Just My Luck

Summary: 7 years ago, Ari Haswari murdered Annabelle Todd's big sister, Kate. After the case she resigned from NCIS, and accepted an offer at the FBI. When the decomposed body of a Navy Petty officer is found and taken to the Jeffersonian, her partner Seeley Booth, calls in the NCIS MCRT, without her knowledge. How will Annie react to seeing her old team, and why is one of them not surprised to see her there? – Set I don't know when…Rated T coz I'm paranoid! TIVA (They hid it well…), B&B (Because this is set when B&B are expecting, 7 weeks), MCABBY (towards the end), HODGELLA (Because they are married and have a kid, Michael who is 6 months old!).

Disclaimer

Me: Can you please do the disclaimer for me, McGee?

McGee: Will you give me more lines if I do?

Me: …

McGee: …

Me: … Maaaaybe…

McGee: … Fine… Lilli doesn't own a thing, except for her own characters. She does not own Bones, nor does she own NCIS.

Me: Thanks McGee: P Now on with the story!

A/N: Hi, guys! I gotz a present for you! Another chapter up, and one step closer to the end of this story… Thanks again, and I know I say this every chapter but still, thanks for sticking with me and my fleeting muse! I love you all! Xx

Now, enough of me blabbering, let's get on with it!

Chapter 6

As Tony was walking from Angela's office with Booth, a manila folder filled with hard copies of the victim's credit card transactions, phone records and GPS readings from his phone the week before he had been killed tucked under his arm, the senior field agent for the MCRT saw Gibbs, Ziva and Annie re-entering the lab, deep in conversation. Tony nudged Booth, and nodded over to the group of agents, and both male agents altered their destination from Dr Hodgins area, to the conversing agents who were waking their way to Dr Brennan's area.

The area was unoccupied, and so the 3 agents had just made themselves comfortable on Dr Brennan's sofas never ceasing their conversation. They were just starting to discuss what Charlie Phillips-Stone could be hiding, when Booth and Tony walked in, and all eyes turned to the newcomers.

"Hey Booth, Tony. What did you guys find out?" Annie asked, and poked her tongue out at Gibbs when she realised that the silver-haired agent had opened his mouth, most likely to ask what the two agents had discovered as well, although likely in a more terse way. She received a rueful smile in return.

"Nothing out of the ordinary really." Booth started. "All the credit card transactions were mundane things, like groceries, and movie tickets. No abnormally large payments or withdrawals. No debts."

"The phone records are the same. Over the last month there was nothing out of the ordinary. Calls to his wife, his friends, his mother in Florida. Messages to his friends. There was one about 4 hours before his death from Petty Officer Phillips-Stone, asking if he was still okay to go on their weekly run around Quantico. That was the last communication through his phone." Tony explained, and looked at Booth, his cue to take over. By this time, McGee, Abby, Angela and Hodgins had wandered in, making themselves comfortable anywhere they could find, with Abby perching on Tempe's desk (a personal favourite spot of Annie's), Angela perched on the arm of the couch that Ziva and Annie had commandeered, and McGee and Hodgins standing off to the side of the couch where Gibbs was sitting facing the two female agents.

"The GPS on his phone was really no help, either. He drove to the Marine base almost every day, and going straight home most of the time. Sometimes to the store, but really, it is your typical 20 something year old American male's life." Booth finished, looking at Annie, as though asking whether he was forgiven for the day's earlier slip of authority. Annie nodded. She could never really stay mad at Booth.

"Good work, guys. Did the rest of you find anything in the soil samples?" Annie asked, acknowledging the rest of the people in the room.

"We did manage to isolate a small amount of blood from the soil that didn't belong to the victim. Abby is a genius, by the way." Hodgins explained, and Abby grinned. "We're running it through the databases now, but we only just managed to find it 10 or so minutes before you guys got here, so it might be a while."

"And Abby and I were able to identify the type of blade used on the victim." Angela chipped in. "It was a navy issue tactical boot knife. So while we identified the type of knife, those types of knives are extremely common. If you find a knife, we can try to match the specific knife to the wounds, but that's all we can say at the moment."

"What did you three find out when you went to see the Petty Officer?" McGee asked, curious to find out why Annie and Ziva had such grave expressions on their faces. Gibbs looked at Annie, and raised his brow. The look was almost like a 'do you want to tell them, or should I?' look. The rest of the people in the room looked between the two agents, quizzically, waiting for one or the other to say something. Finally, Annie shook her head slightly, and sighed.

"He's definitely hiding something. We don't know what, but we need to find out." Gibbs answered.

"Phillips-Stone genuinely was sick, at least." Ziva added with a look to Annie, who had now dropped her head, and had become very interested in the toes of her shoes.

"I'm normally so good at reading my friends. What's wrong with them, if they have a secret, I'm normally so good at getting it out of them, without them knowing I'm fishing for answers. What's so different now?" Annie muttered, still looking down at her feet. Everyone in the room looked at her sympathetically, finally grasping how hard this case must be for the young agent. One of her best friends has been murdered, and another of her best friends is a person of interest in said murder.

McGee looked around at the group, all quiet and thinking and then looked at his watch. It was past 7pm. And considering none of the group had had lunch, with all the running around they had been doing, McGee decided that it might be time for a working dinner, and hearing Abby's stomach growl sealed the deal.

"Maybe we'll work better on a full stomach. I mean, none of us have eaten today. How about Chinese food?" McGee suggested, and Annie stood up almost as soon as the words left McGee's mouth, and Tony and Booth's heads snapped around to the junior field agent of the MCRT.

"Chinese sounds good. I'll go get the others." Annie said. Anything to get out of that room and away from the sympathetic looks. Annie walked swiftly from the room, and the rest of the group looked after her. Angela moved to get up and follow the younger woman, but Ziva leaned over and put her hand on Angela's arm, preventing her from getting up.

"Leave her. She needs some time alone. This case is a lot for her to handle, and she just needs some time to herself to wrap her head around it." Ziva explained softly, and Angela looked about ready to ignore the former Mossad officer, when Abby nodded, agreeing with Ziva.

"I doubt she's had anytime to process what's happened. And a lot has happened today. First she finds out her best friend is dead, and then she has to deal with seeing us again for the first time in years, that she was completely unprepared for." Abby added.

"And now she can't figure out what her friend is hiding. I remember Annie was always able wiggle something out of me, when I was hiding something, and she's always prided herself on that, and it makes her such a good investigator. But now she's probably wondering if she's losing her touch, and she's gonna start doubting herself. She just needs some time to sort everything out." McGee pitched in, and Tony and Gibbs nodded too. It may have been awhile since they've seen Annie, but they still knew how to pick her moods, and how she was going to react to certain things.

"They're probably right, Ange. Let her go." Hodgins said to his wife. Angela looked after Annie for a moment, and then nodded, sliding into the seat that young agent had vacated, just as the doctors piled into the room.

"Annabelle told us that we were ordering Chinese food. She told us to order her usual for her and then walked away. Is everything alright with her?" Ducky asked as he walked in and sat down in Dr Brennan's desk chair.

"Yeah, she just needs to be by herself for a while. It's a tough case for her. We'll go get her when the food gets here." Booth explains, and all the doctors nodded in understanding.

As the group of squints and agents discussed what food they were going to order, Annie was leaning against the railing of the catwalk, overlooking the forensics platform. Dr Brennan's interns had cleaned the bones, after Ducky and Jimmy had discerned all they could from them, and now the platform was clear, the cleaned bones having been relocated to the Bone Room. The thought of her friend being reduced to just a skeleton was enough to bring tears to her eyes. As she thought of everything that had happened today, silent tears started running down her face. She had been able to compartmentalise everything because she'd been rushing around focusing on the case, but now that she had stopped and had time to process, all the emotions she had repressed throughout the day, came to the surface.

As the tears flowed down her cheeks, Annie slid down the barrier and curled in on herself, hugging her chest tightly, as though it would keep all the emotions that she had held in for 7 year from escaping. All the pain, and the hurt she had felt since her sister's death and since she left NCIS, spilled out of her in massive heart-wrenching sobs that racked through her whole body.

That's how Gibbs found her half an hour later, when he volunteered to go and find the young agent when the food had been delivered, curled in on herself completely, as though she was determined to disappear from existence entirely, sobs still wracking her body. Gibbs crouched down in front of the girl who reminded him so much of the daughter he lost, not in looks, but in her mannerisms. Annie had always been so cheerful, always looking at any situation she was confronted with optimistically, and it hurt him to know that some of the pain that the young woman was feeling, he had caused that. Gibbs stared at the shaking figure for a few more moments, then cleared his throat.

"Annie." Gibbs spoke gently, without any trace of his usual gruffness. Annie gave a start, and raised her head from where it had been resting on her knees, and looked at Gibbs with puffy bloodshot eyes, looking lost. "Food's here."

Finally, after staring at Gibbs hopelessly for a few moments, Annie sniffed, and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stop the constant flow of tears. Using her hands she reached up and wiped the stray tears from her eyes, also smearing the minimal mascara she was wearing, leaving faint black smears under her eyes. Gibbs stood back up, and without another word reached out his hand to help Annie up. Annie sniffed again and accepted the hand, Gibbs doing most of the wok to drag her to her feet.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Gibbs asked, fatherly affection colouring his voice. Annie sniffed again, and wiped her eyes again.

"Yes. No. I don't know. I guess everything that's happened today just caught up with me. Before today, I hadn't really contemplated the idea of Stephen being dead, just that he had an extremely good reason for disappearing without telling anyone. I thought he'd come back. I had a whole angry speech ready. And now I find out he's been dead this whole time. I feel like a horrible person, and an even worse friend. I should have figured out something was really wrong. I mean, Nat and I reported him missing to the police, I knew it was so unlike him to disappear, but I really didn't think anything like this could happen to him. We'd been friends since I moved to DC when I was 16 to live with Kate. And now he's gone. Just like her. Just like Jen. It seems like everyone I love leaves me." Annie sniffed, and Gibbs stood there listening, not interrupting. Annie had been through more than anyone should have had to deal with at 27 years old. She'd suffered through so much and always come back smiling.

"Annie, you're not a horrible friend. You did all you could. And I know if you could have done more if you could. You shouldn't blame yourself for this. It's understandable that you'd react like this. You've known each other for a long time, and it's bound to affect you. You just need to let it sometimes." Gibbs answered, and Annie sighed.

"I guess so."

"That's not the only thing that's bothering you is it?" Gibbs asked insightfully, and Annie sighed, again, shaking her head.

"Seeing you guys today, just after I learned that my best friend was dead was probably too much for me. I mean, I sort of came to associate you guys with death in the years since Katie was killed. And seeing you again after I found out about Stephen, sort of I guess reinforced that subconscious feeling that I had." Annie answered sadly. She'd never admitted it to anyone else, but since Kate's death she really had felt that way about Gibbs, McGee, Tony Abby and Ducky, and she hated herself for it. She had always loved them, but it didn't stop the conflicting emotions from confusing the hell out of her. Gibbs didn't look hurt by her admission though, just thoughtful. "I don't know. You know my mind has never made any sense to anyone." She tried to laugh it off, with a sad smile. Gibbs just nodded with a small smile, and pulled Annie into a quick hug, kissing her forehead.

"You ready to come down to eat something now? Because if you don't, I know of two agents who have their eyes on your Chow Mein." Gibbs asked, and smiled when Annie's sad expression changed to one of horror. The young woman ran down the stairs, skipping every second one, and sprinted straight past Dr Brennan's area and into the women's bathroom, no doubt to wash her face clean of tears and makeup. Gibbs smiled slightly, and shook his head as he walked at a more sedate pace back to Dr Brennan's area to join the rest of the group.

Gibbs walked in and sat down, retrieving his food from the coffee table and noticed that Annie's Chow Mein was missing from said table. Ziva had also noticed and was glaring at all of the men in the room, minus Ducky and Gibbs, in turn. One by one the men looked up, feeling as though they were being watched, and saw the former Mossad officer glaring. Each widened their eyes and Hodgins even went as far as to shift his weight so that Angela was in the firing line.

This was how Annie found the group a few minutes later, as she stood in the doorway, Ziva glaring and the guys shrinking away. She had only been in the bathroom for about five minutes, to wash her face free of tears and her ruined mascara, and she comes back to find her best friend glaring at the male agents and doctors.

"Okay, who the hell got Ziva angry?" Annie asked, laughing slightly. All heads whipped around to face the newcomer. Gibbs was the one who answered, which meant that whatever had pissed Ziva off had happened in the last five or so minutes.

"Someone," He started, narrowing his eyes at Tony and Booth respectively, his gaze resting on each for a few seconds, "stole your food."

At once Annie's expression became almost as thunderous as Ziva's, and she started glaring at the two suspects that she thought were most likely.

"Booth, Tony, hand it over. Both of you should know better than to steal my food. Especially my Chow Mein. Because I can, and will do everything in my power to make your lives a living hell for as long as I want, as I'm sure you remember, Tony." Tony shuddered, remembering.

Once, while Annie had still been at NCIS, Tony had made the dire mistake of eating Annie's Chow Mein, against the recommendation of both, Kate and McGee, and a 'It's your funeral' from Gibbs, while she was down in the lab helping Abby. Annie had been furious, because Chow Mein was one of her favourite meals, but she bided her time, patiently waiting to get her revenge. She didn't act until about 3 weeks later, when she was sure Tony thought she'd forgotten.

One day, during her lunch break, Annie hacked into Tony's personnel file, and found the address to his bachelor pad, and hightailed it over there, picking the lock on his front door, grabbed his movie collection and carefully placing the DVD's into the suitcase she had brought along with her, leaving a note made of letters from magazine clippings, in true ransom style, that read 'You steal something that I love, and I steal something you love. Kisses, B.' Just for the added torture, Annie left a half-eaten box of Chow Mein in his fridge, with a lipstick kiss in her signature colour, and as she left, Annie changed the lock on the front door, and left with his precious DVD collection. As they were called out to an urgent case, they didn't go home that night. The next day, the MCRT had been given the afternoon off, after finishing their high-priority paper work for the case, and Annie decided to tail Tony home, with McGee riding shotgun.

They followed Annie's target to his apartment building, and waited for the call from Gibbs. Annie had told the rest of the team about her plan after she had executed it, and was rewarded with Gibbs bursting out into laughter. Gibbs told Annie that he had underestimated her, and offered her any help in future revenge plans, not that she needed any help. She was a mastermind already. Annie and Tim got out of the car when Tony was safely inside the building, and followed him up to his floor, taking the stairs so that Tony didn't see them coming out of the elevator. Annie and Tim watched as Tony got his keys out of his pocket, and tried to unlock his door. The key wouldn't even fit in the lock! Annie had to clamp her hand over Tim's mouth to stop him from snorting too loudly. After about ten tries, with all of the keys on his keyring, Tony pulled out the set of lock picking tools that Annie had given him for Christmas last year, and picked the lock. After Tony had closed his door, Annie snuck up to the door, and pressed her ear against it, eager to her the senior field agent's reaction to her revenge. After about five minutes of near silence, Annie heard the reaction she had been waiting for. Tony yelling her name in outrage.

For the next few days, Annie held Tony's movies for ransom, enjoying Tony's multiple ways of apologising to beg for them back, including the offer of free Chinese whenever she wanted it, until finally she finally relented and gave them back, with the promises that he would never eat her precious Chow Mein again and that anytime Chinese was on the menu for a working dinner or lunch, Tony was to pay for hers for the rest of the year.

"Hey! I learned my lesson!" Tony exclaimed, and Annie shifted her glare to Booth, who raised his hands in surrender.

"I didn't take it!" Booth defended, and both Annie and Ziva shifted their attention to the three remaining suspects; McGee, Hodgins and Jimmy Palmer. Jimmy was shifting uneasily, McGee was looking very intently into his Mushu Pork, and Hodgins has placed himself almost behind Angela, to avoid the glares. Then all of a sudden, Abby stood up and held up Annie's precious Chow Mein, and burst out laughing. Everyone looked at the NCIS forensic scientist, dumbfounded.

"I had to do it. We needed some light hearted entertainment, and what better way than to see Annie and Ziva threaten people. Besides I wanted to see whether Annie was still as protective of her Chow Mein as she used to be." Abby explained, slurping happily at her jumbo-sized Caff-Pow, and Annie narrowed her eyes, glaring at the eccentric Goth, practically snatching the box out of her hand, before retreating to the corner of the room but herself and hunching over it protectively.

"My precious!" Annie screeched in a manner very reminiscent to that of Gollum from Lord of the Rings. The rest of the group laughed, and Ziva reached out and grabbed a clean pair of chopstick and threw them at Annie, who caught them very easily with one hand, separating them and digging in to her food with relish, still hunched over, like she was shielding her food from the rest of the group. Everyone laughed at the young agent's antics and Gibbs walked over to Abby, and pulled her into a side hug, kissing her forehead, silently thanking her for making Annie laugh, lightening the mood considerably.

A/N: So, another chapter up, and even though it is more or less just a filler chapter, we should hopefully be able to get into some action next chapter! Thanks for the continued support, guys! See you next chapter!

All my love,

Lilliana-Lissa xx