Keryl Raist's Blog, page 15
January 3, 2014
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 272
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 272: Loose Ends
“Did I lose a day, Honey? It’s Saturday, right?” Elaine asks as Tim heads into the diner. She’s not facing him, so he thinks she identified him by his car coming in, as opposed to watching him walk in. She turns to him, and as she does, she sees he’s very much not in his Special Agent garb. “Oh, it’s Saturday all right. You’ve got a whole other side to you, don’t you?”
He’s got a ratty MIT t-shirt, sneakers, and his flannel jammy pants on. Wrist cuff and the bottom of the bicep cuff tattoo are visible. It’s occurring to him that he didn’t brush his hair before leaving the house.
“Doesn’t everyone?”
Elaine smiles at him and says, “Amen to that. So what brings you out here in your pjs?”
“Wasn’t planning on heading out. But I’ve got Gibbs trapped at my place, and Abby keeps feeding him vegetables. He tells me he’s starving, and he needs you to save him.”
Elaine chuckles at that. “And am I just rescuing him from healthy food, or am I rescuing all three of you?”
“All three of us. Please?”
“Not a problem, Hun,” she says, placing a coffee cup (of course it’s decaf) in front of him. “For the wait.”
“Thanks, Elaine.”
She handles their orders and the other customers, but after a few minutes she drifts back. “So, when do I get to see that baby girl of yours?”
“Tomorrow or next Sunday, I promise. We’ll come in for breakfast before church.”
“You better. He’s been showing me pictures since the sonogram, time for me to see his little princess in the flesh.”
Tim smiles at that. “You will.”
“So, why’s he trapped at your place?”
He told her about Gibbs’ knee, and staying with them. She nodded and made appropriate sounds as he worked his way through the story.
“Good that he’s got someone looking after him. That man’s been alone for too long.”
Tim grins and sips his coffee, feeling the stress of the presents finally really fade away. “He’s been holding out, just waiting for you to make an honest man of him.”
She laughs at that, waves at him (brushing his comment off), smiling, and shakes her head. “My husband might have something to say about that.”
“All the good ones are married.”
She laughs again. Her husband, the man who actually makes all the food they adore, whacked the bell, and Tim knew those to-go boxes meant their order was up.
“Thanks, Elaine,” he said, paying and heading out.
Summertime dinner on the porch. Nothing better than that. Gibbs is on the chaise. (Which Tim usually shares with Abby, but he’s not resenting not having a place on the prime lounging real estate.) He and Abby both have chairs at the table. Kelly’s in her bouncy seat, kicking her feet a little, making the chair bounce.
The sun’s low enough everything is pleasantly orangy-pink, the air is hot and humid, but not oppressively so. A tall pitcher of ice cold mint-lime-soda (Abby calls it non-alcoholic mojitos) is sitting on the table, drops of water meandering down it.
Cicadas are chirping away. Lightning bugs aren’t out yet, but as the shadows get deeper, they will be.
While they eat, Tim tells them about the last day of the case, starting with the info dump, and ending with telling Kort to fuck off. (Gibbs laughed out loud at that, very pleased by the idea.)
As he’s wrapping up the story (by then the lightning bugs were out, and Kelly had headed up for yet another nap) Tim says, “I just can’t shake the feeling that there’s a big piece of it missing. I mean, I know we don’t usually get everything tied up into a tidy bow. I know there’s usually something missing…”
“Tim, when it’s over, walk away.” Gibbs’ voice is serious about this, because he doesn’t want Tim gnawing on this one for years. But he has to admit, there’s that little niggle in the back of his head, too. The gut does not like this case, at all. But right now, everyone they were hunting is dead, (They pulled the plug on Blake at 3:30 in the morning, after the second doc declared him brain dead.) so it’s not like that niggle can lead to anything good. “We never get all the pieces.”
“I know, Jethro, but something just feels off about this.”
“Off like there’s another part ready to jump out and attack…”
Tim raises an eyebrow when Jethro says that. Sounds like he’s also feeling that sense of not done. “Yeah, but I don’t know how there could be. I got them. I got their communications system, that was all of them, but, it just feels… wrong.”
“What’s sticking out?” Abby asks.
“The dead battery. It’s such a dumb mistake. Come on, I carry back up batteries for everything we use. Draga has back-ups. Ender’s trained by the best, he runs a plan where he’s putting guys in place four years in advance, he’s gotten his hands on super-duper high-level secrets--We weren’t even supposed to know where those subs were. The Israelis weren’t sharing on that; we stole it.--so how did he find out? Which is another thing that stuck out...” Tim waves that off, he had a point and he’s getting lost in the details, so he swings back to the original point. “He rigs the detonator with a dead battery? It’s just… wrong.”
“We don’t know he rigged it,” Gibbs adds.
“True. Blake probably did. That was his thing, but… He’s successfully blown up things on at least three continents, and he uses a dead battery?”
Abby thinks about that for a moment. “Why don’t you know who set the detonator?”
“Hmmm...?” Tim asks. That hadn’t occurred to him.
“Is my team completely asleep at the switch? Why didn’t they tell you who put the battery in? Should have prints on it. After all, who wipes down a bomb detonator?”
Tim looks at Gibbs, who’s looking back at him. They did get prints. There were prints all over everything down in that storage area, but…
“Give me a second…” Tim gets up and goes to his computer. A few minutes later, he’s logged into his account at work, and checking the print reports. He’s scanning through it, and finally gets to the detonator. No prints.
Who wipes down a bomb detonator? The man who’s exceedingly cautious. But the man who’s exceedingly cautious also double checks the damn battery to make sure it works.
The man who wipes down the detonator is the man who knows the detonator is going to be found.
Shit.
He just about ran out to the back porch. “I’ve got to go see Leon.”
“Tim?” Abby asks, and Gibbs is looking pretty concerned.
“Your team wasn’t asleep. Well, sort of, they didn’t highlight it. The reason we didn’t know who set the detonator is because there were no prints on it. It had been wiped clean. This isn’t done, yet.”
“You want me to come?” Gibbs had successfully hobbled, by himself (and his crutches) the length of the living room and kitchen for dinner, and his knee didn’t feel like it had slipped the whole time.
Tim shakes his head. “No. But get on my computer and look around for evidence we don’t have but should. Something’s really wrong here.”
He wants to try and calm down, but it’s not working. He’s driving fast, that special, hyper-alert zone that he sometimes hits when his brain’s on overload so it focuses down on one thing and gets ultra-aware. Usually for him that’s a coding thing, but right now it’s a driving thing, too.
Right now he could tell you, from memory, the license plate of every car around him.
And it’s a driving thing because he won’t let his brain flail about on the case. Not enough intel. But something about this is really, really wrong.
“McGee?” Kayla Vance is very surprised to see him on their doorstep. He’s never been here when she was here. Last time he was here… No don’t think about that.
“Is your dad home?”
“Yeah. Come on in.” She turns and points toward the living room, calling out “DAAAAADDDD!”
Vance heads out of the dining room saying, “Kayla, what have I said about y…” Tim sees Vance’s face get tight and the tension in his posture shoot through the roof as he recognizes Tim standing there. By the posture he knows that Vance has a piece of the puzzle he doesn’t.
“Tim?”
Shit, how bad is this? He’s calling me, Tim.“Can we talk in private?”“Yes, I think we should.” Vance leads him into his office. It’s a tidy room, lots of books, lots of boxing posters, a few trophies, some bronzed gloves, lots of pictures of the kids, a few pictures of the four of them from before Jackie died. Some pictures of the kids with Lara, and, stereotypes about dating the nanny aside (apparently it was working for Vance) there’s a new one on his desk of him, the kids, and Lara. It’s very much a shrine to the things that make Vance, Vance. Once he closed the door, he says, “What’s on your mind, McGee?”Tim doesn’t sit down, and Vance doesn’t either. He leans against the edge of his desk, and Tim paces.“The dead battery’s been bugging me since we found it. I was telling Gibbs and Abby about it, and I mentioned that we didn’t know who installed it.”“Blake?”“Probably. He’s the guy who does that. But we didn’t know. Abby asked us why didn’t we know that, because that’s like the number two piece of evidence she’d send up. Which is when I checked, because we should know that. Of everything we should know, that’s the top of the list. “The detonator was wiped clean. The only guy who does that is the guy who knows the detonator is going to be found. Something’s really wrong on this one.”Vance nods toward the sofa on the far wall of his office. “What do you drink, Tim?”Tim feels his stomach knot up and his knees get that loose, wobbly sensation that means his body is sure something very bad is about to happen. He sits down, quickly, and licks his lips, his whole mouth suddenly very dry.“I’m good, Sir.”“We’re in my home. Here, I’m Leon.”“Okay, Leon, I’m fine and right now; I don’t need a drink, but you offering me one and calling me by my first name is making me really nervous, so how about we just get to why you think I’m going to want a drink?”
Leon pours himself one, grabs the chair from behind his desk and drags it over so he can sit in front of Tim. “Bit after two-thirty this morning Clayt,” it takes Tim a second but he realizes Clayt is Jarvis, “came in to see me. Carl Hanson,” Vance pauses to see if Tim knows who that is, and he does recognize the name of the Director of the CIA. “had just gotten word that Ender was killed and that we were the ones who did it. Ender was on a deep cover, report directly to Hanson, long-term mission…”
Vance keeps talking, but Tim doesn’t hear it, all he could hear, feel is the voice in his head screaming NOT AGAIN.
He can see Benedict crumple a few million-year-long seconds after the bullet hit him. That was the shock of the first time he’d shot someone, the first time he ended a life. And it was bad. But since he got the news of who Benedict was, there’s been the feeling of getting kicked in the gut to go with that image, the screaming desire to take it back, make time slow, to do, anything, anything to have not made that decision.
He can see it, replaying in his mind, Ziva hooked up the canister, and for about three minutes while the DEA vans made a huge noise and spectacularly broke into the across-the-street neighbor’s house, he and Draga waited, not really breathing, hoping she could do it and not get caught. They watched all three men on the heat monitor, watched them watch the DEA raid, and apparently they decided it wasn’t their problem, so they went back to their computers.
And then she was back in their van, and they waited, watching the three as they moved slower and slower, and one slumped onto the ground, and another’s head fell to his chest, and the third… he was already pretty slouched, but eventually they saw his hand slip off the mouse.
And it wasn’t until they were all presumed out of it that Tim gave the go for the evacuation of the neighborhood. He didn’t want to start the evac until he was sure none of them could see it and hit a kill switch.
That took two hours, but they weren’t going in until everyone was out of the blast range.
And yeah, he knew the longer a person was exposed to the gas, the lower the survival chances were. He knew it, and he watched the figures on the heat feed slowly get cooler and cooler as their bodies shut down.
They didn’t let the Coroner or EMTs into the Ender’s safehouse, couldn’t get it safe enough. Two of the bomb squad techs carried him out, body limp, one arm trailing on the ground.
And last night he went to sleep with a clean conscience because there were more than forty kids in the blast range, and every single one of them made it out alive. Last night, that image… It’s not that it didn’t bother him, but it was firmly filed in the greater good pile.
And now it’s not. Now it’s tied to a ragged mental voice screaming NOT AGAIN.
Part of him is sitting apart from the screaming. Part of him is amazed at how much this feels like the first time, it’s that same breath stolen, want to pass out and puke sensation.
“Tim…” Leon’s shaking his shoulder. “Come on back, Tim. That was a clean kill. I know it. SecNav knows it. Even the CIA agreed.”
“How clean can it be? He was one of ours, and I killed him.” Tim hears his voice crack on that.
“Clean, Tim. CIA wanted to fuss. Clayt went over our notes. Hanson went over our notes. Given what we knew, no one could give us a way to get Ender out of there without that whole neighborhood blowing up. CIA wanted to. They wanted to yell about it, but Clay sat down with their higher ups, at three in the morning, and told them, ‘Have at it! You’re all so smart and good at this. Get Ender out without killing the whole neighborhood.’ No one had a better answer than you did.”
It helps, a little. Not enough. But it’s better than nothing, helps anchor him to the idea that this time everyone isn’t staring at him like he’s the enemy.
“What do you mean, ‘given what we knew?’”
Vance wishes he hadn’t said that. It’s easy to forget that Tim’s not just computer smart. “Kort had orders to break Ender’s cover if he needed to. He decided he didn’t need to. CIA did have an exit plan in place for Ender. But, because Kort didn’t see any need to tell us about Ender’s real alliances, they didn’t get to put that plan into place.”
“What was it?”
“Kort was going to have the FBI fake an arrest of the ‘terrorists’ who tried to blow up the Reagan. He’d also supplied all three of them with high quality, fake, US Army IDs. He even had ‘fake orders’ for them. The plan was they’d hop a transport for South Korea, and then cross the border for their next job. Only thing was, that transport flight wasn’t going to work the way they were hoping.”
“Kort didn’t tell because he didn’t think I could catch Ender.”
“Kort didn’t think wecould catch Ender. He was there before you took over, and he didn’t tell DiNozzo or Gibbs. According to him, this was an operation that required brains and finesse, not just… ‘bull doggish tenacity and an intimidating stare.’”
Actually, Kort had said nothing of the sort. But it sounded like him, and if you’re going to lie, you need to be specific, and Vance is a good liar. Which is also why Vance changed one other key detail in his story, those IDs were supposed to be Marine IDs.
Tim had called that one correctly. It wasn’t NCIS in general that Kort doubted, (When they were planning what the target should be, and who would eventually take Ender in, Kort had recommended a Navy or Marine target so NCIS would catch it because he knew Gibbs could handle it. He knew Gibbs would be ready and able to make sure that transport plane was the end of the trip for Ender, Simmers, and Blake.) it was Tim in specific. Once Kort knew he wasn’t getting out of this, he owned up to the whole thing and his report made very clear that he figured there was no shot at all of Tim taking Ender down, so there was no reason to compromise his cover, and once DiNozzo or Gibbs was up and about again, he’d read them in. But… And because of but, Ender was dead.
But none of that is anything Vance thinks Tim needs to know. This’ll be enough of a hit to McGee’s confidence, and from what he’s been seeing these last few years, McGee confident is capable of great things, and he wants that man working for him, running his Cybercrime department. He’s not about to do anything to hurt that. He does not want him second guessing himself any more than he already will be, and honestly, right now, he was wishing Tim was a little less sharp, so this whole thing could have just died.
Tim sat there for a long minute, staring at his hands, seeing the bodies on his screen slowly fade as the heat leached out of them.
“Scotch.”
“Tim?”
“I like scotch.”
Vance nods, gets up, and gets him one.
Tim holds it, looking at brown liquid and clear glass. Then he takes a good swallow. He’s not really looking to get drunk (he still has to get home, and he’s still aware of that) but he hopes the burn will help pull him out of this numb space.
At least the screaming is over. That’s kind of nice.
“So, what happens now?”
“Nothing. Like I said, CIA wanted to yell. I told Jarvis we go to the wall on this one, because we are not sacrificing anyone just to keep CIA happy, especially not when they don’t play fair with us. He went in full bore, and by this morning it was done. Not sure what’s going to happen to Kort. If he wasn’t so damn dangerous, they’d cut him loose, but he knows too much to ever really retire.”
“That’s why they call them spooks right? They live forever?”
“Something like that. My guess is that Kort might be spending the next year or two brushing up on his Farsi, and find himself doing some deep cover field-work.”
“Great.”
He sits quietly next to Leon for another moment.
“You going to be okay?”
Tim shrugs.
“It was a clean kill.”
Tim sighs. “No such thing, Leon. He’s still dead, and I gave the order that did it. That’s on me, and it always will be.” He takes another sip of his drink.
“That’s on Kort.”
“Kort might have put me there, but I still made the decision.”
“It was the right one.”
“I’m not saying it wasn’t.” Tim thinks about it. That’s a difference. Probie McGee couldn’t have said that. Soon-To-Be-Head-of-Cybercrime McGee can. Given what he knew, it was the right decision. He does feel sure about that. It still hurts, but... he’s not doubting himself. He follows that thought a bit further, what if he had known…
Even if he had known Ender was one of the ‘good guys’ he’d… still do it. Sometimes you can’t get everyone out. “I’d make it again. You don’t leave two guys with dead man switches sitting on tons of explosives in a neighborhood. They had mercury switches on the windows. Some kid misses the ball playing catch, and it hit one of those windows, that whole neighborhood would have gone up. You can’t leave that in place and hope the angels are on your side while you wait for the seventeen part trap you’ve got to play out. When we handed it over to the FBI, their techs were saying they’d basically have to dismantle the house to declare it safe, and they were planning on searching for landmines, too, given how much crap was in that place.” He takes another sip of his drink. “But he’s still dead, and I made the call, and in the end, there are no clean kills, not for something like this.”
“I know.”
“Was there anything in the reports about James or Lisbeth Ender?”
“Not much. No one knows who killed James. Thomas was going to take James’ place, that was part of the plan, but what was supposed to happen to James isn’t in any of the reports. Thomas did recruit Lisbeth for what he was doing. The CIA made sure she was reimbursed for the phones she was buying.”
“How’d we miss that?”
“You didn’t. They had an off-shore account for her, under a fake ID. We know who she became when she vanished, and they’re getting her back.”
“Great.” He hands Vance his still mostly full glass. “I should get home. Abby and Gibbs are both waiting to see what’s going on.”
“Okay. I meant it about you guys taking the week off.”
He nods. Not sure if he’s going in on Monday just to have something to do, or curling around Abby and clinging to her and Kelly for a week.
It’s after ten when he got back in the car. Abby should be nursing again. And hopefully sleeping soon after that. He’s been using up her sleep time, and that’s not fair, not with her getting up every three hours to feed Kelly.
He texts Gibbs. Everyone up?
Right now.
Case is over.
???
Long damn story. It’s done.
That doesn’t sound good.
Is it ever? He pauses for a second. Is Abby reading these, too?
No.
Tell her I’m on my way. Will be home soon. Head to sleep, I’ll be there for snuggling soon.
Are you? He wonders about that briefly, and then gets the idea that Gibbs is asking if he’s telling her to head to sleep, so she doesn’t notice him just driving around on his own, or whatever, for a while.
Yeah. I’m coming home and going to bed. Not sure about sleep, but…
I’ll still be up when you want to talk about it.
Thanks.
Gibbs was on the sofa, reading, waiting up.
It occurs to Tim that this is the first time he’s ever come home and had a Dad waiting up for him. That gets a sigh.
“Tim?”
He shakes his head.
“I’ll be here.”
Tim nods and heads up. His eyes take a second to adjust to the dark of their bedroom, but once they do, he sees she’s on her side, her usual sleeping position, but he’s usually behind her, holding her.
Long exhale. Keep your routine. Routine helps. So he did. He stripped off and brushed his teeth, peed, and headed for bed, just like any other late night. It’s just not like any other late night. He wishes it was.
He snuggles up against her, between soft, nubby sheets and a light summer blanket. Warm, soft body, easy breathing, vague scent of her perfume and shampoo, deeper, stronger scent of her skin, little whiff of baby spit up. Home.
She scoots a bit closer, her neck resting on his arm. Automatically, his other arm curls around her, hand coming to rest under her breast. He kisses the back of her neck, and she sighs in her sleep.
Clean kill.
If that means anything.
I am a gun in the service of life, and if I have to end a life to protect others, I do it.
That’s why I’ve got the badge.
That’s the purpose of the gun.
That’s the job.
More.
It’s not just a job. That’s the life. The life you chose, because it matters, because it’s the man you need to be.
You do what you need to to save lives, and if some goddamn son of a bitch sticks himself in the middle of a fucking bomb, he’s gonna die because I’m not letting the fucker blow. Not me. Not on my watch. Not in a neighborhood filled with families just like mine.
He feels pure white anger surge as he gets to that last bit of his mental monologue. It’s his job to protect people. That’s the long and the short of it, and when it all comes down and works out, that’s who he is. The rest is just window dressing. And that son of a bitch built a cage so dangerous no man in his right mind could let it stand, walked into it, locked the fucking door behind him, and then expected to be saved.
You wanna live, asshole? Don’t sit in the middle of a goddamned bomb, and don’t ask me to get you out. Don’t stay with maniacs who are walking death.
But Ender is still dead, and the screaming from before isn’t guilt, and it isn’t fear. (Or maybe it was, but it’s not now.) It’s rage.
God damn that motherfucking cunt for putting me here. GOD FUCKING DAMN HIM!
Tim rubs his face and can feel he’s shaking, so he gets up and tosses on some pants. He’ll wake Abby if he keeps holding onto her this angry, and she needs her sleep.
“So?” Gibbs asks as Tim walks down less than fifteen minutes after he went up.
Tim shakes his head, pulls on sneakers, and points to the door.
Gibbs nods. He gets it. Sometimes you can’t talk. Sometimes you’ve got to work it off, and it’s got to be physical. If he could run, or fight, he’d go along, but he can’t. So he nods again, and once again says, “I’ll be here.”
Tim closes the door quietly, and Gibbs snags his phone. He flips through his numbers and calls Leon. “He’s not talking about it, yet. What happened?”
And Vance told him.
With Benedict there was sorrow, and grief (which, until that point, he thought was a synonym for sorrow, but after Benedict he knew it wasn’t, not really) there was guilt, mountains of stomach emptying guilt, and fear (which took care of everything in his intestinal tract that he didn’t puke up).
This time, running, hard, though his quarter-moon, ghost-silver neighborhood, there’s just rage.
He wants to scream it to the heavens, but he’ll settle for running. Too late, too public for screaming.
But that little voice is in the back of his head, screaming in rage.
TWICE.
Fucking twice.
His feet pound pavement, his body races through humid dark, heart pumping, sweat dripping, endorphins fighting so far outside of their weight class it’s not funny.
Once was bad enough. Everyone’s got that one case where you fucked up and the end was bad. Everyone.
But twice. When you did everything right?
This isn’t even failure.
This is what, a pyrrhic victory? This is every move done right. Meeting and exceeding everyone’s expectations, being three steps cleverer than the people who doubted him, and the wrong guy still died.
Not died. The wrong guy was killed. Passive voice. Avoidance technique. It’s yours. Own it.
You did everything right, and you still killed the wrong guy.
Tim stops running, staring at the stars, listening to the cicadas and the frogs, and then walks home.
He slumps onto the love seat. “Would it help if I shot Kort?”
Gibbs doesn’t know if Tim knows him so well he just knows he’d have gotten the story from Leon by now, or if he just doesn’t care if he knows the story.
“Can you look at yourself in the mirror without wincing?”
“Probably.” He left the light off while he brushed his teeth, and didn’t spend any time looking at himself.
“Good enough. Unless you’re between eating your gun or feeding it to him, you don’t shoot a man for this.”
“What’s this?” Tim sighs, feels like he’s been doing that a lot, staring at the ceiling.
“Hell, if I know the word. Fucked to hell and gone? Nothing else you could have done, nothing else you can change, you did the best you possibly could and it’s still wrong.”
Tim nods.
“And for that, you only shoot him if it’s you or him, and you’re not there.”
“No. Not even close.” Tim shrugs. “Never been close.”
“Good.”
“Not close isn’t the same thing as spiffy.”
“Nope. It was the right decision.”
“I know.” And this time, Gibbs sees that Tim does. He really does. That’s not the problem not today. “I am so fucking pissed at that asshole for making me do it. This must be what suicide by cop feels like, if you’re the cop.”
“Which asshole?”
“I was thinking Ender, but Kort’s got a mountain of shit I want to drop on him, too.”
“Why Ender?” This is when Tim realizes that he never did get deep into the details of the safe house.
“Front door had a bomb under the welcome mat. All of the first floor windows had mercury triggers on them, any vibration stronger than a lawnmower would have set them off. Bomb squad said they were set so that if, somehow, the cops missed the welcome mat, breaking through the door would set them to blow. Pressure plate on the door they used to get in and out, step over it, fine, but most people would have landed right on it. Pressure plates on the back porch. More mercury switches on the sliding glass doors on the back. Garage doors were wired with magnets. Every entrance of that house on the first floor was wired to blow. And a fucking softball tossed the wrong direction could have taken that whole neighborhood out. And Ender let Blake set it up, walked his ass into it, and somehow trusted us to get him back out again.
“And I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. Stick me in that van, tell me Ender works for the CIA, and I’d still make the call. I’m not going to dance around and wait for the CIA to come up with some rescue plan that gets him out three weeks later, leaving this huge bomb in the middle of a fucking neighborhood waiting to go off. Hell, a delivery guy at the wrong address, neighbor knocks on the back door… No. I’m not doing it.
“That son of a bitch made me kill him. Because I’m not the guy who can just sort of hope it’ll go okay and wait it out.
“He was good at what he did, and he wrapped up a cell with more than fifty guys in it, and if I could have gotten him out alive, he would have gone right back to it, pulling in more guys, dangerous guys, evil guys, but he’s not doing it anymore because he let one of the assholes build the trap that I couldn’t let stand, and it didn’t matter if he was still in it or not.
“And all the right decisions in the world doesn’t help with the fact that I want to get his corpse up and smack the shit out of it because I’m the one who had to pull the fucking trigger on him.”
Gibbs starts to get up, and Tim glares at him, then moves, sits on the floor so he’s next to Gibbs. (Gibbs is across the sofa with his foot up.) “This what you were aiming for?”
“Close enough.” He squeezes Tim’s shoulder, and leaves his hand there. “I know it doesn’t help, but I’ve been there, too. Half of sniper training is guns and math, feeling the wind, understanding distance, knowing where something is going to be instead of where it is, trajectories, air currents, calibers, vantage points, and cover. Half of it is pulling the damn trigger. Snipers take out other snipers. We take out machine gunners. We take out high power targets like the other side’s officers. Big enough gun and we take out engine blocks, that’ll force a column off the street and into the mines.
“And when you’re doing that, you’re taking out enemy targets, and that’s just how it is.
“And I was good at it.” Gibbs smiles a little, but it’s not happy, just acknowledging the bittersweet flavor to being exceptionally good at killing people.
“Really good. And in Colombia I ended up… Another son of a bitch with a bomb, and the idiot Lieutenant wants to parley, hoping we can get our guys and some villagers back by talking. He knows where I am, and the idiot keeps walking around, and the son of a bitch is getting more and more aggravated, and I know where this is going, but I don’t have a clean shot because that idiot keep walking back and forth…” Gibbs goes quiet, seeing that moment through his scope again. Wet behind the ears, twenty-one-year-old moron fresh out of Annapolis, who’d been told not to do this, walking back and forth, and Gibbs can see Delando Cortenz smirking, hand on the trigger that’ll blow his hostages, and he knew where it was going to go, knew that smirk wasn’t going to lead to anything good. “So, I swapped up, bullet big as your thumb, damn thing would have practically gone through an elephant, and it did go through the Lieutenant. He didn’t even slow it down, and it went through the son of a bitch, and we got our guys out, and a dozen villagers. And no one ever said anything about it… but, yeah, I wanted to hit him. If he had stayed the fuck out of it, I would have had a clean shot and gotten our guys out with no problems. If he had stayed to the side, just picked a place and stayed in it, I could have gotten a clean shot. But no, the little asshole had to keep moving around.”
Tim squeezes Gibbs hand back.
“How old was he?”
Gibbs shakes his head, looking frustrated. “Twelve? Something like that. Too damn green, too damn stupid. So full of himself, thought he was God’s gift to all things military. The next incarnation of Chesty Puller.”
Tim doesn’t say anything, he just sits there, and Gibbs lets him. There’s nothing else to say. Eventually, he hears Kelly crying, asking for yet another meal, so he stands up, kisses Gibbs on the forehead, and heads up to bring Kelly to Abby, save her from having to get up yet again.
“Tim?” Abby sounds sleepy as he lays Kelly in front of her. “You get any sleep at all?” she asks as she gets Kelly settled on her breast.
“Not yet.” He pulls off the pants, and curls into bed behind her.
Between no sleep, and the fact that she has to be able to smell the sweat on him, there’s fear in her voice as she asks, “How bad is it?”
His lips on her shoulder, his arm over her side, his hand on Kelly’s back, he says, “I’ve had better days. But nothing that won’t hold until tomorrow if you’d rather doze while she eats.”
“You think I’m going to nap after that?”
“I can hope?”
“Uh uh.” She lifts his hand to her lips, kissing his palm, his wedding ring, and the tattoo of her lips. “Let me help you carry this.”
So he told her, and held onto her and Kelly, and tried to let anger go, and maybe it didn’t entirely, but being home helped, running helped, talking to Gibbs helped, wrapped in his home and people who love him, helps, and eventually, when Abby flips over, Kelly now between them, so she could nurse on the other side, Tim falls asleep to soft, little sucking sounds, and the feel of his hand on Abby’s hip, his forehead pressed to hers.
Next
Chapter 272: Loose Ends
“Did I lose a day, Honey? It’s Saturday, right?” Elaine asks as Tim heads into the diner. She’s not facing him, so he thinks she identified him by his car coming in, as opposed to watching him walk in. She turns to him, and as she does, she sees he’s very much not in his Special Agent garb. “Oh, it’s Saturday all right. You’ve got a whole other side to you, don’t you?”
He’s got a ratty MIT t-shirt, sneakers, and his flannel jammy pants on. Wrist cuff and the bottom of the bicep cuff tattoo are visible. It’s occurring to him that he didn’t brush his hair before leaving the house.
“Doesn’t everyone?”
Elaine smiles at him and says, “Amen to that. So what brings you out here in your pjs?”
“Wasn’t planning on heading out. But I’ve got Gibbs trapped at my place, and Abby keeps feeding him vegetables. He tells me he’s starving, and he needs you to save him.”
Elaine chuckles at that. “And am I just rescuing him from healthy food, or am I rescuing all three of you?”
“All three of us. Please?”
“Not a problem, Hun,” she says, placing a coffee cup (of course it’s decaf) in front of him. “For the wait.”
“Thanks, Elaine.”
She handles their orders and the other customers, but after a few minutes she drifts back. “So, when do I get to see that baby girl of yours?”
“Tomorrow or next Sunday, I promise. We’ll come in for breakfast before church.”
“You better. He’s been showing me pictures since the sonogram, time for me to see his little princess in the flesh.”
Tim smiles at that. “You will.”
“So, why’s he trapped at your place?”
He told her about Gibbs’ knee, and staying with them. She nodded and made appropriate sounds as he worked his way through the story.
“Good that he’s got someone looking after him. That man’s been alone for too long.”
Tim grins and sips his coffee, feeling the stress of the presents finally really fade away. “He’s been holding out, just waiting for you to make an honest man of him.”
She laughs at that, waves at him (brushing his comment off), smiling, and shakes her head. “My husband might have something to say about that.”
“All the good ones are married.”
She laughs again. Her husband, the man who actually makes all the food they adore, whacked the bell, and Tim knew those to-go boxes meant their order was up.
“Thanks, Elaine,” he said, paying and heading out.
Summertime dinner on the porch. Nothing better than that. Gibbs is on the chaise. (Which Tim usually shares with Abby, but he’s not resenting not having a place on the prime lounging real estate.) He and Abby both have chairs at the table. Kelly’s in her bouncy seat, kicking her feet a little, making the chair bounce.
The sun’s low enough everything is pleasantly orangy-pink, the air is hot and humid, but not oppressively so. A tall pitcher of ice cold mint-lime-soda (Abby calls it non-alcoholic mojitos) is sitting on the table, drops of water meandering down it.
Cicadas are chirping away. Lightning bugs aren’t out yet, but as the shadows get deeper, they will be.
While they eat, Tim tells them about the last day of the case, starting with the info dump, and ending with telling Kort to fuck off. (Gibbs laughed out loud at that, very pleased by the idea.)
As he’s wrapping up the story (by then the lightning bugs were out, and Kelly had headed up for yet another nap) Tim says, “I just can’t shake the feeling that there’s a big piece of it missing. I mean, I know we don’t usually get everything tied up into a tidy bow. I know there’s usually something missing…”
“Tim, when it’s over, walk away.” Gibbs’ voice is serious about this, because he doesn’t want Tim gnawing on this one for years. But he has to admit, there’s that little niggle in the back of his head, too. The gut does not like this case, at all. But right now, everyone they were hunting is dead, (They pulled the plug on Blake at 3:30 in the morning, after the second doc declared him brain dead.) so it’s not like that niggle can lead to anything good. “We never get all the pieces.”
“I know, Jethro, but something just feels off about this.”
“Off like there’s another part ready to jump out and attack…”
Tim raises an eyebrow when Jethro says that. Sounds like he’s also feeling that sense of not done. “Yeah, but I don’t know how there could be. I got them. I got their communications system, that was all of them, but, it just feels… wrong.”
“What’s sticking out?” Abby asks.
“The dead battery. It’s such a dumb mistake. Come on, I carry back up batteries for everything we use. Draga has back-ups. Ender’s trained by the best, he runs a plan where he’s putting guys in place four years in advance, he’s gotten his hands on super-duper high-level secrets--We weren’t even supposed to know where those subs were. The Israelis weren’t sharing on that; we stole it.--so how did he find out? Which is another thing that stuck out...” Tim waves that off, he had a point and he’s getting lost in the details, so he swings back to the original point. “He rigs the detonator with a dead battery? It’s just… wrong.”
“We don’t know he rigged it,” Gibbs adds.
“True. Blake probably did. That was his thing, but… He’s successfully blown up things on at least three continents, and he uses a dead battery?”
Abby thinks about that for a moment. “Why don’t you know who set the detonator?”
“Hmmm...?” Tim asks. That hadn’t occurred to him.
“Is my team completely asleep at the switch? Why didn’t they tell you who put the battery in? Should have prints on it. After all, who wipes down a bomb detonator?”
Tim looks at Gibbs, who’s looking back at him. They did get prints. There were prints all over everything down in that storage area, but…
“Give me a second…” Tim gets up and goes to his computer. A few minutes later, he’s logged into his account at work, and checking the print reports. He’s scanning through it, and finally gets to the detonator. No prints.
Who wipes down a bomb detonator? The man who’s exceedingly cautious. But the man who’s exceedingly cautious also double checks the damn battery to make sure it works.
The man who wipes down the detonator is the man who knows the detonator is going to be found.
Shit.
He just about ran out to the back porch. “I’ve got to go see Leon.”
“Tim?” Abby asks, and Gibbs is looking pretty concerned.
“Your team wasn’t asleep. Well, sort of, they didn’t highlight it. The reason we didn’t know who set the detonator is because there were no prints on it. It had been wiped clean. This isn’t done, yet.”
“You want me to come?” Gibbs had successfully hobbled, by himself (and his crutches) the length of the living room and kitchen for dinner, and his knee didn’t feel like it had slipped the whole time.
Tim shakes his head. “No. But get on my computer and look around for evidence we don’t have but should. Something’s really wrong here.”
He wants to try and calm down, but it’s not working. He’s driving fast, that special, hyper-alert zone that he sometimes hits when his brain’s on overload so it focuses down on one thing and gets ultra-aware. Usually for him that’s a coding thing, but right now it’s a driving thing, too.
Right now he could tell you, from memory, the license plate of every car around him.
And it’s a driving thing because he won’t let his brain flail about on the case. Not enough intel. But something about this is really, really wrong.
“McGee?” Kayla Vance is very surprised to see him on their doorstep. He’s never been here when she was here. Last time he was here… No don’t think about that.
“Is your dad home?”
“Yeah. Come on in.” She turns and points toward the living room, calling out “DAAAAADDDD!”
Vance heads out of the dining room saying, “Kayla, what have I said about y…” Tim sees Vance’s face get tight and the tension in his posture shoot through the roof as he recognizes Tim standing there. By the posture he knows that Vance has a piece of the puzzle he doesn’t.
“Tim?”
Shit, how bad is this? He’s calling me, Tim.“Can we talk in private?”“Yes, I think we should.” Vance leads him into his office. It’s a tidy room, lots of books, lots of boxing posters, a few trophies, some bronzed gloves, lots of pictures of the kids, a few pictures of the four of them from before Jackie died. Some pictures of the kids with Lara, and, stereotypes about dating the nanny aside (apparently it was working for Vance) there’s a new one on his desk of him, the kids, and Lara. It’s very much a shrine to the things that make Vance, Vance. Once he closed the door, he says, “What’s on your mind, McGee?”Tim doesn’t sit down, and Vance doesn’t either. He leans against the edge of his desk, and Tim paces.“The dead battery’s been bugging me since we found it. I was telling Gibbs and Abby about it, and I mentioned that we didn’t know who installed it.”“Blake?”“Probably. He’s the guy who does that. But we didn’t know. Abby asked us why didn’t we know that, because that’s like the number two piece of evidence she’d send up. Which is when I checked, because we should know that. Of everything we should know, that’s the top of the list. “The detonator was wiped clean. The only guy who does that is the guy who knows the detonator is going to be found. Something’s really wrong on this one.”Vance nods toward the sofa on the far wall of his office. “What do you drink, Tim?”Tim feels his stomach knot up and his knees get that loose, wobbly sensation that means his body is sure something very bad is about to happen. He sits down, quickly, and licks his lips, his whole mouth suddenly very dry.“I’m good, Sir.”“We’re in my home. Here, I’m Leon.”“Okay, Leon, I’m fine and right now; I don’t need a drink, but you offering me one and calling me by my first name is making me really nervous, so how about we just get to why you think I’m going to want a drink?”
Leon pours himself one, grabs the chair from behind his desk and drags it over so he can sit in front of Tim. “Bit after two-thirty this morning Clayt,” it takes Tim a second but he realizes Clayt is Jarvis, “came in to see me. Carl Hanson,” Vance pauses to see if Tim knows who that is, and he does recognize the name of the Director of the CIA. “had just gotten word that Ender was killed and that we were the ones who did it. Ender was on a deep cover, report directly to Hanson, long-term mission…”
Vance keeps talking, but Tim doesn’t hear it, all he could hear, feel is the voice in his head screaming NOT AGAIN.
He can see Benedict crumple a few million-year-long seconds after the bullet hit him. That was the shock of the first time he’d shot someone, the first time he ended a life. And it was bad. But since he got the news of who Benedict was, there’s been the feeling of getting kicked in the gut to go with that image, the screaming desire to take it back, make time slow, to do, anything, anything to have not made that decision.
He can see it, replaying in his mind, Ziva hooked up the canister, and for about three minutes while the DEA vans made a huge noise and spectacularly broke into the across-the-street neighbor’s house, he and Draga waited, not really breathing, hoping she could do it and not get caught. They watched all three men on the heat monitor, watched them watch the DEA raid, and apparently they decided it wasn’t their problem, so they went back to their computers.
And then she was back in their van, and they waited, watching the three as they moved slower and slower, and one slumped onto the ground, and another’s head fell to his chest, and the third… he was already pretty slouched, but eventually they saw his hand slip off the mouse.
And it wasn’t until they were all presumed out of it that Tim gave the go for the evacuation of the neighborhood. He didn’t want to start the evac until he was sure none of them could see it and hit a kill switch.
That took two hours, but they weren’t going in until everyone was out of the blast range.
And yeah, he knew the longer a person was exposed to the gas, the lower the survival chances were. He knew it, and he watched the figures on the heat feed slowly get cooler and cooler as their bodies shut down.
They didn’t let the Coroner or EMTs into the Ender’s safehouse, couldn’t get it safe enough. Two of the bomb squad techs carried him out, body limp, one arm trailing on the ground.
And last night he went to sleep with a clean conscience because there were more than forty kids in the blast range, and every single one of them made it out alive. Last night, that image… It’s not that it didn’t bother him, but it was firmly filed in the greater good pile.
And now it’s not. Now it’s tied to a ragged mental voice screaming NOT AGAIN.
Part of him is sitting apart from the screaming. Part of him is amazed at how much this feels like the first time, it’s that same breath stolen, want to pass out and puke sensation.
“Tim…” Leon’s shaking his shoulder. “Come on back, Tim. That was a clean kill. I know it. SecNav knows it. Even the CIA agreed.”
“How clean can it be? He was one of ours, and I killed him.” Tim hears his voice crack on that.
“Clean, Tim. CIA wanted to fuss. Clayt went over our notes. Hanson went over our notes. Given what we knew, no one could give us a way to get Ender out of there without that whole neighborhood blowing up. CIA wanted to. They wanted to yell about it, but Clay sat down with their higher ups, at three in the morning, and told them, ‘Have at it! You’re all so smart and good at this. Get Ender out without killing the whole neighborhood.’ No one had a better answer than you did.”
It helps, a little. Not enough. But it’s better than nothing, helps anchor him to the idea that this time everyone isn’t staring at him like he’s the enemy.
“What do you mean, ‘given what we knew?’”
Vance wishes he hadn’t said that. It’s easy to forget that Tim’s not just computer smart. “Kort had orders to break Ender’s cover if he needed to. He decided he didn’t need to. CIA did have an exit plan in place for Ender. But, because Kort didn’t see any need to tell us about Ender’s real alliances, they didn’t get to put that plan into place.”
“What was it?”
“Kort was going to have the FBI fake an arrest of the ‘terrorists’ who tried to blow up the Reagan. He’d also supplied all three of them with high quality, fake, US Army IDs. He even had ‘fake orders’ for them. The plan was they’d hop a transport for South Korea, and then cross the border for their next job. Only thing was, that transport flight wasn’t going to work the way they were hoping.”
“Kort didn’t tell because he didn’t think I could catch Ender.”
“Kort didn’t think wecould catch Ender. He was there before you took over, and he didn’t tell DiNozzo or Gibbs. According to him, this was an operation that required brains and finesse, not just… ‘bull doggish tenacity and an intimidating stare.’”
Actually, Kort had said nothing of the sort. But it sounded like him, and if you’re going to lie, you need to be specific, and Vance is a good liar. Which is also why Vance changed one other key detail in his story, those IDs were supposed to be Marine IDs.
Tim had called that one correctly. It wasn’t NCIS in general that Kort doubted, (When they were planning what the target should be, and who would eventually take Ender in, Kort had recommended a Navy or Marine target so NCIS would catch it because he knew Gibbs could handle it. He knew Gibbs would be ready and able to make sure that transport plane was the end of the trip for Ender, Simmers, and Blake.) it was Tim in specific. Once Kort knew he wasn’t getting out of this, he owned up to the whole thing and his report made very clear that he figured there was no shot at all of Tim taking Ender down, so there was no reason to compromise his cover, and once DiNozzo or Gibbs was up and about again, he’d read them in. But… And because of but, Ender was dead.
But none of that is anything Vance thinks Tim needs to know. This’ll be enough of a hit to McGee’s confidence, and from what he’s been seeing these last few years, McGee confident is capable of great things, and he wants that man working for him, running his Cybercrime department. He’s not about to do anything to hurt that. He does not want him second guessing himself any more than he already will be, and honestly, right now, he was wishing Tim was a little less sharp, so this whole thing could have just died.
Tim sat there for a long minute, staring at his hands, seeing the bodies on his screen slowly fade as the heat leached out of them.
“Scotch.”
“Tim?”
“I like scotch.”
Vance nods, gets up, and gets him one.
Tim holds it, looking at brown liquid and clear glass. Then he takes a good swallow. He’s not really looking to get drunk (he still has to get home, and he’s still aware of that) but he hopes the burn will help pull him out of this numb space.
At least the screaming is over. That’s kind of nice.
“So, what happens now?”
“Nothing. Like I said, CIA wanted to yell. I told Jarvis we go to the wall on this one, because we are not sacrificing anyone just to keep CIA happy, especially not when they don’t play fair with us. He went in full bore, and by this morning it was done. Not sure what’s going to happen to Kort. If he wasn’t so damn dangerous, they’d cut him loose, but he knows too much to ever really retire.”
“That’s why they call them spooks right? They live forever?”
“Something like that. My guess is that Kort might be spending the next year or two brushing up on his Farsi, and find himself doing some deep cover field-work.”
“Great.”
He sits quietly next to Leon for another moment.
“You going to be okay?”
Tim shrugs.
“It was a clean kill.”
Tim sighs. “No such thing, Leon. He’s still dead, and I gave the order that did it. That’s on me, and it always will be.” He takes another sip of his drink.
“That’s on Kort.”
“Kort might have put me there, but I still made the decision.”
“It was the right one.”
“I’m not saying it wasn’t.” Tim thinks about it. That’s a difference. Probie McGee couldn’t have said that. Soon-To-Be-Head-of-Cybercrime McGee can. Given what he knew, it was the right decision. He does feel sure about that. It still hurts, but... he’s not doubting himself. He follows that thought a bit further, what if he had known…
Even if he had known Ender was one of the ‘good guys’ he’d… still do it. Sometimes you can’t get everyone out. “I’d make it again. You don’t leave two guys with dead man switches sitting on tons of explosives in a neighborhood. They had mercury switches on the windows. Some kid misses the ball playing catch, and it hit one of those windows, that whole neighborhood would have gone up. You can’t leave that in place and hope the angels are on your side while you wait for the seventeen part trap you’ve got to play out. When we handed it over to the FBI, their techs were saying they’d basically have to dismantle the house to declare it safe, and they were planning on searching for landmines, too, given how much crap was in that place.” He takes another sip of his drink. “But he’s still dead, and I made the call, and in the end, there are no clean kills, not for something like this.”
“I know.”
“Was there anything in the reports about James or Lisbeth Ender?”
“Not much. No one knows who killed James. Thomas was going to take James’ place, that was part of the plan, but what was supposed to happen to James isn’t in any of the reports. Thomas did recruit Lisbeth for what he was doing. The CIA made sure she was reimbursed for the phones she was buying.”
“How’d we miss that?”
“You didn’t. They had an off-shore account for her, under a fake ID. We know who she became when she vanished, and they’re getting her back.”
“Great.” He hands Vance his still mostly full glass. “I should get home. Abby and Gibbs are both waiting to see what’s going on.”
“Okay. I meant it about you guys taking the week off.”
He nods. Not sure if he’s going in on Monday just to have something to do, or curling around Abby and clinging to her and Kelly for a week.
It’s after ten when he got back in the car. Abby should be nursing again. And hopefully sleeping soon after that. He’s been using up her sleep time, and that’s not fair, not with her getting up every three hours to feed Kelly.
He texts Gibbs. Everyone up?
Right now.
Case is over.
???
Long damn story. It’s done.
That doesn’t sound good.
Is it ever? He pauses for a second. Is Abby reading these, too?
No.
Tell her I’m on my way. Will be home soon. Head to sleep, I’ll be there for snuggling soon.
Are you? He wonders about that briefly, and then gets the idea that Gibbs is asking if he’s telling her to head to sleep, so she doesn’t notice him just driving around on his own, or whatever, for a while.
Yeah. I’m coming home and going to bed. Not sure about sleep, but…
I’ll still be up when you want to talk about it.
Thanks.
Gibbs was on the sofa, reading, waiting up.
It occurs to Tim that this is the first time he’s ever come home and had a Dad waiting up for him. That gets a sigh.
“Tim?”
He shakes his head.
“I’ll be here.”
Tim nods and heads up. His eyes take a second to adjust to the dark of their bedroom, but once they do, he sees she’s on her side, her usual sleeping position, but he’s usually behind her, holding her.
Long exhale. Keep your routine. Routine helps. So he did. He stripped off and brushed his teeth, peed, and headed for bed, just like any other late night. It’s just not like any other late night. He wishes it was.
He snuggles up against her, between soft, nubby sheets and a light summer blanket. Warm, soft body, easy breathing, vague scent of her perfume and shampoo, deeper, stronger scent of her skin, little whiff of baby spit up. Home.
She scoots a bit closer, her neck resting on his arm. Automatically, his other arm curls around her, hand coming to rest under her breast. He kisses the back of her neck, and she sighs in her sleep.
Clean kill.
If that means anything.
I am a gun in the service of life, and if I have to end a life to protect others, I do it.
That’s why I’ve got the badge.
That’s the purpose of the gun.
That’s the job.
More.
It’s not just a job. That’s the life. The life you chose, because it matters, because it’s the man you need to be.
You do what you need to to save lives, and if some goddamn son of a bitch sticks himself in the middle of a fucking bomb, he’s gonna die because I’m not letting the fucker blow. Not me. Not on my watch. Not in a neighborhood filled with families just like mine.
He feels pure white anger surge as he gets to that last bit of his mental monologue. It’s his job to protect people. That’s the long and the short of it, and when it all comes down and works out, that’s who he is. The rest is just window dressing. And that son of a bitch built a cage so dangerous no man in his right mind could let it stand, walked into it, locked the fucking door behind him, and then expected to be saved.
You wanna live, asshole? Don’t sit in the middle of a goddamned bomb, and don’t ask me to get you out. Don’t stay with maniacs who are walking death.
But Ender is still dead, and the screaming from before isn’t guilt, and it isn’t fear. (Or maybe it was, but it’s not now.) It’s rage.
God damn that motherfucking cunt for putting me here. GOD FUCKING DAMN HIM!
Tim rubs his face and can feel he’s shaking, so he gets up and tosses on some pants. He’ll wake Abby if he keeps holding onto her this angry, and she needs her sleep.
“So?” Gibbs asks as Tim walks down less than fifteen minutes after he went up.
Tim shakes his head, pulls on sneakers, and points to the door.
Gibbs nods. He gets it. Sometimes you can’t talk. Sometimes you’ve got to work it off, and it’s got to be physical. If he could run, or fight, he’d go along, but he can’t. So he nods again, and once again says, “I’ll be here.”
Tim closes the door quietly, and Gibbs snags his phone. He flips through his numbers and calls Leon. “He’s not talking about it, yet. What happened?”
And Vance told him.
With Benedict there was sorrow, and grief (which, until that point, he thought was a synonym for sorrow, but after Benedict he knew it wasn’t, not really) there was guilt, mountains of stomach emptying guilt, and fear (which took care of everything in his intestinal tract that he didn’t puke up).
This time, running, hard, though his quarter-moon, ghost-silver neighborhood, there’s just rage.
He wants to scream it to the heavens, but he’ll settle for running. Too late, too public for screaming.
But that little voice is in the back of his head, screaming in rage.
TWICE.
Fucking twice.
His feet pound pavement, his body races through humid dark, heart pumping, sweat dripping, endorphins fighting so far outside of their weight class it’s not funny.
Once was bad enough. Everyone’s got that one case where you fucked up and the end was bad. Everyone.
But twice. When you did everything right?
This isn’t even failure.
This is what, a pyrrhic victory? This is every move done right. Meeting and exceeding everyone’s expectations, being three steps cleverer than the people who doubted him, and the wrong guy still died.
Not died. The wrong guy was killed. Passive voice. Avoidance technique. It’s yours. Own it.
You did everything right, and you still killed the wrong guy.
Tim stops running, staring at the stars, listening to the cicadas and the frogs, and then walks home.
He slumps onto the love seat. “Would it help if I shot Kort?”
Gibbs doesn’t know if Tim knows him so well he just knows he’d have gotten the story from Leon by now, or if he just doesn’t care if he knows the story.
“Can you look at yourself in the mirror without wincing?”
“Probably.” He left the light off while he brushed his teeth, and didn’t spend any time looking at himself.
“Good enough. Unless you’re between eating your gun or feeding it to him, you don’t shoot a man for this.”
“What’s this?” Tim sighs, feels like he’s been doing that a lot, staring at the ceiling.
“Hell, if I know the word. Fucked to hell and gone? Nothing else you could have done, nothing else you can change, you did the best you possibly could and it’s still wrong.”
Tim nods.
“And for that, you only shoot him if it’s you or him, and you’re not there.”
“No. Not even close.” Tim shrugs. “Never been close.”
“Good.”
“Not close isn’t the same thing as spiffy.”
“Nope. It was the right decision.”
“I know.” And this time, Gibbs sees that Tim does. He really does. That’s not the problem not today. “I am so fucking pissed at that asshole for making me do it. This must be what suicide by cop feels like, if you’re the cop.”
“Which asshole?”
“I was thinking Ender, but Kort’s got a mountain of shit I want to drop on him, too.”
“Why Ender?” This is when Tim realizes that he never did get deep into the details of the safe house.
“Front door had a bomb under the welcome mat. All of the first floor windows had mercury triggers on them, any vibration stronger than a lawnmower would have set them off. Bomb squad said they were set so that if, somehow, the cops missed the welcome mat, breaking through the door would set them to blow. Pressure plate on the door they used to get in and out, step over it, fine, but most people would have landed right on it. Pressure plates on the back porch. More mercury switches on the sliding glass doors on the back. Garage doors were wired with magnets. Every entrance of that house on the first floor was wired to blow. And a fucking softball tossed the wrong direction could have taken that whole neighborhood out. And Ender let Blake set it up, walked his ass into it, and somehow trusted us to get him back out again.
“And I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. Stick me in that van, tell me Ender works for the CIA, and I’d still make the call. I’m not going to dance around and wait for the CIA to come up with some rescue plan that gets him out three weeks later, leaving this huge bomb in the middle of a fucking neighborhood waiting to go off. Hell, a delivery guy at the wrong address, neighbor knocks on the back door… No. I’m not doing it.
“That son of a bitch made me kill him. Because I’m not the guy who can just sort of hope it’ll go okay and wait it out.
“He was good at what he did, and he wrapped up a cell with more than fifty guys in it, and if I could have gotten him out alive, he would have gone right back to it, pulling in more guys, dangerous guys, evil guys, but he’s not doing it anymore because he let one of the assholes build the trap that I couldn’t let stand, and it didn’t matter if he was still in it or not.
“And all the right decisions in the world doesn’t help with the fact that I want to get his corpse up and smack the shit out of it because I’m the one who had to pull the fucking trigger on him.”
Gibbs starts to get up, and Tim glares at him, then moves, sits on the floor so he’s next to Gibbs. (Gibbs is across the sofa with his foot up.) “This what you were aiming for?”
“Close enough.” He squeezes Tim’s shoulder, and leaves his hand there. “I know it doesn’t help, but I’ve been there, too. Half of sniper training is guns and math, feeling the wind, understanding distance, knowing where something is going to be instead of where it is, trajectories, air currents, calibers, vantage points, and cover. Half of it is pulling the damn trigger. Snipers take out other snipers. We take out machine gunners. We take out high power targets like the other side’s officers. Big enough gun and we take out engine blocks, that’ll force a column off the street and into the mines.
“And when you’re doing that, you’re taking out enemy targets, and that’s just how it is.
“And I was good at it.” Gibbs smiles a little, but it’s not happy, just acknowledging the bittersweet flavor to being exceptionally good at killing people.
“Really good. And in Colombia I ended up… Another son of a bitch with a bomb, and the idiot Lieutenant wants to parley, hoping we can get our guys and some villagers back by talking. He knows where I am, and the idiot keeps walking around, and the son of a bitch is getting more and more aggravated, and I know where this is going, but I don’t have a clean shot because that idiot keep walking back and forth…” Gibbs goes quiet, seeing that moment through his scope again. Wet behind the ears, twenty-one-year-old moron fresh out of Annapolis, who’d been told not to do this, walking back and forth, and Gibbs can see Delando Cortenz smirking, hand on the trigger that’ll blow his hostages, and he knew where it was going to go, knew that smirk wasn’t going to lead to anything good. “So, I swapped up, bullet big as your thumb, damn thing would have practically gone through an elephant, and it did go through the Lieutenant. He didn’t even slow it down, and it went through the son of a bitch, and we got our guys out, and a dozen villagers. And no one ever said anything about it… but, yeah, I wanted to hit him. If he had stayed the fuck out of it, I would have had a clean shot and gotten our guys out with no problems. If he had stayed to the side, just picked a place and stayed in it, I could have gotten a clean shot. But no, the little asshole had to keep moving around.”
Tim squeezes Gibbs hand back.
“How old was he?”
Gibbs shakes his head, looking frustrated. “Twelve? Something like that. Too damn green, too damn stupid. So full of himself, thought he was God’s gift to all things military. The next incarnation of Chesty Puller.”
Tim doesn’t say anything, he just sits there, and Gibbs lets him. There’s nothing else to say. Eventually, he hears Kelly crying, asking for yet another meal, so he stands up, kisses Gibbs on the forehead, and heads up to bring Kelly to Abby, save her from having to get up yet again.
“Tim?” Abby sounds sleepy as he lays Kelly in front of her. “You get any sleep at all?” she asks as she gets Kelly settled on her breast.
“Not yet.” He pulls off the pants, and curls into bed behind her.
Between no sleep, and the fact that she has to be able to smell the sweat on him, there’s fear in her voice as she asks, “How bad is it?”
His lips on her shoulder, his arm over her side, his hand on Kelly’s back, he says, “I’ve had better days. But nothing that won’t hold until tomorrow if you’d rather doze while she eats.”
“You think I’m going to nap after that?”
“I can hope?”
“Uh uh.” She lifts his hand to her lips, kissing his palm, his wedding ring, and the tattoo of her lips. “Let me help you carry this.”
So he told her, and held onto her and Kelly, and tried to let anger go, and maybe it didn’t entirely, but being home helped, running helped, talking to Gibbs helped, wrapped in his home and people who love him, helps, and eventually, when Abby flips over, Kelly now between them, so she could nurse on the other side, Tim falls asleep to soft, little sucking sounds, and the feel of his hand on Abby’s hip, his forehead pressed to hers.
Next
December 31, 2013
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 271
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 271: The Perils of Being Famous (Sort of)
She’s young, perky, professional. Her name is Heather Yung.
Gibbs doesn’t like her.
Abby does. Probably because she came in, talked about her experience with babies a bit more, played with Kelly some (she seemed to approve, or at least didn’t cry) then asked politely about his knee, listened carefully, offered some helpful suggestions, and then told him about how well her grandfather was doing after they put the artificial knee in, and how much better artificial joints are these days than they used to be. According to her, her grandfather was up on his feet without a cane only three months after the surgery and that a year later he was only barely limping. She seemed to think that was comforting.
Mostly she just made him feel seventy million years old, and broken on top of that. Sure, she’s twelve (okay, not really, she’s probably twenty-six) and bustling with useful purpose and energy. No need to rub that in.
When Heather got up to use the bathroom, Abby grins at him. Keep your butt on the sofa awfully clear in that expression.
He glares back at her, I hate the universe pretty clear in his.
That makes Abby laugh.
When Heather returns, Abby hands off Kelly, letting Melissa put her down for her nap and that went… They both listened carefully, yep, smoothly. No crying. And in ten minutes Melissa was down again, commenting on what an easy baby Kelly is, and they were talking about schedules, expected salary, and when she could start.
All in all, it was an hour out of Saturday, and by the end of it, Abby seems pretty pleased.
Once she saw Melissa out, she sits down next to Gibbs and says, “So?”
He half shrugs. She’s fine, on his face.
“Good enough?”
“Good enough.” He says grudgingly, and it’s not the sort of ‘you’ll do’ statement he made about Tony. There’s no affection here, just a recognition of the fact that Melissa is good enough. “You can probably do better.”
“Kelly seems to like her the best. No fussing on naptime.”
“True.” This was the first of the nannies who got Kelly down without any protest.
Tim wanders down a few seconds later, looking awfully out of it, hair sticking up in all directions and only wearing his pajama pants, and sat on the floor in front of Abby, resting his head on her knee. “Someone just leave?”
“Yeah. We had an interview today,” Abby answers.
“Oh.” He looks annoyed, mostly at missing it, not at her. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
Abby kisses his forehead. “Because when I finished Kelly’s one AM feed, you still weren’t home.” Yeah, it wasn’t too long after two that he finished his second report and headed home. He hadn’t even told them about the team having the week off, yet.
“How’d it go?” Gibbs asks.
Tim nods. “Let me get some food, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
He’s in the kitchen, located some chicken lettuce wraps (“Thank you, Abby!”), stuck half of them on his plate (it’s after four, so he’s hungry, but dinner’s less than two hours away, so he doesn’t want anything too big) when he notices a package on the kitchen table.
“What’s this?” Tim asks, carrying it into the living room (food forgotten for the moment) and putting it on the coffee table.
Abby shrugs at him. “No idea. Has Thom Gemcity on the address, so I didn’t open it. UPS guy asked about that though, and I let him know that it’s your penname and that stuff with that name can be sent here.”
Tim feels a shiver of fear go up his spine. Things with Thom Gemcity on them should go to his publisher or agent. Not to his home. Never to his home. He checks more carefully and sees that Thom Gemcity is a redirect, it had gone to his agent first.
He sighs with relief. Gibbs is watching him carefully.
“Tim?”
“Fan stuff shouldn’t come here.”
Gibbs nods; he remembers why fan stuff isn’t supposed to come to Tim’s house.
Tim smiles at him while heading back into the kitchen for his food and a knife. Yes, fans are great, but no, he does not want them knowing where he lives, that one time was more than enough.
A minute later he's back and opens it up and finds a very cute little basket of baby goodies, along with a few onesies, and some stuffed animals. Okay, good, it’s all pink and covered in little flowers. Standard cute baby goodies.
Tim’s checking a card, thinking it might have actually been from his agent, when he realized he had no idea who it was from. Which meant this was from a fan.
Which meant somehow one… shit there’s a bunch of packages in this box… several of his fans knew he had a child.
He was getting into freak out, hunt down the stalker, make sure his family is safe mode, when Abby says (pulling him out of it) (for a second, at least), “You’ve got a publicist, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And she posts things online about your life?”
“Sometimes.” Oh shit! He’s trying to remember if he ever specifically said he didn’t want anything about his kids posted.
“When was the last time you checked your Twitter or Facebook page?”
Tim winces. That’s a really good point. “Damn it.” He gets up, goes upstairs, grabs his phone and begins to go through “his” tweets and almost drops the phone when he sees that there’s a shot of Abby and Kelly, still in the hospital, along with the announcement that mom and baby were doing fine. Thom’s Facebook page had the same thing.
And yes, the fact that he had close to twenty thousand congratulatory tweets/likes whatnot is nice, but in that he’s in a frothing rage that his publicist posted that pic… and that he’s seriously contemplating getting his gun and scaring the shit out of her…
Then he realizes he didn’t send that picture to her. He sent it to his agent, who must have given it to her. Unlike his publicist, who works for his publisher and answer to them, not him, his agent actually is his employee, and he’s a valuable property she wants to keep happy. After all, she’s getting ten percent of each of his contracts, and at this point his contracts take her, on average, twenty minutes every three years.
His hand is shaking while he dials the numbers. She picks up on the third ring and before she could say anything he yells, “Doreen! What the fuck?” (He half notices that Gibbs appears to approve of this, and if his knee was working, would be volunteering for the scare-the-shit-out of-whoever-did-this plan. Meanwhile, Abby is looking really irked at him, and signs Kelly’s napping!)
“Tim?” she’s sounding really startled by that. She’s never heard him raise his voice, let alone yell or curse.
“I just got baby presents from a fan,” he says, still angry, much more quiet.
“Yeah.” To her this is really obvious. Of course fans will send baby presents. That’s part of what fans do. “We decided to send them on immediately. If we waited until we do your usual quarterly fan mail drop they’d be too small for Kelly. Four more packages showed up today. How’s she doing?”
“You posted pictures of my baby online!” His voice is rising again, and she’s still clueless.
Obviously he’s pissed, but this is just weird… So she patiently explains, “Well, yeah. Fans love stuff like that. They love little peeks into your life behind the writing. It makes them feel like you’re a real person and keeps them happy and eagerly anticipating your next book. Any ETA on that, by the way?”
He’s staring at the ceiling, vibrating with the desire to reach through the phone and pull her lungs out. He finally pulls it together enough to head into the basement (which should minimize the risk of waking up Kelly), shut the door behind him and say, “Do you remember about ten years ago, when that…” he can’t even start to think of a word for that, so he goes with, “fan started killing the people I was basing my characters on? You remember how he hunted down Abby and tried to kill her? And, remembering that, WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU POST A PICTURE OF MY CHILD ONLINE!?!”
Silence meets his ears.
And Doreen suddenly gets it, really gets it, and realizes that she’s got no idea how to fix this. “Would you like me to take them down?” she asks meekly.
“Them?” Tim’s heart is beating so hard he can actually see the pulse in his eyes when he shuts them.
“It’s just the one pic. Only one I had.”
He inhales deeply and lets it out long and slow. “How many places did you post it?”
“Fifteen,” she says, very quietly, suddenly very aware of the fact that Tim’s only got two books left on his contract, and that it’s suddenly extremely likely he’s not resigning with her when it comes time to negotiate the contract for the next three books. “You’ve got some fan sites in addition to the Facebook and Twitter and tumblr, and there are the bio pages on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Goodreads so…”
“Fuck!” He scans through the Twitter feed. That shot had been retweeted and reposted hundreds of times. “It doesn’t matter if you delete it or not. Do not ever, EVER post any pictures of Kelly or Abby. If I want pics of them up, I’ll post them myself, and you’ll note, I haven’t posted any pictures of Kelly at all and the only ones of Abby are our engagement and wedding shot. That’s it. I don’t want anything beyond that out there.”
“Okay. What do you want us to do with the baby presents?”
“Oh, God.” He thinks about that for a moment. He’s too damn nervous to use them, even though the rational part of his mind is sure they’re just nice little presents. “Donate them. There has to be a shelter or something that works with pregnant women who need baby gear. Write up thank you notes for me. I’ll copy and send them out.”
“Okay, I’ll get on that.”
“Good.”
Pulse still racing, he fired off a quick thank you for all the well wishes, and another one saying that Kelly had everything a baby could possibly need, and that while he was touched by all the presents, if fans felt moved to send presents that donations to Wounded Warrior Program or whatever local services were available to low-income mothers would be a very fitting present.
Tim spent about five minutes just pacing around his basement. Not really looking at anything, just trying to make himself calm down.
He knows that immediately moving and changing their names is not only not rational, it’s also not warranted. Almost everyone on earth who’s even a little famous has their private life splashed all over, and all that happens is that they get people looking at them. But he can’t help but feel the fear that there are all these people out there who not only know he has a wife and child, but knows what they look like.
One of those maniacs found him before.
They can do it again.
And the unknown vulnerability of it makes him want to be sick.
Eventually, he called his sister. “Hey, when you told me about starting your own imprint, were you serious?”
She sounds surprised that he’s calling her in the middle of the day to talk publishing, but says, “Yes.”
“You want a bestselling mystery writer? I move about fifty-thousand copies in hardback per book. More in trade.”
“Tim?” She can’t believe this. They’ve talked about him going indie, and about what she’s hoping to do with her own start-up. But he’s always been so set on staying with his own machine that he mostly just listened and smiled.
“My agent just screwed us big time.”
“Doreen? Really? I’ve always heard good things about her. What, she skimming or something?”
“No, nothing like that. She posted pictures of Kelly online.”
“Oh.” Sarah knows that that’s not a traditional definition of my-agent-screwed me. She also knows that’s a hot button issue for Tim. “We’re starting up a YA Urban Fantasy imprint. Not that I wouldn’t love someone who’s got a name that actually sells books, but…”
He nods on the other side of the phone, understanding that he’s not part of their brand. “Okay. I’ve been with Doreen since ’03. Never shopped around, and I don’t want to query again. You know anyone who’s any good at this stuff?”
“Yes. I can shoot you a few names. Trust me, Thom Gemcity isn’t going to have to submit queries. Tell me more about it?”
“She published the baby shot I sent all of you to let you know Kelly was on the outside online without telling me.”
“Oh! Ouch.”
“On all my fan sites, twitter, Facebook, tumblr. It’s everywhere. They’re sending me baby presents.”
“That’s cute.”
“Yeah. Until I find they’ve got razor blades or trackers or some other shit in them.”
“Tim.” Her voice is making it very clear that he’s being, not silly, not with his history, but overreacting is likely.
“I know. I really do. Doesn’t mean I wasn’t about to shit myself when I saw it.”
“Okay. Just calm down. Talk books more?”
“Yes.” He nods. Books are easy. Books are calm.
“You know, you’ve got the name recognition, you could go it on your own. Skip the publishers all together and put it out yourself.”
“More work than I want to do.”
“Maybe not. We get our imprint going, you can contract with us on flat fee basis. At least until we’ve got some real sellers, that’s part of our business model. We’ll get you set up with typesetting, cover art, editing, what not. You just write the book and do whatever publicity you normally do.”
“Normally my publisher does that.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. I have no idea how they get the damn things in book stores, and I don’t have the time to find out.”
“It’s not too hard. Not for someone who’s already selling as well as you are. Besides, how many bookstores do you think will still be around by the time your contract is up?”
“That’s a point. It’ll be 2018 by the time I’m out, and…”
“And almost the entire market will be digital by then. And trust me, if I can get a book on Amazon, you can, too. It’s not rocket science.”
“By 2018, how set will your brand need to be? I mean…”
“Set. Blog placement, reviews, ad networks, I know that for my market. I don’t for yours.”
“Okay.”
He sits there quietly, neither of them talking for a minute, then, “Tim, I’m about to be late for dinner. Talk to me about this tomorrow? We’ll get a plan set up, and I’ll give you some names for possible new agents if you want to try that.”
“Sure.”
“Things like this happen a lot?” Gibbs asks when Tim heads back out of the basement.
“First time that’s happened.” Tim paces around their living room, staring at the presents. Yeah, he got lots of congrats tweets and whatnot when they got married. No one sent presents. “My core demographic is twenty-five to fifty year old males, they usually don’t get too weird about fan stuff, but sometimes they do, and my weird fans are really weird.”
Abby’s unpacked all the baby gear from the box, but hasn’t taken anything out of its packaging. “You don’t want to keep this, do you?”
“It’s cute.” The set closest to him appears to be a stuffed Bunny from the Pat the Bunny books, the Pat the Bunny books, and a little white hat with white and a blue bow and pink bunny ears. It’s adorable. He’s terrified it’s got a tracker in it or slow acting poison, or just something. “I can see it’s cute. But, no, I don’t want it in the house. I know it’s fine. I’m sure there’s nothing bad in there, but…”
“It’s okay, Tim,” Abby says. If there’s anyone who is going to sympathize with him on his fear of what might happen if his fans figure out where he lives, it’s Abby.
He puts everything back into the box. “You guys mind if I go take this to Goodwill?”
Abby hugs him and shakes her head. “Not at all. Bring some dinner home?”
“Sure. What do you want?”
Before Gibbs got a chance to say something she says, “I think Gibbs is in junk food withdraw.”
“Okay. How about I hit the diner and tell Elaine you’ve been stranded at my place and Abby keeps force feeding you vegetables?”
Gibbs smiles at that. “Good. Food. Tell us about the case. Snuggle your girls.”
Tim kisses Abby, and then pats Gibbs’ shoulder, and heads up to find a shirt.
Next
Chapter 271: The Perils of Being Famous (Sort of)
She’s young, perky, professional. Her name is Heather Yung.
Gibbs doesn’t like her.
Abby does. Probably because she came in, talked about her experience with babies a bit more, played with Kelly some (she seemed to approve, or at least didn’t cry) then asked politely about his knee, listened carefully, offered some helpful suggestions, and then told him about how well her grandfather was doing after they put the artificial knee in, and how much better artificial joints are these days than they used to be. According to her, her grandfather was up on his feet without a cane only three months after the surgery and that a year later he was only barely limping. She seemed to think that was comforting.
Mostly she just made him feel seventy million years old, and broken on top of that. Sure, she’s twelve (okay, not really, she’s probably twenty-six) and bustling with useful purpose and energy. No need to rub that in.
When Heather got up to use the bathroom, Abby grins at him. Keep your butt on the sofa awfully clear in that expression.
He glares back at her, I hate the universe pretty clear in his.
That makes Abby laugh.
When Heather returns, Abby hands off Kelly, letting Melissa put her down for her nap and that went… They both listened carefully, yep, smoothly. No crying. And in ten minutes Melissa was down again, commenting on what an easy baby Kelly is, and they were talking about schedules, expected salary, and when she could start.
All in all, it was an hour out of Saturday, and by the end of it, Abby seems pretty pleased.
Once she saw Melissa out, she sits down next to Gibbs and says, “So?”
He half shrugs. She’s fine, on his face.
“Good enough?”
“Good enough.” He says grudgingly, and it’s not the sort of ‘you’ll do’ statement he made about Tony. There’s no affection here, just a recognition of the fact that Melissa is good enough. “You can probably do better.”
“Kelly seems to like her the best. No fussing on naptime.”
“True.” This was the first of the nannies who got Kelly down without any protest.
Tim wanders down a few seconds later, looking awfully out of it, hair sticking up in all directions and only wearing his pajama pants, and sat on the floor in front of Abby, resting his head on her knee. “Someone just leave?”
“Yeah. We had an interview today,” Abby answers.
“Oh.” He looks annoyed, mostly at missing it, not at her. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
Abby kisses his forehead. “Because when I finished Kelly’s one AM feed, you still weren’t home.” Yeah, it wasn’t too long after two that he finished his second report and headed home. He hadn’t even told them about the team having the week off, yet.
“How’d it go?” Gibbs asks.
Tim nods. “Let me get some food, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
He’s in the kitchen, located some chicken lettuce wraps (“Thank you, Abby!”), stuck half of them on his plate (it’s after four, so he’s hungry, but dinner’s less than two hours away, so he doesn’t want anything too big) when he notices a package on the kitchen table.
“What’s this?” Tim asks, carrying it into the living room (food forgotten for the moment) and putting it on the coffee table.
Abby shrugs at him. “No idea. Has Thom Gemcity on the address, so I didn’t open it. UPS guy asked about that though, and I let him know that it’s your penname and that stuff with that name can be sent here.”
Tim feels a shiver of fear go up his spine. Things with Thom Gemcity on them should go to his publisher or agent. Not to his home. Never to his home. He checks more carefully and sees that Thom Gemcity is a redirect, it had gone to his agent first.
He sighs with relief. Gibbs is watching him carefully.
“Tim?”
“Fan stuff shouldn’t come here.”
Gibbs nods; he remembers why fan stuff isn’t supposed to come to Tim’s house.
Tim smiles at him while heading back into the kitchen for his food and a knife. Yes, fans are great, but no, he does not want them knowing where he lives, that one time was more than enough.
A minute later he's back and opens it up and finds a very cute little basket of baby goodies, along with a few onesies, and some stuffed animals. Okay, good, it’s all pink and covered in little flowers. Standard cute baby goodies.
Tim’s checking a card, thinking it might have actually been from his agent, when he realized he had no idea who it was from. Which meant this was from a fan.
Which meant somehow one… shit there’s a bunch of packages in this box… several of his fans knew he had a child.
He was getting into freak out, hunt down the stalker, make sure his family is safe mode, when Abby says (pulling him out of it) (for a second, at least), “You’ve got a publicist, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And she posts things online about your life?”
“Sometimes.” Oh shit! He’s trying to remember if he ever specifically said he didn’t want anything about his kids posted.
“When was the last time you checked your Twitter or Facebook page?”
Tim winces. That’s a really good point. “Damn it.” He gets up, goes upstairs, grabs his phone and begins to go through “his” tweets and almost drops the phone when he sees that there’s a shot of Abby and Kelly, still in the hospital, along with the announcement that mom and baby were doing fine. Thom’s Facebook page had the same thing.
And yes, the fact that he had close to twenty thousand congratulatory tweets/likes whatnot is nice, but in that he’s in a frothing rage that his publicist posted that pic… and that he’s seriously contemplating getting his gun and scaring the shit out of her…
Then he realizes he didn’t send that picture to her. He sent it to his agent, who must have given it to her. Unlike his publicist, who works for his publisher and answer to them, not him, his agent actually is his employee, and he’s a valuable property she wants to keep happy. After all, she’s getting ten percent of each of his contracts, and at this point his contracts take her, on average, twenty minutes every three years.
His hand is shaking while he dials the numbers. She picks up on the third ring and before she could say anything he yells, “Doreen! What the fuck?” (He half notices that Gibbs appears to approve of this, and if his knee was working, would be volunteering for the scare-the-shit-out of-whoever-did-this plan. Meanwhile, Abby is looking really irked at him, and signs Kelly’s napping!)
“Tim?” she’s sounding really startled by that. She’s never heard him raise his voice, let alone yell or curse.
“I just got baby presents from a fan,” he says, still angry, much more quiet.
“Yeah.” To her this is really obvious. Of course fans will send baby presents. That’s part of what fans do. “We decided to send them on immediately. If we waited until we do your usual quarterly fan mail drop they’d be too small for Kelly. Four more packages showed up today. How’s she doing?”
“You posted pictures of my baby online!” His voice is rising again, and she’s still clueless.
Obviously he’s pissed, but this is just weird… So she patiently explains, “Well, yeah. Fans love stuff like that. They love little peeks into your life behind the writing. It makes them feel like you’re a real person and keeps them happy and eagerly anticipating your next book. Any ETA on that, by the way?”
He’s staring at the ceiling, vibrating with the desire to reach through the phone and pull her lungs out. He finally pulls it together enough to head into the basement (which should minimize the risk of waking up Kelly), shut the door behind him and say, “Do you remember about ten years ago, when that…” he can’t even start to think of a word for that, so he goes with, “fan started killing the people I was basing my characters on? You remember how he hunted down Abby and tried to kill her? And, remembering that, WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU POST A PICTURE OF MY CHILD ONLINE!?!”
Silence meets his ears.
And Doreen suddenly gets it, really gets it, and realizes that she’s got no idea how to fix this. “Would you like me to take them down?” she asks meekly.
“Them?” Tim’s heart is beating so hard he can actually see the pulse in his eyes when he shuts them.
“It’s just the one pic. Only one I had.”
He inhales deeply and lets it out long and slow. “How many places did you post it?”
“Fifteen,” she says, very quietly, suddenly very aware of the fact that Tim’s only got two books left on his contract, and that it’s suddenly extremely likely he’s not resigning with her when it comes time to negotiate the contract for the next three books. “You’ve got some fan sites in addition to the Facebook and Twitter and tumblr, and there are the bio pages on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Goodreads so…”
“Fuck!” He scans through the Twitter feed. That shot had been retweeted and reposted hundreds of times. “It doesn’t matter if you delete it or not. Do not ever, EVER post any pictures of Kelly or Abby. If I want pics of them up, I’ll post them myself, and you’ll note, I haven’t posted any pictures of Kelly at all and the only ones of Abby are our engagement and wedding shot. That’s it. I don’t want anything beyond that out there.”
“Okay. What do you want us to do with the baby presents?”
“Oh, God.” He thinks about that for a moment. He’s too damn nervous to use them, even though the rational part of his mind is sure they’re just nice little presents. “Donate them. There has to be a shelter or something that works with pregnant women who need baby gear. Write up thank you notes for me. I’ll copy and send them out.”
“Okay, I’ll get on that.”
“Good.”
Pulse still racing, he fired off a quick thank you for all the well wishes, and another one saying that Kelly had everything a baby could possibly need, and that while he was touched by all the presents, if fans felt moved to send presents that donations to Wounded Warrior Program or whatever local services were available to low-income mothers would be a very fitting present.
Tim spent about five minutes just pacing around his basement. Not really looking at anything, just trying to make himself calm down.
He knows that immediately moving and changing their names is not only not rational, it’s also not warranted. Almost everyone on earth who’s even a little famous has their private life splashed all over, and all that happens is that they get people looking at them. But he can’t help but feel the fear that there are all these people out there who not only know he has a wife and child, but knows what they look like.
One of those maniacs found him before.
They can do it again.
And the unknown vulnerability of it makes him want to be sick.
Eventually, he called his sister. “Hey, when you told me about starting your own imprint, were you serious?”
She sounds surprised that he’s calling her in the middle of the day to talk publishing, but says, “Yes.”
“You want a bestselling mystery writer? I move about fifty-thousand copies in hardback per book. More in trade.”
“Tim?” She can’t believe this. They’ve talked about him going indie, and about what she’s hoping to do with her own start-up. But he’s always been so set on staying with his own machine that he mostly just listened and smiled.
“My agent just screwed us big time.”
“Doreen? Really? I’ve always heard good things about her. What, she skimming or something?”
“No, nothing like that. She posted pictures of Kelly online.”
“Oh.” Sarah knows that that’s not a traditional definition of my-agent-screwed me. She also knows that’s a hot button issue for Tim. “We’re starting up a YA Urban Fantasy imprint. Not that I wouldn’t love someone who’s got a name that actually sells books, but…”
He nods on the other side of the phone, understanding that he’s not part of their brand. “Okay. I’ve been with Doreen since ’03. Never shopped around, and I don’t want to query again. You know anyone who’s any good at this stuff?”
“Yes. I can shoot you a few names. Trust me, Thom Gemcity isn’t going to have to submit queries. Tell me more about it?”
“She published the baby shot I sent all of you to let you know Kelly was on the outside online without telling me.”
“Oh! Ouch.”
“On all my fan sites, twitter, Facebook, tumblr. It’s everywhere. They’re sending me baby presents.”
“That’s cute.”
“Yeah. Until I find they’ve got razor blades or trackers or some other shit in them.”
“Tim.” Her voice is making it very clear that he’s being, not silly, not with his history, but overreacting is likely.
“I know. I really do. Doesn’t mean I wasn’t about to shit myself when I saw it.”
“Okay. Just calm down. Talk books more?”
“Yes.” He nods. Books are easy. Books are calm.
“You know, you’ve got the name recognition, you could go it on your own. Skip the publishers all together and put it out yourself.”
“More work than I want to do.”
“Maybe not. We get our imprint going, you can contract with us on flat fee basis. At least until we’ve got some real sellers, that’s part of our business model. We’ll get you set up with typesetting, cover art, editing, what not. You just write the book and do whatever publicity you normally do.”
“Normally my publisher does that.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. I have no idea how they get the damn things in book stores, and I don’t have the time to find out.”
“It’s not too hard. Not for someone who’s already selling as well as you are. Besides, how many bookstores do you think will still be around by the time your contract is up?”
“That’s a point. It’ll be 2018 by the time I’m out, and…”
“And almost the entire market will be digital by then. And trust me, if I can get a book on Amazon, you can, too. It’s not rocket science.”
“By 2018, how set will your brand need to be? I mean…”
“Set. Blog placement, reviews, ad networks, I know that for my market. I don’t for yours.”
“Okay.”
He sits there quietly, neither of them talking for a minute, then, “Tim, I’m about to be late for dinner. Talk to me about this tomorrow? We’ll get a plan set up, and I’ll give you some names for possible new agents if you want to try that.”
“Sure.”
“Things like this happen a lot?” Gibbs asks when Tim heads back out of the basement.
“First time that’s happened.” Tim paces around their living room, staring at the presents. Yeah, he got lots of congrats tweets and whatnot when they got married. No one sent presents. “My core demographic is twenty-five to fifty year old males, they usually don’t get too weird about fan stuff, but sometimes they do, and my weird fans are really weird.”
Abby’s unpacked all the baby gear from the box, but hasn’t taken anything out of its packaging. “You don’t want to keep this, do you?”
“It’s cute.” The set closest to him appears to be a stuffed Bunny from the Pat the Bunny books, the Pat the Bunny books, and a little white hat with white and a blue bow and pink bunny ears. It’s adorable. He’s terrified it’s got a tracker in it or slow acting poison, or just something. “I can see it’s cute. But, no, I don’t want it in the house. I know it’s fine. I’m sure there’s nothing bad in there, but…”
“It’s okay, Tim,” Abby says. If there’s anyone who is going to sympathize with him on his fear of what might happen if his fans figure out where he lives, it’s Abby.
He puts everything back into the box. “You guys mind if I go take this to Goodwill?”
Abby hugs him and shakes her head. “Not at all. Bring some dinner home?”
“Sure. What do you want?”
Before Gibbs got a chance to say something she says, “I think Gibbs is in junk food withdraw.”
“Okay. How about I hit the diner and tell Elaine you’ve been stranded at my place and Abby keeps force feeding you vegetables?”
Gibbs smiles at that. “Good. Food. Tell us about the case. Snuggle your girls.”
Tim kisses Abby, and then pats Gibbs’ shoulder, and heads up to find a shirt.
Next
December 30, 2013
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 270
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 270: Future Thoughts
Kelly’s fussing. She’s on her back, on a blanket, on the floor, under one of those baby play arch things. It’s a plastic u-shaped device with colorful stuffed animals hanging off of it. Supposedly, when she’s a bit older, she’ll be able to kick and punch at them, make them move. Right now they’re just bright shapes for her to stare at.
Gibbs is on the sofa, also on his back, foot and knee propped up, ice on his knee.
It’s Saturday afternoon, and he knows why Kelly cries. Being stuck on your back sucks.
He carefully starts inching his way to getting onto the floor to get her, but Abby, who had been in the kitchen, making lunch for both of them, beats him to it, scoops Kelly up, and puts her on his chest.
She glares at him. “You staying put?”
He rolls his eyes and sighs, focusing on Kelly, stroking his hands down her back.
Abby nods and heads back to the kitchen.
Gibbs looks at Kelly, who’s calming down and staring at him. “I’m bored, too.”
“I heard that,” Abby calls back.
“It’s not a secret.”
Abby came back into the living room a few minutes later, drinks for them in hand. She takes Kelly from him while he very carefully pulls himself up, and then gives her, and his coffee, back to him. “Chicken lettuce rolls sound good?”
Gibbs nods at that. For all the crud they eat on duty, food at the McGee house is surprisingly healthy. Of course, that’s probably counterbalancing all the crud they eat on duty. Though right about now, he’d really, really like something with a ton of fat and probably some bacon on top. He might suggest burgers for dinner. Tim’s home, sleeping off yesterday, which they still haven’t heard about beyond last night’s Got ‘em. Home late. text, and he’s not helpless with a grill.
“Got another possible nanny you can try to scare into submission this afternoon.”
“Wonderful.” Gibbs doesn’t feel particularly scary lounging about in his pajamas, knee in a brace, four days of stubble on his face. Crabby sure. But right now he feels like any of the potential nannies take one look at him and start to get nervous that they’ll be taking care of him, too.
Or maybe that’s him projecting.
He’s nervous about it. And that’s part of the reason why he’s bored and crabby, because he’s taking this seriously, staying down, healing.
Once he got enough of the pain meds out of his system that his brain was back online, he was planning on telling everyone to stop pampering him, and let him go to work. As much as he’s sure that putting the fear of Gibbs into potential nannies is important, (That’s his darling girl there, and they had better well take the best possible care of her or they will answer to him!) terrorists trying to kill people takes a certain sort of precedence.
He’d been absolutely certain that the doc had been exaggerating, and that she was just trying to scare him into resting (wouldn’t be the first time someone with a string of degrees next to his/her name told him to do something he didn’t really need to do), and all he needed to get up and… and he did get up, and he felt the top half of his leg move immediately when he told it to, his hip and thigh were completely with the program and doing exactly what they were told to do. His knee and calf on the other hand… he felt the bottom half lag behind the top for a heartbeat or two, pain shooting through his knee, (and that was just getting up, he hadn’t put any weight on his knee, yet) and he suddenly got the idea that maybe the doc knew what she was talking about on the whole ripping out his knee thing.
So, he keeps the brace on a lot, (even though it does dig into what is still his very bruised calf, and hurts like a bitch) because every time he moves without it on, he can feel that there is a lot more play in that joint than he wants. When he stands up to hobble over to the head, or get a shower, even with the brace, he can feel the slide between those bones, and he’s very, very aware of how easily this could go very wrong.
So, for the first time ever, he’s actually following doctor’s orders and resting. And trying, but he’s afraid he’s not really succeeding, to not be a massive pain in the ass to Abby or Tim.
They’ve already got a baby, they don’t need a helpless fifty-six-year-old living on their sofa, especially not for a year.
Sitting on his ass worries him on another level, too. Because there’s only so much reading and sleeping he can do. Which means he’s got lots of time to think. He did do a lot of thinking about the case, but thinking about the case reminded him of something.
One day soon, there won’t be any more cases.
And when that’s true…
He remembers the case they worked about the CO who ate his gun rather than face mandatory retirement. And he’s not there, not at all, he’s got Kelly and Tim and Abby, and Molly and the new baby, and lots of family stuff but… They all have their own lives and jobs and things that fill up each day.
And he’s got the Shannon, which for some reason isn’t nearly as done as he was expecting it to be at this point. Something about building cribs… (He’s got some maple he’s planing away, getting ready to find out if Baby Palmer is a boy or girl.)
But there’s only so much woodworking he can do, and that’s not twelve hours a day, every day…
And sure, once Shannon’s done, he’ll take her out, but he’s not feeling much desire to just vanish for six months at a time anymore.
There’s deskwork. They’ll let him review cold cases and recommend ‘new’ leads on them until the reaper finally shows up for him. And like Mike, he’ll be able to come back every now and again and ‘help’ (he’s already checked the regs, post-mandatory retirement, he can’t spend more than fifteen days a year on active duty). And if he feels like bouncing from one base to another, chatting with guys who are coming to the end of their enlistments, he could become a recruiter.
But for a guy who’s used to working eighty hours a week, that’s still a lot of down time.
Tim and Abby need a nanny. They need someone who knows the hours, understands why they can’t say, ‘we’ll be home at seven,’ loves their baby, and will do everything to take great care of her.
He looks at Kelly, who’s on his chest, chewing on his t-shirt, (She must have lost her pacifier in transit. Yep, it’s on the carpet, just out of his reach. And he’s damned if he’s going to call Abby out here to make a whole other trip to get it. He’s never been so frustrated by something being less than five feet away in his life.) so he gives her a finger to suck on, which she approves of. And honestly, though he is enjoying grandpa-hood, and though he loves time with Kelly, he can’t see himself doing this full time.
He loved his own Kelly beyond all reason, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t about to jump out of his skin the week Shannon had pneumonia, and he was on stay-at-home-dad duty.
Of course, he was a really different guy then.
“What do you think?” he asks Kelly. “You and me? Let mom and dad have someone who already understands the insane hours?”
“Think about what?” Abby asks, sitting down next to him. “Did you lose your paci?” she asks Kelly.
Gibbs nods. “Think she might be getting hungry, too.” He gestures to the large drool soaked spot on his shirt. If it’s anything to guess by, Kelly’s looking for a breast.
Abby sighs. “Okay.” She grabs the pacifier off the floor and hands it to Gibbs, who didn’t mind getting his left hand back. Then she got up again, headed into the office, rooted through the bag with his clothing in it, and found Gibbs a clean t-shirt.
A moment later, she’s got Kelly in hand, who is indeed trying to get to a breast, and Gibbs is changing out of one t-shirt for another.
“Can I eat my lunch?” Abby asks Kelly.
Kelly whines at her.
“I’ll take that as a no.” Abby says. She hands Gibbs her lunch, “Hold this,” while settling Kelly in to nurse again. “You just ate. What is going on?”
“Almost six weeks old. Growth spurt time.”
“Great. So, what were you asking her?”
“Just playing with an idea. Not sure it’d work. Not sure I’m actually up for it.” Abby’s looking intrigued. “Gonna retire soon enough. Maybe you don’t need a nanny for all that long…”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “You serious?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Went pretty stir crazy when I was on all babies all the time with my Kelly, but… You need someone who understands the hours are crazy, someone who gets why you can’t tell them when you’ll be home.”
“True…” Abby’s nodding. “Keep thinking about it. If you’re serious, then we’ll talk about it, but… you sure you’re not just looking at the calendar and realizing you’ve suddenly got nothing planned?”
If he could reach, he’d kiss her forehead, but he can’t, not without seriously changing his position, so he squeezes her hand and smiles. “Always did know me too well.”
Next
Chapter 270: Future Thoughts
Kelly’s fussing. She’s on her back, on a blanket, on the floor, under one of those baby play arch things. It’s a plastic u-shaped device with colorful stuffed animals hanging off of it. Supposedly, when she’s a bit older, she’ll be able to kick and punch at them, make them move. Right now they’re just bright shapes for her to stare at.
Gibbs is on the sofa, also on his back, foot and knee propped up, ice on his knee.
It’s Saturday afternoon, and he knows why Kelly cries. Being stuck on your back sucks.
He carefully starts inching his way to getting onto the floor to get her, but Abby, who had been in the kitchen, making lunch for both of them, beats him to it, scoops Kelly up, and puts her on his chest.
She glares at him. “You staying put?”
He rolls his eyes and sighs, focusing on Kelly, stroking his hands down her back.
Abby nods and heads back to the kitchen.
Gibbs looks at Kelly, who’s calming down and staring at him. “I’m bored, too.”
“I heard that,” Abby calls back.
“It’s not a secret.”
Abby came back into the living room a few minutes later, drinks for them in hand. She takes Kelly from him while he very carefully pulls himself up, and then gives her, and his coffee, back to him. “Chicken lettuce rolls sound good?”
Gibbs nods at that. For all the crud they eat on duty, food at the McGee house is surprisingly healthy. Of course, that’s probably counterbalancing all the crud they eat on duty. Though right about now, he’d really, really like something with a ton of fat and probably some bacon on top. He might suggest burgers for dinner. Tim’s home, sleeping off yesterday, which they still haven’t heard about beyond last night’s Got ‘em. Home late. text, and he’s not helpless with a grill.
“Got another possible nanny you can try to scare into submission this afternoon.”
“Wonderful.” Gibbs doesn’t feel particularly scary lounging about in his pajamas, knee in a brace, four days of stubble on his face. Crabby sure. But right now he feels like any of the potential nannies take one look at him and start to get nervous that they’ll be taking care of him, too.
Or maybe that’s him projecting.
He’s nervous about it. And that’s part of the reason why he’s bored and crabby, because he’s taking this seriously, staying down, healing.
Once he got enough of the pain meds out of his system that his brain was back online, he was planning on telling everyone to stop pampering him, and let him go to work. As much as he’s sure that putting the fear of Gibbs into potential nannies is important, (That’s his darling girl there, and they had better well take the best possible care of her or they will answer to him!) terrorists trying to kill people takes a certain sort of precedence.
He’d been absolutely certain that the doc had been exaggerating, and that she was just trying to scare him into resting (wouldn’t be the first time someone with a string of degrees next to his/her name told him to do something he didn’t really need to do), and all he needed to get up and… and he did get up, and he felt the top half of his leg move immediately when he told it to, his hip and thigh were completely with the program and doing exactly what they were told to do. His knee and calf on the other hand… he felt the bottom half lag behind the top for a heartbeat or two, pain shooting through his knee, (and that was just getting up, he hadn’t put any weight on his knee, yet) and he suddenly got the idea that maybe the doc knew what she was talking about on the whole ripping out his knee thing.
So, he keeps the brace on a lot, (even though it does dig into what is still his very bruised calf, and hurts like a bitch) because every time he moves without it on, he can feel that there is a lot more play in that joint than he wants. When he stands up to hobble over to the head, or get a shower, even with the brace, he can feel the slide between those bones, and he’s very, very aware of how easily this could go very wrong.
So, for the first time ever, he’s actually following doctor’s orders and resting. And trying, but he’s afraid he’s not really succeeding, to not be a massive pain in the ass to Abby or Tim.
They’ve already got a baby, they don’t need a helpless fifty-six-year-old living on their sofa, especially not for a year.
Sitting on his ass worries him on another level, too. Because there’s only so much reading and sleeping he can do. Which means he’s got lots of time to think. He did do a lot of thinking about the case, but thinking about the case reminded him of something.
One day soon, there won’t be any more cases.
And when that’s true…
He remembers the case they worked about the CO who ate his gun rather than face mandatory retirement. And he’s not there, not at all, he’s got Kelly and Tim and Abby, and Molly and the new baby, and lots of family stuff but… They all have their own lives and jobs and things that fill up each day.
And he’s got the Shannon, which for some reason isn’t nearly as done as he was expecting it to be at this point. Something about building cribs… (He’s got some maple he’s planing away, getting ready to find out if Baby Palmer is a boy or girl.)
But there’s only so much woodworking he can do, and that’s not twelve hours a day, every day…
And sure, once Shannon’s done, he’ll take her out, but he’s not feeling much desire to just vanish for six months at a time anymore.
There’s deskwork. They’ll let him review cold cases and recommend ‘new’ leads on them until the reaper finally shows up for him. And like Mike, he’ll be able to come back every now and again and ‘help’ (he’s already checked the regs, post-mandatory retirement, he can’t spend more than fifteen days a year on active duty). And if he feels like bouncing from one base to another, chatting with guys who are coming to the end of their enlistments, he could become a recruiter.
But for a guy who’s used to working eighty hours a week, that’s still a lot of down time.
Tim and Abby need a nanny. They need someone who knows the hours, understands why they can’t say, ‘we’ll be home at seven,’ loves their baby, and will do everything to take great care of her.
He looks at Kelly, who’s on his chest, chewing on his t-shirt, (She must have lost her pacifier in transit. Yep, it’s on the carpet, just out of his reach. And he’s damned if he’s going to call Abby out here to make a whole other trip to get it. He’s never been so frustrated by something being less than five feet away in his life.) so he gives her a finger to suck on, which she approves of. And honestly, though he is enjoying grandpa-hood, and though he loves time with Kelly, he can’t see himself doing this full time.
He loved his own Kelly beyond all reason, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t about to jump out of his skin the week Shannon had pneumonia, and he was on stay-at-home-dad duty.
Of course, he was a really different guy then.
“What do you think?” he asks Kelly. “You and me? Let mom and dad have someone who already understands the insane hours?”
“Think about what?” Abby asks, sitting down next to him. “Did you lose your paci?” she asks Kelly.
Gibbs nods. “Think she might be getting hungry, too.” He gestures to the large drool soaked spot on his shirt. If it’s anything to guess by, Kelly’s looking for a breast.
Abby sighs. “Okay.” She grabs the pacifier off the floor and hands it to Gibbs, who didn’t mind getting his left hand back. Then she got up again, headed into the office, rooted through the bag with his clothing in it, and found Gibbs a clean t-shirt.
A moment later, she’s got Kelly in hand, who is indeed trying to get to a breast, and Gibbs is changing out of one t-shirt for another.
“Can I eat my lunch?” Abby asks Kelly.
Kelly whines at her.
“I’ll take that as a no.” Abby says. She hands Gibbs her lunch, “Hold this,” while settling Kelly in to nurse again. “You just ate. What is going on?”
“Almost six weeks old. Growth spurt time.”
“Great. So, what were you asking her?”
“Just playing with an idea. Not sure it’d work. Not sure I’m actually up for it.” Abby’s looking intrigued. “Gonna retire soon enough. Maybe you don’t need a nanny for all that long…”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “You serious?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Went pretty stir crazy when I was on all babies all the time with my Kelly, but… You need someone who understands the hours are crazy, someone who gets why you can’t tell them when you’ll be home.”
“True…” Abby’s nodding. “Keep thinking about it. If you’re serious, then we’ll talk about it, but… you sure you’re not just looking at the calendar and realizing you’ve suddenly got nothing planned?”
If he could reach, he’d kiss her forehead, but he can’t, not without seriously changing his position, so he squeezes her hand and smiles. “Always did know me too well.”
Next
December 29, 2013
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 269
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 269: And That Was Friday
By Friday morning Tim was starting to feel like he was in the habit of going to work again. Up, shower, food, dress, and out.
Felt like he was getting his rhythm back.
That was kind of nice.
“Good morning,” Tim says as he heads into the Bullpen, seeing Ziva sitting at her desk.
Ziva grunts at him. She’s mad. He can feel that coming off of her. It’s not the same PISSED that radiates off of Gibbs. This is a duller, slower, longer lasting anger. Tim spends a moment really looking at her, and decides that she’s pissed, but not at him, and not at being at work today.
That figured out, he’s not going to poke it. If it looks like she’s not letting it go as the day goes on and they get more intel, he’ll have a go at it later.
The Information Fairy, AKA Fornell, had indeed been kind. Split between them it was three hours of reading.
After three hours they knew this:
Lisbeth Ender (or at least someone who looked like her and had her passport) left the US for Tanzania on the 22nd. Tim put in the call for someone to hunt her down, but he wasn’t holding his breath on that. Wanted for questioning was awfully low on the priorities list for most international crime hunters. And though all her travel documents are flagged, he’s also not expecting her head back to a first world country using those documents anytime soon.
Thomas Ender had been extremely good as a spy. His evals indicated he was at the top of the CIA’s talent pool. He’d been trained for long-term, sleeper-cell style missions, where he could spend literally years in place, working his way deeper and deeper into the local culture, keeping an eye on things, and “nudging” them one direction or another.
His assignment as Aref Al Jalil, had gone smoothly for almost two years. He was settled in, working as an opium smuggler, making contacts in several small villages between the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, returning good intel, and then things went wrong.
Apparently he was so well-settled, he’d found himself a wife and had a child. And Kort’s “Stockholm Syndrome” actually translated into drone attack hit the wrong target, killing them, and apparently half of Ender’s in-laws.
Once the CIA figured out what had happened, they captured him.
Then the Taliban got him back.
That was 2009. In the intervening six years, rumors of what Ender was up to had spread. But they never got past rumors. He was good enough that deep, deep cover kept him a ghost. However, if rumors (or the NSA, CIA, Interpol, MI6, and the like) were to be believed, he ran training camps out of Columbia and Uzbekistan, and managed to spend some time working with just about every major terror group on Earth.
Fornell’s friend of a friend had something of a brainstorm, and decided to check James Ender’s travels, and found that he’d been all over the world, all over the United States, and managed to do it while reporting for duty every shift.
Further digging found that James Ender had two passports and driver’s licenses.
And if there’s one thing the TSA doesn’t do, it’s give military personnel in uniform with correct travel documents a hard time.
“Draga, we got the IDs back on Simmers and Blake?” Tim asks as he closes the flap on the folder in front of him. (FBI’s reports on Ender.)
Draga shakes his head.
“Okay, keep reading. Come on Ziva, let’s get some lunch. What do you want, Draga?”
You don’t have to be a genius to see Tim wants some time to talk to Ziva alone. She’s been radiating mad all morning, and it’s not getting any better. Draga’s not stupid, so he’s not having any issues figuring out that Tim is not going to even try to handle her the same way he did with him, so Draga doesn’t get up at the mention of lunch. “Where are you going?”
“Thinking Carlo’s. That okay with you?” Tim checks with Ziva.
Ziva nods.
“Cobb salad, no blue cheese, extra hard-boiled egg.”
Tim makes a note of it on his phone. “You get IDs on them, let us know.”
Draga nods. He’s still going through the MI-6 file on Ender, mostly detailing what they suspected was a six month stint in the IRA.
“Okay. Come on, Ziva.”
Like Draga, Tim’s not stupid, and he also knows he can’t handle Ziva the same way he did Draga. He can’t just draw a line and tell her to toe it. Too much water under too many bridges there. So, once they had their food…
“Talk to me.”
Ziva’s still oozing angry. “I am not a child.”
Okay, not what he was expecting, but he knows the right answer to that one. “No one thinks you are.”
Ziva glares at him. Or maybe not the right answer. Obviously, according to Ziva, someone was treating her like a child. “He yelledat me. Actually yelled.”
Tim’s giving her the tell me more look. His husband senses kicking in and telling him this might be a good conversation for him to say as little as possible and do a whole lot of listening.
“Once we got home, he yelled at me for running to them. Screamed about it. Told me that if I ever disobeyed a direct order from him or Gibbs again, he’d fire me.”
“Wow.” Tim gets Tony was scared. He knows he would have been in a blind panic if Abby ran toward him into a dangerous situation, but he also hopes he’d handle the aftermath better than that. Though, given how bonkers he went on the whole pregnant-wife-thing, he’s also awfully doubtful that he’d manage it.
“I am not a child. I can decide for myself if…”
He squeezes her hand. She’s shaking her head, still angry.
“He has no right to…” She stabs her chicken.
“He’s your husband. He’s allowed to get scared and angry when you’re in danger.”
“And I’m not?”
Also not what he was expecting. Apparently they aren’t just talking about Tony reacting to danger. “Not saying that. After the freezer, when I got calmed down, and it was her turn to go crazy, Abby hit me, couple of times, until I held her wrists and made her stop. Only reason I didn’t get hit yesterday is because I ran away from the blast. I run into a blast, I get two steps past yelled at. So, I’m not going to say you’re not allowed to be scared and angry, too. But it’s not the same for you or her as it is for us.”
Ziva’s not buying that at all. “Of course it’s the same.”
“No, it’s not.” Tim takes a bite of his lunch. “Are you pregnant?”
“Are you insane?” Not buying it has morphed into seriously irked.
“Not any more so than normal,” Tim says dryly. “You pregnant?”
“No.”
“Trying?”
She rolls her eyes. “Soon.”
“So, are you really certain you’re not pregnant?”
“It’s extremely unlikely.”
“But it’s not impossible.”
Tim’s noticing he’s about to get some Ziva anger aimed at him if he doesn’t get to the point soon, and it had better be an awfully good one. “It’s very unlikely but not completely impossible.”
“And that’s why it’s not the same. We… men… live in the present. Our bodies exist now and that’s it. When they’re gone they’re gone. You… women… live in the present and, maybe, the future. There’s always that chance that the next generation is along for the ride, and that’s the difference. Sure, you’re not pregnant. Sure, he knows that. But if yesterday was the end, you going with him took not just him out, not just you, but maybe any future he’s got, as well.”
That apparently was not a good enough point, she’s glaring at him. “McGee, you are full of shit. It works that way for us, too. That is the father of any children I’m ever going to have, standing in front of a bomb. He’s as much my future as I am his, and if he goes, that’s the end of it, and I am an adult, and I am allowed to value that future more than a life without it.”
Tim shrugs. He may not believe Ziva’s right about that, because she not. It’s not the same, at least, he doesn’t feel that way, not in his gut, because it’s the difference between… between the idea of a baby and a baby that might already exist… (He can feel Penny glaring at him on that, for being old-fashioned and patriarchal, but he’s comfortable with it.) but he’s also not going to argue about it. It probably does feel the same, to Ziva.
“You’re the love of his life. You didn’t need to die, and you ran into a bomb blast to be with him. You scared the shit out of him, probably Gibbs, too. I bet he’s going to yell at you, or at least give you a headslap when you get in range again. I’d yell at Abby and probably say some god-awful stupid things if she did the same thing, because sometimes you’re so damn scared all you can do is yell.”
That gets a little nod out of Ziva. “She told us about not being able to carry in any groceries while she was pregnant.”
“Exactly. Now, how ridiculously stupid is that compared to a bomb? It’s really stupid. That’s an entire level of special stupid that only guys get, and only about their pregnant wives, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Jimmy feels the same way about Breena. I think it’s just part of being a guy.”
“It’s part of being a human, McGee. Do you think I do not feel that same fear every time we go out? Or that Abby doesn’t when you’re at risk?”
Judging by the fact that he’s never seen or heard of Abby, Ziva, or Breena hovering nervously over any of the three of them when they’re doing fairly normal and extremely low-risk things, and he knows that both he and Jimmy did it for their wives when they were pregnant, he’s thinking the answer is no. But he’s also not about to say that.
And he also knows that there is fear there, and it’s there all the time, and the fact that it’s not the same doesn’t make it any less real, or any less intense for the person feeling it, so he says, “I know you do. I know she does. I’m not moving to Cybercrime because I want career advancement. I would have taken a position as a tech down there if Vance hadn’t gone for Department Head.
“And I ran away because that’s my promise to her. That’s our marriage. She and Kelly come first, and I can’t put them first if I’m not alive. But… is that your promise to Tony? Will you live for him… Okay, that sounds wrong, but do you get what I mean?”
Ziva nods. “Yes, I do.”
“Is that your marriage?”
Ziva shakes her head, and he thinks she’s saying she doesn’t want to talk about it, not commenting on their relationship.
“You two going to be okay?”
“Eventually.”
“You two gonna be able to work together?”
She shrugs. Not a problem that has to be dealt with today. And honestly, not Tim’s problem, either, at least, not until Tony gets back and takes over again as leader.
“Your head in the game enough to be here with me?” But that is his problem, and it does need to be dealt with today.
“Are you asking as my friend or the senior member of the team?”
“Right now, it’s as Team Leader.”
Ziva takes a sip of her soda. “I am, in the game, as you put it.”
“Good. ‘Cause I need you to ask a favor.”
Getting back to the case was making Ziva happier. Work is almost always easier than relationshipping when the going is rocky. “A favor of whom?”
“Orli Elbaz. I’ve got Vance working it on our side, and I want to know from hers as well. Who knew where those subs were going to be, and did anyone reroute them?”
“You know she isn’t head of Mossad anymore?”
“She’s the highest link on the chain I can get to, unless you know the current guy…”
“I do, but not as well. He wasn’t a fan of my father, and I do not think he’d be interested in doing me any favors.”
“Okay. Get me what you can. It can’t be a coincidence those ships were that close to each other.”
Both of their phones buzz. Tim grabs his while waving to their waiter for the check and boxes to take their lunch back to the Navy Yard. Jason Simmers aka Xavier Martinez, last known as part of ETA. Vanished in 2010.
Tim looks at Ziva. “Didn’t the ETA sign a cease-fire in 2010?”
“Yes, and disbanded in 2014.”
“Unemployed terrorist looking for a new gig?”
Ziva shrugs. She’s certainly heard worse ideas.
By the time they got back, Blake had a new name, too. Seamus Ivers, formerly of the IRA, dropped off the face of the Earth at the end of 2010, and apparently, rejoined it as Edward Blake, of the US Navy.
So… three terrorists… though Tim’s thinking that doesn’t quite sound right… Not for targets that big. Not if they’re aiming at military targets. Three mercenaries? Special ops? He supposes it’s possible that Ender found the biggest target he could locate as a way to strike back against the US, but, what… the Israeli Subs were just icing on the cake?
No. He’s working for someone and that someone has to be a government, or a quazi-government with some real money and intel behind it.
From everything he’d seen from the info dump on Ender, (and having IDed Blake and Simmers, massive mounds of new info on them were pouring in) the man was more than capable of planning a mission where he’d get men in place four years ahead of striking.
His phone buzzed, and he saw it was Vance’s private number.
“McGee.”
“Feel like getting a coffee with me?”
“Yes, sir.” What the hell is going on now? Intel too delicate to put in writing? Did I just screw something up? Are we being pulled off? Shit.
“Excellent.”
Five minutes later, he was standing next to Vance, holding a cup of iced-coffee (it’s really too hot for hot coffee) wondering what exactly Vance doesn’t want to say to him in his office.
“I understand you have Ziva putting out feelers for why those subs were where they were?”
“Yes.”
Vance sighs and rubs his eyes.
“I know you’ve been on Gibbs’ team for a long time. And I know I take a hands off, let him take the case wherever it leads approach.”
Tim feels his stomach start to knot up as it dawns on him what the problem might be. “So you’re saying we weren’t supposed to know those subs were there, either?”
“Mossad knows we spy on them. We know they spy on us. That’s just how the game works. But, until Ziva started calling, they didn’t know that we had managed to get our hands on that bit of intel. And they also hadn't know about the almost attack on the Reagan.”
“Shit. Sorry.”
Vance shakes his head. “Solve the case and all sins are forgiven.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I also have some news for you on our side of that. The path the Reagan was on had been planned out more than six months ago and was unaltered.”
“Who planned it out?”
Leon smiles, but it’s not a happy gesture. “Let’s put it this way, if the people who planned it are compromised, we’ve got vastly bigger issues than a possible terror cell.”
“I understand. Will someone be checking to make sure we don’t have vastly bigger issues than a possible terror cell?”
“Yes, discretely.” That answer makes Tim think that some members of the higher ups were about to answer some very uncomfortable questions.
“Okay.”
“How close to solving this are you?”
“Closer than I was yesterday, not as close as I’d like to be.” Tim doesn’t say that he’s desperately worried that he’ll be able to figure out the puzzle, put all the pieces in place, but still not be able to catch the guys because they’re better at hiding than he is at seeking. “I’ve got positive IDs on everyone. More information is coming in by the minute, but we’re playing catch-up.”
Vance nods, finishes his coffee, and says, “Play harder,” as he heads back into the Navy Yard.
The thing is, as he’s sitting there with Ziva and Draga, is that none of the three of them are the ideas guy.
Okay, that’s kind of dumb, sure he’s the ideas guy, as long as those ideas involve a computer. And Ziva’s the ideas girl, as long as those ideas involve a gun. And Draga might be the ideas guy, as long as it involves seeing some little detail the rest of the missed.
But those are ideas. None of them are the IDEAS guy.
Right now, they’re missing their ideas guys. Faced with a Mount Everest of facts and evidence, Gibbs or Tony would be the one to have the Eureka! moment and know what to do or where to look next.
And for the most part it’s the three of them that do the looking.
And they’re doing great at looking. They’ve got scads of information now. Wading through piles and piles of it. All three of those men have had long and glorious careers blowing stuff up and killing people for whichever “cause” was paying the bills. And Tim, Ziva, and Draga are reading up, learning patterns, getting familiar with how these guys think and why.
What they don’t have is where the hell they’re located now.
Or how they got off that ship.
Or how they all got onto it, too. Who got Simmers and Blake on the Reagan in the first place? Or, once again coincidence?
Or how they knew when and where to hit.
Or why three guys, three guys who are really great at what they do, used a frigging dead battery to power their detonator. Was the point even to blow up the Reagan, or just scare the hell out of everyone?
Sigh. Tim turns another page, learning more about Blake’s training as an explosives expert.
“Think they’re in Tanzania?” Draga asks.
Tim shrugs. It’s possible. “Any of their aliases go traveling recently?” Specifically, and this is something that worries him deeply, is the idea that the three of them boarded planes using their military IDs and got out of the country before NCIS was even looking for them.
Sure, they requested intel on that, and yes, they set the BOLO, but the fact that nothing has popped up can be just as much a matter of the TSA being asleep at the wheel as those three are still in the US. (In fact, given the CVs Tim's reading on these three, it's more likely not seeing anything is the TSA asleep at the wheel than these three still being in the States.)
But, now that they’ve got IDs for all three with their real names, the list of potential aliases just got a whole lot longer.”
“I’m checking on that,” Draga answers.
Tim’s staring at his screen, looking at reports connecting the explosives in Simmers’ fortress of Solitude to “explosions” (Sometime around 2009 most of the West realized it was in the best interest of everyone if any bombing that could be passed off as some sort of industrial accident, was.) in Ireland, England, Canada, the US, and Australia, and the residue they found at Blake’s place.
So, at the very least Simmers and Blake are working together, and they can put the explosives that just about blew them up in Blake’s hands. And they can now confirm that Blake really is Seamus Ivers. The facial recognition was only 92% sure, but no two bombers use the exact same explosive recipe, and the chemical composition on the explosives is identical.
Wonderful. More pieces together. Still no closer to finding them.
Tim checks his email, sure he’s not going to find that any of the three of them got caught in a BOLO, but he might as well hope.
Nothing.
Simmers and Blake were on the Reagan together. They could talk to each other easily. Ender wasn’t. There had to be some way they communicated with each other.
No phone records. No financials. No useful emails.
So, how were they doing it?
He’s tapping his fingers on his keyboard, rubbing his forehead. They never did get around to combing through social media. Worth a shot.
“We still don’t know how they were talking to each other. Social media time. Ziva, you take tumblr. Draga, you’re on Facebook. I’ve got Twitter. They had to talk to each other, let’s find it.”
Two hours later, they finally did hit the eureka moment. “Guys!” Draga sounds really excited.
Tim and Ziva look up at Draga.
“They’re all players on Minecraft. Got their own server and everything!”
Tim remembers that thing about the NSA watching people online on gaming communities. “That’s where they’re talking?”
“Think so. And… yeah… they’re on now.”
Tim quietly sends a quick thanks to God, and starts to hack. “I’ve got this. Gear up. Ziva, let Vance know what is up. I’ll have a location in…” He taps the keyboard waiting for his computer to find what he needs. “Fredricksburg, Maryland. Let’s go!” He’s up and moving to the car while lifting his phone to his ear to call in back up and the bomb squad. They almost got blown to smithereens once, they’re not taking that chance again.
There are times when Tim is more than vaguely worried about the militarization of local police forces. Like, he very rarely thinks they actually need tanks or tank-like transports. And having dealt with a decent number of LEOs who would find counting to twenty-one difficult unless they were naked, he’s… skeptical is probably a good word, about their ability to use those weapons and the tactics that go with them well.
But right now, as he’s being introduced to Lt. Jeffery Tomlinson, Fredericksburg SWAT, he’s feeling pretty comfortable with the fact that Tomlinson knows what he’s doing, and he’s got enough firepower behind him to take out a moderately sized country, like say, France.
They’re in a “Lawn Care” van, three streets away from the target house, in front of a foreclosed on house, and Tomlinson actually has two guys very slowly mowing the lawn.
In front of them is a bank of monitors, showing the house their perps is in from four separate angles.
“Once we got the call, we set up the surveillance,” Tomlinson says, as he shows them how to control the camera feeds. “Nothing in that house has moved since we’ve gotten the call.”
“Good. How’d you set it up?” Tim asks. “One of them is CIA-trained and probably knows what to look for.”
“Saw that when we got your call. We went in with a UPS truck, and delivered ‘packages’ with hidden cameras to the front porches of a few of the neighbors.”
“Cool.” For several minutes Tim, Ziva, and Draga just watch, getting a feel for the layout. They’ve got really good line of sight. In fact, it’s too good.
This is some sort of trap waiting for them. Tim can feel it. Ziva’s looking really nervous, too.
“Too easy?” If anyone would know, it’s their Ninja.
“Yes.” She’s staring at the aerial shots of the neighborhood. There’s no cover anywhere. It’s a fairly new development, no trees, very few bushes, and the ones that are there are all small. “They’re practically inviting us to come in and get killed.”
“Sooo… what’s the trap?” Draga asks.
“The warehouse was simple. This is probably simple too. Easy to hide. Easy to disarm, they don’t want to blow themselves up. Easy to trip…” Ziva’s looking back at the footage of the house. It’s a basic, cookie cutter, low end of the expensive spectrum, house for yuppies. Lots of windows, big front yard, no trees. Two hundred other houses all exactly like it, all on .75 acre lots, all facing tidy-little two lane streets, arranged into a near-fractal of cul-de-sacs.
Ziva uses the controls on the cameras, scanning around, giving them a better view of the front of the house. “Does it look like they ever use the front door?”
“Be a lot easier to tell in winter,” Tim says. Nothing like snow for making obvious footprints. July isn’t very good for that.
Ziva shakes her head. “I know, but… The cars are parked on the driveway next to the garage and side entrance. The post box is at the end of the driveway. Who would use the front door? Police coming in.”
“Give me a close up of the front of the house,” Draga says. He looks, seeing, Tim has no idea what, but he says definitively, “Side door. They don’t use the front.”
“So…” Tim says, waiting to see what they’re thinking.
Ziva focuses in a bit tighter. “Does that lump under the welcome mat look suspicious?”
“Looks like something I’d stay away from,” Draga says.
“If I had any idea how much explosives they had, I would be tempted to just toss something onto the mat and let them blow up,” Ziva says, flash of her old self showing through.
“But…” Tim says it, though he doesn’t really need to. They all know ‘but.’ This is residential neighborhood with hundreds of people in it, and they’ve got no idea what all is in that house.
“Heat feed is online,” one of the techs from the Fredericksburg SWAT says.
“Good!” Ziva says, keying it up.
It’s honestly kind of boring. Three guys, sitting in front of computers. From the feed Tim’s got on their servers, they actually are playing Minecraft right now. Probably. They’re in creative mode and building something really big. The fact that they’ve also got a completely detailed, to scale, Nimitz-class aircraft carrier on their server means that whatever they’re building, it’s probably not just for fun.
“That can’t be good,” from Draga gets Tim’s attention off of what they’re building and back onto the heat cameras.
It takes him a few minutes to see it, but once he does… “Shit.”
If it wasn’t for the fact that Blake is part of this group, he’d probably be significantly less worried about the fact that there are multiple places on the house, like the front door, the garage doors, the back door, around several windows, that aren’t radiating heat the way the rest of the house is.
It’s July. It’s 93 degrees outside. Most of the house is radiating a bit cooler than that, which makes sense, they’ve probably got AC going on the inside. But, if say, there were large blocks of something very solid, something that didn’t transmit cool well, there would be darker, hotter sections, where whatever that dense material that wasn’t transmitting the cool was.
And there are. A lot of them. And Tim’s awfully sure those blocks are more of the C-4ish stuff Blake makes. The whole house is wired to blow, and from the looks of it, just about every entrance they could choose is set to blow anyone who comes in sky high.
“McGee,” Ziva’s voice, and her sounding concerned sends ice down his spine.
“What?”
She points to the square, cooler spots on each of the men.
“They’re all rigged to blow, too, aren’t they?”
“That would be my guess.” She focused in closer on one of them. “Though I’d say they aren’t switched on yet, this one is using both hands on his computer.”
“Great. So, how do we get them out, without having them blow up the neighborhood?” He looks at Ziva, and she shrugs. Draga shakes his head. Tomlinson began setting up a plan to evacuate the neighborhood, which is something that Tim’s in favor of in general, except the great line of sight means that as soon as they start doing it, the guys in the house will notice, and probably blow the place.
“You guys willing to get some bad press?” Tim asks Jeffery.
“Why?”
“They’ve got cameras all over the house. We can’t move without them seeing it. If we could get a bunch of DEA or PD vans or something and go storming into one of the neighbor’s houses, make a big deal about it, lots of noise and attention, maybe we could get in and get them shut down before they notice they really are the targets.”
Draga looks up at that. “Better idea. Do that, but we’ll gas them.”
Ziva perks up considerably. “I like that. Big, huge show next door, I’ll sneak up to the heat pump, hook in the canister, and then we can go in once they’re asleep.”
Tim knows the theory behind the gas. Sleeping bad guys don’t put up any sort of fight. He also knows that as of this point no police force has managed to use it without killing at least half of the people they were trying to take down, and, honestly, at least half usually meant a whole lot closer to all of them.
If the Reagan had blown, that was at least 5700 lives, plus who knew how much nuclear fallout. Only sheer luck the warehouse didn’t get them. And this house, in the middle of a neighborhood filled with people…
It’s his call.
He got his cell and made it. Since the beginning of ’14 all SWAT teams had been equipped with the gas. NCIS wasn’t because they didn’t usually go into situations like that, but Tim’s call to Tomlinson’s commander got the gas released for use.
He’s not dying to capture these three, and neither is anyone else. Not today.
Half an hour later, on his orders, while the DEA staged a raid on the house two doors down, Ziva crept around to the back and hooked a non-descript canister into the house’s HVAC system.
An hour after that, (while Tim personally apologized profusely to the owners of that house, assuring them that all the damage would be paid for, and the Fredricksburg PD made sure that all the nearby homes were evacuated) the bomb squad went in with gasmasks. Ender and Simmers were dead. Blake was going to have a whole lot of explaining to do, if he ever woke up.
But the EMTs who took custody of him after the bomb squad got him out didn’t seem hopeful about him waking up anytime soon.
It took the bomb techs close to three hours to clear the house. And even after that, they weren’t willing to guarantee that they’d found everything, or for that matter, short of tearing the whole place apart, that they ever could find everything.
But you can’t process a scene if you can’t go in it.
And the scene needs to be processed.
So, it was with extreme caution and very slow, very deliberate motions (and as much body armor as they could put on and still move) that Tim, Ziva, and Draga began going through the house.
Why every inch of that house was wired to blow was evident less than five minutes into going through the place, everything anyone could possibly need to roll the whole organization up was in there.
And that organization was much larger than three guys.
Much, much larger.
Tim had Fornell on the line before they’d even gotten halfway through pulling stuff out, and having done so, it was only an hour before the FBI showed up, with their own passel of bomb techs, explosive sniffing dogs, and probably every crime scene tech out of the Baltimore office.
Yeah, NCIS likes credit for big busts, but in the end domestic terrorism isn’t their job. Not unless it happens to Navy or Marine personnel or their families.
Playing catch up, running down the likely fifty to a hundred guys in this group, Tim was fine with handing that off. They got their guys for their crime, and that was enough.
And if it looked like there was more Navy or Marine servicemen involved, Fornell had promised they’d get the call as soon as they knew.
It was well after midnight when Tim was finishing up the first of his reports.
He’d talked to Vance when they got in, debriefed him on what they had found, the most pressing bit being that this group appeared to be large enough to make good on Simmers’ enemies list, so even though Simmers was dead, the protection details couldn’t yet be lifted.
Then came the process of the first report, namely a general what all happened when and why. There’d be more detailed reports later, in which every single second of the day would have to be accounted for, but those could wait until tomorrow. (Checking the clock on his computer, they could wait until later today.)
Tim rubs his eyes and was about to hit the send button when his phone rang. Vance’s secretary was requesting that he head upstairs to talk to the Director.
Tim didn’t like the feel of that request. They’d already debriefed, so this added call was making him nervous. But he hit send, and headed up, wondering what was going to happen next.
“Agent McGee,” Vance says as he heads in. He’s not smiling, but he doesn’t sound angry, either.
“Director.”
He looks over and sees Kort standing next to Vance’s desk, looking smug. Vance looks smug, too. Something weird is about to happen, and Tim’s aware of it, on edge. He doesn’t like being dropped into the middle of a set-up without being told what the set-up is.
“Mr. Kort, on behalf of his organization, felt it was necessary to complain about the handling of today’s incident. He wanted to voice his, and the CIA’s, distress at losing such a valuable ‘asset.’”
Tim’s staring at Vance, trying to see where this is going. Vance isn’t smiling, but there’s that amused, enjoying himself look in his eyes.
“I was thinking, that as the Agent in charge of today’s actions, that you should have the chance to respond directly to Mr. Kort.”
“Thank you, Sir.” Tim can see that not quite smile is still there, and he really hopes he’s not misreading the cues, and that this is, in fact, the guy who said he’d pay to see him cuss out the commander in charge of Lejeune setting him up for another version of that show.
Only one way to know for sure.
“And would this be a response from me personally, or from NCIS as a whole, Sir?”
Vance’s smile broke through for a half a second. “I think, in this matter, you’re more than qualified to speak for NCIS as a whole, Agent McGee.”
“Ah. Good.” Tim turned to face Kort. “Kort, fuck off and die you ungrateful son of a bitch. I got all of their phones, all of their computers, all of their papers, and their safe house, all intact, and now all in the hands of the FBI who are having a field day with all of this intel they’ve never seen before because you bastards never share.
“I got all of their contacts. There were fifty-seven people on that Minecraft server and unlike the NSA trolling operations, none of them are thirteen-year-olds just looking to have a good time.
“What you and the CIA couldn’t do in five years, my team did in five days. You don’t want your valuable assets dead, do your own damn job, and risk your own ass to capture them yourself. Me and mine aren’t dying for your fuck ups. And I’m sure as hell not risking three maniacs blowing up an entire neighborhood just to preserve your assets. We clear?”
“Crystal.” Kort looks at Leon, who is, for the first time, noticing that McGee’s actually pretty tall. “That was impolitic, Director.”
“Oh, my, you are right.” The full force of Vance’s sarcasm was withering. “I am shocked, deeply shocked at what Agent McGee had to say. He’s usually much more polite. McGee!”
“Yes, sir.”
“You and your entire team are being placed on paid leave. Once your reports are filled out, I do not want to see any of you here again until August. For the next week, I want you to go home, rest, relax, and think about the grave severity and dire consequences of saying impolitic things to pretentious assholes who upon being offered cake, ice cream, and cookies complain about the lack of whipped cream with sprinkles on top and deserve to have their ungrateful asses kicked.”
“Yes, sir.” Tim nods, trying very hard not to smile.
“Go on. Wrap up that report, and I’ll see you in a week. Now, Mr. Kort, do you have any other complaints I can deal with?”
It was a bit after two-thirty when Vance finished reading McGee’s report. Clear, concise, matched DiNozzo’s, Draga’s, and Tomlinson’s.
It was the final wrap up that Vance found most interesting. When the case is closed, the Team Leader writes up what happened. He’s gotten hundreds of them from Gibbs and a few from DiNozzo at this point, and McGee’s was similar, until he hit the end.
The final section had the heading:
Unanswered Questions:
1. How did they get off of the Reagan?
2. Why was the battery that powered the detonator dead?
3. Why stay in the US?
4. Who actually killed Thomas Ender?
5. How did they know those subs were going to be there?
Vance stared at those questions. He doesn’t know the answers, and if what the doctors are saying about Blake being brain dead are right, he’s not going to be providing them, either.
FBI’s problem now.
He flicks off his monitor, and stands, ready to head home, when he hears his door open. He sent Sharon, his secretary, home after McGee and Kort left. No reason for her to stay while he read reports.
“Hello.” And while it’s true he’s not a field agent, he does keep a gun in his top desk drawer, and he’s opening that drawer as he greets the figure entering his office.
“Leon.”
He knows that voice and relaxes, sliding the drawer shut. “Don’t sneak up on people like that, Clayt.” Jarvis took a few steps into his office.
Jarvis is not looking happy. And Leon can imagine why, it’s after two in the morning, and instead of being home, he’s here. “CIA is pissed.”
“Oh, come on, Kort deserved every word of what he got, and if he can’t handle McGee telling him to fuck off, it’s time for a new job.”
“That’s not why CIA is pissed. And that’s not why they’d call me in. In fact, I didn’t know…” That’s when what Vance said really starts to get to Jarvis. He spends a moment thinking about who was on DiNozzo’s team, and finally remembers which one McGee was, the tech guy who was running the interesting test on Cybercrime. He cussed out Kort? “Really?”
“Really.” Vance says with a smile.
“Amusing?”
Vance nods. “For a whole thirty seconds there Kort actually looked almost pissed off. That mildly annoyed, better than everyone else in the universe mask of his almost cracked. So if it’s not about Kort, why are you here?”
“I’m here at two forty-three in the morning because at some time around one in the morning CIA Director Carl Hanson got the news that Ender had been killed.”
Vance shakes his head. Really, they’re going to moan about it? “It was a clean kill, Clayt. Probably saved hundreds of lives.”
“Ender was still a deep cover asset for the CIA, reporting directly to Hanson. Kort had been instructed to provide as much information as he could while protecting Ender’s cover, but he was instructed to break that cover should it be necessary to get Ender out alive. According to his report, he was intending to tell DiNozzo of Ender’s real allegiance should he get too close to catching him. He didn’t think McGee was up to it, and if somehow he managed it, that McGee wouldn’t be willing to use lethal force to apprehend Ender. Apparently the use of the gas wasn’t the ‘by-the-book’ play he was expecting McGee to come up with, so he didn’t reveal that the entire plan was for them to get captured, all of the info compromised, and for Ender to ‘break free’ again once we transferred him to an Afghani black-site.”
Vance sits back down, feeling like his stomach is about to drop out of his body, and gestures to one of the chairs near his desk for Jarvis. “So Kort screwed the pooch, underestimated my man, and the CIA is mad at us?”
“Yes.”
Vance sounds tired. “Clayt, it’s too damn late for this. Kort keeps his cards too close to the vest, he gets what he gets.”
Jarvis flashes him a look that indicates he agrees with Vance, but there’s more bad news coming. “They want an inquiry.”
“They can have one, but I’ll scream so loud and hard about what they were doing it’s going to look awfully bad. The fact that they were running an illegal op on US soil will be the least of what I’ll throw at them. I’m not letting them crucify McGee for doing his job and doing it well.”
Clayton Jarvis stares at Vance for a moment. He knows Vance is protective of his people, but he also knows Vance has the political skills to let one take something for the team if it’ll work better in the long run. If he’s willing to embarrass the CIA over this, burn those bridges… “It’s that cut and dried?”
“We go to the wall on this one and we fight to the last man, Clayton. If we don’t, none of our men will ever step up when we ask them to. I’ll send you the report. It was a clean kill. Even with Ender being an asset, Blake and Simmers weren’t and they were both wearing functional kill switches that could have…” Vance turns his computer back on and sorts through his reports. “According to the bomb squad, if any of those vests had gone off, they would have touched off an explosion large enough to level three thousand meters in all directions, as well as shower debris all over the surrounding area. When they evacuated, there were sixty-three people in that area, and since it was late afternoon on a Friday in summertime, forty-six of them were children. He made the right decision, and if the CIA wants someone to fall on his sword, they need to tell Kort it’s time to get sharpening, ‘cause it’s not going to be McGee.”
Clayton nods. “Send me all of the reports. I’ll make sure we put the full power of the Navy behind McGee on this one. Knowing we won’t roll over should shut the CIA up, but if it doesn’t, we’ll fight.”
“Okay.” Vance sighs and reaches for his phone.
“Thought you were just about to head off.”
“I was, but now I’ve got one more call to make.”
“It’s almost three in the morning. Let him sleep. Once I’ve got the full report, I’m going to talk to CIA again. If this is as cut and dried as you’re saying, the CIA won’t fight.”
And that was Friday.
And on Saturday, a bit after noon, when he was just getting up, Leon found a text from Jarvis: CIA folded. They’re not going to make an issue of it. Ender officially died in 2009, he’s already got his star on the wall, and that’s all that needs to be said about that.
A few seconds later Vance got Are you going to tell McGee?
No. Not having a good agent second guessing himself for doing his job right.
Okay.
Chapter 269: And That Was Friday
By Friday morning Tim was starting to feel like he was in the habit of going to work again. Up, shower, food, dress, and out.
Felt like he was getting his rhythm back.
That was kind of nice.
“Good morning,” Tim says as he heads into the Bullpen, seeing Ziva sitting at her desk.
Ziva grunts at him. She’s mad. He can feel that coming off of her. It’s not the same PISSED that radiates off of Gibbs. This is a duller, slower, longer lasting anger. Tim spends a moment really looking at her, and decides that she’s pissed, but not at him, and not at being at work today.
That figured out, he’s not going to poke it. If it looks like she’s not letting it go as the day goes on and they get more intel, he’ll have a go at it later.
The Information Fairy, AKA Fornell, had indeed been kind. Split between them it was three hours of reading.
After three hours they knew this:
Lisbeth Ender (or at least someone who looked like her and had her passport) left the US for Tanzania on the 22nd. Tim put in the call for someone to hunt her down, but he wasn’t holding his breath on that. Wanted for questioning was awfully low on the priorities list for most international crime hunters. And though all her travel documents are flagged, he’s also not expecting her head back to a first world country using those documents anytime soon.
Thomas Ender had been extremely good as a spy. His evals indicated he was at the top of the CIA’s talent pool. He’d been trained for long-term, sleeper-cell style missions, where he could spend literally years in place, working his way deeper and deeper into the local culture, keeping an eye on things, and “nudging” them one direction or another.
His assignment as Aref Al Jalil, had gone smoothly for almost two years. He was settled in, working as an opium smuggler, making contacts in several small villages between the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, returning good intel, and then things went wrong.
Apparently he was so well-settled, he’d found himself a wife and had a child. And Kort’s “Stockholm Syndrome” actually translated into drone attack hit the wrong target, killing them, and apparently half of Ender’s in-laws.
Once the CIA figured out what had happened, they captured him.
Then the Taliban got him back.
That was 2009. In the intervening six years, rumors of what Ender was up to had spread. But they never got past rumors. He was good enough that deep, deep cover kept him a ghost. However, if rumors (or the NSA, CIA, Interpol, MI6, and the like) were to be believed, he ran training camps out of Columbia and Uzbekistan, and managed to spend some time working with just about every major terror group on Earth.
Fornell’s friend of a friend had something of a brainstorm, and decided to check James Ender’s travels, and found that he’d been all over the world, all over the United States, and managed to do it while reporting for duty every shift.
Further digging found that James Ender had two passports and driver’s licenses.
And if there’s one thing the TSA doesn’t do, it’s give military personnel in uniform with correct travel documents a hard time.
“Draga, we got the IDs back on Simmers and Blake?” Tim asks as he closes the flap on the folder in front of him. (FBI’s reports on Ender.)
Draga shakes his head.
“Okay, keep reading. Come on Ziva, let’s get some lunch. What do you want, Draga?”
You don’t have to be a genius to see Tim wants some time to talk to Ziva alone. She’s been radiating mad all morning, and it’s not getting any better. Draga’s not stupid, so he’s not having any issues figuring out that Tim is not going to even try to handle her the same way he did with him, so Draga doesn’t get up at the mention of lunch. “Where are you going?”
“Thinking Carlo’s. That okay with you?” Tim checks with Ziva.
Ziva nods.
“Cobb salad, no blue cheese, extra hard-boiled egg.”
Tim makes a note of it on his phone. “You get IDs on them, let us know.”
Draga nods. He’s still going through the MI-6 file on Ender, mostly detailing what they suspected was a six month stint in the IRA.
“Okay. Come on, Ziva.”
Like Draga, Tim’s not stupid, and he also knows he can’t handle Ziva the same way he did Draga. He can’t just draw a line and tell her to toe it. Too much water under too many bridges there. So, once they had their food…
“Talk to me.”
Ziva’s still oozing angry. “I am not a child.”
Okay, not what he was expecting, but he knows the right answer to that one. “No one thinks you are.”
Ziva glares at him. Or maybe not the right answer. Obviously, according to Ziva, someone was treating her like a child. “He yelledat me. Actually yelled.”
Tim’s giving her the tell me more look. His husband senses kicking in and telling him this might be a good conversation for him to say as little as possible and do a whole lot of listening.
“Once we got home, he yelled at me for running to them. Screamed about it. Told me that if I ever disobeyed a direct order from him or Gibbs again, he’d fire me.”
“Wow.” Tim gets Tony was scared. He knows he would have been in a blind panic if Abby ran toward him into a dangerous situation, but he also hopes he’d handle the aftermath better than that. Though, given how bonkers he went on the whole pregnant-wife-thing, he’s also awfully doubtful that he’d manage it.
“I am not a child. I can decide for myself if…”
He squeezes her hand. She’s shaking her head, still angry.
“He has no right to…” She stabs her chicken.
“He’s your husband. He’s allowed to get scared and angry when you’re in danger.”
“And I’m not?”
Also not what he was expecting. Apparently they aren’t just talking about Tony reacting to danger. “Not saying that. After the freezer, when I got calmed down, and it was her turn to go crazy, Abby hit me, couple of times, until I held her wrists and made her stop. Only reason I didn’t get hit yesterday is because I ran away from the blast. I run into a blast, I get two steps past yelled at. So, I’m not going to say you’re not allowed to be scared and angry, too. But it’s not the same for you or her as it is for us.”
Ziva’s not buying that at all. “Of course it’s the same.”
“No, it’s not.” Tim takes a bite of his lunch. “Are you pregnant?”
“Are you insane?” Not buying it has morphed into seriously irked.
“Not any more so than normal,” Tim says dryly. “You pregnant?”
“No.”
“Trying?”
She rolls her eyes. “Soon.”
“So, are you really certain you’re not pregnant?”
“It’s extremely unlikely.”
“But it’s not impossible.”
Tim’s noticing he’s about to get some Ziva anger aimed at him if he doesn’t get to the point soon, and it had better be an awfully good one. “It’s very unlikely but not completely impossible.”
“And that’s why it’s not the same. We… men… live in the present. Our bodies exist now and that’s it. When they’re gone they’re gone. You… women… live in the present and, maybe, the future. There’s always that chance that the next generation is along for the ride, and that’s the difference. Sure, you’re not pregnant. Sure, he knows that. But if yesterday was the end, you going with him took not just him out, not just you, but maybe any future he’s got, as well.”
That apparently was not a good enough point, she’s glaring at him. “McGee, you are full of shit. It works that way for us, too. That is the father of any children I’m ever going to have, standing in front of a bomb. He’s as much my future as I am his, and if he goes, that’s the end of it, and I am an adult, and I am allowed to value that future more than a life without it.”
Tim shrugs. He may not believe Ziva’s right about that, because she not. It’s not the same, at least, he doesn’t feel that way, not in his gut, because it’s the difference between… between the idea of a baby and a baby that might already exist… (He can feel Penny glaring at him on that, for being old-fashioned and patriarchal, but he’s comfortable with it.) but he’s also not going to argue about it. It probably does feel the same, to Ziva.
“You’re the love of his life. You didn’t need to die, and you ran into a bomb blast to be with him. You scared the shit out of him, probably Gibbs, too. I bet he’s going to yell at you, or at least give you a headslap when you get in range again. I’d yell at Abby and probably say some god-awful stupid things if she did the same thing, because sometimes you’re so damn scared all you can do is yell.”
That gets a little nod out of Ziva. “She told us about not being able to carry in any groceries while she was pregnant.”
“Exactly. Now, how ridiculously stupid is that compared to a bomb? It’s really stupid. That’s an entire level of special stupid that only guys get, and only about their pregnant wives, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Jimmy feels the same way about Breena. I think it’s just part of being a guy.”
“It’s part of being a human, McGee. Do you think I do not feel that same fear every time we go out? Or that Abby doesn’t when you’re at risk?”
Judging by the fact that he’s never seen or heard of Abby, Ziva, or Breena hovering nervously over any of the three of them when they’re doing fairly normal and extremely low-risk things, and he knows that both he and Jimmy did it for their wives when they were pregnant, he’s thinking the answer is no. But he’s also not about to say that.
And he also knows that there is fear there, and it’s there all the time, and the fact that it’s not the same doesn’t make it any less real, or any less intense for the person feeling it, so he says, “I know you do. I know she does. I’m not moving to Cybercrime because I want career advancement. I would have taken a position as a tech down there if Vance hadn’t gone for Department Head.
“And I ran away because that’s my promise to her. That’s our marriage. She and Kelly come first, and I can’t put them first if I’m not alive. But… is that your promise to Tony? Will you live for him… Okay, that sounds wrong, but do you get what I mean?”
Ziva nods. “Yes, I do.”
“Is that your marriage?”
Ziva shakes her head, and he thinks she’s saying she doesn’t want to talk about it, not commenting on their relationship.
“You two going to be okay?”
“Eventually.”
“You two gonna be able to work together?”
She shrugs. Not a problem that has to be dealt with today. And honestly, not Tim’s problem, either, at least, not until Tony gets back and takes over again as leader.
“Your head in the game enough to be here with me?” But that is his problem, and it does need to be dealt with today.
“Are you asking as my friend or the senior member of the team?”
“Right now, it’s as Team Leader.”
Ziva takes a sip of her soda. “I am, in the game, as you put it.”
“Good. ‘Cause I need you to ask a favor.”
Getting back to the case was making Ziva happier. Work is almost always easier than relationshipping when the going is rocky. “A favor of whom?”
“Orli Elbaz. I’ve got Vance working it on our side, and I want to know from hers as well. Who knew where those subs were going to be, and did anyone reroute them?”
“You know she isn’t head of Mossad anymore?”
“She’s the highest link on the chain I can get to, unless you know the current guy…”
“I do, but not as well. He wasn’t a fan of my father, and I do not think he’d be interested in doing me any favors.”
“Okay. Get me what you can. It can’t be a coincidence those ships were that close to each other.”
Both of their phones buzz. Tim grabs his while waving to their waiter for the check and boxes to take their lunch back to the Navy Yard. Jason Simmers aka Xavier Martinez, last known as part of ETA. Vanished in 2010.
Tim looks at Ziva. “Didn’t the ETA sign a cease-fire in 2010?”
“Yes, and disbanded in 2014.”
“Unemployed terrorist looking for a new gig?”
Ziva shrugs. She’s certainly heard worse ideas.
By the time they got back, Blake had a new name, too. Seamus Ivers, formerly of the IRA, dropped off the face of the Earth at the end of 2010, and apparently, rejoined it as Edward Blake, of the US Navy.
So… three terrorists… though Tim’s thinking that doesn’t quite sound right… Not for targets that big. Not if they’re aiming at military targets. Three mercenaries? Special ops? He supposes it’s possible that Ender found the biggest target he could locate as a way to strike back against the US, but, what… the Israeli Subs were just icing on the cake?
No. He’s working for someone and that someone has to be a government, or a quazi-government with some real money and intel behind it.
From everything he’d seen from the info dump on Ender, (and having IDed Blake and Simmers, massive mounds of new info on them were pouring in) the man was more than capable of planning a mission where he’d get men in place four years ahead of striking.
His phone buzzed, and he saw it was Vance’s private number.
“McGee.”
“Feel like getting a coffee with me?”
“Yes, sir.” What the hell is going on now? Intel too delicate to put in writing? Did I just screw something up? Are we being pulled off? Shit.
“Excellent.”
Five minutes later, he was standing next to Vance, holding a cup of iced-coffee (it’s really too hot for hot coffee) wondering what exactly Vance doesn’t want to say to him in his office.
“I understand you have Ziva putting out feelers for why those subs were where they were?”
“Yes.”
Vance sighs and rubs his eyes.
“I know you’ve been on Gibbs’ team for a long time. And I know I take a hands off, let him take the case wherever it leads approach.”
Tim feels his stomach start to knot up as it dawns on him what the problem might be. “So you’re saying we weren’t supposed to know those subs were there, either?”
“Mossad knows we spy on them. We know they spy on us. That’s just how the game works. But, until Ziva started calling, they didn’t know that we had managed to get our hands on that bit of intel. And they also hadn't know about the almost attack on the Reagan.”
“Shit. Sorry.”
Vance shakes his head. “Solve the case and all sins are forgiven.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I also have some news for you on our side of that. The path the Reagan was on had been planned out more than six months ago and was unaltered.”
“Who planned it out?”
Leon smiles, but it’s not a happy gesture. “Let’s put it this way, if the people who planned it are compromised, we’ve got vastly bigger issues than a possible terror cell.”
“I understand. Will someone be checking to make sure we don’t have vastly bigger issues than a possible terror cell?”
“Yes, discretely.” That answer makes Tim think that some members of the higher ups were about to answer some very uncomfortable questions.
“Okay.”
“How close to solving this are you?”
“Closer than I was yesterday, not as close as I’d like to be.” Tim doesn’t say that he’s desperately worried that he’ll be able to figure out the puzzle, put all the pieces in place, but still not be able to catch the guys because they’re better at hiding than he is at seeking. “I’ve got positive IDs on everyone. More information is coming in by the minute, but we’re playing catch-up.”
Vance nods, finishes his coffee, and says, “Play harder,” as he heads back into the Navy Yard.
The thing is, as he’s sitting there with Ziva and Draga, is that none of the three of them are the ideas guy.
Okay, that’s kind of dumb, sure he’s the ideas guy, as long as those ideas involve a computer. And Ziva’s the ideas girl, as long as those ideas involve a gun. And Draga might be the ideas guy, as long as it involves seeing some little detail the rest of the missed.
But those are ideas. None of them are the IDEAS guy.
Right now, they’re missing their ideas guys. Faced with a Mount Everest of facts and evidence, Gibbs or Tony would be the one to have the Eureka! moment and know what to do or where to look next.
And for the most part it’s the three of them that do the looking.
And they’re doing great at looking. They’ve got scads of information now. Wading through piles and piles of it. All three of those men have had long and glorious careers blowing stuff up and killing people for whichever “cause” was paying the bills. And Tim, Ziva, and Draga are reading up, learning patterns, getting familiar with how these guys think and why.
What they don’t have is where the hell they’re located now.
Or how they got off that ship.
Or how they all got onto it, too. Who got Simmers and Blake on the Reagan in the first place? Or, once again coincidence?
Or how they knew when and where to hit.
Or why three guys, three guys who are really great at what they do, used a frigging dead battery to power their detonator. Was the point even to blow up the Reagan, or just scare the hell out of everyone?
Sigh. Tim turns another page, learning more about Blake’s training as an explosives expert.
“Think they’re in Tanzania?” Draga asks.
Tim shrugs. It’s possible. “Any of their aliases go traveling recently?” Specifically, and this is something that worries him deeply, is the idea that the three of them boarded planes using their military IDs and got out of the country before NCIS was even looking for them.
Sure, they requested intel on that, and yes, they set the BOLO, but the fact that nothing has popped up can be just as much a matter of the TSA being asleep at the wheel as those three are still in the US. (In fact, given the CVs Tim's reading on these three, it's more likely not seeing anything is the TSA asleep at the wheel than these three still being in the States.)
But, now that they’ve got IDs for all three with their real names, the list of potential aliases just got a whole lot longer.”
“I’m checking on that,” Draga answers.
Tim’s staring at his screen, looking at reports connecting the explosives in Simmers’ fortress of Solitude to “explosions” (Sometime around 2009 most of the West realized it was in the best interest of everyone if any bombing that could be passed off as some sort of industrial accident, was.) in Ireland, England, Canada, the US, and Australia, and the residue they found at Blake’s place.
So, at the very least Simmers and Blake are working together, and they can put the explosives that just about blew them up in Blake’s hands. And they can now confirm that Blake really is Seamus Ivers. The facial recognition was only 92% sure, but no two bombers use the exact same explosive recipe, and the chemical composition on the explosives is identical.
Wonderful. More pieces together. Still no closer to finding them.
Tim checks his email, sure he’s not going to find that any of the three of them got caught in a BOLO, but he might as well hope.
Nothing.
Simmers and Blake were on the Reagan together. They could talk to each other easily. Ender wasn’t. There had to be some way they communicated with each other.
No phone records. No financials. No useful emails.
So, how were they doing it?
He’s tapping his fingers on his keyboard, rubbing his forehead. They never did get around to combing through social media. Worth a shot.
“We still don’t know how they were talking to each other. Social media time. Ziva, you take tumblr. Draga, you’re on Facebook. I’ve got Twitter. They had to talk to each other, let’s find it.”
Two hours later, they finally did hit the eureka moment. “Guys!” Draga sounds really excited.
Tim and Ziva look up at Draga.
“They’re all players on Minecraft. Got their own server and everything!”
Tim remembers that thing about the NSA watching people online on gaming communities. “That’s where they’re talking?”
“Think so. And… yeah… they’re on now.”
Tim quietly sends a quick thanks to God, and starts to hack. “I’ve got this. Gear up. Ziva, let Vance know what is up. I’ll have a location in…” He taps the keyboard waiting for his computer to find what he needs. “Fredricksburg, Maryland. Let’s go!” He’s up and moving to the car while lifting his phone to his ear to call in back up and the bomb squad. They almost got blown to smithereens once, they’re not taking that chance again.
There are times when Tim is more than vaguely worried about the militarization of local police forces. Like, he very rarely thinks they actually need tanks or tank-like transports. And having dealt with a decent number of LEOs who would find counting to twenty-one difficult unless they were naked, he’s… skeptical is probably a good word, about their ability to use those weapons and the tactics that go with them well.
But right now, as he’s being introduced to Lt. Jeffery Tomlinson, Fredericksburg SWAT, he’s feeling pretty comfortable with the fact that Tomlinson knows what he’s doing, and he’s got enough firepower behind him to take out a moderately sized country, like say, France.
They’re in a “Lawn Care” van, three streets away from the target house, in front of a foreclosed on house, and Tomlinson actually has two guys very slowly mowing the lawn.
In front of them is a bank of monitors, showing the house their perps is in from four separate angles.
“Once we got the call, we set up the surveillance,” Tomlinson says, as he shows them how to control the camera feeds. “Nothing in that house has moved since we’ve gotten the call.”
“Good. How’d you set it up?” Tim asks. “One of them is CIA-trained and probably knows what to look for.”
“Saw that when we got your call. We went in with a UPS truck, and delivered ‘packages’ with hidden cameras to the front porches of a few of the neighbors.”
“Cool.” For several minutes Tim, Ziva, and Draga just watch, getting a feel for the layout. They’ve got really good line of sight. In fact, it’s too good.
This is some sort of trap waiting for them. Tim can feel it. Ziva’s looking really nervous, too.
“Too easy?” If anyone would know, it’s their Ninja.
“Yes.” She’s staring at the aerial shots of the neighborhood. There’s no cover anywhere. It’s a fairly new development, no trees, very few bushes, and the ones that are there are all small. “They’re practically inviting us to come in and get killed.”
“Sooo… what’s the trap?” Draga asks.
“The warehouse was simple. This is probably simple too. Easy to hide. Easy to disarm, they don’t want to blow themselves up. Easy to trip…” Ziva’s looking back at the footage of the house. It’s a basic, cookie cutter, low end of the expensive spectrum, house for yuppies. Lots of windows, big front yard, no trees. Two hundred other houses all exactly like it, all on .75 acre lots, all facing tidy-little two lane streets, arranged into a near-fractal of cul-de-sacs.
Ziva uses the controls on the cameras, scanning around, giving them a better view of the front of the house. “Does it look like they ever use the front door?”
“Be a lot easier to tell in winter,” Tim says. Nothing like snow for making obvious footprints. July isn’t very good for that.
Ziva shakes her head. “I know, but… The cars are parked on the driveway next to the garage and side entrance. The post box is at the end of the driveway. Who would use the front door? Police coming in.”
“Give me a close up of the front of the house,” Draga says. He looks, seeing, Tim has no idea what, but he says definitively, “Side door. They don’t use the front.”
“So…” Tim says, waiting to see what they’re thinking.
Ziva focuses in a bit tighter. “Does that lump under the welcome mat look suspicious?”
“Looks like something I’d stay away from,” Draga says.
“If I had any idea how much explosives they had, I would be tempted to just toss something onto the mat and let them blow up,” Ziva says, flash of her old self showing through.
“But…” Tim says it, though he doesn’t really need to. They all know ‘but.’ This is residential neighborhood with hundreds of people in it, and they’ve got no idea what all is in that house.
“Heat feed is online,” one of the techs from the Fredericksburg SWAT says.
“Good!” Ziva says, keying it up.
It’s honestly kind of boring. Three guys, sitting in front of computers. From the feed Tim’s got on their servers, they actually are playing Minecraft right now. Probably. They’re in creative mode and building something really big. The fact that they’ve also got a completely detailed, to scale, Nimitz-class aircraft carrier on their server means that whatever they’re building, it’s probably not just for fun.
“That can’t be good,” from Draga gets Tim’s attention off of what they’re building and back onto the heat cameras.
It takes him a few minutes to see it, but once he does… “Shit.”
If it wasn’t for the fact that Blake is part of this group, he’d probably be significantly less worried about the fact that there are multiple places on the house, like the front door, the garage doors, the back door, around several windows, that aren’t radiating heat the way the rest of the house is.
It’s July. It’s 93 degrees outside. Most of the house is radiating a bit cooler than that, which makes sense, they’ve probably got AC going on the inside. But, if say, there were large blocks of something very solid, something that didn’t transmit cool well, there would be darker, hotter sections, where whatever that dense material that wasn’t transmitting the cool was.
And there are. A lot of them. And Tim’s awfully sure those blocks are more of the C-4ish stuff Blake makes. The whole house is wired to blow, and from the looks of it, just about every entrance they could choose is set to blow anyone who comes in sky high.
“McGee,” Ziva’s voice, and her sounding concerned sends ice down his spine.
“What?”
She points to the square, cooler spots on each of the men.
“They’re all rigged to blow, too, aren’t they?”
“That would be my guess.” She focused in closer on one of them. “Though I’d say they aren’t switched on yet, this one is using both hands on his computer.”
“Great. So, how do we get them out, without having them blow up the neighborhood?” He looks at Ziva, and she shrugs. Draga shakes his head. Tomlinson began setting up a plan to evacuate the neighborhood, which is something that Tim’s in favor of in general, except the great line of sight means that as soon as they start doing it, the guys in the house will notice, and probably blow the place.
“You guys willing to get some bad press?” Tim asks Jeffery.
“Why?”
“They’ve got cameras all over the house. We can’t move without them seeing it. If we could get a bunch of DEA or PD vans or something and go storming into one of the neighbor’s houses, make a big deal about it, lots of noise and attention, maybe we could get in and get them shut down before they notice they really are the targets.”
Draga looks up at that. “Better idea. Do that, but we’ll gas them.”
Ziva perks up considerably. “I like that. Big, huge show next door, I’ll sneak up to the heat pump, hook in the canister, and then we can go in once they’re asleep.”
Tim knows the theory behind the gas. Sleeping bad guys don’t put up any sort of fight. He also knows that as of this point no police force has managed to use it without killing at least half of the people they were trying to take down, and, honestly, at least half usually meant a whole lot closer to all of them.
If the Reagan had blown, that was at least 5700 lives, plus who knew how much nuclear fallout. Only sheer luck the warehouse didn’t get them. And this house, in the middle of a neighborhood filled with people…
It’s his call.
He got his cell and made it. Since the beginning of ’14 all SWAT teams had been equipped with the gas. NCIS wasn’t because they didn’t usually go into situations like that, but Tim’s call to Tomlinson’s commander got the gas released for use.
He’s not dying to capture these three, and neither is anyone else. Not today.
Half an hour later, on his orders, while the DEA staged a raid on the house two doors down, Ziva crept around to the back and hooked a non-descript canister into the house’s HVAC system.
An hour after that, (while Tim personally apologized profusely to the owners of that house, assuring them that all the damage would be paid for, and the Fredricksburg PD made sure that all the nearby homes were evacuated) the bomb squad went in with gasmasks. Ender and Simmers were dead. Blake was going to have a whole lot of explaining to do, if he ever woke up.
But the EMTs who took custody of him after the bomb squad got him out didn’t seem hopeful about him waking up anytime soon.
It took the bomb techs close to three hours to clear the house. And even after that, they weren’t willing to guarantee that they’d found everything, or for that matter, short of tearing the whole place apart, that they ever could find everything.
But you can’t process a scene if you can’t go in it.
And the scene needs to be processed.
So, it was with extreme caution and very slow, very deliberate motions (and as much body armor as they could put on and still move) that Tim, Ziva, and Draga began going through the house.
Why every inch of that house was wired to blow was evident less than five minutes into going through the place, everything anyone could possibly need to roll the whole organization up was in there.
And that organization was much larger than three guys.
Much, much larger.
Tim had Fornell on the line before they’d even gotten halfway through pulling stuff out, and having done so, it was only an hour before the FBI showed up, with their own passel of bomb techs, explosive sniffing dogs, and probably every crime scene tech out of the Baltimore office.
Yeah, NCIS likes credit for big busts, but in the end domestic terrorism isn’t their job. Not unless it happens to Navy or Marine personnel or their families.
Playing catch up, running down the likely fifty to a hundred guys in this group, Tim was fine with handing that off. They got their guys for their crime, and that was enough.
And if it looked like there was more Navy or Marine servicemen involved, Fornell had promised they’d get the call as soon as they knew.
It was well after midnight when Tim was finishing up the first of his reports.
He’d talked to Vance when they got in, debriefed him on what they had found, the most pressing bit being that this group appeared to be large enough to make good on Simmers’ enemies list, so even though Simmers was dead, the protection details couldn’t yet be lifted.
Then came the process of the first report, namely a general what all happened when and why. There’d be more detailed reports later, in which every single second of the day would have to be accounted for, but those could wait until tomorrow. (Checking the clock on his computer, they could wait until later today.)
Tim rubs his eyes and was about to hit the send button when his phone rang. Vance’s secretary was requesting that he head upstairs to talk to the Director.
Tim didn’t like the feel of that request. They’d already debriefed, so this added call was making him nervous. But he hit send, and headed up, wondering what was going to happen next.
“Agent McGee,” Vance says as he heads in. He’s not smiling, but he doesn’t sound angry, either.
“Director.”
He looks over and sees Kort standing next to Vance’s desk, looking smug. Vance looks smug, too. Something weird is about to happen, and Tim’s aware of it, on edge. He doesn’t like being dropped into the middle of a set-up without being told what the set-up is.
“Mr. Kort, on behalf of his organization, felt it was necessary to complain about the handling of today’s incident. He wanted to voice his, and the CIA’s, distress at losing such a valuable ‘asset.’”
Tim’s staring at Vance, trying to see where this is going. Vance isn’t smiling, but there’s that amused, enjoying himself look in his eyes.
“I was thinking, that as the Agent in charge of today’s actions, that you should have the chance to respond directly to Mr. Kort.”
“Thank you, Sir.” Tim can see that not quite smile is still there, and he really hopes he’s not misreading the cues, and that this is, in fact, the guy who said he’d pay to see him cuss out the commander in charge of Lejeune setting him up for another version of that show.
Only one way to know for sure.
“And would this be a response from me personally, or from NCIS as a whole, Sir?”
Vance’s smile broke through for a half a second. “I think, in this matter, you’re more than qualified to speak for NCIS as a whole, Agent McGee.”
“Ah. Good.” Tim turned to face Kort. “Kort, fuck off and die you ungrateful son of a bitch. I got all of their phones, all of their computers, all of their papers, and their safe house, all intact, and now all in the hands of the FBI who are having a field day with all of this intel they’ve never seen before because you bastards never share.
“I got all of their contacts. There were fifty-seven people on that Minecraft server and unlike the NSA trolling operations, none of them are thirteen-year-olds just looking to have a good time.
“What you and the CIA couldn’t do in five years, my team did in five days. You don’t want your valuable assets dead, do your own damn job, and risk your own ass to capture them yourself. Me and mine aren’t dying for your fuck ups. And I’m sure as hell not risking three maniacs blowing up an entire neighborhood just to preserve your assets. We clear?”
“Crystal.” Kort looks at Leon, who is, for the first time, noticing that McGee’s actually pretty tall. “That was impolitic, Director.”
“Oh, my, you are right.” The full force of Vance’s sarcasm was withering. “I am shocked, deeply shocked at what Agent McGee had to say. He’s usually much more polite. McGee!”
“Yes, sir.”
“You and your entire team are being placed on paid leave. Once your reports are filled out, I do not want to see any of you here again until August. For the next week, I want you to go home, rest, relax, and think about the grave severity and dire consequences of saying impolitic things to pretentious assholes who upon being offered cake, ice cream, and cookies complain about the lack of whipped cream with sprinkles on top and deserve to have their ungrateful asses kicked.”
“Yes, sir.” Tim nods, trying very hard not to smile.
“Go on. Wrap up that report, and I’ll see you in a week. Now, Mr. Kort, do you have any other complaints I can deal with?”
It was a bit after two-thirty when Vance finished reading McGee’s report. Clear, concise, matched DiNozzo’s, Draga’s, and Tomlinson’s.
It was the final wrap up that Vance found most interesting. When the case is closed, the Team Leader writes up what happened. He’s gotten hundreds of them from Gibbs and a few from DiNozzo at this point, and McGee’s was similar, until he hit the end.
The final section had the heading:
Unanswered Questions:
1. How did they get off of the Reagan?
2. Why was the battery that powered the detonator dead?
3. Why stay in the US?
4. Who actually killed Thomas Ender?
5. How did they know those subs were going to be there?
Vance stared at those questions. He doesn’t know the answers, and if what the doctors are saying about Blake being brain dead are right, he’s not going to be providing them, either.
FBI’s problem now.
He flicks off his monitor, and stands, ready to head home, when he hears his door open. He sent Sharon, his secretary, home after McGee and Kort left. No reason for her to stay while he read reports.
“Hello.” And while it’s true he’s not a field agent, he does keep a gun in his top desk drawer, and he’s opening that drawer as he greets the figure entering his office.
“Leon.”
He knows that voice and relaxes, sliding the drawer shut. “Don’t sneak up on people like that, Clayt.” Jarvis took a few steps into his office.
Jarvis is not looking happy. And Leon can imagine why, it’s after two in the morning, and instead of being home, he’s here. “CIA is pissed.”
“Oh, come on, Kort deserved every word of what he got, and if he can’t handle McGee telling him to fuck off, it’s time for a new job.”
“That’s not why CIA is pissed. And that’s not why they’d call me in. In fact, I didn’t know…” That’s when what Vance said really starts to get to Jarvis. He spends a moment thinking about who was on DiNozzo’s team, and finally remembers which one McGee was, the tech guy who was running the interesting test on Cybercrime. He cussed out Kort? “Really?”
“Really.” Vance says with a smile.
“Amusing?”
Vance nods. “For a whole thirty seconds there Kort actually looked almost pissed off. That mildly annoyed, better than everyone else in the universe mask of his almost cracked. So if it’s not about Kort, why are you here?”
“I’m here at two forty-three in the morning because at some time around one in the morning CIA Director Carl Hanson got the news that Ender had been killed.”
Vance shakes his head. Really, they’re going to moan about it? “It was a clean kill, Clayt. Probably saved hundreds of lives.”
“Ender was still a deep cover asset for the CIA, reporting directly to Hanson. Kort had been instructed to provide as much information as he could while protecting Ender’s cover, but he was instructed to break that cover should it be necessary to get Ender out alive. According to his report, he was intending to tell DiNozzo of Ender’s real allegiance should he get too close to catching him. He didn’t think McGee was up to it, and if somehow he managed it, that McGee wouldn’t be willing to use lethal force to apprehend Ender. Apparently the use of the gas wasn’t the ‘by-the-book’ play he was expecting McGee to come up with, so he didn’t reveal that the entire plan was for them to get captured, all of the info compromised, and for Ender to ‘break free’ again once we transferred him to an Afghani black-site.”
Vance sits back down, feeling like his stomach is about to drop out of his body, and gestures to one of the chairs near his desk for Jarvis. “So Kort screwed the pooch, underestimated my man, and the CIA is mad at us?”
“Yes.”
Vance sounds tired. “Clayt, it’s too damn late for this. Kort keeps his cards too close to the vest, he gets what he gets.”
Jarvis flashes him a look that indicates he agrees with Vance, but there’s more bad news coming. “They want an inquiry.”
“They can have one, but I’ll scream so loud and hard about what they were doing it’s going to look awfully bad. The fact that they were running an illegal op on US soil will be the least of what I’ll throw at them. I’m not letting them crucify McGee for doing his job and doing it well.”
Clayton Jarvis stares at Vance for a moment. He knows Vance is protective of his people, but he also knows Vance has the political skills to let one take something for the team if it’ll work better in the long run. If he’s willing to embarrass the CIA over this, burn those bridges… “It’s that cut and dried?”
“We go to the wall on this one and we fight to the last man, Clayton. If we don’t, none of our men will ever step up when we ask them to. I’ll send you the report. It was a clean kill. Even with Ender being an asset, Blake and Simmers weren’t and they were both wearing functional kill switches that could have…” Vance turns his computer back on and sorts through his reports. “According to the bomb squad, if any of those vests had gone off, they would have touched off an explosion large enough to level three thousand meters in all directions, as well as shower debris all over the surrounding area. When they evacuated, there were sixty-three people in that area, and since it was late afternoon on a Friday in summertime, forty-six of them were children. He made the right decision, and if the CIA wants someone to fall on his sword, they need to tell Kort it’s time to get sharpening, ‘cause it’s not going to be McGee.”
Clayton nods. “Send me all of the reports. I’ll make sure we put the full power of the Navy behind McGee on this one. Knowing we won’t roll over should shut the CIA up, but if it doesn’t, we’ll fight.”
“Okay.” Vance sighs and reaches for his phone.
“Thought you were just about to head off.”
“I was, but now I’ve got one more call to make.”
“It’s almost three in the morning. Let him sleep. Once I’ve got the full report, I’m going to talk to CIA again. If this is as cut and dried as you’re saying, the CIA won’t fight.”
And that was Friday.
And on Saturday, a bit after noon, when he was just getting up, Leon found a text from Jarvis: CIA folded. They’re not going to make an issue of it. Ender officially died in 2009, he’s already got his star on the wall, and that’s all that needs to be said about that.
A few seconds later Vance got Are you going to tell McGee?
No. Not having a good agent second guessing himself for doing his job right.
Okay.
December 11, 2013
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 265
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 265: And That Was Monday
Monday morning. Back to work.
Usual start up time is eight, so usual heading off time is seven thirty. Which means the last sight of his family, before heading out into the hot July air, was Abby nursing Kelly, and leaning in close to kiss them both goodbye.
Ah yes, the glorious orange hue that means justice and work.
Yippiee.
Somehow he’s significantly less gung ho about being at work than he normally is. Draga’s already at his desk, and he can smell Gibbs’ coffee, so he’s around here somewhere. Ziva and Tony’s desks are empty. But Tony’s on breakfast treats/drinks on Monday, so they get in a little later than everyone else.
Looks like it’s a normal Monday.
He sits down at his desk, pulls the baby pictures out of his go bag, tacks two on his wall, one on the back of his computer, (so people can see without having to hang all over his desk) and fires up his computer.
Only 274 new emails since the last time he checked.
Maybe, if he’s lucky, there won’t be a body today.
Not that lucky. Usually, when Tony’s on snacks, he comes in, doles them out, and then sits down. Today he’s got the snacks, but instead of putting the bag on his desk, and handing them out he keeps hold of them and says, “Eating on the road today.”
Gibbs chooses that second to appear out of nowhere. “Where to?”
“We’re heading for the Regan. Van to Norfolk. Heilo from Norfolk to the Regan.” He looks at Tim. “Bet this is what you were hoping for for your first case back.”
Tim shoulders his go bag, rolling his eyes. “You know it.”
Draga’s looking at him, wondering.
“I get seasick.”
“You get seasick and signed on to be a Navy Cop?” Draga asks as they head to the elevator.
“Long story.”
“You know there are these pressure—“
“Got ‘em all memorized. And a special bracelet that’s supposed to help with it in my bag.”
“Does it help?” Draga asks.
“Not really.”
“Dramamine?”
Tony winces. “No.”
“No?” Draga’s looking at Tim, wanting to know how bad the experience that prompted Tony’s ‘no’ was.
Tim shakes his head. “Like mainlining speed. It’s not pretty.”
“He was awake for three days the last time he tried that,” Ziva says.
“Not three days, but yeah, didn’t like the side effects. I wasn’t sick to my stomach, though.”
“Nope, not sick,” Tony adds. “But you could hear his heart beating from the other side of the room.”
“I thought it was supposed to make you sleepy,” Draga says.
“It might, but that’s not how I react to it.” That makes Tim remember something, so he grabs his phone and starts texting.
“Letting Abby know what’s up?” Gibbs asks.
“Good plan, need to do that, too.” He sent her a fast text as well while saying, “Asking Jimmy about the stuff Breena’s on for morning sickness.”
A minute later he’d gotten one back from Jimmy. Motion sickness is usually more of an inner ear balance thing than a hormonal thing, but the stuff she’s on works for chemo patients, too. Might help you. How much do you weigh?
Tim sent back 171.
I’ll write you a script and bring some if we get called out to join you.
Thanks.
They were getting the van ready when Tim said to Tony, “Never thought I’d be around to see this again.”
“Had to happen. Wasn’t working stuck in between them.”
“That’s fine. Still not calling you Boss.”
“Gibbs said the same thing to me.”
Tim laughed at that. “So, campfire when we come back?”
“Think so. That seemed to work well last time.” Of all of his changes from the first time, the one that stuck was how he rearranged everything so it was easier to get to. The one he would have liked to have seen stuck was the campfire. Okay, sure Gibbs likes the report in style, but Tony thought his report in, and then talk through what you think is going on works better than Gibbs’ report in, and then Gibbs somehow magically comes up with the answer. And it’ll sure as hell work a ton better than Gibbs magically figures out what’s up next when Gibbs isn’t there anymore. Plus, it is doing a better job of keeping Draga in the loop, which means he’s getting fewer, do you really know what you’re doingstyle questions.
“Yeah, I think it did. Gibbs actually talking at them?”
“Uh huh. He’s a really good second-in-command.”
“Shouldn’t that be Ziva?”
“At this point it’s basically everyone who isn’t Draga.”
“Ah.”
Gibbs tossed Tim the keys. “Let’s go.”
Tony’s handing out the snacks while he fills them in. “So, according to the call, 1800 hours, day before yesterday, three sailors: Ender, Simmers, and Blake didn’t show up for roll. Since the Regan was in the middle of the Atlantic, and since they had been at their posts as of 1700, the higher ups started searching for them. As of 2200 yesterday, they still hadn’t been found.”
“Isn’t the Regan an aircraft carrier?” Draga asks.
“Yes, it is, Flyboy. Hoping you’ll be able to help us find all the hidden nooks and crannies where three sailors might hide.”
“Yeah, but… Carriers have NCIS Agents Afloat, right?” Draga asks.
“Good point. Why are we heading to Norfolk?” Tim asks.
“Yes, they do. But, at 0600, when Agent--oh you’ll love this McGeek--Mulder—“
“Really?” Tim looks away from the traffic for a second to see if Tony’s joking.
Tony’s not. “Really. Three missing persons, and Agent Mulder’s in charge.”
“Oh, this is great,” Draga says with a grin. “Scully on board too?”
Gibbs shoots a quick less fooling around more working look at the three of them.
“No pretty red-heads for you, Flyboy. Gibbs has that market cornered.”
Draga looks curiously at Gibbs. Gibbs just shakes his head.
Tony continues on, “As of 0600, Mulder was running the search for those three—“
“How are they searching?” Ziva asks.
“Don’t have details on that.”
“Do we know if they went for a swim?” Gibbs asks.
“Report says they didn’t, but I don’t see how they could know that,” Tony answers.
“All carriers have sensors and security on the decks. Anyone tries to go for a swim, and it’ll set them off,” Draga answers.
“Is that new?” Tim asks. He’d never heard of that.
“Think they got done installing them on all the ships in early ’15. Pretty cool system. There’s a series of lasers around the perimeters as well as cameras. The cameras are always on, and if one of the beams gets broken, it immediately sounds an alarm, the footage gets replayed, the computer can tell if it’s a bird or something, and if it’s a bird or something, no one does anything, but if it’s a guy, then all hands onto rescue mode.”
“Cool.” Tim replies.
“McGee, Flyboy, once we’re done with the scene, you two’ll be making sure the sensors worked properly.”
“Why do we have a scene? This is a missing persons case,” Ziva asks.
“As I was saying before we got onto whether or not our sailors took a swim, Agent Mulder had been running the search. He notices something, quote, smells really off, unquote. He’s in the process of checking it out, and was, ‘pushed’ down one of those ladders/stairway things they have between decks. So, Mulder’s in the infirmary, with his left leg broken in three places, and we’re being heiloed in to take over the search.”
“What does ‘smells really off’ mean?” Ziva asks.
“Dead body? Dead bodies? That’s what Mulder thought. Could be little green men for all we know, though. Whole area’s been roped off, waiting for us. Supposedly, no one’s been allowed nearby and a watch has been set to keep the spot clear.”
“So three missing sailors, maybe dead, and two hours before we get there,” Gibbs adds, maybe just stating the obvious, maybe giving Tony a hint.
Either way Tony followed up with, “Okay, Flyboy, pad out, I want a list of every non-standard hiding place you can think of on a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier that’ll fit a person. The more out of the way, the better. I want wherever you’d take a girl if that girl was the Captain’s wife.”
Draga grins. “If I’m gonna fool around with the Captain’s wife, I’m taking her off his ship.”
That got a headslap from Gibbs.
“Non-standard hiding places, working on it.”
Setting foot onto the Regan after the helio ride, Tim was awfully pleased to see the seasickness didn’t hit him nearly as hard as it usually did. They’d actually been on there for twenty minutes, working their way below decks to ‘smells really off’ and he was only feeling mildly nauseous, which given the fact that it’d been less than a day since Tropical Storm Helene blew through and the sea was still rough was a miracle.
He was wondering a little if maybe actually talking some about what had happened with his Dad was part of why he wasn’t massively sick. Maybe, since almost twenty-five years of fear about what might happen to him on a ship had, not precisely died, but been put into some better perspective, his stomach wasn’t quite so upset by the prospect of being on a ship.
So, he was thinking that he might actually get through the case without tossing his cookies when they got to the ‘smells really off.’ And it does. They all know that smell. Been there, done that, got the commemorative t-shirt in every color they make it in. There’s something, likely someone, very dead down here.
Gibbs is already texting Ducky, letting him know to come out. “Ziva, this smell like less than three days to you?”
She shakes her head. “No. I’d think what we’re going to find has been dead longer than that.”
Draga’s not look happy at this conversation. He’s decidedly green around the gills right now.
“Of course, it could just be hot down there. That would speed things up,” Ziva adds.
Draga swallows hard at that.
Tim takes pity on him and gets Draga fingerprinting the ladder Mulder fell down. Sure it’s not likely to be too useful, probably twenty men a day go up and down that ladder, but he needs to work on his fingerprinting skills, and it’s not impossible that something useful might come up from those prints.
Plus, he remembers his first time finding a decomposing body. That was bad enough. Trapped in a small area with recycled air… much worse. Draga can skip that until he’s got a few more miles under his belt.
Meanwhile, the ladder leads down to a storage area. Which is where the smell seems to be coming from. They circle around to a different ladder, and down they go.
On the upside it’s bright. Mostly. There are overhead lights, but tall boxes of… Tim doesn’t know, something in stacks of tall boxes, cast deep shadows.
So, flashlights out, following their noses, but after a while the smell is so thick, so omnipresent, suffusing every molecule of everything around them, that they can’t navigate by it.
They split up, each one covering their own area between the rows of boxes. He’s got the last row, between rough wooden boxes piled up to well over his head on one side and the steel of the bulkhead on the other.
Of course he found it. Why wouldn’t he find it? That’s how the universe works, right? He’s finally not feeling like being on a ship is going to make him throw up everything he’s ever eaten, so he’s the one who finds the body.
The body slowly being eaten by thousands of wriggling maggots.
No one was saying anything. They’re spread out and searching between the boxes. And while it’s true that aircraft carriers aren’t precisely quiet, it was quiet enough. There’s a sound that goes with thousands of maggots eating, it’s very soft, and it’s entirely possible that he imagined it, but when the wet, squelchy, rustling hit Tim he spun on his heel and sprinted away.
That he kept it together long enough to jerk his thumb in the direction he came from as he whipped past Tony and get clear of the crime scene before throwing up is something he’s rather proud of. That he didn’t make it to the head, wasn’t.
“You weren’t kidding about seasick, were you?” Draga said a few seconds later, handing him both a bottle of water, and a box of wetnaps. He’s got no idea why Draga would have them, but it was certainly convenient.
Tim shook his head. He took a sip of water, swished it around his mouth, and realized he didn’t have anywhere to spit, so he swallowed and hoped it would stay down.
It took a few minutes, but he got the mess cleaned up, and then found Ziva, gave her his camera, because of all the scenes in all the world, that’s the one he can’t document, and decided now would be a very good time to go have a chat with Mulder about exactly what he was doing when he got pushed, and all the details of the case he could get from him.
Didn’t take him too long to find the infirmary. The medic took one look at him (one smell probably, he has to reek of corpse and, assuming you could smell it over/through corpse, puke) and was getting ready to treat Tim. Tim cut him off, showed his badge, and asked where Agent Mulder was.
“Back here. Can I get you anything?”
Tim shook his head, few minutes too late for that. “Just Mulder.”
“Okay.” Tim followed the Medic back behind a large partition to a collection of beds. “Dave, got a…” He looks at Tim, wondering who he is.
“NCIS, DC Branch.” Tim extended his hand to a guy who couldn’t be less Fox Mulder if he tried. Dave Mulder was probably six three, ebony skinned, and lying on his back with his leg in traction. “I’m Tim McGee. You talked to my partner earlier.”
“DiNozzo. You all got here, and from the smell of it, you found what I was looking for.” Tim nods, looks around, no chairs, so he half sits/half leans against the bed next to Mulder’s. “Take it you found a body.”
He doesn’t want to think about that, but he does answer, “Oh yeah. How long have your men been missing?”
“Two days come 2200.”
He doesn’t want to see it. Would really prefer not to have that image in his mind, but the image does flash back into his head, and he feels the queasiness rising in his stomach again, along with a panicky cold sweat. Deep breath, calm, you’re nice and safe, here in the clinic. He’s pressing the point on his right wrist as he says, “We found someone. I really doubt it’s one of your men. At least, I don’t think you’d get that many maggots that fast.”
“Maggots?” Mulder asks.
Tim winces. “Lots of ‘em.”
“Huh.”
“Anyone else missing?” Tim asks.
“No.”
That’s when the fact that Mulder was looking confused about the maggots worked its way through his fear. “Why huh?”
“Just… You need flies for maggots, and we don’t have a lot of them out here. Not none of them, can’t have none. But we’re not on land, and Captain Zackles is vehement about running a cleanship. This is my third float, and ships have a smell to them, lots of men, lots of food, everything all close together, and this was the first ship I ever stepped on that didn’t have that smell.”
Tim thought about that, and Mulder is right. Ships do have a certain smell, and thinking back, he didn’t notice that once they got below decks here. He makes a note of that.
“We headed down the ladder, into the storage area,” Mulder is nodding along, “found the body between the bulkhead and the boxes, about two hundred feet back.”
“Okay.”
“What’s stored down there?”
“Maintenance stuff. Everything you need to fix something if you’re a thousand miles from the nearest port.”
“Lots of raw materials.” Tim jots that down.
“Yeah.”
“So, not a lot of people going down there?”
Mulder flashes him a knowing look. “Either no one is down there, or a whole lot of them are.”
Good to know. “When was the last time a whole lot of people were down there?”
“Don’t know, but we can find out.”
Tim made a note of that, too. He taps his fingers against his phone, thinking. “If not a lot of people are down there… How often do those boxes get opened?”
“Some of them, like the ones with paint in them, pretty often. The ones with screws and nuts, pretty often, too. Back up pressure gauges, o rings, sheet metal, probably not so much.”
Tim makes a note to find out what’s stored where they found the body.
“You guys sure they didn’t fall/jump overboard?” he asks.
Mulder shrugs. “Only an hour between missing roll and last seen. I’ve watched every inch of the footage from every angle. If they went over, it’s because they cut a door for themselves.”
“Okay.” Tim stops to think about that. “Could you do that?”
“Sure, it’s possible, but you’d need some really serious cutting tools. Arc welder of the gods or something.”
More nodding from Tim, that’s a good point. Still, weirder things have happened. “But… I mean… It’s a huge ship. Has anyone laid eyes on the whole thing to make sure it doesn’t have any holes it’s not supposed to?”
Mulder’s looking at him like he’s insane. “No, none of us checked. But, look, the outside is designed to withstand missile attacks, depth charges, and, you know," Mulder slams his fist into his palm, "planes crashing into it. It’s not inch thick sheet metal. You’d need some really serious power to get through it, and a lot of time. You couldn’t whip through it in less than an hour.”
“No. You’d have to have it set ahead of time. They store tools down there?”
“Yeah.”
“The kind of tool that could cut through the side of an aircraft carrier?”
“No idea.”
“Would there be something like that on board?”
“Maybe.” The expression on Mulder’s face seems to be saying, Maybe you could try asking someone who’s actually an expert on air craft carriers this. But he does answer, “Since Pearl Harbor it’s been pretty standard to try and have something that can cut through a bulkhead somewhere on board.”
Tim remembers his grandfather telling stories of being able to hear the men trapped in the ships that had rolled over. They kept tapping out distress codes, but no one could get through to them. Ships that could shrug off a depth charge were ships you couldn’t cut through, not then. Eventually the tapping stopped. And according to him, being stuck, hearing them, unable to do anything, was the single worst part of the battle of Pearl Harbor.
Back on track. “You ever cross paths with Ender, Simmers, or Blake?” Tim asks.
“No. Clean records. Not even particularly close to each other from what I could get. But Ender was part of the engineering crew.”
“Great. Three unrelated crew members vanish. One dead body. One injured NCIS agent. I’ve got to ask, is there any chance you slipped?”
Mulder smiles grimly. “There’s always a chance, right? But there’s a boot print on the back of my jacket that says it’s awfully unlikely.”
“Is that all bagged up and ready to be processed?”
“Yeah, I made sure the medics were careful about getting me out of my clothing. Everything’s ready for trace.”
“Good. Any security footage of that area?”
“No. I’ve got people going in and out of that hallway, but…”
“But lots of people go in and out, it’s the actual doorway that you’d need footage of.”
“Yeah.”
Tim had one last question. “Is anything, besides the men, missing?”
“Nothing that’s crossed my path. But, there’s more than five thousand people here, and the Regan’s the size of a small city. Unless it was something we use all the time, no one’s going to notice something missing.”
“I get that. We got a case where shells were being stolen off battleships. Inventory was every six months. Deep storage. Took a long time before anyone noticed them missing.”
“It’s every three months here, and the answer to your next question is, yes, we just wrapped up the inventory ten days ago.”
“Long enough to cut a hole and take something.”
“If a hole can be cut.”
“Okay, thanks, this has been useful.”
“Yes, it has. Let me know what you find out?”
“We’ll keep you in the loop.” He shook Mulder’s hand again, and gave him his card. “Hope you heal up fast.”
That got a frustrated snort out of Mulder. “I’ll be in this damn thing for another week. Doc’s thinking it’ll be three months before I’ll get to the walking cast part.”
Tim winced. “Sorry to hear it.”
“You and me both. We’re heading back to Norfolk. I was supposed to have shore leave this week. Now all I get to do is sit on my ass and read.”
“Really sorry.”
“Thanks. Well, go see if anyone cut a hole in the ship.”
“On it.”
“What happened?” Gibbs asked him when he finished updating the team on what he’d found out from Mulder
Tim rubbed his temples, and pressed hard on the point on his wrist. Really not helping at all. (He checked his watch, only an hour until Jimmy and Ducky, and maybe some of those pills, would be here.) Only reason he hasn’t thrown up again is because his stomach is already empty. “Every nightmare I’ve ever had that didn’t involve Abby or Kelly getting hurt.”
“I’ve seen you sicker than that and not lose it.”
“I know.” And he has been sicker than that, way sicker than that, and kept his food located inside his body until he found the head.
“So, what happened?”
“Maggots.”
Gibbs squinted, remembering. “You hate them.”
“More like terrified.”
Gibbs sent him the keep talking look.
Tim rolled his eyes a little, and pressed the point on his wrist again. “I did acid in college, had a full body, full sensory hallucination of being eaten alive by them. It lasted eight hours of real time, and about three days of subjective time, and I could see and feel the whole thing. Walking into that was pretty close to a flashback and add in seasickness and the smell on top of it, and… honestly, we’re all pretty lucky I didn’t puke on the corpse.”
“That’s why you hate maggots?” Tony asked, stepping back from sending Ziva and Draga off to find out what sorts of cutting tools might be on an aircraft carrier.
Tim nodded.
Tony winced.
Gibbs just stared at both of them, not sure what to do with that.
“You really meant it when you said you didn’t like them,” Tony said.
“Yeah I reallymeant it.”
“Can you go back there?” Tony asked.
“Put a gun to my head and I will, but…”
Tony nods. He and Gibbs have made McGee do more than enough shit end of the stick stuff over the years. He can get a pass on this one. “When Ducky and Jimmy head back with the body, you go with them. Phone records, financials, personal histories, all your usual stuff for right now. Take Draga, too, and go through each of the missing men’s lives with a microscope.”
“Thank you.”
“And when you helio out, go around the ship, make sure there aren’t any new holes in it.”
“Will do.”
“Good, Jethro, I’m not liking the vibe I’m getting off the XO when I started asking about what they keep back there. He's acting hinky. Time to go put the fear of Gibbs into him.”
Orders in place, Tim found a quiet nook, took his computer out of his go bag, plugged in, and began to get the permissions he needed to start going through Ender, Simmers, and Blake’s lives with a fine tooth comb.
Norfolk to DC is three hours. The helio ride from Norfolk to the Regan was another half hour. So, they got there, called in Ducky and Jimmy twenty minutes in, which means they’d been on board for four hours by the time Jimmy and Ducky showed up.
By that point they’d made several suppositions.
A: Whomever was being eaten by the maggots was not Ender, Simmers, or Blake.
B: Ender, Simmers, and Blake were still unaccounted for.
C: There did not “appear” to be anything missing, but the higher ups were acting awfully hinky about something.
D: If they weren’t on the ship, where the hell were they? (In the water, yes, great. With what? And where were they going? Middle of the freaking ocean, either someone had to pick them up, or they had to awesome swimmers.)
E: A Nimitz class aircraft carrier is only slightly smaller than a city
F: There are only (hahahahaha) 5700 people on it. And it’s floating in the ocean, so compared to searching Lejeune… It’s still a huge fucking mess, and this time they aren’t going to get extra people to help.
By the time Jimmy and Ducky got there, Tim knew that Ender had been part of the engineering crew. Blake had been on underwater demolitions/salvage before joining the Navy. And last, but not least, Simmers, had a sealed juvie record for gang related issues, but had “gone straight” and joined the Navy out of high school.
He was reporting that to the team as Ducky and Jimmy joined them.
Without stopping his report, Jimmy handed Tim a bottle labeled Zofran, one of which he downed about two seconds later. And no, Zofran’s not particularly good at treating motion sickness, (It's awfully good with morning sickness, which is why Breena takes it. )but Jimmy and Ducky both know it’s extremely unlikely that the motion of the ship is the problem. Which is why the pill he downed is actually just compressed powdered sugar and baking soda, with a label for Zofran on it. Two hour long ride, more than enough time for Jimmy to put together eight placebo pills.
Tim wrapped up with the report on their missing sailors and Jimmy and Ducky were able to add one more piece of intel to the collection. There was indeed a rather non-standard looking hole, about twentyish feet above the waterline, a bit below what looked like a small deck protruding from the port side.
Yeah, that little black dot under that small deck. Not
supposed to be there.“It’s really well hidden.” Jimmy was saying to Tony and Gibbs. “You basically can’t see it from the ship. You’ve got to be on the outside looking in, and it’s on the side the planes take off of, not land on, so they wouldn’t see it coming in,” Jimmy said as they headed down the ladder toward the body.
“Great. Got a time of death for me, Ducky?” Tony asks.
“Anthony, I understand that you’re taking after Jethro on this, possibly one upping him, but could you at least wait until I see the body before asking how long it’s been dead?”
Tony smiled at Ducky. “Thought by now you’d be able to tell by the smell.”
Ducky inhaled, deeply, “I’d say, Anthony, based on smell alone, assuming we are looking at the same temperature here as where the body is, that this is at least six days, if not longer.”
Jimmy’s nodding along, concurring with that assessment. “So, where is our John Doe?” He offers Ducky a hand getting down the last step. “And do we have a way to get him out of here more easily than the ladder?”
“Come, now Mr. Palmer, you know it’s never that easy.”
“No, Dr. Mallard, it never is. Lead on, Tony.”
Draga nudged Tim. “They always that formal?”
“Only here. Off hours they’re Ducky and Jimmy. Ducky would tell you it’s useful to have markers that block off your work life from your home life, and especially when you do what they do, I have no reason to doubt him. It’s a lot easier to live Rule Eleven if you’ve got a wall between here and home.”
“Eleven: when the case is done, walk away?”
“Yep. That’s the idea. Of course, that’s a bit harder to do when you’re, literally, married to your job the way we are.”
“I can see that.”
“Anyway, it’s not going to take them all that long to get this handled. So get your stuff packed up and then we’ll head down and offer a hand. Not fun to try and get a body up a ladder.”
“Great.”
It’s not just a body bag that has to go up the ladder. Tim’s not a great fan of moving corpses around, but he’s done it. No it’s the two buckets next to the body bag. Pretty big buckets, and what’s likely in those buckets is making his body feel tight and cold, fear sweat creeping down his spine.
Jimmy sees the way he’s staring at them, and it doesn’t take him more than a second to decide what to do.
“Fish.”
Tim looks away from the buckets to Jimmy. “What?”
“I don’t know what the hell we’ve walked into, but the John Doe was lying on a pile of fish.” Jimmy’s staring right into Tim’s eyes, lying his ass off. Of course there are no fish, but Tim’s freaking out just looking at the buckets damn things are in, and being stuck in a van with them for three hours isn’t likely to be pleasant, so time to double down on the placebos.
“Huh?” Tim stares at Jimmy, baffled.
“Yeah, weird, huh?”
Tim nods slowly, appreciating what Jimmy’s doing, but wishing he was better with off the cuff lies.
“Lids down good and tight on those fish?”
“Oh, yeah, sealed up good. Can’t risk losing them. May have useful evidence. Did you know scales don’t decompose at the same rate flesh does, so it’s possible we might be able to get prints off of them.”
“Good to know.” Draga was hanging back, not wanting to get too close to any of this. “Draga, you’re on bucket duty. I’ll help with the body.”
And, thus, both of them were a whole lot happier.
“Pill help?” Jimmy asks Tim as they head back to the ME’s van.
“Yeah. Still off, but don’t feel like I need to keep a baggie with me all the time.”
“Good.” Jimmy nods. He knows that’s what Breena’s told Tim they do for her. So, he’s just fine with the results.
“Being back on land helps a whole lot more.”
“Yeah, it would,” Jimmy says as Tim helps him get the body lifted into the van, while Draga hangs way back, as far behind them as he can get, and still be part of the group.
The ME’s van can carry eight people in great comfort. As long as six of those people don’t mind traveling horizontally with less than fifteen inches of vertical space between them and the next person. But as of this point, no one has ever complained.
It’s a little less comfortable with four people all of whom prefer to remain upright.
And it’s quite a bit less comfortable when the reclining visitor smells the way their John Doe does.
The thing about a body bag is that it’s designed to move bodies from place A to place B without the contents of the bag spilling all over.
They are not however, air tight. And while it is true they do have hazmat bags, that are, in fact, airtight, those bags are for hazmats, and if you use them for what is just a very smelly corpse, you end up paying the six thousand dollars to replace the hazmat bag out of your own pocket.
(And right this second, Draga’s looking like he’d happily write the check to cover it, if only he had six thousand dollars laying around.)
Jimmy got the John Doe settled, and gestured for Tim and Draga to get in. Tim did. He’s not exactly skipping to get in there, but as long as he doesn’t think about the “fish” sitting next to the John Doe, he’s okay. Draga looks in, goes white, and shakes his head.
“Can’t do it.”
“It’s get in or hitch hike,” Tim says.
Jimmy and Ducky had been settling who was going to drive, but Jimmy seems to have noticed what was going on with Tim and Draga and heads back to them.
“Here.” He heads into the van, searches for a second, and comes back with a small tub of Vicks Vap-O-Rub. “In our job, the smell gives us ideas about what happened, but you don’t need to be that in tune with it. This’ll kill your sense of smell long enough for you to adjust. You’ll get used to it.”
Draga’s staring at the tub. “What if I don’t want to get used to this?”
Jimmy hands it to him. “Then you need to keep job hunting. At least once a season we get one that’s in this shape.”
“Welcome to the glorious world of law enforcement, Eric,” Ducky says to him. “Now, in you get. We have to be off.”
Draga got in, rubbing the Vicks under his nostrils. Tim took the tub from him. It’s better than how the John Doe smells.
They’re about a mile into the trip when Tim pulls out his netbook.
“What are you doing?” Draga asks.
“Checking to see if I’ve got the court orders that’ll let me go through the missing sailors’ financials.”
“In the van?”
“Sure? All the 4G I need is on this thing.”
“Not what I mean. You’rein the back of a van, with a corpse, reading, and okay?”
“Yeah.” Then it occurs to Tim what Draga’s really asking. “It’s just seasickness. I’m fine in cars. Not a big fan of planes though.”
“Oh.
“They don’t make me sick or anything. I just don’t like them.”
“Never been a problem for me.”
“No. I’d imagine not.” Probably not too many Naval test pilots who don’t like planes. “You bring your laptop?”
“No.”
Tim squints at him. If Draga’s back up tech, they need to work on this. “They go over what should be in your go bag?”
“Yeah.”
Of course they did. And they gave him what they carry because Tim’s always got all the other stuff in his bag. “Okay, here’s the version from the guy who actually does the tech stuff: full set of clean clothes, three pairs of socks, three pairs of underwear, toothpaste, toothbrush, deodorant, razor, comb, comfy shoes, batteries for everything you use, fully charged. Batteries for everything they use, fully charged. At work I’ve got two main computers on my desk and my lap top.” Tim patted his netbook. “This little guy right here lives in the bag, it’s not great for any heavy lifting, but can at least get the job started. Chargers for all the batteries/devices. Extra power cords. Note pad. Pencils. Pens. At least one highlighter. Five empty thumb drives. I go through them like gum, always restocking them.” Tim pats his pocket and comes up with his clasp knife. “This one stays on you. Rule Number Nine, always have a knife, and one extra magazine for your gun. That’s what’s in a properly stocked go bag.”
“Okay. This why your bag is twice the size of theirs?”
“Probably. For days like today, you want to have a clean set of clothing in your desk, too. Everything on us smells like death right now. The jumpsuits help, some, but not enough. So, in an effort to not discomfort the entire rest of the office, we go in with Ducky and Jimmy, grab some scrubs from them, hit the showers, bag up our current clothing, and honestly, unless I love it, and I don’t love anything I’m wearing today, I just toss it, but if you don’t mind the idea of that smell getting into your house, you can take it home and wash your clothing. Anyway, put on the scrubs, then up to your desk where you’ve got clean clothing.”
“What about the stuff in my go bag?”
“When you get your sense of smell back, you’ll realize why you don’t want to wear it. Won’t be as strong. Won’t knock the people around you out. But you’ll be able to smell it. Tonight, unpack everything and let it air out. Wash the clothing. Send it through twice before you dry it, because if you dry it smelling like this, you’ll never get the smell out.”
“I don’t have any clothing in my desk.”
“Won’t be the first time there was a guy in scrubs working in the bullpen. I’ve done it a few times.”
“What do I do now?”
“Think. If you were going to take something off an aircraft carrier. Something so important you’d cut a hole in the ship and jump off, what would it be?”
“Launch codes. Not sure why you’d jump off, though. Thumb drive, bury ‘em in your phone or laptop, then just walk off.”
“Right. So, what do our perps need right now? What don’t they want to be on the ship for?”
“No idea.”
“Keep thinking.”
They were an hour out of the Navy Yard when Draga said, “You’ve got the camera with all the pics on it, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I see?”
“Sure.” Tim fished through his bag, found the camera, and handed it over.
Draga spent several minutes going through the pictures. Then, sounding excited, he said, “Thought so!”
“What do you have?”
“See these boxes around the body?”
Tim’s very carefully not looking at to body, so focusing in the boxes was something he was happy to do. “Yes.”
“They don’t look like the other boxes.”
Tim looks closer. Box is a box is a box to him. He’s not seeing it.
“Look.” Draga blows up the picture, sounding really excited.
Tim’s shaking his head. “Still not seeing it.”
“The wood’s different. Those crates are two by fours, the other crates are lighter. There’s something very heavy in those boxes.”
“Send it to Tony. According to Mulder it’s storage for raw parts down there, so for all we know there’s extra anchors or something in there, but send it along anyway.”
Draga got his phone out and started texting.
It was well after seven by the time he was back at the Navy Yard, scrubbed up, dressed, and back at his desk.
Draga had beat him to it, and was also at his desk (in borrowed scrubs. Tim resisted calling him Aqua Smurf.) on his computer, working away.
“Now what?” He asked Tim as he headed in and sat down.
“Now I email Tony everything I’ve got,” Which was a heaping pile of not much. Financials, clean. Emails, boring. Phones, the same. He’d already told the computers to start digging deeper, and come morning time he’d start going through what, if anything, they found. “And then I go home.”
“Home?”
“Yes.”
Draga’s startled by that. “I thought we didn’t go home when the case was hot.”
“We didn’t used to. I do now. I’m having dinner with my wife and daughter. I’m getting some sleep. And ‘round about four, when I’m on pre-breakfast for Kelly, I’ll turn the computer on and get at it again. But for now, I’m off.”
“Okay.”
“Call or text if you need anything.”
“Will do.”
“You’re home.” Abby sounded pretty surprised to see him when he walked in. Then she took a breath and winced. “And you got to play in dead bodies, too.”
He put his go bag on the porch. “Yes, and yes. Another shower?”
She nodded, following him up to their room. “I was sure I’d be on my own tonight.”
“Unless it’s literally life or death, I’m coming home every night,” he said, stripping off. She grabbed his clothing and rushed them to the washer, and a minute later was back up in their bathroom.
“Tell me about it?”
So, in the middle of his third shower of the day, he did.
An hour later, he’d eaten, told her about it, snuggled both his girls, and decided that since four AM was likely his wake up time, that getting to sleep would be a good thing.
So, at nine he was asleep.
And that was Monday.
Next
Chapter 265: And That Was Monday
Monday morning. Back to work.
Usual start up time is eight, so usual heading off time is seven thirty. Which means the last sight of his family, before heading out into the hot July air, was Abby nursing Kelly, and leaning in close to kiss them both goodbye.
Ah yes, the glorious orange hue that means justice and work.
Yippiee.
Somehow he’s significantly less gung ho about being at work than he normally is. Draga’s already at his desk, and he can smell Gibbs’ coffee, so he’s around here somewhere. Ziva and Tony’s desks are empty. But Tony’s on breakfast treats/drinks on Monday, so they get in a little later than everyone else.
Looks like it’s a normal Monday.
He sits down at his desk, pulls the baby pictures out of his go bag, tacks two on his wall, one on the back of his computer, (so people can see without having to hang all over his desk) and fires up his computer.
Only 274 new emails since the last time he checked.
Maybe, if he’s lucky, there won’t be a body today.
Not that lucky. Usually, when Tony’s on snacks, he comes in, doles them out, and then sits down. Today he’s got the snacks, but instead of putting the bag on his desk, and handing them out he keeps hold of them and says, “Eating on the road today.”
Gibbs chooses that second to appear out of nowhere. “Where to?”
“We’re heading for the Regan. Van to Norfolk. Heilo from Norfolk to the Regan.” He looks at Tim. “Bet this is what you were hoping for for your first case back.”
Tim shoulders his go bag, rolling his eyes. “You know it.”
Draga’s looking at him, wondering.
“I get seasick.”
“You get seasick and signed on to be a Navy Cop?” Draga asks as they head to the elevator.
“Long story.”
“You know there are these pressure—“
“Got ‘em all memorized. And a special bracelet that’s supposed to help with it in my bag.”
“Does it help?” Draga asks.
“Not really.”
“Dramamine?”
Tony winces. “No.”
“No?” Draga’s looking at Tim, wanting to know how bad the experience that prompted Tony’s ‘no’ was.
Tim shakes his head. “Like mainlining speed. It’s not pretty.”
“He was awake for three days the last time he tried that,” Ziva says.
“Not three days, but yeah, didn’t like the side effects. I wasn’t sick to my stomach, though.”
“Nope, not sick,” Tony adds. “But you could hear his heart beating from the other side of the room.”
“I thought it was supposed to make you sleepy,” Draga says.
“It might, but that’s not how I react to it.” That makes Tim remember something, so he grabs his phone and starts texting.
“Letting Abby know what’s up?” Gibbs asks.
“Good plan, need to do that, too.” He sent her a fast text as well while saying, “Asking Jimmy about the stuff Breena’s on for morning sickness.”
A minute later he’d gotten one back from Jimmy. Motion sickness is usually more of an inner ear balance thing than a hormonal thing, but the stuff she’s on works for chemo patients, too. Might help you. How much do you weigh?
Tim sent back 171.
I’ll write you a script and bring some if we get called out to join you.
Thanks.
They were getting the van ready when Tim said to Tony, “Never thought I’d be around to see this again.”
“Had to happen. Wasn’t working stuck in between them.”
“That’s fine. Still not calling you Boss.”
“Gibbs said the same thing to me.”
Tim laughed at that. “So, campfire when we come back?”
“Think so. That seemed to work well last time.” Of all of his changes from the first time, the one that stuck was how he rearranged everything so it was easier to get to. The one he would have liked to have seen stuck was the campfire. Okay, sure Gibbs likes the report in style, but Tony thought his report in, and then talk through what you think is going on works better than Gibbs’ report in, and then Gibbs somehow magically comes up with the answer. And it’ll sure as hell work a ton better than Gibbs magically figures out what’s up next when Gibbs isn’t there anymore. Plus, it is doing a better job of keeping Draga in the loop, which means he’s getting fewer, do you really know what you’re doingstyle questions.
“Yeah, I think it did. Gibbs actually talking at them?”
“Uh huh. He’s a really good second-in-command.”
“Shouldn’t that be Ziva?”
“At this point it’s basically everyone who isn’t Draga.”
“Ah.”
Gibbs tossed Tim the keys. “Let’s go.”
Tony’s handing out the snacks while he fills them in. “So, according to the call, 1800 hours, day before yesterday, three sailors: Ender, Simmers, and Blake didn’t show up for roll. Since the Regan was in the middle of the Atlantic, and since they had been at their posts as of 1700, the higher ups started searching for them. As of 2200 yesterday, they still hadn’t been found.”
“Isn’t the Regan an aircraft carrier?” Draga asks.
“Yes, it is, Flyboy. Hoping you’ll be able to help us find all the hidden nooks and crannies where three sailors might hide.”
“Yeah, but… Carriers have NCIS Agents Afloat, right?” Draga asks.
“Good point. Why are we heading to Norfolk?” Tim asks.
“Yes, they do. But, at 0600, when Agent--oh you’ll love this McGeek--Mulder—“
“Really?” Tim looks away from the traffic for a second to see if Tony’s joking.
Tony’s not. “Really. Three missing persons, and Agent Mulder’s in charge.”
“Oh, this is great,” Draga says with a grin. “Scully on board too?”
Gibbs shoots a quick less fooling around more working look at the three of them.
“No pretty red-heads for you, Flyboy. Gibbs has that market cornered.”
Draga looks curiously at Gibbs. Gibbs just shakes his head.
Tony continues on, “As of 0600, Mulder was running the search for those three—“
“How are they searching?” Ziva asks.
“Don’t have details on that.”
“Do we know if they went for a swim?” Gibbs asks.
“Report says they didn’t, but I don’t see how they could know that,” Tony answers.
“All carriers have sensors and security on the decks. Anyone tries to go for a swim, and it’ll set them off,” Draga answers.
“Is that new?” Tim asks. He’d never heard of that.
“Think they got done installing them on all the ships in early ’15. Pretty cool system. There’s a series of lasers around the perimeters as well as cameras. The cameras are always on, and if one of the beams gets broken, it immediately sounds an alarm, the footage gets replayed, the computer can tell if it’s a bird or something, and if it’s a bird or something, no one does anything, but if it’s a guy, then all hands onto rescue mode.”
“Cool.” Tim replies.
“McGee, Flyboy, once we’re done with the scene, you two’ll be making sure the sensors worked properly.”
“Why do we have a scene? This is a missing persons case,” Ziva asks.
“As I was saying before we got onto whether or not our sailors took a swim, Agent Mulder had been running the search. He notices something, quote, smells really off, unquote. He’s in the process of checking it out, and was, ‘pushed’ down one of those ladders/stairway things they have between decks. So, Mulder’s in the infirmary, with his left leg broken in three places, and we’re being heiloed in to take over the search.”
“What does ‘smells really off’ mean?” Ziva asks.
“Dead body? Dead bodies? That’s what Mulder thought. Could be little green men for all we know, though. Whole area’s been roped off, waiting for us. Supposedly, no one’s been allowed nearby and a watch has been set to keep the spot clear.”
“So three missing sailors, maybe dead, and two hours before we get there,” Gibbs adds, maybe just stating the obvious, maybe giving Tony a hint.
Either way Tony followed up with, “Okay, Flyboy, pad out, I want a list of every non-standard hiding place you can think of on a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier that’ll fit a person. The more out of the way, the better. I want wherever you’d take a girl if that girl was the Captain’s wife.”
Draga grins. “If I’m gonna fool around with the Captain’s wife, I’m taking her off his ship.”
That got a headslap from Gibbs.
“Non-standard hiding places, working on it.”
Setting foot onto the Regan after the helio ride, Tim was awfully pleased to see the seasickness didn’t hit him nearly as hard as it usually did. They’d actually been on there for twenty minutes, working their way below decks to ‘smells really off’ and he was only feeling mildly nauseous, which given the fact that it’d been less than a day since Tropical Storm Helene blew through and the sea was still rough was a miracle.
He was wondering a little if maybe actually talking some about what had happened with his Dad was part of why he wasn’t massively sick. Maybe, since almost twenty-five years of fear about what might happen to him on a ship had, not precisely died, but been put into some better perspective, his stomach wasn’t quite so upset by the prospect of being on a ship.
So, he was thinking that he might actually get through the case without tossing his cookies when they got to the ‘smells really off.’ And it does. They all know that smell. Been there, done that, got the commemorative t-shirt in every color they make it in. There’s something, likely someone, very dead down here.
Gibbs is already texting Ducky, letting him know to come out. “Ziva, this smell like less than three days to you?”
She shakes her head. “No. I’d think what we’re going to find has been dead longer than that.”
Draga’s not look happy at this conversation. He’s decidedly green around the gills right now.
“Of course, it could just be hot down there. That would speed things up,” Ziva adds.
Draga swallows hard at that.
Tim takes pity on him and gets Draga fingerprinting the ladder Mulder fell down. Sure it’s not likely to be too useful, probably twenty men a day go up and down that ladder, but he needs to work on his fingerprinting skills, and it’s not impossible that something useful might come up from those prints.
Plus, he remembers his first time finding a decomposing body. That was bad enough. Trapped in a small area with recycled air… much worse. Draga can skip that until he’s got a few more miles under his belt.
Meanwhile, the ladder leads down to a storage area. Which is where the smell seems to be coming from. They circle around to a different ladder, and down they go.
On the upside it’s bright. Mostly. There are overhead lights, but tall boxes of… Tim doesn’t know, something in stacks of tall boxes, cast deep shadows.
So, flashlights out, following their noses, but after a while the smell is so thick, so omnipresent, suffusing every molecule of everything around them, that they can’t navigate by it.
They split up, each one covering their own area between the rows of boxes. He’s got the last row, between rough wooden boxes piled up to well over his head on one side and the steel of the bulkhead on the other.
Of course he found it. Why wouldn’t he find it? That’s how the universe works, right? He’s finally not feeling like being on a ship is going to make him throw up everything he’s ever eaten, so he’s the one who finds the body.
The body slowly being eaten by thousands of wriggling maggots.
No one was saying anything. They’re spread out and searching between the boxes. And while it’s true that aircraft carriers aren’t precisely quiet, it was quiet enough. There’s a sound that goes with thousands of maggots eating, it’s very soft, and it’s entirely possible that he imagined it, but when the wet, squelchy, rustling hit Tim he spun on his heel and sprinted away.
That he kept it together long enough to jerk his thumb in the direction he came from as he whipped past Tony and get clear of the crime scene before throwing up is something he’s rather proud of. That he didn’t make it to the head, wasn’t.
“You weren’t kidding about seasick, were you?” Draga said a few seconds later, handing him both a bottle of water, and a box of wetnaps. He’s got no idea why Draga would have them, but it was certainly convenient.
Tim shook his head. He took a sip of water, swished it around his mouth, and realized he didn’t have anywhere to spit, so he swallowed and hoped it would stay down.
It took a few minutes, but he got the mess cleaned up, and then found Ziva, gave her his camera, because of all the scenes in all the world, that’s the one he can’t document, and decided now would be a very good time to go have a chat with Mulder about exactly what he was doing when he got pushed, and all the details of the case he could get from him.
Didn’t take him too long to find the infirmary. The medic took one look at him (one smell probably, he has to reek of corpse and, assuming you could smell it over/through corpse, puke) and was getting ready to treat Tim. Tim cut him off, showed his badge, and asked where Agent Mulder was.
“Back here. Can I get you anything?”
Tim shook his head, few minutes too late for that. “Just Mulder.”
“Okay.” Tim followed the Medic back behind a large partition to a collection of beds. “Dave, got a…” He looks at Tim, wondering who he is.
“NCIS, DC Branch.” Tim extended his hand to a guy who couldn’t be less Fox Mulder if he tried. Dave Mulder was probably six three, ebony skinned, and lying on his back with his leg in traction. “I’m Tim McGee. You talked to my partner earlier.”
“DiNozzo. You all got here, and from the smell of it, you found what I was looking for.” Tim nods, looks around, no chairs, so he half sits/half leans against the bed next to Mulder’s. “Take it you found a body.”
He doesn’t want to think about that, but he does answer, “Oh yeah. How long have your men been missing?”
“Two days come 2200.”
He doesn’t want to see it. Would really prefer not to have that image in his mind, but the image does flash back into his head, and he feels the queasiness rising in his stomach again, along with a panicky cold sweat. Deep breath, calm, you’re nice and safe, here in the clinic. He’s pressing the point on his right wrist as he says, “We found someone. I really doubt it’s one of your men. At least, I don’t think you’d get that many maggots that fast.”
“Maggots?” Mulder asks.
Tim winces. “Lots of ‘em.”
“Huh.”
“Anyone else missing?” Tim asks.
“No.”
That’s when the fact that Mulder was looking confused about the maggots worked its way through his fear. “Why huh?”
“Just… You need flies for maggots, and we don’t have a lot of them out here. Not none of them, can’t have none. But we’re not on land, and Captain Zackles is vehement about running a cleanship. This is my third float, and ships have a smell to them, lots of men, lots of food, everything all close together, and this was the first ship I ever stepped on that didn’t have that smell.”
Tim thought about that, and Mulder is right. Ships do have a certain smell, and thinking back, he didn’t notice that once they got below decks here. He makes a note of that.
“We headed down the ladder, into the storage area,” Mulder is nodding along, “found the body between the bulkhead and the boxes, about two hundred feet back.”
“Okay.”
“What’s stored down there?”
“Maintenance stuff. Everything you need to fix something if you’re a thousand miles from the nearest port.”
“Lots of raw materials.” Tim jots that down.
“Yeah.”
“So, not a lot of people going down there?”
Mulder flashes him a knowing look. “Either no one is down there, or a whole lot of them are.”
Good to know. “When was the last time a whole lot of people were down there?”
“Don’t know, but we can find out.”
Tim made a note of that, too. He taps his fingers against his phone, thinking. “If not a lot of people are down there… How often do those boxes get opened?”
“Some of them, like the ones with paint in them, pretty often. The ones with screws and nuts, pretty often, too. Back up pressure gauges, o rings, sheet metal, probably not so much.”
Tim makes a note to find out what’s stored where they found the body.
“You guys sure they didn’t fall/jump overboard?” he asks.
Mulder shrugs. “Only an hour between missing roll and last seen. I’ve watched every inch of the footage from every angle. If they went over, it’s because they cut a door for themselves.”
“Okay.” Tim stops to think about that. “Could you do that?”
“Sure, it’s possible, but you’d need some really serious cutting tools. Arc welder of the gods or something.”
More nodding from Tim, that’s a good point. Still, weirder things have happened. “But… I mean… It’s a huge ship. Has anyone laid eyes on the whole thing to make sure it doesn’t have any holes it’s not supposed to?”
Mulder’s looking at him like he’s insane. “No, none of us checked. But, look, the outside is designed to withstand missile attacks, depth charges, and, you know," Mulder slams his fist into his palm, "planes crashing into it. It’s not inch thick sheet metal. You’d need some really serious power to get through it, and a lot of time. You couldn’t whip through it in less than an hour.”
“No. You’d have to have it set ahead of time. They store tools down there?”
“Yeah.”
“The kind of tool that could cut through the side of an aircraft carrier?”
“No idea.”
“Would there be something like that on board?”
“Maybe.” The expression on Mulder’s face seems to be saying, Maybe you could try asking someone who’s actually an expert on air craft carriers this. But he does answer, “Since Pearl Harbor it’s been pretty standard to try and have something that can cut through a bulkhead somewhere on board.”
Tim remembers his grandfather telling stories of being able to hear the men trapped in the ships that had rolled over. They kept tapping out distress codes, but no one could get through to them. Ships that could shrug off a depth charge were ships you couldn’t cut through, not then. Eventually the tapping stopped. And according to him, being stuck, hearing them, unable to do anything, was the single worst part of the battle of Pearl Harbor.
Back on track. “You ever cross paths with Ender, Simmers, or Blake?” Tim asks.
“No. Clean records. Not even particularly close to each other from what I could get. But Ender was part of the engineering crew.”
“Great. Three unrelated crew members vanish. One dead body. One injured NCIS agent. I’ve got to ask, is there any chance you slipped?”
Mulder smiles grimly. “There’s always a chance, right? But there’s a boot print on the back of my jacket that says it’s awfully unlikely.”
“Is that all bagged up and ready to be processed?”
“Yeah, I made sure the medics were careful about getting me out of my clothing. Everything’s ready for trace.”
“Good. Any security footage of that area?”
“No. I’ve got people going in and out of that hallway, but…”
“But lots of people go in and out, it’s the actual doorway that you’d need footage of.”
“Yeah.”
Tim had one last question. “Is anything, besides the men, missing?”
“Nothing that’s crossed my path. But, there’s more than five thousand people here, and the Regan’s the size of a small city. Unless it was something we use all the time, no one’s going to notice something missing.”
“I get that. We got a case where shells were being stolen off battleships. Inventory was every six months. Deep storage. Took a long time before anyone noticed them missing.”
“It’s every three months here, and the answer to your next question is, yes, we just wrapped up the inventory ten days ago.”
“Long enough to cut a hole and take something.”
“If a hole can be cut.”
“Okay, thanks, this has been useful.”
“Yes, it has. Let me know what you find out?”
“We’ll keep you in the loop.” He shook Mulder’s hand again, and gave him his card. “Hope you heal up fast.”
That got a frustrated snort out of Mulder. “I’ll be in this damn thing for another week. Doc’s thinking it’ll be three months before I’ll get to the walking cast part.”
Tim winced. “Sorry to hear it.”
“You and me both. We’re heading back to Norfolk. I was supposed to have shore leave this week. Now all I get to do is sit on my ass and read.”
“Really sorry.”
“Thanks. Well, go see if anyone cut a hole in the ship.”
“On it.”
“What happened?” Gibbs asked him when he finished updating the team on what he’d found out from Mulder
Tim rubbed his temples, and pressed hard on the point on his wrist. Really not helping at all. (He checked his watch, only an hour until Jimmy and Ducky, and maybe some of those pills, would be here.) Only reason he hasn’t thrown up again is because his stomach is already empty. “Every nightmare I’ve ever had that didn’t involve Abby or Kelly getting hurt.”
“I’ve seen you sicker than that and not lose it.”
“I know.” And he has been sicker than that, way sicker than that, and kept his food located inside his body until he found the head.
“So, what happened?”
“Maggots.”
Gibbs squinted, remembering. “You hate them.”
“More like terrified.”
Gibbs sent him the keep talking look.
Tim rolled his eyes a little, and pressed the point on his wrist again. “I did acid in college, had a full body, full sensory hallucination of being eaten alive by them. It lasted eight hours of real time, and about three days of subjective time, and I could see and feel the whole thing. Walking into that was pretty close to a flashback and add in seasickness and the smell on top of it, and… honestly, we’re all pretty lucky I didn’t puke on the corpse.”
“That’s why you hate maggots?” Tony asked, stepping back from sending Ziva and Draga off to find out what sorts of cutting tools might be on an aircraft carrier.
Tim nodded.
Tony winced.
Gibbs just stared at both of them, not sure what to do with that.
“You really meant it when you said you didn’t like them,” Tony said.
“Yeah I reallymeant it.”
“Can you go back there?” Tony asked.
“Put a gun to my head and I will, but…”
Tony nods. He and Gibbs have made McGee do more than enough shit end of the stick stuff over the years. He can get a pass on this one. “When Ducky and Jimmy head back with the body, you go with them. Phone records, financials, personal histories, all your usual stuff for right now. Take Draga, too, and go through each of the missing men’s lives with a microscope.”
“Thank you.”
“And when you helio out, go around the ship, make sure there aren’t any new holes in it.”
“Will do.”
“Good, Jethro, I’m not liking the vibe I’m getting off the XO when I started asking about what they keep back there. He's acting hinky. Time to go put the fear of Gibbs into him.”
Orders in place, Tim found a quiet nook, took his computer out of his go bag, plugged in, and began to get the permissions he needed to start going through Ender, Simmers, and Blake’s lives with a fine tooth comb.
Norfolk to DC is three hours. The helio ride from Norfolk to the Regan was another half hour. So, they got there, called in Ducky and Jimmy twenty minutes in, which means they’d been on board for four hours by the time Jimmy and Ducky showed up.
By that point they’d made several suppositions.
A: Whomever was being eaten by the maggots was not Ender, Simmers, or Blake.
B: Ender, Simmers, and Blake were still unaccounted for.
C: There did not “appear” to be anything missing, but the higher ups were acting awfully hinky about something.
D: If they weren’t on the ship, where the hell were they? (In the water, yes, great. With what? And where were they going? Middle of the freaking ocean, either someone had to pick them up, or they had to awesome swimmers.)
E: A Nimitz class aircraft carrier is only slightly smaller than a city
F: There are only (hahahahaha) 5700 people on it. And it’s floating in the ocean, so compared to searching Lejeune… It’s still a huge fucking mess, and this time they aren’t going to get extra people to help.
By the time Jimmy and Ducky got there, Tim knew that Ender had been part of the engineering crew. Blake had been on underwater demolitions/salvage before joining the Navy. And last, but not least, Simmers, had a sealed juvie record for gang related issues, but had “gone straight” and joined the Navy out of high school.
He was reporting that to the team as Ducky and Jimmy joined them.
Without stopping his report, Jimmy handed Tim a bottle labeled Zofran, one of which he downed about two seconds later. And no, Zofran’s not particularly good at treating motion sickness, (It's awfully good with morning sickness, which is why Breena takes it. )but Jimmy and Ducky both know it’s extremely unlikely that the motion of the ship is the problem. Which is why the pill he downed is actually just compressed powdered sugar and baking soda, with a label for Zofran on it. Two hour long ride, more than enough time for Jimmy to put together eight placebo pills.
Tim wrapped up with the report on their missing sailors and Jimmy and Ducky were able to add one more piece of intel to the collection. There was indeed a rather non-standard looking hole, about twentyish feet above the waterline, a bit below what looked like a small deck protruding from the port side.
Yeah, that little black dot under that small deck. Notsupposed to be there.“It’s really well hidden.” Jimmy was saying to Tony and Gibbs. “You basically can’t see it from the ship. You’ve got to be on the outside looking in, and it’s on the side the planes take off of, not land on, so they wouldn’t see it coming in,” Jimmy said as they headed down the ladder toward the body.
“Great. Got a time of death for me, Ducky?” Tony asks.
“Anthony, I understand that you’re taking after Jethro on this, possibly one upping him, but could you at least wait until I see the body before asking how long it’s been dead?”
Tony smiled at Ducky. “Thought by now you’d be able to tell by the smell.”
Ducky inhaled, deeply, “I’d say, Anthony, based on smell alone, assuming we are looking at the same temperature here as where the body is, that this is at least six days, if not longer.”
Jimmy’s nodding along, concurring with that assessment. “So, where is our John Doe?” He offers Ducky a hand getting down the last step. “And do we have a way to get him out of here more easily than the ladder?”
“Come, now Mr. Palmer, you know it’s never that easy.”
“No, Dr. Mallard, it never is. Lead on, Tony.”
Draga nudged Tim. “They always that formal?”
“Only here. Off hours they’re Ducky and Jimmy. Ducky would tell you it’s useful to have markers that block off your work life from your home life, and especially when you do what they do, I have no reason to doubt him. It’s a lot easier to live Rule Eleven if you’ve got a wall between here and home.”
“Eleven: when the case is done, walk away?”
“Yep. That’s the idea. Of course, that’s a bit harder to do when you’re, literally, married to your job the way we are.”
“I can see that.”
“Anyway, it’s not going to take them all that long to get this handled. So get your stuff packed up and then we’ll head down and offer a hand. Not fun to try and get a body up a ladder.”
“Great.”
It’s not just a body bag that has to go up the ladder. Tim’s not a great fan of moving corpses around, but he’s done it. No it’s the two buckets next to the body bag. Pretty big buckets, and what’s likely in those buckets is making his body feel tight and cold, fear sweat creeping down his spine.
Jimmy sees the way he’s staring at them, and it doesn’t take him more than a second to decide what to do.
“Fish.”
Tim looks away from the buckets to Jimmy. “What?”
“I don’t know what the hell we’ve walked into, but the John Doe was lying on a pile of fish.” Jimmy’s staring right into Tim’s eyes, lying his ass off. Of course there are no fish, but Tim’s freaking out just looking at the buckets damn things are in, and being stuck in a van with them for three hours isn’t likely to be pleasant, so time to double down on the placebos.
“Huh?” Tim stares at Jimmy, baffled.
“Yeah, weird, huh?”
Tim nods slowly, appreciating what Jimmy’s doing, but wishing he was better with off the cuff lies.
“Lids down good and tight on those fish?”
“Oh, yeah, sealed up good. Can’t risk losing them. May have useful evidence. Did you know scales don’t decompose at the same rate flesh does, so it’s possible we might be able to get prints off of them.”
“Good to know.” Draga was hanging back, not wanting to get too close to any of this. “Draga, you’re on bucket duty. I’ll help with the body.”
And, thus, both of them were a whole lot happier.
“Pill help?” Jimmy asks Tim as they head back to the ME’s van.
“Yeah. Still off, but don’t feel like I need to keep a baggie with me all the time.”
“Good.” Jimmy nods. He knows that’s what Breena’s told Tim they do for her. So, he’s just fine with the results.
“Being back on land helps a whole lot more.”
“Yeah, it would,” Jimmy says as Tim helps him get the body lifted into the van, while Draga hangs way back, as far behind them as he can get, and still be part of the group.
The ME’s van can carry eight people in great comfort. As long as six of those people don’t mind traveling horizontally with less than fifteen inches of vertical space between them and the next person. But as of this point, no one has ever complained.
It’s a little less comfortable with four people all of whom prefer to remain upright.
And it’s quite a bit less comfortable when the reclining visitor smells the way their John Doe does.
The thing about a body bag is that it’s designed to move bodies from place A to place B without the contents of the bag spilling all over.
They are not however, air tight. And while it is true they do have hazmat bags, that are, in fact, airtight, those bags are for hazmats, and if you use them for what is just a very smelly corpse, you end up paying the six thousand dollars to replace the hazmat bag out of your own pocket.
(And right this second, Draga’s looking like he’d happily write the check to cover it, if only he had six thousand dollars laying around.)
Jimmy got the John Doe settled, and gestured for Tim and Draga to get in. Tim did. He’s not exactly skipping to get in there, but as long as he doesn’t think about the “fish” sitting next to the John Doe, he’s okay. Draga looks in, goes white, and shakes his head.
“Can’t do it.”
“It’s get in or hitch hike,” Tim says.
Jimmy and Ducky had been settling who was going to drive, but Jimmy seems to have noticed what was going on with Tim and Draga and heads back to them.
“Here.” He heads into the van, searches for a second, and comes back with a small tub of Vicks Vap-O-Rub. “In our job, the smell gives us ideas about what happened, but you don’t need to be that in tune with it. This’ll kill your sense of smell long enough for you to adjust. You’ll get used to it.”
Draga’s staring at the tub. “What if I don’t want to get used to this?”
Jimmy hands it to him. “Then you need to keep job hunting. At least once a season we get one that’s in this shape.”
“Welcome to the glorious world of law enforcement, Eric,” Ducky says to him. “Now, in you get. We have to be off.”
Draga got in, rubbing the Vicks under his nostrils. Tim took the tub from him. It’s better than how the John Doe smells.
They’re about a mile into the trip when Tim pulls out his netbook.
“What are you doing?” Draga asks.
“Checking to see if I’ve got the court orders that’ll let me go through the missing sailors’ financials.”
“In the van?”
“Sure? All the 4G I need is on this thing.”
“Not what I mean. You’rein the back of a van, with a corpse, reading, and okay?”
“Yeah.” Then it occurs to Tim what Draga’s really asking. “It’s just seasickness. I’m fine in cars. Not a big fan of planes though.”
“Oh.
“They don’t make me sick or anything. I just don’t like them.”
“Never been a problem for me.”
“No. I’d imagine not.” Probably not too many Naval test pilots who don’t like planes. “You bring your laptop?”
“No.”
Tim squints at him. If Draga’s back up tech, they need to work on this. “They go over what should be in your go bag?”
“Yeah.”
Of course they did. And they gave him what they carry because Tim’s always got all the other stuff in his bag. “Okay, here’s the version from the guy who actually does the tech stuff: full set of clean clothes, three pairs of socks, three pairs of underwear, toothpaste, toothbrush, deodorant, razor, comb, comfy shoes, batteries for everything you use, fully charged. Batteries for everything they use, fully charged. At work I’ve got two main computers on my desk and my lap top.” Tim patted his netbook. “This little guy right here lives in the bag, it’s not great for any heavy lifting, but can at least get the job started. Chargers for all the batteries/devices. Extra power cords. Note pad. Pencils. Pens. At least one highlighter. Five empty thumb drives. I go through them like gum, always restocking them.” Tim pats his pocket and comes up with his clasp knife. “This one stays on you. Rule Number Nine, always have a knife, and one extra magazine for your gun. That’s what’s in a properly stocked go bag.”
“Okay. This why your bag is twice the size of theirs?”
“Probably. For days like today, you want to have a clean set of clothing in your desk, too. Everything on us smells like death right now. The jumpsuits help, some, but not enough. So, in an effort to not discomfort the entire rest of the office, we go in with Ducky and Jimmy, grab some scrubs from them, hit the showers, bag up our current clothing, and honestly, unless I love it, and I don’t love anything I’m wearing today, I just toss it, but if you don’t mind the idea of that smell getting into your house, you can take it home and wash your clothing. Anyway, put on the scrubs, then up to your desk where you’ve got clean clothing.”
“What about the stuff in my go bag?”
“When you get your sense of smell back, you’ll realize why you don’t want to wear it. Won’t be as strong. Won’t knock the people around you out. But you’ll be able to smell it. Tonight, unpack everything and let it air out. Wash the clothing. Send it through twice before you dry it, because if you dry it smelling like this, you’ll never get the smell out.”
“I don’t have any clothing in my desk.”
“Won’t be the first time there was a guy in scrubs working in the bullpen. I’ve done it a few times.”
“What do I do now?”
“Think. If you were going to take something off an aircraft carrier. Something so important you’d cut a hole in the ship and jump off, what would it be?”
“Launch codes. Not sure why you’d jump off, though. Thumb drive, bury ‘em in your phone or laptop, then just walk off.”
“Right. So, what do our perps need right now? What don’t they want to be on the ship for?”
“No idea.”
“Keep thinking.”
They were an hour out of the Navy Yard when Draga said, “You’ve got the camera with all the pics on it, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I see?”
“Sure.” Tim fished through his bag, found the camera, and handed it over.
Draga spent several minutes going through the pictures. Then, sounding excited, he said, “Thought so!”
“What do you have?”
“See these boxes around the body?”
Tim’s very carefully not looking at to body, so focusing in the boxes was something he was happy to do. “Yes.”
“They don’t look like the other boxes.”
Tim looks closer. Box is a box is a box to him. He’s not seeing it.
“Look.” Draga blows up the picture, sounding really excited.
Tim’s shaking his head. “Still not seeing it.”
“The wood’s different. Those crates are two by fours, the other crates are lighter. There’s something very heavy in those boxes.”
“Send it to Tony. According to Mulder it’s storage for raw parts down there, so for all we know there’s extra anchors or something in there, but send it along anyway.”
Draga got his phone out and started texting.
It was well after seven by the time he was back at the Navy Yard, scrubbed up, dressed, and back at his desk.
Draga had beat him to it, and was also at his desk (in borrowed scrubs. Tim resisted calling him Aqua Smurf.) on his computer, working away.
“Now what?” He asked Tim as he headed in and sat down.
“Now I email Tony everything I’ve got,” Which was a heaping pile of not much. Financials, clean. Emails, boring. Phones, the same. He’d already told the computers to start digging deeper, and come morning time he’d start going through what, if anything, they found. “And then I go home.”
“Home?”
“Yes.”
Draga’s startled by that. “I thought we didn’t go home when the case was hot.”
“We didn’t used to. I do now. I’m having dinner with my wife and daughter. I’m getting some sleep. And ‘round about four, when I’m on pre-breakfast for Kelly, I’ll turn the computer on and get at it again. But for now, I’m off.”
“Okay.”
“Call or text if you need anything.”
“Will do.”
“You’re home.” Abby sounded pretty surprised to see him when he walked in. Then she took a breath and winced. “And you got to play in dead bodies, too.”
He put his go bag on the porch. “Yes, and yes. Another shower?”
She nodded, following him up to their room. “I was sure I’d be on my own tonight.”
“Unless it’s literally life or death, I’m coming home every night,” he said, stripping off. She grabbed his clothing and rushed them to the washer, and a minute later was back up in their bathroom.
“Tell me about it?”
So, in the middle of his third shower of the day, he did.
An hour later, he’d eaten, told her about it, snuggled both his girls, and decided that since four AM was likely his wake up time, that getting to sleep would be a good thing.
So, at nine he was asleep.
And that was Monday.
Next
December 8, 2013
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 264
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 264: Clan Gibbs
When Gibbs was a child, church, Sunday dinner, and gathering with the whole family had been part of every week. It wasn't a huge gathering, not like this never-ending crowd of Slaters, but his parents, his Aunt, her family, his grandparents, and their siblings, all got together.
But in his family, the women were the glue. His grandmother died, and Sunday dinner limped along for a few years, his mom and his aunt keeping it going. But his mom got sick, and then she died, and his aunt didn't have the heart to do it on her own.
Shannon had lived in Stillwater when they were courting, and when he was in town, he went to church and Sunday supper at their home.
They'd moved around a lot, finally gotten settled in DC, and his mother and father-in-law eventually moved down, wanting to be closer to Kelly and Shannon. His dad even made it down a few times a year.
For two years, Sunday dinner was at his house. He doesn't think about that too much. Not that they aren't good memories. They are. But like a lot of his good memories, they hurt. Though that's starting to get better. Maybe not good, but it's not an open wound held together by tendrils of avenging anger and numbing booze anymore.
But like his birth family, the women were the glue, and when his girls died…
This time though, he's here for his boys. He's glad to see Tim giving Jimmy some back-up on this. Visiting your in-laws shouldn't be walking into a lion's den, but if it is, it's good to have friends at your back. And if they're going to invite him to come along, he'll come along and keep an eye on Jimmy's flanks.
Like with Tim's first visit, he's very aware that no one in this family is going out of their way to make Jimmy welcome.
Not that Gibbs is known for hospitality, but there is a bottle of Gin (And a bottle of Absinthe is in the works for a birthday present. No, it's not legal in the US. Some favors are in the process of being called in, and buddy of a buddy who'll getting home on leave soon should have a few bottles stowed in his luggage.) in his basement next to the Scotch and Bourbon.
There's black coffee strong enough to peel the tar off the roof, and it was handed to him by Jeannie within seconds of him entering her home. And sure, it may not be there for just him, but he doesn't notice anyone else drinking it.
So, he's welcome, and judging by the fact that no one else is drinking coffee, they have gone out of their way to extend a welcome to him.
But not to Jimmy.
The girls are mingling easily. Abby's been getting some interested looks. If he had to guess, she's explained her tattoos about nine times. But it's mostly curious, not much hostile. Though Abby being Abby tends to smother hostile with warm happiness.
And Kelly's got an adoring collection of bigger girls cooing over her. Something about tween girls, they like babies, especially darling little ones in a tiny pink sun dress. (Apparently Abby and Tim decided Kelly didn't need to break out the goth-wear for church.)
Of course, this is probably a very girl friendly house. His always was. Kelly and her little tribe of buddies giggling in his backyard, he can remember that very clearly, smiles a little at it.
Tim and Jimmy tend to stay together, and near him. They don't mingle as easily, but conversation around this group tends to range from business issues, to the Nationals, (Turns out Jimmy's a fan. Gibbs takes some ribbing for the Pirates, but the look of death killed it pretty fast. Then the idea that Tim doesn't have a team percolates through, and apparently that had about the same effect as walking into the Slaters' in a skirt and eyeliner. Wedding ring, baby daughter in his arms, wife who he's kissed a few times, it doesn't matter, the collection of Slater Uncles and Cousins are fairly sure he's gay. Can't be a man without a team. Tim just rolled his eyes.) and back to the business.
They spend so much time in their own little NCIS world, where everyone knows everyone else, that Gibbs has never had to really think much about who he is in relation to these people he's collected into his family. But, this isn't NCIS. The various Slaters have met him maybe three times.
He's a vaguely familiar face somehow attached to Jimmy.
And of course, there are some stories, and they can see who he came in with, but, "Oh, you're Tim and Abby's…" and that's how that sentence goes. It just sort of trails off, because they don't know where he fits.
First time it happens he just lets it go. Doesn't answer. Smiles, nods, shakes hands, moves onto the next introduction.
Second time, he catches Tim's eye, (Wants to make sure this is okay with him. He knows Abby'll be good with what he wants to say.) and Tim nods, knowing what that look means. So he says, "Kind of complicated, but Dad'll cover it."
"I thought you were Jimmy's boss." Breena's cousin says.
He shook his head. "Duck's Jimmy's Boss. I'm Tim's, or used to be, until last week."
"Long as you're there, you're still my Boss," Tim says.
"Something happen?" The cousin, Fred, asks.
"I'm retiring in January. He's taking over his own department soon. New member of the team just joined up. Slid Tony into the Boss slot to make everything run better."
"Oh." Fred doesn't seem to get that, but he's willing to nod and smile.
"It's disappointing, right?" Ed says. Gibbs had been standing on the back porch, leaning against the railing, watching the kids run around the backyard, grabbing a few minutes of quiet. (Okay, it's not quiet, there are five shrieking kids playing something tag-like, but it's also not making small talk with strangers. Maybe restful is a better word.) Ed joining him wasn't exactly what he was hoping for for this moment.
Ed's looking at him expectantly. Gibbs raises his eyebrows a bit.
"You have girls, and you want something for them, a kind of future, a man strong enough to be a… man. And they bring home these cute, fluffy things and expect you to think that they'll make great husbands."
It's possible that Ed isn't talking about Jimmy, though Gibbs doesn't think that's the case, but he might as well make sure. So he looks, pointedly, through the sliding glass door separating them from the dining room, at the twit that Amy's got hanging on her arm. Handbag, that's what Tony'd call him. And, really, he's probably not a bad guy, but as a cute, fluffy thing goes, he'll fit the bill.
Ed sighs. "Yeah. Him, too. He's a 'consultant' for graphic design firms. I think that's code for unemployed. I run a successful business, and she brings me a long line of unemployed or barely employed guys. But, you're a Marine, all Hoo Rah, and… your girls brought you the Clown and Tech Support. At least DiNozzo looks like he's got some backbone hiding under that Clown exterior."
Gibbs gives him a long, cold look.
"You, me, we aren't going to be around forever, and they pick cute. Cute doesn't keep the wolf from the door."
Gibbs' look was nearing absolute zero.
Ed is watching Amy talk with the Handbag, leaning into him, hanging on his every word as he strokes her back. "I worry for them. Don't want push to come to shove and for them to find out they've got no one to back them up."
And, yes, that resonates with Gibbs, but, nope, no one is saying that about his boys. "You think I know tough when I see it?"
Ed looks away from Amy to him. "Sure."
"Think I've seen my fair share of losers and creeps?"
"Probably yours are a few others."
Gibbs nods; that's true. "I am not disappointed in Jimmy, Tim or Tony. There are five men I trust with my life. Four of 'em I want at my back in a fight, and two of them are in your home right now, one's married to your daughter. Wolf comes to the door, Jimmy'll snap it's neck, and before it stops twitching, Tim'll shoot it between the eyes from 200 meters away with a hand gun. All of my boys are capable of defending their own nests, and they watch each other's as well.
"He was a cute fluffy thing." Gibbs remembered Jimmy from 2002. Cute and fluffy, good way to describe him. "I thought Jimmy was goofy as Hell when I first met him. But he's not anymore. He's as strong as any man needs to be. Losing a child ruins men. It breaks them, wounds them so they never get back up again. You see the funeral. I see what happens months, years, later. Jimmy didn't leave when they lost Jon, he didn't break, and he didn't let your daughter or granddaughter down. Push came to shove, and shoved him hard enough to flatten another man. Jimmy stood through it. You're worried he's not strong enough to be the man your daughter needs, then you're not looking. Man's made of steel. He wasn't when they started dating, but he is now."
Ed doesn't look like he knows what to do with that. Finally he says, "You can pick anyone in the world at your back, and you'd take Jimmy?"
"Any man in the world: Jimmy for hand to hand. Tim for a fire fight. Tony if there's a shot of talking our way out. Tobias if it's time to go out in a blaze of glory. And I want Duck somewhere safe, but able to see it all, for counsel."
Ed thinks about what Gibbs said for a moment and then says, "Any man. Let me guess, if we're talking anyone, it's Ziva for hand to hand, Ziva in a fire fight, Tony for talking his way out, and Fornell for the last stand."
Gibbs shrugs, that's not precisely wrong, but… "Not anymore."
That stuns Ed, more than anything else Gibbs has said.
"She's still a better fighter than the boys. Should be too, she's younger and trained for it her whole life. She's a better fighter than I am. Better than Tony. Jimmy can go six minutes with her, which is four more than I can—"
"Four more than you could have at thirty-seven?"
"She was thirteen when I was thirty-seven."
Ed gives him the, I know what you're doing look, but doesn't say anything else.
"I'm pretty sure she's not. But these days, there's always a shot she's pregnant, so, if there's any chance of getting her out of the fight, of making sure she's not the one at my back, I'd take it. Not gonna happen because she's stubborn as hell, but if it's my choice, she won't be in the line of fire."
Ed nods at that. He understands that in his bones. Women and children first, even if the woman in question is Ziva DiNozzo.
The sermon popped into Gibbs' mind. "You paying any attention to the sermon?"
Ed nods. "Enough."
"God gives us the lessons we need to learn in the people around us. That was the point of it. I don't think He forgot you when He was handing out lessons."
Ed smiles at that, acknowledging the point. "So, what am I teaching you?"
"Same thing He's trying to teach you with Jimmy, see the man inside the man."
"And what's your gut saying?"
"You're a jerk, but a good dad."
"Back at you."
"You could be a good father-in-law, too. Could be a great dad and make that daughter you love beyond anything else a whole lot happier by not treating her man like the enemy."
Ed shrugs at that. And Gibbs gets that as much as Ed does worry for his girls. As much as there is genuine concern, there's also a very large serving of him not wanting to be a good father-in-law, of him not wanting to share his daughters with another man. There's absolutely nothing wrong with Jimmy; other than the fact that he's not Ed.
Jimmy headed out a few minutes later. "'Bout time for us to head off."
Gibbs nods. He turns to Ed. "Thanks for the invite."
"You're welcome. Any and every Sunday, we're here."
This time the nod is aimed at Ed, not Jimmy.
Then Ed checked his watch. "Thought you said Bootcamp was at four?"
Gibbs nods, yet again. Ed had been asking about what it is they do on Sunday afternoons.
"It's ten past two."
"Yep."
"Doesn't take you that long to get downtown."
Jimmy lifts the corners of his mouth in a manner that could be called a smile, if you weren't paying attention or didn't know him well. "Gotta eat first, Ed."
"Of course. You're in a house full of food, but you've got to go out to eat."
Jimmy stiffened slightly. He could just take it, let it roll over him, like he does every week. But Gibbs is standing right next to him, watching, and he catches the faint, do it, you need to flavor of his look.
So he does. "Yeah, Ed, I need to eat. I need to eat every few hours when I'm awake, otherwise my blood sugar crashes, and that's a bad thing. And I'm standing next to a house full of food. Food all over the place." He looks at the cup in Gibbs' hand. "I see you've got Gibbs' drink. He's never been here before. You've only met him four times. But you've got exactly what he likes." Jimmy nods again, that not quite smile still on his face. He sighs. "But, yes, I have to leave your home to find food that won't make me sick. And I've got to do it soon, otherwise I'll start to feel woozy and won't have the energy for Bootcamp. So, it's time for us to go." Jimmy turned toward the patio door.
"Fine, go find food 'that doesn't make you sick.'" Ed rolls his eyes. "But really, how much energy can this take? According to Gibbs you mostly fight with Tim, and he's the precision shooter, not the muscle. Gibbs and Ziva train you, not fight you. When it's time to fight, you go up against the other skin and bones toothpick who's best skill is a gun."
Jimmy turns slowly back toward Ed, exhaling quietly. Gibbs is still flashing him the do it, you need to look at him. "Okay, Ed, you want to see what a workout looks like when a Marine and a Mossad-trained assassin are in charge of putting you through your paces? You want to see what training looks like? You want to see what us skin and bone toothpicks can do? Want to see how good even the least talented member of our team is when it comes to fighting? Hell, you want to take a shot at me? We meet up at four. Get your ass over to the Navy Yard and find out for yourself."
They're walking out of the house and Gibbs says quietly to him. "Glad you did it."
"Wonderful. Let's see if I can do this without embarrassing myself."
Gibbs puts his hand on Jimmy's shoulder. "You won't."
"Who are you texting?" Tim asks as he and Gibbs grab a table, and Jimmy orders himself some lunch.
"Letting Ziva know what's up."
"Stacking the deck in Jimmy's favor?"
Gibbs nods. "Like you're not going to pull your punches?"
"Not too much, I mean, I don't have to, not anymore. When we play to our own strengths, he's better. But he's going to be nervous, so I'll make sure it's close, but I don't intend to win any of our fights today."
"Exactly. Ziva's not going to throw any of them, but she'll probably move a little slower, telegraph her moves a little clearer."
Jimmy sits down, grilled salmon salad, bowl of three bean soup, and a diet Pepsi on a tray.
"How crazy is it that I can find a better low-carb lunch at a bakery than at my in-laws' house?"
Tim shrugs. They did this last week, and he had to admit, pulling into a Panera after leaving the land of carbs seemed strange to him. But, it is one of the few places Jimmy can get a decent lunch, fast.
"So this is what, fight club for geeks?" Ed asks, two minutes after finding Tim, Jimmy, and Gibbs at the NCIS gym.
"Come on, Ed, if you know enough to ask that question, you know the first rule of Fight Club." Tony says as he and Ziva enter.
"Tony?" Jimmy asks. Both Tim and Jimmy are pretty surprised to see him here today. He's never come to Bootcamp, probably for the same reason that Gibbs rarely fights. He's got a position and getting his ass kicked is not conductive to keeping it.
"Heard Ed was coming, decided I had to see this," he says with a big smile, clapping his hand on Ed's shoulder as Ziva gives each of the guys a hello hug.
"Great." Last thing Jimmy wants for this was a crowd.
Tony smiles. "Want to see the Gremlin take a bite out of his old man."
"The Gremlin?" Ed looks startled by that.
"What Tony calls Jimmy," Tim adds, you really don't want to know why on his face.
"Why?" Ed asks, starting to sound a little concerned.
Tony just shook his head and looked stern. "You ever see that movie? Sure, Jimmy looks like a stuffed animal, all cute and harmless, but hit the wrong trigger, and he'll mess you up! Breena ever tell you the story about how he drove a car into a suspect who was running away from us?" Ed shook his head. "Nope? It's a good story." Tony nods to the rest of them. "Go get started. I'll keep an eye on Ed." Tim, Jimmy, Gibbs, and Ziva headed off to warm up. "You know, Ed, Fight Club really was a great movie, but so many people forget the twist. Well, not forget it. Everyone knows the twist. They don't internalize it. They watch it and then stuff it in the cool story file, but don't change because of it. Kind of sad really.
"Edward Norton was brilliant in that movie. Starts off so soft and mild, letting everyone push him around. You never expect the twist. He's so good at just blending in and taking it that you never even suspect he's got Tyler Durden hiding in there." He smiles some more at Ed, who's staring to look a little nervous about this.
"Oh, well, enough movie trivia. So, what's your background with this? Jimmy got to this kind of late, but he's catching up, fast. And Tim, well… you've got to be able to fight to be a field agent. Can't pass FLETC without a martial arts proficiency. Me, I played every sport you can think of, and then boxing on top of that. First time I went up against Gibbs, I was dancing around, showing off, telling him how I used to box. I asked him if he'd ever boxed in the Corp, and he said no. So I was thinking I'd take it easy on him, and ten seconds later I was on the floor, and he had my arm pinned behind my back with his knee on my kidney. Then he told me, 'They taught us to fight.' And Ziva, well…" He looks at his wife, who is stretching with Jimmy and Tim, and smiles fondly at her. "Hey, Ziva," he calls out.
"Tony?"
"If you had to sum up your training, how'd you do it?"
She's loosening up, leaning forward, her ankle on the top rope of the ring. "You said, 'They taught Gibbs to fight?'"
"Yep."
"They taught me to kill."
He smiles back at her and says to Ed, "They taught her to kill. And she's good at it. We ever need someone to go in unarmed, it'll be Ziva. So, Ed, you remember the last rule of Fight Club?"
"No."
Tony smiles, he's enjoying this way too much. "If it's your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight."
And while it's true that Tyler Durden's Fight Club turns men from cookie dough to carved wood might not be precisely true, it's close enough. Right now Jimmy and Tim are in the best shape of their lives. (Sure, Tim's not giving Pitt a run for his money muscle-definition-wise, but Jimmy is. This might be the difference between no carbs and just not a whole lot of them.) And Ziva's awfully lean and strong right now, too.
Gibbs has been looking better these last three months. Sure, he's not the guy he was in his Marine days, but… well, he's not getting there, yet, either, but he can see where getting there begins from where he is right now, and hopes to have gotten back to who he used to be within a year (okay, year and a half).
But, with Tony prattling on next to him, filling him in on exactly what they do at Bootcamp (Tony's making a lot of it up, telling a good story, because, that's what he does. Compared to Somali terrorists, playing Ed's like riding a tricycle. But Ed doesn't know that.) Ed's noticing that Jimmy and Tim are indeed thin, but they are not toothpicks.
And they are very, very much not skin and bones.
And he probably, no definitely, doesn't want to get into a fight with either of them.
Jimmy's focusing on Ziva.
He's decidedly not focusing on Ed.
Not at all.
He's not seeing Tony standing there, next to Ed, hand on his shoulder, narrating the action, filling in bits and pieces of stories of how Ziva used to kill or disable men with the moves she's using, and how he's dodging, evading, using her momentum against her.
He's not hearing about how a second slower and that kick would have gotten him in the jaw or how the thumb lock he's using on Ziva right now is something she taught them as a way to easily disable an opponent.
Nope. He's focused on "Ziva." He's so focused on "Ziva" that it's only now occurring to him that she should have handed his ass to him a few minutes ago.
And that actually does snap his attention away from "not focusing on Ed" to really focusing on Ziva. She sees it when she has his whole attention and ups her game to go with it.
That's when he gets it. They are not going to let him look bad. He doesn't have to worry about this, because they've got his back. Ziva's not going to let him win, that'd be way too obvious. But they won't let him look like a twit, either.
And with that he does start to relax and enjoy himself.
That's also, as he spinning on his back leg, landing a kick that Ziva dodged, when he realizes exactly what this is and why Tony's here, too. (And honestly, he wouldn't be shocked if Ducky, Fornell, or Vance were to decide to come play, too. Though he's kind of hoping they don't.)
It's a show of clan strength. The same way dragging the potential son-in-laws to church is for the Slaters. This is his clan, showing off that its strength means the literal ability to end your life should they desire to do so.
He catches Ziva's knee, blocking that hit, planning to use it to toss her off balance, but apparently that's what she wanted him to do, because by doing that, he's got both hands occupied and can't block the punch the follows up. He did manage to get her off balance, but dodging the punch sends him down, too. She's up faster than he is, so it's her round. She offers a hand, and pulls him up.
"Good round. Another?"
"Sure."
"This what they usually do?" Ed asks Tony.
"Sure. Warm up time…"
"That's warm up time?"
Jimmy's on his third round with Ziva. Gibbs and Tim are working with each other.
"Yeah, that's warm up time. Jimmy's better attacking than on defense. So right now, he's up against Ziva. Main thing he's doing is learning how to see what she's going to do next and block it. Tim's thing is precision. Give him a gun and he can hit a dime on the goal post from the fifty yard line, but when it comes to fist and foot, he's not quite that controlled. That's what he's doing with Gibbs, working on making sure he can hit a dime at full speed with his off hand in close combat. I imagine in a few months they'll get to knives, but right now it's all fist and foot."
"Why aren't you doing this?" Ed asks Tony.
Tony shook his head a little. "Do I look stupid to you? I don't want to get into a fight with them. Hell, I don't even like running after perps anymore. You hit a certain age, and you don't want to be a punching bag. Okay, sure, Gibbs is insane, and he likes this stuff, and Tim and Jimmy are endorphin junkies, but I'm not. I like not having bruises. I mean, do you really want to get into a fight with them? Actually, I guess you do, that's why you're here. So, you better start getting warmed up and ready, because if you go at this cold, they'll kill you."
Usually, after working with Ziva, Jimmy and Tim go up against each other. These days those are free fights, no holds barred (Okay, not really, by mutual accord and respect, eyes and balls are off limits, but there's no set rule against it.), do whatever you like, first one to hit the floor loses.
Usually, that's when Gibbs and Ziva regroup, go over strategy, watch what and how they're learning, and plan out what sorts of things the guys need to work on.
But this is very much not a usual week.
And Gibbs already has a plan in place.
He and Tim finish up, and as they're heading toward the ring he says, "You and Jimmy, two rounds, take it easy, Ziva and I'll keep Ed busy. He won't be watching you two much."
Tim nods. He doesn't know where this is going, but he gets the basic instruction here is conserve your energy, more stuff coming up later.
Usually, they go for an hour, hour ten if things are going well, and he knows today is going to run longer than that.
So, as Ziva slips out from between the ropes, Tim joins Jimmy, quietly giving him the heads up, and they face off.
Ziva heads over to Gibbs, her usual plan, but sees that Gibbs is heading over to Ed.
"Tony taking care of you?" Gibbs asks as they get closer. Ed's working on one of the punching bags. Tony's keeping it steady for him. His form is good, speed decent. Gibbs is getting the idea that Ed probably boxed in college or high school, remembered what he learned, but hasn't used it in thirty or forty years.
"Yes."
"Great. You're up with Ziva next."
"Ziva?" Ed stops dead and just stares at her.
"Yes," Ziva says, looking pretty happy at this.
Gibbs gives Ziva a stern look. "Ziva, no eyes, no balls, no throat, no finger locks. Ed's got to be able to use his hands tomorrow."
"Yes, Gibbs." She's smiling pleasantly at Ed.
Ed's looking terrified.
"You start with Ziva because she's good enough and has enough control to not accidentally hurt you. Even if you are swinging wild and don't know what you're doing, she won't let you accidentally hurt her. You start with Ziva, and once you get good, you end with Ziva, because she's the one who knows what she's doing."
"I can't hit a girl!"
Ziva just grins at him. Gibbs claps his hand on Ed's shoulder and smiles. Tony says, "If I was you, I wouldn't worry about hitting a girl." He fishes a fifty out of his wallet. "This is yours if you can manage to lay a hand on her."
Gibbs laughs. "Come on, Ed. Time to see what Bootcamp really looks like."
Ziva puts Ed through his paces. Gibbs and Tony watch Tim and Jimmy work with each other.
"What's the plan?" Tony asks Gibbs.
"I'm up against Jimmy next."
"Really?" Tony knows where Gibbs is going to take this, and… He gets it, but that Gibbs'll do it takes his breath away.
"Yeah." Gibbs turns to Tony. "You make sure Ed gets it."
"Not a problem, been doing that all day. So, you're really gonna let him win?"
"Let? Have you been watching what he's doing?"
Tony shrugs. "Not exactly what I meant. Until I started letting you win, you made my life a living Hell. Once Ed's gone, you gonna give Jimmy any crap?"
Gibbs shakes his head. (He has a somewhat different memory of how that went down, and DiNozzo letting him win isn't part of it. Though as he thinks about it, it's probably a good idea that Tony hasn't decided he needs to go toe to toe against Draga, and just possibly Tony learned that from his own experience of being the young half of the equation when it came to working with him.)
Tony's watching him think about it and says, "You're going after him after he's been up against Ziva and McGee."
"Gotta do something to even it up. Won't look right if he drops me one minute in."
Tony shakes his head. Palmer creaming Gibbs a minute in isn't anything he's ever going to believe can happen, even if he does actually get to see it live. It's like the sun rising in the west, it's just wrong.
"When did we get old?"
Gibbs laughs at that, very amused. There's a huge difference between ten and twenty years old. But not so much between twenty, thirty, and forty. But forty and fifty, which is where Tony is, oh yeah, lots of difference. Fifty and sixty, where Gibbs is, not as much, but he can feel it. "After Jimmy and I are done, we'll see if Ed still wants to take a swing at him."
"And if he does?" Tony asks.
"I don't think he's that stupid."
That got a chuckle out of Tony.
"Okay, Jimmy, you and me."
Both Jimmy and Tim are flashing very clear are you sure about this expressions at him. Gibbs nods at both of them.
Tim stares at both of them. Be careful aimed at Gibbs. And Abby'll pout at me if you hurt him aimed at Jimmy.
Jimmy's looking back at Tim with What the hell is wrong with you? He's going to eat me alive and pick his teeth with my bones, and you think Abby's going to pout at me?
Tim smiles at that. He's a bit more immune to the aura of Gibbs than Jimmy is.
Gibbs heads in and Jimmy's looking warily at him.
"Gonna be okay, Jimmy."
He looks at Ed. He's close enough to see, but not really hear.
"Sure?"
"Yeah."
"You gonna take a dive or something."
Gibbs shakes his head. "Won't need to."
Jimmy's not looking like he believes that.
"Focus on me. Enjoy it. Then go have a chat with him."
The Marines teach you to fight and kill. All four limbs working together to drop your opponent as fast as possible. It's not fancy. Not (especially in the '70s when Gibbs was learning it) elegant. It's the martial arts equivalent of napalm. The point is overwhelming, conquering force. As long as the job is destruction, it gets the job done.
Mossad teaches you how to strike fast and precise. Maximum damage for minimum effort. How to get exactly the target you're aiming at and no one, nothing else. It's the fighting style of a small force, that must, because of its size be stronger. The fighting style of David who's facing a never-ending line of Golliaths. A group of men who have to be able to take ten, fifteen, maybe twenty men off the board for every man they can afford to lose.
If Tim has a fighting style, it's watch and wait. See the moves coming at you, look for the hole, dart into it, and knock the other guy on his ass.
And if Jimmy has a fighting style, it's a hybrid of the above three.
Gibbs is fighting fierce and fast. He's been conserving his energy for the last hour, intentionally not fighting until now. He makes sure Jimmy is on defense, the weaker of his skill set. But, Jimmy's spent most of his hours getting beaten by Tim when Tim is on defense. He knows how to play it, even if it's not his best skill.
Defense is a patience skill. At least that's how Tim plays it, how he uses it to take Jimmy down. But fighting isn't about patience, not for Jimmy. He's got yoga for that. Fighting is speed and aggression and pumping blood and fast breath and spiking adrenaline and endorphins.
He'd dodging fast, hard punches, using his legs and forearms to block kicks, his extra two inches of reach keeps Gibbs from getting too close, and while he's at it he realizes this is the shot Gibbs is giving him. Gibbs was a sniper. Gibbs kills with a knife. Gibbs is patience and defense, and attacking fast and hard isn't his best skill. He's matching his weakness to Jimmy's but he's got to be sure that Jimmy's better playing to his weak side than he is.
Because Jimmy does spend hours a week doing yoga. Because he can focus when he wants to, focus hard and tight, and slow the world down to beating heart and aware breath. It's not that he can't do it when he fights, it's that he usually doesn't want to.
But right now, more than ever, he wants to take the time to do this right. So he's focused, more focused on a fight than he ever has been, and he channeling the patience he needs to do this right, to see where to hop in, and use Ziva's precision to hit exactly what he's aiming for.
And he sees it about two minutes in. Gibb's is balanced on his left leg. He saw Ziva do a version of this, kicking at his head and taking his ankle out from under him. He doesn't have Ziva's speed, can't do it in one move. But he thinks he can pull this off in two fast moves. The punch toward Gibbs' head is a feint, pushing him a little further back, forcing more weight on that back leg, over balancing him just a bit further, and from that punch he immediate drops into the sweeping kick that takes that leg out from under Gibbs, and a second after that he's up and standing and Gibbs is on his back on the ring, looking up at him, and, there's an awfully pleased smile on his face.
Jimmy feels the smile on his face as well.
Which means it's time for part two of this, have a "chat" with Ed.
Getting into a fist fight with your father-in-law is probably a ridiculously stupid idea. On the list of top ten stupid ideas, it's probably on par with going up against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
And Jimmy isn't immune to iocane powder.
On the other hand, there's no shot Ed will respect him less for it. Unless he loses. But he just beat Gibbs. Just figured out how to own his defense. So he can't imagine Ed winning unless he was secretly a ninja back in the day. (For example, he's pretty certain he could take Ducky, but not enough to bet on it. He saw what Ducky did to those three Ninja wannabes. Ed, however, is a rather different story.)
So, as he gives Gibbs a hand up, sees the pride in his eyes, the go on, get him, in his look, he's ready for this. He faces Ed, makes sure he's looking at him. Then he checks with Gibbs. "You good?"
"Fine."
"Good." He headed to the ropes, leaning, forearms against them. He's hot, heart beating fast and hard, bright pink, dripping sweat, bit tired, and high as a kite on endorphins right now. For a few heartbeats he just stands there, staring at Ed. Then he runs his hands through his hair, mostly just moving it around a little, cooling off a bit, then wiped his face.
"Well, Ed, it's been an hour. I'm tired, so that'd even the odds some. You're all loose and warmed up." He sighed, stared down at Ed for a few more heartbeats, shook his head a little at how ridiculous this is. "You've wanted to take a shot at me since Breena brought me home the first time." He spread his arms wide, palms up, his hands are taped, so he can't exactly use his fingers to gesture, come on up, but he's getting the point across. "I'll even give you the first shot free." And then he smiled, cold, brilliant, challenging.
It's the smile of a man who just realized he can kill you with his bare hands if he feels like it. And he might decide he feels like it.
Tony said to Tim and Ziva, very quietly. "He's fucking terrifying when he wants to be."
"Indeed." Ziva said.
Tim nodded. He doesn't want to be on the other end of that smile. Ever. And if Ed's got more than three brain cells to rub together, he's about to shit his pants. (Gibbs standing behind Jimmy, arms crossed, grinning, insanely proud, is probably also not a comfort for Ed.)
The smile fell, and all they can see is cool contempt on Jimmy's face. "Well?"
Ed slowly shook his head. "Nope."
Jimmy nodded. "Good." He slipped between the ropes and headed down. Ed backed away from him, but in less than two steps found Tony and Tim immediately behind him, cutting off any chance of escape he might have. "Long time ago, I told you you didn't have to respect me, and you don't. No one gets respect by demanding it. Me telling you to do it won't make it happen." Jimmy smiled again, and hell, it's not aimed at him, but Tim's feeling a distinct desire to get the fuck away from that smile. "But you should respect me. I treat your daughter like a queen, my queen, and your grandchildren have been and will be adored every single day of their lives."
Ed nods, looking very nervous. He's got no idea what Jimmy'll do next. For that matter neither does Tony or Tim, but they're on high alert to back any play he comes up with.
"Like, I said, I can't make you respect me. But just like I fake it and am always polite to you, and you are always given a proper welcome in my home, from now on you will treat me with basic politeness. No more snide remarks. No more inviting me to a meal and then only serving food that will make me sick. We clear?"
Ed nodded again. "Yes."
Jimmy smiled one more time. "Great. Time to hit the showers."
Abby got a text about half an hour after that. It's from Tim. Everyone's fine. Jimmy stood up to Ed. Didn't have to hit him to do it. Details and celebratory dinner is at Ducky and Penny's as soon as we can get there.
She was at Jimmy and Breena's, heard the chirp of Breena's phone, probably showing a very similar message from Jimmy, and sent back a quick. Be there soon.
Two hours later, when food had been consumed, and celebratory beverages drunk, and the whole crew was in a very mellow, possibly even silly mood, when Jimmy said, "We should have a crest."
"A crest?" Tony's giving him the you are such a geek stare. But Tim's nodding, and Gibbs isn't horrified by the idea, but not sold on it either. Ducky warmed to it immediately, and ramped up into a full on history of heraldry.
Eight minutes later, after the cursory Crests For Dummies lecture by Dr. Mallard, Jimmy's sitting back, nodding along.
"A crest, or a tartan, or something. We don't have a name in common. But, something that says, Clan Gibbs would be good."
Abby's listening to this, not saying anything, but she's definitely paying attention.
Christmas is coming (well, in five months), and a symbolic gesture of family... Oh yes, she's listening, paying attention, and thinking.
They'd been home for a bit over an hour when Abby sat next to Tim, holding out a piece of paper to him.
It's a sketch, colored in with Sharpies, but he can see what she's thinking with this.
It's a shield, which makes sense, crests are done of a shield. It's broken into quarters by a solid gold line. Top right quarter is sable on argent. Top of that quarter says Palmer. In the center is the black cross of mortuary services, the black caduceus, (also of the mortuary service) outlined in white over top of the cross. Top left quarter is argent on sable. Across the top of that quarter is McGee. It's a computer sitting next to a microscope. Bottom right quarter, sable on azure, DiNozzo across the bottom of that quarter, below a knife leaning against a badge. Bottom left quarter Vert over Gules. At the bottom it read Langston-Mallard, and it's an open book, one page covered in equations the other page with a story.
And in the center, where the golden lines crossed was a partially unfurled scroll, silver over argent. At its top was Gibbs, then below that Rules, and below that 1. Never… it's small enough you can't read anything beyond the never.
Tim looked over Abby's shoulder, at her finished crest, and said, "So, I guess I know what everyone is getting for Christmas."
She smiled up at him. "You like it?"
"Oh yeah."
A/N: Sorry that one took a while. Next chapter's pretty long too, might take a while. (Though that one has a good breaking point, so might be two shorter ones and up faster.)
Argent=white sable=black azure=blue vert=green gules=red. And though Abby knows the names of the colors, she liked the look/modern symbology that goes with them better than the old.
Next
Chapter 264: Clan Gibbs
When Gibbs was a child, church, Sunday dinner, and gathering with the whole family had been part of every week. It wasn't a huge gathering, not like this never-ending crowd of Slaters, but his parents, his Aunt, her family, his grandparents, and their siblings, all got together.
But in his family, the women were the glue. His grandmother died, and Sunday dinner limped along for a few years, his mom and his aunt keeping it going. But his mom got sick, and then she died, and his aunt didn't have the heart to do it on her own.
Shannon had lived in Stillwater when they were courting, and when he was in town, he went to church and Sunday supper at their home.
They'd moved around a lot, finally gotten settled in DC, and his mother and father-in-law eventually moved down, wanting to be closer to Kelly and Shannon. His dad even made it down a few times a year.
For two years, Sunday dinner was at his house. He doesn't think about that too much. Not that they aren't good memories. They are. But like a lot of his good memories, they hurt. Though that's starting to get better. Maybe not good, but it's not an open wound held together by tendrils of avenging anger and numbing booze anymore.
But like his birth family, the women were the glue, and when his girls died…
This time though, he's here for his boys. He's glad to see Tim giving Jimmy some back-up on this. Visiting your in-laws shouldn't be walking into a lion's den, but if it is, it's good to have friends at your back. And if they're going to invite him to come along, he'll come along and keep an eye on Jimmy's flanks.
Like with Tim's first visit, he's very aware that no one in this family is going out of their way to make Jimmy welcome.
Not that Gibbs is known for hospitality, but there is a bottle of Gin (And a bottle of Absinthe is in the works for a birthday present. No, it's not legal in the US. Some favors are in the process of being called in, and buddy of a buddy who'll getting home on leave soon should have a few bottles stowed in his luggage.) in his basement next to the Scotch and Bourbon.
There's black coffee strong enough to peel the tar off the roof, and it was handed to him by Jeannie within seconds of him entering her home. And sure, it may not be there for just him, but he doesn't notice anyone else drinking it.
So, he's welcome, and judging by the fact that no one else is drinking coffee, they have gone out of their way to extend a welcome to him.
But not to Jimmy.
The girls are mingling easily. Abby's been getting some interested looks. If he had to guess, she's explained her tattoos about nine times. But it's mostly curious, not much hostile. Though Abby being Abby tends to smother hostile with warm happiness.
And Kelly's got an adoring collection of bigger girls cooing over her. Something about tween girls, they like babies, especially darling little ones in a tiny pink sun dress. (Apparently Abby and Tim decided Kelly didn't need to break out the goth-wear for church.)
Of course, this is probably a very girl friendly house. His always was. Kelly and her little tribe of buddies giggling in his backyard, he can remember that very clearly, smiles a little at it.
Tim and Jimmy tend to stay together, and near him. They don't mingle as easily, but conversation around this group tends to range from business issues, to the Nationals, (Turns out Jimmy's a fan. Gibbs takes some ribbing for the Pirates, but the look of death killed it pretty fast. Then the idea that Tim doesn't have a team percolates through, and apparently that had about the same effect as walking into the Slaters' in a skirt and eyeliner. Wedding ring, baby daughter in his arms, wife who he's kissed a few times, it doesn't matter, the collection of Slater Uncles and Cousins are fairly sure he's gay. Can't be a man without a team. Tim just rolled his eyes.) and back to the business.
They spend so much time in their own little NCIS world, where everyone knows everyone else, that Gibbs has never had to really think much about who he is in relation to these people he's collected into his family. But, this isn't NCIS. The various Slaters have met him maybe three times.
He's a vaguely familiar face somehow attached to Jimmy.
And of course, there are some stories, and they can see who he came in with, but, "Oh, you're Tim and Abby's…" and that's how that sentence goes. It just sort of trails off, because they don't know where he fits.
First time it happens he just lets it go. Doesn't answer. Smiles, nods, shakes hands, moves onto the next introduction.
Second time, he catches Tim's eye, (Wants to make sure this is okay with him. He knows Abby'll be good with what he wants to say.) and Tim nods, knowing what that look means. So he says, "Kind of complicated, but Dad'll cover it."
"I thought you were Jimmy's boss." Breena's cousin says.
He shook his head. "Duck's Jimmy's Boss. I'm Tim's, or used to be, until last week."
"Long as you're there, you're still my Boss," Tim says.
"Something happen?" The cousin, Fred, asks.
"I'm retiring in January. He's taking over his own department soon. New member of the team just joined up. Slid Tony into the Boss slot to make everything run better."
"Oh." Fred doesn't seem to get that, but he's willing to nod and smile.
"It's disappointing, right?" Ed says. Gibbs had been standing on the back porch, leaning against the railing, watching the kids run around the backyard, grabbing a few minutes of quiet. (Okay, it's not quiet, there are five shrieking kids playing something tag-like, but it's also not making small talk with strangers. Maybe restful is a better word.) Ed joining him wasn't exactly what he was hoping for for this moment.
Ed's looking at him expectantly. Gibbs raises his eyebrows a bit.
"You have girls, and you want something for them, a kind of future, a man strong enough to be a… man. And they bring home these cute, fluffy things and expect you to think that they'll make great husbands."
It's possible that Ed isn't talking about Jimmy, though Gibbs doesn't think that's the case, but he might as well make sure. So he looks, pointedly, through the sliding glass door separating them from the dining room, at the twit that Amy's got hanging on her arm. Handbag, that's what Tony'd call him. And, really, he's probably not a bad guy, but as a cute, fluffy thing goes, he'll fit the bill.
Ed sighs. "Yeah. Him, too. He's a 'consultant' for graphic design firms. I think that's code for unemployed. I run a successful business, and she brings me a long line of unemployed or barely employed guys. But, you're a Marine, all Hoo Rah, and… your girls brought you the Clown and Tech Support. At least DiNozzo looks like he's got some backbone hiding under that Clown exterior."
Gibbs gives him a long, cold look.
"You, me, we aren't going to be around forever, and they pick cute. Cute doesn't keep the wolf from the door."
Gibbs' look was nearing absolute zero.
Ed is watching Amy talk with the Handbag, leaning into him, hanging on his every word as he strokes her back. "I worry for them. Don't want push to come to shove and for them to find out they've got no one to back them up."
And, yes, that resonates with Gibbs, but, nope, no one is saying that about his boys. "You think I know tough when I see it?"
Ed looks away from Amy to him. "Sure."
"Think I've seen my fair share of losers and creeps?"
"Probably yours are a few others."
Gibbs nods; that's true. "I am not disappointed in Jimmy, Tim or Tony. There are five men I trust with my life. Four of 'em I want at my back in a fight, and two of them are in your home right now, one's married to your daughter. Wolf comes to the door, Jimmy'll snap it's neck, and before it stops twitching, Tim'll shoot it between the eyes from 200 meters away with a hand gun. All of my boys are capable of defending their own nests, and they watch each other's as well.
"He was a cute fluffy thing." Gibbs remembered Jimmy from 2002. Cute and fluffy, good way to describe him. "I thought Jimmy was goofy as Hell when I first met him. But he's not anymore. He's as strong as any man needs to be. Losing a child ruins men. It breaks them, wounds them so they never get back up again. You see the funeral. I see what happens months, years, later. Jimmy didn't leave when they lost Jon, he didn't break, and he didn't let your daughter or granddaughter down. Push came to shove, and shoved him hard enough to flatten another man. Jimmy stood through it. You're worried he's not strong enough to be the man your daughter needs, then you're not looking. Man's made of steel. He wasn't when they started dating, but he is now."
Ed doesn't look like he knows what to do with that. Finally he says, "You can pick anyone in the world at your back, and you'd take Jimmy?"
"Any man in the world: Jimmy for hand to hand. Tim for a fire fight. Tony if there's a shot of talking our way out. Tobias if it's time to go out in a blaze of glory. And I want Duck somewhere safe, but able to see it all, for counsel."
Ed thinks about what Gibbs said for a moment and then says, "Any man. Let me guess, if we're talking anyone, it's Ziva for hand to hand, Ziva in a fire fight, Tony for talking his way out, and Fornell for the last stand."
Gibbs shrugs, that's not precisely wrong, but… "Not anymore."
That stuns Ed, more than anything else Gibbs has said.
"She's still a better fighter than the boys. Should be too, she's younger and trained for it her whole life. She's a better fighter than I am. Better than Tony. Jimmy can go six minutes with her, which is four more than I can—"
"Four more than you could have at thirty-seven?"
"She was thirteen when I was thirty-seven."
Ed gives him the, I know what you're doing look, but doesn't say anything else.
"I'm pretty sure she's not. But these days, there's always a shot she's pregnant, so, if there's any chance of getting her out of the fight, of making sure she's not the one at my back, I'd take it. Not gonna happen because she's stubborn as hell, but if it's my choice, she won't be in the line of fire."
Ed nods at that. He understands that in his bones. Women and children first, even if the woman in question is Ziva DiNozzo.
The sermon popped into Gibbs' mind. "You paying any attention to the sermon?"
Ed nods. "Enough."
"God gives us the lessons we need to learn in the people around us. That was the point of it. I don't think He forgot you when He was handing out lessons."
Ed smiles at that, acknowledging the point. "So, what am I teaching you?"
"Same thing He's trying to teach you with Jimmy, see the man inside the man."
"And what's your gut saying?"
"You're a jerk, but a good dad."
"Back at you."
"You could be a good father-in-law, too. Could be a great dad and make that daughter you love beyond anything else a whole lot happier by not treating her man like the enemy."
Ed shrugs at that. And Gibbs gets that as much as Ed does worry for his girls. As much as there is genuine concern, there's also a very large serving of him not wanting to be a good father-in-law, of him not wanting to share his daughters with another man. There's absolutely nothing wrong with Jimmy; other than the fact that he's not Ed.
Jimmy headed out a few minutes later. "'Bout time for us to head off."
Gibbs nods. He turns to Ed. "Thanks for the invite."
"You're welcome. Any and every Sunday, we're here."
This time the nod is aimed at Ed, not Jimmy.
Then Ed checked his watch. "Thought you said Bootcamp was at four?"
Gibbs nods, yet again. Ed had been asking about what it is they do on Sunday afternoons.
"It's ten past two."
"Yep."
"Doesn't take you that long to get downtown."
Jimmy lifts the corners of his mouth in a manner that could be called a smile, if you weren't paying attention or didn't know him well. "Gotta eat first, Ed."
"Of course. You're in a house full of food, but you've got to go out to eat."
Jimmy stiffened slightly. He could just take it, let it roll over him, like he does every week. But Gibbs is standing right next to him, watching, and he catches the faint, do it, you need to flavor of his look.
So he does. "Yeah, Ed, I need to eat. I need to eat every few hours when I'm awake, otherwise my blood sugar crashes, and that's a bad thing. And I'm standing next to a house full of food. Food all over the place." He looks at the cup in Gibbs' hand. "I see you've got Gibbs' drink. He's never been here before. You've only met him four times. But you've got exactly what he likes." Jimmy nods again, that not quite smile still on his face. He sighs. "But, yes, I have to leave your home to find food that won't make me sick. And I've got to do it soon, otherwise I'll start to feel woozy and won't have the energy for Bootcamp. So, it's time for us to go." Jimmy turned toward the patio door.
"Fine, go find food 'that doesn't make you sick.'" Ed rolls his eyes. "But really, how much energy can this take? According to Gibbs you mostly fight with Tim, and he's the precision shooter, not the muscle. Gibbs and Ziva train you, not fight you. When it's time to fight, you go up against the other skin and bones toothpick who's best skill is a gun."
Jimmy turns slowly back toward Ed, exhaling quietly. Gibbs is still flashing him the do it, you need to look at him. "Okay, Ed, you want to see what a workout looks like when a Marine and a Mossad-trained assassin are in charge of putting you through your paces? You want to see what training looks like? You want to see what us skin and bone toothpicks can do? Want to see how good even the least talented member of our team is when it comes to fighting? Hell, you want to take a shot at me? We meet up at four. Get your ass over to the Navy Yard and find out for yourself."
They're walking out of the house and Gibbs says quietly to him. "Glad you did it."
"Wonderful. Let's see if I can do this without embarrassing myself."
Gibbs puts his hand on Jimmy's shoulder. "You won't."
"Who are you texting?" Tim asks as he and Gibbs grab a table, and Jimmy orders himself some lunch.
"Letting Ziva know what's up."
"Stacking the deck in Jimmy's favor?"
Gibbs nods. "Like you're not going to pull your punches?"
"Not too much, I mean, I don't have to, not anymore. When we play to our own strengths, he's better. But he's going to be nervous, so I'll make sure it's close, but I don't intend to win any of our fights today."
"Exactly. Ziva's not going to throw any of them, but she'll probably move a little slower, telegraph her moves a little clearer."
Jimmy sits down, grilled salmon salad, bowl of three bean soup, and a diet Pepsi on a tray.
"How crazy is it that I can find a better low-carb lunch at a bakery than at my in-laws' house?"
Tim shrugs. They did this last week, and he had to admit, pulling into a Panera after leaving the land of carbs seemed strange to him. But, it is one of the few places Jimmy can get a decent lunch, fast.
"So this is what, fight club for geeks?" Ed asks, two minutes after finding Tim, Jimmy, and Gibbs at the NCIS gym.
"Come on, Ed, if you know enough to ask that question, you know the first rule of Fight Club." Tony says as he and Ziva enter.
"Tony?" Jimmy asks. Both Tim and Jimmy are pretty surprised to see him here today. He's never come to Bootcamp, probably for the same reason that Gibbs rarely fights. He's got a position and getting his ass kicked is not conductive to keeping it.
"Heard Ed was coming, decided I had to see this," he says with a big smile, clapping his hand on Ed's shoulder as Ziva gives each of the guys a hello hug.
"Great." Last thing Jimmy wants for this was a crowd.
Tony smiles. "Want to see the Gremlin take a bite out of his old man."
"The Gremlin?" Ed looks startled by that.
"What Tony calls Jimmy," Tim adds, you really don't want to know why on his face.
"Why?" Ed asks, starting to sound a little concerned.
Tony just shook his head and looked stern. "You ever see that movie? Sure, Jimmy looks like a stuffed animal, all cute and harmless, but hit the wrong trigger, and he'll mess you up! Breena ever tell you the story about how he drove a car into a suspect who was running away from us?" Ed shook his head. "Nope? It's a good story." Tony nods to the rest of them. "Go get started. I'll keep an eye on Ed." Tim, Jimmy, Gibbs, and Ziva headed off to warm up. "You know, Ed, Fight Club really was a great movie, but so many people forget the twist. Well, not forget it. Everyone knows the twist. They don't internalize it. They watch it and then stuff it in the cool story file, but don't change because of it. Kind of sad really.
"Edward Norton was brilliant in that movie. Starts off so soft and mild, letting everyone push him around. You never expect the twist. He's so good at just blending in and taking it that you never even suspect he's got Tyler Durden hiding in there." He smiles some more at Ed, who's staring to look a little nervous about this.
"Oh, well, enough movie trivia. So, what's your background with this? Jimmy got to this kind of late, but he's catching up, fast. And Tim, well… you've got to be able to fight to be a field agent. Can't pass FLETC without a martial arts proficiency. Me, I played every sport you can think of, and then boxing on top of that. First time I went up against Gibbs, I was dancing around, showing off, telling him how I used to box. I asked him if he'd ever boxed in the Corp, and he said no. So I was thinking I'd take it easy on him, and ten seconds later I was on the floor, and he had my arm pinned behind my back with his knee on my kidney. Then he told me, 'They taught us to fight.' And Ziva, well…" He looks at his wife, who is stretching with Jimmy and Tim, and smiles fondly at her. "Hey, Ziva," he calls out.
"Tony?"
"If you had to sum up your training, how'd you do it?"
She's loosening up, leaning forward, her ankle on the top rope of the ring. "You said, 'They taught Gibbs to fight?'"
"Yep."
"They taught me to kill."
He smiles back at her and says to Ed, "They taught her to kill. And she's good at it. We ever need someone to go in unarmed, it'll be Ziva. So, Ed, you remember the last rule of Fight Club?"
"No."
Tony smiles, he's enjoying this way too much. "If it's your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight."
And while it's true that Tyler Durden's Fight Club turns men from cookie dough to carved wood might not be precisely true, it's close enough. Right now Jimmy and Tim are in the best shape of their lives. (Sure, Tim's not giving Pitt a run for his money muscle-definition-wise, but Jimmy is. This might be the difference between no carbs and just not a whole lot of them.) And Ziva's awfully lean and strong right now, too.
Gibbs has been looking better these last three months. Sure, he's not the guy he was in his Marine days, but… well, he's not getting there, yet, either, but he can see where getting there begins from where he is right now, and hopes to have gotten back to who he used to be within a year (okay, year and a half).
But, with Tony prattling on next to him, filling him in on exactly what they do at Bootcamp (Tony's making a lot of it up, telling a good story, because, that's what he does. Compared to Somali terrorists, playing Ed's like riding a tricycle. But Ed doesn't know that.) Ed's noticing that Jimmy and Tim are indeed thin, but they are not toothpicks.
And they are very, very much not skin and bones.
And he probably, no definitely, doesn't want to get into a fight with either of them.
Jimmy's focusing on Ziva.
He's decidedly not focusing on Ed.
Not at all.
He's not seeing Tony standing there, next to Ed, hand on his shoulder, narrating the action, filling in bits and pieces of stories of how Ziva used to kill or disable men with the moves she's using, and how he's dodging, evading, using her momentum against her.
He's not hearing about how a second slower and that kick would have gotten him in the jaw or how the thumb lock he's using on Ziva right now is something she taught them as a way to easily disable an opponent.
Nope. He's focused on "Ziva." He's so focused on "Ziva" that it's only now occurring to him that she should have handed his ass to him a few minutes ago.
And that actually does snap his attention away from "not focusing on Ed" to really focusing on Ziva. She sees it when she has his whole attention and ups her game to go with it.
That's when he gets it. They are not going to let him look bad. He doesn't have to worry about this, because they've got his back. Ziva's not going to let him win, that'd be way too obvious. But they won't let him look like a twit, either.
And with that he does start to relax and enjoy himself.
That's also, as he spinning on his back leg, landing a kick that Ziva dodged, when he realizes exactly what this is and why Tony's here, too. (And honestly, he wouldn't be shocked if Ducky, Fornell, or Vance were to decide to come play, too. Though he's kind of hoping they don't.)
It's a show of clan strength. The same way dragging the potential son-in-laws to church is for the Slaters. This is his clan, showing off that its strength means the literal ability to end your life should they desire to do so.
He catches Ziva's knee, blocking that hit, planning to use it to toss her off balance, but apparently that's what she wanted him to do, because by doing that, he's got both hands occupied and can't block the punch the follows up. He did manage to get her off balance, but dodging the punch sends him down, too. She's up faster than he is, so it's her round. She offers a hand, and pulls him up.
"Good round. Another?"
"Sure."
"This what they usually do?" Ed asks Tony.
"Sure. Warm up time…"
"That's warm up time?"
Jimmy's on his third round with Ziva. Gibbs and Tim are working with each other.
"Yeah, that's warm up time. Jimmy's better attacking than on defense. So right now, he's up against Ziva. Main thing he's doing is learning how to see what she's going to do next and block it. Tim's thing is precision. Give him a gun and he can hit a dime on the goal post from the fifty yard line, but when it comes to fist and foot, he's not quite that controlled. That's what he's doing with Gibbs, working on making sure he can hit a dime at full speed with his off hand in close combat. I imagine in a few months they'll get to knives, but right now it's all fist and foot."
"Why aren't you doing this?" Ed asks Tony.
Tony shook his head a little. "Do I look stupid to you? I don't want to get into a fight with them. Hell, I don't even like running after perps anymore. You hit a certain age, and you don't want to be a punching bag. Okay, sure, Gibbs is insane, and he likes this stuff, and Tim and Jimmy are endorphin junkies, but I'm not. I like not having bruises. I mean, do you really want to get into a fight with them? Actually, I guess you do, that's why you're here. So, you better start getting warmed up and ready, because if you go at this cold, they'll kill you."
Usually, after working with Ziva, Jimmy and Tim go up against each other. These days those are free fights, no holds barred (Okay, not really, by mutual accord and respect, eyes and balls are off limits, but there's no set rule against it.), do whatever you like, first one to hit the floor loses.
Usually, that's when Gibbs and Ziva regroup, go over strategy, watch what and how they're learning, and plan out what sorts of things the guys need to work on.
But this is very much not a usual week.
And Gibbs already has a plan in place.
He and Tim finish up, and as they're heading toward the ring he says, "You and Jimmy, two rounds, take it easy, Ziva and I'll keep Ed busy. He won't be watching you two much."
Tim nods. He doesn't know where this is going, but he gets the basic instruction here is conserve your energy, more stuff coming up later.
Usually, they go for an hour, hour ten if things are going well, and he knows today is going to run longer than that.
So, as Ziva slips out from between the ropes, Tim joins Jimmy, quietly giving him the heads up, and they face off.
Ziva heads over to Gibbs, her usual plan, but sees that Gibbs is heading over to Ed.
"Tony taking care of you?" Gibbs asks as they get closer. Ed's working on one of the punching bags. Tony's keeping it steady for him. His form is good, speed decent. Gibbs is getting the idea that Ed probably boxed in college or high school, remembered what he learned, but hasn't used it in thirty or forty years.
"Yes."
"Great. You're up with Ziva next."
"Ziva?" Ed stops dead and just stares at her.
"Yes," Ziva says, looking pretty happy at this.
Gibbs gives Ziva a stern look. "Ziva, no eyes, no balls, no throat, no finger locks. Ed's got to be able to use his hands tomorrow."
"Yes, Gibbs." She's smiling pleasantly at Ed.
Ed's looking terrified.
"You start with Ziva because she's good enough and has enough control to not accidentally hurt you. Even if you are swinging wild and don't know what you're doing, she won't let you accidentally hurt her. You start with Ziva, and once you get good, you end with Ziva, because she's the one who knows what she's doing."
"I can't hit a girl!"
Ziva just grins at him. Gibbs claps his hand on Ed's shoulder and smiles. Tony says, "If I was you, I wouldn't worry about hitting a girl." He fishes a fifty out of his wallet. "This is yours if you can manage to lay a hand on her."
Gibbs laughs. "Come on, Ed. Time to see what Bootcamp really looks like."
Ziva puts Ed through his paces. Gibbs and Tony watch Tim and Jimmy work with each other.
"What's the plan?" Tony asks Gibbs.
"I'm up against Jimmy next."
"Really?" Tony knows where Gibbs is going to take this, and… He gets it, but that Gibbs'll do it takes his breath away.
"Yeah." Gibbs turns to Tony. "You make sure Ed gets it."
"Not a problem, been doing that all day. So, you're really gonna let him win?"
"Let? Have you been watching what he's doing?"
Tony shrugs. "Not exactly what I meant. Until I started letting you win, you made my life a living Hell. Once Ed's gone, you gonna give Jimmy any crap?"
Gibbs shakes his head. (He has a somewhat different memory of how that went down, and DiNozzo letting him win isn't part of it. Though as he thinks about it, it's probably a good idea that Tony hasn't decided he needs to go toe to toe against Draga, and just possibly Tony learned that from his own experience of being the young half of the equation when it came to working with him.)
Tony's watching him think about it and says, "You're going after him after he's been up against Ziva and McGee."
"Gotta do something to even it up. Won't look right if he drops me one minute in."
Tony shakes his head. Palmer creaming Gibbs a minute in isn't anything he's ever going to believe can happen, even if he does actually get to see it live. It's like the sun rising in the west, it's just wrong.
"When did we get old?"
Gibbs laughs at that, very amused. There's a huge difference between ten and twenty years old. But not so much between twenty, thirty, and forty. But forty and fifty, which is where Tony is, oh yeah, lots of difference. Fifty and sixty, where Gibbs is, not as much, but he can feel it. "After Jimmy and I are done, we'll see if Ed still wants to take a swing at him."
"And if he does?" Tony asks.
"I don't think he's that stupid."
That got a chuckle out of Tony.
"Okay, Jimmy, you and me."
Both Jimmy and Tim are flashing very clear are you sure about this expressions at him. Gibbs nods at both of them.
Tim stares at both of them. Be careful aimed at Gibbs. And Abby'll pout at me if you hurt him aimed at Jimmy.
Jimmy's looking back at Tim with What the hell is wrong with you? He's going to eat me alive and pick his teeth with my bones, and you think Abby's going to pout at me?
Tim smiles at that. He's a bit more immune to the aura of Gibbs than Jimmy is.
Gibbs heads in and Jimmy's looking warily at him.
"Gonna be okay, Jimmy."
He looks at Ed. He's close enough to see, but not really hear.
"Sure?"
"Yeah."
"You gonna take a dive or something."
Gibbs shakes his head. "Won't need to."
Jimmy's not looking like he believes that.
"Focus on me. Enjoy it. Then go have a chat with him."
The Marines teach you to fight and kill. All four limbs working together to drop your opponent as fast as possible. It's not fancy. Not (especially in the '70s when Gibbs was learning it) elegant. It's the martial arts equivalent of napalm. The point is overwhelming, conquering force. As long as the job is destruction, it gets the job done.
Mossad teaches you how to strike fast and precise. Maximum damage for minimum effort. How to get exactly the target you're aiming at and no one, nothing else. It's the fighting style of a small force, that must, because of its size be stronger. The fighting style of David who's facing a never-ending line of Golliaths. A group of men who have to be able to take ten, fifteen, maybe twenty men off the board for every man they can afford to lose.
If Tim has a fighting style, it's watch and wait. See the moves coming at you, look for the hole, dart into it, and knock the other guy on his ass.
And if Jimmy has a fighting style, it's a hybrid of the above three.
Gibbs is fighting fierce and fast. He's been conserving his energy for the last hour, intentionally not fighting until now. He makes sure Jimmy is on defense, the weaker of his skill set. But, Jimmy's spent most of his hours getting beaten by Tim when Tim is on defense. He knows how to play it, even if it's not his best skill.
Defense is a patience skill. At least that's how Tim plays it, how he uses it to take Jimmy down. But fighting isn't about patience, not for Jimmy. He's got yoga for that. Fighting is speed and aggression and pumping blood and fast breath and spiking adrenaline and endorphins.
He'd dodging fast, hard punches, using his legs and forearms to block kicks, his extra two inches of reach keeps Gibbs from getting too close, and while he's at it he realizes this is the shot Gibbs is giving him. Gibbs was a sniper. Gibbs kills with a knife. Gibbs is patience and defense, and attacking fast and hard isn't his best skill. He's matching his weakness to Jimmy's but he's got to be sure that Jimmy's better playing to his weak side than he is.
Because Jimmy does spend hours a week doing yoga. Because he can focus when he wants to, focus hard and tight, and slow the world down to beating heart and aware breath. It's not that he can't do it when he fights, it's that he usually doesn't want to.
But right now, more than ever, he wants to take the time to do this right. So he's focused, more focused on a fight than he ever has been, and he channeling the patience he needs to do this right, to see where to hop in, and use Ziva's precision to hit exactly what he's aiming for.
And he sees it about two minutes in. Gibb's is balanced on his left leg. He saw Ziva do a version of this, kicking at his head and taking his ankle out from under him. He doesn't have Ziva's speed, can't do it in one move. But he thinks he can pull this off in two fast moves. The punch toward Gibbs' head is a feint, pushing him a little further back, forcing more weight on that back leg, over balancing him just a bit further, and from that punch he immediate drops into the sweeping kick that takes that leg out from under Gibbs, and a second after that he's up and standing and Gibbs is on his back on the ring, looking up at him, and, there's an awfully pleased smile on his face.
Jimmy feels the smile on his face as well.
Which means it's time for part two of this, have a "chat" with Ed.
Getting into a fist fight with your father-in-law is probably a ridiculously stupid idea. On the list of top ten stupid ideas, it's probably on par with going up against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
And Jimmy isn't immune to iocane powder.
On the other hand, there's no shot Ed will respect him less for it. Unless he loses. But he just beat Gibbs. Just figured out how to own his defense. So he can't imagine Ed winning unless he was secretly a ninja back in the day. (For example, he's pretty certain he could take Ducky, but not enough to bet on it. He saw what Ducky did to those three Ninja wannabes. Ed, however, is a rather different story.)
So, as he gives Gibbs a hand up, sees the pride in his eyes, the go on, get him, in his look, he's ready for this. He faces Ed, makes sure he's looking at him. Then he checks with Gibbs. "You good?"
"Fine."
"Good." He headed to the ropes, leaning, forearms against them. He's hot, heart beating fast and hard, bright pink, dripping sweat, bit tired, and high as a kite on endorphins right now. For a few heartbeats he just stands there, staring at Ed. Then he runs his hands through his hair, mostly just moving it around a little, cooling off a bit, then wiped his face.
"Well, Ed, it's been an hour. I'm tired, so that'd even the odds some. You're all loose and warmed up." He sighed, stared down at Ed for a few more heartbeats, shook his head a little at how ridiculous this is. "You've wanted to take a shot at me since Breena brought me home the first time." He spread his arms wide, palms up, his hands are taped, so he can't exactly use his fingers to gesture, come on up, but he's getting the point across. "I'll even give you the first shot free." And then he smiled, cold, brilliant, challenging.
It's the smile of a man who just realized he can kill you with his bare hands if he feels like it. And he might decide he feels like it.
Tony said to Tim and Ziva, very quietly. "He's fucking terrifying when he wants to be."
"Indeed." Ziva said.
Tim nodded. He doesn't want to be on the other end of that smile. Ever. And if Ed's got more than three brain cells to rub together, he's about to shit his pants. (Gibbs standing behind Jimmy, arms crossed, grinning, insanely proud, is probably also not a comfort for Ed.)
The smile fell, and all they can see is cool contempt on Jimmy's face. "Well?"
Ed slowly shook his head. "Nope."
Jimmy nodded. "Good." He slipped between the ropes and headed down. Ed backed away from him, but in less than two steps found Tony and Tim immediately behind him, cutting off any chance of escape he might have. "Long time ago, I told you you didn't have to respect me, and you don't. No one gets respect by demanding it. Me telling you to do it won't make it happen." Jimmy smiled again, and hell, it's not aimed at him, but Tim's feeling a distinct desire to get the fuck away from that smile. "But you should respect me. I treat your daughter like a queen, my queen, and your grandchildren have been and will be adored every single day of their lives."
Ed nods, looking very nervous. He's got no idea what Jimmy'll do next. For that matter neither does Tony or Tim, but they're on high alert to back any play he comes up with.
"Like, I said, I can't make you respect me. But just like I fake it and am always polite to you, and you are always given a proper welcome in my home, from now on you will treat me with basic politeness. No more snide remarks. No more inviting me to a meal and then only serving food that will make me sick. We clear?"
Ed nodded again. "Yes."
Jimmy smiled one more time. "Great. Time to hit the showers."
Abby got a text about half an hour after that. It's from Tim. Everyone's fine. Jimmy stood up to Ed. Didn't have to hit him to do it. Details and celebratory dinner is at Ducky and Penny's as soon as we can get there.
She was at Jimmy and Breena's, heard the chirp of Breena's phone, probably showing a very similar message from Jimmy, and sent back a quick. Be there soon.
Two hours later, when food had been consumed, and celebratory beverages drunk, and the whole crew was in a very mellow, possibly even silly mood, when Jimmy said, "We should have a crest."
"A crest?" Tony's giving him the you are such a geek stare. But Tim's nodding, and Gibbs isn't horrified by the idea, but not sold on it either. Ducky warmed to it immediately, and ramped up into a full on history of heraldry.
Eight minutes later, after the cursory Crests For Dummies lecture by Dr. Mallard, Jimmy's sitting back, nodding along.
"A crest, or a tartan, or something. We don't have a name in common. But, something that says, Clan Gibbs would be good."
Abby's listening to this, not saying anything, but she's definitely paying attention.
Christmas is coming (well, in five months), and a symbolic gesture of family... Oh yes, she's listening, paying attention, and thinking.
They'd been home for a bit over an hour when Abby sat next to Tim, holding out a piece of paper to him.
It's a sketch, colored in with Sharpies, but he can see what she's thinking with this.
It's a shield, which makes sense, crests are done of a shield. It's broken into quarters by a solid gold line. Top right quarter is sable on argent. Top of that quarter says Palmer. In the center is the black cross of mortuary services, the black caduceus, (also of the mortuary service) outlined in white over top of the cross. Top left quarter is argent on sable. Across the top of that quarter is McGee. It's a computer sitting next to a microscope. Bottom right quarter, sable on azure, DiNozzo across the bottom of that quarter, below a knife leaning against a badge. Bottom left quarter Vert over Gules. At the bottom it read Langston-Mallard, and it's an open book, one page covered in equations the other page with a story.
And in the center, where the golden lines crossed was a partially unfurled scroll, silver over argent. At its top was Gibbs, then below that Rules, and below that 1. Never… it's small enough you can't read anything beyond the never.
Tim looked over Abby's shoulder, at her finished crest, and said, "So, I guess I know what everyone is getting for Christmas."
She smiled up at him. "You like it?"
"Oh yeah."
A/N: Sorry that one took a while. Next chapter's pretty long too, might take a while. (Though that one has a good breaking point, so might be two shorter ones and up faster.)
Argent=white sable=black azure=blue vert=green gules=red. And though Abby knows the names of the colors, she liked the look/modern symbology that goes with them better than the old.
Next
December 4, 2013
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 263
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 263: Dinner at the DiNozzos'
Apparently there are some problems money can solve. And looking at an email with a schedule for interviewing all nineteen of the potential nannies over the next four days reminded Tim very clearly why he was happy to write a check that big to Anderson’s. (And reminded him that he needs to be spending as much non-interview time writing over the next week as he can.)
Tuesday to Friday, they’ve got interviews. A ton of interviews.
Possibly sending a note saying, ‘We’re free all week, fit as many as you can in,’ wasn’t the best idea ever. He was thinking they’d see, maybe, five.
But nope, all nineteen. In four days.
Wow!
Okay, time to write up some questions.
Sometimes people just fit.
It would have been nice to say that had been the case with any of the perspective nannies. Just like with their resumes, they’re lovely, talented, devoted people. But none of them felt like, ‘Yes, this is the exact right person I want in my home taking care of my child.’
As Tony put it when they were talking about it at Shabbos, “No Pah!”
Abby shook her head, “Not even a…” She made a soft p sound.
“There’s nothing wrong with any of them. They’re all charming, driven, focused, professionals. They’d all probably do a great job. But none of them click.”
Mmmmm...“What happens next?” Jethro asks, holding Kelly on his lap while eating a bite of the cold cucumber-dill soup Ziva had made for supper. Shabbos supper is sushi (Which is apparently Kosher. That was a surprise to Gibbs, but fish is parve, and as long as it had fins back when it was swimming, it’s okay to eat. So sure, no octopus, squid, or clam, but tuna, sea bass, and salmon are fine.) and the soup. So, fancy enough to be a celebration dinner, but no heat needed to make any of it. He never thought he’d go for cold soup, but with as hot as it’s been lately, this is awfully nice.
“Call ten of them back, and pick them out basically by tossing darts at the board,” Tim answers.
“What do you want out of a nanny?” Jimmy asks.
“Same thing you would, Palmer, thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six, right, McGee?” Tony says with a smirk as he’s returning to the table with more sushi. Tim whacks him in the hip, glaring.
Tony laughed.
“The problem isn’t what we want,” Abby says. “Looks like they’ll all provide excellent care. It’s some way to tell that one of them will do a better job than one of the other ones.”
“Yeah, besides having a knee-jerk aversion to tweed—“
“What, Timothy, is wrong with tweed?” Ducky says, looking amused.
“Nothing, on you or Jimmy, during winter or fall, but on a fifty-year-old woman with a proper British accent, in the middle of summer, it just makes me feel like I’m about to be taken to the Principal’s office and reprimanded.”
Abby chuckles. “Okay, yeah, that one was funny. The whole time we’re doing the interview he’s staring at her like a deer in the headlights, looking like he wants to run away. He didn’t ask a single question, and just about sprinted to go get it when she asked for a glass of water.”
Penny’s smiling at him, nodding. “Sister Mary Bernadette.”
“Yeah,” Tim says, shaking his head.
“Is there a story behind that name?” Jimmy asks.
“Oh yeah.”
“Is this your agitated nuns story?” Ziva asks.
Tim stares at her for a second, and then he remembered the Doyle case with the image of the bleeding nun statue buried in the video.
“Nope, agitated nuns were from California. This was Annapolis. Second time we lived there?”
“Third. You were born there, too.” Penny nods.
“Right, second time I remember living there. Anyway, I was eight. Public schools were okay, but the gifted program was too easy, so I’m at Saint Mary’s Elementary. She was in charge of our class, and was very, very strict, very British, and very fond of year round tweed. Huge woman, at least, it felt like she was ten-feet-tall and six hundred pounds, with a perpetual glare on her face. One of those women who had every ounce of joy surgically removed from her personality.”
“She taught third grade for thirty years. That’ll suck the joy out of most people,” Penny adds.
“Anyway, cardinal rule of the class, thou shalt make no noise, at all, ever. You didn’t want to even breathe loud in her class. And I had a friend in the desk next to mine, Michael, and he really thought it was absolutely hysterical to get me in trouble. So, she’d be writing things on the board, droning away about whatever, and he’d start flashing goofy faces at me. I’d be staring at the back of her neck, trying not to see it, but you can’t not see the guy with the two pencils up his nose sticking his tongue out at you. So, invariably, I’d look over, and start to laugh, and within a second I’d hear the crack of her pointer slamming down on my desk, she had this way of doing it so that it’d land less than a hair away from your fingers, but she never actually hit them. And then six hundred pounds of ten-foot-tall Nun was looming over me, saying,” Tim tried a British accent to go with his impression of Mary Bernadette, but killed it, and not in a good way, “’Mr. McGee, do you need to leave class?’ or ‘Mr. McGee, do I need to tell your father that you couldn’t behave?’” He shuddered for effect.
“And as a result you’re scarred for life?” Brenna asks, joking.
“As a result, I apparently find large women with British accents and head to toe tweed disconcerting. Ms… Corday? River Corday?” Abby nods. “Anyway, she looks like a great nanny. She’s practically Mary Poppins. The only thing going against her is the fact that I’ve had issues with tweed-wearing authority figures in the past. But that’s the thing, they’re all great. The best we’ve been able to do in weeding them out is one needs a live-in position, and one likes tweed.”
Jimmy stares at them for a moment. “Talk about your first world problems.”
“Oh, yes, we know. We really know,” Tim says.
“Yeah, ‘Oh no, we’ve got tons of really ultra-qualified people who want to take care of our baby. Boo hoo!’” Abby adds with a hefty dollop of sarcasm.
“But, the fact that it’s a stupid problem doesn’t make it any less real. So, next few weeks, Abby’ll see ten of them longer, see how they do with Kelly, and we’ll both hope—“
“Pray.”
“That one of them will finally click.”
A bit later, Tim asked Tony, “So, how was the first week as Team Leader?”
Gibbs grinned, Ziva rolled her eyes, and Tony groaned.
“So much paperwork!”
Gibbs smirked. “Haven’t had this much free time since ’97. Managed to get to bed before midnight every night this week. Cut two cups a coffee a day because of that.”
“Jerry,” the man who runs the coffee stand outside of the Navy Yard, “wanted to know if you were sick or something. Tells me he’s got a new Harley he’s paying off, and you’re not doing your part,” Tony says, making the other’s laugh. Then he switches topics, a bit. “You’re back on Monday, right?” Tony asks Tim.
“Yep.”
“Good.”
Tim sees the gleam in Tony’s eyes and says, “Oh no. No. No. I am not your paperwork boy anymore. No. I’ve got more than enough on my own plate right now. SecNav wants my next report. He outranks you by a mile. I’ve got tests to write. Just finished the latest Deep Six rough draft, so now I’ve got to go back and beat it into shape for my editor. I’m not doing your crap, too. You wanted Team Leader, enjoy it.”
“Come on…”
“No.”
Tony’s aiming puppy eyes at Ziva. She shakes her head. “McGee’s better at your signature.”
“McGee’s better at my signature than I am.”
“Probably because a good two-thirds of them come from me. It’s not hard. There were only two things I knew cold by the end of my first week on Gibbs’ team, Tony’s signature and don’t mess with Jethro’s coffee.”
That got a laugh.
“You want me to train Draga on it?” Tim asks. Just because he doesn’t want to do the paperwork doesn’t mean he wants the team’s ability to do the work bogging down in unfiled reports.
“Already tried. I dropped a pile of paper on Flyboy’s desk, he looked at it for a second, flipped through the pages, and then said, “I’m really pleased with your confidence in me, but until I’ve got the title of Team Leader, I’m not doing the Team Leader paperwork.”
“Give it to me on Monday. I’m not filling it out, but I’ll explain to Draga some of the glorious joys of being the tech guy, let alone the probie tech guy.” And, it’s possible the smile of Tim’s face may have indicated a certain level of mean pleasure at the idea of foisting that job off to someone new.
“Aren’t you the senior agent, now?” Abby asks Gibbs.
Gibbs shrugs. None of them are claiming the spot right now. He’s got the years, but is leaving in January. Tim’s senior to Ziva, but also leaving at some time in the not wildly distant future. Ziva’s the one who’s really going to get the job, but she doesn’t seem to mind being in limbo until the three of them get fully settled.
“Isn’t the paperwork your job?”
Gibbs just shook his head. “Tony only thought I was tossing it all on him.”
“You mean me. You don’t think he did your paperwork, did you?” Tim added. “Took an extra three weeks, but I can do your signature, too. Ziva’s the only one who does all her own paperwork.”
“If I knew you would fill out any page that hit your desk…” Ziva says with a smile.
“Don’t even think about it. I don’t have your signature down, and I’m not feeling any compelling reason to learn it.”
“So, besides a massive paperwork backlog, how’s it going?” Penny asks.
Tony smiles a little. “Better. Draga still doesn’t love me, but he’s a lot clearer about where the lines are now. That Jethro will take orders from me makes a lot of difference. Basically, since he’s not second guessing me, and he’s been around longer than dirt. No offense.” Gibbs shoots him the you’re being a smartass look, but doesn’t whack him upside the head. “Anyway, if Gibbs, with his vast experience, thinks I know what I’m doing, that’s good enough for Draga.”
“He is asking more, why do we do it like this questions and fewer do you know what you’re doing questions,” Ziva says.
“How’s he doing on tech?” Tim asks.
“Fine.” Tony answers. “Not as fast as you are, but he’s doing the job. He’s better in the field, but he’s handling tech.”
“That mean I’m riding the desk tomorrow?”
“Maybe. Let’s see what comes up. I want him handling all the basic tech and working with you for the advanced stuff until you leave. Field time isn’t going to vanish anytime soon. You are. So we’re going to make the most of it.”
Dinner was breaking up when Gibbs asked Breena, “What time is church tomorrow?”
“You’re really going to come?” She also looks amazed by this.
“Sure.” They’re in Tony and Ziva’s bedroom, she’s getting Molly, and he just wanted a shot to talk to her alone.
“It’s at eleven.”
“I offered to invite Ed to Bootcamp. Jimmy said he didn’t want that.”
Her eyebrows shot up.
“He ever changes his mind about that, are you okay with it?”
“Uh… Inviting him to Bootcamp to do what?” Breena looks very concerned by this development, because she’s awfully sure this isn’t a friendly offer to workout.
“Learn firsthand that Jimmy deserves his respect.”
“Jethro?”
“Beat that fact into him if need be.”
She looks disturbed by that, but doesn’t immediately say no. “Tell me how you think this’ll work.”
“Your father and your husband are the two most important men in your life. In your kids’ lives while they’re little, too. It’s not good for you to be caught in the middle. And it’s not good for them to see him disrespect their father. I was sure, after Jon died, that he’d ease up on Jimmy, see that he was a good man, a good husband, and a good father. But it sounds like he still doesn’t get it. If he doesn’t respect that, maybe he’ll respect force.”
“He respects money, Jethro. He’s worried that Jimmy doesn’t make enough to support our family.”
Gibbs thinks about that for a moment. He’s never asked and doesn’t actually want to know, but… Okay, you don’t get fabulously rich on a government salary, but you also pretty much can’t be fired, the benefits are gold plated, and your family gets taken care of after you die. Whenever Ducky retires, Jimmy’ll be going up about five pay grades. (The jump between Assistant ME and ME is huge at the Navy Yard branch because ME also comes with Director of Autopsy.) He knows Breena is making money, too, so…
“Won’t be able to support you, or won’t be able to buy you diamonds and vacations in Switzerland?”
She smiles wryly. “Is there a difference?”
Gibbs gets it, and it shows on his face.
She nods. “Yeah. Add in Jimmy not wanting to work for Slater’s, which I completely support, and approve of… but… In my family that’s almost divorce insurance. Guys don’t leave when their whole life is wrapped up in the family. We’re like the funeral home mafia, once you’re in, you’re in, and there’s nogetting out. But Jimmy’s not in, not the way my uncles are, not the way my cousins’ husbands are, and that worries my dad. But, mostly, I think it’s money. And I don’t know if you and Jimmy punching him into a pulp will help with that.”
Gibbs smiled a little and inclined his head, indicating that he understood what she was saying. “Might make Jimmy feel better.”
That got a smile out of Breena, too. Then a sigh. “They’re both adults. If they need to fight it out, fine. I think it’s stupid, but if it happens, yeah, I’ll be okay with it. I’m not going to cry on Jimmy if he coldcocks my dad. There have certainly been times I’ve wanted to do it for things he’s said to Jimmy, too. And if my dad cries on me, I’ll remind him that getting into fights with guys who are thirty years younger and use fighting as a way to work out is a really bad idea. And I might then suggest to him that a certain level of politeness is due to the guy who knocked him flat.”
“Okay. Just wanted to make sure it wouldn’t cause trouble with you and Jimmy.”
“No. He’s my dad, and I love him, and I know he wants the best for me, but his idea of the best and mine didn’t exactly match. I want kindness, love, and joy. He wants wealth and security.”
Gibbs nods. Then he kissed Breena and Molly’s foreheads. “Thanks. Won’t let anyone get really hurt if it comes down to it.”
“Good.”
Chapter 263: Dinner at the DiNozzos'
Apparently there are some problems money can solve. And looking at an email with a schedule for interviewing all nineteen of the potential nannies over the next four days reminded Tim very clearly why he was happy to write a check that big to Anderson’s. (And reminded him that he needs to be spending as much non-interview time writing over the next week as he can.)
Tuesday to Friday, they’ve got interviews. A ton of interviews.
Possibly sending a note saying, ‘We’re free all week, fit as many as you can in,’ wasn’t the best idea ever. He was thinking they’d see, maybe, five.
But nope, all nineteen. In four days.
Wow!
Okay, time to write up some questions.
Sometimes people just fit.
It would have been nice to say that had been the case with any of the perspective nannies. Just like with their resumes, they’re lovely, talented, devoted people. But none of them felt like, ‘Yes, this is the exact right person I want in my home taking care of my child.’
As Tony put it when they were talking about it at Shabbos, “No Pah!”
Abby shook her head, “Not even a…” She made a soft p sound.
“There’s nothing wrong with any of them. They’re all charming, driven, focused, professionals. They’d all probably do a great job. But none of them click.”
Mmmmm...“What happens next?” Jethro asks, holding Kelly on his lap while eating a bite of the cold cucumber-dill soup Ziva had made for supper. Shabbos supper is sushi (Which is apparently Kosher. That was a surprise to Gibbs, but fish is parve, and as long as it had fins back when it was swimming, it’s okay to eat. So sure, no octopus, squid, or clam, but tuna, sea bass, and salmon are fine.) and the soup. So, fancy enough to be a celebration dinner, but no heat needed to make any of it. He never thought he’d go for cold soup, but with as hot as it’s been lately, this is awfully nice.“Call ten of them back, and pick them out basically by tossing darts at the board,” Tim answers.
“What do you want out of a nanny?” Jimmy asks.
“Same thing you would, Palmer, thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six, right, McGee?” Tony says with a smirk as he’s returning to the table with more sushi. Tim whacks him in the hip, glaring.
Tony laughed.
“The problem isn’t what we want,” Abby says. “Looks like they’ll all provide excellent care. It’s some way to tell that one of them will do a better job than one of the other ones.”
“Yeah, besides having a knee-jerk aversion to tweed—“
“What, Timothy, is wrong with tweed?” Ducky says, looking amused.
“Nothing, on you or Jimmy, during winter or fall, but on a fifty-year-old woman with a proper British accent, in the middle of summer, it just makes me feel like I’m about to be taken to the Principal’s office and reprimanded.”
Abby chuckles. “Okay, yeah, that one was funny. The whole time we’re doing the interview he’s staring at her like a deer in the headlights, looking like he wants to run away. He didn’t ask a single question, and just about sprinted to go get it when she asked for a glass of water.”
Penny’s smiling at him, nodding. “Sister Mary Bernadette.”
“Yeah,” Tim says, shaking his head.
“Is there a story behind that name?” Jimmy asks.
“Oh yeah.”
“Is this your agitated nuns story?” Ziva asks.
Tim stares at her for a second, and then he remembered the Doyle case with the image of the bleeding nun statue buried in the video.
“Nope, agitated nuns were from California. This was Annapolis. Second time we lived there?”
“Third. You were born there, too.” Penny nods.
“Right, second time I remember living there. Anyway, I was eight. Public schools were okay, but the gifted program was too easy, so I’m at Saint Mary’s Elementary. She was in charge of our class, and was very, very strict, very British, and very fond of year round tweed. Huge woman, at least, it felt like she was ten-feet-tall and six hundred pounds, with a perpetual glare on her face. One of those women who had every ounce of joy surgically removed from her personality.”
“She taught third grade for thirty years. That’ll suck the joy out of most people,” Penny adds.
“Anyway, cardinal rule of the class, thou shalt make no noise, at all, ever. You didn’t want to even breathe loud in her class. And I had a friend in the desk next to mine, Michael, and he really thought it was absolutely hysterical to get me in trouble. So, she’d be writing things on the board, droning away about whatever, and he’d start flashing goofy faces at me. I’d be staring at the back of her neck, trying not to see it, but you can’t not see the guy with the two pencils up his nose sticking his tongue out at you. So, invariably, I’d look over, and start to laugh, and within a second I’d hear the crack of her pointer slamming down on my desk, she had this way of doing it so that it’d land less than a hair away from your fingers, but she never actually hit them. And then six hundred pounds of ten-foot-tall Nun was looming over me, saying,” Tim tried a British accent to go with his impression of Mary Bernadette, but killed it, and not in a good way, “’Mr. McGee, do you need to leave class?’ or ‘Mr. McGee, do I need to tell your father that you couldn’t behave?’” He shuddered for effect.
“And as a result you’re scarred for life?” Brenna asks, joking.
“As a result, I apparently find large women with British accents and head to toe tweed disconcerting. Ms… Corday? River Corday?” Abby nods. “Anyway, she looks like a great nanny. She’s practically Mary Poppins. The only thing going against her is the fact that I’ve had issues with tweed-wearing authority figures in the past. But that’s the thing, they’re all great. The best we’ve been able to do in weeding them out is one needs a live-in position, and one likes tweed.”
Jimmy stares at them for a moment. “Talk about your first world problems.”
“Oh, yes, we know. We really know,” Tim says.
“Yeah, ‘Oh no, we’ve got tons of really ultra-qualified people who want to take care of our baby. Boo hoo!’” Abby adds with a hefty dollop of sarcasm.
“But, the fact that it’s a stupid problem doesn’t make it any less real. So, next few weeks, Abby’ll see ten of them longer, see how they do with Kelly, and we’ll both hope—“
“Pray.”
“That one of them will finally click.”
A bit later, Tim asked Tony, “So, how was the first week as Team Leader?”
Gibbs grinned, Ziva rolled her eyes, and Tony groaned.
“So much paperwork!”
Gibbs smirked. “Haven’t had this much free time since ’97. Managed to get to bed before midnight every night this week. Cut two cups a coffee a day because of that.”
“Jerry,” the man who runs the coffee stand outside of the Navy Yard, “wanted to know if you were sick or something. Tells me he’s got a new Harley he’s paying off, and you’re not doing your part,” Tony says, making the other’s laugh. Then he switches topics, a bit. “You’re back on Monday, right?” Tony asks Tim.
“Yep.”
“Good.”
Tim sees the gleam in Tony’s eyes and says, “Oh no. No. No. I am not your paperwork boy anymore. No. I’ve got more than enough on my own plate right now. SecNav wants my next report. He outranks you by a mile. I’ve got tests to write. Just finished the latest Deep Six rough draft, so now I’ve got to go back and beat it into shape for my editor. I’m not doing your crap, too. You wanted Team Leader, enjoy it.”
“Come on…”
“No.”
Tony’s aiming puppy eyes at Ziva. She shakes her head. “McGee’s better at your signature.”
“McGee’s better at my signature than I am.”
“Probably because a good two-thirds of them come from me. It’s not hard. There were only two things I knew cold by the end of my first week on Gibbs’ team, Tony’s signature and don’t mess with Jethro’s coffee.”
That got a laugh.
“You want me to train Draga on it?” Tim asks. Just because he doesn’t want to do the paperwork doesn’t mean he wants the team’s ability to do the work bogging down in unfiled reports.
“Already tried. I dropped a pile of paper on Flyboy’s desk, he looked at it for a second, flipped through the pages, and then said, “I’m really pleased with your confidence in me, but until I’ve got the title of Team Leader, I’m not doing the Team Leader paperwork.”
“Give it to me on Monday. I’m not filling it out, but I’ll explain to Draga some of the glorious joys of being the tech guy, let alone the probie tech guy.” And, it’s possible the smile of Tim’s face may have indicated a certain level of mean pleasure at the idea of foisting that job off to someone new.
“Aren’t you the senior agent, now?” Abby asks Gibbs.
Gibbs shrugs. None of them are claiming the spot right now. He’s got the years, but is leaving in January. Tim’s senior to Ziva, but also leaving at some time in the not wildly distant future. Ziva’s the one who’s really going to get the job, but she doesn’t seem to mind being in limbo until the three of them get fully settled.
“Isn’t the paperwork your job?”
Gibbs just shook his head. “Tony only thought I was tossing it all on him.”
“You mean me. You don’t think he did your paperwork, did you?” Tim added. “Took an extra three weeks, but I can do your signature, too. Ziva’s the only one who does all her own paperwork.”
“If I knew you would fill out any page that hit your desk…” Ziva says with a smile.
“Don’t even think about it. I don’t have your signature down, and I’m not feeling any compelling reason to learn it.”
“So, besides a massive paperwork backlog, how’s it going?” Penny asks.
Tony smiles a little. “Better. Draga still doesn’t love me, but he’s a lot clearer about where the lines are now. That Jethro will take orders from me makes a lot of difference. Basically, since he’s not second guessing me, and he’s been around longer than dirt. No offense.” Gibbs shoots him the you’re being a smartass look, but doesn’t whack him upside the head. “Anyway, if Gibbs, with his vast experience, thinks I know what I’m doing, that’s good enough for Draga.”
“He is asking more, why do we do it like this questions and fewer do you know what you’re doing questions,” Ziva says.
“How’s he doing on tech?” Tim asks.
“Fine.” Tony answers. “Not as fast as you are, but he’s doing the job. He’s better in the field, but he’s handling tech.”
“That mean I’m riding the desk tomorrow?”
“Maybe. Let’s see what comes up. I want him handling all the basic tech and working with you for the advanced stuff until you leave. Field time isn’t going to vanish anytime soon. You are. So we’re going to make the most of it.”
Dinner was breaking up when Gibbs asked Breena, “What time is church tomorrow?”
“You’re really going to come?” She also looks amazed by this.
“Sure.” They’re in Tony and Ziva’s bedroom, she’s getting Molly, and he just wanted a shot to talk to her alone.
“It’s at eleven.”
“I offered to invite Ed to Bootcamp. Jimmy said he didn’t want that.”
Her eyebrows shot up.
“He ever changes his mind about that, are you okay with it?”
“Uh… Inviting him to Bootcamp to do what?” Breena looks very concerned by this development, because she’s awfully sure this isn’t a friendly offer to workout.
“Learn firsthand that Jimmy deserves his respect.”
“Jethro?”
“Beat that fact into him if need be.”
She looks disturbed by that, but doesn’t immediately say no. “Tell me how you think this’ll work.”
“Your father and your husband are the two most important men in your life. In your kids’ lives while they’re little, too. It’s not good for you to be caught in the middle. And it’s not good for them to see him disrespect their father. I was sure, after Jon died, that he’d ease up on Jimmy, see that he was a good man, a good husband, and a good father. But it sounds like he still doesn’t get it. If he doesn’t respect that, maybe he’ll respect force.”
“He respects money, Jethro. He’s worried that Jimmy doesn’t make enough to support our family.”
Gibbs thinks about that for a moment. He’s never asked and doesn’t actually want to know, but… Okay, you don’t get fabulously rich on a government salary, but you also pretty much can’t be fired, the benefits are gold plated, and your family gets taken care of after you die. Whenever Ducky retires, Jimmy’ll be going up about five pay grades. (The jump between Assistant ME and ME is huge at the Navy Yard branch because ME also comes with Director of Autopsy.) He knows Breena is making money, too, so…
“Won’t be able to support you, or won’t be able to buy you diamonds and vacations in Switzerland?”
She smiles wryly. “Is there a difference?”
Gibbs gets it, and it shows on his face.
She nods. “Yeah. Add in Jimmy not wanting to work for Slater’s, which I completely support, and approve of… but… In my family that’s almost divorce insurance. Guys don’t leave when their whole life is wrapped up in the family. We’re like the funeral home mafia, once you’re in, you’re in, and there’s nogetting out. But Jimmy’s not in, not the way my uncles are, not the way my cousins’ husbands are, and that worries my dad. But, mostly, I think it’s money. And I don’t know if you and Jimmy punching him into a pulp will help with that.”
Gibbs smiled a little and inclined his head, indicating that he understood what she was saying. “Might make Jimmy feel better.”
That got a smile out of Breena, too. Then a sigh. “They’re both adults. If they need to fight it out, fine. I think it’s stupid, but if it happens, yeah, I’ll be okay with it. I’m not going to cry on Jimmy if he coldcocks my dad. There have certainly been times I’ve wanted to do it for things he’s said to Jimmy, too. And if my dad cries on me, I’ll remind him that getting into fights with guys who are thirty years younger and use fighting as a way to work out is a really bad idea. And I might then suggest to him that a certain level of politeness is due to the guy who knocked him flat.”
“Okay. Just wanted to make sure it wouldn’t cause trouble with you and Jimmy.”
“No. He’s my dad, and I love him, and I know he wants the best for me, but his idea of the best and mine didn’t exactly match. I want kindness, love, and joy. He wants wealth and security.”
Gibbs nods. Then he kissed Breena and Molly’s foreheads. “Thanks. Won’t let anyone get really hurt if it comes down to it.”
“Good.”
December 3, 2013
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 262: The Slaters
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 262: The Slaters
On Saturday night, as they were getting ready for bed, Abby asked Tim, “How serious are you about Jimmy and Breena’s church?”
It’d been almost a week since they saw Father John last, and Tim had informed Abby of Ducky’s idea of what was going on, so they’d settled on skipping church for the next few weeks, see if that’d up the pressure and make John fold on the Godparents issue.
“Making sure that wasn’t just ‘I don’t want to fold’ talking?” he asks, putting toothpaste on his brush.
“Yeah.” She reaches for her toothbrush.
“I’m serious.” He hands her her toothpaste.
“I talked to Breena today. Service is at eleven tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“Sunday dinner is at Ed and Jeannie’s after.”
That got a startled look out of Tim, he put his own toothbrush down. They’ve had hundreds of half-garbled conversations that come from talking while brushing their teeth, but he wants this to be clear. “So… we go to church and we’re… joining the extended family?”
She smiles at him. “That’s what you said, right? A place where our family gathers? We’re already part of the extended Slater family. But yeah, that’s the tradition. Church, then supper at the Slaters’, according to Breena there’s football or baseball on the television after, they’re Redskins and Nationals fans, but Jimmy usually runs to Bootcamp before that. Breena and both of her sisters, and their guys, and Ed’s brother Tom, and his family, and Jeannie’s brother and sister, and, yeah, the whole clan’ll be there.”
“How many Slaters attend that church?” Tim asked after picking his toothbrush back up.
“I don’t know. A whole lot of them.” Spit, rinse, brush some more. “Breena says they’ve been part of that congregation for a very long time, like since her great-grandparents got married, and it’s also part of their business model.”
“Guess that makes sense,” he says, and grabs the mouthwash. After all, if you run a funeral home, it’s probably a good idea to have deep ties to the local community. And it probably doesn’t hurt if you’re close to a Pastor or two, who may, should the need arise, suggest someone to take care of the dearly departed to the grieving family.
It occurs to Tim as he heads in, that with the exception of a few weddings, funerals, and Molly’s christening, he’s never actually been to a Protestant church service.
Sure, he’s heard people call Episcopalians Catholic-lites but, at least at this church, it looks a lot different.
First and foremost, the Pastor is a woman. That’s an awfully unsubtle hint that he’s not in a Catholic church. The décor is quite a bit more restrained than St. Sebastians, but St. Sebastian’s was old and in a well-off parish. They’d been around long enough to have the Stations of the Cross carved in ivory on the walls. There’s nothing even remotely like that here. (Of course, from the ten minutes of googling he did this morning, Tim got the sense this was the sort of place that would find having ivory anything, even if they were antique objects of art specially made by one of the parishioners back in the 1850s, horrendously embarrassing.) No Confessionals that he can see, and he makes a mental note to ask Jimmy about that.
They’re waiting in the entry of St. Mary’s when the Pastor heads over to welcome them. And just like at St. Sebastian’s she’s warm, pleasant, (spends a minute cooing over Kelly) lets them know all are welcome. She asks about their religious background, and Abby says they’re Catholic. The Pastor, Emma Brons, (Mother Emma? Obviously Father Emma isn’t going to work.) smiles, lets them know that a lot of the service will look familiar, and the biggest practical difference is that everyone is welcome and encouraged to take Communion.
Abby’s smiling and nodding, making polite conversation, asking questions. Tim’s mostly standing there and holding Kelly.
Finally Jimmy and Breena find them, but Molly’s not with them.
“Oh, good, you’ve found everything,” Jimmy says to him while Breena joins the ladies’ conversation. “Do you want to take Kelly to the nursery?”
“Nursery?” Tim asks. There was an idea that hadn’t occurred to him.
“They’ve got a nursery for babies under three. It runs the whole length of the service,” Jimmy answers, gesturing behind him.
“Oh.” Tim looks a little doubtful about that, but if Jimmy and Breena are comfortable with Molly being there… “Lead the way.”
They’re halfway down a long hall off to the side of the entry, one filled with what looks like brightly decorated classrooms.
“So, you guys don’t do the nursery at St. Sebastians?” Jimmy asks.
“Don’t have one. Kids come for the full Mass.”
“Oh.” Jimmy winces at that. The idea of a church service filled with small, loud, squirmy people, let alone having to be the guy making the small, loud, squirmy person behave isn’t anything he’d relish. “Not here. Little guys stay in the nursery. Older kids attend the service for the first ten minutes, then they have the children’s sermon, and then they go off to nursery school.”
“Hmmm… That’s different.”
“Keeps them from going bonkers.”
“I can imagine.” Tim had personally spent what felt like ninety million hours of being a very small, very young, very squirmy person trying to listen to some old fart drone on and on and on while his Dad glared daggers at him for not ‘behaving.’
“Okay, here we are.” Jimmy opened the door to a brightly lit room and the sound of twenty babies and toddlers rolled over Tim. There were six women in there, taking care of the kids, and right that second he was immensely glad to not have their job.
Molly, who was playing with some blocks, saw them, and ran over. “Uncle Tim!”
He knelt down and kissed her forehead. “Hey, Molly.”
“Kelly?” She’s not really talking in sentences, yet. She’s got most of her sounds, (Though th is a problem. Gibbs is Uncle Jetro.) and tends to talk in one or two word questions/statements.
“Yes. Kelly’s going to stay with you today. You going to show her the ropes?”
Molly didn’t appear to know what that meant, because she was looking around for ropes. (She understands, at least on a literal level, way more than she can express.) He kissed her head again. “Not real ropes. We’re going to go to church with your parents, and then come to dinner at…” He looks to Jimmy, “What are Ed and Jeannie?”
“Poppie and Gramma.”
“And then we’re going to dinner at Gramma and Poppie’s house.”
Molly nodded, looking very pleased by this development. Then she scuttled off, found who Tim is assuming is her favorite of the nursery ladies, dragged her to them, and said to her, very seriously, “Uncle Tim, Kelly.” “Hi, I’m Melissa James. First time at St. Mary’s?”
“Yes.”
“Well, your little girl is going to be just fine with us. All of our caregivers are certified in CPR, and if you want to take a moment and fill out this form...” She led him over to one of the tiny tables and grabbed some paperwork en route. “We can get your Kelly settled in.”
“Okay, thanks.” He handed Kelly over, little nervous, but if Jimmy and Breena trust these people with Molly, they know what they’re doing, and got down to filling out the paperwork.
A minute later, Melissa was handing him small sticker with a number on it. “Kelly has the matching number. Don’t lose it, because that’s how we know which parents go with which babies.”
“How do you make sure it stays on the baby?”
“Put it on the diaper. That way, even if it falls off, it stays in her clothing.”
“Makes sense.”
“Did you come with your wife?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll get you another number.”
“Thanks.”
The service was… a service. More than familiar enough. Bits and pieces (like the kids all leaving after the children’s service) were different, but not so much he couldn’t zone out.
Being stuck in what was one of four pews filled with Slaters was different.
Church attendance was a sticking point with his dad, so every single week until he got out of his house, Tim went to Mass. But, at no point in time was there ever any sort of gathering of the McGees. He’s sure there are vast hordes of McGees somewhere. His dad was one of four. His grandparents and great grandparents came from even bigger families. Probably, back in Boston, where they came from before his branch headed off to Annapolis and made a life for themselves centered on the Navy, there are whole Catholic Churches filled with McGees.
But he’s never been part of one of them.
Meanwhile, being stuck in a sea of Slaters, being introduced to all of them (For the second or third time. He met, at least for a second, most of them at Jimmy and Breena’s wedding and Molly’s christening, and probably most of them at Jon’s funeral, but he wasn’t paying enough attention to notice anyone he didn’t already know, then.) and watching them spend half an hour after the service catching up, because, apparently not all of them were going to dinner after, felt really strange.
There are more people here in these four pews than were at his entire wedding.
They joke about the Gibbs clan. But this mass of Slaters really is a clan. And to some degree it is a bit intimidating. This if family in that massive sticky wodge of intertwined relationships and history that goes back before everyone standing in this church was born.
Tim suddenly gets exactly how much tradition Jimmy and Breena bucked by having them as Molly’s godparents. And knowing that, he’s feeling very, very sure that returning the favor matters, a lot.
Jeannie Slater's handmade cannoliJeannie and Ed’s place was the land of carbs. The whole house is filled with beautiful food, and none of it looks edible for Jimmy. Tim chooses to usually avoid carbs, he feels a bit better and has an easier time managing his weight when he avoids them. But, it’s a choice. And surrounded by piles of luscious food, he may decide to reverse that choice for an afternoon, and work extra hard at Bootcamp.
But it’s not a choice for Jimmy, not really. He can but shouldn’t eat them. Especially not in the heaping piles that are covering every horizontal surface in the Slaters’ dining room.
Tim actually pulled Jimmy aside and said, very quietly, “Are they trying to poison you?”
Jimmy rolled his eyes. “They think diabetes is some form of bizarre idiosyncrasy.”
Tim stares at a table laden with lasagnas, beautiful golden brown garlic bread loaves, something that might have been baked manicotti, the green beans were in some sort of casserole with crunchy bits on top, and the salad was generously studded with croutons. On a sidebar there’s a collection of fancy cookies, two different cakes, and cannoli. He can feel his mouth water and stomach rumble at all of that lovely food, but he’s feeling really bad for Jimmy.
“Thank God, you don’t have Celiac.”
Jimmy sighed at that. “They think I should just up my insulin and deal, and Ed’ll make a few cracks about me not eating enough to keep a bird alive.”
“What do you do?”
“Salad, veg, some weeks they’ll have a turkey or roast beef, too, and I’ll eat that.”
“Too?”
“Yeah, this is the smaller version of the spread. At least once a month, Ed’s other brother and the rest of Jeannie’s family shows up. There’s at least seventy people here that week.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
By the end of the meal, Tim knew a whole lot more about the funeral industry than he ever expected to. Apparently, most of the “family owned” funeral homes were, once upon a time, family run businesses that had been bought out by large chains that kept the local names. Competition was, to put it mildly, deadly fierce. And the Slaters were one of only two multi-location family businesses still standing in the greater DC area.
From what he could gather, the reason they were still around was that they basically ran their own chain. Ed and his brothers each had at least one location under their control. They expanded with their children, waiting until one was old enough, focused enough, to run their own branch, and then bought/built a new location. Breena, as the oldest of Ed’s kids, was expected to take over her father’s primary shop. He also ran one smaller funeral home (one of his Uncle’s original shops) that would go to Amy or Mindy, depending on which one looked up for it soonest. The other would have a shop built for her when she was ready for it.
So, basically, Ed’s shop was the training ground for his kids. Add in experienced hands to make sure they learned the trade properly, recognition value from the name, and a huge pool of collected capital for expansion when the next generation was ready, and they were a very stable business.
And, as much as he thinks Ed is a massive jerk, Tim is pretty impressed with the level of organized providing-for he’s done for his girls. (Though he’s curious as to what would happen if one of them didn’t want to be a funeral director. After all, his dad had that level of planning done for his career, too. He filed that away for something to talk to Breena about when they aren’t at her parents’ home.)
The crew (including Abby and Breena) was settling down for baseball when Jimmy said, “Time for us to be heading off.”
Tim checked the clock. It’s an hour earlier than he’d have left for Bootcamp, but he also wouldn’t have needed to grab lunch before getting there.
“Oh, yeah, that thing where his boss tries to beat some spine into you, right?” Ed says.
Jimmy grits his teeth and pretends Ed didn’t actually say that. “Yeah, Ed.”
“I like Gibbs. Man’s got character, grit. You guys should invite him for next Sunday.”
Tim tries to imagine Gibbs in this crowd. He figures Gibbs would be out of here in less than ten minutes. “He’s usually busy early Sunday, but we’ll pass it along.”
“Busy?” One of the assorted Uncles, (Will? Wes? Tim has no idea what his name is.) asked.
“We’re on call one weekend a month, and the other three he spends working on his boat,” Tim replies.
“I told you about that, Dad,” Breena adds.
“Right, he’s the guy who uses his own house as the bottle he builds boats in.” That got the rest of the crew interested in the Amazing Gibbs who says nothing, builds boats in his basement, and beats Jimmy to a pulp (to hear Ed tell it) on a weekly basis. Jimmy and Tim use that as an excuse to slip away.
“And now I understand why you’re always so happy to pound the crud out of me on Sundays.”
Jimmy flashed him a quick, and not particularly happy, smile, as he puts his key in the ignition. They’re taking Jimmy’s car to Bootcamp. Abby and Breena are going to carpool home in Abby’s car.
“How do you do that every week?”
“Valium.” He says it deadpan enough that Tim’s honestly not sure if he’s kidding. Jimmy sees the confusion and shakes his head. “No, not really. I love Breena. She loves them. So, I’ve at least got to tolerate them. I mean, I knew I was getting into this when I married her. Honestly, I spent a good six months really thinking about it before I proposed, because she made it clear she was a package deal. If I wanted her, I was getting all of them, too. And, it’s worth it… but…” Jimmy lets out a long sigh. “Yeah, Bootcamp. I love Bootcamp. Before Bootcamp, I’d get home and run for at least two hours.”
“And I can see why.”
“Believe it or not, they’re actually being nice to me. Rod, Mindy’s last boyfriend, didn’t pass muster, and, God, that was horrendously uncomfortable.”
“What’s horrendously uncomfortable?” Tim’s curious about that, because if Jimmy’s the pet son-in-law, the idea of what must happen to guys they don’t like is terrifying.
“Okay, Ed doesn’t love me, but the rest of them treat me okay. I think they’re under the impression that a properly functioning father-in-law is supposed to be constantly putting the Fear of Dad into you, making sure that you know, every single second of every day that you are not worthy of his daughter and the entire reason for your existence is to continually strive to be worthy of her. This happens until some sort of magic switch flips and suddenly you’re deemed worthy of helping his daughter take over the family business. And since I turned that down, my guess is I never get to be treated like a real human by him. But all the rest of the guys can treat you like a human.”
“All right.” Tim silently thanks Gibbs for not being that flavor of bastard.
“So, Rod shows up for church, and first of all he’s in shorts and a t-shirt.” And yes, Breena had indicated that dressy casual was the way to go here, and a suit wouldn’t be considered out of line. So, Tim donned his usual church suit. “And all of them ganged up on him. And, look, Rod wasn’t my idea of a good boyfriend, either. He didn’t show Mindy enough respect. And I’ve got no problem smacking a guy who calls out to my wife, ‘Hun, grab me a beer,’ when he’s standing ten feet from the refrigerator, and she’s on the other side of the room and has to walk past him to get it. So, I’ll admit, I joined in on it. But that poor guy was like a side of beef in a tank of irritable, hungry, snarky piranhas, who earned points with each other by who could take the biggest bite out of him.”
“I’m deeply glad not to be a perspective in-law.”
“Yeah. So far we’re the first ones to bring friends to this, but they seem to be treating you pretty well.”
“Compared to my dad, Ed’s a piker—“
“So’s Charles Manson.”
Tim smiles, appreciating that. “Not saying you’re wrong, but I had a point there.”
“Okay.”
“Just saying, between my Dad and Tony, and hell Kate, or Ziva… Well, no one at Ed’s is going to superglue me to a large, stationary object. Two snide comments about my wrist cuff and goatee… Tony used to give me more crap than that in the chunk of time between fetching the first of the morning coffee and finishing it. Everyone treated Abby well, and behaved like Kelly was the second-most darling baby girl on earth.” Molly and Kelly are the only babies in the Slater clan right now. Though Molly does have several older cousins who start at age five and range up to fifteen. “So, yeah, that was more than I ever needed to know about funeral homes, but not really a problem.”
“Okay, I guess it did go well.”
Tim chuckled sarcastically. “Easy to have a nice family gathering when your standards are as low as mine… So, since they sort of approve of you, you only have to deal with Ed being a jerk and Jeannie trying to kill you?”
“Yeah. Though in her defense, I honestly think she doesn’t get it. ‘Cause, sure I can have an extra dose of carbs or sugar from time to time, but I feel pretty nasty after, so it’s got to be amazingly good food to make it worth it.”
“Like those ribs at Tony’s bachelor party.”
“Oh my God, yes, like those ribs! That was worth it. Hell, driving to North Carolina, shooting up insulin, night without Breena, and the sugar crash after was worth it. And one of these days, when we actually manage to have no pregnant wives between us, we’re taking the girls and introducing them to those ribs.”
Tim’s nodding. He’s on board with that idea. “Good plan.”
“Oh yeah. Anyway, Jeannie’s a great cook, and I actually do love Italian food, which I basically can’t eat anymore, but I will, on a rare occasion, when we don’t have Bootcamp after, snag a cannoli, because those are just amazing. She makes the whole thing, including the shells, from scratch.”
Tim made a quiet mmmm sound. He’d had two (promising himself to work extra hard at Bootcamp), and they were little wads of creamy, chocolate-y, crispy heaven.
“So, she’s more under the impression that I’m being an ultra-sensitive pain in the ass by not eating her food. And Ed, who will go to the wall to defend his girls, which includes Jeannie, will pick on me for it, because he considers it an insult to her.”
“Great.”
“Yeah.”
“So, what are we getting you for lunch?”
“You’re back!” Ziva said, pleased smile on her face when she saw Tim walk in with Jimmy.
“And looking awfully fancy,” Gibbs added. “You just visiting?”
Usual workout outfit.Tim usually shows up dressed to work out: t-shirt, sweats, and sneakers. (Jimmy usually shows up dressed for church.) He’d worn a suit to church, and sure, the tie and jacket are back in Abby’s car (It’s July, and hot, so all the guys got rid of the jackets and ties about two minutes after getting out of the St. Mary’s), but that means, like Jimmy, he’s in a button down, dress slacks, and dress shoes.
“Went to church with Jimmy and Breena. They don’t take kindly to showing up in your workout clothing.” Jimmy just nods at them. Showing up and taking a few minutes to change is his usual routine, and Tim follows.
Five minutes later, he’s warming up with Gibbs, while Ziva puts Jimmy through his paces, and mentions, “Jimmy and I are supposed to pass along the invite to church and Sunday dinner with the Slaters to you. Apparently, you have ‘grit,’ and Ed likes you.”
Gibbs lets go of the punching bag. (He’d been holding it steady while Tim worked it over.) He’s just watching Tim.
So Tim continues, “And neither of us will be in the least insulted if you develop some sort of massively time intensive hobby that eats up every Sunday for the rest of your life. In fact, Jimmy might encourage you to develop one.”
“Run away, Gibbs, run!” Jimmy says, smiling, ducking under Ziva’s arm, catching her hand in his and nicely spinning her around.
“He’s getting a lot better at that,” Tim says to Gibbs.
“Yes, he is.” Gibbs is smiling. Actually, Tim’s finding that smile a bit unnerving, because he doesn’t know what it means. Gibbs gestures to the punching bags. “Elbow and knee strikes, right side.”
Tim gets to it, mostly paying attention to Gibbs heading over to the boxing ring where Jimmy and Ziva are sparring.
Gibbs leans against the ropes, letting them wind down. Sure, Ziva won, but Jimmy can go a good six minutes with her now, and hold his own. (Well, not get too badly killed.)
“That a serious invite? Or was Ed just blowing smoke?”
Jimmy leans against the ropes, panting. Ziva's watching them gulping down water.
“I think it was serious.”
“You want me there?”
“You’d come?” Jimmy looks stunned by that idea. “It’s church and a gathering of up to seventy people just standing around, talking funerals, and eating. And, Ed’s not exactly your favorite person.”
“Nope. But he’s your kids’ grandfather, your wife’s dad. Like it or not, he’s family. Not like I’ve never been to church before. Used to do it regular when Shannon and Kelly were alive. Used to do Sunday dinner, long time back, with my grandparents.”
“Huh. Sure. Come. Just, might not be fun.”
Gibbs shrugs at that. “You want me to invite him to Bootcamp? Let him see what you can do?”
“God. No! You do that, and I’ll have a day where I trip over my own feet just getting into the ring. This is fun. This is how I blow off the stress of Sunday Dinner. I’d like it to stay that way.”
Gibbs nod, and then a slow smile spread across his face. “You ever want to put him in his place, and if he comes, you will put him in his place, he’s more than invited to join us.”
Chapter 262: The Slaters
On Saturday night, as they were getting ready for bed, Abby asked Tim, “How serious are you about Jimmy and Breena’s church?”
It’d been almost a week since they saw Father John last, and Tim had informed Abby of Ducky’s idea of what was going on, so they’d settled on skipping church for the next few weeks, see if that’d up the pressure and make John fold on the Godparents issue.
“Making sure that wasn’t just ‘I don’t want to fold’ talking?” he asks, putting toothpaste on his brush.
“Yeah.” She reaches for her toothbrush.
“I’m serious.” He hands her her toothpaste.
“I talked to Breena today. Service is at eleven tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“Sunday dinner is at Ed and Jeannie’s after.”
That got a startled look out of Tim, he put his own toothbrush down. They’ve had hundreds of half-garbled conversations that come from talking while brushing their teeth, but he wants this to be clear. “So… we go to church and we’re… joining the extended family?”
She smiles at him. “That’s what you said, right? A place where our family gathers? We’re already part of the extended Slater family. But yeah, that’s the tradition. Church, then supper at the Slaters’, according to Breena there’s football or baseball on the television after, they’re Redskins and Nationals fans, but Jimmy usually runs to Bootcamp before that. Breena and both of her sisters, and their guys, and Ed’s brother Tom, and his family, and Jeannie’s brother and sister, and, yeah, the whole clan’ll be there.”
“How many Slaters attend that church?” Tim asked after picking his toothbrush back up.
“I don’t know. A whole lot of them.” Spit, rinse, brush some more. “Breena says they’ve been part of that congregation for a very long time, like since her great-grandparents got married, and it’s also part of their business model.”
“Guess that makes sense,” he says, and grabs the mouthwash. After all, if you run a funeral home, it’s probably a good idea to have deep ties to the local community. And it probably doesn’t hurt if you’re close to a Pastor or two, who may, should the need arise, suggest someone to take care of the dearly departed to the grieving family.
It occurs to Tim as he heads in, that with the exception of a few weddings, funerals, and Molly’s christening, he’s never actually been to a Protestant church service.
Sure, he’s heard people call Episcopalians Catholic-lites but, at least at this church, it looks a lot different.
First and foremost, the Pastor is a woman. That’s an awfully unsubtle hint that he’s not in a Catholic church. The décor is quite a bit more restrained than St. Sebastians, but St. Sebastian’s was old and in a well-off parish. They’d been around long enough to have the Stations of the Cross carved in ivory on the walls. There’s nothing even remotely like that here. (Of course, from the ten minutes of googling he did this morning, Tim got the sense this was the sort of place that would find having ivory anything, even if they were antique objects of art specially made by one of the parishioners back in the 1850s, horrendously embarrassing.) No Confessionals that he can see, and he makes a mental note to ask Jimmy about that.
They’re waiting in the entry of St. Mary’s when the Pastor heads over to welcome them. And just like at St. Sebastian’s she’s warm, pleasant, (spends a minute cooing over Kelly) lets them know all are welcome. She asks about their religious background, and Abby says they’re Catholic. The Pastor, Emma Brons, (Mother Emma? Obviously Father Emma isn’t going to work.) smiles, lets them know that a lot of the service will look familiar, and the biggest practical difference is that everyone is welcome and encouraged to take Communion.
Abby’s smiling and nodding, making polite conversation, asking questions. Tim’s mostly standing there and holding Kelly.
Finally Jimmy and Breena find them, but Molly’s not with them.
“Oh, good, you’ve found everything,” Jimmy says to him while Breena joins the ladies’ conversation. “Do you want to take Kelly to the nursery?”
“Nursery?” Tim asks. There was an idea that hadn’t occurred to him.
“They’ve got a nursery for babies under three. It runs the whole length of the service,” Jimmy answers, gesturing behind him.
“Oh.” Tim looks a little doubtful about that, but if Jimmy and Breena are comfortable with Molly being there… “Lead the way.”
They’re halfway down a long hall off to the side of the entry, one filled with what looks like brightly decorated classrooms.
“So, you guys don’t do the nursery at St. Sebastians?” Jimmy asks.
“Don’t have one. Kids come for the full Mass.”
“Oh.” Jimmy winces at that. The idea of a church service filled with small, loud, squirmy people, let alone having to be the guy making the small, loud, squirmy person behave isn’t anything he’d relish. “Not here. Little guys stay in the nursery. Older kids attend the service for the first ten minutes, then they have the children’s sermon, and then they go off to nursery school.”
“Hmmm… That’s different.”
“Keeps them from going bonkers.”
“I can imagine.” Tim had personally spent what felt like ninety million hours of being a very small, very young, very squirmy person trying to listen to some old fart drone on and on and on while his Dad glared daggers at him for not ‘behaving.’
“Okay, here we are.” Jimmy opened the door to a brightly lit room and the sound of twenty babies and toddlers rolled over Tim. There were six women in there, taking care of the kids, and right that second he was immensely glad to not have their job.
Molly, who was playing with some blocks, saw them, and ran over. “Uncle Tim!”
He knelt down and kissed her forehead. “Hey, Molly.”
“Kelly?” She’s not really talking in sentences, yet. She’s got most of her sounds, (Though th is a problem. Gibbs is Uncle Jetro.) and tends to talk in one or two word questions/statements.
“Yes. Kelly’s going to stay with you today. You going to show her the ropes?”
Molly didn’t appear to know what that meant, because she was looking around for ropes. (She understands, at least on a literal level, way more than she can express.) He kissed her head again. “Not real ropes. We’re going to go to church with your parents, and then come to dinner at…” He looks to Jimmy, “What are Ed and Jeannie?”
“Poppie and Gramma.”
“And then we’re going to dinner at Gramma and Poppie’s house.”
Molly nodded, looking very pleased by this development. Then she scuttled off, found who Tim is assuming is her favorite of the nursery ladies, dragged her to them, and said to her, very seriously, “Uncle Tim, Kelly.” “Hi, I’m Melissa James. First time at St. Mary’s?”
“Yes.”
“Well, your little girl is going to be just fine with us. All of our caregivers are certified in CPR, and if you want to take a moment and fill out this form...” She led him over to one of the tiny tables and grabbed some paperwork en route. “We can get your Kelly settled in.”
“Okay, thanks.” He handed Kelly over, little nervous, but if Jimmy and Breena trust these people with Molly, they know what they’re doing, and got down to filling out the paperwork.
A minute later, Melissa was handing him small sticker with a number on it. “Kelly has the matching number. Don’t lose it, because that’s how we know which parents go with which babies.”
“How do you make sure it stays on the baby?”
“Put it on the diaper. That way, even if it falls off, it stays in her clothing.”
“Makes sense.”
“Did you come with your wife?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll get you another number.”
“Thanks.”
The service was… a service. More than familiar enough. Bits and pieces (like the kids all leaving after the children’s service) were different, but not so much he couldn’t zone out.
Being stuck in what was one of four pews filled with Slaters was different.
Church attendance was a sticking point with his dad, so every single week until he got out of his house, Tim went to Mass. But, at no point in time was there ever any sort of gathering of the McGees. He’s sure there are vast hordes of McGees somewhere. His dad was one of four. His grandparents and great grandparents came from even bigger families. Probably, back in Boston, where they came from before his branch headed off to Annapolis and made a life for themselves centered on the Navy, there are whole Catholic Churches filled with McGees.
But he’s never been part of one of them.
Meanwhile, being stuck in a sea of Slaters, being introduced to all of them (For the second or third time. He met, at least for a second, most of them at Jimmy and Breena’s wedding and Molly’s christening, and probably most of them at Jon’s funeral, but he wasn’t paying enough attention to notice anyone he didn’t already know, then.) and watching them spend half an hour after the service catching up, because, apparently not all of them were going to dinner after, felt really strange.
There are more people here in these four pews than were at his entire wedding.
They joke about the Gibbs clan. But this mass of Slaters really is a clan. And to some degree it is a bit intimidating. This if family in that massive sticky wodge of intertwined relationships and history that goes back before everyone standing in this church was born.
Tim suddenly gets exactly how much tradition Jimmy and Breena bucked by having them as Molly’s godparents. And knowing that, he’s feeling very, very sure that returning the favor matters, a lot.
Jeannie Slater's handmade cannoliJeannie and Ed’s place was the land of carbs. The whole house is filled with beautiful food, and none of it looks edible for Jimmy. Tim chooses to usually avoid carbs, he feels a bit better and has an easier time managing his weight when he avoids them. But, it’s a choice. And surrounded by piles of luscious food, he may decide to reverse that choice for an afternoon, and work extra hard at Bootcamp.But it’s not a choice for Jimmy, not really. He can but shouldn’t eat them. Especially not in the heaping piles that are covering every horizontal surface in the Slaters’ dining room.
Tim actually pulled Jimmy aside and said, very quietly, “Are they trying to poison you?”
Jimmy rolled his eyes. “They think diabetes is some form of bizarre idiosyncrasy.”
Tim stares at a table laden with lasagnas, beautiful golden brown garlic bread loaves, something that might have been baked manicotti, the green beans were in some sort of casserole with crunchy bits on top, and the salad was generously studded with croutons. On a sidebar there’s a collection of fancy cookies, two different cakes, and cannoli. He can feel his mouth water and stomach rumble at all of that lovely food, but he’s feeling really bad for Jimmy.
“Thank God, you don’t have Celiac.”
Jimmy sighed at that. “They think I should just up my insulin and deal, and Ed’ll make a few cracks about me not eating enough to keep a bird alive.”
“What do you do?”
“Salad, veg, some weeks they’ll have a turkey or roast beef, too, and I’ll eat that.”
“Too?”
“Yeah, this is the smaller version of the spread. At least once a month, Ed’s other brother and the rest of Jeannie’s family shows up. There’s at least seventy people here that week.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
By the end of the meal, Tim knew a whole lot more about the funeral industry than he ever expected to. Apparently, most of the “family owned” funeral homes were, once upon a time, family run businesses that had been bought out by large chains that kept the local names. Competition was, to put it mildly, deadly fierce. And the Slaters were one of only two multi-location family businesses still standing in the greater DC area.
From what he could gather, the reason they were still around was that they basically ran their own chain. Ed and his brothers each had at least one location under their control. They expanded with their children, waiting until one was old enough, focused enough, to run their own branch, and then bought/built a new location. Breena, as the oldest of Ed’s kids, was expected to take over her father’s primary shop. He also ran one smaller funeral home (one of his Uncle’s original shops) that would go to Amy or Mindy, depending on which one looked up for it soonest. The other would have a shop built for her when she was ready for it.
So, basically, Ed’s shop was the training ground for his kids. Add in experienced hands to make sure they learned the trade properly, recognition value from the name, and a huge pool of collected capital for expansion when the next generation was ready, and they were a very stable business.
And, as much as he thinks Ed is a massive jerk, Tim is pretty impressed with the level of organized providing-for he’s done for his girls. (Though he’s curious as to what would happen if one of them didn’t want to be a funeral director. After all, his dad had that level of planning done for his career, too. He filed that away for something to talk to Breena about when they aren’t at her parents’ home.)
The crew (including Abby and Breena) was settling down for baseball when Jimmy said, “Time for us to be heading off.”
Tim checked the clock. It’s an hour earlier than he’d have left for Bootcamp, but he also wouldn’t have needed to grab lunch before getting there.
“Oh, yeah, that thing where his boss tries to beat some spine into you, right?” Ed says.
Jimmy grits his teeth and pretends Ed didn’t actually say that. “Yeah, Ed.”
“I like Gibbs. Man’s got character, grit. You guys should invite him for next Sunday.”
Tim tries to imagine Gibbs in this crowd. He figures Gibbs would be out of here in less than ten minutes. “He’s usually busy early Sunday, but we’ll pass it along.”
“Busy?” One of the assorted Uncles, (Will? Wes? Tim has no idea what his name is.) asked.
“We’re on call one weekend a month, and the other three he spends working on his boat,” Tim replies.
“I told you about that, Dad,” Breena adds.
“Right, he’s the guy who uses his own house as the bottle he builds boats in.” That got the rest of the crew interested in the Amazing Gibbs who says nothing, builds boats in his basement, and beats Jimmy to a pulp (to hear Ed tell it) on a weekly basis. Jimmy and Tim use that as an excuse to slip away.
“And now I understand why you’re always so happy to pound the crud out of me on Sundays.”
Jimmy flashed him a quick, and not particularly happy, smile, as he puts his key in the ignition. They’re taking Jimmy’s car to Bootcamp. Abby and Breena are going to carpool home in Abby’s car.
“How do you do that every week?”
“Valium.” He says it deadpan enough that Tim’s honestly not sure if he’s kidding. Jimmy sees the confusion and shakes his head. “No, not really. I love Breena. She loves them. So, I’ve at least got to tolerate them. I mean, I knew I was getting into this when I married her. Honestly, I spent a good six months really thinking about it before I proposed, because she made it clear she was a package deal. If I wanted her, I was getting all of them, too. And, it’s worth it… but…” Jimmy lets out a long sigh. “Yeah, Bootcamp. I love Bootcamp. Before Bootcamp, I’d get home and run for at least two hours.”
“And I can see why.”
“Believe it or not, they’re actually being nice to me. Rod, Mindy’s last boyfriend, didn’t pass muster, and, God, that was horrendously uncomfortable.”
“What’s horrendously uncomfortable?” Tim’s curious about that, because if Jimmy’s the pet son-in-law, the idea of what must happen to guys they don’t like is terrifying.
“Okay, Ed doesn’t love me, but the rest of them treat me okay. I think they’re under the impression that a properly functioning father-in-law is supposed to be constantly putting the Fear of Dad into you, making sure that you know, every single second of every day that you are not worthy of his daughter and the entire reason for your existence is to continually strive to be worthy of her. This happens until some sort of magic switch flips and suddenly you’re deemed worthy of helping his daughter take over the family business. And since I turned that down, my guess is I never get to be treated like a real human by him. But all the rest of the guys can treat you like a human.”
“All right.” Tim silently thanks Gibbs for not being that flavor of bastard.
“So, Rod shows up for church, and first of all he’s in shorts and a t-shirt.” And yes, Breena had indicated that dressy casual was the way to go here, and a suit wouldn’t be considered out of line. So, Tim donned his usual church suit. “And all of them ganged up on him. And, look, Rod wasn’t my idea of a good boyfriend, either. He didn’t show Mindy enough respect. And I’ve got no problem smacking a guy who calls out to my wife, ‘Hun, grab me a beer,’ when he’s standing ten feet from the refrigerator, and she’s on the other side of the room and has to walk past him to get it. So, I’ll admit, I joined in on it. But that poor guy was like a side of beef in a tank of irritable, hungry, snarky piranhas, who earned points with each other by who could take the biggest bite out of him.”
“I’m deeply glad not to be a perspective in-law.”
“Yeah. So far we’re the first ones to bring friends to this, but they seem to be treating you pretty well.”
“Compared to my dad, Ed’s a piker—“
“So’s Charles Manson.”
Tim smiles, appreciating that. “Not saying you’re wrong, but I had a point there.”
“Okay.”
“Just saying, between my Dad and Tony, and hell Kate, or Ziva… Well, no one at Ed’s is going to superglue me to a large, stationary object. Two snide comments about my wrist cuff and goatee… Tony used to give me more crap than that in the chunk of time between fetching the first of the morning coffee and finishing it. Everyone treated Abby well, and behaved like Kelly was the second-most darling baby girl on earth.” Molly and Kelly are the only babies in the Slater clan right now. Though Molly does have several older cousins who start at age five and range up to fifteen. “So, yeah, that was more than I ever needed to know about funeral homes, but not really a problem.”
“Okay, I guess it did go well.”
Tim chuckled sarcastically. “Easy to have a nice family gathering when your standards are as low as mine… So, since they sort of approve of you, you only have to deal with Ed being a jerk and Jeannie trying to kill you?”
“Yeah. Though in her defense, I honestly think she doesn’t get it. ‘Cause, sure I can have an extra dose of carbs or sugar from time to time, but I feel pretty nasty after, so it’s got to be amazingly good food to make it worth it.”
“Like those ribs at Tony’s bachelor party.”
“Oh my God, yes, like those ribs! That was worth it. Hell, driving to North Carolina, shooting up insulin, night without Breena, and the sugar crash after was worth it. And one of these days, when we actually manage to have no pregnant wives between us, we’re taking the girls and introducing them to those ribs.”
Tim’s nodding. He’s on board with that idea. “Good plan.”
“Oh yeah. Anyway, Jeannie’s a great cook, and I actually do love Italian food, which I basically can’t eat anymore, but I will, on a rare occasion, when we don’t have Bootcamp after, snag a cannoli, because those are just amazing. She makes the whole thing, including the shells, from scratch.”
Tim made a quiet mmmm sound. He’d had two (promising himself to work extra hard at Bootcamp), and they were little wads of creamy, chocolate-y, crispy heaven.
“So, she’s more under the impression that I’m being an ultra-sensitive pain in the ass by not eating her food. And Ed, who will go to the wall to defend his girls, which includes Jeannie, will pick on me for it, because he considers it an insult to her.”
“Great.”
“Yeah.”
“So, what are we getting you for lunch?”
“You’re back!” Ziva said, pleased smile on her face when she saw Tim walk in with Jimmy.
“And looking awfully fancy,” Gibbs added. “You just visiting?”
Usual workout outfit.Tim usually shows up dressed to work out: t-shirt, sweats, and sneakers. (Jimmy usually shows up dressed for church.) He’d worn a suit to church, and sure, the tie and jacket are back in Abby’s car (It’s July, and hot, so all the guys got rid of the jackets and ties about two minutes after getting out of the St. Mary’s), but that means, like Jimmy, he’s in a button down, dress slacks, and dress shoes.“Went to church with Jimmy and Breena. They don’t take kindly to showing up in your workout clothing.” Jimmy just nods at them. Showing up and taking a few minutes to change is his usual routine, and Tim follows.
Five minutes later, he’s warming up with Gibbs, while Ziva puts Jimmy through his paces, and mentions, “Jimmy and I are supposed to pass along the invite to church and Sunday dinner with the Slaters to you. Apparently, you have ‘grit,’ and Ed likes you.”
Gibbs lets go of the punching bag. (He’d been holding it steady while Tim worked it over.) He’s just watching Tim.
So Tim continues, “And neither of us will be in the least insulted if you develop some sort of massively time intensive hobby that eats up every Sunday for the rest of your life. In fact, Jimmy might encourage you to develop one.”
“Run away, Gibbs, run!” Jimmy says, smiling, ducking under Ziva’s arm, catching her hand in his and nicely spinning her around.
“He’s getting a lot better at that,” Tim says to Gibbs.
“Yes, he is.” Gibbs is smiling. Actually, Tim’s finding that smile a bit unnerving, because he doesn’t know what it means. Gibbs gestures to the punching bags. “Elbow and knee strikes, right side.”
Tim gets to it, mostly paying attention to Gibbs heading over to the boxing ring where Jimmy and Ziva are sparring.
Gibbs leans against the ropes, letting them wind down. Sure, Ziva won, but Jimmy can go a good six minutes with her now, and hold his own. (Well, not get too badly killed.)
“That a serious invite? Or was Ed just blowing smoke?”
Jimmy leans against the ropes, panting. Ziva's watching them gulping down water.
“I think it was serious.”
“You want me there?”
“You’d come?” Jimmy looks stunned by that idea. “It’s church and a gathering of up to seventy people just standing around, talking funerals, and eating. And, Ed’s not exactly your favorite person.”
“Nope. But he’s your kids’ grandfather, your wife’s dad. Like it or not, he’s family. Not like I’ve never been to church before. Used to do it regular when Shannon and Kelly were alive. Used to do Sunday dinner, long time back, with my grandparents.”
“Huh. Sure. Come. Just, might not be fun.”
Gibbs shrugs at that. “You want me to invite him to Bootcamp? Let him see what you can do?”
“God. No! You do that, and I’ll have a day where I trip over my own feet just getting into the ring. This is fun. This is how I blow off the stress of Sunday Dinner. I’d like it to stay that way.”
Gibbs nod, and then a slow smile spread across his face. “You ever want to put him in his place, and if he comes, you will put him in his place, he’s more than invited to join us.”
December 2, 2013
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 261
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 261: Nannies
Back in grad school, Tim’s girlfriend was a sociology major, specializing in feminine gender roles among pre-industrial societies.
Between Helen (said girlfriend) and growing up with a hard core, sex positive, second-wave-feminist, pacifist grandmother, he’s still got something of a specialized vocabulary bouncing around his head that he very rarely uses.
One word that springs to mind is ‘liminal.’ The spaces on the edge or inbetween.
Politically he inhabits a liminal space of being simultaneously vastly more conservative than his grandmother/sister (and a few degrees to the right of Abby and Breena) and being wildly more liberal than Gibbs, Tony, or Ducky (and a few degrees to the left of Jimmy).
Mostly it’s not the sort of thing that he really thinks much about. It’s just something he’s aware of, and occasionally takes some gentle ribbing about when election time rolls around. (From both sides, on one day in November of ’12 he managed to get called a McBleeding-Heart by Tony and The Tin Man (no heart) by Sarah. They didn’t much mean anything by it, beyond the fact that he wasn’t voting for the same guy they were, but still…)
But right now he can feel years of liberal race/class/gender consciousness training creeping up and demanding he pay attention to it.
And the reason he can feel it, sitting there in the back of his mind, is that he and Abby are looking at the list of resumes that Anderson’s Child Care Services sent over. It’s the same agency that Vance used to find his nanny, and all of the women… people… one of them is a guy… appear to be highly trained, very competent, well-educated professionals determined to provide exceptionally good child care.
Great.
But he can’t shake the idea of wealthy, career-oriented, white family hires brown woman from a less well-educated, less-affluent background to take care of the babies.
And it feels weird to even mention the fact that he’s aware of it. That as he’s looking through the resumes he can feel himself checking names, wondering about racial background and thinking about how the woman on the resume in front of him has a Latina name, but a master’s degree in early child development so hiring her isn’t really a paradigm of privilege, right?
And it’s not like they’re planning on paying a sub-minimum wage to a woman who’s here illegally and barely speaks English. These are hard-core professional women… people who have devoted their lives to providing top flight child care.
If this was a stack of resumes for the next member of his team, it wouldn’t be an issue. If these were new hires for Cybercrime, he’d barely be aware of anything about them beyond the facts of the CV.
But it’s not.
They’re nannies. The pinkest of the pink collar jobs, and he and Abby are so damn white they’re practically translucent, and…
“Who do you like?” he asks Abby, figuring the easiest way to deal with this is to just let her pick.
She looks up from her computer. “So many good choices. But, it’d take forever to interview them all.”
“We’ve got nine weeks. That’s time to see twenty applicants. Compared to Vance, as long as we don’t interview the entire agency, we’re doing well.”
Abby smiles at that. “There is that.” He sees her flipping through the documents. “Marissa Allen, she stood out.”
Tim flips through his own to find her, and scans her CV. “What…” Then he sees it. “Drummer for Twisted Puppies from ‘08-‘11.”
“Saw them live a few times.” She grinned at him. “Besides, we want Kelly to have a sense of rhythm.”
He chuckles at that, and adds her name to the call back list. “Okay, that’s one.”
“You know, this might be easier to just weed out the ones we don’t want to see.”
He nods. That’s sensible. But… “None of the resumes we got said, ‘Nope, Not Me!’ to me.”
“Me, either.” Abby starts to type rapidly.
“Abby?”
“Sending Lara a note.”
“Makes sense.” Lara came from the same agency. And while it’s true that she’s been with Vance’s family for more than three years now, she might have more of a sense of who the people they’re looking at are than they can get from just looking at resumes.
Tim kept reading through his stack, while Abby scanned hers. After a few minutes he said, “Okay, found one we can discard.”
“What?”
“Looking for a live in position.”
“Hold up on tossing that one.” He’s giving her the tell me what you’re thinking look. “We both work insane hours. You aren’t settled in Cybercrime, yet. We don’t actually know how much having the other techs in the lab will change my schedule. We’ve got two bedrooms we aren’t using, and a bathroom we almost never use. So, someone here all the time might be a good thing.”
And, sure, that’s logical but… It’s a stranger, in his home, all the time.
His discomfort with that must show on his face because she nods and says, “Okay, no live in help.”
“Thanks.”
Kelly started to cry, letting them know she was awake and would appreciate some tending, so he went up to grab her.
“Good nap?”
She stopped crying when he came in, but didn’t look pleased.
“Yeah, I’m usually not in a great mood right after I wake up, too.” He picks her up, snuggling her close as he takes her over to the changing table, and gets started on changing her diaper. “Well, at least that was true until I started sleeping next to your mama all time. Tend to be in a pretty good mood when I wake up next to her.”
The look Kelly’s giving him is best described as, Dad, I’m sure you find this amusing, but I’m hungry, so speed up on the diaper change and get me to Mom.
He kissed her tummy and said, “Yes, love.”
A minute later, he’s downstairs, handing Kelly to Abby. “I think we’ve really got to see them. See who jells best with us, and with her. It’s not about who’s got the masters from the spiffiest university; it’s who gets Kelly, and to a lesser degree, us, best.”
“Yeah,” she says as she gets Kelly settled on her breast. “So, I guess I know what we’re doing from now until you go back to work?”
“Guess so. I’m back on the twentieth, so that’s ten days of interview time.”
Abby thinks about that. “Five really. Doubt they want to do weekends, and I doubt we’ll be able to get anyone in tomorrow.”
"Good points. I'll go give them a call. See what we can do."
Next
Chapter 261: Nannies
Back in grad school, Tim’s girlfriend was a sociology major, specializing in feminine gender roles among pre-industrial societies.
Between Helen (said girlfriend) and growing up with a hard core, sex positive, second-wave-feminist, pacifist grandmother, he’s still got something of a specialized vocabulary bouncing around his head that he very rarely uses.
One word that springs to mind is ‘liminal.’ The spaces on the edge or inbetween.
Politically he inhabits a liminal space of being simultaneously vastly more conservative than his grandmother/sister (and a few degrees to the right of Abby and Breena) and being wildly more liberal than Gibbs, Tony, or Ducky (and a few degrees to the left of Jimmy).
Mostly it’s not the sort of thing that he really thinks much about. It’s just something he’s aware of, and occasionally takes some gentle ribbing about when election time rolls around. (From both sides, on one day in November of ’12 he managed to get called a McBleeding-Heart by Tony and The Tin Man (no heart) by Sarah. They didn’t much mean anything by it, beyond the fact that he wasn’t voting for the same guy they were, but still…)
But right now he can feel years of liberal race/class/gender consciousness training creeping up and demanding he pay attention to it.
And the reason he can feel it, sitting there in the back of his mind, is that he and Abby are looking at the list of resumes that Anderson’s Child Care Services sent over. It’s the same agency that Vance used to find his nanny, and all of the women… people… one of them is a guy… appear to be highly trained, very competent, well-educated professionals determined to provide exceptionally good child care.
Great.
But he can’t shake the idea of wealthy, career-oriented, white family hires brown woman from a less well-educated, less-affluent background to take care of the babies.
And it feels weird to even mention the fact that he’s aware of it. That as he’s looking through the resumes he can feel himself checking names, wondering about racial background and thinking about how the woman on the resume in front of him has a Latina name, but a master’s degree in early child development so hiring her isn’t really a paradigm of privilege, right?
And it’s not like they’re planning on paying a sub-minimum wage to a woman who’s here illegally and barely speaks English. These are hard-core professional women… people who have devoted their lives to providing top flight child care.
If this was a stack of resumes for the next member of his team, it wouldn’t be an issue. If these were new hires for Cybercrime, he’d barely be aware of anything about them beyond the facts of the CV.
But it’s not.
They’re nannies. The pinkest of the pink collar jobs, and he and Abby are so damn white they’re practically translucent, and…
“Who do you like?” he asks Abby, figuring the easiest way to deal with this is to just let her pick.
She looks up from her computer. “So many good choices. But, it’d take forever to interview them all.”
“We’ve got nine weeks. That’s time to see twenty applicants. Compared to Vance, as long as we don’t interview the entire agency, we’re doing well.”
Abby smiles at that. “There is that.” He sees her flipping through the documents. “Marissa Allen, she stood out.”
Tim flips through his own to find her, and scans her CV. “What…” Then he sees it. “Drummer for Twisted Puppies from ‘08-‘11.”
“Saw them live a few times.” She grinned at him. “Besides, we want Kelly to have a sense of rhythm.”
He chuckles at that, and adds her name to the call back list. “Okay, that’s one.”
“You know, this might be easier to just weed out the ones we don’t want to see.”
He nods. That’s sensible. But… “None of the resumes we got said, ‘Nope, Not Me!’ to me.”
“Me, either.” Abby starts to type rapidly.
“Abby?”
“Sending Lara a note.”
“Makes sense.” Lara came from the same agency. And while it’s true that she’s been with Vance’s family for more than three years now, she might have more of a sense of who the people they’re looking at are than they can get from just looking at resumes.
Tim kept reading through his stack, while Abby scanned hers. After a few minutes he said, “Okay, found one we can discard.”
“What?”
“Looking for a live in position.”
“Hold up on tossing that one.” He’s giving her the tell me what you’re thinking look. “We both work insane hours. You aren’t settled in Cybercrime, yet. We don’t actually know how much having the other techs in the lab will change my schedule. We’ve got two bedrooms we aren’t using, and a bathroom we almost never use. So, someone here all the time might be a good thing.”
And, sure, that’s logical but… It’s a stranger, in his home, all the time.
His discomfort with that must show on his face because she nods and says, “Okay, no live in help.”
“Thanks.”
Kelly started to cry, letting them know she was awake and would appreciate some tending, so he went up to grab her.
“Good nap?”
She stopped crying when he came in, but didn’t look pleased.
“Yeah, I’m usually not in a great mood right after I wake up, too.” He picks her up, snuggling her close as he takes her over to the changing table, and gets started on changing her diaper. “Well, at least that was true until I started sleeping next to your mama all time. Tend to be in a pretty good mood when I wake up next to her.”
The look Kelly’s giving him is best described as, Dad, I’m sure you find this amusing, but I’m hungry, so speed up on the diaper change and get me to Mom.
He kissed her tummy and said, “Yes, love.”
A minute later, he’s downstairs, handing Kelly to Abby. “I think we’ve really got to see them. See who jells best with us, and with her. It’s not about who’s got the masters from the spiffiest university; it’s who gets Kelly, and to a lesser degree, us, best.”
“Yeah,” she says as she gets Kelly settled on her breast. “So, I guess I know what we’re doing from now until you go back to work?”
“Guess so. I’m back on the twentieth, so that’s ten days of interview time.”
Abby thinks about that. “Five really. Doubt they want to do weekends, and I doubt we’ll be able to get anyone in tomorrow.”
"Good points. I'll go give them a call. See what we can do."
Next
November 30, 2013
Shards To A Whole: Chapter 260
McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.
Chapter 260: The Bluff and The Con
“So, who are the Godparents?” Father John asked when they met the next Sunday. Once again they were in his office. This time in the daylight. (Tim was right, it did get good light.) He and Abby were on the too hard sofa, Kelly was in her car seat, snoozing.
“Breena and Jimmy Palmer.”
“Okay, good. Which church are they with? I’ll call their Priest and check up on them.”
“St. Mary’s Episcopal.”
Father John looked up quickly from the piece of paper he was going to write their information on. His expression was disappointed. “That’s not a Catholic Church.”
“They aren’t Catholics,” Tim replied.
“Then they can’t be the Godparents. One or both of them can be a Christian Sponsor, but you need to have an actual Catholic in good standing for a Godparent.”
Tim took a breath; he doesn’t like doing this, especially cold, it’s a lot easier to do something like this pissed off, but, now or never.
“No. It’ll be Jimmy and Breena or it won’t happen at all. They are involved in Kelly’s everyday life. They are good people. They are her guardians if something happens to us. They’re her godparents.”
Father John settled back in his seat, smiled gently at them, and said, “I’d like to do it. I met both of them at your wedding. They seem like lovely people. But I can’t do it. Cannon law states that Godparents have to be Catholics in good standing. They have to be living role models of what a true Catholic life looks like. To be perfectly frank, if one of my parishioners were to come in and ask if you” he was looking at Tim, “could be godparent, I’d have to turn him down. This needs to be someone who can, by example, show how to live a Catholic life. So, no, it’s not enough to be a good person. It’s not enough to be a Christian. You have to be Catholic. You have to be dedicated to it. I know some priests don’t take this duty seriously, but I do. As you saw, when I get a request for someone I don’t know, I call their parish and talk to their priest and make sure they’re up for the job. So, I’m sorry, but it can’t be Jimmy and Breena. What about your sister? I remember giving her communion at your wedding.”
“Anyone else is a moot point. As I said, it’ll be Jimmy and Breena or it won’t happen at all.”
Father John smiled again. “Tim, I understand what you’re trying to do here, but it’s not going to work. I cannot give you what you want. I wish I could, but I can’t. You can find a good Catholic to stand up as a Godparent, and if none of your family will work, I can absolutely guarantee you that Sister Rosita will, and will be happy to take on the job, and Jimmy and Breena can be Christian Sponsors, but that’s as far as I can go on this.”
Tim shakes his head. “Look, if you can’t bend or get a dispensation, that’s fine. You’ll do what you can do. But there’s only so far I can bend on this, too. It’s them or it’s not at all. Godparents should matter. It shouldn’t just be a meaningless title. And if it’s anyone other than Jimmy and Breena, it will be a meaningless title.”
“You’ll put your daughter’s soul in mortal danger—“ Father John is making that appeal to Abby, but Tim pulls his attention back to him.
“No, you will.” Tim stares at Father John, expression cold, but he’s feeling pretty jittery on the inside, really he hates doing this when he’s not feeling pissed. “I don’t believe in souls. That I’m here at all, that I’ll go this far, is out of love for Abby.” He squeezed her hand, as much to take comfort from her touch as to let her know that he hopes this’ll be done soon. “I don’t believe in magic water that washes souls clean, and I certainly don’t believe in a God that cares about the application of said water, let alone a God who would hold anything I do against Kelly. If all of this is real, I highly doubt he’ll blame her for me being an ass, and if He does, He’s not worth my faith. But if you believe this, if you want the chance to do your job and save the soul of a helpless infant, you’ll find a way to make Jimmy and Breena her Godparents.”
John holds his gaze, not looking away, not blinking, and he very calmly says, “Then it won’t happen.”
Tim can feel there’s something… wrong… in the way John says that, but he doesn’t know what. He’s being played, but he’s not sure how. So he says, “Fine.”
He looks at Abby, and they got up, and head out of Father John’s office, and normally, about now, as they’re walking through the church and to the parking lot, is when John should fold but, oh shit, they’re getting in the car and pulling away, and yeah, that didn’t work at all.
“Shit.”
Abby’s looking amused. “So, you’re officially calling that a failed bluff.”
“I’d like to give it a day or two more, but, yeah.”
“If it’s the rule, and he really can’t…”
“I know. There was something hinky in the way he was looking at me, though. Like there’s a part of this that I’m not getting.”
“There might be.”
They drive another mile before Tim says, “Do we have to be Catholic?”
That really surprises Abby. But after a bit, because he does just sit there quietly, letting her think about it, she says, “Is this about not having to fold on that bluff?”
He nods, looking a little embarrassed by that, but he’s not going to try and play her. “Honestly, yeah, some. Maybe a lot. No one loves going in and saying, ‘I was wrong.’ But, it’s not entirely about that. Okay, Jimmy and Breena are our first choice. We love them. They’re going to be involved in Kelly’s life. They’re basically her back up parents. Great. But they aren’t good enough because they aren’t Catholic. Gibbs isn’t good enough, because he’s not Catholic. My sister and Grandmother who at least live in the area and will be involved in her life, they don’t pass muster because they aren’t Catholic enough. We’ve got to pull in your brother--who is a fine man, but will probably spend less than three hours with Kelly in the next five years--before we’ve got someone who qualifies in our family, because he’s a ‘Good Catholic.’ He won’t be there for her. He’s not going to be a major part of her life, he won’t be an example of anything, because he lives a thousand miles away, but he’s okay. And… I just hate this meaningless shit. I hate this it has to look right rather than be right crap.
“And sure, going back and saying, ‘I was just kidding, Luca and Melody Sciuto’ll do it,’ will sting my pride, but when I asked you to back the bluff, I meant that I’d go through with folding if it came to it, and I will, but… Do we have to be Catholic? Maybe we could go somewhere that’s more focused on the Christian part of it and less on the doctrine? I mean, Jimmy and Breena’s Pastor didn’t give us any crap about being Catholic. He knew we’d be there day in and day out, and that’s what mattered. That just makes a lot more sense to me.”
Abby thought about that, too, and Tim let her. He’s not going to rush this. She’s been a member at St. Sebastian’s for fifteen years and actually Catholic her whole life. He knows this matters to her, but which brand of Christian they are doesn’t matter to him. It’s like soda. Since he doesn’t drink it often, he doesn’t care if the stuff in their cupboard is Pepsi or Coke.
Of course, it doesn’t matter to him because that’s how he sees them, as brands. His identity isn’t attached to it in any meaningful way. But hers is… so, if it matters, he’ll go back, and Luca will get the job, but… maybe it doesn’t matter.
It was a day later, (Father John hadn’t called, looks an awful lot like he knows this is a bluff and he’s going to let Tim fold on it) when Abby asked him, as they were eating lunch, “If we weren’t Catholic, what would we be? I mean, how do you see this working?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I know you’re Christian, I know you want to be part of a church, and I know that point isn’t negotiable.”
She nods at him.
“And I know I’ve promised to do this with you. That because it’s important to you, I will do it. So, I’m certainly not thinking about dropping it all together.”
“Good.”
“And I know there are things we don’t like about being Catholic.”
“Also true.”
“Plenty of rules we just skipped.”
She nods.
“And I was in the car, driving home, and it hit me that I don’t know what it means to be Catholic to you. I know what it means to be Catholic to me. It means I’m with you, and you’re Catholic, but… We’re pro-gay marriage. We’ve got condoms in the dresser. We’re not vehemently pro-life. I mean, neither of us would have blinked if Jon’s heart had still been beating and Jimmy and Breena had decided to terminate. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but I’ve killed people, more than ten of them. We started having sex, lived together, and made Kelly all before we got married. Neither of us like the anti-woman stuff. Sister Rosita’s got, what, three master’s degrees in different religious topics and both of us think it’s ridiculous they won’t ordain her. And sure, both of us like Francis, but I can’t imagine you think he’s infallible. So, just… What does it mean to be Catholic, for you?”
Abby didn’t answer that, and he can see she’s thinking.
“So, if it was just up to me, Jimmy and Breena’s church. Our family is there. Some of them at least. If Gibbs had a church, I’d be fine with his church, too. But that’s all this is to me, a place where our family gathers. That’s why I slipped into Shabbos so easily, if you were going to ask me to design a religious service, that’s how I’d do it. At home, with your family—“
“And good food and wine.” She smiles at that.
He nods a little, acknowledging that’s definitely part of the draw. “That doesn’t hurt. You’re never going to have a hard time selling me on celebrations centered on good food. But, I know this is more to you than just a place and family, so, what do you need from this?”
She shrugs. “Still thinking about it.”
“Okay.
Last year's blood drive.They decided to head in for the Blood Drive on Wednesday, which worked out pretty well on several levels. First of all, it gave him a chance to drop off a thumb drive with his report and all of the data on it for Leon. Secondly, giving blood is always good. Third, dropping in to say ‘Hi’ to everyone was good. Fourth, Abby wanted to make sure her lab was still in one piece. And, fifth, it let him bounce an idea off of Ducky.
Abby hasn’t said anything else about the baptism or being Catholic or anything along those lines. But he still can’t shake the feeling that he’s being played and as per Rule 36: if you feel like you’re being played, you probably are, so he wants to check up on this.
But he can’t spot the con. No idea how it’d work. Obviously there’s something in there he can’t see, but he can’t see it. But if anyone could see it, would know how he’s getting played on this, it’d be Ducky.
So, while Blood Services got a hold of Abby, he and Kelly headed down to Autopsy.
Quiet day. No murders on tap, so Autopsy isn’t up to much. Several years ago Jimmy had asked to get up to speed on the sorts of psychological profiles that Ducky does, so on quiet days like today, when the paperwork is done, and the bodies are settled, he snags a textbook or two and starts reading.
Ziva gave, too.But an excuse to quit the books and snuggle a baby girl are certainly something he doesn’t mind.
And Ducky, who had been drinking his tea, listening to a symphony, and working on a report of his own, certainly didn’t mind a diversion.
“Not that we aren’t thrilled to see you, Timothy, but what brings you down?” he asked while setting his cup of tea on his desk.
“Thought Kelly needed to see her Uncles.” Tim smiled, handing Kelly off to Jimmy. “Well, that’s part of it. There’s another part as well...” He explained the situation to Ducky and wrapped up with. “I felt like he was playing me, but I don’t know how. I figured that since you know everything about everything, that if anyone could spot the con, it’d be you.”
Ducky smiled at that. “I appreciate your confidence in me, Timothy, and while it’s true that I can ‘spot the con’ as you put it, I do not actually know everything about everything.”
“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter if you can tell me the secrets of the universe, but I would like to know what he’s got going on.”
Ducky smiled in a manner that seemed to indicate he had more than a few of them on tap, as well. “A formal baptism is not, in fact, required. Catholics, and for that matter, most Christians, believe that any follower of Christ can baptize if necessary. Back in the pre-scientific age, holy water and oil was part of any midwife’s kit. If it looked like the baby wasn’t going to survive until the Priest got there, she was empowered to take care of it.
“My guess is that he’s planning on taking care of the matter behind your back, because from everything I’ve seen, he is a good man, so he is not going to leave your daughter in mortal peril because you are being a stubborn fool.”
Jimmy shook his head. “How crazy has the world gotten when your priest is planning on conning you?”
Tim nodded absently at that. Good point, but not what he’s focused on. “You think I’m being a fool?”
“I think that’s how he would understand it.”
“Ah.” Tim waited a few beats, looking at Ducky, silently suggesting that he’s still waiting for the answer to his question.
Ducky smiles gently at him. “I do not think standing up for the things that matter to you is foolish. I do think placing this much weight on something that, in the long run, likely does not matter, might be. And I do think that if this is causing any friction between you and Abby, then it is definitely foolish.”
“No friction. We’re fine. Just… figuring some things out. Mostly about symbols and how much they matter and… Do you believe in God? I know you and Penny go to church every now and again, but I don’t know if you did before.”
Jimmy’s watching this, interested, somehow in all the hours, all the stories, all the conversations, that’s one they hadn’t gotten to.
“I believe in God. I do not believe in dogma. I believe that for most of humankind religion is a tribal marker. It’s a way we sort ourselves into in groups and out groups. I believe that for much of human existence religion has made a place for itself by providing a useful order to the universe and a system of laws to produce some level of functional society. And I believe that those laws are, for the most part, and with many exceptions, a positive good. The basics of almost all systems of morality come from religious grounds. And I believe that the idea of sacred is important, vital, to a properly functional life. Is that helpful?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Ducky.”
Gibbs took that moment to head into autopsy. He didn’t even have to say anything. Jimmy just handed Kelly over straight away.
Gibbs smiled, kissed the top of her head, and gave her back to Tim. “Not why I’m down here.”
“Jethro?”
“You haven’t released Bufford’s body, yet?”
“No, he’s still enjoying our hospitality.”
“Good. Need to double check something…”
Tim waved goodbye to them and headed up to find Abby.
Next
Chapter 260: The Bluff and The Con
“So, who are the Godparents?” Father John asked when they met the next Sunday. Once again they were in his office. This time in the daylight. (Tim was right, it did get good light.) He and Abby were on the too hard sofa, Kelly was in her car seat, snoozing.
“Breena and Jimmy Palmer.”
“Okay, good. Which church are they with? I’ll call their Priest and check up on them.”
“St. Mary’s Episcopal.”
Father John looked up quickly from the piece of paper he was going to write their information on. His expression was disappointed. “That’s not a Catholic Church.”
“They aren’t Catholics,” Tim replied.
“Then they can’t be the Godparents. One or both of them can be a Christian Sponsor, but you need to have an actual Catholic in good standing for a Godparent.”
Tim took a breath; he doesn’t like doing this, especially cold, it’s a lot easier to do something like this pissed off, but, now or never.
“No. It’ll be Jimmy and Breena or it won’t happen at all. They are involved in Kelly’s everyday life. They are good people. They are her guardians if something happens to us. They’re her godparents.”
Father John settled back in his seat, smiled gently at them, and said, “I’d like to do it. I met both of them at your wedding. They seem like lovely people. But I can’t do it. Cannon law states that Godparents have to be Catholics in good standing. They have to be living role models of what a true Catholic life looks like. To be perfectly frank, if one of my parishioners were to come in and ask if you” he was looking at Tim, “could be godparent, I’d have to turn him down. This needs to be someone who can, by example, show how to live a Catholic life. So, no, it’s not enough to be a good person. It’s not enough to be a Christian. You have to be Catholic. You have to be dedicated to it. I know some priests don’t take this duty seriously, but I do. As you saw, when I get a request for someone I don’t know, I call their parish and talk to their priest and make sure they’re up for the job. So, I’m sorry, but it can’t be Jimmy and Breena. What about your sister? I remember giving her communion at your wedding.”
“Anyone else is a moot point. As I said, it’ll be Jimmy and Breena or it won’t happen at all.”
Father John smiled again. “Tim, I understand what you’re trying to do here, but it’s not going to work. I cannot give you what you want. I wish I could, but I can’t. You can find a good Catholic to stand up as a Godparent, and if none of your family will work, I can absolutely guarantee you that Sister Rosita will, and will be happy to take on the job, and Jimmy and Breena can be Christian Sponsors, but that’s as far as I can go on this.”
Tim shakes his head. “Look, if you can’t bend or get a dispensation, that’s fine. You’ll do what you can do. But there’s only so far I can bend on this, too. It’s them or it’s not at all. Godparents should matter. It shouldn’t just be a meaningless title. And if it’s anyone other than Jimmy and Breena, it will be a meaningless title.”
“You’ll put your daughter’s soul in mortal danger—“ Father John is making that appeal to Abby, but Tim pulls his attention back to him.
“No, you will.” Tim stares at Father John, expression cold, but he’s feeling pretty jittery on the inside, really he hates doing this when he’s not feeling pissed. “I don’t believe in souls. That I’m here at all, that I’ll go this far, is out of love for Abby.” He squeezed her hand, as much to take comfort from her touch as to let her know that he hopes this’ll be done soon. “I don’t believe in magic water that washes souls clean, and I certainly don’t believe in a God that cares about the application of said water, let alone a God who would hold anything I do against Kelly. If all of this is real, I highly doubt he’ll blame her for me being an ass, and if He does, He’s not worth my faith. But if you believe this, if you want the chance to do your job and save the soul of a helpless infant, you’ll find a way to make Jimmy and Breena her Godparents.”
John holds his gaze, not looking away, not blinking, and he very calmly says, “Then it won’t happen.”
Tim can feel there’s something… wrong… in the way John says that, but he doesn’t know what. He’s being played, but he’s not sure how. So he says, “Fine.”
He looks at Abby, and they got up, and head out of Father John’s office, and normally, about now, as they’re walking through the church and to the parking lot, is when John should fold but, oh shit, they’re getting in the car and pulling away, and yeah, that didn’t work at all.
“Shit.”
Abby’s looking amused. “So, you’re officially calling that a failed bluff.”
“I’d like to give it a day or two more, but, yeah.”
“If it’s the rule, and he really can’t…”
“I know. There was something hinky in the way he was looking at me, though. Like there’s a part of this that I’m not getting.”
“There might be.”
They drive another mile before Tim says, “Do we have to be Catholic?”
That really surprises Abby. But after a bit, because he does just sit there quietly, letting her think about it, she says, “Is this about not having to fold on that bluff?”
He nods, looking a little embarrassed by that, but he’s not going to try and play her. “Honestly, yeah, some. Maybe a lot. No one loves going in and saying, ‘I was wrong.’ But, it’s not entirely about that. Okay, Jimmy and Breena are our first choice. We love them. They’re going to be involved in Kelly’s life. They’re basically her back up parents. Great. But they aren’t good enough because they aren’t Catholic. Gibbs isn’t good enough, because he’s not Catholic. My sister and Grandmother who at least live in the area and will be involved in her life, they don’t pass muster because they aren’t Catholic enough. We’ve got to pull in your brother--who is a fine man, but will probably spend less than three hours with Kelly in the next five years--before we’ve got someone who qualifies in our family, because he’s a ‘Good Catholic.’ He won’t be there for her. He’s not going to be a major part of her life, he won’t be an example of anything, because he lives a thousand miles away, but he’s okay. And… I just hate this meaningless shit. I hate this it has to look right rather than be right crap.
“And sure, going back and saying, ‘I was just kidding, Luca and Melody Sciuto’ll do it,’ will sting my pride, but when I asked you to back the bluff, I meant that I’d go through with folding if it came to it, and I will, but… Do we have to be Catholic? Maybe we could go somewhere that’s more focused on the Christian part of it and less on the doctrine? I mean, Jimmy and Breena’s Pastor didn’t give us any crap about being Catholic. He knew we’d be there day in and day out, and that’s what mattered. That just makes a lot more sense to me.”
Abby thought about that, too, and Tim let her. He’s not going to rush this. She’s been a member at St. Sebastian’s for fifteen years and actually Catholic her whole life. He knows this matters to her, but which brand of Christian they are doesn’t matter to him. It’s like soda. Since he doesn’t drink it often, he doesn’t care if the stuff in their cupboard is Pepsi or Coke.
Of course, it doesn’t matter to him because that’s how he sees them, as brands. His identity isn’t attached to it in any meaningful way. But hers is… so, if it matters, he’ll go back, and Luca will get the job, but… maybe it doesn’t matter.
It was a day later, (Father John hadn’t called, looks an awful lot like he knows this is a bluff and he’s going to let Tim fold on it) when Abby asked him, as they were eating lunch, “If we weren’t Catholic, what would we be? I mean, how do you see this working?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I know you’re Christian, I know you want to be part of a church, and I know that point isn’t negotiable.”
She nods at him.
“And I know I’ve promised to do this with you. That because it’s important to you, I will do it. So, I’m certainly not thinking about dropping it all together.”
“Good.”
“And I know there are things we don’t like about being Catholic.”
“Also true.”
“Plenty of rules we just skipped.”
She nods.
“And I was in the car, driving home, and it hit me that I don’t know what it means to be Catholic to you. I know what it means to be Catholic to me. It means I’m with you, and you’re Catholic, but… We’re pro-gay marriage. We’ve got condoms in the dresser. We’re not vehemently pro-life. I mean, neither of us would have blinked if Jon’s heart had still been beating and Jimmy and Breena had decided to terminate. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but I’ve killed people, more than ten of them. We started having sex, lived together, and made Kelly all before we got married. Neither of us like the anti-woman stuff. Sister Rosita’s got, what, three master’s degrees in different religious topics and both of us think it’s ridiculous they won’t ordain her. And sure, both of us like Francis, but I can’t imagine you think he’s infallible. So, just… What does it mean to be Catholic, for you?”
Abby didn’t answer that, and he can see she’s thinking.
“So, if it was just up to me, Jimmy and Breena’s church. Our family is there. Some of them at least. If Gibbs had a church, I’d be fine with his church, too. But that’s all this is to me, a place where our family gathers. That’s why I slipped into Shabbos so easily, if you were going to ask me to design a religious service, that’s how I’d do it. At home, with your family—“
“And good food and wine.” She smiles at that.
He nods a little, acknowledging that’s definitely part of the draw. “That doesn’t hurt. You’re never going to have a hard time selling me on celebrations centered on good food. But, I know this is more to you than just a place and family, so, what do you need from this?”
She shrugs. “Still thinking about it.”
“Okay.
Last year's blood drive.They decided to head in for the Blood Drive on Wednesday, which worked out pretty well on several levels. First of all, it gave him a chance to drop off a thumb drive with his report and all of the data on it for Leon. Secondly, giving blood is always good. Third, dropping in to say ‘Hi’ to everyone was good. Fourth, Abby wanted to make sure her lab was still in one piece. And, fifth, it let him bounce an idea off of Ducky.Abby hasn’t said anything else about the baptism or being Catholic or anything along those lines. But he still can’t shake the feeling that he’s being played and as per Rule 36: if you feel like you’re being played, you probably are, so he wants to check up on this.
But he can’t spot the con. No idea how it’d work. Obviously there’s something in there he can’t see, but he can’t see it. But if anyone could see it, would know how he’s getting played on this, it’d be Ducky.
So, while Blood Services got a hold of Abby, he and Kelly headed down to Autopsy.
Quiet day. No murders on tap, so Autopsy isn’t up to much. Several years ago Jimmy had asked to get up to speed on the sorts of psychological profiles that Ducky does, so on quiet days like today, when the paperwork is done, and the bodies are settled, he snags a textbook or two and starts reading.
Ziva gave, too.But an excuse to quit the books and snuggle a baby girl are certainly something he doesn’t mind.And Ducky, who had been drinking his tea, listening to a symphony, and working on a report of his own, certainly didn’t mind a diversion.
“Not that we aren’t thrilled to see you, Timothy, but what brings you down?” he asked while setting his cup of tea on his desk.
“Thought Kelly needed to see her Uncles.” Tim smiled, handing Kelly off to Jimmy. “Well, that’s part of it. There’s another part as well...” He explained the situation to Ducky and wrapped up with. “I felt like he was playing me, but I don’t know how. I figured that since you know everything about everything, that if anyone could spot the con, it’d be you.”
Ducky smiled at that. “I appreciate your confidence in me, Timothy, and while it’s true that I can ‘spot the con’ as you put it, I do not actually know everything about everything.”
“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter if you can tell me the secrets of the universe, but I would like to know what he’s got going on.”
Ducky smiled in a manner that seemed to indicate he had more than a few of them on tap, as well. “A formal baptism is not, in fact, required. Catholics, and for that matter, most Christians, believe that any follower of Christ can baptize if necessary. Back in the pre-scientific age, holy water and oil was part of any midwife’s kit. If it looked like the baby wasn’t going to survive until the Priest got there, she was empowered to take care of it.
“My guess is that he’s planning on taking care of the matter behind your back, because from everything I’ve seen, he is a good man, so he is not going to leave your daughter in mortal peril because you are being a stubborn fool.”
Jimmy shook his head. “How crazy has the world gotten when your priest is planning on conning you?”
Tim nodded absently at that. Good point, but not what he’s focused on. “You think I’m being a fool?”
“I think that’s how he would understand it.”
“Ah.” Tim waited a few beats, looking at Ducky, silently suggesting that he’s still waiting for the answer to his question.
Ducky smiles gently at him. “I do not think standing up for the things that matter to you is foolish. I do think placing this much weight on something that, in the long run, likely does not matter, might be. And I do think that if this is causing any friction between you and Abby, then it is definitely foolish.”
“No friction. We’re fine. Just… figuring some things out. Mostly about symbols and how much they matter and… Do you believe in God? I know you and Penny go to church every now and again, but I don’t know if you did before.”
Jimmy’s watching this, interested, somehow in all the hours, all the stories, all the conversations, that’s one they hadn’t gotten to.
“I believe in God. I do not believe in dogma. I believe that for most of humankind religion is a tribal marker. It’s a way we sort ourselves into in groups and out groups. I believe that for much of human existence religion has made a place for itself by providing a useful order to the universe and a system of laws to produce some level of functional society. And I believe that those laws are, for the most part, and with many exceptions, a positive good. The basics of almost all systems of morality come from religious grounds. And I believe that the idea of sacred is important, vital, to a properly functional life. Is that helpful?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Ducky.”
Gibbs took that moment to head into autopsy. He didn’t even have to say anything. Jimmy just handed Kelly over straight away.
Gibbs smiled, kissed the top of her head, and gave her back to Tim. “Not why I’m down here.”
“Jethro?”
“You haven’t released Bufford’s body, yet?”
“No, he’s still enjoying our hospitality.”
“Good. Need to double check something…”
Tim waved goodbye to them and headed up to find Abby.
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