I'm not a stranger to fan fiction but certainly to this fandom, I hope I can do it justice. I would like to take a different look at season 2 through the eyes of a TATE shipper.
Thanks
Kait
"I'm telling you, don't invite them to come," Tony sighed, pulling on a short sleeve button up shirt, ready for the cooler weather of fall to arrive.
"Tony we have to, they're our mothers, we can't plan the whole thing without them," Kate sighed as well, about to pull on a pair of pantyhose before remembering the AC at HQ wasn't working.
"Pick what you want," he sighed, "it's our wedding, I can stand up to my mom on a lot of things, but we've already got strikes against us for being engaged without you having met them, and they don't know yet that we're already living together. So I have a feeling I'll be giving in a lot where she is concerned."
"Tony," she pouted at the smartness of his answer, "I just need some advice."
"I know, and I know with Abby's gothicness, you don't feel like you have anyone you can get advice from, but I'm still not sure you should allow them to help," he wrapped both arms around her waist, smiling when her forehead smacked his chest.
"It doesn't matter anyway, cause they've already been invited," he felt her warm breath through his shirt, "You've got to move your stuff from this room to one of the guest rooms too."
"We'll start on that this weekend," he chuckled, "I need to get in to the office, I'll see you there?"
"Well yeah," she grumbled, before accepting his kiss and running a hand through his hair, "umm, I shouldn't be too far behind you."
"I love you," he whispered giving her a small peck on the cheek, rushing out of the bedroom.
"I love you too," she shouted after him with a smile, before going back to the en suite bathroom to apply her make-up.
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"Tony, why are you stripping in the middle of the office?" Kate asked rounding the corner to her desk, seeing her fiancé pulling his over shirt off, in the stifling heat that encompassed their space.
"You know you like it," he smirked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. She rolled her eyes but offered a small smile anyway; she couldn't help but smile whenever he was around.
"McGee," she shrieked no sooner than she'd sat down, wheeling back away from her desk, "What are you doing down there?"
"I'm upgrading the computer network," he mumbled, sweating profusely, whether from the heat of the broken air condition or being in a precarious position under one of his senior agents, she couldn't tell. "Ow, ow, ow," he yelped when she grabbed him by the ears, yanking him out from under his desk, "I wasn't looking."
"Now McGee, I know you weren't just looking up my fiancé's skirt," Tony placed an arm around the young agent's shoulder.
"I swear Tony, I wasn't looking," he promised, breathing heavily, under such close scrutiny of what he hoped were soon to be his co-workers.
"DiNozzo," Gibbs barked, coming around the corner himself, dressed as always in a blazer and drinking his coffee, not seeming to notice the exhausting heat from the broken AC, "put your damn shirt back on. McGee, what are you still doing here?"
"The contractors won't wire the computer networks until the air conditioners fixed, it's some kind of union thing," he explained stepping away from Tony's arm and the glare Kate was sending his way.
"So you decided that an NCIS special agent should crawl around on the floor all day by yourself?" Gibbs questioned with a hard tone, almost amused at the antics of his senior agents.
"You heard the man," Tony echoed, ready to get in good with the boss, in anyway possible.
"I wanted it fixed before I returned to Norfolk," he answered like the suck-up he was, Tony made a mental note to offer the young agent some advice on brown-nosing.
"You know where thinking like that will get you?" Gibbs questioned, "A promotion, if you need help, ask Tony."
All three younger agents stood shocked, although Kate was two seconds from bursting into a giggle. Tony's shock turned to a glare pointed a McGee, and he began to stutter that it would be an easy fix, and he wouldn't need Tony's help, "Don't let him intimidate you McGee, that's my job today," Kate smiled at the pair.
"I wasn't looking Tony I swear," He began to stammer again when the senior agent wrapped his arm around his shoulders.
"Trust me, McGee, if thought you'd been looking, you wouldn't have to worry about me coming to get ya," Tony laughed, returning to his own desk but catching an elbow from his fiancé before he could get there.
"We've got a secretary downstairs claiming her boss is being held hostage by his computer," Kate announced getting off the phone. After interviewing the secretary the team began to look into the family of her boss.
Gibbs handed out assignments, before taking his own and running with it, "let's go team, we've got till the end of the day to solve this one."
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Tony followed Gibbs down to Abby's lab, always up for bothering the gothic scientist who was practically his sister. Gibbs assigned him the next task of finding a way for the team to be able to communicate with Captain Watson and remain undetected.
Kate was busy teaching McGee a thing or two about detective work. Of course it wouldn't be fun without a little teasing to go along with the hard work.
"We need a way to communicate, DiNozzo," Gibbs barked rounding the corner having changed from his marine uniform back into civvies.
"Earwig, we used these all the time when I was with the Baltimore PD," Tony replied holding up the small device for his boss to see.
"How are we going to get it in his ear Tony?"
"One small flaw in my plan," Tony shrugged.
"If I show back up there as a Gunny, they'll get suspicious," he swore.
"Think I could pass for a Marine?" Tony questioned leaning back to enjoy his Chinese take-out for lunch.
"Let's shave your head and find out," Gibbs retorted, Tony nearly chocked on his food, he'd do a lot of things for his job, but his hair was part of who he was, just like his car.
"I was thinking more like merchant marine--"
"I've got a better idea, don't eat that," Gibbs ripped the Chinese container from his hand, and began to close the lid again as Tony pouted, "delivery boy."
"No Gibbs, come on, I haven't had that job since I was sixteen," Gibbs gave him an odd look at that response; "my parents made me earn my spending money."
"Go Tony," he handed him the bag of Chinese food and pointed toward the elevator.
With a quick and easy drop off of the earwig, Tony strolled back into HQ feeling revitalized after spending a few minutes in the car with the AC running full blast, not at all looking forward to entering the heat of hell once again.
Kate strolling in ten minutes later meant that they were hopefully going to be making a quick end to this ordeal. Without finding anything in the Captain's house, Kate and Tony followed Gibbs up to MTAC, while McGee went to help Abby hack into the Captain's computer.
When Gibbs began pushing the Captain to pressure his family's captor, Kate began to reprimand him before being sent a glare from her boss. An excruciating forty-five minutes later he contacted the Captain once again, with the location of his daughter.
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Kate and Tony were off to find the young girl, "My mom called said she will be here early next week," Tony informed her as they rode to the train station.
"And mine will be here in two days, which means you've got to get your crap out of my bedroom," she reminded, "are you sure you want to have them here to plan this? It's going to get blown way out of proportion."
"No it won't, we're doing small and intimate no matter what they say, remember?" he reminded, they'd already planned the major details, Kate was just looking for opinions of colors and possibly flowers, and since everything Abby suggested was black, she figured it'd probably be best to get approval from their mothers.
"I know, it's just between your three brothers and my three brothers and no sisters they are going to try to expand the wedding party beyond Gibbs and Abby, and then they'll want to invite our sixteenth cousins fourteenth removed and we'll really screwed because the hall only seats a hundred people," she rambled as he pulled the car into the station parking lot.
"I'm telling you, pick what you want, we'll call them up tell them we don't need their help, just be here in four weeks time if you want to see us married, otherwise everything is taken care of."
"You might be right," she sighed, as they began to search the train station.
"I'm never letting our kids out of my sight," she sighed, glancing left and right as they walked through the crowd of travelers.
"Kids?" he questioned startled, they'd never discussed kids, he knew they were going to have kids one day, but not for another two to three years. "How do you plan on doing that?" he asked when he realized she must not have heard his confusion.
"GPS strap to the ankle, audio and video surveillance built in to their clothes," she replied, glancing over his shoulder at him.
"I meant the becoming a parent part," he joked, winking behind his sunglasses at her.
"Ha-ha." Watching Kate with the young girl, Tony was beginning to rethink parenthood, although he wasn't sure this was the time to be thinking about it.
The entire team was taken with the little girl and her incredible bravery. Her ability to hear even the most miniscule sound made their jobs a little easier. With her description of the van, Tony was able to spot it and trace the man responsible for taking the Captain's family with the prints off Sandy's hair clips.
Kate continued to protest when Gibbs wanted to let Sandy listen to the live feed of her mother's torture. Sandy was able to help them figure out that it was a train yard where Mrs. Watson was being held. Once they'd gotten to the train yard, they split from Gibbs and searched for the captor. The take down had been relatively routine for them, and watching the family reunite was a pleasure for the entire team.
"So earlier when we were talking about kids…" Kate trailed off coming around Tony's desk and taking a seat on it, letting her legs dangle next to his arm.
"Yeah," he nodded, "I never really pictured it until I was at least 30," he smirked, "I'm not quite done being a kid myself."
"That's two years, Tony," she sighed dejected, "I was thinking within a year."
"Hey, this is still a federal office," Gibbs barked walking past them as Tony opened his mouth to answer, "and we've still got a case to finish."
"Gibbs, it's done, we offer Grayson a deal to roll on who hired him," Kate replied.
"I don't deal," Gibbs snapped heading to the back elevator, not allowing Kate a chance to answer.
"He doesn't deal?" she questioned Tony.
"Not when Grayson doesn't know who hired him," he replied with a smirk, "you want dinner?"
"Yeah," she smiled, "you still have the take-out menus in your desk?"
"Yep," he pulled the two menus out, "Happy Garden, or General Lee's?"
"Neither, let's go the money's being transferred back to DC as we speak," Gibbs rounded the corner again, both agents jumping up and grabbing their weapons and badges as they followed him to the front elevator.
No one had suspected that Captain Watson had been the man responsible for his own families kidnapping, but they'd quickly processed him and were finishing up their paper work by eight that evening.
McGee's promotion had been just as big a shock, leaving both Kate and Tony feeling a little less like the golden child as a new one was added to the mix. "So I'm one of you guys now? No more getting coffee, no more hazing?"
"Sure," they answered in unison, before giving him a smack upside the head and then celebrating with the rest of NCIS as the AC came on just in time for them to pack up and go home.
"Kate, McGee, DiNozzo get out of here," Gibbs ordered once he'd read the last report sent to his computer.
"See ya, tomorrow boss," Tony called as he and Kate exited, his arm slung over her shoulder, both their packs in his left hand.
"So about that dinner?" Tony questioned as they reached the parking lot.
"Pick up some food and meet me at the apartment," she requested, offering him a small peck on the lips, before lowering herself into her car.
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"Hi," he grinned entering the living room depositing his pack next to hers before heading to the kitchen with their dinner.
"Hi," she smiled brightly, he noticed she'd changed from her suit to jeans and a fitted t-shirt, and she'd removed all of her make-up, and pulled her hair back into a messy bun.
"So this kid thing?" he broached the topic carefully about half-way through their meal.
"This kid thing," she nodded, "I was thinking we could compromise," she shrugged, "wait a year after the wedding before we start trying?"
"Okay," he nodded, "are you sure?"
"Yeah, I mean most women, who've been on the pill as long as I have don't get pregnant within the first four to six months of going off the pill, so our compromise will put us hopefully conceiving a year and a half after were married, which would be half way between your choice and mine."
"And if it happens before that six months?" he glanced up from his chicken and rice.
"You'll be close enough to thirty," she shrugged eyeing him hopefully.
"Yeah," he nodded, offering a grin to let her know the deal worked for him, "seal it," he requested puckering his lips. She gave a chuckle, before leaning forward to place a small peck on his lips. "Oh, we can do better than that," his arm wrapped around her waist and he hauled her into his lap, planting his lips against hers.
"Umm, bedroom," she requested, when he broke from her lips and traveled down her neck.