Okay, so this is my NaNoWriMo fic (National Novel Writing Month). It's a NUMB3RS/NCIS crossover and, while the first chapter is basically all NCIS, the actual fic as a whole is much more NUMB3RS (and Colby) central and chapter 1 is the only chapter that really focuses on the NCIS team and that's because the case starts with them. So please, don't dismiss this as being NCIS central, because if it was I would have posted it in the NCIS fandom and I wouldn't have put Colby's name in the title. it's a Colby fic, really, but there's also a case and...well, actually, I don't want to ruin it, which is what I'm heading for right now, so I'm going to stop and let y'all get to the actual story. Please let me know what you think about this because this is, by far, the longest story I have ever attempted (over 50,000 words), so I'm a little bit out of my niche.

Big thanks to VanishingP2000 for the beta (and not killing me when I sent her all 26 chapters in one zip file and continuing to pelt her with other stories at the same time)

"McGee!" Gibbs yelled and McGee jumped slightly before turning around to face his irate looking boss.

"Yes, Boss?" he said and Gibbs motioned him over, the annoyance clearly displayed on his face. McGee carefully navigated his way through the crime scene to where his boss was standing over a desk.

"What the hell does this stuff mean?" Gibbs asked irritably, shoving a small leather-bound notebook at McGee, who opened it to find it full of complex mathematical equations. This, as much as he hated to admit it, was way above his skill level.

"Sorry, Boss, but I really have absolutely no idea what these mean. These equations are…really, really advanced stuff. I mean, Commander Martins was a gifted mathematician, sure, but I just don't think that this is his work, it's just too advanced," McGee said and Gibbs sighed in annoyance. Now they not only had a dead Naval Commander who was working with the NSA on a Top Secret Project, they also had a notebook full of highly advanced math that they didn't know the author of. Just perfect.

"Wow, not even McGeek knows what this stuff is? This is a first," Tony said as he entered the study.

McGee ignored Tony and said thoughtfully to Gibbs "You know, Boss, the mathematics community at this level can't be all this big. In fact, there are probably only a couple hundred mathematicians that are at this skill level. Maybe less. It shouldn't be too hard too narrow it down to find who wrote it. You see, each mathematician has their own unique style of-" McGee began, but was cut off by Tony.

"McGee, let me see that for a second," Tony said and McGee just stared at him.

"Tony, if I don't even know what this is, how are you possibly going to figure out who wrote it?" McGee protested, but Tony simply rolled his eyes and plucked the book out of McGee's hands and flipped it over to the inside front cover.

"Here we go. Good old fashioned detective work trumps you and your MIT degree!" Tony exclaimed triumphantly, forestalling McGee's protests. "The notebook belongs to one Charles Eppes. Probably of the California Institute of Science, if the insignia on the front of the notebook is any indicator," Tony told Gibbs and McGee exuberantly, tapping the insignia on the front for effect. McGee just stared at him open mouthed and Gibbs smirked, more at the expression on McGee's face than anything else.

Gibbs walked over to the two agents and whacked McGee on the back of his head. When McGee turned to look at him in confusion, Gibbs shrugged and said "You should have noticed that, McGee. I thought I trained you to be observant. Good work, DiNozzo. I want you to head back to the office and see what you can find out about this Charles Eppes guy." Both Tony and McGee moved towards the door but Gibbs spoke again. "Not you, McGee. You're escorting the body back to NCIS once Ducky's done with it here."

Gibbs stormed into the bull pen in his normal manner a few hours later, cup of coffee in hand, as always. "What have you got on Eppes, DiNozzo?" he asked as he breezed by Tony's desk on his way to his own desk. Tony stood and moved over to stand in front of Gibbs desk.

"Dr. Charles Eppes. Professor of applied mathematics at California Institute of Science. He's definitely a genius, boss. He graduated from high school at age 13 and from Princeton at age 16. He's basically a math protégé. Here's where it gets good, Boss. He has an older brother, Special Agent Don Eppes with the Los Angeles FBI office. Fun fact, Don is 5 years older, but they graduated high school the same day. Anyway, Dr. Eppes consults on cases for Agent Eppes' team. Not only that, he also has top level NSA security clearance-he consults for them, too. Basically, he consults for every federal agency except for us," Tony said wryly and Gibbs tilted his head to the side slightly, silently telling Tony to go on, because he knew that there was more. "The FBI-more precisely, Agent Eppes' team-has been investigating six other people in connection to the project that Commander Martins was working on. They can only confirm that 3 of them worked on the project, but all of them had the same MO and the word "Mockingbird" was carved into their backs. All the others were in Los Angeles, this is the first one on the west coast, though. I asked Ducky and he said that Martins had "Mockingbird" carved into his back also. But the thing is, there are still a bunch of people in Los Angeles alone that worked on the project, not to mention all the ones between LA and DC. It just seems like a kind of big jump, really. But it suggests that they're not interested in killing everyone who worked on the project, just some people."

Gibbs nodded slightly in agreement. "Okay, I want you to get in contact with this Agent Eppes, tell him that we've got another body and that we're willing to do a joint investigation. And let him know that we're gonna need to talk to his brother about just what the hell these equation things mean. And what this NSA project was," Gibbs said and Tony nodded, moving over to his desk and picking up his phone to tell MTAC that he needed a teleconference with FBI Special Agent Don Eppes of the Los Angeles office.