Author's Note: Follows canon through Kill Screen s08 e16, goes AU after that, so no EJ, no Port-to-Port killer, Mike Franks is still living the good life. Not connected to any of my other works, not slash. This is the result of me daydreaming and then wondering if I could actually make it work… which is also how I first started writing NCIS fanfics. The first five chapters are done, and I do know where the story is going, so I hope to post weekly without interruption… but of course no promises! Very special thanks to HidingLight and colorguard28 for the reads on the initial drafts of the first few chapters and giving me a better story to write.

Something Hinky

Tim McGee dropped his chin to his chest when Very Special Agent Tony DiNozzo started whistling while flipping through the files on his desk. Lifting his head, he looked across the bullpen at Ziva David, whose eyes met his before glancing at their boss.

"We really do not need to know that you got lucky last night, Tony."

Tony stopped mid-whistle. "Need? You don't need to know, Zee-vah, but maybe you should know." Tony grinned at her.

Tim's brow furrowed as he turned his chair to face Tony. "Why should we know? We don't care."

Tony leaned back in his chair and grinned. "You should know because we're stuck on cold cases for the next two weeks, and my social life is the best way to relieve the monotony."

One of Gibbs' eyebrows rose, though he kept his focus on his computer screen. "Seeking justice boring you, DiNozzo?"

Tony sat up straight, his expression a mix of consternation and humor. "No, Boss, just, you know… I miss the action, the excitement of being in the field…"

Ziva shook her head. "We have been in the field nonstop for the past several weeks! And I do not see how your hot date compares to that, Tony."

Tony grinned, glancing between her and Gibbs as he spoke. "C'mon Ziva… the thrill of the chase, those icy blue eyes, a great body…' He bit his lip as Gibbs raised his head and stared at him. "Getting back to work, Boss!"

Gibbs sighed, smiling slightly; he knew Tony was full of it, as he'd spent the evening in Gibbs' basement, talking over the past several weeks of cases, which had been hard on the team. It was why Vance was restricting them to cold cases; they needed some time to breathe.

He glanced over at Ziva who was frowning at Tony. He caught the gleam in her eyes as she opened her mouth to speak.

"Tony, I have heard you refer to Gibbs' eyes as 'icy'…"

McGee almost spit out the coffee he was drinking. Tony sat up, full of indignation, while Gibbs tried to keep a straight face. "Ziva! I would never –" He was cut off by his desk phone ringing. "Thank God!" He grabbed the receiver, grinning in Gibbs' direction. "Very Special Agent Tony DiNozzo, how may I help you?"

Abby's voice, unusually quiet and shaky, came through. "Tony, can you come to the lab?"

Tony sat up straight. "Abby? What's wrong?"

The rest of the team froze, watching Tony.

"Just… can you come to the lab, please? You, no one else."

"Sure, Abby, I'll be right down." Tony hung up the phone, looking at Gibbs, who tilted his head slightly, questioning. Tony shrugged. "Dunno, Boss. She asked me to come alone."

Gibbs' brow furrowed, but he nodded.

Tony nodded in return, then left the bullpen.

Potential Plot

Abby was pacing back and forth, her music cranked to deafening levels when Tony walked in. She ran to him as soon as she saw him, grabbing his arm and pulling him into her inner office. She hit a button on the wall, shutting the sliding door and locking it, then grabbed a remote and lowered the volume.

"Abby? What's wrong?"

Abby bit her lip, looking around the room, leaning over to see if Tony had been followed before looking at him seriously. "There's something really hinky going on, Tony."

Tony widened his eyes as he looked at her. "What. Is. It?"

She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him seriously. "Okay… so, remember Paloma Reynosa and Alejandro Rivera?"

Tony grimaced and leaned against a file cabinet. "How could I forget? Don't tell me Alejandro got out of prison or something."

"No, no… nothing like that." She looked at Tony, then shook her head. "We could have lost Gibbs, Tony. We could have lost Jack. And, it's just… well, Gibbs' past tends to show up at, like, the worst possible times, and way too often, and it messes with his head, and I wanted to protect him, so, I put together a program to monitor any activity related to any of the people who try to mess with our Gibbs."

Tony pursed his lips. "What, like surveillance?"

"Exactly like surveillance." Abby began pacing, waving her arms as she spoke. "I get a ping when Mike Franks so much as reads his email… which, by the way, is not very often. I get alerts for key names, like Layla and Amira, and evil Alejandro, and that awful Ms. Hart, and I wanted to monitor everyone on the team, but that got overwhelming so I took all you guys out of the parameters…" She came to a halt and bit her lower lip, her eyes meeting Tony's. "…and I added in Shannon and Kelly, 'cause anyone who does enough research on Gibbs knows they can get to him through his memories of them, and he's been doing really well lately, you know, getting his sense of humor back a bit, like before Kate…"

Tony cleared his throat. "You got a ping. And it's bad."

Abby stopped and stared at him. "I got a ping. And I have NO idea what it means. But I don't see how it can be good."

"Show me."

Abby moved quickly to her computer, sitting at her desk while Tony leaned over her shoulder. "This popped up a little while ago… people who want to volunteer at nursing homes now have to get a background check. This woman named Samantha Hawthorne got fingerprinted, and everything went through with no problem, I guess because when you're dead your data gets removed from most of the databases…"

"A dead woman wants to volunteer at a nursing home?"

Abby stopped typing and looked up at him. "Tony! No! Samantha Hawthorne is not dead. She seems like a really nice person, wanting to make people's lives better through volunteering, but…" Abby looked back at the screen, chewing her lip while her fingers hovered over the keyboard.

"But what, Abs?"

She sighed. "It's so weird, Tony. I tried to be super thorough with my programming, so even though there wasn't any reason for it, I included all kinds of data, like fingerprints…" She hit a few more keys, then turned the monitor so Tony could see it easily. It showed a pretty young woman in her late twenties, brown hair, brown eyes, standard license photo.

Tony scanned the basic information on the screen. "Not seeing what the trouble is, Abs."

Abby let out a humorless chuckle. She tapped a few more keys. The woman's picture shrunk, and her fingerprint showed up below it. A few more taps, and the fingerprint enlarged. Yet more, and a second fingerprint appeared, along with all the blinking markers highlighting the similarities. "One hundred percent match, Tony."

Tony grimaced. "So, who is she, really?"

Abby fingers hit a few more keys, then sat back to look at Tony as a young girl's face appeared on the monitor. "According to this, she's Kelly Gibbs."

Tony stared at the screen. "I think my brain just melted."

"I know, right?!" Abby sprang to her feet and started pacing again. "What's this all about? Kelly died with Shannon in 1991. Is this Samantha person trying to impersonate her? Is she coming after Gibbs? Who's behind this? How could anyone be so low as to –"

Tony frowned at the screen. "Why would Kelly's fingerprints even exist? She was eight when she died."

Abby had gone to the file cabinet to grab Bert and was hugging him tightly. She spoke over the farting noise. "Shannon took her to be fingerprinted at one of those child safety programs. The records were really hard to find, and from what I could tell, they haven't been accessed before… which means whoever did this has mad skills." She looked at him imploringly. "Tony, what do we do?"

Tony shook his head, turning from her back to the screen. "Can you find out anything from the original fingerprint files? Tell if someone changed Hawthorne's files and trace it back to them?"

Abby shook her head slowly. "I tried, Tony, and it doesn't look like it. But I'm not the best at that stuff… Timmy's the expert. I need him to go through everything to be sure."

Tony considered that. "Well… on the one hand, there's rule four."

Abby nodded, eyes wide. "You're the one other person I've told."

"On the other hand, this is too important." Tony's eyes met Abby's. "I think we need all hands on deck. How about this… read McGeek in after work. Ziva too… if we don't include her, she'll know she's being left out, she'll go all super spy and Gibbs will know something's up."

Abby grimaced. "He's gonna know, Tony."

Tony sighed. "Yeah. Those super-Spidey Marine senses…"

Abby hugged Bert again, making him fart once more. Tony moved from behind the desk and took Abby's arm, pulling her in for a hug. She sighed, dropping Bert onto her desk and holding on to him tightly. "We can't let him know," she mumbled into his shirt.

Tony shook his head. "Nope, no way. He'll freak. I don't even want to know what Gibbs freaking actually looks like." He pulled back from Abby. "Did you run that aging thingy?"

Abby's eyes widened, and she ran to the computer. "That's brilliant, Tony!" Her fingers flew over the keys. "I hadn't gotten past seeing Kelly pop up on my screen." Tony moved back to his former position behind her desk, and watched as the program took the picture of Kelly and aged her up to about twenty-eight. Then Abby brought Samantha Hawthorne's picture up to sit next to the aged picture of Kelly. They both stared at it.

"Whoever this is, they went to a lot of effort to use the right person." Abby looked up at Tony. "These programs aren't totally accurate, though, you know."

Tony nodded, thinking hard. "Get me the address for Samantha Hawthorne?"

Abby nodded, pulling up another file; the printer spat out a sheet of paper. "About an hour away, in Rosedale." She looked at him again. "What are you going to do?"

"Talk to her, I guess."

"When? And what if she's an evil mastermind? You should take backup, Tony!"

Tony reached up, running a hand through his hair. "I'd rather not. She might not be the one behind this, Abby. She could be an innocent bystander, picked because she resembles the results of that program, or one like it. Maybe the point was just to use someone as a diversion."

Abby's jaw dropped. "Tony… what if whoever set this up plans to kill her? Her prints ID her as Kelly on the computer…"

Tony grimaced. "And Gibbs gets a call out of nowhere that his daughter has been found dead."

Abby's eyes teared up. "That would destroy him, Tony. I mean, obviously he wouldn't believe it, and we would run DNA, but he would still be a mess. It's so hard on him, when those memories hit."

Tony's eyes narrowed. "We need more information… but if we tell the others now, they'll give the game away. They won't mean to, but they will. That's why we need to wait until this evening to bring them in on this, give them time to adjust." He looked at Abby, just as her face lit up. They both spoke at once. "Ducky!"

Abby grabbed her phone. "Ducky! Can you come to the lab?"

Involving Ducky

"Oh, my."

Doctor Mallard stared at the pictures on the screen, then looked at Tony. "We can't tell Jethro."

"Yeah, Ducky, we figured." Tony kept his eyes on the screen, staring at Samantha Hawthorne's picture. "What are they planning?" he muttered.

"What are you planning, Anthony?" Ducky was clearly worried.

Tony sighed. "I'll do a background check today… go as deep as I can. Then… I guess I'll be going to Rosedale. Soon." His cell phone rang, and he grimaced. "Of course… hi, Boss."

"Is Abby all right?"

"Yeah, she's okay…" Tony gave Abby a significant look. "She had a rough night, friend of hers got hurt. Needed someone to talk to. Ducky's here too, we're just, ah… talking…"

"She can have you through lunch."

"Thanks, Boss." He hung up, then smiled at Abby. "He sure does have a soft spot for you, Abs. I can hang out a little longer."

Abby smiled. "Gibbs is the best!" Her eyes narrowed as she looked back at the screen. "Which is why we're not letting you do whatever it is you're planning to do to hurt him, Miss Evil Person!" Her brow furrowed. "Or, if you're not the evil person, then, the actual evil people!"

Ducky, meanwhile, was frowning at the same picture. "What could anyone hope to achieve? It wouldn't be hard to disprove any claim that she actually is Jethro's daughter."

Tony nudged Abby away from the computer, then sat down to start his background check. "We were thinking maybe someone who's tangled with Gibbs before wants him distracted, off balance." He started typing.

Ducky and Abby discussed possibilities, while Tony found what he could about Samantha Hawthorne. There wasn't much; no criminal record, not so much as a parking ticket. He printed out the information, then shared it with the others. "Born Samantha Elizabeth Kendall in 1984, parents killed in a car accident that she survived. Extensive hospital stay. No other family, she was adopted by the Hawthornes two years later after they fostered her once she was released from the hospital. Adoptive parents also deceased… mother from cancer in 2006, father from a heart attack just two years ago. Graduated college… working as a veterinary technician."

Abby frowned. "An animal lover and a volunteer at a nursing home, and it's all a cover for some evil plot!"

Tony shot her small smile. "Not exactly the poster child for heartless emotional blackmail, is she?"

Ducky spoke up. "What was the date of the car accident that took her biological parents?"

Tony checked. "February 25, 1991… wait, that's –"

"The date Shannon and Kelly died," Ducky finished, his voice grim. "And at what hospital was Ms. Kendall treated?"

Tony looked back at the printout, then at Ducky. "Same one where Shannon, Kelly, and their driver were taken after the crash."

Ducky held out his hand. "May I?"

Tony gave him the paper. Ducky looked it over, then looked seriously at both Abby and Tony. "As Jethro has been known to point out, such coincidence is highly suspect."

"Not in those words," Tony grinned.

Ducky smiled. "Very true." He headed for the door. "I'm going to make some calls."

Tony and Abby looked at each other. "This is way hinky, Tony."

"No kidding." Tony huffed out a breath, then pulled Abby into another hug. "Nice work with the surveillance. We'll see what Ducky has to say. Get Tim and Ziva on board, call me tonight."

Abby nodded, then moved away and seated herself at the computer, hiding the evidence. "Are you really sure you should go see her without backup?"

Tony nodded. "I'll be careful, promise."

Phone Calls

Tony's cell rang that evening as he looked over the notes he'd made concerning current locations of any of Gibbs' known enemies not presently incarcerated, pages scattered across his coffee table in his apartment. A quick glance at caller ID prompted him to answer.

"Hey, Ducky."

"Good evening, Anthony."

"Got anything to help me out here?"

"It certainly is a puzzle, my dear boy. I was able to speak with several records keepers at the hospital. The day Shannon, Kelly, and Ms. Kendall's parents died, the hospital was extremely busy. They were short-staffed to begin with, and had numerous trauma victims from a highway pileup as well as these unrelated tragedies. Apparently, Shannon and Kelly were initially brought by ambulance to the hospital emergency room, rather than being declared dead at the scene."

Tony felt slightly sick at the thought that Gibbs' family might not have died instantly as he'd always assumed. "Ducky… were they actually still alive?"

"It appears that Shannon passed quickly, but Kelly might have still been alive when she was brought into emergency."

"Does… does Gibbs know?"

Ducky sighed. "I don't know that he does. I doubt Mike Franks would have told him, and I suspect Jethro would have been too distraught to seek out those details."

"This is starting to make me think there are possibilities other than an evil plot here." Tony tapped his pen on the coffee table. "Ducky… wouldn't Gibbs have identified the bodies when he returned stateside?"

"I checked into those records as well. The bodies were initially identified by Mike Franks. He contacted Shannon's mother, who was listed as emergency contact when Jethro was overseas. It was at her direction that Jethro's family was buried before his return. There's no indication that anyone else viewed the bodies before burial." Ducky was silent for several seconds. "Tread carefully, Anthony. Let us not poke sleeping bears unless absolutely necessary."

"Amen, Duckman. I'm waiting to hear from Abby and the others, and then I'll see what I can find out when I go meet Ms. Hawthorne."

"I do hope you can get the answers before anyone comes to harm, Anthony… including that young woman."

"Thanks, Ducky, me too."

Tony went back to his notes. His gut was churning, but for all he knew the cold cuts he'd had for dinner were the reason. He wanted to deal with this as quickly as possible, for Gibbs' sake, but he was also worried about Abby's idea that Samantha Hawthorne might be a pawn in someone else's potentially fatal game. He went to his laptop, using Google Maps to check out the area near Hawthorne's address, thinking maybe the neighborhood would give him some ideas. A few minutes later, a video call notification popped up on the screen. He tapped a few keys, and Abby's, Tim's, and Ziva's faces filled the screen.

"Hey," he said in greeting, "our first video campfire!"

Abby waved. "Hi Tony!"

"So… Abby filled you in?"

Tim nodded, and Ziva spoke up. "This is a very hinky situation, Tony."

"No kidding. We might need your covert spy skills on this one, Ziva."

"I was wondering how to help. Tim and Abby have the technical aspects covered."

"Speaking of the tech, McGeek…"

Tim shook his head. "I've been through everything Abby found. There's no evidence of file tampering. There's nothing to indicate hackers replaced Samantha Hawthorne's fingerprints with Kelly's. It looks like Abby really is the first person to access Kelly's fingerprints since they were entered into the system."

"Which makes this even hinkier, Tony!"

"No kidding, Abs. Hey, Tim, why didn't the prints get flagged as Kelly's in Hawthorne's background check?"

"As far as I can tell, Kelly's file link was deactivated sometime after she died, but the data wasn't deleted. Abby's program was able to access it."

"I'll take your word for it." Tony looked at Tim and Ziva, his face serious. "You guys know we can't let Gibbs find out about this, right?"

Ziva sighed. "Of course, Tony."

"We care about him, too, you know," Tim said, equally serious.

Tony nodded. "Might be best to wait until the weekend to go talk to her. Trying to get the time out of the office would just bring us more of Gibbs' attention than we really want right now."

"Abby says you do not want one of us to come as backup?" Ziva's face showed her concern.

Tony shook his head. "I think just one of us for now. If we assume she's a victim here, just one of us is less intimidating. And if she is in on whatever this is, with just one of us, maybe we don't get seen as much of a threat."

Ziva looked dubious, but didn't comment. Tim spoke up. "We've been through Hawthorne's social media. She's not a prolific poster, but she does have a lot of pictures of her and her dog."

"His name is Jack," Abby added. "He's an Australian shepherd, really pretty, with blue eyes. Tim will show you some of the pictures at work tomorrow."

Tim cleared his throat. "Gotta say, based on everything we're not finding, it looks more like she's being set up."

Ziva nodded. "I agree with McGee. There are no red flags here. She appears to be a normal young woman."

Tim glanced at the others, then looked back at Tony. "So, what now?"

Tony sighed. "We're on cold cases anyway, so doing a bit more research into Samantha Hawthorne wouldn't hurt. Tim, keep digging at the internet side of things when you can, including more on her history. Ziva, look into Hawthorne's friends and family, see if there are any suspicious connections. Abby, keep an eye on your kick-ass surveillance. I'll continue to look for anything I can find on people we know would like to get back at Gibbs for something… there's plenty of those. Unless we find something that needs immediate action, I'll go to Rosedale on Saturday."

Abby spoke up. "Did you talk to Ducky?"

Tony filled them in on what Ducky found out from the hospital. They strategized a little longer, then called it a night.