By Your Side

AN: Because I think that Delilah and Mc Gee have such a great chemistry together, I finally decided to write a story about this newest NCIS couple. If you like the story please review and as always: Please don't hesitate to write some constructive criticism.

This story directly after the explosion in the last episode, it's my version of what happened after the drone attack.

Chapter 1

Slowly but surely Mc Gee finally regained composure again, but thanks to all the fog from the enormous explosion he didn't have a very large field of view. Carefully he stepped over some large pieces of debris and screamed: "Delilah! Can you hear me?" He waited a while for a response but unfortunately there wasn't one and that made him think: *Come on, please let her be okay because I really don't want to lose her.*

He felt a slight pain coming up at the back of his head, figuring that he must have landed very awkward as the big shockwave of the explosion had hit him. With all the debris between him and the ball room and the injury at the back of his head, it would certainly take him quite a while to get to finally get to his girlfriend. Meanwhile Tony had almost arrived at the scene; of course he had immediately rushed to his car after he had heard the explosion before the phone conversation with Mc Gee was abruptly ended. The first thing he did was sending the ambulances and police to the scene and all he could think during the drive to the Congress Center was: *No matter what it costs Parsa is going to pay big time for this!* Dinozzo could feel the anger pend up inside of him, because this case had now gone from just a threat to National Security to Parsa's personal vendetta against the NCIS team. As quick as possible Tony tried to get through a still heavy evening traffic, fiercely grapping the steering wheel of his car, really wishing that he could get his hands on the person who did this himself. But he finally realized that he had to keep a clear head on this one, even how hard that maybe because when you let personal feelings cloud your judgment it always ended in a bad way one way or the other.

It proved to be very hard for Tim to stay positive right, there was always that one maybe little but persistent voice that kept telling him: You lost her, there's absolutely no way that she could have survived this.* After a while some of the fog had cleared, but he had to stop for a moment because of the fact that the pain at the back of his head really gave him one giant headache. The stair rail was completely gone so in the best way possible he slowly sits down on a big piece of debris, noticing now that his cell phone was in the pocket of his jeans anymore and figured that he must have lost it during the chaos of the shockwave.

Even if he made himself think that Delilah was still alive, Mc Gee was of course aware that she must have been injured pretty badly like all the other people that were practically at the center of the explosion: The big ball room. As he just sat there, hating the fact that he couldn't be a hundred percent sure to get to her in time he thought back to uncomfortable conversation just one day away from this horrible attack.

Flashback

Certainly he didn't want to go to the Gala, but also Tim had a bad feeling deep down as he surprisingly crossed paths with his girlfriend on the way back to bullpen. The two just stared at each other for a while and right now she really didn't know what to think: Should she continue to be mad at Tim because he refused to go to the gala with her without any proper explanation or should she just pretend to forget about the whole thing? All this time she had to ask herself the same question: Why is he stone walling me like that all over sudden?

If there was one thing she really couldn't stand: Her partner in a relationship keeping secrets from her and right now she knew that Tim was clearly keeping something from her, but unfortunately for her he was really doing a good job keeping a secret from her. *I know that his job at NCIS is important and pretty much time consuming but in my opinion going to the Gala with me on this evening really isn't too much to ask!* Even if she wanted to scream at him right now, she had to fight very hard with herself to keep her emotions in check as he finally asked: "So…are you here to see Director Vance again?"

"No…I'm actually here to see you this time because I brought you something." She then handed him the black tux, which was wrapped in protective foil, even if she knew that his mind was already made up and there wasn't anything she could say to change his decision. He looked a little confused at her, so he asked: "What is it?"

"It's a Tux…because I know that you don't have one." She answered trying hard to sound not too disappointed, because deep down she really regretted it to spend the time on getting the black tux tailored for her boyfriend. At first she had really thought that this would make really a good surprise for him but now Tim had let her down when she had least expected it.

As he finally looked it, he said how nice that was of her and she could really sense that he was now struggling to find words to say. Tim really just didn't want to have this talk right now, because he felt worst as she said that she had bought him the tux and now she was rightfully so very disappointed of him.

"But I can't return the tux through….because I already got it tailored." She continued after a short pause, really just wanted to get all of this just out, because she wasn't that kind of a person who kept her frustration boiled up inside of her.

"Delilah….I'm sorry." Was all that Mc Gee could reply to that and right now he just wanted to hide in the next big hole.

He then asked her how she got his sizes for the tux and she replied in a very neutral tone, that it was a really easy thing to do to figure out his measurements because of the job as a Cryptologist at the Pentagon.

"I know you can't come Tim…because Parsa is still out there, is a big threat to a National Security." Her anger towards Tim was now getting the best of her again, as she rolled her eyes as she said that. Because she didn't have anything to say, Delilah turned around and went for the lift before she heard Tim calling after her one last time. Thinking about just ignoring it for one moment, she finally decided to turn around one more time.

"Look Delilah…I'm really sorry." He finally said with some kind of a look that said:*please don't look at me that way anymore* but deep down she just couldn't believe him, because she was just too mad at him right now and so she replied: "I get it! This is important but you didn't want to go to the gala with me in the first place…and that is what don't understand."

End Flashback

For a few minutes a just buried his head in his hands, wishing so much to be able to just hold her in his arms right now. Just a few more steps then he would finally be in the Ball Room and hopefully he did find any survivors down there.