"Thank you for your service, Ensign." Ensign Kelly Gibbs smiled politely at the older man, a World War II veteran, judging by the baseball cap on his head.

"Thank you," she replied. "What did you do in the war, sir?"

"Oh, don't call me sir," he said with a laugh. "I used to work for a living!" She smiled thinly in reply. "I was a corpsman, spent most of my time hanging out with Marines in the Pacific. Did you have family that served?"

"Just about all of them," she replied, smiling again.

"Kell," Lt. Caiden Dillon interrupted, handing her a cup of coffee. She smiled at him.

"Thanks," she replied softly, lacing the fingers of her free hand into his. She turned back to the WWII vet and smiled. "It was nice talking to you."

"Good luck to you, Ensign, Lieutenant," he replied. She smiled again and let Caiden lead her to the low step on the northern end of the World War II Memorial. They both sat, silently sipping their coffee.

"How has staying with Dad been?" Kelly finally asked, just trying to keep her mind from the chaos her life has become.

"He hasn't shot me yet, if that's what you're asking," Caiden replied dryly. "And it's nice to be reacquainted with some of my clothes." Kelly smiled unwillingly at his words, thinking about his water polo sweatshirt, his Class of 2005 sweatshirt, his USNA Ike jacket, and the small collection of USMC tee-shirts. "Kell—"

"Don't," she warned, putting her hand over his mouth. "Don't say it."

"Kelly," he sighed. "Why didn't you say anything about your finger? If they had known you couldn't shoot--"

She glared briefly at him before sighing in defeat. "I know," she admitted. "I know I should have told them, should have told Dad. I didn't want him to know at first, and then when all this stuff with Jack happened, I just forgot. I didn't think I was actually a suspect until they dragged me from the hospital and stuck me in the interrogation room, and then I was so focused on the investigation and my career--" She sighed again. "I'm sorry."

He didn't know what to tell her: that he was uncomfortable with the idea that she was now a fugitive and he knowingly aided and abetted her escape, that he understood what she was going through, that it wasn't her fault. Instead, he simply said, "I love you, Kelly Gibbs. God knows why, but I do."

She smiled at his unusual statement of endearment and kissed him lightly. "I love you, too, Caiden," she said softly. He put his arm over her shoulder and she leaned in to kiss him again. "If Dad were here, we'd both be getting smacked," she said, referring to their public display of affection while both were still in uniform.

"Would that be before or after he arrested us?" Dillon asked. She sighed again, slumping over slightly against him.

"Our careers could be over."

"Well, at least we'll get our dishonorable discharges together," he joked. "Everything will work out, Kelly. I promise."

It was probably the first time the team had ever knowingly handed Ziva the keys and told her to drive fast, but they knew if they needed to get somewhere quickly, she was the one who could deliver.

They were still a few miles away from the Mall when Gibbs' cell phone rang. "Gibbs," he barked into the phone, bracing himself as Ziva took another turn tighter than necessary.

"Lt. Singer identified the sniper's nest," Lt. Colonel Hollis Mann said, not wasting times with pleasantries. "He also figured out why we couldn't find it before."

"Get to the point, Holly."

"He fired from the parking lot," she concluded. "Probably a van, something that would blend in anywhere and wouldn't get any second looks if someone saw that there was a person on the top."

He glanced out the window just as a news van drove by, antennas and satellites adorning the roof. With a quick glance, it wouldn't be too difficult to mistake a sniper's rifle for such equipment. "A news van."

"I guess that's a possibility," Mann said after a pause. "Where are you?"

"On our way to the World War II Memorial," Gibbs replied grimly.

"Sight-seeing?" Mann asked, not following the conversation completely. Gibbs snorted.

"It appears my daughter is more devious than I gave her credit for," he said grimly. "Lt. Dillon snuck off the Navy Yard and picked her up from the hospital without us knowing. We think that's were they went."

Mann hesitated, processing this information with what she knew. "Gibbs, we got a hit on the airline records. Our scout sniper, Corporal Mitchell, landed at Reagan yesterday."

In seconds, Gibbs' mind went to the worst possible scenario. "Ziva, step on it!" he shouted. "Holly, they're after her. Get a team to the Mall and contact DCPD, now!"

"'They?'" Mann repeated.

"Snipers don't work alone."

Corporal Ray Mitchell glanced up toward the driver's seat of the van as he assembled his rifle and frowned. His spotter, Lance Corporal Paul King, had been quiet—unnaturally quiet. Usually he couldn't get the guy to shut up, but ever since they landed in D.C. the day before, getting him to speak was like pulling teeth.

"You sure she's there?" he asked for the third time, more to fill the silence than get any answer. King glanced in the rearview mirror.

"Her cell phone is," he answered, the same response he had given the other two times. He returned his attention to the road, not saying anything else. Mitchell rolled his eyes and went back to his rifle.

"This isn't right," King said a moment later, breaking the silence. "Shit, man, she's a POG doctor."

"We don't know what that bastard McLaughlin told her," Mitchell replied, the same answer he had given the other times King raised his objections to their mission. "And whether she's a grunt or not doesn't matter." King didn't respond as he parked the van and pulled out his binoculars.

"She's there."

In a city like Washington, D.C., one white news van with antennas and bright stickers advertising a station was never anything to be noticed; in fact, there were three in the blocks immediately surrounding the National Mall. Only one, however, was complete with a sniper rifle and a Marine dressed as a tech. "Stop!" Gibbs shouted, his door already swinging open. "Get that van!" he finished as he slammed the door closed behind him.

His Sig was already out and ready, even though he knew from that distance that a slingshot would probably be more effective. His eyes locked on the makeshift sniper nest, he ran toward the van. When the sniper adopted a familiar posture over his weapon, he knew he was too late. "Freeze!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "NCIS!" He heard the report of the M40A3 in the same second he noticed two uniformed figures six hundred feet away at the World War II Memorial fall to the ground.

Lt. Caiden Dillon opened his mouth to point out that it was getting dark and it was probably time for them to turn themselves into NCIS when everything changed. He couldn't say it was something he heard, or something he felt, but he knew that something was wrong. "Get down!" he shouted as he pushed Kelly to the ground. The last thing he was able to process was the hissing sound of a .308 full metal jacket coming for his head.

"Kelly!" Agent Gibbs yelled, the anguish evident in his voice for anyone to hear. He hazarded a glance at that white van to see the sniper ducking back into the van, the wheels beginning to turn as it pulled away from the curb. For a split second, he didn't know if he should chase after it or not. Deciding in that instant that Ziva was more than capable of using her car to stop another--she had proven that already--he sprinted toward the World War II Memorial.

He arrived to find his daughter on the cold granite ground, mostly covered by Lt. Dillon. "Kelly!" he shouted again, his heart simultaneously feeling like it would burst from the exertion of the run and stop from fear that he wasn't fast enough. In that instant, a million possibilities and scenarios ran through his mind, each more frightening than the last. Then he saw her eyes open and heard the low groan from her throat, and just about died from relief.

"My head," she moaned. "What?—Caiden!" Her eyes suddenly focused, she tightened her grip on her boyfriend's elbows. "Caiden!"

"Oww," he managed. "Kell, that hurts." He opened his eyes to find himself inches from her face, her expression filled with worry.

"Were you hit?" she asked frantically. He shook his head as he began to sit up.

"No," he finally said. "I don't think so," he amended. "I heard the bullet."

"You're both okay?" Gibbs asked, helping Kelly to a seated position.

"Aside from my head hitting the ground," Kelly replied. She gave Caiden a shaky smile. "I'm not a football player. I can't handle being tackled."

He smiled, relief apparent on his face. "Oh, God, Kell." He couldn't manage anything else as he reached for her and pulled her close. "Thank God you're alright."

Knowing when he wasn't needed, Agent Gibbs stood back and watched them for a moment. The full weight of what had just happened had finally hit Kelly; he could tell by the pallor of her skin and the way her hands were shaking as she held onto Dillon that the next few days were going to be hard on her. He couldn't help but feel like he had let her down--again.

Sixteen years ago

"Kelly," Gunnery Sergeant Leroy Jethro Gibbs said gently, tucking a lock of his daughter's hair behind her ear and trying to keep a brave face on, for her sake. It wasn't easy. Even though her doctors had spent over half an hour explaining her injuries and trying to prepare Gibbs for what he was going to see, he still had a hard time believing that the slight form on that hospital bed was his daughter. She had large purple circles around both eyes, which they said was from the bleeding into her brain after the accident. A patch of her hair had been shaved off for brain surgery--his little girl had brain surgery!--an oxygen tube ran under her nose, and her left arm was covered in a bright pink cast. He wished he could have been there before they put that cast on her arm, so he could tell them that she didn't like pink, that his eight-year-old daughter knew how to shoot a rifle and rode horses on the beach and liked to sail and didn't like pink. But he hadn't been there. He hadn't been there when Shannon was shot and drove the car into a telephone pole, wasn't there when they rushed Kelly to the hospital, wasn't there for the emergency brain surgery or the surgery for her arm or for to be by her side when she woke from her coma. He had been somewhere in the Middle East, off on some mission to eliminate a target he couldn't care less about, and it had taken them more than a week to track him down and get him to D.C. A sob escaped his lips before he could stop it.

"Daddy?" He opened his eyes to see Kelly's bright blue eyes fixed on him, a quizzical expression on her face. He squeezed her hand gently.

"Hi, Kelly," he said, trying to smile and hoping he wasn't failing too miserably. "How are you feeling?"

"My head hurts," she whispered. He nodded and pressed the nurse's call button by her head before pressing his lips to her temple.

"I'll kiss it better," he promised. She gave him a tired smile.

"Daddy?" she asked again. "What happened?"

He fought the urge to squeeze his eyes closed in pain. "There was an accident," he said gently, "when your mom was driving." He would tell her the truth, later, when she was strong enough to handle it. "The car hit a telephone pole, and you were hurt pretty bad. You're in the hospital now, and the doctors and nurses are taking good care of you."

She tried to squeeze his hand back, the pressure of her fingers barely registering in Gibbs' mind. "Is Mommy okay?"

"No, honey," he said as gently as he could, fighting to keep his own tears back. "Kelly, Mom didn't make it. Mommy went to heaven." Her big blue eyes filled with tears, an almost disbelieving look on her face, before her entire body shook in silent sobs. Gibbs held onto her as she cried, and swore that he would do more, that he would do everything he could to keep her safe. He had failed her once, and wouldn't do so again.

Gibbs blinked back the memory and focused on the young woman in front of him. Not for the first time, he wondered what a psychologist would make of her—the girl who lost her mother to a sniper had grown up to become one of the best riflists in the world. Now, she recently lost a former boyfriend and came close to losing her current one--and herself--to another sniper, and as soon as she could, she would be right back at the firing range, preparing for her next competition. He smiled slightly at the irony before looking away to greet the CID and DCPD teams that had just arrived.

He reached into his pocket as his cell phone rang, seeing DiNozzo's name on the display. "Gibbs," he answered.

"We got 'em, Boss."

"Good work, DiNozzo. I'll meet you back at NCIS." He snapped the phone closed before returning his attention to the two junior officers in front of him. "Dillon," he barked. The pilot looked up, still holding Kelly close. "Where's your cover?"

As if just realizing it wasn't on, he patted his head before glancing around him. A second later, he held up the folded garrison cap for Gibbs to see.

"You want this as evidence?" he asked, a strange smile on his face. Kelly looked up to see the bullet holes through the cloth cover, and to everyone's surprise, started laughing.

"Holy shit, Caiden," was all she managed to get out in her laughter. Dillon only grinned in response and held her closer. Gibbs gave his first real smile since all of this began. She was going to be fine.