7:05 AM - NCIS Squad Room

"'McNever Late' is now 'McTardy.' ," Tony hooted.

He always happy when someone else on the team took the negative attention that was undoubtedly due to be coming from the boss. It was gonna be a great day. He'd gotten in to work on time, hadn't had to miss out on breakfast or coffee. And top it all off, Probie was already in the dog house; sufficiently keeping Tony free and clear to have fun at the younger man's expense.

Ziva rolled her eyes at Tony's snarky attitude. He obviously was already prepared to take pleasure, as usual, in someone else's less than good situation. She knew no good was in store for McGee when he did show up. This day was going to be interesting. Ziva just hoped no bloodshed would take place between her two fellow teammates.

Gibbs held his tongue, but his eyes spoke volumes about his rising temper, compliments of the now late Agent. Restless without an open case to work, the boss man's ire was more easily sparked this morning. And, even though he knew McGee would have a good reason for being late, he was miffed that the young man hadn't called yet. That was unexcusable on Team Gibbs and they all knew it.

When would this day start going right? Tim had known the day was going to be a bad one when he'd somehow managed to oversleep. Normally, his alarm clock worked with no problem. Since he kept it set early enough to give him time to get showered, dressed, eat breakfast and still be early for work; oversleeping like this set the mood for the day; badly.

But, that wasn't even the worst part. No, the worst part was gonna be when he had to confess to Gibbs that somehow, somewhere, he'd misplaced his Agency cell phone since leaving work last night. Knowing he needed to be reachable at all times, he now had to stop and grab a burn phone until he could get his legitimate one replaced. Concerned with having to still drive all the way to work, Tim quickly stowed the temporary phone on the visor; his new place of choice for his phone, out of sight, yet reachable. The reasons for that had come straight out of that nightmare with that assassin. In a hurry to get going, he barely took the time to rip the box open, dump out the pieces, and hook up the charger, before he drove back out into traffic. Honking horns all around him distracted him from the important step he had yet to do. It was a mis-step he would not soon forget.

When he finally rushed into the squad room, some thirty minutes late, he swore he saw steam coming from Gibbs' ears. He'd known he was in deep trouble and he could almost hear Tony's gears grinding from overload, with the countless barbs and remarks he'd been thinking of, chomping at the bit to throw at him. Thankfully, Ziva was kind enough to settle for silently offering him an encouraging smile. It was as if she'd chosen to be the calm before the storm. Tim was grateful for it.

"Something wrong with your phone, Agent McGee?"

Gibbs' bark from clear across the squad room, the second Tim stepped off the elevator dropped Tim's heart clear down to his feet. Yeah, his goose was cooked now. Tim hurried over to Gibbs' desk as quickly as he could, not even bothering to drop his backpack off his shoulder at his own desk, first.

"Um. Boss. I'm really sorry. Can I talk to you. In private?" Tim forced himself to look GIbbs in the eye as he made his request.

Gibbs glared at his agent, anger radiating off of him in waves.

"You've wasted enough time this morning. Whatever you need to say, just say it, McGee!" Gibbs bit out, not happy at this unusual request.

"Boss, I've… I've lost my phone. My alarm clock didn't go off. And traffic was at a standstill." Tim rushed to get it all out. After all, it took all three events to add up to the bad place he was in with his thoroughly ticked off boss.

"Anything else? Gibbs asked sarcastically. "Or do you think you've come up with enough?"

"Boss, you know…." Tim tried to remind his boss that he would never make any of this stuff up.

"McGee! Enough!" Gibbs barked as he sat down in his chair and turned his focus onto his computer, clearly dismissing both his agent and the subject matter at hand.

Tim scurried to his desk, dropped his backpack unceremoniously on the floor and plopped down in his chair, quickly firing up his computer work station; deliberately ignoring the snickering coming from the Senior Field Agent sitting at the next desk over. Tim guessed he should consider himself lucky that Tony had yet to open his mouth.

"So, McTardy…" Tony's drawled out voice almost boomed in the squad room.

"Can it, DiNozzo!" Gibbs barked. He wasn't in the mood to hear any of that crap this morning. Thankfully, his phone rang; in all probability sparking the beginning of a new case.

"Yeah. Gibbs! Got it. We're on our way."

Before he'd even put his phone down, Tony and Ziva were standing ready to join him in their trek to the elevator. Although they had to make darn sure they were at the top of their game now, there was no way they were gonna risk Gibbs' ire when it was already fired up over McGee. They'd leave that to the Probie, since he was already well on his way to the dog house anyway.

Tim, was still trying to play catch up, with logging on to his computer, listening to his voicemail messages and mistakenly not paying attention to what was going on around him. Suddenly, the room got eerily quiet and Tim once again, felt his heart plummet down to his toes. Somehow, without even moving from his chair, he'd screwed up again; he just knew it. Sure enough, as he turned to look over at Gibbs' desk, his field of vision was interrupted by the boss himself.

"Not bad enough you were 30 minutes late this morning, now you're waiting for an engraved invitation, McGee?" Gibbs bit out with anger as he dropped a cell phone kit on Tim's desk with a thud. He quickly turned on his heel, and headed to the elevator with Tony and Ziva nipping at his hels.

"No, Boss. I'm sorry." Tim offered genuinely, even though he knew Gibbs hated apologies. Tim just couldn't go without offering one when he'd screwed up; like now.

He scrambled to his feet, struggled pick up the box and snatch his backpack and head to the elevator all in record speed; only to watch Gibbs allow the elevator to leave without him. Now he had to triple time his flight down the stairs so he could get out there without holding them up any further. Man, I hate days like this! Something tells me this one's only gonna get worse!