A/N: See the first chapter for the disclaimer. The added one is that Hannah Branford is mine, and the circumstances put forth later in this chapter have not, to the best of my knowledge, actually happened. This chapter reveals a little more, and takes place on the same day as the last one. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter, and please review. :D

Chapter Two

December 25, 1990

Keri cradled the infant in her arms, trying to soothe her back to sleep. He padded down the hall, finding his two favorite ladies in the living room.

"What are you doing up?" Keri whispered, not wanting to startle the baby.

"Couldn't fall back asleep," he admitted, smiling.

"Remind me again. What is so exciting at three in the morning?"

"It's three in the morning on Christmas. Our daughter's first Christmas."

Keri paused as that statement sank into her head. "Yeah, it is," she smiled. "I never would've pegged you for the sentimental one."

He shrugged, smirking. "There's a lot about me you don't know."

She didn't respond, rocking the newborn slowly.

"I swear, she gets more perfect every day," he said, causing Keri to scoff quietly.

"What, are you writing greeting cards?" she teased under her breath.

He frowned. "You don't think so?"

"I do when she's sleeping."

He chuckled. "Yeah, the crying's a little off-putting," he mocked.

She giggled. "No, I agree," she said after a minute. "She's perfect."

"Just like her mother." He kissed Keri softly, taking care not to disturb the infant.

"You give me way too much credit."

"I could never give you enough. I love you."

"I love you too." She leaned back in the chair, and he settled in beside her. "Why don't you go back to bed? She's sleeping, and I'm fine."

"Because I'd rather be here," he replied.

"Okay, you get overly sappy at three in the morning," she ribbed.

He shrugged, making himself comfortable. "Merry Christmas, honey."

"Merry Christmas."

Still January 24, 2010

"So, who's the girl?" he asked.

"Huh?" Tony replied, looking away from the computer screen briefly to find Ziva and McGee watching him from McGee's desk.

"The girl," Ziva said. "At the crime scene."

"Hannah Branford. She's the victim's girlfriend."

Ziva and McGee share a look. "Who is she to you?" McGee asked.

"Never saw her before," Tony replied, despite the nagging feeling in his gut.

"Really? Because she seemed to know you."

"What makes you say that?"

"She asked me where you were from. Said she felt she knew you from somewhere."

Tony shrugged, turning back to his computer. "Maybe I'm just that kind of a person," he dismissed.

Ziva and McGee shared a look before she crept up behind Tony. "Is that why you are searching her name in the databases?" she asked.

"I'm searching her name in databases because she could be a suspect. Or, she could end up being another victim. So, I'm running her name because that's what a good investigator does."

"Tony, we ran her name," McGee said. "We got nothing. No names, no connections other than the obvious girlfriend status. Driver's license is from Rhode Island, adoption in Massachusetts, birth certificate was destroyed in a fire in a courthouse in Massachusetts. Other than that, no wants, no warrants, not even a traffic ticket. She went to school with Patrick Johnson…"

"Alright, enough, McGee," Tony interrupted. "I get the point. She's a good kid from the Northeast."

"You spent time there, yes?" Ziva said.

"High school in Rhode Island, but she's too young to be from that time. Her birth certificate was destroyed?"

"According to the clerk, yes," McGee said. "I called and asked when I couldn't find one for her. He said that any birth certificates before 1996 were destroyed. The adoption agency had the adoption record, but no copy of the birth certificate."

"Birth parents?" Tony asked.

"Closed adoption. We're working on getting into the records, but it's taking some time. The adoption took place in June of 1994, through a small, private agency in Massachusetts. Agency closed by the state a few years ago."

"Why was it closed?"

"Don't know yet. The case was sealed."

"Something's off about this."

"Well, I'm trying to get it unsealed, but I'm not getting very far."

"I'll make a call," Tony said, grabbing the receiver.

Gibbs walked into the room, finding his three agents standing around the monitor. "Boss, Midshipmen Johnson's background is clean," McGee said, turning around. "Just a good kid from Middletown, Rhode Island. We're still working with his parents, but so far, no one seems to have a real reason to want him dead. We're working on it, though."

"We also started looking into the girlfriend," Ziva said.

"Find out how she knows you?" Gibbs asked, looking at Tony.

"No," Tony said softly.

"She was born in Massachusetts, put up for adoption in 1994, and after a year, her parents moved her to Rhode Island," McGee said. "The agency she was adopted from, though, was closed by the state a few years ago. We're working on getting the file unsealed."

"We've got it." Tony pulled it up onto the plasma, scrolling through it. "Huh. Says here they found out that a child who was put up for adoption was actually an infant who was kidnapped from New York, and that was why the agency closed…" His voice trailed off as his mind traveled elsewhere.

"Only one?" Gibbs asked.

"The employee who was involved had been there since January 1993," McGee read. "Of all the cases they looked into, they could confirm 25 cases, but only between 1996 and 2002, due to the county courthouse burning down in 1996. They couldn't prove that any others had occurred between 1993 and 1996 as most of the hospital records were already gone."

"Hannah Branford's adoption was June 30, 1994," Ziva said.

"What's her birthday?" Tony asked absently.

"Uh… license says December 1, 1990," McGee said.

Tony walked out of the bullpen without a word.

"Hey, Abs, can you do me a favor?" Tony asked as he walked into her lab.

"I can try, but you guys brought me a lot to work with," she said.

"The victim's girlfriend, Hannah Branford. Run her fingerprints through AFIS."

She looked at him. "Are you running with a hunch?"

"Yeah. Please run them."

"They're already scanned in for comparison to your unknowns, so…" She typed into her computer. "AFIS is running them."

"Call me if you get a hit."

"You wanna share your hunch?"

"Not particularly," he said quietly as he walked out of the lab, coming face-to-face with Gibbs.

Gibbs stared at him, and Tony simply shook his head. "I'll let you know later," the younger man said, trying to walk past Gibbs.

"DiNozzo," Gibbs said softly.

Tony stopped, but kept his back to Gibbs.

"What are you hiding?"

"I'll tell you later," Tony whispered. "I… I can't right now."

Gibbs said nothing, simply watching as his senior agent walked down the hall.

Tony made his way into Abby's lab about half an hour later, finding her expression a mix between happy, sad, pissed, and confused. "I got a hit on her prints," she said softly, keeping her voice calculated.

Tony sighed quietly as Abby handed him the sheet of paper.

"Is this the hunch you had?" she asked, letting some of her emotions creep into her voice.

"Call it more of a wish," he breathed, trying to keep himself together.

Her expression softened as she noticed his face betraying the turmoil underneath. She reached out, hugging Tony tightly.

Tony made his way back into the bullpen, holding up the paper and nodding in the direction of the elevator. Gibbs nodded, standing and following Tony into the elevator. Once inside and between floors, Tony hit the switch.

"After we got the file unsealed, I had Abby help me run with a hunch," Tony said. "Hannah's birth certificate was supposedly destroyed, earliest record is a closed adoption from a shady agency. She… she kept saying that she knew me, so… so I had Abby run her fingerprints through AFIS."

Gibbs took the sheet that Tony handed him before arching his eyebrows.

"She's my daughter, Boss."