Author's note: Well, here it is. The first official chapter of Apocalypse Now. I probably should have mentioned in my last author's note that I do not own NCIS or any of it's characters. Also, in case you followed this story before I updated the summary: This story does involve established TIVA.
I'm lacking in the sleep and beta departments at the moment, so if there are any painful grammatical or spelling errors, I do apologise.
I also feel like I need to make it clear that I am not a scientist, nor do I work on crime scenes for a living. I only go by what I see on the show, so apologies for any errors when it comes to the science-y and crime scene-y stuff.

"I'm breaking in,
I'm shaping up,
I'm checking out of the prison bus,
This is it: the apocalypse."

- 'Radioactive', Imagine Dragons.

Organization is key. Organization is everything. Organization is essential if you ever want to pull this off. He kept those thoughts circling around his brain throughout the day, but in this moment, those words had never been more important.

'Organization is key. Organization is everything. Organization is essential if you ever want to pull this off.' He muttered to himself. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a brief moment, repeating his mantra once more. Opening his eyes, he nodded slightly and settled himself more comfortably in the shadows. He could hear hurried footsteps approaching and his heart rate sped up: this was it – the moment he'd been preparing for. The footsteps were coming ever closing. He listened closely, the tripping wire ready and waiting around the corner from where he was hiding.
She was ten steps away. He held up the rifle he was cradling at his side and prepared to arm it as soon as she fell.
Five steps away now – so close. Just a bit further…

Organization is key. Organization is everything. Organization is essential if you ever want to pull this off.
He heard the girl grunt as she fell to the floor. He smiled – it had worked.

The girl was flustered. She was reaching out into the air, desperately trying to grasp whatever it was that made her fall. That was his queue. He armed the rifle, stepped out from the shadows, and held the gun against the girl's head. She gasped. His finger twitched at the trigger when –

'Cut!'

Travis Morgan's voice rang out through the room. A bell rang somewhere overhead and the once still and silence movie set was suddenly bustling with activity. Travis sighed in annoyance and ran a hand over his lined face. He swore the more time he spent trying to shoot this damn movie, the more hair he was finding in the shower drain every morning. He removed his hand from his face just in time to see Jeffery Ascot jump around to face him, lowering the fake rifle as he did so.

'What was wrong with that one?' Jeffery yelled out, plastering his handsome face with the most exasperated expression he could muster.

'Not you,' Travis called, his tone somewhere between frustrated and apologetic, 'camera 2 cut out.' It baffled him that a piece of equipment as expensive and reliable as the cameras that were being used on this movie could run into so many technical problems. At this rate, majority of the film's budget would be spent trying to fix the stupid so-called 'unbreakable' cameras.

Groaning loudly, Danielle Hardlem clambered up from her position on the floor, sweeping her dark brunette hair out of her face and kicking her foot against the white line that marked the spot she needed to trip. The bruises on her knees and elbows were becoming more prominent with the amount of time she spent falling over onto the hard wooden floors on the set. 'How much did we lose?' She asked, her brown eyes narrowing slightly, 'do we have to shoot the entire thing again?' She shuddered inwardly. As much as Danielle loved being an actress, the thought of spending another four hours overtime on the set was not something she fancied doing at 9 o'clock in the evening.

'Bob?' Travis directed his unspoken question to the bald cameraman who was sitting at the once-again broken camera. Bob grimaced and shook his head. Nothing. Travis ran a hand over his face again. 'Alright, that's a wrap for Jeff and Dani,' he declared. 'I want you both back here at six tomorrow morning; we'll try this again. I need all technicians with me – we need to look at fixing this camera again.' His words were followed with a loud grumble as six or so of the technicians lumbering around the movie set begrudgingly dragged themselves over to the broken camera for the third time that week.

Danielle and Jeffery sighed in relief and took off back to their trailers further down the movie lot.

'See you tomorrow, I guess.' Jeffery waved as the two actors made their way to their respective vehicles half an hour later.

'Bright and early.' Danielle confirmed, climbing into her car and starting the engine.

The drive home was thankfully short, and she managed to make it back to her apartment block without encountering any of the massive traffic jams that seemed to happen constantly around these streets. Why Travis Morgan had decided to shoot a horror movie in Washington D.C. was beyond her, but it was close to Danielle's small apartment so she wasn't complaining too loudly.

As Danielle walked up the street from the parking lot, fumbling for her keys in her large handbag, she couldn't help but feel as though she was being watched. Shaking it off as paranoia, she continued up the narrow path to the front door of the apartment building. It wasn't until a loud rustle that had nothing to do with the light breeze sounded from the bushes behind her that she stopped. Danielle was no fool – Her husband was a marine, and she knew how to defend herself. She took her keys in her hand a situated them so at least one key was sitting in each of the spaces between her fingers.

'Who's there?' She called out hesitantly. There was no answer. Danielle scoffed – of course there wouldn't be an answer. What kind of crazy mad-axe murderer would announce their presence? 'Jeffery is that you?' Still no answer. Danielle was growing impatient. 'Come on, Jeff, we agreed when we first took these jobs that we wouldn't play stupid pranks on one another.' When the silence remained for too long, Danielle rolled her eyes at herself, found her house key, and started back up towards the door. She was almost there when a rough hand grabbed her shoulders and yanked her around, placing a gun against her forehead. A young man stood in front of her, his appearance concealed by the darkness of the night.

'Shalom,' he said, still aiming the gun at Danielle's forehead.
Danielle reached for her keys and the man let out several small 'tuts'.

'I would not do that if I were you.' His thick accent did nothing but increase the threatening tone in his voice. Nevertheless, Danielle's fingers closer around her keys and she lunged forwards. A loud shot ran out across the street, and then there was silence.

[[NCIS]]

The park was always quiet at 5am, and today was no exception. Spring had fallen upon Washington D.C, and the dead trees that had surrounded the city were suddenly full of life. A soft breeze made its way through the streets, and the sky steadily grew lighter as the sun began to rise upon a new day.

Ziva David was no stranger to the early morning scenery. She had made it a habit to wake up at 4am and go for a run through the city streets ever since she found her work schedule too hectic to plan any kind of proper training session at the local gym. She sped past the newly blooming trees through the park, slowly coming to a stop in front of the water fountain to catch her breath before beginning the run back home. She dipped her head to take a drink from the steady stream of water the tap produced. Once she had finished, she leaned against one of the large oak trees next to the fountain and looked up at the rising sun.

The mornings were Ziva's favourite time of the day; the cool crisp air; the colour of the sky before the sun rose completely; and the quiet. In her line of work, quiet was a difficult thing to come by. Even in her own home quiet was rare, as her boyfriend had a bad habit of rambling on about pointless subjects, or turning on loud movies for the pair of them to watch during the night.

Yes, Anthony DiNozzo was certainly a loud individual, but if he was willing to put up with her quiet, she was more than happy to put up with his loud. The two balanced each other out perfectly, and sometimes as she lay awake next to him in the early hours of the morning, Ziva couldn't believe that it took them eight years to figure it out.

After Tony had left Ziva on the tarmac at the Israel airport, it had taken Ziva all of three weeks to realize that he was what she needed. She hopped on the first plane back to DC, and all but ran into the NCIS building, pleasantly surprising her old team. When she and Tony had lay eyes upon each other for the first time since they shared their first kiss at the airport, he didn't even hesitate to sweep the former agent into his arms. Ever since then he refused to let her go. It seemed as though the moment the two agents (Ziva had reclaimed her badge from Director Vance once Gibbs and Tony had managed to convince her that by being an agent she was really doing more good than harm) had admitted their love for one another, the entire Navy Base rushed towards Abby Scuito's Forensics Lab to hand the smug scientist a twenty dollar bill – even Gibbs.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was not a man to cross, and Tony and Ziva had their doubts that the man would accept their relationship due to the set of rules he made his agents live by. Rule 12 was 'never date a co-worker'. When Tony had pointed this out to his boss, Gibbs was quick to reply with a head-slap and a soft mention of 'Rule 51 – sometimes you're wrong.'

Ziva smiled fondly at the memory. Gibbs was the closest thing she had to a father, and had been well before her real father, Eli David, had been killed a year and a half ago. The harsh ring of her cell phone interrupted her musings. Although Ziva preferred to run without the device, Gibbs' rule number 3, 'never be unreachable', trumped that desire.

She sighed as she saw the ex-marine's name light up the screen on her phone.

She swiped the screen and answered, 'David.'

'Where are you?' Gibbs asked.

'The park, five blocks away from my apartment.'

'Get back there as fast as you can.'

Before she could ask why, the dial tone rang out from the speakers on her phone. She internally rolled her eyes and started back off down the street, running as fast as she could back to her apartment.

Once she started up the path to her building, it became clear as to why Gibbs had requested she return home as quickly as possible. Crime scene tape adorned the area around the front door of the building, and standing around the body of a woman were Special Agents Tony DiNozzo and Timothy McGee. Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs was standing slightly off to the side and conversing with the Medical Examiner, Doctor Ducky Mallard, and his assistant, Jimmy Palmer.

'I got here as fast as I could,' Ziva announced her presence as she ducked underneath the crime scene tape and stood next to Tony. She followed his gaze, which rested upon the deceased women in front of him. She was young. Her brunette hair rested just below her shoulders, and her lifeless brown eyes stared up at the sky. She would have been beautiful if it were not for the large bullet hole and blood covering the front of her head.

'Do you know this woman, Ziva?' Gibbs asked.

Ziva merely shook her head, no. She took the NCIS windbreaker and cap that Tony had collected from the back of the NCIS van upon her arrival and started helping bag and tag evidence.

'Cause of death is quite obviously a single gunshot wound to the head,' Ducky informed. 'Most likely shot at short range. The bullet doesn't seem to have made an exit wound, so I shall know more once I get her back to autopsy.'

'Time of death, Duck?' Gibbs asked softly.

Ducky consulted the liver probe he removed from the victim. 'Approximately 0200 hours this morning.'

'You didn't hear anything, Ziver?' Gibbs called to the Israeli agent on the other side of the crime scene.

Ziva looked up and shook her head, 'I was at Tony's.' She responded.

'Even if you had been home Ziva, I doubt you would have heard anything,' Ducky piped up. 'Judging by the lack of blood, I think it would be wise to note that the poor woman was killed elsewhere.'

Gibbs nodded his approval and stared down at the body, allowing a small frown to creep into his expression. There was something about the woman's appearance that irked him in a way he couldn't describe. He shook himself out of his thoughts. 'Well, who is she, McGee?' He barked, turning to the younger man beside him.

Tim jumped slightly, having been mimicking Gibbs' position of staring at the body moments before. 'Uh, sorry, boss,' he muttered. 'Her name is Riley Moore, been in the United States Marine Core for approximately three years. Says here she has a perfect record.' He consulted the electronic finger print scanner in his hand.

'Obviously not perfect enough.' Tony grumbled. His usual humorous demeanor had all but vanished. There was something about this woman that made him uncomfortable. He snapped another picture of Riley Moore's fatal head wound and looked around at his fellow teammates. Ziva was listening in while bagging and tagging evidence; McGee was crouching next to the body with a small frown on his face. Even Gibbs seemed slightly distracted. Once Palmer had scrambled to the back of the ME truck to collect the gurney, Tony found his gaze drifting over to somehow- familiar looking body on the floor. It was then Tony realized why the body of Riley Moore was so familiar.

'You guys see it too.' Tony stated.

Ziva stopped collecting evidence and peered up at the remaining team members, switching her gaze from the body on the ground to the expressions worn by the people standing around it.

'See what?' She asked confused. Four heads turned towards her, each with a look of sadness upon their faces.

'Kate.' McGee finally answered.

It took Ziva a moment before she realized whom Tim was talking about. She still appeared to be confused. 'I do not understand.' She said simply.

Gibbs sighed sadly and removed his NCIS cap, turning around and ducking under the crime scene tape. 'She looks exactly like Kate.' He called over his shoulder before getting into his car, slamming the door, and driving away.

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