Maggie pulled into the Lowe's parking lot. She smiled at the familiar blue letters up on the sign. Most women loved to go into malls and go shopping, which Maggie did like as well, but Lowe's was top on her list of places to shop. She was always finding something to fix or improve around her house. When she moved to the Washington DC area from Boston, her criteria in a new house was simple; it had to be a fixer upper. Besides that, as long as it had a large garage or barn type structure, she'd be happy. That and being close to her son when he was transferred to Quantico were why she was pulling in to a parking spot next to a grey Ford 250 pickup at Lowe's. She was beginning one of many projects in her new house.

First on her list was to get fixtures for her master bathroom shower. And just like the Lowe's back in Boston, finding someone to help her when she needed help was next to impossible. She looked up and down the aisle; but the only other person in the aisle was another customer looking at copper piping. Sighing, Maggie walked over towards the Moen showerhead that she needed and tried to reach it. Even standing on her tip toes, she couldn't reach it.

"Friggin figures." She muttered to herself cursing her 5'3" height not helping her to reach the shelf. She moved her feet to step up on the lower shelf to give her a little more height to reach what she wanted. Her fingers just touched the edge of the box and she stretched to get a better hold on the corner of the box.

Gibbs looked up from the length of copper pipe he was holding and watched as the woman at the end of the aisle stretched up to reach the box on the shelf. He noticed her out of the corner of his eye when she walked past him. He rarely missed a red headed woman when she walked by. His weakness and curse he'd tell himself. Her red hair was pulled back into a pony tail which swung down over her shoulder as she reached up for the designer showerhead. He smirked when he thought of people who paid for all the fancy add-ons in bathroom. You just need a working shower head in a normal tub, not a whirlpool bath or fancy jets to get the job done. He looked over at her again while her back was turned to him. She was on the shorter side, he guessed she was shorter than Ziva, and her hair was the color red that couldn't be found in a salon, similar to what Shannon's had been. The woman had on a pair of work boots that had paint splatters on them, just as the well-worn jeans she was wearing that hugged her backside in just the right way. Realizing where his brain was leading his traitorous body, Gibbs looked back down at the pipe in his hand. He smirked; Ducky would have a field day with this scenario. But after things hadn't worked out with Samantha Ryan, he'd decided that enough was enough. He'd had his moment in the sun with love and 3 failed divorces were enough to tell him he wasn't meant to find anyone else.

"Just. A. Little. More." Maggie closed her eyes and reached as high as she could, but she lost her hold on the part of the shelf and lost her balance.

Gibbs heard the woman gasp and looked up just as she was losing her balance. He dropped the copper pipe with a clang and rushed over to grab the falling woman. He grabbed her under the arms just as she began to fall.

"You okay?" he asked as he turned her around to make sure she hadn't hurt herself.

Maggie looked up at her rescuer. She felt her cheeks turning red with embarrassment about falling, but now they were turning a deeper red as she looked up into the most amazing blue eyes she'd ever seen. When she didn't answer right away, the man's eyes widen a little and Maggie shook her head.

"You aren't okay?" he asked again.

Maggie shook her head again. "No, I'm fine." She covered. "I just feel stupid."

The man with the amazing eyes gave her a half smile that made her blush even harder.

"They do have people that can help you reach things." He told her.

Maggie smiled back at him. "But they never seem to be around."

"Nope, they don't. Guess it's a good thing I was though."

Maggie realized that the man was still holding on to one of her arms and looked down at his hand.

Gibbs realized he was still holding on to the woman's arm and let go.

"Do you need me to get that for you?" Gibbs asked seeing that the woman hadn't managed to get the shower head she'd wanted.

"Yeah, sure that'd be great." Maggie stepped to move out of the way and stepped right into the man as he moved forward. Her face pressed up quickly into his chest and she noticed that the sweatshirt he had on smelled like sawdust.

They both smiled and stepped back giving each other some room.

Gibbs reached up and grabbed the box that the woman was trying to reach and brought it down to her.

"Here ya go." He smiled. He was caught momentarily by the sea green color of her eyes. He started to hand her the box and then pulled it back when she took it. "I'm Jethro by the way."

Maggie had her hand on the box and gave it a little tug. "Well thank you for saving my…butt Jethro." She smiled at him. "I'm Maggie. Maggie Sullivan."

"Well Maggie Sullivan." Gibbs began "Are you going to need anything else from that shelf."

God that smirk, Maggie said to herself as she turned her head to look back up at the shelf.

"No, I think that was all I needed from there."

Her inner voice was screaming to tell him she needed seventeen different things so that he wouldn't walk away.

"Okay then Maggie Sullivan." Gibbs hoped she'd say she needed him to reach for anything else, any reason to stand here a few more minutes. He'd noticed that when her blush faded she had freckles across the bridge of her nose and she smelled like she had on some kind of floral perfume.

"Thank you again, Jethro…" Maggie tipped her head when she said his name to see if he'd offer up his last name.

He smiled his crooked half smile and turned and went back to the pipe he'd dropped. Maggie watched as he bent over and noticed that the backside was almost as nice as the topside. Why was it men looked so damned good when they went grey? She realized she had been staring longer than she should have when Jethro turned and caught her staring. Quickly she turned around and walked off in the other direction.

Gibbs quirked an eyebrow when he looked up and saw Maggie had been staring at his backside. He repaid the favor by watching hers again as she walked away.

"Really." Maggie chastised herself for getting caught checking the man out. She was 45 years old, not some teenage girl drooling over the high school quarterback. She shook her head to get the images out of her head and proceeded to go pick up her tile order in that department.

Having finished getting the items he needed, Gibbs walked over to the self-check out aisle to pay for his purchases. Normally he hated this aisle, but there was only one cashier and there was a long line there. He pressed the button on the screen and waited for the next instruction. He'd wished there were more cashiers and fewer computers to take care of this. No matter how hard McGee tried to bring him into this century, he'd rather not. Impatiently he tried to move the copper pipe past the scanner to get the price. He muttered a few choice words when the scanner wouldn't pick up the bar code.

"My turn to rescue you?"

Gibbs looked up to see Maggie standing there holding a box of tiles in front of her.

"Please."

Maggie pushed the box of tiles with the shower head resting on top at Gibbs to hold while she took the pipe and turned it in front of the scanner. A tiny chirp emitted from the machine and showed the price on the screen.

"Cash or credit?" she read the screen to him.

"Cash."

Maggie pressed the green button and stepped aside so that Gibbs could pay. She reached for the box and he shook his head. He shifted the box to his hip, reached into his pocket and pulled out the bill he needed and stuck it into the machine which promptly spit it back out. Maggie let out a quiet laugh and took the bill from him.

"Let me." She ran the bill over the side of the counter to flatten it out and inserted it into the slot. The register recognized the money and spit out the change.

"Thanks." Gibbs said as he pocketed the change. He held Maggie's box of tiles out so that she could scan her packages and waited while she completed paying for them.

"I can take them from here." She reached out for them but Gibbs held them out of her reach.

"The least I can do." He said and began walking with her to the double doors. "Where are you parked?"

"Over there, next to the grey pick up."

Maggie watched the smirk appear again.

"Next to me." He told her.

Gibbs put his purchase in the back of his truck and waited for Maggie to open the back of her Jeep Wrangler and noticed the Massachusetts plates.

"Long way from home to pick up some tiles." He commented as he placed the box in the back.

"Just moved here a few weeks ago." Maggie answered as she shut the back of the jeep.

"Work?"

"Yes and no."

"Well which is it? Yes or no?" Gibbs leaned against the back bumper of his truck.

Maggie couldn't help but be intrigued by this man leaning against his truck, arms folded across his chest. She did see that there was no wedding ring or tell tale indentation that he'd just taken one off for a little while.

"My son is a Marine and was just stationed to Quantico. He's here for EOD training."

"Explosives huh?"

Maggie smiled at Gibbs' knowing what EOD was.

"Marine?" she smiled.

"Yes ma'am."

They stood smiling at each other for an awkward moment.

"He a Marine because of his dad?" Gibbs wanted to smack the back of his own head for asking that question.

Maggie shook her head. "No, his dad was a Boston cop."

"Was?"

"Was." Maggie began to answer when his cell phone went off.

"Yup..Gibbs."

Hmm, so that's his last name; Maggie said to herself as she watched him take a small notebook out of his back pocket and a pen to write down some information.

"I'm on my way." Gibbs ended his call and closed his phone. He tore out the sheet of paper he'd been writing on and handed it to Maggie. Scrawled in surprisingly need printing was his name and two phone numbers, one with a C for cell and one for H for home.

Maggie looked up at him questioningly from the paper.

"In case you need help with those tiles." Gibbs smiled.

Maggie reached out and grabbed the notebook and pen and gave him her phone numbers and handed the notepad back to him.

"In case you have any problems at the self check-out again."

They each got into their respective cars with Gibbs leaving first, but not before giving her a slight wave of his hand. Maggie felt the blush creep up her cheeks again. Good God what was wrong with her. She'd just picked up a guy at Lowes…she laughed as she put her car in gear….or had he picked her up?