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You're to Blame

You are to blame for anything good in my heart. You are to blame for this change that has taken me by storm.

Spoilers: Under Covers, Frame Up, Probie

Chapter Fifty-one November 2005

Friday November 11, 2005

It was while Tony was reflecting on the past few days' events that he realized that Ziva wasn't as good as she claimed to be undercover. Sure Ziva had a bunch of cool gadgets, including spyglasses, but only an amateur would forget to use their partner's alias while surrounded by dozens of people, many of them could have heard her call him Tony. At that moment he wasn't Tony, he was Jean-Paul If their target had heard her say Tony the entire mission would have been ruined.

Of course Tony knew that Ziva would claim that her actions weren't a big deal. Everything turned out okay in the end and at least three more guns for hire were off the streets and they had information to stop many others thanks to Sophie Ranier's microchip.

So he decided to say nothing. Shepard wouldn't do anything to control her pet assassin and Jethro was powerless to do anything against the director unless she did something that royally screwed the pooch. Tony wasn't entirely sure that Jethro would do anything if it come down to it. He suspected that his dad may have had some real feelings for Shepard at least to the point that he would protect her from herself.

Tony wasn't nearly as loyal.

What frustrated him the most was Jeremy's almost non-participation. He was once again regulated by Shepard to to work in the lab with Abby and Chip. It would have been that would have been a bigger help to have Jeremy in the field where he could watch his six and had the experience with this kind of work. Tim was shaping into a decent agent but Tony didn't think that the kid really knew what to look for. Being shifty didn't always mean you were up to no good...at least not the no good that they cared about.

At the end of the day it wasn't even Jeremy who brought around his car to the front of the building so that he didn't have to walk all the way to the parking lot. It was Chip who drove Tony's prized Mustang and he really didn't want the strange man near his car.

All in all Tony knew that he should be grateful that he didn't have to experience the sharp blade of Peruvian steel.

Monday November 14, 2005

It took two weeks for Kristy to learn her bully's name, Regina Alesi. It was the only one class that they shared but Regina still went out of her way to belittle Kristy for no other reason than because she could. It didn't help Kristy that she was usually on her own. Bree had gone to collage in Colorado of all places and Alice was in Florida. She wasn't the only sixteen-year-old on campus but she was the only one who was majoring in a soft science so she rarely interacted with them.

Kristy was glad that she a little time off for Thanksgiving. It give her the time to remember just why she though that it was a good idea to ump straight into collage and not take a year or two off so that she could actually be eighteen like the rest of her peers.

Monday November 21, 2005

It started out as a normal case, normal for team Gibbs. It wasn't the first time that they had been called out to a crime scene because all they found were some body parts. Last year they had case where there was just a single leg to begin with. This time they had a pair of legs. In fact the only reason they had the case was because the legs were found at Quantico.

Then everything started going down hill. The ripped glove could have been explained away. Yes it would have painted him as a sloppy investigator but he could have survived that. His teeth marks being on one of the legs he couldn't explain away. He also didn't have much hope that the blood they found on the legs wasn't a match.

Going through all of his past cases to find who would want to frame him was a little bit harder. Most of his past jobs were classified and not even the director could see what he did. And if Shepard couldn't open his file there was no way anyone other than Jeremy and Jethro could see it. However there was some things that not even Jethro could legally see even if he already knew everything from what Tony told him. That left only Jeremy to do thr dirty work.

Not that it helped any. There were far too many people who wanted him dead or at least in jail... actually most of his arrestees probably wanted him dead. Even going back so far as 1993 he could think of people who wanted his demise. Sadly, even Ziva's father was on that list if he had figured out who he was. But he didn't think that Eli would kill a woman, chop off her legs, and frame his for his death... only to put him in jail.

Of course since the crime was discovered on military land in was considered a federal crime he still could get the death sentence if the judge and jury consider it the be a heinous crime. Plus even if it hadn't been in Quantico and solely Virginian land he could have gotten the death sentence. He didn't know how likely that was but he didn't want to take his chances.

Tony didn't know why his thoughts went down that path. He was going to prove himself innocent... again. There was no reason to believe that everything wasn't going to end alright.

But then things only got worse. The FBI showed up.

Having Fornell taking the lead on the case after NCIS wasn't the worst thing that could happen. Tobias would be fair. He would believe he was being framed. That didn't mean Tony didn't trust that the Feebee wouldn't lock him up if he felt he had no other choice. After that time in Baltimore he wasn't looking forward to spending time in a cell again.

But Fornell wasn't alone. He had brought Special Agent Sacks. Apparently the Fibbies thought Fornell would be too easy on him.

He wasn't sure why Sacks asked him where he was on Tuesday night. There was no evidence of when the legs had been severed or where they had come from. He couldn't have an alibi for a crime they couldn't even date. But he answered the question... in his own DiNozzo-Gibbs way.

"Okay. Oh, out loud. Right. I worked until seven, went for a run, drove home. Spent the night alone. Which, I know, is unusual. But it was a school night, and I wanted to watch Magnum."

"What was it about?"

"Ah-ha. The old checking-the-plot ploy. You're good, Agent Sacks. Very good. It's my favorite Magnum. It's the one where he finds himself adrift at sea after a boating accident and vividly relives his father's death during the Korean War." It really was his favorite show. Although he wasn't sure how Magnum could relive his father's death when he hadn't been there.

"I'm going to go out on a limb here. You think you were framed."

"Now we're getting somewhere."

"And who do you think it was who framed you?"

"Well, any one of a hundred two hundred people maybe. I have a list if you're interested."

"Do you realize the kind of trouble you're in here, DiNozzo?"

"Oh, believe me. I do. It's the third time this has happened to me. And no you won't find the records on those instances. It's classified. Waaaay above your pay grade. Do you realize that you have an enormous clump of something green between your teeth? It's right there.

"What is it about women? Is it the way they smell or the beguiling smiles? The whispers? The secrets?The way they tip toe around in those little ridiculous shoes? And the way they fit their tiny little bodies into those tiny little outfits."

"You're wasting my time."

Tony could only smirk when Sacks stormed out of Interrogation. There was no doubt in his mind that Sacks was complaining about him to Fornell at that very moment.

But that smirk soon faded when Jethro entered the room to tell him that while he wasn't being arrested he was going spend to night in the FBI's holding cells.

Jethro hated that Abby's faith in herself was being shaken. He hated that she felt like a failure for not being able to help Tony. But he didn't have the time... Tony didn't have the time for her to get over her doubts. Whoever was framing Tony had to of left a clue to who he or she was. No one was perfect and there was no such thing as the perfect crime. The guilty party shouldn't have left so much 'evidence'. If they knew what Tony was capable of they would have known that less was more.

It wasn't very often that Kristy studied at a cafe. Often times it was too noisy for her to concentrate but she was working on a group project. She was the only one was had a dad, uncle, and granddad that forbade her from drinking coffee so she was out voted when she suggested they met in a library. Lucky for her, the cafe also had a wide variety of tea. She didn't like tea that much but they had a raspberry thing that wasn't too offensive.

She didn't even get her drink before the TV in the corner announced that an NCIS agent had been arrested for the murder of an unknown young woman. Knowing that her family had a history of getting into some of the strangest situations she knew that they had to be involved in some way. And her uncle was the most likely to be the one that was arrested. Her dad never attracted that kind of trouble... usually.

But her classmates were depending on her to do her part of the project and since this was the first day that they were working on it she couldn't skip out on it. She sent a quick text to Jimmy to see if he knew what was going on but all he sent back were the words 'frame-up'. Kristy had already figured that out so it didn't do her any good.

Her classmates noticed that she was distracted. They didn't question her on it but they made sure that she got all the details she needed in order to do her part of the project. They didn't want to fail because one of the others didn't do their work.

As she drove home she considered calling her Dad. In the end she turned around and headed toward the Navy Yard.

Jeremy wasn't surprised to see his daughter entering the bullpen.

"What do you know?"

"Just that an NCIS agent had been arrested for murder. Tell me that it wasn't Uncle Tony."

"Sorry, Kiddo, you know that these always seem to happen to him."

"How many times does this make now?"

Jeremy actually had to think about it. "I don't actually know"

As much as Jethro hated leaving Abby he had to see Tony. She had a support system that Tony didn't have. Although he was uncomfortable having Kristy there but couldn't put his finger on as to why. She had been there dozens of times.

"I smelled you coming, Boss. Pepperoni, sausage, extra cheese, right? My favorite. Thanks. I'll save that for later. You know, I've been thinking. I'm a federal prosecutor's dream. This is the third time that I've been framed for murder. Someone might think that maybe that the other two times might have pushed me to actually commit murder... y'know just to see if I could get away with it. Maybe you killing my biological father made me insane. Maybe, because it appears that I don't have a family, I was crying out for attention. Maybe I just wanted to be on the other side of the crime. Test Abby a little bit. Maybe someone saw that my love life was a bit lacking and they'll believe that I took out on the girl when she said no. I have no alibi. But how can I have an alibi for a murder that doesn't even have a time or date? For all we know I could have been at your house when that girl died. I'm not getting out of this one, am I Dad?"

Jethro motioned for Tony to come closer. He obediently moved to the bars and immediately relaxed when he felt the familiar smack to the back of his head.

"Thank you, Boss.

McGee and Ziva were down to two suspects that were more than capable of the cutting off someone's legs. The first was George Stewart a forensic tech that Tony got fired during his short tenure in Baltimore. The man lost everything when he lost his job, including his house. Needless to say he was holding a grudge against Tony. The second suspect was Lieutenant Pam Kim. She was a nurse that Tony went on one date with, after she broke things off with her fiancee. She came to be a bit bitter when she realized that it was only a one time thing for Tony.

Lieutenant Kim was at the Greenbriar on her honeymoon with the same man that she left to be with Tony, Scott Sparks.

Pam was not amused when she was dragged from her hotel room. While she freely admitted to being 'bitchy' when she put Tony on the herpes alert website, she seemed to be really concerned when she thought that someone had murdered him. It quickly came clear that she wasn't the one trying to frame Tony. Jethro let her go with the warning not to go anywhere.

It was actually the director who found George Stewart. So it wasn't long before Jethro and Ziva were trying to look around his morgue looking for Jane Does. Unfortunately they couldn't get far without a warrant.

At first Abby was excited to see the fiber from the tape that Chip found But when was proven to be from Tony's car Abby felt as though she put the final nail in his coffin.

Tuesday November 22, 2005

It was a surprise to find Carla Johnson. She was whole, young, and very bubbly. She was a nurse that donated blood to Jane Doe that Abby found on the bone marrow database.

It was after they found Carla that everything fell into place. They got their warrant to search Stewart's morgue. They found the girl's body that belonged to the legs. It was clear that the girl had been killed in a car accident like Carla said.

Abby also got her mojo back when it came clear that their victim wasn't murdered. Soon enough Tony was freed from prison. But having Stewart wasn't enough for Abby. She was sure that someone else was helping him.

Jenny found out who was fired from Pemberton Medical Analysis. It wasn't easy to find but when Jethro saw that it was Chip he knew that Abby was in danger. He didn't even bother taking the elevator and ran to the basement as fast as he could. His heart dropped when he saw Abby slumped over he chair.

"Now can I work alone?"

Wednesday November 30, 2005

Jethro didn't know how to make things better for McGee. He knew that his youngest agent was having a hard time after their last case. There was no way to know for certain that it was his bullet that killed Detective John Benedict. But he also knew that things like this happened and McGee had to work through it on his own.

He was just glad that Abby was there to give McGee the hugs that he needed.