AN: A few minor fixes were made to the first chapter. Nothing that requires you to look back, but it is an important fact that both victims were strangled and had handprints on their necks.

Brief summarization of characters:

Ziva's team: Sarah Winchester (SFA) and Maxine Forrester became Ziva's team eight years ago when she took assignment in Paris. At the beginning of this story they got Johnathan Fitzpatrick as their new probie.

McGee's team: McGee became team leader three years ago when Tony and Abby left. His team includes Angel DeLuca (SFA,) Matt Jericho, and Shauna St. Clair (Probie) who has only been on the team for a year.

Chapter Two: Run Around

Run Around - Blues Traveler

A mingling of conflicting emotions
fear…anger
love…disgust
loss…grief
These thoughts remind me of my past
choices
mistakes
regrets
and fill my mind with doubts.

McGee rode with Palmer to where Ziva and her team were investigating, not twenty minutes away. The scene was eerily similar; as they walked up, McGee noticed the position of the body: curled up in the fetal position, eyes closed. Though, she had much lighter skin and hair than the other victim. Sarah was asking a question of Ziva, not realizing they had showed up.

"Shouldn't there be more bugs? It looks like she's been here a while."

Palmer spoke up. "It's starting to get a bit cold to have too many, but, yes, I agree that there should be a bit more activity. He squatted by the body. "It does look like she's been here longer," he said to McGee. "Definitely more than five days. Liver probe won't work." He looked up at Ziva. "I'll have to have Bobby run some tests in the lab and let you know." He turned the victim on her back and lifted up her shirt, just like the previous victim.

"Damn," McGee said.

"What does that mean?" Sarah asked.

Ziva answered. "It means we have a serial killer."

"A what?" came a shocked voice from behind McGee. He turned around and was unsurprised to see Ziva's newest team member standing there. His face had gone white as a sheet with a slight tinge of green as he stared down at the body. He caught sight of the marks on her stomach, went paler, and ran off to a nearby tree where he promptly emptied the contents of his stomach.

McGee remembered doing the same thing at his first crime scene.

"Maxine," Ziva called behind her.

"Yeah," Max answered, running over from the other side of the clearing, dark hair flowing over her black jacket.

Ziva pointed, "Go make sure Johnathan is okay."

When Maxine saw the state of her new probie, her face turned gentle. "Yeah, okay." They all watched her walk over, kneel down and place her hand on Johnathan's back where he was still hunched over.

That was Maxine, really badass, but still the sweetest, most caring person in the world. The day that she became jaded would be the end of one of the most loving people McGee had ever known.

He looked back to the body and sighed. He hated serial killers. He pulled out his phone and hit the speed dial for Angel.

"Yeah, Boss?"

"We've got the same situation over here. Come pick me up whenever you get done. I'll send you the directions."

The investigation seemed to get off the ground a lot easier with eight people working on it. It turned out that Ziva's new agent Johnathan was quite the computer whiz. He didn't go to a big school, just a local university in Maryland, but McGee was impressed by his skill. He was still in shock over the whole situation, but he was determined to do his job the best he could no matter what the obstacles. He had some serious promise, and McGee could tell that Ziva saw it too in the way that she watched him zooming though the Navy records of their two victims.

At least, now Ziva's team would be coming to him for the advanced computer stuff.

The first and most obvious connection was the Navy. Both Petty Officer Mary Stevenson (from McGee's crime scene) and Private Second Class Carrol McKenzie (from Ziva's) were stationed stateside at Norfolk and the Navy Yard in D.C. respectively. They were still working on getting more to connect the two.

At the moment, Johnathan was about to run a search of related murders in the surrounding states, while Angel used her 'people skills' to try and sweet talk D.C. Metro into telling her about any civilian cases that matched the MO. Shauna and Matt were down in Bobby's lab, helping him get through all the evidence. And Sarah and Maxine were in the field running any leads that were called out to them by the rest.

McGee and Ziva were coordinating, making sure all the information was shared and going through the notes of both crime scenes. They were comparing and contrasting the pictures from the scenes when his phone began ringing. He snatched it from his desk, "Yeah, McGee."

Matt's voice sounded in his ear. "Got something."

McGee snapped the phone shut and stood, nodding for Ziva to follow him to the lab.

Shauna looked over Bobby's shoulder in an attempt to get a feel for what he was doing with the sample of dirt that Palmer had brought up earlier. It was the last thing that he had to get going, for the blood and tissue tests had already been done, which had taken the better part of four hours even with two extra sets of hands. Bobby stood up suddenly, knocking into her and sending her stumbling back.

He turned and smiled good-naturedly at her, and said in his surfer dude accent, "Watch out there, man. I'd hate to see you take a spill into my equipment."

She smiled back with a slight blush, she was kind a clumsy person on a good day. Serial killers, she thought, scrunching her nose. They always screw up my thought process. She stepped back up behind him and watched him add some clear liquid to the test tube. The contents began to separate immediately. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"I need to extract the chemicals in the soil so that I can tell where it came from." He held the glass instrument up in front of her face. "See that film on top of the solvent?" Shauna nodded. "That's what I put in the mass spec, and from that I can hopefully get a location other than Rock Creek Park."

"Oh," she looked past the test tube and back at his face. "Cool."

He smiled and turned back to the fume hood where he kept his chemicals. Bobby had long blonde hair that he usually kept in a low ponytail. He was very fond of wearing shorts, sandals, and t-shirts, but McGee having made him go home and change more that once forced him to reconsider. He now wore tennis shoes and jeans, but was resistant in his old faded t-shirts, much to the boss's annoyance. McGee could be quite scary when he was defied, but thankfully, for the most part, Shauna was spared the headslaps, mainly because she wasn't the one who needed a constant attitude adjustment. Angel, on the other hand….

Matt came out of Bobby's inner office where he had been on the computer, taking a look at what about the marks on the abdomen of the two women could be significant. "Find anything?" Shauna asked him.

He shook his head. "Other than the obvious Christian symbolism, there's nothing that really sticks out." He walked like a tiger, silently, as if he was always ready to pounce. Apparently, being in the CIA did that to you; you always had to be aware of your surroundings. Shauna wished she had that kind of discipline. He didn't speak much, but when called upon, he could formulate a speech reminiscent of the great leaders of the past to get out of a bind. That was why he was particularly good at undercover work.

"You get anything yet?" he asked her, glancing over to what Bobby was working on.

"Still—"

The computer dinged and Bobby quickly placed the sample in the mass spectrometer's tower before coming over to check the results. He scrolled down, the page. "They were drugged." He scrunched his eyebrows. "With the exact same drug. It matches down to the binding agent."

"What kind of drug?" Matt asked.

"Looks like they got hit by the roach."

"The what?" Shauna asked.

"La rocha, mind eraser, lunch money, Mexican valium."

Matt rolled his eyes, and turned to Shauna. "Rohypnol. The date rape drug."

She nodded, "Oh…. That roach."

Bobby looked back to the computer screen. "It looks like a pretty unique formula. Maybe the guy makes it himself."

Shauna said, "Or he uses the same dealer."

Bobby nodded. "Good one, Probay."

Shauna narrowed her eyes at him.

Matt pulled his phone out of his pocket. "Better let McGee know."

Minutes later, McGee stormed in followed by Ziva. She was quieter than Matt, and much more deadly, according to Sarah. McGee didn't look happy; clearly nothing helpful was being discovered upstairs. "Talk to me, Bobby."

"Right on, dude." Bobby went and grabbed the printout from his office. He handed it to McGee. "Looks like they both got the la rocha. That's tough."

McGee nodded. Of course he knew what that meant. Shauna spoke up, determined not to look like an idiot. "It's possible that it came from the same dealer. It has the exact same chemical composition."

He raised his eyebrows. "You think so?"

She felt suddenly uncertain. "Yes?"

"Yes or no, St. Clair."

She straightened. "Then yes."

He nodded. "Good job." He then turned back to Bobby. "Anything else?"

Matt elbowed Shauna lightly in the side as the forensic specialist went on to explain what he was doing with the soil samples. Matt gave her a small smirk and a wink, and she smiled shyly back at him. It was hard being the probie, especially with such a good agent like McGee, but he wouldn't have put her on his team if he didn't see something in her. To be quite honest, some of the stories she had heard about Special Agent McGee in FLETC were the stuff of legend, and it just so happens that although some legends exaggerate, his did not. Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine that she would get to work alongside him, much less for him.

When they first met, his name was enough to shock her into silence, but somehow she managed to impress him, for, at the end of the case she had assisted on, he requested her be placed on the MCRT. Some of the best news of her life. That was a little over a year ago, and in that span of time, she managed to find what she had always been looking for. A family. Hell if she was ever going to tell Angel that though; she'd never hear the end of it for being so weirdly sentimental.

Another ding from the computer brought her out of her thoughts and Bobby sauntered back to his previous position. "Looks like we've got the time table from your victim Agent David."

She interrupted him, "I told you to call me Ziva, Bobby."

"Right on, Zeeva," he said, looking thought the data on the computer. Ziva smiled softly as she waited for her results. "Palmer was right. Five days, or more specifically, five days and three hours, according to the jelly inside her eye."

Shauna wrinkled her nose; she had been assisting down in autopsy when Doctor Palmer extracted the sample. She hadn't felt the urge to throw up down there in some time, but that particular sight nearly set her off. Matt had a smile on his face when he saw her reaction to the words and she attempted to glare at him, but he only smiled wider. She hadn't ever been very good at the trademark McGee glare; the look that intimidated suspects into confessing, the only thing really capable of shutting Angel up, and, oddly enough, the look that when given to Ziva, only made her laugh, almost like he wasn't doing it quite right either. Shauna knew that Ziva and McGee had been on the same team a long time ago, and figured that the look meant something more, but she had never had the courage to ask.

"Shauna!" McGee's voice broke through, startling her.

She looked at her boss with wide eyes. "Yes."

He started walking out of the room. "Come on."

Again, she was back in the infernal temporary housing office for the dead. Shauna followed her boss, Ziva, and Matt and went to stand next to the silver table Petty Officer Stevenson was currently resting on. "What do you got, Jimmy?" McGee asked. Only a select few people were allowed to call the doctor that.

Doctor Palmer looked up from the report he was in the process of writing. His face was grim. "They were held for about three days. Dehydration, malnutrition." He pointed to bruises around the victim's arms and neck. "They both have the same type of bruising."

"They were beaten," Ziva said.

The doctor nodded. "And they tried to defend themselves. No cuff marks around their wrists, so they weren't tied up. It also looks like they suffered from hypothermia. Now, it's not that cold during the day, but at night…. They were in a place with no heat, if not outside."

McGee nodded, jaw tight. "Anything else?"

Doctor Palmer shook his head and went back to his report.

All they were getting was bad news. McGee sat behind his desk and laid his head in his hands, ignoring the looks his agents were giving him. Like they were all waiting for him to explode. He knew it had only been half a day, but he had hoped that they would have gotten a little bit further by now, instead they were getting stonewalled by the LEOs and the searches were not getting anywhere. The rapid typing and breathed curses from behind McGee told him that Johnathan was not getting anywhere. That only left—

The elevator dinged and McGee looked up, praying for good news. As usual, with Sarah, he wasn't disappointed. She stepped out of the elevator bank with an appropriately egotistical smile on her face and announced to the room at large, "Never fear, people. I've got our place."

Maxine came up behind her and punched her in the arm. "You mean 'we've got the place.'"

AN: Alright, one question. Who is your favorite new character? And why?