A/N: This is my final piece from the Help Haiti auction. Took me ages to finish it...but it's done. Tim is the focus, but there is a lot of teamwork in this one...for reasons you'll see soon.

Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS, nor do I make money from these stories. More's the pity.

He Speaks in Accents Familiar
by Enthusiastic Fish

Prologue

Tim kicked the copier in frustration.

"Work, dang it!" He was in a hurry and so, of course, the machine wouldn't work. "Work!"

"Hey! Stop kicking my machine!" a strident female voice rang out behind him.

Tim turned around, in a very bad mood, and was confronted by an angry woman, nearly his height.

"Those machines are expensive and when they have to get fixed, they cost the taxpayer money. Do you got that, Mr. Special Agent? If it's not working, ask someone for help, idiot!"

"You said that this is your machine?"

"Might as well be. I use it more than the rest of you combined."

Tim strove for calm, taking a couple of deep breaths. He'd been raised better than this. "Then, can you tell me what's going on?"

She recognized the change in his tone instantly and nodded, slipping past him to check the copier and the settings.

"What are you trying to do?"

Tim sighed and ran a nervous hand through his hair, making it stick up at odd angles. "I'm running a seminar on computer forensics in about twenty minutes. Director Vance asked me to do it. I said that I wasn't the best choice, that others were better at both the field itself and at presenting the material. He disagreed and said that he wasn't trusting the Cybercrimes people to explain in English. I just wanted to get copies for the handouts I made so that when I make a complete fool out of myself the seminar won't be a complete waste of time for the people who have to attend. Okay?"

The woman looked at him in surprise. "You're Timothy McGee?"

"Yeah. Why?" Then, he groaned. "You're coming aren't you. ...oh, great. Maybe I should just tender my resignation right now. They're going to be bored out of their minds. Tony and Ziva will never let me live it down. I thought this day couldn't get any worse." He reached out to take the pages from the copier. One was jammed in the feeder. "Oh, forget it. It's a waste of time anyway."

Completely embarrassed and humiliated, Tim turned and walked away from the woman, leaving the handouts in the copier, ignoring her calls for him to come back. He needed to hide somewhere...just long enough either for the red to drain from his face or else for the whole seminar to be over. He'd prefer the latter, but he knew that he had to go with the former.

He'd just have to do it without the handouts. He still had his PowerPoint. That would be good enough. He could just make an announcement that they would be available later on. It wouldn't make the presentation any better...but at least it wouldn't make him look incompetent.

Tim had no idea why he was so nervous about this whole thing. He hadn't ever thought he would be in a situation like this. ...but the fact remained that, from the moment Vance had assigned him to run this seminar, he had been a bundle of nerves. Tony's snide comments didn't help, of course, and all the special agents had to attend...from the technology-challenged agents like Gibbs and Lovitz down to the agents who just didn't care like Tony and Ziva, down to the new guys like Adam Saunders who thought they knew everything. Besides Vance, there would be maybe...two people who would be interested in what he was going to tell them.

Tim took a deep breath and knew that he couldn't put it off any longer. He dashed quickly to the men's room and grimaced at his still-flushed cheeks and his screwed up hair. The hair, at least, he could fix relatively quickly. His face...well, he'd tried for years to do something about his face. No luck so far. He stuck out his tongue at himself and headed to the presentation room.

A brief pause outside the door as he wished for his handouts as a kind of security blanket. Then, he walked inside. He felt the heat rising in his face as he noticed the woman from the copier already in there...and seemingly waiting for him at the front of the room. Most of the other agents were in their seats, chatting amiably with each other.

"Timmy, I'm so excited for this," Abby said in her usual soft yell.

"Abbs..." Tim said, faltering. "You don't need to be here. You're not..."

"I know, but I was so excited to see what you were going to say and I finished entering in all the samples from the Ashworth case. I had the time and I wanted to come anyway. That's what friends are for, Tim!"

"Thanks, Abby," Tim said, smiling weakly. He didn't want Abby here. Abby, who would know when he faltered, who would know when he screwed up on a procedure.

I'm so dead.

Another deep breath and he walked to the front of the room, just barely managing to avoid the foot Tony stuck out to trip him. He did feel a faint measure of satisfaction at the thwack! which resounded behind him as he continued on his way.

"Hey, Agent McGee," the woman said, covering the last bit of distance between them and speaking in a low voice, "I think you'll need these for your presentation." She held out a pile of collated and stapled guidesheets. In his eyes, she became an angel of mercy sent from on high to save him from emotional wrack and ruin.

"Thank you," he said, knowing he sounded both surprised and desperately happy. "How...How can I thank you?"

She smiled. "I think you already did, Agent McGee. Don't worry about it. I'm excited to see what you're doing. I flipped through the handouts as I came up. They look really interesting."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You obviously know what you're talking about."

Tim felt a different kind of warmth spread through him. He didn't even know her name, but he knew that she didn't think he was a complete dolt, that she could tell he was nervous, and that she had taken it upon herself to help him out. That was enough...for now.

The door opened and Vance came in. Tim straightened slightly and then watched in surprise as the woman walked back toward him.

"Ah, Ms. Kionen, I'm glad you could make it. Agent McGee, are you ready to begin?"

"Yes, Director. I'm ready," Tim said, feeling suddenly ready as he hadn't been before.

"Good," Vance said. He looked around at the assembled agents. "I am aware that any of you could be called out at a moment's notice, but do keep in mind that this is a required seminar. So don't try to fake a call to get out of it. Who knows, some of you might even learn something useful."

He gestured for Tim to start. Tim swallowed, met the attentive gaze of Ms. Kionen and began.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Hey, way to go, McGeek," Tony called. "You didn't even embarrass us!"

Tim rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Tony."

"McGee, I'll need you to go over that data set again before you leave tonight," Gibbs said.

"I will, Boss."

Ziva smiled. "It was very interesting, McGee. I am almost glad I had to come."

"Almost?" Tim asked with a grin.

"Yes...well, computers and I do not generally get along...but I do have more respect for what you do for us."

"Thanks, Ziva."

Abby had been forced to slip out early, as had a couple of others, but by some miracle, all the field agents had been able to stay for the entire seminar. Tim began cleaning up the room, shutting down the projector, not really paying attention to anything else.

"It was a good presentation...and they were useful handouts."

Tim jumped and turned around. He flushed again. "Hi."

"Eloquent, to say the least," she said with a smile. "I'm Linda Kionen. I'm Director Vance's new assistant. I just started three weeks ago." She held out her hand.

"Timothy McGee," Tim said, flushing. "I'm a special agent."

"Nice to meet you, Agent McGee."

"I'm sorry I kicked your copier."

"I'm sorry I bit your head off. I could have been a bit more tactful. You were obviously stressed out."

Tim shuffled his feet a little. He felt more than a little awkward...and he wasn't sure what to say.

"Um...thanks for your help...with the copies. What had I done?"

"You were trying to make it both collate and do multiple reprints at the same time...and you'd also hit the size reduction button."

"I really do know how to use copiers."

"You were flustered. It's okay."

"Thanks."

"You said that already, Agent McGee."

Tim opened his mouth to say...something when the door opened.

"McGee, come on. Call came in. Gibbs gave the data set to Abby to finish."

"What is it, Tony?"

"We have a case. Let's go!" Tony ordered and withdrew.

"Bye," Tim barely remembered to say and ran out the door, almost afraid to find out what had happened that had made Tony so somber.