LEE'S POV:

My mind was awhirl with thoughts after I dropped Emma off in the NCIS parking deck. She was perfect; I couldn't find a single flaw in her. She was beautiful, funny, witty, clever, a great shot, and a fast runner. Still, she was my partner!

I pulled out my phone and called one of the few people that I completely trusted—My dad.

"What's up, Junior?" he greeted me.

"Not much. I just had dinner with my partner, Emma Callen," I told him.

"So, Livy's daughter is your new partner, huh? How's that working out for you, kid?" Dad wanted to know.

"Aw, hell, Dad! I thought I was doing so well! I hadn't broken any rules, or gotten into any scrapes. But now, I'm thinking that all of that is about to change?"

"Why?"

"Because I think she's making me fall for her," I admitted. "She's hot, Dad. And she's smart, and she's a hell of an agent."

Dad was silent for a moment. "Hang on, Junior. I'm going to get your mother on the line."

EMMA'S POV:

My talk with Mama did me good. She advised me not to flirt with Lee, but to be friendly and act normal around him. Her advice was to let him make the first move, and not to be too hasty in getting closer to him. I knew that I should listen to her, so I planned to do exactly that.

The next week at work passed easily. We caught our murderer and solved the case successfully. I tried not to notice how sexy Lee looked when he wore a French blue button-up, or how cute he looked when his hair had been disheveled by the hats we were required to wear at crime scenes. It was hard, but I did my best to keep my distance from him.

LEE'S POV:

After my talk with Dad, I felt much better about the situation at hand. He and Mom had advised me to gage Emma's behavior towards me, and let that me my guide. But, for the next week, she seemed to almost ignore me, as if she was afraid to let herself get to close. I assumed that this meant that she wasn't interested in me, so I stored my growing attraction away, hoping that one day she would warm to the idea.

Three weeks after Emma's arrival, we finally got the third and final member of our team, Agent Eric Grayson. He was quite the arrogant, ignorant rookie, and I was suddenly grateful for how humble and willing-to-learn Emma had been, and still was.

"My father was one of the greatest agents this place ever had," Eric bragged one day. "He served this agency for twenty-eight years, and he never took a bullet. Not once!"

I glanced over at Livy and saw her swallowing hard. From what little I truly knew of her, I knew that her father had been nearly killed several times, including once when she was about seventeen. Still, she kept her mouth shut, and didn't make any comment on Grayson's bragging.

"Eric, you've told us that at least six times since you joined the team," I reminded him.

"It's been seven," Emma corrected me, finally catching me and smiling a little. My heart leapt when she smiled at me, and I knew that there was no way I was ever going to be able to get rid of the rapidly-developing feelings I had.

"So! I bet neither of you guys' parents ever worked for NCIS, did they?" Eric scoffed.

I looked back at Emma, and we both nodded at the same time, jumping from our chairs and converging on Eric's desk.

"Actually," I said, "Emma's parents were both highly-valued NCIS agents for a specialized branch of the agency."

"And Lee's parents were both agents on Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs' team before his dad was given his own team," Emma told the junior agent. "And before that, his mother was Mossad."

Eric gulped and looked back and forth between the two of us. "Is that really true?" he wanted to know.

"Every bit of it," the boss confirmed, walking back into the bullpen with a cup of coffee in hand. For some strange reason, he drank the same disgusting type of coffee every day.

"Gear up," McGee told us all. "We've got a body."

EMMA'S POV:

I loathed Special Agent Eric Grayson, and I loved Special Agent Lee DiNozzo. I could have happily spent every moment of every day with Lee, and I would have killed myself if I had had to do that with the obnoxious, arrogant Eric Grayson.

After we processed the scene, Boss sent Eric and me out to talk to the wife of the dead sailor. It wasn't my first hard visit to a grieving widow, and I knew that it wouldn't be my last, but it was Eric's first.

"Don't say anything insensitive," I told him. "And let me ask most of the questions. You're strictly observing. Understand?"

"Relax, Em," he said, brushing my words away. "I'm a natural at this. And you've been on this job for what…three and a half weeks? Yeah, you're a real pro by now, I bet."

"Nevertheless," I growled. "I am still your senior agent."

"Only formally," Eric muttered as I knocked on the front door.

When I got back to NCIS headquarters, I jerked my desk drawer open and shoved my gun and badge in, and then sat down with a huff. Eric smiled tauntingly at me as he walked over to his desk.

"What did Eric do, Callena?" Lee wanted to know, using his pet name for me. I wasn't entirely sure when he'd come up with it, but I liked it.

"Eric," I said his name as if it were a nasty, bitter word, "decided to ask the grieving mother of three if she was having an affair!"

"Why did you do that?" Lee asked him, his eyes wide with disbelief.

"I thought she was hiding something," was Eric's simple reply. "Em was too scared to ask her."

LEE'S POV:

I was about to give Eric a lecture, but all of a sudden, Emma jumped up and stalked off toward the elevator.

"We'll talk later," I told the rookie agent as I jumped up to run after Emma. I managed to catch her just as the elevator doors began to close.

"Hey, what's wrong?" I asked her as the cart headed down.

"I can't take him anymore, Lee," she declared, burying her face in her hands. "He's driving me crazy, and if he calls me 'Em' one more time, I'm going to…" She looked up at me, and I saw that her face was streaked with tears.

"Hey, it's not worth crying over," I told her softly.

"I'm not crying over that," she insisted. "I'm…I'm so homesick."

Without realizing what I was doing, I pulled Emma into a warm hug, flipping the emergency switch on the elevator and shutting most of the lights off. "You're going to be fine, Emma," I assured her. "You're doing great!"

She shook her head, still crying against my jacket. "Sometimes I feel like I'm a kid carrying a badge and a gun," she sobbed.

"No, you're not." I raised her head up and looked deep into her bright blue eyes. "You're an amazing person, Emma."

Slowly, our faces moved closer together, and I knew that I was going to kiss her. Just before our lips touched, Emma turned away. "Not yet, Lee," she whispered. "Now…now isn't the time."

As much as I hated to admit it, Emma was right. We should wait. "Okay, but we have to find the time sometime soon, okay?"

She blushed and nodded. "Okay."

I'm sorry if I'm going to fast, but I just have to skip through some in order to get y'all to the romantic part without taking thirty chapters to do it!