AN: I've noticed and it has been brought to my attention that there might be something between Tim and Tony. If slash is your thing, then this can be viewed as a pre-slash. Even though I do like the idea, I just don't think it will fit into this story. Too much other stuff going on. As for the future…. I don't have anything planned, but I will be thinking about it.

By the way, sorry chapter six was short, but I hope that this one makes up.

Thanatopsis

Chapter Seven

The crime scene today wasn't anything special, compared to their everyday. Single victim, male, mid-thirties. He had been shot in the side of the head at point blank range, according to the powder burns. As Tony looked closer, he noticed something in the hair of the victim. A tiny blue fiber barely holding on amongst the short brown hairs. "Hey Ziva," he sat back on his feet.

She turned around from where she was taking pictures of the high velocity blood spatter on the wall on the other side of the body next to the window that looked out into the back yard. "Yes?"

"You got any tweezers on you?"

She handed hers over. "Did you find something?" she asked, leaning down.

He picked up the fiber and held it up for her to see. "Maybe."

"Hm," Ziva said reaching in her bag for a small plastic evidence jar. She held it out to him and screwed the jar closed after he put it in, then handed it to him to sign. "So, what do you think happened?" she asked him.

Tony took a look around. "Well, it looks like he fell where he was shot." He said pointing to the large pool of blood that had formed around the man's head and nowhere else.

Ziva nodded. "Yes, he was not moved."

Tony stood up and looked behind him. "The shoot must have been standing here in the doorway."

Ziva stepped up beside him. "There is a little back spatter on the doorframe." She took a picture. "The suspect must have some of the victim's blood on his clothes and possibly on the weapon as well. Where is it?" she searched the floor with her eyes.

"First responder's didn't find one."

Gibbs chose that moment to walk in. "Guess he took it with him."

"Hey, Boss. Ziva and I were just discussing what we thought happened here."

"Yeah, well if you wanna be done by lunch, I would suggest waiting until we get back."

That kicked Tony into gear. He went back to his bag to get his sketchpad. "God, Ziva. What are you trying to kill me?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I would like to." She took a step in his direction, only to be stopped by Gibbs' hand on her shoulder.

"I don't think I want to know," McGee said as he walked in, followed by Palmer, who knelt down beside the body and started rummaging through his bag.

Gibbs looked at him questioningly. "Where's Ducky?"

Palmer glanced up with only a slightly scared look. "I don't know." He turned his head to see them all staring at him. He continued, with an uncertain tone. "I tried to get a hold of him when dispatch called, but…. He didn't answer."

Tony thought he saw McGee look away prematurely, like he was trying to hide something. Like he knew something. Well, that can't be good, Tony thought to himself.

"That's the fourth day, he's been gone this week," Ziva said, thoughtfully.

Gibbs appeared to be thinking hard. Tony knew it was an odd feeling for him not to know what was going on with his team. God, if he only knew. Tony glanced at Tim again. Like Gibbs would believe it anyway. Tony chuckled, that would be a fun conversation to witness. 'Oh, yeah Boss. I've been meaning to tell you, I and see the future. And ghosts. It's some kind of weird psychic thing that happened to me when I almost died.'

Gibbs seemed concerned. He grunted something about finding out, then sent Ziva out to interview witnesses, told McGee to help Palmer with the body, and 'strongly suggested' that Tony finish soon and help him with canvasing the rest the scene.

Tony quickly finished measuring and sketching the scene. He found Gibbs at the front door talking to the guard. "You ready Boss?"

Gibbs grunted and stepped outside expecting Tony to follow him. They walked around the side of the house searching for footprints. They were nearly to the back yard when Gibbs pointed to a spot in the middle of their path. It took Tony a moment to see it, but as he got closer, he noticed a faint impression in the grass. Nothing worth casting, but he took a picture anyway. Gibbs had passed him and was looking around again.

He stopped near the doors of the tool shed in the back corner of the yard. Tony stood up as Gibbs pointed to the ground, another faint outline of a shoe. Gibbs then pointed to the doors and then placed a finger over his lips. Tony got the idea. They both drew their weapons and stood on either side of the entrance to the dilapidated structure. Tony grabbed the handle and nodded to Gibbs to go in first.

When he opened the door a gray and blue blur jumped out, knocking Gibbs to the ground. A rather large man attempted to run towards the front of the house, but at Tony's yell, officers appeared in the five foot gap between the house and the ten foot privacy fence. The man turned on Tony. Oh, shit, he thought. He's got a buzz cut. This never turns out well in the movies.

The man's eyes were bloodshot and he was pale and sweaty. Tony thought he looked very angry. And, unsurprisingly, that anger was directed at him. The man lunged and Tony sidestepped him, causing him to run headlong into the fence. The thick wood didn't deter him.

Tony held up his gun, with fruitless cry of "Freeze!" As expected, he didn't listen. They never did. The man went for Tony again, and he took a shot but it went wide. Tony fell to the ground, the man on top of him. His gun was knocked from his hand by the impact with the ground.

He had just enough time to wonder where everybody was before a massive fist came into his line of sight and everything went black.

McGee had just finished helping Palmer to navigate the body through the narrow hallways and out to the M.E.'s van. He came back into the room where the murder had occurred to find Ziva bagging evidence. "Find anything good?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Not unless Abby can get can sort out all of these fingerprints."

McGee inclined his head, "Ahh," he said. "Well, that sucks." He noticed something out of the window. Gibbs pointed at something on the ground. He didn't see anything. "Looks like Gibbs and Tony are having better luck."

Ziva looked over and then went back to her work. "Let us hope so, because, other than the fiber Tony found earlier, we do not have much to go on."

McGee stepped over to the box of evidence and after searching for it, found the jar containing the little blue fiber. He studied it closely. The color seemed familiar. "Looks like it came from the car out front."

Ziva appeared disappointed. "Then we really do have nothing."

"We'll find some—" McGee was abruptly cut off by Tony's yell from outside. McGee and Ziva ran to the window. Apparently, someone had been hiding in the toolshed out back. Gibbs was on the ground, struggling to get up to run after the suspect and Tony had his gun drawn. McGee saw the man turn on Tony right before he took off for the back door on the other side of the house on Ziva's heels.

By the time they reached the open air, Tony was on his back with the suspect on top of him. The man got one good shot to Tony's jaw before Gibbs jumped on his back and took him down with a sleeper hold. They fell off to the side and McGee ran around the unconscious Tony to help Gibbs restrain the much larger man.

Ziva slapped Tony a couple times, but he didn't wake up for about a minute. When he finally did come to, he came up swinging, nearly hitting Ziva, who was kneeling above him, in the face. She easily restrained him, holding his arms to the ground. "Tony," she said calmly, laying a hand on his face.

He calmed at the touch. He looked up at Ziva with bleary eyes and asked in a slurred voice, "Are you an angel?"

McGee rolled his eyes and said at the same time as Gibbs, "Concussion." McGee stood up from where he had his knee in the man's back, leaving him on the unconscious on the ground. He knelt down on Tony's other side, watching the surprisingly gentle way Ziva was looking at him. "Tony." He tapped him on the forehead. Tony looked up at him with comically wide eyes and then past him at the officers that had gathered around.

"Did I get him?" Tony asked the yard at large. McGee had to fight not to laugh as some of the officers behind him giggled.

"Hey!" Gibbs said, causing everyone to look at him. He was looking at the officers. "Somebody go get my M.E." They all scrambled to be the first one, if not only to get away from the death glare Gibbs was giving them all. Gibbs took a knee above Tony's head.

"Oh, hey, Boss," he said. He looked over to where the suspect was still lying on the ground, out for the count. "Good teamwork."

This time McGee could not stop himself from snickering. This, of course, earned him a not so gentle headslap.

At that moment, Palmer came up behind them followed by a couple of LEOs. "Holy- what happened here?" he asked, setting Ducky's emergency medical bag on the ground. "I heard a shot." He kneeled down to the spot where Ziva had moved out of the way, pointing a mini flashlight into Tony's eyes. The agent let out a squeak.

McGee stood up as well, leaving Palmer and Ziva to deal with Tony. He, Gibbs, and a couple of officers had to carry the suspect to a squad car with instructions to take him to NCIS headquarters.

By the time they got back, Tony was sitting with a slightly less dazed look on his face and he was trying fight off Palmer as he attempted to get a closer look at Tony's jaw, which had been split open by the force of the impact. Palmer had a cleansing wipe in one hand was steadying Tony's face with the other.

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs said, forcefully. Tony winced slightly at the noise. "Let Palmer do his job."

Tony flinched again as Palmer got him with the alcohol-covered wipe. "Hey, watch where you're sticking that."

"Sorry, Tony," Palmer said.

"You don't sound sorry."

Jimmy chose to remain silent as he continued looking Tony over. When he was done, he focused on Gibbs. "It's just a mild concussion. He should be fine as long as he doesn't go to sleep for the next four hours or so."

Gibbs nodded. "McGee."

"Yeah, Boss?"

"Take the charger," he tossed him the keys. "Go back to HQ and get your car, then take Tony home."

McGee started to ask if he had to, but thought better of it at Gibbs' glower. He nodded and went to help Tony off the ground. "Come on, DiNozzo."

"No sleeping in the car," Gibbs called to their retreating backs.

The ride to Tony's apartment wasn't a new situation to McGee. It had happened once before. Apparently Tony didn't trust Ziva not to take advantage of him in his damaged state, and instead of argue with him, Gibbs had subversively assigned McGee the job for any future head injuries. He knew the routine. Try desperately not to kill Tony as he rambled on and tap him on the chest whenever he got too quiet.

Tony was talking about ear mice and trying to get a look into McGee's ears when they finally arrived at Tony's apartment complex. McGee calmly pushed Tony's hand down and unbuckled both of their seatbelts. They had almost made it to the door before the nausea kicked in and Tony hurled into his landlord's flower garden.

McGee put in one of Tony's favorite movies, one that he couldn't watch without quoting, and settled on couch beside him. But not before grabbing a beer out of the fridge (for himself), the only way he would be able to listen to Tony explain over and over again why the original Defiant Ones was better than the remake.

Then Tony did something that caught him off guard. He turned to McGee more serious than he would have expected. "McGee…" he said, mostly looking McGee in the eye. "Are you okay?"

McGee was confused. "What do you mean?"

"Did you ever go talk to Dianne's parents?"

"Well, it was just her mom, but yeah."

"That's good. That's really good." He looked around dazedly for a moment. "You didn't tell her, did you?"

McGee raised his eyebrows, but he knew what Tony meant. "I just told her what Dianne said before she died."

Tony nodded. "You know, I don't think I could have handled this."

"Handled what?"

Tony flipped his hand around drunkenly. "If I could see ghosts I would be freaking out. Why aren't you freaking out?" he said, exasperatedly.

It took McGee a minute to answer. He had thought about it over the past week. Any normal person would have committed themselves to an insane asylum by now. Truth was, he appeared to have gotten over the whole freaking out stage as everything was happening. He guessed he was just really good at accepting what was metaphorically right in front of him. He turned to answer, but found Tony with his head lying back on the couch, mouth hanging open. McGee rolled his eyes and slapped him hard on the stomach. "Tony!"

AN: Right now, about halfway through with chapter nine. I've been working really hard and will probably get a few more chapters by the end of the weekend because I have absolutely nothing else to do for the next three days. Thank goodness.

BYW: We've reached about the midpoint of the story. If anybody has any suggestions, I am completely open. I've already incorporated a couple into the story. I also answer questions if anybody has any. Even if I just made a mistake you want to point out (trust me, I could use the help.) Read and Review. A happy writer makes happy readers! -*DOS*