Chapter one

"Leon, you know our team can function properly without this trip."

"I know that Gibbs, yet, I want you to break Agent Bisschop in as best as possible, and what is a better way to do that than a twelve day trip to nothern Italy? Besides, it will be a great experience to see some cultural stuff, and it is already planned and payed by the finance department." Director Leon Vance saw the annoyed look from his top investigator. "Half of the NCIS staff is coming along, including every field Agent from this building. Meaning, you're coming too. Besides, you are a little late complaining about this, the trip has already been planned for over four months, so now you'll have to suffer from not reading your e-mail once in a while."

-NCIS-

"Are you kidding me? A twelve day trip to Italy? What is this?" Tony practically screamed as he looked at the folder on his desk.

"It is a kind of team-building programme. Every NCIS agent in DC is supposed to come along," Ellie Bisschop answered without looking up from her laptop.

"Did you ever hear of a Rhetorical

question? This was one of them." Tony answered, a slight sneer and funny stroke in his voice.

"This should be fun! Did you see what we're going to do in Italy? We're going to visit four great cities, unfortunately

not Rome, but Venice, Verona and Mantua! Amazing right? I mean, Venice, all those gondolas and bridges and water," Ellie looked away from her laptop for a moment to look at outside, a dreamy look on her face.

"That is going to be fun." Tony said, looking at his partner who was just walking in.

"What's going to be fun?" Tim McGee asked.

"We're going to Italy!" Tony said, a bit too enthusiastically, the smile on Tim's face dropped.

"I hope you are kidding. Why are we going? What case brought this on?"

"Not a case, this is a team building event."

"Yes, as I already told Tony, we're giong to Venice, those gondolas, and as one of the activities, we're going to raft."

"And I better stock some more anti-nauseous meds…" Tim mumbled, looking up hopefully as he saw his boss leaving the directors office. "Hey Boss, is that trip true?"

"Jep, better get your bag packed, we're leaving in three days."

"Three days? How did we not hear about this earlier? Is there any way to escape from this?" Gibbs looked at Tim for a few seconds. Tim had some difficulty to decipher the look on his boss' face. It was either thinking for a solution on how to escape from it, or deciding whether to slap Tim on the back of the head or not.

"Nope." Gibbs answered in his typical way, Tim rolled his eyes.

"What if I- we are sick during the trip?" he asked hopefully.

"Did you know, that now you have said this, karma will come and get you?" Bisschop brought in, while still not looking up from her laptop.

"I'll take my chances."

"Ah, come on Timmy, It will be fun! Just our team on that boat, surviving

the wildness of that river, on that rocking and shaking boat." Tony walked to Tim and slapped him on the shoulder.

"Yeah, for you, while watching how I puke up my pizza and ice cream during the rafting."

"As long as you aim your puke outside the boat, I'm good with it."