Section 1: Reid/McGee
Chapter 1: Nerd-Fish Out of Water Part 1
On Sunday night, the day before Reid would start his new temporary assignment, he sat in his apartment wondering what it would be like. He hadn't spoken up in the meeting, but he knew a few members of the NCIS field team already. Tim McGee, who Reid had found out yesterday would be taking his place at the BAU, was his cousin, but was in many ways more like a big brother. Tony DiNozzo was an old friend of his and Tim's since the three of them were in high school together. Actually, Tony had been the only upperclassman aside from Tim who hadn't beaten him up on an almost daily basis and taken great pleasure in doing it. Agent Kate Todd, had been FBI originally, and Reid had trained with her quite a bit back in the Academy, so really, he had known her longer than anyone on her own team. Ducky, the NCIS medical examiner, was an old friend to the entirety of his mother's side of the family, being very close to Spencer's grandmother, and a friend, mentor, and in many ways a surrogate grandfather to all five of her grandchildren. But the rest of them, Gibbs, Ziva, Abby? He'd only heard stories from Tim over the years. Of course it could be worse, after all, Tim didn't know any of the rest of the BAU… Morgan's going to have a field day with this…and who knows how Garcia's going to react? Reid thought, remembering how Garcia had behaved toward Blake when she'd first joined the team. Maybe he should warn him… no… the others wouldn't have that advantage, and besides, Tim had proven over and over again that he could handle it.
Meanwhile, in the same building, but on the floor below, Tim was typing away at his typewriter, trying to imagine what the rest of the BAU was like, Spencer had described them over the years, but McGee had never actually met any of them. He tried to picture them in his head the same way he did the characters in his books, but he couldn't, he only had their names and rough schemes of personalities to go off of, information gathered from ten years of anecdotal stories, and no faces to put to any of it.
He sighed, the fact was that they were both about to be the new guy again, like fish thrown in a new pond, and those types of situations had very rarely gone very well for either of them.
The next morning, it was a bright clear morning out as the sun was rising, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, but even that, could do nothing to offset Reid's nervousness. it took all of his self-control not to get on his usual train, which stopped only about a block from FBI headquarters, out of sheer habit, and get on a train to the navy yard instead. It felt strange, almost wrong, and he missed his team already, he missed Morgan, and Garcia, and JJ, and Rossi, and even Hotch. The closer he got to his destination, the more he just wanted to go back to the FBI.
He arrived just as Tony was pulling in. Tony smiled broadly as he got out of the car.
"No way…no freaking way… we got you for the next two weeks?" He asked.
"Looks that way…"
"Awesome!" Tony replied excitedly.
That made Reid smile, maybe he'd been worried for nothing.
"I have no idea where we're going."
"Third floor squad room. Gibbs is waiting for us. Ziva's probably already up there too, but I don't see her car yet, two things to know about Ziva, don't make her angry, don't let her drive."
"Don't let her drive?" Reid asked in surprise.
"Yeah don't… the running theory is that she was an East European cab driver in a past life, McGee threw up the first time we rode with Ziva driving. As for not making her angry, she's ex-Mossad, she carries three guns and a knife and doesn't need any of them to kill you."
"Yeesh…"
"She's actually pretty nice though…" Tony clarified, realizing that he wasn't exactly being very helpful. "Once you get on her good side it's pretty hard to do any worse than just annoying her. Abby on the other hand, our resident forensic scientist and the happiest Goth you'll ever meet, but she and McGee are tight so if she doesn't seem to like you at first, don't take it personally, because it's not."
"Don't make Ziva angry, don't take any standoffishness from Abby personally, got it." Reid replied.
"Good, now let's go, Gibbs hates it when we're late, even if nothing's going on yet…" Tony said, leading Reid to the elevator that would take them to the third floor.
The NCIS squad room was a large, open area with a bull pen in the middle, with orange walls and gray carpet. Inside the bull pen, there were five desks arranged in two parallel rows, three to Reid's right, and two to his left.
He looked at the set up intently, trying to decide from the items on and around each desk, which one was most likely Tim's, and by extension, his for the next two weeks.
"That's me, right here on the end on the right hand side, McGee's is the one next to me…" Tony said, having stood there, watching him try to decipher where to go for the last thirty seconds.
At Tony's words, Reid took his place at his correct desk.
"Who sits there?" He asked, nodding toward the desk across from Tony.
"That's Ziva's, then Gibbs, next to her, right in the middle of everyone. Kate's over on the other side of you." He explained.
"So where is everybody?" Reid asked.
"Well, my guess is that Gibbs is talking to the director, Kate's probably in Abby's lab, and Ziva' might actually just not be here yet, it was her turn to make the coffee run…"
"Huh?"
"I don't know about you guys, but usually we start out the day with the good stuff, you know, what we actually like verses what we have in the break room, one of us per day goes and gets it on their way here, I wish we'd known it was you because then I would've just asked. I told Ziva to just bring McGee's usual order, plain double-shot espresso heavy on the sugar…"
"Actually that's exactly what I would've asked for…"
That's when a short, red-headed woman came out of a different elevator on the other side of the room.
"Good morning…" She said.
"Morning Kate." They replied.
Kate stopped short at their words.
"Wait a second…I know that voice… Reid?"
"Yep!" Reid replied, grinning broadly.
"Oh my gosh, how long has it been?" she asked.
"Since the last time we hung out? Seven years, nine months and twenty-two days…" He answered.
"Some things never change do they?" Kate asked.
"Not really…"
"Well it's good to see you…" She said, sitting down at her own desk.
"You too."
Then another woman, one Reid didn't recognize, came in from the same elevator he and Tony and used. She had long, wavy, black hair, dark brown eyes and an olive skin tone, and she was carrying a cardboard tray with five cups of coffee, he realized at once that this must be Ziva.
"Good morning…" She said.
"Morning Ziva." Tony and Kate replied in unison.
Reid sat there, searching for a way to introduce himself, without babbling on as he sometimes did with people unfamiliar to him.
This time it was Kate, who helped him out.
"Ziva, this is Spencer Reid, he's the one who will be taking McGee's place for the next two weeks." She said.
To Reid's surprise, Ziva smiled kindly at him and immediately picked up the cup of espresso that Tony had ordered for him and set it on his desk.
"Hi, I'm Ziva David, it is nice to meet you…"
"You too…" he replied, trying to make sense of her behavior. Clearly Ziva was warmer and friendlier than Tony had made her out to be. Still, something about her gave him the impression that her bad side was not a pleasant place to be.
"Morning…" called out an older man, with gray hair and stern, impenetrable blue eyes.
That must be Agent Gibbs… Reid realized.
Gibbs stopped right in front of his desk.
"So, the FBI sent me a pipe cleaner with eyes, huh?" He asked, but the question sounded almost rhetorical, Gibbs was staring him down, sizing him up. For a moment, Reid sat there looking, and feeling, intimidated and absolutely terrified, despite himself, desperately wishing he was back at the BAU where he belonged.
Suddenly Gibbs softened, the hard, frowning stare giving way to an amused expression and a wide grin.
"Relax, I'm just messing with you kid, welcome aboard…" Gibbs replied, then he took a seat at his own desk next to Ziva.
To Be Continued…