A/N: Okay, it's the two-year anniversary of when I first posted this fic, so here's the third chapter. If any of you were wondering about the people who haven't made an appearance yet, your wait just might be over now. And for those of you who have been looking forward to seeing more interaction between Danielle and the individual members of the NCIS team? Enjoy!

"Now then, what have we here? Paul Brown, lieutenant junior grade, age 26, four years in the service, rather nasty way for one's career to come to an end," Ducky observed.

"Not the nastiest we've ever seen, though, Doctor," Jimmy Palmer commented.

"Mr. Palmer, kindly think before you speak; you're sounding like DiNozzo." Ducky turned to the body. "I am deeply sorry about my associate's lack of tact."

At that moment, the doors swished open and Gibbs walked in.

"Ah, Jethro. I wondered when you'd be down here. I'm afraid I don't have much yet."

"Just tell me what you got, Duck."

"A man in apparently perfect health with a single gunshot wound to the temple, complete with powder burns."

"So the shooter was up close," Gibbs surmised.

"Unless it was suicide," Palmer put in; not many people could shoot a six-foot tall 220lb black man in the side of the head like that, especially if they had to be close enough to leave powder burns.

"The gun was found twenty feet away," Gibbs pointed out dismissively.

"Yes, that would relegate your theory to the 'highly unlikely' category," Ducky told Palmer before turning back to Gibbs. "And what of the young lady?"

"No GSR. She does have a crazy story, though, about our lives as a TV show."

"Am I in it?" Palmer asked hopefully.

"Well, she's got McGee convinced," Gibbs said in parting, leaving them utterly perplexed as the doors slid shut behind him.

Tony shook his head as he watched Abby and the woman – Danielle – chatting like they were old friends.

"So we just finished eating half a chicken each with our bare hands, and along comes the confederate flag that we're supposed to be passing down as fast as possible."

Abby laughed out loud. "Napkins, quick!" she suggested.

Danielle could barely breathe enough to say, "There weren't any."

"What?"

"Right at the beginning, the emcee told everyone there were no napkins, so just wipe your hands on your nice, clean pants."

"No!" Abby declared, disbelieving.

"You can't make this stuff up," Danielle returned. "Besides, I've seen some stranger cases that you've dealt with."

"Truth is stranger than fiction." Abby nodded before pausing as her expression turned somber. "Then again, where you come from, we are fiction, aren't we?"

Danielle's smile disappeared as well. "You were always real to me, and my family too. A lot of fans actually talk about you like you're real."

Abby gave a half-smile. "It's not quite the same, though."

"Yeah, I know." Danielle bowed her head, and no more was said.

"Boss." DiNozzo spoke. "What's the word from Ducky?"

Gibbs stood silently behind him, observing the interaction in the next room. "My gut is telling me there's more here than what she's saying… maybe more than she even knows."

"You're not seriously buying into this, are you, Boss?" Tony asked, gobsmacked.

"Get in there," Gibbs said evenly. "Do things the DiNozzo way."

"Yes, Boss," he responded, struggling to contain his enthusiasm. He was going to enjoy this.

Half an hour later saw DiNozzo tipping back in his chair, foot braced against the table, thumbs flying over the surface of his phone. Danielle yawned behind her hand before resting her elbow on the table, her eyes glued, not to the agent across from her, but the two-way mirror behind him.

"You had a straight coming," she spoke abruptly. "You should have moved that one to the left; you would have gotten a tetris if you hadn't taken the double."

"What?" DiNozzo responded, glancing up at her.

She waited a few seconds before hearing the telltale sound effect of hitting the top. "And you just lost."

DiNozzo looked back down at his phone and then up at her again. "You distracted me," he accused.

"You had it lost already; soon as you blocked that hole for the straight piece, nothing would have been able to fit."

"How do you know that?"

Rather than replying aloud, she gave the glass a significant look.

DiNozzo checked to see what it was she was indicating to over his shoulder. "You were watching me play… but you said left; the reflection would have reversed it so it was your right."

Danielle rolled her eyes as if to say 'Duh.'

"She's impossible," DiNozzo groused as he opened the door to observation, nearly walking into Ziva as she appeared to be on her way out. "Where are you going?"

"It's my turn," she informed him. "Gibbs just said I was high."

"Up," Gibbs corrected her tonelessly.

"That too," Ziva agreed.

Ziva threw open the door to interrogation so hard it hit the wall with a loud bang!

Danielle was not expecting this and so leapt to her feet in surprise, the chair she had just vacated skittering away to the other side of the room as she instinctively assumed a defensive karate stance.

Ziva, responding on instinct as well to the perceived threat, lunged forward and grasped Danielle's wrist, yanking it around behind the woman's back.

Far from being thrown off, Danielle reacted by turning with the force of Ziva's move and catching the agent in a headlock while twisting her own wrist and reversing the hold so that she had the upper hand.

Ziva quickly lifted her right leg, forcing her knee into the woman's gut. The blow loosened her grip so that Ziva was able to free her trapped hand and position it around her opponent's neck and upper body. "What are you not telling us!?" she demanded as Danielle struggled to escape her hold.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she gasped before grunting with exertion as she swept Ziva's leg out from under her, sending them both toppling to the floor.

At that moment, one of the analysts was walking by with an armful of documents. He jumped back upon seeing the two women's heads sticking out of the doorway at his feet, his hold of the documents tightening before he registered that Ziva David was one of them and then scurried off past Gibbs as he stepped out of observation into the hallway to intervene.

Once they managed to extricate themselves from one another, Ziva rose to her feet while Danielle remained on one knee, her arms still raised to protect herself should she face another assault but displaying no further outward aggression.

Ziva appeared proud of herself that the woman had submitted to her and repeated, "What are you not telling us?"

Danielle hesitated, mentally reflecting, This is why no one messes with her, before saying again, "I don't know what you're talking about."

The agent moved to close the distance between them, prompting Danielle to raise her hands once more until Gibbs forestalled Ziva with a quiet command of, "Stand down."

Ziva turned to him. "But, Gibbs–"

"Stand. Down."

Ziva sighed but did as she was told, noticing that Danielle had now relaxed and rose to her feet, rotating and massaging her arms and shoulders as one would do upon finishing a typical sparring match. "You are a martial artist," Ziva observed, looking upon her with more respect.

"Yes, Ma'am. Since I was ten." She then surprised both Ziva and Gibbs by placing her right hand over her left fist and bowing at the waist to them, not righting herself until Ziva did the same.

A/N: So, that's chapter three. What did you all think? Lucky for you my sister's long-term RP has come to an end, so I can't use that as an excuse anymore. I forgot how much I love this fic, actually, so you might see this getting updated a lot more frequently (although, admittedly, that isn't saying much...). Now, quiz time!

Question 7: We've been focusing on Danielle so much that there hasn't been much revealed about the actual case, but what do you think might have happened to Paul Brown (the dead guy)?

Question 8: Out of every scene with Danielle in interrogation, which one did you enjoy the most and why?

Question 9: Where do you suppose McGee was while all of this was happening?