Part seven of Those Who Wander. Sorry about the long hiatus. ~ SamayouTamashi

Ben glanced down at his watch and then over at the teenager motionless against the wall beside Gibbs' desk, head slumped over and eyes closed in a peaceful sleep; peaceful, if you didn't notice the minute twitches in his fingers and the occasional sharp intakes of breath.

He needed to pick K-Unit up from the airport when they landed at about noon. It would only take twenty minutes to get to Reagan*, but apparently the flight was coming in early. NCIS would have to look over Alex while he ran over to fetch his former team.

Throwing on his jacket and checking the gun, wallet and cell phone clipped to his belt, Ben ruffled his partner's hair as he headed for the elevator. From his pocket, he pulled out the badges the director had given him for K-Unit. They were proof that they were visitors for the assigned week, or until MI6 thought that Alex was fine on his own without the extra assistance.

By this time, Tony was joining the spy in dreamland. McGee was fighting to stay awake and Ziva was on her fourteenth cup of coffee. Alex had actually been alert until he leaned against the wall and nodded off about a half an hour ago. Nearly thirty-six hours of straight work was beginning to take its toll on everyone except the naturally hyper Abby with her seemingly endless supplies of Caf-POW! and Gibbs. Vance had gone home once Alex had finished his work in the conference room to return at seven the next morning.

Passing Gibbs, Ben nodded to him before stepping into the elevator and passed a piece of knowledge along. "If you try to wake him up, make sure you aren't in the line of fire."

The special agent said nothing, raising an eyebrow, but mentally taking note not to wake Alex up without a death wish. "I'll watch over him until you get back, Daniels."

Ben paused as he pressed the button, but slowly made himself relax. "You noticed?"

"You act like his mother, not his partner, when his attention isn't focused on you. Every time the two of you react to the smallest things, like the ding of the elevator or someone walking faster than normal, he reaches for his gun and you move closer to protect him."

The spy bent his head in shame. "I was really that obvious?"

"No," Gibbs drank from his coffee, "but the observations accumulated over time and patterns became evident. I don't think Alex knows, though."

"Good. He doesn't want anyone else to die for him, and he tends to avoid anything that smells like friendship. K-Unit and I are as close as it gets: comrades." He stepped into the elevator, but held the door open with an arm. "I wish…I wish he could be a teenager again. Maybe being outside of danger with your team will let him feel some of what he's lost being a spy. I never could give him that."

He let go of the door, and it was about to close until Gibbs put a hand in. "You did what you could. In my eyes, that's all that matters."

Ben let a small smile show through before the steel doors came between them.

Forty-five minutes later, as Dinozzo was giving his report on the numbers traced through "Lieutenant Rodriguez's" cellular, Ben re-entered the room with a group of four men. They had dressed for the weather in London, not that of D.C. While England was in its typical semi-chilly climate, the eastern states were in a temporary temperature spike, thus making the jackets somewhat uncomfortable in the heat wave. The four, K-Unit, were looking around curiously as Ben prodded them in the right direction.

Gibbs ignored the group until Dinozzo had finished off with the information, basically winding down by saying that all of the important numbers couldn't be traced. It was likely they had been burn phones that were thrown away after one or two uses. McGee verified that all trace attempts had repeatedly failed. Once he was sure there was nothing else to be taken from the phone, he turned to Ben. "I take it this is K-Unit?"

The man to Ben's immediate left nodded. The badge on the front of his jacket was one of the ones from the director, though there was no form of identification marking his name anywhere. He answered Gibbs's question with a nod of his head. "I'm Wolf, leader of K-Unit. I'm told that we were prodded over here by MI6 for some simple stuff while Falcon's healing. Something to do with temporary work for the CIA."

Gibbs looked over at the smallest in the unit, evidently Falcon, who was leaning ever so slightly on his crutches. His leg was encased in a protective mold, though it looked smaller than if the injury had been more recent. "I'm Gibbs, head of this NCIS team."

"And don't worry about keeping anything from us," Tony grinned. "The spies have pretty much told us everything already."

Wolf looked at Ben. "Spies, as in more than one? I think I'm missing something."

The spy shifted in his spot. "So MI6 didn't give you guys any info?"

"Do they ever?"

"Course not, but I didn't think they'd leave it all for me to do."

Alex took that moment to yawn from behind Gibbs' desk and stand up to fall back into his chair. "What'd I miss?"

Ben swiveled over to hiss, "You could've waited."

"For wha- Oh." Alex's eyes met Wolf's and he blinked. "I'm going back to sleep."

Wolf immediately turned back to Ben. "I'm sorry but what are we doing guarding him? He should be guarding us from the aftermath of whatever you two have gotten into this time."

"Heh." The spy was really nervous now. Ziva, Tony and McGee were watching the drama unfold as Gibbs rolled his eyes. "Well, there was an incident…"

"That could describe just about anything, Fox. Seriously though, what has MI6 dragged us over here for? Maybe they mixed up some orders in processing."

"Blunt believes I may be incapable of doing anything myself right now," Alex sighed, trying to end their arguing. "I'm apparently having trouble with some minor memory loss."

"Minor memory loss? You mean full blown amnesia. He couldn't even remember his own name, much less anything else," Ben frowned.

"That was only for a little while. I got most of it back."

"Wait, wait, wait," another one of K-Unit addressed all three of them, a faint Scottish brogue evident in his voice. "Amnesia? I'd like to know how that happened."

Gibbs answered to spare the hassle of another debate between the spies, "We don't know yet, but our psychologist is assuming shock."

The man raised an eyebrow. "I can hardly believe that. I've seen him pull through with practically dying, and he looks fine to me."

Alex sighed and sat back down against the wall, before Abby appeared by his side, also crouching down. "What's going on here?" she mock whispered.

"My former unit," he gestured at K-Unit while still remaining hidden. "Apparently MI6 sent them to watch over me until I'm completely better."

"Ooo, sounds like fun. So why are we hiding?"

"Keeps us out of the death match that's sure to happen right about now and out of the blood splatter radius."

Gibbs, however, managed to keep the blood to a minimum by slapping them both over the back of the head. "Some of us," he said quietly in an ominous tone reserved normally for Tony, "are trying to work."

"Score for team Gibbs," Alex murmured.

"Alex, you too. Tell us who we have on our side in the JCS and DOD."

He sighed, standing up, as he grabbed two sticky notes from the wall. Mostly it consisted of notes on the various Joint Chiefs of Staff, SecDef, and a few others sitting in. "It turns out that SecDef has been aware of some various ongoings in MI6 for quite some time, so it was more a matter of getting the JCS to understand the situation. Luckily for us, their current chairman and vice chairman are navy and marines, in that order, and have both been monitoring the situation. The chairman didn't have a hard time convincing the rest of the board, and even then, the only one who had to be convinced was the Chief of Staff of the Army.**

"With a little help from my links in the UCC USSOCOM***, the Secretary of Defense has given NCIS free reign into just about all records pertaining to the armed forces. He said if anyone complains, send them his way."

"Damn," Tony whistled. "You really do have people up there."

"Doesn't help that the CSA is still touchy about all of this, so I would advise walking carefully around him until he simmers down. Reimer**** isn't convinced that any sort of terrorist group could have penetrated the US armed forces," he muttered in response, "but then he's always had a bit of a temper on him."

Wolf seemed to have forgotten his irritation towards the spies. "If Special Operations is in on your scheming, you shouldn't have problems getting around Reimer."

"I certainly hope so," the spy replied. "He doesn't like foreign agents muddling around in US intelligence."

"Don't tell me you hired yourself out to the CIA again?"

"And FBI. They were working together on this one."

"The world must be ending," Tony added. "They never get along."

Gibbs quieted all of them with a wave of his hand to get back on topic. "So we have clearance?"

"Yep. Straight from the top."

"McGee," he pointed at the techie, who immediately began a search on every armed forces person currently on duty. "If you hit any blocks, call up SecNav. He'll get any extra permissions you need."

"On it, boss." His fingers were back to running over the keyboard in front of him, immersing himself in the computer systems and getting through the previous barriers nullified by the temporary truce with SecDef.

The special agent then looked over the K-Unit members. "So what are you four supposed to be doing here?"

Wolf huffed. "Baby-sitting princess, I mean Alex.*" He ducked as a sharp and well-aimed pencil flew dangerously close to his head. "Damn, you remembered Greece."

Alex was sharpening another pencil with an evil glint in his eye. "You refer to that incident again, and this one won't miss."

"Don't mind them," another of K-Unit informed Gibbs's team. "Ever since training, they can't be in the same room together unless their shooting someone. Once you give them something to do, Wolf and Cub should get off each other's throats."

"And you are?" Ziva asked.

"Eagle," he grinned. "I'm the weapons specialist. Snake," he pointed to the one who'd asked about Alex's amnesia, "is our medic and Falcon, the one on the crutches, is our sniper and translator."

"So how do you know Alex?" she asked, trying to figure out how a spy would be partnered with an SAS team. Tony leaned in, just as curious.

"It's really complicated." He was watching the Alex vs. Wolf match ensue as Ben filled Gibbs in on what exactly K-Unit would be allowed to do while they were in the States. "MI6 sent him to train with us for a little over a week about a year and a half ago while Fox was still in our unit. None of us really got along with him, but we kept seeing him on missions and eventually got stuck together. Somehow, we got to know each other."

"Almost two years ago…" Ziva mentally calculated. "He was fourteen?"

"Something like that. We didn't realize that while he was there, though." Eagle looked thoughtful. "Actually, we figured he was more like sixteen or seventeen until Fox told us otherwise."

"Fox?"

"Ben. We still call him by his codename even though he was recruited by MI6. Habit, I guess."

McGee's computer beeped, interrupting all of their conversations/battles. "Boss, I've got a hit already. He's supposed to have shown up for duty today, but was reported missing when his team couldn't find him this morning."

"Put it on screen."

The soldier's records, all the way back to high school, and picture came up. "Technical Sergeant Nathaniel Caleb Williamson. He was on a regular trip to a base in Egypt when he went completely off the grid. The team he was heading reported nothing unusual in his behavior yesterday or in the previous days."

"That's less than a day from Malagosto," Abby commented, and Gibbs nodded his agreement. "Any others?"

"Yeah. Ensign Isabella Faites Waters," a second set of documents popped up on screen, "disappeared from the USS Hydra late last night. The crew said nearly the same thing as Williamson's team. She just vanished from her quarters overnight."

"Where was the USS Hydra at the time?"

"Just off the coast of Venice. They haven't left port since then, and her teammates are still looking for her. A connection?"

"I doubt it's just a coincidence, probie," Tony scoffed.

"There are other reports coming in," McGee told Gibbs, ignoring Dinozzo. "Many ships and units posted near the Mediterranean are just sending in missing reports. The navy and marines alone have lost a hundred between them. I have to dive a little further to find the air force and army's reports, but I'd guess they have a similar amount."

"That would be around two hundred so far. Could one organization have that many sleeper cells?"

"For SCORPIA, I wouldn't doubt that," Alex mused. "Look for reports around North Korea as well. They have a base somewhere off the coast there too."

"If they're pulling all of their people out, then what have they accomplished?" Ben asked. "It seems kind of pointless for them to show all their cards to us after all their planning."

"Unless it's an intimidation tactic," Gibbs provided. "They want us to know that they can infiltrate our military as some sort of warning."

"Or it's a distraction." Alex leaned back in his chair. "With the mass evacuation of their 'sleeper cells', it's entirely possible that SCORPIA wants us looking at Malagosto while they work elsewhere. Thus, I think we need to be looking where they don't want us to be."

"Internally. They have something planned on US soil. Problems in the Mediterranean would certainly divert attention."

Wolf rested his forearms across one of the dividers surrounding the group's cubicle. "So we get to have a bigger role than baby-sitting?"

Falcon leaned against the wall. "Sounds like fun."

"And here you said that being handicapped was boring," Eagle grinned, nudging him with an elbow as Falcon slapped him back.

"What kind of jurisdiction does SAS have within US borders?" Tony asked Ben.

"They wouldn't have any, except K-Unit is being temporarily borrowed by Alex, and therefore anything they do falls under jurisdiction of the CIA and FBI."

"Basically, we get the same boundaries as if we were working for SAS in England," Snake spoke up.

Gibbs' phone rang and he picked it up, listening for a second then nodding his head, saying, "I'll be down there in a second." He hung up and turned to his team, plus the two spies and K-Unit. "Walker's opening up. He wants to talk about a possible arrangement."

A/N: I know I was going to post ASAP, but this was really the soonest I could finish this chapter. It's been sitting half-written on my computer since last week, but I had to finish my work in my AR arc first. I'm going to try and finish this crossover before getting my arc's finale posted, if my reviewers don't kill me for the way I ended Poison… If I never finish this, it's because one of them finally managed to locate my house. ^_^

*Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is indeed only thirteen to fifteen minutes (with no traffic) from the Washington Naval Yard (where NCIS is headquartered). The beauty of Google maps is that I can figure out all of this in mere seconds.

** I think I've explained this before, but JCS is the Joint Chiefs of Staff and SecDef is the Secretary of Defense. If you got to Wikipedia, it explains a lot about both of them. DOD is the Department of Defense.

*** Unified Combatant Command(s) United States Special Operations Command. This is harder to explain. Basically, it is an effort through multiple services that goes towards a single effort. In USSOCOM, it specifically covers all espionage efforts and most anti-terrorism/unconventional warfare affairs. When not working as a UCC with other groups, it becomes many individual SOFs (Special Operations Forces) with independent operations. The Rangers, Green Berets (Special Forces) SEALs and Delta Force are the most well-known parts of the USSOCOM.

**** Reimer is not the current Chief of Staff of the Army. That would be George W. Casey, Jr. However, I figured it would be safer to avoid using any current names, so I used a former CSA's name instead: Dennis J. Reamer (1995-99). I have no clue how he would actually have responded to this threat, so any of his actions in this fanfic don't portray his actual opinions/actions.

* This goes back to Coincidences.