Author's Note: This was written for K9Lasko in the annual NFA White Elephant Exchange. Prompt to come at the end so as not to give anything away. Story is set in Season 11 after Bishop joins the team, and prompt was issued before the last several episodes aired, so any overlap with those episodes was unintentional on her part or mine. Also, this story relies heavily on actual happenings on Capitol Hill and issues in the news about a couple of political topics both because of the prompt and because I tend to ground my stories in reality. That does put a fairly heavy dose of politics in here, and if that's not your cup of tea or you disagree with the way the characters are addressing issues, please feel free to stop reading. My feelings will not be hurt. :) I tried to keep actions, words and thoughts consistent with the characters as they appear on TV, whether I agree with them or not. If you'd like to debate those choices in comments feel free. If you want to attack your perception of my views based on the story, please re-read the last few sentences. :) The story is done, but long, so I'll be spacing out posting. I had to post it in just a few days at NFA and nobody could keep up. *sheepish grin* So look for posts on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Mondays after this, which means it will finish in mid-August.

Disclaimer: Not mine, not making any money off of them, not planning on hurting them (well, much), will return them when I'm done.

Chapter 1

January 2014

"So where exactly is Gibbs?" Bishop asked. She sat on her desk, laptop propped on her knees.

"Staring time in the face. Defying the ages. Recalling boot camp." Tony looked over at the probie. "Those reports need to be done before he gets back." He smirked at the expression on her face.

McGee rolled his eyes. "Gibbs is down taking the annual agent qualifying exam," he told Bishop.

"But I thought it was only every three years," she said, propping her chin on one hand. "That's not annual."

"It is for most people," McGee replied. "But once you hit 50, they make it an annual test. Mandatory field agent retirement age is 55, and you can't petition to stay active past that date unless you meet certain scores on your last three exams."

"Gibbs is 54," Tony said. He tried not to think about what would happen next year if Gibbs didn't make the cut. Even Tony's sources hadn't been able to find out how Gibbs had done the past two years.

"And if we keep talking about him, he's going to show up," McGee said, keeping his voice low.

Tony whipped his head around, looking, but his shoulders relaxed when he saw the team leader wasn't anywhere around. "Back to work, Probie," Tony said. "Chop, chop."

McGee rolled his eyes again. "And I suppose you have all your paperwork done, Tony?" he said.

"Yes, McFileClerk, I do," Tony said, letting the grin stretch across his face. "What about you? You were in here awfully early today."

"Just getting a head start," McGee said.

"That's what you said last night when you stayed late," Tony said, rolling his chair over to McGee's desk. He lowered his voice. "No date with the delightful Delilah last night?"

"Delilah was working late," McGee said. "She's been pushing hard on her latest project."

"They've got her on high-priority cases again. That's good," Tony said.

McGee shook his head. "No, they don't," he said. "That's the problem. She's getting frustrated that her boss isn't giving her anything important to do, so she's been staying late and working on things on her own, trying to pick up other projects and dig around for something she feels is important." He sighed. "She's been looking at other jobs."

Tony stared at him. "She's planning on leaving the DOD?" he hissed.

"No!" McGee shook his head. "Well, maybe. I don't know. She's thinking about putting in for an analyst position. I think. She hasn't said anything, but I've seen the USAJobs website up on her computer when I'm over there, and she closes the browser window if she sees me nearby."

"If she closes it, then how..." Tony paused. "You haven't been McSnooping, have you? On your girlfriend who knows as much about computers as you do?"

McGee's ears started to turn pink. "Tony, it's not like-"

"Isn't it?" Tony asked. "You know-"

"I know there's a dead sailor across the river," Gibbs said. "Grab your gear." The team leader headed for his desk, hair still dark from the shower. "McGee, with me. DiNozzo, Bishop, take the truck. Duck's going to meet us there."

"On it, Boss," Tony and McGee said in unison, while Bishop just followed along.

But as they headed out, Tony couldn't help thinking of his own words to Bishop earlier as he saw Gibbs walking just a little unevenly. Not quite a limp, but close. Or so he told himself. He really should stick to thinking about Delilah and her secret job search and the possibility that Tim was going to end up getting busted — and possibly dismembered — by her if she found out he'd been snooping. Gibbs would be fine. He had to be. He was the boss.

~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~

Tony snapped photos from the crime scene under the overpass where I-695 crossed the Anacostia. He kept an eye on Bishop as she bagged and tagged the evidence, but she hadn't made any missteps yet. The construction site to the side was silent, after the foreman had discovered the dead body there when they started up that morning. He frowned. There was a decent amount of traffic on the road that ran alongside the park, at least when they didn't have it blocked off. He wondered what time the crew had arrived on site. If the body hadn't been moved after death — and it didn't look that way — somebody should have noticed it while driving by once the sun rose.

He focused the camera on the blood spattered on the ground near the sailor's head and listened to McGee and Ducky as he tried to press the shutter button with his thick gloves on. "Metro was right, he was a sailor," McGee said, holding up the portable fingerprint scanner. "Former petty officer John Briggs. He did four tours, including time in the Middle East, then received a less than honorable discharge eight months ago." McGee paused. "I'll have to pull his records when we get back, but it looks like he was caught driving drunk three times in his last posting, at Little Creek."

"From his appearance, Timothy, I suspect he continued to abuse alcohol after he left the service," Ducky said. "How old was Petty Officer Briggs?"

"He turned 37 back in October," McGee said. "He's not wearing much for as cold as it's been. If his head wasn't mush on one side, I'd wonder if he died of exposure."

"That could have been a contributing factor, certainly," Ducky said. "With the ambient temperature as cold as it's been, I'll need to examine the body more closely once we get him home to determine how much that affected the temperature Mr. Palmer just measured. Judging by the bloodstains on the shoulder of his jacket, I would wager that he had no additional outer layers on prior to his death. Life on the streets has not been kind to him, even before somebody decided to use his head as a baseball."

Tony couldn't help but agree. He stepped closer to the military-issued rucksack against the concrete abutment and crouched down, focusing on the things that had spilled out on the pavement. Briggs didn't have much, but it still was folded and organized. He frowned. Not what you typically would find with a homeless man, even a veteran.

"What ya got, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked.

Tony almost landed on his ass as he rocked back on his heels in surprise. "We need to put a bell on you, Boss," he said. He rose to his feet, knees cracking as he did. "What's Metro say?"

"Homeless man, found dead this morning," he said. "They could tell it was homicide, so when they saw the Navy tats on his arms, they called us."

"What time?" Tony asked.

"Construction crew arrived about 7:10, found him first thing, called it in," Gibbs said.

"That would explain why a driver didn't see him," Tony said. "Sun didn't come up much before then, not this time of year. He's a former sailor," Tony added, repeating what McGee had found. "His gear is pretty squared away for somebody living on the streets, though, especially if he's an alcoholic."

"You and McGee canvass the area," Gibbs said. He raised his voice. "Bishop, you're with me."

Tony loaded gear and evidence bags into the truck, then got the keys to the Charger from Gibbs. "Come on, McGee," he said. "Let's go ask people some questions."

As he and McGee walked away from the scene, McGee lowered his voice and asked, "Is Gibbs protecting the probie?"

Tony shook his head. "Not if she's the one pulling his SRB and calling his CO. The admiral in charge down at Little Creek is still pissed at Gibbs for that case last month, remember?"

"The one where we couldn't prove that he was complicit in the sexual assault cases on base?" McGee said. "Yeah, he's going to love being called by Bishop and her million questions."

"Never bet against the Boss," Tony replied. "Now, let's see how many ways people can tell us they didn't see or hear anything." He walked along beside McGee and felt his shoulders relax just that little bit. Gibbs had been mixing things up since Bishop started, and he'd come to enjoy the times he and Tim paired up. Gibbs had been pairing him with Bishop — Tony would think it was supposed to be mentoring, but Gibbs didn't mentor. He just expected you to meet his standards. He had to admit, they'd had a run of technical cases where Boss had needed his geek-to-Gibbs translator along, and Bishop still hadn't figured out how to talk tech to the Boss. At least this case was going to be simple police work, nothing that would take a master's degree in hacking to solve.

~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~

As Mr. Palmer drove the van back to the Navy Yard, Ducky ruminated on the evidence at the scene. Petty Officer Briggs was an anomaly, and he was quite curious to learn what the sailor would say once they had him on the table.

Once they had Briggs laid out and Mr. Palmer had left to bring trace evidence up to Abigail, Ducky leaned close to the petty officer's face as he cleaned the body. "Now, what do you have to tell us today, my dear boy?" he asked. "You do not have the stench of many in your position, but you clearly have been on the streets for a while. I rather suspect your liver will tell us of your past failings, but I do wonder what else we shall find."

"Abby said she'll have results later today on some of the tests, Doctor Mallard," said the voice of his assistant. Ducky looked up to see Jimmy walking across the morgue.

"Good, good," Ducky said. "Now, Mr. Palmer, shall we begin?"

As they began the routine of slicing open the body and inventorying its contents, Ducky found several of his initial hypotheses confirmed. He sighed as he examined the liver. "Our young sailor's liver has been abused, though not as bad as I might have feared. His alcohol issues might have been severe, but I suspect they are of recent origin, likely in the past three years."

"Self-medicating?" asked Mr. Palmer.

"Quite possibly," Ducky said. "I shall be most curious to learn what Abigail discovers in her toxicology report."

"He doesn't seem to have defensive wounds," Mr. Palmer said. "Could he have been too drunk to fight back?"

"Or asleep, or unsuspecting," Ducky said. "Our job is not to guess, Mr. Palmer, but to determine the facts with which we can form conclusions about what happened."

"Yes, Doctor," Mr. Palmer said. "We'd better hurry — Agent Gibbs will be along soon asking us what we've got."

"Indeed he will," Ducky replied. "Patience has never been Jethro's strong suit."