DISCLAIMER: I do not own Alex Rider or NCIS.

EVERYBODY DIES

I

"Tony, I will kill you if you do not stop-" Ziva David's day hadn't started off very well. She'd woken up a half hour before she was supposed to, her run was hindered by a horde of drunk men, and she'd arrived late to work.

"What's wrong with you today?" Tony DiNozzo, senior field agent and a pain in the ass, asked, his feet thrown up on his desk as he casually threw a paper ball at Ziva. She caught it, throwing it back. It hit Tony in the middle of his forehead.

"Alright!" Tony rubbed the point of contact, making a face. He turned to McGee, who was typing something rapidly into his computer, "McGoo!"

"Busy, Tony," McGee didn't bother looking up.

"Oh, come on, people!" Tony threw a paper ball at McGee, exasperated. Ziva sighed, turning her own attention to the paperwork on her desk.

Ziva wasn't sure what Tony was on about this time, but he was doing a ridiculous accent, saying to McGee, "Moneypennny, let me tell you the secret of the world..."

"Yeah? Let's hear it."

Ziva grinned to herself as Tony jumped, startled, managing to fall off his chair and onto the floor. He hesitantly peered over his desk at Gibbs, "Uh, hey boss. I was just – uh..."

Gibbs didn't pay the field agent any mind, "Get your gear. We got a dead gunny."

Ziva was already out of her seat before the man had finished his statement. Tony and McGee were up and ready too.

The team arrived at the crime scene fifteen minutes later. It was a quaint little house in a quiet residential area. Nothing out of the ordinary.

"DiNozzo-"

"Crime scene photos, got it boss," Tony picked up the camera and took a quick photo of McGee's face before darting off.

"McGee, David-"

"Bag and tag-"

"Sketches-"

Ziva followed Tony into the house, McGee right behind her.

She didn't have to go very far to see the body. It was lying in the living room, limbs twisted around in awkward angles. Bruises and cuts littered the man's body, which was only covered halfway. The definite cause of death, however, was the bullet hole right in between the man's eyes.

"Gunnery Sergeant Matthew Wilson," Tony pointed at the dog tags around the man's neck.

"Looks like he put up a good fight," McGee commented.

Ziva had her doubts, but she kept silent. The dead gunnery sergeant had no defensive wounds that she could see.

"I'm afraid that this young lad," Ducky and Palmer appeared in the doorway. Ducky had taken a moment to observe the man, "didn't put up much of a fight at all. Look at his wrists – ligature marks. He was tied up."

"Someone was angry," Tony said, snapping another photo.

Ziva shook her head, "Or, someone was torturing him for information."

Her cell phone rang in her jacket. It didn't happen very often, but Ziva knew that whenever it did, the call was important.

She accepted the call without hesitation, "David."

There was a moment of heavy panting on the other side, "Ziva, it's me."

Ziva froze, mouth open. The voice was male. He had a familiar English accent that told her exactly who this was.

"Alex?"

By then, McGee and Tony weren't even trying to pretend that they weren't curious.

The heavy panting continued, "I need your help. I'm at the intersection of Walker Lane and Smithson Road. It's not far from where you are. Can you pick me up?"

Ziva was already out the door, "I am coming! What is wrong? Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," Alex tried to reassured her, "Just a couple scratches. Do you have a first aid kit?"

"Yes," Ziva was biting the inside of her cheek.

"Good," Alex hung up a second later.

Ziva hurried back to the car.

"Going somewhere?" Gibbs cut her off, his usual coffee cup in his hand.

Ziva nodded, "My friend – he is hurt."

Something on her face must have shown Gibbs how urgent this was because a moment later, he nodded and handed her the keys.

"Thank you," she breathed, racing to the driver's seat. A second later, she was roaring down the street, repeating in her mind, 'Walker Lane, Smithson Road. Walker Lane, Smithson Road'.

There! She could see someone leaning against a sign. The figure was hunched over, his hands clasping his abdomen.

"Alex!" Ziva parked the car and hurried out, carrying the first aid kit, "You are hurt."

"Ziva, it's nice to see you again." the young man was blonde, but his hair was matted with dirt and blood. He looked young, maybe around his early twenties. Ziva never asked how old he was, and even if she did, Alex would have never answered truthfully.

Ziva instructed him to sit down. She began dressing the wound, "When did this happen?"

"Uh-" Alex groaned as Ziva prodded the wound. It was a knife wound, as if someone had tried to stab him. It was thankfully not as deep as Ziva thought, "Maybe fifteen minutes ago. I saw the guy kill that Marine and followed him. He knew I was following and set up an ambush for me."

Ziva tied up the bandage, "I thought nothing ever got past you."

Alex gritted his teeth, "He was aiming for my throat."

The Israeli had nothing to say. Instead, she helped Alex up and led him to the car, "We will be going to NCIS headquarters. You do not want to go to a hospital, correct?"

Alex nodded, wincing, "You work at NCIS now?"

"As a liaison," Ziva confirmed, closing the door behind Alex and getting in herself.

"I suppose the whole 'I don't want to go' speech isn't going to work, is it?" he grumbled.

Ziva laughed, starting up the car, "Not this time. I will have Ducky – he is a medical examiner – look at your wound. You are also a witness to the murder. You will have to share that information with us."

"You won't tell them, right?" Alex had a worried look on his face, "About my occupation."

Ziva looked at the young man, but quickly put her eyes back on the road after Alex pointed urgently. Seeing nothing, she sighed and turned back, "My lips are closed."

"Sealed," Alex corrected instantly.

"Close enough," Ziva scoffed before turning back to the road.

Another fifteen minutes and the two were back at NCIS headquarters. It took another ten minutes to convince Alex to get into the building and another fifteen to actually move the man. It seemed that both of them had underestimated the wound's fatality.

Tony and McGee were onto her as soon as they saw her.

"Where did you go?"

"What was that phone call about?"

"Who's that?" the last question was in perfect unison, as if they had planned it.

"A witness," Ziva urged Alex to walk a little faster. "He needs to see Ducky."

"Who needs to see Ducky?" Gibbs' ability to materialize out of thin air made Ziva even more annoyed than she was. Couldn't they see that this was important?

"I need to see Ducky," Alex replied, his words forced.

Gibbs got a look at the dirt and blood on the English boy. He nodded to Ziva, "I'll help. I'm going down there to see Duck anyway."

"I'm not leaving him," Ziva warned as Gibbs helped Alex drape an arm around his shoulder.

"I never asked you to."

Ziva was well aware of the other two field agents, following them, their curious eyes digging into their backs.

She cast a worried look at Alex, who seemed to have paled from the walk. She couldn't help thinking: what if he couldn't get out of this one this time?

EVERYBODY*LIES

Alex had conflicting feelings about Ducky, the medical examiner. The man was extremely talkative, and Alex found it intriguing to listen to his stores. On the other hand, Alex was reluctant to let the man look at his wound. If he lifted up his shirt, Ducky was bound to see the mess of scars on his front.

Ziva seemed to sense his reluctance. She led the other man away, saying something about an "Abby".

"Now, let's take a look at that wound, shall we?" Ducky was putting on gloves.

Alex hesitated, but eventually the feeling of dizzying pain swayed him. He lifted up his shirt.

"It never occurred to you to go to a hospital?" Ducky seemed shocked by the amount of scarlet blood staining the white bandages.

"I hate hospitals," Alex gritted out as the medical examiner unwound the bandages.

Ducky nodded along as he began to clean the blood off, "Yes. My dear boy, you remind me of someone… Oh, what's this?"

Alex winced as the man leaned closer to examine the scars, "I'm accident prone."

Ducky shook his head, "These cuts are placed methodically. These were not the result of any accident."

Alex said nothing.

"Are you, perhaps, depressed?" Ducky asked, moving on to wrap up the wound.

"No!" Alex was alarmed.

The medical examiner fell silent for the remainder of the time. Alex had the feeling that it was rare for the man to be silent.

"There you go," Ducky helped Alex off the metal autopsy table once he was finished, "That's a good lad."

The door slid open. Alex glanced over to see Ziva and the silver haired man.

"Alex!" Ziva hurried over to help the spy, "You are fine?"

"Yeah," Alex gritted his teeth.

Ducky took off his gloves, "Yes, well Mr. Rider here should be more careful. It seems someone wanted him dead. Thankfully the knife missed all the organs and is merely a flesh wound."

"Thank you, Ducky," Ziva began to lead Alex out of the room.

"Bring him back to the squad room!" the silver haired man called, "Try to get him to remember."

"Jethro, I must discuss..."

Alex didn't hear the rest of his sentence as the door shut behind him.

"Alex..." Ziva hesitated before beginning to speak in Hebrew, "What really happened? Who did this to you?"

Alex answered back in Hebrew, "It doesn't concern you and NCIS."

Ziva glared at him, pulling him inside the elevator, "It does! The man who stabbed you killed our Marine!"

Alex crossed his arms with difficulty, frowning, "It pertains only to MI6 and CIA. Leave it, Ziva."

"No," the elevator opened with a ding, and Ziva helped Alex out, "tell me who we're dealing with. If they will hurt my team, I have to know."

They paused outside the elevator as Alex went over the options. He didn't want to get his friend involved with his mission again, but he also didn't want her in the field without knowing what kind of danger was out there.

"SCORPIA," Alex finally conceded, "they've reformed, basing their operations here, in America."

He watched the conflicting emotions flicker across Ziva's face. It might not have been obvious to others, but Alex could read her like a book.

"I see," Ziva began to move again, "We must warn Gibbs. We must warn the Director!"

"No!" Alex stopped her forcefully, despite the pain in his side, "They can't be involved. If they know, they'll be a target. They'll capture your team and torture them, just like they did to us."

Ziva was quiet.

"Uh, guys?"

Alex's glare swiveled to the man who had interrupted them. It was the man from before. He was a little chubby, not that there was anything wrong with that. He seemed to be the type to stay on the computer all day and night.

"Yes, McGee?" Ziva brushed past him, helping Alex to a seat next to her desk.

Another man sidled up to them, "What's going on? Who are you?"

"Alex Rider," Alex introduced himself, "I'm a good friend of Ziva's."

"A British accent!" the man grinned. He tried to imitate James Bond, "the name is DiNozzo. Anthony DiNoz- hey!"

Ziva had smacked him on the back of the head, rather viciously too.

Glaring, the man finished his introduction, "You can call me Tony."

"Nice to meet you, Tony," Alex offered a hand.

"I'm Timothy McGee," the other man introduced himself.

Alex studied the man's face. He was almost certain that he'd seen McGee's face somewhere else before.

"You're Thom E. Gemcity, right?" Alex asked, "Author of Deep Six?"

"Ooh, McProbie's got a fan!" Tony had returned to his desk.

McGee let out a sigh of annoyance before answering, "Yeah."

"My boss likes your works," Alex grinned at the memory, "Reads them every other day."

"Jones?" Ziva questioned, her eyebrows raised, "Really?"

Alex nodded, grinning. He turned back to McGee, "Can I have your autograph?"

"Save it for another time."

Alex found it funny to see all three of the agents spring back to work.

"Boss, got something," McGee directed everyone's attention to the plasma, "Wilson's been getting threatening emails for the past month – all from the same person."

"Well?" Gibbs asked.

McGee typed something and a picture replaced the emails on the plasma, "Juliet Roberts, Wilson's ex-wife."

"Address?"

"Here," McGee handed a sticky note to Gibbs, who promptly took off, "DiNozzo!"

Tony grabbed his gear, taking off with a, "on your six, boss!"

Ziva made a gesture that was similar to an eye-roll, but wasn't, "Okay. You must tell me everything you remember."

EVERYBODY*DIES

"We made a composite sketch," McGee told Gibbs in the observation room, "Abby ran it through every database she could think of – even Interpol. Nothing."

"So either he is new to the business," Ziva contemplated, "or he is very good."

"What else did he say?" Gibbs demanded, taking a swig of his coffee.

"The guy was beating Wilson with whatever he could get his hands on. Alex was across the street when it happened. He tried calling 911, but there wasn't any signal-"

"Conveniently," Tony acknowledged.

"-so he tried to get to a place with bars. Before that could happen, he spotted our murderer running away and decided to chase him. The guy spotted him, ambushed him, and stabbed him before running away," McGee finished.

"The woman could have easily hired that man," Ziva said, observing the woman in the interrogation room, "She had the money and the motive."

"We'll see," Gibbs swept out of the room. A moment later he appeared in the interrogation room.

"What's your connection with Rider anyway?" Tony leaned closer to Ziva, suspicious.

Ziva gave him a small glare, "I do not see how that is any of your business."

"He's a witness! He is my business!" Tony angled his body and squinted at Ziva, "A brother? No, you don't look anything alike. A lover?"

Ziva hit Tony on his arm, hard, "None of your earwax!"

"Beeswax," Tony corrected.

McGee interrupted their banter, "Guys..."

Gibbs had situated himself in front of the suspect. The woman, Juliet Roberts, was an undeniably beautiful woman. Her ginger locks cascaded down her back, and she had a pleasant face.

"She looks like Jennifer Connelly," Tony commented. "From A Beautiful Mind. You know – the movie about John Nash? Great movie."

Ziva and McGee promptly ignored him.

In the interrogation room, Gibbs opened the file folder, producing printed pictures of the emails the woman had sent Wilson.

"Look familiar?" he asked, spreading them, all thirty-two of them, out on the table top.

The woman leaned in for a better look. Her emotions were easy to read as she read each one. A look that all the agents recognized popped onto her face.

"Yeah," Roberts replied daintily, "But I didn't send these-"

"The emails came from your computer," Gibbs said icily, "You signed your name on the bottom. Tell me, if you didn't send these, then who did?"

"Oooh," Tony winced, "he's using the 'Gibbs glare'. Poor woman."

Roberts began to breath heavily, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes, "I didn't write these! After Matt came back from his deployment, he wouldn't leave me alone. He would spend his time outside of my house, trying to get me to talk to him. My boyfriend, he wanted Matt to leave us alone. He's the one who wrote them for me!"

"Name," Gibbs demanded, his tone not at all questioning.

Roberts was moping up her tears of not sadness, but of panic, "Why? What's happened to Matt?"

"Name," Gibbs demanded once more, his patience tried.

"Boris Lynch," Roberts whispered.

Gibbs handed her a pen and a sheet of paper, "Address?"

The woman quickly scribbled down something. She looked up, "Did something happen to Matt?"

"Where were you this morning, about nine AM?"

Roberts' eyes darted around the room, "Work – Atraxi Architectural Firm."

"And where was Lynch?"

"I don't know!" Roberts was still panicked, "Please! Did something happen to Matt?"

Gibbs grabbed the paper and his folder, standing. He made it to the door before answering, "Yeah. He was murdered."

All three of the agents in the observation room winced as Gibbs left, leaving a shocked Juliet Roberts behind.

A/N: Uh... Hi? You may be wondering (again) what I'm doing. Never fear! My plan is clear! Ha that rhyme.

I don't exactly think this is the best thing I've written, and honestly the plot work it complete and utter poop, but you know what? I wrote it, so I'm going to post it. That's right, I already have the whole thing written up. Impressed?

Eh, you shouldn't be. This is basically a three-shot, with way too many scene changes. I'll post the next one in a couple days :)

-Alice (for behind the scenes, follow me on twitter at dalekchung)