A/N: thanks to everyone who left reviews, faved or alerted. Sorry this has taken so long to post but work has been incredibly busy, leaving me with very little time to write. Then there's been the problem that when I do have time, I'm finding it really hard to get motivated... what with my disgust at the lack of respect shown for MW and the character of TD after 13 years of loyalty to the show plus the reaction from some fans...well I've found the going tough. Thanks go to RCEpups for her assistance and suggestions for this episode. I hope you enjoy this one.

Series: There's Always Tom Morrow

Episode: One Shot One Kill

Title: Macho, Macho Man

Characters: Tom Morrow, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Pete Watson (OC) Chris Pacci, Ric Balboa, Tony DiNozzo and Arron Hotchner (CMs) Larry, Dennis, Raul and Caro -FBI agents (OCs)

"I'm telling you, those arrogant Navy cops fucked up the crime scene." The painfully thin Fibbie grumbled, his deep-set brown eyes expressing anger. He was talking loudly enough for the two men sitting at the table behind them, eating lunch to sit up and take notice of their conversation. "We're so damned lucky the case never had to go to court or we'd have been up Shit Creek without a paddle."

"Tell 'em how'd they fucked up the crime scene, Dennis." The florid-faced agent entreated his partner solemnly as he ran his hand through his strawberry blonde hair, arranging it to try to disguise his receding hairline, and fooling no one.

"Didn't they process the scene properly?" A mousey blonde, enquired curiously.

"No, not their crime scene, Caro…ours. They stole our evidence from the second murder scene. Our crime scene," Dennis stated baldly. "Friggin cowboys!

"They what! What did they steal, trace evidence?" The female agent demanded indignantly, her voice raised as the whole restaurant turned to stare at her.

"Shhh!" Larry hissed at her.

"Nope. They swiped the damned bullet. While that butthead Leroy Gibbs kicked up a stink about it being their crime scene because the vic was a Marine…blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, he'd ordered his team to find the bullet. They removed it from the scene right under all our noses, then took off like bats out of hell before we realised what they were up to," Dennis explained distastefully.

"I heard they stole a cadaver from us," A compactly built Latino man, finally decided to weigh in on the discussion. Up until that moment he'd been focused solely on shovelling vast quantities of Gumbo into his mouth.

"Naw. That happened last September, Raul. Ya know…the poisoned Marine on Air Force One in Wichita." Dennis snorted, disgustedly. FBI memories were long and equally unforgiving. Particularly when it came to them being made to look foolish and incompetent by an insignificant bunch of feds from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

"The unsuccessful attempt on the POTUS? That really happened? I thought NCIS stealing a cadaver was just an urban myth," Caro chipped in, somewhat incredulously.

"Oh it happened, alright. They managed to hijack the plane and fly it back to DC and when we went to take custody of the body, they pulled a switcheroo. Had that lap dog of Gibbs' hide in the body bag instead of the corpse so their ME could spirit it away, right under Fornell's nose. Talk about a laughingstock."

"Gibbs lap dog, isn't he the one that shot the sniper? DiNardo… DiNardi?" Raul asked in between mouthfuls

"Yeah…that's the one. Lucky shot."

What makes you think that?"

I've heard stuff. He's an ex-cop. Gibbs recently hired a Secret Service agent, a profiler to replace his SFA, rumour has it. " Dennis stated. "Might explain why he didn't even bother giving DiNardi backup for the stakeout. He was on his own when he went after the killer. Nearly got shot too."

Florid Larry looked repulsed. "Maybe there's a good reason why none of the Navy cops want to work with him, and why Gibbs wants him gone. They're part of the military after all and they're big on the whole 'Don't ask don't tell' crap. Just saying, they don't like his type."

Dennis leaned forward. "You've heard he's a fag, too? He put the moves on you, Larry?

Larry flushed bright red. "Hell no! I'd have rearranged his face if he'd tried anything like that with me. I'm no fag-lover. Actually, it was Gibbs' profiler chick. She was making cracks about his undercover costume and The Village People over the comms while we were all on the stakeout with Gibbs posing as Marine recruiter bait."

"Still that doesn't prove anything," the female agent objected immediately. "Certainly doesn't mean he's gay. She might not like him and be yanking his chain, especially if she wants his job."

"Yeah but that vampire freaky chick – their lab monkey, Scuito was teasing him about dating his high school music teacher who was a guy. Plus, have you seen him? He's one of those pretty boys, always worrying about what he's wearing." Dennis observed mockingly, his off-the-rack cheap suit badly stained with ketchup from the steak he was eating.

Caro looked at him, repulsed. "Imagine that!" she quipped.

Impervious to her barb he continued. "Besides, why else would everyone at NCIS refused to ride along with him? Gibbs was probably hoping that the sniper would shoot him, save him going to the trouble of firing him and having to fill in all the paperwork. After all, from what I hear, it wouldn't be the first time he's put him into dangerous situation, like bouncing down the beltway in a body bag." Dennis chuckled before something else occurred to him.

"Hey do you reckon that he made a pass at Gibbs?" he asked his fellow diners.

"If he did, then he's even dumber than he looks. Gibbs is a sniper and word has it that the Second B for bastard is sleeping with his profiler." Larry wiped the sweat from his face with a dubiously clean handkerchief, flushed from the spicy marinated ribs he'd just consumed.

Raul had the last word on the subject. "Not to mention Gibbs is a Marine. He'd rip his balls off he tried to put the moves on him."

The foursome looked at the time and hastily called for the check, departing in a hurry, still unaware that their whole conversation had been observed and recorded by one of the two dinners sitting behind them.

~000~

Pete Watson cut into his medium rare steak, which had just been delivered to their table, and glanced over at his old friend, Tom Morrow. Every second month, the pair met up for lunch to catch up – work permitting. They'd formed a friendship more than two decades ago and were still as close as ever. Peter was now an associate director at the Department of Homeland Security and catching up was often tricky, but definitely worth the effort. They'd both learnt that their work would always get in the way of personal relationships if you let it, so unless there was an imminently impending terrorist attack, their catch-up lunches were sacrosanct.

While they ate at a number of establishments around DC, this unpretentious and welcoming bistro – LBH was a favourite. It served excellent steak and seafood dishes and was always booked out well in advance. Not only was the food great but the service was speedy – a definite plus for business lunches. Clearly they weren't the only ones in the DC law enforcement community to appreciate its good points, either.

Unfortunately, the four federal agents at the table near theirs' weren't being exactly circumspect and Tom and himself had been privy to pretty much their entire conversation. Frankly, Pete couldn't say that the conversation they'd just overheard made him feel happy.

He looked across at the NCIS Director, who'd listened in to the four FBI agent's conversation. "Did you know about this?"

Tom looked particularly grim. "Some of it, obviously. I knew that we investigated the first Marine recruiter shooting of course, and that we set up a sting with the Fibbies to catch the perp after the second one went down. I also knew that the FBI had taken custody of the second Marine and the crime scene and that Gibbs was pissed off about it. I was aware NCIS had the bullet from the second murder - but I just assumed that was because we processed the first bullet so it was an issue of standardising the ballistic evidence. That plus the fact that our forensic scientist is a foremost ballistics expert, so it seemed natural and logical that we should process it too. I didn't know about their unauthorised removal of the bullet, though."

Watson scowled, looking sickened. "Much as it pains me to have to agree with those jerks about anything, those guys were right about one thing, Tommy. If the sniper hadn't been shot and killed and the case ended up in court, he probably would have been acquitted. That or at the very least, the DA would have had to drop the charges for the second murder. Having two federal agencies fighting over a body and stealing evidence is inexcusable. Dear Lord, have we all learnt nothing at all after 9/11 when it comes to idiotic, blind competitiveness between law enforcement professionals. It's not about us…it's about the victims and their families."

Morrow looked ill too. "This is a continuation of the whole business of one upmanship on Air Force One. It has to stop before it goes any further."

Pete nodded. "Absolutely. We need to come up with effective protocols for inter-agency cooperation and we need to set a good example for our underlings. By the way, are you going to eat that?" he indicated his friend's untouched grilled salmon.

Morrow took a bite of his food absentmindedly, his expression conveying that as per normal, the meal was well prepared. "I agree with both your statements, Pete. Perhaps we need to plan some joint training exercises between the various agencies to promote cooperation. Maybe come up with some exchange programs and swap personnel."

Watson snorted. "Exchange programs? You just want to foist Gibbs off onto DHS or the Fibbies and get him out of your hair for a bit. That's hardly going to engender inter-agency cooperativeness and goodwill, old friend."

Tom smirked. "Well yeah, I'll admit that it does sounds like a pretty attractive proposition but I was actually thinking that I could send Gibbs' profiler to the FBI and see if they could retrain her or something. Not sure what the Secret Service's idea of profiling is but if she's typical of the calibre of profilers they're producing, well then we're in deep shit. Don't think she could profile her was out of a paper bag."

"Oh c'mon Tommy, she can't be that bad, can she?" Peter quizzed his friend optimistically, assuming that Morrow was being overly negative about the psychological profiler.

Noting his old friend's pained expression, he frowned. "She can be that bad?"

Tom pulled a face that indicated in the affirmative. "You tell me, Pete old-man. The BFF bomber – Todd signed her out of hospital and took her home after she was found buried in a grave with amnesia and Todd bonded with her. Saw her as a harmless victim in need of milk and cookies. Then she drove her over and escorted her up to her office so she could collect the explosives to blow up the foyer and the CEO – her ex-lover who jilted her when she wanted him to divorce his wife. Her harmless victim, I might add had already killed BFF's security chief when he terminated her services."

Watson winced. "That's bad!"

"Well… yeah… and in her first month, she fixated on proving a young seaman hadn't committed suicide because he was Catholic and they don't kill themselves cuz it's a mortal sin. Problem was that she also failed to pick up on the fact that he left a bomb on board the USS Foster to take out people he viewed as threatening him. Gibbs' team got to the Captain just in the nick of time to save his life but not to disarm the bomb."

"Ouch!"

"Yeah huge freakin repair bill. Pissed off Navy! Plus, another case she worked on specifically as a profiler, Todd failed to identify an eco-terrorist, even though the suspects had been narrowed down to a handful of individuals. That time we nearly lost a nuclear sub and its entire crew, except that Gibbs realised literally at the eleventh hour why the terrorist committed suicide when word came over the radio, identifying the impostor. He didn't kill himself to evade capture; it was part of his backup plan involving him swallowing the device, knowing he'd be stored in the sub's freezer, causing the device to trigger, releasing the gas.

"Let me guess, the eco-terrorist wasn't Catholic, so she just assumed he'd committed suicide? Damn it Tommy, that is bad!"

"Tell me about it! And then," Morrow continued, "There's this sniper case with the Marine recruiters. If the killer hadn't left a calling card – a white feather - they wouldn't have known that the killer had been there, despite her being in the recruitment office for the express purpose of identifying the killer. She focused exclusively on the people coming in to meet with the recruiter and totally overlooked individuals making service deliveries to the office."

Peter pursed his lips. "Okay, fair point. Bad is probably an understatement. Perhaps the Behavioural Analysis Unit will consider taking her on as an intern."

Morrow nodded. "Jason Gideon has a way with apprentices. Maybe if they take Todd on and train her, I can volunteer Jethro for firearms training of their agents. He can whip their lot into shape on the firing range."

Peter looked at him with concern, "So do you think the scuttlebutt the Fibbies heard is right and Gibbs only has her on his team because he has the hots for her? If she is that bad I am surprised that she is still on the team, Gibbs has a reputation of not tolerating incompetence."

"I don't believe that is the case," responded Morrow diplomatically. "Gibbs has always had a soft spot for women and he'd be loath to admit that he made a mistake hiring her, especially since she had no investigative experience and the only thing she had to offer was as a profiler."

"Yes, I believe you've mentioned his ludicrous Rule 6 before; apologies are a sign of weakness. I would assume that it also extends to admitting he's made a mistake?" Watson scoffed at the sheer outlandishness of the idea.

"Exactly. However, I must admit, every time he puts DiNozzo in a dangerous situation it makes the team dynamics look hinky.

Tom tucked into his fish, resolving to have an urgent discussion with his opposite number at the FBI about their antagonistic approach to the Marine Recruiter Killer case. Since NCIS had already begun investigating the case with the first killing, it was ridiculous for them not to form a joint task force rather than try to throw Gibbs team off the second crime scene.

While he couldn't condone the MCRT misappropriating ballistic evidence, if the FBI hadn't been so bloody-minded, they could have processed the scene together. Pete was right – this one-upmanship had to stop and they had to lead their people by example.

He also urgently needed to talk with Gibbs about how he obtained the bullet. Unfortunately, Gibbs only tended to worry about getting what he wanted and about solving the cases, his way. He wasn't exactly worried about the legal requirements if they got in his way of solving the case quickly. And that led to a number of cases being thrown out and not resulting in actual convictions. When that occurred, Gibbs just blamed the lawyers for letting evidence get 'thrown out of court'. Jethro needed to clean up his act too.

Tom glanced across the table at his old friend who seemed to be enjoying his meal, even if he was preoccupied. "Something else on your mind?"

Watson swallowed another piece of beef, savouring the umami juices decadently stampeding over his tastebuds. "That agent of yours, Tom. Was he already out of the closet prior to this op.?"

Morrow started in surprise. "DiNozzo? As far as I know he's straight."

"Not according to that scuttlebutt. Have to wonder what your profiler and Abigail Sciuto were thinking, making remarks about a colleague's orientation over shared comms on a stakeout though."

Tom protested feebly. "Surely they were mucking around, just having a joke, Pete. You know how that goes on a stakeout. You're not suggesting that there was malice behind the teasing?" Even as he said it, he conceded it sounded a lame and pathetic rationale…more like making excuses.

"C'mon Tom. You know how homophobic certain sections of law enforcement are – like some sections of the military. You don't joke about someone's sexual orientation when you're around cops and agents, especially if you don't know them well. And since your profiler worked protection at the Secret Service and Scuito deals with agents on a daily basis, both of them should know better.

"All it takes is a whisper that an agent isn't straight and it can spread like wildfire and ruin their career or a lot worse. Add to that the insinuation that Gibbs wants to replace DiNozzo with Todd but, according to you, she keeps screwing up…are you sure that there was no malice?" Pete questioned him dubiously.

The NCIS director scowled, realising that this was a topic close to his friend's heart. Pete had been forced from the field when the rumours and innuendo about him being gay persisted and he was often left without a partner to work with or worse, without backup when things got hairy. Then there'd been a couple of unexplained 'muggings' that TPTB realised were probably gay-bashing by Watson's colleagues since they'd supposedly taken place right in front of headquarters, by unknown assailants because he'd steadfastly refused to identify anyone.

The 'solution' had been to offer him a job in management which was a great loss for all, since he was an excellent field agent but the bottom line was that they couldn't guarantee he'd be safe, working in what amounted to a homophobic workplace. At least in the office, anti-gay bigotry wouldn't endanger lives, Pete's and innocent members of the public who got caught in the middle.

Something occurred to Morrow and he groaned. Pete looked at him quizzically. "What?"

"DiNozzo was the one that took the Marine sniper down. Shot him in an alley – almost got shot himself. The Fibbies conveniently turned up just seconds after it was all over and I never thought anything of it…until now. DiNozzo said they couldn't get rid of his ass fast enough – kicked him off the crime scene. I simply put it down to competitiveness; after all this whole case has been ultra-competitive between the two agencies."

Pete looked grave. "But now you're wondering if the FBI were already there, waiting but hanging back, hoping he might get into trouble because they think he's gay? It's possible, I'm afraid. It wouldn't be the first time and it definitely won't be the last time." He absentmindedly took a piece of potato and used it to soak up juices from his beef, before placing the morsel in his mouth and chewing it distracted.

Tom cursed, the expression in his eyes was one of desolation. It could just be a coincidence but one of Gibbs' unwritten rules was that there was no such thing as coincidence and he didn't really believe in them either. Regardless though, he simply couldn't afford to take a risk. "Damn it, Pete. This sucks!"

His friend chuckled mirthlessly. "Tell me about it. So what are you planning on doing now, Tom?"

Stabbing pieces of salad viciously, before inspecting then eating them, he considered his options grimly. Not that there were all that many – he was always going to have to put the safety of his agent first. Finally, he responded. "I have a duty of care to DiNozzo. If I have the slightest concern that he was left without backup on the takedown of the sniper this week, I have to ensure it doesn't happen again.

"I need to consult with the director of the FBI. There'll need to be an inquiry into the takedown, conducted by Internal Affairs obviously to determine if their agents deliberately failed to provide backup to DiNozzo."

"Are you also going to clean up your own house, Tom? Find out why Gibbs sent him in alone and why the open mic conversation by Todd and Scuito occurred?" Pete asked.

"Absolutely, it goes without saying that I'll be speaking to my own people. The whole situation will need to be part of the IA investigation."

"And if it was deliberate?" Pete gently pressed his friend, sipping his sparkling water and trying to sound dispassionate rather than overly invested.

"I'll have no other choice but to transfer him for his own safety. He's an undercover expert, so I can send him into OSP or maybe I could transfer him to the West coast where he could make a fresh start or if that isn't practical, then I'll offer him a position in Europe. He speaks Spanish and Italian so he'd fit right in but the point is he shouldn't have to transfer.

"Damned straight!" Pete replied emphatically, indicating to their waiter that they'd like the bill now.

~000~

The director had summoned Gibbs as soon as he'd returned to the office. Now he was regarding the team lead of his MCRT with disfavour. He'd get to the issue of stealing of the ballistic evidence in a minute. Right now he needed to know something that had been bugging him since he'd finished his lunch and his protection detail had driven him back to the Navy Yard.

"Tell me, Gibbs. Is the reason why you had DiNozzo on solo stakeout instead of organising another agent to be his backup because he's gay?" Tom demanded harshly, hoping that the recent trend of Tony being placed in jeopardy by his supervisor or getting injured wasn't because of gay bashing.

Jethro snorted. "DiNozzo's not gay, Tom, so why would you think that? What's this about?"

Tom described the portion of the conversation he and Pete Watson had overheard regarding DiNozzo and FBI speculation concerning his sexual orientation. The director was surprised to see Gibbs exhibiting that half smile of his that suggested he was amused, or that he knew something you didn't know.

"Care to share, Jethro?"

"He's a she."

"He who?" Morrow questioned, feeling confused.

"The high school music teacher. He's not a he…he's a she – her name's Wendy Miller."

"And you know this how?" Tom asked, wondering why Gibbs would know such an obscure piece of intel. He knew that Gibbs expected that his agents wouldn't keep secrets from him, but being able to pull his agent's high school teacher's name out of his butt like that…it was just plain creepy.

"She was his fiancée."

"Tony was engaged to his high school music teacher? The one that left him at the altar after he joined NCIS and she broke his heart?"

"Yep. One and the same. So. Not. Gay."

"Okay, so why would Abby say something that was obviously false? And what's with her and Todd making all those cracks about Village People and insinuating that DiNozzo is gay?"

"Teasing." Gibbs unknowingly echoed his own inadequate rationale with Pete earlier at lunch and he realised it didn't sound any better the second time around.

"C'mon Jethro. There are some things you don't joke about…not when you're on a stakeout and on shared comms with a bunch of law enforcement agents you don't know. They should know better than that...they do know better, so what the hell were they thinking?"

Not giving Jethro a chance to make any more weak excuses that neither of them believed, he moved on.

Shaking his head, he glared at his senior supervisory agent. "Based on what we overheard, I have no choice but to institute an IA investigation into whether the FBI agents deliberately left him to face down the perp on his own because of their perception of his sexual orientation. And IA will be wanting answers from Dr Sciuto and Probationary Agent Todd too in regard to their inappropriate conversation. At a minimum it is sexual harassment, and worst case scenario, it could be construed as intentional slander with malicious intent."

"See the thing is, that at the end of the day, whether DiNozzo is gay or not doesn't really matter as much as the perception of others that he is. If the DC law enforcement community chooses to believe it, then convincing them otherwise is next to impossible. I'm sure you've seen analogous situations in the Marine Corps, which is why the most likely outcome is that Tony is going to have to transfer off the team for his safety."

He scowled at Gibbs when he started to protest. "Take it up with Sciuto and Todd. Expect to be asked to defend your reasons for not giving Tony a partner on the stakeout. It didn't escape my attention that you didn't provide an acceptable explanation about that either. All this is beginning to smack of intent, what with all the scuttlebutt about you and Todd that is going around. Again, even if there is no truth to the rumours, this is all about perception and appearances rather than fact. Don't be too surprised if you also lose Agent Todd due to the appearance of her bias and her lack of judgement."

"And it also goes without saying that I'll be wanting to know how you thought that stealing ballistic evidence from the second crime scene was in any way acceptable actions for federal agents or how it would have played out in court when the defence rightly questioned the chain-of-custody. Starting right now, you're going to be held accountable for evidence that gets thrown out of court as a result of you failing to follow procedure because you think you're above the law. This agency is going to look at conviction rate and not just solve rate to determine the top team at NCIS.

In the meantime, get out of my office so I can make some calls…and tell Agent DiNozzo, I want to see him in an hour."

Coda

April 14th 2004

Chris Pacci stretched out in his home office chair, enjoying the balmy spring evening as he powered up his home computer. The senior supervisory agent had finally headed off home after a day, mostly filled with boring paperwork, interspersed with a pro-forma late afternoon meeting with the Special Agent in Charge, Leon Vance to round out a super tedious day. By the time he'd finished his meeting, Chris' SFA, Anthony DiNozzo had already sent the junior members of the team home and kind-heartedly completed Pacci's last few forms.

He'd left them on his desk to be signed before he'd departed too. It meant that Chris was able to make a speedy exit from the office after adding his signature. It was little things like that which made Pacci realise what a gem he had in his new senior field agent. One of these day's he'd talk Tony into revealing what was behind his annoyingly effective axiom 'work smarter not harder' so he could adopt it too.

It was three months since Chris had heard the news that Tony was being forced into leaving DC due to ugly rumours regarding his sexual orientation which were running rife in the law enforcement community. Furious that the young agent was being forced off the MCRT through no fault of his own, Chris had made an appointment to see the Director. He'd offered to partner with DiNozzo if he chose to transfer to the West Coast since Pacci had no family ties in DC. He did however have a couple of cousins, twice removed, who lived in Oregon which meant if he was on the west coast he'd get to see them more often.

The last of his DC team, his former probie Cassie Yates had left his team last year to concentrate on undercover work and he was currently stuck investigating cold cases. Not that there was anything wrong with them but he just preferred working on active cases. So the experienced agent felt like there was nothing keeping him in DC, apart from a couple of cases which had been nagging at him for eons. Still, there was no guarantee that they'd ever become active.

One was a break and enter that had gone bad when the wife of a Marine Master Sergeant had returned home in the middle of the burglary and been shot in the head. She was still in a coma and Chris had never managed to charge anyone for the crime, despite expending many hundreds of hours of work on the case. He was hoping that eventually someone who knew something would come forward, their conscience finally getting the better of them.

The second albatross around his neck was the case of 12 million dollars that a Lieutenant Commander Voss had embezzled, yet Chris was never able to successfully track down the money. And then when Voss died in a fiery car crash, the cased seemed to die with him, much to Chris' frustration, not to mention the Navy. But hanging around DC on the off-chance that one day he'd get a hit on either case was ridiculous, especially with Tony facing banishment for something that other people had caused.

The truth was that when Chris looked at the crap-fest that was Tony's life, he saw a promising young agent and felt it was a case of 'there but for the grace of god go I'. That it could so easily have been him, rather than DiNozzo. He'd never been married and any relationships he had with women, he'd been incredibly discreet about, some people might go so far as to say obsessively so. In fact, it would have been easy for his colleagues if they'd bothered to notice him, to reach the conclusion that he was gay but fortunately, Chris was a quiet, steady sort of guy, rather than brilliant. He knew others saw him as a solid, dependable type but not the sort that anyone was threatened by or noticed overly much. He simply wasn't the sort of agent to set the law enforcement world on fire, rather the kind who flew under the radar.

Not like DiNozzo, who attracted attention whether he wanted it or not. What with serving under Gibbs and being recruited from the Baltimore PD to the MCRT…being one of their youngest detectives on record, a genius at under-cover work, a talented investigator. Then there was his outward appearance of living a charmed and privileged life - his great grandfather building up a million-dollar trucking empire probably having something to do with that impression. The DiNozzo fortune had apparently been expanded and diversified by each successive generation, until Tony. Plus, there was the fact that the kid looked like a model or a movie star and had a supposed social life to match. A helluva lot, on the surface anyway, for other people to be envious of.

So he and DiNozzo had ended up coming out west, hoping that a fresh start would mean that the rumours would remain in DC. Working in the San Diego office they'd been given a probie and a junior agent and were slowly becoming a force to be reckoned with. So far their closure rate had been nudging 95 percent, which was the highest in the San Diego office, although it was early days yet. It would require a full year or two of cases to truly determine what their real closure rate would be.

Bottom line, they were both settling in well, all things considered. Although Tony was far more reserved than he used to be with his colleagues, except for Chris who'd he'd become pretty close to, grateful for his support. Still it was pretty understandable that his trust in his work mates had been shaken after what had happened on the Marine sniper case. Chris figured it would be a long time, if ever before he truly let his guard down around the others on their team.

Most weekends he and DiNozzo ended up hanging out together, watching ballgames, sailing - since Tony seemed to have picked up a fair bit of experience at his fancy boarding schools or maybe it was it summer camps. They'd even been learning to surf together, albeit with mixed success thus far.

Back in DC, there'd been some pretty significant changes following the whole fallout from the Marine sniper case. One momentous change was that closure rates for field teams were now calculated based upon a combination of solve and conviction rates. Following this change, Gibbs' team closure rates had tanked; a combination of the new formula for calculating the closure rate because so many of their cases got thrown out of court on technicalities. That and the absence of DiNozzo with his eidetic memory and investigative skills had negatively affected their ability to solve cases.

The end result was that Ric Balboa's team, based on the revised formula for calculating closure rates, now had a statistically significantly higher success rate than Gibbs' team. The result of which was that TPTB decided in the short to medium term to make them the MCRT instead of Gibbs team. Needless to say that hadn't gone down well.

Agent Todd had been officially censured and suspended for four weeks without pay for sexual harassment, as had Abby Sciuto and had undergone mandatory counselling. They'd both been lucky to escape so lightly. Pacci didn't think they deserved it since both of them had to know already just how homophobic cops and feds could be. He couldn't help but wonder if they'd learnt their lesson – he damn well hoped so, otherwise they could just as easily destroy someone else's life and career.

Now he was luxuriating in the comfort of his new bungalow with a second beer. He'd just finished devouring a plateful of lasagne, courtesy of one of the other agents on their team. Stretching out the kinks, he checked his inbox as he worked his methodical way through his emails. Seeing Aaron Hotchner from the BAU had contacted him, he opened the email, curious to see what he had to say. About six weeks ago, Hotch had looked him up and found he was in San Diego. He had encountered Aaron and his team several years ago on a series of abductions where several of the victims had been connected to the Navy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Chris and the reserved profiler had clicked and become friends, even if they rarely socialised.

So when AD Erin Strauss agreed, in the interests of interagency cooperation that the BAU - specifically Jason Gideon - would take on a NCIS probationary agent and profiler, Caitlyn Todd and mentor her, Hotch called for some background on her. After giving him a brief overview of what he'd observed of her profiling exploits and a few acerbic observations on her professional behaviour he'd pushed the whole matter to the back of his mind. He'd never expected to hear back from Hotchner so he was surprised to hear from his contact. He read the email, curious to see what the profiler had to say.

To: chrispacci atncis

From: aaronhotchner atbau

Greeting Chris,

Just thought you might be interested in an update on our intern. Afraid she was less than impressed with being sent back to 'school' and I hate to admit it but the team was equally underwhelmed by her profiling skills.

Well your observations of her tendency to identify too easily with victims or their families proved rather germane. It happened during a case we worked on, where the grieving husband turned out to be a serial sexual predator who killed his wife when she became suspicious of him. His crocodile tears at his wife's death engendered Todd's sympathy – she claimed he has kind eyes and she refused to accept that he might be the unsub.

She also started making waves in the office with some members of our team. Todd expressed the view that Derek Morgan was a dumb cop, and a male chauvinist pig who didn't respect women. She lectured (hectored) our technical analyst, Penelope Garcia for flirting with Morgan, opining Penelope was encouraging Derek's sexually derogatory behaviour towards female staff members. Plus, she seems to think that Garcia's attire is overly feminine for the workplace, encouraging male patriarchal domination of females. According to Todd, 'slutty Goth attire' as she labelled it, was acceptable though because Dr Sciuto dresses to express her own sense of sexuality. Not to fulfil sexist males possessing overly active libidos and fantasies of chaste, obedient and adoring females like Garcia does.

Elle Greenaway and Jennifer Jarreau, two of our agents are up in arms, accusing her of reverse sexism towards males. She's quick to complain about any comments or actions she feels are caused by her gender but perfectly happy to accept concessions for being female, if it helps to get her out of messy or unpleasant duties she doesn't like or feels are beneath her. And if that wasn't enough when it comes to her interpersonal skills or lack thereof, she's pretty exasperated with Dr Spencer Reid. Our young resident genius, who with his eidetic memory and love of statistics, has proved to be rather quick to correct her assertions about sexual behaviour, especially what she regards as aberrant behaviour. Frequently, I'm afraid. This did not go down well!

After such an auspicious beginning, Gideon is just about ready to give up on her. Especially since she doesn't accept constructive criticism easily or take it on board – although she's certainly not averse to offering it.

But enough about us - how is life out in sunny California? When winter arrives, I'm sure I'll be even more envious of your new lifestyle. Hope you and DiNozzo are settling in okay and aren't too homesick? Next time we find ourselves on the west coast or you're back in DC, let's catch up for a meal and you can tell me about your new team.

Take care my friend

Aaron Hotchner

Chris stared at the email, not entirely surprised at what Hotch had to say. It sounded like the eccentric but brilliant Jason Gideon was getting pissed off by Todd. Which wasn't all that shocking if she was getting short tempered with his young protégé, Spencer Reid. From what Aaron had told him in the past, Gideon was highly protective of him; his relationship with Reid a complicated mix of paternal, mentoring and treating the young man as personal secretary cum valet. Bottom line, if you wanted to stay on his good side you never criticised Dr Reid.

Sounded like Todd was underestimating the people she worked with…again. And frankly, making an enemy of Penelope Garcia was not the brightest of moves because from what he'd heard about her, she was one scary lady when pissed off, even if she tended to dress in floral. Really, would Todd never learn?

As he opened up a catch up email from his former probie Cassie Yates, he wondered how the devil Cate ever got onto the Presidential protection team in the first place. Then he opened up the photos she'd sent of her latest couple of undercover Ops and he started to laugh at her as a soccer mom and then as a high priced hooker. His little probie was all grown up!

May 2nd 2004:

Chris was working in the bull pen when his phone rang. Answering it, he found Eric Balboa on the other end.

"Hey Man. It's Balboa."

"Rocky, what can I do for you? Is something wrong?" A whole heap of potentially tragic news immediately springing into Pacci's head.

"Nope, s'all good, Amigo. Have some great news for you. That 12 million- dollar embezzlement case of yours, well it suddenly heated up. You asked a realtor who'd sold Lt Commander Voss' family townhouse - the one that his father lost when he went bankrupt - to notify you if it ever came onto the market and was resold."

"Yeah, I did but I thought it was a long-shot. It was sold?" Chris asked eagerly.

"Yeah, someone called Amanda Reed purchased it. A hottie according to Sykes," Balboa quipped. Chris knew that Sykes was Ric's SFA. "So since you were the investigating team and you were here in DC when they tried to notify you of the sale, the case got assigned to the MCRT. We've had her under surveillance for almost a week. She bought the property, paid cash for it and the sale was settled in just fifteen days. The other pretty suspicious detail is that she also lived within ten miles of four navy bases where Voss was stationed, making it highly likely that Amanda Reed and Voss knew each other."

Chris felt a thrill of excitement. This was the first hint that the case might be solvable. "Finally, anything come of the stakeout, Rocky?"

"Yeah, ya could say that. Stephanopoulos and O'Keefe staged a diversion while Sykes purloined her trash. They pretended to have a marital dispute on the street outside her townhouse while Sykes swapped her trash and left someone else's in case she got suspicious and checked.

"Anyhow, Abby managed to get DNA off a few bottles of cosmetics. Man she is a cosmetics junkie. Get this, Chris! Abby found Voss' DNA and fingerprints on it."

"Damn it! Voss is alive?"

"In a manner of speaking. He'd faked his own death, buddy. When we went to arrest Reed she resisted arrest and we shot her. But here's the clincher, Chris. Amanda Reed IS Voss. She's undergoing gender reassignment. We're waiting for him um her to regain consciousness so we can charge her."

Chris was stunned, shocked that Voss was really still alive although he had wondered initially – it was so damned convenient. But he was more staggered that Voss had become a woman…there had been absolutely sign that he was considering such a radical step. Surely that wasn't something you ever chose to do on a whim or to hide a crime, was it?

"Pacci, you there?"

"Yeah, just… gobsmacked."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. That was damn good work, with the realtor by the way, Chris. Without the heads up, we never would have got onto him um her."

"Thanks Rocky, I really appreciated you solving this. It's always bothered me."

"Yeah – been there, done that. With a bit of luck, we'll be able to recover the bulk of the money he stole. TPTB are all happy campers too – wouldn't surprise me if we all got a commendation. Look, I have to finish writing up my report but I wanted you to hear it from me first. I'll talk to you after we question Voss. Adios!" Ending the call, Chris smiled at his team who were doing a piss poor job of pretending that they hadn't been listening in.

Tony regarded him carefully, no doubt registering the Rocky epithet and realising he'd been talking to Balboa. "Everything okay, Chris?"

Tony didn't call him boss, but Pacci was totally fine with that. He didn't really want to be addressed as boss since he didn't boss his team – he led them.

"No, it's all good, Tony. Rocky called to say that they got a hit on an old case of mine that was cold. They managed to solve it, so after work I'm buying dinner for any of you that are interested. I'm in the mood to celebrate."

Tony's phone rang and he answered it, nodding several times. "Thank Tina."

The rest of the team stared at him, waiting as he hung up his receiver. "UA Ensign Thomas turned up dead outside a down-town bar."

Chris took a deep breath, "Okay people, gear up and head out. Let's get some answers for the ensign's family."

His agents sprang into action as they head out to begin a new case. Tony shot a grateful smile at him – it was a I'm so happy to be heading out into the field grin, and Pacci, feeling equally pleased to have a new team and be investigating active cases again, nodded, completely in accord with his SFA. And thanks to Balboa and the MCRT they'd scored another win for the good guys.

Life was good!

End Note:

I couldn't help myself .The symmetry of Pacci dying because he was tailing Amanda Reed without backup was too similar to the times Gibbs has left Tony with his ass in the wind and in dangerous situation without any back up.