out of a locked desk drawer and opened it.

Fornell wasn't sure where she was headed. "Yes, I know. Your point?"

"It's genetic." The file was turned so he could read it. Fornell groaned at her statement. He started to skim the document, but after a moment he dug out a pad to write down some notes, including the long name at the top of the chart.

---NCIS---

Director Vance arrived late at NCIS after a breakfast meeting with the SecNav. He rolled his eyes but turned with a smile as Gibbs followed him into his office. "What can I do for you this morning, Agent Gibbs?"

Gibbs didn't beat around the bush. "I want you to break the seal on McGee's medical history. Jenny Shepard sealed them and I want you to open them back up."

Leaning back in his chair, Vance clasped his hands together and rested his chin on them, studying the other man. "No. I am not overriding a previous director's orders just to satisfy your curiosity."

"Damn it, he's sick, Leon."

"I thought he had a cold."

Gibbs was rapidly losing his patience. "Besides that."

Vance hadn't even noticed the sealed packet in McGee's personnel records, but he'd never had a reason to dig that deeply in the young agent's file. "What symptoms has he shown?"

"None that I can tell."

"Then our hands are tied, Gibbs. You know that."

"How can I help him if I don't know what's wrong?" Knowing he would get no help on this front, Gibbs stormed out without waiting for a dismissal. Vance stared at the slammed door for a long time before getting up to lock it. After a quick call to his assistant to make sure he wasn't disturbed, he pulled out the file in question. Across the back where it was taped close was the flowing signature of his predecessor. For a moment it felt like he was walking across her grave, but he shook off the feeling and cut through the seal.

An hour later he was still staring at the papers spread across his desk, stunned.

---NCIS---

Ron Sacks parked next to the silver Porsche he had followed back from the Navy Yard and after a quick glance around the underground parking lot he followed McGee to the elevator. During the trip up to the ninth floor of the high-rise he took a good look at the other man. "You look like crap. Didn't Mama's formula help at all?"

The question made McGee feel even worse. "I never got to try it. I'm sorry, but the boss is pretty fussy about any of us taking something unknown. He sent it down to the lab to be tested."

Instead of being angry, Sacks started to laugh. "Fornell did the same thing the first time I brought some in. Say, can you get me the lab results from your people?"

"I thought you said that Fornell…"

"Yeah, but he never let me see the results; said that the only thing in there I needed to know about was my mama's love." Before McGee could come up with a response, they were at their floor and Sacks was tugging him down the hallway and into the apartment. Myers and Thompson were sorting through files at the table when they arrived. By their lack of surprise at McGee's early return, it was apparent Fornell had given them a heads up on the subject.

Thompson looked up and studied the sick man. "Go to bed, kid, we'll keep it quiet out here."

McGee shook his head. "I'm not sleepy. I might as well be miserable out here working as miserable lying down." He tossed his coat on the back of a chair and headed for the computer, but Myers intercepted him.

"Fornell's going to skin us alive if he thinks we made you work after getting sent home by Gibbs. At least go change your clothes so it looks like you were sleeping."

Ditching the suit and tie sounded pretty good, not to mention the bulletproof vest, so McGee didn't complain much before he detoured to the bedroom and changed into a warm pair of sweatpants and one of his favorite MIT t-shirts. The warm fuzzy socks his mother had knitted for him last Christmas completed the ensemble and he returned to the computer station set up in the living room of the luxury apartment. Within the hour he was engrossed in his work, not noticing the amazed observers he had behind him.

---NCIS---

Fornell entered his office and ignored the stack of messages on his desk for the time being. Instead, he pulled out the notebook and started running a search on the terms he had written down from the file Novak had shown him. Several links came up and he clicked on the one that sounded the most user friendly. He read the information on the screen three times before closing it out. Fornell rubbed his mouth as he stared, unseeing, at the screensaver. "Oh, God, kid, tell me you didn't inherit this."