As soon as the elevator opened, Gibbs was alerted to a commotion developing in autopsy. He heard alarming high-pitched screaming which caused a shudder to ripple down his back. He cautiously approached the shiny metal doors only to be pleasantly surprised to hear laughter erupting from the room this time. Relief washed over him. A child's uncontrollable laughter and Tony's voice seemed to penetrate into the hallway. Gibbs smiled in spite of himself. It seemed that his second in command had managed to find his way to autopsy. Gibbs looked down at Aimee whose face was still flushed from crying. He smiled at her reassuringly.

"Sounds like Janessa's having fun, huh?"

Aimee nodded and sniffled. She seemed uncharacteristically quiet. Of course, Gibbs couldn't be sure what her personality really was since he'd only known her for a short while and under such horrendous circumstances.

Gibbs and Aimee walked into autopsy to see Janessa riding on Tony's back while he galloped around the examining tables neighing like a horse. Gibbs actually stood wide-eyed at the sight. Tony DiNozzo was a big kid in every sense of the word, but Gibbs never expected the man to be so comfortable around kids. Gibbs was impressed. Janessa was smacking him on the back of the head and yelling "Giddy-up horsey" and bursting out in laughter and screeches of delight.

Tony froze when he saw Gibbs. His mouth dropped open in stunned dismay, rivaling the look of a child with his hand caught in the cookie jar.

"Uh, hi, Boss," Tony stammered, his face turning a shade of red Gibbs hadn't seen in quite a while. "I…uh…I was helping Ducky-"

Almost as if the man had heard his name. Ducky entered the room on cue, holding a file folder of paperwork in one hand and two helium balloons in the other.

"Oh, hello there, Jethro. Glad you received my message from Timothy."

Gibbs' brow lifted in amusement when he saw Ducky's choice of attire that day. His M.E. was known to be eccentric but Ducky's choice of clothing took the cake. He was dressed in a bright green shirt matched with a sunny yellow, almost neon, bow tie. Ducky offered one to Aimee who took it with a grin breaking out across her face. Gibbs thought Ducky reminded him of a circus clown.

"All you're missing is the face paint, Duck, and the big red shoes," commented Gibbs with a wiry smirk.

"Ah, yes, Jethro. Balloons do tend to bring out the child in all of us, don't they?" Ducky looked at Aimee and patted her on the head. "Do you like the colour pink, my dear girl?"

Aimee nodded. "Yes, thank-you." A big grin settled on her face as she stared at the balloon.

"Very good." Ducky smiled as he looked at Gibbs. "Now then, Jethro, young Anthony here was helping me by amusing little Miss Janessa while I finished up some paperwork for you."

"Practicing for races, DiNozzo? I'd bet on ya for the win."

Tony chuckled, visually relaxing at the levity. "Thanks, Boss."

Ducky walked across the room and handed the other balloon to Janessa who was still on Tony's back. Tony allowed her to slip to the floor so she could better hold the balloon.

"Perhaps you could take these two lovely young ladies to get a snack from the cafeteria. I've heard that Mrs. Brackett has outdone herself today by baking the most decadent brownies," suggested Ducky.

Gibbs smirked. Ducky worked in the basement in the furthest spot away from the cafeteria yet the man still seemed to know everything that went on there as well as every other place else in NCIS. The rumor mill ran rampant and roots seemed to be in autopsy. Gibbs reached into his pocket and pulled out some money, tossing it towards Tony.

"Get them the biggest piece, DiNozzo."

Gibbs figured any type of nutritious food was pretty much out the window. Chocolate sprinkles on bread for breakfast, vending machine junk food for lunch and now brownies for a snack. They were certainly battling a thousand for good food choices. They'd have to make a more concerted effort for supper. Gibbs saw Aimee make a move to take his hand again. She looked uncertain if she wanted to go anywhere with Tony. Gibbs received her hand and squeezed it in gentle reassurance. He glanced down at her to see if she would leave or cling to him. He didn't plan to coerce her if she refused. Building a trust bond was something he really wanted to encourage

"I'll come find ya once I'm done talking with Ducky," he reassured.

Aimee chewed his lip and reluctantly nodded her head.

Janessa grabbed Tony with one hand and Aimee with another, attempting to drag them from the room. Aimee balked at the action, pulling away.

"C'mon, Aimee. Tony might let you go for a ride too. He's a very fast horse."

Janessa continued to ramble on loudly as Tony scooped her up under one arm. She squealed in delight as he motioned towards the door, coaxing Aimee to go before him.

"After you, M'Lady," he said with a friendly smile, bowing before her like a gallant knight. Janessa was hanging there giggling while he did.

With one last tenuous look and a shrug of her shoulders, Aimee left the room followed by Tony.

Gibbs turned his attention to Ducky who looked gravely at him.

"What have you got, Duck?"

Ducky walked towards the drawers on the other side of the room, proceeding to pull two of them open. Gibbs looked to see the remains of two people that Ducky and Palmer had managed to rather crudely piece back together.

"The lower drawer contains the remains of the child. Poor little tyke. I don't think it's necessary to disturb it much more, Jethro."

Gibbs remained silent. He was thankful for Ducky's thoughtfulness. Gibbs wasn't sure if he could stomach seeing the two years pieced back together like a human jigsaw puzzle. It was enough to know the cause of death. It was all the information he needed.

"It seems that the child was dismembered while she was alive. Several blows to the back of the head knocked her unconscious. I suspect the child was used as leverage to obtain some kind of information from her dear mother that the women either did not know or refused to divulge. The killer then proceeded to dismember the child limb by limb until the poor thing bled to death. Horrific, excruciating way to die." Ducky made a repulsed face to exemplify his abhorrence. "Must have been a nightmare for her mother to witness. Time of death precedes the mother's."

Gibbs grimaced as he looked at the remains of the female victim. He felt his stomach churn as he allowed himself to digest the facts. He didn't even want to imagine how the woman felt watching her toddler being torn to apart before her eyes with no way to stop it. It was almost merciful that the woman did not survive the altercation. He wasn't sure how anyone could recover from that.

"The male was shot several times in the abdomen-" Ducky pointed out the bullet holes with the back of the pen he'd pulled out of his shirt breast pocket.

"That corroborates what Aimee said-"

"But that wasn't what killed our young petty officer. It seems that the man suffered a ruptured cerebral aneurysm at around the same time of the attack. I'm afraid without immediate hospital intercession, the young man was destined to depart the world that day anyways."

Gibbs chewed his lip as he looked at the areas of the man's head that Ducky pointed at. As many times as he came down to autopsy, Ducky always managed to give him more information than he ever needed, wanted or understood. Gibbs figured that by the time he retired from NCIS, he might have earned a diploma in medical science. Or at the very least should earn a medal for pretending to understand what the hell Ducky was talking about.

"So he was dismembered after death?"

"Most definitely, Jethro. Why? I can only hazard a guess. Perhaps as a way to threaten his dear wife and show her how the killer planned to dissect her child. The poor woman must have been more than just a little emotionally distraught to find her husband dead when she arrived home. I'm fairly certain she wouldn't have been in her right mind enough to be able to answer many of the killer's questions. I speculate the young child would have been hysterically crying which might have been the reason why the killer initially applied blows to her head. At this point, the mother would have been frantic. I believe the killer would have used any means at his disposal to elicit the responses he required. The child would have been an innocent pawn and an easy target."

Gibbs remained quiet as Ducky continued to speak. Conjecture was all they really had to go on at this point in the case. Ducky pointed at the reconstructed pieces of the female victim next.

"Petty Officer Rebecca Percy was killed last, several hours after her husband and child. Jethro, it is a miracle those two girls survived. I dare not think what would have become of them had the killer found them."

"Same, Duck, same," replied Gibbs, melancholy at the thought.

"We are not only dealing with an extremely powerful killer but a methodical one. The officer's neck was broken in a very violent and disturbing way, but we've seen it before on more than one occasion, I'm afraid-"

"Let me guess, the one hand on the jaw, one hand on the back of the head and sixty-six pounds of torque method?"

Ducky nodded solemnly. "Precisely."

"We're looking for someone who knows how to kill."

"It certainly looks that way, Jethro."

Gibbs frowned and dropped his hands to his side. It wasn't much to go on, but it was a start. He'd had less to go on in other investigations, and he wasn't going to let what little he did know stop him from finding closure for the girls.

"Thanks, Duck," said Gibbs as he exited the duck pond on his way back to the bullpen.

—ooOOoo—ooOOoo—ooOOoo—NCIS—ooOOoo—ooOOoo—ooOOoo—

Tony lifted Janessa up onto his shoulders in the elevator as he glanced down at Aimee. Janessa's giggly, fun-loving presence was in stark contrast to Aimee's silence. She was hauntingly quiet and stared at the floor.

"Push G4, Aimee," he encouraged, pointing towards the buttons. What kid didn't like to push the button in the elevator? It had been one of his favourite past times as a kid. In fact, he usually pushed every button before exiting. He lived in the penthouse at the top of a very large building as a kid, so it was certainly a prank he played often, if not every day. Of course, it was because he loved pranks, and he knew that the next person would be destined to have to stop at every single floor before reaching their final destination. Something about it just struck him as hilarious as a kid. If truth be known, he may have been guilty of doing it a time or two when he knew Gibbs was going to use the elevator. Tony simply couldn't help himself.

"Lemme, Lemme!" insisted Janessa who was bouncing up and down on his shoulders.

Tony grabbed her feet quickly before she fell backward.

"Whoa there, Mighty Mouse. Sit still or you might take a tumble to the floor."

"I wanna push the button!" said Janessa, wriggling further trying to stretch herself to reach the buttons. Tony held her firmly so she wouldn't fall.

"I think Aimee should have the honour this time, you little Loch Ness Monster," he said with a smirk.

Aimee's eyes widened as she stared at him with a look he couldn't quite decipher.

"You got that right, Mister. She sure is a monster."

"I am not!" whined Janessa and then she scrunched up her nose in confusion. "What's a Locked Monster?"

Tony chuckled. "Loch Ness Monster," he corrected. "It's a sea creature that supposedly lives in Scotland."

Janessa's mouth formed a silent "Oh," while her brow furrowed in obvious bewilderment, but it quieted her for a few moments which was a good thing in Tony's opinion.

"I'll show you a picture when we get back to the Bullpen."

Janessa nodded but remained quiet, apparently still trying to figure out what a Loch Ness Monster was. Tony leaned against the elevator cage and waited. Finally, Aimee decided then that she would press the button Tony had indicated earlier. Tony smiled warmly at her.

"Bullpen? Are we going to a farm now?" Aimee asked softly.

Tony laughed again. He could only imagine how confused the kids were by all the nicknames that they used for certain parts of NCIS. He thought for a moment as the elevator traveled to its intended destination. Trying to explain the slang term to a child would not be easy. Tony picked another route.

"Well, that's a good question. You're a thinker, I like that. See, we call the area we came from the duck pond-"

"That's cuz Ducky lives there," piped up Janessa.

"Exactly, only he doesn't really live there, Nessie. He works there."

Aimee grinned. "So if Ducky is the duck, does that make Gibbs the bull in the bullpen?"

Tony burst out in laughter. Gibbs most definitely could be compared to a bull. Bull-headed. Stubborn. Obstinate. Hearing Aimee ask the question just made his day. If only he could have made an audio copy of it so he could let Ziva and McGee hear it. It was just a perfect moment frozen in time.

The three of them continued chatting and joking about Gibbs the bull while the elevator reached its journey's end. The familiar ding of the lift let Tony know that they had reached the bullpen. He swung Janessa down to her feet as the doors opened revealing the busy squad room area. Both girls' eyes were wide in wonderment as they entered the area. The main floor of the squad room was a formidable place to be, especially if you were a young child. So many adults talking, scurrying around and working all at once. Tony could just see the bewilderment on the girls' faces.

"C'mon, Pipsqueaks, I will show you where my desk is. I think I might have some cool stuff in my desk to show you."

Tony corralled the girls into his area of the Bullpen. Tony furrowed a brow when he saw Abby sitting at Gibbs's desk with her knees curled up and her head hidden in them. He could hear tiny little hiccups coming from her which caused him to turn to McGee questioningly.

"What's the matter with Abby, McGee?"

Tim looked up from his desk and smiled at the little girls who Tony had brought with him into the squad room.

"Hi there, Aimee and Janessa."

Janessa went walking up to McGee and made herself at home on his knee, pounding on his keyboard. Tony watched McGee quickly clear his screen and pop up Word so the child could see what she was typing. Aimee leaned against Tony's desk and stared at Abby.

"Gibbs and Abby had a disagreement, but she refuses to talk to me. She's been sitting there in Gibb's chair for the past half hour."

Tony slowly raked a hand through his hair in deep thought. The relationship between Gibbs and Abby was a multifaceted one. While she was first and foremost an amazing Forensics scientist, she was also Gibb's surrogate daughter. Abby's parents were both deceased, and she didn't have much family left in her life. Gibbs had just seemed to naturally step into some kind of father figure role for Abby. No one on the team questioned it. The fact that Abby was reduced to tears over a disagreement with Gibbs was proof how much she cared what Gibbs thought. Abby genuinely loved Gibbs and needed his approval and affection.

Tony felt much like an older brother to Abby. To Tim and Ziva as well, but on a smaller scale. And Ziva, well, things between them were complicated, to say the least. But with Abby, the lines were clear. He couldn't help but feel protective of the woman who seemed to make stupid decisions about the guys she dated. Abby was one of the sweetest women he knew. She was intelligent, self-confident, kind-hearted and loving. But for some reason, she was a magnet for the sketchy, reprobates of the male population. Tony felt sure it was because of her insistence on dressing in the Gothic style. People automatically made judgments and assumptions about her based on her apparel, her choice of music and her tattoos. It wasn't right, but it was the way the world worked. Abby grew up in the South. Things were different there. But here in DC, people made assumptions. While Abby was a highly specialized and intelligent scientist, most people judged her by the way she looked and dressed which meant Abby's choice of dates wasn't from the pick of the crop.

"Hey, McNanny, take the girls to the café and get them something to eat. Gibb's treat." Tony pulled out the money that Gibbs gave him and handed it to Tim. "Where's Ziva?" asked Tony.

Tim shuffled Janessa from his knee to the floor as he stood up, taking the money from Tony. Janessa kept punching keys on his keyboard, obviously enjoying herself.

"She went to check out a few leads-"

"By herself?" said Tony, incredulously. Ziva knew better than to take off on her own. Gibb's team never went out in the field by themselves. Rule number 15.

McGee nodded. "I'm batting a thousand today," replied Tim, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "No one seems to listen to me today, especially Ziva and Abby."

Tony sighed, ignoring Tim's response. McGee was hard on himself at the best of times. There was no use trying to perk him up when he was too busy flogging himself. It would be a lesson in futility. Things seemed to be out of control, and he didn't like it one bit. Gibbs was distracted. Abby and Gibbs were arguing. Ziva was running off on leads on her own, knowing that Gibbs would have a conniption fit when he found out. Shit was going to hit the fan.

Tony stuck his hands in his pockets, chewing on his lip as he looked at Abby.

"Gibbs is not going to be happy," he mumbled to himself.

Tony watched as McGee clasped his hand around Janessa's and began walking towards Aimee. Tony noticed that Aimee backed away from him. He had a feeling at that the girl was not going to allow herself to be taken out of the room. Too many changes and too many people. Aimee seemed to have reached her limit of being shuffled around.

"Ziva can take care of herself, McWorryWart."

Tim nodded in reply. "I know." Tim still looked unconvinced.

Tony leaned in closer to Tim as he nodded his head towards Abby. "I'll try to talk to Abbs."

As Tim turned to leave, Tony noticed Aimee walking towards Abby. Tony stopped Tim from moving towards her.

"Leave her with me. I think she's had enough of being passed off to people."

Tim nodded and left the bullpen with Janessa merrily chattering his ear off.

Aimee turned to face Tony after McGee left.

"Gibbs is mad at Abby, huh?"

"I dunno, squirt. I didn't hear what happened."

Aimee chewed on her lip and continued staring at Abby. Abby still hid her head in her knees and hadn't moved from her perch on Gibb's chair. Tony could still hear her hiccupping and choking back the odd sob. His heart ached to see her so upset. It wasn't very often that he saw her like this; in fact, he couldn't even remember the last time.

Tony scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to think of how he was going to proceed. If he was going to have a frank talk with Abby, he needed Aimee to be out of earshot. He had a sinking feeling that what Abby was going to tell him wouldn't be fit for a child to hear. Gibbs wasn't one to blow things out of proportion. If he was angry with Abby, he would have one hell of a good reason. Tony had a feeling it had everything to do with why her vehicle was blown up right in the parking lot at the Navy yard.

"Hey, Detective, I could use your help. Are you any good at watching cartoons?"

Aimee scrunched up her nose in confusion. "Yah, what kid isn't?"

Tony laughed as he walked over to his desk and sat in his chair. He flicked on his computer and brought up Netflix. He searched through some of the movies looking for one he could use. A small smile formed on his lips as one caught his attention that would work perfectly.

"C'mere," he said, rising to his feet and pulling out some headphones from his desk. "I need you to do some important research for me."

Aimee walked towards him with a look of uncertainty on her face.

"This show is called Mr. Peabody and Sherman. Gibbs asked me to watch it last week and tell him everything I could about the story of the Trojan horse. It's for a cold case we are working on." Tony didn't feel like a little well-placed lie would hurt the matter. He needed a little diversion for the kid.

"What's a cold case?" said Aimee, accepting the headphones and sitting in Tony's chair.

"A case we haven't solved yet," answered Tony, opening the video player and starting the movie. "So what do you thing? Can you do this for me?"

Aimee looked skeptical. "I guess." Tony had a suspicion that she wasn't buying his little charade.

"All you have to do is figure out the story behind this so-called Trojan horse. Oh, and don't tell Gibbs that I'm getting you to do my work, okay?"

Aimee nodded, looking serious. "Will you get in trouble?"

Tony made his face looked grave. "I dunno, but he might pay you instead of me." He smiled his trademark smile and poked her on the nose when he saw her smile in return.

"You're funning with me, aren't you?"

"Who me? This is serious stuff," insisted Tony, looking at her shrewd face with a playful smirk. "Plus, I need some time to talk with Abby privately, is that okay?"

Aimee nodded, a solemn look coming back to her face once again. She put the headphones on and leaned her elbows on Tony's desk, watching intently at the screen.

Author's note:

Next up...Big Brother Tony to the rescue...or at least some comforting words for Abby

This story is playing out more and more like an NCIS episode in my head. LOL WOW, it takes some time to figure out how characters might respond to one another. Be patient with me as I figure this out. New fandom for me. Thanks for reading along and joining me on this journey...feel free to make suggestions in your reviews...never know what I might be inclined to include. It wouldn't be a first time that you reviewers have given me ideas along the way of my plot line.

Good news, baby has finally settled into position. YIKES, getting nervous and anxious for this kid's appearance. I sent him/her an eviction notice. Hope it didnt get lost in the mail. :-)