CHAPTER THREE
Tony didn't quite get his wish.
"A cargo aircraft's scheduled to depart for Norfolk at 9:05am, boss. The CF40's not departing until 9:45," Tony said despondently, hanging up the phone.
Kate groaned silently. She wasn't as obsessive about getting a private jet as Tony was, but she was sure that she was far more reluctant to board a cargo aircraft than him.
"Want me to call Base 029 and ask if we can catch a lift?" Tony asked.
"Nope," Gibbs replied.
Tony's face lit up. "Are you serious? We're going the jet anyway?" Tony was literally leaping out of his seat.
"Nope," Gibbs repeated, standing from behind his desk and grabbing his overcoat.
Tony's face morphed to a blank look of confusion.
"United Airlines flight 546 leaves from Washington National Airport at 8:40am," Gibbs said.
Gibbs walked past Tony and as he did so, planted a large smack across the back of his head. "Think simple, DiNozzo."
Tony winced from the slap, before turning to glare at McGee, who'd found the whole situation rather amusing. Unlike Kate and Tony, he'd never experienced a military aircraft flight, and from observing the reactions of Kate and Tony to the mere mention of one, he was pretty sure he didn't want to.
McGee watched as Tony now turned his attention to Kate, who stood from her own desk and walked to the centre of the office.
He could already tell exactly what they were thinking.
Kate and Tony were both silent.
Tony took a few steps forward so that his and Kate's bodies was mere inches away from the other. He stared into her eyes and let a wicked grin spread across his lips. He knew exactly what was coming and he wasn't going to let Kate win this time.
She could feel his broad shoulders and chest bear down on her – he was more than a head taller – but she wasn't going to back down. His normally soft eyes sharpened and narrowed and bore into her own. His face was getting dangerously close, but his breath was relaxed and slow and she could feel it gently brushing against her face each time his chest rose and fell.
Normally, for some odd reason, being within this proximity to that body caused a rather inexplicable mixture of symptoms to arise from her own, including light-headedness, a rise in heart rate, laboured breathing, and a severe drop in concentration levels. But at that moment, not even that body couldn't break her focus.
"Shotgun aisle seat!" she called.
"Shotgun aisle seat! Damn it!" Tony shouted.
---
United Airlines flight 546 had been in the air for a little over an hour. Three NCIS agents lay awkwardly strapped into their economy-class seats as each attempted to overcome the effects of their early morning wake-ups.
The dull drone of the engines seemed to lull McGee to consciousness first.
He hated flying. He wasn't afraid of it. He just hated it. Planes weren't meant to be in the sky. People were not meant to be in the sky. Birds had wings. People didn't. It was a genetic trait that evolution had failed to provide humans with. For a reason.
But it wasn't just the scientific absurdity of it all. You couldn't get more than a few hours sleep – if you were lucky – and even then, an unbearable mixture of young children, over-polite stewardesses and in-flight action movies interrupted it constantly. It was lucky that they were only travelling to Norfolk as well, or else the other three would have had to deal with a jetlagged McGee. Not a pretty sight.
He rubbed his eyes, attempting to rid them of their magnetised reflex to shut again. Slowly, they began to open, and he was finally able to focus on the seat in front of him. He realised what had actually woken him: Harrison Ford was running across the screen wielding a semi-automatic.
He looked quickly across the aisle to where Gibbs should have been sitting. He'd disappeared. Probably roaming the luggage hold searching for a nice spot to nap.
McGee felt something softly nudge his shoulder and turned to find Tony, his eyes half-lidded and somewhat bloodshot, attempting to gain his attention. He'd obviously just woken up as well.
Tony was in desperate need of a glass of water and McGee had ended up scoring the other aisle seat. "Hey, McGee."
McGee pulled one earphone down. "Hey," he said. "Sleep well?"
"No," DiNozzo grumbled. "Next time that stewardess comes past..."
"Get her number?" McGee grinned broadly.
Tony snarled. He went to move his arm to whack him over the back of the head but realised something was weighing it down.
McGee smiled and nodded his head in the direction of Kate, who was sitting on the other side of Tony. She was fast asleep with her head resting on Tony's shoulder.
"Hunh..." Tony pronounced. He hadn't even felt her there as he'd woken up.
McGee smiled, "She looks pretty comfortable."
"Well... I guess I'm just pretty squishy," Tony returned.
McGee continued to grin. "You do too..."
"Now what the hell's that supposed to mean, Probie?" Tony shifted his gaze back to McGee, a look of poison flashing across his eyes.
"Oh, nothing. Just you and Kate," he made eyes at the two of them.
McGee had wanted to bring this notion up for months. Actually, it was ever since he'd met them that he'd seen sparks and thought something might have been going on, but he'd never really found the right time. Now seemed as good a time as any – sleep deprived and within the company of numerous witnesses who would probably prevent Tony from considering a blow to the stomach.
"Ever thought of yourself as more than co-workers?" he asked.
Tony laughed softly, "Me and Kate? You gotta be kidding me, McGee."
"Hey, I'm just telling what I see," McGee said.
"There is nothing going on between Kate and I," Tony affirmed, a little too forcefully.
"Okay, I believe you. But I don't believe that you don't want there to be."
"You're insane," Tony smiled, flicking on the screen in the back of the chair so that Harrison Ford was now firing a semi-automatic in front of him.
"Fine," he relented. "Maybe you're too ignorant to see it, but I can."
Tony shot him a glance, but continued to focus on the screen in front of him.
"I'm going to the bathroom," McGee sulked, unlocking his seatbelt and heading down the aisle.
Tony chuckled softly to himself at McGee's comments, which seemed to wake the sleeping form on his shoulder. Kate stirred gently against his collarbone, her hair brushing softly against his neck. He ignored the tingling feeling shooting down his arm.
Kate opened her eyes slowly and looked up at him with a drowsy expression of disbelief.
"Morning, hot stuff," he said with a large grin plastered across his face, eyeing her bewildered hair.
"Hi," she replied, quickly removing herself from Tony's proximity. Her still-heavy eyelids masked little of the expression of suspicion that had spread across her face. Had she really fallen asleep on DiNozzo's shoulder?
"Sleep well?" Tony said, still beaming.
"Mmm, actually. Yes," she said, rubbing her eyes and backing even further away. "How long until we land in Norfolk?"
Tony looked down at his watch. "A little over twenty minutes."
She groaned softly, yawned and ran a hand through her hair. She pulled a newspaper from the seat pocket in front of her and flicked it open. "What are you watching?" she asked.
"Uh…" Tony stumbled, refocusing on the screen in an attempt to figure out the film from a few frames. "Air Force One," Tony smiled, proud of his quick identification. "You've got to be kidding me," he continued, peering over Kate's shoulder and eyeing the newspaper she was reading. "You're not really into all of that horoscope stuff are you?"
Kate smiled. "It's last week's. I like to see what should've happened to me. Apparently," she began, tracing her finger along the page as she dictated, "I was meant to come into a large sum of money, meet the man of my dreams and enjoy a pleasant week of work at the office."
"And?" he asked, finally stopping a stewardess politely in the aisle and seizing two cups of water. He placed one on Kate's tray table.
"Am I living in a penthouse with George Clooney, spending my days relaxing by the pool?"
Tony raised his eyebrows. "George Clooney, eh?"
"Oh, yeah. He could leave his shoes at the foot of my bed any day..." she sighed wistfully, closing the paper and folding it up again.
"Is that so?" Tony sniggered, taking a sip of his water.
"Come on, Tony, you've got to have a celebrity crush."
"'Course I do."
"Who?"
Tony chuckled and downed the last of his cup. "Really wanna know?"
Kate nodded.
"Charlize Theron."
"Oh yeah?" Kate grinned. "If I jumped the fence I'd go for her too."
Tony wiggled his eyebrows, smiled wickedly and then began pensively staring just past her. After a few seconds, Kate clicked her fingers in front of his face. "DiNozzo?"
Tony shook his head sharply and assumed a large grin. "Sorry, my mind stopped at ‘If I jumped the fence' and then just flew off on it's own..."
---
The plane touched down in Norfolk at a little past 10am.
It had been delayed twice on the tarmac in Washington due to the bad weather, causing Gibbs to begin uttering random phrases containing numerous expressions of distaste for the sun, the water cycle, cowardly pilots and the United Airlines commercial flight system.
Nevertheless, due in part to this irritation that Gibbs had developed, they were on the road to the crime scene within half an hour.
The drive from the airport to the hotel where they;d be staying was typical of a Leroy Jethro Gibbs joyride: fast, dangerous and ultimately unpredictable. Tony forgave Gibbs for gaining two feet of air as he went over a hidden speed bump, but there was no excuse for the other sixteen fully visible ones.
"Are we there yet?" Tony groaned.
"Shut it, DiNozzo," Gibbs grumbled.
Tony looked over at his boss and weighed up whether or not it was worth it.
"Are we there yet?" he whined sarcastically.
Gibbs took the next corner particularly sharply, sending Tony slamming into the door.
"Gotcha, boss," he wheezed through his crushed lungs.
Kate smiled as she watched Tony squashed against the window. She wrapped her hand even tighter around the roof grip so she would not face the same fate. "I bet you were that kid when you were little, weren't you DiNozzo," she asked.
"Damn right I was," he replied with a proud smile. "Inquisitive and keen."
"Bothersome and irritating," she snapped back.
"Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe."
"God, you're so childlike," Kate grumbled.
"I'm not the one that throws pens at her co-workers," Tony retorted.
"Look, if you two have something to sort out," Gibbs said, "do it now, before I am able to physically remove my hands from this wheel without killing the four of us."
"Uh, boss…" Tony said, "I think you have a pretty damn good chance of doing that if you keep your hands on the wheel."
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.