'Why would you cut out the last paragraph?'A much younger and greener Alice yelled at her editor in the office.

'It was redundant.' Rachel Baer said without looking up.

'But it was favourite paragraph!'

'Oh. Thank you for giving me another reason.' Rachel looked up and pushed up her huge glasses that were slipping down the bridge of her nose. 'You know what, Duranty? You're a good journalist. Excellent, if I may say so. But you're used to get things served to you in a silver platter. You need to learn, to fight for what you want. I don't know how you did things in school, but it doesn't matter now, here, we do things my way.'

Present day Alice paced up and down her hallway, clutched with anxiety. The thought of Rachel was frightening enough. Rachel Baer was a plump, or to put it better, fat woman. She had jet-black hair, but it was common knowledge that it was dyed. It was always silvery near the roots. And of course, the gigantic, blue, reading glasses through which she examined anyone who came in her room.

11:56

Her wristwatch read. She had changed into pyjama shorts and a faded T-shirt. She could imagine Rachel clucking with disappointment at Alice's style sense.

12:00

And Rachel, as always, was on time. There was a knock on her door. Alice opened it. She found Rachel standing there, still in her usual work attire. She'd forgotten that Rachel usually left the office at around eleven. She was wearing a black longer than knee length dress, which she wore on every Wednesday. She'd lost some weight. Alice moved, to allow Rachel into her living room. She entered with her heels clicking.

'Alice. You wanted to know about what McKay and Clarke were working on.' Rachel turned round, to face Alice. Rachel groaned. 'God. I should've known. I'm meeting you. At midnight. At your house. Of course you would be dressed in something like this.' She glanced disdainfully at her plaid pyjama shorts and Queen Amidala tee.

Alice rolled her eyes. 'So, what do you know?'

Rachel pursed her lips. 'I know something. But I'll do it only in return for a favour.'

God. I should've known this was coming. 'Glad to see nothing's changed,' Alice muttered.

'I'm sorry, did you say something? I didn't quite catch you.' Rachel said in a perfectly pleasant tone. Only Rachel-haters like her, Jonathan, and Dempsey would spot the mocking in it.

'I said, what favour do you need?' Alice said, audibly.

'Hmm. You tell me where you work at.'

'What?' Alice asked loudly. She'd gotten clear instructions from Hetty not to tell anyone where she worked. 'Why would you want to know that?'

Rachel shrugged. 'As much as I hate to say it, you can be tough competition. I mean, not tough tough, because well, let's see, I have shortlisted atleast 5 viable replacements for you.'

'Ughhh...'

'Are you telling me or no?' Rachel crossed her hands.

'I'm thinking of freelancing.' She said quickly. Too quickly.

'Nonsense.'

'What?'

'Ha. You're lying. You're not the freelancing type. I once was a journalist too. I know when you're lying. So, spill.'

'I... can't.'

Rachel snorted. 'What do you mean you can't? I thought you wanted to find Jonathan.'

'It's supposed to be a secret, Rachel.' Alice said angrily. 'Why do you want to know?' Alice found herself repeating herself.

Rachel sighed. 'See, Alice- McKay and Jonathan were handling sensitive information when they had gone to Syria. I need to know that I can trust you.'

'How do you know about it?' Alice asked.

'I make it my job to listen to everything that's going on in the office. And I know that you now work for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.'

Alice widened her eyes, trying not to show the immense surprise on her face. 'How do you know about... any of that?'

Rachel waved her off. 'It doesn't matter. What does matter is, whether I can trust you.' Rachel sighed. 'Do you mind getting me some water?' Alice rolled her eyes and turned to the kitchen to get some water for HRH Rachel. Rachel gasped. 'I knew it. I knew that I couldn't trust you.'

Alice turned round. 'What?'

'Why are you carrying a gun?'

Alice reached her behind. She'd stuck a gun at the back of her shorts. 'Ughhh... Rachel? I'm sure you're aware of the second amendment?'

'Yeah. I know. But why you?'

'First: because I work in the NCIS. Second: Are you minutely aware of journalists getting kidnapped and killed?'

Rachel sighed and sat on her sofa. Alice sat next to her, still keeping her distance. 'Guess that covers it. Look, I overheard McKay and Clarke talking once. They were...' Rachel cleared her throat loudly. 'See, they were working on...'

A sharp noise rang through their ears. The window behind Rachel burst into tiny fragments and fell on them and the floor beneath them. Alice bent down on her knees, and pulled the frozen Rachel down too. More bullets came through, and trashed Alice's house. She flinched every time a bullet hit another plate, or a ripped through her wallpaper. She tried to crawl out of there, and make her way to a phone, but pain tore through her feet as she stepped on shards of glass from the window. Rachel had held on tightly to her back.

'Let go of me!' Alice whispered angrily. 'I'm going to call for help.' Rachel panicky, let go. Alice tried to duck walk her way out to the phone. But she immediately felt the glass mutilate her skin. She fell back, leaning on a couch, feeling the need for an inhaler. Alice felt a hard thing she sat on. The gun.

She pulled her SIG, loaded it, and took a deep breath, desperate to not let her asthma get hold of her. She raised her arm, and without looking, shot out of the window. Rachel whimpered next to her. After a few shots, Alice lowered her arm. The gun men or women were still shooting. She would soon be out of ammo. Even if there were ammunitions in her house, there was no way either of them could walk around to find them in the glass around them. Unless they were to be walking on tables, but considering the gunfire, that wasn't a very safe bet.

Alice coughed, and felt a sharp pain in her chest. She coughed more, and the pain spread. Rachel had closed her eyes and was muttering a prayer. A cutting sound rang out, but it wasn't guns this time. It was a siren. Alice breathed out sighs of relief as the bullets stopped raining. The neighbours had heard the commotion.

She tried to get up, but her feet seemed to be on fire. In the end, the paramedics came and lifted her up. Another pair of medics was escorting Rachel outside the house. They took her to another ambulance. She tried to go after them, but she saw her team here too.

'Ms Duranty. You've got yourself into so much trouble on the second day of your job.' Hetty said sternly.

'Not my fault. They were firing.'

'That doesn't matter. What does matter is...' she slightly lowered her volume. 'Did you find anything?'

Alice smirked. No way was Hetty being so cool with this. Alice sighed. 'Well... she knew something,' jutting her chin towards Rachel. 'I doubt she's talking after this, though. Someone knew that I was getting close. Someone's trying to hide something. I need to find out.'

Hetty looked blankly towards Rachel. 'Oh, Ms. Baer. I can get anything out of her. I'll go speak to her now.' Hetty started walking towards Rachel who was in the ambulance.

'And, oh! Hetty, she knows where I work.' She was embarrassed that she'd nearly got herself and her cover job blown up on the second day of her job.

'Ah... doesn't matter. Ms. Baer is a dear friend. She won't tell.' Alice thought she saw Hetty wink as she walked away to talk to Rachel.

'Whoa. I didn't know journalists actually did stuff. I thought you only took interviews, wrote articles, and got them published.' Deeks said from behind.

'Oh. Deeks. Guys.' She said looking at the others. 'You didn't have to come.'

'Oh, yes, we did. We wouldn't have gotten to see you in a Queen Amidala tee otherwise, would we?' Deeks asked the others grinning.

Alice groaned. 'Oh, I'm never going to hear the end of this, am I?'

Kensi patted her shoulder and sighed. 'No, you aren't.'

'Wait till Eric hears about this!' Deeks squealed.

Hetty walked towards Alice, Deeks, Kensi, Callen, and Sam with a frown on her face and said, 'Look, I know it is late, so I'm calling you into OPS tomorrow. But be there at 7:00 am sharp. There is a very important development in the case of what Andrew McKay and Jonathan Clarke were working on.'