Disclaimer: Some of the dialogue I took from the episode because it was just so funny.

Warnings: Spoilers for "Ignition", some UST...

A/N: I know these chapters feel like filler after all the excitement of Ziva coming back and causing chaos for our team... but they all lead up to something... promise :) I'd very much like to hear what you think :)

Gibbs was even more upset when Tony and Natalie got back from talking to Vanessa Tillman.

Tony decided that it would be best if he and his partner disappeared from the bullpen for a little while. They pair of agents dashed off to the lab, while their team leader stormed down to autopsy to see Ducky.

Abby met them at the door, grabbing onto their hands and pulling them into the lab. "Guess what? We found something!"

"You did?" Tony asked, feeling the first break in the case they had all day. "Will it put either one of the Tillmans' in jail?"

"It just might if you can trace a radio receiver back to them," McGee said when he saw Tony and Natalie pulled into the lab.

"Radio receiver? Is that common on jet packs?" Natalie questioned.

McGee shook his head. "No. I think we just found our murder weapon. The rat poison was meant to disorient Sayers, so he wouldn't be conscious or aware of what was going on..." He held up the RF receiver. "This was so someone else could be in control of the pack... not Sayers."

Tony blinked and gave a little shake of his head. "So... they strapped Sayers into the pack... unconscious or dead and then flew him, like a remote control plane? Maybe the Tillmans aren't responsible at all."

Natalie picked through the debris of the pack on the table. "Okay, so... who really wanted him dead if it wasn't the Tillmans?" she asked as Tony's phone rang. "I mean... who else has motive?"

"Come on," Tony said, hanging up the phone, "Let's go find out. That was Gibbs. He wants us to bring the Tillmans back in."

Tony almost wished he had stopped to make some popcorn before stepping into the conference room. "Oh," he whispered into Natalie's ear when he saw Hart sitting there with both the Tillmans. "This is going to be good."

Natalie laughed, silently. She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the back window sill. It made the knots in her shoulders tighten up once again, and she really, really, wanted Tony to put his hands on her and massage them away...

"This RF receiver was found in the wreckage. We're wondering which one of you this belongs too," McGee said, holding the receiver up.

"An RF receiver was a dumb idea," Victor growled at his ex-wife.

"Oh, why? Because you didn't think of it?" Vanessa snapped back.

"So this is your dumb idea?"

"No, it's not mine! And it's not dumb!"

Tony leaned in, his lips close to her ear and whispered to his partner, "I told you that this was going to be good."

Hart was not nearly as amused as Tony or Natalie. "Mr. and Mrs. Tillman, please," she said, desperately trying to settle them down.

McGee somehow resisted the urge to roll his eyes and glanced briefly at Gibbs. "We're going to need to see your inventory lists and blueprints, so that we can confirm that neither of you manufactured it."

"I'll consider your request," Hart said, honestly.

"Not a request," Gibbs replied, holding up a court order.

"Oh. A court order," Hart snarked, "Now that really wasn't so hard was it?"

Victor straightened in his chair. "Wait a second, does he still think one of us murdered Sayers?"

Gibbs pursed his lips. "He was working both of you."

McGee continued, "Since you both insist that you didn't give him the pack than perhaps, Sayers was stealing from you."

"He must have been good at it," Vanessa snapped, "Because that news to me."

"You hired a private investigator to follow him," Natalie pointed out.

Hart once again found herself having to calm Victor down before he pounced on his ex-wife across the table. "Mr. Gibbs. Clearly your intention here is to stir up some animosity in the hopes that an emotional outburst will reveal some insight into your investigation. Or have you uncovered some facts that need corroboration? I would hate to think that you brought us in here under false pretenses," she said.

Gibbs shook his head. "Our M.E places Sayers death at thirteen days ago."

Vanessa looked smug. "I was in the Bahamas."

"Your idea of a winter vacation?" Victor sneered.

"No. Steve's idea," Vanessa snapped. "Where were you?"

"New Hampshire."

"With that slut Laura?"

"At least she likes sex!"

"I like sex! I just don't like sex with you!"

Tony breathed in her ear, "Oh boy."

Natalie could see the mild amusement in Gibbs' eyes as Hart shouted to silence her clients. Poor Tim looked ready to pull his hair out. Gibbs moved across the room and opened the door to the conference room. "We're done here," the team leader pointed out. "Tony, Natalie, make sure Mr. and Mrs. Tillman are escorted out of the building."

Gibbs waited until the Tillmans, Tony, Natalie and McGee were gone before handing the court order to Hart. They're off the hook. I expect that we've see the last of each other as far as this case goes."

Hart snatched the court order out of his hand. "I don't know. I might have to keep an eye on you."

"Why?"

"Because it seems that you don't have a clue about what you're doing."

Gibbs watched her go and then decided that he need to learn more about M. Allison Hart. This wasn't the last time they were going to be dealing with her and she seemed to be interested in him and his team, for reasons that she was not going to tell him.

Abby and Palmer watched from a safe distance as McGee mumbled to himself, looking over all the components of the jet pack still on her table. He had been there for at least an hour talking to himself. Even Tony bringing dinner down hadn't pulled him away from his work. "I think he's about to have a thought," Abby whispered.

Palmer whispered back, "I think blood is about to come out of his eyeballs."

"No," Abby said, shaking her head, "This is going to be impressive."

"OK, this is a remote control jet-pack. That is what we're looking at," McGee mumbled.

"OK, that wasn't very impressive," Abby told Palmer.

McGee looked up and glared at them. "Excuse me! That's very impressive! Flying a jet pack is hard because of all the adjustments that need to be made. Without a pilot, you'd need a modified fly-by-wire system with computer-assisted stabilization, but to build -that- you'd have to be an expert engineer."

Abby looked at Palmer. "So, are we looking for a pilot, or are we looking for an engineer?"

"We're looking for both!" McGee exclaimed, grabbing the blueprints up and running out of the lab. "Bye guys!"

Tony had just finished his pizza when McGee burst off the elevator. "Where's Gibbs?"

Natalie looked up and gestured towards her phone, "Oh... we have..."

"I think I found something," McGee said, ignoring her, and pushing the empty paper plates off of her desk and rolling the blue prints out.

"Oh... I've seen that look before, Nat. Probie's got a lead," Tony said, excitedly getting up from his desk and rushing to hers.

Natalie was suddenly crowded by both her partners standing behind her. "Should I get Gibbs here too? You know... so we can all be one, big, happy family?"

McGee didn't even realize that the joke sailed over his head and he frowned. "Yeah... do you think you could get him on the speaker phone? He's going to want to hear this because I think I solved the case."

Tony chuckled and reached over Natalie's shoulder and tapped her phone. When she glared at him, he grinned ,"Just making the one, big, happy family a little bit closer... that's all. So, what's your probie gut telling you, McGee?"

"We've been looking in the wrong place, " McGee said, "the jet-pack was Sayers' own device, which uses fighter-jet engineering from the Navy as well as ideas from both of the Tillmans"

"It wasn't very good then... since it, you know... crashed," Tony countered.

McGee frowned at him. "That was the intention, Tony. The intent was to dispose of the body. Any reasonable pilot could have flown it."

Tony looked down at Natalie, thoughtfully. "Sayers' friend... Sheridan... he's a pretty good pilot."

Natalie turned and looked up at both Tony and McGee. "And he lost out on the opportunities that Sayers had because of Sayers..."

"Can you pull up the squadron's psych evaluations?" McGee asked her. "Let's double-check their paperwork, scan their files for engineering backgrounds, need to talk to Gibbs. Where is Gibbs, anyhow?"

Tony chuckled and pointed towards Natalie's phone as the team leader's voice filled the bullpen. "Right here, elf lord."

Natalie bit down on her lower lip as a surprised look came over Tim's face. "We were trying to tell you..."

"What's your next move, elf lord?" Gibbs asked over the phone.

"Ah... we're going to stay here the rest of the night and look over those evaluations," McGee replied, making both Tony and Natalie groan.

Gibbs chuckled over the speaker phone. "Price of leadership," he said, "Keep me up to speed. Got something else I need to take care of."

By the time Gibbs made it back to the Navy Yard the team had narrowed it down who their suspect was. And they were all sleeping at their desks waiting for their warrants.

Gibbs didn't have the heart to wake any of them. They deserved to rest. Although, he had to admit that the lawyer showing up, knowing so much about his team unnerved him. Following Hart had lead him nowhere. After this case was close he was going to have to have Tim do his magic and pull up any information he could find about M. Allison Hart.

He sipped his coffee watching his "kids" sleep. If he found out the lawyer was working for someone... targeting them... it was not going to be pretty. No one went after his team...

"Boss?" Tony's voice asked, sleepily. "You get that other thing taken care of?"

"For now," Gibbs said, glancing at the senior field agent. "You should have gone home."

Tony stretched and snuggled underneath his suit coat. "Legal promised us the warrant first thing in the morning. Tim wants to get to Pax River ASAP. Felt it best to sleep here."

Gibbs gestured towards Natalie. "Best for her knee?"

"I gave her more pain killers before putting her to bed, boss," Tony cracked, smiling.

"Did she give you a hard time?" Gibbs cracked back.

Tony shook his head. "Nope. I think she was too tired. You going down to autopsy to sleep?"

Gibbs sighed and sat down at his desk. "No... think I'm going to stay here." I'm worried, I'm anxious... I don't want to lose any of you.

"Ok, well, good talk, boss," Tony mumble, falling back to sleep.

"Yeah," Gibbs said with a chuckle, "Good talk, Tony."

Natalie stepped out of the woman's locker room, using a towel to dry her hair. She had used the shower and the clothes she kept in her desk drawer to try and feel fresh, but sleeping at your desk all night made it difficult to feel fresh.

She would feel better once she had coffee and some breakfast in her, she decided as she rounded the corner and collided with a solid form. Hearing him grunt, she knew it was Tony. "Sorry."

Tony steadied her and studied her for a second. Her hair was damp, hanging in long, beachy waves on her shoulders. She was wearing a simple knit top and jeans and she looked... gosh she looked amazing even dressed so simple. "It's okay... no harm done. Was just coming to find you. Tim got breakfast, it's waiting upstairs."

"Great. I'm starving," Natalie said with a smile, wringing her hands around the towel. Her heart beat a tad bit faster the way he was looking at her.

"Think McGee got your favorite," Tony replied, being drawn in closer to her by some unforeseen force. No one was down here stopping him from kissing her...

Natalie's breath hitched as he entered her space. Tony reached out and caught a damp lock of hair between his fingers, twirling it, his eyes settling on her face, on her lips. She felt every nerve ending begin to tingle as he leaned in closer.

Tony hesitated just a second. If he did this... it would change everything. But he didn't care. He wanted everything to change.

"DiNozzo! Callahan! Gibbs keep you here all night?" a voice startled them. Both agents saw one of the night janitors, Phil, pushing his cart down the hall. "I bet you guys got more comp time than the entire agency combined."

"Yeah... well... maybe I'll use it this summer to travel," Tony said with a grin at the janitor.

Phil fished his keys out and stepped between the two agents to open his closet. "Well, just make sure you go somewhere nice... maybe find a nice girl and take her away, hey buddy?"

Tony chuckled, nervously, glancing at Natalie. He'd love to whisk her away to someplace romantic... where they couldn't be interrupted. He waited until Phil had disappeared into the closet with his cart before saying something, "Hey... you should wear your hair like that more, makes you look... makes you look beautiful."

Natalie felt a little blush creep to her cheeks as he smiled at her, turned and walked away.

Phil chuckled from the closet and murmured, "Someone has a crush."

She wasn't sure if he was talking about her or Tony, and she didn't stick around to find out. Her breakfast was waiting upstairs for her and they still had a case to close. She could think about all the contexts of what just happened later, because if she kept thinking about how close they were coming to taking that leap it would drive her crazy.