A/N: This is my first shot at an NCIS fanfic. I've been trying to get one out because I thought of one of the confessions I put in here and REALLY wanted to use it, but it took a long time for me to decide on a story format. However, it's here. It dug at me to think of confessions for everyone, but I wrote this randomly in the wee hours of the morning when I realized how to say my one idea that I liked. I hope you enjoy it!!!!

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Tony signed off on the evidence he needed to take back to Gibbs. Thanking Ducky, he made to leave. An unusual scene, however, caught his eye. Everyone who could possibly be construed as a part of Gibbs's "team", excepting Gibbs himself, had found their way down to Autopsy at once. Well, you didn't get chances like this very often.

"Wow! Director Vance, fancy seeing you here! It's not often that my path crosses with that of the Director of NCIS."

"DiNozzo, shut up." Vance went back to discussing something with the Autopsy Gremlin, and Tony mentally…and not for the first time…wondered exactly how much Vance likened himself to Kojak.

"Well at least everyone else is glad to be here! Hey, why don't we play a game?"

"A game, Tony?"

"Yes, Timmy, a game, one of those 'getting to know you' type of games."

"DiNozzo, I told you to shut up. Do I need to call Gibbs?"

"Uh, no sir. I just thought that it would be a wonderful chance for you, not being entirely familiar with all of us, to get a better knowledge of your surroundings and the people working under you. Of course, if you wish to continue in ignorance and blatantly disregard all of our attempts of friendliness towards you, I think we'll all understand."

Vance gritted his teeth, snapping the toothpick lodged between them. He wanted to go back upstairs. In fact, he wasn't quite sure what had possessed him to make the trip to Autopsy. A phone call should have sufficed. However, the Director's Handbook said that face-to-face communication with employees was a good thing and boosted intra-agency morale and stuff like that. It also said to get to know people….ugh.

"Make it quick, DiNozzo."

"Of course, Director." Tony was beaming. This was gonna be fun.

"Oh! I know a great game!" Ziva said, practically jumping up and down.

"We're not playing another one of your knife and hand games, Ziva," Tony said, scared for his digits.

"No, no; it's a game I learned at summer camp. Everyone tells a secret about their self, and the person who won't tell theirs gets kicked in the back by everyone else!"

No one questioned the stipulation; Ziva grew up freaky, bottom line. They would just have to rein her in if someone refused to play; it was an unspoken agreement.

"Umm…okay! So let's get in a circle everyone," Tony said, ready to hear any sort of juicy gossip. When his time came…well, he'd see about that. "Okay, anything you admit here, stays here. No gossiping about it and no consequences or anything like that. You first, Probie-san. Then, we'll move clockwise." He nudged Tim's right arm, indicating that the game should start.

Tim muttered some curse words. He hadn't thought of anything to say yet, aside from one thing, one thing no one had ever known. A whole minute passed with him frantically trying to come up with something else…anything.

"We're waiting, Timothy," Ducky said, and Tim winced at the irony of Ducky becoming impatient with someone.

He tried to search his reserves of dark memories, coming up only with his fear of heights…which wasn't a secret…and how terrible a kiss had once gone…and no one was to ever hear about that! He decided he had to come clean.

"Okay, I've got it."

"About time," Abby muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Well, I guess I'll confess that I didn't go to M.I.T. because I love computers. In fact, I don't get what the big deal about the place is. I didn't even like computers and science until I was sixteen…I'm an language arts/social studies person, not math and science. But…. I heard about the big M.I.T. place, and I wantedtogotherecuzitwassortamynamespelledbackwards."

Everyone looked at him questioningly. He'd released a lot of breath while he was mumbling, making whatever it was that he said entirely incoherent.

"What was that, Probie?"

"I only wanted to go to M.I.T. and started learning about computers so I could go there because I thought it was cool that it spelled Tim backwards." Tim quirked both eyebrows and looked at the floor, incredibly embarrassed.

"Wow," was the general response to his admission.

"Well, onto Ziva!" Tim said, realizing he could totally deflect this incident, especially since there were so many confessions to come!

"Well, I once, as a young assassin, failed to kill a man with a paperclip. He was rather resilient, and I resorted to using my knife." When no one said anything, and she could no long take the silence, she widened her eyes and exclaimed, "What? I don't screw up that often; it's all I could think of! Abby, you're next!"

"Oh, well, umm. Yeah. My parents aren't really deaf. I just say that to people now to explain why I can sign because the real reason I can is I didn't want to have to take French or Spanish in high school, since it's so cliché to speak either in New Orleans, so I begged the administration to let me learn sign language instead and be tested at the end of term. That way, I got out of a boring class and having to learn a dumb language. I realized how lame that sounded after high school, though, and just started telling people my parents were deaf. Since they're dead, I didn't think it really mattered."

"That is the sickest and saddest thing I've ever heard," Vance declared. "Dr. Mallard, please take your turn."

"I once killed a woman. Your turn, Director."

*five minutes of blinking later*

"I really hate being the Director here and want to go home to my wife and kids on the West Coast."

"We already knew that!" everyone shouted in unison.

"Oh, well, uhm…well, oh! Yes. I know. I always keep a toothpick in my mouth for a reason other than looking super cool—" he waited for the laughing to die away, expediting thins with his "I can fire you" face "—it's a means of protection. I've been in some pretty nasty scraps over the last iced donut in a bakery. It generally gets pretty ugly, but ever since I've started keeping a toothpick handy, I've always come out on top."

"Remind me to never scrap with that man," Tony whispered to Tim.

"Jimmy, it's your turn," Ziva piped in.

"Oh, me? Well, I…uh…well, that is….umm…this once….well….We have total immunity from consequence, right?" There was a chorus of affirmatives. "Well, Agent Lee and I had a sort of….thing…going on…..all over headquarters…like….everywhere."

"We know!"

"Oh. Really? Because I thought Michelle and I did a great job of—"

"No, Mr. Palmer, you did not."

"Right, Dr. Mallard. Well, I have a sort of foot fetish?"

"We know!"

"Damnit! Oh, yeah. Okay. Big one. I actually enjoy working with the dead bodies."

Though it had only confirmed everyone's suspicions, they were all afraid of what other weirdness may spew from the younger man's mouth. Leon Vance just stared at him like a freak.

"Tony, go!"Abby said quickly, hoping to keep Palmer at bay.

"I have no secrets, you all should know that. Like McGee said, he knows more about my sex life than his own."

"Oh really, Tony? You're not just saying that to get out of playing?" Gibbs spoke up from his quiet corner. He'd come in while everyone was busy blinking at Ducky's confession. He was about to intervene, concluding they'd come down with spontaneous/simultaneous cases of Tourettes Syndrome, when that damned Leon the Jackass began to talk.

"Boss, what a pleasant surprise! We were just finishing up a teamwork-enforcing exercise; it's one of those things we started doing while you were in Mexico. All right, great job people. Let's get back to work now," Tony said, clapping his hands together and trying to sound confident.

"Oh, I don't believe you were finished yet, Tony. Why don't you share your secret?" Gibbs, finishing his spill, caught Palmer's eye and gave him a disgusted look, causing the Palmer to vocally whimper.

"Um…well, I cry sometimes."

"Why?" was the universal answer.

"Er…certain movies…."

"Like?" Tim pressed.

"Bambi, The Sound of Music, and this commercial where the baby polar bear is on this melting chunk of ice with nowhere else to go."

"And?" Gibbs said knowingly.

"Wild Wild West with Will Smith."

"I don't even want to know," Tim said definitely.

"Trust me, Tim, you don't," Gibbs reassured him.

"Okay," Tony said and turned around to face Gibbs, "what's your big secret, Boss?"

"I was secretly ecstatic when I accidentally got that honey dust in the mail for Christmas."

"Really?" Tony asked, quirking an eyebrow in utter confusion.

"No! Now get the hell back to work! Where's that evidence I sent you down here for, anyway?"

"Right here," Tony turned to get it from Ducky's desk, receiving a hard smack on the head.

"That was for wasting my time having to come down here after you."

Tony looked down, almost looking sincerely sorry. "Ow!" he suddenly screamed. "What was that one for?!"

"I'm sure it was somehow your fault I had to listen to all of that crap."

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From Your Fearless Leader:

Thanks for reading! Lemme know what you thought, please. What you liked/didn't like, what could have been better, etc. That way, I can work on pumping out even better stories for you to read!!!

Oh, by the way, the first person to guess which confession was the driving force behind the story can give a story idea for their own personal one-shot written by me! [But not all hope is lost for those who do not win; that story will incorporate another tiny idea I want to use and you will have a chance to guess what it was for the same prize! (Yeah, I think so much of my writing that I am convinced you want me to write something for you)]