Ok, well I'm going out of town tomorrow and as such, I will have no access to the internet. Seriously, no internet until Monday night. So this might very well be the dumbest thing that a person can do, but I decided to post the next chapter so you guys have something to read.

Just a head's up, I just finished up chapter seven, and I promise that I will continue to work on the story while I'm out.

Well here it is, the first meeting between Gibbs and Tony! Hope it is to your liking. I'm sorry it took so long. Well, here you go!

Four

Tony practically stomped into the Social Services building. It was still incredibly early, only a little after five a.m. Still there were a few social workers lurking around. His initial plan was to go to the first person he saw. But the first person he saw turned out to be an incredibly gorgeous woman.

With light brown hair and blue eyes.

She smiled at him flirtatiously. Tony took a second to get over the shock—she looked very familiar to him—and went to sit with the creepy looking guy with the euro-trash ponytail. The man jumped as Tony sat on the edge of his desk.

"Wha-wha-wha…" he stuttered out.

Tony took his sweet old time pulling out his badge and showing it to him. "Detective Anthony DiNozzo, Baltimore Homicide."

That stopped the man's stuttering, now he just looked worried. "Is one of my kids dead? Did something happen? Why didn't anybody call me?" That last sentence was said with anger.

Tony ignored it all. "How much do you know about your coworkers?"

The man's brow furrowed in confusion. "I don't understand."

Tony rolled his eyes. "As far as I know, your kids are safe. That's not why I'm here. So…" He trailed off, hoping that Euro-trash would get the hint.

Still, he stuttered out his answer. "I know them pretty well. Some I know better than others."

"Do you know a woman named Gloria Smith?"

"Gloria?"

Tony was ready to smack him. "Yeah, Gloria Smith, like I just said. Heavy set black woman, kind of on the smug side."

"Of course I know Gloria."

"How well?"

"Well enough to be at her funeral last month."

Tony almost groaned. Things could never be easy, could they? No, of course not. "You know how she died?"

Euro-trash nodded. "Car accident. Her car was run off the road by a semi." Of course it was. "She was killed instantly."

Tony nodded. "I'm going to need to talk to your boss. Need to confirm what you just told me. He in?"

"Not yet. It's five in the morning detective," he said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He was lucky Tony was a patient man, otherwise he would have gotten slugged already.

The detective pulled out a card and handed it over. "When he gets in, make sure he calls me. If you think of anything, you call me. Ok?" Euro-trash nodded. Tony gave him more of a head bob before he hopped off the man's desk and started heading for the exit.

He just made it through the doorway when someone called out to him.

Turning around, he saw the pretty brunette. She was small, only five-four. Tony's chest started aching. "Can I help you?"

She nodded. "I'm Celia. I was friends with Gloria." Damn.

He stepped closer to her. "What can you tell me about her?"

"She was a good woman. A good social worker. She loved every kid she saw. She was a bit of a hard ass when she needed to be, but," Celia stopped as she blinked back the tears. "But she was still a good person."

"What was she like on the job?"

Celia chuckled. "Overworked, just like the rest of us. But it never seemed to faze her. We're only supposed to have twenty cases at a time, but we usually have forty. Most of us have a hard time handling it." She shook her head, wiping her eyes. "But not Gloria. She never gave up on those kids. Ever."

Tony wiped a hand over his face. That didn't sound like the woman he met tonight. Working with so many kids, all from different backgrounds, Gloria Smith should have known how to handle a boy like Jamie Taylor. The woman Tony met was cocky and arrogant, but tried to baby the boy. "Do you have a picture of her?"

Celia nodded. She led him back to her desk and picked up a framed photograph. "This was taken at last year's Christmas Party." She wrapped her arms around herself after Tony took it from her.

It was a picture of two women. There was a huge difference between the two. Celia barely came up to Gloria's shoulder. She was pale, and petite in every possible way. She was also young, no older than thirty. Whereas Gloria was tall, almost six feet, at least, and very heavy. At least two hundred pounds. Her skin was deep brown. At one point she most likely had beautiful skin, but age and stress had dried it out, giving her a leathery look. Her eyes were as deep as her skin, but they glistened with the soul of a woman half her age.

That wasn't the woman Tony met tonight.

"Do you know if Gloria had any siblings?"

Celia shook her head. "Two brothers. Why?"

Tony gave her a reassuring smile. "Just wondering." He put the photo back down. "Thank you for your time, ma'am."

Celia nodded. She was no longer flirting, something that Tony was grateful for. She was striking, and sweet, but Tony wanted nothing more than to get out of her company and fast.

He all but ran out of the building and headed towards his car.

Sitting behind the wheel, he rested his head against the window with his eyes closed. Images of what happened back in February flashed in front of him. Every minute detail, he couldn't get away from it.

"Damn it!" He swore as he slammed his head against the glass. It didn't do a damn thing to help his mood. All it did was give him a headache.

He pulled out his cell phone and hit speed dial one. It rang three times before anyone picked up. "Morgan."

"Den, it's Tony."

"Hey, I was just about to call you, Gloria Smith—"

Tony cut him off. "Died in a car crash last month, yeah I know. Somebody stole her identity." He relayed his conversation with Celia. "That woman who showed up last night wasn't Gloria Smith. They didn't even look alike."

"I'll go meet with a sketch artist, get a BOLO out on her."

"You're the man, Den."

"Tell me something I don't know."

Tony hung up. His stomach growled. With everything that's happened, he wasn't able to get anything to eat yet. He checked his watch. It was five thirty. He still had a few more hours before the NCIS agent made it to the precinct. He could stop by for a little breakfast first.

He started his car and headed towards McDonald's.

.

Jethro walked into the squad room, holding a new cup of coffee in his hands. He finished off the ones he bought that morning, so he had to stop and get one on his way. The place was busy and moving by the time he made it over to the right set of desks. Detective Morgan was sitting there, staring blankly at his screen.

Jethro smiled as he plopped down on the edge of his desk. He was kind of hoping the young cop would jump out of his skin. He didn't. He just turned his head, his eyes still blank, to the agent. Morgan blinked a couple of times trying to get his bearings.

His eyesight finally cleared. Now he looked up at Jethro with a look of shock and horror on his face. "Oh you have got to be kidding me."

Jethro's smile brightened. "Detective Morgan."

He and Morgan didn't get along. Actually they pretty much hated each other. When Jethro first met DiNozzo he didn't really like him, but he respected him. Morgan was the complete opposite. There was nothing respectable about him. He was childish, he whined. Within five minutes of meeting, Morgan pulled out his weapon and threatened Jethro to get out of his crime scene. Jethro was grateful he didn't have to spend a lot of time around him.

Although he kind of felt bad about sticking him with Stan. But that only lasted a few minutes.

"You're the agent on the Taylor case?"

Jethro nodded. "Uh huh."

Morgan smiled. "Shoot me."

"Where's your partner?"

"Up in the crib."

That annoyed the agent. "A kid was kidnapped on your watch, and he's sleeping?"

"He barely slept in over a week, give him a break. You wanna annoy him, go wake him up." He turned back to his desk. Jethro rolled his eyes. Some things never changed.

He stood up and headed upstairs. He had a vague idea about where the 'crib' was, although he had no idea why it was called that, or why they even needed one. When his agents had to stay late, they just slept at their desks. Why couldn't Baltimore P.D.?

He opened a door and saw two long rows of bunk beds, covered in a blanket of darkness. From what he could see, the beds were empty, except one. He could definitely hear snoring coming from that bed.

He took a drink of his coffee and headed over to the proper bunk. Sure enough, it was DiNozzo. He was lying on his chest, his arms dangling off the side of the bed, at an angle. His head wasn't even touching pillow.

Jethro shook his head as he sat down across from the young man. And he was young. Only twenty nine years old. He was a baby. But he had already been through hell.

Jethro kicked the bed.

"DiNozzo!" He yelled.

DiNozzo yelped as he jumped to his feet, and hit his head on the bed above him. He yelped again, only this time in pain. Jethro just watched on in amusement. That was fun. Even though he respected the young cop, he had absolutely no problem knocking him around whenever he could.

The young man's eyes finally cleared. "Gibbs?"

"Good, you remember me." Not that there was any doubt about that. Until the day he died, Jethro would never forget Tony DiNozzo. They had too much history together.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to see you."

It took another minute for DiNozzo's mind to start working again before he could put the pieces together. "You're the lead agent on the Taylor case?"

"Yup."

DiNozzo chuckled bitterly. "Great, just great." He finally plopped back down on the bed. Seconds later, his head hit the pillow. His eyes were shut, but he looked completely awake.

"You got a problem with that?"

"You mean other than I now have to listen to your every whim?" He opened his eyes and looked over at Jethro. "Captain's orders. He's mad at me."

"Because you let a murderer walk out of here?"

"I didn't let Jamie do anything. A social worker showed up saying she was here to take the boy, I went to argue about it with my Captain, he told me to hand the kid over and let Missing Persons' take the case. I tried to keep him here."

Jethro's brow furrowed. "Director Morrow told me that you screwed up."

DiNozzo rolled his eyes. "I did. But I wasn't the only one. Although if you hear Carnec tell it, he wasn't involved at all, I just let the kidnapper in with a gun to the boy's head and just let him leave."

Jethro took a moment to feel guilty. He had fully believed that Tony was completely at fault for this mess. He should have known better. DiNozzo was young, but he was a damn fine investigator. That was precisely why Jethro had offered him a job two months ago. He wanted the young man on his team. He needed somebody as capable as DiNozzo.

"So what do you know so far?"

DiNozzo sighed heavily and placed his hands under his head. "Jamie Taylor, age sixteen, was found last night—this morning, whatever—outside my apartment. I brought him in, ran his fingerprints, a fake social worker showed up and took him away."

"A fake social worker?"

DiNozzo nodded. "The real Gloria Smith was killed in a car accident a month ago. The two women look similar, but they're definitely not the same. We got a BOLO already out on the fake. So," he slapped his hands together and rubbed them. "Now what, boss?"

Jethro smirked. "What, now I gotta think of everything?"

"According to my captain, you do."

Jethro rolled his eyes. Nothing changed. It had been two months since he last saw the younger man, but nothing had changed between them. He was still the same DiNozzo. Jethro was very grateful for that. There were times when he was haunted by what went down back in February. He felt like a failure, because he couldn't save DiNozzo when it mattered.

He always feared how the young man was handling things. He had said that he was ok, but Jethro never really believed him. How is someone really 'ok' after something like that? But here the young man was, acting the way he always did.

"Most likely, Jamie killed his mother and attacked his father."

DiNozzo nodded. "I did read that part of the report."

"So who would want to kidnap him?"

"And why?"

They were silent as they each tried to figure out the answer to that question. One of Jethro's biggest fears was that one of Sergeant Taylor's Marine buddies kidnapped the kid out of revenge. If that was the case, he probably didn't have that long to live.

"Feel like taking a road trip?" Jethro stood up and headed towards the door.

Seconds later, he heard DiNozzo jump out of the bed to follow him. "We going back to Washington, Gibbs?"

"Quantico. See if we find any Marines with a grudge."

He heard the young man's smile in his voice. "Ok, seriously. What are the odds that you would be the one to head up this case?"

Jethro just shook his head.

Well, I hope that it was enjoyable. Talk to me!

Bob