Hello everybody! Still remember me? I'm SO sorry for not updating in such a long time. Life has not been pink lately...anyway I will try to update sooner from now on. If you have any ideas or suggestions feel free to tell me...

Read and review please :))

xoxo LT

Another one bites the dust

It was real early when Ziva awoke. In the beginning she didn't know where she was, or why she was being held so closely and tightly. She slowly turned, only to spot the sleeping face of Tony. His forehead was wrinkled and his lips tightly pressed together in one fine line; he looked so cute but at the same time worried. Gradually her memory came back and she remembered the awful dream she had. It had been the same dream she had been having in the past month.

Ziva was in a dark room, with a light bulb hanging above her hear, and she was bound to a chair without any weapons. Then Barak would come forward out of the dark, telling her that everybody had abandoned her, that Gibbs couldn't stand her anymore for what she had done to Ari. Then he would trough at her feet an empty cup of coffee covered in blood, Gibbs's blood. He would laugh hysterical, while her eyes revealed nothing but fear.

"They have all deserted you Ziva." Barak told her in her dream. "But I took care of things Ziva. I helped them how you helped my son." The evil voice trailed away while throwing at her feet a slashed hippo, mascara mixed with blood covering the small frame.

"No Abby!" Ziva cried.

"But that's not all my darling. Take a look at the lovely things I have also collected." He trailed away, getting out of a large bag an iPhone showing her a picture of a shot McGee. Then he kneeled down holding a pair of glasses with an eyeball.

Ziva let out a small yell, recognising Ducky's blue eye.

"I know you have been fond of your director. Here she is in all her glory." He spoke putting a pile of red hair on her lap. A part of the scalp was still attached to it.

She would start crying, yelling, and cursing while the tears were rolling down her face.

"Shhhhhh my dear. I have saved the best for last." He hissed.

Out of his bag he would get out a bloody ball, which Ziva would recognise as being Tony's head. His eyes would stare at her why she would scream and Barak would laugh. Then he would put Tony's head on a high bar chair and let them alone, while his voice would echo "You have nobody Ziva; like I have nobody. You will be alone for all eternity. I took a great deal of pleasure in killing them. Especially your little boy toy." He laughed.

As she recalled the nightmare, panic started rising in her chest. "No! No more pain! No more hurting the people I love" she yelled out in her head, trying to make the memory go away and control herself. She managed to stop the panic, but in the process she woke up Tony. He on the other hand didn't say a word; he stared at her, trying to figure out what had happened to her. She nearly suffered a heart attack, when she looked back at the presumably sleeping form of her boyfriend, but was met by his blue eyes, boring into her skull.

"Morning Tony. You scared me!" she began trying to regain her self control.

"Morning Zee. Well you scared the crap out of me last night." He said concerned.

"I'm sorry Tony. I did not mean to scare you. I'll be alright." She trailed away.

"Ziva, baby you might want to kill me, but shouldn't you go and visit…you know…" he spoke lower and lower.

"Visit what Tony?" dangerously she enquired.

"I mean…ah…you know…there are people who can actually help you deal with the nightmares." Tony tried to calm her down, seeing that she was getting irritated by the second.

"Ah you mean I should go and visit a shrink; a person who deals with people loosing their minds on a regular basis. You presume I fit it, right? Well I got news for you Tony. I am PERFECTLY FINE!!" she yelled out causing Tony to fall out of the bed.

"Ok, ok. I'm just saying that…" the Italian began but the sudden ring of his cell phone caused him to stop.

"DiNozzo"

"DiNozzo, take David and meet me in Georgetown. We got another body." The voice of the NCIS trailed away.

"Got it boss. On our way." Tony replied, while hanging up the phone.

"Gear up babe, we got another one."

Half an hour later, Tony's beloved Mustang pulled in front of an beautiful and well kept house. It looked like the type suburban dream house, but now it was swamped by men in police uniforms and NCIS agents. The two agents stepped out of the car and walked over to a very annoyed Gibbs.

"You're late!" he observed very annoyed.

"Sorry boss, you know how traffic is in the morning. What do we got?" Tony tried to brighten up the mood.

"A slaughtered marine." The dry response came.

"Tony, photograph the scene, Ziva sketch. McGee is already bagging and tagging." He commanded and looked at his two agents, who were not moving from the spot.

"Now!" he barked and watched them running towards the crime scene.

Tony entered the house first and was greeted by a green looking McGee.

"Morning Probie! You don't look too good; bad breakfast?" he asked bitter.

"Yeah Tony. I think your breakfast will be bad as well after you see this." He replied.

"Good God!" both men heard Ziva shout.

Tony entered the bedroom only to spot a man who had been bound to his bed, beaten up and cut open; his torso covered in blood, most of it coming from his mouth.

"Uh! Poor guy!" Tony spoke, taking the camera out of his bag.

"His abdomen was cut open and his intestines ripped out, just like in the other marine." Ziva said, fighting back the urge to vomit. Even with her training, she was still human and such things made even her stomach roll over.

"Everything is covered in blood in this room. I mean look at his chairs, at the carpet, the nightstand, everything. Our murderer went over the top and had a lot of fun with what he was doing." McGee explained.

"And yet everything with surgical precision." A Scottish voice mingled in the discussion.

"Mister Palmer, I need that thermometer." He trailed away, tapping impatiently on the carpet.

"Coming doctor." A muffled voice replied.

"Well I see I will have to have a little chat with this poor man's stomach yet again. I can bet you a cup of tee that he was eating chocolate chip cookies."

"Oh dear Lord!" Palmer shouted and ran out the door, seeking for the nearest toilet.

"Oh good heavens Mister Palmer! If you start that doing more often I might have to ask you to take a pregnancy test." Ducky shouted while the three agents suppressed a chuckle.

"I'm sorry doctor! I will not happen again." Palmer answered, but the whole team knew that this will not go away too soon.

"Right; Ziva fetch me that thermometer out of my bag please." Ducky ordered and Ziva complied.

"Ah let's see. According to this our marine left the land of the living around eight hours ago. We have the same marks, stab wounds, I can see around four here, we have a bullet as well, and of course the intestines surgically removed and spilled all over the place." He informed and exited the room so he may get the gurney.

"Timothy I need your help. It seems Mister Palmer might be talking to his mother and informing her that he is with child." He trailed away joking causing all the three agents to burst into laughter.

"What's so funny?" the cranky voice asked.

"Palmer is pregnant." Ziva replied still giggling.

"What? Stop fooling around! Are you three done with photos and sketching? And where the hell is McGee?" he barked annoyed.

"Almost done boss. McGee's helping Ducky with the gurney." Tony explained taking a picture of the blood stained carpet at the same time.

Gibbs nodded and was about to leave the room, when Tony spoke again.

"Ah boss, we have another message from our killer."

By this time both McGee and Ducky returned and so did Palmer; but everything stopped when they red the bloody riddle in the closet.

"Different religions, worlds apart, they are everything and yet nothing. They live and love, but they will pay. Together they will be in the grave."

"Ok somebody needs to have his head checked." Tony spoke disgusted.

"Take pictures of the closet, but I want it taken back to HQ, so Abby can take a look at it. We are done here, let's head back." Gibbs instructed and then left the room.

Once back at HQ, the whole team was trying to figure out if John Doe number two had a name. The fact that the marine had been murdered in a residential area made it harder to find out who the guy was. The neighbours were hysterical and couldn't answer any of their questions.

Finally after three pain staking hours in interrogation, Ziva walked out with a grin on her face. They had managed to find a teenager who actually knew who lived in the house where the marine had been murdered.

"Ok, Johnny said that a Mr. and Mrs. Steen lived there, and that Mr. Steen was mostly out of the country because of business, and Mrs. Steen would jet around the world or stay at Martha's Vineyard most of the time. However in the last couple of months she has been staying home more frequently and the kid says he had been seeing our marine more often. He didn't have a name, but he said that at least twice a week the guy was over." She filled them in.

"Ok let's find out…" Gibbs began but something rushed past him so he stopped in the middle of his sentence.

"I know who John Doe number one is. I finally figured it out." She spoke excited.

"Well Abby I think you should share this with us." Gibbs spoke impatiently.

"You guys, you remember that when our marine was brought in I saw a cool Latin phrase tattooed on his arm?" she asked happy.

"Yeah, but what does that have to do with the case?" McGee asked confused.

"It means everything Timmy. The phrase is "amor et melle et felle est fecundissmismus" which means "love is rich with both honey and venom" she explained but the team still couldn't understand why this was relevant and who the guy was.

"Abby I still don't understand." Ziva trailed away.

"I contacted my friend Joe, who did most of my tattoos and I asked him if he did Latin phrases. Obviously he doesn't deal with stuff like that, but he told me that there is a guy named Gus, who tattoos phrases and symbols that most of the tattoo artists don't do. He gave me a phone number and I called up Gus, asked him if he tattooed the dead marines phrase. Gus remembered that he tattooed four guys in the last ten years with this phrase and he emailed me the list with the names of the guys. I checked all the names and three of the guys are well and alive while the fourth name, which got the tattoo six months ago, is lying on our autopsy table." She spoke quickly without breathing.

"Abby great job, but I need a name." Gibbs spoke, taking a sip of his coffee at the same time.

"His name is Claudio Fratelli. I cracked the SISMI database and found out that our marine was born in Milano but moved to America by the age of seven." She trailed away.

"SISMI?" McGee asked confused.

"The Italian Military Intelligence Service." Ziva, Gibbs, Abby and Tony spoke at the same time.

"Now that we have a name we can start finding out who the hell this guy pissed off so badly that he got himself killed. I'm going to check out what Ducky has for me. Ziva get everything you can on Fratelli, McGee look in the navy database if there are other foreign marines currently enrolled in the US navy and get me a file on all of them. DiNozzo get in contact with the family; tell them we have their son, maybe they can shed some light on what happened to him. Abby get back to the lab; if there are any other tattoos Ducky will inform you about them." He barked out and left for the autopsy.