a/n: After the 2012 purge, I decided to edit and revise my stories before posting them again in other sites beside FF NET. So don't be surprised in seeing some changes on the stories.

Now all my fics will be available at Archive of Our Own as well as Oufanfiction dot net. You could follow me in Twitter WriterKos or in Facebook: Writerkos fanfiction

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Title: A geek walks into a bar
Author: WriterKos
Rating: T
Parings: McGee/OFC
Characters: McGee,
Genres: Drama, Romance, Character Study
Warnings: Mentions of sex
Summary: McGee meets a stranger who will change his world forever. First in the Joy Buchanan series.

PROLOGUE

After a breakneck day in NCIS, Special Agent McGee decides out of the blue to relax in a bar. Even though he is not a heavy drinker, he does occasionally enjoy a beer with his colleague and friend Tony DiNozzo or even engages into a team evening with Ziva and Abby after a gruesome case.

However today he decides to go on his own. He stops his Porsche close to the bar where the team usually meets on Fridays off, walks to the door and takes a seat on the bar counter besides a young woman sitting ramrod straight staring at glass of vodka on ice. He glances at her and gives her a brief nod which she stiffly reciprocates without looking in his direction.

After glancing at the menu for a few seconds, he finally decides on a Cuba Libre and makes his order. While he looks around the bar he is surprised when the stranger interrupts his thoughts.

"You are not a drinker."

The stranger says with conviction yet without lifting her gaze from the ice slowly melting in her glass.

McGee had to blink at that. "Excuse me?"

The stranger doesn't raise her gaze from the cup in her hands when she answers.

"You are not a drinker and whenever you do drink, Cuba Libre is not your drink of choice."

Tim turns on his seat and really looks at the stranger. Late twenties to early thirties, she had long wavy hair past her neck in a simple twisted pigtail which reminded him a little of Ziva's hair; natural tanned skin that proclaims that somewhere in her past one of her forefathers were latino descendants and a melodic accent that identified her as someone who had spent a good portion of her life in the West Coast. However what really struck a chord in him about the stranger was how tense her shoulders were, how her fingers were tightly holding the vodka glass and the sadness that seemed to pour out of her every pore.

"No, I'm not a drinker." McGee says after a few seconds of contemplation. "But then, neither are you." It was an educated guess from his part.

But he holds back a tiny smile when after a contemplative pause he sees the stranger silently agreeing with a nod. However, before McGee can say anything else to the stranger who had picked his curiosity, a very loud drunk pops on the other side of the woman and tries to pick her up.

"Hey beauty, what a babe like you is doing alone in a place like this, let me pay you a drink."

The drunkard grins as he puts a hand on her shoulder.

She immediately tenses at his invasion of her privacy and space, even more than before as if that was even possible, and very slowly turns on her chair towards the drunk man and whispers in a menacingly voice.

"If you value your hand, you will remove it now".

Apparently the drunk ignores her threat and tries again to say something inconvenient but she stands up, catches his hand and twists it painfully behind his back, forcing him face first against the counter.

"I'll count until three and when I reach three I'll let you go and I expect you to get lost otherwise I'll wipe the floor with your face. Are we understood?"

She forced his arm against his back, almost to the breaking point.

Whimpering, the drunk man nodded against the polished surface of the counter. "Yes ma'am. My arm, please. My arm…"

Having received the message, the drunk is released and he goes away.

"Ok ok, if you wanna stay with the geek, it is your choice."

When he thinks he is out of hearing distance, he murmurs back at the woman who had just humiliated him. "Bitch."

McGee watches the scene happen before his own eyes without saying a word or moving a muscle, silently observing as the woman comes back to her seat and how she struggles to regain a good grasp of her emotions again.

She is visibly trembling, either of rage or some other dark emotion, he doesn't know. But it's obvious that she's not okay.

"So… Bad day, uh?" He asks lightly, turning on his seat and distractedly glancing to the sports channel on the big TV behind the counter.

"Bad year." She admits in a whisper.

She dares to throw a sideway glance at him before chuckling lightly. There is a very tiny smile on her face, but McGee can see that it does not reach her eyes and at every breath she takes she is trying very hard not to cry.

His drink finally arrives and, after a moment of hesitation, he raises his glass in a toast in her direction.

"I propose a toast."

"A toast?" She sounds mildly interested for the first time since they both started talking.

"Yep."

She turns in her seat and for the first time he had a perfect view of her face. He looks into her eyes and thinks that she does have gorgeous eyes: big doe like eyes, surrounded by the type of eyelashes girls usually spend fortunes to have.

"What kind of toast?" She shakes lightly the ice in her glass, her eyes never leaving his face.

"To a better year." He offers with a tiny smile.

He feels a flutter in his chest when she smiles – really smiles – and raises her own glass.

"To a better year."

They reverently touch their glasses in the air and sip their drinks, throwing sideway glances to each other as they drink.

Two hours later, hands are desperately trying to find the keys somewhere in the front pockets of a man's trousers. Once found, one hand struggles to fit the right key into the lock while the other one holds firmly silky strands of hair, trying to find a better angle for a desperate attack of mouth and tongue.

The door finally opens and two forms stumble into the small apartment without disengaging from each other. The man closes the door with one of his feet and twists his upper body so he may support the woman against the door while he attacks voraciously her neck. She is petite close to him and, in order to give him better access, she jumps and wraps her legs around his waist. He moans at the close contact but doesn't stop his attack, mercilessly sucking and biting the smooth skin he can reach.

"I don't usually do this." His voice is muffed by her neck as he mutters against her skin.

"Uhm?" Her brain is on standstill, not fully able to grasp what he had just said.

McGee stops the attack on her neck and looks at her face for a second. Her big brown eyes are smoky and the sadness that had been present in them during the whole evening is temporarily gone.

"I don't usually pick strangers on bars." He explains again as he struggles to juggle her body against the hard wood of the door and his own hard body. Pun intended. "I don't usually do one night stands."

She pauses for a second, breathing deeply and processing the info he had just given her.

She finally smiles and leans towards him so she may kiss him.

"Four years." She plants a soft kiss on his neck. "Seven months." Next kiss is on his lips. "Seventeen days." Now she leans and gives him another breathtaking kiss, her tongue invading his mouth and touching his teeth and tongue, dueling and making him weak on his knees. "Fourteen hours West Coast time."

McGee's brain tries to process the info along with the stimuli and takes him some seconds to question her between their kisses.

"Four years since what?" He whispers, sighing as she lightly bites his neck.

"Since the last time I've had sex." She shrugs. "Consensual sex, at least."

They keep on kissing and McGee suddenly stops, grabs her shoulder and pushes her torso away so he can stare at her face asking astonished:

"Four years?" His voice is loaded with incredulity and high pitched as he struggles to process such information. How a gorgeous woman like that stayed alone for so long?

"Four years, seven months, seventeen days and…" She looks briefly at her watch, "…fourteen hours give or take." She smiles at his incredulous look. "LA time. I would have to redo the math for DC time."

"But… but…" She silences him with a small delicate finger lightly touching his full moist lips.

"Who is counting anyway?"

Both smile and resume their kissing. McGee gets a better grip of her body and carries her to his bedroom and closes the door.

And as they say, so it begins...