A/N: This is my first foray into NCIS-verse…and I'm starting to like it, so please read and review, otherwise, no más, except for what I will write for myself. :D

Prologue— Say Anything (Else)

--2005--

"Good morning Sam," he said, setting a cup of coffee on the corner of her desk.

She looked up, startled away from the Interpol scan by his arrival, but smiled at the coffee, "and good morning to you Danny," she said, picking up the cup and putting it to her lips. She smiled. It was exactly how she liked it: cappuccino, one sugar. She knew his coffee from stopping on the way to scenes: two sugars and cream in black coffee. It was old hat, and working with each other for so long that had her knowing his drink of choice. But she also knew the brand of detergent he liked, and the flavor of ice cream, and that instead of using a bookmark, he always folded the corners of the pages to keep his place, and she knew somewhere that it was from working together that she knew those things, but somewhere in her mind, she batted around the thought that it was something else entirely.

"So Sam, anything exciting come across the wire?" he asked, taking his seat at the desk across the narrow room from her.

"Nothing yet. Boss is still waiting for a call from Mia so that we can move on the undercover op."

Another agent, Mia Greer, was undercover working on a drug sting that the agents had been working on for months. She had been paired with a drug dealer turned informant off base that was helping her to establish ties with his connections on base. They were waiting for a call on where the next drop and exchange was supposed to be, and if Mia had played her cards right, they would also find out the major players. Mia had been undercover for nearly three months, and the other agents had been working at breakneck pace on interviews and collars as Mia sent them information. Sam and Danny had been working day and night to help Mia, and both had rarely left work before midnight each night, only to arrive back at oh-seven-hundred the next day.

"DeBray, O'Neill, to the car! We're moving—Greer just called, a bit ahead of schedule."

Their boss, Special Agent Jack Kelley, was walking through their small office as he shouted directions to the two Special Agents. The winding stairs down to the garage left Sam time to finish her coffee and she mournfully threw away the cup as they walked to the car, wishing for more caffeine already.

*****************

Two weeks later, three slightly sunburned Special Agents stood at the entrance to the Uffizi in Florence as it closed for the evening.

"This vacation was more than I needed," Sam said, heaving her backpack onto the loggia stairs. The three agents had been given time off after their team's monumental drug bust had led to a major crime ring in Italy and around the base in Naples and then to the United States, where they believed the drugs were being smuggled to.

"We all needed to get away and let the second string do the paperwork for a while," Mia said, pulling her dark hair back into a neat ponytail, laughing as they all imagined the other team of agents at the base and their new probie working through months of case files, interviews, tapes and logs.

Danny smiled up at the other two agents from his seat on the stairs, squinting slightly through his sunburn, "I can't wait to see their faces when we get back. They've had our paperwork and we've been sunbathing." The trio laughed and walked down the street, looking for dinner for their last night in Florence.

Their boss, Jack, had gone back to the states to do god-knows-what, and had encouraged his agents to take some time apart. He had said that while it was great to work on a team with friends, always being together and relying on each other was a bad idea, but they had gone to Tuscany on the train anyway, listening to, but not taking the advice of their boss. The two weeks that they had spent in Florence had been sun-soaked and full of museums, gelato, wine, and sightseeing in the Tuscan countryside.

The three agents found a small trattoria and enjoyed their dinner in companiable silence, before Mia had suggested what they do before packing for their journey back to the base and Naples the next day."I saw this club earlier, and I think we should go dancing!" she said, clapping her hands together excitedly, smiling at the others encouragingly.

The youngest of the three, Sam, quirked an eyebrow, "I've had enough wine that even that sounds good to me."

Danny steepled his fingers under his chin and nodded, shrugging his shoulders, "sounds fine to me," and then, "who am I to argue with two slightly drunk women who both carry guns?"

Several hours and several vodka shots each later the three agents were huddled together on the dance floor of the Florentine nightclub. An attractive man with a goatee and ponytail asked for Mia's hand and swirled her out on to the dance floor, leaving Sam and Danny alone. Her dark wavy hair swept across her shoulders as she turned and grabbed his hand, pulling him out onto the floor behind her.

"Samantha, I don't dance," he said, his blue eyes flashing with unheard laughter in the shifting neon lights.

"I doubt that Daniel," she said laughing, as she took the hand she was holding and slung it low around her hips, pulling him close. 'Call on Me' boomed through the club, the base pulsing as one of her arms slid around his neck, pulling him closer still. His arms slipped easily around her waist and he smiled as she swayed to the music, waving her free arm in the air. Both of them were sweating in the summer air that ran through the club, and small rivulets ran down his neck into the collar of his black t-shirt.

He looked at her face, and caught her eyes looking far away. "Sam, you okay there?" he asked, gently smoothing her hair off of her face.

Her eyes snapped back and locked on his, green on blue. "Sorry Danny, got a little lost for a minute," she said, blinking furiously.

"Do you need to sit down? Water?" he asked, blue eyes roaming over her face, full of concern. He was sort of shocked when words just came spilling out of her mouth ten seconds later.

"You like Tin Roof Sundae ice cream, and Tide detergent, and two sugars and cream in your coffee, and you miss having a dog, and you're a terrible singer, and you bend the corners back to mark pages, and you hate yogurt and you love baseball and you can't stand it when people call you Daniel…" she whispered breathlessly, her voice seeming small and delicate in the booming club. He grabbed her hand and led her off the dance floor, up the stairs, through the bar, and out on to the street that the Duomo towered over, the warm air seeming so much cooler than the sticky air of the dance floor.

"I'm sorry Danny," she said, turning her eyes down and away from him when they stopped away from the crowd outside of the club, pacing around in gently circles away from him. "I shouldn't have thrown that all at you, I just can't stop thinking and my head is swimming and I'm a little drunk…" He put his hand under her chin and lifted it so she would look at him. She stopped ranting and he saw her eyes welling up.

His voice broke as he began: "you love the color orange, and running, you listen to music that only dogs would love and you miss the rain in Seattle. Your eyes are green and gold and you have a birthmark on your shoulder next to a scar from falling out of a tree when you were seven. Your first dog was a golden retriever and your dad's name is William and your mom's name is Beth...and…and…I want to know everything else." He panted slightly as he finished, feeling like he had just run laps around the track at the base, his heart hammering around in his chest and fluttering the pulse through his veins.

She looked at him through the light of the streetlights and quirked a half smile through the tears in her eyes.

He stepped forward, leaning his sweaty forehead against hers. His hands rested on her shoulders and her hands gently slid up his back as he leaned down and kissed her under the watchful eye of the Florentine cathedral.

**************

--2009--

She strode purposefully off of the elevator to the area where the woman at reception said that he would be. Only one person was sitting amongst the group of desks. He was typing steadily away on one of the computers, and seemed entirely focused on the screen. She cleared her throat as she approached and he looked up.

"Uh…hi."

She smiled evenly.

"I'm Special Agent McGee..." he said, standing up from his desk, and coming around to the center of the bullpen where she stood.

"I'm looking for Gibbs."

"Can I ask what it's about?" he looked her over, too young to be a girlfriend, he thought, and she wasn't a redhead besides. And she wasn't looking for Tony, so that was a good sign.

Three people came down the stairs, and she shifted her attention away from McGee. A tall black man in a navy suit who she knew to be the Director of NCIS, a younger man in a button up and black slacks, and a tall salt and pepper haired man in a gray suit with a cup of coffee in hand walked down the stairs, the elder two speaking quietly to one another. The younger man noticed her first, and picked up speed down the staircase. He walked up to introduce himself, but she strode by, brushing past him, and met the senior pair as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Gibbs?" she asked of the salt and pepper haired man, sticking her hand out. He nodded and shifted his coffee to his other hand, shaking hers firmly.

"Special Agent Samantha O'Neill—I believe I've just been transferred to your team."