Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs stepped off the elevator clutching a fresh cup of coffee and walked briskly through the bullpen toward his desk. As he passed between the desks occupied by the three agents on his team, he barked, "Update!"

Carthew, one of the two male agents on Gibbs' team, stood and stammered, "Um, Boss, we, um, got nothing."

Frustrated, Gibbs slammed his coffee down on his desk and turned to face the other agents. "You're telling me that we have three dead Marines in six days and we have nothing? I don't want another dead body. I want the killer."

"I have a suggestion," offered Normand, the other male agent.

"Okay, let's hear it."

"The new forensic psychologist."

Gibbs scowled and shook his head. "No."

"It wouldn't hurt to let her look over the case," argued Greer, the team's lone female agent. "Maybe she'll see something we haven't."

"No," Gibbs repeated sternly.

"Come on, Boss," Normand pleaded. "Worst case scenario, we can't use anything she comes up with."

"Besides, I heard she's really young and super hot," said Carthew with a wide grin.

Greer rolled her eyes. "She's also supposed to be wicked smart. I heard that while she was an intern at the San Diego office, she helped break some big serial killer case. Really impressed the higher ups. They practically begged her to transfer to headquarters after she earned her doctorate."

"Fine. Normand's right. If we don't like what she gives us, we just won't use it. I'll track down this forensic psychologist. You three start over. Redo everything. Find something we missed," ordered Gibbs as he picked up his coffee cup, grabbed the file from Normand's desk, and headed for the stairs.

When Gibbs reached the top of the stairs, Greer shouted, "Her name's Sloane."

NCIS NCIS NCIS

It didn't take long for Gibbs to find Sloane's office and barge in without knocking. He came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the office when he realized the person behind the desk was a young girl, not the woman he had been expecting.

The girl stared up at him with big brown eyes. She kept the pink crayon she was holding carefully poised over the picture she had been drawing. A quick glance around the office confirmed the girl was alone. With his curiosity piqued, he smiled at the little girl and asked, "Are you Dr. Sloane?"

Giggling, the little girl set down her crayon and folded her hands over her picture. She sat up straight and did her best to look grown up. "Can I help you, um Agent, um, sir?"

"Gibbs."

"Agent Gibbs."

"Got a file that needs looking at."

"Oh?" The girl paused, her brow furrowing in concentration while she tried to remember what the other agents who had visited the office had wanted. When she remembered, she exclaimed, "You need a, um, profile! Right?"

"Something like that."

"What's the case?"

Gibbs easily came up with an age-appropriate case and listed the made-up facts for the little girl. "Missing teddy bear. Owner thinks it was stolen. No witnesses. No suspects. I need to know who I'm looking for."

"Someone mean?"

"You asking or telling?"

"Telling," the little girl responded with a firm nod.

"Good. Anything else?"

"Maybe they wanted the bear."

"Or?"

A flash of movement behind Gibbs distracted the girl before she could reply. Looking over Gibbs' shoulder, she saw her mother. The girl waved at her mother and said, "Hi, Mom!"

Gibbs spun around to face the woman standing behind him. "I was looking for you, Dr. Sloane," he informed her in an accusatory tone.

"Hello to you too, Agent."

"Special Agent Gibbs."

"Ah, Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs. That explains a lot. I'm Special Agent Jacqueline Sloane."

Gibbs narrowed his eyes at Sloane. "What exactly does my name explain?"

Chuckling, Sloane stepped around him and crossed the office to stand behind her daughter. As she opened the juice box and bag of pretzels she'd brought back from the break room, she told him, "Your gut is so famous, people bow down to it all the way to California! Every week, I would hear a new story about a certain hard-to-handle agent who crossed some line, but I'm sure that's just pure urban legend. Would you agree, Special Agent Gibbs?"

Gibbs gave her a one shouldered shrug, but didn't otherwise answer her question. Instead, he said, "It's just Gibbs."

"Jack" Sloane reintroduced herself. Stroking her fingers through her daughter's hair, she added, "And this is Faith."

"We've met. Little Doc was helping solve the case of the missing teddy bear."

"I don't suppose you've got a case for me too? Maybe something that's stumped your famous gut," Sloane suggested hopefully. She rubbed her hands together in a show of eager anticipation.

Gibbs passed her a file, but he barely let her flip through it before demanding to know, "What do ya got?"

Glancing up at him, Jack raised one eyebrow in a silent admonishment. "I'm gonna need more than a few seconds, Gibbs."

"Fine. I'll go get another coffee."

"Take your time. I'll try to have something preliminary by the time you get back."

"Do you drink coffee?"

"Uh, yes, by the gallon."

"Black?"

"Three sugars, more sugar than coffee." Sloane laughed when her coffee order made Gibbs grimace. "It helps keep me sweet."

Gibbs smirked at her joke and shifted his attention to Faith. "What about you, Little Doc? Coffee?"

"No," giggled Faith.

"Hmm, that's right, you might be a little young. What about hot chocolate?"

Faith looked up at Jack with wide, pleading eyes. "Can I, Mom? Pleeeeeassse," she begged.

"Yes."

"Yay!"

"Three sugars in the hot chocolate too?"

"Yes!" Faith answered.

At the same time, Sloane said, "God, no."

"All right, one coffee, one cup of sugar, and one hot chocolate. I'll be back." Gibbs turned on his heel and started to walk out of the office.

"Hey, wait, let me give you some money," offered Sloane, but Gibbs just waved her off and kept walking.

NCIS NCIS NCIS

When Gibbs returned thirty minutes later, Sloane was sitting with her legs folded underneath her and the case file laying open in her lap. He noticed that she watched him for the entire two minutes it took him to walk over to the desk where Faith was still drawing, compliment her artwork, and trade her a cup of hot chocolate for a picture of a pink horse, but quickly averted her gaze when he began walking toward her. As he sat down next to her, he said, "You're not fooling anyone, Sloane."

"Is that so?" she asked, taking her cup of coffee from him.

"Mhmm." Nodding at Faith, he said, "She's quite the artist."

"Yeah. Horses are her current favorite. She only gives them to people she really likes."

"Glad I made the cut," Gibbs quipped, causing Jack to choke on her coffee. When she'd recovered, he casually mentioned, "I didn't know it was bring your kid to work day."

"More like month. I couldn't find a daycare that could take her until after the Fourth of July, but the Director wanted me to start now, so, in the meantime, she'll be here," explained Jack.

"She provide back up in case you get stuck on a profile?"

"Definitely not! She knows she's not allowed to even think about looking at a file. The last thing I need is a traumatized six-year-old."

"I hear that," Gibbs agreed easily. "So, what do ya got?"

"Well, uh, keep in mind, this is just preliminary. I need to go through the file more carefully."

"Just give me something I can work with, Jack."

"Okay, well, the murders were messy and quick. Not only were the individual murders over quickly, but there's almost no cooling off period between kills. Taken together, that's an indication of rash behavior and poor decision making."

Gibbs scoffed, "Three dead Marines didn't tell you that?"

"I'm not done," Sloane retorted. "Despite the sloppiness of the murders, the killer has been careful not to leave anything behind that would connect him to the scene. That indicates the killer is intelligent and capable of making and following a plan."

"Isn't following a plan different than rash behavior?"

"Still not done," Jack grumbled, her growing exasperation evident in her voice. "The most obvious similarity between your victims is the fact that they are all Marines, but, more than that, they have all served as recruiters. In fact, only the first victim was no longer working as a recruiter when he was killed. He just finished a yearlong assignment as a recruiter last month."

"I already know that."

"Would you stop interrupting me?"

"Would you get to the point?"

"The point is that the killer is most likely someone who was recruited by the first victim, but couldn't make it through basic training and blames their failure on the person who recruited them. The killer probably washed out fairly recently and planned their revenge on the way back to D.C. Once they got here, the killer tracked down their recruiter and killed him. That's the part where the killer made and followed a plan. After they killed their recruiter, they lost control and started killing other recruiters at random. That's the part where the killer acted rashly."

"You got all that in thirty minutes?"

"Yes, but I'll keep working. Maybe I can get you something more concrete with a little more time. If you get me a list of the first victim's recruits, I can try to narrow it down for you."

"I'll have Normand get you a list."

"Great."

As Gibbs he stood up to leave, he asked, "You planning to stick around?"

"Yes. You gonna try to change my mind?"

"Only if you're wrong about this profile. How much of this is B.S. anyway?"

"None of it. It's just a different way of looking at the evidence. You may not understand my methods, but they work."

"We'll see," Gibbs said.

Sloane sensed the challenge behind his words and couldn't help issuing one of her own even though he had already started to walk away. Just before he disappeared into the hall, she called out, "Hey, Gibbs." She waited for him to look at her, then added, "You'll like having me around, I think."

"Why is that?"

"'Cause you enjoy a good fight."

Gibbs shook his head and let out a short chuckle. "See ya later, Special Agent Sloane."

"You know where to find me, Special Agent Gibbs."

"Bye, Little Doc. Thanks for the horse."

"You're welcome," Faith replied with a smile. She waved at Gibbs as he finally left the office.