McGee sat poking at his plate of lasagna that evening thinking of everything that had happened that day.
A shot Lieutenant was discovered in a group of trees by a fifteen-year-old girl. He had suffered two gunshots to the chest, one to the head. The bullets were 9mm. A handgun.
He heard the girl behind him squeal and stand as her dining mate joined her.
"How are you, babe? Heard you had a rough day..."
"I'd rather not talk about it." The new voice was lovely. She sounded so mature... much like what McGee had thought blackmasque94, his gaming acquaintance would sound like.
"Well, if that suits you I suppose." The first woman said. A moment of silence.
McGee glanced at his watch. 9:00 PM. The waiter came and took his barely touched meal away. McGee asked him for the check as the women began talking again.
"So," the first woman said. "How's life with your lover?" Great she was taken.
The second woman laughed softly. It was a delicate laugh, beautiful, McGee noted.
"elflord46?"
McGee's heart stopped. That was his username.
"Yeah black..."
"Hey! No username's in public!" the second woman said.
McGee couldn't believe his luck. There, right behind him was the woman he was falling in love with online. He listened more intently now.
"He's, well I suppose..." she trailed off.
"Oh come on, you HAVE to give me more to go on than that!"
"Well, he asked me out to coffee today."
Uh-oh, McGee hadn't thought that would come up.
"Did you accept?"
She sighed. "No, I... I was stupid enough to say no."
"Oh come on? What are you afraid of? It's not like he'll turn out to be a pre-pubescent nerd or something."
"No but he could be a fifty year old pedophile."
Ouch, McGee thought. That wasn't anything close to the truth. He wished he could turn around to see her.
"Or," blackmasque's friend said, "he could be completely normal."
"Maybe. But even if he is, I'm not the kind of person any normal person would want to be with in person. I'm... you know."
"You're unique, Kitty." Kitty. Beautiful.
"Unique is putting it lightly, Charlotte. I'm a bona fide freak." Both girls burst out laughing.
McGee smiled to himself. The waiter came and gave him his check. He paid while still listening to the girls.
"Excuse me for a moment." Kitty said. He heard her get up and come up to pass him. He kept his eyes glued to the table until she was several feet in front of him.
When he looked up he saw what he had always wanted to. She was maybe five foot six, with straight brown, shoulder length hair. She looked taller, due to a pair of black high-heels. She wore a sparkly gold dress cut to her knees, it had no back. She wasn't stick thin, but she looked beautiful.
She went into the bathroom, and he got up to leave. Ships passing in the night.
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The next day McGee went into work and Gibbs was no where to be found. Granted McGee didn't look that hard. He sat at his desk as the elevator door opened. Tony DiNozzo emerged carrying a cup of coffee and a bottle of pills that looked like caffeine pills.
DiNozzo stopped at his desk and placed the coffee down carefully and opened the small bottle. He took two of the pills, which were in fact caffeine pills now that McGee could see them more clearly, and downed them with some coffee.
"Long night, Tony?" McGee asked.
"Yeah. Up all night with a couple old friends watching old Kung Fu movies." He stretched and looked at McGee. "Did we get a hold of Lieutenant Connar's family?"
"I'd ask Ziva if I were you, Gibbs told her to do that."
"Do you see Ziva around, Probie?" Tony gestured around the room.
"Yes."
"Oh very..."
"Good morning, Tony." Ziva stood inches behind DiNozzo and when she spoke he jumped a foot in the air.
He caught his breath quickly. "Good morning, Ziva. Uh, did we get a hold of the Lieutenant's family?"
"Yes, the wife was completely distraught, she has some kind of disability and can't work. She has a son and her mother lives with them..."
McGee tuned out quickly while he logged onto his game to see if Kitty was online. Sure enough she was. He didn't even need to start a conversation.
Hey Elfy.
Call me Tim.
Alright Tim. Call me Kitty.
He was good with that.
I was thinking about that coffee offer you gave me yesterday. I think I'd like to accept that.
McGee's eyes must have been the size of dinner plates. What perfect luck! He finally gets to meet her face to face. He wondered if she would be as beautiful as her voice was yesterday...
That sounds great! What time is good for you?
I'm free whenever.
Alright, I can be off work by eight tonight. There's this little café I know downtown...
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McGee sat in traffic at exactly 7:45 PM thinking about his day. He had accompanied Gibbs to see the family of the murdered Lieutenant.
The wife had been a wreck, her mother not much better.
The son. He had come across as completely unemotional. He sat there, gold eyes staring at the patterns on the living room rug as though they were the first time he had seen them, he sat on his hands and rocked slowly back and forth in his chair. His face was blank. Every time he blinked it was as though he had to think really hardly about the movement. All the questions they asked him were answered with a simple, empty yes or no.
"Do you have any idea who would want to do this to your father?"
"No."
"Are upset about his death?"
"Yes."
"Can you think of anything he ever said that might imply someone wanting to kill him?"
"No."
The conversation went on for a while in that same fashion. Something was wrong with that child, either a mental disability or he knew something he wasn't saying.
He pulled into a parallel space and walked into the café. A group of loud teenagers were sitting outside smoking and talking quite loudly. As he opened the door one of them made a comment about his work cloths. He wasn't paying them any attention.
He went straight to the restroom to check his hair in the mirror. He adjusted a few hairs and sighed gripping the sides of the sink. He closed his eyes tightly. Let her like me. He thought. He couldn't stand the thought of another girl being turned off by his nerdy qualities.
He walked out of the restroom and looked around. There was a girl sitting with her back to him. She had straight brown hair, the exact same length as Kitty had had hers yesterday.
He approached her chair quietly. She had a cell phone clutched in her hands.
He cleared his throat. "Kitty?"
The woman shifted in her chair and turned around.
McGee almost had a heart attack. She wasn't a woman at all. She was the teenager from the park who had found Lieutenant Connar.
Her eyes grew huge. "Tim?"
McGee could only nod. So much for getting his hopes up. Now he looked like a pervert.
She rose quickly and backed away. "What... you're..." she was obviously trying not to attract attention which he was happy about.
"You're... not exactly what I was expecting either." he said in a rather disappointed tone.
"I should leave." She said and walked quite quickly out of the café leaving McGee alone to feel like a failure once again.