"Hey, Palmer," McGee said as he and Ziva entered autopsy.

"Hello, Agent McGee; Ziva," he gave them a small smile. "Uh...Ducky isn't back yet."

"Actually, he's up with the director," Tim told him. "But he told us to meet him down here."

"Oh, okay," Jimmy nodded and continued his task of organizing one of the medical supply drawers.

"Are you okay, Jimmy?" Ziva asked, noticing he seemed a bit preoccupied.

"Uh," he glanced up at her, nervously, then down to the drawer again. "Yeah, I'm fine," he gave a small laugh. "Just...worried about Agent DiNozzo, I suppose. Abby seemed...pretty upset when we left the hospital. She was quiet the whole way home, and that worries me; Abby... Quiet. Kind of eery, right?" he looked back up at them.

Ziva glanced at Tim, "I will go speak with her. Call me if Ducky gets here before I return."

11 00 11 00 11

"What the hell for, Jethro?" Fornell asked on the other line.

"The Cullens covered up her murder by setting fire to the house they lived in at the time," he explained.

"How the hell do you know that?"

"'Cause Ziva got it out of Shaun. Michael strangled the girl to death; Shaun says 'accidentally'. It's the real reason they've been runnin' all this time; not just the drug charge."

"And you wanna confirm," he surmised. "Jesus...you think that explains what the tea set and music box was all about? Cullen was playin' some sick game with these people before eliminating who he thought were witnesses?"

"Doesn't seem to be any other explanation," Gibbs replied, quietly. "I want the body sent to Ducky. If there's evidence she was strangled, he'll find it."

"On a corpse over ten years dead? Burned, nonetheless? Well, I'll definitely hand the task over to him."

"I wanna know if he was abusing her before then. And I wanna know where the hell the mother is now. Shaun said it was Michael's 'turn' with her; has to mean the mother was still around, right?"

"Tell you the truth, Jethro; we haven't been able to locate any of Cullen's family. Almost like when he disappeared, the rest of them did too."

"No one just disappears, Tobias," he said, then ended the call.

11 00 11 00 11

"Abby?" Ziva called as she made her way into the darkened lab. Her usual music had been replaced with something rather serene...frightening in a way, seeing as it was Abby in question that had chosen such a thing. "Abby..." she called out again as she took a few more steps in.

"Sshh, Ziva," Abby's voice sounded from the other side of the large computer shelf that stood in the middle of the lab. Ziva headed around toward where she'd heard her voice, and found her sitting cross-legged in a meditative position; a few candles lit on the floor in front of her.

"Abby, what are you doing?" Ziva asked with a furrowed brow.

"I'm trying to send some of my energy to Tony, so he can get better," she replied.

Ziva glanced around the dark lab as her eyes seemed to be adjusting now. On the desk, she spotted three large Caf-Pow cups. "How much have you had?" she asked, looking down at her.

"Just three," she said. "...since lunch."

"Abby..."

"Ziva, you saw him," her voice got quiet. "You saw him in that room. So you know how bad it is. I don't know what else to do, so save your...logical argument against...whatever it is I'm doing, for way way later when it's not so important anymore."

"I was going to say," she counteracted, "You should, instead, try the coffee with the...hazelnut creamer. I do not believe Tony is fond of the Caf-Pow. Perhaps something that he would prefer would prove more successful."

Abby looked up and over at the Israeli, then stood up from the floor. "You're so right, Ziva! Why didn't I think of that? I mean, it's so obvious..." she walked quickly into her office and began tossing out the cups as she talked. "Honestly! I don't understand what's wrong with me! Context clues, man! I'm supposed to be smart! I'm supposed to be helpful... Since Tony disappeared, I feel like I've been the most useless person alive!" she stormed back into the lab and began throwing away cups Ziva hadn't even noticed were there. "And Cullens! To think, the guy could've written a book on covering his tracks. Of course, he wouldn't have, because that would've led to a trail that could lead someone to him. But he outsmarted us! He outsmarted me, Ziva!" she turned to her. "For weeks I went over and over the outside of Tony's car just hoping I'd missed something," she began pacing. "Thinking I'd come across it and everything would be fine. Not even once did I think to check the trunk...not until Gibbs had his...revelation. And even then... Ziva, had it taken...one more day—hell, had it taken a couple more hours to have found it... Tony would be dead right now." She stopped pacing; face turned down to the floor.

"Abby..." Ziva stepped toward her.

"I'm sorry, Zi," she said, stepping forth and wrapping her arms around her in a hug. "I'm just scared. We came so close to losing him, and now... Now I feel like he's just...lost." Ziva could tell by the way Abby was breathing, that she was trying to hold back tears. "You haven't seen him since he's been awake. I couldn't help it when I walked in there...I couldn't not cry just a little. And when he heard it, he woke up and I think he was even more scared than I was. As if my crying was the scariest thing he'd ever seen, and he just...he hugged me, Ziva...like a little boy clinging to his mother..."

...1976...

"Anthony, please!" Tony listened from the living room as his mother spoke on the phone to his father. "This is important! You really don't-" she stopped speaking, as if being spoken over on the other line. "But it's just-" and another pause. "It's not fair..." her voice became quiet. "You really care that little? Really? Like what you're doing is so much more important... Fine. Goodbye," she hung up the phone.

A still silence enveloped the kitchen and Tony got up from the couch and quietly made his way to the other room. When he found his mother, she was standing with her back to the counter; face in her hands as she cried as silently as she could manage. It broke Tony's heart...

"Momma?" he called out softly. Her head shot up to look at him and he saw the tears on her cheeks. "Don't cry," he told her as he made his way across the room. But his words only seemed to bring her more tears. "Please don't cry, Momma. I love you," he hugged around her legs and laid his head against her belly.

She slipped down to crouch on the floor and pulled her son into a hug, "Oh, Baby...what would I do without you, huh?"

Tony took a breath as he thought. "Be happy," he replied.

She pulled away from him and looked at his face. "Why would you say something like that? Your father and I don't fight because of you, sweetheart."

"I know. But...without me, you could run away..."

11 00 11 00 11

Present time...

"Tony is suffering from what is known as disassociative identity disorder; more popularly known as multiple personality disorder," Ducky explained to Ziva, McGee, Palmer and Abby. "What has me a bit stumped, is the fact that this identity he's currently experiencing seems very much aware of the other; his true self. And he seems to be able to draw pertinent information from him. For instance, he did recognize Gibbs and myself, and Abigail, and even Mr. Palmer. But for the most part, it seems he can only see fact; a personality profile, if you will. He can feel whether or not our Tony likes the person, and whether or not he trusts them. And he takes it at face value, whatever our Tony may or may not feel about us."

"How is it treated?" Ziva asked.

"Well that's just it," Ducky shrugged. "Usually, the first step is to make one identity aware of the other. It begins the path of joining the two back together."

"Join them together?" Ziva's brow furrowed. "Is this wise? Should this...new identity not be eliminated?"

"It's not a new identity, my dear. It's simply...split from his own. I can't presume to know the age, but I estimate him to be around ten years old; the identity is Tony's first ten years of life, split off from the rest and personified."

"But our Tony hasn't made an appearance yet, right?" Abby asked.

"He hasn't, as far as we can tell," Ducky replied. "The boy told Jethro that he was hiding; that he couldn't find him, or he wouldn't come out."

"What do we do?" Tim asked. "I mean...how can we help? Can we help?"

"At this point, I'm not entirely sure," he replied. "But what we can do in the meantime, is continue to try and find the absolute truth behind the entire mess. Anthony, in either form, trusts Jethro implicitly, and Jethro intends to stay with him for however long he's asked. We must give him that right and take to heart whatever gut feelings he may have when it comes to Anthony's well-being. Even if that requires us to stay away."

"We're not allowed back to see Tony?" Abby asked.

"That's not what I said, Abigail. I meant that if Gibbs tells you it's not time to visit, you need to comply without argument." He looked over at Ziva and Tim, "But it's also in my opinion as a doctor and a friend, that someone should see to it that he's not neglecting his own health in the meantime. Over the years, Jethro has become privy to premeditate dodging my advice. Maybe hearing it from someone else, or perhaps so much as inconspicuously bringing him something to eat, without prior permission or even asking him in the first place."

"I believe I may be able to handle that," Ziva gave him a small smile. "I have not yet been by to see Tony. Perhaps in a few hours."

Any reply was cut off when McGee's cell rang. He moved from the group as he fished it from his pocket and answered. "This is McGee... Yes, Boss... Okay, sure. No problem... Uh... Well, I can try... I mean- yes, I'll find it, Boss!" After another moment, he pulled the phone from his ear and looked to see that the call had ended, then sheepishly put it back into his pocket.

"What does Gibbs want you to find?" Ziva asked.

"He wants us to try and locate the mother of Michael Cullen's deceased daughter," he told her. "And he's having Fornell attempt to exhume the body of Jessica Cullen."

11 00 11 00 11

Gibbs hadn't even realized he'd fallen asleep, when he was suddenly pulled out of it by the soft ringing of the phone beside him. He glanced at Tony, who was still sleeping soundly, before grabbing the receiver and answering. "This is Gibbs."

"Got the okay to exhume, Jethro," Tobias told him. "But not to move the body from the town. You'll have to either trust the M.E up there or send Dr. Mallard."

Gibbs rubbed a hand down his face and sighed. "I'll talk to Ducky; see what he wants to do. But I guess go ahead and let their guy do it. If he doesn't find the cause of death to be what Cullen told us, we'll take action from there."

"Your team have any luck locating the mother?"

"If they had, I would've heard from 'em."

"Your boy doin' okay?"

"As well as can be expected. Keep me posted, Tobias. And thanks," he ended the call before Fornell could reply. With a sigh, he turned to glance out the window. It had gotten dark. He glanced at his watch; apparently he'd been asleep for a few hours.

A rustling from the bed pulled his attention back to Tony. His eyes were squeezed shut and his head shifted back and forth as if flinching away from something. His breathing picked up.

Gibbs stood and placed a hand on his arm, causing Tony to jerk. Gibbs quickly instead placed his hand on his shoulder, "Tony..."

"'M sry...'m sry, Boss...w'tever I did..."

Gibbs' heart clenched, "Tony, you're okay. You're just dreaming, but you're safe now," he told him, bending down a bit so he could speak softly but still be heard.

"'ever I did, B'ss, 'm sry...," his voice broke; face contorting, and a tear escaping. "Please f'nd me...pl's help me..."

"Tony, you did nothing wrong," his voice cracked; throat slightly constricting at the confirmation that Tony had, in fact, been thinking that when he'd been trapped there. "You hear me? You did nothing wrong. If anyone should be apologizing, it's me."

Tony's face relaxed a bit, but his eyes remained closed and his breaths still came fast. "H'rts, B'ss..."

Gibbs took the hand from his shoulder and sought out Tony's hand, carefully avoiding the bandages on his wrist, and grasped onto it while pressing the nurse call button with the other. "They'll give you somethin' for the pain, DiNozzo. You just keep talkin' to me. I'm not goin' anywhere."

Tony's face scrunched up again and he began to shake his head, "H's g'nna cut me...g'nna use my knife... Oh god...Boss, please help me!" his words became for clear as whatever nightmare began to replay in such clarity, that Tony actually believed it to be happening.

"Tony, you listen to me! You're not there anymore! You're safe! He can't hurt you anymore!" he shouted, but Tony was screaming...

A nurse barreled into the room anxiously, followed by another, appraising the situation, "What happened?" Tony's entire body seemed to tighten and flex against the memory of pain.

"Nightmare...or a flashback, maybe," Gibbs told her. "Can you do somethin'?"

She turned to the nurse beside her, "3mg diazepam," she instructed. The other nurse nodded and moved to the medical drawer to prepare the syringe.

Gibbs continued to hold onto Tony's hand that had an iron grip on his, as he watched the nurse inject the diazepam into the IV line. Within moments, the grip loosened, and Tony's face began to relax. Mere moments after that, he was sleeping peacefully again.

He placed a hand on Tony's forehead and brushed back the hair that had strewn across it. He was vaguely aware that the nurses were talking, but didn't pay much attention, since it wasn't to him.

Once they left and all was quiet, he slowly slipped into the chair beside the bed again. And as he looked upon his sleeping agent, he realized something... He'd just heard from their Tony, for the first time since they'd found him...

11 00 11 00 11

Tbc...