Warnings: Spoilers for "Jet Lag"

A/N: Sorry for the delay. There has not been a lot of time to write and edit in the last week. Hope you enjoy, feedback is always welcome and appreciated :)

Tony knew that something was wrong. He unbuckled his seat belt and stood. "Natalie. Stay with Nora."

Natalie watched as he disappeared from her sight. She unclipped her belt and went to sit with Nora. Glancing over her shoulder as she hooked the seat belt, she could see Tony standing outside of the lavatory. She didn't think the sudden dark tone to his voice had to do with the fact he needed to use the bathroom. He thought something was off. And chances were if he felt that way... something was off.

Nora had her nose buried in some report and wasn't paying attention. She didn't even notice that Tony had left her side until she heard his voice above them, requesting that Natalie join him. "Everything okay?" she asked.

"Yes," Tony lied, turning back towards the lavatory, but keeping Nora in his sight and a hand near his gun just in case. When Natalie joined him, he pushed the door open just a little so she could see inside. "We have a problem," he whispered in her ear, watched as her eyes went wide when she saw the body of the air marshall. "We have a killer on the loose… with a weapon."

"And only an hour to go before we land," Natalie murmured, looking about the cabin at the passengers. "One of them… is a murderer and is waiting to take out Nora next."

Tony pursed his lips. Now the question was, which one of them? No doubt the air marshall was killed by someone needing his gun to commit another crime—while in the air. And he didn't have any doubt that this person was out to kill Nora. Holly Snow had told Gibbs and Burley that hiring a killer was very much like hiring an escort—whoever did the job got the money, or something crude like that. Parsons had been killed probably so another hit man could get their share. "One of these passengers is a trained assassin. Any chance you can run some background on the passengers?"

Natalie rang her tongue along the inside of her cheek. "It could take me hours. Do we have that kind of time? I doubt that the hit man is going to wait until after we land to complete the job."

"Probably not. But do we have any other options?" Tony asked her, rhetorically. "Stay with Nora, get that laptop of yours running and do what you do best, beautiful."

"What are you going to do?" Natalie asked him, eying Nora who was still working.

"Get my laptop and get in touch with Ducky to solve this murder," Tony replied. "Maybe our killer left some evidence behind."

Natalie highly doubted that a professional killer left evidence behind, but one could hope. She went back to her seat and retrieved her laptop. It didn't take her long to get to the passenger list for their flight but it was going to take her a while to track down a lead. She hoped Tony was a bit more successful in his investigation of the body and crime scene.

She was surprised that Tony wasn't making some horrible, airplane movie references. Of course, he was chatting with Ducky... there was probably a good chance that he was trying them out on the medical examiner before he tried them out on anyone else. Besides Natalie, it was Ducky that was the most tolerable of Tony's quirky love of movies.

Focus, focus, focus, Natalie chided herself as she struggled to look at her computer screen. She was tired and the motion sickness pill she had taken before getting on the flight really wasn't helping.

"What are you doing?" Nora asked, generally curious.

"Ah... background checks," Natalie answered, honestly, cautiously. "Trying to... keep myself busy."

Nora looked at her skeptically. "You do background checks to keep yourself entertained on a flight? Most people read or watch a movie."

Natalie shrugged. "Guess I'm not like most people."

"Are you doing those background checks because of me?"

"Why... why would you think that?"

"Because Tony is missing. And you're here running random background checks."

"Well... they aren't entirely random," Natalie confessed. She saw Nora's eyebrows raise at that. "Listen. I'm the team's profiler, they have a case back in D.C that they need my help on. That's all."

Nora looked at the list of names, briefly, before Natalie shut the window. "Those are a lot of suspects."

Natalie frowned as the other woman went back to work on her own project. Yes, it was a lot of suspects, but it was because they had nothing to go on. They were starting from the bottom up, flying blind... great now I'm starting with the bad puns. Giving her head a little shake, she went back to work. There were certain signs she had to look for in the passengers backgrounds and she obviously didn't have the clearance of the NSA to be doing something this in-depth, unless some of these people had public, criminal records. She would have to start there first. A computer hacker like Tim she was not.

Tony returned, quietly stowing the murder weapon in her carry-on bag. Natalie saw it briefly before the clear, plastic baggy disappeared amongst her things. It was a knitting needle. Who had she seen knitting earlier on that flight? Certainly that little, sweet looking grandmother had not killed a man.

"Sent a finger print to Abby," Tony whispered to her, interrupting her thoughts.

"Wait, they left a finger print?"

"Bloody one."

It was mistake that a professional hit man would not make. Leaving any kind of evidence behind would probably get them tossed in jail or worse yet, scraping for jobs because buyers didn't trust them. Natalie's eyes shot towards her bag where the evidence was neatly tucked away. Or it was deliberate... like they wanted to throw the agents off...

Tony must have seen that her wheels were turning. "What are you thinking, Probie?"

Natalie looked at him. "They left that finger print there on purpose."

"Why's that?"

"Stall us? Send us looking into the wrong person?"

"So... it's not the little old lady with the knitting needles?"

She glared at him and he gave her a slight grin. "No. But it is someone that knows how to use a knitting needle as a weapon, where to stab someone to kill them. Know anyone like that... on our flight?"

His brow furrowed in deep thought and leaned into the aisle looking into the back of the cabin. Really... anyone of them could be killers. Briefly, he made eye contact with a passenger that the Air Marshall had pointed out to him when they first boarded the plane. "Nat... what about our friend back there?"

Natalie peered back into the cabin. "Moody, on edge... acting more like someone that wants off the plane. Not a killer."

Tony had to agree. And then he remembered something. He had to inform the flight attendants that the lavatory had to be shut down, and he couldn't say why. Mr. Spock had seemed annoyed and kept questioning him why, but the blonde... the one that had refused to give him a hot towel, she had remained silent. "Nat, look into the flight crew."

"It would have been easy for one of them to look up the passenger manifest."

"Exactly."

"So... which one do you think is it?"

"My bets are on the blonde."

Natalie frowned at him. "Just because she didn't give you a hot towel..."

Tony glared at her. "No. It's not just because she didn't give me a hot towel... she didn't seem surprised that I requested the lavatory shut down."

"Well, maybe we should show her the Air Marshall's body and see her reaction to that..."

"Wait? He's really dead?" Nora asked, interrupting them and reminding them that she really was still there.

Natalie eyed Tony, while the SFA brightly smiled. "Don't worry. You've got one of NCIS' finest agents protecting you."

Nora scowled slightly. "You don't have to build yourself up to make me feel better."

Tony chuckled. "I was talking about her," he said, gesturing towards Natalie. "Best profiler in the business. She'll figure out who did it."

His building up, this time, was for Natalie's benefit. She bit down on her lower lip and began to go through what they knew about the case. It would have had to been someone close to Nora that ordered the hit, Holly Snow set up the buyer with potential clients, and sent who knew how many assassins after Nora. And it was this someone close that had probably given the information to Snow on what flight Nora was taking. "Nora, who did you tell about your travel plans back to D.C?"

"My parents...and Daniel. Why?"

"Tony..."

"Yeah, on it. Calling Gibbs."

Natalie's computer beeped just as Tony was about to dial. "Um... Tony... I think I got something. The flight attendant... was in D.C on the same day that Gibbs' marine victim... hired killer... was murdered. Her fingerprints are on file... should I run them against the one you found in the lavatory?"

Tony leaned across the aisle to look at her laptop. Just like he had suspected the face of the blonde flight attendant came up. He looked at his watch, they still little over an hour before their flight landed in D.C. Their hit man was going to make one final attempt before then. He just wasn't sure in what form. Using the gun she had taken from the Air Marshall would blow her cover and earn an automatic arrest. It was going to be quiet, perhaps something that neither Tony or Natalie were going to be expecting. Maybe it was time to put that phone call into Gibbs...

He handed her his memory card and watched as she stuck it in her laptop. It didn't take long for her to match the partial bloody print to the prints that they had on file for Tiffany Chase. "They match," Natalie said, simply, while Tony briefed Gibbs. "What does Gibbs want us to do now?"

Nora shifted uncomfortably in her seat and asked the Vulcan look alike to bring her a pillow. It was obvious that the reveal of a murder on the flight, that a hit man was on the flight, it had tainted her sunshiny world just a bit.

"Gibbs says to take her down," Tony whispered, unbuckling his belt when he got off the phone. "They found who ordered the hit."

"How do we take a hit man down mid-flight?" Natalie asked, honestly, "without drawing attention to ourselves and freaking the passengers out?"

"Trust me, Nat," he said with a bit of smile. "And follow my lead. Stay here."

"I just think..." she said, but he was gone.

Natalie flopped back into her seat, felt her gun poke her thigh and she slammed her laptop shut. She was startled when a voice said, above her, "Here is your pillow, miss."

Nora was reaching for it but Natalie stopped her when she saw that it was the female attendant... the one that was their suspect in their case. "We're okay," the agent said with a fake smile, wondering where Tony had disappeared to on the flight.

"My neck is bothering me, Natalie," Nora pointed out, softly.

"You can use my jacket."

"I hardly doubt..."

"We don't know if that pillow is laced with something."

The flight attendant let out a huff of air and pulled the pillow back. "Would you like to come back with me to get one yourself then?" she asked in a mocking tone. "So you can watch and see that I did not lace the pillow with anything?"

Natalie wasn't sure where Tony had gone but she figured it would safe to leave Nora if she was going with their prime suspect. Unbuckling her belt she agreed and followed Chase back to the galley, her eyes sweeping the cabin for her partner but not seeing him. Chase opened a cabinet and pulled out a pillow with plastic wrap covering it. She proceeded to open it but then took Natalie off guard by lunging at her and covering her mouth and nose with the plastic.

Her fight instinct kicked in and she threw the heel of her palm upwards, connecting with Chase's jaw. She heard the click of a gun and Tony came into her blurry vision as the plastic fell away from her nose and air entered her lungs. It only took a few seconds to feel the world righting itself again and she could see how angry he was. Although, she wasn't sure if he was angry at her or at Tiffany Chase.

Tony made sure to keep his weapon trained on the assassin, not trusting her to try and find away out this. He snarled at the flight attendant. "Get down on the ground," the senior field agent snapped. "Natalie, cuff her."

She took her cuffs out and twisted the attendant's arms behind her back and cuffed her. Tony holstered his weapon and took the woman roughly by the arm and shot his partner a fierce look. "I thought I told you to stay."

"Figured you didn't want her giving Nora a pillow laced with something," Natalie threw at up as she fell into her seat.

"Yeah, next time, just say no to the pillow," Tony replied, forcing Chase into the aisle of seats with him. He reached for the inflight phone. "NCIS is going to be thrilled to hear about all the bad things you've been up to Ms. Chase. Starting with the murder of a United States Air Marshall. You got careless... left a bloody finger print."

Natalie could see the fury in Chase's eyes but not at the agents, at the fact that she got caught. "The Air Marshall was your second mistake... the first one was killing Parsons."

Tony nodded in agreement. "Taking out the competition, that's one way to get paid. And speaking of payment... we might be able to swing a deal for you if you tell us who hired you."

"Don't know his name," she said, gravely, angrily. "But he worked for Beringer Marine."

"Beringer Marine?" Nora repeated. "That's who I work for."

Natalie didn't have to tell Tony to dial, he already was.

Stan should have known that just because Gibbs had mellowed over the years, didn't mean that his marine tendencies had. He thought about this as Gibbs shoved him out of the way of Daniel Sturgis' car, as he hit the concrete and went rolling... and as Gibbs went over the hood, slamming into the ground on the other side of the car. "Gibbs! Boss! Are you okay!"

Gibbs grumbled, cursing and spitting like a Cobra as he stood up. "I was just hit by a car, Burley... what to do you think?"

"I'll...ah... I'll call a bus, boss," Stan replied, when he checked Sturgis and pulling out his cell phone. "Maybe call one for you too."

"I'm fine, Burley," Gibbs snapped through the pain. He glared at the unconscious driver of the car. "What I want is for that bastard to live so we can throw his ass in jail!"

Stan nodded and instructed the operator to their location. He could see that while Gibbs had mellowed where his team was concerned, he had not mellowed when it came to the bad guys. And perhaps it wasn't a good idea to have Gibbs be the one to tell Nora Williams that it was the love of her life that had paid for someone to kill her.

Gibbs seemed to have read his mind. He winced and ordered, "Call Callahan. Have her break the news."

"Do you think it will be easier coming from a woman?" Stan asked, hesitantly.

"No... I think she's the one who is going to say it with the softest touch," Gibbs tossed out, hotly. "And when you're done with her... let's close this case. I'm tired of hit man and Holly Snow and my agents having to solve murders thirty-nine thousand feet in the air."

After being given the rest of the day off and a pat on the back from Vance, Natalie had gone to the natural food market near her apartment and picked up something to make for dinner. She had thought about going to Yoga, but her body ached from being on that flight and really, after breaking the horrible news that it had been Daniel to order the hit on Nora... she needed some comfort food.

Natalie wasn't surprised when she found Tony waiting outside of the market for her. He had gone home to change out of his suit and was wearing jeans and sweater underneath his trench coat. He smiled at her, fondly and held a few photographs out to her. "You know, Abby saw these on my camera," he told her.

"What did you tell her?" she asked, looking at the photos he had taken of her at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

"She thought they were very artistic, that you're very photogenic... and that they were rather intimate," Tony replied, flicking a loose strand of Natalie's hair away from her shoulder. "You know, photographs that a person takes of their lover not their partner."

Natalie grinned, slyly at him, "Well... technically... when we took these... we had just become lovers."

Tony took the photographs from her hand and stuffed them inside her canvas shopping bag. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, softly. "Abby wondered about that, though, if we had become a little bit more in Paris."

"And... what did you tell her?" Natalie asked, again, realizing that he had yet to answer that question.

"I told her that I was the gentleman and took the couch," Tony said, grinning wildly.

"Hmmm, and did she buy it?"

"Probably not. But she did stop asking. Could be because Burley walked in then."

Natalie smiled at him playfully and held the canvas bag up. "I think I got plenty of food for two..."

Tony let his eyes wash over her, drink in the sight of her smile, the rosy color of her cheeks in the cold air. "Are you offering to wine and dine me, beautiful?"

She let her smile grow, her eyes sparkling. "Yes. Only if you agree to clean up, though."

He lowered his mouth to hers and gave her a passionate kiss before breaking away from her, wrapping one arm around her waist and leading her in the direction of her apartment building. "I don't know about you... but sounds like a fair deal to me."

Going to do one more arc with Burley and then it will be back to the Reynosa's.