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Something slammed down on McGee's desk the next day pulling him out of his depressed trance. He looked up to see Tony, who was trying to look mockingly dangerous. He cocked his head to the side.

"How was your date, Probie? You look less than satisfied." He said, obviously eager to ridicule her for whatever was wrong with her. When McGee didn't answer, Toney volunteered a few options. "Was she fat? Ugly? Did she have this mole you just couldn't stop looking at 'cause it was just so obvious and digusting..?"

McGee sighed and looked down at his hands, which were clasped on the desk before him. He spoke slowly. "No. She was..."

"Interrogation, now." Gibbs came walking swiftly past alerting the two men and Ziva, who had just exited the elevator.

Tony took one more glance at McGee, as if telling him that this wasn't over. Then he pushed himself off McGee's desk where he had been leaning and turned sharply to follow Gibbs to Interrogation.

*******************************

Several minutes later DiNozzo and McGee stood a foot from the glass waiting for the suspect neither of them new about to enter. Ziva was standing at the back leaning against the wall reading through a folder.

"So, now that we have a moment Probie, what was wrong with her?"

"Nothing was wrong with her..."

"Oh so she didn't like you? Well I don't blame her..."

"Tony. Just..."

At that moment the door inside the interrogation room opened. An officer stood blocking the view of who was coming in.

McGee turned around momentarily to alert Ziva that the suspect was here.

"Hmm. Cute kid I remember her from the crime scene." DiNozzo said.

When McGee turned back he felt like smashing his head against the one-way glass. Of course. Kitty would be in there. Tony wasn't going to let him live this one down. No way.

"Woah. McGee, man, what's wrong? You look like you just crapped your pants." He paused. "You didn't, did you?"

"You want to know what was wrong last night?" He looked at Tony angrily. He wasn't angry with DiNozzo, he was angry with himself. He wasn't supposed to screw up like this. When Tony nodded reproachfully McGee simply blurted out: "Apparently she's a murder suspect." He covered his face with his hands and sighed audibly.

He heard Tony stutter a few times. He took his hands off his face and looked at Tony's expression. The satisfied grin he had expected was not there. Instead a look of horror and disbelief.

McGee sighed. "What Tony?" He was getting irritated now.

"Tim... she... you... She's only, like, fifteen, man! That's just not right!" He exploded.

"I know."

"Then why?"

"Hey she was just as shocked as I was. We never talked about age before... We both made the mistake of assuming." McGee took a long, hard look at her through the glass. For a teenager, she was unnaturally beautiful. The way she crossed her legs, folded her hands, tucked a hair up into her loose bun, you could see she was mature beyond her years. Every movement was filled with a grace neither man had ever seen in a teenage girl before.

Tony twigged onto her eyes before McGee did.

"She's scared." He said. "You can see she doesn't know what's going on."

Ziva looked at the two men quizzically. "What's going on here?" She asked.

"She was McGee's date yesterday." Tony supplied as the door opened behind them. All three ignored the person entering.

"She's a little young for you McGee..." Ziva said.

"This was Tim's date?!" A shocked voice came from behind them. They all turned to see Abby standing there looking taken aback.

"I didn't know she was a teenager, okay?" McGee held his hands over his head so his sport coat fell off his back like a pair of wings.

Abby crossed her arms, looking hurt. "Why didn't you ask?"

McGee had no anwser for that. It was a stupid mistake, but it would have seemed weird online to just ask, Hey, by the way how old are you? He put his hands down and shrugged apologetically.

Tony, sensing the growing tension, changed the subject. "Why are you here Abby? Did you find something?"

"No. Gibbs wanted me here. I don't know why, I never have to come to interrogations." She stood in between Tony and McGee to wait for Gibbs.

McGee thought he heard Abby mutter something about how pretty Kitty was but he didn't have a chance to ask. Gibbs walked into the interrogation room and sat down at the table opposite Kitty. He took a long look at her and opened a file folder in front of him. He took out a sheet of paper and showed it to the teenager across from him.

"Do you know what this is?" he asked in his usual monotone all-business voice.

Kitty nodded. McGee thought he saw a small bead of sweat form on her forehead. He couldn't believe that he had been talking to a suspect online for the last few months. He felt so stupid for not knowing.

"Miss McKinnon, we think you would be a good candidate for our new youth undercover devision."

Kitty folded her hands on the table infront of her and leaned forward in her chair. "Agent Gibbs, is there more of a reason that you want me here than my IQ score?"

Gibbs sighed. "Yeah. We recieved the results of your latest blood test, manditory..."

"...for people who want to donate blood. I know." She looked down at her hands and smiled softly to herself. "So you know. That there's something wrong with me."

"Nothing's wrong with you, Miss McKinnon. You are a perfectly normal teenager."

"Save the obvious, I suppose?"

"This gene is... different. It will make you a coveted resource for the government."

"Ha! Real area 51 material, eh?" She leaned back in her chair, obviously trying to look nonchalant about their coversation.

Abby, Tony and McGee were exchanging confused looks while Ziva looked perfectly calm and even bored with the interrogation.

"Yeah, area 51 might be a possibility, if you can't agree to help me."

"Why NCIS? Why am I not being contacted by the FBI, the CIA? Why NCIS?" she asked.

"Because we got to you first. We could really use someone like you. You could, honestly, revolutionize the criminal investigation buisness as we know it." Gibbs was sounding slightly more enthusiastic at this point in the conversation.

"I can't see people's pasts, Agent Gibbs. Or their futures. I can only tell you what's going on right at this point in time. And I don't even believe that the results of my blood tests are acurate, this could just be some blip with the machine or something..."

"Those machines are never wrong. Further more," Gibbs stood and walked around the table so he was standing next to her facing the team behind the glass, "I have an unusual number of people behind that glass. Tell me how many there are."

Kitty looked up at him as though he had lost his mind. Gibbs just looked straight ahead. Kitty licked her lips and looked at the glass. Her eyes suddenly rolled back in her head and her entire body relaxed back into the chair.

McGee started and moved closer to the glass almost running into the smooth, cold surface.

Just as suddenly as she had relaxed, her eyes rolled back into their proper position in her skull and she sat up.

"Four."

Tony spoke McGee's thoughts. "Lucky guess."

"Who's not supposed to be there?"

"One of the girls. She was thinking, about why she had to be there..."

Abby's pale skin went even paler. McGee guessed that Kitty had been right.

"She was thinking about... me. Why I'm so special, or something like that. I flew past her too quickly."

"Very good. Give me their names."

Her eyes rolled back into her head again and she relaxed. She spoke while she was under her trance now. "Anthony DiNozzo, senior feild agent... Ziva David, Mossad Liason Officer... Abby Scuito, forensic scientist... Ti-" Her suddenly snapped back to their normal position and her face turned beet red.

"Is something wrong, Miss McKinnon?"

"N-... no. Timothy McGee, probationary field agent." she said it in a dead monotone.

McGee looked at the floor and Tony looked at him. "Well, she remembers you. Let's hope she doesn't try to pin you as a pedophile, Probie." He clapped McGee on the shoulder and laughed.

"Very good. There's no doubt in my mind that your blood test wasn't wrong. You have a very special gift. Now, before you accept of decline our offer, you should know that you will be asked to spend two days being monitored in a closed off room, so have conclusive evidence that this strand of DNA doesn't have any side effects you may not be aware of."

"Such as?"

"Violent episodes most likely to happen when you are looking into something that you may not be able to recall after the fact."

She sighed. "I suppose that is a reasonable request. I have no doubt that you will find nothing wrong with me. And at this point," she grinned, "anything to keep me out of area 51 will do."

Gibbs genuinely laughed at this. "Welcome to the team then, Agent McKinnon!" He reached down to shake her hand. He pulled her up and led her to the door. He motioned to the team to come out and meet him in the hallway.

McGee was careful to be the last one out. Tony went before him and only smiled in anticipation of what might happen next.

When they were all in the hallway, everyone was introduced. Abby was slightly more coservative in meeting Kitty face-to-face than she would have been with anyone else. Stiff, almost. DiNozzo was obviously trying to act charming, and Ziva was quite friendly, though visibly cautious.

McGee was last. He stepped forward slowly and stuck out his hand. He looked at her with a look he hoped would be apologetic. She shook his hand and gave him a small smile.

Gibbs then addressed the four team members over the age of 20. "Get back to work. One of you will always be on duty supervising Katherine. I'm putting you, McGee, on first shift. Tony, take over at 21:00."

He led Kitty away by the elbow to one of the rooms in the hallway.

*******************************

McGee sat down at his desk and opened up the security camera feed from Kitty's room. Sure enough there she was. She stood rubbing her hands in the center of a small room. A couch stood at one wall a TV was mounted on the opposite wall with a game system underneath. The door shared a wall with a plain oak desk. A small laptop was set up. A bed was on the fourth wall. A mini-fridge sat between the bed and the couch.

Kitty looked around a few times then settled on sitting on the couch.

"God, what have I gotten myself into?" she asked herself. She buried her head in her hands and groaned. "Well, Kitty, you got yourself into this. Nothing to do but sit around, and look normal." She started and lifted her face from her hands. "Can you hear me?" she looked at the camera.

McGee put the headset on. "Yeah."

She looked absolutely bewildered. "Should I be able to hear you?"

"Yeah. What were you expecting? The camera to nod or something?"

"Well... yes actually, I was. Or I thought I was having a moment, you know? Reading your mind or something. Hearing your thoughts..."

McGee fell silent. Finally he got up the courage to ask her something.

"Do you remember me?"

"Yep."

"Alright." he paused. "Should I apologize again? I feel like such an idiot..."

"It's my fault." she said. "I didn't even think that you could be... older than me by this much."

He decided against telling her he'd heard her talking to her friend at the restaurant.

"So, do we just sit and talk? Or do I have to do something to look normal?" she asked finally. She stood put her hands on her hips and pivoted to face the camera head-on.

"It doesn't really matter. I don't think Gibbs wants me working on the other assignment just now..."

"What assignment? I want to know what I'm going to have to help with first."

"Well," he hoped he was allowed to do this, "we have a murdered Lieutenant. Lieutenant Jim Connar..."

"Oh God, I'd forgotten that case was still open." She cut him off. "I found him remember?"

"Right. You almost knocked me over, how could I forget."

She sat on the bed and looked at the camera. "I feel terrible for Jackson. His mother can't work, he's too young to work for the both of them and his grandmother." A sad look crossed her face with concern for her friend.

McGee looked at the sad girl in the locked room and felt a twinge of sadness himself. He hadn't exactly thrown himself into this case yet. He would now. For her.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see Abby standing above him. She was looking hard at the screen with her lips pressed together in a thin line and her eyes contorted into a squint.

"I can see why you like her, Tim." Abby finally said coldly.

McGee took the headset off and looked up at her. "I didn't know she was fifteen. Alright." No reply. "Are you jealous?" he said with a small grin creeping across his face.

She pouted. Then softened her look to her cutely guilty puppy-dog face. "Just a little."

McGee laughed under his breath. Abby made an annoyed sound and turned to walk off.

McGee looked back at the screen to see Kitty walking in circles. He put his headset back on. "So. Lonely yet?"

"No. I'm fine being alone, and anyway," she looked up at the camera with a grin, "with you talking to me through a camera I feel like I'm in a sci-fi flick or something! Or I'm talking to God..."

McGee couldn't help but laugh. God, not even close to how he would describe it, but pretty good for a laugh anyway.

"So this is what it's like to be God. Or the computer from Star Trek." Woops. Now I know why Tony calls me McGeek so much... McGee thought to himself.

"Ha! Yeah... think you tell me how many seconds I have left in here?" She replied.

"I could try..."

"It's okay. You should focus on finding out what happened to Jackson's dad."

McGee nodded, then realised she couldn't see him. "I guess I should. Talk to me if you need anything."

She nodded and retreated to her computer.

He looked down at the paperwork outlining some of the forensic evidence that had been found at the scene where Kitty had found the body. If he had interviewed her at the scene he would have known her name. And if he had known her name, he may have been able to put two and two together and save himself some embarrassment. But she forgave him, that was what was important.