They stopped for coffee, on the way to the hospital, Tony and House riding in the back of the van, Ziva in the front passenger seat, and Gibbs driving…which…wasn't particularly pleasant for Tony and House.

But it also proved advantageous for Tony, for when Ziva had woken up, his hand had unconsciously been over her breast, and despite the fact he had been asleep at the time, she was still threatening to murder him.

----

Tony scuffed his foot along the baseboard, as he and Gibbs waited outside the room for Ziva to do her thing.

After not too long, the door opened and Ziva came out, followed by House. "She is hiding in an abandoned fish warehouse in Baltimore. He does not know the address, but he said it was near here." She handed Gibbs a piece of paper.

Gibbs nodded. "Let's go."

"How do we know it's not a trap?" asked Tony, as they hurried to the elevator.

Gibbs shook his head. "We don't."

"Then we should do surveillance," said Ziva, "to make sure that she is really there."

Gibbs nodded. "We should."

Tony rolled his eyes. "But we're not going to."

"There's no time, DiNozzo."

----

Abby frowned, eyes fixed on the screen, showing the particulates scraped off the bottom of one of the assassin's shoes.

"Sawdust. So either this guy was in Gibbs' basement…or he was near…some place that has wood."

She groaned, leaning forward over the keyboard. "We're not getting anywhere, McGee."

"I know… but there's been wood in their pants, one of their hands, and now the bottoms of their shoes, that's the only common denominator we've found. Let's see if we can figure out what kind of wood it is."

Abby nodded, putting the bit of wood from one of the pairs of pants under the microscope, and bringing it up on the main screen.

----

They were almost to Baltimore, when House looked at Tony. "So Jethro the dog… it a pit bull?"

Tony snorted, shaking his head. "A German Shepard. A dog that follows its nose like Gibbs follows his gut."

House snorted, looking out the back window.

Then stopped, and slowly looked back at Tony. "Follows its nose…

He banged on the window between the back of the van and the front.

Ziva turned around, and rolled it down. "What is it?"

"Turn around! She's not in a fish warehouse—it's a trap!"

Gibbs glanced at him. "How do you know that?"

"Smell. When we were doing the external exams on the three assassins, I didn't smell any fish at all."

"They could have taken a shower, House."

"But I did smell something… a chemical smell, I couldn't place it. It was faint, but definitely there. Call Abby; have her run a mass spectrometer analysis on their hair, or a skin sample. That fish warehouse in Baltimore is a trap, Gibbs."

Gibbs kept driving for a little while, hands tight on the wheel, then suddenly braked, swung the van around, and made a u-turn in the middle of the street.

House grunted, impacting the side of the van as it turned. He moved back to his seat, and sighed, resting his head back and closing his eyes, as he listened to Gibbs calling Abby and telling her about the smell.

----

Ducky looked up, as the door to Autopsy slid open. "Ah, Abby, I was just about to call you. These fellows all have damaged lungs and kidneys… I would suspect from the inhalation of some chemical."

Abby nodded. "House and Gibbs think they were exposed to a chemical wherever their boss is hiding out."

Ducky looked a bit exited. "And if we can determine what that chemical is…"

Abby smiled, nodding. "We'll have a real clue as to where she's hiding."

----

McGee grabbed Abby's shoulder, as she came in. "I've got it! It's a Southern Yellow Pine."

"Which tells us what, McGee?"

He frowned a little. "Uh, well, it's used for lumber in upscale homes… it's used for fatwood for starting fires…they could be at a lumber mill."

"That's not enough! Gibbs is gonna want more… we have to find out what kind of mill!"

McGee sighed. "Great. How are we gonna do that?"

"With this," she said, holding up a petri dish with a bit of lung tissue in it, "and good old Major Mass Spec."

----

Gibbs' phone rang, and everyone in the truck looked up.

He handed it to Ziva, who answered, and put it on speakerphone.

"They're at a utility pole production plant," said Abby's voice.

"The chemical was PCP—" started McGee.

"The drug?" asked Tony.

"No, the drug's Phencyclidine, I'm talking about Pentachlorophenol."

"Uh… okay…?" said Tony.

"It's used in pressure treating wood," said McGee, "but due to the environmental impact of the chemical, its use is restricted to treating utility poles."

"The wood we found is Southern Yellow Pine, which is the most common wood for utility poles," said Abby, "and Ducky found kidney and lung damage."

"Pentachlorophenol is extremely nephrotoxic," said House. "It makes sense."

Gibbs looked at him. "What?"

"Nephrotoxic. Toxic to the kidneys."

"Good one House," said Abby, "you're right. I looked it up, and it would only take minimal exposure to cause the kind of damage Ducky and Palmer found in two out of the three assassins."

"The creatinin levels of the guy that's still alive were elevated. He was exposed to it as well," said House, remembering.

"Right. The only one that's less affected is Viggo Dratniev—presumably because he got here later than the other three," said Abby.

"We're narrowing down the locations based on distance and activity," said McGee, "we should have the location—now!"

"There's only one possibility a within two hundred mile radius of the Director's house. I'm sending the coordinates to your palm, Gibbs," said Abby.

"That's good work, you two," said Gibbs, before hanging up the phone, and swinging the van around again, in a completely different direction, and dialing again. "Mike, you might want to head down to Virginia—"

----

Wilson jumped a little, as his phone rang.

"Hey," he said, quickly, after seeing it was House and answering. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. We got the location. We're heading there now to take her down."

"We… you're going?"

"Yeah."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"…Yeah."

"Then why…"

"Because she had three people shot, Wilson. We're here. I gotta go."

"House!" he got up, walking out of the room, into the hall.

"What?"

"I… I got a job."

"What?"

"Assistant head of Oncology, at the VA hospital in DC. It's fourteen minutes away from the Navy Yard. I quit my job here this morning. Cuddy gave me a recommendation… It's… it's not the best thing for my career… but I think it's the best thing for me. I was going to wait until this weekend to tell you, but…" He was crying.

"… Oh. I… That's…"

"So… just don't get yourself killed. Okay?" he said, tearfully.

"…Okay."

House hung up.

Wilson bit his lip, slowly lowering the phone from his ear, and wiping his face on his sleeve. He walked back into the Director's room. "They found her."

She smiled. "I'm glad."

----

House stood by the van as the three special agents put on bulletproof vests. A car pulled up a minute later, and Mike Franks got out of the driver's seat, gun already in his hand.

House stood back, watching, as they headed slowly towards the big gray building, through the parking lot. He watched, as they slammed the door open, as sirens sounded on the street behind them, backup on the way, backup they weren't about to wait for.

Shots sounded, inside the building, five, six, seven.

Then, "House!"

He hurried inside.

Four people were standing over a figure on the gray, sawdust covered floor.

He knelt, pressing his fingers to the blond woman's carotid artery.

He looked up, nodding once. "She's dead."

He got up, checking the wound on Ziva's arm—she had just been grazed by a bullet, and would be perfectly fine.

The sirens arrived, and House closed his eyes, leaning against the side of the building.

They were done.

She was dead, they were done.

His leg hurt.

A slight smile formed on his lips.

Wilson was moving to DC.

----

Jenny smiled a little, as the assistant NCIS coroner came into her room wearing a lab coat and a stethoscope.

"You got all dressed up just for little old me?"

He snorted, taking her pulse. "I'll have you know this is the first time I've worn a lab coat since a board member was going to fire me if I didn't wear one."

She chuckled. "Uh-huh." Then she bit her lip. "How bad is it?"

"Well, you'll live. But that arm isn't going to work very well ever again… And you're not going to be able to participate in any active combat. You'll probably have some neuropathic–nerve–pain from the damage to your arm for a while, possibly for the rest of your life, but it shouldn't be too severe."

She closed her eyes, briefly, and then opened them. "I'm resigning as Director of NCIS. The fallout from this… it's going to be too big to keep quiet."

"Good."

"You're about as tactful as Gibbs, you know that?"

"The resigning part. Not the fallout part."

He had started to move towards the door.

"I'm curious… why do you think that's good?"

"You know what Gibbs said when I told him I wasn't comfortable continuing to sleep with him?"

"No… what?"

"That he was breaking one of his own rules--never date a coworker'. You're resigning. He's not. That's what I meant, when I said good."

And with that, he limped out… straight into Mike Franks.

"The security in this hospital sucks," he said, half growling, showing House the gun he'd had with him coming in.

House actually laughed. "Not about to argue with you on that."

----

A few hours later

Ducky smiled, walking up to Greg in the hospital hallway. "How is she?"

"She's stable, and is gonna be okay, mostly."

"How's Gibbs?"

House turned his head, looking into the room, where Gibbs was standing over the sleeping ex-director's bed, then back at Ducky. "I think he's gonna be okay as long as she is."

Ducky nodded. "I am glad about that."

House nodded, and then spoke, almost absently. "I solved it, by the way."

Ducky raised an eyebrow. "Solved what, Gregory?"

"Remember what you said when I asked if I could have the job?" asked House, quietly.

"Ah, yes… I believe I said you were just interested in the puzzle."

"Well… you were right. And I solved it. I solved what makes a person like me or Gibbs."

"Oh?"

House nodded to the Director's room. "Not having what you're supposed to have."

Ducky looked inside, to see Gibbs slowly curl his hand around Jenny's.

She opened her eyes, and smiled at him.

When Ducky turned around, House was gone.

----

Tony smiled, as he opened his door to find Ziva there.

"I am sorry for getting mad at you," she said.

Tony shook his head. "I'm sorry for touching you without permission."

She smiled, and walked in, touching his chin, as she turned around him. "Have you got anything to eat?"

He shook his head. "No, and I don't think I need anything…"

She laughed. "Tony. Stop being so spiny."

Tony grimaced slightly. "Horny. The word is horny."

"Whatever, Tony."

----

Wilson looked up, as the door to his office opened without a knock.

Then he slowly got to his feet, walked over, and put his arms around his lover's waist. "I'm sorry."

"Never say you're sorry."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. I know you didn't know what the New Haven was."

"House?"

"Hmm?"

"You… you've changed."

"No I haven't."

Wilson smiled, burying his face in House's chest. "Yes you have."

"How?"

Wilson raised his head, still smiling. "You're letting yourself care… and you're letting yourself be happy."

"You think the two are connected?"

Wilson nodded, but didn't speak, just rested his head in the crook of House's neck, breathing in his friend and lover's scent.

"You smell."

"Hmm?"

Wilson smiled into House's neck. "When's the last time you showered?"

"Um… before leaving for the New Haven."

"Maybe we should change that."

House grinned. "Maybe we should."

.