Chapter 3
Tony wondered what had happened to McGee; it had been over two hours since he had left the other agent in Abby’s lab. Gibbs and Fornell were having a pow-wow with Ducky, and Ziva was doing background checks on the dead officers. Gibbs had told McGee just before he had gone downstairs with lunch for Abby and Elizabeth to help “the DiNozzo kid”, but Tony had thought McGee would have brought Elizabeth back upstairs.
“Going down to Abby’s lab, be back in a bit,” Tony told Ziva. She nodded, watching him stalk to the elevator and pound on the down button. She didn’t look away until Tony had disappeared inside the elevator and the doors had shut behind him.
Ziva wondered what kind of relationship Tony had with his sister. They obviously weren’t very close, especially since he had never mentioned her in conversation in the four years that she had been with NCIS. Then again, the way the girl had tackled him also belied affection between the two. And then there was the age difference. If Tony’s identification was correct " and Ziva had no reason to believe it wasn’t " then there was a fourteen year age difference between Tony and his sister. She would try not to let the mystery of Elizabeth DiNozzo bother her, although that may be a bit of a task all on its own.
Meanwhile, in Abby’s lab, Tony entered the brightly lit room. He stumbled back a few paces as Abby hugged him, making a mental note to himself to get used to people tackling him. After working with Abby for so long, he should have been used to it by now.
“Hey Abs,” he greeted, hugging her back. “Have you seen McGee? Need to talk to him.”
“More like he’s never left,” Abby replied, jerking her head towards the couch. Tony glanced in the direction indicated, the computer screens Abby had up offering some cover for him. He snarled a little; McGee was sitting far too close to his baby sister, his arm resting on the couch behind her shoulders, his upper body angled towards her. He leaned in to see what she was pointing at on the screen. Tony was about to stalk over there when Abby put a hand on his arm to stop him.
“Please don’t go over there and do anything stupid,” she begged. “It’s not like they’re having sex on my couch or anything.”
“Not the imagery I needed, Abby,” Tony remarked, rubbing the heels of his hands over his eyes, presumably in an effort to expunge the image from his head. “Besides, it’s my baby sister! And he’s way to old for her!”
“Yeah, and that’s my best friend sitting with some strange girl I should have known about because said girl is my other best friend’s kid sister!” Abby hissed back. Tony had the good grace to look abashed; he really should have mentioned Elizabeth a couple of times, even if just in passing. She was one of the only members of his family he actually liked, and that was saying something. “Look, I want to see McGee happy. Don’t you?”
“Yeah, just not with my sister,” Tony replied with a scowl. “I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it,” Abby said reasonably. “However, she’s an adult and adults can spend time with whoever they want to.”
She glanced at the pair on the couch; it seemed like they were completely oblivious as to what was going on, on the opposite side of the room. Good.
Tony huffed before slumping his shoulders; he knew Abby was right, even though he didn’t, as she had said, have to like it. He glanced over at the duo and, upon considering the situation, thought that they may just fit together; they definitely suited each other. Tony still couldn’t get over the fact that it was McGee, though.
“Well, send her up in a little while, will you?” Tony asked. “I want to keep an eye on her.”
“Will do,” Abby replied, watching as he left. She waited until she heard the chime of the elevator before bounding over to McGee and Elizabeth. “I think he’s gone now. I gotta admit, that was evil.”
“I love torturing him,” Elizabeth replied again. “Thanks again for going along with this, I really appreciate it.”
“No problem,” McGee said, returning Elizabeth’s smile with one of his own. For what seemed to be the umpteenth time that day, she blushed red. “Besides, it’s kind of nice to have someone else besides Abby to talk shop with.”
“It’s no problem. It’s not every day I have someone like you holding on to my every word,” Elizabeth replied with another grin, before her face fell. She glanced over at Abby; thankfully, the other woman either didn’t catch the obvious flirt or she didn’t find it threatening, because she hadn’t reacted at all. “I’m actually going to have to go upstairs and see him, aren’t I?”
“Might be a good idea,” Abby agreed. “A cranky Tony is not a fun Tony.”
“Fine,” Elizabeth said with a sigh. She didn’t want to be the one who inflicted a cranky Tony on the masses, although with what he had seen he was probably already cranky.
“I’ll walk you up,” McGee said quickly.
“You don’t mind?” Elizabeth asked. Both Abby and McGee were surprised when the question was directed at Abby, not McGee.
“Why would I - ?” Abby began, before she stopped herself. Then it clicked, and Abby nearly laughed hysterically. She thought it would be a bad idea, though, and bit the inside of her mouth. “Nope, I don’t mind at all.”
“Okay then,” Elizabeth said uncertainly. She probably thinks I’m not a threat, Elizabeth thought. Elizabeth had always been the non-threatening female friend, bully for her.
“Come on, I’m sure Tony’s having kittens or something by now,” McGee said, getting up. Elizabeth sighed and started gathering her things, unplugging everything and stowing it in her bag before standing up, moving to haul the heavy bag onto her shoulder. “Here, let me carry that for you. If I’d known how heavy it was, I would have offered to carry it on the way down.”
“Nah, I can handle it,” Elizabeth replied. She may be a girl, but she wasn’t a weakling. She was used to schlepping the fuzzy, green, monster-shaped bag with all of her computer gear in it. She moved to put the bag on her shoulder again, but this time McGee took the strap from her hand and took the bag from her.
“My mother raised a gentleman, and a gentleman doesn’t let a lady carry anything heavy,” McGee said.
“Even when the bag you’re offering to carry looks like a fuzzy, green, googly-eyed monster?” Elizabeth asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Even then,” McGee replied. “Besides, a little more Tony torture won’t hurt anyone.”
“Well, it won’t hurt anyone except Tony,” Elizabeth said with a giggle. She waved at Abby. “Thanks Abby, both for letting me use your couch and loaning yourself out so that I could annoy my brother a bit.”
“No problem, it was really nice meeting you,” Abby said with a warm smile. “You are going to tell Tony it was a prank, right?”
“Maybe later,” Elizabeth replied with a shrug.
“Are we ready to go?” asked McGee.
“Ready when you are, Tim,” Elizabeth replied. She waved once again to Abby, who returned it with an exuberant wave of her own, before following McGee and her monster bag into the elevator.
They rode back up to the third floor in silence, although McGee kept shifting so that his left hand bumped into her right. She glanced up at him; he was staring straight ahead, as though he wasn’t aware of what he was doing. However, the bumping continued until they got up to the third floor. They entered the bullpen, Elizabeth following behind McGee as he headed towards his desk.
“What are you doing, Probie?” Tony asked as McGee grabbed a spare chair and wheeled it over to his desk before clearing a laptop-sized spot.
“Uh, I’m getting Liz a chair so that she can sit down?” McGee said, a little uncertainly.
“And since went are you allowed to call my sister Liz?” Tony asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Since I said it was okay,” Elizabeth replied. She stepped in between the two agents, glaring up at Tony. Man, I so feel like a midget right now, she thought, realizing that she only came up to shoulder height on both of them. She was well aware that her glare had little more effect than an angry kitten that had been left out in the rain, but she had to try. Maybe if Tony saw how annoyed she was, he would back off. Pfft, yeah, right, she thought. “It’s my name, you know.”
“Actually, your name’s Elizabeth if you want to be technical about it,” Tony said, arching an eyebrow in a challenge. He glared at McGee again, positioning himself so that he was in a protective stance around Elizabeth.
“Stupid boys and their stupid boy penises,” Elizabeth muttered under her breath in Italian. Tony blinked and McGee looked confused.
“Since when do you know Italian?” Tony asked, narrowing his eyes. His Italian was a little rusty, so he didn’t quite understand what Elizabeth had said.
“And what’s this about… penises?” Ziva asked, also slightly confused. She hadn’t quite caught what the younger girl had said because she had spoken so softly, but a couple of words really stood out to her.
“Nothing,” Elizabeth said, blushing darkly. If she had known that there was someone besides Tony who would be able to understand Italian, she would have kept her mouth shut. Although, now that she saw him, she thought McGee looked really cute when he was confused.
Tony was about to say something when his cell phone rang. “DiNozzo,” he greeted. He stood there, silent for a moment, listening.
“On it, Boss,” he said before hanging up. “Come on guys, grab your stuff; we got another one. Gibbs is waiting for us downstairs.”
Ziva and McGee did as they were told, grabbing badges, guns and kits before quickly heading for the elevator. Tony turned to Elizabeth, apologetically.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, waving him on. “It’s not like you can control when you have to go to a crime scene. I’ll just wait for you guys until you get back.”
“I’ll see if I can stop and bring something back for you,” Tony said as he grabbed his things. “It’s going to be a long night.”
He turned and left, running slightly because McGee was holding the elevator for him. Elizabeth sighed to herself and set up her computer, plugging the power cord into one of the outlets on the power bar at McGee’s desk, hoping that he wouldn’t mind. As soon as everything booted up, her computer started beeping.
“Oh no you don’t,” Elizabeth muttered to herself as she settled in. A little thrill of accomplishment wove its way through her body as her fingers started flying across the keyboard; she was glad that her program had worked. Now all she had to do was out-hack whoever was tampering with the multiple systems.
***
Four hours later
Ziva, Tony and McGee entered the bullpen, looking drawn and tired. It had been a long day, and it wasn’t over yet. Gibbs and Fornell trailed in after them, Gibbs heading straight for his desk and Fornell making a beeline for Elizabeth.
She was still typing away frantically.
“What have you got?” Fornell asked, standing at Elizabeth’s shoulder. She didn’t flinch or make any indication that she had sensed his presence.
“Someone’s been trying to hack the systems and I’ve been trying to stop them,” Elizabeth replied, not looking up. “Instead of giving up like most normal people would after being blocked two or three times, whoever it is, is being completely relentless. I haven’t stopped typing since you left.”
“Anything I can do to help?” McGee asked, shuffling behind her so that he could reach his seat.
“Don’t distract me and stay the hell out of my way,” Elizabeth replied, her eyes never leaving the screen. She blinked sporadically as her fingers flew across the keyboard, writing line after line of computer code in an attempt to stop whoever was on the other side of the connection or, at the very least, pin down their IP address and possibly nail down a location.
“Haha, I think I have you now, sucker,” she muttered to herself, as if unaware of the fact that she had an audience. She wrote one last line of code and stopped, a triumphant smile on her face as she sat back and flexed her fingers. Her smile dropped as soon as she saw what was on the screen. “Oh crap.”
“Oh crap what?” asked Fornell, looking but not actually understanding what was happening on the screen.
“Well, each computer has an assigned address, a string of numbers,” she explained. She pointed to the last line of text on the otherwise black screen. “See that number there? That’s the address to my computer in my office. Unfortunately, that means someone is using my computer, or they’re making it seem like they are.”
Fornell swore under his breath before grabbing his cell phone and stalking off. Elizabeth sat back and rubbed her hands; they were killing her.
“Oww,” she whined, kneading her joints. “I do not recommend four hours of top-speed typing.”
“Here, give me those,” McGee said. Before Elizabeth could protest, McGee grabbed Elizabeth’s hand and started massaging it, hitting all of the places where she had pain.
“Not that I’m complaining or anything, but you might want to stop that,” Elizabeth said.
“Why?” McGee asked, not ceasing his ministrations on her hand as he looked up at her.
“Because Tony might beat the crap out of you if you don’t,” Elizabeth replied, glancing over her shoulder. Sure enough, Tony was glaring at McGee so hard that if looks could kill, McGee would have keeled over.
“No beating the crap out of McGee, Tony,” Gibbs said from his desk, not looking up. Elizabeth turned and stuck her tongue out at Tony, causing him to scowl.
Fornell chose that moment to re-enter the bullpen, snapping his phone shut and putting it in its holder before making a beeline to where Elizabeth was sitting. He paid no mind to the fact that McGee was massaging Elizabeth’s hands, instead addressing Elizabeth directly.
“We’ve got our people going through your office with a fine-toothed comb,” he said. “If anyone was in there, we’ll find out.”
“Hmm, maybe they’ll find out whoever’s been going through my candy stash,” Elizabeth joked, grinning. However, the grin quickly dissipated when Fornell glared at her sharply. “Sorry, humour is how I deal with this kind of thing. I’ll shut up now.”
“I think it’s about time you got out of here,” Fornell continued. “I’ll call you a cab to get you home.”
“Bus works just fine,” Elizabeth replied. “Besides, what about my car? It’s still sitting in the parking lot back at the office.”
“I can take her home,” Tony said. Elizabeth and Gibbs both looked up, the former surprised and the latter slightly annoyed. “I mean, if it’s okay with you, Boss.”
“It’s about time the lot of you went home and got some rest anyway,” Gibbs said. “I’ll call if something comes up, but I want you all back here at oh-seven-hundred hours tomorrow.”
“That goes for you too, DiNozzo,” Fornell said, addressing Elizabeth. It was all she could do to bite back a groan; she was not a morning person.
“Come on midget, I’ll take you home,” Tony said, coming over and clapping a hand on his sister’s shoulder. McGee dropped her hand as if it had burned him. “Wise choice, McGropie.”
“See you tomorrow, Tim,” Elizabeth said with a smile. “My hands thank you for the massage.”
“Don’t mention it,” McGee replied.
Elizabeth began gathering up her stuff, diving under McGee’s desk to unplug the power cord to her laptop. Before long everything was tucked away and the bag was slung over her shoulder. Silently, Tony led Elizabeth to the elevator amidst the other agents getting ready to leave for the night. Elizabeth supposed they were stalling so that she and Tony could have some alone time; it definitely wouldn’t be difficult for either Ziva or McGee to pack up quickly and catch the same elevator downstairs.
“You and I need to have a little chat,” Tony said as they entered the elevator, the metal doors closing and encasing them in the small metal room.
“What about?” Elizabeth asked, trying to sound calm. She wondered what he would ask about first.
“What the hell are you doing working for the FBI?” Tony asked as the elevator started its descent. “Don’t you know how dangerous that is?”
“There’s nothing dangerous about sitting in front of a computer screen and writing code all day,” Elizabeth replied with a snort. “The only injuries I’m at risk for are eye strain and Carpal Tunnel.”
“Haha, funny,” Tony said sarcastically. “Then tell me this; how did you get in? Don’t you need years of either experience or school to even be considered?”
“Tony, I’ve been writing code since I was fourteen and hacking since I was fifteen,” Elizabeth replied. “And I have a degree in Computer Science with a minor in Psychology. I know, completely unrelated but they interested me. Did you know that your computer was the first one I hacked into? I gotta say, your firewall sucked.”
“You mean…” Tony said, his voice trailing off and his eyes going wide.
“Yep, I’m the one who made sure you had so many gay porn pop-ups that you probably had to take your computer in to a pro to get the hard drive wiped,” Elizabeth replied with a gleeful giggle.
“You sneaky, evil little brat!” Tony said as the elevator chimed and opened up, revealing the main floor.
“Learned from the best, you old fart,” Elizabeth replied with a grin as she bounced out of the elevator. “So, where are you parked.”
“You’re so going to pay for that old fart remark,” Tony said as he waved and winked at the receptionist, a pretty young thing who giggled and blushed at the attention. Elizabeth idly wondered why someone was manning the reception desk so late in the day, but didn’t put more thought to it. “And I’m parked in the staff parking lot.”
“Lead the way, then,” Elizabeth said, following Tony into the chill night air. It was early October and the evenings had a bit of a bite to them. Too bad she’d left her jacket in her car, which was currently in the staff parking lot of the DC FBI office.
“You gonna be okay?” Tony asked as he unlocked the door of a Mercedes, a few years old but in excellent condition. He opened the passenger side door to allow Elizabeth to slide in before walking around and opening the driver’s side door. “I think I’ve got a sweatshirt in the trunk or something.”
“I’d rather be chilly than wear your stinky gym clothes,” Elizabeth replied with a wrinkle of her nose.
“Such a critic,” Tony said as he started up the car. “So, where do you live?”
“You’re not taking me home,” Elizabeth replied as Tony pulled out of the underground parking.
“Then where am I taking you?” Tony asked, arching an eyebrow. “Please don’t say McGeek’s or I’m going to have to hurt you.”
“What kind of girl do you think I am?” Elizabeth asked. “And you’re taking me back to my work. There’s no way in hell I’m leaving my car overnight in the parking garage. Besides, I need a way to get back here in the morning.”
“Can you get in after hours?” Tony asked.
“Yep,” Elizabeth replied, holding up her car keys; they had a remote attached, one that would open the gate to the parking garage. “If it makes you feel comfortable, you can follow me home to make sure that no creepers try to grab me.”
“You know me so well,” Tony said with a winning grin. “So, what’s between you and McGee?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Elizabeth replied. Tony turned his head, taking his eyes off the road. “Oi, watch what you’re doing! I do not want to die in a car crash because my older brother can’t keep his damn eyes on the road.”
“What do you mean, absolutely nothing?” Tony asked.
“Exactly as I said,” Elizabeth replied with a shrug. “Abby was kind enough to loan Tim out so that I could totally torture you. Other than that, I steer clear of another woman’s territory.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Tony asked.
“Uh, Abby and Tim are an item and I’m not going to mess with that?” Elizabeth said, somewhat uncertainly. “Hang a left here.”
“Abby and Tim aren’t dating,” Tony said as he took the turn. He was now heading towards a gate leading to an underground parking lot. Elizabeth took out her keys and pushed a button, causing the gate to rise and admit the car. “At least, not that I’m aware. I mean, they were an item before but now they’re just friends.”
Elizabeth fell silent as Tony drove into the parking lot, slowing the speed to parking lot acceptable levels. She had a lot to think about; if Tony was right, there were a lot of things she had to think about before she got back to the NCIS office at some ungodly hour the next morning.
“So, I don’t even know what you drive,” Tony said, changing the subject.
“Green Volkswagen beetle,” Elizabeth replied. It wouldn’t take long to find; her car was the only green one in the lot, standing out like a sore thumb amongst the regular, neutral coloured cars.
“Should have known,” Tony said as he slowed the car to a stop. “Look, I’m really sorry dinner got cancelled.”
“It’s fine,” Elizabeth replied. “You’re working a case, stuff comes up. I’ve got a feeling I’m going to be working those late nights right along with you.”
“I’ll make it up to you, promise,” Tony said. He looked at the green Volkswagen parked next to him, noticing something odd. “Uh Liz, I think there’s someone sitting in your car. Stay here, I’m going to check it out.”
“Like hell I’m staying here,” Elizabeth muttered under her breath as she got out of the car right after Tony. He glared at her and motioned her to stay back as he approached the car, his hand hovering over his gun, ready to draw it at a moment’s notice.
“Federal agent, I’m armed,” Tony said in a firm voice as he tapped on the window. Elizabeth waited with baited breath, wondering who the hell was sitting in her car and how the hell they had gotten there…
***
Chapter 3, yay! I know I said dinner with the DiNozzo’s would happen but… well, I wanted to go one way and the story kind of yanked me in another way. Soo… yeah…
Author's Chapter Notes:
Our favourite NCIS team has a new case, serial murder mixed with advanced computer hacking. Unfortunately, the team cannot handle the case on their own, and Gibbs reluctantly calls in Fornell from the FBI for reinforcements. Senior FBI Agent T.C. Fornell brings a rather unexpected version of the cavalry. Will be Tim/OC, probably Tony/Ziva, rating to be safe.
Chapter End Notes:
Chapter 3, here it is. Hope whoever is reading this enjoys it!