Warnings: Spoilers for "Jack Knife", only proof-read once, sorry for any mistakes!

A/N: Hello readers :) I have another update for you! Hope everyone is still enjoying!

amaia- Tony isn't the one going with Damon, Natalie is. There isn't any Tony and Natalie lovin' in this chapter, but there will be next chapter, promise ;)

Gibbs could tell that Tony was annoyed with the decision to send Natalie on the inside with Werth and not himself.

Tony was throwing daggers at the young former marine while the team prepared for the operation. It might have been his idea to send Werth on the inside with one of the team undercover, but he certainly wasn't thinking of sending Natalie in. Now, Gibbs wanted to use rule 27. Meaning that Natalie and Werth wouldn't have ears and the team wouldn't have eyes until a prearranged meeting spot.

He understood why it had to be this way—so the bad guys wouldn't detect the wires—but still. There would be a time that Natalie wouldn't be able to call for back-up. And this thought alone terrified him. Being assigned to the invisible tail car was not helping matters. Gibbs and Fornell were going to be able to follow the truck close range, making the drop of the earwigs later. True, it would be Tony and Stan that would be patched through to the radios… maybe that's why Gibbs had done it this way… so Tony could keep his eyes and ears on his partner…

"I gotta say," Abby drawled, slipping a cotton headband on Natalie's head to push her hair back, "This is some of my best work."

"Is it a requirement for all the women here to be this attractive?" Werth asked, with a slight smile. "Probably makes your job easier, Ms. Sciuto."

Abby smoothed her hands down the light wash denim jacket that she had put over Natalie's black hoodie and tee shirt. To top off the outfit she had placed Natalie into tight, skinny black jeans and black work boots. Minimal make-up and a loose hairstyle and Natalie looked like she spent her days down by the docks not chasing bad guys. Everything was perfect, except… "The locket, you probably should take it off."

Natalie looked anxiously over at Tony, her hand closing around the beautiful locket protectively. "Why?"

Werth shoved his hands into his pockets. "Because most of the women I've seen doing these kinds of jobs don't have expensive jewelry like that."

"I'll take care of it," Abby promised her, but Natalie was still reluctant to give it up.

"No, Abs, don't worry about it," Tony interjected. He straightened his suit coat and stepped towards the group. "I'll look after it."

Her eyes darted towards Gibbs, standing silent near by, for a second, and then Natalie unclasped the locket and handed it to her partner. If anyone blinked in the room, they would have missed the slight squeeze of her hand that Tony gave her as she released her gift from him to his custody.

Gibbs didn't miss it, confirming his suspicions that the locket had been a gift from Tony. Ducky was right, they aren't Jenny and I. "We ready to get this thing moving?"

Abby handed him a clear, plastic case with two earwigs in it for when he made the drop to Natalie. She wished them luck and bounced towards the elevator and was gone, back to her lab. Her job was to process the murder evidence and hopefully find out who had killed Heatherton while the others executed their undercover operation.

Tony closed his fingers tightly around Natalie's locket. He watched as she got into the car with Werth, her eyes met his only briefly, and then she had slammed the door shut to the Charger. The car started up and was pulling out of the garage. Tony was still standing there when Gibbs' smacked on the back of he head, gently, just enough to rattle him back to the present. "Sorry, boss."

"Get moving," Gibbs said, "You and Burley need to setup the surveillance van."

"On it, boss," Tony mumbled, heading towards the van. He climbed inside and slammed his door shut. As he gripped the steering wheel, he realized that he still had Natalie's locket in his hand. Drawing in a deep breath, he clasped it around his neck, tucking it underneath his shirt out of the sight of Burley.

Burley climbed into the van next. "Everything is all set. Boss leave?"

Tony nodded. "Yeah. He and Fornell went to get the visible tail car."

"Rule 27."

"Yep."

"You okay, DiNozzo?" Burley asked, seeing the tension in the other man's eyes.

"Peachy," Tony replied starting the van up and pulling it out of the garage. "Just peachy."

Natalie followed Werth into a large warehouse where the truck he would be driving was parked. Their two suspects turned at the sound of the door creaking open. She could see their eyes devouring her and she didn't know whether or not that was because she was an attractive woman… or because it was obvious she was a cop. Werth introduced her as his partner and as Lucas moved forward to search her, she tossed him a grin, "Do you have some problem with my being a woman?"

Lucas chuckled. "Like if I had the chance I'd hang out with more dudes." He pat her down, notice Werth flinch a little. "Your boyfriend here doesn't seem to like my searching you, are we going to have a problem?"

Werth scowled and glared at him while the man's hands roamed over Natalie's body. "Just try not to enjoy it too much," he sneered. Natalie looked at him, softly, urging him to back off a little and he did so. She was in charge of the operation until they were given their earwigs and he had been instructed to follow her lead.

"Empty your pockets," Lucas instructed the pair. "Put everything on the table."

"Can I ask what you're looking for?" Natalie inquired, placing her weapon and cell phone onto the table.

"Privacy," Lucas replied, taking their cell phones. "You'll get these back when the job is done. You can have your weapons."

Natalie eyed Werth while she holstered her weapon. "What…exactly is the job?"

Lucas smiled, a slimy, sinister smile and gestured for the pair to follow him. "You're partner's nice to look at," he told Werth. "Does she double clutch."

"I navigate," Natalie threw back, "You know how horrible men are with maps anyways."

"Speaking of that, it would be nice to know where we're going," Werth said.

Lucas kept walking. "You'll know in time." He made his way to the back of the truck and opened the hatch. "First," he said, "you need to move these melons out of the truck. Then we can hit the road."

Werth was confused. "So… we're not moving anything into the truck?" The response he got was just a chuckle as Lucas walked away. He looked at Natalie concerned. "This isn't a trafficking job at all… it's a hijacking."

Natalie's brow furrowed. "And they're using us as the hijackers." They needed to get to that drop spot soon. She needed to be wired into her team so they could stop this.

"You bothered by the fact your agents are sleeping together?" Fornell asked, driving the Challenger along the highway to meet up at a gas station that they believed Werth to be stopping at. "Thought you had rules against that."

"I do," Gibbs replied, shifting uncomfortably in the passenger seat. "But it was pointed out to me that if I fight them, if I step in the way, it was only going to make matters worse for my team… and my team as been through enough in the last year, Tobias. Besides, who says they're sleeping together?"

Fornell chuckled. "Oh please. DiNutso was undressing her with his eyes when she showed up in that sexy little outfit. Makes you wish you were younger, doesn't it?" he teased, noticing the glare that Gibbs through him. "I'm only kidding, Jethro. You need to relax a bit."

Gibbs took a deep breath. It was hard to relax. His shoulder was hurting, his team was in the middle of a dangerous undercover operation and he still didn't have eyes or ears on his agent on the inside. He trusted Natalie, she was a good agent, but over the last few months he had developed an affection for her… and his desire to protect her was starting to rival that of Tony's. "Ask me these questions again when my shoulder has healed and my agent isn't flying blind at the moment, okay?"

"So… it really doesn't bother you?"

"No. She's good for him."

Fornell was a bit surprised. All those years that Gibbs had preached rule 12 and here he was letting DiNozzo break it, clearly. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the senior field agent had feelings for his partner, and it didn't take a genius to put together that Natalie returned those feelings. Now, Tony's trepidation about this mission made perfect sense. He was trying to protect the woman he loved not just his partner.

Gibbs was just trying to protect his team. It was as simple as that. His fingers closed around the small plastic case that contained the earwigs. He slipped into undercover mode, falling into easily with Tobias as the Challenger pulled into the gas station. He saw Natalie slid down from the truck and start inside. Scwed and Lucas didn't seem to really care about them, even as the former marine got out of the car yelling at his travel companion.

Tobias would create the distraction for him to slip the earwig into Natalie's hand. For a second their eyes met before Natalie moved back towards the truck and climbed inside. They'd made the drop, now they just had to hope everything else fell into place.

Stan didn't like a silent Tony. It was unnerving, like it wasn't natural. He had tried to strike up light conversation with the fellow agent but to no avail. Tony was remaining tight lipped throughout this entire mission.

He thought that once they had a radio connection with Natalie that Tony would relax a little bit, but he seemed even more tense. God, they aren't fooling anybody about how they feel, Stan thought, watching Tony's jaw twitch as they listened in on the conversation happening in the truck. Werth was explaining to her that Heatherton was the driver of their convoy when they got hit, sending a lot of their friends to hospitals and he had carried the man out of the combat zone himself. "That memory is always intense, I wonder why at times."

Natalie's voice was soft, gentle. "Trauma intensifies it in our memory. Makes it seem like it is always there, persistent."

"Yeah. You have any trauma, Agent Callahan? Anything that keeps you up at night?"

"Dusty place called Somalia."

Tony shuddered, involuntarily. Stan saw it. That intense gaze in his eyes and he wondered what the hell had happened in Somalia that had brought about such trauma for Natalie and obvious tension for Tony.

Stan didn't hear if Natalie replied, he inquired, "Somalia? That's far from D.C."

"Body of marine was pulled off the coast. Natalie and I were ordered to go out and investigate his death," Tony recalled, his green eyes growing dark. "Turns out, the marine was selling information to a terrorist out there… Mossad killed the marine… and then decided to use Natalie and I as bait to get their officers on the inside to help someone out."

"Bait? You mean they handed you over to the terrorists?" Stan asked, disbelieving that even Mossad officers could do something that cold. "Who was so important that they would sacrifice the lives of two other people?"

Tony drew his lips into a tight grin. "Daughter of Mossad Director Eli David. She was being held captive there… and actually… it was her idea to use agents if anyone of them got caught to get on the inside. She knew that if the marine was found, NCIS would send agents to investigate. She just claims she didn't think it would be our team."

Stan blinked a few times, clearing his thoughts. Ziva David had worked for NCIS for four years… had worked with Gibbs and Tony… how could she hand them over like that? "How long did you spend in that camp?"

"Forty-eight hours of hell," Tony said, darkly. "I took a bullet to my shoulder, Natalie needed her arm stitched…"

"Is that when you developed this intense desire to protect her?" Stan asked, quietly.

"She was taken into another room, separated from me… they forced her to watch them rape another woman," Tony said, angrily. "So yeah… that's when it developed."

Stan fell silent. Natalie seemed to have a good head on her shoulders, perhaps she was getting professional help, but he had seen her vulnerability that very afternoon when she didn't want to give up her locket. Was some of that because of Somalia? "What happened to the terrorist?"

Tony looked at him briefly. He recalled the terrified look in Natalie's eyes as that raid took place, as Saleem laid there on the ground dead. "You worked with Gibbs… what do you think happened after his team was taken? The terrorist is dead… the rest of his men the survived the raid to rescue us were taken into custody and are locked up now. Doesn't make the trauma any less, though."

"How do you manage to live with it then?" Stan asked, concerned, curious.

"Easy. Try not to think about it."

"And when you do?"

"I have Natalie," Tony answered, honestly. "I have the person that went through that hell with me to support me."

Stan wanted to comment on that but the computers in the back of the truck alerted him to findings. He had been running some background on their suspects and their victim. It appeared that they had finally found something. Climbing out of his seat in the back he pulled up the file. After reading it he picked up the phone and dialed Gibbs. He might have found the reason that Heatherton was murdered, the reason that Natalie and Werth were being used as hijackers.

Everything was going down because of a lost bet.

Natalie looked concerned.

It was the first time since this had started that she truly had that look on her face and it worried Werth. "Something wrong?" he asked, anxiously as they drove the truck on through the setting sun.

She gave a little shake of her head, trying to clear the thousands of thoughts that were running through her brain. "Tony just told me that Gibbs informed him that they're going off the grid for a bit."

"What does that mean?"

"Oh... any amount of things... take your pick."

Werth didn't like the sound of that. Why would the leader of this operation go off grid while his agent was still out there. True, they had Burley and DiNozzo to back them up if things went south... but from he knew about Gibbs... Werth couldn't see the man abandoning his team in a time like this. "Do you think Gibbs knows something that we don't?"

Natalie smiled at him, showing him for the first time how beautiful it was. "Gibbs always knows something that we don't. General rule of thumb, Damon, okay, when you're working with him. Don't worry," she assured him, "he'll show up." Eventually.