Red Headed Tech Girl

Special Agent Timothy McGee watched the red head out of the corner of his eye as they walked down the hall to what the tech guys called the 'Vault'. The Vault contained all the surplus electronic equipment and computer parts that NCIS used, past, present and future. He'd only been there a few times, but could easily get lost in the mess.

But despite his excitement to get in to the Vault again, his natural curiosity was more focussed on the woman by his side.

“Special Agent Tim McGee.” he introduced himself.

“Oh. Willow Rosenberg.” she answered, quickly shaking his hand before unlocking the door to the Vault and entering. He could tell he was unnerving her and, remembering his own uncertainty his first few times around NCIS agents, tried to put her at ease.

“You're new.” he stated, watching as she went over to one of the large locked cabinets on the far wall.

“First week.” Willow said, unlocking the metal cabinet. “Summer intern.”

“Ah.” was all he could think to say, kicking himself. He was a fully qualified NCIS field agent, and though he was still on his probation period, he wasn't a complete newbie. He should know how to act in almost any situation, even one that called for small talk with a colleague.

“This will take a few minutes.” she told him, hooking up the newly unwrapped PDA to the broken one, to transfer the information. It was a process he was familiar with, having had to do something similar on an almost weekly basis.

McGee took the time to browse through one of the shelves to his left, trying to hold himself back from scrounging through parts. He could already see bits and pieces of antique computer systems, and the computer geek inside him was bouncing up and down in nerd joy.

“So what happened?” he heard Willow ask, drawing his attention back to the young woman. “To this?” she clarified, holding up the latest casualty in Gibbs' war on technology.

“Gibbs happened.” he told her.

“Excuse me?” McGee noticed briefly that she looked really cute when she was confused, but tossed that thought aside just as quickly. Getting involved with the people you worked with was dangerous. His experience with Abby was more than enough to put him off the women he worked around, even though he still didn't know if they were dating or broken up. If they'd even been dating in the first place – Abby hadn't been really clear on what they were, and he'd given up trying to figure it out.

“Special Agent Gibbs – my boss.” he explained to her, remembering that this was only her first week. She probably hadn't been around long enough to get the full Gibbs experience, so he explained. “He's technology phobic. If it can't read his mind, he gets frustrated with it and starts to bang on it, throw it, hit it. A couple of times he's drowned it – once in paint thinner. I think if he could get away with it, he'd avoid touching a computer for the rest of his life.”

“Really?” she asked, surprised. “That seems a little – excessive.”

“He's just use to doing things a certain way, and doesn't like to change all that much.” he told her, wondering if he'd imagined the little smile on her face or not.

“So, how many of these does he usually go through in a month?”

“Well, he's gotten better. It used to be four to five a month, but now it's only about one or two. Well...except for this past month. This'll be number six so far.” he said. “That's why we ran out. We usually stock up extras so we can replace the broken one quickly, but we weren't prepared for this month's spree.”

“Really.” And this time McGee knew he hadn't imagined the smile on her face, because it carried over into her voice.

“So, what about you?” he asked her, trying to pull her attention away from his boss. “How did you end up at NCIS?”

“My uncle works here, and gave me a heads up when this job came around.”

“Seriously?” he asked, only realizing afterwards how that sounded. “Not that I'm sure you're not qualified or anything...” He was trying to recover, but kept stumbling over his words. “I'm sure Jason wouldn't have hired you if you weren't – you know – up on your stuff-computers, I mean...”

“I know what you meant.” she said quickly. “My uncle explained about the whole 'not hiring relatives just because they're relatives' policy. But I know my way around computers, and Jason was happy with my qualifications, so...”

And that settled it for McGee, because he knew enough about Jason Chalmers to know that the head of NCIS IT wouldn't hire someone's niece unless she really knew what she was doing. So when she said Jason was 'happy with her qualifications', it meant 'could replace one of my techs'.

“Well, here you go.” she said abruptly, unhooking the new PDA and handing it to him. “It works the same as the old one, but it's more durable. I'll get some backups to you soon.”

“Thanks.” McGee said on his way out the door.

“And tell Agent Gibbs to go easy on those. They don't grow on trees.”

There was no missing the laughter in her voice, that time.

He was really confused.

END

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