A/N: Okay, so here is the next chapter. It's longer than the previous ones, but I keep feeling as if it's more of a fill-in nevertheless. Just some facts to bild up the case.

Thanks for the reviews I got for the last chapter! I really appreciated them. Thank you to everybody who put the story as favorite or follows it, too. It feels truly awesome!

On an unrelated note, I have no idea how to feel about Cote DePablo leaving the show! I can't say that I mind that much, because I hated to see how they were getting so heavy on Tiva, and Ziva got softer (and a little lame) ever since season 8. At least I thought to. ^^ So it's probably a good time to leave the show, which is probably stretched to its limites now. And since she's still going to have a few guest appearances they most likely won't kill her, or have her leave with a "bang".

My guess: They take the cowardly way out, make an official Ziva/Tony couple, Ziva gets pregnant, takes some time off and then doesn't return but decides to something calm and peaceful. This doesn't really fit in with the season finale... but who knows. Or maybe something really shocking happens, and she decides to settle down someplace - which would be equally boring. But those are just my two pennies.

Disclaimer: I recently lost a TV show, since I own so many of them that I don't even know where some of them are! If you find it, please contact me to give it back. I know it misses me, even though we had our share of problems. It doesn't respond to NCIS, though. I still don't own that one.

"Fire and Ice" was written by Robert Frost and published in the Harper's Magazine in 1920.

Quagmire

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

- Robert Frost

Abby had taken the news rather well. She was calm... or not considerably more twirly than she was on normal days. After Gibbs had left, McGee had gone up to her lab, mostly for he didn't know what to do in the bulpen, and didn't want to be alone, either. he had found Abby steeped in paperwork and old files. The FBI hadn't sent any of their samples over yet, and she seemed just as uncomfortable doing nothing relevant to Ziva's case as McGee did.

So they had slowly, unwillingly but well-aware that it needed to be done, taken on the task of gathering evidence and, because they hadn't known where else to start from, concentrated on how Ziva fit into all of it. The earlier they got started, the earlier they'd be able to find a piece that didn't fit, and prove her innocent, and go back to normal...

It were blatant lies they soothed each other with, they knew this, and lame excuses made up in rder to justify their betrayal. But betrayal still seemed better than pure inaction.

"Our own security cameras show that Ziva left the parking lot at 22:45 yesterday night. She passed a speed trap twenty-two minutes later, so she was probably home around a quarter past eleven. A neighbor called 911 today, at 1:26, and she was arrested at 1:35, so there's overall a 140 minute time slot we need to explain. Given that it was night and there wasn't much traffic, the drive to Petworth probably took her ten minutes, give or take, but she went past one radar trap and didn't get clocked that time, and one patrol car. The officers remember hers because she tailgated them, but wasn't going over speedlimit and they were about to finish their shift."

Her voice had steadied noticably during the explanation, and was free of any tremblings by the time she finished. She could always cling to the mere facts, because they were innocent. They alone weren't a judgement, they would never tell lies, but always -always- reveal the truth and only that.

"When did that happen?", McGee answered, also as matter-of-factly as he could.

Two scientists in the face of chaos, he thought and faintly smiled to himself. As confusing as talking to a -as it seemed- relatively composed Abby now was, it was definitely easier than being with a doubtful Gibbs.

"They don't remember. Some time past ten fifteen, but they aren't sure. Could have been half past just as well."

"So that leaves us with 130 minutes."

"Yes... yes, exactly. But she got a call at twenty-five past eleven from a disposable cell phone which lasted only fifteen seconds."

McGee raised his brows and looked at the monitor, where Abby had loaded the file showing Ziva's phone records, as if to check that she hadn't mis-read anything. He was still hell-bent to believe nothing that others -be it even Abby- told him, except the things he saw with his own eyes. She was correct. "You think it's suspicious?"

"No, I... I don't know that, McGee. It's an assumption, but the number has never shown up in the recods before and when I tried to call, nobody picked up and it's probably shut off or the batery is dead, because I can't trace it either-" She suddenly interrupted herself, noticing that she had begun to ramble, and took a deep breath, followed by a long sip of CafPow!. "But say... say it does matter and had something to do with her driving into Petworth - that would take another ten minutes off."

"Still two hours missing."

"We don't have access to the evidence found at the crime scene yet, and Ducky won't be performing the autopsy so we'll have to wait for the results of that, too. Doctor Sato from the Coroner's Office is going to do it... she's alright, I met her on a symposium on forensic entomology last year. We'll get everything we need and she's pretty good - new to it, but still good." Abby shrugged, suddenly feeling very displaced as all they could do from now on was wait for others to hand them what they needed. "Tony might still find something and we could go there after they're all finsihed... look at things from a new perspective, and... Gibbs will come up with something, too, right?" Her eyes lit up at the mentioning of Gibbs, but darked only a second later when they fell of McGee's face, which had grown even more worried.

"He's going to find the answer", she said in an assuring tone, "don't you ever doubt that, McGee!"

"Yes, sure", he murmured and coughed shortly before he went on in a clearer voice, "except for you... well, and Kate, we've all been there and it... it always turned out find back then, so why not this time, too?"

The question was purely rethorical, because Abby was neither going to look at the situation this way -at least not on purpose-, nor to say the reasonable worries out loud so soon, and McGee just couldn't bear to talk about it now. The vast difference was that it were dead children they were talking about and young victims always changed everything, especially for Gibbs. Why not this time? was to be answered with the inevitable Why would he stick by somebody who had already confessed to having torured a son and a daughter?

Had she denied it, things would look a lot different now. Ziva would have been as good as absolutely sure to have Gibbs' backing until proven guilty with all the utmost amount of facts and motives that the investigators could possibly find. Of course, Gibbs would've done everything he could to catch whoever did this, and so would have the rest of the, given that they would have somehow crossed paths with Fornell during that time, but Ziva's confession to having comitted the felony made this investigation more depressing than it would have been under different circumstances and added a dismally air of hopelesness. She got out of a lot of things that she had actually done. If she got not only caught, but freely confessed right away, that their investiagtions would end in a totally different result was more than unlikely, it seemed.

"She didn't do this." McGee's voice was low and slightly coarse, and he was speaking to himself rather than to Abby, in dire need of reminding himself of this simple fact. "There's no way on earth she actually did this."

"We're going to find something. We always have."

"Some things work a thousand times perfectly well before they suddenly fail."

Gibbs asking Why would she lie to us? echoed through his head and he nervously searched his mind for an acceptable answer. There is no valid reason, so maybe she isnÄt telling a lie was definitely not one. Before McGee could get quite worked up over the question though, which tenaciously came back into his mind every time he thought to have driven it away, an incoming call delivered him from his distress. He took a quick glance at his smartphone. "It's Tony."

It all began as a dull, faint throbbing in the back of his head. He hadn't done anything to provoke it, except maybe worked too long, but sometimes you just can't do anything against these things. Maybe he should've gone to have a drink, he thought, so feeling like a piece of living crap would actually be worth it. But whatever the causes had been, the initial discomfort had grown into a full-grown headache by the time he stood in the midst of a crime scene that would give every healthy person a more than hard time already.

Four chairs stood in the middle of the spacious living room, two by two facing each other. The victims' bodies had been removed from the scene once everything had been neatly documented, as well as the cable ties and synthetic ropes they had been boud with, but their blood had soaked the eggshell-colored carpet and the sheer amount spoke volumes of what must have happened here.

By now, the room was cramped with CSU staff and their equipment, FBI Agents who were busy photographing and mapping every detail they bounced upon before it could be destroyed by one of their collegues, two remaining MPDC detectives who made sure the FBI wouldn't entirely push them out of the investigation... and Tony, who was allowed to be here by a surprizing gesture of goodwill. That Gibbs had told him to come to the crime scene had taken him almost as roughly off-guard as the news of Ziva's arrest, and he wasn't sure that he deemed it a good idea.

What was there to do for him, really?

What people could do to each other wasn't new to him, but what his friends were probably capable of doing... well, that was, at least to some extend.

No, he did not want to be here. But then again, you shouldn't want to investigate family murders, anyways.

"Special Agent DiNozzo? Is there somebody here-?"

At the sound of his name, Tony turned around. "That would be me."

A woman -probably about his age, and overall fairly pretty- stood in the entrance of the living room, quickly scanning everyone in there with piercing eyes. Not too eager to meet her, Tony resorted to doing them same. Slim figure, dark hair, with naturally pale but somewhat sun-tanned skin. She was athletic, he noticed, and if they had met under different circumstance he would have most certainly made a pass for her. Needless to say that this was out of question now. She approached him with a faint smile which, despite the situation, didn't seem out of place.

"There you are! I've been looking for you all over the place."

"So you're Fornell's profiler?"

She nodded and held out her hand. "Indeed, that would be me. Lisa Jones, with the Behavioral Analysis Unit."

"Anthony DiNozzo." He shortly shook her hand, but slid his' into his pocket only a second later. "NCIS."

"So, you're a friend of the suspect?", she asked in a casual tone that offended him nevertheless.

"I'm here as in investigator." His answer came quick and rough and too snappy as to attest the purely professional purpose he claimed.

"Hm... alright." She nodded slowly, pensively biting her lower lip. "Do you wanna hear what I've got so far? Agent Fornell said it'd be okay with him, since the circumstances are... unusual for you guys, I suppose. They aren't my official results, though. Just first impressions." She added the last two sentences after a short pause, as if to make sure there were no misapprehensions.

"I understand." He made sure to sound as calm as possible this time. "That would be great."

"So, I was thinking that... wait a moment, could we sit down anywhere?" Wordlessly, he crossed the room and the adjoining hallway, to take place at the kitchen table, and so did the profiler. She had seemingly taken a couple of notes on a pocket-size scratchpad, but even though she took a quick glance at it before starting to talk, it didn't escape Tony's attention that she was hiding her writings from him. "Okay, so there are a few inconsistencies I came across that will have to be explained sooner or later."

Yeah, like Ziva showing up at the crime scene, he thought and realized that he had said the words out loud when it was already too late.

Agent Jones continued without aknowledging the interruption. Tony was rather sure that she was analyzing the crap out of him, but at least she didn't show it and he was bound to be biased, anyways, so no conclusion that she could possibly draw would make matters worse for him.

"They were tortured and -although I must point out that the pathologist made very clear that those results aren't final at all- even though they all died within a close time range, the parents were killed first -probably even the father- and she estimated that the son was the last one to die. His death was also the most... gentle of all, if you will. His parents suffered severe visible injuries and so did his sister, but there is, as for right now, no evidence suggesting that he sustained any physical injury until the moment of his death. So I don't think the purpose of torturing them was to extract information, since most likely the parents would've had those and then the children would have been killed in front of the parents as a method of torture."

Tony nodded as she spoke, trying hard to make sense of this. Ziva had tortured people in the past, there was no sense in denying that, but she had done so as part of her work for Mossad. Intelligence agencies had political or military, occasionally maybe even economical, interests - but they always were after information, weren't they? She had been trained to make people talk, and to be efficient. This family, however, hadn't died to keep a secret.

"Obviously, they had to be gagged. From what I have been told so far, the neighbors didn't hear a lot of noise, but torturing people is a noisy business. We found a bunch of wet cleaning rags behind one of the chairs. The test results aren't back yet, but if the moist turns out to be saliva that's likely what they were gagged with. So the perpetrator had enough sense to make sure the neighbors wouldn't hear anything suspicious, but took a higher risk by using what he or she found at the scene. There may not be suitable items to gag people with available in all households, and since the perpetrator cannot know what exactly those items are in advance, he can't be entirely sure whether something will prove effective or not. However, there are gags available for purchase and getting them shouldn't be much of a difficulty."

Tony gladly picked up on the male personal pronoun. "Couldn't... couldn't he just have threatened one family member, say one of the children, to keep the others quiet?"

"I think that's how it started, but holding a gun to you wife's head isn't gonna keep you quiet once somebody's pushing a knife through your cheeks." Her explanation was very matter-of-factly but, as Tony realized now, so was everything else about her. The looks she gave him were sufficiently sympathetic to engage him in her thinking processes and keep his anger as low as possible, but she was as distant to him as she was to everyone else in the apartment nevertheless. She spoke as openly as to make him feel involved, and just so colloquial that he eased up, but the truth was that he wouldn't have been able to tell if she had just lied to him. "At the door, there's very little evidence of forced entry, suggesting that the offender has not only a lot of experience but also the motor skills it takes to open a locked door like this, but it's still enough to indicate that hedidn't know the family at all, or at least they didn't open the door to him."

"Then why was the door wide open? One ought to think that a picklock-savant remembers to close the door behind himself."

"I don't know yet. As I said, there are vast inconsisencies showing at the crime scene. On one hand, the perpetrator is clearly very skilled and somewhat prepared - you don't open a safety lock just like that, but bring the tools with you. Then again, there are aspects that would point towards somebody disorganized, almost plain lazy - the removal of the gags, the open door, the focus on the children. None of this serves a reasonable purpose and points towards personal motives. There's no need for an emotional connection if it's just about information."

For a moment, the thought that this didn't sound like Ziva at all crossed his mind, and the feeling of relief was overwhelming. She knew how to make people talk. She knew how to inflict so much pain that they'd tell her everything she asked and even more than that. They'd probably sell their own mother to her. 1984, to make an unfunny allusion for once. Ziva had once named it in a list of Tim Burton movies.

Only moments later, she crushed his sudden hopes rather violently. "Overall, it's the type of behavior I'd expect to find in a well-trained, athletic male with a military background in his early 30s who suffered a psychotic break."

"So I guess you'll talk to Ziva later."

She nodded. "I don't have enough history with Agent Fornell to understand why he's cooperating with you guys that much, but I'm scheduled to meet her at NCIS this afternoon. We're practically neigbors, anyways, so it's not even an inconvenience."

"Alright." Tony stood up without further comments and turned to leave the kitchen. "I guess I'll see you then."

"Wait! Where are you going?"

He stopped shortly and slgithly raised an eyebrow. "Fornell might be cooperating with us, but I'm sure as hell not gonna tell you what our own investigations lead us to."

He was talking nonsense and he knew it. But as he left the apartment and went to his car, blindly operating his smartphone in the meanwhile, he felt... well, not better. But at least up to the challenge.

Sources:

NCIS Headquarters: .mil /AboutNCIS /Locations/HQ

maps. google .com

I don't know how much information concerning Ziva's apartment was recently mentioned on the show, but I don't recall that it was a whole lot. In 3x19, "Iced", Ziva and McGee are said to live in Silver Springs, but since her apartment was blown up and everything, she could've moved everywhere, I guess. So I just placed her in Georgetown, DC. According to Google Maps, the quickest route to take from NCIS Headquarters to Georgetown is 36.6 miles long and via the I-95 N, taking approximately 45 minutes.

The route Georgetown - Petworth (for both of which I did not use a specific address in Google Maps) is 5 miles long and takes about 16 minutes if you take the Beach Dr NW.

Fire and Ice: .poemhunter poem /fire-and-ice/

1984 (book written by George Orwell in 1948, movie dirceted by Michael Radford in 1984 ): .imdb title /tt0087803/