"Ana!"
Chapter Two: Ticking Time Bomb
16x03: Boom

*Trigger warning*

Isana was trying to work while Mcgee and Torres were playing Hang Man on the plasma. She wasnt interested in anything else but the work. Of course, they were yelling.

"F."

" No "F. " You lose," Mcgee says.

"Wait. What? No, what about the-the eyes and the mouth and the face?"

" There is no face in hangman," Mcgee explains.

"Ana"

" Not getting involved." Isana raises her hand in the air,

"Bishop?"

"Nope dont even think about it," She replies as Isana chuckles,

"Sorry, I'm late. And I'm already late for my next meeting, so let's get started so we can get finished." Moore runs in handing out documents to each person.  "Everyone, take a look at these documents."

"Who is she?"

" Agency attorney. Never good news." Mcgee explains.

"Effective immediately, NCIS is discontinuing its use of cell phone tower location tracking.

With this directive, we can.."

"- Whoa, whoa, hold on. Are you, are you saying that I can no longer ping a suspect's cell phone?" Mcgee asks.

" Not without a warrant you can't."

"Hi. Agent Torres here. So, uh, Agent McGee, uh, he pings, like, all the time. That is like his superpower." Torres explains as Isana chuckles.

"Not anymore. Supreme Court just ruled it's illegal."

"They're wrong. Right, McGee?"

"I kind of get it. Sometimes privacy outweighs the need for security." Mcgee nods as Isana does too agreeing with it.

"I'm sorry, what McGee means to say is the new policy means dangerous criminals can get away. Does Director Vance know about this?" Bishop asks.

" - He's on leave."

"What about Gibbs?" Torres asks.

" Yeah, what about him?"

Gibbs enters the bullpen "Explosion outside a Navy SEAL's house. We have two bodies."

"Wait, I just need one more minute, sir, to finish my presentation."

"Grab your gear," Gibbs says.

- "Grab your gear."

"Grab your gear  Oh, "grab your gear," Torres repeats as Isana is already trailing behind Bishop and Gibbs.

" Those two yahoos okay?"

" I don't know anymore." Bishop jokes as Isana laughs.

//

Petty officer Nicholas was the one being questioned there was an explosion outside his house. But he wasnt injured in the slightest. Two porch pirates were the ones injured. Everyone was gathering statements or taking photos when a blonde woman starts yelling.

" Let me through. I'm his wife." the agent lets her through and she runs up and hugs Todd  "Todd. My darling, are you okay?"

"Is that his wife?" Mcgee asks.

" Uh, yeah. It looks like it. Her name's Sheba."

"Sheba."Mcgee and Bishop say at the same time.

"McGee, you know her?"

" Yeah. You-you guys don't?" He was practically wetting himself over this woman.

" No. Bishop, Ana do you?"

" Uh, no. " Both women reply at the same time.

"McGee."

"Sorry, boss. Uh, her name is Sheba.  She's one of the stars of the show Real Wives of War."

"The reality show? You watch that?" Isana furrows her brows.

" Well, Delilah does."

"Mm-hmm."

"Uh-huh," Gibbs says as Isana chokes on her laugh.

"Oh, my God, you know what? Petty Officer Nicholas must be Todd. he's not on the show, but she talks about him all the time. Says that she is the luckiest woman in the world."

"Wow. Delilah must, uh, really like that show." Nick replies with a slight smirk.

"Yeah."

She stops hugging Todd and runs over to Mcgee. "Excuse me, Officer." 

"Uh, yes. Sorry, I mean Agent. I mean, um what?"

" Please tell me this isn't real."  Everyone gives her an incredulous look.

"Excuse me?"

" It's sweeps. Greg put you up to this? Greg. My producer." She points to the guy on the phone laughing behind the crime scene tape.

"Hey, Torres. Pacheleki." they both walk over to question the producer.

The group finds themselves in the bullpen.

"Our package thief is Edie Samples. A doorbell camera caught her in the act." Mcgee was playing the footage.

"It appears she and her boyfriend Walt Fergus followed the delivery truck and stole all the packages."

"They picked the wrong package to poach," Bishop comments as Isana nods.

"Who was the bomb's real target?"

" Petty Officer First Class Todd Nicholas. 27. Graduated from SEAL training two months ago. As squared away as they come." Mcgee explains.

"What about his wife?"

Bishop takes the remote from Mcgee. "Sheba Nicholas. 25. No kids, no record, no job, until she joined the reality show Real Wives of War two seasons ago."

"It was two and a half. She was in all 41 episodes if you count the two-parter as one, which I like to do." Mcgee stops talking as everyone is staring at him Nick has the biggest grin on his face.

"Go on."

"Well, I-I don't know all that much." Mcgee stampers.

"No, it's okay, McGee. I mean, we've already judged you, so.."

" Oh, okay. Well, the show's about four military wives, right? Charlotte, Tessa, Angela-- Angela's quite the instigator. Tess and Char-Char are pretty catty, too."

"- Char-Char? This is the best day of my life." Isana laughs.

" My point is that Sheba is the wholesome, virtuous one. She loves everyone, especially her husband. Last week's episode...."

" We got it. You think she's innocent." Gibbs says.

"Boss, the Sheba I know would never do anything like this. Now that I say that out loud, I feel slightly embarrassed."

"Hey, Tim, you should be." Nick shakes his head and waves a hand a Mcgee

"Char-Char," Gibbs repeats as Isana laughs. Everyone goes back to their task.

Nick and Isana were entering the conference room where Petty officer Todd Nicholas was, Nick opens the door gesturing for Isana to enter, and places a hand on the small of her back to step past her and take a seat at the table.

"Were you able to trace that package?" Todd asks he seems impatient, anxious even.

" Dead end. It was sent by a "G. Washington" with a return address to the Lincoln Memorial.

Your turn. Why do you think your wife sent it?" everyone takes a seat at the table.

"Three days ago, Sheba threatened to kill me."

"Why?" Isana asks.

" She thinks I'm having an affair."

"Are you?" Isana asks as Todd sighs, shaking his head as if he was having an internal battle with himself.

" Do I have to tell the truth in here?"

" Well, that depends. You like bombs in your mail?" Nick sasses as Isana rolls her eyes.

"I'm not having an affair. But I told her I was."

"Okay." the two furrow their brows confused.

"I want out of my marriage. That woman is not the person I fell in love with. That show turned her into a total psycho."

"Silly question: why not just divorce?" Nick asks. As Isana nods in agreement.

"I've tried. She won't do it; she thinks I'll make a play for her reality money."

"Okay, her threat-- what did she say, exactly?" Isana asks.

" She told me that she would chop off my, um manhood while I slept, and then laugh as I bled to death."

"Mm. Oh, my God." Nick goes pale very quickly.

//

Mcgee had gathered everyone around his desk he was reading the Real Wives Of War blog post.

"Here's another one. Sheba is "soulless, vapid, shallow" "Disgraceful, shameful, embarrassing" and "The most ratchet hair I've seen on a rich person"?"

" I guess fans saw through her act. TV viewers can be pretty savvy." Bishop explains as Isana nods.

"Well, how did Delilah and I miss it?"

" You missed what?" Gibbs enters.

" Well, boss, we're doing a deep dive into the R-WOW forums looking for suspects," Mcgee explains.

"The R-What?"

" Real Wives of War." Isana breaks it down and Gibbs nods.

"Turns out the Internet hates Sheba."

Bishop raises her hand. "I agree with the Internet."

" What about the husband?"

"As a suspect or target?" Mcgee asks.

"Target."

"You know that all SEALs undergo demolitions training. Yeah, and full psych evals, McGee.

A SEAL did not do this." Gibbs replies.

"We found only four online threats against the husband. All posted nine months ago by the same person." Isana pulls them up on the screen.  "Sheba deserves a better man "than her warmongering husband, who needs to die on the battlefield."

" Oh, I've heard way worse than that."

"LLL" "Leonardo"?" Gibbs reads the username out loud.

" Oh, his real name is Leonard Finnick. Lives in Baltimore. You want us to visit him?"

"Oh, come on, guys. Anybody can say anything on the Internet. I posted major shade on Shakira when she released She Wolf. You remember the album, right, Gibbs? I didn't have any federal agents asking me questions." Nick explains as Isana bites back a laugh.

"You drive safe, Torres. Take McGee with you." Gibbs orders as the two men leave.

After Torres and Mcgee come back from Leonard's house. Isana finds herself utterly tired. She is in the kitchen making herself coffee, her hands were shaking from her the lack of food she had eaten. She was way too tired to care about anything that was happening.

Torres and Bishop come in each grabbing a cup of coffee for themselves as Isana is putting sugar in hers, Bishop was going on and on about something Moira her partner said and Isana was trying to listen but she couldnt. She was falling asleep right there. Bishop then starts walking away and Torres goes to follow looking behind him and seeing Isana standing there head bobbing up and down grip on her coffee tight, it was making her knuckles white.

"Ana! Yo-hoo." she jolts awake rubbing her eyes.

"You okay?" She looks at him and he could see her eyes rolling around as if they were fighting trying to keep her awake.

"Yeah, yeah I'm good." she stumbles a bit spilling her coffee all over her shirt. "Ohhh Ouch eso está caliente." (Ouch that's hot.) she kisses her teeth.

"Here let me help you." Nick takes a handful of napkins and begins dapping at her chest. Her shirt was white, the neck was low revealing the pearl pendant that her brother gave her. The room grew silent. The goosebumps rose on her collarbone just from Nick's touch and Isana felt as if time itself had stopped. She watched as he blew on her chest, trying to stop the heat from getting to her quicker. Her shirt was now seethrough and Nick tries to look away while still dabbing at the coffee. He clears his throat. "Yeah, it should be better now."

"M-hmm," Isana nods, she holds the now damp napkins in her hands. "Er... Thank you." he nods gulping thickly and Isana just nods a few times leaving.

She walks into the bullpen going to her desk to get a new shirt. Just as Gibbs walks in noticing the big ass Coffee stain on her shirt.

"You okay?" He takes off his jacket covering her front half, as everyone could see her bra at this point. She nods. Grabbing a spare shirt from  her desk drawer she can feel her face heating up at the looks she was getting as she walks away going to change her shirt.

After eight whole  minutes of cursing at herself and trying not to make it such a big deal. Isana arrives back in the bullpen. Nick hands her a fresh cup of coffee and she gladly takes it. Handing Gibbs back his jacket.

"Give me an update," Gibbs says pulling on his jacket.

"Oh, McGee was just getting it."

"Boss, Sheba brought in a box of letters from Leonard Finnick. He's got a bee in his bonnet for Petty Officer Nicholas. Talks about how "the enemy must be vanquished," and calls him the "villain SEAL." Mcgee explains.

"And I've got another eight boxes in my trunk. Heavy boxes." Sheba smirks at Mcgee her eyes fluttering.

"Oh, I got them."

"Torres, handle it." Gibbs orders as Isana just shakes her head.

"Uh, probably a better idea, boss."

"You got a location?" He asks.

"No, not yet. Uh, Finnick has no record, no car, no job."

" He has a cell phone?" Gibbs asks.

" Yes, but.."

"Yes, but what?" He looks up at the trio

"Uh, yes. Normally, we would ping it, but that meeting you missed this morning?"

" No more pinging." Isana says.

He sighs tilting his head. "Find some other way to get ahold of Leonard." Gibbs leaves.

"Sure. I'll just use black magic. Oh, come on, this could be so easy. I'll just ping this one time and then never again." Mcgee whines.

"What about "privacy outweighs security"?"

" There are no atheists in foxholes." He says as Isana scoffs.

"Vance never would've signed off on this."

"Well, when he comes back, you should talk to him,"  Bishop says.

"If he gets back, you mean

"Do you know something I don't?" She asks.

" All I know is that reentry is a bitch."

Isana nods. "Yeah, it is."

Mcgee and Torres found Leonard it took a lot of unnecessary resources and time but they found him. He was holding a box in the middle of a strip mall when they found him. They cleared the area only for Leonard to open the box and well let's just say there wasnt a bomb inside.

"That's the Little Bighorn River, and that's a pronghorn deer, and an otter and, uh, that's me and," That's right ladies and gents. There was a replica of Leonard and Sheba inside the box. He had a barbie for Sheba and a gi joe with his face on it to represent him.

" Sheba and your love child. Yeah, we've been over this. Leonard. I need to talk to you about your bedroom." Isana was watching Nick interrogate Leonard with Bishop and Jack.

"This is the hollowed-out log for fishing or, you know.."

" Leonard. Focus. Bedroom." he shows him a photo they took of his bedroom.

"Oh, do you like it? Sheba loves it."

"You talked to her?" Nick asks.

" Yeah. She told me in a dream the other night."

"No, she didn't," Nick mutters.

"Uh, were you there?"

" Dreams are not reality, Leonard." Nick simply says.

Leonard chuckles. "You are so naive."

"Okay. All right, explain this to me. So this is you?" Nick points to the gi joe whose head is partially shaved leaving only hair on the sides.

" Right. Yeah, yeah."

"That's Sheba." Nick points to the barbie.

"Uh-huh. Pretty hair."

"And that is a dead buffalo." Nick points to the pretend dead buffalo laying infront of Leonards's feet with blood coming out of it.

"Correct. That's correct."

"Who is the dead buffalo? Is that Sheba's husband, Petty Officer Nicholas? Leonard.

Did Sheba ask you to kill her husband in that dream?" Nick asks as Leonard is just staring at him.

" Episode 33, just after the commercial about the tortilla chips, Sheba's white shirt isn't ironed. And she just gives me the littlest nod, like so. She goes." He demonstrates.

" Wow."

"Yeah."

"What does that mean?" Nick asks.

"  It means nothing," Jack says.

"You don't think he's our guy?"

" His cord doesn't quite reach the outlet, but I've read his file and he has never shown a propensity towards violence and I doubt he would start now," Jack explains.

"So, should we go rescue Torres?"

Isana opens her mouth to say something when Mcgee burst through the door. " We got a problem. Another mail bomb just detonated."

"What? Where?"

" Alexandria. One dead. Same M. O. as the first bomb and this one came by one-hour delivery." Mcgee explains.

"Leonard's been in here for two."

"Yeah, which means.."

" We've got a serial bomber on the loose." Mcgee finishes for her as they all sigh.

Two bombs, three victims.

//

It was the next morning and Isana was still so very tired. She wasnt getting much sleep, it was because of that damn cricket. She had a cricket in her house maybe more than one. At first, it was the living room so she could just close her door, but then it was in her room, and then the living room again. She spent every night trying to trap it and find it so she could just sleep but it wasnt working.

"Will there be more? That's the question paralyzing the city today as pressure mounts on NCIS, which has taken the lead in the investigation, even as the agency's director remains on extended medic..." The group was watching the news when Gibbs enters a coffee cup in his hand. He shuts the news off.

"We don't make news. Update." He says.

"Second bombing victim was Patricia Everett. 48 years old, divorced, two kids in college."

"Package was delivered via Global Courier's one-hour delivery service. Everett was the recipient." Bishop explains.

"Who's the sender?"

" Fake. Just like the last one." Torres speaks up.

"What's the connection with our targets?"

Isana sighs. "Nothing yet. Uh, no mutual friends, no social media overlap, and no six degrees of Kevin Bacon and we've looked."

"Look harder." He tosses the remote back to Mcgee walking off.

"What if there is no connection? What if the bomber is picking his targets from the phone book?"

Gibbs comes back from Visiting Kassie. Isana really liked her she was sweet, and laid back, but also very funny and nervous mostly around Gibbs, she loved how genuine she was and found her to be a tad bit more cartoonish in personality than Abby. He comes back with a broach, which Kassie found in the last bomb. Only it wasnt a broach,

"The Budweiser. The coveted trident pin awarded to all Navy SEALs upon graduation." Mcgee pulls up a photo of Budweiser.

"And you think that's a melted trident?"

" The bombs are SEAL-related," Nick says simply.

"But we've been over this. Pat Everett has no connection to the Navy."

" And we vetted all 20 Navy SEALs that were in Petty Officer Nicholas's graduating class," Isana says,

"What about the ones who rang out?"

" It's a bigger list. Hold on." Bishop heads over to her computer and starts typing. "Um, 204 candidates washed out."

"How many made it through demolition training?"

" That should narrow it down. Only 16." She replies.

"How many of those 16 failed their psych eval?"

" Only one." she finishes.

"Put him up."

"Hmm. David West. He washed out about four months ago. Now lives in West Virginia where he works security at a mall." Nick reads.

"Look at that. The psychologist that administered West's psych eval was Dr. Patrick Everett. Sound familiar?"

" The second bomb victim was Patricia Everett," Isana says.

"Can't be a coincidence."

"Either our bomber hates the Everett family...." Mcgee suggests.

" Don't know if they're related."

"or he killed the wrong Pat Everett." Mcgee continues.

"Where is West right now?"

" Pinging his cell phone." Mcgee starts walking to his desk and stops.  "Boss, let me just say that I think this new non-pinging policy sucks."

"McGee, Bishop we got the mall." Gibbs reaches into the draw getting his gun. "Isana, Torres, take his house. Let's go."

//

Isana and Nick pull up to West's house seeing him working on his truck outside. They climb out of the car.

"David West?" David takes off running inside the house.

"Wait. NCIS!"

" Mr. West, we just have a few questions!" they run towards the house. Nick stops Isana front running more, putting a hand out infront of her.

" Easy, easy, easy." it was quiet for a second as they slowly tiptoe towards the house, "Gun!" he yells the two ducking down, Nick was practically shielding Isana with his body, and he pushes her down lower as bullets are ricocheting off of things,

"Okay. I don't think he wants to talk to us." Nick was grabbing Isana's shoulder as they were crouched down.

"He can talk to my SIG. Ready? One...Two."

Isana watches a grenade goes tumble a few feet away. "Nick."

"Go. Go! Go!" They begin running and the grenade goes off sending them flying Isana rolls around the army crawling near a rundown truck that was in the yard. She crawls too hard twisting her ankle as Torres pushes her upwards, they get behind the car, and Isana makes a phone call.

"Okay. The SWAT team's on the way. Gibbs and McGee are coming back from the mall. They should be here any minute. All right?"

" All right," Nick grunts. He was talking about something sticking in his shoulder.

"Now, let me take a look at this." she pulls back his jacket revealing a large gash with a big piece of glass sticking out of it.

"Ow, ow."

"Ooh" Isana winces and it wasnt from her ankle.

" How bad is it?"

" Uh, it's not great, Nick.Ooh." she tries to lift his shirt and he flinches.

"- Oh, Ana!"

" Shrapnel's in there pretty deep."

"Oh, that's peachy." Nick sasses

"Okay." Isana breathes out.

Nick digs in his pocket flinging open his knife. "Cut it out."

"You're not serious." 

He nods. "Yes, I'm serious. Cut it out."

" No, Nicky." She winces as he looks back.

"Mmm." she shakes her head, her ankle was the size of a baseball, she didn't need to look at it to tell it was sprained. "Ooh." she breathed a wave of nausea taking over, it didn't help that she hit her head. Nick looks back noticing the blood coming from her head.

" This guy tried to kill you," He clears his throat. "And me. okay? I'm about to try to kill him, but I can't do it with that thing in my back, so just-just dig it out."

" Okay. Fine. You're an idiot." Isana pulls a lighter from her pocket waving the flame a few times over the blade.

"Wait, what's that for?"

" I'm sterilizing my tool. Here." she picks up a stick.  "Bite onto this."

"Oh. Oh, we're doing this."

"Can you make up your mind already?" Isana argues.

" Well, I'm just saying that maybe that guy is gone. I-I didn't hear him shoot for, like, a little bit."

"Oh, the guy is gone." Isana pulls off Nicks's hat

"Are you What are you doing? What are you doing?"

She puts the hate on the stick and holds it up above their heads. West shoots at the hat. "He's still there."

"That was my favorite hat."

"Can we gonna do this or what?" She sasses.

" Okay, I'm ready I'm ready, I'm ready."

Isana shakes her head trying to get nausea to go away. "Okay. One, two.."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! The cavalry's here." He leans over to the side bit seeing Mcgee who was making these weird-ass hand signals.

"What? What is he doing?"

" Uh, no idea," Torres replies.

Mcgee disappears in the bushes. "Where did he go?"

" Where's Gibbs?"

"Isana! Torres! Ceasefire, we're on the way out!" They hear Gibbs yell. They stand there as Bishop comes out from hiding around the house. She holsters her gun.

"Nice hat," Gibbs comments as they are dragging David out of the house.

They bring David in for questioning and Mcgee and Bishop interrogate him while Isana is getting medical attention from Palmer, Isana felt like utter shit and didn't want to go to the hospital because her car was still fucked and also because her energies weren't major.

She yawns as Palmer takes note. "You seem tired."

She sighs at the end of her yawn. "I have this cricket problem and It's been keeping me up all night. Every night and I want to scream."

"Ah, Crickets...You know I hear if you leave out honey they will be drawn to the sweet scent and come out of hiding."

Isana smiles at Palmer. "You are a lifesaver. P."

He finished wrapping up her ankle. "Okay it's just a sprain so stay off of it for twenty-four hours and you should be good."

"Thanks, P."

Isana hops towards the elevator. She walks into the bullpen just in time to see that they saved West's wife from being exploded and that director Vance was back everything seemed to work out in the end. After all her paperwork she decided to call it a night, it was just her and Nick left. She turns the light off on her desk and stands up gathering her things,

"You heading out?"

"Yeah, I have to hop to the train station and make it back in time to..." she yawns. "Deal with my cricket problem and my dog."

Nick taps his pen against his hand. "Here let me give you a ride and I'll fix your car."

Isana stops her movements. "Nicky, I can't ask you to do that."

He stands already gathering his bag. "It's not an issue. Come on."

"Okay." she begins hopping.

"Here" he leans down. "Put your arms around me."

"Nicky.."

"Would you stop being stubborn and do it?" she sighs doing as she's told and he scopes her up carrying her. She grins like a child and he chuckles the two still trying to deny they like each other. If only that were true.

Word count: 4200