Meeting Vance

It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, (protecting its sanity), covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But, it is never gone. - Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

Director Leon Vance is used to let agents, even senior agents, sweat. He had a reputation of being a strict boss, who took over a Federal Agency after the tragic death of the previous director and after all these years on this post, he was feared and respected on all Federal circles. He was a worthy adversary, but a fair judge of character.

Even Special Agent Gibbs, who had as much leeway as none other agent in the Agency, knew that the Director was a figure to be respected and feared upon occasion.

But Vance could not detect a single twitch on the agent sitting before him. He browsed the file on his hands one more time, just to make a show that he was reading it but he actually had it memorized since the first time he read it one week ago.

The Special Agent before him was a transfer from the FBI, ten years veteran on the Behavioral Analysis Unit located allocated to the West Coast, more specifically in LA.

Apparently, after the success of the BAU in DC, the Brass in the FBI decided to create a second BAU to cover specifically the crimes on the West Coast. This way they could work more efficiently and the Learjet of the Bureau would not burn so much fuel. It worked well for a couple of years, and the main BAU was still called upon some of the most gruesome cases, both teams worked alongside solving a staggering amount of horrific cases, some more gruesome than the worst imagined horror humanity can create. Things were going well until six months ago.

Six months ago everything went straight to hell.

During one terrible case, multiple murders on each scene, the unsub escalating on his aggressiveness on each attack; the team was so concerned on finding the monster that they failed to watch out for the monsters lurking within.

One of their own snapped under pressure. The whole team was murdered. By one of their own. After he killed everyone, he killed himself.

All the team was dead. With the exception of the Agent sitting before Vance. After an exhaustive investigation, the agent was exonerated of any wrongdoing. They could find no fault on her, as she was on leave due to family problems when the massacre happened. However the Agent was given a checkmate: either retire or quit.

The Agent chose neither and applied for a transfer to NCIS. After only one month in the LA office, her resume was forwarded to headquarters and Vance invited her over to DC.

And that is why Special Agent Joy Buchanan was sitting on Director Vance's room that morning.

Vance closed the file and put it on his table.

"You have a very impressive file"

"Thank you sir"

"However I wish better circumstances were what brought you to my agency." Vance detected a little tension on her shoulders at those words.

"I understand your reserve, sir. But what happened affect neither my efficiency nor my abilities as an Agent and especially as profiler."

Vance pauses to look at Buchanan. Her hair falls on soft waves framing her face, her deep almond eyes watching him carefully, analyzing his moves and his words. She is impeccably dressed on a professional looking suit. There is no signal of impatience. She has a background both in Psychology and Psychiatry, but her range of interests makes her a legend on the Profiling world as her mentor Gideon or her colleague on the currently only living BAU Stephen Reed.

"You will be temporarily assigned to the Major Crime Response Team, under Special Agent Gibbs's lead. He is a strict but a fair leader. His trust is earned, not given. I know you worked one month with NCIS LA but here you will be trained on NCIS approach to the cases, which I guarantee are quite different than the ones you handled on the FBI."

"I'm looking forward to it, sir"

"Our bulk of cases might not be as many as in the FBI, but they are equally important. You will be trained by the best, in order to become one of the best.

"Once we see you are ready, we will organize that you have your own team, so you may train them to be profilers like you are. But first of all, they must be aware that they are NCIS agents first, profilers second. Am I understood?" He wanted to make clear that what happened in LA would not be tolerated nor accepted in DC.

"Crystal clear, sir."

"Good"

Vance touches his intercom and talks to his secretary.

"Get me Agent Gibbs"

Meeting Gibbs

Special Agent Gibbs got out of the elevator with his steaming hot black coffee in hand. Walking briskly to his desk, he observed the members of his team running back to their desks to get the evidence they gathered during his brief outing for coffee.

"Sit rep" He barked.

"Petty Officer Louis Philips, 26," Special Agent Anthony ´Tony' DiNozzo piped in struggling with the remote for the screen showing a pictured of the deceased "he is a radar specialist in the Gato, submarine currently in war exercises in the Mexican Gulf. He had been on extended shore leave for medical reasons for the last three weeks, and he had an appointment to clear him for duty last Tuesday." Tony clicked on the remote and a picture of the deceased appeared "He never made it".

The picture was horrific. The body showed lacerations made by fists, mixed with the blood coming out of several stab wounds.

"Petty Officer Phillips was in good shape" interrupted Special Agent Ziva David, former Mossad officer who was part of team Gibbs "even after his minor surgery".

"What type of surgery he suffered?"

"He suffered from a very severe case of ingrown toe nail on his left feet" Said McGee. "The toe got so infected that he had to request leave and have it surgically removed."

"And of course the closed boots mandatory for Navy uniform would hinder his post operatory" Said Tony with a sarcastic smile.

Gibbs, Ziva and McGee turned to stare at Tony, who lost the smile very fast and tried to justify himself.

"That's why he requested three weeks." Stammers DiNozzo.

"Finances"

"His finances are clean" said McGee, "his account only registers the entry of his monthly salary, no suspect deposits at least in the last twelve months. The debits are just normal bills, rent, pay per view, and a steady list of alimony checks for his ex-wife".

"He has an ex-wife?"

"Ex-wife's name is Emily Jordan, 23, divorced him only six months after tying the knot. That was three years ago. They've had an amicable divorce, he pays the alimony, and she stays in the other side of the country in Oregon." Says Ziva.

"Any chance she is involved? Motive?"

"Her alibi checks out, she was on a date with her current boyfriend, who happens to be the sheriff of her town at the same time our Petty Officer Phillips met his Maker." Says Tony.

"We checked with him, she is ok, boss." Says McGee.

"Any enemies?"

"It was difficult to establish a live link with the Gato, but we had the opportunity to question his Supervisor and some of his colleagues. He was well liked between his peers, nobody had no complains about him." Says McGee

"Except …"interrupts DiNozzo. Gibbs look at him "… how horrible and smelly his toe was."

"So we have a dead petty officer, with an ex-wife with no motive to kill him and colleagues with no complain about him except about his…"

"… smelly feet." Adds McGee.

"Smelly feet."

"Hardly a motive for murder. " says Ziva.

"However he still got himself stabbed and beaten to death on an alley five blocks from his house. How do explain that?"

"We can't…"

"Not good enough. Dig deeper! " Barks Gibbs reaching out his hand to answer his phone which is ringing on the table.

Ziva, Tony and McGee scurry like scared mice to their desks to keep on investigating.

"Director Vance would like to meet you on his office".

"I'll be right in."

He puts the phone down and climbs the stairs two steps at the time.

"I want answers when I come back" He shouts from above the squad room.

Gibbs approaches Vance door and barely acknowledges the secretary before barging in the room. He is surprised to see that the director is not alone. Sitting primly on the chair before the director is a woman in business suit, and she immediately stands up to attention upon his entry.

Gibbs acknowledges the woman with a nod and gives a light smirk when he notices she faintly struggles not to salute him. She must be from a military family.

"You wanted to see me, Director?"

"This is Special Agent Joy Buchanan, she is a transfer from NCIS LA Office. She was just assigned to our office here in DC."

"Congratulations"

"Thanks sir" Gibbs cringes a little.

"Prior to her short stay in the NCIS LA Office, she was one of the key members of the BAU team of the FBI office in the same city. She is an expert profiler with a very high closure rate."

Gibbs smiles. "That's all very good, but why are you telling me this, Leon?"

"Because I'm assigning her to your team" Gibbs' smile drops immediately "She is a good agent, but she needs guidance on how things work here in NCIS. She is used to another rhythm and types of cases. She would be greatly benefited from your expertise."

"Come on Leon, you know that I don't babysit nor coddle probies, you can't push one to me, I…"

"She is not a probie, she is an experienced agent." Answers back Vance. Gibbs looks at the woman and the expression of mild curiosity that was on her face is gone, a veiled mask of disinterest is in its place instead.

"It is only a temporary solution. Once we find a better opening for her skills here in DC, she will be relocated for a different team where she will set up a training program for profilers-to-be. McGee never had a partner fulltime; she may be allotted to him in the meantime."

"Vance…"

"My decision is final" said Vance on his best director's voice. Gibbs looks at the woman and her eyes are staring at a point of the wall, somewhere above his shoulder, with the most uninterested expression on her face at the discussion deciding her fate.

"Fine" Gibbs turns around, opens the door and stops. "Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?" The woman gets her notebook backpack from the floor; gives a brief headshake to the director and follows Gibbs out of the room silently.

Once in the corridor he takes the time to study his new teammate. Soft curly waves molded a squared jaw face, which in someone else's face would be ugly but for some reason adds character to her, mocha tanned skin and deep brown eyes study him with the same care that he studies her. He stops on the corridor, and turns to her to lay down the works.

"My team, my rules."

"Yes sir."

"Don't call me sir, I work for a living"

"Yes, … "she leaves it hanging, waiting for Gibbs to finish it for her.

"Call me Gibbs, or Boss, I don't care, but never call me sir."

"Yes, Gibbs" She tries it for the first time.

"Don't piss me off, don't screw up, and don't bother me with stupid questions." He turns and keeps walking to the squad room. "If you do any of the above, stay out of my sight." He shots back at her.

She follows him silently, and he wonders how she can run on those shoes. "I have a set of rules that my team obeys above all, you will also learn them."

"Are they written somewhere?"

"No" He smirks.

"How am I supposed to learn them?"

He stops and stare her down. She stares right back at him, without backing down. He is impressed, she is not easily intimidated. "I'm supposed to teach you" They start walking again until they are at the top of the stairs and go down to the squad room.

Meeting the Team…

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. - Friedrich Nietzsche

"You were trained to catch killers. I was trained to catch monsters." â€" S.A. Joy Buchanan

At the bull pen, Gibbs team was working. Following any lead trying to find out the murderer of Petty Officer Phillips. McGee sent something to the printer and stood up to collect it, so he did not see Gibbs coming down the stairs with the new agent.

"What've you got?"

"Phillips was following his doctor orders to a T. He had his food delivered the first two weeks as he was ordered not to set his foot on the floor." Answers DiNozzo, all the while looking at the woman standing by Gibbs' side.

"Abby hasn't finished yet with the analysis of the residue found on the clothes. She will call when she is done." Replies Ziva, without hiding the curiosity in her face or in her voice.

"Hey, Boss, who is the new chick?"Asks DiNozzo, pointing the woman with his chin, already calculating in his head the likehood of getting her in the sack.

"This is Special Agent Joy Buchanan, McGee's brand new partner" Says Gibbs with irony in his voice, moving around the woman towards his desk "Where's McGee?"

"I'm here, Boss, what do you…" He leaves the sentence hanging, because he stops to stare at the woman, and she is staring at him back.

Insert a really awkward pause here.

"Hey, do you know the new Probie, Probie?" Asks DiNozzo with a leer.

"Do you know each other?" Asks Gibbs with a fierce frown. This can go sour very quickly.

"Ah, Boss, ohh I eh … We…" Stammers McGee.

"We´ve met" Says Special Agent Buchanan with a firm voice. A small smile forms in her face "All I know is that he is not a heavy drinker" The smile gets bigger. "At all."

"But then, neither are you." McGee smiles back. Another pause, this time not awkward but there is definitely something there that Gibbs can't put his finger on it. And he doesn't like it.

"She is going to be your new partner"

"Partner? I'm getting a partner?'"

"Why is probie getting a partner?"

"Director's orders. Is this… whatever it is… going to be a problem?" Gibbs had to ask.

"Not at all" Says Buchanan.

"No Boss, I'm cool with it."

"Then, back to WORK" Gibbs barks the last word and returns to his desk.

"So Probie Buchanan, I'm the one, the only the very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, but my friends can call me Tony", says DiNozzo, and he is able to check her out and put as much leer in his voice as possible at the same time he stretches his hand for her to shake.

"Tony" Says McGee uncomfortably, knowing his friend and colleague was hitting with all his Italian charm on the new agent.

She looks at him with a piercing gaze, looks down at his outstretched hand, smiles politely and surprises the hell out of him "I'll try to remember that".

"Your charm must be slipping, Tony" Says Ziva. "She didn't even blink."

Buchanan turns to McGee who had walked to stand beside his desk "I will need the crime scene photos and sketches. And I would appreciate if you could review them with me so I can prepare a preliminary profile of the unsub."

"profile?"

"unsub?"

"She is a trained profiler, ex-FBI." Says Gibbs, standing up and walking up to stare down at Buchanan, obviously trying to intimidate her. "One of the best. Or so I've been told. Let's see how good you really are." Smirks Gibbs.

"Boss, I could…" McGee tries to interfere what he can see might become a very explosive situation very quickly.

"Indeed" Says Buchanan. Tony and Ziva are looking at each other trying to figure out how things have got to where they were. Gibbs normally wasn't very friendly, but he was clearly antagonizing the new agent.

They have a staring match, and Gibbs gives her another smirk and goes back to sit down on his table. McGee tries to steer her to the investigation, but Buchanan keeps looking at Gibbs with calculating eyes. She makes a sign to McGee to stop trying to talk, and goes to stand in front of Gibbs desk, waiting for him to acknowledge her presence.

"Do you have a problem, Agent Buchanan?"

"Indeed I have, sir."

"I told you not to call me…"

"That should be the least of your concerns." Gibbs raises his eyes from his paperwork. "You told me you work for a living. That's the reason you do not wish to be called sir. Newsflash: So do I. I mean, work for a living." That got his attention.

"In my line of work, there are two types of people: the people who make my life easier and the people who make my life harder." Pause "Believe me, you don't want to make my life harder."

"Really?" Gibbs can't believe is being lectured by a Probie.

"The whole marine drill sergeant routine won't work with me. My father was an Air Force Colonel, my four brothers are hardcore marines to the bone." Pause" I am not a probationary agent for you to lord over, I am a ten year veteran on the hardest to work unit in the whole FBI."

"You are not in the FBI anymore, Buchanan"

"I'm aware of that."

"Anything else you would like to add to your little speech?" Gibbs is smiling now at her spunk.

"Yes, sir" The emphasis on the sir makes it clear that she is silently fuming. She leans over Gibbs desk, looks him in the eye and manages to wipe the smile of his face. "You were trained to catch killers. I was trained to catch monsters."

She stands straight and collects her backpack from the floor, where she had left once she started talking with McGee. She did not turn to Gibbs to ask "Where should I put my things?" he points with his head to the unused desk at the other side of the division, on McGee's side. "You will have a preliminary profile in one hour." She sits down and starts booting her laptop.

For once, an astonished silence reigns on the bullpen.

… and McGee

"So, You are a profiler"
"Specialized in Psychology and Psychophatic Behavior."
"Uhm"
"I don't usually disclose that information on first time meetings."
"Why?"
"People tend to act strangely when they realize they are talking to a glorified shrink." - Buchanan to McGee.

The awkward silence that befell the squad room slowly faded to the sound of fingers taping on keyboards. Gibbs' original team was pretending to work; meanwhile, they were glancing at each other trying to figure out what was going on in their boss' head. Gibbs, after some seconds staring at the new agent, stood up and with a low "going for a coffee" left the bullpen.

Tony immediately stood up and started to interrogate his colleague.

"Ok, probie. Spill."

"Not now Tony

"How do you know Mrs Steel balls there?"

"Anything you are hiding from us, McGee" asked Ziva.

"Guys, I…"

"You guys are aware that I can hear you, right."

The three agents shut up and walked over the table divisor to look at the newcomer.

"Do you have any questions?"

"Yes, how do you know McGee?" Ziva beat Tony to the punch.

"We had a drink together"

"McGee doesn't drink… much." Tony retorts. Buchanan smiles.

"I've never said I got drunk with him. I said I had a drink."

"Is it true, probie?"

"Yes" he answers, but the blush burning up his face is revealing.

"oh probie, this is going to be good..."

"I was under the impression his name is McGee" Interrupts Buchanan.

"Yes it is." Says McGee "But Tony here calls me probie…"

"Or McGoo, McGeek, McGenious, McSleepy, or…" Ziva continues.

"From hereafter, you will call him McGee."

"Why would I do that? He doesn't mind, right McGoo?"

"I do mind." Retorts McGee.

"Come on McGeek, you know I do it as a friend, as a brother"

"McGee" says Buchanan firmly.

"Yes" "I wasn't calling you."she says to McGee "His name is McGee" She says to Tony.

"Listen, Probie, you can't…"

"I said" there is steel on her voice "his name is McGee"

"Why should I do that, Probie Buchanan?"

"Let's make it clear" she stands and walks up to Tony, and stares fiercely at him. "You butcher his name, I will butcher yours, DiNutzo" She mispronounces his name on purpose.

"Hey, the name is DiNozzo."

"Or we can call you DiDi, Big Di, or my favorite" She pauses and give him a sultry look, full of leer as the one he gave her before, measures him up and down, taking her sweet time on his intimate parts "Little D".

"Hey, I'd have you know that there is nothing little about…"

"DiNozzo" Interrupts Ziva "Too much information"

"Ok, you made your point" Tony returns to his desk mumbling under his breath about new probies full of themselves.

Ziva looks at McGee and sees he is staring with astonished eyes to the new agent, and realizes that it is the first time that anyone had stood up to DiNozzo defending McGee in a long time. Or maybe ever.

Before, he was looking at her as a man looks at an old lover. Now he is looking at her as if she offered him a glass of water after a long time in the desert.

That is certainly going to be interesting.

"So, welcome to the team. I'm Ziva David."

"Shalom, Ziva"

"Shalom" Ziva is surprised. She experiments simple salutations in Hebrew and Buchanan replies without a hitch. Her pronunciation is impeccable, and Ziva tells her so.

"You speak Hebrew very well."

"Father was adamant we learn the language of the Bible." A sincere smile graces her face. "And I spent a summer in a Kibbutz in Israel during Uni."

"I thought you told Gibbs your father was in the Air Force. A colonel, if I'm not mistaken." Says McGee.

"He was. He retired after a while. After that he became the chaplain of the Air Force Base in Glasglow, Montana. Once the Air Force decided to close down the Base late in the seventies, they left; he stayed. He is the pastor of a medium sized Baptist Church there now."

"Well, hope you enjoy working with us."

"Thanks, Ziva"

Ziva goes back to her desk, not without exchanging a grin with Tony, who looks at the two standing Probies with speculative eyes.

"So…" starts McGee with the documents in hands, looking at her.

"Take a seat, McGee."

"Buchanan seats on her desk and brings up some graphs and programs on her laptop. McGee brings his chair over and sits by her side. He has the printout pictures of the crime scene and he gives them to her before sitting down.

"So…"

"So…"

We really must stop having these awkward pauses, thinks McGee.

"So, you're a profiler"

"Specialized in Psychology and Psychopathic Behavior."

"Uhm"

"I don't usually disclose that information on first time meetings."

"Why?"

"People tend to act strangely when they realize they are talking to a glorified shrink."

McGee smiles.

"That explains a lot."

"What?"

"The trick with the drink."

They look at each other and they are clearly not thinking about drinks for a moment. He smiles shyly and she reciprocates for a second, then it is gone. His smile fades.

"Have you ever worked with a profiler before?"

"Briefly." She looks at him, questioning him. "When I joined the team, we had a profiler. She had been from the Secret Service. But she died from a sniper shot on my first year here" McGee's voice still carries the pain from losing Kate, even after all those years.

Ziva and Tony stop what they are doing and wait for Buchanan's reaction. Kate's death was still painful, and they wanted to hear what would be the reaction of their new teammate.

"I'm sorry. But it was expected."

"I beg your pardon?" There is incredulity in his voice. Buchanan proceeds with her explanation. "Statistically profilers tend to die 39% more than any other activity in law enforcement. That is, when you compare the numbers of us to the number of non natural deaths in the force demographically."

There is horror in McGee's face "Why?"

"McGee" she pauses and looks at him. Really looks at him, and for a moment he sees in her eyes the same lost air that she had three days before when they met in the bar. "You can't do bungee jumping in the abyss without a safe line. The type of work we do, they type of analysis we make, is mind consuming. Few can withstand the pressure. And majority of us have their lives taken away by the very monsters we are trying to catch."

"That's awful."

"Indeed it is."

She starts looking at the pictures.

"If you need help with anything, I will..."

"Do you guys have a murder board?"

"Murder board?"

"Yeah, in NCIS LA, they had these really cool tech stuff, one of them was an intelligent board we could use to log information and to search things in the matrix as well."

"Oh yeah…" McGee's voice gets a dreamy quality. "LA's tech is one of the best, I made the request for one of those but until now …"

"Nothing."

"Nothing. They said it wouldn't fit our budget. Maybe next year."

Uhm… she looks at the printouts at her hand. "Is there anywhere I could spread these out. I will need more space to start working."

"I think we can arrange that."

Alpha male is watching you

Gibbs came back from his coffee run and sees only Ziva and DiNozzo at their desks.

"Where are McGee and Buchanan?"

"Interrogation room four."

"Do they have a suspect already?"

"No, Probette said she needed space to work."

Gibbs turns and marches to where the interrogation rooms were located, planning to check what his younger agent and new problem child could be possibly doing.

Hearing voices, he enters the observation room.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

The opposite wall was literally covered with crime scene photos. A huge mosaic of death and blood on printouts glared at the two agents sitting side by side on the table in the interrogation room. Some papers with handwritten notes were scattered on some locations, as if they were hastily written to immortalize a thought before the idea was gone.

And apparently, she was giving him a seminary on profiling.

"Profiling is different than your normal investigation."

"I thought they were based on the same steps." He starts to enumerate them "A crime is committed, an investigation is started. Evidence is collected, which points to possible suspects. Once motive is found, suspect is convicted, end of story."

"Correct, but not necessarily complete."

"What do you mean?"

"You get facts and try to fit the suspect to the crime. In profiling, most of the times you seek the suspect first and then try to fit him to the facts at hand."

"I don't see how that would work."

"Sometimes there is no motive. Or the crime is a crime of opportunity, or gang-related. In these cases the normal relation of motive and circumstances reveal nothing, because there is absolutely no connection between the victim and suspect. Or the guy is simply a psychopath."

"And in this case, he does not need motive."

"No he doesn't."

"And how does it help?"

"We get his acts and trace it down to behavioral patterns. From behavioral patterns we track it to social, religious, cultural patterns. Somewhere, in this huge mental haystack, he left the proverbial needle we can use to nail him down."

"How would you do it?"

"Look at this picture." She points to one in the left. "Here we can see that he first attacked our victim with an upper kidney thrust. Not only that, the abrasion around the wound would indicate that he twisted the knife while it was still in the body, making the initial cut bigger than the actual length of the knife. Add to this the multitude of stab wounds on the upper torso on the front of his torso, and the form of the fist impressions on the same area of the body, we can rule out a female attacker."

"Why?"

"A woman would not be able to create such multitude of wounds, and stabbing the human body with this speed and agility would be beyond an average woman with an average strength and age."

"You are saying that a woman would not stab a man as brutally as that."

"I'm saying that statistically, women would rather shoot someone down than stab them. Stabbing is a personal way of killing, because it requires close contact with the victim."

"Ziva could"

Ziva could what?

"Stab a person and then punch the daylights out of them." He smiles. "She is, you know, a trained crazy assassin from Mossad."

Buchanan smiles.

"But Ziva is someone extraordinary. Something that our killer is not." She motions to him. "Stand up." She gets a pen in her hand and forces McGee to stand up ramrod straight. She moves her hand with familiarity on his back to align it, without the normal hunch he adopts because of being too tall. "You are a US navy officer, trained to face any adversity, you might be suffering a little discomfort from your operated foot but that's nothing to you, Navy officers walk proud of their force and their uniform." McGee smiles at her description.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Gibbs observes the interaction from the other side of the mirror.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"You go out for a beer, after a long self-imposed reclusion. If you get a clean medical bill on Tuesday, you get to go back to your Sub on Friday. You go for your favorite hangout bar, and are approached by him, an average Joe, who despite all your training, does not set off any alarms on your head. You don't feel threatened. "

"We already questioned everyone in the bar, nobody out of the ordinary talked to Phillips. All the alibis checked out. And he left the bar alone."

"Then you are approached on the street back home, by someone ordinary-looking, that does not ring any bell, and this someone walks by your side for some time, maybe talking about the last Knicks game or who is going to win the World Series, and then Bam!" She moves the pen like a knife and moves as if to strike McGee, who jumps with fright. "Stab wound to your lower back."

"I would have fought back, I'm a highly trained officer."

"Not necessarily. This first cut would have driven him straight into shock, regardless of his health condition. He would be defenseless." She turns to stare at the improvised murder board.

"The first cut alone would have been enough to kill him. Five minutes, eight minutes tops and he would have bled out.

"So you are saying that this was premeditated."

"The knife suggests that the attack was premeditated. The punching suggests a close relation to the victim; however your investigation did not raise any red flags on the personal or professional life of our petty officer."

"So we got nothing."

She bites her lower lip thinking. "Not necessarily. .There is something still bothering me about the attack. It is almost like…"

"Almost like what?" She´s onto something, thinks McGee.

"As if there were two people involved in this killing instead of only one."

"Are you suggesting that we have two killers for one victim? Don't you think that's literally overkill?"

"No. Look, it was overkill from the very beginning. First he stabs him with an upper thrust in the kidney, then, once Phillips was already on the floor, he kept stabbing the poor bastard in six other places just to ensure he will not be rising anytime soon. And after the stabbing, he puts away the knife and proceeds to pummel the already bleeding to death SOB into a blood pulp. There are two M.O.s here."

"Two M.O.s, two suspects."

"I would like to talk to your resident Medical Examiner before I put down any theory on paper."

"Ok, I'm sure I can arrange you to meet Ducky."

"Thanks," she says. They start putting away the papers they were studying. She stops for a second and looks at McGee. He notices she's stopped and turns to her. "What?"

"Thanks."

"You said that already. I'm taking you to Ducky, no need to be grateful about it."

"That's not what I am saying thanks for."

Oh… He steps back and sits on the corner of the interrogation room table.

She looks aside uncomfortably and briefly glances at the mirrored glass of the room before she continues. "Most people would be running to the hills if they had to deal with a hysterical stranger during their off time".

"I'm not most people."

"No you're not." Pause. "I just want you to know how much I appreciated what you did for me." She is visibly struggling with words. "The type of work I do, it consumes your soul and mind and sometimes" she pauses to look at him "you get lost in the filth of the mind of the monsters you are supposed to catch."

McGee is looking at her with his most serious face, with all his attention on her words. It is the same searching look he gave her before they left the bar. No pity, no judgment, just attention.

"Everybody has a breaking point, McGee," she continues "I was way beyond that point when we met," she says in a low voice. "Thanks for letting me fall apart in your arms and for not judging me for doing that."

He stands up and stands toe to toe facing her. "Hey," he uses his finger to lift her face to look at him. "If you, for any reason, think that you are in any danger of falling down on that proverbial abyss you mentioned earlier, or if you fell you are going under in someone else's mind, any mind, you come to me."

"I will," she says softly.

"So" he gathers the papers, and opens the door to leave the room. "Let's meet Ducky."

"Ok, but just a question."

"Yes."

"What is a Ducky?"

Meeting Ducky

"I was under the impression the whole LA BAU team was murdered. Killed by the hands of a lunatic."
"Yes, they were."
"Yet, here you are."
"The whole on duty team was murdered, Dr. Mallard. The keywords here are on duty." S.A. Buchanan talking with Ducky

The door of the morgue slides open. McGee and Buchanan enter the autopsy and find only Jimmy putting away the autopsy tools.

"Where's Ducky, Jimmy?"

"He is cleaning up after the autopsy, Agent McGee." He is looking at the new agent, who is staring at the stiff corpse duly sewed up on the table.

"Jimmy, I would like to introduce you to our newest team member, and my partner, Special Agent Joy Buchanan."

Joy takes her eyes off the corpse and directs them to Palmer. "Buchanan, this is Jimmy Palmer, Dr. Mallard's assistant."

"Nice to meet you, Dr. Palmer." She says airily, already directing her gaze back to the corpse.

"Nice to meet you too, Agent Buchanan." She starts walking towards it and Jimmy follows her "And I'm not a doctor yet, as I have yet to graduate."

"Uhm," her attention is totally focused on the corpse. McGee walks up to her and stands by her side. "Anything interesting?" he directs the question towards Palmer, but his eyes never leave Buchanan.

"Oh, we established that Mr. Phillips died of severe blood loss, directly related to the stabbings. The first blow, in his lower abdomen on the right side, severed several arteries vital to life. The other stabbings were not as deep or deadly, barely hitting any vital organs." He goes around the table while he explains, and point to the lacerations while he speaks. "He was also severely beaten, cracked two ribs, some internal damage, but nothing life-threatening."

"Where you able verify the order of the attack?" Palmer looks at her, confused.

"Order of the attack? What do you mean?"

"Was he stabbed first? Or beaten first? Was it alternated?"

"I don't know, I …" stammers Palmer

"Indeed my dear, very pertinent question," interrupts Ducky. He walks towards them, drying his hands in a towel. He directs his question to McGee without letting his eyes deviate from the stranger in his autopsy.

"Who is this lovely lady, Agent McGee?"

"This is Special Agent Joy Buchanan. She is the new team member in Team Gibbs."

"Really."

"Yes, and she will also be my brand-new partner." He says this with a hint of smile in his voice.

Ducky's eyes study the new agent carefully. The impeccably tailored suit speaks of taste and the high-heeled shoes give a feminine touch to the ensemble. Shoulder-length brown curls framed a naturally tanned face, which bespoke Latino ancestry and days spent in a much sunnier climate than DC. Full lips that could easily drive a man to distraction, but definitely her eyes were the most impressive feature. Deep soft brown pools studied him with mild curiosity, but gave no hint of whatever could be happening behind them.

And he notices that the same scrutiny he studied her she applied to study him.

"You will like to know, Ducky, that she is a profiler," adds McGee.

Ah, that explains a lot.

He looks in her eyes and gives a brief nod. Something shimmers in them and she acknowledges him. Nothing but a light curiosity shines in them now.

"Tell me, Agent…" he pauses to look at McGee. "Buchanan" he answers the unasked question. Ducky continues "what made you ask about the order of the attack?"

She looks at McGee, and at his silent permission she exposes their theory.

"If he was stabbed first then beaten, we can see here a very rare case of an unsub who changes his M.O. during a crime being committed. If he was stabbed, beaten then stabbed again, it creates a break in the M.O. that could suggest that we are dealing with two unsubs."

"Two unsubs?" Asks Jimmy confused

"It is what profilers call possible suspects. It stands for Unknown Subject," says McGee, proud of his new-found knowledge in profiling.

"Ah."

"I see. I remember a case I had back in 1979 where the same victim had been stabbed and poisoned. We had a hard time to figure out which had happened first because…" Ducky starts remembering his past. Buchanan looks at him for some seconds carefully following his story, looks at McGee with a frown in her face, What, he simply shrugs and mouths silent It's Ducky, and she looks at Ducky again and he is still spouting the story. "So, that's why I have never drunk whisky with beer again. A very good cautionary tale."

She has a very empty expression on her face.

"Dr. Mallard."

"Yes, dear."

"Dead body here."

"Ah."

He returns to his explanation.

"Our poor petty officer was first stabbed here," he points in a point to the side of his navel "on his back, which immediately sent him into shock." She nods, they already knew that "then he received stab number two and three here" he points to two other lacerations in his front "after he was defenseless lying on the floor; he was then brutally beaten on his torso here" he points to the marks "and here" he points another set of marks "however their aim were more to bruise and cause pain, than murder." Pause "Then he was stabbed again, after he was beaten, but these stab wounds were received postmortem."

"The beating itself would not have resulted in his death," interrupts Palmer.

"Indeed, Mr. Palmer," says Mallard with a brief glance to his pupil. He looks at Buchanan "the stabbings killed him, not the beating."

She glances to McGee, then walks around him towards the wall where the x-rays are on the light wall.

"Were you able to verify the type of knife used?"

"A short one, serrated blade. I collected some residue in the wounds and sent to Abby for analysis. Hopefully once we get a suspect and his knife we can compare to see if they match."

"Can't you make a 3-D rendering of the knife before that?" silence fills the room. She turns around to look at them, and sees their confused faces.

"How?"

"You input the x-rays in the computer along with a tomography of the body, and the computer can give you the approximate model of the blade according to the negative impression inside the wounds."

They look confused.

"We don't have such equipment," says McGee.

"You guys don't?" she asks incredulously.

"No," McGee says to her.

"I wasn't even aware such technology exists," says Dr. Mallard.

"Let me make some phone calls," McGee smiles at her, which does not goes unnoticed by Dr. Mallard and Mr. Palmer.

"Another thing," she approaches the body, stands close to McGee, invading his personal space and points to something in the body. "Have you noticed that?"

"What?"

"This," she points to the marks of fists on the torso.

"What are you seeing, my dear?"

"Each impression of the left fist made exactly the same mark once it came in contact with skin. Over and over."

Ducky leans over the body to look closer at what she is pointing to.

"Second finger, left hand."

He looks up to her."Indeed, there is some kind of faint mark, but it is impossible to discern with the amount of bruising on his torso."

"Do you think we can enhance the area and fiddle with it in the computer to have a better idea?" she asks McGee.

He frowns "We might," he looks at Ducky. "Have you e-mailed the autopsy pictures to Abby?"

"Of course."

"Wanna meet the last member of our team?"

"Sure." They politely say goodbye to Ducky and Palmer and leave the room, all the time talking about the evidence uncovered.

Palmer is smiling. "She seems to be a nice person" he looks at Dr. Mallard and notices a preoccupied expression on his mentor's face "and she seems to get along well with McGee."

"Yes" he answers gravely. "A little too well." He murmurs sotto voce.

Meeting Abby

Loud music blasted through the corridor when they came out at Abby's Lab floor. McGee smiled at the familiar sound, but when he looked at Buchanan's face there was a faint grimace on it.

"You don't like the music?"

"Come on, do you?" she asks incredulously. They enter the lab and are hit full force.

"Abby," he calls her. She is standing by her computer staring at the screen faintly bouncing to the beat. "Abby!" he screams louder. She still doesn't hear him.

Buchanan walks to the radio and forcefully pulls the plug.

"Hey, what do you think you are doing?" Abby screams angrily. She goes to the stranger who dared invade her lab and forcefully takes the power cord out of her hands.

"I couldn't hear my thoughts," Buchanan softly answers.

"McGee, what is this… this..." Abby can't find a word to describe her indignation "person you brought to my lab?"

"She is the new member of Gibbs' team."

"New member?"

"Yep."

"How come nobody told me that before?" Abby is mad.

"Because we found out only today."

"So why am I the last one to find out?"

"Oh, because I was bringing her to meet you, and…"

"So you are a forensic analyst," interrupts Buchanan before McGee digs an even deeper hole for himself.

Abby looks at the new woman with squinting eyes. She approaches the stranger and says angrily.

"You may be new, so I will forgive you this time, but never ever again mess with my music."

Buchanan looks at the tall woman who hovers over her at least eight inches, without adding the platform boots and serenely answers:

"I will do my best to remember that."

"Good, because I can kill you without leaving any forensic evidence."

"That's really impressive."

"Good." Abby plugs in the radio again, and the music blasts through the lab with all its might. She lowers the sound once she sees the grimace on Buchanan's face she can't quite hide and returns to her work table.

"So, introduce me McGee," says Abby with a saccharine voice.

"Oh, yes, sure," he stammers. With a firmer voice "Special Agent Joy Buchanan, this is the amazing Forensic Specialist Abby Sciuto." Buchanan is looking between McGee and Abby with a carefully blank expression, which for some reason seems to irritate Abby even more.

"Nice to meet you, Miss Sciuto." Buchanan doesn't bother to stretch out her hand.

"Nice to meet you too, Agent Buchanan." Abby decides to hate that new agent at that moment, already planning different strategies to make her life difficult in NCIS.

Introductions made, Abby asks McGee without looking up from her screen. "What brings you to Abby's Labby?" McGee smiles, comes to stand closer to Abby and asks overlooking her shoulder. "Have you received the autopsy records from Ducky?"

"The stabbed dead petty officer?"

"The one and only."

"Just came in." She clicks something and the images from downstairs appear on the big screen on the wall.

"Zoom in that," says Buchanan moving around both agents and the computers to stand before the screen.

"That?"

"Yes."

More clicks.

"Can you zoom more?"

Click zoom.

"This is the best I can go without it pixilating and losing image integrity."

"What do you think?" McGee walks to stand by her.

"I don't know," says Buchanan. She goes to Abby's side and looks at Abby's screen. "Can you enhance the midtones?" Abby looks at the new agent and does what she requested.

"It is better," admits McGee.

"Not good enough."

"What exactly do you want?" asks Abby impatiently.

"Can you assign colors to each pixel in the screen?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like that game naval battle," she looks around, finds a pen and paper and makes a grid on it, painting some squares with the pen "Put a grid over the image and assign different values to each square according to the depth of the abrasion, not the color of the contusion." Abby frowns, looks at her screen and type for a couple of seconds.

Buchanan decides to let the specialist work in peace, and looks around the lab. McGee goes to stand by Abby's side and gives her some help, offering suggestions now and then. There are bizarre-looking pictures on the walls, which strangely appear like human tissue magnified in a laser telescope.

Buchanan walks to the end of the worktable and curiously counts the number of fizzy drinks in the trashcan, and briefly looks to the one sitting on the worktable and the other one sitting in her fridge.

"Buchanan," calls McGee.

She walks up to them. McGee points with his chin the image in the screen. "That is the best we can do for now," says McGee.

"well that's…"

"It seems like a ring." Says Abby squinting at the enhanced picture.

"Not any ring." Buchanan looks at McGee. "It is a high school graduation ring."

Almost healed wounds

McGee slams the phone on the receiver.

"What's wrong probie?" Asks Dinozzo.

"St John Newman High School's headmaster simply refuses to grant us access to the list of their students."

"Why would we look at high school lists?" ask ziva.

"Because St John HS graduation ring matches the ring our attacker was using when he decided to pummel our dead petty officer," says Buchanan.

"What was her argument to deny you access?"

"She said I had better get a warrant."

Gibbs comes down from the stairs, apparently from a visit with the director. "What've you got?" "Nothing," says Ziva with frustration in her voice. "He didn't even leave the house during the mandatory two weeks rest period after the surgery and later he went only to the supermarket. Twice. And the doctor's appointment to check if he could get the points out. And the bar on the night he was murdered."

"It seems probie and probette got something."

Gibbs look at them and notices that McGee is hovering over her shoulder, backing her up silently, and there is still a guarded expression on Buchanan's face, leftover from the earlier duel between them.

"Talk to me."

McGee hurries to put the autopsy pictures on the screen. "We found some interesting things on the body."

"Like what?"

"Based in victimology, we are not able to specify any possible links of cause and circumstance that may have led…"

"Stop!" Gibbs shouts.

Buchanan looks at him, confused.

Ziva is smirking and Tony can barely hold his laughter, and is snorting out loud.

"He doesn't like tech speech."

"Uhm"

"Give me only the bare facts."

She looks at him with a blank expression on her face.

"Any time at this millennium would be ideal."

"I'm organizing my thoughts."

"Oh, then take your time," he says with irony.

"Ok. Profiling one on one," pause "You get facts, and process them and try to foresee possible behaviors and characteristics of the unsub."

"I know what profiling is. I wanna know who our murderer is."

"Ok. Our victim was a highly trained Navy officer. Except a minor operation, he was perfectly fit. This is fact."

Gibbs nods.

"Even though he was perfectly fit, he was overcome and killed. Fact."

"He was stabbed first, then beaten to death. After he was dead, he was stabbed. Again Another fact."

Gibbs looks at her impatiently. She speeds up.

"Comparing the stab wounds angles, force needed to inflict damage and basic background we can theorize that we are looking for two distinct individuals. The first one is a male, between 35-55, with a strong build and a good knowledge of the human body. He knows how to inflict pain, and he knows how to incapacitate swiftly and without raising suspicion to himself. The choice of victim is not random, however it is too early to identify exactly what was the stress point that led him to attack our petty officer."

"He is an ordinary looking guy, no remarkable features, with a menial job that makes him basically invisible. People look at him but don't actually see him. Which explains how he approached our victim. In Phillips' mind, he represented no threat."

"Our second individual is male, under 25, with the agility and speed of youth. He also has the rage of it, as he was the one who systematically beat our petty officer. The lacerations were careful to inflict maximum pain, without necessarily resulting in death. He is a bully and enjoys causing suffering in others, but he, contrary to his accomplice, wanted to prolong the pain as much as possible. The older unsub wanted our petty officer dead. Period."

"They work with perfect synchrony and both hate our victim. Either because of a real or imaginary offense, I can't really verify it yet. However their hate is real, and that's what move their acts."

Buchanan pauses and looks the team. Ziva and Tony are staring at her, astonished, Gibbs looks faintly impressed, and McGee is almost gleeful.

"Impressive," says Gibbs. "Anything else?"

It is McGee's turn now "We also found a faint impression of a ring on the fist marks" he changes the images and the picture with the magnified image pops up. "We were able to enhance it and match it to the graduation rings of a high school in Dale City."

"So our petty officer was killed by some high school bullies"

"I never said that," says Buchanan, "they might have originally come from that region, and even attended the school, but he actually graduated and has the ring to prove it."

"Ok, go to the school and try to personally collect the lists. Maybe if they have to face a federal agent the headmaster may be more flexible." Says Gibbs and sits down on his desk.

"There is another thing," Buchanan approaches Gibbs desk. He looks up from his chair to her "This is not their first victim."

"How can you say that?" Asks Tony with a frown on his face.

"If they were artists, this would be their Mona Lisa. There were no mistakes, almost no forensic evidence and they left confusing clues that pointed to only one killer" She had their attention now. "Such a symbiotic relationship is created over time, and with careful practice."

"They've killed before." Says Gibbs.

"I'm sure of that. This is probably the only Navy personnel they killed. Probably the others were civilians."

"I would agree with Agent Buchanan's assessment, Jetro," says Ducky who silently joined the other agents in the bullpen. "The cuts were too precise. These are not first time offenders," completes Ducky.

"McGee!" shouts Gibbs.

"I will organize a search on the Metro police files to see if they have anything that matches our M.O.s."

"Tony, Ziva" he throws the car keys to Ziva "go to the high school and get me those files."

Gibbs looks to Buchanan who is frowning at the notes on her hands, and muttering under her breath. He sees Ducky watching the new agent with a guarded expression.

"Buchanan" she doesn't hear him and raises her eyes up to the screen with a frown on her face.

"Buchanan" she starts and looks at him.

"Yes, Sir" she says automatically. He lets it pass.

"Good work." She nods and moves to her desk, still looking at the paper in her hands.

"My dear, I took the liberty of doing a bit of research about you," says Ducky with a tense smile "and I have to say I am impressed."

"Thanks," she says distractedly.

"You never mentioned you were trained by Jason Gideon." She doesn't answer back.

"Who is Jason Gideon?" Tony asks, at the same time that he gets his backpack to leave with Ziva. However, his curiosity won. He wants to know.

"Jason Gideon was almost a legend in the profiling world," says Ducky,walking to Tony and Ziva, in his best storytelling voice "he trained the best of the best and was responsible for solving the most horrific cases ever to be presented in the FBI"

"is" Buchanan corrects him softly.

"I beg your pardon."

"He still is. He is not dead. He's alive."

"And where is he now? Is he still working with BAU?"

Buchanan fidgets with the papers in her hands, looking at them but not reading them. "No, he's gone."

"You just said he is not dead, how can he be now gone?" asks Ziva, confused.

"He's not dead, he is simply gone. He left. Everything. Everyone. Nobody knows where he is."

"How do you know he is not dead?" asks Tony. She smiles thinly.

"Bad news travel fast. If he were dead, believe me, we would know."

"And do you know why he left?" Asks Ducky.

"He had his reasons." Pause. "And I respect them." Says Buchanan with sadness in her voice.

"Talking about dead, and dying" Ducky takes a deep breath and asks what was his intention all along since he came upstairs "You were transferred from LA office."

"That's correct."

"And before that you were working in the Los Angeles BAU from the Bureau." He probes her again.

She looks at him with a guarded expression in his eyes. She knows that he knows.

"I was under the impression the whole LA BAU team was murdered. Killed by the hands of a lunatic." Ducky asks. Tony and Ziva are frozen in place, and McGee looks at her and clearly sees all her walls going up at the speed of light. There is absolutely no expression in her eyes when she answers.

"Yes, they were." Her voice is dead.

"Yet, here you are."

"The whole on duty team was murdered, Dr. Mallard. The keywords here are on duty." There is ice dripping from each word.

"My dear, what a terrible experience it must have been, to suddenly have your whole team ripped from you. It must have been a heartbreaking experience" Ducky is really concerned about the mental state of the new agent.

"Dr. Mallard" She interrupts him. She is like a block of ice before him. "I believe you are needed in autopsy." He sighs.

"Sure my dear. But if you ever need someone to talk..." He leaves his offer hanging in the air.

"I will endeavor to remember that." She answers with a thin smile.

"Now, if you excuse me, I have…" he leaves muttering under his breath. Silence reigns in the squad room, all the team looking at her face trying to see any reaction. She is breathing very slowly; she closes her eyes and they can see she visibly relaxes her tense shoulders and wipes out any hint of emotion on her face, leaving only an unreadable mask.

McGee's computer pings. She opens her eyes and looks at him.

"I'll be dammed." He says and looks at her.

Gibbs gets curious. "What have you got?"

"There are four other stabbings that match ours in the Grand Metro area. All unsolved and were attributed to random violence."

Buchanan gets her backpack and her coat and gets ready to leave. "Grab the addresses, we are going on a roadtrip."

"Ok," he pauses but frowns when he reads something in the screen "there might be a little problem."

"What?"

"Remember that case of the dead blogger?" He asks Gibbs.

"The one thrown over the bridge? Mr. Burns?"

"That one." He pauses "three out of the four cases are allocated to the Metro precinct of that Homicide Detective that hated you, Boss."

"Why that would be a problem?" Buchanan asks curious.

"Are you kidding?" asks Tony "They accused us of covering up a murder. Of messing up with an investigation."

"Then it is time to start a new policy of cooperation between agencies" says Buchanan.

She leaves the room with McGee right beside her. Tony and Ziva are left standing on their wake.

"That young lady has been through very deep pain, Jetro." says Ducky, who had silently waited out of sight to speak with his friend. "She covers it well, but it still shows."

"What have you found out?" Asks Tony, dying with curiosity. Ziva approaches the two other men, also willing to hear the details of the mysterious coworker.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" asks Gibbs angrily.

"But Boss, I want to hear…" stammers DiNozzo.

"GO" barks Gibbs. Ziva catches Tony's forearm and drags him to the elevators, while he has a betrayed expression on his face. He also wanted to hear the story.

Gibbs sits down with a sigh and looks at Ducky, silently asking for him to continue.

Ducky goes into story mode. "Apparently, the LA BAU was one of the most successful investigation teams on the West Coast. One of the most requested too. They would handle three or four cases at the same time, alternating the profilers to ensure that they could cover the demand."

Gibbs nods. Ducky continues. "They were called in to investigate a series of kidnappings and then suffered a terrible blow." Ducky makes a dramatic pause "two of their own were taken as well."

Entertaining angels unaware

The silence in the car was suffocating. McGee would sometimes glance at his partner sitting shotgun but she was firmly looking outside the window.

He gripped the steering wheel but could not find anything to break the silence.

"It was God's hand." she says softly, still looking outside the window.

"What?"

"It was God's hand." She repeats with a firmer voice.

"What was God's hand?" he asks confused.

"How I was the only survivor." She looks at him and answers. He looks at her briefly and turns his attention to the road. They stay some minutes in silence.

"I wasn't asking"

"You weren't asking very loudly" she retorts.

"You don't have to tell me."

"But I want to." He looks at her and nods lightly.

She sighs loudly and looks outside the window again. "I told you my father is a Baptist reverend now. He firmly believes that everything that happens is directed by God's hand. We might not see it, or understand it, or even accept it. But He is in control of everything." She says in a low voice.

McGee nods but doesn't interrupts her. He is afraid she might stop.

"Dad stopped flying after he had a terrible crash. He said that the B-52 he was flying lost power midflight. Total blackout. He truly believed he would die that day. But for, some reason, he survived. He was forbidden to fly after that. Because of his wounds, he would never be fit for it again."

"But he was alive." Says McGee.

"He was alive."

She sighs again and wipes away a tear, breathes deeply and continues. "We were investigating a kidnapping case. It stretched out for three years, eighteen people missing. Different backgrounds, different ethnic groups. All that was left were some rose petals close to where they went missing."

NCIS NCIS NCIS

"What the BAU team wasn't aware of was that the main goal of the kidnapper wasn't the victims; what he was really after was the profilers working in the case." Pause "Apparently he had created a fixation with the members of the team and created a case as a gift for them, so they could investigate it." Says Ducky.

NCIS NCIS NCIS

"We were closing on him when things went south," Pause "two of us were taken captive."

NCIS NCIS NCIS

"They were kept for three weeks, and during these weeks they were tortured, physically and mentally. The monster forced them to watch him torture and, once they were dead, desecrate the bodies of the kidnapped victims. He made them force to choose who would get to suffer and what kind of ignominy would be done to these poor souls. If they refused to choose, they would receive a beating, and still watch it happen."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"We stayed captive for three weeks." McGee stops the car in the curb and turns his total attention to her story. She looks up at him and continues "After he tortured and killed them, he would cuff the living to the dead and wait for the corpses to rot." Pause "The stink was awful."

"But after three weeks, they found us," She smiles a tired smile "and crashed the place and released us."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"Not everything went smoothly on the rescue mission. Trying to save one of the still living kidnapped victims, Buchanan was shot. A deadly wound. Combined with the undernourishment and the torture, she almost died." Ducky sighs and looks at Gibbs who is listening with all his attention to the story.

"It was touch-and-go for a second there, and even then she was in a coma for three weeks. They didn't believe she would make it."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"You've seen the scar." She touches her breast lightly, a little bit over her heart where the bullet scar was. "I had a collapsed lung and a series of blood infections. Even if I survived, the doctors gave me a 50/50 chance of ever being strong enough to leave a bed again."

"But you survived."

"Against all odds."

"Was it worth it?" She looks at him "Being shot?"

"She was fifteen years old, McGee." She tells him "She had been in that hellhole for 18 months. She deserved a chance to live."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"Her teammate was luckier. His wounds, even though painful, were not as extensive. After a two week mandatory leave, he came back to work. He passed all the mandatory psychological tests with flying colors but still was restrained to desk duty."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"We had no idea how badly damaged he really was." She pauses and looks ahead. McGee waits patiently for her to continue. She swallows hard and finishes her tale "one night, shortly after he was reinstated, during an all-nighter, the whole team stayed over working on another kidnapping case. There was a deadline. The victim, if not found, would be dead by morning."

She pauses. "Somehow he thought he was back there. That it was the crazy game again. He simply stood, took his service weapon, attached a silencer on it, and shot each and every person in the room." Pause "They never had time to react." Pause "Their service weapons were all found still locked in the drawer of their work desks." Pause "Once he was done, he returned to his desk, put the gun in his mouth, and finished himself off."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"Jetro" says Ducky vehemently "the only reason she is alive today is because she almost died from that bullet. If she had been in the office, she certainly wouldn't be here."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"Why do you think it was God's hand?"

"Because I'm miracle that wasn't supposed to exist." She says softly to him. "Father sometimes says that, we, in our daily toils, can't really see the spiritual forces acting behind people's acts." She smiles "Sometimes we are manipulated like board pieces, by forces we can't fight or acknowledge, but sometimes" she pauses and smiles "sometimes, a bigger plan is set in place and we are led to fulfill it. God pays attention to the little details, and we are left entertaining angels unaware."

McGee raises his right hand and dries one of the tears which are silently falling on her face. She smiles at him, mouths I'm fine and makes and effort to gather her wits. Her professional mask comes back on, the traces of tears are erased.

"We better go now."

He puts the car in gear and drives off.

Extending professional courtesies

They park the car across from the Metro precinct. Buchanan stops McGee before he gets out of the car.

"What?"

"Do you have the reception's number?"

"Yes, why?" He gives her the number.

She gets her mobile phone and dials.

"Metro Police."

"Hello, good afternoon. This is Cherry Lovelace, from Sports Update blog. Whom am I speaking to?"

"Officer Alice Smith, ma'am. Do you have a crime to report?"

"No no," Buchanan gives an airhead laugh, which brings and incredulous look to McGee's face "I'm just doing some research for a news article we are doing and I needed your help, Officer Smith, if you may."

"Of course, ma'am," says the bored police officer.

"We are doing a pool to see what types of sports are the favorite of different types of law enforcement. We already checked with the firemen, road patrol, airport security officers, and now we would like to ask you, what do the guys in your precinct like? What can make then go wild? Baseball, basketball, I don't know, maybe soccer. Do you think you can help us?"

"Ma'am, I will transfer you to someone who can help you, please hold," the receptionist puts her on hold.

"What are you doing?"

"Watch and learn, McGee," she says smiling to him "watch and learn."

Two hours, three strawberry pies, four sponge cakes and two very rare end-of-the-season tickets for the NBA later, they had the files in the car and were driving back to NCIS.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

'You guys should have seen it," says McGee between bites of his strawberry pie "she completely charmed Detective Danny Sportelli and his team."

"Of course, after I promised him my brother's end-of-the season tickets for the NBA in exchange for the case files," says Buchanan with a smile. She is looking inside one of the boxes, looking for the autopsy report.

Tony and Ziva are munching their own pieces of pie, at the same time looking inside other boxes of evidence. "And he was much more malleable after you offered to feed them with cake, of course," says Ziva with a smirk.

Buchanan grimaces a little. "I think what really convinced him was my offer to buy them an espresso machine."

"Are you really going to do that?" McGee wants to know curiously.

"Of course."

"Why?" Tony wants to know.

"Why? You ask me why? Have you ever tried the coffee in a precinct?" Tony shudders visibly, remembering his time in Baltimore "Argh, it is awful. It could almost be considered chemical waste."

"I always thought it felt more like as if a monkey peed on battery acid."

Gibbs comes from the autopsy, where he and Ducky were reviewing the file on the new agent. He looks at his agents eating pie, with several piles of paperwork surrounding their tables.

"Have you got the student body list, DiNozzo?"

"Yes, we have it with us," says DiNozzo.

"Apparently DiNozzo's charm is not dead after all," says Ziva, "It still works on middle-aged school headmistresses."

"McGee," asks Gibbs, but he is looking at Buchanan. He approaches her and she does her best to swallow the piece of pie she was chewing. She swallows, but starts coughing immediately. Her eyes start to water, and she has trouble breathing. Gibbs hits her two times in the back.

"Thanks, Boss," her voice is faint. He raises his hand and she freezes, however he simply wipes a little bit of cream she had in her face and eats it.

"Good pie." She relaxes. "I know." She smiles her first sincere smile at him, and Gibbs sees clearly the difference it makes on her face.

"What've you got?"

McGee starts his exposition "Four stabbings with aggression in the last eight months. First victim is a male, 32, was a business consultant for a German firm. They sell customized furniture for upscale clients. He was attacked on his way home with a baseball club in his head and, when incapacitated, he was stabbed six times and punched a few times. As his wallet was found missing, it was ruled as robbery followed by murder, a gang-related crime."

"Our next victim is another male, 35, bank teller," starts Buchanan, "he was attacked as he left his home to buy cough syrup for his daughter. He never made it to the drugstore; he was assaulted two blocks from it, viciously stabbed in the back and dragged to an alley, where they finally pummeled him with fists in exactly the same way as our petty officer." She clicks the remote and pictures of the victim pop up on the screen. The images are gruesome; however the pattern of the bruises is an obvious match to the dead body downstairs in the morgue. "As there were no suspects, the investigation showed he had no enemies and his family informed he was a simple family man, the trail got cold, nobody was ever convicted."

"Victims number three and number four," says DiNozzo, looking at his papers "were as unremarkable as the previous victims. Both led boring lives, no enemies no nothing. One was a librarian in the Municipal Library in his County and the other an insurance specialist."

"Both were assaulted doing menial tasks, the first went to the bathroom in a gas station and never came out alive. The other was killed when walking his dog. He and his dog were slaughtered."

"Any video surveillance, any shots from any suspects?"

"None that metro could give us. It is almost like they were killed by ghosts or something," says Tony, shuddering dramatically.

Gibbs looks at Buchanan. "What is the connection then, besides the fact they are all dead?" She signals McGee, who puts all the pictures of four civilian along with the dead petty officer on the screen. "We found the pattern of victimlogy," says Buchanan.

Gibbs looks at five bald white males, all with athletic physic and squared jaws, light eyes, varying between green and hazel. "He knows exactly what he is looking for," says Buchanan to Gibbs. "We only have to figure out where he finds them." She looks at the screen.

"And what is the link between them," says Ziva impatiently "besides their appearance, they have nothing in common. They attended different churches; they went to different bars, sometimes lived in different cities. What is the connection between all of them?" Ziva wants to know in a frustrated manner.

"Peracetic Acid and Hydrogen Peroxide," shouts Abby, running to the middle of the bullpen.

"What, Abby?" Gibbs wants to know, looking at his goth forensic analyst.

"Hi Gibbs, hi guys." She smiles at everyone but makes a face at Buchanan. She hasn't forgiven the new agent yet.

"What is this … acid… has to do with our dead people?" Tony wants to know.

"Peracetic Acid and Hydrogen Peroxide were found in trace amounts in all five victims. Specifically," she grabs the remote from Tony's hands and puts the autopsy pictures on, "in the area close to the stab wounds and the laceration made by the fists." She turns to Gibbs "both our stabber and our ring fighter either work with or in close contact with both products. I was able to match it in all the victims."

"Where would we find these chemicals?"

"They are used in various products, both of commercial and industrial use. However, they are easily found in …"

"Heavy duty cleaning products," interrupts Buchanan. She has a fierce frown in her head, her mind working overtime. "DiNozzo, you said that vic number two died on the way to the drugstore."

"Yes, on the way to buy syrup for his daughter."

"Which hospital did he take her to?"

"Which hospital?"

"He needed a prescription for the syrup. Which hospital?" He goes back to the evidence box and pulls the transcript of the interviews. He finds what he is looking for and reads the name of a hospital in the north of DC. "What about the other victims, have they visited any hospital in the weeks prior to their murders?"

Buchanan's question start a flurry of activity, as McGee, Tony and Ziva run to their own boxes of evidence and look through the papers.

McGee finds it first. "Vic three went in for a skin rash three weeks before he was murdered."

Ziva pipes up. "Vic four left the hospital after a bout of pneumonia a week before he was murdered."

Tony is frowning at the papers in his hands. Gibbs notices it first. "Tony?"

"He had terminal liver cancer, stage 4, Boss." He looks up and sees his colleagues looking at him. "Vic one had just left a session of chemo when he was murdered."

Back in the game

"You killed an innocent man"
"He murdered my son, he deserved to die."
"He was already dead. You killed a dead man walking" S.A. Buchanan talking with a suspect

With the new evidence in hand, Team Gibbs was energized to get these dirtbags behind bars.

While Ziva, Tony, McGee went through the transcripts again, just to be sure there was no detail they might have missed, Buchanan and Gibbs looked at a map on the plasma.

"The red dots are where our victims were murdered;" says Gibbs "and the blue numbered dots are the hospitals where they went in the last four weeks before their murders." He looks at Buchanan, who has a very deep frown on her face "We have five murders, three hospitals in different parts of the city, with different lists of nurses, doctors, and administrative staff."

"Three victims went to the same hospital south of DC, but the other two went to completely different ones, one in the North and the other downtown."

"We will have to cross-reference the list of the three hospitals to see who was on duty when each of the victims came in." says Buchanan.

"McGee!" shouts Gibbs.

"Already on it, Boss."

"Try to access specially the janitorial staff list. Sometimes hospitals do not hire cleaning crews on their own, they hire third party companies. They would also have both access to the peracetic acid and hydrogen peroxide and the necessary mobility to cover a very large area, as they are not bound to only one hospital," says Buchanan.

"I think I found something," says McGee. Gibbs moves to look over McGee's shoulder, Ziva and Tony crowd over him. Buchanan stays standing before his desk.

"All three hospitals use the same cleaning crew." He says the name of a big cleaning company in DC area.

"Get me the list of everyone who was on duty when our victims visited the hospital," says Gibbs.

"Oh…"

"What?"

"530 hits, Boss"

"Cross-reference them. Check if any of them worked in each hospital on the exact day our vics went there." McGee shakes his head, desolated. "I still have 140 hits."

"Damnit," Gibbs looks back at the screen as if he is mad, feeling in his gut that the time is running out. If they don't catch these dirtbags, someone else would be dead. Soon.

"Cross-reference with the high school lists," suggests Buchanan "either if the employee studied or have children studying in there."

More silence, only the noise of McGee's fingers on the keyboard, while McGee did his magic with the computers. "Twenty five hits."

"Now select only those employees who are male, a single parent with children, either divorced or a widower."

"Five hits." Gibbs makes a sign to McGee and he brings the employment pictures of the five suspects up on the plasma. "Why single parents with children?" Gibbs wants to know from Buchanan.

"Because…" she pauses to think before answering "the older unsub is the dominant one, who led the younger one to murder." She looks at Gibbs "If there was a feminine figure in the game, he would never have such power over the other one."

"So they are relatives," says Ziva.

"Probably father and son. Or in a relationship similar to it," She turns to Ziva "however, we still don't know what was the trigger point."

"What is the trigger point?" asks Tony.

"Whatever led them to murder. What was the turning point that made them decide that these people had no right to live."

"McGee, Buchanan, you with me. We take the first three. DiNozzo, Ziva, you check the other two."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Gibbs drove to the address of the first suspect in his usual style, so when he stopped the car McGee was green around the gills. He slowly exited the car and supported himself against the hood of the car, trying to regain the feeling in his trembling legs.

And Buchanan was giggling like a schoolgirl.

"Can we do it again? Please, please with cherry on top?" she says with a smile to Gibbs.

He is amused. "Were you not afraid?"

"Are you crazy?" an astonished McGee wants to know.

"Nah, I like your driving."

Gibbs snorts and goes to front door of the suspect's house muttering under his breath. "She likes my driving."

"Are you crazy?" McGee wants to know again.

"No, but you forget that dad was a flyboy. Nothing like speed to warm up a girl's body." She smirks at him "and of course, I flew in one F-16 when I was only fifteen. Nothing describes the feeling of 3G force on your insides."

"Are you coming or not?" barks Gibbs from the door. Buchanan holds McGee's arm and guides him on his trembling legs to the door.

Two interviews later, they had dismissed the suspects as they both had perfectly good alibis. They got back in the car and left to check the third.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Meanwhile, on the way to talk to the other two suspects, Tony and Ziva were talking about the new addition to their team.

"So, Tony, what do you think of her?"

"Her, who?" he pretends to be dense.

"Special Agent Buchanan."

"I think," he turns the car to the left, going with the traffic, "that there is more than meets the eye." Pause "She's hiding something."

"She's hiding something." Ziva's voice is full of irony.

"Yes, Ziveer," he mispronounces her name on purpose, "she's hiding something."

"After all she has been through, don't you think she's entitled to it?" she says, mentioning the drama they watched when Ducky revealed the tragic story of her last team.

"Even if she has gone through that, I don't think that's what she's hiding."

"What do you mean?"

"She's hiding something bigger, darker." He shudders dramatically. "She gives me the creeps."

"She gives you the creeps because she's a shrink, and you are concerned that she will profile you and tell Gibbs that he'd better have you committed."

Tony frowns. "There's that too," he continues, "I am just uncomfortable with idea of someone walking around my mind. Looking at my secrets."

"Do you have secrets, Tony?" Ziva wants to know, smirking at him.

"Why, don't you?" He retorts. It is her turn to be uncomfortable.

They stay in silence for a moment.

"She bonded well with McGee."

"Too well. There is a story in there."

"And of course, you won't rest until you find out."

"No. Have you seen how he looked at her?"

Ziva remembers the look in McGee's face, but she had noticed something as well.

"Have you seen how she looks at him?" She retorts.

"I'm telling you, there is a story there."

"This is the address." Ziva changes the subject.

Their talk with the first suspect is a bust, but when they visit the second they are given new piece of evidence.

"Listen, I don't remember these guys," says the suspect, looking at the pictures of the victims. He is a man in his forties with thick pugilist arms. "They were probably treated in the ER, and that's not the area I clean in the hospital. I usually work on ambulatory or the oncology department."

Tony looks frustrated at Ziva, and stands up to leave. "Thanks for your time."

"Have you spoken to Eugene?"

"Eugene?"

"Yes, Eugene Hartmann. He always asks to be assigned to clean in the ER. I never understood why he would want to be close to all that gore and blood." He says rubbing his own arms up and down. "I usually clean the oncology department, where people are all silently dying. He always wants to check who is coming and going in the ER." He gives the pictures back to Ziva. "If these guys were in the ER at anytime, Eugene would remember them."

"Thanks for your cooperation."

They leave the house, and Ziva looks at their list of suspects. Eugene Hartmann is the third on Gibbs' list of interviews.

"We have to warn Gibbs," says DiNozzo, over Ziva's shoulder. Meanwhile, she dials, trying to reach him.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Meanwhile, in Eugene Hartmann's house, Gibbs, McGee and Buchanan were talking to the elder Hartmann.

"Yes, I was working in the ER at these days, but I don't remember these people," he says after barely looking at the picture of the victims. "I have a very hard job, I don't stay looking around these poor bastards that come to the hospital," he says, picking some dirt from his shirt. He is a slimy man, with oil slicked hair and a whitish beard which he kept nervously touching while talking to the agents. He's sitting on a love seat that is falling apart.

"We would like to you to come with us to NCIS so we can…" Gibbs keeps interrogating the suspect with McGee. Both of them are sitting on a ratty sofa that had seen better days, in a room in which the smell of mold and rotten food was overwhelming. Everywhere you look you could see newspaper piles and discarded fast food containers. There was a little shrine of pictures and trophies in the corner, which was the only place relatively clean. Buchanan approaches it and sees pictures of Mr. Hartmann with two teenage boys.

"Are these your boys, Mr. Hartmann?" Asks Buchanan.

"Yes, young Jimmy and the oldest Ernest. My boys."

"And both attended St. John HS in Dale City." She points to the trophy of the basketball team from the High School.

"Yes, but now only little Jimmy goes. Ernest died last September." She looks at Gibb and tries to convey an urgent message to him. The door opens. "Here is little Jimmy." A tall teenager comes in, with greasy hair falling over his face and a Metallica T-shirt.

The moment he sees the strangers in the room, he bolts.

McGee and Buchanan start to pursue him, meanwhile Gibbs turns to Mr. Hartmann and tells him to stand up so that he can cuff him. Mr. Hartmann's face goes through a transformation, as the old man suddenly attacks Gibbs with a knife he was hiding under the cushions of the love seat.

However, Gibbs is Gibbs, and after some moments struggling with the suspect, he has him cuffed on the dirty floor.

His phone starts ringing. He checks the ID, and answers. "Yes Ziva." "Hey Gibbs, it is Hartmann," says Ziva. "I know, I already have him cuffed. McGee and Buchanan are going after the son, we will be back shortly." He disconnects.

Meanwhile, McGee and Buchanan are running after the youngest Hartmann. They see him dashing inside one of his neighbors' empty house and follow him. They pick up their guns and, once inside the house, slowly follow him. They approach with care, checking every room to ensure that it is clear.

"Jimmy, we want to talk to you," shouts Buchanan. She looks at McGee, who signals with his head that he is going to the next room and he needs cover. Buchanan gets into position and sees McGee entering the room, checking all sides.

She follows him, and they see that they are in a corridor leading to the back of the house. There are wooden stairs leading to the second floor, but some of the steps are rotten. He did not go upstairs, as they would have heard him. They follow him to the end of the corridor, McGee in front with Buchanan covering his six. Only their controlled breathing can be heard. McGee approaches the end of the corridor, and prepares to go beyond the doorway when Buchanan holds him back. He looks at her, asking what silently. She has a strange expression on her face, and she closes her eyes in concentration for a few seconds. When she opens them, she signals to McGee to keep silent. She attaches herself to the wall where the steps lead to the upper floor. She stretches her hand, grabs a piece of rotten wood from the stairs and throws it into the corridor ahead.

Jimmy jumps and attacks them with a baseball bat, screaming and cursing all the time. He hits the wall above Joy's head, and for a couple of centimeters he would have bashed her head to a bloody pulp. McGee jumps at him and struggles, trying to get the bat away from the teenager. The teenager head butts McGee, and prepares to bring down the bat on him when Buchanan hits him with her gun, knocking him unconscious. She cuffs him, and looks up at McGee.

McGee is holding his nose in his hands, and Buchanan is breathing heavily due to the activity.

"Are you ok?"

"I think he broke my nose." His voice is muffed by his hands.

"Let me see," she steps over the body of the teenager and straddle McGee's legs, examining his face with soft hands. McGee decides that now is not a time to be brave.

"It hurts," he whines. She smiles at him and after a short examination, declares "it is not broken, just bruised." She gets a paper handkerchief from one of her pockets and gently dries the blood coming from his nose. He is looking at her with a guarded expression. She leans down and kisses the tip of his nose. "All better," she says.

"Indeed it is," he answers.

Monopoly on suffering

Back at NCIS, Buchanan led McGee to be checked out by Ducky, and Gibbs starts grilling the eldest Hartmann. Tony and Ziva start interrogating young Jimmy.

Once McGee gets a clean bill of health from Ducky, who confirms Buchanan's diagnosis, they go to the observation room to see what is going on.

Eugene Hartmann does not give a rat's ass about Gibbs, and isn't concerned about hiding it either.

"We can prove that you were in all hospitals on the same days these men were murdered."

"A lot of people pass through the ER every day. I can't be responsible for every single one. I've never seen these people, and even if I had, I've never met them." He smirks at Gibbs. "I only clean the place; I don't control the revolving door to it." He gives a cynical smile.

"Then why did you attack me?" asks Gibbs studying the suspect.

"Your people scared my boy. You attacked me FIRST," he shouts.

Tony and Ziva join McGee and Buchanan in the observation room.

"Any success?" McGee wants to know.

"He is not talking. He just smirks at me and leers at Ziver," says Tony.

"Ziva."

"Yes."

"I'm not talking to you," Buchanan says to Ziva. She looks at Tony. "Her name is Ziva," she looks back through the mirror and Tony is opening his mouth, trying to speak. Ziva is smirking at Tony.

Buchanan 2 x Tony 0, thinks Ziva.

She approaches Buchanan.

"Do you think he did it?"

"I know he did it," Buchanan says vehemently, "but we need a confession to make the accusation hold before the District Attorney. All our evidence is circumstantial, and only proves that he was there in the hospital on the same day they were in the ER or were admitted in the hospital, not that committed any murder at all."

"We can't even prove that he met our vics," says McGee.

"But the profile says…" says Ziva.

"I know what the profile says," interrupts Buchanan. She looks frustrated at the two men in the other side of the mirrored glass. "But a profile is never enough to convict anyone in court. We need proof that he committed the murders."

The four agents are looking at Gibbs and the suspect when the door opens and Abby enters with some papers in her hands.

"Is that him?"

"Yes, it's our perp," says Tony.

"Did you find something?" asks Ziva.

"I think I did," she says and starts giving papers to the agents. "I started a background check on Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dum and ran into something interesting," she moves excitedly on her high-heeled boots.

"What did you find?" McGee wants to know.

"Ernest Hartmann died in the same accident and on the same night that took the lives of victim number one's wife and daughter."

Buchanan looks at Abby. Tony looks at the papers Abby gave him. "How did it happen?" He is browsing the info on them. Buchanan frowns at whatever she is reading on her papers.

"Apparently, he had just been diagnosed with cancer, and they were coming back from the medical appointment when he lost control of the car and crashed. Two other cars were involved, and one motorcycle from the one and only young Hartmann," continues Abby.

"That's it. That's the trigger." She collects the pictures of the victims and the dead teenager and moves to the door.

"No, no, no," says Abby.

"What are you doing?" McGee wants to know.

"I'm going to give Gibbs the new evidence."

"No," shouts Abby.

"You can't," says Ziva.

Abby runs to the door and blocks the way. Buchanan looks at the agents as if they had lost their minds.

"Gibbs' rule number 22," explains McGee.

"What?"

"Gibbs' rule 22," repeats Tony.

"Never, ever bother Gibbs in interrogation," explains Abby.

Buchanan passes her hand through her hair in frustration. "But we have evidence…"

"Don't worry," says Abby, "Gibbs' gut will tell him," she has total faith in the gut of her fearless leader.

Buchanan looks at the other agents and is astonished to see that all agents agree with the insane (at least in her opinion) goth.

"Don't worry, he will figure it out," says Tony.

Even McGee agrees with them.

She rolls her eyes at them, makes a little prayer to the heavens and tries to get to the door again, which is still blocked by Abby, who is leaning against it with her arms open over her head.

"You can't go in there."

"Abby," says Buchanan, totally exasperated, "tell me something: Do I look like Gibbs?"

"What does it.. " murmurs Abby, confused.

"Just answer the damn question." Abby looks at her anxiously. "No you don't."

"Do I walk, talk or sound remotely like him?"

"No," says Abby.

"Then get out of my way." Buchanan hisses to Abby, who looks at the other agents who silently signal her to move. Buchanan opens the door, glances back for a second to the others, and goes down the corridor.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

In the interrogation room, Gibbs is interrupted by the entrance of his agent.

"What?"

Buchanan nods at Gibbs and slowly approaches the desk where the oldest Hartmann is. He leers at the agent, who walks slowly towards him. She softly deposits a picture on the table.

"Who is this?" asks Gibbs to his agent.

"Ask him," says Buchanan walking behind the sitting suspect.

Old Hartmann does not look at the picture. "Is this some kind of game?"

"Why don't you answer Agent Gibbs' question?" she says with ice in her voice.

Old Hartmann looks at the picture on the desk and bites his lower lip. He looks between Gibbs and Buchanan. "This is my oldest son, Ernest."

"Was," corrects Buchanan sitting besides Gibbs on the other chair. Gibbs looks at her questioningly. She elucidates. "He died in an accident last year, didn't he?"

Gibbs knows she has a point somewhere, but he is getting impatient. "So what?"

"The same accident," she puts another picture on the table, "caused by our victim number one."

The suspect stays silent looking at the picture. "You must have felt very disappointed; that the boy you had invested so much in died in such a meaningless death, a freak accident."

The suspect fidgets a little and mutters something under his breath.

"What did you say?" asks Gibbs, "I can't hear you."

The suspect shuts up. Buchanan provokes him, "Such a waste, in a freak accident."

"It wasn't an ACCIDENT!" screams Eugene. His face is transformed into a mask of rage. "HE KILLED MY SON." He rises from his chair, and Gibbs rises from his chair as well. "SIT DOWN!" barks Gibbs.

Eugene is breathing heavily, looking between Buchanan and Gibbs.

Buchanan goes for the jugular. "You put all your hopes on the shoulders of your son, the perfect oldest son who could have a great future playing in the league."

"He could have made it to the professional level, he had talent," says Eugene, with tears on his voice.

"He was just a boy, he had the right to be one,"

"He was, I was helping him to achieve his potential."

"No, you just wanted his paychecks as pro," she looks at Gibbs, "he had received an offer to a bigger team, the week he had died."

"And then that…" Eugene's voice crackles "bastard comes and destroys everything. EVERYTHING."

"He didn't have to die for that, it was an accident."

"HE MURDERED MY SON!"

"You killed an innocent man."

"He murdered my son. He deserved to die."

"He was already dead." That shuts Eugene up, and he looks at her confused. "You killed a dead man walking."

He stays silent. She continues. "The night he crashed, he had just received the worst news a family man can ever get. He was ordered to put his life in order, as he had one year, maybe two years tops to live. He would never see his daughter graduate. He would never lead her down the aisle on her wedding day. He would never have the chance to get to see his grandchildren be born. His wife, in two years' time, would be a widow."

Buchanan leans forward, "he was so astonished and scared at the news, that he missed a red sign, and crashed," she pauses, "his twelve year old daughter and his wife died outright in the accident, the very same accident," she says forcefully "that killed your son."

"He killed my boy," he murmurs under his breath.

"Other people died that night as well."

"But my boy was my EVERYTHING!" he screams, his face red in anger.

"You don't have the monopoly on suffering. You weren't the only one that lost a loved one that night." She pauses and looks at Gibbs, who is watching the interview with interested eyes. She keeps talking "you were the only one who found yourself so righteous of sharing and spreading your pain like cancer."

"After surviving the crash, he still had to live with the reality that his perfectly healthy wife and daughter were dead, while his miserable sorry cancerous ass was still alive. But somehow, he still found courage to try."

"He did chemo, he did radiotherapy. He lost weight. And his hair. But he still wanted as many as possible moments to live. He didn't want die." She leans in his face and hisses at him. "And you took it away from him."

She rises and goes around the table and stands besides Eugene, who looks at her with hatred in his eyes. "You killed him." She points to picture of the victim number one "again" she puts the picture of the vic number two "and again" vic three pic "and again" vic pic number four "and again" and she finally puts the picture of the dead petty officer on the table.

She leans on the table and looks Eugene in the eyes.

"Everyone suffers loss. Suffering can not be divided in seasons. Suffering is one very, very, very long moment which destroys everything in its path and consumes everything, every thought you have." Gibbs is looking at his new agent with new-found respect. "But under no circumstance should we use our suffering as an excuse to cause suffering to others."

"He murdered my boy," Eugene says crying at his son's picture.

"And your murdered five innocent people," she says without a hint of feeling in her voice. She stands up and starts leaving the room. She reconsiders something and turns around. "He didn't have any reason to live, but still tried. He had no family to live for, to fight for, and still he tried." She looks at the sorry excuse for a human being sobbing in front of Gibbs.

"You still had family, a son, and you destroyed him with the hatred you carried in your heart." His sobbing intensifies. Gibbs stands up and reads him his Miranda rights, cuffing Eugene Hartmann's hands behind his back.

Buchanan gets out of the room and closes the door and leans against it. The team is waiting at the door outside the observation room. They are all silent with solemn expressions on their faces. McGee approaches and tries to say something, but Buchanan does not react to him. He opens his mouth again, she looks briefly at him, shakes his head and with a hurt look on her face, walks down the corridor.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

James Joseph Hartmann and Eugene Louis Hartmann were arrested for the murder of Petty Officer Louis Phillips and four other civilian murders. The team forwarded the info to the District Attorney and informed Metro PD that they had the confession and the murderers in custody. They were extremely happy to collect the dirtbags from their hands and solve, in one single step, four cold cases.

Team Gibbs was happily filling out paperwork and planning what to do after the long workday.

"We should go celebrate," says Tony.

"I agree," says Ziva.

"It is very rare that we solve a case in only one day," completes Tony.

"Was it only one day? It seems longer," asks Ziva, astonished.

Abby comes to the bullpen.

"Abby, we are planning to celebrate our success today."

"Great, we should have a team night."

"Lovely idea,"

"There is this new band playing at …." Abby keeps talking, but Gibbs notices that his newest team member is not joining the conversation.

Joy is sitting at her desk, staring at her pen which she is rolling in circles on the table-top.

"Buchanan," he calls. She starts. "Yes, Boss." She remembered, thinks Gibbs.

"Good job in there," he says. She grimaces and looks back at her pen, still rolling it.

"We caught the scumbag. We won."

She shakes her head. "No, we didn't."

"Why?"

"They're still dead." She looks down with a frown.

"Hey, look at me," she obeys the order "you can't save everyone."

"No, you can't sir. But you can try."

Before Gibbs can say anything, Abby comes bouncing "Gibbs Gibbs, hi Buchanan, we are having a team night, we are going to the bar, wanna come with us?" She asks Gibbs, but she is looking at Buchanan. Maybe she can offer an olive branch to the probie.

"Where are you going?" asks Buchanan.

"There is this new rockabilly bar which serves great drinks near M street," says Abby.

"A bar," Buchanan repeats, looking briefly at McGee. He blushes.

"Ah Probie, one day you have to tell us about this drink…" says Tony with a leer.

"What are you guys talking about?" asks Gibbs curious.

"McGee met Buchanan in a bar. They had a drink together."

Gibbs looks between his two agents, besides McGee's soft blush there is nothing on Buchanan's face but a smirk.

"His was a Cuba Libre, mine a vodka on ice."

"What exactly was in those drinks?" wonders Ziva. Buchanan smiles but does not respond.

The team gets ready to leave. Buchanan does not move from her place.

"Are you coming?" McGee wants to know hopefully.

"No, I had enough of bars lately," she answers "and I still have some phone calls to do."

His face falls a little, but he manages to mutter an OK, and follows the team, who, led by Abby, leave the room in a noisy fashion.

Silence falls on the bullpen. Buchanan sits back on her chair and looks at the nearly empty room. She then looks at the landline on her desk.

She dials a number she knows by heart, and waits a few seconds for the call to go through.

"Living God Baptist Church, Annie speaking. How can I help you?" a soft voice says on the other side of the line.

"Hi, Annie, It's Joy. Is he in?"

"Hi, sweetheart, please hold, I will transfer you." Joy spends a couple of seconds listening to mellow country music. She taps the pen on the desk on the rhythm of the music.

"Reverend Buchanan speaking," a firm masculine voice says.

"Hi, dad," says Joy into the phone, softly.

Definitely NOT Gibbs

Epilogue

After such a demanding case, the whole team, minus its newest member, were having a drink in their favorite bar. The same one where Tim met Joy the first time. McGee looks around the bar and then stares at the bar counter, remembering their encounter and being surprised at how fast things had changed between them, from strangers to lovers, then from acquaintances who would never see each other again to partners on the job.

Tony notices the distracted air in his younger partner, and takes the chance of digging some of the dirt on the two probies.

"So Probie, tell us what happened when you met Probette."

"Stop calling me that, and stop calling her that," says McGee, annoyed, "she is still very angry with you about this."

"Ah, come on McGee. Give us all the dirty details."

"You met her before, McGee?" Abby wants to know in a jealous tone of voice. Gibbs is just watching his junior agent, sipping his bourbon.

"I just bought her a drink," retorts McGee.

"If it was only a drink, why do you blush, every single time we mention it?" Ziva wants to know.

"Ziva," McGee struggles with words, not really wanting to reveal what happened that night but knowing that, if he doesn't say anything, they won't let him alone. The team keeps pushing him for details, Gibbs just waits for him to fold to peer pressure.

Finally he looks at Ziva and, with a very serious expression on his face, asks "Ziva, how did you feel after Somalia?"

"What does it have to do with Agent Buchanan?"

"Everything, just answer my question."

"I don't like talking about that time."

McGee nods. "Neither does Buchanan." Everyone around the table, including Gibbs is paying attention to him now.

"Imagine how you felt after we rescued you in Somalia, multiply it by 10 and you will know how she felt on the night I met her," he adds seriously.

"I had no idea," whispers Ziva, with new understanding in her eyes.

"That vodka on ice was the only drink she had that night because if she started drinking, really drinking," he looks at his own drink, "I don't think she probably would have stopped any time soon."

Tony for once has a somber air about him. "Sorry dude, I had no idea."

"You've seen her, she's not really open to people. Maybe that's why she opened to me, she was counting on never seeing me again."

"Yet now she is your partner," interrupts Gibbs. "Will that bring problems to you later on?"

McGee frowns. "I don't know. On one side, it is good because we started working as if we were in synch, we knew each other, you see. In others, there are times when she is profiling or thinking that she simply looks just…"

"Aloof," says Tony.

"Lost," says Ziva.

"No, damaged," says McGee. He finishes his drink and stands up, "I gotta get another drink," and goes to the counter.

Gibbs follows him and sits by his side.

"Boss, I can explain."

"How damaged?"

"How…. I don't know if I can explain it."

"I need to know if she is a good addition to the team or if she will be a hindrance."

"Boss, you've seen her working with the team, she is good, she…"

"I've seen her working with you, McGee. Only you. She is not really a team player," That shuts him up. "And I've seen you guys. "

"Seen where?"

"Interrogation room number four," says Gibbs, and he can literally see the wheels turning in his agent's head.

McGee starts to panic.

"You did?"

"Yes,"

"Boss I can explain…"

"She was giving you a lesson on profiling 101."

McGee furiously reviews the conversation on his mind, and visibly relaxes when he doesn't remember anything revealing.

You are so busted, Tim, thinks Gibbs.

"So is she?" McGee looks confused at the question.

"Damaged," clarifies Gibbs. McGee looks down at his drink, and sighs. "A wise person once told me that," he looks at Gibbs, "we are all damaged, some are just better in hiding it than others."

Gibbs nods. "I will be watching her." McGee nods. "I will be watching you." McGee looks at Gibbs with a guarded expression. "Don't disappoint me." He stands up to return to the table, but stops when McGee calls him up. "Boss," he turns back "when… Ah… before…" "McGee, spill," asks Gibbs impatiently.

McGee looks with a sincere and tormented look in his eyes, "she needed me, Boss, she needed someone to fall back on," "I know," he sips his drink looking at his agent, "and I am happy she found you when she needed it most."

He turns his back and starts walking.

"That's it?" McGee wants to know, astonished. Gibbs stops and looks at his agent.

"No preaching, no lectures on rule number 12?"

"No."

McGee looks at Gibbs in a confused manner. He smirks back at his younger agent.

"You both are two consenting adults, McGee." McGee still looks confused. "Would my lecturing stop you?"

McGee looks at Gibbs, thinking fiercely about it. Gibbs smirks at him and returns to the team's table.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

The team disbanded a little before midnight. McGee went home, got changed intocomfortable clothes and was getting ready to walk Jetro when he heard a soft knock on the door.

Who could it be at this time? He goes to his safe, collects his gun and slowly approaches the door.

"Who is it?"

No answer.

He gets the chain loose and opens the door, looks around and sees a figure walking down the corridor.

"Hey," he calls. The figure turns. It is Buchanan. She must have gone home to change, as she is in a comfortable white hippie skirt and a tie-dye top under a blue mid season jacket.

"Hi"

"Hi. I'm sorry for coming so late, I thought you were already asleep so I was leaving."

"No, no, I was just going down with Jetro." They look at each other nervously in the corridor.

"Expecting someone?" She points at the gun in his hand. He looks down at his service weapon.

"No, no," Tim pauses, "please come in."

"You are busy, I will see you tomorrow in the office, it can wait," says Buchanan nervously.

"No, you came all the way here, please," he says pleading at her.

After some seconds of indecision she walks up to the door and enters the small apartment. Jetro is excited to see her again, and she kneels to greet him, rubbing his tummy.

"Who is a good boy?" she is muttering under her breath.

You are pathetic, Tim, thinks McGee, you are jealous of your own dog.

"So, would you like something to drink?" He looks around his kitchen. "Water, tea," he pauses, "I don't have vodka but I think I still have some beers from the last time DiNozzo came over." She smiles.

"No, I'm fine." They stand uncomfortably before each other, as if the room has too many memories for them.

"So…"

"Well, I just wanted to thank you for what you did today."

"I did nothing; you did most of the work."

"The unsub almost bashed my head in with a baseball bat, McGee."

"But you saved me as well." She nods.

"It was a team effort, and we had good results."

"Yes," he smiles, "we make a pretty good team, don't we?"

"Yeah," she smiles at him. Another pause filled with unspoken things.

"That's all, I think. See you in the office then."

"See you in the office." Neither one moves.

"Is there anything…" he pauses "else you wanted to say?"

"No, that's really all."

"Ok," he says without hiding the disappointment in his eyes and his voice.

She looks at him for a second, shakes her head, "I gotta go." She turns to the door and starts opening it.

McGee feels almost like he is having an out-of-body experience. He feels his legs moving as he stands behind Buchanan and forcefully closes the door. His right arm is a little over Buchanan's shoulders, supported against the door and his chest is only a couple of inches away from her back. He looks down at her, and she is frozen in place, with her hand on the doorknob. And she is shaking.

He takes a deep breath, and his nostrils are filled with the faint scent of soap mixed with … he leans over and sniffs again "peaches" he mutters under his breath.

"My skin cream and shampoo have peaches aroma," whispers Buchanan in a soft voice without turning around. They stay silent. Only their breathing can be heard. He silently moves her curls out of his way with his left hand and slowly slides his callused fingers against the skin in her neck. He can feel her goose bumps and her speeding pulse under the skin.

He feels his blood going south and groans when his mind is assaulted by memories of their previous encounter. He slowly, very slowly, slides his left hand down her body, moves it to the front of her body and once it is over her tummy, slowly pulls her against his twitching member, not bothering to hide his state of arousal.

Buchanan feels her insides turning to mush, as she had been in a vague state of arousal since she was downstairs in the car fighting to decide if she should come up or not. She moans when she feels his erection pressing urgently against her lower back, and can't help the reflex of rubbing herself against what her body remembers was the source of unimaginable pleasure.

"This is wrong on soooo many levels," he whispers.

"Why?" she turns in his arms to look at him.

"Gibbs' rule number twelve." She looks at him, confused.

"Uhm?"

"Never date a coworker," he explains. They are in each other's arms studying each other.

"I'm not Gibbs, Tim." He lowers his head until their foreheads touch, their breaths mixing in the air, "and neither are you." She whispers, and looks up at his face, softly studying its features with her eyes.

He looks at her with a fierce frown of concentration on his face. After some seconds, he apparently makes up his mind and leans over and kisses her ravenously. He raises one of his legs and settles it between her legs, and his hands slide to her hips and move her body against his leg, creating a delicious pressure that makes Buchanan moan against his mouth.

"Lose the shoes," he says between kisses, "Uhm?" "Your shoes. Off. Now" He demands fiercely. She kicks them off, he then surprises the hell out of her, grabbing her caveman style over his shoulder and taking her to his room.

"McGee!" she shouts.

He closes the bedroom door.


THE END


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Just for you guys to keep track of the series:

A Geek walks into a Bar

Entertaning angels unaware

Intermezzo

Honor Bound

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