Keryl Raist's Blog, page 16

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 259

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.


Chapter 259:  Job, What Job?


Monday morning.  Abby’s napping. Kelly’s almost checked out. (She’s hanging out on his chest for the time being, but he’ll be taking her upstairs soon.) So, theoretically he’s got time to do some stuff.
Like, maybe take a glance at his computer.
Maybe wade through the mess of emails and data that’s been accumulating.
Sounded like a plan.
Damn, this thing is useful!He has to admit, he thought the baby sling was kind of dumb at first, and was absolutely certain he wasn’t going anywhere near it, because wearing something that looked like a baby hammock across his chest and shoulder just seemed silly, but having two free hands to work with while Kelly settled down was awfully nice.
Computer on, booted up, gmail up and… Wow, ton of emails. He runs two fast searches through them. Okay, three of them are interesting. Two from Vance, and one from his editor looking for a clue as to when the next book will be done. He’s about to fire off the response to that when he noticed Kelly’s awfully still. He looked down. Her eyes were droopy and she’s barely sucking the pacifier.
So, taking Kelly to her crib put a pause to handling his email. But getting her down only took a few minutes. While he wouldn’t have believed it when she was brand new, he’s now starting to agree with Breena that Kelly’s a good sleeper.
Kelly down meant he had probably a good two, maybe two and a half hours of free time.
So he got to work. First things first, he sent that response to his editor. He had about twenty-thousand words to go on the next Deep Six, and he’s got no idea when he’ll get it done. Before October 1st, which is his deadline for the rough draft, but beyond that, no clue.
Next up, emails from Leon. The first one wasn’t terribly interesting, just housekeeping stuff, likely written by his secretary, a reminder that they were switching to a new system for handling their paperwork, and that once again NCIS would be hosting Virginia Blood Services and that last year 82% of NCIS had donated and this year, they’d really like to see that number get up to 87%.
Tim made a note of that, if everything was going well, he’d stop in and give blood. So far he’s given every year.
The next email was much more interesting.
This one was a personal letter from Vance concerning the information he’d been getting about Tim’s test.
At the end of each month each Department Head sends a report to Vance listing what’s happened, what needs to happen, how things are going with their departments. As June faded into July he’d been especially interested in the report from Cybercrime. It was, as Vance put it “disappointing.” No mention of the test. No mention of all the computers going bonkers all at once. Nothing.
The other interesting bit was that Stephen Manners had asked for an appointment to see the Director, and had asked him why he’d been hacked by “Kevin Hussein.” Vance had told him it was a security test, and that between the Port to Port killer getting access to their building, and Dearing’s attacks on Navy weaknesses, he periodically has different branches of NCIS check up on each other. As a former NCIS employee who left in good graces and had a great security clearance, he had “asked Kevin” to run periodic checks on Cybercrime.
Tim tried to remember which one Manners was… Then it clicked. He was the one who programmed straight through the attack. Good. Someone noticed, checked up, and actually found the trail of bread crumbs he’d left.
He kept reading: The thing I found most fascinating about my conversation with Manners was that, from everything I could see, he had no idea that anyone else in Cybercrime had been targeted. Likewise, he appeared to have never thought this was something worth mentioning to Jenner. He took this straight to me.
He left my office under the impression that “Kevin” had chosen him at random.
Hmmm… Okay. No communication at all in that department. He made a note to pay especially close attention to Manner’s logs so he could see how Manner tracked his attack, and wondered if he’d noticed he was still being monitored.
He sent that as a follow up question to Leon, along with a few lines about how he was getting ready to wade into the data to see what exactly they’d all done in response to the attack.
Then came all the rest of his email. Tons of it.
He was cruising through it, deleting most of it as stuff that didn’t matter, redirecting a few to Tony or Ziva with a quick note about how he’d be back in the office on the 20th.
The two from his mom he hovered over with his mouse and decided not to open.
Not today. He’s in a good mood, he’s getting useful stuff done, he doesn’t need to know what’s in those emails. If it was really important, Penny or Sarah would have told him about it.
He was in the process of forwarding another one to Ziva when he took the time to really read it. And really reading it, he smiled.
Ngyn, Cybercrime tech who noticed the attack while it was happening, had emailed him to find out what was going on.
So, he told her a variation of the same story Leon had spun. Namely, as the best guy with a computer outside of Cybercrime, he’d been picked to run the occasional check on them. He didn’t elaborate on who’d been checked, but did let her know he was pleased she had noticed she’d been hacked and found he’d done it.
He blind forwarded Ngyn’s letter and his response to Leon.
He added her logs to the things he was going to check first, and continued to slog through his emails.
Okay, he’s moving a lot more slowly than anticipated, (or maybe there was a hell of a lot more email) or Kelly’s not sleeping as long as normal, but the soft cry of a small person looking for her next meal curtailed his progress.
He stood up, got to the doorway of his office, and then heard Abby heading to Kelly’s room, so back to his desk.
Data time.
At some later point Abby poked her head in, and he thinks he sort of grunted in her direction. Then coffee materialized next to him, and he was awfully happy to see it. (Decaf or not, the act of drinking coffee is part of the rhythms of how he processes data.) And though he wasn’t paying any attention to it, apparently the Magic Coffee Fairy kept providing refills for him because at no point did he reach over and find an empty cup. (Which is usually the trigger that lets him know to get up, walk around, stretch, go to the bathroom, get a snack/meal, do something other than work the data.)
At some much later point he noticed that: A: He was hungry. B: It was dark out. And C: He hadn’t gotten any naps and it was his night for the 4:00 feed so he was going to be hurting for sleep.
He wandered out of his office, blinking at the light coming from the living room, and found Abby sitting on the sofa, Kelly in her lap, patting her, must be post nurse burp time, watching some sort of TV show. Abby looked over at him as he flopped onto the sofa and paused the show.
“Haven’t seen you that buried in a computer in a while. Good stuff?”
He rubbed his eyes and forehead, and scanned the room for a second, checking the clock. After 10:00, great.
“Yeah. Sort of. Got into the raw data from my test.”  Kelly decided to punctuate that statement with a burp.
“Here.” She handed him Kelly, and he settled her on his chest, in the baby sling. (He was a little surprised to still be wearing it, apparently he didn’t take it off after getting her down.) She looked from her mom to him, seeming a little confused at getting shifted all of a sudden. But Abby got up, and gestured for him to follow her. He did, ending up in the kitchen, sitting at their table (where Abby pointed to) and less than a minute later was looking at salad and left over Thai style chicken fried rice from the night before. “Eat, before your blood sugar completely tanks.”
He nods, taking a bite. “Thank you.”
“I made it up for us, called out to you, you didn’t answer, so I headed into the office, said your name twice, you still didn’t answer, so I figured I was on my own for dinner.”
“Oh, God,” he shook his head. “Sorry about that.”
“Tonight, it wasn’t a problem.”
“Maybe not, but don’t let me do that. Go in there and poke me. It’s not good to be that deep into it.”
“House wasn’t on fire, you weren’t alone, and Kelly wasn’t bugging me. We’re good.”
He exhaled heavily, then ate another bite.
“So, what’d you find.”
“Let’s put it this way, if there was any little nagging voice in the back of my mind that thought this wasn’t fair to Jenner, it died this afternoon.”
Abby rose an eyebrow.
“How are you going to track down Cybercrimes and protect people if you can’t keep your own department tight?”
“That bad?”
“Worse? I don’t know. From what I can tell, Jenner decided the test had to be some sort of prank. Okay, given that everything was saved, and what actually happened, that wasn’t an insane take on the subject, but he barely checked anything, just made sure none of their data had gone missing. Two of his guys mentioned that their computers had gone wonky, and he checked them, too.
“No follow up.” He grabs another fast bite of the rice, the smell and taste of it reminding him, vividly, that he hasn’t eaten since breakfast. “He didn’t check in with anyone else. He checked enough to see that the hack had come from NCIS, which was one of the false trails I laid. It didn’t actually; I fired it off of my computer here. And then he just let it lie. He didn’t even bother to go through and see who’d pulled it. I mean, imagine for a moment that all of a sudden our team had our guns stop working properly. Can you imagine Gibbs looking at them, and then deciding that Tony must have just pulled it as a prank, and then did nothing about it?”
“I can imagine him thinking Tony might have pulled it as a prank, but Tony’s head would ring for a week from the force of the headslap.”
“Exactly. And you can bet we’d all get slapped for letting him mess with our guns, too.”
“Yep. Nothing happened to the techs for letting themselves get hacked?”
“Not that I could see. Now, maybe they do have a prankster down there and things like this have happened before, in which case I picked the wrong damn test case. But… Anyway… No leadership on this. From the looks of it, they aren’t talking to each other, either.
“Seven of twelve of them just let it go. Once everything went back to normal on their systems and they realized they hadn’t lost anything, they went back to work. Five of them decided to see what was up. All five of them used exactly the same technique for the first three levels. Three of them decided to let it go when they hit enough dead ends. One found “Kevin.” He went straight to Vance, and I wonder if he’s also got Jenner’s job in his crosshairs. The other emailed me directly.
“Ngyn, the one who emailed, also buffed up her internal security. Manners, the one who went to Vance, didn’t. Though he might decide to, because Vance told him the test was a sort of internal audit, that he has different branches of NCIS check each other periodically to see how good we are.”
“So, you’re not taking over the A-Team.”
“They may not qualify as the Bad News Bears. I’ve got to see if I can get into HR and find out how Jenner was hiring.”
“Why?”
“Help me figure out if he’s just not good at locating talent. Or if it’s so bad down there it just sucks the life out of them. Or… I don’t know. I just want to know what made him think, hey, you, person who had your entire system go insane for ten minutes and then you did nothing about it, you’re the guy I want to put in charge of hunting down criminals.”
“I can see that.”
He took another minute to just eat and then said, “Next test’ll be interesting. Right now Ngyn’s the only one in position to even notice it happen.”
“Wonderful.”
“Oh yeah.”
Abby stole one of his cucumber slices. “How good is the security on your work computer?”
“Good, at least, I think it is.”
“Might want to buff it up. If you’re making them look bad, and any of them figure it out, you might get a nasty surprise.”
“Good point. I’ll have to add an extra layer of defense or two.”
“What’s the next test?”
“Once I’ve finished sorting through the data and what exactly it was each of them did, I’m going to give them enough down time so Manners and Ngyn aren’t on edge, maybe a month, and then I’m going in and breaching whichever cases they’re working on. Not going to screw anything up, but I am going to snag at least one bit of classified info off of each of their computers.”
“After that?”
“After that, I’m going after their personal computers and phones.”
Abby squinted at him, thinking for a minute. “That’s illegal, right?”
“Probably. Might have to find a way to deal with that.”
“Lots of jobs are requiring prospective employees hand over their social media so they can check up. That’s considered legal…”
“Good to know. I’ll have to send it by Leon. Don’t want to end up in jail for testing how good my soon to be employees are.”  
“Yeah, I’d prefer you didn’t end up in jail, either. I mean, I still have the McGee defense fund that I set up back when that guy was sniffing around from you hacking the CIA—“
“Really?” That had to have been close to five years ago now.
“Okay, I’ve got the bucket I was collecting it in. Remember we went out to dinner after you caught him, I paid—“
He laughed, understanding. “You mean my defense fund paid.”
“Yeah.”
“Wasn’t that take out Chinese?”
“Defense fund had $32.57 in it.”
“Great.”
“Gibbs put in twenty.”
“Even better.” He laughed at that. “Good to know that you all were willing to pay the big bucks to keep me out of jail.”
“Anything for you, baby.” She leaned over and kissed him.  “So, what happens now?”
He looked down, checking Kelly, who had been sucking away on her pacifier, adding little burbles and coos to their conversation, but was looking like she might be starting to think sleepy thoughts.
“Were you planning on going to sleep when she went down?”
“That was the idea.”
“Okay, I’m still too wired for that. So, I’m enjoying your company, but if you want to go to sleep now, I’ll put her down.”
“I could use the extra down time.” She stood up and kissed him. He wrapped his hand around her neck, and kissed back, soft and gentle, not sexy, just saying I-love-you without voice.
She was heading toward the stairs when he said, “Abby.”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”

“For what?”
He stood up and crossed over to her, resting his hands on her hips, and his forehead against hers. “All of it.”
She smiled, pecked his lips, and headed up to get some sleep. He looked down at their daughter and said, “So, feel like hanging out with me while I finish dinner?”

She didn’t say anything.
“We keep kind of odd hours here. It’ll probably get more regular as you get older, but right now, sometimes I work all night, and sometimes Mom does, too, but we’re going to make sure we spend some time with you, when you’re awake, every single day.” 

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 258

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.


Chapter 258:  Sunday


They were getting ready for church for the first time since Kelly was born. Honestly, Tim would much rather skip it and sleep, but Abby wants to go, and he can sort of zone out there, so they’re going.
And zone out he did.
There is literally not one single idea in his head as to what the service might have been about.
But he did notice when Father John came over to pet Kelly, coo over her, and ask when they wanted to do the baptism.
And thus, August 2nd 2015 became the day that Kelly was going to get baptized. They made an appointment to bring in the potential godparents to meet Father John before and get everything set up, and went home.
It wasn’t until driving home that something hit him.
“Abby…”
“Yeah.”
“Breena and Jimmy aren’t Catholic.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Father John’s not going to like it. Godparents are supposed to be Catholic, good Catholics, right?”
She thinks about that for a moment and comes to the conclusion that since the whole point of Godparents is to promise to renounce Satan and sin in the place of the kid and then promise to help raise them Catholic that yes, being Catholic is usually a pre-req for being a Godparent.
He sees her understand that.
“How important is getting her baptized to you?” Because it’s something he could very easily just take or leave.
“Important.”
“Okay. Will you let me try to bluff him? You can get dispensations or something, right?”
“Maybe. What’s the bluff?”
“That if he won’t go for Jimmy and Breena we’ll walk away and not get her baptized. If it doesn’t work, we can… Get Luca and Melody up? Hell, who else do we know? Sister Rosita?”
“Kyle’s Catholic.”
“You both got adopted by Catholic families?”
“We both got placed with Catholic Charities, so, yeah.”
That made sense. “Okay, but he’s not going to work for the same reason my sister and Penny won’t, he’s living with someone he’s not married to. So, will you let me try the bluff?”
“Sure.” She knows the symbolism of family is more important to him than any of the rest of this. “I’ll back you on it. Maybe, if we’re lucky it won’t be a big deal at all and you won’t need to bluff.”
“We can hope.”


“Abby!”
A second later she’d gotten up and grabbed their daughter from him, holding her at arm length.
It’s possible he could have been more covered in baby pee, but it would have required a concerted effort and likely more than one baby.
“What happened to you?” she asked, trying not to laugh at the look on his face.
“I don’t know. I was putting her down, singing the lullaby, and then we were both soaked.”
Abby broke and started laughing. “How about I finish up with her, and you get a shower?”
“Thank you.”


A few minutes later, she slipped into the shower behind him.
“She’s down?”
“Yeah. Diaper was on backwards.”
He sighed, feeling world-class stupid. “Maybe I am too tired for Bootcamp.”
“Go and hang out. You don’t have to fight. I was just going to get a nap. Bring us home some Thai.”
He nods, rinsing the conditioner out of his hair. “Feels weird to get a shower before Bootcamp.”
“Yeah, guess that’s not how it usually works. Still, don’t want to go covered in pee.”
“Nope. Get smelly enough working full out, don’t need to add baby pee on top of that.” He rested his hands on her hips, and switched them around so she was in the full stream of the shower, and began to soap up.
She’s watching him soap up, rubbing foamy bubbles all over his skin, and he’s not playing with it, not showing off or anything (because Abby knows what getting the job done looks like, and what showing off looks like, and right now, he’s just getting the job done) but it’s occurring to her, in a way it hasn’t since before Kelly was born, that Tim’s an attractive guy, and wet, naked, soapy Tim, hands rubbing all over his own skin, is certainly reminding her that once upon a time, there was this thing they used to do on a very regular basis, and she really liked it, and it might be nice to do that again, and soon.
Though, she’s still bleeding, so, probably wait a bit longer before getting fully back to it, but still, some messing around would be good. They’ve been doing good on making sure to get at least some cuddle time in every day, but it’s been a week since there’s been anything that produces orgasms, and right now, she could certainly go for one.
So, she steps a little closer to him, nipples rubbing lightly against his chest, hands on his hips. “I like how you smell when you work out.”
That got an amused smile out of Tim. He put the soap down and wrapped his hands around the small of her back. “Really?”
“I like how you smell all the time, but hot and sweaty, flushed, working out hard, yeah, I like that. Like all of it.” Her hands trailed up his arms, and over his back, mapping his muscles.
“Huh.” He’s grinning.
“Huh?”
“Maybe I won’t race to the showers after next Bootcamp.”
She smiles and kisses his bottom lip, gently. “Won’t Jimmy and Gibbs wonder what’s up?”
“They might.” He licked his lips. “Of course, if you were to call and ask me to get home sooner rather than later…”
That got a grin out of her. “Some sort of unspecified ‘family emergency.’”
“Some sort of itch that only I can scratch.” His hands, which had been on her hips slipped down to stroke over her bottom.
“I imagine I could think of some need that only you could fulfill. Something that had to happen right that second.”
“You could call with a veryspecific request.” He kissed her throat, licking her earlobe, and said quietly, “The sort of thing that I’d be willing to drop anything to attend to.”
She looked into his eyes, enjoying the heat and wicked joy lighting them. “Yeah, I think I could do that.”
“Uh huh.” He kissed her lips, soft and wet, and she kissed back, tongue slipping against his, encouraging more depth and pressure.
“Mmmm…”
He wriggled against her, rubbing his whole body along hers. “Good?”
“Oh yeah.”
He traced his hand up from her thighs to her shoulder, and stroked along her chest. “Can I?”
She got what he was asking, and it has been less than half an hour since she finished nursing, so probably okay. “Sure, just, might squirt you.”
He grinned. “Not a problem. Not like I’ve never done it to you.”
She laughed a little at that. “Never from having your nipples played with.” Then his fingers slipped down, gently mapping out the curves of her breasts, and she sighed, head resting against his shoulder, purring softly. She’d forgotten how good that felt.   
“Missed that?”
“Oh yeah.” She met his lips with hers, enjoying his skin on hers, and the delicious things his fingers were doing. Then the familiar, foot fallings asleep tingle that meant her milk was letting down hit, so she took his hands in hers, resettling them on her hips.
“Abby?” He looked concerned, eyes searching hers, afraid he’d done something that hurt.
She pointed down. After all, they’re in the shower, he can’t feel the difference between the spray of the water or a spray of milk.
“Oh.” But he can certainly see it. “You want to stop?”
She kissed him long and hard, rubbing against him, holding his hands. Then broke the kiss to say, “Does that feel like stop?”
“Nope!”
“Exactly.” She took him in hand, stroking slow and firm. He groaned at it, hips moving along with her hand.
“You’re not going to tell me to go get a condom, right?” he asked between kisses.
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
“Okay, I’ve got an idea. Turn around.”
She did, her back to his chest, and he pulled her close to him, his dick between her legs. He started with long, gentle thrusts, rubbing his dick against her, and she sighed at that, rubbing in counter point, keeping everything slow and steady.
It’s not exactly their usual play, but it’s close enough, he can read her body more than well enough to know when just gentle brushing isn’t enough, so his fingers slip between her legs, adding more pressure, more directly applied. And she knows the way he’s moving, feeling the tension in his legs and arms, and thrusts back harder, squeezing her legs a bit tighter together.
She feels the build, his fingers slipping over and over, cock rubbing just right below them, his mouth biting gently on her shoulder as her body goes tighter and tighter, drawing in, focus clamping down to his fingers on her clit and the aching pleasure of being on the edge of spilling over.
God, so close, just a little more, little faster, and it’s hard to move because she doesn’t want to risk losing that delicious slide of his fingers, but it’s not quite fast enough. She can feel him jerking against her, knows he’s on the line or falling over it, and a hot, wet rush hits her clit, separate, different from the spray of the shower, and that was enough, that wet pulse in addition to the slide of his fingers sent her over, tingling and purring.
A minute later, she’s feeling very calm, very happy, and he’s flush against her back, making that soft, almost purr sound which always means she’s got a very happy Tim on her hands.
He gently kissed the nape of her neck. She squeezed his left hand and said, “Yep. Naptime sounds awfully good right about now.”
She could feel him smile at that.
“I’ll admit, I’m not feeling particularly motivated to go anywhere right this second.”
She stepped back, turned, and kissed him.
“Bootcamp not sounding so hot right now?”
“Get pounded on by Jimmy and Gibbs. Snuggle with you in bed…” He smiled at her while snagging the soap again. “For some reason, Jimmy and Gibbs just aren’t winning that one.”
She giggled, and he began to soap up her back.
“Well, it wouldn’t break my heart if you decided to stay here.”

“Good.”

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 257

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.


Chapter 257: Tony's Bad Day


Tony was not having a good day.
Okay, honestly, he hadn’t been having a good month. Three weeks technically. Since Draga showed up, and McGee left. But today should have been a good day. It should have been a great day. Long weekend, not on call, cook out at Gibbs’, should have been great.
Last night had been great. Okay, didn’t start great, he’s been trying to figure this whole Draga thing out, and it’s stressful, so he’s been stressed by it. They’d been talking about where Draga’d be in the family, how much access he’d get, and talking about it was making him tense, because Draga’s not family, and he’s already overstepping his lines, but they don’t want to shut him out, but bringing him in even closer isn’t going to help teach him what the lines are.
First time he’s been Boss in almost a decade and it’s already going badly.
And he’s not sure how to fix it.
So, yeah, stressed. For three weeks.
But after everyone went home, Ziva’d offered to help him relax, and that was excellent. He was awfully relaxed by the time they’d finished with that. He was so relaxed he couldn’t have named his problems, let alone worry about them.
So, sleeping the sleep of the very relaxed and extremely satisfied.
And then it was morning. The morning of what should have been a fine and bright day, and fine and bright days end to start a certain way, but…
But then the thing happened.
Or more precisely it didn’thappen.
And it’s never not happened before.
Ever.
And okay, yeah, it’d been less than twelve hours since the time before. And yeah, he’s forty-eight. And he has been stressed. But, that’s never happened before. That’s something that happens to other guys. Old guys. Usually, he’s awfully reliable in the morning, (cause, sure, that’s never happened before, but he has noticed that things are slower than they used to be) and, God, making it worse, she’d taken care of him, and he was planning on returning the favor with great vigor and enthusiasm, and he did, but part of returning the favor didn’t happen, and she had to notice, even if she didn’t say anything.
So, he wasn’t exactly dancing about with a spring in his step and joy in his heart that morning.
But, okay, it happens. Eventually. To every guy. At least that’s what they say. So get over it. Party to go to. Delicious food to eat. Fun to be had. Maybe by the end of the night Little DiNozzo would be showing signs of life again, and all would be well with the world.
And they got to Gibbs place, and it was going pretty smooth. They were having fun. Tossing around the Frisbee, showing off the fireworks he’d gotten for later, (As residents of Maryland, they can get legal fireworks, and as cops they had no problem getting them back across the state line to where Gibbs lives in Virginia.) just happily chilling out with his family on the Fourth.
Great.
Leon and his family shows up, and okay, that makes things a little less relaxed, but still good. He might be the Boss but that gets put on the back burner at parties. At least, Leon’s always been good about not making everyone toe the line when he’s a guest at Gibbs’ place. But Tony’s not perfectly comfortable with his full goofing-off self when Vance is around. He can’t fully relax and be fun and silly the way he likes to be.
But Jared’s just shooting up. Kid’s got to be fourteen now and at least six feet tall, and even better, he’s a rabid basketball fan and player. He had a Wizards t-shirt on, so they got talking. Jared’s looking at trying to play for college (has Duke in mind) so Tony was happy to talk about that. After all, if there’s anything he knows a whole lot about, it’s a good long college ball career.
Senior and Delphine showed up a few minutes later, so he spent some time chatting with his dad. That went well. Though he’s confused as to why Senior’s in DC right now, chasing some vague business deal, something to do with contracts for the ACA, but usually his dad handles real-estate-type deals, and he’s got no idea how that would work into the ACA.
Though maybe he was just looking for an excuse to get together.
Jimmy and Breena and Molly were there a few minutes later, and schmoozing the girls always makes Senior happy, and Molly certainly seems to enjoy the attention, so that worked out. (Until Ducky and Penny got there about ten minutes later, and Molly decided she wanted her Duck, toddling off to him as fast as her little legs could get her there, shrieking ‘Duck-eeeee!’)
Then Draga got there. And Flyboy’s just been looking for an excuse to show off. What sort of single guy brings a cake to a pot luck? A homemade cake. A nicely decorated homemade cake. Single guys bring drinks, chips, and maybe, if they’re feeling really frisky pre-made vegetable trays to pot lucks. They do not stand in a circle of the ladies explaining how they like to bake and swapping recipes.
They sure as hell don’t do it looking like… like one of the extras from Top Gun, one of the extras about to shoot the volleyball scene, while they do it.
Fornell’s standing next to him, shaking his head, elbows Gibbs and says, “Where do you keep finding these guys? Palmer was a bridesmaid, McGee’ll show up in a skirt, and this one bakes?”
“Test pilot for the Navy, Tobias. Flew experimental planes at six times the speed of sound. Off an aircraft carrier. At night.”
“Fine.” Fornell shakes his head, and Tony sighs, nodding, exactly on the same page with him. “How’s he working out?”
Tony was about to answer that, but Gibbs shook his head a little and said, “He’s settling in.”
Tobias caught that shake and looked between the two of them curiously.
So, instead of blowing off some steam Tony just nodded and said, “He’ll do.”
Fornell looked at the two of them, caught something in Gibbs’ look and decided he needed to go check on Emily and see what she and Wendy were up to.
“Not outside the family, Tony,” Gibbs said quietly. “Fornell’ll likely work with him a time or two before he retires. Don’t poison the well.”
“Fine.” He picked the Frisbee back up. “Toss it around?”
“Gotta get the meat on. Grill’s hot enough for it. Bet Jimmy and Jared’d be up for it.”
And they were, and that was fun. Tossing around the Frisbee with the guys, while the girls laid around on the porch, chatting with each other, occasionally making appreciative comments or whistling when he or Jimmy made a good catch, that’s always good.
The backyard was filling with the scent of very yummy grilled things.
All was well.
Then Draga got free of Penny. (Who knows what they were talking about, but he, Penny, and Ducky seemed to be having a lovely chat.) And he came over to join the toss. Kayla winged the Fribsee right at him, and he was in the game, laughing with them.
Frisbee breakIt’s not even that Draga’s a bad guy or anything. No, he’s too damn smart to be a bad guy. He never does anything over the line. He’s always helpful. Shows up early. Stays late. Kind of like McGee back in the day. But unlike McGee, he doesn’t know his place and won’t stay in it.
Speaking of McGee, he shows up, and…
And Draga’s not stupid. He’s been looking for a chance to show off for Ziva for weeks now, and McGullible fell for it. Like anyone besides Abby gives a shit about his tattoos? No, Flyboy just wanted a chance to show his own skin off.
And Ziva twisted the knife deeper, staring at him, eyes dragging all over his skin, just about oohing at him, and Tony just wanted to smack the living shit out of Draga.
Warrior culture, woad, (what the hell is woad?) tribal marks, sacred honor of trust among warriors, blending the power of sea and sky and the eagle into his skin. Bullshit. Ziva’s lapping it up, but he knows it’s crap. Draga’s just laying it on with a trowel trying to impress her. Probably told that line to a million girls in every port the Navy’s ever landed at.
And it’s working. She’s impressed. He knows what Ziva looks like when she’s watching a guy she likes, and she’s liking what she sees.
Then, to make matters even worse an hour later the wonder twins are laughing at him over it, saying he’s flipping out because Draga’s younger and hotter and fuck, okay, that’s not wrong, but it’s not right, either. He’s worked with younger, hotter guys, that’s not a problem, no it’s the fact that Draga’s trying to fuck his wife, that’s the problem. But they’re just chuckling away ‘cause he’s not hitting on their wives, so it’s all a fucking laugh riot to them.
And Gibbs, who is supposed to understand this, who’s supposed to be in his corner, just lays down even more crap, and it is not his fault that Gibbs didn’t once mention his wife was named Stephanie, and look, you start dating a new woman while you’re still married to the old one, and you’re dumb enough to get caught doing it, she is going to get pissed, and she is going to do something about it, and if that means picking up your new hire in front of you, well… you fucking deserve it, asshole.
That was good.The No Shame story helped, and he thinks Gibbs knew it would, that’s why he told it. And being the only guy to notice Abby was listening in was good, so he was starting to perk up. Ziva on his lap being all warm and soft was nice. And maybe there are a few stories he wouldn’t mind telling her later that night.
So that was good.
Firecrackers, sparklers, dessert, (And damn it, yes, Flyboy’s cake is good. It’s really good. It’s some sort of white chocolate, pistachio, raspberry mousse thing, and it’s delicious, and yes, he had seconds, or he was going to until he remembered Palmer’s comment about losing some weight, and damn it if he isn’t getting soft around the middle. So he gave Ziva the piece of cake, making it look like he’d grabbed it for her.) and more stories were good. He was starting to feel pretty relaxed and mellow again.
He was relaxing on one of the wooden porch chairs, Ziva on his lap, beer in hand, watching the kids blow stuff up, all was good. Vance and Gibbs get talking about past military adventures. Then Draga adds a few of his own. Ziva starts to talk about her time in the IDF. Fornell has stories from his time in the Army during Viet Nam. Ducky’s talking about his time in the Medical Corp. Even his dad has a few stories about Korea, which got him and Ducky talking about it, because they’d both been there.
So, he’s on the porch, the only adult (well, male adult, somehow, the wonder twins have vanished) with no military stories to tell. Then Delphine got into it, with stories of how she used to help sneak people out of the USSR. (Of course she did.) And Penny used to design cutting edge weapons for the military while being married to an Admiral, and when Draga got talking about night landings on aircraft carriers, she got asking about it, and turns out Admiral McGee (Nelson, not John) actually was one of the guys who designed the damn things in the first place (and she was the person he showed the designs to first, get a second set of eyes to look and see if it was worth sending up the line), and Senior had been in the Air Force during Korea, so they’re all talking daring do with planes and battles and crap, then Gibbs starts adding in some of his Dad’s stories, and he’s sitting there like Breena and Abby with nothing to say because, something like, ‘This one time, I was in Afghanistan, and I was close enough I could hear the battle’ just doesn’t cut it.
He’s a cop. He’s saved lives. He’s been in gun battles. He should not be feeling inadequate because he hasn’t gone off to war.
But he is.
And maybe it’s not just about not having served. It’s that he’s the only one. (Even though he’s not. Where the hell are McGee and Palmer?)
And it’s that Ziva’s sitting in his lap, idly stroking his shoulder, staring at Draga, looking at him with respect. And fuck. That’s worse than lust.
Because that’s the kind of respect that took him years to earn from her.
The kind of respect he had to go to Somalia to get.
Wrap the party up with the wonder twins finally coming back, and finally he’s not the only guy in the group who didn’t enlist. But, that’s a badge of pride for McGee. So he’s not bothered about not having anything to add to story time. He’s happy as a clam to sit there with Abby, snuggling her, keeping an eye on the baby monitor. Laughing at the funny stories, and acting impressed at the dangerous ones, asking good questions to keep the stories going.
And Jimmy made a few sharp remarks in his direction, and glared twice, but wouldn’t say what was up when he got him alone. “Nothing you can do anything about.” What the hell does that mean? And if he can’t do anything about it, why is Jimmy glaring at him? He was fine before they vanished, and now he’s pissed. What, do those two talk about him behind his back?
An hour later he got McGee on his own, and asked what the hell was wrong with Palmer, and he said, “Jeanne.”
Jeanne?He couldn’t believe he’d heard that right. “Jeanne? Benoit?”
“Yeah.”
“What?” Of all the myriad things that could be wrong with Jimmy, a decade old case he hadn’t even been part of was ridiculous.
“Long story.”
“Why are you telling stories about Jeanne?”
McGee shrugs a little, which is completely useless. “That’s a long story, too.”
“Well, why would he be glaring at me about that? It’s been a decade.”
Tim’s staring at him like he’s a moron for not putting it together, but he’s not seeing it, at all. And then he did. Jimmy was Jeanne. “Fuck.” Someone played Jimmy, tried to get him to love her so she could get access to what she needed. He figured out something was off and broke it off, but it still had to hurt when he learned what was up.
“He say anything to you?” McGee asked.
“Just that I couldn’t do anything about it.”
“Well, you can’t.” Yeah, that’s useful McHelpful.
“It’s not like her dad was selling candy. He was a bad guy.”
“I mentioned that. Jimmy mentioned there were ways to get him that didn’t involve screwing his daughter, literally and metaphorically.”
“Fine.”
“Talk to him about it. Not tonight, it’s getting late, but, eventually.”
“Great.” Jeanne might not be his least favorite topic, but she was up there. Every cop who’s been in it for more than a year has a case he regrets. One that was screwed from top to bottom and makes it hard to look in the mirror.
Jeanne was that case for him.
So, yeah, he was not in anything even remotely approaching a good mood when the party wrapped.
And picking the fight with Ziva was stupid, and he knew it while he was doing it, but she was talking about Draga, smiling about something he’d said, talking about how nice he’d been, and he just flipped out and started ranting about it.
“Nice? You think he’s being nice. Here’s a hint. This is what he’s actually saying to you: Look at how young and hot and dangerous I am. Look at my tattoo, Ziva! It’s huge and blue and commemorates how I used to fly experimental planes for the Navy and kill people in interesting ways, just like you did. Oh, you like motorcycles, I like motorcycles. Fast cars, I love fast cars, did you know I used to drag race? What, you don’t know what drag racing is? Oh honey, let me tell you this complicated story about me driving in the streets at 150 miles an hour with nitrous oxide boosted car I built myself. You love driving fast? One day I’ll  have to show you my really fast car. You can drive it, too! Then we’ll have sex, maybe while driving it! Check out my muscles, and the muscles on top of those muscles, and here, let’s talk some more about how I’ve got the biggest dick you’ve ever imagined seeing, and I can’t wait to show it to you. Bet your hubby’s looking awfully limp and soft and boring and old compared to me, right? God, he’s so dumb, he’s just letting me do this. I don’t think he’s even noticed. So, wanna hear more about how awesome I am? My shirt’s already off, let me get my pants too, look at how cut I am! And maybe after that you'll suck me.”
“Are you done?”
“Not really.”
Ziva just looked at him, shook her head, and then shut the door to their bedroom behind her, very clearly signaling that whatever the hell game he was playing, she wasn’t interested.
So, he got back in the car and drove around, eventually finding himself at Gibbs’ place, and sure, Gibbs isn’t exactly his favorite person right this second, but he’ll be awake and he won’t ask questions, so, he parked and in he went.
He’d actually gotten two steps down into the basement before it hit him the lights were off, which meant, for the first time ever, he’d managed to show up when Gibbs was actually sleeping.
Since when does Gibbs sleep?  Gibbs doesn’t sleep. Gibbs lives on coffee, bourbon, and cases.
Except he doesn’t now, because he’s changed.
Because everything is changing.
And really, when it comes down to it, that’s the problem.


Tony doesn’t like change. Granted that can be pretty hard to tell since most of the time he’s standing next to McSameThingHappensEveryDay and Leroy Jethro Wouldn’t Know A Change If It Walked Up And Bit Him In The Ass And Took His Leg Clean Off Gibbs. Compared to them he’s an exciting cauldron of happily bubbling opportunities and change.
You know, in that he hasn’t had the same breakfast order for the last ten years. (Okay, two, technically for McDiet. He’s switched twice and is back on his skinny breakfast.) But still, not like he’s been getting the same meal at the same diner at the same time on the same day every day since God spoke and diners were invented.
He wanders over to Gibbs’ sofa and lies down.
Nine years, ten in September, since he turned down Rota, hoping for his own team, but it had to be HIS team. Not some random collection of strangers.
And he’s here again, but it’s not HIS team.
He knew Gibbs would have to go for him to move up. That’s just the way it works. Can’t be the leader if the old leader’s still there.
But Tim wasn’t supposed to go. And Abby wasn’t supposed to just vanish. And sure, there would have to be a new guy, but the new guy wasn’t supposed to give him any crap. The new guy was supposed to do his job and realize that he was the Boss, damn it!
“Can’t give me better people.” He’d said that to Borin, and he meant it. But his people are leaving.
Because everything changes.


Okay, it was stupid to expect Tim to be his right hand man forever. He got eleven years. That’s a hell of a lot longer than most partners last.
But it’s not stupid to expect some sympathy about this. It’s not stupid to be annoyed at him and Jimmy cackling away, completely missing what’s going on, because neither of them are part of the day in day out of this right now.
Sure, they’re going to be doing something like this, sooner or later. Tim’s already moving in, silently killing Jenner without Jenner having a clue. (It never occurred to Tony that Tim might actually have political instincts. Their team, because Gibbs is in charge, has always tried to avoid the politics. Can’t avoid it entirely, but they try to stay out of it. But in one move he watched McGee cut Jenner off at the knees, and Jenner still doesn’t know his feet are no longer attached.)
Ducky and Penny sound like they’re making the kinds of plans that require more off time than you get at NCIS or American, so, yeah, Palmer’ll be stepping up soon, too. So, sure, they’re going to be doing this, too, taking over, developing their own teams.
But they’re not doing this. They aren’t balancing their wife with their underlings and dealing with some kid who thinks he knows everything there is to know.
No, they aren’t going to get cocky little bastards who used to fly experimental planes and manage to work in how dangerous their last job was into at least one conversation a day, with their wives. McGeek’s gonna get twelve little McGeeklets, who may, if they get really frisky, flash him a snide smile while defraging his computer. And Jimmy’ll have one guy, who he’ll hand pick for this. And knowing Jimmy, it’ll be another Ducky wannabe, some quiet, timid guy who’ll stay down there listening to the blather while making sure the pipettes are sterilized.
They’re not going to deal with asshole adrenaline junkies who couldn’t define the word fear if held at gunpoint.
They’re not going to have to manage guys who look at them like they’re bleeding twerps who don’t have enough brains to do a crossword, let alone solve a crime or handle anything particularly difficult. (And worse, they aren’t going to deal with guys who see every fucking detail and make them feel like ancient idiots because they can’t memorize the entire layout of a crime scene with all the details in one glance. Who the fuck is this guy, Sherlock Holmes?)
They’re not going to be sandwiched between a Boss and an underling, with no real place in the team because the slot up hasn’t opened yet, and the slot down doesn’t know it’s down and just
FUCK!


Part of the problem is, he knows he fucked it up the first time.
Part of the reason he didn’t take Rota, beyond wanting HIS team.
Handling McGee was easy. He was so thrilled to finally be a Senior Agent that he gave Tony no trouble, and hell Lee couldn’t have picked trouble out of a line up.  (Well, okay, she could, but they didn’t know that then, and she was awfully meek sitting in McGee’s desk carefully nibbling carrot sticks and making sure every scrap of paperwork was perfect.)
Managing Ziva… Because like Draga, Ziva didn’t just roll over and take his orders. She always had to challenge him. Had to make sure that he knew she was better, stronger than he was.
So he found a way to cope. To even the playing field. A technique that played to his strengths.
It was stupid. It was massively stupid. And he’s not sure if she was using him or if he was using her, or if they both used each other, but a campfire turned into movie night. (Because none of the three of them had seen the movie he was using as a reference to help make the case make sense. So he got McGee to put it up on MTAC that night. McGee and Lee watched and went home. Ziva spent an hour talking to him about it, and by the end of that they had a date for another movie.) Movie night turned into movies and beer night, and movies and beer night turned into drunk kissing night, and drunk kissing night turned into this isn’t a big deal, happens all the time in Israel, helps build trust and teamwork, and he’d almost backed out but she said, “Your team, Tony, your rules.”
And it was his team, and Gibbs wasn’t there, and…
And his team, his Ziva, was in trouble, and it was his job as the leader to save it, and instead of turning to him, instead of knowing that the team came first, she went to Gibbs.
And Gibbs looked at him, and basically told him to his face that not only had he fucked up, but that he knew how he’d fucked up. Called him McGee, and said that he wouldn’t have messed it up, like that. On the fucking case for two damn seconds and he knew.
And then Gibbs was back. And the last thing she said to him about it was, “His team, Tony, his rules.”
So, he took the assignment with Jeanne, and purposely let Ziva wonder and worry. Let them all wonder. And God that was a clusterfuck.
And they never talked about it, or Jeanne, or Somalia, or Paris, again. Not until the night after they killed Bodnar, and he was aimlessly wandering DC, looking for something, and something was her place, and they sat on her floor and just talked. No walls, no bullshit, no… them… covered in head to toe emotional armor. They let it go and just talked.
And things changed, for the better that time.
And they’re changing again.


There are things about himself that Tony hates to admit, though he knows they’re true.
He’s deeply insecure.
He’d rather follow than lead.
He hates change.
He’s terrified of failing.
And it’s easier to be angry and lash out than to deal with any of the above four.
And Draga’s really not a bad guy, and he’s not doing anything over the line, and neither is Ziva, but he can be pissed about it, or he can try to deal with the fact that isn’t easy, and on top of difficult it’s terrifying.
So he’ll be angry and try to keep his head above water, and hopefully figure out how to run Draga before the whole thing falls apart.



Gibbs was halfway down his steps when he heard snoring. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head a little. Someone got into his house, onto his sofa, and is sleeping on it, and managed to do that without waking him up. Time to get his hearing checked.
He waits for a few seconds, listening, and decides he knows that snore.
Tony.
He turns around and heads back up to his room to get his phone. It’s a bit after nine, which is a very late morning for him, but he’s sure Ziva’s up by now. So he flashes her a text.
Got your man on my sofa. Everything okay?
Two minutes later, and he thinks it was that late because she was deciding how to respond, not that she didn’t get the text he got back, Well enough. Sleeping?
Yep.
He can come home when he’s done sulking.
What’s going on?
I don’t really know.


This is not, by a long stretch, the first time Gibbs has found a sleeping Tony on his sofa.
It is the first time it’s happened since he started dating Ziva.
But they’ve got a routine for this. And Gibbs knows his role.
So, down to the kitchen. He’s not being especially quiet, but he not going out of his way to wake up Tony, either. He gets the coffee going and knows Tony’ll be up by the time it’s ready.
Back to the front porch, grab his newspaper (he’s noticed he’s the only guy on the street that still gets one) and back to the kitchen to see what’s going on in the world. (Not all that much.)
Tony stirred, seemed to notice Gibbs, and turned to face the back of the sofa, settling in for a few more minutes.
The coffee started to perk, and the scent of it began to wander through the house. Gibbs had his first cup, and began putting together breakfast. Nothing fancy, just eggs, but as the sound of them hitting the hot skillet filled his kitchen, he also heard the sound of Tony getting up, and then pouring himself a cup.
Gibbs stirred the eggs in the pan. He’s feeding Tony, so he’s scrambling them.
“One to ten. How stupid was the fight?”
“Am I judging based on fights with Ziva, or my own personal history of stupid?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Seven?”
Gibbs turned from the pan and stared at Tony. “They’re partners. They have to have this. They need to get along. They have to trust and respect each other. They need the in jokes. They need that space between them that you can’t be part of. You’re the Boss, not the buddy, so you can’t be part of it.”
“I know. But…”
“But?”
But I’m better at being the buddy. I know how to be the buddy. “It was supposed to be Tim.”
Gibbs shrugged.
“It was supposed to be a guy I trusted. It was supposed to be someone safe. And it was supposed to be someone Ziva didn’t look at…”
“Supposed to be someone she wasn’t attracted to.”
“Yeah. Tim, Ziva, one other, hopefully a woman. Or a newbie for Tim to latch onto. Let him have the Probie.”
“And the Probie was supposed to be a geek.”
“At least right now.”
Gibbs shook his head, and dumped some eggs onto Tony’s plate. “Like I said, sucks when some new, young guy shows up, thinks he’s hot shit, knows everything there is to know, and hits on your wife.”
He’s flashing Gibbs the you’re pissing me the hell off look. “I did not know she was your wife.”
“And you didn’t have to work with her, either. I get it. But you were the young, hot shit punk who thought you knew everything there was to know and that I was a dinosaur you were going to show some tricks to.”
“I did not.”
“Please. At least Draga knows he’s not God’s gift to investigating. I had to break twelve years of bad habits from you.”
“I was a good cop.”
“No, you had the makings of a good cop. Wouldn’t have hired you if you didn’t. But you weren’t when you started with me. You’d been coasting in a sewer of lousy to okay cops and had never actually seen what a really good one looked like until you signed on with NCIS. Now, you’re a good cop. You’re a great cop. You are going to be a good leader, too.  You picked a challenge to start with. And any guy with any spine is going to fight the guy on top.”
“He’s not fighting you.”
“He’s not stupid. He knows I’m on my way out.”
“McGee never fought.”
“He did. Took me four years to figure out he was doing it.”
“Jethro?”
“I barely know how to turn the damn computer on. You can send email, and that’s it. You think he’s spending five minutes explaining what’s going on, in font of other people, like Abby or Vance or Borin, because we needed to know? No. He’s making us shut him down and admit he’s the brains.”
“Oh.”
“They all do it. Even Jimmy’s playing off Ducky now.”
“Great.”
“Draga’s going to be the better cop. Aubrey was going to be the easier teammate. We’re the best team. You picked the better man. It was the right decision. Managing him’s the new challenge. But eventually, we will hit a case where you will pull out the stops and save his ass, and he will see you. Just like you finally really saw Tim after we got Ziva back. Just like Kelso case.”
“Long time ago.” That was the first case where he got to see that Jethro wasn’t just phoning it in, killing time between bottles of bourbon by showing up at work.
“Yep.”
“I didn’t think you were a dinosaur.”
Gibbs smirks at that. “You thought I had to be some sort of massive burn out to be my age and working as a Navy Cop.”
“Jethro, you were.”
That got a head tilt, acknowledging that. “Might have been. Still a good cop.”
“Yeah.” Tony took a bite of his eggs. “What the hell am I going to do with him? Yeah, he’s getting along with Ziva great, but he still thinks I’m a fool.”
“Don’t be the fool. Class clown only works when there’s a teacher to play off of. The buddy only works when there’s a Boss breathing down your neck.”
“I don’t want to be you.”
“You don’t have to be, and it wouldn’t work if you tried.”
They both ate quietly. Gibbs knows where this needs to go, but he also knows he can’t make the suggestion, Tony’s got to get here on his own.
He’d finished his eggs, still not saying anything, and was standing up to get another refill on the coffee.
“Jethro?”
The tilt of his head told Tony to keep talking.
“I can’t be the Boss if you’re still the Boss.”
Jethro nods at that.
“I’m not the Leader if every big decision has to go through you.”
He nods at that, too, leaning against the counter in his kitchen, sipping his coffee.
A very long minute passes and he can see Tony thinking about it, getting ready to commit to what has to logically come after that.
“Jethro, I want you to step down as Team Leader.”
Gibbs nods, and smiles a little. “Not calling you Boss.”
“You don’t have to. That’s going out with you. Ziva’ll break me if I even suggest it, and McGee won’t do it, at least, not without a ton of sarcasm.”
Gibbs nods at that. “Until Tim gets back, I’ll work more on breaking in Draga. Can’t and shouldn’t keep him away from Ziva, but if half of the time I’m with him, that’ll be fine. Tim’ll be back week after next, get him into the mix. Draga’s doin’ okay on the computers but he’s not smooth, yet.”
“Okay.”
And there was the biggest change of all. Leroy Jethro Gibbs had given his last order as the Boss of Team Gibbs.

Tony exhaled low and slow, simultaneously terrified and excited at the prospect of Team DiNozzo.

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 256

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.


Chapter 256: Ghosts That We Knew


So, he knows Gibbs mentioned it once, and it’s not something Tim thinks about much, because, well, thinking about it too much leads to other somewhat uncomfortable thoughts, but it’s twice now in the last few weeks that he’s noticed Gibbs looking at/hearing something.
Like he was sure Gibbs was looking over his shoulder that one day in the kitchen with Kelly, but, he knows the layout of his kitchen, and there shouldn’t have been anything back there worth looking at, not that intensely.
So, as the party was winding down, and Kelly was getting her last feed in before they go home, he found Gibbs in the kitchen starting to clean up.
He stands next to Gibbs, and helps him load plates into the dishwasher, not sure if he’s going to say anything, but he’s feeling pretty curious right now, too.
“Out with it, Tim.” It was awfully clear to Gibbs that Tim was very much not asking something.
“Wondering about something.”
“Yeah.”
He quickly scans the room, but it’s just the two of them. “You really see ghosts?”
Gibbs looks up at him, pretty startled for a second, and then relaxes as he remembers that he has already mentioned this to Tim. “Yeah.”
“Hear ‘em, too?”
Gibbs smiles a little. “Sometimes.”
“Uh huh… So…” Tim doesn’t finish that sentence, hoping Gibbs’ll just volunteer the information.
“So? Gotta ask if you want to know.”
“How many of us were there for the No Shame story?”
“I’d say seven.”
Tim quickly counts in his head and comes up with six. “Uh huh.” He nods at that, remembering how Gibbs almost turned twice. “Someone sitting behind you, to the left.”
“Felt that way to me.”
“Okay.” He’s not entirely sure what to do with that, other than be glad that he wasn’t imagining Gibbs seeming distracted.
“Think I’m losing it?”
Tim slowly shakes his head. “Not touching that.”
Gibbs smiles at him, looking very amused by that answer. “So, why are you asking?”
“Noticed a few times you were looking like someone else was talking to you.”
“Yep.”
“You really think it’s a ghost?”
He can see Mike behind Tim, leaning against his kitchen counter, enjoying this. Well, Probie, am I a ghost?
Gibbs laughs a little, looking down, shaking his head. Trust Mike to ask. So, he’s answering Mike as much as he’s answering Tim. “It’s as good a word as any. Maybe I just know the story well enough, that I can hear his voice. Maybe I just miss my friend. Maybe it doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe.”
And maybe it doesn’t matter, but he can see Mike standing in his kitchen, sipping a beer, and Tim’s asking him about it so… “Can you feel him, at all?” Gibbs asks. Might be good to at least get a clue if this is entirely in his head.
“No.” Tim shakes his head. “I never was that guy. If he’s here, Abby might feel it, but not me. I just noticed you noticing him. Just like I can see you keep looking behind my shoulder.”
Franks smiles at that. He’s onto ya.
“But you’ve got to remember. I also can’t tell if someone is lying just by looking at them. I’m better at it than I used to be, but I still don’t have your gut. You always seem to know more about what’s going on than anyone else around you, and you never have let slip how you do it.”
“Good point.”
“So…”
Gibbs tilts his head a little, shrugs a little, might as well let it go. “Better hearing than anyone knows. Until a few years ago, great distance vision. I can read lips. With the perps, it’s split between reading their faces and a gut feeling. And it always has been. When I was active duty, I usually knew when we were walking into a trap. Was good with that little tickle on the back of the neck screaming danger. Doesn’t always fire. Didn’t notice the thing with the freezer until we were in the middle of it, but I’ve always been able to feel when I’m in the crosshairs.”
“Ziva can do that, too. Maybe you should ask her if she’s got a sense of him.”
“Nah. I don’t need to know.”
“You don’t want to tell her about it?”
Gibbs shrugs, that’s part of it. Not that it’s personal to Ziva, just that this doesn’t need to go wide. It already feels weird that someone else knows this, and honestly, kind of nice that Tim’s not looking at him like he’s completely insane.
He shuts the dishwasher and takes a drink from his beer, mostly just feeling the quiet, Tim’s standing there waiting for him to say something, and Mike’s in the background looking like this is the funniest thing he’s ever seen.
“The day he died, he told me about how we make ghosts. Not just with our guns, but… He looked at me and said, ‘You do hear ghosts, Probie.’ And he was right, probably heard them himself.” Mike nods at that. “He was talking about how we fill our lives and spaces with memories, ghosts. How the longer we stay in a place, the more we fill it.” Gibbs smiles at this memory, Franks winks at him. “He said, ‘That’s why I’ve always tried to make sure, that where ever I live, the longer I live there, the spaces become filled with memories… of naked women.’”
Tim laughed at that. “Sounds like Franks.”
God, Probie, you’ve filled this place with me? That’s just depressing.
“I’d told him how I see them, and he walked out of the basement and died in front of my house. We buried him in the box I built for him. I’ve got his old files, gun, flask, and badge. And he pops up every now and again, been doing it since the day he died.” Gibbs takes another drink. “I’ve never been sure what Mike is. He always played fast and loose with the rules, so, if anyone could do it…”
Franks smiles. Tim nods. “If anyone could… Does it worry you? Not being sure?”
“No.”
“Then it doesn’t matter. Do you mind if I mention this to Abby?”
Gibbs shook his head. No it doesn’t bother him, but it also doesn’t seem like something Tim would just bring up. “Why would you?”
Tim smiles a little at that, shakes his head a little, takes a sip of his own drink. (Iced tea. Time to head home soon.) “Haven’t believed in anything like that for a long, long time. But if you’ve got a sense of him, and she does, that’d be… interesting. Not enough to turn me into a believer, but… it’d be interesting.”
“What would be interesting?” Abby asked, sleepy Kelly resting on her shoulder.
Gibbs eyes flicked past Tim again, before settling on Abby, and he’s got the sense Gibbs is still seeing Franks, so might as well see how it goes… “Who’s in this room?”
She stares at Tim like he’s insane then looks around at them. “You mean, besides you, me, Gibbs, and Kelly?”
“Yeah.”
“Franks is behind you and to the left. He’s smiling, looking pretty shocked that I just said that.”
Mike did look pretty damn shocked by that. Your girl’s good, Probie, I’ll give you that. I didn’t think she could do that!
Tim and Gibbs are looking awfully shocked at that, too. She smiled big and kissed both of them, then said, “Come on, we’ve got to get her home.”
Tim and Gibbs just stood there, staring at her, eyes very wide, jaws dropped to the floor.
Abby smiles big and warm and starts to laugh. “Okay, I can’t actually see him, and I’ve been listening in for the last minute, so I knew what you were talking about, but even with that, I do keep feeling like he’s here tonight.” She snuggled into Gibbs. “And maybe it’s the fact that you keep looking over there, but, yeah, I’ve got a very clear idea of him leaning against the counter, he’s got all his fingers again,” And Gibbs notices that he does. “but it’s noting I’m seeing with my eyes. And I did feel like he was with us for a few days after he died. He was following you around, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, either he’s here, or you’re thinking about him so hard that I get the sense of it off of you. Doesn’t matter how it happens. Seems like you find having him around comforting, and that’s all that matters.”
Gibbs takes a deep breath, nods, and kisses Abby’s forehead. Then he very gently takes Kelly from her. “I’ll get her in her car seat.” Which both Tim and Abby understood meant that he was going to get some baby snuggles in on the way to getting her strapped in and ready to go.
Tim’s still just staring at her. So she walked up and pressed against him. “You okay?”
He shook his head, then nodded, and finally said, “Sure. Why not?”
She smiled and kissed him. “Meet at the car?”
“Let me get the stuff from the porch.”  He stepped out of the kitchen to the back porch, and said, very quietly, “Goodnight, Mike.”


They were on the way home when he asked, “Have you ever seen a ghost?”
“Sure.”
“Like, with your eyes?”
“Yeah.” She nods at that. “Feel them mostly, but I’ve seen them, too.”
“Gibbs told me he does. Sees them, hears them.”
“And Mike showed up to help with the storytelling tonight and stuck around?”
“I guess. Gibbs was showing Kelly off to everyone who hadn’t met her yet. Franks would be on that list, right?”
“Yeah, he would.”
“So, what’s it feel like?”
“Phew,” she smiled, shaking her head. “Ask me an easy one next time, okay?”
“I’ll try.”
She thinks for a while as he passes a slow Taurus.
“Okay. There was a way I used to feel when I was with my mom or my dad. Happy, content, love, all of that, but it was still… different… distinct for each of them.”
“Okay.”
“And, especially since Kelly’s been born, I’ve been feeling that a lot. My mom mostly. Late at night, when I’m nursing, and it’s all dark and gray and blue, and there’s just that feeling of her nearby. And sometimes I feel like I can smell her. That hint of her soap and shampoo.”
“Oh.” He drives for another mile, not saying anything.
“What are you thinking?”
“Not much of anything.” Which is true. Long day, lots of… stuff. He’s just absorbing it. “Just, knowing it.”
“Ah.”
“Who did you see?”
“My dad. The day after we buried them I was sitting downstairs in our house, supposed to be packing up, because we had to go, and… and I wasn’t. I was sitting on the sofa, staring at the stereo, thinking about how when he’d have it on, the subwoofer would vibrate so hard you could see it. Like really,” she waves her hand back and forth, “thumping away. And he came in and sat next to me, told me I needed to get packing, and this was hard for everyone, and me laying around wasn’t going to make it any easier. So I got up, put one plate in a box, and he smiled, kissed my forehead, and said it was going to be okay. That as long as I kept moving forward it’d be okay.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Saw Kate after she died. But I told you about that.”
“No.” He’s fairly sure he’d remember something like, ‘I just saw Kate.’
“You were in the lab, looking distracted, and I said to you that I felt like Kate was there. I’d been seeing her in the lab all day.”
That startled him enough he jerked the steering wheel a bit, and quickly corrected.
“What?” Abby’s looking at him concerned.
“I never realized that’s what you meant by that. I thought…” But he doesn’t finish that sentence.
“You thought…”
“I just… I thought I was imagining it.”
“What? Were you seeing her, too?”
“Yeah, and it was… it was just horribly inappropriate.”
“What did you see?”
So bad.He sighs. “It was so bad.”
“Bad as Tony ogling her in a catholic school girl uniform?”
“What?” Yeah, that sounded like Tony, but just… she’d just died. Of course, compared to what he was seeing… “He told you that?”
“No, she did.”
That’s got him a little worried. “She didn’t say anything about me, did she?”
“No. So what did you see?”
He shook his head. “Just her. In the lab. And… No. I had to be imagining it, because there’s no way she would have dressed up like Trinity from the Matrix, let alone…”
“Let alone…”
“Nope. That one’s private.”
Abby looks pretty interested in that, but doesn’t press. “She was wearing a long black dress, with long white hair when I saw her.”
“So, she didn’t look like herself?”
“No. Well, yes. Just not dressed like her.”
“Oh.”
“So, Trinity?” Feeling a little better.
“My superhero. All cool and sleek and dangerous.”
She smiled at that. Kate would have liked to be the hero. “I like that.”
“I wonder if Gibbs did.”
“Go to Bootcamp tomorrow and ask him.”
“Maybe. See how tired I am.” It was getting onto midnight. They’ll get home, he’d be able to sleep ‘til four (because it was his night for the four AM feed) and from then to ten maybe.
“If you’re not too beat, I’d like to go to church.”
They hadn’t been for a month, so, why not?
“Sure. See how we’re feeling.”
"Okay."

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 255

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.


Chapter 255: Ten Minutes


Tim quietly eased the door shut behind him, and found Jimmy lurking in the upstairs hallway at Gibbs’ house.
“Molly still asleep?”
“Oh, yeah. Two baby girls, right in the middle of his bed, snoozing away.”
“Good. One of the neighbors started blasting off with something that was pretty loud. Wanted to check on her.”
ZZZZZ“Nothing. She didn’t notice me singing, or the little chirp Kelly let off when I laid her down, or…” Tim fished out his phone and showed Jimmy a pic of their girls sleeping together.
Jimmy smiled, took Tim’s phone, and sent himself a copy of that shot. “Good.” 
Tim sat down, back against the wall. Jimmy raised an eyebrow at him.
“Always hang around for five minutes or so. Make sure she’s really asleep. Nothing worse than get her down, lay down yourself, close your eyes, and boom, she’s crying again.”
“Didn’t take you too long to figure out how to skip that.”
“Nope. Put her down, sit outside her room, count to three hundred, and then if she’s really down, back to bed.”
“That works.” Jimmy sat down next to him. “I don’t get it.”
“Jimmy?”
“Paying a grand for sex.”
“Not as enthusiastic about oral as Franks?” Tim asks Jimmy.
Jimmy’s look indicates he’s a very big fan of oral, so that’s not exactly the issue here. “Just… you know… If you’re gonna spend a grand you’d want something… exotic, right? Not the same thing you got last Tuesday.”
“I get you.” Tim thought for a moment. He can’t think of anything he wants, exotic or not, that he’d pay a grand for. Hell, he can’t think of anything, exotic or not, that he wants that he doesn’t already have, or at least wouldn’t have once Abby’s all healed up again. “What would you pay a grand for?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I don’t get it. I mean… Look, I’ve got great food, conversation, relaxation, and my brain sucked out through my dick at home. I really can’t think of anything I want that I don’t already have.”
“Yeah.” Tim nods. “Like the bachelor party and the lap dance thing. I’ve already got that.”
“Exactly. Of course, Franks and Gibbs were single then. Might have made a thousand dollar blow job more appealing.”   
Tim shrugs. “Maybe. I mean. I’ve had the thousand dollar blow job. Hell, I’ve had the five thousand dollar blow job. And if there is such a thing as a ten thousand dollar blow job, I’ve had that, too. But, you can’t get that from a stranger. You just can’t. Unless a woman really knows your body, and she wouldn’t if it was a once or twice thing, the sex isn’t going to be that good. I mean, okay, she’s a professional, she does it a whole lot, so lots of experience, and let’s say she’s got tons of natural talent, and okay, I’ve obviously never done it, but, let’s say blow jobs really aren’t that complicated, and that the basic technique is more or less the same for every guy, and the real skill comes in knowing how to apply that technique, but even with all that she doesn’t know me inside and out, and hell, add a condom on top of that, so it just can’t be that good. ”
“Maybe.” That seemed like a good point. Breena can play him like Mozart with a piano. A stranger, not so much. Jimmy laces his hands in front of him, and looks at his watch. It’s a decent Timex. Looks good, tells time, does everything he needs it to do. It cost about seventy dollars. “Maybe it’s like the shiny, gold watch. It’s not that it tells time that much better, it’s showing off that you can afford to buy it.”
“Could be. And if usually you’d do that with buddies or business associates, you’re showing off how much money you’ll drop on them for their comfort.”
“Makes a bit more sense. I’ll blow five grand making you happy; you’ll sign the fifty million dollar contract; everyone wins.”
“I guess.” Tim’s not feeling particularly convinced by that, but he’s also not the guy who’s ever signed the fifty million dollar contract, and it wasn’t like he needed any real persuading to sign the seven hundred and fifty thousand dollar one for the last three Gemcity books.
“So, you’ve never…” Jimmy asked.
Tim shook his head. “No. You?”
“Spring break, freshman year of college, the Choir went on tour in Europe, and we spent two days in Amsterdam. I was still partying pretty hard back then, and stoned off my ass and laid sounded like a great Friday night.”
“And?” Tim’s curious about this. Not like he’s never thought about it. He’s been awfully lonely and horny in the past, but he’s also a cop, and never lived anywhere it was legal.
“And it was.”
Tim’s silently saying, okay, tell me more.
Jimmy shrugs. “More fun than jerking off, but, honestly, not that much better. Not worth possibly getting busted for. Got back here, and never tried again. And at least when you do yourself, no one expects you to get up and leave right after. And, okay, just, remember, I was eighteen, so it’s not like I was in danger of setting any endurance records, so that was probably the fastest hundred dollars I ever spent.”
Tim smirks, laughing quietly. “Well, if you get paid per customer, instead of by the night, you’re probably trying to get it done fast.”
“Could be.”
“Like you had a thousand dollars to blow back then, but if you had…”
Jimmy thinks about it. “Probably still not worth a grand. Too lonely for a grand.”
“Yeah. Maybe it’s because I’m not so hard up I’m climbing the walls, but, sex with a stranger, even a beautiful one who knows every trick there is… seems kind of beside the point.”
Jimmy nods, acknowledging that. “So, really, you never…”
“No.” Tim shrugs. He doesn’t want it to sound like he’s standing on some high moral ground here. Sure, teasing Fornell with it was fun, but that’s not why he’s never done it. “But, I also never lived anywhere it was legal.”
“Never been to Europe?”
“Only on work. Got stuck in Germany overnight with Tony.” Tim rolled his eyes. “Sure as hell wasn’t even suggesting it. Germany again, with Gibbs, and just… no. Mexico, where I managed to poison myself. Mexico a second time, where I was supposed to be looking out for Abby and managed to poison myself again. Canada I was on my own, sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“Not all of the Mounties are male.”
“Ah.”
“By the time I got to Nevada, Abby was with me, and we did blow over a grand a night, but together.”
“Do anything interesting?”
“Yeah, but not like that. Penn and Teller, Cirque du Soleil. Went dancing. Played the tables. That was fun. I mean,” it feels a little weird to say this, but, “we’ve got the kind of money where we can blow a grand or two a night on fun. Can’t do it a lot, but every once and a while, sure. And it was a lot of fun.”
Jimmy nods at that. They don’t have the kind of money Tim and Abby do, but the occasional lavish night out isn’t out of the question.
“So, you’re in Vegas and all you did was shows on the Strip?”
“Only there for two nights. We did Cirque the first night and had a date with Penn and Teller the second night.”
“Nothing risqué?”
“Cirque was risqué, lot of fun for a date night, but we didn’t do anything like a strip club or show girls. You know, I’ve never actually been to a strip club, except for work.”
“It’s overrated. I don’t know about you, but my idea of a good time isn’t looking at naked girls with a whole bunch of drunk guys. I like looking at naked girls just fine, but I don’t need a dozen or more other guys with me when I do it.”
“Yeah.”
“And if it’s spend a few hundred dollars on a woman I don’t know or on Breena, Breena wins.”
“Yep.”
“And if you aren’t willing to spend that kind of money, you feel like a jerk, because they’re dancing for tips. So, I can come home with a present that makes her day, or go spend it on some lackluster sex where I don’t even get to get off. I just don’t get why anyone would pick the sex.”
“Not everyone has great sex at home.”
“I guess. But…” Jimmy squints a little, looking at the wall across from them. “You think that’s it?”
“For some guys, sure. Why?”
“I don’t get Tony sometimes.”
“Join the club.”
“Ziva’s beautiful. She’s smoking hot. I cannot imagine anything involving her is lackluster, and he still tried to take us to a strip club for your bachelor party, when he was engaged to her.”
Tim nods.
“And it’s not like he just met us, so he had to know neither of us are strip club type guys.”
Tim nods at that, too.
“So, was he looking for an excuse to go himself, or was he just going through the motions? This is what a bachelor party looks like, so this is what we’re going to do.”
Tim shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
“If she’s really not pregnant, I don’t get him flipping out on Draga, either.”
“She’s not. She actually drank the beer she was holding. Two of them.”
“You think they’re okay?”
“Yeah.” Tim thinks about that. He hasn’t been paying much attention to anything outside his immediate family right now. “I mean, have you seen anything else?”
“No. Just that.”
Tim leans his head against the wall behind him. “They’re okay. Maybe starting to feel their way through that space where you realize you’re together forever, but there’s still a whole lot of attractive people out there.”
Jimmy smiled at that. “And you’re going to look, and you’re going to think about it, but you’re not going to do anything about it because you love your wife, and she trusts you, and you’re not an asshole.”
“Something like that. I know it’s something he’s nervous about.”
Jimmy looks curious.
“Back when they were first dating. He was worried about looking. ‘Cause, he’s more or less doing it all the time. And maybe it’s because looking always used to lead to touching for him. Or maybe he just hasn’t gotten to the point where he really gets that Ziva loves him, and that’s not going to stop being true, and sure, she might like the view on another guy, but that he’s still her world.” He thinks about that for a second and says, “Oh.”
“Oh?”
“His mom died, Wendy… he’s never said, but I think she left him… Jeanne left.”
“Any sane woman in Jeanne’s position would have left.”
“Not saying you’re wrong, but, I’m getting to a point here.”
“Okay.”
“For months he thought Ziva was dead. EJ just vanished one day. Maybe it’s not insane that he can’t rest as easy in the idea that she’ll be around forever as you and I do with Abby and Breena.”
“Good point. I’ve been broken up with, but, no one ever just vanished on me.”
“Yeah. I’ve been dumped my fair share, and honestly, a few other people’s fair shares as well, but, I’ve only had two serious relationships, and I ended the other one.”
“You broke it off with…?”
“Helen. Grad school girlfriend. She didn’t want me in law enforcement. Wanted me to be a full time writer. Or if I had to have a day job, the IRS was a good compromise. I wanted to carry a gun and put bad guys away. I wanted it more than her. So I signed with NCIS and headed to FLETC, and she dumped me when I told her I’d taken that offer. Which was exactly what I expected her to do.”
“Okay. But, I get your point, a history like that means it’s easier not to get worried when our girls look.”
“Yeah, at least, I’m assuming that’s why you and I weren’t flipping out.”
“Yep. This time last year, you would have flipped out.”
Tim thinks about that. It’s not entirely unlikely. Definitely would have been true two years ago. “How long ago for you?”
“Three years? Breena can look at Draga, Abby can too, not an issue. Now, if he had asked to see them…”
“Yeah, that would have provoked major flipping out.” Tim checked his watch, ready to get up, but Jimmy stopped him with a question.
“Could you have gone undercover like he did?”
“Huh?” He hadn’t followed Jimmy’s leap to that question and isn’t sure what he’s asking.
“The thing with Jeanne.”
Oh. “You mean, play Thom, get close to a girl, try to make her fall in love with me, and use her to get close to her dad?”
“Yeah.”
Tim thinks about that, and decides there are two parts to that question. “Like play the role, or use the girl?”
“Use the girl. I already know you’d muff the role a day or two in.”
Tim sent Jimmy a quick glare. Not really angry. He would have muffed it.
“Just, you know… She was a doctor. Nice girl from everything I heard. She didn’t break any laws. She never hurt anyone. Not like she was running guns for her dad. Just, seems like a real asshole thing to do. I mean, we’re supposed to be the good guys, right?”
Tim shrugs. He’d never thought about it like that. “What’s got you thinking about that?”
“Just dad stuff, probably. All the guys out there that one day Molly and Kelly, and this new one…”
“Thinking she’s a girl.”
“Yeah, leaning that way. Get to find out for sure in the beginning of September.”
“Anna, right?”
“Yeah, if she’s really a girl. Hadn’t thought about Jeanne in probably nine years, but you mentioned her, and… I don’t get that either. I don’t get how you pretend to be someone else and worm your way into someone else’s heart. I guess, that’s not you paying for sex, that’s you being the hooker. But it’s not, because if you’re a hooker you don’t expect the John to fall in love with you. You aren’t trying to gain his trust and affection, just get him off.”
“Are we still talking about Tony and Jeanne or are we talking about Lee and you?”
Jimmy shrugs. “At least Lee was trying to protect her family. Someone takes Molly, and… I don’t know what I’d do… Anything, probably, and God help the poor son of a bitch who gets in my way. So, yeah, for Lee, I was the poor son of a bitch. Wasn’t fun, but I get it. But Tony was… what? Advancing his career?”
“Trying to put an awfully bad guy away.”
“How? You saying we couldn’t have put Jeanne under surveillance and just grabbed her father when he stuck his head out to go visit her?”
“I think he was supposed to get evidence on him. We knew who he was and where he was. Grabbing him wasn’t the problem.”
“Then that’s worse. That means the plan was to get Jeanne so into him that she’d take him home to meet her dad. This wasn’t just get close; it was make her fall in love. Make her want the ring and the home and the kids and... And if her dad was that careful, then he wasn’t going to just leave things lying around for Tony to find. This was build trust, become part of the family, and then, what? Marry in? Be useful? Hope daddy offers you a job? Three years and a kid later leave with the information they needed to nail this guy?”
“I don’t know.”
“So, could you have?”
“No. Especially, not after you put it like that. That’s not something you do to a person. But a target, for someone who’s selling guns all over the place and killed my dad—“
“Killed my dad?”
“That’s why Director Sheppard wanted him so bad.”
“That’s even worse. ‘I’m a damaged daughter, so I’ll do it back to your kid?’ And Tony went along with that?”
“I don’t think he knew that. I hope. I think he had a target in mind, and she was beautiful, and fun, and charming. He spent time with her and she became a person, he fell in love with her, and didn’t know how to get himself or her out of it.”
Jimmy shook his head. “That’s grim.” Then looked at his watch. Ten minutes. “I’m guessing she’s really down.”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s get back to the party.”  
“Sounds good.”
They were heading down the stairs when Tim asked Jimmy, “Did Gibbs look distracted to you?”
“When?”
“During the story.”
“Not that I noticed.”
“Okay.”



Next

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 254

Chapter 254: Story Time With Grandpa Gibbs


Technically, Kelly was supposed to show up today. And technically, they're off this weekend. Fourth of July is a Federal Holiday (and supposedly they've got all of them off) but it's on a Saturday this year, so they all got Monday off as well.
Granted, long weekend doesn't mean much to Tim and Abby right now. Tim's not due back until the middle of July and Abby's not due in until the middle of September. But, for Gibbs and the rest of the team, long weekend does mean something.
And Gibbs is taking advantage of it. Cook out. His place. The extended Gibbs clan has been invited. (It's entirely possible he's showing off his grandbaby to LJ and Fornell and co.) Even Senior's in town, so the whole crew'll be there.
Or as Ziva had put it, Christmas in July.

Previous years, the Forth has just been the core group of them, and bounces between the Palmers' or Gibbs' house. It's not much of a big deal. Mostly an excuse to eat something tasty, drink some beer, blow a few things up. (Okay, yeah, technically in Virginia, you're not supposed to have the kind of fireworks Abby makes, but for some reason, everyone turns a blind eye when the party is at a cop's house, attended by a pile of other cops, and the cops who were called out to check the party were given a large quantity of beer, grilled chicken, and some fireworks to take home. And no, that's not a bribe. That's one branch of Law Enforcement showing proper respect for another branch, and bite your tongue for even thinking it!)
But this year is more of a big deal. Well, less of a show up in your jammies and hang loose sort of thing, so Tim's actually shaving. At least, he's getting rid of the stray hairs on his cheeks. The goatee is staying.He's running the razor over his face when Abby comes into their bathroom and says, "You know Draga'll be there."
Tim nodded. "Ziva mentioned that last night."
"Just, you've got the kilt laid out, wanted to make sure you knew."
"I do. It'll be 93 today, not wearing jeans. Too damn hot for that."
"Okay. You have shorts right?"
"None that fit. Unless you mean my swim trunks. Why? You think it'll be a problem?"
"Just thinking about last night." Last night they'd been talking about how fully into the family they were going to let Draga. He's invited to this, because everyone's invited to this. But just like Gibbs didn't let any of his team see any of his private life until he'd gotten himself good and cemented into Boss territory, Tony's not entirely sure how much of him he wants Draga seeing, yet.
"This is who I am, and I don't care who knows. Not anymore. He thinks it's weird… Well, not like I've got to work with him all that much longer. He's not my Probie."
"Would you wear it if we had a pile of cybercrime techs coming?"
"I don't know. Wasn't planning on doing it first day as Boss or anything." Since women can wear skirts, NCIS can't prevent men from doing likewise without opening themselves up to a sexual discrimination suit. Tim's never worn his kilt to work because it's not practical in the field. But behind a desk? He's been thinking about it. "Need to get a feel for them. Never realized until recently how much of 'Gibbs' was about holding control and projecting that image. Not sure how much of that I'll need for my guys. But I do know I don't need it for Draga."
That got him thinking as he finished up with his face.
"You know… I'm going to ask Vance if I can get the dress code revoked for my guys."
Abby looked interested in that.
"Just, I know I want to get rid of a bunch of them. Which means I'm going to need new hires. Can't change my pay scale. Can't offer different benefits. The basement's ugly as sin, so I can't give them a spiffy environment. But, maybe I can at least make it look a bit more like a place where actual computer guys work. And maybe, for some of them, looking more like the traditional tech guy when I'm head hunting will help."
"Good way to think about it." They heard quiet crying coming from Kelly's room. "And I think that's my cue," Abby said, heading off to get their daughter.

Just like at Christmas, the cars are lined up and down the street. Unlike Christmas, most everyone is outside. It's hot and sticky and humid, but the food is on the porch, and so is Gibbs, keeping watch over the grill, burgers and chicken sending delicious smells into the wood-smoke scented air.
They were the last ones to get there. Though he's thinking that Jimmy and Breena probably haven't been over for long. Molly still gets an afternoon nap, and it's not much past naptime.
It's, with the exception of Gibbs at the grill, pot luck, though when he asked what they should bring, Gibbs just glared at them and told Abby to bring Kelly and make sure everyone was awake enough to enjoy the time out. So he doesn't actually have a plate of anything in his hands. (Diaper bag over his shoulder, with baby monitor in it, and one of those little bouncy seat/swingy things for Kelly to nap on when it's time for her to go down. But no food.)
They'd been there for maybe four seconds when Gibbs saw them and headed over, hugs and kisses for Abby and Kelly, (backslap for Tim) then he handed Tim the grill tongs ("Don't let 'em burn.") and swooped up Kelly to go show her off to Fornell.
"Maybe I could put the baby stuff down first?"
Gibbs half-waved in his direction, heading toward Fornell and Wendy with Kelly and Abby
A second later, Draga was over. "Here, let me help." He grabbed some of Tim's baby gear.
"Thanks. Don't know why we need twenty pounds of gear for an eight pound person…"
"But if you ever leave any of it home, you'll need it."
"Yep." After a minute he had everything tucked into a tidy pile under the table with all the food. "Okay." Tim looks at the tongs. "Apparently, I'm in charge of the grill."
"Apparently. Probably a good plan to get over there before anything burns. Don't think he'd like that."
Tim nods and head over. He looks down at the food, and says, quietly, to himself, "Great."
"McGee?" Draga asks.
"Wood fire. Never cooked on this before."
"Just like charcoal. Keep flipping things over and moving them around so the food doesn't burn. Like, that…" A quick flare up sent flames jumping. So Tim reached over with the tongs and flipped over that chicken leg. When he did, Draga said, "I thought so."
"Hmmm?"
"That you'd have skin ink."
"Oh, yeah. Three of them now. Four soon."
Draga nods. "Figured you would when I met Abby. What do you have?"
Tim's right sleeve was high enough that it didn't take much pushing up to show off the knot around his bicep. "Abby's got one that matches this." Draga nods, and Tim realizes that of course, he's already noticed that. Abby's wearing a dress with no sleeves. He pushed up his left sleeve and showed off the code. "That's my master's dissertation."
"Nice."
"Thanks."
"Here." He handed Draga the tongs and undid his wrist cuff. "That's number three."
"She's got one that matches that, too. On her neck?"
"Yeah. Wedding tattoos." He snapped his wrist cuff back on. "Number four'll be on my right leg. Waiting for a bit more time and a bit more rest before that one."
"Baby tat?"
"Yeah. You have any?"
"Oh, yeah. Wasn't sure…" Tim notices that Draga's wearing a pair of shorts and an unbuttoned Henley with the sleeves pushed up to his forearms. It's got to be warm. Too warm. But if he wanted something that would cover his arms… it'd do the job.
Tim gestures to his kilt. "Dress code's pretty informal here. Pretty tolerant, too. At the office, you can't have ink that shows, but this isn't the office." As he took the tongs back and flipped a few wings, Tim did notice Leon and his family was here, too. "Though I can understand not necessarily wanting to show everything off to not just your new Boss, but to his Boss, too."
Draga nodded at that and asked, "DiNozzo give you any crap about your ink?"
"Not too bad. He was so stunned when I got the first one, he didn't know what to do about it. Calls me McInked every now and again, thinks the one on my wrist is kind of femme, but not much more than that."
"He doesn't have any?"
"If he does, it's new and he hasn't said anything." Tim decides that since Ziva keeps her tattoo under wraps that he doesn't need to mention it. "So, what do you have? No need to show it off if you don't want to."
"They're not going to flip out? You know some people can get kind of…"
Tim nods, he knows. "I've got three. Abby's got sixteen. And we don't exactly dress like everyone else. They're pretty good with people who don't fit the mold. But, yeah, it does depend on what it is you've got. You got something nasty chewing the head off a baby, and yeah, probably keeping that under your shirt is a good plan."
"Nothing like that."
He's not sure if Abby was following their conversation, reading lips, or just noticed him showing off his tats and decided to come on over and join the conversation, but as Draga said that she and Breena edged their way over.
"So, what do you have?" she asked.
A few seconds later, Ziva had wandered over as well as Kayla Vance. Like somehow, by some form of psychic female communication, all the girls decided that something interesting was about to happen on the porch, so they closed in.
Breena's grinning at Draga, and Tim realized he didn't know if they'd been introduced yet. "Do you know Breena?" Tim asks.
Draga smiled at her, offering his hand, and Tim caught sight Jimmy and Tony, who had been tossing a Frisbee around with Jared and Vance, edging closer, as well. Paying close attention to what their ladies' are doing, but not wanting to look like they're feeling threatened. Vance, on the other hand is just coolly staring at his daughter, waiting to see where this is going to go.
"Not directly. I've seen your picture and your little girl's picture down in Autopsy."
Breena smiled back and shook.
"Breena, Draga, Draga, Breena"
"Tim, we're not at work," Breena says to him. "They get so used to calling everyone by last name they forget the rest of the world doesn't usually work that way.
"Draga's fine. Everyone's called me that for the last ten years."
"You ever change your mind, let me know, and Abby and I'll call you by your first name."
"And even if you don't, I'm still going to call you Eric," Abby added. "Only one man I call by his last name anymore, and you aren't him."
"You always called me McGee."
"Yep. You and Gibbs, my two favorite guys, and no one else. But it's my name too now, so calling you McGee is just weird."
He nods as if to say, If you say so.
And Abby turned her attention back to Draga and smiled bright and wide. "Sooo… Come on, we like skin ink here."
Draga pulls his shirt off, over his head, and turns his back to the girls. It's a cool design. Stylized wings stretching from bicep to bicep and down his back. The pattern is tribal, Maori in style but not a replica of any of the traditional designs. All of the fliers in his unit got it done when they were stationed out of New Zealand as part of a joint naval aviator Pacific theatre task force.
And he's going on about it, about what it means, how the wings are made out of lines that look like waves, blending sea and air. Ziva, Breena, and Abby are listening intently, and looking intently, and as he's talking about warrior traditions, Ziva gets into the conversation, and they chat about that.
Okay, great. None of that was funny. But Tim's having a hard time not laughing. And he feels like he shouldn't find this so amusing. He really shouldn't. And Abby keeps shooting him, what the hell looks as he tries to keep a straight face, but he can see something she can't, and it's hilarious.
So, no, he shouldn't have been laughing. Draga and Ziva comparing honor cultures is not funny, at all. No, funny started when Tony began to… amble… in a very nonchalant sort of way toward the group of them. He's trying to look cool and failing, badly. Probably because he's glaring daggers into Draga's back. And after a few more seconds of relaxed ambling he does manage to come on over, drape an arm around Ziva, pulling her close to him, flush against his side. "Enjoying the conversation, Mrs. DiNozzo?"
Abby sees it, and he sees her get what he was trying to not giggle at.
Ziva turned to him and smiled. "Yes. Learning a lot about American and Maori warrior culture."
Tony looks at Draga. "Didn't know there were Maoris even whiter than McInked over there."
Tim shrugs at Draga, who with red hair and freckly skin actually is paler than he is.
"You join the cultures that call to you," Draga says, pulling the shirt back over his head. He is pale enough that ten minutes in the sun is probably about as long as he can safely take. "This one called to me. Actually, if you've studied the sorts of marks that my ancestors, and, likely McGee's and Dr. Mallard's, as well, used to wear, you'd see this isn't too far off. Granted, if it was in proper traditional style, they'd be done in woad…"
And somehow the mention of that woad conjured Ducky, and between the two of them ten minutes of the history of tribal marks passed, which, honestly, Tim mostly filtered out.
No, he was paying attention to the chicken, and to Tony, who was, to put it mildly, whipping out his own personal fifteen on the one to ten scale of overreacting.
If you didn't know Tony well, which, of course Draga doesn't, he looks fine. Annoyed, but still within the limits of okay. But Tim can see the clench in his jaw, the slight narrowing of his eyes, the way his hand isn't actually casually draped over Ziva, his arm and hand is tense.
And that's aimed about fifty-fifty at Ziva and Draga.
Tony doesn't like Draga showing off, and he doesn't like Ziva appreciating it.
For a second, Tim wonders about that. Abby was certainly looking at Draga, carefully, she was even very lightly tracing some of the more complicated bits of the work on his back, but he wasn't feeling any… anything about it. She likes skin art. Draga's got cool skin art. She's looking. He's not bugged.
Tony's glaring at Draga, and Tim's wondering if he should be bugged.
He's awfully sure he would be bugged if Abby was showing off, say, her entire collection. And he'd be quite a bit less than thrilled if she decided Draga needed to see her crosses. But her looking at him isn't bugging him.
It's just not.
But Tony looks ready to rip his head off.
And finally, he figures out why. At least, he develops what he's thinking is a pretty good suspicion.
Draga's young. Draga's attractive. Draga's got dangerous looking ink all over his arms and back. He's in rock-hard Navy shape, probably runs fifteen miles a day and does PX-90 or Insanity or something like that when he gets home.
And these days, Tony's none of those things. Tony's used to being the best looking, fairest of them all, and now he's not.
And it's also why this doesn't bother Tim, and to some degree, he's thinking this is why Jimmy's not flipping out either. (Though it could be that Tony's doing such a good job of it that it's keeping Jimmy in line.) But right now, Tim's in pretty much the best shape of his life. Okay, sure he hasn't worked out in three weeks, but he's tight and trim, and no, he's not cut or built like Draga is, but, he doesn't need to be.
He looks as good as he's ever going to look, and he knows that his wife adores him, and so, if she wants to look at Draga's tats, he's cool.
But Tony doesn't look as good as he ever has. And it's not that he's terribly old or anything. But he's forty-eight. He's got a good ten (fifteen? Tim's bad at estimating things like that.) pounds of pudge around the middle. He's got lines on his forehead and around his eyes.
Pretty much he's a college athlete who kept himself in awfully good shape for a good long time, but that's the thing, it was a good long time, and time is catching up to him.
And right now, his wife, his NEW wife is looking at the NEW guy, who is younger, fitter, and hotter, and Tony's not taking it well, at all. It's not like Ziva was ogling Draga or anything. Okay, that wasn't just polite interest, either. But she wasn't doing anything over the line. She wasn't flirting. She wasn't saying anything inappropriate, and she wasn't undressing the rest of him with her eyes. But, it's also, at least to Tim, pretty clear that she's not really looking at the ink, she's looking at the guy and the muscles under the ink.
Which might be another reason why Tony's flipping out and Tim isn't. Abby's looking at the ink. Ziva's looking at biceps, delts, traps, and lats.
Of course, as Tony's standing there, arm around Ziva, adding a few snide remarks here and there as Ducky talks, one other possible reason for Tony flipping out hits Tim. And if he's right… Well, he certainly flipped out just like this a bit less than a year ago, and back then… Yep. He feels a grin creep across his face, and flips a few more chicken wings before calling out, "Gibbs!"
Gibbs wandered back to him.
"How long have they been on?"
Gibbs gives him his daughter back and hollers, "Dinner's on!"

It's an hour later, before he and Jimmy get a few minutes alone with Tony. But eventually, the sun was starting to sink, the torches were lit, and he, Jimmy, and Tim were all lounging around on lawn chairs in the back corner of the yard.
Jimmy looks at him, amused, takes a long drink of his beer, and shakes his head, clicking his tongue in a shame on you gesture.
Tim says to him, very smug, finishing up his burger. "That wasn't cool, at all. So, when's the baby due?"
Tony glared at them.
Jimmy, still grinning says, "It's July, so that'd be what? April? No April birthdays yet."
"Ziva's not pregnant."
Jimmy and Tim flash surprised looks at each other and Jimmy says, "You're saying that you just about walked up and pissed on her to mark your territory because… she was looking at another guy." Jimmy laughs. "She's allowed to look. You look at other women all the time."
Tony glares again.
So, back to his first idea. Tim shakes his head. "Don't think looking's all of it. That's only half, a third maybe. Tony's not the prettiest one anymore." Okay, Tony really is glaring daggers at them right now, and Tim shouldn't be enjoying this so much, but…
"Oh that's it!" Jimmy says, poking Tim. "Tony, you were never the prettiest. Have you ever looked at me?" Jimmy gestures to himself and his hard, cut, toned body, significantly less of which is hidden under clothing than usual for work. (He's in shorts, flip flops, and a t-shirt.) "Sure, you may have been cool, but I've got a much better body."
This does not appear to be comforting to Tony. Metaphorical steam was bubbling out of his ears.
Jimmy shakes his head and shoves Tony gently. "You get a pass for being a jerk when she's pregnant. You don't just because there's a new guy who's younger and hotter than you."
"I'm his Boss. She's my wife."
"She's also his partner, and neither of them did anything even remotely out of line." Tim adds.
Gibbs came over, sat down next to them, and handed Tony a beer. "Really sucks when some new young guy shows up and flirts with your wife."
Tony's not saying anything. He's staring at Gibbs, looking pretty alarmed, defensive, and pointing at him. But finally he gets out, "That's why you liked him? Is this twenty-year-old payback?"
Gibbs smiles, relaxing back, popping the cap on his Sam Adams, he's watching Draga talk with Jared Vance. "He's got the makings of a good agent. Payback is just the cherry on top of the sundae."
"Look, I told you then," Tony says, emphatically, "I did not know she was your wife."
Jimmy holds up his hands, "Whoa, okay, we are stopping right now and rewinding to the beginning of this story."
Tim nods along with that. He very much wants to hear this. He catches Abby's eye, (she's across the backyard, talking with Breena and Wendy about something) and flashes her a little pay attention to this conversation gesture. She smiles, and does.
Tony's looking like the entire universe is out to get him today, but eventually he says. "It's my first week at NCIS. Gibbs and Burley were in interrogation, and I was running down a few leads. This…" and here Tim's expecting words like smoking hot or gorgeous or something but there's just a beat of silence before Tony says, "woman, came up to my desk, looked around and then asked if Agent Gibbs was in.
"I told her he was busy, and she smiled at me, and we got to talking, and I was doing my usual routine, just talking…"
Gibbs' eyes narrow.
"In a somewhat flirty sort of way. And I asked what she wanted with Gibbs and she said, 'Nothing.' I asked if she wanted to leave a message, and she said 'Oh, I am.' And yes, that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but she's beautiful and sitting on my desk, and her legs…"
Gibbs eyes narrow even further.
"Were nothing I was looking at. So we kept talking, and she was sitting on the corner of my desk leaning into me, interested in the conversation, and I asked her name, and all she said was 'Stephanie,' and in my defense El Jefe over there had not only never actually said he was married, he had no pictures on his desk and had never mentioned her name. Only reason I knew he had a wife was the wedding band, and it was the same plain gold band twenty-seven million other couples have. And it's possible that if her skirt had been a bit longer, I might have noticed she had a very similar gold band on, but it was a really short skirt, and at that point in my life I was a firm believer in the idea that if you couldn't keep your wife happy enough so that she didn't go out seeking other guys, you got what you deserved. So, she was… um… writing down her number for me, and I had noticed there was a ring, just not what other ring it matched, so I was asking what times I shouldn't call when I heard Burley say, sounding really stunned, 'How long have you been watching this?' and I realized Gibbs had been on the stairs the whole time."
Tim and Jimmy are staring at Gibbs now. Tim looks from him to Tony and back again, and finally say, "It's obvious you didn't kill him, but…"
"She was sending a message. I got it. Not Tony's fault he was a horny idiot caught between the two of us."
"Hey!"
Gibbs just stares at him.
"What message was she sending?" Jimmy asked.
Now Gibbs is just staring at him with a I can't believe you asked that expression on his face.
"Beyond the fact that she wasn't happy," Jimmy adds.
Gibbs is still staring at him.
"You know, teachable moment. Don't make the same mistakes I did… No?"
Gibbs shakes his head. "No."
"All right. So, Tony, you do know what you can take from this?" Jimmy says brightly.
"No. What can I take from this?"
"Your own advice. If she's looking somewhere else, you've got to do a better job of making her happy. Go hit the gym. Sure, you'll never be as pretty as me, but you could probably stand to lose some weight." Jimmy smirked and looked to Tim. "You know, I don't think Draga was flirting with Ziva."
Tim rose one eyebrow. "You say Abby, and we're going to have issues." He's joking about that, because he does want to know how that looked to Jimmy.
"No." Jimmy flashes him an are you kiddinglook. "It wasn't Abby he ran right up to to offer help. It wasn't Abby he started talking skin ink with. And it wasn't Abby he was offering to show his tats to. She just happened to be there by the time he got to that part of the conversation."
Tony started laughing at that, loud and happy.
Tim thought about it for a minute, cause those are all good points but… "Nah. Didn't feel like that. He spotted me as the only other guy in the group with ink. New guy in the group, it's easier to figure out how to fit in if you can find someone else who looks similar. Same reason I gravitated to Abby when I first got to NCIS. Same reason you did, too."
"You think?" Jimmy asks.
"Did that really look like flirting to you?"
"How would I know?" Jimmy asks. "Haven't been hit on by a guy before."
"I think it works about the same for everyone," Tim said to Jimmy and then turned to Tony, "You fill Draga in on twelve? You know, just in case."
"Four hours in a car with him on his second day, we got them all."
"Good." Tim turns back to Gibbs. "So, speaking of rules. We're all here. Gonna tell us the story of Rule 1: Version Six?"
"Six?" Tony asks as Fornell heads over.
"What are you four cackling about? Gossiping like a bunch of old ladies." Fornell asks as he sits down.
Gibbs smiles dryly at him, and takes a bite of Fornell's cake. "No Shame."
"Hey. Get your own cake." Fornell says, swatting Gibbs' hand and then grins. "No Shame! That's a good one."
"You know this story?" Tony asks.
"Everyone knows this story, DiNozzo!"
"Not us," Jimmy adds. "So what's No Shame."
"It's the sixth version of Rule Number One," Tim says.
"First." Gibbs says. "This version of Rule Number One is probably older than you are, Tim."
"But the story about how you got it, isn't," Fornell adds.
Gibbs sighs, looks down, remembers Mike, practically able to feel him, smiles a little, looks away from them, to where Kayla and Amira are talking with each other, and then scans the group, seeing Leyla holding Kelly while she chats with Abby.
Well, Probie, you gonna tell your boys the story, or just sit there lookin' pretty?
Gibbs smiles at Franks voice. He doesn't turn to his left to see if Franks is there. He's not. Can't be. At least, not in any way anyone else will notice. But he can feel him, see him, even if only in his mind's eye, settling in, sitting back, sipping his beer, ready for the story.
So, he starts the story. "Back in '93, Franks and I were stationed in Okinawa. For enlisted singles that's considered a hardship post. Basically, no women. The Japanese girls aren't terribly interested in catching an American service man. Back then there were probably twenty-five guys for each enlisted woman, and most of those ladies weren't exactly looking for a husband…" Gibbs' look filled in the if you know what I mean that followed those words. The boys nodded; they got it.
"But, Japan also isn't too uptight about hookers. So, it wasn't hard to find company if you had extra money and some time off."
Fornell jumped in, aware of the fact that in '93 Tim and Jimmy were still kids, and probably didn't know how this worked. "Japan may not be, but anyone in any of the US Forces stationed overseas had their CO's breathing down their backs back then about it. The AIDS scare was still going strong, so… no fraternizing."
"But they're soldiers and sailors," Gibbs says, "And soldiers and sailors and hookers get along pretty well."
Tony smirks at that, laughing a little.
"Most of the time, we didn't hear anything about that. They weren't supposed to be doing it. But everyone knew they were, so we'd turn a blind eye.
"One day this Light Colonel shows up at the door, and he wants to have a private chat and see if we can help him out, discreetly."
That got a smirk and a laugh out of Fornell, who of course already knows this story. "As Mike put it, 'This bantam rooster shows up, thinks he's a foot taller than he actually is, feathers in a bunch and squawking like a maiden aunt who's fanny just got pinched.'"
Gibbs smirked a bit, too, look on his face clearly saying Idiot Officer. "He'd found a house that aimed at an upscale clientele. And he got rolled."
"Isn't that the point of going to a place like that?" Jimmy asks.
Fornell shakes his head, amazed at how innocent Jimmy is. And Gibbs can hear Franks saying, Good Lord, Probie, where'd you find Skippy over there? Kindergarten?
"Robbed, Palmer," Fornell adds, making sure Jimmy's on the same page with the rest of them.
"Oh."
"Yeah," Jethro says. "He'd gone in, had some tea, started to pick out a girl, and woke up naked on the street."
Tim, Jimmy, and Tony are all quietly laughing now.
"His theory was that since he was American, and an officer, and married, that they'd rolled him, assuming he'd never complain because he'd be hip deep in shit if he did. They stole everything he had, but his wedding ring, so he'd be able to pretend it didn't happen."
Goddamn stupid son of a bitch. Still can't believe he came to us. You're that stupid, you deserve what you get. Gibbs is feeling tempted to tell Mike to shut up, because having him commenting in the back of his head is distracting. But he doubts it'll help.
"So, in we went to investigate, because you can't just roll an officer and get away with it, even if he was goddamn stupid," Gibbs says. "'Course the first part of a deal like this is figuring out what happened. And, if there was a pattern, it'd be easy enough to spot.
"We needed bait. Someone who could convincingly act the part of a married officer."
"Hoorah!" Fornell says.
Gibbs nods at that, looking amused. "So, I get all gussied up, ring on, and head off to go find a geisha for a night. Supposedly, Mike's got an eye on me. I wasn't wearing a wire because, well, nowhere to put one if you're going to a place where the first step is a bath."
"First step is a bath?" Tony sounds intrigued.
Gibbs looks pleased. "Nice place. Head in, one of the ladies escorts you to the bath, she washes you off—"
"Doesn't sound like this op was a hardship," Tony says.
That also gets an amused grin. "I've had worse assignments. She gets done with you. You're all nice and clean, wearing a robe, then over to the tea room, where there's refreshments waiting, and you tell 'em what you want, and what kind of girl you want to do it."
Tim's staring at him, looking really amused. "So, you're sitting there, in a room, in a robe, and… those little sandals?" Gibbs nods. "With a bunch of girls, actually saying, out loud, with words, what kind of sex you want?" Tim asks, trying not to laugh and failing miserably.
Gibbs glares at him stop being a smartass very clear in that look. "You go undercover, you do what you need to. So not only was I doing it, but I was doing it in Japanese."
"Okay, then. I'm officially impressed," Tim says.
"Any redheads?" Fornell asks.
That also got the smartass glare.
"The point of this wasn't for me to get laid, it was for me to get rolled, make sure it's really happening. So, I'm drinking the tea, chatting with the girls…"
"Chatting?" Jimmy asks.
"If you're gonna pay a thousand dollars for a night, you take the time to talk to them."
"Just, never… thousand dollars, huh?" Jimmy says.
"Yeah, high end house. And I was chatting with this very pretty girl, and, no she didn't have red hair. Black hair, went all the way down to her hips. And then I was coming to in the back alley, Mike patting my cheeks, getting me sitting up, naked except for my 'wedding ring.'
"I want to get some clothing on, but he doesn't want to wait that long. But I don't want to go storming into the place naked, and he looks at me and says, 'Rule Number One: No Shame. Probie, even if you're butt naked with your balls flappin' in the ice-cold breeze you walk tall, give orders like you mean 'em, look everyone dead in the eye, and tell 'em to go straight to Hell if they don't like it. You're a Marine. Now get your ass up, and get in there, and let's get your clothin' back.'"
Always was good at the pep talks, right, Probie?
"So I stormed in, back straight, naked from head to toe, swinging in the breeze, barking orders, and by the end of the hour I had my clothing back and we'd busted the whole ring of them. Been fifteen thefts in the last year alone. They'd been right about the idea that married officers weren't going to complain."
Fornell sighs. "You're terrible at telling stories, Jethro." Fornell turns to the boys. "No one told stories the way Franks did, but I'll try. Jethro's leaving most of the good parts out."
"Most of the good parts?" Tony says.
"Oh yeah." Fornell has a very amused, very dirty grin on his face. He scans the crowd, finds Ducky, and yells out, "Ducky, we need you over here." Then says in his normal voice. "Ducky's heard this story, too, between the two of us, we'll do it the justice it deserves."
Thank God. You really do suck at stories, Probie. Whole not talkin' thing gets in the way.
"Tobias?" Ducky asks as he drags a chair over.
"Jethro's telling the No Shame story, and he's butchered it. I'd called you in for backup."
"Oh." Ducky lights up with amusement, as Jimmy scoots over on his seat, making room for him. "Jethro's first adventure in undercover work."
"That wasn't my first undercover job!"
"That is not how Mike told it," Ducky says with a smile.
"Mike's version of the story is at least seventy percent bullshit."
"But it was entertaining bullshit, and it got the point, No Shame, across so much better," Fornell adds. "He left out all the training."
"Oh, Jethro! That's the best part."
Gibbs rolled his eyes, and all three of the boys are staring, very interested in what's coming next.
"Ducky, Fornell, why do you know this story? I mean… I know Franks didn't have a problem with telling a juicy story, but…" Tim asks.
"But this seems a tad inappropriate for a work conversation?" Ducky finishes.
Tim nods.
"His bachelor party… that'd be for Diane, right?" Fornell answers.
"Like you don't remember," Gibbs replies.
"I was there for the one with Hannah, too, and both of those nights are pretty blurry."
"That sounds like a story, too," Tony says.
"Oh, it is." Fornell patted Tony on the cheek. "And one day, when you're old enough, we'll tell it to you. So where was I?"
That was one hell of a night, wasn't it? Gibbs feels very tempted to say back, "Like you remember that night. You finished the Tequila on your own."
"Setting the scene," Tim answers.
"Laying down bullshit," Gibbs adds.
"Sure. Bullshit or not, it was fun. So, you've got the basic story, but he's leaving a few details out, like, for example, thousand dollar a night place means that they're not rolling the customers for income. This isn't about making a few extra bucks to keep the pimp off your back. This is something personal about Americans. And honestly, place like that, back then, most of the clients are well-heeled Japanese business men. They might work with Americans, but they also probably don't mind seeing them, especially the ones in the military, get theirs. And when Probie-"
"Mike could call me that, you can't."
Fornell just smirks at that and continues on, "And Mike got in there, they were keeping the uniforms and medals as trophies."
"So you're saying rolling service men might be a selling point?" Tony asks.
"Might have been," Fornell answers. "And often, in a house like that, the proprietress is older, has been around for quite a while, and as I believe Mike said, 'Now, you've got to remember, Mama San's in charge of this joint, and she's old enough she remembers the bomb.'"
"I don't think she was that old." Gibbs says.
"According to Mike she was a crone," Fornell says.
"Because Mike was spinning a yarn. She was maybe forty-five-ish!"
Hush, Probie. Let 'em tell it. It's a good story. Gibbs goes quiet and lets them tell it.
"Next up, place that expensive, Light Colonel is about as low on the totem pole as you can get and still afford to go."
Ducky cuts in, "Due to the bizarre American proclivity toward Puritanical values in regards to sex—"
Jimmy hops on that, he was just reading about that a few days ago. "You do know the Puritans weren't actually that uptight about sex…"
Ducky's eyes narrow as he says, "Mr. Palmer," the verbal equivalent of Gibbs' smartass glare, "I believe we can get to that another night."
"Yes, Dr. Mallard, tell us more about Puritanical Americans."
Tim nudged Jimmy shoulder and said quietly, "You getting sassy?"
"It's a party, I'm allowed."
Ducky sends both of them a long look. "Whether actual Puritans were particularly reserved in their private behavior with their spouses, they did frown upon prostitution, and the American armed services, unlike every other western military, has kept that tradition. So, while most sensible countries arrange for the needs of the soldiers to be met, and offer condoms to try and limit the damage from meeting those needs, the Americans believe that hard work, cold showers, and moral fortitude will get the job done. So, unlike a British outpost where there would have been entertainment for the enlisted and officers, the American service men were left at the mercy of the ladies of a country that didn't necessarily love them."
"Entertainment?" Jimmy asks.
"They call them red light districts because in World War One the French and British Officers' brothels had red lights. Blue lights for enlisted men. So a red light doesn't just designate a place where there are prostitutes, but also indicates a certain level of comfort, cleanliness, and service."
"New meaning to the Blue Light Special."
"Indeed, Anthony."
Fornell takes over. "Now, Japan doesn't have or need red lights. The price tag on this place weeds out the enlisted, and honestly, if one of them did scrape up enough money to go, Mama San's going to show him the door because he's not the right kind of guy. No, the right kind of guy is at least middle-aged. He's got money. He's got taste. He's done this before and knows the ropes.
"So as Mike said, 'I'm sittin' here with two options: Pure as the driven Probie, who can pull off the Marine part of the job just fine, but he's never been with a goodtime girl, let alone a high class one, or me, and I know my way around a place like this, ya know… past adventures, but I don't look like a soldier, and these girls, readin' a guy, knowing who he is and what he wants in one glance, that's a good third of their job. That's why they get paid the big money." Fornell attempting to do Mike's accent was making all five of them laugh.
"So, finally, Mike decided that Jethro would be the more attractive mark: 'I can do the Texas Businessman route. Hell, anyone who doesn't sound like they're from New York qualifies as Texan in Japan. But we've got no complaints from them. And hell, I walk in there, they're not going to roll me, they know I'll fuss. No, I walk in, and NIS is out a thousand dollars, and I'm in a good mood for a week. We've got to send Probie in,'" Fornell says, mimicking how Franks told it.
"Can I just add how bizarre it is to hear a story where Probie keeps getting mentioned, and it's not me," Tim says with a smile.
"We could tell the story about you, Probie," Tony says.
"What story about me?"
"You remember, Thom," Gibbs says.
"Oh, come on. That's barely a story."
"Then the digression won't take long." Ducky adds, grinning.
Tim sighs, rolls his eyes a little and says, "Back in what, '06?"
"Probably," Tony says.
"We're hunting a serial killer. He's acting out of an exclusive club. Can't get a warrant. Metro hasn't been able to get a cop in, none of theirs have been 'hot' enough. So, my first book's out, hitting the New York Times top ten. So, Thom E. Gemcity and his lady friends, decide to go clubbing."
"At that point the only link we had was this girl, and the whole point is Thom is going in to get her out of the club so we can question her," Tony adds.
"I get in, we're scanning the place." Gibbs gives him a cut the shit look. "Okay, we go in, we're scanning the place by getting a good spot on the dance floor, and I'm dancing with Abby, Ziva, and Lee. And Abby and Ziva are into it, but Lee's sort of hanging back, clearly never done this before—"
"And you had?" Tony asks.
"Maybe." He gives Tony a knowing look. Because at that point in his life, actually, yes, he had done that before, with Abby the first time they dated. "Anyway, while we're doing that, it occurs to me that Thom isn't a cop and can't just barge on up and arrest this girl, so I ask Probie Mark One over there how to get her out of the club, and you said…"
Gibbs sighed the same way he did when he heard Tim ask him how to get her out and said, "Well, Tim, she's a hooker. Use your imagination."
Fornell snorts a laugh. "You didn't know how to get a hooker out of a club?"
"What can I say, Tobias?" First time he's ever called Fornell by his first name, but as Jimmy pointed out, they are at a party, and he is allowed to get a bit sassy. "Even shy, awkward, and a bit plump, I never had to pay for it. Some women, some older, hot, redheaded women, just dig me." He flashed Tobias his best cocky grin, and Fornell glared daggers at him. Gibbs gave him a quick headslap for that, but it was worth it. "And that's it. My sum total experience with hookers and undercover ops."
"How about the bullshit version?" Jimmy chirped.
"The bullshit version would focus on what Lee, Ziva, Abby, and I did when we got back to the lab. And between you having dated Lee, and Tony married to Ziva, I'm thinking we don't need to get into the bullshit version of it."
"Ah..." Jimmy turned back to Ducky and Fornell. "So…"
"God, okay, where were we?" Fornell asks.
"Still setting the scene," Tim answers.
"You've picked Gibbs as the mark," Jimmy adds.
"Right. So somehow they've got to figure out how to make him look like he's done this before." Fornell is grinning at that point. "And Franks is… giving you pointers?"
Gibbs can hear Franks laughing in his head. He nods. "That's a way to put it."
"What kind of pointers?" Tony asks.
Fornell answers, "I think he said, "God, Probie, if you can't ask me for a blow job without blushin', how the hell are you gonna walk in there and ask Mama San for one while five girls are rubbin' all over you?"
The story stopped for a moment there while the boys laughed hysterically at that.
Gibbs waits for them to get calmed down, and says exactly the same thing he said to Mike, "Mike, I don't want a blow job from you. I'll do just fine with the girls."
Fornell got right back in there, playing Franks' part. "'You're still blushin', Probie. Trust me, you ain't got nothing they've never seen, and you don't want nothing they've never done. No Shame, man. That was Armant's number one rule. No shame. You need to walk in there tall and proud, and if you're doing this job right, you will be tall and proud, and tell them exactly what you want and exactly what kind of girl is going to do it for ya.'"
Once more the story stopped as Tim, Tony, and Jimmy laughed so hard they couldn't breathe.
Eventually Tim got enough breath back to say, "You're right, Fornell, this is much better version of the story."
See, they appreciate the details.
Tobias nods, looking satisfied, and Ducky takes over. "So, after much coaching on how approach a lady of the night—"
"Or as Mike said, when he told us, 'God, Duck, what I wouldn't have given for you on this op. You'd have done it right without weeks of practice. Couldn't get Probie to stop blushin'."
Gibbs rolls his eyes.
And once again Ducky takes over on the story. "The night in question came. And the newly commissioned Colonel Gibbs was off to get rolled."
"Which I did just fine."
"Indeed. Franks told us that the first Lieutenant Colonel had come to in the alley behind the house, so he stationed himself there to wait. And wait. And wait. He was beginning to get nervous because this was taking much too long. The idea was go in, get drugged, get dropped in the alley, then back in again to bust them. But time is passing, and there's no unconscious Gibbs."
"Girl in the bathroom took a shine to me," Gibbs said with a smile.
"Uh huh," Fornell didn't look like he bought that. "Franks probably underestimated how long the preliminaries were going to take. For all his talk, he never had a thousand dollars to see what really happened in a high class Japanese brothel."
That's what you think, Tobias. Bored servicemen play a lot of poker, and I'm great at poker. There were some mighty fine girls in Japan, and they were worth every penny. Gibbs almost turns to Franks and tells him to be quiet, but he catches himself, Franks isn't really here.
Tim sees him almost turn to his left, like he's hearing something, and files that away with things to ask about later.
Fornell continues on, "For whatever reason, this was taking longer than Franks had anticipated. But he had no way to see what was going on. He can't just barge on in. But if Jethro had fumbled this, then he might be in trouble and in need of real backup. He was pacing up and down the alley, having made the decision that if Gibbs wasn't out there in five minutes he was going to break out the Texas Businessman and head on in."
Four of the longest minutes of my life, worryin' about your sorry ass. I'm thinking you're getting killed in there, and turns out you're playin' hide the sponge. Gibbs smiles.
"Okay, what's that smile for?" Tony asks.
"Like I said, bathgirl took a shine to me."
"That is part of the service you are paying for at a that price. Trust me, Jethro, had you gotten past the refreshments, everyone there would have taken a shine to you."
"And you would know?" Jimmy asks Ducky.
"Jimmy, you have not yet even scratched the surface of all the things I know," Ducky says with a grin. "As Fornell said to Tony, someday you may get old enough to hear some of those stories. However, in America, at that price, you are paying for discretion in addition to excellent service. In Japan, where geisha tradition holds that this is part of any civilized business deal, you are paying for enthusiastic service catering to all of your needs and wants. The point of this is not just sex, but to be pampered, coddled, and taken care of on all levels. Food, music, excellent conversation, massage, relaxation, and… how did Mike put it?"
Fornell knows that Ducky hasn't forgotten the turn of phrase, but isn't willing to say it so, he adds Mike's description, "Gettin' your brains sucked out through your dick."
"Ah, yes… is all part of the experience."
"Mike really liked oral, didn't he?" Jimmy says.
Damn straight, Skippy!
"Like you don't." Tim says, shoving Jimmy a little.
"Not saying I don't just… you know… if you're going to…" Jimmy seems to notice that it's not just him and Tim here so he wraps with, "This probably isn't the time or place."
Tim nods.
"So, eventually I do get out there, and the story stays pretty much the same from there to the end."
"Pretty much," Fornell says. "But the whole thing was about no shame, not just the last five minutes of it. When Franks was telling it, it wasn't just about a two minute pep talk, it was about actually learning how to do it."
Gibbs shook his head and sighed. "Yeah."
Fornell turns to Tony. "DiNozzo, you worked vice, I'm sure you've got a story or two."
Tony grins. "Oh, I do. I've got lots of stories. Some of them might have even made Franks blush."
Yeah, right. Ain't nothing you've ever heard of that'll make me blush. Gibbs smiles at that, and is tempted to say, "Wanna bet?"
"But in that I am now extremely married, and also not an idiot, none of you are going to hear those stories."
"Come on, just us guys here," Fornell said.
"Abby reads lips, and she's been watching us, keeping up a running commentary for Breena and Ziva. No way I'm saying anything else."
Fornell looked like he wanted to swallow his tongue, and both Gibbs and Ducky look distinctly uncomfortable at that idea.
And less than ten seconds later Ziva was over, in his lap, and saying, "But what if I want to hear those stories?"
"Told you Abby was watching."
"She was. Sooo…"
"Then I will tell you them. When we're alone. But let's leave it at this, no one ever needed to coach me on how to pick up a woman."
Ziva kissed him on the nose and got up. "I'll leave you to your man stories."
Next

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 253

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.


Chapter 253: No Shame



One more errand before he takes Kelly home. Quick one.
They don’t have any birth control in the house, and while it’s true they haven’t specifically talked about trying for another baby, if or when, or if Abby’s going to want to go back on Depo or something similar, Tim’s thinking that they will, sooner or later, want to have the kind of sex that can result in babies again, and having something on hand would be a good idea for that.
Because, while it’s true that dealing with two back to back babies ten months apart does not bother him, he’s also thinking that likely wouldn’t be a good thing for Abby.
So, en route home, he and Kelly are stopping off at Target to pick up about ten more pacifiers (That being his official errand. What the hell happens to those things? He could swear they had them in every single room, located on most of the horizontal surfaces, but as soon as Kelly wants one, they all vanish. They’ve lost so many of them at this point he’s almost tempted to start thinking that Tony’s gas lighting him.) and a box of condoms.
He knows where the pacifiers are. No problem on that. Feet head on automatic to the baby section, he grabs pretty much all of the ones in the style that Kelly likes, tucks them into the little storage area under the stroller and off they go…
Targets are really big. Somehow that hadn’t occurred to him, because in general, he knows where what he wants is. But right now he doesn’t know, and Kelly’s getting restless, and he’d like to do this fast, sooo…
Probably near the pharmacy. That’d be a logical place for condoms. So he heads in that direction and spends five minutes wandering around the aisles, finally locating them.
They either don’t sell or don’t make the kind he likes anymore. He thinks for a minute and comes to the conclusion that since it’s July that it’s probably been two and a half years since he’s bought condoms. So don’t make any more is more likely than they just don’t have them.
Great.
This isn’t the sort of thing he ever enjoyed shopping for in person. There’s a reason the internet exists and buying things like condoms and porn is the number one reason.
And Kelly, who’s been up since they headed in, decided this was the moment to go from restless to fussing.
So, he’s standing there, fussy baby in his arms, patting her back and humming, trying to figure out which of the nineteen different versions of Trojans are most like the ones he used to get, idly wondering if this is what they’d call situational irony, or just a commercial for why you buy the damn things in the first place.
Finally, like he did when he and Abby got together the second time, he decided that standing there dithering about it was a waste of time, grabbed the variety pack, which would be good enough for the short term, and eventually he and Abby would have a chat about what they’re actually going to do about this.


If he thought having a woman behind him in line call him a babysitter was irksome, standing in line with a collection of three teen and tween girls, all cooing over how cuuuute! and tiiiinnny! his baby is while he’s buying ten pacifiers and a six pack of condoms was a boat load of fun.
Obviously, if you’ve got your three-week-old baby on your shoulder, sucking away on her pacifier, watching said teen/tween girls intently, you’ve had sex at least once in the last year.
But, still… He has the sense that most people (especially of the teen/tween girl variety) don’t look at babies, and then look at their parents, and think, Gosh, you had sex. Even very visibly married parents, like Tim (though it occurs to him that most people can’t read all the marks on him that indicate married, but the wedding ring isn’t exactly subtle, and just about everyone in America knows how to read that mark), probably do not inspire the idea of, I bet there has been and will be lots of sex.
He inches forward in the line, gets to the cashier, so he’s got to actually load the stuff he’s buying on the belt, which, because he had what he’s thinking are an eleven, twelve, and fourteen year old girls all riveted by Kelly, paying intense attention to him, he’s been keeping under the stroller and out of sight.
He has never, ever, in the entire almost thirty-eight years he’s been alive, felt more tempted to shoplift than he does now. But he knows that if he just puts the pacifiers on the belt and attempts to walk out of the Target without paying for the condoms, that there will be one of those stupid trackers in his box, and explaining to Gibbs why he needs to get bailed out of jail will not be fun.
So he grabs the pacifiers, (takes four handfuls, after all, he’s still holding Kelly) and then puts the condoms on the belt next to them.
He sees all three of the girls notice the pacifiers, not really looking twice at them, then notice what else he’s got, and three sets of eyes go very, very wide.
He shrugged a little as all three of them suddenly stopped talking and just stared.
No shame.  He stared them all in the eye and said, “Want her to be an only child for at least a little while longer.”
They nodded and broke into hysterical giggles.
He laughed a little, too, and then said hello to the cashier and swiped his card.


He got home a few minutes later, a very hungry and fussy Kelly indicating that she really would have appreciated not stopping en route home, and that if there was not a breast in her mouth in the next two seconds she was going to go nuclear.
Fortunately, for both Kelly and him, Abby was awake, downstairs, and from the looks of it, eagerly anticipating letting off some of the pressure of milk build up.
So, before he’d even gotten the bag put down, or shoes kicked off, Kelly was in Abby’s arms, rooting away, looking for a nipple, and then as Abby got her breast out, was one very happy little girl. And Abby was looking a lot happier once Kelly was on her breast, too.
“Test run long?” she asked as he got his shoes put away.
“Not too bad." He answered, heading into the living room, putting the bag on the coffee table, and sitting down next to her. "Jarvis sends his congratulations and wants you to know she’s the prettiest little girl ever.”
“Jarvis was there?”
“He was Leon’s ten o’clock.”
“Ah.”
“He also wants to see how this goes, and wants a write up from me, once it’s done, about the feasibility of doing it Navy-wide.”
Abby looked pleased at that. “Like a cyber-war-game?”
“Yeah. But when they war game everyone knows it’s a game. They’re all on red alert and ready to go. This would see what happens when they’re sleeping.”
“Sounds good.”
“Yeah. It’ll be interesting.” He thinks about that for a second, then makes a frustrated sound.
“What?” Abby asks.
“We do this Navy-wide, I’ll be the tech geek whipping out a surprise test on my Dad’s men.”
“Oh.” There’s concern on her face. She can feel why that’d be an issue for him. “Is that a good thing?”
Tim shrugs. He's honestly not sure. “Depend on if I’ve got to do it face to face. Depend on if his guys pass. I mean, this is a good plan. I like…  okay, I don’t like what I’m finding out, but I need to know it. And that’s got to be true on a larger level, as well.”
“What are you finding out?”
He filled her in on the test, the complete and utter lack of any teamwork down in Cybercrime, and the fact that, while he was tracking it, no one figured out what had happened. Though talking about that reminded him that he needed to get his computer up and monitoring what was going on down there. He headed off to do that. A few minutes later, he was out of his office again, shaking his head, (Eight of twelve moles were back doing exactly what they’d been doing before. Four were trying to figure out what had happened. At this point he still wasn’t sure any of them knew anyone else had been hacked.) and sitting next to her.
“I mean, look, I’ve hacked their feeds. I’ve got spyware on all of their computers right now. I’ve hacked the security camera feed, and at least as of right now, none of them have noticed.”
“Not good at all.”
“No!” He’s shaking his head. “And they’re the guys who are supposed to be protecting the rest of NCIS from attacks like this. On the upside, I’ve got a very clear To-Do list for my first few months as Boss, and seeing how well they did, Vance was looking awfully convinced I was the right guy for the job.
“Hell, he’s looking so convinced, I’m thinking Jenner might be getting some not so subtle hints about how speeding up that job hunt might be in order.”
“Ew…”
“For Jenner.”
She nods at that.
“How about you? Good couple of hours?”
“Slept. That felt really good. You’re off doing that, and I’m… missing my brain. I had one. I clearly remember that I had one. But right now, I don’t want to do anything more complicated than make dinner, and honestly, by make dinner, I mean order it takeout.”
He smiled gently and stroked her neck, snuggling into her. “I don’t need as much rest as you do right now. It’s not my body feeding her. I’m not healing up from having her. I’m rested enough I’ve got a few spare brain cells to rub together. Though, only a few. You’ll appreciate this. I get ready to head up, and Gibbs comes up, too, which surprised me, but he’s read in, so no biggie. He remembered the one thing I’d forgotten, namely someone needed to take care of Kelly while I was doing this, which had, somehow, completely slipped my mind.”
That did get a little chuckle out of Abby.     
“Yeah, running the show would have been a bit tricky with her in my arms.”
“Vance has held a baby before.”
“And if Gibbs hadn’t come up, that might have been how it worked out. Oh, imagine this, Vance, Gibbs, and Jarvis, all cooing over Kelly, Gibbs is holding her, and they’re commiserating, with me, over being new Dads.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Jarvis and Vance were teasing each other about being grandfathers.”
“Not anytime soon, I hope.”
“I don’t think so. Jarvis’ daughter is sixteen, and Kayla’s…”
“Fourteen right now.”
“Okay. It was a really surreal morning. Oh. Draga’s got a son.”
“Ziva mentioned that on Friday.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” She’s looking at him like she can’t believe he didn’t already know that.
“Speaking of only a few brain cells to rub together. How’d I miss that?”
“I have no idea. We were sitting at the table, eating, talking, and she mentioned it. Apparently there was some sort of messy break up and the custody battle is still going on, made more complicated by the fact that they were never married.”
He looks stupefied. “I completely missed that.”
“Okay, I’m feeling a little better about not being all there.”
“Now I’m getting worried about that test. God, I hope it really did what I said it did.”
“It did.”
“How can you be that sure?”
“Computers means playing to your strengths. Paying attention to second-hand stories about strangers, not so much.”
“I’m a cop; that’s supposed to be one of my strengths, too.”
“Not that tired with two glasses of wine in you.”
“Okay, good point.” He leans back against the sofa, watching Kelly nursing away, his left arm around Abby’s shoulder, right hand stroking Kelly’s cheek.
“What’d you get?” Abby asked after a minute, nudging the bag on their coffee table with her foot.
“Every pacifier in the store, and a box of condoms.”
That got a smile out of Abby. “Feeling hopeful?”
“Feeling like we haven’t talked about this, so having some sort of birth control kicking around the house might not be a bad idea.”
She nodded then detached Kelly. “Come on, baby, time to burp and switch sides.” A bit of patting, a very loud belch, and some rearranging, and Kelly was once again happily sucking away.
“That’s getting a lot smoother,” Tim said.
“Yeah, we’re getting a pretty set pattern down. So, besides hoping to have sex again at some point, what are you thinking?”
“Huh?”
“Condoms. Probably means you aren’t thinking another kid right away.”
He kissed Abby. “Baby, that’s up to you. Yeah, I want more than one, but… I’ve got the easy job.”


Abby’s watching Kelly, feeling her nursing away, Tim snuggled in close, and right this second tons of babies sounds like a brilliant plan. Lots and lots and lots of them. Like, cursing at herself about not jumping Tim seven years ago and starting back then.
Jokes about not having enough brain cells to rub two together aside, she is aware that this could possibly be a side effect of the massive waves of hormones and oxytocin washing through her system right now.   
Or it might just be that holding this perfect, tiny person they made together, feeling her whole body snuggled in close to her, knowing she’s a mixture of the two of them with almost infinite possibilities ahead of her, just feels really good, and she’d like to feel it for more tiny people, too.
And while she’s liking the idea of lots of babies, she’s also very aware of not feeling any desire to get pregnant again right this second. (Hell, beyond on an academic level, she’s not feeling any interest in sex, either.) She’d like the time to enjoy this, just one baby, nursing, getting used to this being a mom thing.
But… and there’s always a but… But she’s forty-two. And every month nursing is another month of decreased fertility. And yeah, jokes about Irish twins and all, and she does know that decreased fertility is not the same thing as no eggs at all, but if they want to have more than two, and really, this late, even two is iffy, they need to get on it fast.
Fast enough to make stopping nursing worth it?
Eh… right now, in the middle of the day, when everyone is awake and content, and she’s got a happy little girl gently sucking away, this is really nice. Tonight, when all she wants to do is sleep and Tim’s bringing Kelly in, yet again, maybe not so much. Because if she stopped nursing all together, they could fully alternate nights.
God, that’d hurt so much. Tim was, maybe, four minutes late on getting Kelly home, and her breasts were already starting to ache. She doesn’t even want to think too hard about how much going cold turkey would hurt.
Okay, not stopping nursing.
“You all right?” Tim asks. “She bite you or something?”
“Huh?” Abby looks up from Kelly to him.
“You were wincing.”
“Just thinking about the logistics of another baby. Thinking about stopping nursing and how, well, ouch! that would be.”
“Oh.”  Tim’s looking pretty concerned and kind of nervous, like he wants to say something but isn’t sure if he should.
“What are you thinking?”
“Not sure I should say.”
“They’ll be your babies, too.”
“Yeah, but it’s not me getting pregnant or nursing.”
“True enough. Say it anyway, you look worried.”
“I want to have babies with you. I do want more than one. I’ll admit, I love you pregnant, and I can’t wait to meet Kelly’s little brother, and I’d love it if he looks as much like you as Kelly does. But… I don’t know if having them right on top of each other is good for you. And… I want Kelly to be able to nurse as long as she can… And if giving you more time to heal up and get back to normal before doing this again means we don’t have any more biological children, then, we don’t. Doesn’t mean we won’t have other babies, egg donor or adopt or whatever.”
She nods at that, it sounds reasonable, though, there’s something that hurts, really hurts, at the idea of this being their only biological child or never being pregnant again. But at the same time, everyone does say nursing for a year is best for them, and she doesn’t want to rush this, and she’s not all healed up yet, and… “Not less than a year apart.”
“Okay.”
“I was hoping to nurse Kelly for a year, so… use the condoms for the first three months and then… if it happens, it happens, and… if I get to forty-four and we aren’t pregnant again, try fertility treatments, and if we get to forty-five with still no baby, get working on adopting.”
He strokes her neck. “I can back that plan.”
“So, what’d you get?”
He grabbed the bag. “Blue, green, pink, yellow, unicorn, frogs, stars, I think this thing’s a sea horse,” he held up a white pacifier with something, that could be a sea horse, or maybe a sea monkey, or possibly some bizarre mythological creature he’s never heard of emblazoned in pastel blue and green on it, “more stars, and kitten pacifiers.”
“You weren’t kidding about buy all of them, were you?”
“Nope.”
“And…”
He held up the box. “Trojan sensitive variety pack. Apparently they don’t make the kind I liked anymore, so back to square one.”
“And let me guess, you’re hoping I’ll help you test them out.”
“Maybe not right this second, like I said, ball’s in your court for that one, I just want to be ready to return it when you are, but testing them’ll be a lot more effective if you help out. Can’t imagine you can feel much of a difference jerking off with them.”
Abby laughed at that. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Me, either. For some reason I’ve never felt any need to try that.”
She shoved him gently, smiling, and he kissed her shoulder, then stood up, “I’m getting hungry. You want any lunch?”
“Yeah.”

“I’m on it.”

Next

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 252

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.


Chapter 252: Visiting NCIS/Director McGee


Three weeks into this whole fatherhood thing, and Tim’s starting to feel a whole lot more like himself again. Kelly’s reliably (by which he means three out of four naps) sleeping in her crib, and getting six straight hours of sleep every other night helps a lot.
In fact, with Kelly sleeping, and Abby sleeping, he’s feeling like, maybe…
Well, he’s feeling like maybe messing around with the guys in Cybercrime really, but the two foot high stack of laundry in need of washing, and the dishes that really could use being put away, and no one’s vacuumed anything since June and…
So, Kelly’s sleeping, and Abby’s sleeping, and he’s doing chores.  But while he’s working, he’s thinking. He doesn’t actually need a computer in front of him to write code. So, he puts clean dishes away, loads dirty ones, and thinks through what he’s hoping to do.
Eventually, the downstairs is a whole lot cleaner, and he hears quiet crying from upstairs, and he’s on his way up the stairs when he hears Abby moving from the bedroom toward Kelly, so he heads into his office, and starts to put his plan into action.


He’s a little nervous about this. Not the plan. He’s good with the plan. No, he’s a little nervous about bringing Kelly into work.
And not because the whole baby at work thing is unheard of. Yes, it’s been awhile since Molly’s been in to visit. Molly had been by a time or two in the last year (mostly the basement, because that’s where Jimmy is) but not very often because a toddler in Autopsy (or the lab) is not exactly a recipe for great things. 
But at this point in her life, Kelly is basically a loud pillow. There is no shot of her getting into anything she’s not supposed to get into. (Unlike Molly who has gotten awfully wily about getting away from the grown-ups and into things she’s not supposed to be in.)
So, it’s not her getting into something, breaking something, or distracting someone that has Tim nervous about bringing her in.
Hell, it’s not even anything for him personally. He’s already pretty well-known for being soft and goofy. Not like he’s trying to maintain a reputation for heartless efficiency.
But Gibbs and Ziva do not have the sort of reputation that involves them melting into little puddles of goo when in the presence of a three-week-old infant.
Gibbs is cold, distant, terrifying. Pop is warm, cuddly, smiley, and kind of goofy, too. Ziva’s the Ninja: silent, deadly, able to kill a man eighteen different ways with a paperclip. Aunt Ziva coos at babies, cuddles them, and ends up in silent staring wars with Gibbs over which one them gets primary cuddling rights.
And if Tony was the only other guy in the Bullpen, this would never cross Tim’s mind, but he’s not the only guy. There’s Draga and all the fun that goes with trying to figure out how much of who they really are he gets to see, and all the other co-workers.
But for the plan to work, he’s got to go in. And he’s got to see Leon. And he needs a reason to see Leon that does not raise any scuttlebutt and bringing his brand new baby girl in to see work does that just fine.
So, he takes her out of her car seat, puts her in the stroller, and into NCIS they go.


Technically, he’s paying a little visit, showing Kelly where they work.
And he did do that. Headed in with the stroller, sleeping baby, walking her around, letting the co-workers coo over her.
Most of them had no problem with exchanging a few words, mostly along the lines of how beautiful she is (for which he always gives Abby all the credit). And he ends up seeing more than a few baby pictures belonging to co-workers he didn’t even know had children, so he does his part, too, remarking on how they too have babies who are utterly brilliant, and on his way he goes, heading toward the elevator.
Up into the bullpen.
He’d called in ahead of time, so they know he’s coming. Gibbs and Ziva and Tony know why he’s there for real. So, if they just sort of nod at him, while he makes the rounds, and exchange a few words, he’ll get it. He doesn’t expect them to be the people they are at home while they’re at work.
So, of course, he gets up there, and they stop everything, crowding around the stroller. (‘Cause, you know, it’s been four days since Ziva last saw Kelly, and two for Gibbs, so they need their baby fix.) Maybe that wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been a paperwork day, but he wouldn’t have done this if it was an active case day.
“You’re missing us, already, McLayabout?” Tony asks as Ziva carefully takes Kelly out of the stroller, snuggling her close, face against the top of her head, inhaling deeply.
“McLayabout? Can’t wait to see you three weeks after your first baby, Tony.”
Draga was standing right next to Ziva, looking at Kelly, he catches Tim’s eye, silently asking permission to touch, and Tim nods, he gently pets her cheek, and she half opens one eye, then shuts it, snuggling into Ziva closer.
“I was a zombie three weeks after Kevin was born.”
Tim’s eyes went wide. “You have a son?”
“Yeah, he’s four. Don’t get to see him as much as I’d like. Anything less than every day isn’t as much as I’d like, but… Long story. He lives with his mother.”
“Oh.” Tim glances at the other three wondering if they knew that, and if they did, why they didn’t mention it to him. Gibbs nods at Draga’s desk, and he does notice there are several shots of Draga with beautiful, cocoa-colored little boy.
Draga half-shrugs. “It is what it is. Part of why this job was attractive. I’m a hell of a lot closer to North Carolina than I was when I was stationed out of Colorado.”
“Yeah. Is she in the Navy?”
“No.”
“Ah.” The lack of any other comments from Draga makes Tim decide this isn’t anything he needs to know more about right this second. 
“So, you two getting out of the house and letting Mom get some quiet time?” Draga asks.
“That’s the idea. Show her off here, run a few errands, then home again for her next meal.”
“I remember those days.” Draga pets her once more. “Little guys are a whole lot of work. Whole lot of work and a whole lot of no sleep. Four’s a lot of fun, though. Really liking this part. He’s still really cuddly, but independent enough to do fun things, and no more afternoon naps so we can go out for the full day.”
Gibbs nodded along with that. “Hand her over, Ziver.” He got his own cuddles in while saying, “I liked four. Liked all of them really. But, yeah, three and four were awfully sweet.” He looks over to Tim. “You were going to show her off to Leon, right?”
“And down to Autopsy, too.”
Gibbs nudged the stroller toward Tim, and he just kicks it over to his desk, not like he needs it for heading up to see Leon or a quick visit with Jimmy. “Let’s go.”
“You’re coming?”
“Grandpa’s prerogative. I can show her off, too.”
They’re in the elevator, Kelly snuggled against Gibbs, and Tim spent a second staring at him, and then flipped off the elevator.
“You’re carrying a baby around work?”
Gibbs half shrugs.
“Big, bad, terrifying, Leroy Jethro Gibbs is carrying an infant around?”
That gets the death glare aimed at him.
“Just, you’re blowing my mind. I wasn’t expecting you to act like that.”
“What, was I supposed to growl at her?” He holds Kelly up and says to her, “No growling at you. Pop’ll bite anyone who growls at you.”
“Something like that. Or growl at me for distracting you from work.”
That got a little laugh. “Rule Number One.”
Tim blinks slowly. “Do we really need six versions of Rule Number One?”
“Six?”
“Don’t screw your partner. Don’t screw over your partner. One of those is yours. One was Director Shepard’s, and I don’t need to know the specifics behind why they’re almost word for word the same but mean something very different. Never leave suspects alone together. That was Franks’, right?” Gibbs nodded. “Don’t lie to Gibbs. That’s mine. Don’t lie to Abby. That’s Abby’s. And now whatever this one is.”
“No shame.”
“What the hell does that mean, and who’s is it?”
“Joe Armant.”
“I have no idea who that is.”
“Mike’s first partner.”
“We’re going that far back on this?”
“Yep. And it means that you can do whatever you want as long as your bold as brass about it. Or as Mike put it, ’Probie, even if yer butt naked with your balls flappin’ in the ice-cold breeze, you walk tall, give orders like you mean ‘em, look everyone dead in the eye, and tell ‘em to go straight to Hell if they don’t like it.’”
Tim flipped the elevator back in, laughing a little at that, he can hear Mike’s voice through Gibbs’ and suddenly wonders what he would have thought of this, probably would have approved, Franks had a soft spot for baby girls. “I bet there’s one hell of a story behind that one.”
Gibbs smiled. “There is. One day, I’ll tell it to you.” 
“Does it involve you or Mike Franks naked?”
Gibbs’ smile morphed into a wide and somewhat dirty grin. “It might.”

    But the real reason for his visit was waiting for him upstairs.
Apparently, for this sort of visit, or for what this sort of visit looks like, Gibbs does wait to be shown in by Vance’s Secretary. He spent several minutes chatting with her about Kelly, and it… amuses and pleases Tim to see Gibbs refer to her as ‘our girl.’
But eventually Vance and… SecNav… of course, wander out. And having Jarvis coo over his daughter, and then share a story about his daughter when she was first born was surreal. Having all three of them chatting about being Dads was surreal, too, but eventually work got back on the docket.
Jarvis looked away from Kelly and Gibbs, and said to Tim, “Leon’s filled me in on what you’re doing here. I’ll be very interested to see the report on what you find. And, if you have time,” which Tim took to mean, make some time, “I’d love to see a report on the feasibility of rolling out this sort of test on a larger scale for the Navy.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll get on that. Has Director Vance mentioned this is a multi-step test?”
“Yes, he has. I don’t expect to see anything until after it’s done.”
“Probably four or five months, maybe longer depending on how they do. Want them to have time to relax between tests.”
“I understand.”
“Okay. As soon as I have my data set, I’ll make sure you get it.”
“Good. She’s beautiful, Agent McGee. Leon, Gibbs,” he nodded at each of them before heading off. 
They headed into Vance’s office, and Tim’s getting things set up when he realizes that there’s more than just showing off a baby that Gibbs is on top of. Making sure she’s tended to while he’s doing this is also what Gibbs is doing.
He catches Gibbs’ eye as he’s getting the show online and mouths, Thanks.
Gibbs nods at him.
And then it was show time.


Tim has Vance’s private phone number, though before yesterday, he’d never used it. When he dialed it, little after lunchtime yesterday, Leon was awfully surprised to get the call. (In that he had not personally ever given that number to Tim. And no, Tim isn’t telling how he got it because, strictly speaking, it wasn’t exactly legal.) But a few minutes into the call, as Tim outlined what he was going to do, and what they’d learn from it, Vance got on board very quickly.

And at 1030, the show began. He’d set things up so that he was not only recording everyone’s computers and what they were doing, but he also had the security cameras set so that they could watch what was going on.
“Okay, this is the biggest, dirtiest, least subtle attack I could think of. It’s hitting all of their individual computers. Right now, it’s saving everything they’re working on. Then it’s just going to start messing around with their settings. For the next five minutes it’ll get less and less subtle. Right now, for example, it’s changing their date and time settings. By the time it’s over, their fonts won’t work, the background will be a different color, stuff like that. It’s really visible but completely harmless.”
Vance is staring at the big screen in his office, currently showing four different views of the Cybercrime techs.
“Why are we watching this?” Gibbs asked. It’s not a great view. They can’t see the computers, just the faces of the techs and what they’re doing.
“Want to see how they react. Want to see who notices what, when. Like… Oh, that’s good. Who’s that?”
Tim’s watching an Asian female, maybe thirty-ish, staring at the screen, poking the monitor a little, squinting.
He brought up what she was doing with her computer. “Okay, she’s trying to figure out what’s going on. The rest of them haven’t noticed anything is up yet. She’s running a basic diagnostic. Because all of her fonts just got a little bigger while the open windows got a little smaller.”
A few seconds later, two more of the techs were poking their computers starting up diagnostic sweeps.
Ngyn, the first of the techs to notice something, was bombarding her computer with code, trying to figure out what was going on.
Three more techs started to work on their computers. Which meant as of this point, six of them had noticed something was up.
“What just happened, McGee?” Vance asked.
“Right now all of their margins moved an inch to the right.”
Vance just stares at him.
Tim shrugged. “I wanted it to be really visible, mess with them, but not actually damage anything they were working on. That left me with cosmetic issues. The last two steps is their font switches to thirty point Comic Sans and the background color switches to orange.”

“You weren’t kidding about visible,” Vance said.
“Not at all.”
“Then what happens?” Gibbs asks.
“Everything goes back to normal. In five minutes, they won’t even be able to tell something changed. And if none of them have figured out what’s happened in that time, they’re going to have a very hard uphill climb figuring it out. While this is happening, I didn’t so much leave a trail of bread crumbs as a yellow brick road leading to Kevin Hussein.”
“He used to work for us, right?” Vance asks.
“Yes. He’s at IBM now, left at the end of ’14. Anyway, I let him know what I was doing and he agreed to be a dummy. He’ll give me a heads up if anyone tracks him down. I also left a real trail of bread crumbs, subtle but not invisible, leading to me. Next attack there won’t even be that. Anyone shows up wanting to know why I’m messing with their fonts…”
“That’s classified,” Vance supplies.

“That works,” Tim answers. “Anyway, once this ends, the brick road, and the breadcrumb trail will vanish. There’ll still be some hints of it, but it’ll be hard to find.”
“You’re giving them an out of the blue timed test.” Gibbs seems impressed by that.
“Yes. Okay. That’s interesting.” He pulled up the logs for the tech in the back row. “He just killed his internet connection. Not sure how that’ll effect things. He might be able to find the trails I left a lot longer and more easily than anyone else…” Tim kept watching… “Or not, he just rebooted, which’ll wipe everything.”  Two minutes later, all but one of the techs were messing with their computers, trying to make them stop acting weird.
One of them though, was still working away, appearing to be completely oblivious to the fact that his font was different, his margins were screwed, his background was orange, and the date and time had suddenly shifted. “Okay, who is that?” Tim’s searching around through the logs and located Stephen Manners. “He’s either got amazing focus or is the worst person I’ve ever seen when it comes to noticing things. Maybe both.” Tim dug through what he was working on. “Wow… Okay, lots of focus. He coded straight through. I don’t think he even noticed anything happened.”
“Is that a good thing?” Gibbs asked.
“I honestly don’t know. Maybe. Depends on what needs to happen. You ever want a guy to come up with code while he’s got a gun to his head, this is probably the guy. So, good offense, no defense?”
And now, as the test ended and everyone’s computer went back to normal, eleven of twelve techs were messing around, staring at their computers, running scans and diagnostics, but, and this was very disturbing to Tim, not talking to each other. He double checked their computers, shifted the angle of the cameras, they weren’t texting or IMing each other, either.
“That’s not good.”
“McGee?” Vance asked.
“They aren’t talking to each other, at all. I mean, look at them, all in their screens, focused on their own computers. I don’t think any of them know anyone else got hit, yet. That’s not bad teamwork; that’s there isn’t a team down there at all.” Tim cringed, watching them work, still seeing no one talking to anyone else. What was he getting himself into here? Herding cats. “Look, this happens to Tony’s computer, and less than ten seconds later, I’ve got Tony on my desk asking what’s going on. Five seconds after that, I’m running diagnostics on all of our computers. Ziva’s on the line to tech support. Gibbs is looking annoyed that the stupid thing isn’t working the way it’s supposed to, and barking at us to get it fixed.”
That got a smile out of Leon and a glare out of Gibbs.
“Finally!” One of the techs, he doesn’t know which one, but made a mental note to find out who he was, got up to talk to Jenner. Jenner (who had also been hit and had also, on his own, been messing with his computer) looked up, listened for a moment, and then, instead of asking anyone else if they had a problem, changed the way he was searching his own computer to see if the fact that both of them got hit was intentional.
“Well, I think I know why we don’t have the premier Cybercrime division here in DC,” Tim said, shaking his head. At that point Kelly, who had been snoozing on Gibbs decided it was wake up time, and started to fuss. “And my alarm clock is telling me it’s time to get onto the rest of today’s chores.” He’s taking Kelly from Gibbs, while he says, “So, the interesting bit comes later, when they decide what to do about this. Not loving the first brush of teamwork here. And Jenner doesn’t seem nearly concerned enough about this. Not too put too fine a point on it, but anyone gets that far through our firewall, even for a dinky little thing like this should cause a four alarm, code red, all hands on deck, response out of Cybercrime. Anyway. That was the first test. Let me know what, if anything, trickles up to you. I’ll be keeping an eye on how they respond. Next test’ll be in a month or so, and it’ll be subtle.”


He detours on the way to the elevator. There’s a mens room upstairs, and Kelly’s in need of a fresh diaper. Gibbs follows, just watching, not offering to help.

Mostly, he’s just leaning, back against the door, because it’s a small mens room and there’s no changing table, so Tim’s got her on his little portable changing mat, on the floor, and Gibbs is making sure no one opens the door and hits them with it.
“What are you thinking?” Gibbs asks Tim.
“Men’s rooms need changing tables.”
“About Cybercrime.”
“Wanna know if they don’t work together or they can’t.”
Gibbs nods at that. “Looked like a good test.”
“Thanks.”
“If they can’t?”
“You know just as well as I do that it’s almost impossible to fire a federal employee for incompetence. Maybe Accounting and Human Resources could use some computer guys? I don’t know. Gonna give them time to try and start working together. Gotta reshape the area, too. They’re tucked in little cubicles, hiding away, need to get them facing each other. I do know one thing, after Jenner, they aren’t going to know what hit them.”

Gibbs nods. Tim finished with Kelly’s diaper, gets her onesie snapped back up again. “Okay, got to get her home soon, otherwise she’s going to be very unhappy with me.”
“Then get going.”   


Next

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 251

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.


Chapter 251: Baseball


“Jethro?” Not that Tim isn’t pleased to see Gibbs in his living room, but it’s 2:00 on a Wednesday.
“Closed the case. Now it’s a paperwork day. Tony’s got it.”
Tim nods at that, thinking that by Tony’s got it, Gibbs means that Draga and Ziva are filling out massive reams of paper, and Tony’s making sure they’ve got a steady stream of wisecracks and coffee to go with it.
“You mean Tony’s keeping them in coffee while Ziva and Draga fill out the forms?”
“Draga doesn’t drink coffee.”
Tim’s eyes go wide. “That’s not gonna last long.”
“He’s got these little silver cans… Goes through like ten of them a day.”
“You mean Red Bull?” Tim’s looking horrified at that.
“Something like that.”
Tim whistles softly. “He might like Caf-Pow then.”
Gibbs nods, filing that away for possible later use, then he asked, “So, did you mean it when you said you liked baseball?”
“Yeah.” Tim nods, trying to remember when he’d said he liked baseball, but he does, so… Oh, yeah, that maniac with the bomb and Ziva going undercover as Ziva.
“Not just spinning a line to keep Tony off your back?”
“I like baseball.”
“Good. Which team?”
“Whoever’s on. Never hooked into a particular team.”
Gibbs grinned. “Even better. Would have hated to hear you’re a Yankees fan.”
Tim’s still feeling like this is a pretty surreal conversation. He was sitting on the sofa, checking his email while Kelly hung out in his lap, (Abby’s getting a nap) and then Gibbs wandered in, snagged Kelly out of his lap, and now it’s the middle of a work day and Gibbs is asking him about baseball while cuddling his daughter. “Why?”
“Pirates are playing the Mets. It’s on in ten. You, me, baseball, sleepy little girl, sound like a plan?”
“Uh… Sure… let me see what I can do.”
“Do? You turn the TV on. Should be on ESPN.”
“We don’t have cable.”
“Huh?” Gibbs looks stupefied at that. Even he has cable. (Mainly so he can see ZNN and ESPN.)
“Got rid of it when we moved to the place before this one. Just wasn’t worth it. Watch everything on streaming.”
“How does that work?”
For a second Tim’s tempted to explain how it actually works, but he realizes Gibbs isn’t asking him to explain streaming video but is asking how it’s working out. “Just fine, everything we want to see is on streaming, and it costs a whole lot less. It’s great, as long as you don’t want to see live sports.”
Gibbs is squinting at him. “How can you like baseball and not watch it?”
“I like playing it. I mean, I’m not good at it or anything, not like Tony, but I liked to play.”
“Oh.”
“There’s a reason I hopped into that catch you had with Ziva about two seconds into it.”
Gibbs nodded, he remembered that. Once the boys got over the shock that Ziva did know baseball, and that she had played as a kid, they grabbed gloves and joined in. Tim first, he found one, called out to Ziva, and she fired the ball off to him, and he sent it back to Gibbs, little wide, but not horrible. A minute after that, Tony hopped in, perfect form, very accurate aim, and they got to hear some of his stories about how he played in high school and college before he got his knee ripped out.
“You gonna be a little league coach?”
Tim smirked at that, then headed to his computer to see what he could do. Maybe ESPN offered daily passes or something…
“I think it’s softball when girls play.”
“Softball coach then.”
“Maybe. Let’s get her up and walking and talking before planning out her sports career.”
Gibbs stares at Tim for a second, and suddenly realizes that in addition to a glorious Navy career his dad probably did have a sports plan set for him from the day he was born, and he probably took a lot of crap for not being good at sports.   
And it occurs to Gibbs that Tim probably wasn’t terrible at baseball. He was probably okay at it, especially if he worked hard enough at it to get on a team, but he was probably second string, dependable but not fabulous, and that wouldn’t have been good enough for The Admiral.
“You play in high school?”
“Nah.” He doesn’t look up from the computer as he answers. “Little league. Did that for a few years, then we moved again, and I never picked it back up. Didn’t exactly have a baseball build as a kid. Football for one year of junior high, then we moved again, and I couldn’t make the new team. Wrestled for a year in high school, but didn’t like what I and the rest of the team needed to do to make weight. Not healthy, at all. Moved one last time sophomore year, and was on the intermural football team as a Junior and Senior.”  He fiddled with his computer a little more. Okay, so… this wasn’t going to be technically legal, but… one game… They do this more often; he can get cable. “Got it. So, are we rooting for the Pirates or the Mets?”
“The Mets?” The look on Gibbs’ face is saying are you really asking me this? “Bite your tongue, Tim. Pirates.”Okay, that makes a certain level of sense. Stillwater was about an hour and a half north of Pittsburgh, so… yeah, he can see that.
“You play as a kid?” He asks Gibbs as he connects the TV to his computer so they can see the game on the big screen.
“Born in ’59. We all played. And watched. And listened to games on the radio. And once, twice a year, LJ, my Dad, and I would head down to Pittsburgh to watch a game. You ever been to Pittsburgh?”
Pittsburgh Skyline“Just as a layover, or break points the few times I was up in Stillwater.”
“It was a steel town, then, pretty grungy, but…  You go in for a night game, and Three Rivers Stadium’s down on the point…”
He sees that Tim doesn’t know enough about Pittsburgh to get what that means.
“Three rivers come together, shaped like a Y. So the city’s the shape of a slice of pie. The tip of the pie is where the business district is. All the high rises, and also where the stadium was. And that part of Pennsylvania is mountains and hills. Pittsburgh’s down low, because it’s between the rivers. To get there from the north you’ve got to go through a mountain, the Tunnel they call it, and almost immediately after that, you’ve got one of the rivers, so through the Tunnel, over the river on a huge suspension bridge, and if you go in at night, it’s dark in the Tunnel, and you come out on the bridge with the whole city lit up and sparkling in front of you.”
Tim smiles at that, liking the image of Jackson, maybe eight year old Jethro, and LJ, all in the front seat of… knowing Jackson, it was a truck, probably a Ford, and Jethro’s eyes going wide at the first sight of the city.
Pittsburgh at night. Gibbs nods. “Pittsburgh during the day was gray, and covered in soot, and ugly as sin. It was a steel town, and the sky was smoke all the time. At least then. But at night…” He’s been holding Kelly this whole time, and she’s been quietly chilling out, enjoying voices and her pacifier. He shifts his hold so he can look her in the face, “Maybe one of these days, you, me, and your Dad’ll go up to Pittsburgh, and I’ll show you the view out of the Tunnel, and we’ll catch a game.”
Tim flipped on the TV. “Let’s see if this works.”
It did. Not the highest definition ever, but probably better than what Jethro has at home. Definitely bigger, and the sound is good.
They watched for about ten minutes. Sitting quietly on his sofa, but every minute or so, Tim looks over to see how sleepy Kelly is, and now her eyes are starting to droop, and the pacifier sucking is getting slower.
“Jethro?”
“Mmmm…” He’s lounging on the sofa, very sleepy baby on his chest, beer in hand, game on in front of him; he’s looking really content.
“Gotta put her in her crib. Otherwise she’ll be a bear about sleeping on her own for the next two days.”
“Okay.” Gibbs handed Tim his beer, and reluctantly headed up to Kelly’s nursery. She startled a little when he stood up, and fussed a bit as he headed up, also not thrilled with the idea of her nice, warm, Pop-bed going away. But she’s being sung to, (Suspicious Minds) and patted gently, and carefully laid on her back, and she is really sleepy, and…
A minute later, Tim’s handing Gibbs his beer again, and Gibbs said, “Did I miss anything?”
“Mets scored three runs.”
For a second Gibbs’ eyes went wide, then Tim smirked, and Jethro shoved his shoulder. “Smart ass.”
Tim quirked his head, smiled a little, took a drink, and settled back to watch a game with his dad.

Next

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 250

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.


Chapter 250: Patterns


Eventually, even with a new baby in the house, you start to develop a new set of patterns. Habits reform, and with them a new sense of comfort appears.
Eventually, you get better at determining what has to happen when, and what little bits of life pre-kids are necessary to keep you feeling at least vaguely tethered to sane.
And at two weeks of parenthood, Abby’s feeling like she’s getting a handle on this.
Showers.
It boggles her mind how much more real and normal and she feels when she gets a shower every, single day.
She’d never felt particularly tied to showers before. It wasn’t like it was any sort of ritual for her. But now, twenty minutes a day, usually after the dinner feed, of alone time, of doing something that hasn’t changed, of doing something that scrapes off the accumulated crud of being a new mom, because a fourteen-day-old baby means that you’ve always got something, somewhere on you, that you’d rather not.
After shower time, forty minutes of sitting on her bed, reading or watching something, something not very complicated, while she puts her skin lotion on and brushes out her hair is a must. She has to have that little bit of time where she doesn’t smell like milk or baby or blood. That little chunk of time where she can just focus on something completely unrelated to her own life is vital to her.
It recharges the batteries enough to make it possible to get through the rest of the day. And yeah, Breena says that she won’t be clinging to that little hour of time like a life preserver for the rest of her life, but for the time being, it’s doing its job, and that’s all she needs.


For Tim the pattern that’s keeping him sane involves getting Kelly to sleep on something other than a person. Between Abby’s c-section and not being able to go up and down the steps the first ten days, and then him being on night time baby fetching duty, he’s been in charge of a lot more of Kelly’s naps than anyone else.
The pattern, walk Kelly to her room, patting and singing to her, get her to burp, pat and sing a bit more, wait for pacifier sucking to slow down and eyes to get droopy, and then put her in the crib, and walk out again (the hardest part) is, when it works, the best feeling on Earth.
He has never, ever felt more accomplished than when he successfully manages to get her into her crib, still slightly awake, pat her one last time, and then walk back out again without her yelling at him.
It happens about one out of four times.
Sometimes, especially at night, he’s sleepy enough that he drifts off while patting and singing. Next thing he knows his neck is sore from sleeping in the rocking chair, and she’s looking for her next meal.
The other two times, he puts her down, her little eyes spring open, and suddenly she’s annoyed and very awake, so he picks her back up again, gets her calmed down again, and puts her back down again (hopefully still awake, but not always) and then she just drifts off.
But when it works (and it’s working more often today than any previous day) he feels like they will get a handle on this, and eventually they’ll get more and more of their life back as she sleeps in her crib on a regular basis.


And for both of them, there’s another pattern, the return of which will make a huge difference.


One of the realities of sleeping with a woman who has just had a baby is that, no matter how comfortable sleeping naked might be, it just doesn’t happen. Night sweats, nursing, bleeding, all of that means clothing. Panties to keep a pad in place, bra for the same reason, some sort of night gown/jammies to deal with the sweat.
But as he was sitting in bed, waiting for Abby to get out of the bathroom and join him, he noticed something changed when she stepped out of the bathroom. No pajama pants. T-shirt, yep. Panties, he can’t tell, the shirt comes down to her thighs, but he still occasionally catches the scent of blood on her, so he’s fairly sure she’d have on panties and a pad. Bra, definitely. Her breasts are way too big to be comfortable without the extra support.
She climbed onto the bed, and he smiled at her, then bent down and kissed her knee.
“Hello knee, it’s been a while.” Then he looked up at her and grinned.
That got a ghost of a smile out of her, so he straightened up and kissed her lips gently. Nothing demanding or forceful, mostly just reminding her that he’s something other than the father of her baby.
That got a little smile, too.
A bit more sleep, getting her iron levels up, and antibiotics knocking out the infection means she’s acting a bit more like herself. But a thought hits him, and he wonders… she’s been complaining about being short on time, and not really feeling like herself, and she wasn’t sleeping for so long… The idea of something else that probably wasn’t happening hit him. So, he sat back against the headboard of their bed, legs wide, and patted the bed between them.
She sat between his legs and rested against his chest. He cuddled her, chin on her shoulder, holding her close and tight for a moment, and then he kissed her neck, slowly dragging his lips along her flesh, and biting very gently on the little bit of shoulder right next to her neck.
“How long has it been since you got off?”
Her eyes close and she sighs. “Day before pelvic rest.”
He kisses her shoulder again. “Oh, Abby. Come on, let’s make you feel good.”
She looked really alarmed by that.
“Is that okay?”
She’s not looking enthusiastic. “It’s only been two weeks. What were you thinking?”
“Not thinking sex. Not like that.” He thinks he might have an idea of part of why she was looking so alarmed. “We don’t have any birth control do we?”
She shook her head.  After all, why would they? It’d been more than two years since they’d used anything that wasn’t hormone-based.
“Not a problem. Just want to touch you. Soft and slow and gentle. Want to make you come. Make you remember that your body’s good for something besides feeding Kelly.” He tilted her face towards his and kissed her long and deep. “Want to remind you you’re more than just a mom. Want you to know I adore you and crave you and want you. Want you to know you’re beautiful—“
She laughed at that, and he kissed her again. Stopping the laugh with his lips.
“None of that. You are beautiful. You are my wife, my love, my life, and you are beautiful.”
She rested her forehead against his, eyes closed, letting him hold her. Then she kissed him, first time she’s taken the initiative and kissed him, really kissed him, in weeks. His hand traced over her hair and neck, down her arm, settling on her hip.
“I’ve missed this,” she said, voice quiet.
“Me, too.” He twined his fingers between hers, and lifted her hand to his lips, kissing each finger. “At least five minutes, every single day, we do this. Five minutes together, alone, thinking about each other, touching. Might just be snuggling when we’re falling asleep, but every single day we need this time.”
“Yes.” She flipped her hand, so his hand was on top, and kissed his fingers, then trailed her fingers over his, stroking his wedding band. She reached up to stroke his lips, and the goatee around them. “It feels soft on my fingers, but prickly on my lips.”
He smiled at that. “Feels kind of itchy to me. Still want me to keep it?”
She tilted her head to the side, and he kissed her neck at that invitation. “For now. That feels nice.” He stroked his chin gently along her shoulder and she shivered. “That’s good, too.”
“If your shirt came off, it could be good in a few other places.”
Now she looked very alarmed. “Not my breasts!”
“Wasn’t planning on going there. I know they’re a look, don’t touch sort of thing right now.” He started to edge the hem of her shirt up, and she shifted a bit to help him. “But, you’ll let me know when I can touch, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And whenever you feel like more than just messing around. Well, let’s just say, I am ready, willing, and able to hop to and help you out with that. In fact, it’s entirely likely that I’d happily drop everything, including a murder investigation, and come running as soon as you call.”
That got a little laugh. “So, you’re telling me you can’t be trusted to hold Kelly?”
“I’m telling you, you should make sure not to say, ‘Let’s have sex,’ to me while I’m holding her. ‘Cause I’ll be on you in a heartbeat.”
“Didn’t realize you were that hard up.”
He bopped the tip of his finger against her nose, signaling no bad mouthing yourself in front of me.“It’s your gorgeous body wrapped around mine. Of course I’m gonna leap at it.” He finished getting her shirt off, and lightly stroked from her ears to her fingertips, making sure to gently scrape his fingernails along her to make her squirm.
“I love you,” she said with a kiss. And he smiled back at her.
“Damn right you do.”
“You getting sassy with me?”
“Trying, too sleepy for full on sassy, but I want you to feel good all over, and I know you like some teasing.”
“Uh huh.” She kissed him again, and he wrapped his arms around her waist, enjoying a long, slow, wet kiss, her tongue slipping along his, making him sigh. She pulled back for a second, nibbling lightly on his bottom lip. “Much better use for them than sass.”
He kissed her again, showing her exactly how good he was with his lips when he’s not talking, and this time she moaned.
“Favorite sound.”
So she moaned again, soft and breathy.
“Want to make you sound like that, a lot.” His hands slid to her panties, lightly stroking over them, getting her hips, the bottom of her tummy, he knows she’s wearing a pad, so he doesn’t think there’s much use to trying her pussy, so he stays to the edges.
“I’m still bleeding.”
He nodded. “I know. We’ve fooled around when you were on your period. It’s not a problem. I mean, unless it’s one for you?”
“No… Just… You looked like you were going to pass out the day after Kelly was born.”
“That, you remember?”
“Yeah.”
Of course she does, and yes, just thinking about it does make him feel a little shaky, but bringing it up does flash him back to those images. “That was a whole lot of blood. There was enough that we ended up with puddles of it in the shower.” And it was running down her legs, and there was that one clot the size of his thumb, and he’s got to stop thinking about that or he’s never going to get hard again. “If you’re still bleeding like that, I think we need to take you back to the doc to get checked out again.”
“It’s not that bad anymore.”
“Okay.”
She got up, and he wasn’t exactly on board with that, Abby close and warm and in his lap had been a good thing, but after a second, when she returned with a towel, he figured out why she’d left.
“Me between your legs?”
“That’s what I was thinking, unless you’ve got something else you want better?”
“That’ll work. Get up for a sec?”
He did and she laid the towel at the head of their bed.
She was standing next to the bed when she asked. “What about you?”
“Let’s take care of you. If you feel like giving me a hand after, great. If not, I can handle this,” he said, getting back onto their bed.
She’s still standing beside it, in her bra and panties, arms crossed over her chest. “I haven’t shaved or waxed.”
He flashes her a seriously?look and then rubbed his chin. “I know. I haven’t, either.”
“Yeah, but you not shaving isn’t a big deal.”
“Abby, I know you have body hair. I know you’re bleeding. I know you don’t like the way you look right now. I know you hate the stretch marks. I know your breasts hurt. I know you’re feeling a bit insecure with your body, and like it’s not really yours, and I can’t change any of that, or make it better, but I can say this. I love you. You are beautiful. You were beautiful before and you still are. And I can, if you’ll let me, make that body you’re less than perfectly thrilled with right now, feel awfully good.”
“I just… feel so fat and flabby and saggy and… just… wrong.”
He kissed her forehead, hands settling on her hips. “I know. But you’re not wrong to me. I mean… look. I was 205 the first time we dated. I got up to 220 before deciding it was time to lose weight again. I like this version of me better, and I think you do, too, but I was still me and you still loved me when I was fat.”
“You weren’t fat!” and she does look indignant at that. “You were big… and cuddly!”
“Uh huh.” That was awfully sarcastic. Then he kissed her again, long and slow, kneeling next to her, slipping her panties down her legs. “I see you the same way you see me Abby. The same way.” He sat back against the headboard, made sure the towel was between his leg, and then patted it. “Come on, settle back, relax, let me take care of you.” She sat between his legs, chest against his back, head resting on his shoulder.
He takes his time, petting her legs and hips, kissing soft and gentle, remembering what Jimmy said about a woman’s body not wanting to get pregnant and not really getting into it. And Jimmy didn’t exaggerate. Abby’s looking pretty happy, her face and chest is flushed, and she’s moaning, but by the time he got to her pussy, she still wasn’t wet.
Well, lubricated. She’s wet. There’s blood. But they have done this before when she’s been on her period, and yeah, it’s been a while, but he knows the difference by feel.  So he wipes his fingers off quickly, and sucks them, getting them good and slick, before going back to her pussy, lightly grazing over the hairs that are almost fully grown back in, and yes, he loves her skin bare, but there is something to be said for how hair transmits sensations.
She’s rocking against him, arching against him for more pressure, so he finds her clit and settles in for long, slow, focused circles, just rolling over her skin, like they’ve got all the time in the world. Stroke after stroke, taking his time for a good, steady build.
linkHe takes his cues from her hips, speeding up when she speeds up, slowing when she slows. And eventually she is moving pretty fast, legs clenched tight, head back against his shoulder, eyes closed, mouth open, gasping each breath, right hand clenched on his, and he sped up just a little more, nibbling her earlobe, and in a second she was crying out and twitching.
Then they both stopped dead, wondering if they’d woken Kelly up. But after a minute with no crying, Abby relaxed against him again, and took a few minutes to enjoy the glow.
“Good?” he asked when her breathing had slowed down.
Her eyes were closed, but she looked awfully happy and peaceful, pretty sleepy, too. “Yeah. I needed that.”
He grinned at her. “Good.”
A minute later, she squirmed a little, rubbing her back again him, and that felt awfully nice. There may, possibly, be a day when Abby getting off doesn’t get him hard, but he’s fairly sure he’ll be dead before that happens.
“So, can I help you out?”
“Probably.”
“Any particular help you were thinking of?”
“Yes… It’s a little messy, but… should be quick.” And they’re both tired enough that quick is a real selling point these days. Especially since, if quick means less than five minutes, they could both get an hour of sleep before Kelly’s due for her next meal.
“What are you thinking?”
Tim wiped off his fingers, then leaned over to his bedside table and grabbed the lube.
“I was thinking of both of us on our sides, facing each other, able to see and kiss, my dick between your legs, rubbing off like that.”
Abby nodded at that. “I like that idea.”
“Just, tell me if your breasts are too sore for it.”
“Don’t press up against me too hard, and we’ll be fine.”
She got up and they rearranged themselves, and yeah, getting the lube in place, and him situated was pretty mechanical, but… well… quick…
But once they were situated.  Well, soft and wet and slick and hot, and he can kiss her and look into her eyes. God, he’d missed that. Been… probably three months since they’ve been able to have face to face sex. And it doesn’t matter that he’s a few inches away from full on sex, this is good, this is warm and close and pleasure and love and being happy with his favorite person, making her happy as well.
And sure, it wasn’t the best orgasm he’s ever had. But they’re together, and it’s her body doing it, not his hand, and it’s all good.

Maybe it’s not what it was, but it wouldn’t be, because they aren’t who they were. But it was good. And the promise of better is out there. And eventually, as they get more patterns set, they’ll find their groove again, and figure out how to be parents and lovers.
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