An Unexpected Couple

Putting the Pieces Back Together

They both walk up the stairs, guns drawn. Finding Chen standing at Gibbs' kitchen table facing away from them.

"Hello Agent Bishop," he says then turns to face them, "Agent Gibbs. Why don't you put down your guns so we can talk?"

"Bishop," is all Gibbs says, knowing that will be enough to tell her what he wants her to do.

She returns her gun to its holster and searches him, slamming him onto the table to do so.

"Qasim must have liked it rough," Chen retorts with an amused tone.

Which maddens not only Bishop but also Gibbs, both of whom were already fighting back the urge to hurt him.

"Heard you were looking for me. Apparently, the airport is crawling with NCIS agents."

"That's what happens when you murder one of us," Bishop snaps in reply.

"I have not killed anyone," Chen states with a calm, almost cold tone.

"Why are you in my house?" Gibbs asks Chen angrily.

"Why do you think?"

"You want to be arrested." Gibbs answers.

"You cannot arrest me."

"People keep telling me that, but let's see what happens. Bishop."

Bishop goes over and starts to cuff him. "Better to ask forgiveness than permission."

"I assure you, you will get neither," Chen says, finally starting to get upset. "I am not the enemy."

"Well, that's news to me." She retorts.

"Then apparently you haven't heard, we are on the same team now," Chen says, clearly enjoying being a step ahead of them.


"When were you going to tell me?" Gibbs demands as he storms into the Director's office.

"Tell you what, exactly?" Director Vance turns around in his chair to ask, clearly confused.

"That Chen is working with the CIA. How long have you known?"

"He didn't know." Says Congresswoman Fleming as she enters the room.

"What is my agent talking about?" Vance asks.

"Great question." She replies, looking at Gibbs quizzically.

"Chen came to my house. Told me he's working with the CIA now."

"Start talking." The Director commands.

"Neither of you are authorized." She replies and then quickly changes her mind knowing that neither of them is going to care about whether or not they are authorized, and it became their business when Chen showed up at Gibbs' house. "Chen came to us with an offer. We only just made a deal with him today," She attempts to appease them with the information that she hasn't known for very long, either. "There is a Syrian warlord, we have been trying to locate for years, that Chen has done business with the past. Chen has offered to help us find him."

"So just like that, he's our best bud?" Gibbs asks no less angry.

"You know the saying: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Sometimes that's just the best policy," She answers.

"Chen is a suspected terrorist who has tried to kill two of my agents, succeeding on one account," Vance replies angrily.

"The Warlord Chen is helping us catch is responsible for the deaths of countless soldiers. We NEED his help. I get it, I do, and we are not going to let Chen walk, just put a pin in the investigation until-" Fleming explains, hardly reducing either man's anger.

"You get what you want," Gibbs interrupts.

"What we all want. Until we catch this Warlord-"

"Yeah, pin, I got it," Gibbs interrupts her again, storming out.


Reeves enters Bishop's apartment to find her angrily cleaning.

"What are we going to do? We can't just let him get away."

"That's precisely what we have been ordered to do. Gibbs has just let you back on the case. Don't ruin it now."

"I'm not afraid of Gibbs," Bishop states, clearly getting angrier as the conversation goes.

"Well, I might be a little afraid of Gibbs. And regardless, I think that Congresswoman is right."

"How can you say that?"

"That warlord is destabilizing an entire region."

"That Warlord is a two-bit player in Aleppo that I monitored while I was at the NSA. I know his entire network. This is a bad call. We have a coded message from Chen on a suspected terrorist attack, and we can't do anything about it because he's the CIA's lapdog? That's insane."

"Well, you say you are familiar with this Warlord. Let's find him, and then the CIA won't need Chen."

"That could take months. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I am NOT slowing down until Chen is off the street!"

Lowering his voice and softening his tone to try to calm her down. "I hear you. I do. But this is a marathon, not a sprint Ellie. You either have to be willing to make the sacrifices and commit to the long haul or get out of the race."

Bishop attempts to remind herself why she is in this and, therefore, why it is worth it to commit to this no matter how long it takes, remembering Qasim, and in the process remembers an argument they had.

"That's it!"

"What's it?"

"I had an argument with Qasim, and he was trying to tell me the world isn't reducible to zeros and ones, and I got bratty and pointed out that the awful music they were playing at the bowling alley was all zeros and ones."

"I'm sorry." He looks at her, confused still.

"I think I know how to crack Chen's code."

"Then what are we doing here. Let's get back to Abby's lab and crack it."


"We assumed that the message was encrypted, but it was really just hidden. It's like hiding a key under your doormat, once you know the secret you are in," Abby explains.

"You figured out Chen's secret," Gibbs states.

"We did. The message appeared to be random song lyrics, but once you convert it to binary its a computer program," Bishop continues the explanation.

Just them McGee bursts in, "Not a program, a virus. A computer virus that exploits the vulnerability in generators in older electrical plants, causing them to do that," He says, showing all of them a video of a generator causing an explosion that takes out the whole building.

"This must be Chen's plan to take out the electrical grid," Bishop states.

"Alright, let's go," Gibbs says, leaving Abby's lab towards the elevator with McGee right behind him. Bishop heads the other direction.

"Where are you going?" Abby asks.

"Forgot something in my car."


As the team works to figure out Chen's next move and how to stop the virus, Congresswoman Fleming enters the bullpen.

"So much for your pin," The Director points out.

"We made a calculated bet," She replies.

"Well, you bet wrong," Gibbs pitches in.

"Yeah, and your Agent Bishop was right. Which is why I'd like her to brief the Joint Chiefs. When is she back?" Fleming asks.

Gibbs looks over to Bishop's desk realizing she still hasn't come up from Abby's lab. He asks the rest of the team, "Where did she go?"

"I just bumped into her in the parking lot," Flemming answers.

They pull up the parking lot surveillance and watch Bishop quite literally bump into the Congresswoman, switching their phones when she does so.

"McGee, locate that phone," Gibbs orders.

McGee was able to locate the general direction she was heading before turning the phone off, and the last thing she used the phone for, sending a text to Chen. Gibbs knowing that can't mean anything good, leaves with Quinn and Reeves to try and follow her and find where she is going. They drive to the last spot they could track her to before she turned off the cell.

"Okay, what's her plan?" Gibbs asks, looking around.

"She might not have one," Reeves answers.

"She always has a plan!" Gibbs insists.

Quinn looks at a map to find a radio tower not too far from that spot, "I think I've got something."
They immediately take off, knowing that's where she will be.


Bishop, already at the Radio Tower, looks at a card she had made for Qasim, reminding herself what she is doing all this for. Then she gets out of her truck and goes inside the Tower soon followed by Chen.

"Hello Agent Bishop, I was expecting the Congresswoman," Chen says when he sees her.

"She sends her regards."

"I see. How did you know I'd come alone?"

"Because you're a rat. And if your people found out you are working with the CIA, you'd be a dead rat."

"You did not come here to talk business, this is personal."

"No," She says while drawing her gun, "this is pleasure."

"I am not responsible for what happened to your boyfriend. He is. Qasim made his choice."

"And I've made mine." She pulls out her phone, calls someone, and says, "I've got him," then hangs up. She then makes Chen go into another room, still pointing her gun at him, and handcuff himself to the generator.

"You have nothing on me. NCIS is wasting its time."

"I didn't call NCIS. I called the Syrians. Apparently, that Warlord you are helping the CIA catch found out you sold him out. He's been looking for you. Some of his contacts are on the way. Good luck with that." She starts to walk away.

Chen begins to fight against the cuffs trying to break free. "Wait, you cannot do this. They're going to kill me."

She turns around and replies, "If you're lucky."

"Name your price."

"Actually, I have a better idea." She replies, pulling a floppy disk out of her pocket.

"What is that?"

"The code you created to blow up all those generators, just like the one you are cuffed too." She replies, half inserting the disk into the slot on the generator.

"You set me up!"

"I'm not responsible for what happens to you. You've made your choices. Now it's time for you to make one more." She says, leaving.

Just as she gets outside the building, Gibbs pulls up, immediately asking, "Bishop, you alright?"
Then the Tower explodes.

"What's happened?" Quinn asks.

"Chen made his choice."


Later that night, Bishop walks down the stairs to Gibbs' basement. "How much trouble am I in?" she asks, avoiding eye contact.

"With NCIS? None."

She steps closer, looking up to meet his eye, "And with you?" she asks, but he doesn't say anything just keeps working on his boat without breaking their eye contact. "Look... I don't blame you if you want me gone. I broke your trust and pretty much did exactly what you were worried I'd do. BUT I also did exactly what you would do in my position, and I would do it again, given the same choice."
This time it was Gibbs avoiding eye contact, "Well, then we got a problem." He says then meets her eye before continuing, "Going rogue has a cost... and it is not cheap."

"I know."

"No, you don't, but you will."

She pauses to process what he is telling her then pulls her card for Qasim out, "I got this for Qasim, had it with me the night he was shot, didn't get a chance to give it to him. I can't stop looking at it."
Gibbs nods, understanding and takes the card from her. Then looks up at her as a way of asking permission to look at it; she nods. He opens it to find that all it says is "YES" in big letters. He understands immediately, and it hurts him, but he does an excellent job of hiding it. He gives her a curious look to tell her she can talk about it if she wants.

She begins to explain, "He proposed to me on his birthday and then took me to the bowling alley where we had our first date. I was hesitant to give him an answer, worried about all the things that could go wrong, using facts to distance myself from what I was feeling. We fought about it, and he tried to convince me that not everything can be reduced to 0s and 1s, and I pointed out that the music at the bowling alley was just 0s and 1s, which I remembered earlier that is how I figured out Chen's code. He was very gracious about how I was processing and told me to take my time to figure out my answer. I did, and by the time I made my decision, it was too late. He died, not knowing my answer. Not knowing how much I loved him."

"He knew El. He knew how much you loved him."