TECHNOLOGICALLY CHALLENGED

By

Ashleigh Anpilova

Gibbs needs to buy something and turns to McGee for help.
A Gibbs & McGee gen story.
Written: August 2008. Word count: 1,438.

Gibbs arrived at the office to find the only member of his field team present was McGee. That suited him and his needs perfectly.

"Hey, McGee," he called, as he walked by McGee's desk. "Need your help with something."

"Not a problem, boss," his youngest agent said, hastily pressing a few keys on his keyboard before standing up and hurrying over to Gibbs's desk. "What can I do for you?"

Gibbs flung his overcoat and briefcase down, put his Sig into his top drawer and nodded at the computer. "You use that to buy stuff, don't you?"

"Well not your computer, boss. I'd never dream of – But that's not what you meant, is it?" McGee said hastily, looking at Gibbs.

Gibbs just shook his head and hid a smile. "Sit down," he said, gently but firmly pushing McGee into his chair.

"In your chair?" McGee's voice suddenly got somewhat higher. "But why?"

Gibbs rolled his eyes and perched on the edge of his desk next to McGee. "Because I need you to show me how to do whatever it is you have to do to buy something using that," again he nodded at his computer.

"Got it, boss. So what do you want to buy?" McGee looked up at him.

"A CD."

"Okay." McGee switched Gibbs's computer on and fingers flying in a way Gibbs admired brought up a website. "There are plenty of places, boss, but Amazon is a good place to start."

Gibbs nodded. "Okay. So what next? How do I buy it?"

"Er. Well, what's it called?"

"Oh, yeah, forgot that. Hang on," Gibbs dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of paper he'd hastily scrawled the details on. He frowned as he tried to make out what he'd written; holding it at arms' length, he peered at the words, blinking until they came into focus. "Songs Without Words," he said, pushing the paper back into his pocket. He watched as McGee typed the three words into a white box.

"Um, which one, boss?" McGee asked, looking up at him.

"What do you mean, 'which one'?"

"Well there are quite a few, even allowing for duplicates," McGee said slowly. "Do you know who it's by?"

"It's classical."

McGee touched the keyboard again, but the look on his face told its own story.

"Still quite a few, huh?"

"I'm afraid so, boss." McGee's fingers now hovered over the keyboard as he looked expectantly up at Gibbs, just waiting for him to tell him what to do next.

Gibbs frowned; maybe he should just forget the whole thing. It wasn't as though he had to buy it; he already had several gifts. But they're all usual ones; you promised yourself you'd buy something different this year. And he had.

"I didn't know you liked classical music, boss," McGee said, making conversation.

"It's not for me, it's for Ducky."

"Ducky?"

"Yeah. You know it's his birthday in a couple of weeks. I want to get him something he really wants. He mentioned this CD."

"I guess it can't be easy after all the years you've been friends. Does he know about the –"

"No, McGee. It's called a surprise party, remember?"

The tips of McGee's ears turned pink. "Sorry, boss," he said. "I know, maybe if I . . ." And he did something. "No, that doesn't really help. Do you remember anything else about it?"

"It's new."

McGee did something else with the keyboard, but still he frowned.

Gibbs sighed. This was pointless. And then he remembered. "In fact I don't think it's even been released yet."

McGee did something else and then something else and then a third something else. Gibbs had long given up trying to follow what his technical expert was doing and just waited for the result he had ever confidence in getting.

To his surprise, McGee finally put his hands down on the desk, sighed, bit his lip and looked up at Gibbs, a look of failure and trepidation on his face. "I'm sorry, boss, I can't . . . Are you sure it's called Songs Without Words?"

Gibbs nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure that's what Duck said. He heard it advertised on a radio station."

"Which one?" McGee sounded eager again.

Gibbs frowned and vowed he would actually start listening to Ducky more – of course he'd been making the vow for as long as they'd be friends. "It's a British one," he finally said.

"British?"

"Yeah."

"Ducky listens to a radio program on-line," McGee said and smiled. "That's cool." Again his fingers flew over the keyboard. "Is this is?" he showed a site to Gibbs.

He shrugged. "Don't know, McGee. Could be. He only mentioned it. I didn't even know you could listen to the radio on a computer."

"Technology's a wonderful thing, boss."

"So you and Abbs keep telling me. Well, have you found my CD yet?"

McGee's fingers continued to fly over the keyboard. Suddenly he smiled. "I think I have, boss," he said. Then he frowned again. "Except –"

"Except what, McGee?"

"Well, you said it was classical."

"Yeah. So?"

 

"Well this isn't, not exactly."

"Then why does it say 'Classic FM'?" Gibbs said patiently.

"Um." McGee hastily read the description. "Oh," he said.

"Good 'oh' or bad 'oh'?"

"Good, I think. Yes, I'm sure," McGee hastened to add, as Gibbs glared at him. "I think this is it, boss."

"You think, McGee?"

McGee swallowed hard and did something he rarely did: he stood his ground under the infamous Gibbs glare. "What I think is, boss, that unless you want to ask Ducky, which you don't want to do, then, yes, on the basis of what you have told me, this is the one."

"Right. Then buy it."

"Right, boss." McGee turned his attention back to Amazon. Gibbs waited. "Er, boss," McGee's tone was not a good one.

"McGee."

"It appears that Amazon.com doesn't have it."

"Well how am I meant to buy it then?"

"Amazon.co.uk will ship to America."

"Do it." Gibbs assumed McGee knew what he was talking about with his dot com and dot couk.

"Okay, you'll have to pay more shipping but – Right, I'll set up an account for you. Unless you want to . . . No, I'll do the first part and then you can put in your credit card details."

"You do that, McGee," Gibbs said and patted his shoulder. At that moment his phone rang. He grabbed it. "Yeah, Gibbs? . . . Okay, I'll be right up." He put the phone down and stood up. "Got to go and see the Director," he said. "You don't need me to do whatever it is you have to do, do you?"

"Well, no, apart from . . . But I'll use mine and you can –"

"McGee!"

"Yes, boss?"

"What do you need?"

"Well you have to put your credit card details in to pay for it."

"That all? Here," Gibbs tugged out his wallet, pulled out the first credit card and handed it to McGee. "What?" he demanded, as McGee just looked at him.

"Um, that's your card, boss."

"Know that, McGee."

"Well you really shouldn't be . . . Well, you know."

"No, McGee, I don't 'know'."

"Letting anyone else have access to it."

"You going hock it?"

"Boss?"

Gibbs frowned. "You know, use it to –"

"Oh, you mean 'hack'. Of course not, boss." McGee sounded affronted.

"That's it then. Here. Just do whatever you have to do – but get me my CD." He pushed the card into McGee's hand, turned and strode towards the stairs, leaving McGee to work his magic. He was safe in the knowledge that he would have the CD before Ducky's birthday.

He was just glad that the whole 'surprise birthday party' that had been Abby's idea was considerably less work to organize. And the next time Abby or McGee told him 'technology saved time', well . . . He had bought a CD from a store in less time than it'd taken McGee to track the right one down and he could see McGee was still typing things into his computer; so it still wasn't bought.

As was his wont, he conveniently ignored the small fact that he wouldn't have been able to buy that particular CD from a store. He also cheerfully ignored the fact that he hadn't been paying enough attention to what McGee had done, so the next time he wanted to use technology to buy something – not that he was planning on doing that any time soon – he'd have to once again ask his computer expert.

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