CHAPTER FOUR.

"Told ya you'd find me again," Chuck remarked as soon as he saw Tony trudge into the park's deserted picnicking area. The man sat on a park bench that looked over a half-frozen pond.

During summer this area might have been bustling with families and birthday parties and screaming kids, but now it was quiet and a little bit lonely. Wet snow clung to the trees and blanketed the grass and wood chips.

Slowly and with a tired groan, Tony sat beside the old man and held his backpack in his lap. He watched a pair of red-winged black birds dance from cattail to cattail. "I happen to have more questions for you, Lieutenant Commander Charles Petrone," he said, dropping the name and hopefully catching the man off-guard.

"Anthony," Chuck said, no surprise and no concern to be found. "My patron saint."

"We found your prints on the wallet," Tony jumped right to the point. "You told us you didn't find anything at the scene but Petty Officer Carver's cell phone. Yet you touched the wallet. I need to know why."

Chuck nodded as he studied the pond.

"Did you take anything from the wallet?"

"If I say 'no,' you won't believe me, but if I say 'yes,' it'll satisfy all of your preconceptions."

"Try me," Tony said.

"Oh kid… You've got all this self-righteousness in you and nowhere to put it."

"No," denied Tony, ire building in his tone, "I'm here for the truth. That's all."

Again, Chuck only stared at the pond. He said, "Yes, I looked through it."

"Why?"

There was a heavy pause, and then finally: "When the war ended and when we were brought back home, we never quite fit back into the lives we had before we left. Some of us did. Lots of us... imperfectly. The rest of us not at all."

"What's this got to do with anything?" Tony asked, impatient. Just answer the question."

"It's got everything to do with it. Do you understand sacrifice, kid?"

"I do."

Chuck nodded. "So you understand that when you give up something, you might never see that something again. But you're human, so you keep lookin' for it, even when you know you shouldn't."

Tony studied the other man's face, so worn and tired — yet also proud. He did understand. Intimately. Perhaps not in the permanently life-altering way Chuck Petrone did, but it was a start. He rephrased his earlier question: "Did you find anything in that wallet?"

And Chuck answered right away, "No. Somebody had already beat me to it."


It was a decent drive out to the Brookland neighborhood and the Carver residence to check things out, so McGee used the opportunity to pump information out of Ellie.

"So what's going on?" he pressed. "You and Abby have been sneaking around together and whispering for the entire day."

"Nothing," Ellie lied, and it wasn't particularly convincing. She covered it by looking out the window at the gray slushy snow built-up on the easement.

Tim repeated, "What's going on?"

"We're planning something," she relented.

"Planning what?"

"Something."

"Something?" Tim asked. "Can I know about this something?"

"Yes, something," she answered, vaguely.

"Something for?"

"For Tony," Ellie said, finally. "He's going to be alone this year, and—"

"Wait a minute. He told me all about his plans with Zoe. They were going to a cabin up north a bit. Just the two of them. He's been going on about it for months, it seems. What happened?"

Ellie didn't answer right away.

"Wait, did he tell you something he didn't tell me?" McGee bitched.

"He really just wanted my perspective... really. And it kind of came out of nowhere."

"And then you told Abby?" he asked.

She confirmed, "And then I told Abby."

Tim just frowned and kept staring ahead at the road as he drove.

Awkwardly, Ellie nodded and did the same. She wasn't about to get in the middle of that one: the weird quasi love story that was McGee and DiNozzo. Not love love — at least she didn't think it was like that, from her limited experience with them. But just love. Those two seemed to share everything and nothing with each other at the same time. It was a damn near impossible thing, all of it.

They sat there, in complete silence, except for the drone of "Feliz Navidad" turned low on the car's radio.

Tim drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. Ellie flipped through some of her case notes.

But Tim couldn't help himself. He had to know. "So what happened then?"

"She's staying in Seattle for Christmas."

"Why?"

"Tony also said they offered her a job there."

"Really?" Tim looked scandalized. "Is she going to take it? Is he going to move out there with her?" He frowned, and the look on his face would have been funny if it wasn't so sad.

"Look, Tim, maybe you should ask him yourself. It doesn't feel right gossiping about it behind his back. I think he's wounded enough as it is," she said.

Ellie could practically feel Tim's scowl.

So she went on, "Maybe he'd like to talk to you about it, but he doesn't know how to bring it up. Maybe he's embarrassed about it. I don't know. I try to stay out of his head. It seems like a scary place."

"It is, sometimes," said Tim, finally. "So what are you planning?"

"Abby's supposed to tell you about it."

He shook his head and pulled the car into the driveway of a small town-home decorated with icicle lights and a blow-up Olaf the Snowman in the front yard. As soon as he put it in park and turned off the engine, they grabbed their notepads and reached for the door handles.

That was when the driver's side mirror suddenly exploded into a thousand brilliantly sparkling pieces.

The remains of it hung loosely - like some stunted, broken wing - swinging back and forth. Tim turned to stare at Ellie, both of their eyes wide, and they only had a split moment to duck down before the onslaught began. Staccato reports of rifle fire accompanied the shattering glass.

"Where's that coming from?" Ellie cried out, grabbing her gun first, and her cell phone second to call for back-up.

"Upstairs window. I see him," Tim said. He leaned briefly out of the shattered car window, calling out, "Federal agents-!" He saw a man dressed in black aim the rifle again, so Tim squeezed off a few .45 rounds, aiming at the window in question. The dark shape ducked out of the way. Then Tim huddled back down and checked the chamber.

But the rifle fire didn't cease.

Ellie popped up and mimicked Tim's move. She yelled out and clutched her arm which had gotten caught on part of the broken window.

"You okay?" Tim leaned out of the window again and shot once, twice, three times, until his gun clicked empty. "Shit."

"I'm fine. Just a flesh wound." She fumbled the cell phone in her hands and accidentally dropped it.

"A movie quote? Really? You need to stop spending so much time with Tony, I guess!" he accused. "He's rubbing off on you."

"He's not! Why are you so jealous?"

Both of them kept arguing while returning fire.

"I'm not jealous!"

Pop, pop.

"Yeah, you are!"

Pop, pop.

"I'm not!"

Gibbs barked distantly from Ellie's dropped cell phone, which was now stuck between the seats. And soon, police sirens began to bray from down the street, getting closer and closer on this usually peaceful and quiet residential street.

"You think we got him?" Tim then asked, noticing the sudden lull of return fire.

But then: Pow, pow, pow. Whoever it was, he wasn't done yet.

Broken glass flew up and hit Tim near his eye, and he ducked down again on reflex. "We're sitting ducks here," he panted. He managed to fire the Charger's engine up, although it made a strange and distressing sound, and he knocked it into reverse before burning rubber right on out of the driveway. Ellie hung out the window once more and shot again. This time, she saw the shooter in the window collapse. "I got him!" she exclaimed in disbelief.

They jolted to a stop with a crash, and it took McGee a bit to realize he ought to take his foot off the gas. Smoke billowed from the shot-up engine and rolled up over the windshield.

Breathing hard, Ellie looked behind them. "Uh, Tim?"

There was a Metro police cruiser now stuck to their back bumper.

McGee cringed as he wiped some blood from his face. "Oops."


"What do you think, Boss?" Tony asked as they stood in the upstairs bedroom of the town-home.

After the distressing phone call from Bishop, Gibbs had rounded up Tony — who'd just gotten back from Rock Creek Park — and together they drove as fast as they could to the Carver house. Tony had even urged Gibbs to drive faster.

But now that they were here, and both McGee and Bishop were found to be safe, Tony didn't know whether to laugh at or be impressed by the unfortunate series of events that occurred here. "This guy sure isn't Sunny Carver."

The dead gunman lay slumped against the open window. The blood had long stopped pumping from the wound on his neck, and the pool of it on the carpet had already begun to congeal.

Gibbs gazed around the ruined room. The walls were painted pink, with a border covered in galloping cartoon ponies. Actually, everything was pink. Even the carpeting and the drapes. There was a crib in the corner and a pink pony mobile above it. Luckily, there'd been no baby.

"One brother shot dead in the woods," Tony went on, "and the other gone AWOL. Now this guy dressed in tac gear and armed with an assault rifle, waiting at their home for… who? Us?" He snapped another picture with the SLR camera and shivered a bit, though it didn't have anything to do with the open window. The whole scene creeped him out. The dead guy. The baby's room. The seeming innocuousness of the neighborhood.

He looked out of the window. Both Ellie and McGee sat on the back bumper of an ambulance getting stitched up. Somehow, Tim caught his eye, and he waved. Tony fumbled with the camera as he returned a wave from the window.

"You hear that?" Gibbs asked.

Tony turned away from the window. "Pardon?"

"That noise. Coming from down the hall."

"We cleared the house," Tony said. He put a hand on the butt of his gun, and headed for the door.

Gibbs followed, and silently, the two of them crept down the hallway. The noise got steadily louder. It sounded like cries from a baby.

"You checked that closet, DiNozzo?"

"Yeah, of course," Tony replied. "Pretty sure I woulda noticed a baby in a closet, Boss."

"Yeah?" Gibbs swung open the closet door, gun out and ready, covering Tony as he stepped into the closet without further instruction and dug through the mess of sweaters and jackets.

The cries got louder. The closet was bigger than either of them anticipated.

"Uh, Boss," Tony said, voice muffled. "There's a baby in this closet."

"Well, get her out!" Gibbs said, re-holstering his weapon.

"Hang on, hang on. Just gotta figure out these strappy things. They got her in a car seat or something."

"You need help figuring out a car seat, DiNozzo?"

"I got it. I got it." Tony backed out of the closet now with a baby held awkwardly in his arms. She looked no worse for wear, dressed in a pink onesie accented with yellow ducklings. She was actually quiet now as she stared out into the sudden light with a wide expression of baby wonder.

"Must be Lily," Tony said. And the baby looked at him, and smiled and burbled.

He wasn't sure if it was a strange kind of innate paternal instinct or something else learned, but Tony held the child close to his chest. Little baby hands clung to the NCIS patch of his bullet-resistant vest. He and Gibbs stared at one another. "Weird" had just gotten a little more weird.


Gibbs made phone calls while Tony wandered the crime scene, apparently strangely absorbed in this new thing known as "baby," and also apparently designated as child minder until they figured out what to do with the tiny human.

Ducky and Jimmy had already passed them by in the hallway - on their way to assess the body, no doubt - a gurney in tow. The old man paused, eyes twinkling as he pinched the baby's fat cheeks. Jimmy just smiled and, despite Tony's earlier attitude back at NCIS, said, "Wow, Tony, maybe I should call you up next time we need a sitter."

"Oh Jimmy," Tony replied with a blithe little grin, "You could never afford me."

He met up with McGee outside, who had four neatly done sutures below his eye. Tony grabbed his chin, turning Tim's head in order to get a better look at them. "I'm pretty sure this'll scar, McDemolitionDerby. Did Ellie really get the guy while the car was moving?"

"Lucky shot," Tim murmured.

Tony whistled in respect. "Where'd she go, anyway?"

"She sliced her arm pretty good. She rode the ambulance to the ER," Tim answered as he slapped Tony's hand away and scowled. Then he caught sight of the baby wrapped in a blanket and nestled against Tony's chest. He gave the baby a strange look, asking, "Did an old girlfriend of yours stop by and leave you a surprise?"

"Nooo," Tony answered, smiling as the baby reached out and grabbed onto his nose. "We found her upstairs."

The color immediately drained from McGee's face. "Please don't tell me she was in that room."

"She wasn't," Tony assured him. "Somebody left her in a closet down the hall."

"A closet?"

"We've got a petty officer shot dead in the woods, and we've got this other guy involved in a shootout in their home in the heart of suburbia—" The baby grabbed for Tony's eyelid now. "—And a baby left in a closet."

"Rebecca Carver told me she'd left her with a sitter," McGee said, as he reached a hand out and let the baby grip onto his finger instead of Tony's face. He couldn't help but grin.

"So where's the sitter?"

"That's the million dollar question, isn't it."

Suddenly, Gibbs was rushing toward them. He looked first at McGee, perhaps to ensure the young man was okay, then he paused to gaze at Tony with the baby. "Looks good on you, DiNozzo."

"What, this baby shaped growth on my chest?" Tony shot back. "Thanks for noticing."

"Baby sitting duty is over. Rebecca's on her way," Gibbs said. "And Abs got a hit on the prints she pulled from the shell casings."

"Who?" Tim quickly asked.

Gibbs answered: "Sunny Carver.