Abby glanced at DiNozzo and McGee, lifting an eyebrow at the two agents. "Hovering over my shoulder won't make the DNA match any quicker," she told them, her eyes worried. "Are you sure Bishop is going to be okay?"

"She's in Asgard, with Loki and Gibbs," DiNozzo said reassuringly, although he was just as worried as Abby. "They have healers there, Asgardian healers. Bishop will be fine."

Abby looked skeptical. "Those Asgardian healers had no idea what the energy in Loki's head was or how to get rid of it the last time we were there, and we figured it out instead. I wouldn't put much faith in them."

"Gibbs is there," McGee told her. "Would they dare let Bishop die with Gibbs around?"

Abby shoved McGee. "Don't talk about Bishop dying!"

"I was saying she wouldn't die!"

"Don't forget about Loki," DiNozzo pointed out. "He'd probably kill the healers if they failed, so they won't. Everything will be fine." Everything has to be fine. We won't lose another agent.

Kate's not dead, though, that little voice in the back of his mind whispered. Kate's not dead, just your enemy.

"Go see Ducky," Abby directed. "Let me finish analyzing Halo's blood. Just...give me a break."

DiNozzo and McGee exchanged a glance, then turned to go. "Wait!" Abby exclaimed, throwing herself at McGee. She gave him a tight hug. "Tell me Bishop's going to be okay."

"She's going to be okay," McGee said as reassuringly as he could.

"Loki and Gibbs are enough to frighten the healers into doing their job," DiNozzo added. "Don't worry, Abby."

****

"Ah, Tony, Timothy," Ducky greeted as the two agents walked into autopsy. "Any news on Eleanor's condition?"

DiNozzo shook his head. "Do you have anything on the body?"

"She was shot with a sniper rifle," Jimmy said, looking up from where he stood beside the body of Millie Swenson. "Forehead."

"I know, Jimmy," DiNozzo snapped. "I was there, remember?"

Jimmy raised an eyebrow. "You don't have to be so rude about it."

DiNozzo sighed. "Sorry, Jimmy. I'm just tense." Tense because I'm pretty sure I know who those two enhanced humans were and this isn't good if they are who I think they are. "The bullet's the same make as the one from Captain Morris, both unmarked, and we saw Agent Sniper shoot her." Saying that felt so wrong, now that he knew Kate was Sniper. "Which means Sniper did shoot our Navy captain."

Ducky nodded. "It seems so, DiNozzo. So why, may I ask, are you down here?"

"Do you have anything else?" McGee asked.

Ducky shook his head. "Millie Swenson's body has said many things, but none of which has any bearing on her death, or your case."

DiNozzo sighed, leaning against the empty autopsy table. "We've got nothing, Ducky. We know who killed Captain Morris, we saw who killed Millie, but we have no idea how to capture Agent Sniper or her little ghost friend." And then there's Halo and her partner, and Morris involved with SHIELD, and Bishop in Asgard....

We've just got so many problems and no way to catch our killers.

****

"There's no match," Abby told DiNozzo as he and McGee entered her lab. "I couldn't find a match for the DNA. I'm sorry."

DiNozzo stared at the computer, the blaringly red Negative Match glaring out at him. This was wrong. He knew who that DNA belonged to and she should be in the system.

Wait.

"McGee," he started. "Do you think you could hack into SHIELD again?"

****

"This is wrong!" McGee hissed. He was sitting in the passenger seat of DiNozzo's Mustang, his laptop with the fake SHIELD badge displayed on the screen. "We work for SHIELD! We can't just break in!"

DiNozzo shot him a look. "Trust me, McWorry, this is necessary."

"SHIELD is on our side!" McGee told him. He glanced through the windshield at the Triskelion, looming before them. Before long, they would be pulling through security and he would have to commit to DiNozzo's plan. Abby sat in the backseat, eyes wide as she clutched her bag to her chest, the DNA sample inside. "Why don't we just ask Fury for help?"

"If we give this sample to Fury, not only will we never see it again, but Fury won't tell us the results, either," DiNozzo said grimly. And, if I'm right, then SHIELD may not be as trustworthy as we thought and I'm not handing away our only evidence. "Trust me, this is the only way."

"Breaking and entering?" Abby piped up. "You had McGee forge a fake government ID, and we're all in a conspiracy to break into SHIELD. That's like, what, three crimes right there? Forgery, pretending to be a government official, and conspiracy."

DiNozzo felt the cold knot of anxiety in his stomach and wished Abby would stop pointing that all out. He had no intention of going to jail, not after his brief stint there after being framed for a murder, but he had to do this. His gut was telling him something was wrong here, seriously wrong, and to let it slide could be disastrous.

SHIELD already has so much power and they're the good guys. But if they weren't....

Well. We'd be in trouble, to put it lightly.

"Yes, that's three," McGee said to Abby. "Tony, Abby's right. This is a bad idea. There has to be some other way."

"SHIELD can trace you if you hack in from outside the system," DiNozzo insisted, glancing at McGee. They were almost at security and this argument had to be quelled before they entered SHIELD grounds. McGee and Abby had to be fully committed to playing the game. "We found that out when you hacked into Captain Morris' files. No, this has to be from inside the compound. This can't throw off any red flags, or at least not as quickly. We got off easy last time, but we won't if they catch us now. Besides, McGee, you and I have SHIELD access. Only Abby doesn't and trust me, that badge will look real, especially since you put her in the system, at least for tonight."

McGee glanced down at his computer screen, where Abby's picture stared out at him along with the name Piper Jones. Abby held the physical ID carefully in her hand, waiting until she would need to present it to the security guard.

"All right," McGee mumbled. "I still think this is a bad idea, but let's just get it over with."

DiNozzo drove up to the security checkpoint and stopped, rolling down his window. "Hey, Gerald," he greeted the guard, flashing his characteristic DiNozzo smile. He must have no suspicions. "We're just heading in to check some files for a case. Had an idea when we were talking about it earlier and we thought we would check."

"Won't be able to sleep until we do," McGee chimed in.

"IDs," Gerald said, holding up his scanner, and DiNozzo showed his. I'm still not used to having a SHIELD badge. McGee and Abby handed theirs up to him and they were scanned in, too. They all held their breath when it was Abby's turn.

The guard did nothing after scanning the badge. "You're good to go," he said. "Good luck on your case."

"Thanks," DiNozzo said, rolling up the window and driving down the bridge toward the Triskelion. "All right, McGee, you ready to get us where we need to go?"

"Yeah," McGee muttered. He cleared the screen of the laptop, closed it, and glanced up at the approaching building, his expression worried. The computer nerd had stolen the laptop from the evidence garage in order to create Abby's fake ID and place her in the system, and the plan was for them to return the laptop as soon as they returned to the Navy Yard. "As soon as I get into my office, I'll be able to access everything."

DiNozzo pulled into the parking garage and slid into the first available spot he found. "Earpieces in." He, Abby, and McGee climbed out of the car.

It didn't take long for them to enter the Triskelion. McGee disappeared, heading to his office to access his SHIELD computer, and DiNozzo and Abby started to walk in the general direction of the labs.

When DiNozzo and Bishop had first started working at SHIELD, Bishop had insisted on walking the Triskelion in their free time to get an idea of the layout. At the time, he had thought it a waste of time, but now he was grateful for having done that.

"Talk to me about something," DiNozzo muttered to Abby. "Just make it look like we belong."

****

McGee reached the coding wing and hurried down to his office. Stepping inside, he closed the door behind him and headed to his desk. After punching in the code for the locked drawer, he opened it and pulled out the notebook he kept in there, holding various bits of information but only one did he need right now.

Kahan, Joshua – WORLD_Over6

Agent Joshua Kahan's computer passcode. McGee had managed to get his hands on it a little while ago and had saved it for a rainy day. Kahan was involved with the coding project McGee was working on – in fact, he was the head of the project, at least of their aspect of it.

With a grin, McGee committed the code to memory and glanced at the office number beside the code. 312. Tearing the page from the book, he threw the book into the drawer and locked it before leaving his office.

Kahan's office wasn't far from McGee's and he walked hurriedly down there, knowing the cameras were on him. But Kahan's office was in a rare blind spot and McGee knew that. It was appear like he was heading to the water fountain, which was down the hallway from Kahan's office, not to sneak into a coworker's office to use their computer in a SHIELD break-in.

It was easy to open the office door; McGee had the office code as well. It only took a minute for him to open Kahan's computer and hack into SHIELD's main database. "Tony," he said quietly, tapping his earpiece. "I'm in."

****

DiNozzo and Abby entered the laboratory and headed over to one of the workstations. DiNozzo repeated the password McGee had gotten for them to Abby and she typed it in, her fingers gloved.

It didn't take Abby long to prepare the equipment needed to run the DNA sample against SHIELD's database. DiNozzo kept watch during this time as she started the test. It felt like forever until Abby finally said, "Uh, Tony? It doesn't match."

DiNozzo furrowed his brow. "Are you positive? There should be a match."

Abby shook her head. "I'm sorry, but there just isn't."

"Run the test again," DiNozzo ordered, giving her the name of the agent to run it against. "I'm sure it's her."

Abby obediently ran the sample again and shook her head. "No, it's negative."

But DiNozzo was staring at the image of the SHIELD agent, his eyes wide. Without saying a word, he leaned over Abby's shoulder and brought up a second personnel file, opening it beside the first and examined that photo as well.

Both agents were marked as deceased. He'd been told of their deaths. But he had just fought against them and they had to be alive in order to do that. How many ghosts could you have running around D.C., anyway? Palmer's ghost was enough.

"That's them," DiNozzo stated. "Halo and her partner. I'm sure of it."

"The DNA didn't match," Abby said, furrowing her brow. "Forensics don't lie, Tony."

"That's them," he repeated. "There's something wrong here somewhere, for those are the two people I saw. She's the one who shot Bishop." He tapped his earpiece. "McGee, look up the files of deceased SHIELD agents Thalia Mars and Isaac Connor."

There was silence for a couple moments before McGee responded. "Wait, aren't those the two dead STRIKE agents, who died in the Photon Guard blast five months ago? The ones you and Bishop are covering for?"

"Yeah," DiNozzo said. "That's them. Look at the pictures. Isn't that Halo and her partner?"

"It is. I don't know how, but it is."

"Print the files, we'll need them for Gibbs," DiNozzo ordered. "Meet us in the parking garage."

"What does this mean?" Abby said as she and DiNozzo erased all signs of their presence in the lab. "Why would former STRIKE agents try to kill you? You're SHIELD now."

"And why are they reported dead?" DiNozzo pondered. "Let's get out of here, Abby. Good work."

****

The man stood in the training hall, his muscles straining as he lifted the heavy weight. If he focused, the metal bar didn't slip through his fingers and land on the floor, like it had the first couple of times he had trained in here, the always present scientists watching from behind their one-way glass window. It felt like years ago. It probably was.

"Focus," Doctor Wehking had told him, taking his hand and forcing it to curl around the bar. He had been surprised the scientist had been able to touch him but then again, he had been granted less control over the phasing in earlier years. "You must keep your mind always on task."

The weight didn't fall through his hands; it stayed there, and his muscles continued to strain. The man relished the feel, knowing that his body was ready for anything his assignment would throw at him.

Then suddenly, he hefted the heavy weight up over his head, held it there for an impressively long second, and then flung it across the room. The weight slammed into the wall and fell to the floor, leaving the man standing with sweat dripping down his body and the feeling of strength flowing through him.

I'm always there, but you'll never see me.

As long as he focused...he could touch anything. Let go of that focus for one moment...nothing could touch him.

It was ultimately a win-win, either way he looked at it.

/**/

What did you think? Of DiNozzo's findings (or not-findings)? Of the mysterious man narrating the last part of the chapter?

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!

Skylar Wittenborn