The following two weeks ended up being quite the whirlwind. Thankfully, Jethro's team had been able to get the intruder's I.D off of him, quickly identifying the man as Dylan McMillan. Abby had also managed to match McMillan's fingerprints to those lifted from various break-ins in the area, including the Donahue robbery. Just his family's luck.

McMillan ended up staying in the hospital overnight due to a head injury. The doctor treating him wanted to keep him for observation, but he was going to be fine. Once he had been discharged, however, McMillan was formally charged.

With things settling down again, Jethro and Shannon were relaxing on the couch that Monday after dinner while Kelly was at a friend's birthday party.

Jethro had just turned on the news which ended up being much more interesting than he'd expected. A little too interesting.

A ZNN reporter, Samantha Tate, was doing a news segment on military spending. The brunette's news segment was being done on location in D.C and in direct view of the Capitol. "Later this week," the reporter began, "Congress will be voting on a $14 billion appropriation for construction of a new class aircraft carrier. Many watchdog groups feel that the money would be better spent at home on schools and infrastructure." She held out her mic to a woman standing right beside her. "Your opinion?"

"Well," the woman being interviewed said, "that's a difficult question for me to answer. I don't really know what the military needs. That's a husband question. I'd have to talk to him to see how I feel about it."

Shannon raised an eyebrow at that. "Wow."

"Yeah," he agreed, turning his attention back to the television.

"Okay," Tate said. "Thank you. Your honesty is refreshing." The camera cut to her walking over to a man walking by. "Excuse me, Sir. ZNN. Could we interview you for the evening news?"

"No," the man snapped.

"It'll only take a second," the reporter said.

"Please," the man said, trying to hide his face, "don't point that at me."

"Please, Sir!" the reporter said. "If you could just give us..."

They then watched as the skittish guy Tate had been trying to interview was so put off by all the cameras that the man improvidently stepped right into traffic, getting hit by a speeding van.

Everyone was screaming and the Tate yelled, "Someone call 911!"

Definitely not how anyone thought that the news segment was going to go.

Shannon picked up the TV remote. "Okay, so we're changing the channel." She turned towards Jethro slightly. "Up for watching African Queen?"

"Sure," he said. "Beer?"

"That be great," she replied happily.

"Want some popcorn?" he asked.

His wife nodded in the affirmative and getting to his feet, Jethro went to the kitchen to grab them both a drink while Shannon put the movie on and grabbed a blanket.

The next day, things stayed just as interesting. It was 0900 and Jethro was seated at his desk getting some paperwork done when Abby came running into the squad room. "Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs!"

"Whoa, whoa, Abby, what?" he asked. "What?"

"You're not gonna believe it," the goth said with no lack of enthusiasm. "I was chosen. I'm a match. They want me at the hospital for an interview right away."

"What?" he gently pressed. "You donating bone marrow again?"

"No," Abby explained. "A kidney."

Well, that was serious.

"Who do you know that needs a kidney?" DiNozzo questioned.

"Oh," Abby replied, "I don't know him. I just volunteered."

"Whoa, Abby!" he said. "Slow down. Back up. What are you talking about?" He hoped for her sake she actually thought the risks and what exactly that meant through. The goth had a tendency to act with her heart rather than with logic, despite her being one of the country's top forensic scientists.

"Well, I heard about it at church," Abby explained. "There's this 18-year-old kid. He's on dialysis. And he needs a kidney but nobody in his family was a match. So, I had to do something. I went down and got tested and they just called me."

"You're gonna give a good kidney to a total stranger?" DiNozzo asked, clearly deciding to get straight to the point. "Are you out of your mind?"

Ziva looked shocked but impressed. "That is very noble."

"Abby," McGee said, clearly sharing similar concerns with Jethro, "that's major surgery. What's the recovery time on that? It's gotta be weeks."

"Well," the goth admitted, "I don't know. But I'll find out. I have an interview with the transplant coordinator in, like, an hour."

Before Jethro could reply, a familiar Metro detective walked in. "Hey, Gibbs."

"Hey, Detective Sportelli." He wasn't a huge fan of the particular detective for a variety of reasons. Still, Jethro had to play politely. For the time being, at least. Damn, he hated politics. "What are you doing here? Long time."

"I gotta go!" Abby said, taking advantage of the situation to get out of there and head to the hospital for the interview.

Still feeling quite concerned, he called after the. "Abby, don't you commit to anything!" He wanted to discuss it with her after the interview, make sure she'd really considered everything before she actually committed to such a major operation. He wouldn't stop her if she really wanted to do it, but it did scare him, and he suspected there was a lot about the situation she hadn't thought through.

"It's gonna be great," Abby fired back without missing a beat.

As the goth, skipping with joy, made her way out of the squad room, Jethro shook his head and turned back towards the Metro detective. "Sportelli, what's up?"

The detective eyed them all smugly. "I arrested The Cooler."

None of Jethro's team reacted to the exceedingly obvious showboating which didn't fail to upset the detective. "Come on. FBI's most-wanted list? It's a career-making bust."

"The Cooler?" Ziva questioned.

"He puts people on ice," Sportelli said.

"Yeah," McGee said, clearly impressed by what he was hearing, "he's suspected in at least a half-dozen high-profile contract assassinations."

"Right," Sportelli said, pleased one of them cared about what he had to say.

"The only thing tying the cases are the slugs taken from the victims," McGee added.

"Yeah," Sportelli said, "he's been like a ghost, blending into the background."

"FBI has no idea what he looks like," McGee said, "let alone have a name."

"They got one now," Sportelli informed them all. "Paul Arliss. He's been living the good life in suburbia. On a cul-de-sac in Woodley Park."

DiNozzo gestured vaguely towards the detective. "How'd you catch him?"

"News crew doing on-the-street interviews," Sportelli explained. "He tried to avoid the camera and ran into traffic. Got hit by a van. He's in critical condition."

"I saw footage of that on the news last night," Ziva said. The young Israeli glanced briefly back at Jethro. "They did not mention anything about him being a fugitive."

"Yeah," Jethro said, impressed that the detective could find a new way to make Jethro dislike him every time they met. "I must've missed that when I saw the footage too."

"We kept it quiet 'til we figured out who he was," Sportelli said.

"You gotta keep that quiet," DiNozzo said with a mocking laugh, raising a finger to his lips in a silencing gesture. "Shh. Ha-ha. Wouldn't want anyone to know. Great work, Detective Sportelli. You arrested the unconscious man. Did you have to cuff him when he was down on the sidewalk there?"

Ziva snickered at the Senior Field Agent's joke.

"How'd you ID him?" he inquired.

"Ballistics tied the weapon he was carrying to four unsolved hits," Sportelli said.

DiNozzo eyed the man. "You here to gloat?"

"No," the detective said, "I'm here to help you." Sportelli started rummaging through a manila folder, clearly looking for something specific. "We found surveillance photos and handwritten notes in his car parked about a block away." Jethro gestured for Detective Sportelli to pass him the file. "Looks like his next target is gonna be a Navy lieutenant commander named Geoffrey Brett."

While McGee headed back over to his desk to presumably run a search on the possible victim, Jethro looked through the photos. "You got any leads on who hired Arliss?"

"Nope," Sportelli said.

He frowned slightly. "Well, we need to interview him. Where is he?"

"Washington General Hospital prison ward," the Metro detective informed him. "I'll call you when he's able to speak." Sportelli then started to leave.

"Great detective work, Sportelli!" DiNozzo said, more than a little sarcastically. "I think we're all very proud of you."

The man turned around. "Always a pleasure, DiNozzo." With that, the detective turned around again and headed to the elevator.

And good riddance. Honestly, dealing with the likes of Detective Danny Sportelli made the prospect of him retiring in the not-so-distant future seem a lot less like a horrifying punishment. Jethro had already talked to the director about it and the man had readily agreed to give Jethro a formal exemption from the mandatory retirement age, citing 'the public interest so requires,' so Jethro was not retiring just yet, but regardless… He didn't suffer fools lightly and the politics was something he wasn't going to miss when the time finally came for him to turn in his badge.

Hopefully, he wouldn't have to deal with Detective Sportelli much during this case.