"A case?" Vance cocked his head.

"Undercover," Gibbs elaborated.

"If I did, I wouldn't tell you," he said. Gibbs narrowed his eyes. "But I don't, so you can stop tryin' to set me on fire with your mind," he told him as he picked up his fork again. Gibbs looked away slightly at the information. Part of him didn't want to believe him, but he trusted Leon to an extent, and trusted what he'd just told him. "Somethin' goin' on with him?" The director's question pulled Gibbs' attention back to him.

"Not sure yet," he replied, leaning back in the chair.

"But your gut's tellin' you there is." It wasn't a question, but something Vance could see in the agent's eyes. Gibbs just met his gaze in response. "I admit to noticing things have been a lot quieter in the bullpen the last few days, and that he's gotten a lot done over that same course of time. But I figured it was a stunt to pull off that elaborate prank he pulled this morning."

"I thought so too for a little while. But then he got up and started cleaning it up without me sayin' anything," Gibbs told him.

"Maybe he's just gotten better at predicting what you're gonna ask him."

"Maybe." Gibbs cocked his head and looked down at the man's lunch. "I'll let you get back to your meal. Sorry to have bothered ya, Leon," he said as he stood.

"You're okay," he insisted.

Gibbs let himself out of the office, giving the receptionist a small nod before heading out toward the stairs.

He thought back on when Tony had been cleaning up the mess from his prank, as he started his walk down the stairs and looked down at their desks. After a minute or two of cleaning, McGee and Ziva had started to help, but Tony had insisted that he do it himself; that it wasn't part of the prank, and it was his job to clean up the aftermath.

Tony had said it in a calm voice, without any bite or bitterness, and that's when they'd realized that he had fallen right back into that strange state he'd been in for an uncomfortable amount of days now...

11 00 11 00 11

Tim and Ziva arrived back from lunch to an empty bullpen. McGee set a cup of promised coffee on Tony's desk with a furrowed brow, before heading to his own and setting his bag down behind it. "You don't think they got called out, do you?" he asked Ziva.

"They would've called us," she reminded him.

"Yeah." He shook his head at his own temporary folly, before sitting down and hitting the space bar on his keyboard to shut down the screensaver.

McGee glanced worriedly at Tony's desk again. Ziva might've been persuaded by the senior field agent's explanation for his recent change in attitude; which, after this morning, Ziva filled Tim in on. But McGee wasn't so satisfied with that answer.

Had the roles been reversed, and it was him going through the situation with Bitner, Tony would've come over with beer and possibly a pizza, and told him to stop over-analyzing. Because clearly there was nothing for him to feel any way about, except maybe pity for the girl.

And that was exactly the right response; easy and realistic! Tony had had his fair share of women who turned a bit to the crazy side after having been with them and them not getting it through their heads that it was just a fling or something for fun. What else do you pick up a guy in a bar or club for, anyway? Certainly not to find your future husband.

Of course, Tim had heard this from Tony on several occasions. Every time one of them went to crazy town, in fact. Tony had to say it out loud...every time. If nothing else, he'd been annoyed. Maybe frustrated. But upset or depressed? Never... Not like this.

Gibbs chose that moment to walk out of the mens room toward his desk, and Tim looked up. "Boss," he greeted. "Where's Tony?"

"Takin' a break, McGee," he replied vaguely. "You finish that report yet?"

"Uh...we just got back, boss."

Gibbs looked at him for another moment before turning to look down at an open file. McGee let out a breath and got to work on his report.

Tbc...