Tony and Ziva walked down the stairs, the familiar sound of Gibbs sanding his boat filling the air. "Well?" Tony asked.
Gibbs stopped what he was doing and moved to lean against his workbench. "Yeah, he's hiding something."
"Did Vance know?" Ziva asked.
"He claims McGee's not doing any work for him."
"Do you believe him?" Tony asked.
Gibbs crossed his arms and smirked. Tony and Ziva both correctly translated that to mean: Not really, but I haven't got another choice. "Then what do we do?" Ziva asked quietly, voicing the question they all had.
"We keep an eye out for him. If it's something personal, hopefully he'll come to us. If it's not, we'll just make sure he doesn't get in over his head."
A few afternoons later:
Tim squinted at the monitor. Finally! Someone was taking the bait. He started typing quickly, blocking the hacker from getting into the folders, then sending a message. It was a simple three-word message, before he completely shut the hacker out of the files to gain the upper-hand.
I want in.
It didn't take long for the hacker to search for another file to break into. Tim let him get a little further before cutting him off. Tim didn't want the guy to be suspicious of these files, and if he stopped him immediately, it would raise a red flag. Again, he sent a message. The same one.
I want in.
A half hour later, a message beeped back at him. It was a time and place to meet.
Tim looked at his watch and grimaced. Of course they would catch a case that would keep the team well into the evening. And of course, this just happened to occur the same day as his meet.
"Something wrong, McGee?"
Tim looked up, his gaze colliding with Gibbs' gaze. "Yeah, Boss. Well, not exactly wrong, but a slight problem-"
"Sometime today?"
McGee blew out a breath. "I need to leave for a short time. I'll be back as soon as I can."
Gibbs raised an eyebrow, "Oh? Where are you going, in the middle of a case?"
"It's…personal, Boss." He cleared his throat.
Gibbs studied him for a few moments, before giving a jerk to his head that told Tim to go.
"Thanks, Boss." Tim grabbed his backpack and headed to the elevator.
The other three agents looked at each other before Gibbs nodded his head. "Tony, go." Immediately, Tony shot up and headed for the stairs. With any luck, he'd be ready and waiting in his car before Tim got to his own.
AN: Sorry it's so short guys. I should hopefully have a larger update this next weekend. Let me know if anything is confusing, and I'll try to clear it up. Thanks for all of your reviews! I really do look forward to hearing what you guys think about the stories, or what you like and don't like.