Prologue

Timothy McGee or 'Probie' to his friends stood in the middle of the bullpen and handed out the mail that had come in that morning. Gibbs, Gibbs, Tony, Kate, Gibbs……..

Kate sniffed into her tissues and Tim rolled his eyes as Tony gave him grief about never having been sake bombing. Whatever. Lots of people had never been sake bombing. Seriously it was amazing Tony ever graduated College at all if his exploits were anything to go by. Tim looked down at the single envelope he had left in his hand. Huh.

"This one is just addressed to "NCIS Special Agent." Tim peered at it again closely in case he had missed something.

Tony grinned and reached over snatching it out of McGee's hand.

"I think that's mine, McGee. Huh? "

Tim frowned across at daily tormentor "How do you know? "

Tony flipped the envelope over and waggled the envelope at McGee showing off the scarlet lipstick kiss sealing the envelope.

"I recognize the lips. And the scent"

Tony dramatically wafted the still sealed envelope across in front of his nose as Tim part frowned and part pouted at him.

Tim could feel his frustration growing. When would Tony stop jerking him around? He had told himself just last night that he wouldn't put up with it anymore. He was a part of this team and had been for a while now. It was time he stood up for himself. Besides it was just an envelope.

Tim leaned over and quickly snatched the envelope back from Tony.

"Well finder's keepers" Tim said with forced smiling conviction.

Tony looked up in surprise as Tim quickly stepped away and tore the envelope open with much more force than he had intended at his bravado. And froze as a fine white powder puffed out of the envelope.

"Tony?" Tim's voice was questioning and far softer than it should be as he looked at Tony with big bewildered eyes. His mind ran through a thousand scenarios in that split second, everything suddenly speeding up as his heart pounded painfully in his chest. That wasn't what he thought it was …was it? Tony would know. Tony was Senior Field Agent he would tell him it was all a mistake. A joke. Maybe it was one of Tony stupid pranks? Oh God please…….

Tony's heart stopped and everything seemed to slow down to a freeze frame as Tim called out to him with the white powder still escaping out of the torn envelope into the air in front of Tim's face. McGee, his gentle patient Probational Agent in his ugly slightly ill fitting suit with his too young to be taken serious face ……….NO!

Gibbs shook his head at his two bickering agents as they teased each other. It was good to see McGee starting to stand up to Tony though. It showed he was building some confidence. Besides it wasn't good in the long term for the team to have Tony lording over the youngest member all the time.

Gibbs looked up just in time to see his two agents standing only a few feet from each other staring in shock as a fine white powder dispersed into the air around McGee.

Holy Shit!

Bio Hazard. Contamination. Everything they had been warned about had come to Washington. Had come to his team.

Gibbs could feel the adrenaline kick in immediately, his heart hammering as he surged to his feet and leapt onto his desk. He stuck his fingers into his mouth and whistled grabbing everyone's attention.

"We've opened a letter with white powder. Use the southeast corridor to the holding room. You all know the drill." Gibbs' voice told everyone the seriousness of the situation in an instant.

There was movement immediately as everyone started vacating their desks and moved away from the site of the contamination. McGee.

Tony was carefully handing McGee a waste paper bin to collect any residue as Kate picked up her phone to issue the alert.

"Letter opened in Special Agent Gibbs's office dispersed a fine white powder. Initiating bio-attack procedures. Third floor is evacuating."

Gibbs could see McGee's expressive eyes locked onto his looking for some sort of reassurance. He needed to keep him thinking, doing. That was the best way to keep someone calm. Especially someone like McGee.

"McGee, are you up on procedures?" Gibbs barked the order as if it was just one of their regular training drills.

McGee nodded nervously, searching frantically through his memorized regulations for the ones that fit as Tony gently handed him a bottle of water to pour over his head. McGee's hands shook as he tipped the water over his head still searching for an answer for Gibbs. Think Tim think!

"Yeah…… we um….shower, burn our clothes, get our blood tested. Nobody leaves the building until the substance is identified except… except…."

Tim looked up from his rough bath to look at Tony as he trailed off trying not the use the words victim or patient or any of the other thousand horrible words screaming through his sub conscious at that moment.

Tony could see the rising panic in Tim's eyes and he gave him a big goofy grin trying to distract and reassure at the same time.

"Lucky us! Looks like we all win a free trip to Bethesda to be pricked like a pin cushion."

Kate glanced up at the air vents. "They've shut down the air. Let's hit the showers, McGee"

Tony winked lasciviously at McGee "See it's your lucky day"

Tim smiled nervously back at him and still dripping headed towards the showers while trying to stay away from the rest of the team.

Tony shot a look across at Gibbs grim face and was suddenly glad that McGee had his head down.

(Please review and let me know if you're interested and reading. I have used some actual dialogue from the show in this chapter. Thank you to bananacosmic who inspired me with her what if SWAK fic......and her other marvelous Tony/Tim friendships of course. Precious Pup)