Circumstances-6

A/N: Hi:) Alright, I'm back again for a new chapter:) good news? bad news? Hope all of you have been having a good week, and it's the weekend so you can party! Haha. I can't, because of my exams, but I can write more:) okay a proper Author's note will be at the end of the chapter, so enjoy!

Disclaimer- don't own it.

Chapter 6 Illusions

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Gibbs received a call from the police a few weeks later. They had traced the path of Kate's killer from the alleyway to the park. Along the way, they managed to find the murder weapon.

Something about the whole thing seemed suspiciously easy, so he asked about the manpower and resources that they used. His answer was as he expected. The police were no longer in charge of the case. They had been asked to hand over the case to NCIS. He immediately thanked the officer and put the down the phone. He turned to his wife, who was preparing lunch for the children.

"Jenny, NCIS has no jurisdiction for gang murders." She only half looked up for a brief second, before turning back to her work.

"They do if the victim was the god-daughter of an ex NCIS agent."

"Why did you do that?"

"Jethro, you know that if we leave it to the local law enforcement, the case is never going to get solved. Since I'm still the director of NCIS, I figured I might as well use my other resources to help solve the case."

Her answer seemed to satisfy him for now, which was more than the police had been doing. So, she decided to appreciate the peace in household while she can, because it would all go to hell before she can even blink an eye.

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Tony came home by himself for the third time that week. He walked up the stairs quickly to put his stuff down after greeting everyone. It was then that Gibbs began to get suspicious and slightly worried.

The family had not seen Ziva in many weeks, when usually, the duo could not be separated for more than twelve hours without missing the other. Although they would never admit themselves, but it was obvious to people around them because they would start acting out after a while. None of their many fights and squabbles lasted more than a few days, and even then, one of them would apologise pretty fast.

Even Jenny noticed the trend and once confronted Tony about it. He had just reassured her that it was just because there had been a huge pile of homework due these few weeks, and that they meet up on weekends. Jenny had let it slide, but Gibbs did not.

Gibbs entered Tony's room quietly and stood behind Tony while he was staring at his twitter page on his laptop. It took a while, but Tony soon tensed up and turned around to stare innocently at him.

"Hey dad, I was just gonna head down after taking a shower." He said, quickly shutting off his laptop and grabbing the towel on his bed.

"I didn't come here to ask about that."

"Ziva? I already told you, nothing's wrong." Tony's attitude immediately went to defensive at the understanding of his father's words.

"I don't need you to tell me something is wrong. I KNOW something's wrong with Ziva, and you're hiding it." Gibbs immediately blocked the exit, and waited for his son to cave in and spill.

"It's nothing to be concerned about. She just told me a few weeks ago that she needed some space for a while. I don't know what's her problem. Whatever it is, she's not talking to me."

"You never saw her on those weekends, did you?"

"No sir. It's been weeks since I last saw her." Gibbs smirked a little at that. He already knew that Tony had been hiding out somewhere during those weekends, although he wasn't quite sure where. It had to have been close to Ziva's house, for him to lie so smoothly, but he chose not to push him any further for now.

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"Tim! We have to do something! We haven't heard from Ziva in two weeks. TWO WEEKS! No phone calls, no text messages, no emails, no nothing!" Abby paced around in her room, as Tim just looked deep in thought.

"Has any other evidence turned up?" He asked.

"That's the strange part. After the people at NCIS let me look at their lab analysis, I found out that most of the evidence had been tampered with. Now, it seems, every time we're about to get something, the results suddenly say it's not possible. It's just not possible, Tim!" Abby said, while making wide gestures to the photocopied lab results on her table. As he picked it up and read the analysis in more detail, Abby continued.

"I just confirmed that the gun we found WAS the murder weapon, but there was a lot of prints on it. It's like the gun had been used by different people altogether!" She showed him her computer processing the data, and still trying to search for the matching identities to the finger prints. "This guy? Really knows what he's doing."

"Abby, are you actually allowed to do that?" Tim gave her look of skepticism, coming from an excellent computer hacker himself.

"Yes, Timmy. My computer is linked to NCIS directly. They allowed me to have full digress and control over what they do." Abby rolled her eyes but gave him an affectionate smile, like how one smiles at an innocent child.

Just then, the computer beeped and Abby turned around to find that the evidence files were being hacked from a remote place. She quickly released a virus to hit the hacker, but it wasn't strong enough. Tim managed to latch a tracking cookie onto the other person's computer, after trying to remotely stop the hack failed. At the end of it, they could just watch as the hacker swiped away all their evidence reports and files.

"What on earth is going on?" She nearly shouted in frustration. "It's like I said, just before I get something big, like identifying the suspects, the evidence disappears!"

Tim too, was stunned. He had never seen a bug move that fast before, and wiping out specific things. He gave Abby a hug, and started planning on redesigning his defence bot. "Maybe someone is intentionally sabotaging you. What was your last good piece of intel that you have the evidence to prove?"

"I confirmed that our first victim's fingerprints were on the trigger." When Tim gave her a look of surprise, she showed him the screenshots she had printed out before the attack. "I thought I might need it, turns out I was right."

"What if, the hacker was trying to stop you from getting at some specific information?" Tim offered.

"Perhaps. It's more likely that you could have been close to identifying someone. " The two turned in shock at Tony's voice, who only just decided to make his presence known. "What? Don't give me that look. I came when I heard you shouting at your keyboard. You should really learn to lock your door sometimes."

Abby smiled gratefully at him when he closed her door and locked it. "You may be right, Tony. Too bad I can't prove anything, since that stupid hacker took my files."

"What about older records? Do you still have the reports about the check from DC to Middle East? You could cross check them." Tony crossed the room and started her computer again.

"I may have that report, but it's useless without anything to cross check it with." Abby came up behind him and sighed, as she examined the damage done.

"Hey Mcgenius!" Tim turned to look at him in surprise. "Do you know if it's possible that someone could be blocking the files and wiping out evidence in NCIS?"

Tim thought about it for a minute, before speaking with confidence. "Well, I should be able to do it with proper planning, but-"

"That's good enough for me. Now, can you trace where the signal came from?" Tony cut him off, turning his attention to the computer reports on the table instead.

"Oh! I understand what you're getting at. You want to see if we can catch this guy, and then trace him to the reports in the countries and see if his travel record coincides with any of them. I'll get to it then!" Tim said excitedly as Tony took one of the reports and left the room. Tim sat at Abby's desk quietly and stared at the screen.

"Don't worry, Tim. Even if you're caught, Jenny will handle most of the problems. " Abby said, thinking that he was nervous.

"Oh no, I wasn't worried about that. I was wondering if NCIS would be harder to hack compared to the CIA." Tim smiled at her and resumed typing.

Abby didn't even try to hold back her smile.

###

Later that evening, Tony found himself in the elevator of the NCIS headquarters once again that evening. Gibbs had sent him over to meet Jenny after she finished work, and convince her to come home and eat, instead of work all day. He found it strange that the new security guard chuckled and said "Another one of these teenagers" when he saw him. That is, until he saw his name when he signed in. Then, he cleared his throat uncomfortably and let him pass immediately.

The first thought that crossed Tony's mind when he stepped off the elevator was that the bullpen was unusually dark. Almost all the lights were off, except the necessary ones, like the ones near the stairs. As he strolled towards the staircase, he heard the sound of papers fluttering and he stopped and turned around in surprise.

The first thing he noticed was the two embracing bodies that were pressed against a set of drawers in the darkness. He could just barely make out the familiar slim figure that he recognised, as he forced himself to look away. He felt a pang of jealousy in his chest when he heard her gasp and moan. It was definitely Ziva. Her having a new boyfriend certainly explained a lot regarding her unusual behaviour.

Tony widened his stride and tried to walk as far away as possible from them. Unfortunately, as much as he was creeped out by the scene, he knew that if Jenny found out, they would get into deep trouble. So, he turned back and cleared his throat loudly enough for them to hear it. The couple broke apart instantly, and he immediately recognized the guilt and regret in Ziva's brown eyes when she looked at him.

"Tony..." She began, but was cut off by Tony's shake of his head, signalling that he didn't want to hear it.

"I just wanted to let you know that Jenny is going to be coming out soon, so if you wish to stay alive, I suggest you take this downstairs." He said more harshly that he had meant to, turned on his heel and walked away.

"Ziva, are you alright?" Ziva flinched away at the man's touch, and fixated a glare on him.

"Yes. Did you copy the files?" She asked with a measure of coldness in her voice.

"Yes. I managed to get everything before he caught us." He assured her and raised up the microchip for confirmation.

"I will not lie to him if he asks me, Michael." She said, making sure he knew who she was referring to. "Let me say this again. I am only doing this because these are my father's orders. There is nothing but business between us."

"I know, but who said that while we are at it, we are not allowed to mix business with pleasure?" He smirked, and took her hand to lead her out of the building. She followed her partner without making any remarks, but only because his grip was so tight she could barely breathe.

"Tony, did your dad send you?" Jenny asked as she looked up from her computer screen as he walked in to her office. He gave her a bright, answering smile and took her coat off the seat and handed it to her.

"C'mon Jenny, Gibbs orders you to stop working." Tony laughed along with Jenny as she reluctantly shut down her computer for the night. Jenny noticed that he seemed quieter than usual, but figured that he was just tired.

Her husband had been asking Tony to do more errands lately, even though they had more than enough food in the house. It seemed that their household had recently become more deceiving. With Tim disappearing upstairs with Abby every time he came over, Tony mysteriously gone for periods of time, Ziva being absent from their home, and Gibbs acting like he saw all their secrets and he knew all the answers to what was going on, she knew she would have her hands full.

As Tony and Jenny got in the elevator, the first thing he noticed was how dark and quiet the place was, once all the lights were off. He was reminded of what happened, and instead of burdening himself with who, he started pondering about why. A quick thought crossed his mind about the situation and suddenly, he couldn't wait to get home.

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Sorry for the extreme lack of Tiva interaction in this chapter. The next chapter will have more interaction, I promise. This was more like a filler chapter, which I usually find hard to write, so I apologise if there was a drop in standard. I hope you guys found the chapter alright, though. Please let me know what you think about it!

Also lately, I've noticed that the review count has dropped, even though my story alerts have increased. I really hoped to have at least 3 or 4 reviews per chapter so could you please leave a review? I will do my best to update faster, I promise:) I've already written quite a few chapters ahead :D

I'll try to update soon! Thanks for reading:P

~Lianna