Disclaimer: I have a purple-polka dotted cow that can fly and I live in cotton candy clouds. Nope! Just kidding! I don't own a purple cow that can fly, and I most certainly do not own any of the characters or anything that has to do with NCIS!

Author's note: Hello again, everybody! Here's Chapter 5! It's a little more intense, but everything including the little details are important to the plot. I hope that you enjoy!

Chapter 5

Probie Mistakes

When the team finally arrived at the crime scene, McGee had cooled off a bit. He was still thinking about Tony's hurtful words, but he tried to clear his mind so that he could focus on the case in front of him now.

"So what've we got?" Gibbs asked as he approached Ducky.

Ducky started up from the patch of grass that he was kneeling at where he was examining the corpse.

"It looks like this young Jane Doe here was killed approximately three hours ago, due to someone stabbing her in the chest" Ducky said. "And by the looks of it, she was murdered by the same sick person who murdered our John Doe four days ago."

McGee could hear Gibbs swear under his breath.

"So that sick person who killed this woman here is the same person that we've been trying to find over the last week?" Ziva asked Ducky.

"It would appear to be so," Ducky answered for her.

"So that means that we have twice as much work to do now than when we did before? You've got to be joking me!" Tony exclaimed out loud to no one in particular with a groan in his voice.

Ducky nodded his head while Gibbs glared menacingly at Tony.

"This isn't a joking matter, Tony," Ziva replied.

"You got a problem with that, DiNozzo?" Gibbs threatened.

"No," Tony replied. "I was just expressing my opinion about how much I…" he trailed off, stopping himself from saying anything else from the looks that everyone else was giving him.

"I…never mind." He finished.

"Good," Gibbs said, then turned his head away from Tony to look at the young female's corpse in front of him.

"This just means that we'll have to work twice as hard as we've already been working so that we can find the murderer faster and prevent another death like this one from occurring," McGee spoke out loud.

Ziva stared at McGee along with Tony and Gibbs for a minute.

Ducky added, "That's a good point that you've brought up there, Tim." Then he went back to work examining the body that was laid in front of him.

Everyone else went back to their normal routines, looking for clues, bagging evidence, and McGee went about his own way, snapping pictures.

As McGee was pacing along the ground, snapping photos of the crime scene where the Jane Doe was assumingly murdered, McGee caught a glimpse of red on the grass in front of him. When he knelt down and examined it further, he realized that it was blood. When he scanned the ground for any more possible bloodstains, he found that smaller drops of blood were scattered across the ground in different places, forming a trail. He called out to Tony.

"Hey Tony! Boss! Come over here for a moment! I think I may have found something."

"Finally," Gibbs muttered just loud enough under his breath for McGee to hear.

"What is it now, Probie?" Tony asked with an annoyed tone of voice. "Can't you see that I'm busy collecting evidence?"

When McGee glanced over his shoulder, he could see that Tony was doing absolutely nothing but staring at the dead Jane Doe in front of him, while trying to talk to Ziva, who was obviously occupied trying to assist Gibbs.

"I've found a trail of blood!" McGee yelled at Tony trying to gain his attention, along with his boss's attention.

The result was instantaneous.

"You've found what, McGee?" Gibbs asked, marching over to the spot where McGee was busying himself examining the blood trail. Tony and Ziva soon joined him in hot pursuit, heading towards McGee.

"I said that I think I may have found something," McGee replied, a little annoyed that Gibbs and Tony didn't take him seriously enough earlier. "It's a trail of blood, which I suspect belongs to the Jane Doe," he finished.

"No, really," Tony said mockingly.

"Really," McGee automatically answered before he could stop himself.

Tony just stared at him like he was an idiot, and then shook his head.

"Call Ducky and Palmer over here," Gibbs ordered Ziva, who did so immediately.

"Where do you think it leads?" McGee asked out loud.

"There's only one way to find out," Gibbs answered, "and you're going to do that for us, McGee" he said, or more like threatened McGee.

"Me? But I…why me?" McGee asked Gibbs with a look of fear and confusion on his face.

"Because you found the trail, and you're the first one to have found a lead this week," Tony answered, only to receive a head smack from Gibbs.

Thwack!

"That's not entirely true, McGee, but you're going to follow the trail because you're going to listen to my order without complaint, now isn't that right, McGee?" Gibbs threatened.

McGee sighed out loud. "Yes, Boss," he replied.

"Alright, good. Now get moving!" Gibbs shouted the last part, nearly scaring McGee out of his skin. "We'll be right behind you," Gibbs finished.

"Just remember not to trip or step on any of the evidence," Tony teased.

"Yeah, yeah, I think I know not to do that already," McGee argued back.

"Are you sure, Probie? Don't you remember last time when you messed up the evidence on the trail?" Tony continued to harass McGee.

"Yes, I'm certain Tony, now would you please just drop it?" McGee pleaded, annoyed at everything Tony was doing to give him a hard time.

"Ooh, a little touchy now, aren't we? I think that we can… OW!" Tony yelled, turning his head to face Gibbs who had just head slapped him again for the fourth time today.

"What was that for?" Tony whined. Ziva rolled her eyes.

"Just drop it, DiNozzo," Gibbs commented as he trudged behind McGee.

As McGee continued to carefully follow the trail of blood, cautiously watching where he stepped, he couldn't help but notice that the trail was leading deeper and deeper into the woods. As he continued further ahead, the voices from his team were fading behind hem. Finally, the trail of blood came to a stop after about ten minutes' worth of hiking.

McGee stopped and looked around. There wasn't any more of the trail of blood to follow. It had lead him to a ledge in the middle of the forest, then stopped abruptly. As he paced around slowly, trying to find more clues, he heard Tony and the rest of the team catch up to him.

"So what've you got for me, McGee?" Gibbs asked.

"I can't tell yet," McGee answered. "This is where the trail stops," he said, looking over the ledge of the moss-covered ground.

"So it looks like you've found a dead end," Tony said with an exasperated expression on his face. "Ten minutes' worth of hiking through the wilderness for this? A dead end?" Tony started to make gestures with his hands in the air.

"This isn't fair! I mean, how does this trail of blood help us find the murderer?" he continued, clearly annoyed that there wasn't anymore of a trail to follow.

"I think… I think that…I think that it might have originated from down there," McGee spoke slowly, as if trying to gather all of his thoughts. As he closed his eyes and tried to contemplate everything that he had seen so far, Tony inched closer and closer to McGee until he was standing right next to him.

"Come on, we need more than that, Probie!" Tony stated. Ziva chimed in as well.

"Tony's right, McGee," she said. "We need more information."

"Well? Do you have anything more to say about the trail, McGee?" Gibbs inquired while staring at McGee with his piercing steely blue eyes.

"I'm pretty certain that the trail started from way down there," McGee answered, and with a moment's hesitation, added even further, "but the only way that we can find that out is if someone goes down the slope here to investigate."

"Well, that shouldn't be so hard to do," Tony was saying as he walked right up to McGee then faced the rest of the team as if to gain all of their attention. "Probie right here can do it for us," he stated.

While Tony had been moving closer to McGee, McGee had cautiously taken a few steps away from Tony and inadvertently towards the ledge. At first he didn't know where he was backing up, but by the time he had finished, it was too late. He was only one foot away from falling over the ledge and downhill. As Tony kept babbling to the rest of the team, McGee tried to interrupt by calling out Tony's name, so that he could gain his attention and move inwards towards safety.

"Tony," he whispered, fearful that if he spoke in a voice too loud he would fall off the ledge. Tony didn't respond. The rest of the team didn't seem to notice either.

"Tony," McGee tried again, this time speaking a little louder than before. He caught his breath as his foot started involuntarily trembling from the lack of movement. Still, he had no luck.

"Tony!," McGee tried yelling, only to be ignored by Tony, who was busy gesturing to the rest of the team and talking about how McGee would be a perfect choice to investigate further downhill.

"As I was saying, McGee should investigate because he was the one who brought us to this dead end," Tony was arguing to Gibbs and Ziva while Ducky and Palmer were staring at him but only listening half-heartedly. They were all brought out of their trance by a sharp yell of "TONY!" that came from McGee.

"What, Probie?" Tony yelled at McGee, irritated that he had been interrupted once more. As he turned around to face McGee, he felt his shoulder bump into another shoulder with a hard force.

When he had fully turned around, he was surprised to see that it was McGee that he had bumped into. But what scared him at first was seeing how close to the ledge he was, then seeing how far he had forced McGee to back up. As he paused to stare at McGee, time froze. Tony had bumped into McGee with just enough force to push him off balance. Tony froze along with the rest of the team when he saw McGee wobble back and forth twice, trying to regain his sudden loss of balance, but McGee couldn't regain what he had lost. His foot collapsed and his knees buckled as his body leaned over the ledge. He tried to stop himself, but he couldn't make it in time. A look of sheer panic flashed in his eyes as he shouted out Tony's name again, and then fell over the ledge.

Author's Note: I hope that you enjoyed this chapter! I'm sorry that I'm leaving you on a cliff hanger, but I'll try to publish Chapter 6 tomorrow. I hope that you enjoy! Thanks again for the reviews. More are always welcome!