It's sweeter than what I usually write. I was in a fluffy mood! AU (since it is Gibbs/McGee). Out of character? Well I did say it's a Gibbs/McGee story, didn't I?

T or D

He was sixteen. Fifteen and a half really but he wanted to say that he was sixteen. He was a tall, gangly kid with no extra muscle or fat who wasn't so keen on sports but a little too fond of science. That made him the best student in his class. A class full of seventeens, sixteens and half actually who weren't going to admit that. Nevertheless he was the youngest in his class and the best when it came to classes. Even in literature in which he wasn't so much interested in. He had realized a long time ago that he could read between the lines of any text given to him far more easily than his fellow students. A gift and a curse! The teachers loved him, the students resented him. And he so wanted to fit.

And then there was the other thing. He sometimes overheard his classmates talking about their sexual encounters or dreams they had and he couldn't help but wonder what was wrong with him. He had none of those. OK, a few years ago at the beginning of puberty he had discovered some changes in his body and his voice had recently started to change; and that hadn't been the best of things, but really nothing more. Just a couple of embarrassing moments when his Mom had to put laundry. She had smiled and ruffled his hair –a bit too long if she was to be asked. She knew and he was thankful. Well, another slightly embarrassing moment was when his Dad called him one bright evening to have a conversation man to man. All things considered he actually believed his father was more embarrassed than he had been so that made it easier. Slightly.

Girls seemed to like him a lot. They were running after him asking for help or telling him their deepest secrets, sometimes wondering how boys act or think around girls and he really, really didn't want to hurt their feelings. Eventually they got the picture and stopped pestering him. But he still didn't belong. He still wanted to have friends, male friends to be part of a team, a group of people close to his age…

And then one day one new student a year and a half older than him –called Robert or Bobby- finally noticed him. He was a baseball athlete and had a scholarship in Mathematics. Tim reminded him of his younger self. He used to be exactly as his classmate until he became part of his school's baseball team at fourteen. He had also been a loner until then but he knew that no matter how much Tim appreciated his loneliness and uniqueness he needed something else from time to time. And he wanted to give that to him.

'Hey McGee.' Startled green eyes turned up on him and then looked down on the book in his lap. The kid was taller than him by a couple of inches and maybe just a little more intelligent. Intelligent or dedicated he wasn't certain. He was certain that Tim McGee was one of those people who put something in their mind and moved earth and sky to make it true. Id Robert Jackson had a gift was that he could read people and attitudes.

'Hey…' Tim answered when the older kid had forgotten he was expecting an answer.

'What are you reading?' He sat next to Tim, on the green grass.

'Crime and Punishment. We need to write an essay about the…'

'That's OK ki… Tim, I don't really need to know the specifics. But do you think this is the right place to read?' He looked around them to see boys running in the field chasing a ball, wishing he was there and not playing the Good Samaritan, and the blonde girls sitting on the bench about fifty feet away from them.

'I think it's the best of place. In the library I usually get attacked by people who need my help. And I need to finish this by tomorrow.'

'Why? What's on for the weekend?' Tim's gaze returned to his book. 'McGee?' He pushed.

'It's my sister's birthday.'

'Older or younger?' He didn't really care but wanted to learn more about him if he wanted to become his friend.

'Younger. By almost seven years.' And Robert knew what it meant to have a younger sister and smiled. He got up patting Tim's shoulder.

'Good luck, mate, you're going to need it.'

'Thanks.'

And Tim finished his book, wrote the essay, got the best marks in his class, surprisingly enough since he had written it in a hurry and in addition he had made a new friend. And with Robert he became part of a group of others who little by little learned to accept him with his good and bad.

In less than two months he had stopped being the target of bullying but he was seen with a strange kind of respect. When he started wrestling –and really he had originally thought it was one the stupidest ideas Robert even had with his built and all- he was the best in that too and his friend's eyes lit. Tim McGee could make anything happen.

Then Robert met Joanna and Tim met Clare. Despite the rumours about the name that had been spread a little less than a decade ago due to Breakfast Club, Clare was a beautiful dark haired blue eyes lean girl who loved swimming. And loved Tim too. And Tim loved her back. He found that most of his time he was sitting in the veranda thinking of Clare and their time together or he was with said girl forgetting Robert and his other friends. Until one night they decided to have a boys' night out. The girls could do whatever they wanted on their own.

Robert, Clark, Noel, Peter, Dave and Tim had lightened a fire on the beach warming marshmallows and telling stories laughing and teasing. It was mid October and despite the fire Tim was cold in the light jacket he had chosen to wear that evening.

Tim felt cold seeping through his clothes and blankets and snuggled to the warmth next to him absorbing some of it.

'So, McGee, how's your girlfriend?' Pete asked suddenly and no matter how much time he had spent with his friends he hadn't lost the attribute of blushing. He stared away at the dark blue sea, the little wild waves that shattered her peace and quiet. And felt his stomach object.

'She's great.' He smiled and Robert decided to spare him. For now.

'Are we playing a game?'

'Aren't we a bit old for that?' Noel said sulking in the corner.

'Oh come on now…' Robert whined and Tim admired that ability combined with the total boyish look his friend could master.

'What kind of a game?' Clark interrupted him. Tim's gaze had turned on dry land and noticed that they weren't alone. A man was sitting not very far away from them wrapped in a jacket with no fire, a couple of bottles next to him.

'Ummm guys…' But Bob didn't let him continue.

'Truth or Dare.' I paled it this summer with my cousins in England. Tim's eyes lit.

'You never told us how was England.'

'Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Underground, green, Houses of Parliament.. that's it. Now, shall we play?' The others nodded positively grinning like mad men one another. Tim was not so certain.

'Oh come on now McGee. Be a man.' Robert said well naturally. And Tim did in fact be a man and accepted to play. Twenty three minutes later –and Tim was counting them with his brand new digital watch which had cost his dad a lot of money- they had finished two rounds of truth and none of dare which was just fine with Tim. Things were gotten a bit harder when Peter chose a dare. Not so much of a dare though it was when Robert asked him to drink a bottle of beer bottoms up, no breathing. Tim could do that. He'd probably have a problem walking steadily right afterwards but he could do it. Easily. Same with the next dare Robert chose and that was to lick a marshmallow rather provocatively. Tim watched and didn't see anything weird about it. Later on he would blame his innocence but that moment he was completely oblivious.

So when Robert turned to him and made the dreadful question Tim without really thinking about it said "dare". He didn't miss the gleeful smile of his friend neither the laugh of the others.

'OK, grasshopper, I dare you to go and talk to…' Bob's arm was raised up and his finger pointed somewhere on Tim's left. '…that man over there, for at least fifteen minutes.'

Tim couldn't believe it. Him? Talking to a stranger? And what if that stranger was…?

'Unless of course if you're afraid…' Of course he was afraid. Shy, reserved Timothy McGee wasn't talking to strangers. His Mom and Dad had taught him well. So, his mouth opened and closed and opened again and no sound was heard.

'Where will you be?' He finally asked.

'We will be right there in the corner.'

'You won't leave me alone…' it was more a question and less and demand and Tim cringed at the way he sounded.

'Surely no. You're such a baby, McGee.' That did it. The cold was worse now Tim felt sweaty and frigid and the same time. Still as his friends got up and quenched the fire he thought of running away and never return back. However he was a McGee and McGees never stepped back if they had a mission to deliver. He got up and started walking towards his destination stealing glances back to check where his friends were. Last time he turned around he saw that they had disappeared and he was really close to the strange man who seemed unaware of his presence, drinking from a bottle of whiskey and staring the sea.

Tim cleared his throat for two reasons, one to show to the stranger that someone was there and second to convince himself he still had voice left. Steely blue eyes turned on him and he forgot the cause for which he was there. The man's eyes were blank, devoid of any kind of emotion except for… pain? Tim couldn't know.

'Lost your way kid?'

Tim turned restless on the bed and before his partner had time to calm him down green eyes were wide open looking around him frantically.

'Hey babe, are you alright?' Tim's eyebrow raised way higher than usual at the strange and new endearment but his heart was beating too fast and too erratically to answer that. 'Deep breaths Tim, deep breaths…' And Tim followed his lover's advice trying to calm himself and make the dream go away. Strong, warm arms were wrapped around him and he was pressed against a solid chest waiting for some peace to settle upon him. 'What were you dreaming? You're freezing.' Just like his dream… or memory. 'So, what were you dreaming?'

'Our first meeting.' He said quietly.

'And that's the reason you're so cold and shivering?' Gibbs remembered invading the young man's personal space and pushing him out of where he was sitting, just because he could. He also recalled the courage with which the very green rookie looked at him and stood his ground.

'I had forgotten.' Came the far calmer answer. Green eyes looked at him and Gibbs saw a new kind of light inside them.

'You forgot Sub Rosa?' Gibbs asked incredulous and Tim shook his head.

'I just hadn't connected the two.' Gibbs' hand left his place on Tim's chest and went straight to his forehead trying to see if the younger man had a fever. Nope, Tim was way too cold to have high temperature.

'What are you talking about?'

'That case was not the first time we met Jethro.' Tim said looking straight ahead. 'It was October of '94; a very cold night, some friends and I were playing T or D…' Tim felt Gibbs' arms tighten around his torso as his brain provided the picture; an image of a very young, very thin boy who helped him in one of the worst nights of his life and leaned down to press a kiss on Tim's forehead.

'That was you?' He felt Tim nodding against his hand.

It was the first time had taken a day off his job. Mike wanted to go out for a drink or that what the older man had suggested seeing the mood his new partner was at, but Gibbs had outright refused. He didn't want company that night.

He took some bottle of liquor with him and strolled down at the beach at the same spot he and Shannon had spent endless hours talking and kissing. Soon, a group of kids came a little further than him. He couldn't stand the laughter and talking so he moved a little away from them but not as far as he wanted to. He needed to be close to this place. Close to Shannon. Just for one night. He blinked back tears. He wasn't going to cry. He took a large sip of alcohol to justify the tears and lost himself in the dark sea that always relaxed him.

He didn't know how long it had passed when he realized he wasn't alone. Someone was standing really close to him and he turned around to see one of the kids staring curiously at him.

'Lost your way kid?' The boy fidgeted a little looking scared and determined.

'Ummm no. I was asked to come and talk… to you.' He said and Gibbs wondered if he was always so honest. He raised an eyebrow and the kid took a step behind. 'I, I didn't mean to interrupt anything… It's just that…' He suddenly stopped.

'That…' Gibbs urged.

'That my friends are going to have fun at me if I don't.' He said looking at his feet that were playing with the sand.

'Sit down kid.' Gibbs told him and was taken aback by the shy smile. He was never going to have his own kid growing up. His heart and stomach clenched.

'Sorry.'

'Don't be. I could do with the company.' And he was surprised to say that because it was the truth.

'Umm… what are you doing here all alone?'

'Thinking.'

'Is it working?'

'Not really.'

'It usually doesn't work for me either and everyone says I do lot's of that.'

The fifteen minutes became half an hour and that a whole hour and it was already eleven o clock when the kid saw his watch and was instantly on his feet looking around to see where his friends were.

'They left about one hour and a half ago.' Gibbs offered.

'But… but we came with Peter's car.'

'And they left you alone with a stranger. Not very good friends…'

'No, no…' Tim was ready to object and stopped when he realized that despite talking with the man for over two hours he didn't know anything for him. He saw him standing up a couple of inches taller than him and took a few steps backwards.

'That will teach not to listen to them next time. Now come on, I'll take you home.'

'Um..' The kid said looking around.

'It's not the right time to be worried, kid.'

'I know, but my dad will…'

'I won't tell him.' Gibbs was feeling a lot better. Listening to a young boy talking about his dreams and aspirations had taken some of his loss and ache away. 'And I'm something like a cop.'

'Really?'

'Really. For the Navy.'

'Cool.' The kid let him drive him to his neighbourhood and that was it. 'I can walk from here. Thank you.'

'Thank you, Kid'

'My name's Tim.'

'Your name's Tim.' Gibbs whispered close to his ear.

'That it is. I can't believe…'

'Hey, hey, I didn't recognize you either.'

'Yes, But I should…'

'I never forgot that night though. It was three years since Shannon's and Kelly's murders and I was…' Tim hands squeezed his in a silent gesture of understanding. 'But when I saw you again you were so different.'

'Yea, fat…' Gibbs' fingers on his lips stopped any farther comments Tim wanted to make for himself.

'A little chubby.. I'd say.

'Not the thin kid I had been.'

'You look more like that now. All green eyes. God, I'm old…You're just a baby' Tim turned around in his arms and looked at him with a coy smile.

'You're not old. Just mature. And what's the thing with the babes tonight?'

When Gibbs' lips touched his he stopped thinking other smart remarks.

'Why, at least you're not cold any longer.'

'I think I'm hot.'

'That you are, babe.'

Finis