This chapter might get a bit confusing, but just remember: Alex and Max are the same person so I'll be referring to him as both throughout the story.

Stay with me.

When I call Alex, "Alex" it means the story is written in Alex's first person.

When I call Alex, "Max" it means that the story is in Gibbs' third person.

I hope you understand this.

Chapter Three:

Same Thing

Alex was staring out the large glass window of NCIS, trying to ignore the loud pounding on the door he'd locked.

"If they're going to make me wait for them I might as well make them wait for me." Alex muttered with a smile as he purposefully ignored the fists slamming against the wood of the window-less door.

A very angry man with silver and pale blue eyes burst through the once locked door and began yelling at Alex. "Just what the hell were you thinking by locking this door!"

"Oh. Sorry. I didn't see you there." Alex said and turned around, feigning surprise at the arrival of the silver haired man and his minions: a classically handsome man with brown hair and hazel eyes shoved another man with light brown eyes and lighter brown hair.

"Lover boy and his baby faced accomplice." Ran through Alex's head.

The two idiot men were followed by the calm figure of a dark haired beauty with laser-beam eyes the color of melted chocolate.

"Oh! And I suppose you couldn't hear us either." Tony stated sarcastically, tugging on his suit and straightening his tie. "How old are you!"

Tony meant his 'question' to be more of a put-down statement, but Alex didn't take it as one.

"Twenty-four." He replied so quickly that it took a few moments for everyone else in the room to register the fact that Alex had actually answered Tony's stupid, rhetorical question.

"Umm..." Tony said, glancing at Ziva who was giving Alex a suspicious look that never ended well for the recipient of her suspicion. "He's in for it now." Tony muttered and grinned in McGee's direction.

McGee swallowed and nodded. He was the only one in the room that actually felt bad for Alex.

Gibbs' morning had been going great until he'd decided to give Max a chance. Needless to say, it didn't go well. The man had locked him and his team outside and the refused to allow them entrance despite McGee's loud pounding! And if that wasn't bad enough Max had then turned around and declared that he "hadn't seen them there"!

"Of course he didn't see us! The door was closed!" Gibbs thought angrily.

Gibbs had more things to worry about than a kid from God knows where. "Told me he was from MI6 and then he doesn't even have an accent!" Gibbs huffed. "I bet his greasy black hair isn't even real!" Gibbs mumbled and continued glaring into the laughing green eyes of the "twenty-four" year old in front of him.

Ziva hadn't been the only one to hear Max's rushed answer to one of Tony's ridiculous questions that most people completely ignored.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending upon how you looked at it, Gibbs took the quickness of Max's response to mean that Max was older than he said…not younger.

The overlook on Gibbs' part was undoubtedly due to the amount of anger coursing off of Gibbs. Ducky was right…he hadn't felt this way since ex number three had shown up on his doorstep a few years back.

"Are you going to keep talking to yourself or are you going to ask me some more questions?" Max asked with a smile as he took a seat, twirling a heavy gold ring around his right pointer finger.

"What kind of hair gel do you use? Because it's not working." Tony said after a moment, staring at Max's hair and fingering his own as if worried it looked just as bad as the other man's hairdo.

Gibbs watched Max ducked his head, seemingly abashed by Tony's comment. Gibbs would have believed this reaction if it hadn't made Ziva frown even harder. Gibbs caught her eye and she smiled and then looked back down at Max.

"So he likes that Tony thinks he's a grease ball." Gibbs inferred, rubbing his nose thoughtfully as he took a seat across from Max.

"What kind of sports do you like?" the silver haired devil asked.

"Baseball is my favorite to watched and play." Alex replied automatically, having rehearsed his cover religiously.

In actuality his answer would have been football, and not the American kind.

"Favorite soft drink?"

"I don't drink pop." Alex replied, leaning back in his chair. He was getting more and more agitated but was trying his best to look comfortable and confident despite the heavy scrutiny the man was putting him under.

"Regular, flavored, or sparkling water?" the man asked, also leaning back in his chair as the other three remained on their feet.

"Regular." Alex said slowly, his eyes narrowing.

"Cake or pie?" the silver haired devil asked without pausing to think about Alex's answers.

Alex had no idea where the man was going with this but he answered to the best of his training, the one that had taught him to be fairly likable. "Pie. Apple." He said as sweetly as he could muster with a frown that was slowly creeping across his lips.

"Soccer of football?" the man asked cooly, no emotion playing across on his face.

This is where Alex made my first mistake. "They're the same thing." He said with a confused frown, his brow furrowing.

The silver devil cocked an eyebrow, the playboy smirked, baby-face shook his head, and the woman relaxed. This was when Alex knew he'd done something wrong.

In America, soccer and football were not the same thing…

"Well damn." Alex commented, keeping to the unaccented drawl he been using despite already being caught. Talking normal would have given away his true age…or so he'd been told by the voice analyst specialists. Or maybe they were experts…and before you ask, there is a difference, and yes, it is a very important one. Remember that.

In case you didn't already know all about the controversial arguments about the differences between experts and specialists, the difference can come in handy if you're facing a bunch of angry science geeks…or…lab technicians who aren't getting paid enough.

For anyone who doesn't know NCIS:

Gibbs: Silver haired devil.

Ziva: Dark haired beauty.

Tony: Classically handsome lover boy.

McGee: Brown-on-brown baby face.

Sorry I had to repeat this for anyone who wasn't confused.

Oh, and right now "Max" has black hair and green eyes. Remember than now, it will come in handy later.