Okay, I wrote this entire thing on my phone so we'll see how that goes. I've never written Ellick before (Ellie Bishop Nick Torres) and I honestly couldn't stand Ellie until like half a season ago. Now look where we are...Hopefully the formatting is all correct. We're testing out the fanfiction app's ability to publish stories I guess.Enjoy, all you Ellick fans! (And don't worry Tiva fans, Tiva is still my favorite thing on the planet and I have a gazillion stories to write for them, just hardly any time...)Tag to 16x05.

"That must have been when I unplugged too," Torres was saying. "Oh, you know, for cooler reasons...in a completely different location..."

Ellie shot him a glare, her eyes flicking to McGee who had looked up from his work to glance between the two newer agents. Torres simply smiled cheekily. Ellie's warning stare softened as the two locked eyes.

McGee had to fight the urge to roll his eyes as he watched the exchange. "You guys really expect me to believe that?" he said with a hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

"What?" Ellie asked innocently, breaking her eye contact with Nick and turning away to hide the blush that had come across her face.

Torres snuck back to his desk and took a seat, plopping his feet up next to his keyboard and attempting to look relaxed and casual. Unfortunately for him, McGee was carefully trained in this area of expertise. His little facade didn't get past the Senior Field Agent.

"When you've worked on this team for 16 years, history starts to repeat itself," McGee explained with a smirk.

Torres blinked, the gears in his head turning madly. He would talk his way out of this. It's just what he does. "What do you think you're seeing, McGee?" Torres asked, accentuating the syllables of Tim's last name.

"You know what I think I'm seeing," McGee countered again with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

Crap. He knows.

Torres shot a glance at Ellie, who was avoiding eye contact by pretending to be working on her computer, but their eyes met for just a second.

When it became clear that neither of the other agents were going to say anything anytime soon, McGee sighed. "Eight years. I sat through this stuff for eight years, and now I'm right back at the beginning." He shook his head with a laugh. "Unbelievable."

"Starts the same every time," Gibbs said as he breezed into the bullpen, coffee in hand.

Torres almost smacked himself in the face with the pencil he was trying to nonchalantly twirl, he was so caught off guard. Ellie simply blushed again and the tapping on her keyboard became louder and more erratic.

"Can't seem to stay seated at their own dang desks," Gibbs finished his thought as he pulled a file from his desk drawer. He shook his head, smiling at the memories, old and new.

"And don't get me started on the 'googly eyes' across the bullpen," McGee chimed in, eliciting a soft chuckle from Gibbs. "Six years of that, at least, with Tony and Ziva."

Bishop seemed to be shrinking into her desk chair, only glancing briefly at Gibbs and McGee. They all knew what eventually happened between Tony and Ziva. She didn't dare look at Torres. He was similarly seated at his own desk, his "Mr. Cool Guy" act slowly disintegrating into embarrassment.

"Did I ever tell you about Paris?" McGee asked Gibbs casually, as if the other two agents weren't even there.

Gibbs raised his eyebrows and shook his head, his eyes not straying from the file in his hands. "No, and I'm not sure I want to know," he responded in his slightly gruff voice, though it was laced in amusement.

McGee smiled fondly. "There was a little disagreement about whereabouts and, shall we say, 'with-who-abouts' then, too," he said, openly staring at Torres, whose face had paled drastically.

Just then Vance came striding through the bullpen with a file in hand for Gibbs. "Oh, leave the poor kids alone, Agent McGee," he said with an amused smile. He then turned to look between Bishop and Torres, who were internally dying at this point. "Just please, God, don't make us sit through eight more years of this madness."

Torres allowed a small smirk to cross his face as he subtly winked at Bishop, her face turning even more red now. In some far corner of the bullpen, McGee could have sworn he heard someone shout "AMEN" to Vance's plea for mercy.

Gibbs smiled. If he'd learned anything from dealing with Tony and Ziva, it was that some rules were made to be broken. He just hoped that this time around wouldn't be as gruelling as the last.

Drop a review on your way out, if you don't mind! Where are all of my Ellick people out there?Thanks for reading!~NCIS Obsession