Disclaimer: Meh. I'm bored with not owning NCIS. I wanna not own something else for a while.

Spoilers: Through the end of season 5, Judgment Day.

Summary: Tony works on fitting in aboard the USS Ronald Reagan, but gets confused about what has gotten him 'in.'

"Dude, ain't that Schnozz?"

Wright staggered and rubbed his arm where Gomez, his best friend since shipping aboard the USS Ronald Reagan, had unnecessarily punched him. "Who the fuck is Schnozz?"

"He was on our team the other day? When we needed a fifth guy?" Gomez ducked behind a lamppost for some inscrutable reason. "Turned out okay for a spook?"

A light bulb suddenly went off in Wright's head. "You mean DiNozzo? The NCIS guy?" For reasons he couldn't put past the amount of alcohol in his bloodstream, he tried to join Gomez in hiding behind the lamppost. "When did we decide to call him Schnozz?"

"I dunno. I thought his name sounded like nose and…y'know, I don't give a shit about him. I'm more interested in that hot Italian babe he's having dinner with."

"It's Italy. There's hot Italian babes everywhere." Wright winked at two passing, mildly attractive women to emphasize his point. After thirty-seven days at sea, he would be willing to settle for almost anything.

"Yeah, but if he knows one, she probably knows some others she can introduce us to." Gomez grabbed his chin and directed his head in the proper direction. "See?" He nodded, suddenly not quite as willing to settle as Gomez continued, "You just know a woman that fine has some fine-ass friends. We should go introduce ourselves."

"But…but…" Wright stared at DiNozzo and his dark-haired companion laughing as they sipped coffee from tiny cups in the open-air café across the street, feeling some awkwardness about approaching them. He finally got a hold of the excuse, "They're having dinner."

"Which just means she's not a hooker, because who the fuck has dinner with a hooker?" The fact that Gomez was now standing on the curb waiting for traffic to allow him to cross seemed to confirm his logic in Wright's mind. "We just go over, introduce ourselves and look real lonely. Ten bucks says she finds us some of her friends and…"

As an experiment, Wright released his grip on the lamppost and found that he might not be in any condition for the woman's friends, regardless of how hot they were. Why hadn't he thought of that before he'd started drinking? There was little chance if he couldn't stand up, much like the woman whose friends they were potentially trying to… He blinked, realizing that it was probably significant that DiNozzo and his companion were both standing. "Uh, I think they're leaving."

"Yeah, I see that. When is this fuckin' traffic gonna…damn it!" The couple disappeared only to walk out a door just to the side of the small courtyard. "C'mon, we'll just walk on this side until we can cross."

"Yuh-huh." Wright stumbled slightly as he followed Gomez along the sidewalk. He could certainly appreciate his friend's eagerness to meet the woman now that she was walking. She had nice legs. Nice everything, really. No wonder DiNozzo had his arm around her waist as they walked into an expensive hotel. "Uh, Freddie…"

Gomez took a step off the curb before dodging out of the way of a scooter. "Fuck. I knew we shoulda crossed earlier. Damn, though." He looked up at the high-rise hotel across the street. "Either Schnozz is rollin' in it or that chick is hot and rich."

"Uh…"

"Dude, come on. We gotta get back if we wanna catch the last liberty ship. No way in hell I'm gonna sleep on the pier and damned if I can afford a place like that." Wright was left rubbing his arm as Gomez gave him another friendly punch. "'Sides, you ain't exactly who I'd like to spend the night in a hotel with."

Tony casually did biceps curls in full view of the basketball court where he hoped he'd made an impression a few days previously. After over a month of being snubbed during the pick-up games that always seemed to be going on, his request to participate in a game with a group of low-ranking enlisted men had been accepted. He was hoping his aggressive drives to the hoop for easy lay-ups hadn't embarrassed too many of his new acquaintances; he wasn't sure how long he could handle the suspicious glances of everyone but the officers for the next…when was his next liberty? He hoped it would involve another fortuitous coincidence.

He smiled as he thought of the two nights in Rome, just as good as the one night in DC on the eve of his deployment. His duties aboard the Ronald Reagan included gathering intelligence and counterintelligence, so he was fairly certain that he could risk a social engagement under the guise of meeting a certain important contact, but there was no need to risk it if he could get away legitimately. He had the feeling she'd give him something to 'legitimize' communication to cover her own ass anyway, but…

He wasn't sure how many curls he'd done when Wright, one of the sailors he'd played with a few days before, interrupted his vivid ass-related thoughts, "Hey, DiNozzo, up for some four on four?"

"Yeah, sure," he replied, trying not to sound overeager. Basketball was a hell of a lot more fun than sitting in his small office poring over reports and waiting for sailors to report minor crimes to the resident flatfoot. He'd considered asking for a uniform to make himself less conspicuous, but he'd yet to reach that level of isolation. It would definitely be a welcome change to have some regular social contact that didn't occur through instant messenger; at least chatting with Abby and McGee had improved his typing. Continuing to smile as he jogged onto the court, he said, "I didn't even get a chance to show off my fade-away jumper last time."

"We're gonna need it, I think. We're playing some guys from the med bay and all the corpsmen on this damn boat are giants."

"They got nothin'." Tony did a quick lap around the court to warm up before shaking hands with Gomez and Turner, two of the other men he'd played with before. "We can take these guys, right?"

Although the game was still tight after ten minutes, the attitude remained relaxed, which Tony appreciated. He fired a bounce pass between the legs of an unwieldy guy who was all limbs and no skill, allowing Gomez to score easily. "Not bad for a civilian!"

"Hey, I ran the point at the Ohio State University!"

Gomez jogged backward toward the opposite hoop. "I knew you had game, man. And what I saw the other night just confirmed it."

Tony slapped haphazardly at the ball as the opposing player attempted to step around him, but his attention was focused on Gomez rather than the ball he had just knocked away. "What are you talking about?"

They ran down the court, Gomez evading defenders as he dribbled the recovered ball. "Wright and I saw you in Rome with that hot Italian chick you nailed."

He stopped dead just inside the arc, shocked that…no they couldn't have followed him. They'd probably just seen him by chance; he hadn't noticed the preponderance of sailors on the street until after they'd accepted an outdoor table, and they wouldn't have opted for something so public if it hadn't been safe. He weighed his options as Gomez pulled back, allowing the defense time to recover. Tony finally came up with a defense of his own, "I didn't nail some Italian broad."

"C'mon, man." Wright ran past and clapped him on the shoulder. "We saw her and there's no need to be ashamed."

Tony drifted back as Gomez passed him the ball and arced a graceful eighteen-footer through the net. There was no need to alienate the first people he'd met on the carrier that weren't shunning him as an outsider. And what kind of guy would he be if he didn't have the compulsion to brag about his sexual exploits? "I meant she wasn't Italian."

"Nice," Gomez said. "You sure she wasn't? She looked it."

"Trust me, I know."

There was a break in the conversation as the corpsman scored and celebrated. Gomez had to chase down the ball. "Whatever, man. Anyway, Wright and I were hoping she had some hot friends she could put us in touch with. Maybe if we end up in Rome again sometime soon?"

"I don't know if…" Tony stopped not wanting to say too much. There was bragging and then there was setting yourself up for pain down the road. He decided to keep it vague. "Well, she might not be in Rome the next time we are, but I can ask her to, uh, hook you guys up if she is."

"Sweet!" Gomez took a shot and missed badly, prompting Turner to slash in for the rebound.

As he dribbled around, he said, "I don't know if there's gonna be any liberty the next time we're in Rome. You guys hear about that rich Arab guy that got plugged outside some fancy hotel? Scuttlebutt is they think it might have been one of our guys."

"Good for whoever it was!" Wright proclaimed. "I heard the guy was rich because he was selling weapons to the Taliban or something. DiNozzo, you handle intelligence stuff. What'd you hear about it?"

Tony had been struck motionless. It had been naïve of him to think she'd made special arrangements just to see him, but…he shook his head and answered the question, "I've got an idea, but it's classified."

For a moment he was sure he'd blown his chance of ever being asked to play basketball with these guys again, but the distrustful looks quickly disappeared as Gomez passed him the ball and said, "Hey, that's good news then. If you know, the higher-ups know and that means we still get to meet your girlfriend's hot friends the next time we're in Rome!"

Tony grinned and shot, wondering exactly how an assassins and sailors party would work out. At least he could play basketball in the meantime.