Nearly four hours later Timothy McGee and Kitty McKinnon stood on the terminal awaiting the imminent arrival of Archie McKinnon.
Kitty mostly stared at the arrival boards waiting for the status next to Archie's flight to turn to Arrived but there was no doubt in McGee's mind that she was watching the plane anyway.
He watched as the normally fun-loving, dancing eyes of his Gibbs- described proxy-daughter turned into sad dead lumps of burnt ash. They had transformed just as quickly as her personality. She had been smiley, happy, gleeful, and laughing only yesterday. She always wore her hair in a bun so you could see her full face, every hint of mischief, every smile. Now her hair was worn down, parted deeply to the side so the hair covered half of her face. Her new sullen, pale, dead looking face and lifeless eyes.
Kitty stood suddenly and straightened the front of her white blouse.
"He's here." She said in the most enthusiastic tone she had used all day, although it would have only sounded enthusiastic to the people who had been conversing with her today. To any passer-by she may have sounded as though she were headed to the gallows.
The automatic doors slid open and hordes of people came streaming out, a strangely large amount of people considering the flight arrived at 11:00 PM on a Thursday.
People came to the doors and greeted colleagues and loved ones. McGee saw the pained look on Kitty's face as she watched two young children run to the doors to greet their mother.
The crowds began dispersing and the luggage had begun to fall onto the carousel.
Kitty's face suddenly lit up with an almost joyful glow. McGee looked to the doors to see a teenage boy with short dark, moss-green hair, eyes of sea water and a very athletic build stop a few feet before her.
The two stared at each other for a long moment before the boy took two strides forward and wrapped his arms around his sisters shoulders.
McGee felt a wave of pain wash over him as he saw Kitty's shoulders shake within her brother's safe hold. Tears slid down her face and hung at the tip of her nose. She made no sound as she broke down in her carefully planned defenses in her brother's arms.
A few tears slid down the boys face as well before he wound his arm around her waist and walked her over the short distance to McGee.
She lightly shook her head and recomposed her look of melancholy nonchalance to the best extent she could manage.
"Tim, this is Archie." Her voice was smooth and calm sounding.
McGee shook the teenager's free hand with an apologetic smile.
Kitty looked up at her brother. "We should leave. The, uh, guys are waiting up."
"You should've told them not to." His voice was deep with a slight rasp to it.
"I did, but they wouldn't hear it; especially Leanne."
Archie blushed slightly. "Alright, then. Let's go."
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Archie had ended up riding on the back of Kitty's Ducati to the small three floor apartment where the other six teenagers lived.
McGee followed the two to the door. Kitty unlocked the door and stepped inside beckoning for McGee to follow.
"They're just teenagers, Tim, they don't bite." She whispered to him.
They did when I was in school, Tim wanted to say.
Out of nowhere six new bodies flooded the hallway hugging and greeting the two McKinnons.
One guy very strongly built, but not out of proportion came over to McGee who instantly straightened his back, feeling a subconscious inferiority to the young man's physique.
"You must be Special Agent McGee." The boy said shaking Tim's hand. "I just wanted to thank you for taking such good care of Kitty. She looks like she's doing well, considering the circumstances."
"It's no problem at all. She's great company." Tim replied. He looked back to the group of friends before him.
Kitty was sharing a long look with a short tanned guy. He had short brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses. The way he shoved his hands in his hoodie pockets, the way he hunched his shoulders defensively and shifted his weight on his feet portrayed an air McGee was only too familiar with. The air of an abused geek.
Kitty turned a cold shoulder to the geeky guy and hugged her brother.
"I'll be around at oh six hundred tomorrow morning." She told him.
"Military time?" he answered with a smirk.
"What can I say? I've been hanging around my boss too long." She said smiling at him. "Take care, Arch."
"Don't worry about me, Kit."
She smiled at him one last time and left the house with McGee in tow.
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Later that evening in McGee's apartment Kitty had sat down on her couch/bed to write. Tim was reviewing some material he had written at his writing desk. They could see each other through the bookshelf.
"Whatcha thinking about McGee?" Kitty said putting her pen and notebook down on the floor and looked at him.
"Thought you could read minds." McGee said, not looking up.
"Who told you that?"
"No one had to tell me. You read Abby's mind when Gibbs asked you to tell him who was behind the glass the first time you came to NCIS."
"Oh, that. No. I can't read minds."
"Then how..?" he finally looked up to see her hugging her knees and resting her face on the caps; looking at him cutely.
"I can read body language well, and Abby is particularly easy to read. You should watch her sometime, very closely."
"But you knew exactly what she was thinking."
"Like I said, I can read body language well. It comes from years of being isolated from other people at school. Kids do not value brains much these days." She shook her head and stretched out. "You see: Abby stood farther away from the glass than you, Tony or Ziva. She shifted her weight from foot to foot and kept locking her knees. She was obviously not used to the situation. That's how I knew she wasn't supposed to be there.
"As for how I knew she was thinking about me… she was straining her eyes and squinting at me, as though she were analyzing me, trying to see every inch of me she could… judging me. Although it was probably subconsciously, Abby doesn't judge consciously."
"Fine. But our names and positions in the team. How did you know those?"
"I looked at your ID cards."
"Oh."
"Yup. There's no magic behind what I do. Well, no magic save the obvious. It's all careful observation.
"Which is half-way why I needed to use my computer to find Jackson. Even if I had tried to see him, chances were good that he would have been in a suburban neighbourhood with no unique or distinguishable land-marks that I would have been able to use to figure out where he was.
"So I tracked him on my computer to find an initial position that I could follow him from."
McGee nodded. "Okay. One more question. You told Gibbs you can't see someone you don't know. So how did you see us?"
"Okay. If I have a name AND face or a location I can find who we're looking for. Although, if I have a location, I can tell you who's there, I can't distinguish between one person and another in terms of who committed a murder and who didn't. Unless their body language implied a very on edge or guilty appearance, but that's very complicated not to mention unlikely."
McGee pursed his lips and furrowed his brow.
"Yeah I know, it's a lot to take in at once."
"That might be an understatement." He said and smiled at her. "Want a cup of coffee?"
"That sounds great. And Tim?" she stopped him as he walked towards the kitchen. "Thanks for taking care of me."
"Anytime. You really are a pleasure to have around." He smiled.
"I'm glad you see it that way, Tim." Kitty said picking her notebook and pen back up and continuing in her neat, cursive script.