Disclaimer : Still own nothing. Just having fun.
Author's Note : Thanks to everyone who's read, reviewed and favorited so far.
To answer an anonymous reviewers question : there will be a fair bit of whump for someone. Although, it's a bit later in the story.
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4:45pm – Back of NCIS Truck – En Route to 827 Montgomery St. NW, Forest Hills, Washington, DC –
Knees to his chest, Tony presses his back deeper against the partition separating the truck's cabin and the storage area where Tim usually rides. He checks his watch, frowning at just how long it takes Tim to reach the crime scene. When he thinks about how he let his teammates get ahead of him on the stairs, he shakes his head. He'd been laughing so hard that by the time he hit the garage, they managed to secure themselves inside the truck's cabin before he even got out of the stairwell. Tony knocked on the window, shimmied the door and even threw his weight as senior field agent around in a bid to try and get himself behind the wheel. But when Tim simply mouthed 'you promised' and Ziva jerked her thumb to the back, he was forced to ride to the crime scene with the equipment.
Tim apparently didn't realize that the promise to drive was contingent on receiving that raspberry strudel.
When the truck gently maneuvers around a corner, Tony leans into the pitch and glares at his watch again. At their current pace, Mallard and Palmer will have the autopsy completed by the time they reach the scene.
Tony pounds his fist on the partition.
"Speed it up, McGeek! You drive like my grandpa."
"I'm trying, Tony. Do you know how hard this is? It's like driving a - "
"A truck, McObvious? Imagine that!"
While the vehicle carefully meanders around another turn, Tony rolls his eyes at the snail pace. They ease to a stop and Tony hears Ziva mutter something in Hebrew that sounds like a curse.
"When the light is yellow, you press the right pedal," she advises.
"Ziva, that's the gas," Tim explains. "Yellow means you should prepare to stop."
"But if you get through the light before it turns red, it is okay, yes?"
It takes everything Tony has in him not to slam his head against the sheet metal.
"You know, I feel like I'm in Driving Miss Daisy," he muses, voice increasing in volume. "That would make you Morgan Freeman, Probster, and you're the great Jessica Tandy, Zee-vah. Guess that leaves me with Dan Aykroyd, which is only okay because he's a Blues Brother. Hard to believe, it won for best picture without being nominated for best director too. Driving Miss Daisy that is, not Blues Brothers."
"He is doing it again," Ziva announces, sounding irritated.
" ' Oh, Miss Daisy,' - " Tony grins as he imitates Morgan Freeman, " - 'while you were out visitin', I went and ate a can of your salmon. Now I know you said eat the leftover porkchops, but they was kinda stiff. So I stopped at the Piggly Wiggly and got you another can. You want - ' "
"Ziva, don't do that! Stop touching my leg! Stop!" Tim yells frantically.
The truck suddenly lurches forward, sending Tony sliding across the smooth plastic floor. When the vehicle whips around a corner, the equipment on the shelves dip precariously and he shoots to his feet to stabilize them. A quick swerve in the opposite direction throws him against the rack on the other side of the truck.
Choruses of car horns erupt outside.
"McGee!"
"It's Ziva, Tony! She's got my foot on the gas!"
"Ziva!"
The truck skids to a halt, sending Tony face-first into the metal partition. Dazed, he stumbles backwards, blinking to clear the stars that flood his vision. He quickly gathers a pair of caps and jackets, climbing out of the back on unsteady feet. With a shake of his head, he hustles to the driver's side of the cabin.
Tim slides out just as he arrives, bringing his dress shirt with him.
"No time to change, Probster." Tony smirks, pushing the jacket and cap into Tim's hands.
"But Tony - "
"No buts, let's go. You're on equipment, Zee-vah!"
"You cannot expect that I will carry it alone."
"All of it. You pull a stunt like that again and you walk back."
Ignoring her lethal stare, Tony pushes Tim toward the white rancher. As the male agents make their way up the driveway, the autopsy van pulls onto the street behind their truck.
When they head through the front door, Tony is immediately impressed by the occupant's opulent taste in furniture: Persian rug, antique mahogany table, Tiffany vases that catch and disperse the dying sunlight. He taps his junior agent's shoulder, diverting his attention to the impressive light show.
Tim nods his appreciation.
Neither one of them sees Gibbs crouched several feet away in the living room.
"You two here to work or check out the guy's stuff?"
"Both," Tony quips, grinning at Tim.
The team leader stares intently at the prone body of a middle-aged, dark-haired man. Tony instantly recognizes the simple sweater and dress pants on the corpse from the casual line of his favorite designer. As he slides next to his boss, he wonders whether he already owns that particular ensemble.
He mimics Gibbs' stance, studying the corpse. Hands pressed against a stomach wound, the man must have desperately tried to prevent himself from bleeding to death. Based on the amount of blood pooled beneath him, he certainly wasn't successful. The body's facial features are twisted in unspeakable agony and his eyes, clouded with death, are fixed at a single point on the ceiling.
Tony glances up, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
"Hey Boss. What's with the cookies?" Tim asks, pointing to the remains of a shattered plate and baked goods around the corpse's stocking feet.
"Neighbor tossed 'em when she found 'em."
"Them?"
Gibbs gestures to a young woman in the corner.
"Double homicide?" Tony asks, rising to approach the female corpse.
Gibbs presses his lips together, shaking his head slowly.
The young woman lies flat on her back with her eyes closed. Tony finds her face oddly serene. If it weren't for the mass of blood and grey matter caked in her long blonde hair and the gun held limply in her right hand, he would've sworn she was only sleeping. When he notices her skimpy sundress, he wonders why she isn't more clothed for the cool fall weather.
Before he can ask his boss about the scene, Ziva arrives carrying the camera bag. Shortly behind her, Donald Mallard and Jimmy Palmer enter the house with the remainder of their equipment.
"Metro was already here, bounced the case to us when they found out he's Navy. House is registered to a Lieutenant Bailey Chase," Gibbs announces, checking his notebook. "DiNozzo, pictures. McGee, bag and tag. Ziva, go ask the neighbors if anybody heard anything."
With their orders, the team leaps into action, falling into their well-rehearsed motions. Ziva slips out the front door into the last remnants of the day. Tim shrugs on his jacket, zipping it straight to his chin to hide his scout shirt. Grabbing an evidence bag from his pocket, he sweeps the floor for any fibers that are out of the ordinary.
Tony pulls the camera around his neck, sliding next to Gibbs.
"Seems pretty open and shut, don't you think, boss? She pops him, then does herself."
Gibbs rises to his feet, gaze jumping from the man to the woman. While his boss tries to put the pieces of the scene together, Tony zooms in on the male corpse's anguish-laden face. He takes a picture of the blood covered hands placed overtop the gaping wound. Mallard drops down next to them to check out his morgue's newest guest.
"Why, hello, Jethro, Anthony, Timothy." Mallard smiles.
Tony and Tim wave distractedly.
"Heya, Duck," Gibbs greets, eying the bodies.
"Always work with you it seems." Mallard shakes his head. "Mr. Palmer, if you'd be so kind."
"Yes, doctor." Palmer nods, retrieving the liver probe from the autopsy bag.
"My preliminary cause of death is exsanguination due to the bullet wound." Mallard plunges his probe into the corpse, then makes a few mental calculations. "Time of death based on air temperature and body rigidity was likely between 6pm and midnight yesterday. Though I will know more when I get him, well both of them, back home."
Gibbs nods slowly, starting after the other body with Mallard trailing him.
"You know, Jethro, that wound is oddly reminiscent of one that I learned in medical school. Shot by a musket in 1822, Alexis St. Martin survived with an open wound that allowed doctors to examine the mechanics of the gastrointestinal tract. The fistula..."
Feeling his own gut burn at the subject of the story, Tony crosses the pristinely decorated room to check on his Tim's progress; he kneels next to an end table with an open drawer. While he takes a written inventory of the contents, Tony snaps a picture of a box of bullets and a space just big enough for a gun.
"0.22 shorts," Tim relays.
"Thanks, Probie, I can read."
Tim rolls his eyes as he points to the coffee table in front of a long couch. Two wine glasses sit on its surface, one empty and one untouched. Just behind them are a few framed pictures of the man they assume to be Bailey Chase with backdrops from all over the world.
"You think they were dating? He did something that she didn't like and she snapped?"
Tony wavers, knowing Tim's theory is quite similar to his preliminary one. Though as he works his way through the room, he realizes there are no traces of the woman, or any woman for that matter. Every picture is a shot of Chase, standing confident and alone, someone accustomed to a solitary life. The décor of the house, while cultured and refined, is absolutely masculine.
She isn't here...so why is she here?
"DiNozzo!"
He rejoins Gibbs and the autopsy team at the woman's body. Just as Mallard slides his liver probe from her abdomen, Tony snaps a picture of her serene face.
The roundness of her cheeks and her barely evident curves give him pause. When he glances back to the man, his stomach clenches at the attempts to figure out how the two ended up this way.
"It's hard to believe St. Martin lived to be nearly eighty with a gastric fistula, don't you think?" Palmer's grin is bright until Gibbs' glare extinguishes it.
"The human body is a strange thing, Mr. Palmer - " Mallard nods, touching the corpse's hand, "- as is the spirit. Oh my, Jethro."
"What, Duck?"
He pulls up one of the woman's hands so Tony can snap a picture of the irritated flesh.
"Look at the skin around her wrist. This friable tissue indicates she was restrained shortly before her death, but do you see these linear scars? Seems that it was a common occurrence for the poor thing."
"So she, uh - " Palmer is cut off by Mallard's solemn nod. "Oh G-d."
Tony catches the rage that washes into Gibbs' eyes.
"McGee, you find an ID for her yet?"
"Nothing yet boss, no purse or anything. Though I did find Chase's wallet in the end table," Tim reports, tossing it to his boss.
"That's him," Gibbs says, studying the picture on the license against their corpse. "Now find her purse!"
Tim moves to search the rest of the house while Mallard studies the woman's face. Oddly silent, he carefully palpates the area adjacent to the philthrum, then retracts it to examine her teeth. His kind features darken as he sighs with disgust. He shakes his head, settling onto the ground.
"What's bothering you, Duck?"
"My G-d, Jethro. Her canines have yet to fully erupt." No longer steadfast, the medical examiner removes his hat to mop his brow. His haunted eyes drop to the floor, studying the wood's long grains.
"Doctor?" Palmer's face is as anxious as his voice.
"Mr. Palmer, she's just a child."
Gibbs rises suddenly to head out the front door without a word. Being both a good senior agent and curious, Tony follows him all the way to the car. When he finds Gibbs leaning against the Charger, he isn't sure what to think. While the scene itself isn't any different than their usual fare, Gibbs' reaction tells him that he missed something.
"Boss?"
"Whaddya want for dinner, DiNozzo? How's Chinese sound?"
Flabbergasted, he can only nod, watching his boss scramble into the vehicle. He doesn't even realize that Gibbs never brings them food until the car's taillights fade down a side street.
What aren't you telling us, boss?