"Carla!"
The Latina nurse looked up from her paperwork to find Elliot standing in front of her, attempting to appear intimidating.
"Yes, Elliot?"
"Why didn't you tell me? You talk about everything and everyone around here. Why wouldn't you tell me you saw a murder?" There was a slight edge of hurt in Elliot's voice, which was obvious to Carla. She sighed.
"I didn't because I knew you'd act like this."
At this, Elliot looked shocked. "Act like what? Hurt that my best friend wouldn't tell me that she saw something as shocking as a murder?"
Again, Carla was reminded of the difference in their backgrounds. "Elliot, where I come from it's not actually that shocking." She was about to say something else, but paused, brow furrowing in thought. "Wait a second. How did you find out about that? Was it Turk?"
Elliot grinned. "No, for once it wasn't Turk. I met one of the NCIS agents you spoke to the other night."
"Oh really? Where did you happen to meet this NCIS agent?"
"A bar.."
"Oh, then it must have been DiNozzo. But, I have to warn you, Elliot, he's a total ladies' man. I'm just looking out for you."
As Carla gave her heartfelt advice, Elliot had to hide her laughter behind a hand. Of course, Carla noticed.
"What's so funny?"
"It wasn't DiNozzo. It was the other one."
"The grey-haired one, Gibbs? Elliot, he's old enough to be your dad."
Elliot blushed furiously and shook her head back and forth. "No! The other other one..McGee."
"Oh, McGee. He seemed nice."
"He is nice." Elliot checked the hallway before looking back at Carla. "And, he's an author."
"What did he write?"
"Deep Six. The best part is he wrote it about the people he worked with. Tommy, Tibbs, Lisa, Amy, they're his coworkers! Tony is Tommy, Gibbs is Tibbs, and so on."
Carla laughed. "He's a fine writer then. From what I saw, he nailed both Tony and Gibbs. He could have been a little more creative with the names, though."
"I know! Can you imagine if someone wrote a book about Sacred Heart?" The words were just out of Elliot's mouth when she began to wonder if that might not be such a bad idea after all.
"Yeah, that would be fun. Until Dr, Cox, or Jordan, or Kelso found out about it. Then, there'd be blood. Oh, and a lawsuit. Remember when Kelso had Ted sue that Girl Scout troop for soliciting outside the hospital?"
"...True." Then, without thinking Elliot blurted out "I told my dad that Tim was my boyfriend."
"What?? Why did you do that?"
"I-I don't know. He just came out of nowhere while we were having coffee downstairs. He was all 'Introduce me to your new friend, Elliot', and I just called him my boyfriend."
"Oh Elliot. What did he do?"
"My dad or Tim?"
"Who do you think?" Carla rolled her eyes.
"He went along with it, but then he got called into work and had to leave."
"Well, I'm sure your dad would believe it if you said he had some weird problem so you two broke up. Problem solved."
Elliot sighed. "I know that, but..I want to see him again. I just don't know if he will want to see me. I mean what kind of nutjob claims the you're her boyfriend after one night's drinking in a bar? I'll tell you who, a sorority girl, and I haven't been one of those in years. Frick!!"
Carla laughed. "Then you should call him later and talk to him. That will give you an idea of whether he's interested in seeing you again."
"I should call him now.." Elliot turned to go find a quiet place to call, but Carla grabbed her arm.
"No, you shouldn't. You said yourself he just got called into work. That means he's busy."
"But, I need to--"
"Call. Later."
After one last-ditch attempt to wrench her arm free of Carla's grip, Elliot sighed.
"All right, later."
------------- -------------
McGee sighed as he waited for the elevator doors to open. This was all he needed, to start off the day on Gibbs' bad side. Bracing himself for the worst, the doors opened and he stepped out into the bullpen. He looked around, and Gibbs wasn't there. Tony and Ziva were both sitting at their desks, but the boss was nowhere to be found.
Ziva was the first to notice the confused look on McGee's face. "Is something wrong, McGee?"
"Well, Tony called me and said that I needed to get to work as soon as possible because you guys were waiting on me."
Tony grinned. "So where were you getting coffee, McGeek? You should have been here twenty minutes ago. It must have been something pretty important to throw you off your schedule."
Ignoring Tony for the moment, McGee went to his desk and sat down, booting the computer as he did so.
"So, this was a prank? You made McGee think Gibbs was mad at him to find out where he was?"
"Exactly, Ziva."
"Tony, why didn't you just ask him? Wouldn't that have been simpler?"
"It would have if he wanted to tell me where he was. But, as you can see, he doesn't." She was suddenly reminded of Tony's unwillingness to answer questions. Maybe she could put that little tactic to her own good use.
"Why do you care anyway?" McGee was annoyed by the fact that Tony would prank hin like that, though it wasn't really surprising.
"I care because it affects the team. We're all in this together, Probie."
"Really?" Ziva smirked. "So, where is it you keep running off to at such odd hours?"
Tony turned to face Ziva, as he silently cursed himself for not seeing that one coming. "That's different, Ziva. It's an entirely unrelated matter."
"But, Tony, it affects the team. Therefore, I care."
McGee took advantage of the opportunity to slip out of the bullpen and head down to see Abby as
Tony and Ziva continued to debate.
He opened the door to the lab only to find it eerily quiet. He could hear the faint humming of the machinery and computers, but Abby was nowhere to be found.
"Abby?"
"Hey, Tim!" came the familiar chirp from behind him. He turned to see Abby upside-down, back against the wall, doing a headstand.
"What are you doing down there?"
"I'm conducting an experiment to see if the rush of blood to the head that accompanies a headstand has any long-lasting effects." As she spoke, her legs came down and she stood up straight once again. "How are you?"
Tim smiled at Abby, that's just the way she was. "That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about."
"What's up?"
"Well, after Petty Officer Winchester died, I couldn't go home and write, you know?"
Abby nodded, and he continued. "I went to a bar, and I met this doctor. Her name's Elliot, and she works at Sacred Heart." Suddenly, he realized how this might sound to Abby and and after the whole 'Snow Queen' incident, he wasn't eager to repeat it. "Nothng happened, we just talked. But, this morning, she called me and asked me if I wanted to have coffee."
"Did you go?" Abby laughed.
"Well yeah, but that's not the part I wanted to talk to you about. While we were there, her dad showed up and she told him I was her boyfriend."
"Let me get this straight. You guys hadn't even been on one date yet unless you consider the coffee a date, which I guess it sort of is, and she's calling you her boyfriend?"
Tim nodded. "You've got it."
Abby sat in silence for a few moments. "Let me meet her."
"Let you meet her?"
She nodded. "Yep, after dealing with Chip, I can spot a nutjob from a mile away. I'll tell you if she's crazy or not."
"I don't know, Abby.."
"Ok, McGee..you wanna date a nutjob, go right ahead."
He didn't really want to introduce Abby to Elliot, but he did value her opinion, and knew that she could be trusted to keep a secret from the rest of the team. "All right, all right, but you can't let Tony find out about this. He already pranked me claiming I was late and that Gibbs was pissed in an attempt to find out why I was late."
Abby shook her head, and squeezed McGee's hand. "He's sneaky, too bad I'm sneakier. Don't worry, Tony won't find out."
"What won't I find out, Abby?" Tony asked as he and Ziva entered the lab. "Very stealthy, Probie, sneaking out on us like that."
"You won't find out what secret mission I sent McGee out on this morning." Her eyes narrowed and she pointed a finger accusingly at Tony. "If you're smart, you won't try to find out either."
Tony wasn't intimidated, in fact he was amused. "Does this mean you two are together? McGeek, I didn't know you had it in you."
Abby smirked, and without any further comment, leaned over and kissed McGee with the same passion she did everything else. When she pulled away, he had a half-smile on his face, having forgotten what a good kisser Abby was.
"You're forgetting Rule 12. Never date a coworker." Ziva interjected.
"They already dated once before, Ziva. Of course, that was before McGee officially joined NCIS." Tony added.
"Yes, well, we'd better get to work or we'll all be getting headslaps."
"Not me..." Abby grinned.