Warnings: None for this chapter.

A/N: I apologize for the delay, it was a very busy week and by the time I got home at night I just didn't have the energy to work on my writing. Hope you enjoy this chapter!

On their way back to NCIS from the crime scene, Tony's cell phone rang. Leah was convinced she was going into labor.

He was almost grateful that he was about to spend hours at the hospital waiting for his daughter to be born. It meant that Tony wouldn't be buried in work trying to solve this case. However, when he made it home and found Leah on the sofa, she looked at him, sheepishly.

She rested her hands on her belly and smiled at him, coyly. "False alarm."

Tony groaned. "Are you kidding me? I did about eighty to get here."

Leah chewed on her lower lip. "Turns out they were really just gas pains."

"Great… Leah…I'm in the middle of a case..."

"I made you some coffee…"

Tony sighed and leaned down to kiss his wife. He was going to need that coffee. Gibbs was going to be working them late into the night, perhaps even keeping them until morning. "Go get some sleep," he gently ordered her.

Leah smiled, sleepily, and promised that she would. He helped her to her feet, noticing that she was wearing one of his beat-up tee shirts, and then gently directed her to the stairs. "I can get up the stairs by myself, Tony. You should probably get going back to NCIS."

He took her hand and pulled her as close as he could, her belly squished between them. Gently, he pressed his lips to hers in a tender kiss. "I love you, bella."

She caressed his cheek, feeling the stubble underneath her fingers, and smiled. "I love you more."

"Nah, I highly doubt that," Tony teased her, kissing her again.

"I'm sorry I pulled you away from the case," Leah said, softly.

Tony shook his head and smiled at her. "Don't worry about it, sweetheart."

Leah refused to let go of his hand, concerning him slightly. "Can you stay? At least until I fall asleep?"

He was definitely concerned now. "What's wrong, love?"

She shook her head, trying to dismiss some thought she was having. "It's nothing."

"Hey, don't lie to me. What's wrong?"

"I don't know. I've felt… like… someone's been watching me all day."

"From the sofa?"

Leah looked away and shook her head again. "It's silly. I know."

Tony was never one to dismiss the feeling of being watched. Sometimes it was the only clue that something was about to go done, a warning of sorts. "No, it's not silly. Tell me about it."

She gazed at him, biting on her lower lip anxiously. "A few times during the day it felt like someone was watching me through the window, but when I got up to go check it out, no one was there."

He felt his heart thunder in his chest as a startled feeling crept through his body. "Which window?"

"On the side of the house, facing the woods."

"Would you feel better if I stayed with you for a while?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I don't have to leave just yet."

Leah felt the tension she had been feeling most of the day leave her body. She wasn't sure why she had been feeling that she was being watched… this was a safe neighborhood… maybe it was the pre-birth jitters she was experiencing the closer they got to her due date.

Tony helped her up the stairs and into bed, making sure that he slid a pillow between her legs as she curled up on her side. Gently, he laid down next to her, wrapping his arms around her. His fingers brushed across her stomach and he felt the baby moving.

It didn't take his wife long to fall asleep in his arms and he got up, kissing her cheek before he left the room.

Once outside the house, armed with his phone as a flashlight, Tony went over to the side of the house and inspected the area, looking for signs that someone had been there. His gut was telling him that Leah wasn't making this up, that someone had been watching her and possibly the kids swimming in the back yard.

Sure enough, by the old oak tree, snapped sticks and footprints, surrounded the massive trunk. His wife hadn't been making things up—someone had been watching her and Tony was going to find out who and why.

Tony rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension in his muscles. The conversation with Leah just a few hours before was still haunting him; it was late and he was tired. Gibbs was going to keep them until this was solved, even if Tony had a little mystery of his own at home.

He didn't want to scare his wife, so he'd decided to keep the information of finding the evidence that someone had been standing in their woods, watching the house, to himself. Tony was certain that his family was safe inside the house…

"I thought you went home to take Leah to the hospital?" Tim asked when he found the senior field agent in the bullpen.

"False alarm," Tony replied, quietly, still rolling his shoulders. "Apparently... it really was gas pains and nothing to worry about."

"Well, you didn't miss much," Tim said, "Dog tags were from a soldier that died in 1968... Ducky is waiting for his dental records to match the skull."

Tony stopped rolling his shoulders and glared at his partner. "Great... so we have nothing."

Ellie appeared then, no bounce in her step, and with dark circles under her eyes. "Well, not nothing... we have an almost fifty-year-old cold case."

"Oh goodie! Because I love those!" Tony exclaimed, sarcastically.

"DiNozzo, tone down the sarcasm," Gibbs grumbled, handing out coffee to his team.

"Sorry, boss. This pregnancy is going to kill me."

"Not if I don't kill you first."

Tony mumbled another apology and got back to work... except he had none. Why did Leah's call have to be a false alarm? At least if she was in labor he would be doing something. Nothing to do on this case meant they were just sitting around waiting for confirmation on their victim's identity. "Hey... if we already know that the owner of the dog tags is dead... there must be a death certificate, right?"

Tim's eyes widened for a second. "Tony's right, boss. I didn't even think of that. If our victim was missing... there would be no record of his death."

Gibbs shook his head. It didn't matter that they had missed it. His team had been worked hard over the last forty-eight hours. "We've been working around the clock, little sleep... we're bound to miss things but now that we know... let's fix it."

"I'll run a background check, boss," Tony offered. It would at least give him something to do.

"I wouldn't bother, Anthony," Ducky said entering the bullpen, dashing his hopes of having something to keep him awake and occupied. "Our skull and our dog tags are not from the same person."

"Well, if they aren't from the same person... whose skull is it?" Ellie asked.

Ducky sighed. "Damned if I know, Eleanor. Jethro, this crime scene seems rather... staged... if you ask me. I called the marine's family and they said that the dog tags were misplaced years ago but they live nowhere near the location that they were discovered at."

Tony felt like banging his head on his desk. "So, we've been doing all this work for nothing?"

Gibbs downed his coffee. "Not nothing, Tony... we need to find out why someone would stage a crime scene like that to get us to come out."

Tim looked at his partners, wearily. "That could be any number of reasons, boss."

"How do we even know it was staged? We don't know the identity of the skull," Ellie pointed out.

"Even though I said I didn't know the identity of our skull, Eleanor," Ducky replied, "I do know where it came from." All eyes were on him, suddenly. "It came from Monroe University... their medical department reported a theft of bones that are used for anatomy classes... I am having Abigail check... but I would place bets that our skull is made from synthetic material."

Tony shook his head to clear his thoughts. "I feel like I've seen this movie."

Ellie snapped her fingers. "Not a movie! A book! Tim's book!"

"Huh?" Tony and Tim questioned at the same time.

"Twila works at a medical lab... the killer steals the bones from the lab and buries them with the dog tags to throw the team off track," Ellie responded.

"I told you to stop writing books about us," Tony grumbled.

Tim decided that there was no point in arguing with Tony right now. His partner was beyond cranky at this point and, truthfully, Tim just didn't have the energy. "But in my book the killer did that to cover up his murders... we haven't found any bodies yet."

Tony rubbed his hands over his face and mumbled, "There's the key word—yet. I think it's clear that someone is living out your book."

"But not all the fine details," Ducky said. "Certain elements have been changed about the book. It was a gas station those bones were found at and the dog tags matched a murder victim."

"Murder victim was female too," Ellie interjected.

"Bishop... we don't have a murder victim," Tony threw out.

"Yet," Ellie said, quirking an eyebrow.

Gibbs let out a frustrated snarl. "Until we have an actual body... go home... get some rest. And Ducky... make sure the University knows we found one of their missing skulls."

Tony slowly gathered up his things. Getting the day off meant that he could sleep. Leah had to be at George Washington University all day and Jack and Tali would be at daycare... Instead of sleeping you could get caught up on McGee's book... All the coincidences were really starting to add up... making it a little unnerving. "Damn... I'm not getting any sleep," the senior field agent mumbled getting into the elevator.

"Yeah, neither am I," Tim chimed in. "The answer to this has to be in my book. I better start looking over my notes."

"Coincidences bothering you too?"

"Uh-huh."

Tony pursed his lips. "Meet in three hours to compare notes?"

Tim sighed, tiredly. "Sure. Sounds like a plan."

Delilah had gone into work early like she usually did when Tim was at the office all night. She was preparing to make another trip to Dubai in a few weeks and she had a lot of paperwork to complete before doing so. It was going to be her last trip for a long time with the baby coming.

Even though she wasn't the one carrying their child, they had a lot of preparations to make before the baby was born. It had also been a struggle to get to this point. Especially when they realized it was not going to be as easy to have a baby as it was for their friends.

She had been disappointed when the doctor informed them that it would be too dangerous for her to carry a baby. It was hard to watch Leah experience pregnancy like she always imagined it would be. Although... seeing how uncomfortable Leah was during this heat wave... there was a small part of her that was glad she wouldn't be carrying her baby.

"Hey, Delilah," the night security guard said, popping in her office before leaving for the night. "Some lady was trying to get into the building last night to drop something off in your office."

"Did she leave it with you?" Delilah asked.

The security guard shook his head. "No. She got very agitated that we wouldn't let her in and left. Just thought it was weird and that you should know."

She was intrigued by this and asked for the time the incident had happened so she could go back and watch footage to see if she knew the woman. "Thanks for letting me know... I'm sure it was nothing."

"Oh, one another thing... she kept saying that you were an imposter... that she was the real Twila McGregor," the guard told her, dropping the anvil into the room. "I figured she was drunk... she sure was acting like it."

"Wait? She said her name was Twila McGregor?"

"Yeah? Do you know her?"

Delilah felt her stomach give an unpleasant lurch. Something odd was happening here and she though back to the woman who had sent that bottle of wine over the night before at dinner. Could the two be linked? "Yeah," she finally said, swallowing the bile in her throat, "she's a fictional character in my husband's book."