A group of teenagers are driving down the road where the driver mentions that he is about to go back on deployment. However, then they get into an accident and one of the victims wakes up to see a woman trying to rescue him and his friends.
Sergeant Burt is in the squad room and Tony teases Tim about throwing pennies off the Washington Monument. Burt is there after having breakfast with Abby and Ellie asks what they had because she’s hungry. Tony teases her about being a cannibal and that being the reason that Jake is never seen. Tim asks Burt how things are with him and Abby, who responds that he’s never known anyone like the girl. When they find out that they have been together two months, Tony and McGee lament on missing him. Ellie is confused, especially when they tell Gibbs, who replies with “Copy that” before they head off to a case were a pedestrian was killed in a hit and run.
The victim is John Blaney Hicks, the young man we saw on the road the scene before. Ducky notes the accident was most likely caused by the road being slick and the only reason it was a possible hit and run is because an SUV was seen fleeing, but Ellie thinks it sounds “sketchy.” They wonder why there are bandages on the ground and Jimmy mentions that because there’s cornstarch on the victim’s wounds that the EMTs tried to save him. However, a sergeant comes to tell them his men didn’t do anything and that a woman named Anna Dillon was the one who tried to save them, including putting a trach tube in the female passenger. But because she has no medical license, she is being arrested. As Ducky recites a passage, Gibbs calls out ‘Corpsman!’ causing the woman to turn her head toward him.
In the squad room, the team updates Gibbs. Tony tells him that tire tracks showed that the car spun out and that Mary Lafleur and Benjamin Koss were the passengers in the car with Hicks. They found out that Anna Dillon used to be a former naval medical corpsman. Gibbs tells them that legally, she is not allowed to help at the scene of an accident because medical corpsman don’t have a license and Tim informs them Ben is awake. Ellie and Tony go to the hospital while McGee calls Sergeant Harper so they can talk to Dillon.
Jimmy is going off on tangents while Ducky tries to do the autopsy as Gibbs comes in. The fence post had severed Hicks’ carotid artery. Anna Dillon would have been too late anyway trying to save him. Hicks also was not drunk and there was no medical reason for the crash occurring.
Ben is in shock that his friend is dead and asks about Mary. He tells Tony and Ellie he remembers that a car clipped the back of their car and he remembers seeing the rear end of a car as their car spun. Ben wants to thank Anna Dillon because she is the reason he’s alive. He’s confused when he finds out she is in jail.
In the squad room, they tell Gibbs that Anna Dillon served two tours and saved many lives. She was finishing her shift as a school janitor when she arrived at the site. Gibbs wonders why Dillon isn’t in the squad room and Tim tells him police were still questioning her so Gibbs tells him to get Harper on the phone. Tim tells them she is being formally charged.
Gibbs goes and talks to Anna in the prison cell because she is feeling guilty for not doing enough to save the victim who died. Gibbs asks her why she stayed and didn’t run, but she tells him she couldn’t do it. She laments that the only difference between her and the EMTs was the law and she’s been trying to save for medical school.
Gibbs takes her out of the cell and Sergeant Harper stops them. He is still on the law’s side and tells her that because she moved Mary, she could be paralyzed, but Anna says she did everything right. Gibbs points out that they need her help to catch whoever caused the crash. He feels Harper is trying to pin the blame on someone instead of looking for the person responsible.
At a café, Gibbs says goodbye to a man named Norvell before a woman, Carrie, comes to meet him. She gives her condolences on his dad and he remarks that his dad would have loved her. He tells her that Anna needs a good lawyer, but even she knows there is no chance they could win, but Gibbs feels she could get a lesser charge with her.
Anna is having a flashback of her time as a medical corpsman when Tony gets her attention. He tells her to sign her statement as Gibbs comes in to tell them she is staying. Gibbs takes her down to the morgue where Ducky is. They view Hicks’ body and Ducky tells her he lost too much blood within ten seconds and he would have only lived had he not had an accident. He tells her she can’t save everyone.
Along with Tony and Ellie, Tim begs Abby to tell them she has something and she agrees, mostly because he said so and also because she does. Abby confirms the car was rear ended but she can’t tell anything by a dent. She hesitates, causing Ellie to ask the same as Tim did whether she just said that because she asked. Tony tells them to get along with it and shows them that there are two different silver colors, but they look the same to the Gibbs squad. Abby tells them to trust her, and never to consult them on interior design. Tim tries to talk to Abby about not breaking up with Burt, but she asks him nicely to stay out of her business and it is her decision.
Ellie and Tim arrive at the shop of a man named Dave Lancelotti, whose truck matches the description of the car they are looking for. He assures them it’s not his, but when he takes them around back, he discovers his car is missing. He immediately tells Ellie and Tim where he was the night before.
At the café, Anna and Gibbs are finishing a meal. Gibbs thanks her after she thanks him. She tells him about her parents and that she wants a chance to do what she is really good at doing. Carrie Clark comes to ask if Anna will accept her help.
Tim has been at the office working on Dave Lancelotti’s background and he is disappointed when Tony and Ellie reveal his alibi checked out. They see a video showing that he is a hot head when it comes to racing. The man Lancelotti is fighting in the video is Ben Koss from the crash.
Tony and Gibbs talk to Ben, who tells him that Dave fought everyone that he raced with. He tells him at that particular one, Dave had clipped him and they both spun out. Ellie and Tim go to the shop where Dave works and when they get there, Ellie is hit on almost immediately. Dave’s co-worker tells them that he wasn’t happy that they thought he had something to do with the officer’s death and he asks Ellie if she was the one who got into it with the bartender at the pub where Dave had been. She reluctantly admits she was before asking when he saw Dave. It turns out it had been a couple hours earlier and that he went off to clear his head.
Tony comes to find Tim in the bathroom after getting a text, but Tim says it wasn’t from him. It turns out Ellie sent the text and demands they talk to her about Abby and Burt. Ellie wonders how Tim knows so much about Abby’s dating rules so Tony leaves Tim to explain. Tim tells her that he and Abby used to date but when they broke up, he later discovered a list of her dating criteria and she also had a two-month cut off. She tries to suggest they talk to Abby, but Tony comes in as they tell her it’s better not to get involved.
In the interview room, Carrie tells Anna that if they can get the Navy and the victims’ families on her side then she thinks they have a chance of making a case. Then, Sergeant Harper comes in with Tim apologizing to Gibbs. Anna goes with Tim as Harper tells them they shouldn’t be looking at Dave. Gibbs reminds him they need to punish the person responsible for the crash. Ellie comes in to tell them they located Lancelotti and Harper says he is going with Gibbs.
They arrive to find the SUV and Dave is in the car. But when Gibbs opens the car door, they find he’s dead of a gun shot wound and is holding a gun in his hand. In autopsy, Jimmy tells Ducky about Breena’s latest pregnancy cravings as Tony walks in. The victim had hair under his fingernails and he wouldn’t have been able to touch his head after being shot. The wound was to cover up a blow to his head and Tony remembers seeing a wrench in the back of the SUV so Ducky suggests Abby test it.
In the interview room, John Hicks is talking about how proud he was of his son and that he was all he had left. He thanks Anna for what she did and she tells him that his son was courageous and only was concerned about his friends. When John finds out why she has been arrested, he immediately offers any help he can give.
Abby tells Tony that she was able to pull DNA from two samples and while they awkwardly wait for the DNA to get a hit, they don’t find anything to talk about. The hit is from Bennet Jemaine, the co-worker of Lancelotti’s. In the squad room, the team tells him that Jemaine was dishonorably discharged after a fellow officer found drugs in his bunk. It was Hicks who discovered them.
The team stands in the middle of the road waiting for someone to come. Soon enough, Jemaine shows up in his red car and he tries to stop, but ends up running over road spikes and comes to a stop just enough for the team to make the arrest. Ellie tells him, “You’re under arrest, sweetheart” in response to the name he called her earlier.
In the squad room, Ellie tells the boys that Mary is expected to make a full recovery and may walk again. As Abby comes in, Ellie and Tony leave as Tim goes to talk to her. Tim tells her to consider giving Burt an extension and she is still hesitant to talk about it. But Tim asks her if the rules applied when they were together, but she doesn’t give a direct answer. When Burt comes with black roses for her, Abby smiles as they head off for their date.
Anna is in Gibbs’ basement waiting to hear from Carrie. She is worried so Gibbs distracts her by having her sand his boat. Carrie comes down and tells her all she has to do is community service and that all of the victims’ parents went to Harper. John Hicks said she deserved commendation and Gibbs tells her to go to school to get certified. She asks how she can ever thank them and he responds, “we should be thanking you, doc.”
Image courtesy of INFphoto.com