Author's Note: Only one chapter and an epilogue to go. Thank you everybody for your kind words!

Chapter Nine

Through the binoculars, Ellie watched their target lead Lucky across the lawn. She saw something glint in Julian's hands as they passed under a sidewalk lamp. "Tim, Arrizubeata has a knife," she spoke hurriedly. "A big knife."

"You sure?" McGee seemed hesitant to take her word at face value.

"Yes!"

McGee immediately relayed the information over the com-link. "Snoopy has a knife!"

And that was when shit got real.

Faster than either of them could react, Julian had Lucky against the wall and that big knife was imbedded in his gut. Tony was already up and out of cover, engaging the suspect in a way only Tony was impulsively brazen enough to attempt.

And then there were the gunshots.

"Shots fired!" McGee yelled. "Tony?"

But Tony was too busy swearing and readying another shot to give any sort of answer.

"Keep an eye on Tony!" McGee instructed Ellie who was ducking low in the passenger side seat.

McGee saw the muzzle flash coming from a parked boat trailer located in a driveway further up the road. He slid the window down, leaned past Ellie, and began to return fire.

The gunman seemed confused by the rapid volley of return fire. There was a brief lull before he started raining ammo down randomly on the nativity scene.

Sirens screamed nearby.

With the gunfire popping all around them and Julian wounded and listing to one side, Lucky began to fight with renewed fervor. The knife still hanging grotesquely out of his gut, he twisted and thrashed in the man's stubborn grip. He screamed out in distress.

"Shut up!" Julian snarled, reaching out with a blood-smeared hand to smother Lucky's face.

Lucky attempted to twist his face away, but - when he ultimately felt the cloying press of unwanted skin - he caught one of Julian's fingers between his teeth. He bit down hard enough to hear the crack of a bone. He let go only when his head was bashed again against the brick wall. Dazed - and with his teeth bloodied - Lucky watched as Julian clutched at his bitten hand and screamed. The man reeled back far enough to allow Lucky a brief opportunity to scramble away.

He stumbled to his feet and bolted around the corner and through the doors back into the cathedral. The chorus had already stopped due to the volley of gunshots outside, and upon seeing Lucky stumbling around, desperate and crazed with a bloody mouth, clothes half-torn from his body, and a knife impaled deep in his belly, people began to scream in horror.

"Call the police!" someone bellowed nearby.

"He might have a gun!" came a distant reply.

Dizzy from the sudden exertion, head trauma, and the burning from his damaged gut, Lucky sank to his haunches in the middle of the red-carpeted aisle. With his legs splayed out, he stared towards the altar without much comprehension of what was going on. Then, hitching convulsively, he began to sob.

"There's a shooter in a boat parked in the driveway northeast of my position," McGee spoke hurriedly. He squeezed off a few more shots in that direction. The gunfire from that location had slowed to nothing, but not before decimating the entire nativity scene plus DiNozzo. A squad car slid to a sloppy stop beside the boat, lights flashing.

"Snoopy is collared," somebody announced.

A barking K-9 unit was busy subduing Julian Arrizubeata, who was clutching his hand while still attempting to surrender. Lucky was nowhere to be seen, and bystanders were starting to flood out of the cathedral's front doors, screaming and yelling in terror.

"Son of a bitch," someone cried as the bloody body of undercover officer Jan Trzecki was dragged away from the boat trailer and onto the snow-covered pavement. He was dead from a gunshot to the head, more than likely from McGee's Sig Sauer. An officer held up a Beretta 92F found still clutched by a hand wearing an emerald green ring.

"I think we have Mister Q here."

They found Tony's ruthlessly mowed down form under the watchful gaze of the untouched Mother Mary. She was the only thing left whole, while every other statue seemed reduced to piles of shards. He looked dead, sprawled out on his back in the black blood-soaked snow, both hands pale and loosely clenching his ruined throat. His eyes were half-open, staring up at nothing but the swirling snow. It stuck to his hair and eyelashes. The only sign of life was the thick gurgle in his throat.

McGee reacted numbly, as if this was some sort of out-of-body experience. While they waited on the ambulance, he knelt beside his friend and urged him to snap out of it. Christmas was only ten minutes away. He needed to hold on.

It wasn't until hours later, sitting shell-shocked in the hospital waiting room, did he realize that he'd been holding Tony's body so close that the blood had soaked through all of his clothing and to his skin. For all he knew, it could have seeped all the way to his bones. After that revelation, McGee went to the men's room and scrubbed his skin until it hurt. Or at least until Ellie came and pulled him back from the brink.

Lucky came to slowly and stared up at the ceiling tiles. He tried to count them, but his fuzzy mind couldn't make it past six. He moved a hand to scratch at an itch. He couldn't. He tried again but found that his wrist was handcuffed to the bedrail.

He attempted to fight off the overwhelming sorrow. Again, he couldn't. The tears built behind his eyes until they eventually squeezed their stubborn way past his tightly shut eyelids.

So maybe he was going to prison after all. The details were still foggy, but he was pretty sure that Agent Tony had said he wouldn't end up there.

Agent Tony.

He was dead. He had to be.

A lump grew in his throat. He looked towards his legs and realized that the knife was no longer buried in his gut. He should have felt relief, but now - knowing how he had to witness Tony get mauled by a shower of bullets - he'd rather be dead right along with him. Especially if prison was in his immediate future.

He heard the curtain of his semi-private room get moved aside. He shut his eyes and pretended to be asleep.

"I know you're not sleeping." It was a woman's voice, faintly familiar. "Come on."

Curiosity got the better of him and he hazarded a look. He found that he did recognize her as the woman who worked with Tony. She was young and had a lot of awkward energy. From his bed, Lucky watched her with wary brown eyes. He felt like a wounded animal, tethered in place and waiting for whatever fate would befall on him. He said nothing.

"Somebody is coming to remove those," Ellie gestured towards the handcuffs. "You'll be free."

Lucky blinked before asking with a heavy slur, "Agent Tony?"

"He'll be okay."