A/N: Hello friends! Here is Kit's newest embarkment, and while it isn't an actual story-story, it is a collection of oneshots. Centered around the five flights our favorite duo took during Season 7. So, four more chapters after this. Goal: Have it done before the 24th -the first day of school (hiss, boo). So, shall we? Kit!

DISCLAIMER: If I owned anything, would there be a need for a disclaimer?

I.

Return Trip to Washington, D.C., United States of America from the Sahara Desert, Somalia, Horn of Africa: 7,822 miles

The ground pitches forward and he's jolted into consciousness, hands flying up to break a fall that never comes, a knee-jerk reaction that disturbs his careful stillness and sends shock waves of pain radiating throughout his body. He registers his migraine most acutely. Every muscle inside him, every fiber that composes his aching being, protests with each movement he makes. And while, yes, remaining still had helped immensely, the apparent turbulence has cruelly ruined his efforts and now breathing even hurts . . . .

A heavy sigh shatters his internal pity-party and he stiffens –and it, too, hurts- out of fear that he's woken someone else up, but no. Gibbs is still situated exactly where he'd been however long ago, head tilted back slightly, mouth a grim line, eyes firmly closed. And suddenly the retired marine seems so old, his age showing through the dirt defined lines in his skin, the exhaustion contorting his face.

A low snore escapes McGee's throat and he, too, still sleeps, but it's fitful, his slumber, with eyes roaming beneath darkened lids, twitches and flinches every so often. The younger man is closer and it's apparent the bruises on his cheek, the deep gash along his temple, the collection of scratches marring his face. Dirt and grime and he's never realized how young McGee actually is.

He himself is feeling old, frankly. And damn, forty is going to hurt.

The prickly feeling of being watched reminds him that the sigh originated from neither man around him, leaving the only other occupant as a possible source. And, honestly, he doesn't want to look over at her, but the draw is so enticing . . . .

It is a nightmare, her being there with him.

It is a nightmare because when he wakes up and she isn't there, he's going to just . . . . cease.

His rational side tells him that he hurts too freaking much to be dreaming, that the roar of the engine and the shuddering of the hold, the pungent odor of sweat and stress and diesel fuel are all corroborating the fact that he's living reality, present time, wide awake.

Dark eyes peer tiredly at him from a few feet away. Dark tired eyes rimmed with dirt and filth and sand, dark tired eyes that are as guarded as they are open, as dead as they are alive. Dull, dark tired eyes.

She blinks, slowly, focusing on him and he thinks she must have been remembering –and he prays it is a distant, happy memory. And he prays that she even has a happy memory to cling to. And now he's occupied with her breathing, the steady rise and fall of her chest through the cafton shirt that has swallowed her whole.

Whole.

Whole, alive, and breathing. Pieces falling back into place with every lurch of the C-130.

Whole, alive, and breathing with him, staring at him. With him.

Her.

Here with him.

Him and her.

Her. Here.

In the rapidly flickering haze of too many thoughts, he wonders briefly if sodium pentathol is contributing to his scattered mind –

She doesn't sleep; she dozes, but does not sleep. She cannot.

Because if she sleeps, she'll wake up, they'll be gone.

And she'll be alone.

The aircraft hits a cruel pocket of air, sending the occupants of the steel belly reeling in their seats. McGee and Gibbs remain undisturbed, but watches through a fringe of lashes as Tony startles awake, his arms flying up to brace his fall. The straps binding him to his seat hold fast and the ground and his tired face do not meet and she sees the pain that contorts his features. He winces, attempting to stretch out, pressing chapped lips together to curb a groan of discomfort. And she can tell from the way his brows furrow and pucker that he has a bad headache and apparently their shattered partnership and prolonged separation have not diminished the acclimatization she had –has-toward him.

A dull ache emanates from the base of her skull, but its presence is oddly comforting in its familiarity. Her entire body feels heavy, leaden.

She wants to sleep, she honestly does, but sleeping is too dangerous; sleeping is too disappointing.

Because she knows she'll wake up.

Tony grimaces, shifting gingerly and she keeps her eyelids open, appraising him from a safe distance away. He's tried valiantly at some point in taming his hair, longer than when she last saw him, the windswept and tousled mess reminiscent of a porcupine. There's a definite shadowing around his jaw, coarse bristles and the thought of that texture makes her stomach hurt unpleasantly. He's dusty and sweaty and there is dried blood on his skin, a dark rust color that lines his forearm and is smeared faintly across his collarbone. His left eye is shaded with an ugly bruise and there is a deep gash across his temple . . . . He's watching Gibbs and McGee, studying them, decidedly pensive, and so she too looks at their companions, the other two thirds of her rescue team, and tries to ferret out the differences that Tony is searching for.

She finds it in Gibbs first. The worn lines on his thrown into starker relief with the dust. And his hair seems more ashen than silver, perhaps tarnished except she doesn't think she can recall what tarnished silver looks like. Tarnished souls and tarnished bodies, tarnished people and tarnished loyalties, yes. She knows too well how those look. But aged silver? She cannot recall . . . .

McGee is exhausted, slumped beside Tony, scraped and bruised and sore. Sweet, gentle McGee, kicked and beaten and she had been so very worried he was . . . . not asleep on that desert floor.

The heat and the noise and the sheer stress of it all is eroding on her, confusing her senses and numbing her mind. And Tony meets her eyes, green touching brown and she is aware of what he sees: An emptiness framed by limp curls and crisscrossed with too much . . . . experience.

She could close her eyes and sleep beneath his imploring gaze because she feels safe around him and that feeling, though foreign, is ridiculously appealing . . . .

She doesn't sleep and when he finally nods back off, she wonders if he's afraid to wake up.

If he's afraid he'll miss her.

She just might be too tired to care.

A/N: I really hope this is concise and easy to follow -they had just been through such a traumatic experience and surely they were exhausted. And really really confused with all the emotion and physical stress, their thoughts rolling around too fast to comprehend. Let me know if I'm making any sense? Kit.