Disclaimer: See first chapter.

Author's Note: I know you all want Tony to live. Well, that could be a problem. I don't enjoy killing characters, and I know Ari probably wouldn't kill someone else, but my twisted mind has led me to a point where I needed to kill off someone else. And so, here it is.

6/1/05

The office was silent Wednesday morning. Gibbs and McGee worked quietly, apart from each other, and McGee could hardly focus. After Abby had found Tony, lying over Kate's gravestone, with a bullet between the eyes- it was too much to take in. He hadn't gotten over Kate's death yet, and Tony had just gotten shot a week after her. The funeral was set to be on Sunday. He'd be buried next to Kate, and Gibbs was actually resigning this time. For real.

But he was waiting, for his own reasons. He had paperwork on some other cases still, and so he was pulling himself out after a week or two. McGee was probably resigning as well, and moving away from D.C., to a place where no one knew him and he didn't have to think about the past weeks.

"Anything new?" Gibbs said as McGee stopped working for the umpteenth time.

McGee knew he meant the Ari situation. "Uh, no, boss, I think he's hiding out."

They hadn't found anything- ANYTHING -linking Ari to Kate or Tony's death, but they both knew that he'd killed them. No forensic evidence, no shells- nothing. And they couldn't find Ari either.

Dammit, Gibbs thought. Where are you, Ari?

6/5/05

Tony's funeral was worse than Kate's. As far as Gibbs, Ducky, and McGee could tell, he hadn't had a chance to put up a struggle, not a chance to raise a defense. Just looked up and BANG- just like Kate had died, unsuspecting and unprepared.

The grass over her grave was still stained with his blood, and because no one could take digging it up or touching it, it would stay that way unless somehow, rain magically appeared and washed it off. No one could take disturbing Kate's eternal sleep, and somehow, they all silently agreed that Kate wouldn't mind.

Again, the coffin was lowered into the hole, this time with a grave on its left. Kate's grave. They'd be side-to-side forever, teammates for a lifetime.

But not like last time, there were only five people instead of six. The family had already grieved, gone, and left the team there, feeling it was a personal thing for them as well.

And the five watched in silence. They watched while the coffin was covered, watched while the gravestone was placed, watched while the gravediggers left. Watched as Kate's bouquet that Tony had brought seemed to wilt before their eyes, stuck to her gravestone with his congealed blood.

Gibbs had a sinking feeling this wasn't over.

And he was right.

It wasn't.

6/7/05

Gibbs sighed as he drove up the hill to get to the Petty Officer's dead body. He'd been found outside of Norfolk, apparently shot.

Through the heart, not between the eyes, Gibbs thought with a slight wince. Through the heart. At least that's different.

McGee had been silent the whole way, staring out the window, finally getting to sit in the front. Though he wasn't happy about it, certainly not, for it reminded him of his two dead colleagues. He'd give anything to be in the back of the truck again, bumping around without a proper seat or a seatbelt, while they joked around in the front, laughing at him. He'd give anything to have Tony and Kate back, back here, where they belonged.

But it wasn't going to happen. They were dead and gone, buried six feet under, never coming back in breathing life.

Ducky's truck cleared the hill after they did, and together, Ducky and Palmer went to the body. Gibbs looked over the scene and started processing with a heavy heart, thinking that they shouldn't have taken this case with only two agents.

It was fairly simple, and it looked like a suicide, at least. There were no marks to make it seem like it wasn't. McGee had checked the Petty Officer's record before they'd left- abusive father, investigated for suspected drug use/possession, and he'd just been assigned to a year-long shift aboard a ship after he'd only been home for a month. And apparently, his girlfriend had just left him. Plenty of motives, and the trajectory matched where you would shoot yourself. The gun was lying a distance away from his hand, as if it had dropped when he'd fallen.

Fairly open-and-shut case, Gibbs mused. Of course, Morrow wouldn't give us anything else at this point. Easy ones.

"You see, Jimmy, where the bullet exited?" Ducky said to Palmer as they examined the body.

"Uh, it didn't, Doctor."

"Precisely. It obviously lodged itself in the-"

Gibbs tuned out as Ducky started on a lecture about bullet trajectories and speculation on where, possibly it could be lodged and what probability there was on which object it was stuck in.

McGee was sketching, frowning as he erased and drew again. Kate was- used to be -really much better at this than he was. His latest attempt depicted the Petty Officer as well as possible, which wasn't good, considering the circumstances.

"What time did he die, Duck?" Gibbs asked as he sauntered over to the body.

"Well, Jethro, according to his liver temperature"-Ducky stared at the thermometer -"I'd say around 0700-0900 today."

"So about four or five hours ago," Gibbs summarized, checking his watch. As Ducky nodded, he left the body again, circling the perimeter.

"Jimmy, would you please go get me the body bag?" Ducky asked.

Palmer nodded and stood up to comply. As he started walking away, a resounding explosion startled the peaceful air of the Petty Officer's resting place.

BOOM.

Gibbs instinctively jumped away from the explosion, covering his head, and saw Palmer and McGee do the same. He couldn't see Ducky through the flames.

"Ducky?" he yelled.

"Ducky!" McGee joined in.

"Dr. Mallard!"

There was no answer to their pleading cries.

Author's Note: Yeah, yeah. At least I updated quickly- I'm writing this about 11:30 at night, and I don't know when it'll show up on the site. The site wouldn't let me log in. I'm sorry I killed Tony, don't nag me too much, okay? I mean, he's the cutest character, if not the best. I liked Kate. This is not a pretty story, I warned you...

Thank you SO MUCH to all my lovely reviewers- it means a lot to me to know that there are other Tony carers out there...and Salem Navy, I'm terribly sorry, it was hard for me to deal with too, but this is a story I just needed to get out of my brain, which meant putting it down on paper (well, a computer screen). I sympathize with all of you, because it was hard to write Tony's death story.