Chapter 2

"Should we wake him?" McGee asked, looking around.

"Let him sleep, Timothy. It's not doing anyone any harm," Ducky looked up from the charts he was examining, "Although one has to wonder what would cause Anthony to fall asleep on the job."

"A late night, perhaps?" Ziva speculated.

Abby poked Tony in the forehead. He didn't even twitch. "He's really out of it, isn't he?"

"Who's out of what, Abby?" A familiar gruff voice asked from behind them.

"Gibbs!" Abby exclaimed as they all jumped and turned around to face their fearless leader, subsequently blocking the sleeping Italian form his view. Abby stammered, "Well, you see, McGee is out of, um, he's out of-"

-"out of ideas for my next book." McGee finished.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow, "What are you all doing around Dinozzo's desk then?"

"Uh-"

"Well boss-"

"You see-"

Gibbs sighed, "Grab your gear; we've got a dead Petty Officer. And somebody wake Dinozzo up."

"Where to, Jethro?" Ducky asked.

"439 43rd ave." Ducky nodded and left.

Abby pounced on Tony and shook him.

Tony woke with a start and looked around, "We got a case boss?"

"Ya think, Dinozzo?" the rest of the team began to leave while Tony was still looking around dazedly. "Come on!"

Tony jumped to his feet and hurried to follow.

The crime scene was a mess. It was a double homicide right in the middle of a park. A couple had been out enjoying one of the last warm evenings of September when they were assaulted. The girl, a 5"9 brunette, was shot once in the head. The male was 6"1 and blonde. He had been severely beaten and stabbed.

"Cause of death, Duck?" Gibbs asked looking at the John Doe.

"Well Jethro, it's a bit early to say," The ME replied, "Although my guess would be the stab wound to his stomach. Poor fellow probably bled to death."

Gibbs nodded and turned to Tony, "Dinozzo, what's it look like?"

"Well, there's no sign of sexual assault, and the girl doesn't have any defensive wounds on her. From that I'd say the killer surprised them. Most likely male, too. He'd have to be pretty strong to overpower the Petty Officer." Gibbs, nodded, so Dinozzo continued, "We haven't found any I.D for the girl, but the Petty Officers name was Bradley Trumpman." He held up Trumpman's ID tags.

"Alright. We'll finish up here. When we get back, I want everything there is to know about Petty Office Trumpman.

A chorus of 'yes boss' filled the clearing.

"Are you alright, Tony? You seem over the weather."

"It's under the weather, Ziva."

"Tony…"

"Sigh. I'm fine, Ziva. I just had a late night."

"We don't need the details." McGee grimaced.

"Just 'cause you can't get a date…." Tony muttered, loud enough for the others to hear.

"I can get dates!" McGee protested.

"Can you get information on the victim?" Gibbs, perfect timing as always, asked.

"Checking his phone records now, boss." McGee replied. Gibbs nodded, and then looked expectantly at Tony and Ziva.

Tony looked like a deer caught in the headlights. He glanced over at Ziva, "Uh, I was- we were- uhmm"

Gibbs sighed, "Go see if you can find anything at his house."

"Right boss!" They replied in unison.

They were both silent on the car ride over. Ziva kept glancing over at Tony, but he never gave any indication that he noticed.

It took forever to reach the apartment. By the time they got there, the atmosphere was so tense that Ziva couldn't help but ask, "Are you sure you're alright Tony?"

"I'm fine, Ziva. Now pick the lock so we can scope out the place."

Ziva said nothing about Tony's blatant lack of respect, despite the fact that she was severely tempted. Something was not right with him, and she was determined to find out what.

The pair entered the apartment and began looking around. It was sparsely furnished, with a threadbare couch and an out of date TV in one room, a beat up fridge and a filthy sink in another, and a partially broken bed in the last.

"He obviously didn't manage his money well." Ziva observed. Tony simply grumbled in agreement.

They made quick work of the apartment, searching for any glaring signs of something being off. The only thing that seemed to stand out was the large number of lottery tickets.

The pair made their way back to the navy yard in a similar silence to the one that they left in. Ziva was grateful when they reached the bullpen so she could focus her attention on something other than Tony and his unusual broodiness.

"Gibbs, the-" She began.

"Abby's got something for us." He cut the Israeli off as he hung up the phone. The team piled into the elevator and headed down to the lab. "Anything at the apartment?"

"Not really, just signs that he couldn't manage his money." Ziva replied when Tony remained silent.

The doors dinged and they walked into Abby's lab, the familiar sounds of death metal oddly comforting.

"Gibbs!" the goth exclaimed in her usual excited manner.

"What do you got, Abs?"

"Well, I looked through all the evidence from the scene. The fingerprints all belong to Petty Officer Trumpman and his girlfriend, who I identified as one Jillian Webber, thanks to AFIS; she had been arrested two years back for trashing an ex-boyfriend's apartment. All the blood matched the two victims, as well."

"So you're saying you have nothing?" Gibbs, ever impatient, asked.

"I didn't say that. I thought that the nature of the murders was a bit hinky, so I did some digging, first looking at any navy cases that were similar. I got nothing."

Gibbs looked at her sceptically.

Abby shot him a look before turning to type something on her computer, "So, I searched civilian cases and came up with this," four faces popped up on screen, as well as crime scene photo's depicting the four. There were two males, two females. The women were shot, the men beaten and stabbed. It was the same MO as their killer. "The first two were found three weeks ago, the second two ten days ago. They didn't have any ID on them when they were found. My guess is that the killer knew to take wallets, but didn't realize that Trumpman was Navy and would be wearing his tags. We got lucky on this one, Gibbs."

"That's good work Abs. run facial recognition on the other four."

"It's already running." The raven announced proudly. Gibbs smiled his crooked smile and kissed her on the forehead. He strode out her lab, the rest of the team in tow.

Gibbs sat at his desk, thinking. They didn't really have any leads in the case, and his gut told him that they had to act fast. The killer was going to strike again soon. The time between kills was dropping by half, and if the killer stuck to that pattern, Ducky would have two more bodies in just five days. Gibbs picked up his phone. He had a call to make.

Brownie: so that's chapter two. We'll get to see the two teams together in Ch.3. sorry about the slow update, school and work and soccer really have me bogged down. Hopefully the next chapter will be up quicker.

See ya next time! ;)