This is a shift day. There are two updates today.

"Technicolor Wishes & Hi-Def Dreams"

16. Investigators

For the second time in as many jumps, they would awaken together. They were in a car, and it was night. Puck stretched and yawned.

"Was I sleeping? I mean, this guy, I think he was asleep before we got here."

"You were," Rachel revealed, and he looked at her. "I was awake, and I swear, I got this feeling like I was annoyed… at you."

"Does it help if I say you're looking kind of hot right now?" he sat up, checking his mouth to make sure he wasn't sleep drooling.

"I think it's the accessories. Check this out," she pulled back her jacket and he saw the gun and the badge clipped at her belt.

"Woah. Careful with that thing."

"Oh I'm not touching it unless I have to, because for all the training I've done, firearms were not part of my skillset. I could kill someone with that thing."

"With any luck it'll be a bad guy," he tried to joke, but she didn't look in a joking mood at all.

"Look at the badge again," she told him.

"N… NCIS?" he blinked before looking at her. "Oh, wait, you're the Israeli one, right? Right?"

"Ziva David," she nodded. "You watch it, too?"

"Sure," he smirked. "Wait, so that should make me…" he checked his pockets before finding confirmation that he had been put into the persona of… "Anthony DiNozzo. Now this is more like it."

"You know what WOULD be more like it? Being home!"

"Sorry," he bowed his head.

"No, I'm sorry, I think I'm still caught on this whole frustration and…"

"Hey, this may be crazy, but I think we're in a stake out or something," he took in the food wrappers lying around the inside of the car.

"And you were sleeping on the job?"

"What, you were watching, weren't you?" he pointed out.

"Okay, well you're awake now, so… what are we supposed to do? Catch someone? I don't even know what the case is about, or who we're supposed to be watching, what we're hoping to see…"

"It should be somewhere over there," he looked to the houses across the street.

"There has to be a file somewhere, some notes, something," she checked her pockets, the glove compartment, the seat next to her, the dashboard… "What about you?" she asked. He was too distracted. "Hey!" she smacked his arm and he startled. "Stay focused here, come on!"

"Right, I just thought I saw… Never mind." He looked in his pockets, finding a small notepad. "Good, let's see… I think this is the address," he showed her a page and she took the notebook from her.

"Yeah. There's a name, but that doesn't tell us much. Got anything else?"

"I don't think it's about the stake out," he cut in suddenly.

"What? Why?"

"Well, think about it. If it was about the case, the reason they're parked here, then we'd have some kind of info to work off of, wouldn't we? They've been tossing us left and right for hours, but they've never tossed us completely in the dark like this, so there has to be a reason."

"We talk about 'they' like we actually know there are people behind this," she sighed, looking around.

And then they heard it. Gunfire, not from across the street in front of them, but from somewhere behind them… Rachel was on edge, Puck was alert, and then they'd both seen someone dash out of a house and get into a car.

"Drive!" she yelled at Puck while she reached to find a phone. Dialling 911 while Puck veered the car around to give chase, she looked at the open door, then back to the notebook for the street name. "This is Special Agent Ziva David, NCIS," the words rolled off her tongue so fast she was surprised she hadn't tripped up. "Shots fired, send an ambulance," she gave the address. "We are in pursuit of the shooter, who fled the scene in a car." When she'd hung up, her heart was ramming against her ribcage, but what she was more surprised with was the look Puck gave her. "What?" she frowned.

"Nothing, you're just blowing my mind right now."

"Just… I… Keep driving, we can't lose him," she tried to keep her senses in order. "What about the guy we were supposed to watch? What if he gets away because of us?"

"Get back on the phone, call our… their people, tell them what's happening, they can send someone else to stake out the place, and maybe they'll send us back up."

"You mean people who actually know how to shoot guns?"

"Yeah, that," he agreed, making a sharp turn, which made Rachel squeal about as much as the tires did.

"Try not to kill us, please?" she called out.

"Make the call," he told her, focused on keeping the car in sight. When he'd turned on his siren, he already had so much adrenaline going because of all of this.

"Right, okay, Gibbs, Gibbs…" she searched the phone before finding it. "I can't believe I'm doing this," she breathed as she hit the name.

"Out of everything that's happening right now, talking to Mark Harmon is the thing that's giving you goose bumps?" he asked in disbelief, but she held up her finger to quiet him.

"Gibbs, we had leave the stake out, we're chasing a shooter from an unrelated incident on the street, so… Yes… Yes, of course, we… Alright, thank you," she hung up and took a breath.

"Is he coming?" Puck asked. Rachel shook her head.

"We're on our own. It's two trained special agents after one guy, not like I could tell him 'actually we're not Ziva and Tony, we're just a couple of high schoolers out of Lima, and we have no idea how to shoot guns, can you come and save us?' He would have locked us up for psych evaluations… if he didn't just shoot us."

"Well then I guess it's just you and me," he nodded ahead and she looked to find the guy had ditched his car and run into what looked like a building either under construction or under repair.

"We can't just go in there. Your foot is still hurt, this guy has got a gun, and we know he has no problem using it!"

"Well what else are we supposed to do?"

TO BE CONTINUED (FRIDAY)