SquidgeWorld Archive

"Vacation request, huh?" Tony snapped the paper out of Tim's hand and looked it over. "Where you headed, Probie?"

Tim rolled his eyes at Tony's antics more out of habit than actual annoyance. "Home. I'm going to see my parents and my sister."

"That's so..." Tony waved a hand around in thought. "Nerdy."

"We can't all spend our vacations in our pajamas playing video games and eating Cheetos." Tim yanked his vacation request form from Tony's hands and smoothed the edges. He could feel Tony watching him, but he wouldn't allow himself to look up. When Tony walked behind him, he mentally prepared himself to be smacked on the back of the head.

"Hey, Probie, you've got a spine back here."

"Yeah, it's been there."

"Good to see it's not dormant, anymore." Tony gave Tim an overly-healthy pat on the back and walked back to his desk.

Tim suppressed the urge to snark something and signed his vacation form.

*

"Vacation request, McGee?" Gibbs held the form up so that McGee could see it from across the bullpen.

"Yeah, boss." Tim bit his tongue to keep from rambling about where he was going and what he would do. The needed information was on the form. Gibbs wouldn't want anymore information than that.

"The whole week?"

"Yeah, boss."

"Have fun." Gibbs signed the sheet and stuck it in his outbox.

*

"I'm going to miss you next week."

"Really?" Tim couldn't help but feel a little surprised. Abby did a lot of things, but she rarely missed people.

"Sure." Abby threw her arms around Tim and gave him a loud kiss on the cheek. "You're my boyfriend. I'll miss you."

"Thanks." Tim could feel himself blushing. "I didn't think you thought along those lines."

"Which lines?"

"The 'miss-your-boyfriend' lines." Tim watched Abby's face start to screw up in confusion. "I like it. I just wasn't expecting it." He breathed a little easier when Abby smiled.

"You know me; I live to confuse."

Tim grinned. "Yeah, I know."

*

The guy on Tim's left was snoring loudly. The woman on his right was trying to get his opinion on the latest sensational news item, and Tim himself was cursing the fact that he hadn't specifically asked for an aisle seat.

"Did you see that story about the girl with the missing feet?"

Tim thumped his head against the seat and wished he was one of those people who could properly drown out boring or useless stories. He knew exactly which story she was talking about. He had been at the crime scene of that story. Those guys in the Coast Guard could be twisted bastards.

"...and then they said she had a pentagram burned into her shoulder-"

"It was a pentagon."

The woman stopped mid-sentence and stared at Tim. "Excuse me?"

"She had a pentagon burned into her shoulder, not a pentagram. A pentagram would have pointed towards some sort of occult murder or a murder set up to *look* like an occult murder. The pentagon was actually a clue to the investigators that she was involved in an affair with a person at the pentagon."

"I..." the woman looked completely taken aback. She stared at Tim for one hard moment. "You talk too much."

Tim closed his eyes and not so politely put his headphones over his ears.

*

"Tim!"

Tim braced himself as Lauren hit him at a dead run. Despite his properly placed feet and the more or less even weight of his backpack, he still nearly went flying. "Hey, brat." He hugged her and 'oofed' when she squeezed him until he thought he heard his ribs creak.

"Did you bring your gun?" Lauren seemed to miss the way airport security suddenly glanced at the two of them with interest.

"No. I'm not here as a federal agent, so there was no reason for it."

"Damn."

"Your fascination with guns worries me a little bit."

"Why? It's not like I *own* one. I just like looking at them."

"If you want to look at mine you'll have to come to Washington."

Lauren laughed and tugged on Tim's hand. "Yeah, sure, that's going to happen."

Tim smiled and let himself be dragged to the luggage claim. "You've got finals coming up, don't you?"

"Don't you know better than to say things like that to a college kid? It makes us jumpy and gives us hives."

"You get hives because you're allergic to apples and eat them anyway."

Lauren shrugged and yanked Tim up to her side as they stopped at the luggage pick-up. "They're good."

"You're allergic."

"They're still good."

Tim decided to stop arguing the question, and he changed the subject by pulling on the end of her ponytail. "Your hair's a lot longer than the last time I was home."

"That's because you haven't been home in two years."

"I have a very important job."

"Yeah, sure."

Tim paused before replying so that he could wrestle his duffle bag off of the belt. He wasn't used to traveling with a full bag anymore. Whenever he had to travel for a case, everything was in his backpack. Even with a full week's worth of clothes in his duffel, he still had two pairs of khakis, two polos, two t-shirts, pajamas, and his shaving stuff in his backpack. He tossed his duffel to Lauren and was surprised when she caught it without a problem. "When did you get so strong?"

"When you were gone." She smiled and slung the duffel over her shoulder. "Why don't you come home more often?"

Tim thought for a moment about his parents, who were nice people but couldn't help but mention four or five times during a thirty-minute phone conversation that his MIT degree and his brain could get him a better paying job with more sedate hours. Ever since Tim had been a kid and been nailed as 'gifted', they'd pressured him to really *make* something of himself. In his eyes, he had. NCIS wasn't a job just anyone could get and working for Gibbs wasn't something just anyone could do. And Abby wasn't a girl that just any guy could get. In his parents' eyes, he'd just missed getting it right.

"Tim?" Lauren was standing next to Tim looking mildly concerned. "You drifted."

"Oh. Sorry." Tim smiled at her and slung an arm around her shoulders. "I don't come home more often because Mom and Dad are crazy." He pulled Lauren into a one-armed hug and gave her a little noogie. "And because you're a slob." He laughed when Lauren poked him in the side and bumped him in the back of his legs with his duffel.

*

"So, how was your vacation?" Kate stood over Tim's desk with her coffee in one hand and Tim's mail from the previous week in the other.

"Pretty good." Tim took his mail and thanked Kate. "My sister's still a slob, but she's double-majoring, so she has an excuse now."

"What about your parents?"

Tim shrugged. "They're okay."

"That's good." Kate held her mug up in a small toast to Tim. "Glad you had a good time."

Tim smiled and powered up his computer. "Thanks."