Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's chapter 2! and me, on my birthday, whoohoo! it's kinda funny cuz i'm so happy even tho i'm sick. maybe cuz the sun is shining for the first time in a week, literally. anyway, ive got good news and bad news for you. good news (could also be seen as bad, tho) is that this chapter is HUGE, like bigger than the other two ADDED TOGETHER. so get your mouses ready to hide or minimize if you dont have time to read it all. bad news: cliffhanger. sorry!

disclaimer- i can assure you my name is not bellisario. so it aint mine.

NCIS:

"Tony Ziva, evidence, down to Abby," Gibbs barked as they left the elevator. "McGee, I want everything on these girls by the time they get back here!" He didn't say anything else, just stormed up the stairs toward the Director's office and MTAC.

"Got it… boss," he replied to an empty bullpen. He went behind his desk and cracked his fingers, starting the search.

There wasn't much to find, unfortunately. He had everything within minutes. Janice Theresa Binxson's mother had died giving birth to her, had one sister 10 years older than her—Emily—her father had died in a bar fight last year somewhere in West Virginia, and was on a soccer team based in Arlington. They lived in a small house just outside city limits. Janice had gone to school inside the town and Emily had both her jobs inside of it. They should have been relatively safe… obviously, they weren't.

Finding himself with nothing to do ant Tony and Ziva still with Abby, McGee started another search, this one purely for his own curiosity—a family tree of the Binxsons.

After a minute, his partners headed out of the elevator and toward the bullpen. Ziva glanced at McGee's face, frowning at the computer, and pulled Tony behind the half-wall behind his desk.

Tony nearly made a sound in protest, but she had her hand over his mouth before he could. "Shush," she ordered, removing it.

Unable to resist a jab, he smirked at her. "You could've just asked, Ziiiva," he told her, moving his hand forward suggestively.

She bent it backwards until he drew back, wincing. "I would tell you to get your mind out of the gutter, DiNozzo, if it hadn't set up a permanent place of residence there."

"Nice, you got that one right for once."

"Thank you, it does happen on occasion," she glared at him.

"Right." He peeked over the wall at Tim. "Why are we spying on McGoo? If we wanted to know what was up, we'd go in there and poke him until he spills."

"I don't think he would explain," she replied. "It is something personal… probably with Sarah."

"Sarah?" He hadn't heard from the girl since the Petty case. "How do you know?"

"McGee knew what Emily—the victim's older sister—was going through, too well. I think something happened to Sarah when he was little."

"So? Let's hack into his file, find out, and get on with life."

"I already checked, on the way here, on my phone. There is nothing about his sister, except that she is listed as first next-of-kin."

"Huh. That's weird."

"Why? Don't you think he could hack into his own file and change a few things inside it?"

"No, I know he can do that, I just meant it weird that his next-of-kin is his sister in college. If I died, I'd never trust my sister with my stuff, especially if she was that age."

"I didn't know you had a sister."

"I don't." Ziva looked at him, confused. "Listen. You can stay here and do your super-spy double-07 ninja thing, but I am going over there and poking until he spills. It's a tried and tested probie interrogation technique."

Tony tried to stand, but she pulled him back down to eye level. "Do you not listen?" she demanded. "Wait. Don't answer that. McGee believes it personal and will not reveal it. Better to spy now and find out what he is doing for ourselves then get a garbled version much later, yes?"

Her partner shrugged in agreement. "Good point."

The computer chimed. It was just like he'd thought: Janice Binxson's family could be traced all the way back to her great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather who had come to the New World on the Mayflower in the 1620s. He'd fallen in love with a farm girl from outside of New York and had 2 sons—one of which was William Isaac Binx, the first boy to have his birth certificate approved in Salem Village. William I. Binx married a woman named Theresa and had 2 children—Thackery and Emily.

McGee sighed, rubbing his brow. The ancient records found in the old Salem courthouse had shown that the Binxes had had one other son, Zachariah, just before moving to what was now the beautiful state of Maryland. Sure, he was happy that they had gone on with life after the Sandersons had taken away their only two kids, but… it still hurt a little.

"What kind of name is Thackery?" Tony had to ask out loud. McGee jumped a mile, hiding the search by instinct. "Seriously, I think I would've killed myself if my mom named me that."

McGee's face turned an unusual shade of red in embarrassment. "It, uh, it means 'One who works on thatched roofs'," he explained. "Why were you guys back there?"

"Because Ziva's a curious little eavesdropping schoolgirl," he immediately ratted her out. She glared at him. "Said you were acting weird at the scene. Something about knowing how the sister felt… too well." He eyed him suspiciously.

He swallowed, but managed a weak smile. "Yeah, it, uh, was a long time ago."

"Was it Sarah?" Ziva asked, gently. At least, she hoped it was gently. He nodded slowly in reply. "What happened?"

McGee shook his head. "It's, uh, nothing, like I said, it happened a long time ago and it's been taken care of… Hey boss."

Tony and Ziva both froze. As expected, a hand connected with the back of both their heads.

"What do you two think you're doing?" Gibbs asked.

"Getting to work, boss," Tony replied, making a hasty retreat into the bullpen, Ziva on his heels.

"Everything I've found matches up with Emily's story, boss," McGee reported as Gibbs walked around in front of his desk. "Victim lived outside of town, no mother, Dad died in a bar fight a year ago, it's down to the letter. I checked their bank records, nothing indicating any extra income. They were just… two sisters trying to get along."

"Anything useful?"

"Not really, no," he replied, wincing as he sat down.

"Except that he traced her family," Tony piped up. Gibbs raised an eyebrow at both of them, then turned to McGee, who was glaring at Tony.

"I, uh, wanted to know if there was some sort of family feud going on," he explained semi-truthfully. "If someone held a grudge…"

"Why go back to the Mayflower?" the boss demanded. All three of them had long since gotten used to his omniscience, but still, he was good. "Find anything interesting back then, McGee?"

"Um, not really, see, there's nothing." He pulled the search back onto the plasma.

"What's up with that kid?" Tony asked, pointing to the name Thackery Binx. "I mean, besides the name, look." Instead of a year-of-death, there was a question mark across from the year 1677.

"Uh… that's Thackery Binx, the victim's great-to-the-6th granduncle. He, um…" McGee looked at his lap. "He disappeared at the age of 16 after his little sister Emily, who was 6, was found dead at the Sanderson sisters' cottage in Salem of no apparent cause."

"Isn't Emily now also ten years older than her little sister?" McGee nodded.

"Dead of no apparent cause?" Ziva repeated. "You think that this Janice girl was killed the same way as Emily had been?"

McGee shook his head. "Unless the Sandersons' put a curse to come back to life, no," he replied, still not looking at them. "They, uh, they were tried for witchcraft and hanged on the first of November."

"And this helps us how, McGee?" Gibbs asked, glaring.

"Uh, I just thought, um, maybe it's a genetic thing, you know, uh, not showing any signs of foul play when, uh, they've been poisoned."

"Can that happen?" Tony asked, looking at McGee. The man did have a BS in Bio-Medical Engineering by the time he was 25. Tim shrugged.

"We don't know a lot about DNA, Tony…"

"What is that?" Ziva asked, walking forward. "There." She pointed at a little green line of words underneath Thackery Binx's name.

McGee turned white. "Think it's a link," Tony replied, standing and walking closer. He snapped his fingers at McGee. "Open it, probie."

"Uh…"

"McGee, open it," Gibbs growled. McGee opened the link and shut his eyes.

Silence reined the bullpen, until Tony spoke up (of course). "He looks exactly like you, probie."

Tim sighed again and opened his eyes. On the screen was a picture of an oil painting, of what an anonymous artist imagined had happened to Thackery Binx; he'd been transformed into the black cat who guarded the cottage on Halloween night, to make sure no one would try to wake the witches. Just seeing the pain on his 16-year-old face as he was turned into a cat made him wince.

"Yeah… he does. This is Thackery Binx's Sorry Fate."

"Are you related?" Ziva asked, not moving her eyes from the boy. She could see the McGee in his face.

Tim stopped to think for a second. He could tell them the truth, and get carted off to the funny farm, or he could not tell them and just let them believe a half-truth: he was related to Thackery Binx.

"Yeah, by I distance, I guess." McGee shrugged. "Sorry boss, it's just, his sister's name was Emily too. Emily Binxson… Emily Binx…" Gibbs nodded curtly, still feeling like they were wasting time. "I've got nothing else, though. They're both clean as they come."

"Then we'll have to wait for Ducky and Abby to find something," he growled, angry at the fact that there was nothing they could do.

Hours later, when the sun had started to set over the river, Gibbs sent McGee and Tony down to check on Abby and her results, while he and Ziva went to Ducky, hoping that one of them had found something. Their own, more careful and more extensive search had turned up as fruitless as the trees outside.

Instead of the lone Abby in her loud lab, though, Tony and McGee were greeted by the sight of the Goth and another woman with long blonde hair in a single braid down her back. She was in a bright green robe that reminded both of them of the robes that Winifred Sanderson was wearing in the painting.

"Hey guys!" Abby said cheerfully, once noticing them. "Meet Esmeralda. She's a friend of mine from the local magic guild. Elda, these are my friends, Tony and McGee."

"Magic guild?" Tony repeated after returning the woman's careful wave. "What is she, a witch?"

"Wiccan," the other three people in the room replied. Tony did a double take, then looked at McGee with raised eyebrows. He shrugged. "Abby introduced me to Elda a little while ago."

"A little while ago?" he asked. "As in last year, or as in when you were still sleeping in the coffin?" McGee's blush gave him his answer. "Ok… what's the difference?"

"A witch is a servant of the devil," Esmeralda replied calmly. "A wiccan is like an anti-witch. A healer."

"Like a doctor," McGee added.

"When those clothes were in style." Abby snickered. "What happened, Tony, lose another bet?" She covered her mouth. "Oh, sorry!"

Tony was glaring at her while McGee looked like Christmas had come 2 months early. "Another one?" he asked, smiling.

"She's lying," he insisted. Abby winked at Tim while he wasn't looking, making him smile even wider. "So, Esmeralda, what are you doing here? Abby usually doesn't do well with a partner."

"I sensed that she would handle something evil either today or very soon," she replied. "I have come to help her purify the lab, the building, and everyone inside it." Alda looked at McGee, raising her near-invisible eyebrows. "You have an odd aura around you today, Timothy."

"Timothy?" Tony repated.

"I-I do?" he asked, blinking.

"Yes. That of a boy twice curst." He swallowed for the third time that day. "Once by a witch and once by guilt."

"Witches again." Tony narrowed his eyes at Abby. "Are you staging this?"

"Staging what?" she asked, surprised.

"All this witch stuff. First it turns out that McGeek's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather got kidnapped by a bunch of witches 300 years ago, then your wiccan-not-witch friend here pays a visit, and now a witch's cursed him. Gibbs doesn't believe in coincidences, Abs."

"There's only 6 greats," McGee grumbled, knowing what was coming. "And he can't be my father, he disappeared when he was 16, remember?"

The women stopped paying attention. "You're related to a victim of witchcraft?" Abby asked, her eyes wide. She slapped McGee's arm. "Why didn't you tell me! That's so cool!"

"Who?" Alda asked. "What witches?"

"Thackery Binx," Tony replied, smirking at the other man. "Disappeared the same day his little sister Emily was killed by the devious Sanderson sisters!" He waved his arms dramatically, then started laughing. "Whaddya got for us Abs, really?"

"Like in Salem?" Abby's attention was still drawn towards Tim. "I read about them! Winifred's dying words were…."

"Fools, all of you, my ungodly book speaks to you, on All Hallow's Eve, when the moon is round, a virgin will summon us from under the ground, yadda yadda yadda, yeah, I know Abs, I've heard it before. I spent Halloween in Salem when I was 16, remember?" McGee broke her off.

"Perhaps the curse continues down your blood line," Alda thought, sweeping her arm to tap her chin. "Have you ever had a dream about being a cat?"

"No, I haven't." Nightmares aren't dreams. "And I promise, I haven't had a witch put a curse on me. Thackery Binx might have, I don't know, but not Tim McGee, ok?"

Alda shrugged. "Sometimes a guilt curse is even more terrible than witch's one. Remember that, Timothy." she said, like it was the most important information in the world.

"Er…" McGee glanced at Tony, who shook his head. "Right. I will. What did you get us on the case, Abs?"

"Not a lot," she replied sympathetically, "the only thing off the girl's clothes—grass stains, which matched the grass in the cemetery, and this little bugger." She clicked on the computer and pulled up a microscope image of a curly red hair. "Undyed and curly as they come. There was a little DNA on it, but no hits in CODIS, AFIS, or any other database I tried. I'm doing federal agency employee lists, not that I think I'll find anything, but because we've gotta be thorough. Otherwise…"

"Gibbs'll kill us." The men nodded.

"Exactly. Now, Ducky found some fluid in her stomach, which is really the big thing here. And don't ask me what it was, because…"

"What?" Tony replied.

Abby glared at him, then smacked him on the arm. "I said not to! Major Mass had a field day with it, decided it was everything from pus to keratin to the tissue in your muscle to calcium to all sorts of nasty little bacteria and stuff, and everything in between. Put together they make the hugest anti-immune system drug on the face of the Earth, as strong as Temozolomide*."

McGee whistled in appreciation, then explained to the extra-confused Tony. "It's a brain cancer drug. Shuts down the immune system better than anything else the human race has found yet."

"I knew that."

"That combined with all those bacteria I was talking about, this girl was weaker than anyone in history. It wouldn't show anything on the body because none of it is poison alone. And we were lucky, Ducky told us there was only like a drop left, barely enough for Mass Spec to analyze."

"And that would be cause of death," Ducky's voice said over the videocom. "Because other than that, this healthy young girl simply dropped dead of no accord."

"Hey Duckman!" Abby said, smiling at his face. "What's up?"

"Well, nothing now, I was hoping to ask you if you had determined what the stuff was."

"No… but now I get to name it!" she squeaked. "If the killer already hasn't, that is. I hope he hasn't, because then the paper I used for names would be useless and I just wasted an entire forest." She pointed to her office, which was piled high with sticky notes. "You wanna hear some of them?"

"Abs, how long would it take for her to die like this?" Gibbs demanded, his head appearing over Ducky's.

"Hey Gibbs! … Not long, but it didn't hurt, I can tell you that."

McGee looked around, taking all the evidence and trying to fit it together like a puzzle. Calcium, keratin, pus… muscle… a red hair… A horrible idea making itself known, McGee turned to the calendar on Abby's wall. It was October 30th, so tomorrow was… "What color was it?" he asked quietly, crossing his fingers behind his back.

"Hm?" Abby asked, spinning around. "What was that?"

"What color was the poison?" he asked again. Please don't say green, please don't say green…

"Green," Ducky replied. "Why? Do you know what it is?"

"Got a hunch," he answered. McGee grabbed Abby's shoulders and looked her in the eye. "Abby."

"Yeah, Timmy?" McGee ignored Tony's snickers in the background.

"Could whatever that stuff is be made of oil of boil, a dead man's finger, hair, and the tips of three tongues?"

Everyone, even Palmer down in autopsy, stared at him. "That sounds like a witch's potion," Alda said quietly.

Tony carefully, laid a hand on his partner's shoulder. "McGee," he said seriously. "Do you want me to call a doctor or something? You know, those nice men in white coats?" McGee rolled his eyes and removed the hand.

"Abs?"

Abby ran the compounds through her head and blinked, shocked. "Y-yes. The pus from the boil, the-the calcium from the bone, the muscle from the tongues, and the keratin from the hair and the nail." McGee swore darkly, letting her go and running his fingers through his hair. "How did you know?"

McGee licked his suddenly dry lips and found the jar with the hair inside it. He held it in front of Abby. "Can you match this one to the hair in the potion?" he asked seriously.

"I should be, if there's the right type of keratin is in there," she replied, worried. "Why…? You know who did this. You think this is the killer's hair, don't you!"

"I'm really hoping I'm wrong," he told her. "Please Abs, I need proof before I start to sound really crazy."

"You already are, kid, trust me," Tony assured him.

"You feeling alright, Tim?" Gibbs asked, worried.

"If Abby matches this, no I am not." Abby took the hair and put it into Major Mass Spec.

She started to tell them about how every person's hair has a specific amount of keratin in it, but no one was paying attention. They were all staring at McGee, who was pacing nervously, looking at the setting sun.

The computer dinged. "How did you know they would match, McGee?" Abby asked, turning slowly.

All he heard was the word 'match'. A string of curses that would've made his mother run for the soap came—at least quietly—out of his mouth.

Instead of answering, though, he pulled out his phone and hit speed dial 10. "C'mon, c'mon, pick up," he grumbled, pacing again.

"Max Dennison's phone, Dani speaking!" a young girl's voice sang from the speaker. McGee jumped, swearing a little louder this time. "Hey, I know that voice! Binx!"

McGee put it back to normal and started talking into the mouthpiece. "Dani, give the phone to your brother. Yeah, I'm happy to hear your voice too, but I've got an emergency over here, put Max on now!" McGee started pacing again, then stopped just as quickly. "Max! It's Tim… yeah, but the name is Tim now, remember? Listen, Max, has there been any sort of weird reports in the museum?"

He put it on speaker, for the others to hear, crossing his fingers again. "Uh… yeah, there was one. Couple kids said that they saw the book's eye open. We thought it was just a prank, but I checked it out and it's as dead as it was 17 years ago. Why?" McGee's swears answered his question. "Th-I mean, Tim? Please don't say they're back. Please say they're still dead."

"Them, no, they're still gone," he replied. "Her, yes. She's back, and she's going after people related to me."

"There's people related to you? Other than Em—Sarah?"

"We had cousins, Mother and Father had another son after we left, that's not important. Max, she's done it again, a little girl only 9-years-old. Last name Binxson. Ship the book to D.C. now!"

"You got it, Tim," "Max" replied. "We're on our way."

"No, not you."

"Tim, you can't stop us…"

"Yes, I can, and I will. You, Allison, and Dani have a family now, Max. Your time involved in this mess ended in '93. I'm not dragging you back into it."

"Tim, if my time's over, yours is way over! You've been after this lady for…"

"I know, but she's targeting me, not you. I don't want you guys in danger. If I see you on that plane, I'll handcuff you to the next one and tell the stewardess not to let you go until you're back in Salem, you hear me, Max?" No reply. "I said, do you hear me?"

"Yeah yeah. Dani's gonna kill me. If you end up dead, I'm telling Allison to bring you back so I can kill you again, you got that, Binx?"

"Yeah, I got it. Thanks Max, I owe you one."

"We're even for the graveyard."

McGee hung up, then turned to his staring team. "The witch's book of spells knows him, Timothy," Alda told him. "It knows that if it kept its eye closed while he was there, Max would not have warned you about her return."

The entire room froze. "How do you know about the book?" Tim asked, immediately suspicious. "You said you're a wiccan. Not a witch."

"I am a wiccan," she replied calmly. "But before, I was a groundskeeper at Salem graveyard… specifically, in late October of 1993."

"Groundskeeper?" he repeated. "Groundskeeper." McGee groaned and knocked his fist on his forehead. "!)am^it, how could we have been so stupid? Of course there was a groundskeeper, of course you came when you heard the screams, how could we forget that?" He looked her in the eye. "How much did you see?"

She met it easily. "Everything from the point when Max swallowed the last of Winifred's potion."

"So you know."

"About you? Yes, I do. You and your sister are the ones who inspired me to turn to Wicca." McGee froze, his eyes widening.

"Sarah." He swore once more. "She's gonna go after Sarah!" McGee looked out the window at the dark of night. "I don't have much time!" He turned and ran for the elevator, but stopped at the door and did a 180. "Don't tell anyone, Alda, please!"

"You have my word, Timothy, now go save your sister." He smiled gratefully at her, then ran for the present elevator.

Tony nudged Abby, who nodded. "Alda, stay here," she told her friend sternly. "We're gonna have some questions for you when we come back."

Alda sat in a nearby chair. "I won't move from this spot. Now go help Timothy."

Both of them glanced at each other before running out of the lab after McGee.

~falls over dead~ my... fingers... they hurtz... 4,500 words...
shorter chapter and action tomorrow, i promise.

*actual brain cancer drug found by people in England

PEACE~Tibki