Happy Halloween, for those who recognize it!

Chapter Two

It could be said Tony was obsessed. He wasn't. He worked with Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the master of obsession. What he was doing came nowhere near what Gibbs was like when he had a score to settle. For one thing, Tony didn't want vengeance; he wanted to stay alive. For another, he didn't constantly think about it; it only cropped up in quiet moments. Okay, so it had been a full year since he'd had his second up close and personal encounter with Sam Winchester and he still expected the guy to pop from around every corner. Big deal. He chalked it up to basic human reaction to stress and if pressed, he'd say anyone in the world would have the same kind of feelings.

He couldn't figure it, though. According to all official documentation, Sam and his brother Dean had both perished years ago in Colorado. Until a few days ago, when they came out of hiding to go on a very public, massive killing spree and were gunned down. Dead. Again. The whole thing stank, and he wasn't sure what to believe, though in the corner of his mind he did believe Sam Winchester could still show up. It didn't make sense, but it made total sense.

It turned out there were lots of things that could come back from the dead.

Tony was careful about only doing research into the supernatural from his home or his non-work phone when no one was looking. The last thing he needed was for everyone to think he was crazy. He wasn't any crazier than he was obsessed. He simply had to have all his bases covered. A part of him wondered if his two run-ins with the presumed dead Winchester had happened at all, or at least if his memories of them were real. It was all blurry these days, since he'd found himself in a completely different alley with a completely different and explainable head injury. Since EJ and Cade. He was pretty sure he hadn't imagined Sam Winchester's cold, dead eyes. He was pretty sure waking in the middle of the night and covered in sweat wasn't a figment of his imagination.

He'd had no idea there were so many things that went bump in the night which could take human form, trick real humans into becoming dinner. Vampires, those he knew about firsthand. Tony shuddered. That experience he would have preferred to have kept under mental lock and key, but it, like Winchester, frequented his brain more often than he liked these days. After a few years of storing it neatly in the back of his head, it was something of an affront and starting to be a distraction. He didn't know why, other than fear of death, this was bothering him so much.

But there were many old urban legends out there so much worse than vampires, and Tony couldn't help but wonder how many of them were real. So far, all he'd managed to do was conjure up nightmares and paranoia. He was no closer after twelve months of spotty research (he wasn't obsessed) to figuring out what Sam Winchester was or had been these days. To tell the truth, he was more concerned that Sam Winchester wasn't the only whatever out there, and look at him afraid of his own shadow now. Okay, so maybe he was a tiny little smidgen obsessed. It was hard not to be when there was a gory image about what happened to a skinwalker's skin once it no longer wanted to use that shape. He grimaced. That was worse than anything he'd seen in autopsy.

"Gear up," Gibbs said, coming, as always, out of nowhere.

In his haste to clear the supernatural evidence off of his phone screen, Tony nearly dropped it. Ziva eyeballed him with that look of hers which either meant she thought he was an idiot or that there was something seriously, irritatingly wrong with him. Little did she know how right she was on both counts. He was spooking himself unnecessarily, letting the fact it was the day before Halloween really stir his imagination.

"We've got a dead sailor on a pier." Gibbs clipped the words out as he walked, barely pausing to pull his stuff from a desk drawer.

"Ah, the good old dead petty officer days," Tony said. "How I've missed them."

"You wouldn't be celebrating the death of a petty officer, would you, DiNozzo?"

"No, Boss. Of course not, Boss."

Tony pulled a face he knew Gibbs would see and make him pay for even though his boss was already at the elevators. It was expected and familiar and for some reason he'd welcome the head slap he was about to get in four, three, two…slap. Right on time, delivered before Tony could get too comfortable in his place in the elevator car but without any force or malice behind it. People that didn't know them didn't understand it was a Gibbs sign of affection as well as aggravation. It was as good as a hug, as far as Tony was concerned. A day didn't feel right without at least one head slap.

They broke all land speed records to get to the scene; didn't seem to matter what traffic was like, when Gibbs was behind the wheel, even rush hour was a piece of cake. It was like the ocean of cars parted like the Red frigging Sea. Tony beat McGee and Ziva to camera duty, which was for the best. He managed to get the best pictures, and thanked his love of live action film for it. Some shots were impossible to call good, though, because the subject material wasn't exactly fantastic. The sailor had gaping holes where the eyes used to be, an ear was gone and so were most of the fingers on his left hand. He was fully dressed, in uniform. Tony thought that odd, but a blessing. If he could help it, he wasn't going to make any visits to Ducky on this case.

"Ensign Matthew Yee," McGee announced with a grimace as he held up a soggy wallet.

They'd lucked out, there. It was clear the ensign had been in the water for some time, so prints on his remaining fingers were probably useless and the wallet could've been lost. Tony wondered how Yee got out from his liquid tomb. He studied the ground, snapped a few pictures.

"Boss, he went missing off of the USS Saratoga a little over two months ago when they were docked for scheduled maintenance."

"Two months." Gibbs sounded irritated, but then he always did. "Who was on it and why weren't they called instead of us, McGee?"

Tony fuzzed out a little bit, eyes still on the ground, but he did hear McGee get real quiet-like and nervous. He heard "Barrett" and took that as a cue to follow an interesting still-damp trail of scuffmarks that happened to end at Yee. That was probably the path whoever dropped the ensign off had dragged the body. His brain was half on that, half on EJ. EJ Barrett was probably dead, like the poor sailor they were processing. He thought maybe someday they'd get a call to do the same for her corpse. Tony tried to think happy thoughts, of happy times he'd had with EJ and couldn't. All he could think was she was dead and he couldn't do anything about it. And then he couldn't think about that anymore, because he had to focus on Yee. He nodded to Ducky and Palmer as they arrived on scene, but didn't stick around for initial readings and guesses as to cause of death. Dead was dead. Tony would put early odds on drowning, himself.

"What've you got, DiNozzo?"

Gibbs's voice came out of nowhere. With no possibility of faking that he hadn't just jumped practically out of his skin, Tony did what he could to compose himself before speaking. He didn't want to squeak.

"Startled me, Boss."

"Noticed," Gibbs said, with one of those not-quite-smiles of his, which disappeared into full frown. Oddly, he went off topic then. "You been feeling all right lately?"

Tony knew Gibbs had been keeping tabs on him, since the incident, the whole undercover for SECNAV, death and concussion in a dark alley thing. The thing he wished he could turn around in his head to paint a better picture. Maybe he could, given time, but then again, what would stop something from triggering him, what could be his next Sam Winchester non-obsession? He shook his head, then nodded.

"Fine, I've been feeling fine," Tony said, a lie he knew was thin. He covered by doing his job. "Looks like Yee was dragged quite a ways."

Yee had been dragged inland from the very end of the pier. In the grand scheme, it wasn't that far, but there were faster routes from sea to land. He would have had to have been on a boat or something. Tony couldn't figure how else anyone would have been able to haul a body up that height, but the state of the corpse spoke to a fair amount of time submerged. He knitted his eyebrows.

"Yep," Gibbs said. "I'll get Ziva on it."

Then Gibbs was gone, their mock touchy-feely moment over, and Tony was, for all intents and purposes, alone. The bustle of activity behind him was comforting, and the relatively open water in front of him seemed desolate and huge. It wasn't, really. There were always ships, noises. He tried to picture how Yee had ended up first swimming with the fishes and then up in plain sight on land. Something in his gut said it was no coincidence, but it wasn't terribly logical, either. If someone had purposely killed the guy, there wouldn't be a point to regurgitating the body from the water. A murderer would want the corpse to stay down until all the little and big fishies did their work. Gross. He would not want to go out that way. It didn't matter if he wouldn't know it was happening. He didn't want his eyeballs nibbled on. No, thank you. No.

He turned, and saw Ducky and Palmer already loading the body. He didn't think he'd stood there for so long. No one was looking his direction. Tony was sure they wouldn't leave him behind, but started for his team anyway. No amount of staring moodily at the water would give him instant answers which would solve this case fast and easy. His instinct told him there was going to be nothing easy about this one. Four steps into his trek back to the scene, he wasn't sure what made him halt in his tracks. A feeling, really. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

"Please," someone said, "do you have the time?"

Tony got a chill. The question was innocuous, but the voice sounded hollow. Otherworldly, if he was going to be purple prosy about it. He had been spending too much time watching those morons on Ghostfacers and digging into weird things on more reputable sites and books. He looked at his watch.

"It's three fifteen," Tony said, looking at the person who asked. "Where the heck did you come from?"

It was just a guy. Dock worker, perhaps. Nothing scary about him, certainly not in the affable smile he gave Tony or the sincerity in his eyes. Bit by bit, Tony relaxed. The urge to flee faded. In fact, what he wanted to do was stay right there.

"Thank you kindly," the man said, sounding like he was from the wrong era and completely ignoring Tony's question. "I do appreciate it."

"No problem." Tony scrunched his forehead. "Uh, have a good afternoon."

"And the very same to you." The man's expression turned thoughtful. "Say, I don't suppose you'd rather come with me than where you were heading off to, now would you?"

No, Tony thought, I would really rather not. That was his first inkling only, though. After a moment, it seemed like a really fantastic idea. He moved, though he didn't recall making the decision to do so, and went the opposite direction that he should. He realized he'd like nothing more than to follow this guy.

"Sure. Where are we going?" Tony asked, and he felt numb all over. It was very bizarre.

"Somewhere nice. Somewhere very nice. You'll like it," the man said. "I promise."

Tony saw no reason to argue that. He plodded along, not really seeing where he was going. He only had eyes for the bizarre man leading him away. There was something, something, but he didn't know what. He thought he should take a photograph, because Abby knew odd stuff like no other and she'd help him sort it all out. He lifted the camera.

"No pictures, please," the man said without turning around. "I'm not terribly photogenic."

"Okay, sorry."

Tony pulled the strap over his head, let the camera thump against his chest as he walked. No pictures. No, no pictures. But that was his job. He fingered the camera again. Clicked the button absently. He thought he heard his name. Oh, Gibbs and McGee and Ziva. That was where he was supposed to be, not here. Doubt creeped in, though his feet continued to follow.

"Stay with me," the man said. "It'll only take a second."

"Just a second," Tony said. His thought processes felt foggy, like his drink had been spiked except he hadn't had a drink. "Good."

They walked forever, which was not right at all. It only seemed that way because Tony was so sleepy. Something about the way the guy moved was making him feel extra tired, even though that made no sense at all even in his muddled brain. He stared at the man's shoulders, his sea green coveralls. He noticed the cuffs of the man's pants were wet. Dripping, actually.

"Hey, you've sprung a leak." Tony laughed. "You might want to get that looked at."

"I like the water. The sound of it is very soothing." The man half-turned, spread his right arm out. "Don't you like water?"

"You know, I really do."

"I'll bet it's nice in there. Why don't you go on in?"

Tony wasn't sure how they'd gotten under the pier. He wasn't sure of anything but the lapping of water against the rough shoreline and the overwhelming urge to walk into the sea. So, that was exactly what he did.