A/N: This is a challenge response, from the user starlightscribe. This is my first time writing for a challenge. Some of the major requirements are that the team thinks McGee is fine after the Michelle Lee incident; McGee feels left out, so he goes out for drinks and meets a girl; try to include Jethro the dog as a somewhat major character; the only people that know are Jimmy and/or Ducky and the people in HR. The very last chapter will include all the information about this story.

Note: A major death of an OC will take place sometime during the story. The rating will go up when I post chapter 3.

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that are on the show that are mentioned, the. Will go show, or the quote. The characters belong to Bellisario Productions, the show belongs to CBS, and the quote belongs to Mitch Albom.

|NCIS|

"The news of life is carried via telephone. A baby's birth, a couple engaged, a tragic car accident on a late night highway— most milestones of the human journey, good or bad, are foreshadowed by the sound of a ringing."

-Mitch Albom

|NCIS|

Chapter 1: "People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for."

McGee was mad at everybody right now. He was mad at the director for putting the team through the spy game. He was mad at Gibbs for letting the director put his team through it. He was mad at Tony and Ziva because he knew they were hiding something from him, and he was really mad at Michelle Lee. Because of her, the agency's reputation was on thin ice.

Now, Langer and Michelle are dead. He wished that all of the madness would stop. He thought Michelle was into him, but she was probably just faking it to get even closer to the team. All he wanted to do is get home, lay on his couch, and watch some TV.

He walked in to his apartment to find Jethro laying on the couch. It has been Jethro's favorite spot ever since he introduced the dog to his apartment. At first, he didn't want Jethro on the couch. It wasn't that he didn't like pets on his couch (he had blanket on it),he just didn't want to sit on Jethro by accident. He had grown up with small animals. Sarah had had a bunny rabbit; he had owned a guinea pig; his mom had a ferret; his dad had a small dog; and they even had a hairless cat at one point. He used to sit on them by accident. He gets people who don't want their pets on the furniture. It's just because they don't want sit on them by accident.

He fed Jethro, and flipped through the TV channels. When he couldn't find anything on, he slipped his shoes back on, and yelled out to Jethro that he would eventually be back.

He walked two blocks where he finds the bar. He walked in and went straight to the bar keep. "Tim, is that you?"

He looked up to see Colin.

Colin walked over to him and said, "What case brings you here this time?"

McGee responded, "Well remember I told you about Michelle?" Colin nods his head. "Well my team went on a mission today and to make a long story short, she was killed by a sniper. It is tough time for everybody, and it seems like the team is not including me in information about the case, because although I had my report done, they looked like they were still working on a lead."

Colin nodded and angled his body away from McGee, so he can't see what he is mixing. Then he put a tall skinny glass on the counter, McGee eyed it suspiciously. Colin rolled his eyes and said, "It's safe trust me. It's a good balance of strong and sweet."

McGee took a sip and muttered "Not bad," to himself. When he finished the first one, he asked for a second. As Colin put the second one in front of him, McGee heard a feminine voice next him say, "Hey, Cols. Fix me up one of those will ya? I just dumped that no good boyfriend of mine."

Colin nodded, and Tim turned around to see who it was. He turned and saw a pretty women. He told himself "A beautiful voice like that has to belong to that beautiful woman."

She smiles at him and says, "Hi."

McGee, being the gentlemen that he is, stuck out his hand for her to shake and said, "Hi, my name is Tim."

She shook his hand and said, "Nice to meet you, Tim. My name is Skylar."

"Nice to meet you too, Skylar." McGee liked the way her name rolled off his tongue. He waited for her to finish her first drink, and to start the second one before he started his second one.

Two drinks later, he looked down to his watch and noticed it was almost time for the band to start playing.

They each had four glasses of the drink that Colin served them. Now they are drunk enough to not be able to drive, but not drunk enough to forget tonight. Right now, they can't stop touching each other. Tim leans over to her ear and says, "One more drink for both of us. Then we can go to my apartment and have some wine."

He had his answer by the way her eyes lit up. They finished their fifth glass and waved good-bye to Colin as they left.

A/N: A little slow and boring, I know, but I will make it up in the next chapters. Until then, please review and let me know what you think.

-Kayla :)