"You're late, Mr. Palmer."

Jimmy Palmer hurried into Autopsy, running ten minutes late and looking sufficiently frazzled.

"I'm sorry, doctor. I slept through my alarm and it's been chaos ever since."

Ducky hid a fond smile and bit his lip to keep from laughing. He really did enjoy winding the poor boy up.

"That's quite alright, Mr. Palmer. Just don't let it happen again."

Palmer sputtered out apologies, as he hung his coat on the stand in the corner of the very white and sterile room. He hadn't actually worn it that day, only put it on in the elevator . It was easier that way because he really wanted to avoid a repeat performance of his boss's lecture on taking care of one's own health that he'd gotten the last time he came in without a coat.

Jimmy quickly dropped his keys and a series of different sized envelopes onto the desk.

"I can assure you, Mr. Palmer, that you won't need your mail to help you do your job today. Mr. Delson, has no interest in your electric bill."

"Sorry again, Doctor Mallard. I didn't have the time to take it inside after I got it from the mailbox."

Ducky nodded absently, glancing at the desk a particular envelope caught his sharp eye.

"Is that your transcript, Jimmy?"

He didn't wait for an answer, only crossed the room with excited strides, that, if Ducky had not been a respectable grown man, might be considered skipping.

"Um...Doctor Mallard? Maybe, you should..."

Jimmy gave up on deterring the man and quickly stepped into the far corner of Autopsy, making himself look both busy and unobtrusive.

Ducky scanned down the list of grades and beamed in pride. His assistant was a very bright young man. Suddenly, his face fell into a frown as he came to the last result on the page. He whirled around, flabbergasted, and stared in bewilderment at the college student in front of him.

"James Palmer!" he finally cried at, stalking his way ominously towards his assistant.

"You promised me! Promised! Promised that you'd never fail a class again! And it's even the same course as before! Have you even been attending?"

Truthfully, no, he hadn't. It was his only class on Friday, and he'd never felt like leaving work after a long, hard day and going straight to class. It wasn't as if he needed the credits, he made them up with an extra course that he'd taken earlier in his college years. He had nothing to gain from the class but unwanted knowledge.

Ducky's face softened as he came to a realization.

"Do you need help, dear boy? I should have thought of this earlier. It would be no trouble at all if you needed me to take some time to study with you."

The offer was unappealing to Palmer, who could have passed the class with flying colors if he'd actually been there to take the tests. Plus, the way his boss was looking at him, a mixture of sympathy and understanding, was making him feel guilty. So, he did what anyone in his position would do. He thought up a lie.

"It isn't right," he blurted out.

"What?"

Ducky seemed confused by his assistants' announcement.

"T-the transcript," Jimmy stuttered out. "The professor made a mistake entering the grades into the computer and it didn't get fixed by the time these were sent out. The campus promised to send a new one by Friday."

Ducky's eyes lit up.

"So you passed?"

Now, you see, this would have been a good time for Palmer to fess up to everything. Yes, Ducky would have thrown a royal fit, but it is best to get these things over with and out of the way.

"I-I passed."

Or not. Procrastination is good too.

"This is wonderful, Mr. Palmer! You don't know how happy you've made me."

And with those words, all the guilt was gone, evaporated from his stomach without a trace. What's the big deal about a little white lie when his boss was this excited?

Ducky placed a hand on the younger man's shoulder.

"I'm so proud of you, Jimmy. I'm so sorry that I doubted you."

And, there's that guilt again.

~*~

The day was long for Jimmy Palmer. It felt like knives twisting in his stomach as Ducky related the story of his "mixed up" transcript to every poor soul, dead or alive, who entered Autopsy.

Jimmy's face flamed when Ducky raved about his top marks to Agent Gibbs' team. Tony snickered and winced as he felt a hard hand collide with the back of his head.

"That's a good job, Palmer."

Even Agent Gibbs was being nice.

"Of course," Ducky went on, "He'll bring in his new transcript when it gets here."

"Of course," Palmer squeaked out.

Apparently, the universe hated Jimmy Palmer.

~*~

Before he left for the day, Palmer made one last stop. He needed help, and there was only one person who could provide it.

"Jimmy!" she squealed running to hug him, "I heard all about your grades! Great job!"

Jimmy ran a nervous hand over the back of his neck.

"About that, Abby. I need a favor."

"Whatever you need, Palmer."

Abby bounced over to her computer to check on its progress.

"I need you to duplicate this," he held up the transcript with two fingers, as if it were radioactive.

She picked it up and scanned down the page and looked at him in confusion.

"You want me to make a copy of your transcript?"

Nodding, he slowly made his way towards her.

"Basically yes, but you just need to change that last grade there."

Muttering to herself, she tried to understand exactly what he wanted. Palmer was acting hinky. Finally, her head snapped up, and she stared up at him in horror.

"It isn't a mistake is it? You really failed that class!"

She gasped as she came to a second realization even more terrible than Jimmy failing.

"You want me to lie to Ducky!"

-=-=-=-=-

Okay, this one took a while because I really wanted to get Ducky and Palmer close to their characters. There will be two or three more chapters, I'm not sure yet. A big thanks to Julie507 for suggesting a very important part of this story! This will have both Palmer and Abby in trouble with Ducky and Gibbs respectively. I think I'll start my Tony and Abby one soon. I like to multitask, so neither this or Second Chances would suffer.

Thanks a bunch!