Gibbs walked into the lab and had to look twice at the two forensic scientists. Abby's hair wasn't in its normal pigtail style and Carly's wasn't pulled back. They turned around when they heard the door shut to see Tony stock still behind Gibbs. Abby and Carly looked at each other and shrugged.

Tony moved first. He walked between the two and put a hand on their hair. It was teased and sprayed and big. He almost asked why and then the song playing hit him. Gibbs didn't hesitate though.

"Why is your hair all over the place?"

"It's hair band day Gibbs." Abby answered calmly and stole a look at the two men from the corner of her eye.

Tony choked back his laughter.

"So where's the hair band?" Gibbs wanted to know.

Carly pointed to the music blaring from the speakers. "You know, some eighties rock bands were called hair bands because of their hair. So we decided to try the hair look out in case we'd like to do it for Halloween."

Drinking his coffee to hide his amusement, he asked, "What have you got for us?"

"Ok, the skin and blood are a definite match to Officer Granger. He's been UA for three days now. Judging by the amount of blood found at the scene, he was hurt pretty bad. He would have had to go for help." Abby told them.

"So, we checked the local doctor's offices, hospitals and clinics and got a hit." Carly added, handing over the printout then noticed the look on Tony and Jethro's faces. "We know, it's the agent's job to check these things, but we had some extra time and we weren't able to reach you." She said tapping Gibbs cell phone.

With a shared look, Tony and Gibbs said, "Good work, ladies."

As the men walked out, Abby and Carly had a laugh at the reactions they received and put their hair back to normal.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Tony and Ziva checked out the clinic where Officer Granger was treated for a stab wound to the abdomen. The nurse confirmed that there was also a cut on Granger's arm and that was where the skin at the scene had come from. Granger had paid in cash and the nurse had secretly stitched him up. She told them she helped him out to his car and watched as he drove off.

"What kind of car was it?" Tony asked.

"Let me see…it was red…small…a Honda Civic I think." The nurse said.

"Are you sure?" Ziva questioned.

"Well, I could always check the video tape." The nurse said and motioned towards the camera.

"We'll take a copy of that, if you don't mind." Tony told her.

The nurse twittered at Tony and went off to get the tape.

"She should be fired for fixing him up and letting him go." Ziva stated indignantly. "Ziva, look around, this place isn't exactly a world class clinic. They probably do things like this all the time." Tony informed her.

The nurse returned with the tape and a piece of paper. "Let me know if you need any more information." She said with a giggle.

Tony smiled, "We'll do that."

Carly was able to pull the license plate of the 2001 Red Honda Civic from the video Tony got from the clinic. A BOLO was issued and the car was spotted stopped at a rest area two hours outside DC. The police arriving on the scene called in to report multiple bodies in the grassy area behind the rest stop. At least one of the bodies was a Marine as he was still in his fatigues.

Gibbs found himself in the lab for the second time that day. When he walked in he noticed two big differences. Abby and Carly had fixed their hair and changed the music back to its normal play list and volume.

"Come on Carly. We're gonna need an extra pair of hands on this crime scene." Gibbs ordered.

"What?" Carly asked looking up from the microscope.

"You're about to lose your crime scene virginity." Gibbs informed her, taking her coat off the rack as a hint for her to move.

"Outside the building?" Carly was puzzled.

"Let's go!" Gibbs said, impatient and already walking towards the door.

"This won't hurt will it?" Carly wanted to know.

As they stepped up to the elevator they heard Abby shout, "Be gentle with her Gibbs!"

Gibbs smiled as the doors slid shut.

Carly turned to him, curious about this development. "Why didn't you take Abby?"

"She's already lost hers." Gibbs replied.

Rolling her eyes, Carly turned back towards the doors. "Let me guess, it'll be clear when I get to the scene, right?"

Gibbs didn't reply, he just walked off the elevator leaving her to follow behind. He wouldn't tell her that he had noticed she stopped leaving the building for lunch since the incident with Delacroix. He wouldn't mention that she was quieter and a little withdrawn since then. And he certainly wasn't going to let on that it eased his mind to find her goofing off in the lab with Abby this morning. Nope, he wasn't the type of man to do those things. So instead, he was taking her to what could possibly be the most gruesome crime scene she could imagine and let her take it from there. There was also the added bonus of showing her how much of a b*****d he could be so that she wouldn't get interested in him. He had held firm to Rule 12 since meeting and leaving Jen Shepard and he wasn't going to break that rule now.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

After driving an hour and a half to get to the crime scene Tony had assured her was two hours away, Carly stepped from the van to get her bearings. Gibbs and his team were already grabbing their gear.

Carly said to Gibbs as they started walking toward the crime scene tape, "Well, your parents got part of your name right at least."

He looked at her but didn't say anything. Tony was curious though and asked, "What part is that?"

They reached the crime scene tape and ducked under it as Carly replied, "The ‘Jet' in Jethro."

Tony laughed at that while Ziva and Tim hid their smiles under the bills of their caps.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Surprisingly enough, the scene wasn't as gruesome as one would have imagined. The bodies had been shot several times each but they weren't disfigured. Just a little whole-y as DiNozzo put it. The cops first on the scene had called it though. All six bodies were Marines that had served with Officer Granger in Afghanistan. Carly was just there to photo the scene while the agents and Ducky deciphered any visible clues.

Carly was in the process of snapping photos when she noticed light glinting off something in the surrounding woods. "Gibbs." She said quietly as she moved closer to him.

He noticed her stillness and heard the forced calm in her voice. He looked in the direction she was facing and saw the light blink and disappear. He snapped into action.

"Ducky, get these bodies loaded up and take them back to Autopsy. DiNozzo, form a search team with the PD here and cordon off a search grid of 100 yards in the direction of the woods behind the rest stop. Someone was out there. I want to know who."

He sent Carly back to NCIS with Ducky and Palmer, narrowing his eyes when the younger man needlessly assisted her into the front seat. She noticed Gibbs looking and gave a quick wave before Ducky pulled off.

Carly and Abby were working on the photos from the crime scene, when Abby's phone started ringing. She looked down at the display and walked into the other room.

"Yes, Tony?" She answered.

"Hi there." He replied and she could hear the smile in his voice.

"Why are you calling me at work?"

"I wanted to hear your voice." Tony said.

"Is that all you wanted?" Abby asked glancing over at Carly to see a puzzled look on her face.

"Would you have dinner with me tonight?" Tony asked as Gibbs started shouting at him.

"Yes, now get back to work before Gibbs blows a gasket."

"Yes ma'am."

"Ooh, I love it when you say that." Abby smiled and hung up the phone.

Walking back into the lab, Carly waved her over to the pictures.

"Does this look funny to you?"

Abby looked down at the pictures. "It looks like you held the shutter down and it did a ‘burst' capture."

"That's what I thought. Now look at this." Carly picked the photos up and stacked them in reverse order. She took hold of the edges of the photos and fanned them in sequence.

"Oh my!" Abby exclaimed.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Gibbs!" Tony shouted. "Got some footprints here."

"You know what to do DiNozzo." Gibbs shouted back. He was looking at the trees directly in line from where Carly had been snapping photos earlier. There were markings on the bark that looked like someone had been waiting for something and cut into it to waste the time away. Gibbs stood up and backed away from the tree. He looked around to see that everyone was occupied and then he looked back at the tree, squinting. His eyes opened wide. It wasn't just random markings and it wasn't from a knife. "Everyone hold your positions!" Gibbs ordered.

Everyone froze and tried to look at what Gibbs was seeing. "No one move, until I clear your area." He directed.

Tim was the first to speak up. "What do you see boss?"

Gibbs carefully made his way to each of his people and the police in the surrounding woods. Once he had cleared the entire area, he released the cops to go back to their patrols. His team walked back to the van still waiting on an explanation that might not be forthcoming from the silent man walking their way.

They were in the van driving back to the office when Gibbs spoke. "Whoever Carly spotted in those woods thought better of booby trapping the area. I found markings on two trees where someone wrapped wire around them, probably to set off some type of explosive devise."

"It doesn't make sense that they would booby trap that area unless someone was doing a trial run." Ziva stated. "Hardly anyone goes in that area from what we saw studying the grounds. The only people out there were the person Carly spotted and us."

"Exactly, Ziva. So who was out there and what are they trying to do? And why do we have six dead Marines and one UA?" Gibbs asked.

Silence reigned on the rest of the trip. They were all trying to find answers to a puzzle they hadn't known was there.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Gibbs, Tony!" Abby shouted as the now tired team filed into the bullpen. "Abs, if it isn't important we can't worry about it right now." Gibbs told her, taking his gun out and putting it away.

"Well, in that case, I'll let Carly tell you all about it since she found it." Abby said with a fake look of disappointment. She clicked on the control to bring the pictures up for everyone to see.

"What did you find?" Gibbs asked Carly.

"Well, when I was taking photos at the scene today, I froze when I saw the light in the woods."

"We know that already, Carly. That's why we just spent three hours searching those woods."

Carly bent over his desk to look him in the eye. "You didn't let me finish, Jethro." The whole team looked on in surprise at her calling him by name and Abby grinned at their reactions.

"As I was saying, I froze when I spotted the light coming from the trees. My finger pressed the shutter button on the camera and took a burst of photos, about fifteen in all. While Abby and I were looking at them earlier, we realized it was like a slideshow of the person in the woods." Abby clicked the remote and the pictures flew by on the screen. Everyone tilted their heads but didn't see what was so important about them.

Carly waved her hands. "I know; it doesn't have the same effect. Look, it's like old school cartoon animation. You take the first photo and put it on the bottom and so on until they are all in a stack." She handed them to Gibbs. "This is exactly what we've done here. Flip through them and see if you notice it."

Gibbs flipped through once not looking closely, more annoyed that they wouldn't come right out and say what they were seeing. He flipped through once more because something in the pictures caught his attention. He looked up at Carly to see her nodding her head at him.

"That's why we couldn't just tell you, you wouldn't believe us." She said defensively.

"What else have you found out?" Gibbs asked with a little more patience.

"The man in the photo is ex-military. He was a Marine back when Officer Granger was in Afghanistan. His name is Brian Bethay. He was dishonorable discharged six months ago based on the testimony of his fellow Marines. There were eight total men in his unit during the operations they were involved in at that time and Granger and Bethay are the only two left alive." Carly finished and took a deep breath.

Ducky walked off the elevator. "Jethro, I'm glad your back. I was performing the autopsy on one of our fallen Marines and sent the bullet to Abby. I came looking for her to see if she was finished testing my theory."

All eyes turned to Abby and she hopped off Tony's desk. "Oh, yeah, Duck-man. I ran the tests on that bullet. It was from a rifle not a pistol. Bethay shot the Marines from the woods, probably tried to draw out Granger to take him out as well."

"A rifle?" Ziva questioned. "The wounds were consistent with a close shot, not long distance."

Carly made a noise and said, "You didn't see them when Ducky rolled them over."

"Carly's quite right; we only did a cursory exam of each of the bodies on the scene. Jethro had already sent most of you into the woods when Mr. Palmer and I started loading the bodies. The shots were meant to do maximum damage and drop each man where he was standing. We did have a bit of a time of it keeping all the organs with the correct bodies while getting ready to put them in the body bags."

Ziva nodded. "I've seen wounds like that. They aren't pretty to clean up after."

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs shouted, after hearing all the information.

"Already on it Gibbs. McGee here has already found Bethay's DMV records, we've got a BOLO out on him and we're in the process of getting the search warrant as we speak."

"Let's go." Gibbs said, taking his gun back out his desk. "The warrant should be ready by the time we pick it up."

The team filed out and only Carly noticed the look that passed between Tony and Abby when he silently said, "Dinner, later."

The two women were left alone and they went down to the lab to get their coats. Unless the team found something, they wouldn't be needed anymore that night.

Carly sighed as they walked to their cars. "You know, you should teach Tony to sign. That way he won't have to worry about you lip reading his message right."

"No way!" Abby said. "If Tony started signing, Gibbs would definitely know something was up."

Carly smiled thinking it was so funny that they knew about it but the men were oblivious. "Night, Abs."

"Night Carly."

They started their cars and drove home.

Gibbs, DiNozzo, McGee and Ziva arrived at Brian Bethay's residence greeted by gunshots. Search warrant forgotten, they broke down the door and found both Bethay and Granger down. McGee secured the weapons lying on the floor while Ziva checked for vitals. Bethay was gone when Ziva touched him, but Granger was hanging on.

Calling for an ambulance and Ducky, Gibbs carefully searched the house for the suspected explosives. He found them in the basement. He quickly took in the fact that Bethay had enough explosives to take out half of DC. He eased back up the basement stairs to find Tony photographing the scene. "We are going to move these two." Gibbs said quietly.

"Bombs?" Ziva questioned.

"Not that I saw, but I'm not taking that chance. Tony, you got enough pictures there?"

"Sure thing Gibbs."

"Good. McGee, you and Ziva take Granger outside. Tony and I will move Bethay and then I'll call in the bomb squad to come have a look."

They worked quickly and cautiously to get the men outside. Ducky wouldn't like the fact that Bethay had been moved, but there was no help for it. Gibbs called the bomb squad just as the ambulance arrived. The EMT's worked fast and had Granger out of there before Gibbs was off the phone. Ducky came on the scene and looked at the body.

Before he could ask questions, Gibbs cut him off, "The basements full of explosives, Duck. We couldn't take the chance of any of them being live."

Nodding, Ducky did a preliminary exam and instructed Mr. Palmer to get the body ready for transport. Finally as Ducky and Jimmy were pulling off, the bomb squad arrived. Gibbs explained once again what he saw and they figured the best way to go in was by robot. It took a little while, but at last the squad cleared the basement of any live explosives. Gibbs was relieved that nothing would go boom tonight and he and his team left the rest of the clean up to the bomb squad.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It was well after midnight when Tony finally managed to make it home. He hadn't called Abby yet to reschedule dinner, but he knew she'd understand. He let himself into his apartment and froze. Just as swiftly as he froze, he relaxed and smiled. His Abby was muttering to herself from the kitchen. Standing in the doorway, he said, "Honey, I'm home."

Whirling, Abby ran over and jumped in his arms. "I was so worried, I just couldn't stay at my place and wait anymore."

Squeezing her tight before setting her back down, Tony said, "It's ok. I should have called once we left the scene, but…"

"But then everyone would know you were seeing someone and want to know what the big secret is."

"Exactly."

Abby smiled in understanding and turned to the fridge. "I am hungry and can only imagine that you are too. I can fix us a ham and cheese omelet but you really have to get more food than this. It's depressing looking at your refrigerator."

"I never had anyone to cook for and cook for me until you agreed to go on a date with me. Give me a few days to catch up on all I need to do, ok?" Tony joked.

Abby looked up at him from the stove where she was now starting to make the omelets. "Or maybe next time, we could have dinner out and go sight-seeing somewhere." She suggested.

Surprised, Tony walked over to stand behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, planting little kisses on her neck.

"Go out sight-seeing huh?" He asked, making her shiver from the small little bites and kisses on her neck. "I don't know. I kinda like the view from right here."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The End