Tony didn't show up for work until 4:00 that afternoon. He wasn't going to show up for work hungover. Gibbs was already beyond pissed.

"DiNozzo! What the hell do you think you're doing? I told you to get your ass back to NCIS! I didn't say to wait a day and come in when you feel like it!'

Tony winced and didn't make any move to retaliate. Gibbs seemed to be the only one who didn't notice that Tony's hands were shaking , and his pupils were retracted so far that his eyes were almost purely green.

"Sorry boss. Won't happen again." Came Tony's quick response.

"And don't apologize!" Gibbs snapped as he stalked off towards the elevator. He was hoping Abby could calm him down. (As was everybody else.) Ziva and McGee's eyes met. Ziva leaned her head towards the elevator, indicating for him to meet her there. McGee nodded and they both stood and non-chalantly walked over to the elevator.

Once the door slid closed Ziva faced McGee and they said in unison, "Ducky."

Ziva hit the button to take them down to autopsy. They knew the elderly ME could talk to Gibbs about this, And if he couldn't, they may as well start planning Tony's funeral, because he didn't seem he could take much more.

In Abby's lab, Gibbs had just entered and held out a fresh Caf-Pow to the young Goth. She took it gratefully and began gulping down the caffeinated drink. Gibbs noticed the other multiple Caf-Pow cups accumulating in the trashcan.

They should be in the bio-hazard trashcan. Gibbs thought to himself.

Abby was busily typing and searching through numerous files.

"Abbs, whatd'ya got?" he asked, noticing that whatever was on the screen didn't seem to be related to their current case.

"Gibbs, I know you don't like apologies, but I'm sorry. I'm not working on the case right now."

"Then what are you doing Abby?" Gibbs asked, the anger evidently growing in his voice.

"Looking through Tony's records and recent credit card activity."

"Why?" he asked, the anger now completely legible in his voice.

"Gibbs! Can't you see that something's wrong? Tony's all pale and distracted. And he's limping!" Abby said, exasperated.

"Abbs, he's fine." Gibbs said, again ignoring the concern for his senior field agent.

"No he's not Gibbs! I ran though his credit cards and he went to a hospital while he was staying in Italy! A hospital! Right before leaving on the plane. Gibbs, whatever happened must have been bad. Tony hates hospitals. And his records say his mom died when he was eight! And after that he went to the emergency room at least six times a year, and all the diagnosis' say that there were previous healed fractures and abrasions that they never treated. Gibbs, I think his father hurt him."

After finally finishing, Abby took a deep breath and waited for Gibbs to respond. When he didn't, Abby did something that no one else on the entire team would have done to Gibbs. She brought her hand up and smacked him upside the head.

The marine in Gibbs was telling him to grab her arm and maneuver it into a painfully-restricting position behind her back. But he knew he couldn't do that to Abby. All he could do was give her his best intimidating glare and change the subject.

"What do you have on the case, Abbs?"

Abby sighed and turned back to the computer screen.

"Nothing much, yet. I'm scanning the note for any sign of DNA. I also took a sample of handwriting. I'm running it through APHIS now. We got a hit when I scanned the picture into the computer. The girl is Jennifer Mitchell She just turned fourteen a month ago. Her parents are Lieutenant Lynn Mitchell and Corporal Jonathon Mitchell. I'm printing their address now." Abby said and clicked the print key on her keyboard.

"Thanks Abby." Gibbs said as he left her lab, whisking the paper out of the printer as he went.

Abby watched the silver-haired man leave and quickly turned back to her screen, typing furiously. In a second she had hacked into Tony's father's email account. There were 872 emails in the inbox, only 5 of them new. She took a deep breath and started reading at the first one dated, November 6, 1988.

__________

The team was on their way to the Mitchell's house. Gibbs was driving well beyond the speed limit while the team swallowed down nauseous bile. By the time they finally pulled into the driveway, all that could be heard was deep breathing and McGee hyperventilating.

Gibbs was the first to leave the car with the others following close behind.

A tall man with graying hair and chiseled features answered the door.

"Are you Corporal Jonathon Mitchell?" Gibbs asked.

"Ex-corporal. I left the marines six months ago. Look, whatever you're selling, I'm not interested," Mr. Mitchell said in an irritated voice and started to shut the door.

Gibbs put his hand out to stop it from closing. He pulled out his badge and flipped it open to show his ID.

"Special Agent Gibbs NCIS."

Mr. Mitchell didn't look impressed.

"What, is that like FBI?"

Gibbs chuckled slightly.

"Can we ask you a couple questions, Mr. Mitchell?"

"I geuss" he answered before motioning them inside. Once Gibbs was seated on the couch across from Mr. Mitchell, who was slouching in an arm chair, Mrs Mitchell entered the living room.

"John, who are these people?" she asked nervously.

"NCIS ma'am," Gibbs answered for him, "we're here about your daughter."

Mrs Mitchell's face suddenly scrunched up in confusion.

"She's not here. She's been at horse back riding camp for the past week. Did something happen? Did she fall off her horse? What is this about?" she asked frantically.

Gibbs was never one to be good with words, so he just came out and said it.

"Ma'am, we found this photo at a crime scene."

He held out the picture face down. Mr. Mitchell reached forward in front of his wife and took it. He flipped it over in his fingers and held it up to the light, squinting.

"Oh God!" he said loudly and dropped the photo. Mrs. Mitchell picked it up off the floor and looked at it. She gasped and tears instantly came flooding out.

"Oh God that's her, that's my baby!" she said between sobs.

Her husband was consoling her as she wept. Gibbs offered no comfort. No matter how distraught they appeared to be, he couldn't count them out of being suspects yet.

"Mr. Mitchell do you know any of these girls? Maybe they're Jennifer's friends?" Tony asked and held out pictures of the girls currently in autopsy.

Mr. Mitchell took them and began flipping through them. One particular picture caused a spark of recognition in the exhausted man's eyes. His wife stopped sobbing long enough to spare a glance at the picture.

"This was her best friend." He mumbled, staring fixedly at the photo.

"Who?" Gibbs questioned further.

Mr. Mitchell held the picture forward. It was the girl they found the note with. The girl dumped in a sand box. The picture being viewed right then was her class photo.

"Her name was Grace Bennett. She was having some… some issues at home and we let her come over here often to get away from it all." He said with a sigh.

Gibbs nodded and made a mental note of the girl's name. He definitely knew who was next on his suspect list. Parents of troubled children weren't always the friendliest of people.

__________

After asking a few more questions Gibbs left the Mitchell house and called Abby.

"I need an address. Parents of Grace Bennett." He barked into the phone.

"Nice to talk to you too, Gibbs." Abby answered sarcastically.

"Abbs!" Gibbs yelled in desperate attempt to get her back on track.

"Jeez, Gibbs, somebody didn't have their daily dose of caffeine yet today."

Gibbs ran a hand down his face. He heard a ding from Abby's side of the line.

"Ok the Bennett family lives on 14 Elm Wood on base."

Gibbs muttered a quick, "Thanks Abbs" before snapping his cell phone shut.

The team drove to the Bennett's house in a matter of minutes.

Before they got to the front door they could sense something odd about the house. It was seemingly quiet. Most houses with a thirteen year old girl living in it would have some sort of music blasting or other sounds. Any evidence that Grace was known to be living there.

Gibbs knocked on te door and immediately heard dogs barking their heads off. Gibbs was never much of a dog person, but he had a special way with them that no one could quite figure out.

Suddenly the door opened to reveal a woman who at first glance appeared to be around the age of 28 or 29. At a closer look you could see the laugh lines and grey hairs poking through that showed the true age, which must have been in the early forties. She was hollering commands that neither of the two dogs appeared to be listening to.

A screen door still separated them. Gibbs knew that they would be mauled by dogs as soon as that small barrier was opened.

Although luckily, she coaxed them into another room and made a sound indicating that a kennel door had been shut.
The woman came back to the door with a fake smile plastered across her face. She opened the door wide.

"Special Agent Gibbs NCIS. DiNozzo, David, McGee." He said motioning to the agents behind him. He pulled out his badge and flipped it open.

The woman waved her hand for them to come inside.

"Hello." She greeted, eyeing Tony slightly.

Tony smiled at her, but kept his mind on the case, not in the gutter.

"Ma'am, is this your daughter?" Gibbs asked as he pulled out a picture of the girl previously identified as Grace Bennett.

The woman took it and examined it carefully.

"Yes. Why? Is something wrong?" she asked with fake concern.

Gibbs pulled out the second picture taken of her in autopsy. The one he hadn't shown to the Mitchells. Mrs. Bennett took it from him and was immediately overcome with a look of terror, which couldn't quite be determined as genuine.

"H-How did this happen?" Oh God she can't be dead!"

Gibbs looked her in the eyes.

"Where is your husband, Mrs. Bennett?" he asked.

Immediately her face hardened and her eyes narrowed.

"My soon to be ex-husband is out. Why do you ask?"

Before Gibbs could answer a girl about the age of sixteen entered the room. She was tall and resembled Grace greatly.

Before turning to face her daughter, Mrs. Bennett replaced the stern look with the fake depression they had seen before.

"Bethany, Grace is dead." She said bluntly.

Bethany didn't answer.

Mrs. Bennett moved forward to pull Bethany into a light hug.

Bethany remained with her arms plastered to her sides, making no attempt at returning the embrace.

A moment later Mrs. Bennett released Bethany and turned back the NCIS agents. Tony paid close attention to the actions of Mrs. Bennett. In a way, she reminded him of his own mother.

She was fit, artificially tan, and definitely spent a decent amount of time on her appearance. She wore clothes that weren't meant for her age. Currently she had on jeans that were extremely tight on top and flared out slightly on the bottom. She also had on a tank top that showed off about an inch of her stomach, which was tighter than most mothers. Her teeth were as white as a lawyers'.

Tony never liked lawyers.

He never liked his mother either.

He began to wonder just how many similarities Mrs. Bennett and his own mother shared.

He stifled a shiver.

A/N: I tried making this chapter longer on account of a rude review I received on my last chapter. Whoever left the review signed "Anonymous" and chewed me out for the short chapter, I ask that you keep your negative thoughts to yourself please. I have many things going on in my life right now and don't always have time to write a super-long chapter.

Well on a positive note, there will be a big "Gibbs realization" scene in the next chapter. And it's a pretty dramatic one too! Please pretty please review! And not just "nice job" or "update soon". I mean advice, thoughts, ideas, constructive criticism, the whole shebang. (He he I like that word… SHEBANG!!!) More reviews, more quick updates. Longer reviews, longer chapters. That's how it works. Ok I'll stop jabbering (he he I like that word too). R&R PLEASE! :D