A/N: I don't own NCIS or anything about it, please don't sue me. What I do own are the characters not in the normal ensemble cast (Hannah, Sizer, Chen, etc.). Please read and review, if you like, and I hope you enjoy the story!

Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo had the feeling this was going to be one of those days: he'd woken up late, next to a woman he was starting to regret, spilled an entire cup of coffee on his favorite suit, and, as a result of needing to change, would be late to work. Not just a little late, either. The kind of late that Gibbs noticed. Granted, he was generally tardy to the party, but his boss had learned over the years that as long as he gave him about five minutes after normal start time, he wouldn't have to rag on DiNozzo so much about it. Nevertheless, this was going to be at least twenty minutes, and Tony had no real explanation as to why. Yes, the coffee, but that was no real excuse at all and he knew it. So, not shaping up to be a stellar day.

Luck smiled on Tony, however, once he arrived at his desk. Gibbs was nowhere to be found, and Ziva and McGee were talking quietly about something on McGee's computer. They looked up as their colleague arrived, and both smiled rather wickedly.

"Late night, Tony?" Ziva asked coyly.

"None of your business, Zee-vah," he replied.

"Ooh, not very friendly." Ziva sauntered over to Tony. "Was she worth it?" she asked sultrily, eyeing Tony up and down. Before Tony had a chance to answer, Gibbs strode into the bullpen.

"Well, she's not dead, so she had a better night than Petty Officer Wells." he said. "Grab your gear, we're going to Rock Creek Park." Tony smirked at Ziva, then grabbed his pack and followed Agent Gibbs to the elevator, while Ziva simply smiled. McGee, at this point, just let it roll, because sometimes it was just as much fun to watch as to participate.

Once the agents arrived at the crime scene, Gibbs barked orders for each of them and started questioning the park ranger that found the body. According to the ranger, the unfortunate petty officer had been stabbed, then left to die. Tony took photographs, as usual, and was getting along at a pretty good clip until Ziva found her way over again.

"I'm working," he said haughtily.

"As am I," she replied, looking over her shoulder at him as she sketched. "McGee!" she called, bending down to look at something on the ground. Tony joined her, as well, and Ziva held up a crushed soda can.

"It's a soda can," Tony remarked.

"Yes. It could have belonged to the petty officer," Ziva said. McGee bagged and tagged the item, while Tony protested, "Or it could be trash."

"We'll know more once we get it back to Abby," Gibbs interrupted. "Park ranger says he found Petty Officer Wells about an hour ago on his round through the park. Says he wasn't there the first time he went through."

Ducky Mallard, the resident NCIS medical examiner, arrived on the scene and immediately went to the body. Jimmy Palmer, resident autopsy gremlin, followed him, carrying some of the equipment necessary for a preliminary examination.

"What've ya got, Duck?" Gibbs asked immediately.

"Jethro, I've only just arrived! At least give me some time to use the liver probe," Ducky said, pulling the small instrument out of his bag. He turned his attention toward the body and the stab wound, eyeing it with some curiosity as he took the liver temperature. "Judging by the body temperature and the fact that it was unseasonably warm last night, I'd say the body hasn't been here for much longer than fifteen hours," Ducky said once the probe was complete. "But his cause of death wasn't this stab wound, which appears to have been inflicted post-mortem. Note the presence of petechial hemorrhaging around the eyes, as well as the bruises surrounding the neck. I'd hazard an early cause of death at asphyxia, but we won't know more until we get him home." Gibbs nodded and went to conference with the rest of his team.

"This is one of the cleanest crime scenes I have ever witnessed," Ziva said. "No fingerprints, no murder weapon, and the only possible evidence we found is this crushed soda can."

"Not even a footprint," added Tony. He looked at McGee, expecting him to concur with the lack of evidence.

"I might have something," McGee said, frowning at something on the ground. Gibbs walked over to him, waiting for the explanation. "Don't you think it's a little weird that we haven't found anything? The body was obviously moved here but there isn't any indication that it was dragged along the ground, there're no fingerprints, tire prints or footprints, like Tony said, there's no anything."

"So, the killer cleaned up after himself," Ziva concluded.

"There aren't even any broken twigs," McGee pointed out. "The body's hardly decomposed, there are no bugs, no animals. Nothing to indicate another living being was ever here."

"Or, the killer didn't leave a trace," Gibbs said, on the same wavelength as McGee. "We're dealing with someone highly trained in ghosting." He sighed. "If you're done here, let's go." The three agents packed up as quickly as they could while Ducky and Palmer took charge of the body.

So, Tony mused, they had a dead body with no indication of how it got there, who did it, or why. His long day was quickly turning into a long night.

Tim McGee was vaguely aware that his phone was ringing. Very vaguely. Somewhere in the depths of his mind, he registered the annoying electronic beeping, enough to pull him out of a deep, comfy sleep. By the time he actually connected sound with brain, the phone had been ringing for a solid minute.

"'Lo?" he asked as he picked up.

"Tim, it's Tony."

"Tony? It's…" he glanced at his alarm clock, "3 a.m. You've gotta stop calling me this late, man. We've got work later."

"Ziva's in the hospital." This woke McGee up like a slap in the face.

"What? What happened?"

"There was some kind of explosion at her apartment. While she was in it. The doctors don't think she's hurt too badly, but she's in a coma."

"Where are you?"

"Bethesda."

"I'm coming." McGee hung up the phone without bothering to say goodbye. He threw on some jeans he thought might be clean and a wrinkled t-shirt. He didn't even bother to reign in his blatant speeding to get to the hospital faster. All that mattered was that his friend was hurt, and hurt badly. He didn't care what the doctors said: he remembered the coma Gibbs was in only all too well; to him, a coma meant badly hurt.

It took McGee a little while to locate Ziva's floor, as no one seemed to want to tell him where she was. They either didn't believe that he was a federal agent coming to see his colleague, or were just plain hiding the information—though now that he thought about it, it was probably because they didn't believe he was a federal agent. After all, what NCIS agent shows up at the hospital in jeans from the bedroom floor and a superbly wrinkled t-shirt?

When McGee walked into the tenth floor waiting room, the first thing he saw was Tony, sitting in a chair, bent in half with his head in his hands. This did not bode well. He slowed his pace and tried to stop his heart from pumping right out of his chest.

"How is she?" he asked softly.

"They're still in with her," Tony replied without moving. "They don't know that much yet. She doesn't appear to have much in the way of internal injuries, but she has some bad burns they're keeping an eye on."

"Where's Gibbs?"

"With the director." McGee made an impatient noise at this and Tony said, still without looking up, "There's nothing you can do, Tim. Have a seat." Which he promptly did, though he didn't like it one bit.

An hour passed. Then two. Tony, in the meantime, had gotten up, gotten coffee, come back, and stretched out on the only couch in the room, seemingly asleep. McGee wondered how he could possibly turn his mind off at a time like this. To keep from going crazy, he pulled out his iPhone and played as many games as he could keep his mind on. Finally, a side door opened and Gibbs strode out with the director, neither looking very happy, both looking extremely tired.

"Any news?" Tony asked as Gibbs sat down near him, still under the appearance of sleep.

"I haven't been in with the doctors, DiNozzo."

"Then what the h—" Tony stopped himself as he remembered the director's presence. "What's going on?" he asked as he sat up.

"We've been on the phone with Eli David," the director said simply. "Thought he ought to know his daughter's in the hospital." Tony did not agree with this decision and a quick glance at Gibbs and McGee let him know they didn't, either. "I'll expect a full report tomorrow," the director continued. "And Gibbs, I don't want you or a single one of your agents anywhere near that crime scene," he warned. Gibbs nodded as the director walked toward the elevators.

"Boss, why doesn't the director want us at the crime scene?" McGee asked suspiciously.

"Because, McGee, he thinks we'll find something," Gibbs replied cryptically.