Meltemi
Timothy sighs, and slowly wakes up, as he hears a door shutting violently downstairs. He opens his eyes, and as he looks up he frowns, as he doesn't remember putting glow in the dark figures on the ceiling of his bedroom.
He lifts his head from the bed, and looks around, and finds himself in a strange room. He closes his eyes as he remembers, the case, the shooting, his father, SARAH.
He stands up abruptly, and his legs are still feeling the effects of sleep and he stumbles and falls on the floor.
"Tim?" Sarah calls out from the corridor, "are you ok?"
He works some feeling back in his legs, and he supports his hands on the bed to stand up, "Yeah, I'm fine."
When he is sure he can stand up without tumbling on his own legs, he goes to the door and opens it, just to find his sister standing outside in the corridor, looking at him with a worried expression on her face, "Lisa arrived, and they are preparing some sandwiches, come on."
The McGees go downstairs, and find little Priscilla playing with Matthew with Legos in the living room. Sarah smiles, as she sees the tenderness he has with the five year old, explaining how to build a castle with the pieces.
"Hello," a short redhead with a pixie hair and face approaches the McGees, with a hand stretched out, "I'm Lisa Buchanan, Johnny's wife, I remember you from the hospital," she says.
"Yes, when Joy was hospitalized in Charlottesville," says Tim.
"Come on over, I've prepared some tuna and pastrami sandwiches, I hope you like it, we're having a big dinner tonight," she turns to Matt and Priscilla, "Pri, please go wash your hands, we're eating, same thing for you Matt."
Priscilla looks at her uncle, and stretches out her hand, giggling "we have to wash our hands not to have cooties, that's bad."
The adults laugh, and Matt pretends to be dragged to the small washbasin by the five year old.
"Follow me," says Lisa.
After eating some sandwiches, Timothy turns to Lisa to ask for their wireless connection, as he wants to plug in his laptop.
"Wireless, no way, too insecure, we have a landline." She looks down at his laptop, smiles at him and suggests, "and I think you could use Jake's workstation, I believe you would enjoy it better than your toy there."
Timothy looks down to his Toshiba A300, a basic standard laptop given by NCIS to their agents.
He follows Lisa upstairs, and she leads him to Jake's room, as they enter it, McGee doesn't notice the two twin beds on it, one with Matt's duffle bag opened on it, or the sports posters and the collectable action figures on a small stand, or the acoustic guitar hanging from a support on the wall, besides a poster of Eric Clapton, playing his guitar.
All Tim's attention was on the state of the art Mac workstation set up on the corner, complete with six – Tim counted again, there were six - flat plasma screens, all that with a top of the line Apple processor.
Timothy didn't even hear Lisa explaining that Jake had mentioned to Maggie that he was thinking of studying computer programming to design video games, and Maggie, in her excess, ordered the workstation custom built and sent to him as a birthday present.
Tim slowly approaches it, and touches the keyboard reverently, and almost moans with pleasure when the computer boots silently, and all six plasma screens come to life.
"You like it, Tim?"
Tim is at a loss for words, and only nods. He touches the infrared mouse, and tests it, and looks at the computer adoringly.
"We have optic fiber connection, with a very high speed, and if you need cryptography to send your files," she points to something in the screen, and McGee clicks on it, and a very advanced encryption program opens up, "you can use this. The whole family uses it."
"Lisa," he whispers.
"Yes, Tim," Lisa says, almost laughing out loud at his face.
"I love your family."
"Heheh, sure you do." She taps his shoulder, and starts to leave.
"No, I really mean it," Lisa starts to laugh, and closes the door after herself, leaving McGee adoring the very advanced piece of technology he has in his hands.
"Boys and their expensive toys."
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Life is a highway
I wanna ride it all night long
If you're going my way
Well, I wanna drive it all night long
Through all these cities an' all these towns
It's in my blood an' it's all around
I love you now like I loved you then
This is the road an' these are the hands
From Mozambique to those Memphis nights
The Khyber Pass to Vancouver's lights
Joy was driving down to Norfolk with Jethro the dog in McGee's Porsche, singing along at the top of her lungs.
Life is a highway
I wanna ride it all night long
If you're going my way
Well, I wanna drive it all night long
She looks at Jethro the Dog, and smiles when she sees the sloppy doggie smile he has on his face, with his nose out of the window on the small gap she opened, just to let some air in. She also put the seat belt on him, just for precaution. You never know.
"We have to put down some ground rules, Jethro," says Joy.
Jethro turns to her and barks.
"Lisa has two kids, Priscilla, she just turned five, and Jacob, who is in his surly teen years."
Jethro whines at her.
"Priscilla is the baby, she will want to play with you. You will not scare her, you will not slobber over her, you will be on your best behavior, or otherwise Lisa will not let you sleep in the house, ok?" She change lanes, and keeps driving.
Jethro barks.
"So, she might pull your ears a little , and ask to ride on your back, I don't know, we'll have to play it by ear."
Joy keeps driving, staring ahead and bobbing her head to the rhythm of the country music blasting from the speakers.
"Jake is more complicated, he's in that phase that he pretends he's not interested in anything, even if he is dying to do something." She glances at Jethro, who yawns widely.
"He will be ecstatic at having a dog on the house, but he won't show. So, approach him with care, and he will warm up to you."
Joy sees the exit to Norfolk coming up in the interstate, and rings McGee. She lowers the volume of the radio as soon as he answers.
"Hey,"
"Hey," he says in a soft voice.
"I'm almost there, wanna meet up with me?"
"Yeah," he still says in a soft voice.
"Do you know the park where they play the junior league games? Can you meet me there in, let's say," she overtakes a slower car, and changes lanes, "twenty minutes?"
"Yeah," Tim says again.
"Are you ok?"
"Yeah."
"What's wrong with you?"
He doesn't answer; just whispers, "wow," and Joy can hear him typing in the background.
Joy smiles, "you found Jake's Mac."
"Yeah," more typing.
"Will I need a crowbar to pry you away from that?"
"Yeah." She can't help it, she laughs.
"Now I know what gift to give you on your birthday," she says.
"Yeah," more typing.
Joy keeps laughing, and shouts, "meet me in twenty, I will be the one with the red rouged nipples dancing naked on the barbecue tables in the park."
She disconnects.
McGee was about to answer again, when his brain finally registered what she said, but when he tried to say something, she had already disconnected.
"What?"
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