Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS or any of the characters (except for Alexandra).

A/N: Thanks to those few who have reviewed thus far. Updates may come slower since I will be at work all day and into the evening. Patience and constructive criticism is appreciated. Reviews make me write faster too.

Chapter Two: So Close

"Hey Abby, find anything yet?" Gibbs asked, strolling into her lab.

Abby glanced up. "What? No Caf-Pow?"

"No coffee-run Abbs, sorry." After talking with Jen and Ducky, Gibbs had to spend the next few hours resisting the urge to run down to Abby for news. He knew she needed time and his hovering wouldn't speed her up. However, the possibility of Kelly being alive was consuming his thoughts, causing memories of her to race.

He remembered the last time he had come home on leave. They had been held later than he expected and by the time he was allowed to leave, it was dark. As he approached the drive where had had arranged for Shannon to pick him up, he saw the sliding door of their van spring open. His daughter hopped out and darted up to him. He reached down and lifted her into his arms.

"Hey there princess." Gibbs held her tight against him. He logically knew she was getting much too big to be picked up and carried, but he really didn't care at the moment. All he had thought about for months was coming home and seeing his wife and daughter, holding them. He hated being away and missing watching his daughter grow up. He had always been active in taking care of her and not being there was hard.

"I missed you daddy." Kelly buried her face in her father's neck.

"I missed you too, very much." He smiled as his wife walked up from the car. "I missed you too Shannon." He tried to get close enough to his wife to hug and kiss her, but holding Kelly was making it difficult.

Seemingly reading his mind, Shannon hugged him at the side. "It's alright, she needs this right now," Shannon said, referring to Kelly. Once at the car Kelly insisted her father sit with her in the backseat and Gibbs' daughter fell asleep against him on the ride home. He loved watching her sleep in peace and for the first several nights after he returned, he did just that, watch her sleep.

Now though, he tried to focus his thoughts on how he could help find the girl in the photo. So he had brought with him to Abby's lab a folder. "Did you find any prints?" he asked.

Abby shook her head. "Just your's and the one's from the guys in the mailroom. Nothing helpful print-wise on the photos either."

Gibbs set the folder down in front of Abby. "Maybe this will help from the other angle."

Abby opened the folder and picked up a photo from within. "She a beautiful girl, Gibbs."

"Ahh, thank you." Gibbs was still uncomfortable talking about his family and was unsure what else to say.

"How old would she be now?"

"Almost 23-years-old." He paused. "Anyways, I thought you could run an age progression on it. There's also a photo of Shannon in there if that would help."

Silence elapsed as Abby put the photos on the scanner and waited for it to warm up. Gibbs frowned at Abby's strangely quiet behavior. "All right, Abbs, whatever it is, just say it."

Abby swiveled in her chair to face him. "Why didn't you tell us? Or better yet, why do some people know?"

"The Director and Ducky only found out when I was in the coma. Ziva knows because she found out when she did backgrounds on all of us before she started at NCIS. I never actually told anyone."

"But why? Why didn't you tell us?"

Gibbs sighed and leaned against her desk. Because I didn't want to think about it. After they were killed I just put all of it in the back of my mind, or tried to. The reason had nothing to do with you guys, just me."

Abby gave a half smile. "Does that mean I'm off the hook for not telling you about my stalker boyfriend?"

Gibbs just laughed. "Just never do it again."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm ready to run the progression on the photo now." She looked over and saw him staring off into space, lost in thought. "Gibbs?"
"Hmm," he answered.

"Well find her, wherever she is, we'll find her."

0000000000000000

"Hey boss, I think we found something," Tony called out as Gibbs and Abby exited the elevator. The pair walked over to the plasma and looked at the two photos pulled up side-by-side.

"Did you find her?" Gibbs asked.

"We found where she goes to school. In a couple of the photos you can see other people in the background wearing University of Maryland sweatshirts. But that didn't tell us which campus."

McGee took the remote from Tony and zoomed in on the photo on the right. "Look at the bus. All the campuses have shuttle busses for off-campus parking lots. Some of the shuttles are identical across campuses, but this one in the photo is not. These shuttles are used solely at the College Park campus."

"College Park? But that's half an hour away." Abby looked over at her boss. "Gibbs?"

"This can not be a coincidence," he said, more to himself than anyone on the team. "Anything else?"

"I checked DMV records in Maryland, Delaware, New York, D.C., and Virginia. No Kelly Gibbs in the right age range." Ziva paused. "We need more to go on."

"What about running her face from one of the photos against DMV records?" Tony suggested.

"We need a better shot of her face to compare them," Abby answered.

"So all we know is that she spends time on the College Park campus." Tony leaned back in his chair. "That doesn't give us much."

Abby took the remote to the plasma and started scrolling through the photos. "See there? You can see little bits of buildings. We might be able to use campus photos and narrow it down to an area or a few possible buildings on the campus."

"McGee, help Abby with the photos." Gibbs glanced down at his watch. "All right, it's already 4:30p.m. so the offices on campus would be closed by the time you got there. First thing tomorrow, Ziva and Tony, I want you to go to the campus. Start with academic advisors of graduate students, then undergraduates."

"That could take all day boss." Tony watched his boss look at the plasma.

When Gibbs didn't answer, Abby glanced over and answered for him. "Tony, it's all we have."