My beta reader decided to abandon me for a while, so I had to edit it myself. All mistakes are mine. Set in season one, before McGee joins the team.
This wasn't happening. Kate shook her head, refusing to accept reality even as everyone in the overcrowded room started to turn and look at her. She knew she should have made McGee go instead.
Four hours earlier
Kate sighed and glanced at the clock. It was 7:15, and most of the other teams had wrapped up everything they were working on and left. Must be nice, she thought wryly, having a nice boss and a normal schedule. She'd had a pretty normal day, as normal as any day working with Gibbs and Tony-the-actual-six-year-old DiNozzo could be. McGee had been visiting Abby under the guise of updating everyone's computers, and he'd joined them in processing a crime scene earlier. Now he was shifting restlessly in his seat, having been done with all the necessary paperwork 30 minutes ago. Somehow, he'd found some mundane task to occupy himself with until Gibbs dismissed them, but he was clearly eager to leave.
Tony, on the other hand, had totally given up on looking useful and was trying to see how long he could balance a pencil on his nose. Kate had been watching him out of the corner of her eye on and off for an hour, whenever Gibbs wasn't looking, and was somewhat impressed with his current ten-second record. Gibbs himself was plugging away at something Kate suspected was completely unrelated to their current case, but apparently he had decided to keep them all at work until he was done. Kate was keeping herself awake thinking of ways to punish him for it later, when they were alone and no one could hear his scream.
The pencil fell off of Tony's nose, poking him in the eye as it fell. He hissed in pain, and glared at Kate as she grinned and tried to stifle a laugh. Gibbs glanced up at the small noise, and seemed momentarily surprised to see them all still sitting at their desks, looking at him hopefully. He glanced around at all of them, and nodded, once. Tony and Tim shot out of their chairs and Kate hurriedly swept her things into her purse before standing up herself. Finally, she could go home and get ready for dinner. It isn't home, she scolded herself mentally. It's Gibbs' house. Her stomach tightened in hunger as she reviewed what he'd had in his pantry the last time she'd been there, and she tried to come up with a nice meal plan. Just as she'd decided on pasta, and as Tony and Tim had reached the elevator, a phone rang in the bullpen.
They all froze in place, praying that it wasn't Gibbs' phone, or if it was, that it was a crazy ex wife calling to torture him. Their hopes were dashed when Gibbs opened his phone and barked, "Tobias! What do you want?" Kate closed her eyes and started unpacking her purse. Tony pounded his head off of the elevator doors and started walking back to his desk, muttering under his breath. Tim stared after him, horrified, and didn't move until Kate glared at him and glanced pointedly at his desk. Tim seemed to deflate, and as he walked back into the bullpen he pulled out his phone and shot off a text to someone, regret on his face. When Gibbs snapped his phone shut, everyone was back at their desks, looking disgruntled. "That was Fornell."
"We got that Boss." Tony said in a frustrated tone. Gibbs only deigned his comment with a two-second glare before continuing.
"He has requested NCIS's assistance recovering an informant."
"And?" Kate prompted when Gibbs hesitated.
"And, I have agreed to grant his request," he said gruffly. Everyone groaned, but Gibbs ignored their obvious displeasure. "Tony, Kate, go get some wires and earwigs from Abby and meet me in the garage in ten minutes. McGee, you'll be working with the FBI, watching and coordinating with all of us." McGee gulped. Coordinating implied some sort of leadership that he wasn't sure he was ready for. But Gibbs was staring at him, so he nodded.
"Where are you gonna be, Boss?" Tony asked.
"In the club, DiNozzo. Recovering the informant," Gibbs replied impatiently. Tony blinked and glanced at Kate, who met his eyes and shrugged.
"Club, Boss?" he asked, this time with some hesitancy in his voice.
"Yeah, DiNozzo. Some crackhead got caught by his dealer. He was selling information to the FBI. He's holed himself up in a place called 'The Palms.'" There was no hint of recognition in Gibbs' voice, but Tony's eyes widened and a grin broke over his face. Kate groaned and headed toward the elevator. No doubt whatever Tony was about to say would offend her sensibilities in some way, and she was too tired to waste energy being mad at him. "What, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked sharply, annoyed that Tony was still standing in front of him. Kate pushed the call button for the elevator and tried to block out whatever Tony was about to say.
"Well, Boss," he said, still grinning. "That's a pretty...high energy place. You know music, lights, dancing-" Kate heard Tony stop talking and looked back, hoping to catch a peek of the intense glare Gibbs must be giving him. He was glaring, but it wasn't his shut-up-and-get-out glare, it was his shut-up-and-rethink-what-you-just-said glare.
"Why is that relevant, DiNozzo?" he asked in a calm, even tone that everyone in the room knew was bad news. Tony opened and closed his mouth a few times, obviously trying not to fall into the pit he had just dug.
"Well, we're not exactly dressed for it, Boss. We'd stick out," he managed. Gibbs didn't say anything, and Tony hurriedly continued. "But, of course, that would be good, because-"
"Get some clothes from Abby," Gibbs interrupted. Tony blinked, and Kate groaned from the elevator, which she was holding open for Tony. Dress up with Abby could take hours, and Gibbs wanted them downstairs, in the car, in ten minutes? Tony opened his mouth again, but Gibbs pointed at the elevator and ordered, "DiNozzo! Now!" Tony shut his mouth and all but ran to the elevator. Kate contemplated letting the doors close and leaving him with Gibbs, but by the time she had decided to do it, Tony was already in and had pushed the button that would take them to the lab. When the doors opened again, Kate shot out of the elevator and ran into Abby's lab before Tony could get there.
"Hey Abbs Gibbs wants-" she said, quickly, not pausing between her words. But Abby had just hung up her phone, and she held up a hand for her to stop, a mischievous grin on her face. Kate's hopes of getting out quickly without being used as a living mannequin were dashed in that moment.
"Mics, earwigs, and a change of clothes." Kate swore to herself that Gibbs would be making his own dinner for a week, and nodded dismally as Tony bounced in. Abby clapped her hands and started to gather equipment and pull outfits out of cabinets that Kate hadn't even known Abby owned, let alone kept in her lab. Tony took off his coat and put on the one that Abby had gotten out for him, and set up his own equipment as Abby ruffled around somewhere (Kate didn't know where, she couldn't see her) for an outfit for Kate, discarding several.
"Abbs, I'm good," Tony called.
"All right," Abby replied from somewhere in her office. "You can go." Tony looked disappointed for a second and looked over at Kate. Kate narrowed her eyes, knowing what he was thinking, and he quickly seemed to remember that, oh yeah, he'd rather be anywhere else than the room Kate was changing clothes in. He scampered out of the room, Kate scowling at his back. "Kate," Abby said from behind her. "See if you fit in this." Kate turned around and her mouth dropped open in horror.
"I-Abbs, I really don't think-" she stammered, but Abby just beamed, and somehow, Kate found herself wearing a dress made of less material than your average handkerchief, at least that's how it looked to Kate.
"It's not too tight, is it?" Abby asked as she put Kate's mic on for her.
"It's not too much of anything, Abbs," Kate wheezed, the snug dress restricting her breathing. "Couldn't you find anything with a bit more, I don't know, fabric, maybe?" Abby's responding grin was almost cat-like.
"Nope. Nothing that would work at the Palms." Kate grumbled something under her breath, but Abby ignored her.
"You're done. Hey, could you take these down to Gibbs?" Abby held out a mic and an earwig. "McGee will get you on the right frequency when you get there." Kate grabbed the gear and glared balefully at Abby before turning to leave. "Oh, Kate!" Kate froze, and took a deep breath. She heard Abby's boots clunking as she ran to her office and ran back out. "Ka-ate." Kate begrudgingly turned around to face her.
"No," she said immediately. Abby waved the heels in Kate's face, horrifying, tiny, strappy things, and Kate shook her head.
"Oh come on, Kate," Abby whined. "I'm sure Gibbs will like them." Kate's eyebrows shot up and she instantly replayed every conversation she'd had with Abby over the past six months.
"What-why would that matter?" she stuttered, desperately hoping that Abby was only guessing and that she had no proof. Abby grinned wickedly.
"Because you're dating," she responded in a bubbly tone. Kate paled. "I wish you would have told me Kate." Abby tried to pout, but she was grinning too widely. "How long has it been going on?" Kate glanced around nervously, even though she knew there was no one else in the room.
"We are not talking about this now," she hissed.
"We are until you put the shoes on," Abby replied in a sing-song voice. "Is Gibbs a good kisser? What kind of dates does he take you on? Have you seen his boat?" Kate frantically gestured for Abby to shut up, worried that someone would walk by and hear, but Abby just kept babbling, and Kate couldn't bring herself to use force. So, she snatched the shoes and shoved them onto her feet, hoping that would be enough. Within seconds she felt blisters forming, and she cursed Gibbs and his determination that their relationship should be kept a secret, purposely forgetting that it had been her decision.
"There, happy?" she asked, her voice heavy with sarcasm. "Gotta go Abbs. See you later." She left the room as quickly as she could with two death traps strapped to her feet. Abby pouted, but didn't protest when Kate disappeared from the room.
Kate knew it had been more than ten minutes, and she hurried as much as she could to the garage and then to the car.
Tony must have heard her heels clicking on the cement floor, because even though he wasn't facing her, he still called, "Finally! We've been waiting for fifteen minutes! What were you-" At that moment, he turned around and actually looked at her. Tony's jaw dropped to the floor, and he stared at her unashamedly, causing her to glare murderously at him. Kate looked at Gibbs, silently asking for his opinion on the dress. His eyebrows raised very slightly, and an almost imperceptible smile was on his lips. Kate smiled back, relieved at his obvious approval, and as she closed the remaining distance between them she added a definite swing to her hips. She thought Tony's eyes were going to pop out of his skull, but she ignored him in favor of watching Gibbs gulp and open the passenger door for her. As she slipped into her seat and Gibbs closed the door for her, she begrudgingly told herself that she would have to thank Abby.
The Palms was, as Tony had said, very high energy. Dozens of people were crammed onto a tiny dance floor, dancing to a loud song Kate had never heard. The bar was small, hardly larger than the table in interrogation, and there was only one bartender behind it. There were five or six tiny tables pushed against the wall, and in the corner one couple was having an intense makeout session over one of them. It was very difficult to move without running into someone, and still more people were coming through the door behind them.
"How are we supposed to find the informant?" Kate yelled, grabbing Gibbs' arm to get his attention.
"We need a distraction," Gibbs answered in a low voice, speaking directly into her ear. Kate could barely hear him over the pounding music, and she was sure Tony wasn't listening at all, he was dancing and staring at a blonde in a bikini top. As Kate watched, Tony caught the blonde's eye and she smiled teasingly at him. He grinned and started to dance over to her, only to be stopped when Gibbs somehow reached through the tangle of dancing bodies and slapped Tony on the back of the head. Tony backed up as quickly as humanly possible.
"Right, distraction, got it, Boss."
"Sure you do, Tony," Kate said in a biting tone. "What kind of distraction, Gibbs?" Gibbs looked over her, taking in the almost nonexistent dress and her severely high heels. Kate began to get a niggling suspicion that not only did Gibbs have a very specific kind of distraction in mind, but that she wasn't going to like it at all.
"Can you sing, Kate?"
"Not really," she said, and a truly terrifying idea had come to her then. She stared at Gibbs, hoping and praying that she was wrong, but his small, arrogant smile proved her suspicions. "Gibbs," she said warningly, but his smile didn't waver. Tony had been distracted again, this time by a redhead, so Kate leaned towards Gibbs and hissed, "No! No way am I going to-to-" She paused. "What do you even want me to do? There's no stage or anything." Gibbs nodded at the bar, and it took Kate a moment to understand what he meant. "Absolutely not, Gibbs. I am a lot of things, but I am not the type of person who sings on a bar!"
"Well, tonight you are," Gibbs replied simply.
"Are what?" Tony asked, having failed to catch the redhead's attention. Kate looked at Gibbs imploringly, but his face didn't change.
"Going to shoot Gibbs," Kate responded icily, glaring at Gibbs. She rolled her eyes. "Fine."
The bartender was easy enough to win over once Kate pulled her gun out.
"All right, all right," he said, sweat shining on his brow. "We have a mic here, from when we used to do karaoke, just give me a minute." Kate casually flicked the safety off on her gun, and the bartender swallowed. "Here," he said weakly and handed her a cordless microphone. "Do you want some music?" Kate knew what would be perfect, but her pride wilted at the prospect of Tony seeing her.
"You ok, Kate?" McGee's voice sounded in her ear. "Gibbs and Tony haven't found him yet, they need that distraction." Kate spared a second to make a mental note to kick McGee where it counted in their next training session.
"Yeah," she said, both to McGee and to the bartender. Everything in her except her professional sense of duty rebelled against the words she forced herself to say next. "You say you did karaoke? Do you have Leann Rimes' Can't Fight the Moonlight?" The bartender nodded and ducked under the bar. Kate leaned over the counter to watch him as he ruffled through a huge pile of CDs. When he found the one he wanted, he began setting up his equipment. It took him a good three minutes, but they seemed to fly by to Kate, who was desperately hoping she wouldn't have to go through with Gibbs' plan. "McGee!" she hissed. "Do they have him?"
"Negative, Kate. Still no visual." Kate grit her teeth, then rolled her shoulders back and took a deep breath. Then she allowed the bartender to help her onto the bar as her now least-favorite song began to play.
Gibbs and Tony looked, they really did, but everyone was moving around and the pulsing lights were making it difficult to see people's faces. They had been told that the informant was a Caucasian male in his mid-twenties, wearing a black t-shirt and with a dragon tattoo.
A few minutes after Gibbs had sent Kate to be a distraction he heard McGee's voice crackle through his earwig. "You ok, Kate? Gibbs and Tony haven't found him yet, they need that distraction."
After a moment, Gibbs heard Kate answer, "Yeah." Gibbs could hear that Kate said something about Leann Rimes, but Tony chose that moment to check in that he had nothing, so Gibbs didn't catch what song Kate would be singing. Three minutes later, he and Tony still hadn't seen the informant.
"McGee! Do they have him?"
"Negative, Kate. Still no visual." Gibbs could imagine Kate's jaw clenching. A new song began to play over the speakers, and he glanced in the direction of the bar to see if Kate was ready. But he couldn't see her, and he turned away to keep looking. Two seconds later he stopped dead in his tracks and whipped back around. Even though he couldn't make out the words, he could hear that a clear, silvery voice was ringing from the speakers. Peoples' heads began to turn, and the crowd started to shift towards the bar. Forgetting his actual purpose, Gibbs moved with them, hoping to catch a glimpse of Kate.
Tony dearly wanted to push his way through the crowd and see Kate up close, but he forced himself to remain professional, for once, and kept looking, trying to ignore Kate's surprisingly beautiful voice. It was easier to look at everyone, now that they were all on one side of the building. There were a surprising number of black t-shirt-wearers in the room, but Tony gave all of them a perfunctory glance and immediately dismissed most of them as possible crackhead informants.
"I got six possible targets, Boss," he said, and waited for a response. "Boss?" Tony, in a deep, hidden part of himself, really cared about his boss and was very protective of him, not that he would ever say that out loud. If something happened to Gibbs, Tony would consider it a personal and devastating failure on his part. So, when Gibbs didn't answer, Tony's mind kicked into overdrive and he immediately began to panic. "McGee, can you raise Gibbs? He's not answering."
In an unmarked van outside the club, McGee frowned and checked his computer. "Gibbs? Hey, Boss, can you hear me? Boss?"
"I hear you, McGee, now shut up!" McGee waited for further instructions, but Gibbs didn't say anything else.
Tony heard Gibbs' answer, and looked around over people's heads trying to find him. Finally, he caught a glimpse of the back of a familiar silver head, and he wondered with exasperation, as he fought his way through it, why Gibbs was in the middle of the crowd. He tapped Gibbs on the shoulder and said in his ear, "Boss, I've got six possible targets."
Gibbs didn't look at him, instead he just hissed over his shoulder, "What are you coming to me for, DiNozzo? Eliminate five of 'em, then get the last one out of here."
"What about you, Bo-" Tony started to ask, but Gibbs turned his head and glared so fiercely at him that Tony jumped slightly. "On it Boss." Tony slipped away, cowered, and Gibbs turned back to watching Kate. She was really getting in to the whole performance thing, she was dancing and smiling as she sang and it looked like she was actually having a good time. Gibbs stared, thanking every deity he could think of for giving him the idea to put her up there. He heard DiNozzo tell McGee that he had the informant, and McGee telling him a van was ready outside to take him to HQ, but Gibbs ignored them.
Kate, surprisingly, was having fun. It was kind of nice to have people watch her do something she was good at, and enjoy watching. And having Gibbs stare at her like an idiot was certainly nice.
When there were only thirty seconds left in the song, McGee finally told her that Tony had found the informant and had escorted him out. Kate would never admit it, but for a moment, she was a little disappointed. But she wrapped up the song and got off of the bar with the 'assistance' of about six men who were all drunk out of their minds and decided to get grabby. Kate could have handled them by herself, but taking any sort of action became unnecessary when Gibbs materialized next to her and wrapped his arm around her waist possessively. Within five seconds, all six of the drunks had disappeared back into the crowd, and the normal music had started again.
Kate smirked and asked, hopefully quietly enough that the mics wouldn't pick it up, "What did you think?" Gibbs predatory answering grin was more than enough of an answer, and Kate laughed as Gibbs pulled her into a kiss that made her head spin.
"I'm telling you, McGee, it was weird," Tony said after loading the informant into one of the FBI's trucks. "He barely even looked at me, he just stared at Kate the whole time."
McGee's voice was suspiciously high when he answered. "I don't know what to tell you, Tony." Tony shot him a calculating look.
"Spill, Probie." McGee gulped. At that exact moment, an FBI agent climbed out of the van behind him and clapped him on the shoulder.
"Well done, McGee," he said good-naturedly. Then he turned to Tony. "Thanks, Agent DiNozzo. We're heading out now." Tony nodded at the agent before turning back to McGee to interrogate him further, only to find that McGee had high-tailed it to his car and was pulling out of the parking lot. Tony stared after him as he tore down the road, puzzled, and wondered what exactly McGee must have overheard.
A/N: Thanks for reading! Please review!