Ringside
by channelD

written for: the NFA Head to Head Combat challenge

rating: K plus

genre: crack!fic! Muahahahaha…

characters: you think so?

warnings: spoilers for season 6

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disclaimer: I own nothing of NCIS.

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What if, in season 6, Vance decided to handle the issue of a suspected mole in a different way?

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It was well-known to Gibbs that Director Leon Vance was becoming obsessed with the notion that NCIS might have a mole. No, not the cute little animals that tore up lawns, although more and more agents had been sneaking pets into the building lately. Why this should be, Gibbs didn't know. Maybe it had started with Ziva's thinking she had heard it was "Take Your Otter to Work Day." Gibbs hadn't even known she had an otter.

On this day, Gibbs dropped a manila file folder on Vance's desk. It had come all the way from Manila. Gibbs secretly hoped that his boss would notice this, and maybe praise Gibbs for having sent all the way to Manila for it. "Here are my findings."

Arms crossed, Vance looked down at the folder but made no move to touch it. Perhaps he was allergic to things manila? Or vanilla, even? That would explain why he never ate any of the cookies Ziva brought in, Gibbs pondered. Well, that was all the more for the rest of us.

"Sum up?" Vance said, eyeing the folder to make sure it wouldn't go anywhere.

"Any of the three of them could be our mole. But…"

"Go on."

"Signs point to Agent Lee." Gibbs sighed. He hated the thought that any sworn-to-duty agent could be a traitor, but to have it be seemingly-harmless Lee, who should never try to do anything that wasn't outlined in a law school textbook or an episode of Boston Legal (her favorite TV show)? "What's our next step?"

Vance flexed his fingers. "Leave her to me."

- - - - -

That afternoon Vance appeared in the doorway of the Legal department. "Lee!"

All heads turned his way. Michelle Lee gaped.

"I'm calling you out, Lee!"

Maybe it was the fact that the Director of NCIS stood there, in blue satin boxing shorts and faux-ermine-lined robe, bouncing lightly on the heels of his springy gym shoes (which glowed with little red lights at each step). It was quite a sight.

Michelle Lee gulped. "Sir?"

"In the gymnasium, Lee. Be there, ready to fight, in 10 minutes!"

She hugged the file she held to her chest, and looked from side to side for reassurance from her coworkers. There wasn't much to be found, although a few looked sympathetic. "All—all right, sir."

- - - - -

"Are you sure this is the best idea, Leon?" Gibbs handed his boss a bottle of water while Vance danced in place in his corner of the ring. Vance was dancing the Macarena, a dance Gibbs had never cared for. But oh! If people could only see Leon doing the Tango! It brought back memories…

"Don't second-guess me, Gibbs," Vance scolded, shedding his robe. "The best way to deal with moles is brute force. Like with a garden shovel."

"I think that's for animal moles," said Gibbs, but Vance ignored him.

Agent Lee came into the boxing ring, haltingly. Others helped her in pulling the massive ropes apart so that she could get in. She wore NCIS-issue sweat pants, which were topped with a pale yellow, embroidered, Hello Kitty t-shirt. "Um…reporting for..duty, sir…"

Tony had been given the dubious privilege of being referee. He was, however, so stunned at the glaring mismatch of the two combatants that, for once, he was speechless. Other agents crowded around him, snapping pictures of him, and recording this moment for posterity. Within 20 minutes it would all be on the NCIS blogs. Tony! Speechless! Even the CIA mainframes almost crashed under the rate of agents rushing to read all about it.

"Say something, Tony!" Tim begged, while looking in horror at the sloooooooooooow reaction time on his iPhone. "This could spell the end of the internet!"

Snapping out of his daze, Tony said, "T-H-E-E-N-D-O-F-T—" Losing interest, the fickle world then went back to what it had been doing.

- - - - -

Lee made an attempt to avert a disaster. "Sir, if this is about the supply of important, I mean, orange folders that have disappeared from the supply room…"

He did study her for a moment. "Orange folders? From Orange County, California?"

"Uh, I'm not sure about that, sir…" she hedged.

"Well, they may be special to some, Agent Lee, but you just can't beat a good-old-fashioned manila folder from Manila," Vance said dreamily. Behind him, Gibbs pumped his fist in the air. Knew it!

"Why are we here, Director?" Lee begged.

"That's a very profound question, Lee." Vance stopped and stroked his chin. "Let me see if I can give you a short answer. Billions of years ago, there were no planets. The stars formed, and threw off—"

"No, sir, I mean—"

"You mean, why are we here on this planet, as opposed to, say, Tatooine?"

"Uh, not exactly, sir. Maybe we can just get on with…whatever this is about."

"Where are your gloves, Lee?" Vance demanded. "Weren't you told to wear gloves?!"

She looked down. "They're on my…hands, sir." Lee held up her hands, which bore standard latex gloves.

"Don't tell me you use those for boxing!"

"Uh, I don't often…"

"What do you use them for?"

"Uh, at crime scenes, sir?" It came out sounding like a question.

"Really?" Vance stopped and stared at his boxing gloves. "I've always just used these. I never thought….Enough chatter! We're here to fight!"

Abby had charge of the ring's bell. She rang it 37 times in rapid succession until Ziva tackled her and wrestled it from Abby's grasp. Ziva then threw the bell across the room, and from her pocket pulled out a triangle. Smiling, she made it do a cheerful ding! Abby, meanwhile, went off to sulk.

"In this corner," Tony said into his cordless microphone, "weighing…just the right weight for a Director…is the Director." The audience, knowing their part, cheered madly.

"And in the other corner, weighing…90 pounds?...is the opponent, Agent Michelle Lee." Being courteous, the audience also cheered Lee. They were a practiced audience, regularly getting tickets for the Letterman show. It was hard to believe that they got any work done at all.

"All right. You both know the rules. Well, you know the rules, Director. Michelle, you know the Law. Same difference. Let's have a fair fight."

"But I still don't even know why we're figh—"

Ziva drowned out Lee's complaint with a hearty chiming of the triangle. And so the fight began.

- - - - -

Vance charged into the center of the ring toward Lee, who scurried in the opposite direction, looking a little panicked. "Come back here and fight like a man!" Vance thundered. He took a couple of swings at her, but she nimbly sidestepped them.

"I know how to deal with moles!" Vance added, smugly.

This brought her up short. "Do you think I'm a mole, Director?" She ignored the frantic stop-stop-stop! hand-waving of Keating, Langer, and about a dozen other moles behind her. They were sitting in a special area marked Reserved for Moles. Actually, it read Reserved for Moleskin Aficionados, which sounded less revealing to their cause.

"I'm at least 34% sure, Lee, and that's good enough for me!" he snapped. "Now stand still!"

Instead, Lee dodged again and again. Her shortness was an advantage—Vance had to bend down to aim at her. Could she keep it up?

A breathless world waited to know. Tim blogged as fast as he could.

Then, Lee, growing weary moved too far out of range, and Vance, bent over, wound up toppling over. "No no no no!" he said, arms pumping air furiously. "The Director of NCIS does not—" WHAM! He hit the mat, face first. "Owwwie," he moaned.

Gibbs sprang into the ring. He had on a pair of those uber-cool shoes with springs in them. Later, he would show them to Vance and recommend that all agents have them; they were just that cool. "You big bully!" he shouted in Lee's face. "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?!"

Roooaaawrraraooooarrrr! came the sound of an approaching ambulance siren. Actually, it was Jimmy making siren sounds, as he and Ducky ran in, carrying a stretcher. They loaded Vance on it and ran back out.

Ziva went to ding her triangle again, but jumped 10 feet into the air when instead Abby, behind her, blasted her eardrums with the sound of a tuba signaling the end of the match. Tony raised Lee's hand, to the delight of the crowd. "The winner, and pro-tem Director!"

"Me? Really????"

" 'You vanquish it, you take its job'," Tony quoted. "What's the reg number on that, McBlogger?"

"3.14159265," Tim answered promptly, not looking up from his breaking-news blogging. "And you get a slice of pie to go with your new position."

Lee beamed. "Me! Director! It's like a dream come true!" She glanced to her side. "I'd like to meet with the members of the Moleskin Aficionados in my office in ten minutes. We need to discuss Domino….pizza. The Domino's pizza party." She winked hard.

- - - - -

"Well, it's good to know that there are no moles here, right, boss?" said Tony, when they were back at their desks. Tim, Tony and Gibbs were, anyway. Ziva and Abby were still chasing each other around the building with musical instruments.

"Yep," Gibbs said, a trifle disappointed that he'd have to delay impressing Vance with the springy shoes and the manila file folders. Maybe he should lead in with a comment on how well Vance did the Macarena?

"Boss," said Tim, watching ZNN. "Got some trouble, maybe." The screen showed reports of moles infesting the CIA, the FBI, the NSA and a dozen other agencies.

"Fortunately, that could never happen here," Gibbs said. Tony and Tim nodded. None of them noticed Lee, Keating, Langer and a bunch of others hauling out carts loaded with computers and all of the rest of the equipment from MTAC, whistling as they went.

-END-