A/N: Yay, an updated story. :) I had fun writing this chapter, though it's not the most actiony in the world. Please enjoy.

I don't own NCIS, though if I did, I would have my own NCIS hat. With a 9 mm hole in it.

She knew from the beginning - something was wrong.

In the days and the hours to come, she'd only wish she'd listened to the feeling.

Blood on her hands and dirt on her face she could stand

If only the blood was hers.


A silent car ride was ended abruptly as the car stopped roughly, the NCIS team exiting before the vehicle was truly off. There was a sense of unexplained urgency today - a pull towards this case that none of them understood, and only thought was part of the thrill of the case. But something was off. Ziva was slightly uneasy as she swung her bag over her shoulder, trailing behind the senior field agent.

Everything seemed normal. As normal as could be for a murder investigation, at least. Yet the uneasy feeling refused to subside as the team surrounded the murder victim, their curious eyes trailing over every inch of the victim's body. Instantly, there was a ripple of sympathy for the young victim. Through years of experience, they'd lost most feeling, but not all. They'd learned to push cases like this to the back of their minds, yet nevertheless there was sympathy present, and wonder.

It looked as if this victim had been slain in an absolute rage, for the blood-encrusted cuts were far from few. The blood around her was littered with her own blood, which they were careful to step away from. They'd had cases like this before, but this seemed different, somehow. Each felt their own individual uneasiness, if only for a second, but it stayed only with Ziva, who looked on with eyes that lied and silent words waiting to be spoken.

She wasn't sure exactly what she was afraid of, because none of it really made sense. Later, she could have only wished that she'd known in the first place, because, as her world would go to hell, she'd be helpless in the end. A gun to her head would be just as sweet, and far more preferable in the hours to come.


"Gibbs! Gibbs, you gotta see this," Abby was truly bouncing as she moved through her lab, a huge grin spread across her face and a childish joy in her eyes. Often, her coworkers would wonder how she could be so happy when her job was dealing constantly with blood and death - but then again, theirs was as well. The mystery of her childlike innocence would never be revealed to them, they'd assumed, but perhaps someday she'd share her secret.

"Woah, Abs, calm down!" Tony grinned at her as she pulled Gibbs to her laptop and stopped abruptly. The team leader almost fell over (much to the entertainment of his coworkers), barely regaining his balance as Abby's hands flew over the keyboard, pulling up everything she needed. With a final click of a button and triumphant "ta-DA!", they all turned their attention to the screen.

"Okay, so, I ran the DNA that Ducky gave me, and well, I have a match for you. Say hello to Petty Officer Alisha Taylor, recently moved to… not far from here. I'll have an exact address for you soon, because everywhere I've checked denies her existence. It's kind of cool, isn't it? Nobody actually knows who this Ms. Taylor is. Maybe she goes by another name, like they do in the movies. You know the one, Tony, where-"

"Don't even get him started." Ziva shook her head at Abby's words, a smile on her face. Only Abby could get away with talking faster than the speed of light, and trailing off like this, without receiving a slap from the Bossman himself.

"Right. Anyway, she's kind of a mystery right now. But I did find something else," another loud click sounded, and an image of smudged blood appeared on the screen. When she didn't speak, the rest of the team only turned to the forensic scientist, slightly confused. They saw smudged blood all the time. What was so special about this?

"Do you want me to explain, or are you gonna guess? Come on Gibbs, it's so much fun to guess!" she was silenced by a look from her boss, deciding to share her information rather than playing the guessing game. "Okay, well, I might be able to get a print off this. Which means…"

"We could get our killer. Good work, Abbs," a proud smile on his face, Gibbs lightly kissed her head, causing the other team members to smile at this exchange. There was something special between these two that never seemed to apply to the rest of them. Gibbs didn't seem to notice the smiles and only turned to leave, beckoning his team with a wave of his hand. As they reached the door, however, a shrill beep sounded, and they all turned around in synch.

"Gibbs! Oh my God, Gibbs, you have to see this."