Chapter One: Boyfriends and Homa-Boys
"Tim?" Emily called softly, giving the door one gentle knock before taking a step away. After waiting a few beats for someone to answer the door, Tony poked her in the shoulder. "What?" the brunette asked exasperatedly, turning to him.
"Where is he?"
"I don't know." She rolled her eyes.
Disbelief flashed across Tony's face. "Well, you're his girlfriend, Ems. How can you not know where your boyfriend is?"
Emily threw him an angry glance. "Tim is not my boyfriend. We're dating. But we're not… exclusive, or anything. He can date if he wants, and so can I."
"But you don't," Tony inferred.
"What?"
"You guys can date other people if you want, but you don't. Because you don't want to," he elaborated. Emily looked disgusted. "Don't you have the key to his apartment yet?"
"Am I his girlfriend?" she asked angrily, rounding on the older man. Remembering how many firearms she had on her person, Tony shook his head meekly. "So do I have the key to his apartment yet?" Another meager shake. "Okay. There you go."
"You frighten me, Emily Saunders," Tony muttered, as the door to McGee's apartment opened and a petite brunette answered the door. She was young, beautiful, and wearing one of Tim's MIT tee shirts. Okay, so maybe they weren't exclusive yet. Emily sputtered to get something out.
"Oh, hi." The girl forced a smile. "Tim's still asleep. I can wake him up if you guys want." She rolled her eyes and leaned against the doorframe. "He'd usually be awake by now, but he had a long night." She chuckled quietly.
"I… um… uh…" Emily's teeth clamped down on her bottom lip and she turned to Tony for help. "Tony, um, why don't you go ahead?"
"Sure." He grinned and skirted around Emily. "Hey, Sara." His familiar smiles with the other brunette only served to lessen Emily's resolve. Tony knew about her and didn't tell me?! "This is Emily. She's new with the team."
The girl poked her head around Tony to give her a friendly smile. "Hi, Emily. It's nice to meet you. I'm Sara."
And then everything clicked, and Emily felt very stupid. Tim had mentioned that he had a sister named Sara, and from the brief glimpse of a photo she had seen of the sibling, she was able to determine that this girl was Sara. She was very glad she hadn't said anything, although her behavior alone was odd enough to make people guess what she had been thinking.
Emily let out an awkwardly loud laugh; the other two flinched visibly. "Oh! His sister! Tim told me about you!" Shoving Tony aside, she brushed a piece of hair out of her face and held out her hand for Sara to shake. "It's nice to meet you; I'm Emily Saunders. Tim talks about you all the time." She noticed the confused look on Sara's face. "Like, in a good way, not a bad way. I hear you're an English major!"
"Yeah, I am…" Sara nodded awkwardly.
"So was I!" Emily exclaimed, suddenly her bubbly, perky self again.
"You weren't in a sorority, too, were you?" the college student asked tentatively.
Emily gasped. "Ohmigod, how can you tell? You aren't in one, too, are you? I was a Delta Tau."
"Uh, no, I'm not in a sorority," (in fact, Sara seemed a little disgusted just by the thought), "you just strike me as someone who was. Or maybe still is." Tony bit back a laugh.
"Oh." Emily giggled. "Weird, huh?" She craned her neck to see into the apartment. "So Tim's still asleep, huh?" Sara nodded. "Up writing all night again?"
The younger McGee's eyes widened. "Yeah. How'd you know?"
"Just a hunch." The two young women shared an eye roll, and Sara immediately forgave Emily for being in a sorority in college. "You don't mind if I wake him up, do you?"
Shrugging, Sara shook her head. "Be my guest."
Tony followed Emily into the apartment, all the way to the bedroom door, which was still closed. Knowing that McGee would wake up the moment he heard footsteps on his floor, Emily began removing her shoes.
"You must be intimately familiar with this part of the apartment," Tony observed quietly.
"Don't be a lewd jerk, Tony," Emily spat. "I haven't slept with Tim; I'm not a slut like some girls." She shared a What are you going to do? look with Sara and quietly opened the door. Sure enough, there was Tim McGee, passed out in his bed after an all-nighter of writing. Being something of a writer herself, Emily almost felt bad waking him up.
Almost.
She tiptoed over to the bed, leaned across carefully, getting her mouth as close to his ear as possible, and blew as hard as she could. The minute he felt it, McGee jumped, but Emily was fast and jumped on top of him before he could register what was happening. It only took a spilt second for him to realize that it was Emily, when he saw the brown-haired someone grinning down at him from her perched.
"You're about seven, you know that?" he asked blearily, grabbing her and beginning to tickle her, going right for her weak spots. Emily shrieked and kicked her feet in the air, all the while trying to force out sentences. It was hard for her to breathe, though, let alone get enough air in her lungs for words.
"Tim, Tony came with me," she finally panted, biting her bottom lip to holding in the giggles that still wanted to come out.
McGee shot up and looked over at the door. Sure enough, Tony and Sara stood side-by-side, trying to hold back large, amused grins as they pretended to feign disinterest. They both also looked a little disturbed by such a blatant display of affection. He looked back to Emily with a questioning glance.
"We're on call today," she explained. She didn't need to know his question to know the answer.
"And…?"
"And we got a call."
McGee groaned and fell back onto his pillows. "Do I have to go?"
"Yep. You already promised Gibbs you would be there today."
"I can't pretend to be sick?"
"When have you ever faked illness in your whole life?" Sara asked, knitting her eyebrows together angrily. "I'm the one who does that."
"Yeah, you could never pull it off," Emily agreed. "I'm a good actress and I can't do it."
"I could too!"
The other three in the room exchanged a glance and turned back to him, chorusing in unison, "No you couldn't."
-x-x-
"Was it really necessary to come to my apartment?" Tim asked, blinking back the morning sunlight as he gulped down his gallon of coffee from Ambiguous Donuts, which had since been renamed once more. Now it was Donuts of DC.
"You weren't answering your cell phone," Emily explained, hanging her arm out the open window from her spot in the passenger's side of the car. Tony was driving them directly to the crime scene. "Why weren't you answering you phone, Tim?"
"I turn it off when I write."
"Mm. Good idea. Maybe I should start doing that. People always text me when I'm writing, and I feel too guilty to ignore them." Her cell phone buzzed from the cup holder. "Speaking of texting…" she muttered, glancing at the message that flashed across the screen of her BlackBerry. "Oh, my God!" she giggled, shaking her head and quickly typing something back.
"I can't believe you actually bought one of those things," Tony muttered disgustedly.
"Please, Tony." She rolled her eyes. "You would have too, if I hadn't done it first."
"Maybe we should just be glad Emily finally joined us in the twenty-first century," McGee added teasingly. "I mean, it took a while to convince her that people didn't share phone lines anymore, and you could buy a phone at Target instead of renting one from the phone company."
"Why, Timothy McGee," Emily cooed in a Southern belle accent, "I do believe you are getting a sense of humor."
"That's because of me!" Tony crowed triumphantly.
"Nope, because of me," Emily retorted. They both glanced over their shoulders at McGee, who was sitting in the back seat. "Our little boy's all grown up, Tony." Emily pretended to sniffle.
"I just wish we could get him married off," Tony grumbled. "Or laid, at least."
-x-x-
Gibbs, Ziva, Ducky, and Jimmy were all ready at the crime scene when the other three arrived. Tony and Emily easily sauntered over to Gibbs and began speaking with him in low tones, but McGee hung back a little, afraid of his boss's backlash. Eventually, he stopped examining the car hood and made his way over to Gibbs.
"You turned your phone off, McGee," he observed mildly.
The younger special agent hung his head. "Yeah, I did, Boss."
When Gibbs turned to him, McGee expected his eyes to be blazing and for him to chew him out. Instead, he found Gibbs' eyes passive.
"Don't let it happen again," Gibbs commanded, quickly raising his hand and slapping him on the back of the head a little harder than possible.
"Ow." McGee rubbed the back of his head, but pursed his lips to keep from saying anything he might regret.
"Go get to work," Gibbs commanded.
Emily smiled sympathetically and rubbed him comfortingly on the arm as he came to stand beside her. "Poor baby. Need a hug?"
Tim frowned. "No."
"It's your fault. You have a job besides writing, you know. If you wanted to stay up until all hours of the night writing and then sleep all day, you should quit NCIS."
He rolled his eyes, though he wasn't frustrated at her, just the truth she always seemed to manage to uncover. "You know, I think you should try to be a little more honest with people about your opinions," he retorted sarcastically.
"Would you rather I lied to you?"
Pausing to contemplate the question, Tim frowned. "No. I appreciate your honesty."
"Then can I be honest with you about that tie?" she asked hopefully. "It's kinda fugly."
"Homa-boy don't think so," Tim replied comically. Emily struggled very hard to hide her amusement, but she couldn't keep a loud snort from escaping from her nose. Her laugher was contagious and soon Tim was nearly doubled up with laughter as well.
"McGee! Saunders! Is there something funny I don't know about?"