Disclaimer applies; not beta'd
"Damn, probie, you look like hell," Tony announced as he cheerfully entered the bullpen. "Late night last night?" he teased. Shocked when Tim just nodded his head in agreement.
"It must've been a really late and wild night if you willingly answered on the first round of questioning. Wow, where is Ziva when you need her? She's never gonna believe you gave in and answered, let alone so quickly." Tony smirked, looking at Tim. Tim however, just remained at his desk, though his head seemed to be losing the fight with gravity.
"What is this? My little Protégé all grown up and wooing the ladies till the wee hours of the morning. I'm so proud. Of course, the next thing we have to work on is how to function the next day. Don't worry, you'll build up stamina over time."
"I don't want a repeat," Tim muttered.
"Oh, Probie, surely it wasn't that bad. I mean, sure, you may feel that way now, and you'll probably feel worse once the boss sees you, but," he said gleefully before wiggling his eyebrows, "So what was it? Busty Brunette Babe? Buxom Blonde Bombshell? Red Hot Redhead?" Tony asked, continuing until a familiar sound echoed through the bullpen. "Ouch! Thank you boss."
"My money's on a babe," Gibbs said with a knowing grin as he looked at his two agents, paying particular attention to the younger man.
Tony just sat down at his desk and had already started an email to Tim, letting him know that their conversation wasn't over and that before he took Gibbs up on his bet he needed more information, when his boss's voice rang out again.
"DiNozzo, cold cases. McGee, with me," he called, leading the young agent to the elevator while Tony shook his head and waved a finger at McGee in admonition. Even if Boss won the bet, it didn't mean he would let such behavior slide.
While Tim was a little worried about what Gibbs needed to see him about, he didn't let it show, but instead rolled his eyes at the senior field agent. Surprisingly, once they were in the elevator, the older man didn't hit the stop switch, but instead press the floor button for Abby's lab.
"Boss?"
"McGee?"
Tim opened then closed his mouth, without saying a word. If his boss wasn't gonna yell at him, he wasn't going to invite it by speaking out of turn.
"Heard you had a rough night."
"Yeah," came the tired admission. "Abby tell ya?"
"Yep. She also said that she felt bad spoiling your evening."
"My evening?" a confused Tim repeated. "I would rather she wake me and I lose a couple of hours sleep than have something happen to one of the kids."
Gibbs hid his grin, "She said that you weren't alone when she called."
The younger agent frowned, "Why would she think that?"
"She said you were talking to or about another girl."
Tim paled and held his hands out to steady himself, "Oh. Oh, no."
"Whoa, McGee. It's okay. You have the right to see someone."
"Bo-Boss, I wasn't. I mean, it's not that," Tim stammered. "It's, well, when she called and mentioned he wouldn't stop crying and had been doing so for a while, I, well, I guess I kinda flashed back to Lizzie and Sarah and that night."
At his agent's explanation, Gibbs blanched, and stopped the elevator.
"For a moment, I forgot who she was, and who she was talking about. I asked her how Sarah was," Tim admitted, lost in his thoughts. "After returning to the present, I then ordered her to check on Kay, to make sure that she was actually sleeping, still breathing and not dead. Boss, I specifically asked if she was breathing."
"Oh, hell, McGee. I didn't think of that when I assigned you as contact last night. I'll take you off the list."
"No, it's okay, boss. I'm fine."
Gibbs stared at his young agent, "You sure?"
"Yes," he said, continuing at his boss's inquisitive look. "Really."
"Make sure you let me know if that changes. I'll understand if it does."
"I know you will," McGee reaffirmed, getting the elevator moving once more.
"So, why we going to Abby's lab?"
"I'm going to get an update on the case, you are going to there to sleep."
"Boss?"
"You worked all night, we have no hot cases, you can catch an hour or two."
"Uh, what about the twins?"
"They'll sleep in their cribs."
Tim barely resisted rolling his eyes, "I meant what about that case."
"You can start a search to run while you sleep, even not, a few hours shouldn't matter too much, plus we'll need you on your game later today."
"Why? What's going on later today?" he asked, not receiving an answer as the two entered the lab, the older pointing the younger to the futon Abby had set up on her office floor.
"Sleep," he ordered Tim before turning to the scientist, "Abby, what do you got for me?"
"Apparently teething babies…and one with an ear infection," she replied, stifling a yawn. "Do all babies wait till the middle of the night before they let their symptoms be known?"
"Yep. What else you got?"
"So far, nothing on the father. We just started running the rest of the G's in reverse order."
Gibbs shook his head at the name, wondering where it came from. Still, he supposed it was better than referring to them as suspects. "How much longer?" he asked.
"A while. It's taking Major Mass Spect about 10 hours for each test, including preparing next batch, printing results, and sanitizing all of the equipment."
"You can't rush it?"
"Gibbs, how many times do I have to tell you that you can't rush science?" Abby scolded, hand on her hip, "Besides, that is rushing it," she added with a grin, "The average paternity test takes about 12-72 hours."
"72?"
"Yep. Now don't you feel lucky that these are only taking 10?" she smirked. "Ideally, we would be testing the mother's as well, to compare all three, well, four. I was able to well, we'll just call it 'pre-screening' to shorten that time frame a bit. And no," she continued when Gibbs opened his mouth, "I can't lessen it any more, not if I want to preserve the integrity of the test."
"Fine. You'll call me if you get something?"
"Always do, unless you show up here first," she grinned, as he started to walk away.
"Oh, and Abby, best get some sleep yourself when you have a bit of time between tests."
"Gladly," she answered, stifling another yawn.
"Hey, Abs, McGee down here?" Tony asked as he entered the lab a couple of hours later.
"In there," Abby replied, indicating her office a nod of her head.
"Great, thanks," Tony replied as he entered her office, only to return to the lab a moment later.
"What's going on?"
"What do you mean?" Abby questioned.
"First sign of avoidance is answering a question with a question," he remarked.
"No, answering a question with another question means someone, in this case, me, needs clarification regarding the first question," Abby retorted. "I don't know what you meant by your question, I'm working, Tim's napping."
"Yeah, I know, I figured that out when I saw him snoring on the futon."
"Timmy doesn't snore."
"And you would know, wouldn't you?" Tony smirked.
Abby's eyes narrowed, "So would you if you actually listened. He's sleeping now, yet all is quiet, therefore one can easily infer that McGee does not snore when he sleeps."
"My point is why is McDoesn'tSnore sleeping?"
"Because he's tired?"
"Don't give me that, Abby. It takes more than being tired to get McPerfectionist to sleep on the job. So I'll ask you again, what's going on?"
Abby shrugged and turned away, "Don't know what to tell you."
"How about the truth?" Tony snapped back. "I could tell he had a rough night. Hell, I only saw him for a few moments yesterday but I could already tell he was barely hanging on, and then this morning," Tony paused shaking his head.
Again Abby shrugged.
"Fine," Tony conceded, knowing he wasn't going to get anything useful from her. "I don't know what the hell is going on around here, but everyone is acting mighty peculiar," he muttered before reentering her office.
As he looked closer at Tim on the futon, he realized that there was an indent on the futon in front of McGee. And long dark hairs next to his head on the pillow. Eyes narrowed as he looked from McGee to Abby and back again. At least he had one piece to the puzzle, he thought right before he woke his sleeping partner up.
5-27-18
Hope you enjoyed it.