Rated- T - English - Adventure/Hurt/Comfort -

Author's note: Hi everyone, I just wanted to say thank you for reading this story today. Please excuse me if there are any slight grammatical errors or punctuation errors. This is my very first published Fan Fiction story. Reviews are more than welcome! I will try to update it as often as possible. Thank you for reading my story! I hope that you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I have a purple-polka dotted cow that can fly and I live in cotton candy clouds. Nope! Just kidding! I don't own a purple cow that can fly, and I most certainly do not own any of the characters or anything that has to do with NCIS!

Summary:What starts out as a bad day for McGee only goes from bad to worse at work. When he's kidnapped, it's up to the rest of the team to find him and along the way, will they realize just how much he means to them? Read and find out!

Chapter 1

The Beginning of a Bad Day

McGee sighed. Today was going to be a long day. He was preparing himself to face Gibbs's anger and explain to him as to why he was late to work, but he knew that Gibbs would be too upset to truly listen to him. McGee had left his apartment at exactly 6:00 am sharp, but he hadn't driven more than five miles and was about to turn onto the highway when he spotted a man bending over the trunk of his car that was pulled over on the side of the road. Seeing that no one was stopping by the man to offer help, McGee decided that he would, even if it meant that he would be late for work. Good naturedly, McGee had made a U-turn and then pulled over, asking the man if he needed any help.

When the man had answered with a "yes", McGee stopped his car and turned off the engine, then went to investigate what was wrong with the other man's car. The car was almost out of gas, and it definitely needed a good jumpstart, McGee could tell.

"It looks like the car's out of gas, and it definitely needs a good jumpstart. Can you wait for another twenty minutes while I go to the gas station and get some gas to fill your car? I should be back soon," McGee asked the man.

"Sure, I think that I can wait another twenty minutes or so," the man replied. "I want to say thank you for doing this for me. I've been stuck here for over a little more than an hour, and nobody cared to stop by until you did."

McGee responded with a simple, "It's no problem. I'm just surprised that no one else cares."

After finishing his small chat with the man, McGee then drove to a gas station about two miles away. Once he had arrived at the gas station, McGee purchased a gallon of gas for $15 and then drove back to the man who was stranded with his car. As McGee loaded up the car with gas, he talked to the man about what he enjoyed to do in his free time and what he did for a living.

"So, what brings you here to Washington D.C.?"

"Oh, I'm actually headed towards the Naval Academy in Maryland, but I'm heading there to start my first day of work as a Science Teacher," the man replied.

"I'm Christopher, by the way," he added.

"It's nice to meet you, Chris, or do you go by Christopher? I'm McGee. Timothy McGee."

"It's okay, I go by Chris," Christopher replied, "and it's a pleasure to meet you, Tim. I feel like we've known each other for ages, even though we just met."

"You know, I was just thinking the same thing," McGee replied. "Do you have an e-mail address that I can contact you at? I sure would love to stay in touch," McGee told Christopher.

"Sure, sure thing! Let me write it out for you! Give me just a moment," said Christopher, obviously enthusiastic about the e-mail exchanges.

By the time both of them had finished exchanging e-mail addresses, the gasoline container was empty and the two of them were enjoying themselves, laughing out loud at each other's stories, sharing pats on the back and talking to each other as if they'd been best friends for years. It was only when McGee glanced down at his watch that he noticed what time it was.

"Oh shoot," he gasped, realizing what time it was, and told Christopher that he had to go. "I've got to go! I'm already an hour late to work! I look forward to keeping in touch with you, Chris!"

"Yeah, same here! it was nice to meet you Tim! Thank you for stopping for me," Christopher chirped. "We'll stick in touch!"

"Okay, sounds great!" yelled McGee, and then the two of them drove off in different directions.

After he was on the road again, McGee recalled the conversation that he had with Christopher and then remembered wishing him luck that the rest of his day would go well. McGee already knew that his own day wouldn't, and that he would still have to face Gibbs' wrath when he arrived at work an hour late, but in the end, he thought that it was all worth it, just to help another fellow human in need.

As he rode up the elevator to his office in the NCIS Headquarters, he wondered what else was going to go wrong today. Over the last week, he and the rest of the team had been struggling with finding the answers to a particularly hard case. A young naval cadet had been found shot in the middle of a deserted corn field, and by the looks of it, he had been dead for at least a week. According to Ducky's analysis, the poor young man had been beaten up before he was murdered. The John Doe, Ducky concluded, was only 20 years old when he died.

McGee knew that Gibbs would take this case very hard, as he always did when any naval officer was murdered, but taking a case that had to deal with the death of a young kid was always especially hard on everyone. It had always been exceptionally hard for Gibbs when a young officer was killed, but this marine had just graduated from the Naval Academy less than two weeks before, and so far the team hadn't found any leads. That only added to Gibbs' frustration.

McGee had already put in several late hours this week of his time and effort into the case, staying behind at the office until midnight (twice) in an effort to find any traces or clues that had been left behind, only to come back to work the next morning empty-handed with no results. He was more tired in the mornings this week than usual, but no one seemed to notice that.

"Oh well," McGee thought. "Maybe I'll find something tonight that will be useful. No, change that. I will find something of use! I will stay behind at the office all evening if I have too, but tonight, I won't stop or go back home until I find something useful. I've got to find something! Surely there must be some trace of evidence that we could use!" He promised himself that he would find a trace tonight, if not earlier. he couldn't disappoint Gibbs any more than he was already.

McGee sighed. It was going to be one heck of a week.

As McGee stepped out of the elevator, he could hear Tony giggling in the background, "Oh! Probie's going to be in soooo much trouble now! Just you wait until Gibbs comes up and sees this!"

McGee continued to walk forward and with a curious voice, asked, "Sees what, Tony?"

Tony whirled around in surprise at the sound of McGee's voice, but smirked at him instead. Behind Tony stood Ziva, who had a bemused look of faked confusion etched upon her face.

Tony was smiling now, in fact he was grinning slyly as he answered McGee's question. "Oh, nothing, Probie. Nothing at all. Why do you ask?"

Behind Tony, Ziva could barely contain her laughter.

"I thought that you might have played a prank on me again, like the last time when you put superglue on my laptop's keyboard, or that time when you switched my computer monitors," McGee spoke.

"Me? Why, I would never do such a thing! Can't you see that I'm innocent? I can't believe that you would think that I would do something like that, McGee! I thought that you trusted me! Do you really think that I would work that hard to pull something off like that on you? Besides, you're so gullible we know that you'd fall for it like you did last time! Come on, Probie, I thought that you would know me by now!" Tony responded.

"Actually, I already do," thought McGee, but he didn't say that thought aloud. To him, it seemed like Tony was just trying to have some fun and was trying to relieve some of the tension in the air. McGee was thankful for his teasing this time, though, because it would relieve his stress thinking about what was going to go wrong today.

"DiNozzo!," Gibbs barked at Tony as he made his grand entrance into the room and then head-slapped Tony.

"Get back to work. Now!" Gibbs waited a few seconds for DiNozzo to listen to his order and watched as he sat back down at his desk and started typing furiously.

Ziva quickly followed in Tony's footsteps.

"Where's McGee?" Gibbs demanded.

Very cautiously, McGee spoke up. He already knew that he was in trouble, but now he had to face it. And facing an angry Gibbs in front of the rest of the team while remaining silent was going to be a difficult challenge.

"I'm right here," McGee answered. "I apologize for arriving to work late this morning. I was just…"

McGee was never able to finish the rest of that sentence. Gibbs was making it hard for him to respond to his questions. For some strange reason, Gibbs always seemed to make McGee nervous when he needed to talk to him. Gibbs was making it impossible to reply back right now. Gibbs' right eyebrow was raised quizzically, and his steely cold blue eyes stared at McGee like a hawk. McGee didn't know what to say. Like a storm, Gibbs burst out at McGee with a chilling downpour of irritation and a slight (make that a large) dose of impatience.

"And just why are you so late this morning, McGee? It's 8:05! We're in the middle of trying to solve a case, and you're here late. Why are you late? Did you run into a damsel in distress? Did you forget something important? Or did you accidently sleep in? We don't have time for this, McGee. We need to find who killed that cadet ASAP! Whatever excuse it is, I don't need to hear about it. Just get to work. Now!" Gibbs roared.

"Yes, boss," McGee said in a downcast voice, without bothering to even explain his excuse to Gibbs. He knew that trying to explain why he was late to his boss would be a lost cause. That, and his boss didn't need to deal with more stress than he was already experiencing.

McGee could feel the red tinge creep up his cheeks and then the top of his ears as started walking towards his desk. He wasn't someone who was easily embarrassed, but being yelled at by his boss in front of the rest of his colleagues was embarrassing.

It wasn't that McGee wasn't manly enough to take a butt-chewing by his boss, because he was. In fact, McGee was more than willing to listen to a lecture from Gibbs anytime it was necessary just so that he could learn what he had done wrong and correct the mistakes he made. But this time, it was different. This time, Gibbs had yelled at him and criticized his novel, and verbally expressed his doubt about McGee's ability to get to work on time, and on top of that, Gibbs had accused him of being lazy! He was anything but! As if the lecture wasn't enough, Gibbs had yelled at him in front of the rest of his teammates. Sigh. Today was definitely going to be a looong day.

As he passed Tony's desk, he could hear Tony at first trying not to laugh, but then laughing softly out loud.

Ouch. That hurt. "Thanks, Tony," McGee said, sarcastically thanking Tony. McGee turned to Ziva's desk and could tell that her eyes held the slightest twinkle of amusement inside of them. Wonderful. Simply wonderful. Well, at least he had brought a smile to Ziva's face today, and given Tony something else to tease him about later.

"Well, that was not a good way to start the day," McGee thought.

And so we end Chapter 1!

Well? What did you guys think? I'm sorry if you read it at first and then it disappeared, I accidently deleted it. Not on purpose! This is my first attempt at publishing a Fan Fiction story.

I will try to update it again soon, but we have some relatives whom I haven't seen in 3 years who are visiting with us now. But I'll try to update it again sometime this week!

Thank you for the reviews!