Rule Number One

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/NCIS crossover
Summary: Better done by tags and story (it's a drabble!  a short one!)
Word Count: 70
Rating: Gen

            “Rule number one: never let suspects stay together,” DiNozzo and McGee say at the same time.  Xander glances over, and for a moment he looks amused.

            “I’d have thought you’d have put the most important rule first,” he says, and instantly looks a little older and a whole lot more serious.

            Tony nods, curious and still half amused.  “And what’s that?”

            “Don’t die.  There’s a corollary to that, I guess.  Don’t get other people killed, either.”  McGee can’t read him, but Tony instantly sobers.

            “Guess there’s a story to that.”  He looks sympathetic for once, and Xander allows himself the moment of amusement that the same goofy front he puts on can fool him when it’s coming from someone else.

            “Yeah, but it can wait until we find the bastards who did this, right, Gibbs?”

            How a guy with an eyepatch can notice the guy standing behind him when no one else in the room realizes he’s there is a mystery Tony’s not sure he has the answer to.  Not yet, anyway, but there’s time.