Well ladies and gentleman, I am officially back from my internet hiatus. My family is doing well, I went to yet another birthday (these people have to stop procreating, but sadly I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon). And even better news! My aunt got a new kitten. I'm talking this little boy is only like a month old. And he is so cute! I mean he's all fluffy, and active, but he loves to be held, and he nibbles on your finger. I wanted to kidnap him, but my aunt wouldnt' let me. Not that my cats would have appreciated it. My fat cat still hasn't forgiven me for bringing my attention whore home.

Well, moving on, Chapter five! I hope you all like it, and here we go!

Five

Gibbs drove the way to Quantico. Tony held on for dear life the entire way. He didn't remember Gibbs driving like this. Or maybe he just blocked out the memory. That was very likely.

"Oh dear God!" He clamped his eyes tight as Gibbs swerved around a semi truck. "I'm gonna die."

"You'll be fine."

He felt the car jerk again, but he refused to open his eyes. He did not want to see the end coming. At all.

The way his stomach moved around wasn't healthy. Any minute now he was going to empty the contents of his stomach all over the car. "I think you and I have very different definitions of the word 'fine,' Gibbs."

Even though he couldn't see it, he just knew that Gibbs was smirking at him.

After what felt like too long, they finally slowed down. Tony opened his eyes. They were outside the gates of the Quantico Marine Base. Tony smiled. "Cool." He had never been on a Marine Base before. Definitely cool.

They went through the gates and Gibbs drove down to the Taylor home. It looked just like any other house on the block. New, couldn't have been built more than a decade ago, or it was completely revamped recently. America's tax money at work, Tony thought to himself.

Gibbs climbed out of the car first, followed closely by the younger man. He shoved his sunglasses up his face as they headed towards the door. It was unlocked, and a piece of crime scene tapped was strung across the front. The two men ducked under it and headed into the living room.

The place had been cleaned, Tony couldn't tell that it had been a crime scene, but the crime happened months ago, even before Tony met Gibbs in the first place, so that was to be expected. Tony was actually surprised that the crime scene tape was still across the door. He looked to Gibbs in question.

"Case still isn't solved, DiNozzo."

Tony rolled his eyes, a smirk forming on his face. "I seem to recall you started calling me Tony back in February."

Gibbs wasn't looking at him as he answered. "That was before you let a sixteen year old murderer get kidnapped right in front of you."

The grin disappeared. That was a low blow. "You know, if I wasn't so sure that you could kill me with your bare hands, I would kick your ass." The words were teasing, but his tone wasn't.

Gibbs still wasn't looking at him. Tony sighed heavily. "Wanna tell me what we're doing here?"

"Catching you up on the case before we start the interviews."

"I read the report, Gibbs."

The older man finally turned to him. "There's a big difference between reading something on paper and seeing it firsthand." He was glaring. Tony was used to that. For the two days that they worked the case together before, Gibbs pretty much did nothing but glare. Every time he asked Tony a question, it was asked with a glare.

Needless to say, Tony was pretty immune to it. "Duly noted, sir."

Gibbs glared harder and his voice turned into a hoarse whisper. "Don't call me sir." He turned away and moved further into the house. "Sergeant Taylor was found here in a pool of blood."

"Stabbed? Shot?" Tony joined him and looked down at the invisible body, trying to envision what the scene must have looked like.

"Bludgeoned."

Tony spared a quick glance over at the older man. He said that one word in a way that was full of emotion Tony was sure Gibbs didn't feel. Fear, depression, pain. It was hard for him to stomach.

But they still had a job to do, and Tony wasn't going to get distracted by bad memories and nightmares. "With what?"

Gibbs snapped out of his reverie. He turned away and approached the end table. "The picture frame that used to sit here." He pointed to a spot that was now empty. The frame would have been bagged and tagged months ago. "We believe that Jamie picked it up and smashed it over his father's head."

"Got a theory for why?" Tony placed his hands on his hips and leaned on his back leg.

"Jamie was a trouble maker and a pain in the ass. His dad was gonna send him off—"

"Wait don't tell me," Tony interrupted, a wide fake smile plastered on his face. Inside he felt a pang of anger. "He wanted to send him to military school." He always hated the idea that parents could send their kids away like that. In his opinion, it was cowardly. The parent couldn't 'handle' a freaking teenager, so they let somebody else do it.

Although it was a little ironic, considering Taylor was military.

Gibbs smiled a little, Tony hoped it was because of the irony. "Sounds like you're speaking from personal experience."

Tony just shrugged. He didn't say anything. Even though inside he was still seething.

His father sent him away to military school when he was twelve. His reason was that he could no longer deal with Tony's anger. When he was told the news, he told his father to fuck off and ran away. He spent the time at Denny's place. Mary, Denny's mother, held on to him and promised that she wouldn't let him go without a fight. And she didn't. It took his dad three days to finally get him home.

"How did your mother die?"

Tony whirled around, his heart stopped beating and he stopped breathing. His jaw just dropped to the ground at Gibbs' question. At first, he wanted to ask how he possibly knew about that. Then he remembered. So instead, he picked up his jaw and gave the older man his best glare. "I don't really see how that's at all relevant to the case at hand, Agent Gibbs." He turned back to the screen. "So Sergeant Taylor was gonna send his kid off to military school, Jamie got pissed and…" he trailed off, waiting for Gibbs to finish.

"And he tried to run away. When Sergeant Taylor pulled him back, Jamie picked up the picture frame and slammed it in the back of his head."

"Are you sure he wanted to cause serious damage? I mean when I was a kid I did some pretty stupid things without thinking."

"That doesn't surprise me," Gibbs said under his breath.

Tony smiled again. "What? You never did anything stupid when you were a kid?"

Unsurprisingly, Gibbs ignored him. "After that, the mom started screaming, and Jamie tried to shut her up."

"How?"

"Strangled her with a neck tie."

Tony scratched his jaw. He tried to think back on what he read on the report. "Was that found on the scene?"

Gibbs shook his head. "No, Jamie took it with him."

"I don't get it."

Gibbs turned to him with a glare. "The kid was disturbed and he took his anger out on his parents. What's not to get?"

Tony rolled his head around. "His attack on his dad was a crime of passion."

"So was the attack on his mother."

"But where'd he get the neck tie? His dad wasn't wearing one, and I highly doubt that Jamie would think of bringing a tie with him if he was running away. If he beat his dad's head in, why didn't he just do the same with his mother? Why go looking for a tie to strangle her with? Why take that with him, but leave the picture frame?"

Gibbs stepped into his personal space, his glare even harder. Tony almost forgot that he did that. It was still annoying. "You really think this kid is innocent? Why? Because you worked this case for a couple hours?" Tony turned his head and huffed. It wouldn't serve anything to pound Gibbs' head in. "You're a good cop, DiNozzo. But you're still a kid. You've got a long ways to go still." He backed away and headed for the door.

Tony followed. "Hey, how's your team?" He said it as humorously as he could muster. He wasn't going to let Gibbs think that he could get to him. Not anymore. "Am I gonna be working with them too, or did you manage to scare them off."

Gibbs glared again. "Burley's on vacation."

"And Langer?"

"Transferred to the FBI."

Tony actually laughed. It wasn't fake. "So, not only did you scare him away from your team, you scared him completely out of NCIS! That's priceless!" He laughed even harder, especially after he saw the death glare that Gibbs sent his way. "Do you even know how to smile?"

Gibbs ignored him. "We still got questioning to do, DiNozzo."

The younger man mock saluted. "On it, boss."

.

Dennis continued to stare at his computer screen without really seeing what was on it. He had too many thoughts on his sleep deprived mind. He knew he needed to focus, a kid was missing, he could be dead, or dying. But he just couldn't get the words to unblur, no matter how hard he tried.

His phone rang, snapping him out of his daze. He was hoping it was Tony. He went off with Gibbs about a half an hour ago. But it wasn't. It was his sister, Lea. He groaned. What could she possibly want?

"Morgan," he said into the receiver.

"Dana's pregnant."

Dennis blinked. And then he blinked again. "What?"

"Dana is pregnant."

Dana was his half sister. Dennis' father, Charlie left his mother when she was pregnant with Lea. His reason was because he impregnated his mistress and decided he wanted to be with her instead of a paranoid schizophrenic.

And now, Dana was pregnant.

"Is it Viktor's?" Viktor was Dana's husband. Viktor Zeklos, Dennis personally thought the guy was a scumbag, but Dana never really listened to him. Even though she was never faithful to the man, he was rich, so she was happy."

"I would hope so. But if it's not, I'm just gonna laugh."

Dennis chuckled. "Listen, Lea, I'm working a case right now—"

"Missing teenager, age 16, goes by the name Jamie Taylor?"

Dennis was quiet for a second. "How did you know about that?"

"I'm looking at the BOLO right now. Now I'm a little confused, I thought you had the weekend off."

Dennis rubbed his face. "I did, but then Tony called."

He heard her visibly groan. "You're a dumbass."

At that point, Dennis stood up and headed out of the room. He didn't need every one in his unit to hear his conversation with his sister. "How am I a dumbass?"

"Dennis, if you don't want to tell Tony the truth, that's your prerogative, but if you really want this thing with Stan to work, then you gotta stop following Tony around like a puppy dog!"

"I do not—"

"Yeah, you do. And I'm tired of watching it." She paused for a second. "Dennis, Tony's a good guy, I know that. But you can't be at his beck and call your whole life."

"He's my partner."

"Then get a new one."

He didn't want to hear anymore. He hung up before he could hear her say anything else. He knew that his relationship with Stan was over, he didn't need to hear her take on it.

He headed back into the squadroom. On his way back to his desk, he ran into his captain. Dennis groaned inwardly. Carnec was the last man he wanted to talk to right now.

"Where's your partner?" Carnec growled out.

Dennis tried to remain calm. "He went off with Agent Gibbs. They went to the Quantico Marine Base to follow a lead."

"Why didn't you go with them?"

Dennis shrugged. "I wasn't invited."

"So you thought you could just slack off since your partner wasn't around?"

Dennis bit back the insult he was about to sling. "That was Officer Morgan on the phone, sir."

Carnec nodded. "Yes, and what did your sister have to say to you?"

Dennis ground his teeth together. "That my half sister, Dana is pregnant." Carnec didn't need to know about the other half of their conversation.

Carnec turned away, still scowling. "It DiNozzo's?"

He was in his office with the door closed before Dennis could say something in response. Anger boiled through the man's veins. Now he was mad. Scratch that, he was freaking furious. Normally, Dennis liked his captain, but recently he had been acting like a complete prick.

Actually, it started around the time that they worked their case with NCIS back in February. Afterwards, Carnec had been giving Dennis and Tony a hard time. Dennis didn't understand it, they solved the case, and Baltimore Homicide got sole credit for the bust—something that royally pissed off Tony. Dennis couldn't figure out why Carnec had such a boot up his ass about it.

He'd think about it later. Right now, he was exhausted and he wasn't getting any actual work done. He headed upstairs for the Crib. Half an hour, that was all he needed. A half an hour of sleep and then he'd come back down and try and find this missing kid.

That was the first time Tony ever said "On it Boss!" To Gibbs. Who's excited? I was, but I'm pathetic like that. Well, next chapter, the boys get a big break in the case that gives them even more questions to answer, and Gibbs does something really mean to Tony. I'd ask you to guess, but I don't think you'll get it, it's a little on the random side.

Talk to me!

Bob