A/N I'd like to thank Sasha1600 for her patience in sorting my head out with this one. It was frying big style till she helped me out. Cheers!

Director Shepherd scowled hard at the four members of the team who had lined up in front of her desk. She deliberately let the silence continue until it had grown seriously uncomfortable and she began to see them visibly squirm and shift from one foot to another under her steely gaze.

Gibbs had stood to the side and was leaning on the cabinet with his arms folded. Finally the silence was broken and Jen looked each of them in turn.

"I assume you all know why you are here."

"Bonus time again?" Tony quipped nervously with a smile.

Gibbs stood up tall and a sideways glance from Tony instantly caused his face to fall and he muttered an apology.

Jen picked up the TV remote and ordered the team to turn around and face the plasma screen. She pressed the button and the initial clip came up immediately.

Gibbs inhaled deeply as he saw the repeat performance right to the part just before he had trashed his TV set. Jen pressed the pause button before the show resumed after the break and she set the remote down on the table and stood scowling, with her arms folded.

"I have spent the entire weekend sorting out your little stunt and kissing SecNav's ass to attempt to keep this thing low key. Call it self preservation, but if you hadn't been so valuable to this Agency, I would have quite happily have busted your asses out of the door and all the way to Hollywood myself!"

Ziva rolled her eyes, "Jen, it was a foolish act I agree and one I certainly regret."

"It's Director Shepherd and, Officer David, I don't doubt that you regret your participation in this, but the fact of the matter is that all four of you went absent without authorized leave, you disobeyed a direct order to attend a training event, you lied to your Team Leader and on national television, you explained to an audience of God knows how many, that you pretty much were playing hooky!"

"I'm sensing that you are not entirely happy Director." Abby asked as she nervously wrung her hands.

"Gold star for observation Abby!" Jen snapped sarcastically.

Abby winced and held her head low.

"Let's just take a look at the evidence shall we and then perhaps we can both understand why I, as Director of this Agency, am just a little pissed off at the antics of the Agents under my command."

Jen pressed the button on the remote and the theme tune blasted out. Not wishing to view the auditions for the second time that morning Gibbs sneaked out of the room as the voice of Ryan Seacrest filled the room,

"Hi, welcome back to American Idol, we are in Washington and we've just met four team mates from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. First in to face Simon, Randy and Paula is what the Senior Field Agent calls, the Probie, aka Tim McGee."

"Oh God," Tim whispered as he closed his eyes and paled.

Flashback – Tim's Audition

"Oh God!" Tim whined as he realized that he was going to be first in.

"Come on Probie, you'll be fine. Just do your best."

Abby swung her arms around his neck almost knocking him off balance,

"Good luck Timmy!"

Nervously Tim opened the door and entered the audition room and took his place on the American Idol logo. He gulped as he eyed the recording cameras and then smiled weakly at the panel of judges.

"Hi there, what's your name?" Paula asked sweetly,

"I'm…uh…McGee….Tim…McGee."

"It says here you work for NCIS what does that stand for?"

McGee coughed nervously, "It's the Naval Criminal Investigative Service….we…uh…investigate crimes involving the Navy and….the….uh…Marine Corps."

"Impressive Tim….ok and what song are you going to sing for us and why have you chosen it?"

"I'm going to sing Edelweiss, my…uh…favorite movie is the 'Sound of Music' and I'm a big Julie Andrew's fan."

Tim was sure he detected a smirk on Simon's face, but decided to ignore it and hoped that he could actually sing and get the whole thing over with. At that moment, he regretted giving into Tony's pleas to avoid the training course and come to the auditions.

Paula smiled widely, "Ok, when you are ready Tim"

As Tim's low voice began to resonate around the room, he instantly realized that his singing was awful.

"...blossom of snow may you bloom and grow, bloom and grow forever...uh...Edelweiss...Edelweiss...bless..."

Randy Jackson hid his face behind a sheet of paper and Simon struggled to prevent himself from sniggering. He eventually put his hand up to call the audition to a close and Tim breathed a sigh of relief.

"That was awful!" Simon groaned, "It was like a cross between a fog-horn and a brick. Totally lifeless and out of tune!"

Randy chuckled, "Dude, I think you should stick to investigating. I don't think your voice is in any way shape ready for this competition. It's going to be a 'no' from me I'm afraid."

Paula pouted in sympathy, "Oh I'm sorry Tim, I don't think it was good enough sweetie, but you are kinda cute."

"That's three 'nos'. Thank you!" Simon snapped.

As Tim left the audition room with relief he opened the door and faced the excited and wide eyed faces of his co-workers.

"No," he said with a smile

"Aww!" Ziva pouted as she stroked her hand up his arm.

Jen paused the tape and McGee flushed with embarrassment.

"Agent McGee, I can assure you that 'cute' was not a word to describe what SecNav thought of your audition!"

There was a ripple of sniggers from Abby and Ziva, which only served to increase Jen's anger,

"It's not as if you two did any better, clearly you have nothing to laugh about!"

Abby and Ziva pouted as Jen pressed the remote once more.

To be continued...