"Tell me again why we are not taking the truck?" Kate asked, fidgeting, stuck between McGee on her left and Carrie on her right.
"It's in the garage," Tony repeated for the fourth time from behind the wheel. "And the spare has a puncture."
"This is just great," she said trying to uncross her legs and re-cross them the opposite way, "No offense," she added, looking over at Carrie.
"None taken," she replied. Carrie was having the same problem.
"Head slaps are without regard to sex Caitlin, you're just as entitled as Tony," Gibbs said from the passenger seat next to Tony.
"It's quite comfortable back here actually, Boss," McGee said from the back seat gaining a look of disgust from both Kate and Carrie across from him.
"Take a page out of Probie's book, girls, and sit still for a while," Tony said. Kate stuck her tongue out toward the back of the driver's seat, a gesture that Tony watched with humour in the rear view mirror. "You can be such a kid sometimes," he said laughing, still looking in the mirror," Kate looked up and repeated her childish act again, this time right to his face. Tony laughed again, and then looked back to the road.
"Are we almost there yet?" asked McGee quietly from behind Gibbs' seat.
"About 5 minutes closer than when you last asked, McGee," Gibbs said with a weary voice. Kate fidgeted again, trying to make herself comfortable, and accidentally poked McGee in the ribs with her elbow.
"Ow!" McGee said in pain and poked her back
"Hey!" Kate said and hit him hard on the arm, "That hurt."
"And mine didn't?" McGee retaliated by pinching her on the arm. They had a full-blown fight in the limited space they had in the back of the car, slapping and hitting. Carrie was pushed right up the car door, her cheek spread across the door window. In Kate's attempt to punish McGee for his attempts at harming her, Carrie was suffering the backlash from it.
"OI!" Gibbs shouted loudly and the scuffle immediately ceased, "That is not how special agents behave."
"Sorry, Boss."
"Sorry, Boss."
"Now say sorry to each other."
"Sorry, Kate."
"Sorry, McGee."
"And now say sorry to Carrie who had to endure the whole of that, not without injury I think," Gibbs said.
"Oh my God!" Kate said, "I'm so sorry! I didn't realize I was hurting you; I'm so sorry," Kate said, her face going red.
"No worries," Carrie said, nursing her injuries.
"Yeah, I'm sorry Carrie," McGee said. "We're adults; we shouldn't have acted like that." This got a snort from Tony. "Oh shut up Tony, if you were back here you would have been the first one to join in."
"I'm not too far forward to reach back there and give you a head slap, McGee," Tony said warningly. McGee stayed quiet, and silence entered the car for the first time in twenty minutes.
‘Ah, silence' Gibbs thought to himself, but he was interrupted by a small voice from the back of the car.
"Are we nearly there yet?"
"McGEE!"
***
Tony could smell it before he could see it.
"Phwoar," he wrinkled his nose in revulsion, "Of all the places to dump a body…"
They rounded the corner and all became clear as they came face to face with the huge pile of rubbish that was the Lazenby landfill site. Tony entered the site and stopped the car. Everyone got out.
"Believe me, DiNozzo, when I say there are worse places," Gibbs said uneasily. Tony didn't seem to want to query him so he continued, "The body was found this morning the workers here." He paused to show his I.D. to the nearby official and then carried on, "We were notified when they identified her from her driver's license. The local police force gave it to us when they discovered that she was an NCIS open case."
"She had her driver's license with her?" Tony asked, stating the obvious. Gibbs reached over and gave him a sharp slap to the back of the head.
"I just said that DiNozzo."
"I've been told that this is a bad crime scene, so Carrie if you start to feel squeamish…"
"I won't," she said, more sharply than she had meant to, "I've seen my fair share of gruesome crime scenes." They ducked under the crime scene tape had even Carrie had to swallow hard at the site of the body.
"Okay, that is really disgusting," Kate said, looking away. In front of them lay a blood-covered corpse that even Tony couldn't tell was a woman.
"What the hell happened to her?" Tony asked quietly.
"She had her body pummelled to death, I expect," a voice came from behind. They all turned around to see Ducky making his way across the landfill. He reached the body, and bent down next to it. "My poor girl," was all he said.
"Right; Kate sketch; Tony photos; McGee collect evidence; and Carrie, you can help him if you want."
"I'm going to go and talk to the workers over there," she replied, pointing to three people standing in a huddle in the distance. Gibbs watched her walk off, and then turned to the group. Seeing them hesitate, he gave them a stare. Suddenly they all burst into life and hurried off to do their various tasks. ‘Every time,' Gibbs thought to himself, chuckling.
***
"Everybody finished?" Gibbs yelled to the team. From the numerous lazy nods he received, he took that to mean ‘yes'. "Back to NCIS, then."
"I'll drive," Carrie volunteered quickly. ‘Anything to avoid a repeat of the drive down here,' she thought.
"Ok," said Gibbs, "you three are in the back then," he said, motioning toward Kate, Tony and McGee.
"But that's not…" Kate stopped herself before she received the head slap that Gibbs had threatened her with earlier that day. "Ok," she said glumly, walking towards the car. "But I get a window seat."
"Kate, you're in the middle," Gibbs said.
"What! No, I was in the middle on the way down here," she protested.
"You're the smallest so you're in the middle," Gibbs said. Kate opened her mouth to argue, but wisely shut it before anything came out. The team got unhappily into the car; Carrie in the driver's seat, Gibbs in the passenger seat and McGee, Kate and Tony squeezed into the back seat.
About ten minutes into the journey, so far relatively without incident, Kate scrunched up her nose.
"Eurgh, what the hell is that?" she asked in repulsion, holding her hand to her face.
"What is what?" replied Tony.
"That smell," she said.
"I can't smell anything," he said sniffing the air.
"Lean over here," said Kate, still holding her nose. Tony leaned over her and immediately recoiled.
"Ok, I wanna know what the owner of that smell had for lunch today," Tony said, holding his own hand to his nose.
"Who the hell did that?" Kate asked as she looked around the car. She was met by a very red-faced McGee.
"I tried not to," McGee started.
"Silent but deadly," Tony said, pushing himself further up against the car door, "You've really outdone yourself there, Probie."
"I think I'm gonna be sick," Kate said, reaching across Tony's lap to open the window.
***
Author's Chapter Notes:
An eventful ride for Gibbs and 'the kids'