Lethal Fractures: Chapter 2

A/N: First of all, I need to apologize to one of my most faithful reviewers, Rigil Kent. He was actually the one who pointed out that OJ&G could be read as a sequel to DL, even though it wasn't written that way, and that's why I said this one could be read as sequel to OJ&G--even though it wasn't written that way. I have a mental outline for a sequel to OJ&G (a proper sequel), but don't hold your breath for that one. Med school is kicking my butt right now. Anyway, I felt the need to give credit where credit is due. And, in answer to your question, yes, I did study psychosis. When you're locked in a psych unit for a month (not as a patient, although there were times I felt it would have been appropriate), it's amazing what you pick up.

Okay, that being said, let's get onto the story. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far; please keep it up.

NCIS Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo tried to control both the silly grin and bright red blush on his face as he stepped out of the elevator, half a pace behind his partner, Mossad Officer Ziva David. He hated it when she did that; one tiny little comment just as the elevator doors began to slide open, and then she'd exit as calm and collected as she always was, and he'd be as flustered as a teenaged boy who just saw his first naked woman. Damn you, woman, DiNozzo cursed inwardly as he nodded to a coworker who passed with a knowing expression on his face. He wondered if there was anybody in the building who didn't know what kind of effect Ziva had on him. Probably not, but considering the things they did together outside of the office, he figured he still had the better part of that deal.

He nearly collided into the back of the aforementioned partner and lover when she stopped walking abruptly at the corner leading into the bullpen. He was about to open his mouth to ask what it was when he saw what must have gotten her attention. He frowned as he tried to place the figure sitting in his boss' desk, then brightened when it came to him a second later. It had been two and a half years since they had worked together, and that had only been for three months. Sure, she looked older now, with lines around her eyes that could be explained as easily by the large grin on her face as the passage of time, and a lot more tanned, but the uniform he had only seen her in once before couldn't hide the tall and athletic build, nor did it do anything to conceal the auburn hair—now in a military-regulation bun instead of hanging down her back—nor the light brown eyes or smattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose. "Close your mouth, DiNozzo. You look like you've seen a ghost," she finally said, her grin spreading.

"Two and a half years without a word, Gracy. What was I supposed to think?" he finally replied, a smile of his own appearing on his face. "You look good. Hawaii must have treated you well."

"Hawaii, yes. Iraq, less so," Major Sonja Gracy, MD, United States Army Medical Corps replied. She held up her left arm, which even a year after her return from her deployment, was still in a black orthopedic splint. "I got a war wound of my own now."

"They give you a purple heart for that?"

She laughed and shook her head. "As much I like to think of Humvees as combatants, I doubt my CO agreed. I slipped exiting the vehicle at the end of a convoy and ended up with a grade three sprain. The orthopods say it could be as long as two years before it completely heals. This split is actually a downgrade from my old one. Nice thing is, it gets me out of doing pushups for my PT tests for awhile. I hate PT tests. Completely pointless. Whoever decided that my ability to cut open dead bodies and look through microscopes was directly related to my ability to run two miles or do two minutes of pushups and situps is an idiot." She rolled her eyes, then quickly redirected. "I almost forgot. I brought presents." The brown leather shoulder bag she once carried around had been replaced by a camouflage backpack in the same digital print as her uniform, which had been resting on NCIS Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs' desk.

"The boss isn't going to be happy about you taking over his desk," DiNozzo warned as she dug through the bag.

"Don't worry, I brought him a gift, too," she replied as she pulled two packages from the bottom of the backpack. Judging by the smile on her face, he didn't want to ask what that gift was. "Ziva, this is for you, courtesy of an Iraqi insurgent. I wish I could say I took it off his dead body after I killed him, but my job wasn't nearly that exciting. Well, technically, I did take it off his dead body, but I wasn't the one who caused him to be that way."

Ziva unwrapped the package to reveal a wicked-looking blade on the end of an ornate yet practical handle. She hefted it a few times before nodding her approval. "It is a good weight," she declared. A finger ran along the blade prompted her to add, "And sharp. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Dr. Gracy acknowledged with a nod.

"How the hell did you get that into the country?" DiNozzo asked, his eyes wide. "Aren't there regulations about bringing home war trophies?"

"I got shot at that morning," Gracy replied, "so I wasn't in the best rule-following mood. After that autopsy, I got drunk in my quarters. There are also regulations about that. You going to report me?"

"Nope," DiNozzo replied with a shake of his head. "But how'd you get it into the building?"

"They don't question things when a pathologist wearing a uniform walks in," she informed him. "Here's yours," she said, handing over another wrapped item. "This is from the exchange at Pearl Harbor." She could barely contain her grin as he tore open the soft package to reveal a package of baby's water wings.

"I know how to swim, Gracy," he informed her. "I just have a little difficulty when knocked unconscious first."

"I figured you could use these at crime scenes, just in case," she laughed. Shortly into her brief tenure with the NCIS Major Cases Response Team two and a half years before, she had to jump into the icy harbor at Norfolk to pull him out after he had been knocked unconscious. They both ended up with short stays in the Intensive Care Unit at Bethesda for hypothermia.

"Wedding gifts arriving in the office, DiNozzo?" Both agents and the pathologist turned at the sudden sound of the voice of one Leroy Jethro Gibbs. From the direction he was approaching, he could see DiNozzo and David, but Gracy wasn't yet in view.

"Oh," the Army officer said, remembering a nonchalant comment over coffee in Baghdad fifteen months before. "I didn't realize—"

"We're not married," DiNozzo interrupted hastily.

"Nor are there plans to be," David added, just as quickly. Gracy couldn't help but wonder whose idea that was; remembering the independent streaks of both agents, it was likely a mutual decision, if any decision had been made at all.

"Hell, they're not even officially living together," Gibbs scoffed as he walked into view. He looked exactly as Gracy expected, down the cup of coffee in his hand. She felt her smile widen. "I thought you'd call before suddenly appearing at my office, Gracy."

"Phones work both ways, Gibbs. So does email."

"I take it your new job started without any problems." The way he said it was more of a statement than a question, and Gracy wasn't quite sure how she was supposed to answer.

"Technically, no," she finally replied. "I wasn't supposed to start until Monday, but I got called in early. Seems there's a case that requires my attention."

Knowing that she was known as the one of the foremost experts in the country on knife wounds, Gibbs wasn't surprised that she would have been called in as soon as possible after her return to the DC area. "So what are you doing here?" As he spoke those words, the elevator doors opened again, revealing an elderly Scotsman clad in blue medical scrubs, a frustrated expression on his face.

"I was wondering if any of you have seen the forensic pathologist—ah, there you are, Sonja. I should have figured you'd come up here first," Dr. Donald Mallard said, seeing the camouflage-clad pathologist behind Gibbs' desk, a team of NCIS agents around her. She gave a small apologetic shrug before turning back to Gibbs.

"I just said there's a case. I didn't say it was at AFIP." After a short tenure as the Chief of Forensic Pathology at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, she had recently been appointed Deputy Director of Forensic Pathology at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, returning to the institution where she had trained. "It's here."

Gibbs frowned, his eyes traveling between his medical examiner and the Army pathologist. "I wasn't aware of any cases, Duck."

"Well, actually—"

"It's not an NCIS case," Dr. Gracy interrupted. "At least, not yet. It's CID." Gibbs' eyebrows rose at the name of their Army counterpart.

"So if a soldier was stabbed to death, what is he doing in our morgue?"

"It's a she, actually, and she wasn't stabbed," Gracy said. She hesitated, not sure of what she felt comfortable concluding before she had even seen the bodies. She decided to go for it; after all, it could very well become an NCIS case as well. "CID thinks it might be related to a serial killer they've been tracking for almost a decade. Not counting this case, he's killed three female Army officers and their boyfriends. I did the first autopsy when I was a second-year pathology resident in January 2003, and the second when I was starting my forensics fellowship in 2005."

"And the third?"

She hesitated before stating, "The third was in December 2007." It took him a minute, but then he was able to figure out what she was saying: her husband, Major Scott Gracy, had been tortured and killed in Iraq the month before, beginning a long ordeal that involved a home invasion by a group of terrorists and wasn't concluded until her time at NCIS more than a year later. In December of 2007, Sonja had been on psychiatric leave. "CID found out I was back in town and asked me to do the autopsy."

"That doesn't answer my question," Gibbs finally said. "What's she doing in our morgue?"

Gracy and Ducky shared a glance before Gracy reluctantly answered, "We don't know if this case is related or not. There are a few things that don't fit the pattern, one of which is that the significant other is a Marine staff sergeant. CID was called for the case, and when I got the phone call requesting that I perform the post-mortem examination—at 0500, by the way, I have some words to exchange with a CID special agent about that—I gave Ducky a call asking if he wanted in. I figured that if the cases weren't related to our serial killer, NCIS would take over the staff sergeant's murder, and I didn't want Ducky to get blind-sided by second-hand autopsy reports. We decided to do the autopsies here because if I show my face at AFIP before Monday, they'll put me to work early, and I have one last free three-day weekend planned with my kids that I don't want them intruding on."

"If a staff sergeant was murdered, Gracy, we're going to want the case. You can tell your people that."

"I haven't been a CID agent for two and a half years, Gibbs. They're not 'my people'."

"You're Army. That makes you their people."

She scoffed at his words. "You saying that you can be influenced by anyone in the Navy or Marine Corps? AFIP doesn't work for CID, and they don't work for us. All we do is handle their autopsies when they ask. We do the same for the Air Force, and we'd do it for NCIS if Ducky ever needed a hand. If you have a problem with how CID is running their investigation, take it up with CID. In the meantime, Ducky and I have a couple of patients who need to be seen." She picked up that camouflage backpack and slung it over her shoulder before making her way toward the elevators. Halfway there, she turned back around to face Gibbs. "Oh, I almost forgot. Check the bottom left drawer of your desk." She gave him a quick grin before stepping into the elevator.

Curious, Gibbs reached for the bottom left drawer and pulled it open, and immediately began to chuckle, shaking his head slowly. "Smart girl," he muttered to himself. Lying in individual one pound bags was ten pounds of 100% pure Kona coffee, direct from Hawaii.