GIBBS
Gibbs glanced at his watch for what seemed like the thousandth time, and humphed to himself. Why did it take women so damn long to get ready for anything? Sure, it was an embassy party, but Kate not only had Abby, but Abby had called in Cassie for backup, and how it could take the three of them more than 20 minutes to make sure Kate was ready to go was beyond him. She'd now been down there for two hours, and he was beginning to think they'd just used it as an excuse to bunk off for a couple of hours of girl talk before things got serious.
Fortunately they still had plenty of time. DiNozzo and McGee had left an hour before, DiNozzo bitching about having to be undercover as a waiter for this one (Gibbs had to admit, if only to himself, that Tony had a point - evidently the staff at the Moroccan embassy went in for ridiculously formal attire, and Tony had looked like a refugee from a bad 50s movie), and McGee babbling about just how exactly he'd wired them all up so that he could monitor every movement and every conversation from the van hidden in a back street.
He looked at his watch again. He could forgive Kate for needing a little time out, if he was honest. She'd been nervous and jumpy for two days, more nervous than he would've expected for a woman who'd been employed to put herself between a bullet and the President, and more nervous than she should be after the best part of two years as an investigator. He'd hoped to get the chance to make her open up so he could help her take the edge off before they actually got to the place, but he supposed Abby and Cassie might be better therapy than a grumpy old bastard in a penguin suit.
Cassie had come loaded down with confiscated outfits fit for a playboy's escort, and remembering Cassie's typical attire drawn from the same source, he figured he'd be grateful that they were building relationships, not actively investigating, tonight. Kate asking him about tattoos had amused him at the time. After a night or two when even sanding wood at 2am had still left him struggling to sleep soundly, he'd been painfully reminded of why mixing personal relationships with a mission was never a good idea.
He'd known about the heart on Kate's backside for at least a year, but the conversation had left him wondering what other body art, scars or... Well, other interesting physical attributes Caitlin Todd was hiding under those well tailored but almost invariably modest outfits he was used to seeing her in. And wondering if this assignment would provide any opportunities to find out. He knew it was unprofessional to speculate, but apparently his libido didn't care.
He'd been so successful in treating her as one of the guys, had trained himself not to notice or think of her as anything other than an agent, and not to even need to make an effort not to check her out. He had become entirely complacent, and the sudden reminder that she was emphatically not just a guy had made mincemeat of the self restraint he'd used to such good effect her first few months at NCIS. Kate Todd the Special Agent he had learned to cope with pretty well. Kate Todd the woman, away from work and no longer having to outwork and outman the men to prove to prove her balls - a Kate Todd whose role in the mission depended at least partly on convincing people she was sharing his bed more often than not - would be much more of a challenge.
So he'd tried to tone down his impulse to flirt with her and tease her. Going undercover as a couple might turn out to be too much temptation all on its own. Indulging in fantasy and conjecture in between times would just be stupid.
Once more he checked the time, then made a decision. Twenty more minutes, and he was heading down to the lab. Kate would just have to go to the party in whatever she damn well happened to have on at the time. He just hoped that whatever it was was high necked and ankle length, so he'd have a chance at spending an evening pretending they were lovers without short circuiting his brain out of all common sense.