AUTHOR'S NOTE: I cannot believe I forgot to mention this at the beginning, but this story was beta'd by the incredibly talented LdyAnne. I can never thank her enough for all her help.

Chapter Two

"A metal pipe?" The look on Tim's face matched the tone of his voice – a rather impressive blend of shock, horror, and disbelief. "He tried to kill you?"

"Did a little more than try, McGee," Gibbs said tightly. He pushed himself to his feet and walked toward Tony, not stopping until he was standing right in front of him, only inches away. "Came damn close to doing it."

"Why?"

Tony forced himself to both meet Gibbs' eye and stand straight under the older man's scrutiny. They stood that way for several seconds, with Tim looking back and forth between them, until Tony finally glanced at him over Gibbs' shoulder.

"I told you, they get a little pissed when they find out you're a cop."

Gibbs was still watching him with narrowed eyes, and Tony had to put real effort into turning back to face him. He could feel himself withering under the hardened gaze, shrinking back from the anger in Gibbs' eyes.

"When were you going to tell me?" Gibbs demanded. He leaned forward and somehow managed, despite his shorter stature, to tower over Tony, who took an instinctive step back.

"Tell you what?"

"That the suspect you're pushing me to investigate wants you dead."

"Wanted," Tony said. He straightened his back and pushed his shoulders back in an effort to reassert his confidence. "Ten years ago. And I just did."

"You should have told me sooner."

Tony glanced at Tim, looking for backup. A sharp nod told him he had it. "I didn't know sooner. I don't spend my whole weekend watching ZNN like McAnchorman over there."

"Hey!"

"I had no idea that Stefano worked for Azari until ten minutes ago."

"How'd you find out?"

"McGee told me."

Gibbs shook his head. "We're turning this back over to the FBI." He stepped around Tony and headed toward the stairs to Vance's office.

Tony caught the look of worry and surprise on Tim's face, so he winked and smiled at him quickly in an attempt to put him back at ease. Then he turned around to continue his discussion, such as it was, with Gibbs.

"Why?" he asked of his boss' retreating back. "Why turn it over?"

Gibbs spun without slowing his steps and walked back to Tony, who – through an act of pure will – didn't back down again.

"What part of 'wants you dead' are you not getting here?"

"The part where it happened more than ten years ago, and he was a pissed off seventeen-year-old kid. Besides …" Tony grinned, something that only he would dare to do when Gibbs was that angry. "If we start handing over investigations every time a suspect wants to kill one of us, we're going to end up with a really small caseload."

"He's got a point, Boss." Tim's voice came from behind him, not far from his shoulder. "That does seem to happen to us a lot."

Gibbs' eyes moved from Tony to Tim and back again. He didn't look as irate as he had only moments before, but it was clear that he wasn't ready to back down completely yet. "Assault on a federal officer is FBI jurisdiction."

"I wasn't a federal officer," Tony said with a shake of his head. "I was just a cop." Gibbs started to bristle at the 'just a cop' part, so he pushed forward. "If I'm right, Boss, then he tortured and murdered two United States Marines, and that is our jurisdiction. Rob Brewer and Michael Strauss are our responsibility. Do you really trust the FBI to get them the justice they deserve?"

He could see Gibbs' mind turning, but he wasn't worried. He knew he had him. "You know that he knows who I am, right?"

Tony nodded his head slowly.

"And if he's been digging around, trying to figure me out …"

"He has been," Tony said with a nod. "Guarantee it."

"Then he already knows about you, Tony," Tim said.

"Yep." Tony cocked his head slightly and looked Gibbs straight in the eye. "Feel a lot better having you two watching my six than a dozen of Fornell's clowns."

Gibbs took another step forward, invading Tony's personal space even more than before, trying one last time to make him back down. Tony lifted his chin and stood his ground.

"He contacts you, you tell me."

Tony nodded wordlessly.

"You hear anything, think anything, imagine anything, you have a freakin' bad dream about him, you tell me. Got it?"

"Got it, Boss."

Gibbs stepped back a bit, but raised his finger and pointed directly at Tony. "And you're hands-off. You stay out of this investigation."

Tony held his hands up in a clear sign of surrender, but he couldn't help the smile that tugged at the corners of his lips.

Gibbs swung his arm around and pointed at Tony's desk. "Sit." Tony did as he was told; Gibbs followed him to his chair. He gathered Tony's notes into a pile and scooped them up, then picked up Tony's cell phone and dropped it into his hands. "Play that."

Tim had moved toward Tony's desk with them, but as soon as Gibbs straightened up, he hurried back to his own. Gibbs stalked toward him and dropped Tony's notes in front of him. "McGee!"

Tony stifled a giggle when Tim jumped. Gibbs was standing a foot from him; there was no reason for him to yell. But then again, that was just one of those things that made Gibbs … Gibbs.

Gibbs tapped the stack of notes lightly with one finger and lowered his voice. "I'm going down to see Abby. I'll be back in half an hour. I want something by then."

"On it, Boss."

"Don't ask Tony for help."

"I wasn't planning …."

"And don't let him give you any."

Tony straightened in his chair; he hadn't thought of that. There were things that Gibbs and McGee needed to know, questions that he already knew the answers to. If they didn't ask him, they'd be wasting their time. "But, Boss, if I know …"

"Shut up, DiNozzo."

"Shutting up, Boss."

There was a grin on Gibbs' face as he turned away and headed for the elevator. Tony was fairly sure that he wasn't supposed to see it, so he pretended he didn't. Finally letting himself relax for the first time in over three hours, he leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on his desk, and flipped his phone open.

There were worse ways to end a day than getting paid to play Tetris.

Tony heaved a sigh as he walked across the parking lot. He was leaving early; Gibbs and Tim would be working for at least another hour.

It was his own fault, and he knew it. All he'd had to do was sit at his desk and play games on his phone until Gibbs said it was time to go home. All he'd had to do was stay as far away from the investigation as he could, both to keep himself out of danger if DelMar found out about him and to keep from being suspected of influencing the evidence. All he'd had to do was keep his damn mouth shut. For four hours. While Gibbs and Tim asked each other questions that he knew the answers to.

He was amazed Gibbs hadn't thrown him out sooner.

So he was leaving early, and all that was left to do was go home and sleep. When he came back in the morning, he'd be more careful. No matter how much he knew about whatever Gibbs and Tim were looking for, he wouldn't tell them. He had to admit that he had more than a passing interest in the outcome of the investigation, and he wanted to be there when the magic happened. If that meant he had to chew on his own tie to keep from talking, then that was what he'd do.

It wouldn't be the first time.

He switched his holster from his right hand to his left, pulled his keys out of his pocket, and pushed the button that unlocked his doors. When he heard the telltale beep from his car, he smiled to himself.

Yeah, he could do it.

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn't realize he wasn't alone until he heard rapid footsteps behind him and saw the blur of something flying over his head and past his face. He didn't even have time to wonder what it was before it was pulled tight against his neck from behind, cutting off his air. His keys and holster flew from his hands as he raised them to his throat. He tried to grab the rope and pull it away, but it was too tight, and he couldn't slip his fingers behind it.

His keys and gun were useless, clanking and clattering on the ground at his feet. Acting on instinct, he stepped back with his right foot while leaning forward, but because he couldn't get his hands between the rope and his body, that only made the pressure on his neck worse. He changed tack quickly and tried to spin around to grab the hands that held the ends of the rope.

His attacker pulled harder, and Tony stumbled back. For a second, he hoped that he could throw the man off-balance enough to land them both on the ground, but it didn't work. The attacker saw it coming and compensated for the shift in Tony's weight, then stepped forward and pushed his chest against Tony's back. Not only did that keep Tony on his feet, but the closer proximity gave him extra leverage, and he pulled the rope even tighter.

Tony finally tried to call out for help, but the sound that left him was little more than a barely audible squeak. His lips were numb, his arms sluggish and heavy, his neck hurt like hell, and his chest already burning from lack of oxygen. His last hope rested on convincing his attacker that he'd passed out which, despite his past protestations to the contrary, he was dangerously close to doing. He let his arms fall to his sides and rolled his eyes as far back as he could before closing them, forcing his muscles to relax, and falling bonelessly against the man's chest.

"That wasn't so hard," a vaguely familiar voice said from somewhere to his left.

The rope around his neck was loosened, though not removed completely, and Tony gasped as deep a breath as he could manage. He'd just opened his eyes to fight his way free when he saw the shadow of a second man move into his peripheral vision and felt the sting of a needle being inserted into the side of his neck just below his ear.

"Crap," he whispered as his eyes rolled back into his head for real. His original attacker stepped back and allowed him to crash to the ground.

'Gibbs is gonna kill me.'

Then his head slammed into the ground, and everything went dark.

His mind woke up before his body did, and it wasn't a pleasant sensation. He recognized the smell of his own car almost immediately, which would have brought him some comfort if not for the fact that he was laying – rather uncomfortably – facedown on the back seat. His head was pounding, though whether that came from whatever they'd drugged him with or lack of oxygen or bouncing off of the parking lot, he didn't know. The skin on his neck burned, but there was no rope wrapped around it, and for that much he supposed he should be grateful. Neither his hands nor his feet were tied, but as they simply refused to respond to his brain's commands to move, it really didn't matter.

He didn't know how long he lay like that, listening to the sound of the road beneath his ear, his eyes open to only slits, and unable to see the faces of the two men who sat in the front seats of his prized Mustang. It seemed like hours, though it had to have been only minutes, before the car pulled to a stop and the ignition was turned off.

Both doors opened, but only the driver's side door closed again. The passenger's seat was pulled forward and folded down, then two sets of rough hands grabbed his arms and ankles and dragged him into a semi-seated position, half-in and half-out of the car. Those same hands grasped his wrists tightly, yanked him to his feet, and took his weight so he'd stay that way. He was more hanging between them than standing – his arms were draped across their shoulders, and their holds on his wrists were the only reason he was upright.

"Aren't you going to look?" the voice he'd heard in the parking lot asked him. "Don't you want to know where you are?"

Tony raised his head slowly; it was a lot heavier than he remembered it being, and it was harder than it should have been to lift it. He blinked his eyes in confusion. He had to be hallucinating. What he was seeing couldn't possibly be real.

There was no way they were standing in front of Gibbs' house.

Then they were moving, dragging him between them, while he stared at the door that he knew they couldn't be walking toward. He heard snippets of words floating around him, words like 'drunk' and 'home' and 'buddy.' He had no idea who they were talking to. There was no point in lying to each other or to him, so that meant there had to be someone else there, right? He tried to look around so he could see who they were talking to, but he was too slow. By the time he managed to turn his head, they were alone on the front step.

It dawned on him that he hadn't seen either of their faces yet. He wanted to, knew he needed to, but he was so tired. His chin fell back to his chest; the effort required to hold it up was just too much.

The man on his left, who he'd pegged as the goon with the rope, lifted his foot and kicked open the imaginary door to Gibbs' imaginary house. When they crossed the threshold and rope guy kicked the door shut behind them, he couldn't help but notice how realistic his drugged hallucination was. When the two men dragged him through the living room and toward the kitchen, he started to wonder why it was Gibbs' house that his mind conjured up when he was in trouble and not his own.

When they stood at the top of Gibbs' basement stairs, when they let go of Tony's arms and gave him a shove, when he was tumbling and rolling down the steps and crashing to the concrete floor below … he finally realized that Gibbs' house wasn't as imaginary as he'd thought it was.

"I am truly grateful to you, Jethro."

Gibbs shook his head and smiled without taking his eyes from the road. "You already said that, Duck."

"I know, but I feel I must do so again. I know this might seem odd, with all of my various travels around this world, but I have never truly understood the menace of fruit flies. Had I known that they could be also be called 'potato flies,' perhaps I would have been more careful in choosing my produce at the market."

"It's fine," Gibbs said for the fourth time since they'd left the Navy Yard.

"It will never cease to amaze me how such a tiny creature can become such a large problem that a full-scale fumigation is required to eliminate them. It reminds me of the death of a man whose home was infested by lady beetles. Thousands of them had nested in the walls, and when the poor man died …"

Gibbs sighed as he turned the corner to his house. He'd listened to Ducky's stories a thousand times over, and he'd gotten good at letting him ramble on without actually paying attention to what he was saying. But when he pulled onto his street and saw what was sitting in front of his house, he tuned the older man out completely.

"Jethro?" Ducky had obviously noticed Gibbs' sudden distraction.

"What's he doing here?"

The strangeness of the question drew Ducky's attention to whatever Gibbs was staring at through the windshield. Confusion showed clearly on his face when he turned back around.

"Isn't that …?"

"DiNozzo's car." Gibbs pulled in behind the blue Mustang, turned off his headlights and killed the ignition before reaching for the door handle. "I sent him home two hours ago," he muttered tiredly.

"Perhaps he thought of some tidbit of information that might aid in your investigation."

Gibbs rolled his eyes as he pushed the door open. "He can't be part of this investigation, Duck. He knows that. And if he doesn't back off, he's going to piss me off enough to let the FBI handle it after all."

They got out of the car and approached the house, and Gibbs noticed immediately that the lights weren't on. Something in the pit of his stomach started churning, signaling danger. He pulled his Sig from its holster as he walked toward the house and gestured to Ducky with his other hand.

"Stay behind me," he said softly.

"Surely you don't think that Tony would …"

"Something's wrong." He stepped slowly onto the porch, keeping his gun ready in his right hand and pulling his cell phone out with his left. He dialed Tony's number, and he wasn't surprised when it went to voicemail after three rings. He hung up quickly and dialed again, but just as it started to ring, he noticed that his front door was hanging slightly crooked on its hinges. He stepped forward to inspect it more closely.

Then he heard the muted sound of running feet inside his house.

"Stay out here!" He tossed his cell phone to Ducky, turned back around, raised his foot, and kicked the battered down door open easily.

He entered the dark house with his gun aimed and wished he'd thought to grab the flashlight out of his car. The back door slammed shut just as he flipped the light switch, and he moved in that direction. Something on the kitchen floor caught his eye and stopped him in his tracks. Shoe prints – dark red shoe prints – led from his basement to his back door.

"Duck, step inside," he called out.

Ducky was in the house immediately, and he crossed the living room and dining room quickly. "Jethro?" he asked. "Who was that running? Was it Tony?"

Gibbs shook his head slowly, then looked down at the red marks on the floor. Ducky followed his gaze and bent down for a closer inspection.

"This looks like blood."

Gibbs nodded his head in agreement and moved toward the basement door. He couldn't explain how, but he knew that someone was still down there.

"Are you sure that's wise?" Ducky whispered. "Shouldn't we call for …?"

Gibbs shook his head again and put his finger to his lips silently. He motioned for Ducky to stay where he was, raised his gun in front of him, and stepped through the door. He pressed his back against the wall as he descended the first few steps, leading the way with his gun, until he reached the step that gave him a view of the entire basement.

"Ducky!"

He was already running down the stairs when he heard Ducky's rapid footsteps behind him, no doubt driven by Gibbs calling out his name in the closest thing to panic he'd ever heard. He jumped down the last few steps and bolted across the floor.

"Dear God," Ducky breathed behind him.

Gibbs skidded to a halt just short of the blood that had pooled on the floor and stared in horror at the sight before him.

He'd seen it before – less than a week before. A body hanging, suspended from the rafters by thick rope around the wrists. The blood-splattered remains of a white shirt that hung in tattered strips from the waist of blood-stained jeans. What looked to be dozens of shallow cuts and slices on the arms and chest, all of them oozing more precious blood. A battered face, a knotted gag tied tightly enough to cut the sides of the mouth, and closed eyes. A head that hung forward limply, lifelessly, chin resting against a bruised chest. A screwdriver that protruded from the front of the leg.

There were differences, too. They were minor, but his mind processed them just the same. The arms were spread wide, straight out to the side, rather than above the head. The feet that barely brushed the basement floor were bare, but the ankles were tied together rather than hanging free. The deep red mark around the throat was evidence of a forceful strangulation, a level of violence the others hadn't been subjected to.

So few differences, so many things the same, and from the first heartbeat after he'd seen it, he knew who'd done it.

But the biggest difference was the one he couldn't bring himself to verbalize, no matter how hard he tried. His lips opened and closed, but no words came out. He was shaking his head and could feel his whole body start to tremble. He couldn't say it. He couldn't believe it. This was no Marine. This was no Naval officer. This was no anonymous member of the military.

This body, this person, this man, this victim …

"Anthony."