This episode of NCIS starts out with a Marine leading the pack on a training course. When he reached the top of the wall, he begins to bleed from his nose and falls to his death. When the team arrives to investigate they find that the victim is Lance Cpl Gabe Crow. He has defensive wounds on his hands, bruises on his head and weird cuts on his leg. It doesn’t add up and it seems that his buddies that were there are not talking. However, Private David Holland from Quantico comes in later on to talk to Gibbs and tells him that Crow was involved in the illegal fighting in clubs in DC. The night before Holland saw him sneak off base and came back badly beat up.
Vance makes an appearance as he remembers Eli David's toast from the night he and his wife were killed. He is going through his wife's things when he comes across a bank statement with a large balance along with keys to a safe deposit box. Confused he heads down to the bank where he is told that he does not have access to the account and seems reluctant to tell the teller that his wife is deceased. She does tell him that he does have access to the safety deposit boxes and in them he finds their marriage certificate, some of her jewelry, documents from the Mathison & Burke law offices and a large stack of $100 bills. Confused over what he has found Vance goes to talk to that attorneys office to talk to them. Abe Mathison, her attorney, tells him that he can't tell him anything other than the fact that Jackie had hired him last May. As Vance leaves he calls someone to pick his kids up at school.
Oddly, Vance shows up at NCIS and announced that he's ready to work, but not as the director. He wants to work with Gibbs' NCIS team. Gibbs takes him aside and gently questions his motives as the team makes room for him. Later on Gibbs finds Vance staring spaced out in the break room. Vance shows Gibbs the legal files that he found. Gibbs does his best to assure Vance that Jackie loved him and encouraged him to go home to his kids and not to come back until he's ready to be there. When he gets home he finds that Ziva and Tony are watching them.
After watching some fight club videos they find that the fights were taking place at a fruit company and Gibbs and Tony go down there to talk to the owner, Ruben Williams. Turns out that Ruben had no idea what was happening at his facility after ours. One of the men from the video is recognized as "Chucky Bang," an employee. Chucky admits that he recognizes Crow's photo but says he hasn't seen him in several months. He tells them that he was in the emergency room last night. Tony is able to confirm Chucky's alibi.
In the lab, Abby explains that Crow's side and leg wounds had come from a jagged fiberglass item. She also points out that the stitches in his side were done poorly and she thinks he did them himself more than once. This leaves everyone confused as to how he would have the same injury happening over and over again.
Gibbs and McGee go to Holland's room at Quantico to talk to him and find him dead on the bathroom floor. Duckie reports that Holland was also beaten during the same period of time that Crow was, but not as severely. Holland also has the same fiberglass bits in a wound. McGee turns up three other Quantico Marines with similar injuries that happened in the last three weeks. The team looks into the CO, Jonah Ellis. Jonah's brother had been in Afghanistan where he was captured, tortured and killed. He had the same wounds as the Quantico Marines. Duckie refers to it as emotional transference.
Toward the end of the show Vance walks into his old office to talk to Craig, who is standing in for him and asks Craig if he has a suitcase packed and says he'll be in touch. Vance goes to Gibbs’ house and finds him in his basement working on a cast iron stove. Gibbs shows Vance some documents. Shannon, Gibbs’ wife, had increased his life insurance as she was worried that he wouldn't come back from overseas. Gibbs points out to Vance that Jackie did all of this right after the attack on NCIS. It doesn’t seem that she was leaving him but that she was preparing for life after him. In his fatherly way, Gibbs says to Vance that Jackie couldn't tell him what she was doing because she knew he would have left the job that he loved. Vance asks Gibbs what he is working on, but Gibbs doesn’t tell him.
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