spoilers: any episode with a Sara/Sarah in it.


"Don't sit there," said Tony firmly.

"Why?"

"It's her desk."

"And?"

"I've only just got used to Ziva sitting there, I can't go back. Just sit at my desk. Anywhere: just not there."

"I think you're making way too big a deal out of this."

McGee walked through carrying a pile of folders, "Hey Kate."

He stopped so abruptly that the folders cascaded out of his arms forming a messy pool at his feet. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Could you please not sit there?" he begged.

"All right," she surrendered, "I'm moving."

McGee went about collecting his errant folders.

"So," Tony began conversationally as Sarah perched on his desk, " 'Sarah': is that as common a name as it seems to be?"

"What?"

"Well, for example: Probie here, his sister's name is Sarah."

"And that little girl who got kidnapped on Halloween, she was a Sarah, too," McGee chimed in.

"And the daughter of the psychopath who gave me the plague: another Sarah."

"Ducky once told me he had a roll around in poison ivy with someone named Sarah."

"There were some Sarah cases before you got here, Probie," Tony reminisced. "There was one making out in her dad's SUV when this parachutist came straight through the roof and another doing the grieving widow bit when her husband phoned in at his own wake."

"That Iraq veteran who had her car bombed in a car park had only just finished talking to a friend named Sara," McGee pointed out.

"And that redneck who baited bears," Tony remembered suddenly, "his daughter was called Sarah. She was his alibi."

"It must be hard to keep track of them all," commented Sarah.

"Not really," McGee assured her, "Sarahs usually turn up just before the crime is actually committed."

"Though sometimes they are mistaken for the Angel of Death," Tony pointed out.

"Sarah?" Gibbs appeared from nowhere. "Like Mac over at JAG?"

"Yeah," Tony confirmed, "like the one in Tales of the Gold Monkey."

"OK, I get the message," Sarah put her hands to her ears. "It's like there's some tall balding guy with a beard and moustache who is writing Sarahs into everything."

She rounded on Gibbs as he sat at his desk. "So did you fantasize about my sister?"

Gibbs became perfectly still, a memory full of searing guilt flashed before him.

"No," he said finally.

She held his steel blue gaze for a moment and an unspoken message passed between them. She understood.

"Has Abby found anything on that dead sailor's blood test?" Gibbs asked breaking eye contact.

McGee and Tony exchanged panicked glances: Abby! They hadn't told her yet.

"I'll, just go check," said McGee rising from his chair.

"Me too." Tony followed hot on his heels.


"Promise me you're not going to freak out."

"Why would I freak out McGee; Tony fried the mass spec again?"

"Ahh no," he slid Tony a questioning look. Tony shrugged in response. "It's just that we have someone downstairs who, well, she may look kind of familiar and I don't want you to start going on about reincarnation and such but she's ah, well she's actually Kate's sister."

"Sarah's back from deployment? I didn't know that. Why didn't she call?"

"You know her?"

"Kate was my best friend."

"And you never told me you knew her sister?" Tony complained.

"Kate asked me not to, apparently the thought of having you as a potential brother-in-law was just too scary."

"Hmmm," Tony's mind clicked over, "so she thought we would be a good match then…"

"She's married now Tony, didn't you notice they don't share the same surname."

"Is it a loveless marriage?"

"No."

"Adventurous marriage: willing to diverge?"

"Tony!" Abby slapped him playfully on the arm on her way out of the lab.

"Just asking."


"Sarah!" Abby squealed running from the elevator leaving McGee and Tony in her wake.

"Abby!" Sarah replied in her most Kate-like voice.

"Oh," Abby said as she neared, "you look even more like her than before. I think her spirit has inhabited your body."

Sarah raised a sceptical eyebrow at her but threw herself into Abby's advancing hug.

"Did you know that these guys fantasized about Kate after she died?"

"That one," Abby nodded to Tony, "I just assumed and that one," she nodded to McGee, "I caught in the act. I gave him one for Kate."

McGee looked down, abashed.

"Thank you." Sarah gave Abby another hug.

Unfortunately, the oldest member of the team chose that exact moment to make his way around the corner chatting amicably to Ziva who had not seen fit to warn him of the resident doppleganger.

"Oh, my Lord!" Ducky exclaimed, grabbing his chest in pain.

"It's OK, Ducky," McGee assured him, providing essential support while Tony dragged a chair under him, "it's her sister."

"Oh," Ducky panted, "I haven't had a shock like that since I caught mother doing something unspeakable with one of her Welsh corgis."

"Tyson or Contessa?"

Ducky looked up at Tony, sharply . "You know, it never occurred to me to check."

"Well, I think you are all crazy," Ziva piped up. "I have brothers and sisters dying all over the place and they all look alike. It's like there's a production line. And now, if you'll excuse us, Tony and I have a date: at the gym."

"Oh great," Sarah smiled, "I forgot they had a gym on base, can I come?"

"Sure."

"Oh, but I'll need a partner."

McGee began cowering in the corner of his cubicle as she approached menacingly.

"So," she smiled that dangerous Kate smile, "do you grapple?"


P.S. If you know any other episodes with a Sarah/Sara in it, please let me know. I haven't had time to go through the whole lot, especially season 3.