Santa Ana
When Buchanan came downstairs from her interview with SecNav and the Director, the team was working furiously on their own case. Gibbs looks up from his screen as she comes down the stairs, and notices a worried expression on her face as she approaches the team's desks.
She looks at her team-mates, who just glance at her briefly before going back to their own computers, and McGee doesn't look up from the folder he has his nose deeply buried in.
She sighs, and goes to stand before Gibbs' desk. "Boss, I'm free to return to our case."
"Isn't the FBI going to need you to act as liaison anymore?" She sighs, tiredly.
"No, now that there is an understanding between the two directors, there's really nothing I can do, as they already have a whole set of their own profilers working on the scene, no need of me."
"What did the FBI director want from Vance?" Buchanan looks tiredly at Gibbs, "you don't have to tell me, if that's a secret."
"No, it's not a secret, they needed our facilities, as they are drowning in evidence. Basically, they are borrowing Abby's Lab and Ducky's morgue just to help with part of the overflow. They are also sending their own techs to help process the evidence and the corpses."
"Abby doesn't like anyone interfering with her babies," says Ziva, looking up from her computer.
Joy smiles, "Believe me, Abby won't have any problems working with the tech they are sending over."
"How can you be so sure?" says DiNozzo. "The last time she had an assistant, the guy tried to frame me for murder," he pouts.
"I personally vouched for the person, Abby must be satisfied with that," says Buchanan.
"Who would this amazing person be?" says Gibbs, his voice full of irony.
"Me," says a soft voice, and the team turns to the corridor. There, dressed in simple jeans and a pink sweater of soft cashmere, covered with a white calico jacket, was Temperance Buchanan. Beside her, another FBI agent in a sharp suit, with a visitor badge hanging from his pocket, smiles broadly and strides towards Buchanan.
"Hello, I'm Special Agent Isaac Slate and this is my assistant," Joy glances at Temperance, who looks at the agent who is so full of himself and rolls her eyes at his big head, "we're from the tech support, we were ordered to report to Agent Gibbs before being sent to your Labs."
"I'm Agent Gibbs," says Gibbs, standing up from his chair, and he glances briefly at Temperance, who is struggling to hold a big box full of evidence in her arms. He sees McGee standing up from his chair as well, and Buchanan, who squints her eyes at her sister's struggle with the box, looks at the agent with a cunning expression.
The oblivious man stretches out his hand to Gibbs, "it's a pleasure to work with you sir, as this will be a great opportunity to bring our agencies together." Gibbs doesn't shake hands with him, and he retracts his hand.
"Indeed," mutters Gibbs.
McGee approaches Temperance, and gets the box from her hands, receiving a relieved glance from her.
"Who is she?" ask Gibbs, just testing the agent, and he starts to feel fury coursing through his body as he sees him barely giving a glance at her, "just a lab tech, as I was saying, I always wanted to see the internal workings of NCIS, as it was my second choice, if I hadn't chosen the FBI."
"We're overflowing with joy that you chose the FBI rather than NCIS, aren't we, Temperance?" says Buchanan, who is now smirking like a shark at the agent. He turns and looks at the short agent standing beside the lab tech, and can't figure out why she looks as if she wants to kill him.
"Sure we are, Joy," says Temp cheekily.
"I don't understand, do you know each other?" he looks, confused, from one woman to the other, and gulps when the short brunette advances on him in fury.
"Let me give you a piece of friendly advice, that I hope will follow you throughout your career in the FBI, regardless of how short it might be, don't ever EVER mistreat a lab tech, because your life, your case and your job depends on the work they do."
He gulps, and opens his mouth to reply, but Buchanan is not done yet.
"Let me put it in simple terms, so you may understand, without them, you have no case. So please step off your mighty pedestal and start treating them as human beings, not as lowly servants."
She walks to McGee and gets the box from his hands and walks to the gaping agent, and shoves the evidence box on his hands, "another piece of advice that you might take heed of, if you ever EVER disrespect my sister again, I will deck you so hard, that they won't ever be able to find your head, so far away it will be shoved up your ass."
"Your sister?" he asks astonished, looking from one woman to the other, and seeing no physical resemblance between them.
She releases the box, and steps back, and agent Slate struggles not to drop the heavy box.
At that time, Jimmy comes up to the agents' desks bringing a folder to agent Gibbs, and freezes as soon as he sees the standoff.
"Oh, I…" he mutters.
"Jimmy!" exclaims Temp, and Jimmy smiles broadly as he sees the youngest Buchanan.
"Hey, Temp, what are you doing here?" Joy squints her eyes at Jimmy, who gulps when he sees her glare directed at him, "not that it is my business anyway…"
"Jimmy," growls Buchanan.
"Yes Agent Buchanan," she smiles sweetly at Slate, who is looking at the agents as if they are crazy, "please lead Agent Slate to Abby's Lab, he's one of the two temps who will help with the evidence of the shooting today."
"Oh, I…" he shows the folder, hands it to her, and hurries towards the elevators. After she growls at the agent, he hurries after Jimmy. She isn't done yet.
"Hey, Slate," he freezes, "be sure not to piss off NCIS Lab tech, as I might only deck you; she will kill you without leaving forensic evidence."
Jimmy smiles at that, and turns to the scared agent, "that's true, that's something that she always says to everyone she meets."
"You are all crazy," Slate says, as the doors of the elevator close.
As soon as they are out of hearing distance, Temperance mutters a quiet thanks to her sister, but Joy is incensed.
"Is this an isolated incident or the kind of general treatment they are giving you at Quantico?" Temperance lowers her head to her chest and shrugs, and Joy gets angrier, "why didn't you come to me, or Faith or Hope, or have the dickhead reported?"
"For what? I'm not a field agent, I've made my choice to become a lab tech, just because I don't carry a gun they usually…"
"It doesn't matter if you don't carry a gun, it doesn't take away the merit of the job you do. These types of agents have to be shown that your job is as important as theirs, as they just collect the evidence while you give meaning to it," Joy pauses, and Temp lifts her head and looks at her sister, chagrined, "lab techs have to be bribed, pampered and catered for, not used as … as…" she struggles with the definition, then smiles when she says, "glorified house elves."
Temp smiles, "so I have to be pampered like Abby with her CaffPows," Joy opens her arms, and Temp hugs her firmly.
"Don't ever accept anything less than that," murmurs Joy against her hair. She glances at Tim, who is looking at the two sisters hugging with something akin to pain in his eyes. She lets Temperance go, and Temp takes a step back, and turns to McGee.
"Oh Tim," she walks up to him and hugs him tightly. After a moment of hesitation on his part, he returns the hug. "I was so worried about Sarah, and I was so glad when Faith told me that Matt was there and kept her safe," she feels him becoming tense, and takes a step back, to look him in the face. Whatever she sees in it, she doesn't like it.
"What's wrong?" She looks at Joy, and sees her looking at McGee with a stone mask. She leaves his arms, and looks at McGee again, "What's going on?"
Both McGee and Buchanan refuse to look at Temperance, and she starts to feel the famous Buchanan temper boiling, "you are fighting, aren't you?" She receives no answers from both agents, and she lashes out.
"No, no, no, this can't be happening, things are way too bad for you to start bickering about non important things," says Temp.
"Temp, you don't know…" says McGee.
"Temp, you have no idea…" says Joy.
"I don't have to know, and I don't care," she says incensed, "whatever it is, FIX IT."
She turns to Joy, "Dad can't fly in right now, because mom is stuck inside Cheyenne Mountain, some kind of lockdown on the base, so he has to wait until the latest crisis is over until he comes over, so you better fix it before they arrive."
"What's she doing in NORAD? she promised she wouldn't … oh please tell me she's not testing their weapons again," moans Joy.
"I don't know, I don't care, she never promised not to return to the Mountain, she would just avoid it, but you know her, but that's not about mom, it's about you guys,"
She turns to McGee, "whatever it is that's going through your pretty little head, you'd better sort it out. Just because you are tall and an agent with a big gun, it doesn't mean that Dad won't deck you until you finally come to your senses."
"He's not my father, he can't hit me," says McGee.
She shakes her head at McGee's ignorance, "no, he's not your biological father, but he's your honorary father. He considers you family, and that entitles him to, if necessary, knock some sense into you, if you don't get your head screwed straight."
She turns to Joy, and orders, "Fix it, whatever it is."
Having said her word, she turns to the other agents, who were watching the interaction with a smile in their eyes, "Agent DiNozzo."
"Yes, Agent Buchanan," he smiles, charmingly.
She flutters her eyes at him, "Just call me Temp, would you kindly guide me to Miss Sciutto's Lab?"
He smiles at her, and walks to her side, "Certainly," and starts guiding the youngest Buchanan to the elevators.
Before she leaves, though, she frowns at both her sister and at McGee, and repeats forcefully, "Fix it, Joy," and follows Agent DiNozzo, leaving both McGee and Joy frozen with astonished faces in her wake.
Gibbs smirks at their astonished faces, and Ziva can barely hold her mirth, as she´s laughing too much.
"Your father wouldn't deck me," says softly McGee, "would he?"
Joy slowly turns to him, still astonished, and says, "he might, but my brothers would probably call dibs." McGee gulps. "But then, there's also my mother, who is the scariest of them all." They look at each other for a second.
"You are aware that we were just called on the carpet by my twenty two year old sister." Mutters Buchanan.
"Yeah," McGee thinks for a moment, then, "she sounded remarkably like your mother."
They look at each other, and for a brief second they smile at each other, "you can't deny the Buchanan genes."
Their smiles fade, and they stay staring at each other for some seconds. Buchanan takes a deep breath, and decides to take the first step.
"I'm sorry…" she says.
"Don't apologize, it's a sign of…" McGee starts, but she interrupts him.
"That's bullshit, and you know that." McGee glances briefly at Gibbs, who has his hands folded just watching the show, "You've always known my opinion about that silly rule."
"What I did was wrong. I violated your trust, I opened up old wounds, I did not respect your wishes. I hit where I knew it would hurt the most, and that was petty, childish and immature on my part. And if because of that, you've decided that we're not going to keep on seeing each other,"she looks up into his eyes, and bites her lower lip, and continues, "I just want you to know that I'm very," she sighs deeply, and says as sincerely as possible, "I'm very, very sorry."
Her emotional speech touches something deeply in McGee, cracking his resolve to hold on to his anger a little. She glances at Gibbs, "I'm going to check if the FBI M.E. arrived to help Ducky with the new corpses, then I'm coming back to work on your profile, Boss." She starts walking towards the elevators, and McGee calls out to her.
"I'm reading it." Joy freezes, and turns to him, who lifts the FBI folder with the preliminary reports on the shootings so she can see it.
"It's an interesting read," she says.
"Yeah," he agrees, completely serious, "mesmerizing." They stare at each other for another minute, until Joy turns and goes to the elevators, leaving him there in the bullpen staring at the folder in his hands. He sits down slowly, and stares at his computer screen with a frown. He feels Gibbs' hot stare on him, then turns to look at him.
"McGee?" there is a question in his tone.
"My search on the dead petty officer's phone and bank records is not finished yet, Boss," he types something on his computer, and goes back to his reading of the file.
Gibbs smirks, as he sees him reading the file with all his attention, as if it was a complicated computer program in which he has to fix the bugs.
He might take a while, but his Elflord will figure out things on his own, he thinks.
Or so he hopes.
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