Thanks to my wonderful beta Kristen! Some answers for you now...

Chapter 9: Regulations

Lily sighed as she entered her apartment. She kicked her heels off, and sank down onto the couch. After a long day, she could really use some –

"Chinese?" Alex asked, appeared from the kitchen. "I ordered half an hour ago; it should be here soon."

Thursday evening

"I remember this part," Alex noted. "You do not need to remind me."

"I'm still working through my memories," Lily pointed out. "You can tell me if I get anything wrong."

"Yes, oh great one," he smirked.

She sipped her coffee and thought for a few moments.

Wednesday evening

"Cheers," Lily replied. "I hate NCIS."

"You hate them?"

"I don't hate them. I want to be back with the CIA. I want Arbourne to scream in my face. I want to bug Darlene. I want to risk life and limb –"

"A break can recharge your batteries."

Lily shook her head softly.

On one level, she liked NCIS. They were friendly, they fell for her games, they let her do what she wanted. But the CIA was a part of her. She felt home there. Everyone knew her and knew what she was capable of. When she pulled off something spectacular, everyone talked about it for weeks on end. When she was in the hospital, people came to visit her. They left flowers on her desk.

It was nice to feel wanted.

When she was stressed, she slept under her desk. When she'd had a hard day, she and Darlene had a fight. When she was feeling depressed, she did something to annoy Arbourne. When she couldn't sleep, she stayed in the operations room and kept everyone on their toes. When she was told to take a week off or they would forcibly eject her from the building, she covered for Jenny.

She loved her job, just as Jenny loved hers. Whereas Jenny knew how to relax, Lily didn't allow herself to. Lily enjoyed a challenge, something to sink her teeth into. She loved complicated, time consuming things.

She was a people person. She played with people's heads, got them to do what she wanted. She couldn't play her favorite games with Jenny around, because Jenny got very annoyed.

"Perhaps you can risk life and limb with NCIS," Alex mused, sitting on the couch next to her.

She curled into his side. "It's not the same. It could never be the same. I'd even take Archives duty over this. I'm not supposed to investigate, just babysit."

He rubbed her side gently. "Do you need anything?"

"I might take a bath later. What do you know about Ben Thomas?"

"Low level weapons dealer, but he does not only deal in weapons."

"They never do."

"Information, secrets…"

"Technology?"

"Without a doubt."

"Have you ever heard of Project Indigo?"

"I know of its existence and what it is supposed to do, but I am unaware of how it proceeds."

"It proceeds well," she whispered. "Very well."

"Then it would be worth a lot of money to the right buyer," Alex muttered. "Ben Thomas is something of a mystery."

Lily pulled out her cell phone and speed dialed a number. "Charlie? Ben Thomas is in the country. Find him, and stick someone on his tail. Call me when it's done." She hung up before he could reply.

"He could have been with a girl," Alex remarked. "He might not have heard you."

"Not my problem," she murmured, snuggling down again.

Lily was getting sick of the squad room by the next morning. It was so… samey. If she was back at the CIA, she could run around the building five times and see something completely different on each pass. People moved around, they moved furniture every two minutes, wild animals had been known to wander the halls.

That had been Darlene's doing, not hers.

Still, the Navy Yard got boring after a while. LJ always sat at the same desk and was always in charge. He always had his coffee with him, and he always went to get a new one when he ran out. He always had problems with his computer and he always worked diligently.

Ziva was always at the same desk. She was either on the phone or working on her computer. She always spoke in different languages, always threatened to kill people in the same unimaginative way, and always tormented Tony.

Tony also used the same desk every day. He always spent most of his time on the phone, when he was actually working. Otherwise, he was usually harassing McGee or flirting with Ziva or trying to come up with things to do that didn't actually involve working.

McGee was always to be found in the same place. He was always tapping away at his keyboard. He was always friendly and happy. He was always innocent and obedient.

Why did everyone insist on using the same desks? Because of a strange shortage within the CIA, everyone was always stealing everyone else's desk. Probie's often fared worse as they were not used to shifting a desk three floors and the other end of the building when someone left for coffee. Once, for a dare, Lily had stolen the Director's desk. It had taken two weeks before anyone had figured it out, and another month before they traced it to her.

Stupid really. She should have been their number one suspect.

Everyone here was always doing the same jobs. At the CIA, Lily was used to multi-tasking. She could analyze documents and information, translate things, write reports, hold briefings and conduct surveillance, while doing her main job at the same time. If she couldn't do it herself, she knew twenty people who could do it instead. These people stayed in the same roles every day.

"Your sources give you anything on Ben Thomas?" LJ growled in her general direction.

"They haven't been able to find him yet," she answered truthfully.

"Tell them to –"

"They do know where he'll be at 1900 though," she interrupted.

LJ raised his eyebrows.

"He has a meeting in a cave somewhere along the beach in Virginia."

"McGee!"

McGee started typing away. "Do you know anything that could help us narrow the area down?"

"Big cave system," Lily offered. "Not far from Virginia Beach."

McGee continued to type. "I've got three possibles," he told her.

"Let me see."

Lily stared at the screen for a few moments. "That one," she pointed. "I'm sure it's that one."

"I don't want to know how you know," LJ noted.

"That would be correct," Lily smirked.

"This storm's going to hit around that time," McGee remarked. "It's going to be a big one."

Lily followed LJ into Abby's lab just after midday. They were supposed to be leaving for the cave soon, and Lily was anxious to get a head start on Ben Thomas. If he arrived before they did, things could spiral out of control very rapidly.

The omnipresent music was pumping out, the bass cranked up to the maximum. Lily was feeling a little magnanimous and decided not to interfere for the time being. If it helped Abby get the job done, she could put up with it.

Abby pounced on LJ the moment she spotted him and snatched the Caf-Pow from his hands. She slurped half of it down without stopping, leaving Lily time to look around the lab.

Bert the hippo was sitting next to the computer and Lily fought the urge to steal it. Jasper would love a farting hippo, but it really summed up Abby and her eclectic tastes. To steal him would be wrong of her.

McGee was also present, having been sent down by LJ after locating the cave. He wanted the money traced as soon as possible, and definitely before they left. It was too urgent to wait.

"We've cracked it, el jefe!" Abby announced proudly.

"We?" McGee complained. "I cracked it."

"We cracked where the money was sent from," Abby continued, as if she hadn't heard him.

"Where?" LJ asked.

"Holland," Lily answered.

"How did you know…? Ah, because you are the scary CIA lady," the Goth decided.

"Kieran Holland?" LJ checked.

"Erm, yes," Abby pronounced. "He placed a large sum of money in Boxall's account so we'd get suspicious of Boxall."

"Thus giving him enough time to sell the software and leave the country before we caught him," Lily concluded.

LJ frowned. "We knew the suicide wasn't a suicide, but he must have known we'd figure it out."

"One problem," Lily grinned. "Boxall's camera was stolen before his death. When we searched the apartment, we should have found a digital camera and I should have rushed off to get it checked. It would have to be done in a secure location with people who were read in. By the time we'd actually looked at what was on the card and discovered the pictures, the real software would have been sold."

"Someone stole his camera?" Abby pouted. "That's so sad."

"Metro told Tony it was reported stolen two days before his death," Lily told her. "If there was a camera in that place, I would have checked the pictures there and then. If the memory card was separate, I still might have checked it."

"He was counting on us following regulations," LJ realized.

"I always follow the regs," Lily smiled innocently.