Tim tiptoed down the stairs stifling a yawn, hoping to get a fresh cup of coffee before having to run after his daughter. But when he turned around the corner he could hear her already up and about in the living room. He tentatively moved closer, peeking around the door jamb. And really, there she was, sitting in the middle of the carpet brushing her favourite doll's hair.

"We have to be quiet, Lucy. Daddy is still sleeping. And Mummy says Daddy gets gumpy if you wake him up too soon." She whispered to her doll. After tending to her hair, she searched through the sheer enormous pile of doll clothes strewn over the living room floor. All if which hadn't been there when Tim went to bed the night before.

He gently knocked against the door jamb. "Good morning, princess."

"Daddy!" Maddie jumped up from the floor and knocked into her father's legs before jumping up into his hands and onto his hip.

"Uff!" McGee huffed. She was definitely not getting lighter.

Maddie pressed a kiss against his cheek. "Good morning, Daddy. We won't be late today, I promise. I even already had breakfast!"

Tim smiled, caressing her newly shortened hair. He really was proud of himself. Instead of her long hair, which had been falling down her back and had been a pain for him to brush, his little angel now spotted a chin-length hair-do. He felt like a genius for that idea. And she looked adorable.

"You had breakfast already, without me?" He carried Maddie over towards the kitchen to inspect the chaos.

She nodded proudly, jumping up and down in his arms. "I had Chee'os. And Milk." She added as an afterthought. That much Tim had already known, seeing the large puddle of milk on the work space, some of it still dripping to the ground.

He suddenly wrinkled his nose. "Maddie? What's that smell?"

She looked at him with puppy dog eyes. "What smell?"

Tim set her down and walked over to the oven, opening it cautiously only to be met by black smoke rising from it.

"MADDIE!"

Maddie immediately cowered behind the work table in the middle. Tim turned of the oven, wearily pulling the tray out and setting it on the table. "Maddie…" He took a deep breath, trying to calm down. No need to yell at her first thing in the morning. After another round of deep breaths, he felt calm enough.

"Maddie, come here, please."

Maddie sheepishly came around the table, not daring to meet his eyes when she stood in front of him.

"Why did you put my shoes into the oven?" He gestured towards the lumps of molten rubber and crispy leather.

"They were still wet from the rain yesterday and we have to be punctual this morning, Daddy. So I put them in the oven to dry." She murmured her eyes still downcast.

"Since when can you use the oven anyway? It's supposed to be childproof!" He ran his fingers rhrough his hair in frustration.

Maddie shrugged her shoulders. "Last summer, I guess." She grinned at him winningly, proud of her very own stroke of genius. And knowing it would mellow him. Grandpa Gibbs had told her her tooth gap did that to people.

Ooo….ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo….

Tony strode into the bullpen emptying the last of his coffee on Friday morning. "Okay people, CAMPFIRE!"

Tim's and Ziva's expression were less pained than they used to be. Cohen seemed to be confused but followed the other's example.

"Chief Warrant Officer Robert Nelson was killed around 4 to 5 pm on Wednesday. " McGee started. "He was killed on the premises of Ronald Reagan airport. His most recent calls came from a Ltd. Owen Bailey, whose file is sealed."

"But we know that Bailey was issued with a P228 two months ago." Cohen chimed in.

Tony looked at Ziva expectantly. "Nelson's girlfriend doesn't know anything about any relationship between Nelson and Bailey, although they called each other frequently." She showed them the call logs on the screen, highlighting the important numbers. "Calls were most frequent around the middle and end of each month."

"Theories?" Tony asked, just as his cell phone buzzed. "DiNozzo."

Without another word, Tony looked grimly up the stairs, before facing his team.

"Gibb's wants to see me. Keep checking close friends; try to find something on Bailey's call log." He instructed, before ascending the stair's to Gibb's office. Smiling at his secretary, he went inside immediately.

Ooo….ooo….ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…

"Tony." Gibbs looked up from the file in front of him. He gestured towards the young woman standing uncomfortably in front of him. "This is Agent Eleanor Rieman."

Tony nodded at her in greeting before meeting Gibbs gaze again confusedly. "And …?"

Gibbs got up and gestured towards the large screen behind his two guests. "And this is Lieutenant Owen Bailey, the man whose file you were trying to look into yesterday."

Tony spun around, looking at the picture of the forty-something officer before soaking up as much info as he could. "What's the matter here?" He turned towards Agent Rieman.

"Ltd. Bailey is undercover. That's why you couldn't access his file."

"Undercover? Sent so by whom?" Tony asked warily.

"By us." Interrupted Gibbs. "Agent Rieman is his handler."

"Ltd. Bailey was sent undercover 5 months ago to investigate a series of irregularities. He discovered-"

"Irregularities?" But Agent Rieman ignored Tony's interjection.

"- a group of Navy personnel trying their hand at smuggling. Weapons mostly. Handguns. Nelson was one of them."

"So why was Nelson murdered?"

Agent Rieman shook her head. "I don't know."

"Well what did Bailey say?" Tony wouldn't let himself be deterred.

"I don't know."

Tony was in her face instantly. "What do you mean you don't know? You're his handler!"

"We are currently unable to contact him. I only knew something was out of order when you tried to open his file yesterday."

Tony shot Gibbs a look. This woman couldn't be serious.

Ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…

"Well, Bailey has a second bank account under his dead mother's name." McGee told the rest of the team, as well as Gibbs and Agent Rieman when they were gathered in MTAC not ten minutes later. "And one in his own name in Turks and Caicos."

Ziva turned towards the woman who seemed to get paler and paler by the minute. "I suppose you didn't know about those as well?" She asked spitefully. Agent Rieman shook her head. "How often did you check up with him?"

This seemed to ignite some life back in the petite woman, a question she could answer. "About every two to three weeks."

"When's your next appointed contact?"

Agent Rieman shook her head. "We don't have appointed contacts. Only when there is need for one."

Ziva rolled her eyes. Yes, she tried to be sympathetic towards this woman. This was after all her first case as a handler. But she had made every mistake there was to make. Had nobody told her how to do this job? No pre-arranged check-ins, no way of contact in an emergency and no reign over her undercover asset. And now he ran around setting aside money for himself and shooting people.

Gibbs shot Ziva a silencing glare. No need to kick someone already lying on the ground. "Cohen, where are you on finding him?"

The Probie let out some indefinable grunts. "Almost, Boss…. Okay, got it. It's a warehouse unit in North Brentwood."

McGee leaned over from his computer. "Let me see…okay." After a few taps on his keyboard, they had a visual on the screen. Warehouses and trucks.

Tony's eyes widened. "What's the date?"

"The fifteenth." Cody answered.

Tony gestured towards the screen agitatedly. "It's happening now. Whatever they're smuggling, it's happening now."

Ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo

Two hours later Ziva handed her gun to one of the forensic technicians before accepting the call on her cell, shielding her eyes from the sun.

"Gibbs?"

"Why the hell is DiNozzo not answering his phone?"

Ziva turned towards the ambulance where Tony's arm was being treated. "He's busy."

"Status report, David."

Her eyes swept around the area, where ambulances and NCIS trucks occupied the space in between warehouses, lights still flashing. "Four arrested, two injured and one dead. Bailey and his business associates are on the way over now. A Sergeant Webber is currently being accompanied to the hospital."

"What about the second?"

Ziva smirked. "That would be Tony. Bullet grazed his arms. Just a scratch."

"God. Report back ASAP."

He hung up on her before she could say anything else. She rolled her eyes before walking over to the ambulance. Tony was sitting on the back step, his vest and shirt carelessly thrown to the side, and the EMT was just wrapping some gauze around his upper arm. Tim and Cohen also made their way over to them.

Tony fixed McGee with a heated glare. "Is that what you call giving cover, McGee?"

Tim stopped dead in his tracks, but replied instantly. "Is that what you call running? If I'd known you were going to stroll…"

"Gibbs called!" Ziva announced loudly, hoping to shut them both up and let them pretend they had a shred of professionalism left. "I brought him up to speed and he wants to know how your arm is doing, Tony." Well, he didn't, but she did. Desperately.

Tony looked up to the EMT. "It's good, right?"

He nodded. "Yeah, should be fine. I striped the wound close, so you don't have to get stitches. But you should check the next few days that it doesn't get infected and redress the wound."

"Will do." Tony shook his head and grabbed his vest and coat. He winced in pain and drew in a sharp breath. "Remind me why I do this job again?" He asked, turning to Ziva.

"You hate yourself." She helped him pull on his dress shirt and took the vest and jacket from him.

"Oh yeah, I forgot."

"Wow." Cohen let out a deep breath. "I'm just glad I wore some fashionable Kevlar." He gloated, before shoving half a Snickers bar into his mouth.

Ziva seized him disgustedly. "Oh please. The way you feed yourself I'd be more worried about a heart attack."

"Excuse me? This is natural manly hunger! I just had my first shoot-out in there, all my adrenalin is depleted and I need to regain some energy."

Tim and Tony snickered before the group made their way to their cars. "One of you has to go to the hospital, see how Sergeant Webber is doing. And I need full information on all arrested. Probie!"

Cohen almost snapped to attention. "Boss?"

"Stay and catalogue the evidence. I wanna know about everything that went on here the last few months."

The Probie almost groaned in frustration. That would probably take him *days*. "You know, it's really not so bad working with you guys!" He called after them ironically.

McGee turned around from his car door and shot a quick look over to Tony, before facing Cohen rather grimly. "Really? Compared to what?"

Ooo…oo…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…ooo…

Gibbs looked up at the hesitant knocking on his door. "Yeah!"

McGee poked his head in. "Come on in, Tim."

The older man watched Tim walk up to his desk, seeming rather nervous.

"Something you wanna say?"

Tim gulped, before meeting Gibbs's inquisitive gaze head-on. "I know you're probably gonna say no to this but I want to take that open position in L.A."

"Okay. Go."

"Go?" McGee looked flabbergasted. "Just like that?"

"Isn't that what you wanted to hear?"

"No. I mean yes. I just… are you trying to get rid of me?"