Rule 12| Ellick

GlowBeam

Nick and I were already a half-hour late to get into the office. He spent an extra hour redoing his hair because it didn't look 'the way it needed to'. I don't see the point when we just toss a hat on anyway.  It has been a month and we still don't know where Vance is. Gibbs is the acting director now, so we really can't afford to be late.

The added tension has made him bring up rule 12 a lot more than he had in the past. He was kind of okay with Nick and I dating because we were together before he transferred to our team. Gibbs saw how much of a wreck I was after Jake and I got divorced, he was willing to let me do almost anything that made me happy. He saw that Nick was my happy so he didn't say much.

If we were both going to be late though, Gibbs might have a slightly different opinion.  

"Okay, I love you, but if you make us late one more morning because you don't like the way your hair looks I am going to start driving myself to work," I told Nick, throwing a towel at his head.

He caught the towel and put it on the little hook, putting his hat on, "I have to look good in case we have a press interview."

I rolled my eyes, "Right, because Gibbs definitely set up hundreds of people to come to talk to us. You are lucky that you are pretty because you are kinda stupid sometimes."

When we got to the office Gibbs was sitting at his desk with three coffee cups in his trash can, and another two on his desk. "We need protection detail for Kayla, are you two able to do it, or are you going to get distracted over whatever the hell it is you two are late for?"

"I've got it," I told him. "Sorry about being late, we can start driving separately if you want. Do we have any leads? I was looking over stuff last night after Nick fell asleep but couldn't find much. Also, why is it a thousand degrees in here and how are you drinking hot coffee?"

"Keeps me cool," he said, taking another sip of coffee.

We got a call saying that we had a lead, there was an explosion at a strip mall in Cherrywood and another outside Salton city. In total, twelve people were dead and fifty people were injured. 

"I just got off the phone with the first responders," Nick said, "the primary targets seem to be Navy recruitment centers."

I went up to MTAC to coordinate with Saltlake and Nick had to go meet Tim at GlowBeam. 

GlowBeam encrypts internet traffic, many state governments are their clients. They use lava lamps as their encryption engine. It's super cool, Tim and I talked about it for hours, Nick just called us nerds and kissed my head. 

Apparently, Nick had some sort of Lavalamp trauma, he got burnt and missed a little league tournament.  

Nick stayed at GlowBeam, and Tim came back. Gibbs said something about us being played and we had to run after him to the car. He drove us to Bethesda Naval Nuclear Test Station.  They said that there was nothing going on, but Gibbs didn't agree with that. 

McGee's phone rang and he went off to answer the call. "We are worried about the warning being a trick,"  I told the man in charge. 

He told us that they were locked down from outside interference.

"Boss," McGee said, "they said 'the coo coo's nest has landed'?"

"McGee, Bishop, on my six," Gibbs said walking away.

He tried to open the doors and it wouldn't open even when the man in charge tried to use his key card. An alarm started going off and saying that emergency procedures have been put into place. McGee went to the board and started trying to shut the stuff down before it had a meltdown. 

There was a trojan horse that was disabling the cooling system. Mcgee got rid of it for about five seconds and then it came back. This is great. He got the second one fixed after a few seconds so we were in the clear. 

Until it shut down again. There was an issue outside the facility. The codes were hacked. The Lava lamps were hacked. 

"Call Nick," I told Gibbs.

"Bishop, I get that you are stressed but it's not the time to call your boyfriend. Rule twelve is there for a reason. Don't make me take the exception away."

I rolled my eyes and shook my head, "Fine. Call Agent Torres, because Agent Torres is with the lava lamps and can probably do something to help."

"Oh," Gibbs said, getting his phone out to call Nick. 

"Where are you guys?" Nick said over the speaker. I was worried, but his voice made me even more worried. I was worried because there was a chance that this was the last time I heard his voice. 

I cleared my throat to try and make myself sound less nervous, "In a nuclear power plant infected with a trojan horse that's about to go critical." 

"Oh, we're having different days," he said, clearly not understanding what this meant. I love him, but he doesn't always get what things mean and how they can affect things. He doesn't get that this trojan horse could literally kill us. I guess it's better that way, then he won't need to worry.

"Boss, they just keep popping up, I can't stop them," McGee said, in a worried voice. 

"Wait? Are you serious? Bishop er- Ellie er- Elle- just- you have to get out of there. Where are you guys? I'll be right there," Nick said. He clearly understood a little more about what was going on now.

Gibbs shook his head even though Nick couldn't see him, "No, you need to shut it down, Torres."

It was clear that Nick was very  worried now, "shut what down?!"

"GlowBeam, we- we think it's the source of the virus," I told him

The man in charge was also panicking, "You have to shut it down now," he yelled. "We only have twenty seconds"

"Wait! Shut down what? This place doesn't exactly have an off button!" Nick yelled back and set down the phone.

The man in charge counted down how much time we had, and I prayed that Nick was doing something. 

"Bishop?! Are you guys still there?" he asked.

I was too stunned and overwhelmed to answer, so I just stood there and let Gibbs answer for us. Telling Nick that he did a good job.

We got back to the office before Nick, and when he got there he walked over to my chair and squatted on the floor in front of me so I could hug him. We try to keep the PDA to a minimum in the office, but right now neither of us cared. He kissed the top of my head and softly rubbed my back, "You're okay," he told me. 

I think that sometimes he forgets that I put myself in life and death situations on a daily basis. I knew that I was okay, I was just a little worried while it was happening. I lifted my head and softly kissed him on the lips, "I know, you saved us. I swear to God, you better not get some savior complex," I laughed. 

He shook his head and took my hand, "let's go home and get some food or something," he told me, quickly walking to the elevator so we weren't stopped by Gibbs.

He drove us home, and we went through McDonald's to get something easy because neither of us wanted to cook dinner. 

When we got home, we ate and watched a few TV shows and we went to bed. Nick fell asleep first, as always and I looked down at him before turning off the light. My Nick. My hero. My happy.