Thanks to all who read and reviewed!

By the way, we're coming up on concert/audition season. Yay for concerts, opposite of yay for auditions. But anyways, that means we're going to be even more busy! Yay! Not. And I meant to have this out yesterday, but didn't have wifi sorry.

Chapter 3

It could really get hot in LA, Tony thought as he stepped out of the car with G and Deeks. It was about 95 degrees there, as opposed to the 12 degrees it had been back in DC. He was glad that it generally stayed cooler, as chasing down suspects in extremely hot weather would get annoying quickly. Although Columbia did get hotter as times, at least he and G hadn't been expected to wear anything seeming even semi-professional, and they definitely hadn't had to chase down suspects or run from flying bullets. Well, at least until the CIA had been sent in at the end.

Shaking himself out of his memories, he hurried to catch up with G, who had gone ahead while Deeks grabbed some things out of the car.

"So what was it you wanted to talk to me about?" Tony asked G as they walked towards the LAPD officers who stood in the alley.

"Not now. Somewhere more private," G said, glancing around. "Hey, do you have a place to stay while you're here?"

Tony blinked at the not-so-subtle change in topic, but shrugged it off easily. "I was just going to rent a hotel room nearby."

"You can stay at my place," G offered. "It's a house, lot larger than the one in Columbia. Although I can't guarantee that people won't come in the middle of the night looking to kill me."

"Meh, that's nothing new. Thanks, man, I really appreciate it."

Reaching the alleyway where the bodies had been found, G and Tony headed over to the women standing at the entrance.

"NCIS," Tony greeted. "Agent DiNozzo. You two are….?"

"Detective Reynolds, and my partner, Officer Ryan. You'll be taking over the scene, I presume?" At the agents' nod, she continued speaking. "Do you need us to stick around, or can we go?"

"Think we're good, thanks," G flashed a quick smile and ducked under the police tape into the alley. Deeks ran up a minute later, holding a camera and the other things necessary for crime scenes.

"Meghan! Hi," he greeted Detective Reynolds, awkwardly trying to shift the stuff he was carrying so he could shake her hand. Tony grabbed the stuff before he could drop anything, and headed into the alley after the other agent, leaving Deeks to his conversation.

"So what's up with this case, anyways? I didn't think you guys dealt with normal, run of the mill dead sailors." Tony questioned, slipping the camera strap around his neck as he knelt next to G, who was examining the bodies.

"We sometimes do. Well, actually, we do whatever Vance tells us to do. Don't know why he wants us on this one, though. Looks simple execution style," he said, gesturing at the neat bullet holes in the center of each Marines' forehead. He pulled out his phone, snapping quick pictures of each man's face. "I'm going to send these to Eric and Nell, see what they can find. Can you do pictures, and we'll have Deeks bag and tag when he's done talking to that detective?"

Tony nodded, stepping around the narrow alley to get shots of the bodies from all angles. "Why'd you send the cops off? Might've been helpful to have them keeping interested passerby away."

G turned to him, eyes suddenly dark and haunted. "Because it was a cop that shot Sam."

"Oh." That was not what Tony had expected. "Well, friendly fire is never fun to deal with, but-"

"It was not friendly fire." G almost growled. "Dirty cop. Almost killed him. Would've, if he'd aimed a centimeter higher. Would've hit the femoral artery."

"Oh. Right. Well, not all cops are dirty. Anything on who these guys are yet?"

G sighed, looking tired. "Yeah, I know. Some cops- or former cops- are the people I trust the most. But it's hard to really know someone. Anyways, Eric just got back to me. These guys were all petty officers. Alex Stephens, Jim Scotty, and Tiberius Pine. Nell and Eric'll have their records up when we get back."

"Hey," Deeks said, ducking into the alley with a sheepish smile. "Sorry, guys. Old friend of mine that I hadn't seen in a while. What needs doing around here?"

"It's fine," G replied, heading to the mouth of the alley. "You two finish up here. I'll keep any interested civilians away."

"Um, okay." Deeks muttered. He turned to Tony. "How well do you know him?" he questioned.

"Well, I got to know him pretty well, but that was seventeen years ago, so I don't really know, anymore. I trust him with my life, and he seems to still trust me, but the only things I've heard in recent years is NCIS scuttlebutt. Why?"

"Seventeen years ago? So G was what, CIA? Were you an NCIS agent back then?"

"Nah, I was Philly PD. G was CIA. We worked a joint undercover op for a while."

"You were a cop?" Deeks turned from where he was bagging evidence to look at Tony. "Huh. Didn't think there were many cops-turned-NCIS out there, the way people talk."

"What do you mean, 'the way people talk'? NCIS agents or other people?" Tony raised an eyebrow at the other man, hoping he wasn't talking about what he thought he was talking about.

"Other NCIS agents. Not my team, just… people. They act like, superior, like the work they do is much harder and more important that what the local LEOs do. It's nothing, really." The detective trailed off, embarrassed.

"You mean they tend to treat you like the mud on the bottom of their shoe. Yeah, I know what you mean." Tony responded.

"You do? Well, you probably don't anymore, since you've been an agent for a while. What- actually, never mind, you probably don't want to tell me. Just forget I said anything. So, um, are you dating anyone?" Deeks unsubtly tried to change the topic.

"Actually, I still do sometimes. One member of my team is really smart. Went to MIT, tech genius, all that stuff. He tends to call me out about not having as good an education as he did, not being as good with the technology, annoying things like that. He never does it in front of Gibbs, of course, but still does it, even after I've worked for NCIS for thirteen years, which is longer than he has." Tony wasn't quite sure why he was telling all this to a man he barely knew, but oh well. He wanted to be accepted by the team, so he might just go for broke on this one. "My former partner did the same thing. She was a Mossad-trained assassin, so not exactly well versed in the things we do at NCIS, like investigating and not shooting people unless absolutely necessary. Despite that, she always acted smugly superior, even though she took credit for other people's work and didn't get much done herself. She thought herself better than me just because I had been a cop, even though my work had actually taught me valuable things for working at NCIS. I'm assuming you get similar treatment from some agents?"

Deeks glanced at Tony and looked away quickly, almost nervously. "Well it's nothing from my team, so it's not so bad, but yeah. Casual, almost cheerful digs about not being as good as them. Not that often, cause I think they're scared of G and Sam, but it just wears you down after a while, you know?"

"I know. And if you want to point any of these assholes out to me, I'd happily rearrange their faces for you," Tony offered with a quick half smile.

"Thanks, but I think I'm good. You know, I'm not glad that Sam got hurt of course, but it's nice to get a chance to work with you."

Gathering up the evidence bags and heading over to where G waited, Tony allowed himself a small smile. 2 agents down, 4 to go. But he was off to a good start with this team.