Keryl Raist's Blog, page 5

Shards To A Whole: Used

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 378: Used

Hour to bed later than usual, hour earlier getting up, and a busy mind in between… Jimmy's had better nights.

Once he's up and moving he fires off a text to Ziva. You on your jog?

A minute later he gets back: yes.

Whole thing was a hoax. There is kid, but he was born in '10, he's not sick. Jeanne died last week, and Helen went a bit crazy.

Nothing comes back on his phone but he can imagine what Ziva's doing.

He gives her another few seconds, but nothing comes up. I haven't told Tony, yet. Want to talk to him, in person, alone. Is that okay?

Why?

Got some things to say to him about this. He's not going to like them. You might not, either.

Things about Jeanne?

No. Anything I know about her, I'll tell you, too. Things about him and me. You want to be there for this, that's fine, just be easier the two of us.

Jimmy?

What do you remember about Michelle Lee?

His cell stays blank for a moment, and then it rings. "Hi."

"Hi, Ziva."

"I remember Lee. I was the only one she didn't try to convince she did the right thing."

"Not the only one." After all, what could she have said to him? I actually liked you. That would have been nice. I'm sorry. Yeah, that would have gone a long way, too.

"I'm sorry. I… knew, but…"

"Didn't put it together?"

"Yes."

"Because I'm a guy? And as long as I got laid, I was getting what I wanted, so what's the problem? Guys don't get used, they don't feel bad about it after, not if they get sex, right?"

Ziva's honest enough, with both herself and the people around her to not dissemble. "That's part of it, yes. Mostly though, because you ended it, before it blew up."

"Yeah. I did. Still bit me in the ass, though. Still got hauled in for questioning, for treason. Lucky Gibbs was running the investigation and he believed me. Still… had to deal with… all of it."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well… Anyway, got some things to say to Tony. About using people. About sexually using someone. They aren't complimentary. He's unlikely to enjoy them. If you wanted to get yourself some breakfast, say for two hours or so, it's my treat."

He can feel her nodding. "It really is a hoax?"

"Yeah. It is. Jeanne was in a car accident last week. She died. Helen... I don't know how she came up with it, but making Tony hurt seemed like a good idea to her. I've already talked to Helen, she's not going to pull anything again."

Jimmy stops for a second there. "Ziva, I'm sorry this screws you, too. I really am. I'm sorry you're in the middle of this. I'm sorry this isn't just done, and we can't just all relax and kick back and let it go. I'm sorry, for you, to you, that I can't just let it go. I want to. I'm a lot happier not thinking about this. But, right now, I can't get this out of my head, because I was where Jeanne was. So, I've got to go yell at him. And I know I'm going to hurt him, and I know that's going to hurt you, and I'm really sorry about that, because I don't want to be hurting you, but I don't know how I can stop hating him without it hitting you, too."

She doesn't say anything to that, and he wishes he could see her face, get a hint of what she's thinking. Finally she says, "You've already spoken to Helen?"

"Yes."

"How long have you known?"

"Since around six last night. I got into Aiden, the boy's, medical records around then. Couldn't find him on the bone marrow registry, so I went into the Federal Medical Database. Then I looked Helen up, found when she was on shift, and made sure she'd never pull anything on Tony again." She doesn't say anything. He has the sense that his apology is making a lot more sense to her right now. "Ziva?"

"You and McGee were working together to find Aiden?"

"Yeah. Tim was coming up empty because he had a name, but the wrong birthday, so... technically you aren't supposed to look up people who aren't your patients, but... any doctor has access to any patient, because you never know who'll roll in your door. It was the most direct way to get the information about him."

There's another quiet minute while she thinks about that. "I accept your apology, Jimmy." Her voice is tight as she says it, and he's got the sense there's something else in the background, something he doesn't know about, coming into play here.

"Thank you. Anything I say or do to him that you think is over the line, you get as many free shots as you want on me." As he says that, it occurs to him there's likely someone else hurting about this. "You want to give Gibbs a call? Let him know. Tell him I'm handling it."

"I can do that."

"Thanks."


Jimmy knocks twice, and after a minute, a tired, distressed, eyes rimmed red, bloodshot, and utterly fried-looking Tony opens the door.

He supposes he should be feeling sympathy for his friend. He supposes that if it was real, he would be feeling sympathy. His own attention didn't shift off of the grief Tony was dealing with until he knew it was fake.

But he's not feeling any sympathy. He's feeling satisfied. That tiny little voice in the back of his head jumping up and down shrieking, You deserve this! Reap it, Tony, reap it! That little voice is making an awfully compelling argument to yell at Tony first, and then tell him it was a hoax. Because that voice remembers how he felt, how he looked, the morning after he found out what Lee had done.

Jimmy shuts it down. Twelve hours, one night, was enough. The first night is the worst. The first night hurts like fire and death, and that's what he wanted Tony to feel.

Jimmy follows him into their dining room, where the computer's on the table, Web MD, PubMed, American Lymphoma and Leukemia Association are up. Next to it is a bottle of bourbon, two thirds empty, a tumbler with about a quarter inch of bourbon in it, and a notebook filled with handwritten notes.

"Tell me you've got news," Tony says as he sits down.

Jimmy hands over both Aiden's birth certificate and Jeanne's obituary at once.

Tony looks from one to the other and back again. Eyes flicking so fast between them that he can't be actually reading what's on the pages. Confusion is written all over his face.

Finally he looks up at Jimmy. "These are real?"

"They're real. Aiden's five. He's healthy. Unless you and Jeanne had a one off for old time's sake 'round about New Year's 2010, there's no way he's yours."

Tony slumps with relief, shutting his computer, and then shoots back what's left of the bourbon in his glass. Then he stares at the obit. "What happened?"

"According to the police report she was driving, just over the limit or very close, car flipped, by the time anyone found her she was dead. Ruled an accident." Jimmy keeps his voice neutral, but as he sees Tony relax, sees the tension fade away, his own anger surges forward.

Tony's fingers gently touch Jeanne's face, and then he stands up, fast as it really, fully hits him what just happened, "That fucking bitch! I'm going—"

Jimmy's hand shoots out and he pulls Tony back into his seat. "You're going to do precisely nothing, at all, about Helen Berkley."

"She—"

"Nothing, Tony." This would be when Tony notices that Jimmy's holding onto not falling into full on rage by his fingernails. "You're going to sit here, and you're going to listen to me. And you're going to talk. You're going to take me through what the hell it was you thought you were doing, and then you're going to listen some more, because there's a shit ton of stuff I never got to say to Michelle. So, you didn't fuck me over personally, fine. But you don't get to complain, because you fucked Jeanne over the exact same way, and you did it for a hell of lot worse reason that Lee did. So start at the fucking beginning and make me understand how this could have possibly made sense to you."

Tony shakes his head. "Can't be done, Jimmy. It was a bad case and it was a bad plan and everything about it went wrong."

"So, you what? Went in with your eyes open and fucked her knowing it was a bad plan?" Jimmy's staring at him, horrified. "I know you aren't a sociopath, so… what the fuck, Tony?"

"I… no. Not from day one. René Benoit was an arms dealer. Very security conscious. Very slick. No one could get close to him. No one could get enough for a conviction. Jen had spent a decade going after him, but he was a ghost. So, she hit me with a plan. He had a daughter. They weren't exactly close, but from everything they could find out he visited her a few times a year.

"He was a bad guy, Jimmy."

"Uh huh. That's why Ducky was so fond of him, so intrigued by him. Tell me about all the other murdering psychos Ducky liked."

Tony opens his hands… He can see this would be an especially bad time to bring up that one psycho Ducky was dating. "He sold guns to the murdering psychos, and he didn't care who they were or what they did with them."

Jimmy nods. He doesn't want to debate if René Benoit was a bad guy. He was. Fine. Doesn't justify what he did to Jeanne. "Why was NCIS even on the case? He was French, right?"

"Yeah."

"Arming people fighting against us?"

"No."

"Operating in the US?"

Tony shakes his head. "Rarely."

"Stole weapons from us to sell?"

"No."

"Killed a member of the Navy?"

"Technically, no. Shepard was sure he killed her father, who was a Marine."

"What was the official story?"

"Colonel Sheppard was taking bribes from Benoit, it was found out, an investigation opened, and he killed himself."

"So… Jenny had a full morgue at her disposal, the power to order her father exhumed, could have had us go over the whole thing, top to bottom, proven that he'd been murdered, or not. She had an entire Federal Agency at her beck and call, that could have been tapping Jeanne's phone, keeping her under 24/7 surveillance, just waiting for Daddy to show up and swoop him up."

Tony nods.

"But she didn't. And this guy's a complete ghost, but they were able to indict her daddy for taking bribes from him? How'd they know that, Tony? He's an arms dealer, you guys knew his name, that he had a daughter, and an ex-wife apparently, knew what he looked like, had at least some sort of money trail on him… How much of a ghost could he have possibly been?"

"I don't know," Tony shakes his head.

"So, it was, what, you and her?"

"I think Cynthia knew what she was doing, too."

"Oh, good, you and her, and the secretary. That's a brilliant plan. Just the three of you. That didn't, I don't know, tip you off to the fact that there was something intensely wrong about this? You've got Ziva and Tim sitting right next to you, someone who used to do missions like this all the time and the guy who can find anyone with a computer, and you didn't use them. Why?"

"Orders."

"Bullshit. We break dumb orders when we get them. We especially break orders to lie to each other about what we're up to."

Tony shakes his head. "Gibbs left. Last thing he said to me was, 'You'll do.' Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Shepard made me Acting Team Leader. That was a kick in the balls, too. A month and a few cases later, she calls me up. She's impressed with how well I've been doing. She's got a case. A case that only I can do." Tony flashes his patented DiNozzo charm smile. It looks ghastly on his tear-puffy face. "A case straight out of a James Bond movie."

"James Bond is a sociopath, not a hero!"

Tony ignores that. "The bad guy even has his own code name. La Grenouille. The Frog. Everyone else who has tried to take him down has failed. He has made, spotted, outed everyone else who's gotten close. But me, I'm Mr. Charm. I'm smooth, and dapper, look damn good in a tux, and it's my job to go in and be the one he'll never see coming. You want to know why I took it? Because it played perfectly into the image of the guy I wanted to be.

"I was smooth, and cool, and perfect." He licks his lips, very uncomfortable. "I was Jeanne's dream man. Warm, flirtatious, attentive, romantic. Over the top romantic. And she fell for me, and I fell for her, and… and then I didn't know how to get out of it."

"You didn't know how to get out of it?" Jimmy couldn't look less impressed with that if he tried, and Tony looks so embarrassed by it, he wants to squirm out of his skin.

"No."

"You tell the fucking truth, that's what you do! That's how you get out of it. You didn't know? You didn't want to get out of it! You wanted her to keep adoring you, and you knew she'd hate you when she found out, so you just kept it up, digging in deeper and deeper, cutting her heart out that much further each day you were there."

"It was my job…"

"Bullshit. Bull fucking shit, Tony! We're the good guys, right, Tony? I mean, that's why we do this, right? That's why you've got that badge, right? Because at the end of the day, we're the guys who fix up the mess; we're the guys who protect the innocent, right? That's the job. We've got all these laws, and all these regulations, and ideas and... and if we need to we say 'fuck 'em' because we do what we need to do to protect the people who need protecting. Always. That's who we are. We're supposed to be the goddamn white fucking knights who come to the rescue. We're supposed to protect the Jeannes, not pray on them!" Jimmy unclenches his fists, makes his breathing and heart calm down.

"You were getting a place together, right?"

Tony nods.

"How was that going to work, Tony? You couldn't get out of it… How was it going to work? You going to lie to her forever? You think she'd be stupid enough to not notice when Dad goes missing?"

"I didn't… I loved her and—"

"Stop. Stop right there. You loved you. You loved how she made you feel. You're married now. I'm married now. Hopefully we both know enough about love to know that's shit, so don't even try that on me. If you had loved her, you would have told her who you were. You would have picked her over Shepard, over the job. I know if Vance walked in today and asked you to fuck over Ziva, you'd introduce his ass to your foot so hard you'd have to pry your shoe out from between his teeth. 'Cause that's how love works. You would have cared about how she felt, and you would have rather ripped your own heart out than have made her face that night where she knew who you really were alone, by herself, sitting on the floor crying for being stupid. You would have handed in your badge, and then gone to her, and told her everything, that's what you would have done if you had loved her.

Jimmy's not looking at Tony as he says this. He's looking behind him a little. "You know how that night feels Tony? Got any clue?

"I already knew Lee was using me. I felt it change. Playful vanished, fun fell away, we stopped spending time together that wasn't sex. It happens. She didn't actually like me, I guess, but liked what I could do for her, and that wasn't enough, so I broke up with her, told her I didn't want to be her fuck buddy. That getting laid wasn't enough." Jimmy sighs. "You break up, and… you've got all the why didn't it work, why didn't she like me, blah, blah, blah. At least I could scratch an itch for her. Maybe she didn't want to have dinner with me after, maybe I was too goofy for that, but hey, I'm good at sex, so there's that, right? But, you know, being a great fuck, that's really hollow when it's clear that she doesn't think you're a good enough person to get coffee with after.

"And then there's not even that." He's shaking his head while he says that. "There's not any of it. I had access to something she needed, and my dick was the easiest way to manipulate me into giving it to her." He bites his lip, still not looking at Tony.

"You feel used. You feel violated. You feel dirty. And so goddamn fucking stupid! She played me for more than a year. That's almost as long as you played Jeanne, for, right, Tony?"

Tony nods, curtly.

"And the what ifs… Hours of what ifs. What if I had headed back and seen her messing around? What if I had stayed with her a bit longer? What if I had broken up with her sooner? What if I had been smarter? What if… Jeanne must have had a million of them, too.

"I've wondered if that's what it feels like to be raped. 'Cause I sure as hell didn't consent to what she did to me, and Jeanne sure as hell didn't consent to what you did to her. Sure, no force, no bruises, and you're not scared when it happens, so, not the same as violent rape. You're not sitting there, shaking after. Maybe not. Maybe Jeanne wasn't. I was. Shaking that is. But I was shaking mad, not shaking scared, at least, once I knew I wasn't going to go to prison for treason; I was shaking scared, then. But, for me at least, force would have been easier; force would have been out of my hands. Someone holds a gun to my head, there's nothing I can do about it.

"But she didn't do that. She was warm, and cute, and sexy. And I was lonely and horny. And then a beautiful woman was smiling at me, listening to what I had to say, kissing me… I have to live with being the stupid son-of-a-bitch who let someone else use my desire, my need for affection, and body to turn me into a tool. I have to deal with being the one who was so bad at reading another person that I couldn't tell I was being used until it was way too late. I've got to live with the fact that people literally died, her among them, because she was able to play me. Because I wasn't smart enough to figure it out sooner.

"Jeanne never married. What a shock! All of your relationships after, there's that tinge of this hanging over it. Is it real? Am I reading this person well? You don't want to even guess how long it took before I could relax enough with another woman to even get a hard-on. And, I wasn't in love with Lee. I just liked her. But Jeanne, she loved you, right?"

Tony nods again.

"Part of Breena and I working was that she wanted to take it slow and wouldn't sleep with me until we were married. I wasn't just being good to her on that one. She didn't know it, not then, but those first few months, until I was sure about her, she was giving me the space I needed to be comfortable enough in trusting someone like that again."

Jimmy stops at that, watching Tony, who is sitting there, silent, letting him vent.

"We're friends, right? And I can see it, this pisses you off. What happened to me makes you angry. You've got a lot going on in your head right now, but some of it is that you really hate Michelle Lee because of what she did to me, and how bad it hurt me."

Tony nods at that, too. Because that's true, and he does, and he had no idea it hit Jimmy that hard, but… they barely knew each other back then. Been out for drinks a few times, but that was it.

"Jeanne was a person, just like me. She had friends. I bet they missed her when she ran away to Africa. I bet they hate you, the way you hate Lee right now." Jimmy rubs his eyes, noticing for the first time he's been crying as he's been saying this. "How did you do it, Tony? You're naked, in her arms, in her body, and she's so in love with you. You could feel it, right? The way she adored you. You couldn't not see it in her eyes and feel it in her touch. How do you lie to her, day after day after day, month after month?"

Jimmy waits a few beats to see if Tony will try to answer that, but he doesn't.

"Lee was saving her little girl. I hate what she did to me, hate that she didn't immediately go to you guys and get it fixed, 'cause you guys would have fixed it. Moved heaven and earth and killed everyone who needed to be killed to fix it, because that's what you do. But I can live with what she did, because I can understand it. Because if I didn't have you guys, I'd steamroller whoever I needed to to keep my girls safe, too.

"But I don't understand what you did to Jeanne. I can normally just not think about it. Usually I'm unaware of it. Literally didn't put it together until last July, 'cause you and her were over and done before the stuff with Lee and I. And I like you, and I want you in my life, and you're not that guy anymore, and I know that, I do. So… It's like there's a wall in your life, and anything before 2010, I just don't look at too hard. But right now, that wall's down, and I can't not look at what you did to her, because someone did it to me, too."

Jimmy stands up, back against the refrigerator. "So, no. You're not going to do anything about or to Helen. You literally and figuratively screwed her little girl and right now, she's out of her mind with grief because she just buried her daughter, and I know all about that, too. That's something else, I never wanted to know anything about…" Jimmy swallows hard. "But life didn't work out that way." He rubs his face again. "And, um… you're on the bone marrow registry, and from everything I know, donating hurts like hell and takes you out of commission for a long time, and if you come up as a match for someone, you're going to donate bone marrow, even if I have to hold a gun to your head to make you do it. And I know it was a long time ago, and I know you can't change it, and that you wouldn't take that mission now. I know you're not that guy, not anymore. But… until I can get that wall back up in my mind, I don't want to see you. You need something from autopsy, Ziva can get it."

And with that, Jimmy left.

Next

Shards To A Whole: Unfinished Business

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 377: Unfinished Business


Ziva did not go to research bone marrow donation. She will, eventually. But not yet, not now.

No, right now, she is driving back to the Navy Yard.

Right now, she knows that Jimmy is without a client. Tony asked Tim to check up on Jeanne and this child, so she heads for Autopsy and not the basement.

And right now, she wants to hit something, hard, a whole lot.

"Hey, Ziva," Jimmy says as she heads in, sounding and looking chipper. He's got a huge book in front of him, and from the looks of it is in the middle of studying something. Probably those continuing education credits he was talking about.

"Do you have a few minutes?"

Jimmy stares at her. Dr. Allan doesn't twig to it, but he does. Ziva is often cool, but right now, she's cold. Something's gone wrong.

"Sure. What's up?"

"It's private."

Jimmy nods. "Dr. Allan, can you get those reports filed and then all of the glassware sterilized?"

"No problem, Dr. Palmer."

"Thank you." And with that Jimmy steps out with Ziva, following her to the elevator. As soon as the doors shut, she hits the off switch and tells him what's happened.

"Oh." Jimmy starts to offer her a hug but she steps back. "Not hugs then. What can I do? Anything and everything you ever wanted to know about bone marrow donation?"

"Yes, eventually. Right now I need to fight. She should have told him."

Jimmy nods. "Grab your go bag, I'll get some scrubs, and we'll meet in the gym in five?"

"Good."

"You want me to grab Tim?"

She shakes her head. "He and Tony have talked, and he's supposed to be looking up Jeanne. I do not want to take him away from that."

"Okay."


Scrubs aren't great fighting gear, but it's what he's got, and it's a hell of a lot better than going in and trying to fight in a suit.

Ziva has her gym clothes handy, so she's looking about normal, and Jimmy had about nine seconds to notice that before she started hitting, and he started dodging.

It's entirely likely that people wondered what the hell was up when the Medical Examiner and Senior Agent DiNozzo were in the middle of a drop down, drag out, no-holds-barred fight on a Tuesday afternoon, but no one asked them.

They did, apparently, go in search of Tim, because less than twenty minutes after they started, he was leaning against the ropes, waiting for them to notice him.

Eventually, Jimmy's focus widened enough to see him there, and for him to call time.

Ziva's breathing hard, fire in her eyes, posture tense and ready to leap. Jimmy's looking grateful for the down time.

Tim looks at her. "He talked to you, huh?"

She nods.

"Want me to get in there, too?"

"I want you finding out what's going on."

"Computer's doing that right now. It doesn't need me hovering next to it. I can take a few rounds, let him catch his breath."

Jimmy's looking thankful for that. He hasn't tried one on one with a pissed off Ziva in months, and had forgotten how fast she is. The only good thing is that she's still in enough control to pull her punches and aim a bit wide, otherwise he'd be a walking bruise right now.

Ziva shakes her head. She's feeling calmer, has fought off all the first, major spike of fight or flight chemicals. "I've always known this could happen. When you marry a man who can only give you a stadium figure for how many women he's slept with, you know that there's a good shot that sooner or later a child will show up, but…"

"You didn't expect it to be Jeanne?" Jimmy asks.

"No." She bites her lip. "And I did not expect it to feel like this." Then she swallows, pushing that down and away, and turns to Tim. "Have you found anything?"

"Locked Facebook page I've got my computer hacking, a few newspaper articles about the vaccination outreach program she was doing in Ghanna back in '09. Tony was wondering if she was married, but I haven't seen any mention of a husband or her son, and her name is still Benoit. I've got the request in for her records, they should be up in the next hour or so."

"Thanks, McGee."

"Where's Tony?"

"Left him with Gibbs."

Tim does a little math in his head, how long they've been fighting, how long it takes to get to where Gibbs is and back, and… "How? I mean, I know you drive like crazy but, it's been less than two hours since I talked to Tony."

That's when Ziva remembers that Gibbs isn't at Gibbs' house and she winces. "I dropped him at Gibbs'."

"Oh." Jimmy says.

"Yes. I need to…"

They both nod at her.

"You will call when you know something?"

"Sure," Tim says.

"By the time you get there, I'll have links to everything you've ever wanted to know about bone marrow donations in your inbox."

"Thanks, Palmer."


When it rains, it pours.

All day Gibbs has been worrying about Tim. He's trying not to. Everything Tim said about that test makes sense. He will be with the Secretary of the Navy. Nothing is going to happen to him.

More than that, he needs to do it. He needs that shot to prove to his Dad… that he can beat him. That he's as good if not better than John ever was. That he made the right choices for himself, and then force his dad to see it.

So, he gets it.

And he talked with Duck about it. (Penny didn't come to the house today, she's prepping for her next classes, which begin the week after next. Some sort of high level grad-seminar where she gets together with each student before they begin the work.) Ducky gets it, too. He was talking about how this is a metaphorical slaying of the monster under the bed, and that it should be deeply cathartic and all this other psych stuff that Gibbs took to mean that it'd be a really good thing for Tim.

But his gut won't stop yelling. The last time it was yelling this loud, he was begging Shannon not to testify. With just as much luck as he's having with Tim. (He's also sure that Tim will not, in any way, shape or form, appreciate him heading over to Jarvis' house and saying he's coming along on this trip.)

To that, Ducky pointed out that he's already had one experience where he had to trust the safety of someone he held dear to someone else, and it failed miserably, so of course, he's on high alert. He felt that way about Abby before Kelly was born, and it turned out just fine. And that's true, but not particularly comforting. When Tim's back, in one physical and emotional piece, then he'll be able to settle.

So, he's already on edge when he gets home and finds Tony sitting on his sofa, alone, clutching a drink, and crying.

That hits him like a Mac Truck, ice down his spine, knees going week, because the only reason he can think of for Tony to be, alone, at his house, crying, is that Ziva took a bullet. So he sits next to Tony, who jerks when he wraps an arm around him, seeming to notice him for the first time, not even trying to not cry.

Tony sees that, and tries to smile, tries to say, something, but his voice cracks before he can get anything out. Finally he gets himself together enough to say, "It's not Ziva. She's okay.

Gibbs is staring at him, lost. There's a rush of relief, but obviously something is really, really wrong. "What?"

So Tony tells him, and Gibbs listens.

"Fuck." He says as Tony gets going. Not terribly elegant, but it's heartfelt.

Gibbs hates that mission. Hates the fact that it was stupid. He gets a revenge mission. Gets that in his bones, and he's run them, so he knows how to do them, right, but that one… It wasn't stupid because it was about revenge. It was stupid because he's got no idea how it was supposed to work. Some sort of 'magic' or something. Because when it came down to it, as a way to get The Frog, it made absolutely no sense at all and there was way too much collateral damage.

And then, he thought about it, and it did make sense. Maybe. He hopes not. It's possible torturing Jeanne was always the entire objective of that mission. That would have been revenge for Jen: a 'Hurt my daddy, well look at what I can do to your daughter. Suck it, Frog, you can't protect her' scheme.

He can see the look on Tony's face, utterly haunted, wrecked at the idea of this child, and he hopes that wasn't what Jen was trying to do. Hopes she wasn't that cold.

He hates that she picked Tony for it. Once Gibbs found out what the mission was, if you could say that mission was anything, it was clear that Tony wasn't cold enough for it. Ziva might have been able to pull it off, back then. He could have, back when he and Jen worked together the first time. But not Tony. Part of why he was the king of one-night-stand was that if he got to know a woman, he'd start to feel for her, and feeling was the surest root to heartache for that sort of mission. For everyone involved.

But, of course, once again, if torturing Jeanne really was the point of that mission, Tony was the perfect guy for the job, because he would feel for her, sooner or later, and she'd feel it, too. Jeanne's emotions would feed on his. That would draw her in deeper, hurt her that much worse when it was time for the reveal.

He hates the fact that Jen was cold enough that he doesn't know for a fact if she planned her mission perfectly, got her target and inflicted maximum pain, or if she was reckless enough to plan a mission that half-assed.

Either way, that mission bit everyone it touched. And now, almost a decade later, it's still biting them in the ass.

When Tony's about three quarters of the way through the story, they hear a car pull up, door open, door shut, and light footfalls on the front step. Mona hops up, barking happily, (she loves Ziva) as Ziva head in.

"Hey," Tony says to her.

"You're home," she says to Gibbs.

"Got in ten minutes ago."

She looks to Tony. "I just realized you were here alone."

"It's okay. I needed some thinking time."

Ziva heads over to the sofa, sitting on Tony's other side, getting a kiss from Gibbs as she gets settled.

"What are you going to do?" Gibbs asks.

"McGee is checking to see if she's married. See if this child already has a dad," Ziva replies.

Gibbs stares at Tony and then shakes his head. "Cop out."

Tony stares back at him. "I wrecked her life and hurt her once. Barging back in again if she wants me nowhere near her or her kid…"

"Didn't say barge on in. I said seeing if he's got some other man in his life is a cop out. He's your kid. Your job is to be there. You didn't know about him before, fine, not your fault. You do now, so you do something about it. Doesn't matter if there's another man there."

"Okay. But, what? What's good for him? What's best for him? Yeah, I want to know him, for me. But… is that being selfish? Is that good for him? For Jeanne? Her son is hurting; it's got to be killing her, me running back in won't make anything easier. And if there is another guy, and if he thinks that other guy is his father, I don't think me running in now and saying, 'Guess what?' is going to help. Hell, he's eight, I don't know if he even knows how the dad thing works, yet. So, I don't know what to do." Tony stares at the fireplace. Ziva's gently rubbing his neck.

And Gibbs, who can usually be relied on to have some sort of plan, for once, has no clue what to do, either.


"Is Agent DiNozzo all right, Dr. Palmer?" Dr. Allan asks when Jimmy gets back.

"She will be. I think." He stares at Allan for a moment, sure this is probably over the line, but… the whole thing will be all over the office soon, you can't suddenly end up with a kid and not have NCIS notice.

"Dr. Allan, condoms are your friend, use them, with spermicide. Protect your future wife from becoming an over-night surprise step-mom. Protect yourself from becoming an instant parent, having to deal with a co-parent who wants nothing to do with you. Protect your future children from the heartache of a family where mom hates dad."

Allan's eyes are very wide. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, not sure what to say to that. He settles on shutting his mouth and not saying anything. Jimmy nods. "Is the glassware sterilized?"

Allan swallows hard and then says, "Should be out of the autoclave in three minutes."

"Wonderful." It's fifteen minutes to traditional quitting time. "Feel free to take off a bit early. I don't think we'll have any guests today."

Allan nods. "Thank you, Doctor." He goes to gather his things, and then, as he's at the door, he stops, and turns to Jimmy. "Uh… Thanks for the advice, too, but… It's medically impossible for any of my partners to get pregnant."

Jimmy blinks at that, about to ask why? when why hits him and he feels like an utter moron. "Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't…"

Allan shrugs. "I didn't say. I'm out. If I was dating, I'd have told you I have a boyfriend, but I don't have one right now, so…"

"Ah." Something else hits Jimmy, and his eyes go wide at it. "Your friend… the one who inspired the career change…?"

"Was he more than a friend?" Allan asks.

"Yeah." Jimmy nods, feeling like the pieces of Dr. Allan are falling into place. As Ducky said, justice served is a powerful motivator, justice served for someone you love deeply… even more so.

"He was. William Dawset. The ME was able to prove murder, and who did it. No CSIs or Forensics Lab like Abby's got out there, the ME covered the whole thing. But he couldn't prove it was a hate crime on top of that. All the evidence for that was 'circumstantial.' You'd think sixteen stab wounds would have made an awfully compelling case for hate, but apparently the standard for anti-gay hate crimes in rural Georgia is beyond any possible doubt at all."

"I'm sorry." And Jimmy really, truly is.

Allan nods, feeling Jimmy's sympathy. "Thank you." He nods again. "Tomorrow, then."

"Tomorrow, Dr. Allan."


Jimmy closes up shop at five, and heads down to the basement.

Tim's still on his computer, reading intently from the looks of it.

"Hey," Jimmy says, stepping in. "You close to done?"

"Yeah, just about. Abby's wrapping up some testing, so I'm waiting for her."

"You tell her, yet?" he asks, half-leaning/half-sitting on Tim's desk.

"No. She's been working full-out today. You know that drug bust Kimmle caught?"

Jimmy shakes his head. "No dead body."

"Okay. Lots and lots of samples. They're running something like three hundred samples to trace where the drugs came from."

"Busy work."

"Yeah. Has to get done, but not a matter of life or death. So, she's wrapping up and handing it over to whichever lab rat's on today."

"You find anything, yet?"

"Actually, yeah. Got Jeanne's vital statistics back about ten minutes ago. It's…" Tim hands over the print out he's made.

Jimmy's eyes flick over it, and he sighs, feeling kicked in the gut. "That's why she didn't come."

"Yeah." Tim sighs, rubbing his eyes. "I'm trying to track down the boy. I've got a name, now, so that makes things easier, but so far, I can't find him."

"How hard can it be to find Aiden Benoit? You know he was born in December of '07."

"Yeah, well, name and birthdate isn't all that handy for a child who wasn't born in the US, and 'Africa' doesn't exactly narrow down the search. I'm coming up with nothing on the vital records for him. I'm even looking under Tony's name, thinking she might have filled him in as the father on the birth certificate, but… nothing, at all."

Jimmy stares at the obituary Tim printed out. It's the standard fare, picture of Jeanne, day of death (a week ago), no cause, a bit about who she was, what she did, when the funeral was (day before yesterday), the only line that's really standing out is the: Jeanne Benoit is survived by her mother, Dr. Helen Berkley and her son, Aiden Benoit.

Jimmy looks around Tim's office. "You've got a laptop in here somewhere, right?"

"In my bag. Why?"

"You find a cause of death. I'll find Aiden."

"How?"

"He's on the bone marrow registry. I'm a doctor. I'll find him. Let's see if we can get something useful for Tony."


It doesn't take long for Jimmy to smell a rat. Not long at all. He tries every spelling of Aiden Benoit he can think of, and nothing pops up. He widens the search to all of Virginia, nothing. He adds in Maryland and Delaware, still nothing. He double checks Helen Berkely in the Federal Medical Database, she's got admitting privileges at Washington General and Children's so she's got to live around here somewhere.

He checks Jeanne, she had admitting privileges at Washington General and Sibley. So she has to have lived somewhere in this area.

"Tim."

"Hmmm…" he scanning a police report.

"He's not in the bone marrow database."

Tim looks up.

"I'm breaking into his medical records. He's got to be somewhere here in DC, but he's not on the database."
Tim's eyes narrow. Jeanne's dead. Her mom's visiting Tony with a request for a bone marrow donation the day after her funeral. "This stinks."

"Yeah… it…" Jimmy's keying in his ID, requesting information, a few seconds later a selection of Aiden Benoits pop up, he clicks on two of them, finds the one with Jeanne Benoit listed as the mother, and he's found why Tim couldn't find him. "Aiden Benoit was born September 14, 2010."

And with that everything makes sense to Jimmy. Helen's angry, furious, grieving, and Tony's nearby and convenient, someone she can kick with impunity, and a way to feel like she's got come control back. "You find a cause of death yet?"

"Traffic report. Car accident, no witnesses. Car found in a ditch, upside down, she'd been dead for four hours. Blood alcohol level was .06."

"Not quite drunk."

"Just under the limit. It doesn't say how long they think she survived. It's possible she was over when the car flipped but under by the time she died."

Jimmy nods at that. "She ever marry?"

"Not that I can see."

"So, she's dead, maybe she's been spiraling out of control. Kid with no dad, driving drunk-ish… Maybe her mom blames Tony for that path. Maybe she's angry and just wants someone to kick, someone she thinks deserves it…" Jimmy, who until this point had been feeling mostly sympathy for Tony and Ziva, starts to shift. Starts feeling for Helen, the wall between him and the rage at a dead child isn't particularly thick. From there his brain heads to why Helen would hate Tony, what he did to her child. He starts to remember how he felt that night when he learned what Lee had been doing to him. Remembering that cold fear of being interrogated as a traitor, not knowing what was wrong or why, and then finding out what had happened, how he'd been used.

Tim's reaching for his phone, getting ready to call Tony, when Jimmy grabs his hand. Tim looks up at him. "Jimmy?"

"Don't call yet."

Tim's staring at him curiously. "Why?"

Jimmy's looking at Tim's desk, staring at the obit. "You ever meet her?"

"Not really. Think I saw her for a few seconds while she was framing Tony for murdering her father."

"That one never got solved, did it?"

"Kort said it was one of his. Don't think Gibbs bought that."

"But it wasn't Tony, right?"

"No. Thumb tap. Tony's big enough he wouldn't have needed to use that sort of hold on a person. You do that when you're a small person using pain to control a bigger person."

"Okay." Jimmy sighs, touching the picture of Jeanne's face. "That was a shit mission."

Tim nods; he agrees, sees the look on Jimmy's face as he stares at the shot of Jeanne and understands why this hits Jimmy harder than the rest of them.

"How many hours do you think she spent crying, hurting because of it?"

"I don't know, Jimmy. Enough so that she decided to try to get revenge."

Jimmy looks up at Tim. "She deserved something, Tim. Not life in prison for Tony, no, but… something, more than she got. He broke her heart on purpose. He used her... He fucked her, and he used her. Give it a night, please. Hold off until the morning to tell him."

Tim feels sympathy for what Jimmy's thinking, for the revenge he never got, but… "I say nothing, and we're hurting Ziva, too."

Jimmy stares at the ceiling; that's true, too. "I know. Twelve hours won't kill either of them."

"Jimmy…"

"Look, if it makes me a shit friend, I don't fucking care. He deserves it, or something like it. I'm sorry it screws Ziva, too, but…" He's staring at Tim. "I was on the other side of it, Tim. Someone used me, and for a hell of a lot better reason, and it still hurt. You doubt everyone around you for… years. And I'll never get my own back. That bridge is beyond burned. And Jeanne won't either, her bridge is burned, too, but…" Jimmy shakes his head. "Look, I'll talk to Helen, make sure she never pulls any crap like this on him again, but, give him a night to deal with it. Please."

Abby walks in on both of them, Tim looking torn, Jimmy angry and earnest. "Oh, God, what did I miss today?"

They tell her, and sit there, her best friend and her husband, both of them staring at her, waiting for her to be the arbiter. She looks from Jimmy to Tim and back again.

"It's not kind, Jimmy."

"I know, Abby. That's pretty much the point. What he did to her wasn't kind, and it wasn't necessary, and… We're the good guys, right? It our job to protect the Jeannes out there, right? So, what kind of 'good guys' are we if this is okay?"

"Okay, Jimmy. I'll be quiet. Tim?"

Tim doesn't really like this. But… He can see how deeply this hits Jimmy. "Okay. First thing tomorrow morning, I'll let him know."

"Fine. Call him at the crack of dawn if you like. Actually, no. First thing, before work, before they usually leave, I'll be at their place and I'll explain. This is… my life and his intersecting in a crap way, so it's on me. I've got it."

"And you'll talk to Helen?" Tim asks. "I mean, if she's willing to pull this… She might be willing to go further."

"She won't, not after I talk to her."

"Okay." It's almost six when Tim says that. "Time for us to be getting home. Heather's going to start wondering where we are."

"Yeah." Jimmy says, agreeing. They're all standing up, getting ready to head out, when Jimmy says, "You didn't know about that op, did you?"

"Not until it was over," Tim replies.

"And you didn't approve, either, did you?"

Tim shakes his head. "I'm the only one on the team who's never slept with a suspect to get information out of them."

"She wasn't a suspect," Jimmy says.

"That's why Gibbs and Ziva didn't like that op, either," Tim replies.


Jimmy gets home, spends some time snugging his girls, hoping, as close to praying as he ever gets, that they never run into someone like Tony, explaining to Breena what happened today.

He'd told her, in a round-about sort of way, about Lee. That he'd had what he considered a serious relationship before her that went very, very bad.

And after the Fourth of July party, when he got thinking about Jeanne, and was feeling down, he told her the whole story of Michelle Lee, how she used him to get the information out, how for a while he'd thought she really liked him, but she got colder and colder and eventually he'd ended it, but, that was too little, too late, and for a while he ended up being a suspect in a treason case because of what she had been doing.

So, she knew that story. And she knows, as well as he does, the story of Jeanne, because he had to explain why that one set off his own feelings about being, basically, Jeanne.

And most of the time, he does a good job of not thinking about it. Most of the time, it's firmly in the past. But right now, it's not.

It's not that he wants Tony to suffer, not for too long. But he does want him to have a taste of that… fear, doubt, pain… anguish, that's probably the best word for it. He spent a night between finding out that Lee had been using him and learning that she had a damn good reason for it. And that night sucked.

Between the recriminations of how did he not see it, to whether it was all lies, did she even like him, ever, or was he just the easiest, stupidest, horniest target around, that night ached. People died because he was being led around by his dick. He opened himself up to that woman, relished her time and body and smiles, let her touch all of him, risked his job for her, cherished the quiet moments when they were both calming down and he could smell her hair against his lips. That's why they broke up, he wanted more of those quiet moments, and, apparently she didn't want any of them. Apparently, she didn't want the loud minutes, either, but… that was beside the point. You do what you need to do for your family, so she did.

And even when he knew why, which helped in that he at least developed some sympathy for why she would do it, he still had to wonder, why him?

They eat dinner, and put the girls to bed, and he's a million miles away through all of it. Michelle was an NCIS employee, killed by an NCIS employee, in the line of duty. The last time he saw her (though he wasn't supposed to, Ducky was supposed to handle that one solo) she was on a slab, in their morgue, dead.

And he felt stupid about it, but he cried for her, even knowing what she did to him, because he also knew why.


After dinner, he calls Washington General, and finds out that Helen's got a shift starting at eight.

Hopefully this can be in out and done. Because, while it's true that he wants Tony to hurt, some, for a night, he also doesn't want Helen deciding that now would be a spiffy time to try something even more intense. He wants her to know she's on their radar, and that this is her one free pass.

From here on out, anything she pulls will have consequences, and if she values her grandson, she will not risk them.

He pulls on his scrubs. Thinks about a lab coat to go with them, but all of his say NCIS on them. Scrubs and a clip board will do the job. Just one more doctor in a sea of doctors.

He kisses Breena and heads off.


"Dr. Helen Berkley?" She's talking to a nurse, wrapping up instructions for a patient when he says that.

"Yes…" She says, turning, not recognizing him.

"Dr. Palmer." He offers her his hand. "I'm with the bone marrow registry. I'd like to speak to you about your grandson, in private."

He sees the color drain from her face, and then she squares her shoulder, nods, and leads him off to a quiet corridor.

"I take it he sent you?"

"If by he, you mean Tony, no he didn't. He has no idea I'm here, nor will he. I sympathize with both your loss and what you're doing about it. So, I will not be informing Tony that your grandson is not only two years too young to be his, but not on the bone marrow recipient list." He doesn't mind lying to her, if she thinks her revenge works, there's no reason for her to ever try anything else.

"Why on earth not?"

He shakes his head. "As I said, I sympathize. Now: a warning. You are on our radar. If anything happens to Tony, if he sneezes, trips, and scrapes a knee, we're going to be checking you out about it. Assuming you like having custody of your grandson, you will do everything in your power to make sure we do not come to your house to investigate something bad happening to DiNozzo. Do you understand me?"

"No. I do not."

"Then I'll try this even more clear. You already know how badly my organization will fuck over an innocent bystander. You daughter already was that bystander. Do everything you can to make sure your grandson isn't one, too. Okay?"

She nods, eyes hot.

"Did you keep his bloodwork?"

She nods.

"Add it to the registry. Maybe we can get some good out of this mess after all."

Now her eyes are wide, and not hot, just puzzled. "You work for NCIS?"

"Yes."

"You're supposed to be arresting me, aren't you?"

"I wasn't aware that practical jokes are illegal. You do something illegal, we'll have a very different conversation. You think about doing something illegal, and I find out about it, we'll have that conversation. Goodbye, Dr. Berkley. I am sorry for your loss."

She rolls her eyes at that, and he leaves, hoping he's taken care of the issue.

Well, one of them, at least.

Tomorrow's soon enough to take care of the other ones.


He's pulling out of the hospital parking lot when he decides he wants to know more about that case. About how it was supposed to work.

Tim doesn't look very surprised when Jimmy just walks in twenty minutes later. He pauses the show he's watching and gets off the sofa. "What do you need?"

"Can you find Jeanne's case? I want to read the files on it."

"Come on." They head into his office. Tim pulls his writing chair over to his computer, and they both get settled. "Being a Director of NCIS should have some advantages, right?" he says as he starts digging into the case log.

Nothing comes up for Rene Benoit. He tries 'The Frog.' Nothing. 'La Grenouille.' Nothing.

Tim shakes his head. "They don't want anyone poking into this. It's probably all on paper, all is dotted and ts crossed and filed with the janitorial reports from 1956. Ummm… Okay…" He starts querying Shepard's records. "Yeah, they don't want anyone checking out Jen too closely. These are all locked down."

"You can get around that, right?"

Tim looks at Jimmy. "I'm the guy who designed the lock they're using to keep it hidden. Yeah, I can find a way around it." And he does.

They spend the next hour reading up on Jen, and having done so, it became very apparent why those records are locked. How she went from Probie, in '95 to Director in nine years was in there. And it wasn't pretty.

"God, she was ruthless," Jimmy says.

Tim nods. He didn't work with Jen much, and his most vivid memory of her was handing her his badge because he wasn't going to work for someone who valued looking good over doing good.

"Can't believe Morrow would put 'great ass' in a fitness eval. God, that'd get him fired so fast these days," Tim says.

What's not in any of those files is a mention of La Grenouille.

Tim looks up at Jimmy. "Whole thing was off the books from the looks of it."

"Okay. Tell me what you knew about it."

"Come on." Tim stands up. "You want a drink or something?"

"Got some tea?"

"Hot or iced?"

"Hot."

"Yeah, I can do that. Abby can kick in some of the story, too." Tim puts some water on, enough for Jimmy and him, and he's thinking Abby might want some, too. Yesterday and today she's been going through green tea like crazy. Jimmy's in their cupboard, rummaging through their tea stash. "Grab a green tea bag for Abby."

Jimmy nods, and a second later a tea bag is flying toward Tim's head. He catches it and puts it in a mug.

"What do you want?" Jimmy asks.

"Don't care. No caffeine."

Jimmy grabs two French vanilla chai blends, one for each of them, and Tim gets things set. "First thing I really knew was up was that Ziva was on his case. He kept vanishing, and didn't have good excuses, and it was bugging her."

"Didn't bug you?" Tim hands Jimmy his mug, and both of them go sit down.

"Not the way it bugged her." Tim puts down his mug. "Okay, I've never asked, and I do not actually know, but when Gibbs left, I think something happened with them. Tony's in charge; we've got these movie night things happening, but Lee and I were only invited to some of them, and every single one all four of us showed for, we left before Ziva did. Then Gibbs is back, and they're sniping at each other, and she's all pissed at him for ducking out and lying about it."

"You were working with Lee then?"

"Yeah, technically I was the Senior Agent and she was my Probie, for, I don't know, about two minutes."

"Did she ever… try anything with you?" Jimmy asks, looking vulnerable. Did she try another target first and fail, or did she aim straight for him?

Tim shakes his head. "Nah. Or if she did it was so subtle I didn't notice it. When did you two…"

"She started in what, May? June?"

Tim nods, it was something like that. "Think so."

"Before the summer was over, don't remember more specifically than that."

"Anyway, fast-forward to May, and Tony keeps getting pulled aside, and having 'meetings' with the Director, then next thing we know his car's been blown up, he's got this whole other job he's been working, and this girlfriend we've never met, and…"

Abby sits next to them, giving Jimmy's shoulder a squeeze as she does. "Getting up to date on the Frog?"

"That's the idea. What did you know about it?"

"Tony didn't kill him. That none of us thought he could even keep a secret until that job. That he loved her, or thought he did, but not enough to leave NCIS. That she loved him, but not enough to forgive him."
Jimmy snorts at that. He looks at Tim, Abby sitting on his lap, her arm draped over his shoulders as she sips her tea, and the easy way that his hand curls around her hip.

"Don't call that love." He points to the two of them. "That's love." He circles his finger to mean the three of them. "This is love. That was… lies and lust and… I mean, the whole time, he knew he was going in there to make her fall for him. That was the plan right? Seduce her, and then… Somehow get the goods on her dad?"

Abby nods, and Tim sighs. "Yeah, Jimmy, that's about it."

He stares at his mug. "First time I met Michelle, she had headed down to ask about something for Tony. Ducky wasn't in the office. It was just me, and for once, I knew the answer. He wanted to know if a wrench could have made that sort of fracture." Tim nods, he remembers that case. "And I got the x-ray out, double checked, outlined the fracture, said that it looked right for that, but if she wanted to wait, we could run it by Doctor Mallard, too. She looked up at me, smiled, then looked me up and down and asked if I'd like to get some coffee with her.

"I knew she wasn't in love with me. And I wasn't in love with her. But, it was nice, you know? She liked me, laughed at my jokes, made me feel special, and good. Made me feel desirable, ya know?"

Tim and Abby nod. Tim who also got asked out once a blue moon, and once by someone who was using him, and once by Tony pretending to be his ultimate woman, gets this intensely.

"And eventually there weren't any more jokes, and we stopped getting coffee or dinner, and I decided I wanted more from a woman than mechanical sex in the loading docks. So I broke up with her. But, I'd hoped, that when I said I wanted more, that she's have been okay with it. But she wasn't. So that was that.

"And then we knew what she was doing, but before I ever got to find out what had happened, if any of it ever meant anything, if she had ever liked me at all, she was dead. I never got to know if she seduced me from the get go, or if she looked me up and down and smiled because she liked what she saw."

Abby shifts off of Tim's lap, and he lets her go, easily. She hugs Jimmy from behind.

"She should have loved you."

He shrugs. "Not in the cards." She's gently rubbing his back, standing next to him while he sits. He leans his head against her side. "And I'm way better off with her not having loved me. But… I wish she had told me, or told you guys, or… I wish we could have gotten it fixed without anyone dying. If I had noticed what was going on… Been less stupid, less horny, at least four more people would be alive. God knows how much crap she got out of NCIS and what he did with it. Under my nose."

Abby kisses the top of his head.

He squeezes her hand gently. "Normally I don't think about it. It's not like it's always there, or even often there. It's been almost ten years. I don't dwell on it. But right now… I've forgiven her. Someone held a gun to her daughter's head and said 'Jump,' and if you do that to me, I'll say 'How high?' too. So, I get it. I don't like it, and it still hurts if I think about it, but I get it.

"But I don't get what he did. I don't get how he did it. I don't get it on a moral level, on a how on Earth you can possibly think this is okay level. I don't get it on a physical level. Jeanne was beautiful, but, I don't think I could get a hard-on if I knew I was lying to her like that. If I knew doing it would hurt her like that. I don't get how you do that and live with yourself.

"I don't get why it was necessary. There had to be another way to get this guy." Jimmy looks at Tim. "You said Kort claimed his people killed Benoit?"

"Yeah."

"So, that means the CIA was working the case, too?"

"Probably," Tim replies.

Abby thinks about it. "They'd have proper jurisdiction for it. He was almost never in the US, that's why you guys only got that one shot at him, right?"

"Think so. And technically, we were in Canada, and not really there, because he tried to stay out of the US."

Jimmy shakes his head again. "I don't get it." He looks up at Abby. "I was hoping he could get me the files, so I could get it…"

"But it was all off the books," Tim finishes.

Abby nods and hugs Jimmy again. "Only one way to get it, Jimmy, and that's talking to him."

"I will, but… unless Jeanne was actually part of the gun running ring, I don't there's anything he can come up with that I'll want to hear."

Next


A/N: So, um, yeah, if you've ever wondered why I didn't much like Shepard and don't ship her with Gibbs, that cluster fuck of a mission of doom is why.

Shards To A Whole: Karma

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.


Chapter 376: Karma


"Sure, I'll see her." Tony says, putting down his phone. Usually calls on his desk phone mean dispatch wants them to go deal with a dead body. Not today.

Today there's a call from the front desk, with a visitor.

One he really doesn't want to see.

"What is it, Tony?" Ziva asks. "You look like ghost just walked over your grave."

"Something like that."

"DiNozzo?" Draga asks.

Tony shakes his head. "Later. No way this isn't going to be a long story."

Ziva looks worried, but he shakes his head. He is worried. Why on earth would she want to see him?


She's older now, of course she is, not like she found some sort of magical time stopping device. He could have walked by her a thousand times in a thousand grocery stores and never noticed. After all, they only met the one time, not like he burned her face into his mind. But she's here, sitting in the break room, staring, glaring, at his wedding ring.

"What can I do for you, Helen?"

Dr. Helen Berkley, Jeanne Benoit's mother, looks up from the ring. Seems to be debating if she should even be here. But finally, glaring at him, she says, "Are you a bone marrow donor?"

"Excuse me?" Of all the things she could have asked, could have needed to see him about that, was… nothing he could have even possibly thought of.

Her voice is crisp and precise and slaps him with each word. "Not a single word of what I said was unclear. Are you on the bone marrow registry?"

Tony shakes his head. "No."

"Get on it! Fast. Before the end of work today. I am a doctor. I can and will take care of the blood work."

He feels the ice down his spine, knows there's only one reason why anyone would ask that of him, but he's got to hear the words, has to know it's really true.

"Why?"

Her eyes narrow, but she seems to think he probably is stupid enough not to figure this out for himself, so she says, "Because in December of 2007 my grandson was born. He has brown hair and hazel eyes. After what you did to her, his mother never spoke your name, but I can do simple arithmetic."

Oh shit! He nods. "Okay. And I take it he's sick?"

Not Happy"Yes." The heat in her eyes could boil him alive.

"She said she went to Africa."

"She did. Nothing about Africa prevents people from having babies there."

"I didn't know."

"No, you didn't. And the second she learned you had a real name, you lost all right to know."

"Yeah. Okay," Fuck! If this isn't every worst nightmare he's ever had of the hookup who's got news for him, all combined and multiplied by twenty, he doesn't know what could be. "What do you need?"

"You to get on the bone marrow registry. I didn't think I was unclear about that."

"Won't that take a long time? Couldn't we just… do the test straight up?"

"Mr. DiNozzo, you are not my grandson's father. You are, at best, a stranger who may be able to provide him with the bone marrow he needs to survive. He will never meet you. He will never speak to you. You don't even get to know his name."

Tony holds up his hands. "Set whatever rules you like. I'll abide them. But, just, let's get it done as fast as we can. There's no need to jump through the hoops or whatever. Jeanne's not here to see me herself, even to save her son's life, then she must still hate me pretty fiercely."

Helen bit her lip.

"Helen?" That's a warning sign. Something about this really isn't right. Everything about this isn't right. He has a son. With Jeanne. Who's sick and… Shit! He can't think about that right now. There's something else there, something about Jeanne, he's hit a nerve for Helen. Think about that.

"You lost the right to know about that when she learned you had a real name, too." But her voice catches on that.

"Is Jeanne all right?"

"You don't get to know! I have privileges at Washington General. We can get the blood work there."

"That's… Okay. We've got a fully functional medical suite less than a hundred feet from here. If you'd like to do it even faster."

Helen shakes her head. "Washington General is close enough."

"I'll get my coat and be there in half an hour."

"Fine."


He skirts the bullpen, going out the back. He sends a quick text to Ziva. It's a mess. Got to go for a bit. Back this afternoon. We'll talk.

How bad is it?

Bad. Not in danger, not that kind of bad, but it's bad.

Okay. This afternoon. Do I need to…

No. Nothing for you to do. Few hours, I'll be back.


He doesn't know what he's feeling as he drives. Numb. Numb is probably right.

"Was any of it real?" Jeanne'd asked him, scared, angry, hurting, hurting so bad, and it was all on him.

"No." God, he thought he'd done the right thing. Thought it'd be better to let her hate him. He wonders what would have happened if he had said 'Yes,' because, after all, it was real. He tries to imagine the life if he'd dropped the job and gone with her to… What? That apartment they were moving into, eventually a home in the 'burbs with a little boy who looks like him and a ring that matched one on Jeanne's finger?

Still be a cop? Moved onto something else? He sure as hell wasn't a Professor of Film Studies.

He tries to will that image to form in his mind, but it won't. He is who he is, and Jeanne's husband was never in the cards for him.


December of 2007, he'd be eight now. Brown hair, hazel eyes, and eight-years-old.

Eight-years-old, and no dad.

Of course Tony doesn't know that, not really. Jeanne may not have come because she married. There could be a guy who is this child's dad, but…

No.

He can't believe that she could hate him so much she'd let her son die rather than talk to him again.

But she could hate him enough to send her mom to do it. She could be sitting in a hospital room, holding his hand, worrying for him, husband, the man this child calls Dad by her side, hoping that somehow he's the Hail Mary that'll get her boy through this.

That works.

He pulls into Washington General, looking for a space.


He probably deserves Helen jabbing him three times before getting a good draw. Deserves a lot more than that. There are a lot of questions he'd like to ask, lots of things he wants to know, not the least of which is whether the child is actually his or not, but…

But he's already hurt this family enough, and even if the child is his, it's not like he's got any claim to him.

It's not enough to be the guy who broke your mom's heart. Even if she broke yours, too. Though, really, Jeanne didn't break his heart. He broke his own heart by not being enough of a man to choose her over the job.

Helen tosses him a band aid. "If you match, I'll let you know."

"Okay. Is there… I… I know you don't want me to have any contact. That's… Not fine… But I'll respect it… But, anything you need for him, anything I can do, anything I can ever do, call."

"How noble of you," Helen says, her voice indicating he would't know noble if he tripped over it.

"I can't change what I did—"

"No shit!" Her voice is scalding hot with anger.

"I didn't know about him. Didn't even suspect. And I won't go tromping into your family. But, just, anything..."

She's staring at him, furious, and he feels his body go on high alert, because this is a woman who will physically attack him if he so much as breathes wrong. "Here's what you can do: if you match up, you can provide my grandson with bone marrow, and after that you can remember that somewhere there's a child with your eyes who you will never know. You can spend the rest of your life knowing how you hurt his mother, and how, because of your lies, he never knew his father. You can go to sleep at night with your wife and maybe your kids and know that you failed your son and fucked his mother while lying to her about every single thing in your life, including the fact that you loved her. You can spend the rest of your life hurting for what you did to my child. And you can spend the rest of your life knowing your son is sick, but never knowing if he got better, never knowing if he's alive or not. You can steep in the torture of that, and have it eat your insides out. That's what you can do!"

Tony swallows, wanting to step back, away from this rage, but not doing it, pressing the band aid to his elbow instead. "How long before you'll know if I match up?"

"Day after tomorrow."


He's been thinking of ways to say this to Ziva as he's driving back to the Navy Yard, but nothing feels right.

She knew about Jeanne. They've talked about it a little. Some at the time. Some since. She had a few Jeannes of her own in her past. She gets that that's the job, sometimes you hurt people, but you say it's for the greater good and you get up the next morning and you keep going.

But he can't for the life of him figure out how to start this conversation.

He heads through the metal detector at the front desk, strides toward the elevator, and finds himself hitting the B button instead of the 3 one that leads to the bullpen.


"I fucked up," Tony says, slumping into the chair next to Tim's desk.

"Mmm…" Tim's not listening, he's working on making sure that the test makes three separate ships look like they all began the programs on their own, while firing at each other. His fingers are flying over the keys and he's, at best, tangentially aware of the fact that Tony's in his office.

Tony stares at Tim, looking really hurt. "Way to show some sympathy, man. How 'bout you kick me in the balls a few times while you're at it?"

"Huh?" That gets Tim looking up. What Tony actually said hits him, and more than that, the look of utter desolation on his face, breaks Tim out of programming mode. "What's wrong?"

Tony told him. And wrapped up with, "Can't go to Gibbs with this; he'll snap my dick off for getting her pregnant and not sticking around long enough to find out. Don't even know where to begin how to say this to Ziva. I mean, she knows about the Jeanne thing, but…" Tony lets that trail off.

"Gibbs isn't going to be that hard on you. Franks didn't find out about his son until he was in his twenties, and Gibbs didn't have a fit about that. You do right by this kid, and you're not going to have any problems with Gibbs."

"Besides opening a vein and offering whatever he needs, what is doing right by him?"

Tim blows out a long breath. "I don't know. If Jeanne had been a one-night-stand or something, I'd say try to get involved in his life. Be a dad, or as much of one as she'll let you."

"But she wasn't. And she still hates me enough she sent her mom to come talk to me."

"Yeah."

"And she made it very clear that I am never to have anything, at all, to do with this child."

Tim nods.

"What would you do?"

The idea of being in this situation is so ridiculously foreign to Tim that he's got no idea, at all. "I really don't know."

"He's eight now, so he's got to wonder who his dad is. Of course, he might have a dad. She might be married, there might be a man who he calls Dad and if that's the case…"

"You want me to check her out, see what I can find?"

"Please." Tony sits there, glances at the door, seeming to think about moving, but doesn't. "What the hell am I going to tell Ziva?"

"Same thing Helen told you? That there was a very good reason why she took a year off before trying to get revenge?" It sounds lame as Tim says it, and he knows that, but he doesn't have anything better for Tony.

"Don't think that's going to cut it."

Tim shakes his head. "No. It's not."


The idea that there would be a downside to Tim's paperwork software never really hit anyone at NCIS until the software was up and running.

But, there is. Namely, they suddenly have way more agents then they need. When you go from, on average twenty hours a week of paperwork to an hour of database entry and five minutes of printing, you suddenly have a whole lot more time.

On the upside, the case backlog is dwindling rapidly. The cold cases are seeing more attention than ever before.

But, well, lots of time means lots of pranks. And Tinkerbell and Flyboy are right now in the middle of what, until this morning, was a vastly enjoyable prank war of epic levels, but is now, as Tony heads to Ziva's desk to talk to her and somehow triggers some sort of shrieking menace that one of his Junior Agents planted to prank the other one, rapidly becoming VERY annoying.

Tink's looking sheepish and shutting whatever that thing is up. Flyboy's grinning, very satisfied. Tony's eyes narrow. "If you have this much free time, you can go back to filling out the forms by hand."

Both of them look properly chastised and move so quickly to find something useful to do that they practically dematerialize.

Ziva's watching him, coolly, knowing something she's not going to like is about to hit her. "Here or at home?"

"Home."


"Home" actually translates to their car.

"Do you remember what I told you about Jeanne Benoit?"

She nods, pulling out of the parking lot.

"Her mother called me, today." Ziva's carefully holding her face, keeping her expression neutral, and beyond knowing that that's a coping mechanism for her, a way to shut things down so she can process, he doesn't know what precisely she's feeling. Probably dread, she knows the next sentence can't be good. "Her eight-year-old grandson is sick, and she asked me to give blood and see if I'm a match for a bone marrow donation."

She stops the car. They're at the entrance to the parking lot, not a good place to stop. People will want to get in and out. So she drive eight more feet and parks them in a new spot.

"You and Jeanne have a son?"

"I think so. She told me he's eight, and has brown hair and hazel eyes."

She doesn't say anything.

"I didn't know, Ziva. Didn't guess."

"I know." And she does know. Even if this wasn't something they talked about before they got married, granted not for Jeanne in specific, she can do the math, knows, as best as he can guess, how many partners he's had, and how careful wasn't how you would have described him for the first twenty years he was at it. So, for the whole time they've been together, she's known a day like this was possible. "Is he really yours?" Obviously he can be Tony's. They had sex. A lot. She knows that; it's not what she's asking. "Were you careful with Jeanne?"

He shakes his head. Usually they were. But there were a few times. He thinks back. Twice. There was twice, and they were just in it, and everything was going right and it felt right and… "Not always." He thinks more. "The last time was a few days before everything fell apart."

She nods. "And he is sick?"

"Yeah."

"Did she tell you anything?"

"Just that there's a child, he's a boy, he's sick, and she wanted to know if I was on the bone marrow donor list." He takes off his jacket and shows her the bandaged crook of his arm. "I gave her some blood. If I'm a match, she'll get back to me."

"And if not, you will never hear from her again."

"Yeah. She was very clear about this not being my child, and that I do not get any say in the matter."

"No, you do not."

She's still holding her face very carefully, and he doesn't know what she's thinking.

"Are you angry?"

"I don't…" She shakes her head. "Some. Yes. You should have been careful. Missions like that are hard enough on the people you leave behind even if you are careful. She should have told you. But it is long, long past. Long before there was an us. And I know, have known, just like you, that today was always a possibility. So, not too angry, but there is some. Sad, maybe? You have a child, and he's not mine."

"He's not mine, either, not really."

"But now that you know about him, you'd like him to be?"

"Yeah. No. I don't… His mom hates me, and she's got every right to. I told her it was all a lie, that there was never anything between us, that I'd faked the whole thing because I thought it'd be easier for her. Because then she could just be angry, and I could be the bastard, and there'd be a nice, clean break. And that's probably why she never told me.

"But he's sick, and he might want a dad. He might need one. He might already have one. I know nothing about him, nothing about them. And I don't know what the right thing to do is. I've got Tim hunting Jeanne down, looking into her. If she's married… If her son already has a dad, I'll leave them be."

"And if he doesn't?"

"I don't know. She still hates the idea of me so much her mom came to see me. She didn't want to be in the same room with me long enough to ask for blood. I can't imagine how 'Hey, how about you let me spend time with our kid' would go. For all I know, Helen might not have told Jeanne she was coming to see me about it. Or Jeanne may have told her not to, knowing that if she asked, I wouldn't be able to leave it alone."
Ziva shakes her head. "Her son is sick. She'll go to whomever can make him better. And if that's you, it's you. I'm sure she knows Helen called you."

They sit there, in the car, people walking past, looking at them curiously.

"I don't want to rip up his family. He's sick, and that's as bad as it gets for parents. I don't want to add me to the mix and make it worse, more stressful. I don't want him thinking that he was just abandoned. Don't want him thinking I found out about him and couldn't be bothered to look him up. I don't want him wondering about me, and why I wasn't around. If Jeanne's been telling him I'm an asshole his whole life… I don't know what to do."

She squeezes his hands, and then turns the car on again. "I don't know, either."

"Where are we going?"

"Home, eventually. I'm taking you to Gibbs' house."

"You think he knows what to do?"

"No. I don't think anyone knows what to do with this. But I think some quiet time with him will make you feel a bit better."

He nods. "What are you going to do?"

"Learn about bone marrow transplants and donations."

He kisses her. "Thanks."

She nods.


Ziva drops Tony off and heads away, quickly.

He doesn't really notice that because he's feeling awfully scattered.

He heads in, and it's once he's in the house that it hits him, he's alone. It's a brilliant, sunny day out, mid-70s, birds are chirping. It's everything a spring day is supposed to be. Gibbs and Ducky, and maybe Penny, are at the house, putting up masonry or something.

So he's at Gibbs house, alone, with no car.

He's about to call Ziva back, but… Actually, alone time might be a good thing. He heads to the basement, currently empty, but the bourbon's down there, and pours himself a glass. Then he heads back up.

Tony takes a sip. For a second he's fully in right now, taste of bourbon on his tongue, awareness of the room around him, the feel of his clothing on his skin, and then the next second it's washed away by this: I have a son!

He feels dizzy at it, having to sit down. He has a son, and he's missed his whole life, and he's sick and hurting and in need and probably dying and his mother and grandmother will likely never let him see that child, won't let him try for a paternity test, won't…

He rubs his face. DiNozzo men don't cry, so he's not crying, he's wallowing in the epic fuck of all fucks this is.

His son was born, and lived, and got sick, and if he's not a match, may die, and he will have never seen him, never spoken a word to him, and yesterday none of that mattered but today it does. Today it burns.

Numb falls away, replaced by scalding pain, heart wrenching failure.

His son is dying, and he can't so much as walk in and hold his hand.

Next

Shards To A Whole: The Gathering Storm

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 375: The Gathering Storm


A/N: I know some of you aren't Americans... In US schools grades are done A (Excellent), B (Above Average) C (Average) D (Below Average) and F (Failing.) Why is this important? You'll see in a minute.
Okay, on with the story…


Tim gets in a bit early on Monday, wanted to make sure he'd gotten everything clear before meeting with SecNav.

And yes, he did.

When he heads up to Vance's office, he's feeling excited about this. The test he's got planned is beyond awesome, and he cannot wait to put it in action.

He gets up there and there's the usual 'Hello-how-are-you-doing' pleasantries. And to some degree it blows his mind that he's been invited to refer to Jarvis as Clayt. That doesn't feel real, but it is, and he only stumbles over it the first few times. In addition to Jarvis, there's his secretary, a meticulously precise young man named Remy James, and, of course, Vance.

Tim's already sent the emails detailing how he wants the general flow of the test to work, but they still have to settle on a specific ship to put everything into play. He's going to run the first test, on the first ship, and then write up his notes, write up how he came up with the test and design a protocol for doing this to other ships, and from there he's handing it off to someone in the Navy.

He takes a moment to go over the idea of the test again for all three men, how he's got it set so that he'll be slipping a program from his computers here to Norfolk, and from Norfolk a sub-program will hit the target ship, making one of the computers on the ship produce a program that tells the ship to target another ship in whatever combat group he's got. Communications with the outside world will then crash. A second later, the techs will see that the test ship is targeting another ship in the combat group. The tested ship will see the targeted's ships sensors spring on-line and start to aim to fire back. From inside the computer stations, it'll look like a catastrophe.

Tim wraps up his explanation with, "The test will last less than ten minutes, and real targeting as well firing will be off-line. Don't want anyone completely freaking out and actually firing. But this should result in a complete all hands on deck situation while the techs try to figure out what's going on."

"Then once the main part of the test is done?" Jarvis asks.

"I keep an eye on them. Track what they're doing. Full passing marks is them noticing it's up and shutting it down before the test really gets going. Say, a B would be them getting it stopped before the ship "fires." C work means they don't manage to get it stopped but they stay cool and in less than five hours figure out what happened. And anything beyond that… Well, you know what's after C."

Jarvis smiles dryly at that. "Lt. James has drawn up a list of test ships. The first one you'll run personally, on site, and from there…"

"I'll write it up so I can hand it off. Not a problem," Tim says, eager to see the list. He's pulling his phone out of his jacket, because the number of ships he knows by name is smaller than five, as James slides the paper in front of him.

He's looking at the list. Of course. Because that's how life always works. He sighs.

When he'd written up his idea for the test he'd been thinking of a few cruisers, or maybe, if one could be found, a nuclear sub (Using a nuclear sub for his test would have caused literal pants-wetting. Nuclear sub targeting a neighboring ship… That would have been fun.)

USS John C Stennis Strike GroupBut it's not a nuclear sub. It's an aircraft carrier. And yes, if they scramble the jets, because they expect that one of the other ships in the combat group is about to fire on them… That'll be intense, too. Though, he's got to figure out how to safe guard this to make sure no one fires on the ship that's 'targeting' them.

So, on a logical level, he knows this is an excellent test ship. All the requirements are right. It'll work perfectly for the test. If he does it right he can get multiple ships all on full alert at once and see exactly how good an entire battle division is.

It's the perfect test.

That does nothing to quell his first response, which is an almost overwhelming desire to beg to not go on that ship.

It's the Stennis. The Stennis is a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. It is the operational hub of the entire Pacific fleet, and it is the operational hub of the entire Pacific fleet because it is the flag ship of Admiral John McGee, Commander of the US Pacific Fleet.

Jarvis, his secretary Lt. James, and Vance are all sitting in Vance's office, waiting to see what he has to say about this, and maybe it's stupid pride, but he cannot make himself say, "That's my Dad's ship. I can't go on it without throwing up." So, instead he says, looking up at Jarvis "You can't let anyone on that ship know I'm coming aboard. Not if you want this test to work properly."

"Excuse me, McGee?" He sees the light start to flick on for Jarvis as he says his name.

"The Stennis is my father's flagship. As soon as he sees my name is on the visitors' list he's going to get antsy and will put everyone on high alert. He won't know what's up, but he'll know it's something, because he knows I don't belong on his, or any, ship, and he'll know it has something to do with computers. He's going to figure out what's going on in a matter of seconds after he realizes I'm on the ship and his computer guys start yelling, but by then he won't be able to swing the test."

"Would he 'swing the test?'" Jarvis asks.

Tim turns his hands up in an I don't know gesture. "If he knew it was a test, and he knew it was coming, he might not do anything 'intentionally,' but he'd probably beef up security and make sure his guys are on high alert. We're officially there for an inspection, right?"

Jarvis nods.

"Well, he'll be making sure everything's in ultra-ship-shape for that. And it's not like he's trying to swing the inspection, he just wants everything to look good, right?"

Jarvis nods.

"So, that'll probably be what his computer guys will be doing if he's got a hint of me on the ship." Tim feels pretty satisfied that that's a good reason for him to not be on that ship.

Jarvis thinks about it. "What would make this go best?"

"Probably work best if we picked a different ship. No one's going to know me on the Atlantic command."

Jarvis looks over to Lt. James. James spends a moment checking something on his phone. "Doable, but not a good plan if we want to keep this secret. We'd end up rescheduling everything, 'cause we can't do it the same day, and that'll cause scuttlebutt as to why exactly everyone's plans are upside down."

Tim nods. Classified ops work best with minimal scuttlebutt. So, plan B. What is plan B? "Okay. Just… stick someone else's name on the visitor's list. Someone who isn't a tech guy. Lt. James comes along on things like this, right?" James nods. "Put your name on the list, and then you take a few days off. As long as he," he nods to Jarvis, "doesn't mind carrying his own bag for a day or two, it'll work."

James smirks at that and rolls his eyes. Jarvis looks amused. "Lt. James does a bit more than just carry my bags."

Tim realizes how insulting that probably sounded. "Sorry." It's genuine, so James nods, accepting it. "I'm sure you do. Just… spinning my wheels looking for something."

"Unless you're also offering to keep my schedule straight, run my correspondence, and make sure the rest of the Navy functions while you run this test, it's probably a good idea for James to come along," Jarvis says with a smile.

"Point taken." He looks back to James. "I really am sorry. I don't have a secretary, so I don't actually know what you guys do. Who else usually comes along on things like this?"

"Usually a visitor or two." Jarvis smiles, if a new name needs to go on this, they should do it up right. "Do you have any undercover experience?"

"A very tiny bit. Been undercover fewer than ten times in fourteen years, and once I was playing myself."

Jarvis raises an eyebrow at that, and Vance doesn't look like he knows that story either. "Few years before you were here," Tim says to Vance. "We had to get into a club. No reasonable cause for a search warrant. Metro was working it with us, but they had someone leaking their moves. All of their people got turned away, 'not hot enough.' Anyway, my first book was out; I was on the New York Time's Bestseller list for the first time, so, Thom E. Gemcity and his three lady friends were able to get into the club. But most of my undercover work has been along the lines of being the guy who blends into the background and makes sure all the tech gear is working."

Jarvis thinks about that, looking at Tim. "Stand up."

Tim does.

"Can you pull off Navy posture?"

Tim tries, after all, not like he didn't get years of yelling at on how to stand up properly. He's got it, but it's fairly obvious it's not his natural posture.

"You hair isn't usually black is it?" Jarvis asks.

"Uh, no." Yeah, that looked cool Saturday night, but it's looking a bit dull and fake right now. According to Abby, it should be gone next shampoo or the one after.

"Will it be black on the eleventh?"

"I'd doubt that intensely."

"Good. Grow a beard. And… no nail polish, okay?" Jarvis is looking at Vance as he says that you let him wear nail polish? on his face, and Vance has a computer guys are weird, but this one is really good, so I humor him look on his.

"Not a problem."

"Wonderful. Feel like being a liaison to the British Navy?"

Tim smiles at that. He has an idea where this was going, and how he'll hide in plain sight. "What, Ireland doesn't have a Navy of its own?"

He'd meant it as a cute aside, but Jarvis' eyes light up and he grins. "Actually, it does. And it's tiny enough that just about no one knows anyone in it. So we don't have to worry about, the, 'Oh, do you know, Blah' trap." The smile gets wider. "James, add Captain T. McGee from the Irish Naval Service to the guest list. They've been expanding lately, looking at bigger ships, the Stennis is still a few classes beyond what they're building, but maybe not beyond their dreams. I have a feeling Captain McGee is going to be coming along for the inspection and looking at the feasibility of an Nimitz-class aircraft carrier for the Irish Naval Service. My guess is that should float by whomever on your dad's staff actually checks things like that."

Tim's feeling pretty amused by that. "I'd imagine so."

They wrap things up from there. Test day is June 11th. They'll meet again on the 10th, make sure everything is in order, and from there…

Test time.


The more he thinks about it, the more calm he feels about it.

By the time he's back in his office, doing the coding, putting the test into play, nervous is bleeding away with the pleasure of doing this.

It is an awesome test. And getting an aircraft carrier involved does mean he's got an extra challenge, which he's looking forward to. He's got to make sure they don't scramble the jets and shoot the… according to his notes the Borealis and the Aether will be nearby, so that'll be the ships the Stennis targets.

He spends two hours messing with the code, and finally decides the easiest way to make sure that the Stennis doesn't send any of the planes after the Borealis or the Aether is to make sure that the Stennis doesn't see themtargeting. If their tech guys are calm and alert, that'll probably make them notice something is wrong, but… It's more important to make sure no one gets killed on this than making sure it's a perfect replica of an actual attack.

He takes a break, heading to grab himself some more coffee, thinking about why he's so nervous. After all, he's not walking into his dad's ship naked and alone. He's walking in as the personal guest of Clayt, the freaking Secretary of the Navy, besides the President, he's pretty much the only guy left who outranks his dad.

Nothing is going to happen.

Okay, that's not true. His dad'll see him, and then he'll try to play that slightly sarcastic version of the happy family charade they always used to live under. It'd be annoying and uncomfortable, but that's it. Just like it was when he was sitting there with Gibbs. There's no way the man is going to flip out on him when he's standing next to his Boss following Jarvis' orders.

That's who he is. Assuming there's someone around who's keeping an eye on things, that's always who he is. God forbid anyone see them not being the perfect, happy family.

Tim thinks about it more. This is a covert test. He's not Tim McGee, NCIS Director of Cybercrime, not on this mission. He's Captain T. McGee, Irish Naval Service, as long as he's on this test, as long as someone else is around, The Admiral can't even admit to knowing him.

Tim smiles at that as he heads back to his computer. That'll drive the old man buggy.


So, why does his voice sound nervous when he says to Abby and Gibbs that night as they have dinner, "I talked to SecNav today. Got the official time for the test."

"Great." She's excited for him, because as the only one of the group who gets all the ins and outs of what he's doing, she knows this is mad difficult and stratosphere-level computer geek sexy, so she, also, can't wait to see how it goes. "When are you going?" She puts the fajita vegetables on the table in front of them, while Tim grabs cheddar cheese and sour cream from the fridge.

"June 11th."

Abby smiles at him. "You excited?" Gibbs looks happy for him as he pats Kelly's back.

He half-smiles back, and she looks at him, curious. He should be having a better time with this. Gibbs catches it, too. He might not get all the ins and outs, but he knows Tim's been enjoying this. So, getting to show it off should be fun. "What?"

"It's on the Stennis." Tim says as he pours the tortilla chips into a bowl, not looking at either of them.

"Oh." Abby says, stopping in the middle of the kitchen, bowl with grilled chicken in her hands, staring at Tim. Gibbs' eyes narrow. He doesn't know what John's flagship is, but he's not having a hard time figuring it out from the way Abby's looking at Tim.

"Yeah." All the nervous Tim talked himself out of comes back in a rush as he sees both of them looking really angry and sad. He sort of half smiles at them, taking the chicken from Abby, and putting it on the table, and the grabbing the tortillas.

"Don't go!" Abby says hot and fast, stopping him mid-stride, holding him by his shoulders. "You can do it from land. Do it from land!"

"It's already set."

"Unset it. Do not get onto his ship! It'll be bad."

He's looking at Gibbs for help, figuring if anyone'll get the whole 'just because it won't be fun doesn't mean I can't do it' aspect of this, but Gibbs is shaking his head, too.

"Don't go."

Okay, at this point nervous is back, and it's brought it's buddy, fear. Tim closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, tries to kill the butterflies dancing in his gut, and doesn't really succeed. "Look, I don't want to go, but, come on, nothing's going to happen. Sure, he'll be annoyed, but… He's not going to cuss me out in front of the Secretary of the Navy for doing the job he's asked me to do."

"Tim…" Abby looks scared, and scared is making her angry. Gibbs is just flat out angry.

"I know." He caresses her face. "The little kid part of my brain is scared, too. The rational part knows this'll be fine. I'm an adult. I will not allow myself to be alone with him. It'll be fine. Call it practice for the wedding or something like that. I'm sure we can be in the same room for a few hours… We did it before, remember," he looks to Gibbs, who was there, "during that case. It wasn't fun, but nothing really bad happened."

Gibbs eyes narrow, he was there, so he saw the kind of shit John pulled during the twenty or so minutes they were together. And yeah, it wasn't fun, and nothing 'really' bad happened, but… "Don't go. Call it… a conflict of interest. Hell, tell SecNav what happened to you as a kid. But don't go."

Tim shakes his head, hard. "I am not talking to SecNav about that! Look, this is the job. I have to do it. He's lived his whole life for the Navy. The Navy is sending me to him. It'll be okay."

Abby doesn't look convinced, probably because he's not exactly doing a great job of being convincing. Probably because he's not convinced. Gibbs is shaking his head. "I'll go with you."

Tim's turn to narrow his eyes. He kisses Abby, and then goes to sit next to Jethro, putting his hand on Jethro's shoulder. "You go with me, you'll pick a fight with him, and it will become a problem. Might screw the test, and will get you arrested. Let's not do that. I want you home for Kelly's birthday party, not in jail for punching the shit out of The Admiral."

"He deserves to have someone pick a fight with him."

Tim lets that go. He agrees. But if anyone is going to pick a fight, it'll be him. "He's never disobeyed an order in his life. He'll be ordered to secrecy because it's a classified op. Being seen doing anything that blows my cover as Capt. McGee of the Irish Naval Service would violate that order. It'll be fine. When we're on the ship, he won't even be able to admit he knows me."

"Captain McGee?" Abby asks.

"That's the official reason I'll be on board. Jarvis is getting it squared away with the Irish Navy so they don't get any surprises with this, and if The Admiral's people check, my background will pass. I'll go in. I'll be 'inspecting the Stennis and working on a report about the feasibility of adding one to the Irish Naval Service.' Get there, do the test, monitor their progress until they find out they were hacked, and then, depending on how long it takes, helio or fly back to land. Won't be there a minute longer than necessary."

"You better not be," Abby's staring at him, looking worried.

"I won't."

Gibbs doesn't look any more secure about that.

Tim shrugs. There's something here, something he needs to say, but he's not sure what. Picking the fight himself triggered some faint understanding of what's going on… and then he gets it, knows why nervous fell away before, and how to make it go away again. "The test is perfect. It's…" he smiles shaking his head, thinking of a way to translate this into Gibbs, "It's a dead center head shot at three klicks out in high winds and the target has cover. And I want to do it to him." And beyond anything else, beyond nervous, there's that. He thinks about it more and knows that's why he didn't press for the Atlantic command. "He always thought the computer stuff was a waste of time, literally told me that MIT was 'me fucking away the best years of my life,' and I want to hit him with that. I want to do it. Once I get onboard, all he'll be able to do is sit there and watch as I throw his entire fleet," he makes a note to check and see exactly how many missiles are on the Stennis, because he's going to target every ship even remotely near the Stennis, and as he thinks about it more, if he can do it, he's going to have the smaller ships start targeting each other. "into disarray, with a computer, while his Boss sits there and smiles at me while I do it."

Gibbs and Abby both get that. And Gibbs remembers Tim saying that if he was ever going to do anything about his dad, it would be his, his tools, his attack. He'd own it from top to bottom.

So, Gibbs says it before Abby does but only by a second, he's still nervous about this, it feels bad in his gut, but he gets it, and she's getting it, too. "Okay."


They're getting ready for bed, brushing teeth, doing that traditional last pre-bed moments of the day routine.

When she's done with her teeth, Abby puts her brush back in its holder and stares at him. He finishes his teeth and says, "What?"

She sighs, steps in close, rests her head on his chest, wrapping her arms around his waist. "I get it. Saw the way you were looking when you were talking about the test. I know you need this, but… God, Tim, be careful. I've got a bad feeling on this, and Gibbs does, too."

He squeezes her tight, kissing her forehead. He's not sure how 'careful' he can be. Not like this is something where a vest'll come in handy.

He tilts her lips towards his and kisses her again. "All he ever had were words and my fear. His words can't hurt me anymore because you make me fearless."

She kisses him, and then nips his bottom lip. "You're being sweet, and I appreciate that, but I also know bullshit when I smell it, and that's a dairy farm's worth."

He shrugs. Of course she can read when he's 'trying to be brave.' "Yeah. I'm nervous, but…" He sighs again. The more he thinks about this, the more he wants it. He's got extra code dancing in his head. By the time this test is done, PacFleet will be so thoroughly fucked over The Admiral'll walk bowlegged for a month.

"I know. Like I said, I can see it. I know you need to be able to pull the rug out from under his feet and get some of your own back. I get it. But, be careful, stay near Jarvis, make sure you're locked in your quarters or you've got people around. Don't let yourself be alone with him."

"I won't. I'll be with Jarvis or James or in my quarters the whole time. I'm not going to spend a minute longer with him than I have to."

She's holding his face in her hands, staring into his eyes, "Okay."

Next

Shards To A Whole: Caution

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 374: Caution


Tim wakes to the smell of coffee the next morning, which he finds a little confusing because he's the one who makes the coffee in the morning.

Then it clicks. Jimmy and Breena crashed at their place last night.

Which is also when the rest of last night hit him.

Abby's still sleeping, so he gently kisses her neck, eases out of bed, finds a pair of pajama pants, puts them on, and heads downstairs.

Jimmy's sitting at his kitchen table, in his boxers and t-shirt, drinking his coffee, and reading something on his phone.

"You look comfy."

"I am, thanks." He pushes a second cup of coffee toward Tim. "Figured you'd be down less than ten minutes after you smelled it."

"Yeah." He takes a sip; it's the way he likes it. "Thanks."

"No problem."

"Sleep well?"

"Yeah, the bed in your guest room is good."

They sit there, drinking their coffee in silence, and that silence is significantly less comfortable than usual. Finally Tim says, "So, um… last night, was that weird?"

Jimmy looks up from his phone, and Tim sees the hickies on his collar bone and throat, while realizing he's got fingernail marks down his back, no shirt, and he didn't bother to wash his eye makeup off last night, so he's likely got raccoon eyes to go with the rest of it. They both look utterly fucked. "Getting off watching each other have sex at a club, all four of us basically spending the next three hours making out with each other, then getting off again, listening to each other have sex. Do you have to ask?"

Yeah, there's some sarcasm there, but not nearly as much as there could be, so Tim says, "I do. Cause I'm alternating between completely freaked out and totally okay with it. How about you?"

Jimmy takes a long drink of his coffee and then sighs. "Yeah, it's weird, but... not in a bad way."

Tim's not looking at Jimmy as he says, "Yeah. Maybe in a I-really-liked-it-but-I-don't-want-to-think-too-hard-about-it sort of way."

"In a we-never-ever-tell-Tony-about-it sort of way."

Tim's nodding almost violently in agreement with that, and Jimmy smiles at him, and uncomfortable fell apart. "So, we're good?"

"Yeah, we're good," Jimmy says. "Think the girls are?"

"If what Abby's telling me is right, they want to take this a lot further than just showing off for each other, so yeah, I think they're good."

"Err…" Jimmy looks somewhat uncomfortable at that. But Tim notices, only somewhat.

"Yeah." Tim drinks more of his coffee.

"Not sure I'd want to go there."

"Yeah. Like, it's a hot idea, but…"

"But…" Jimmy nods. "I mean, we've talked about it, and it's a fun fantasy, but…"

Tim nods, he knows exactly what Jimmy means by this. "Abby says they won't ambush us with it. They'll let us know ahead of time and give us plenty of room to back out."

"That's a good thing. 'Cause if it went wrong, it'd go really wrong."

"Yeah. And I don't want that."

"Me, either."

Tim takes another sip of his coffee. Part of him wants to leave it there, get up, make some eggs for them, and just let it lie. Keep this in the realm of fantasy and the occasional live show. He's thinking being the ones in the booth, watching the show would be a whole lot of fun, too.

But the part of him that knows how much he likes those fantasies is awfully sure Jimmy really likes those fantasies, too. So, he swallows again, trying to ease his nerve-generated dry mouth, looking for some moisture so he'll be able to speak, and says, "What if it didn't go wrong?"

Jimmy's staring at him, looking awfully startled by that. He carefully puts his coffee cup down full attention with laser focus on Tim. "You think it might not?"

Tim shrugs. "I don't know. I was talking with Breena about—"

"You talked to Breena about this?" Jimmy looks stunned and a bit angry at that.

"You haven't talked to Abby?"

"No!" Tim gave Jimmy a cut the bullshit look. "Not exactly. She's your wife. I'm not going to talk to her about having sex with me."

"Well, what does 'not exactly' mean?"

"I talked to Breena, and Breena talked to her, and next thing I knew we had Valentine's videos of the girls making out. That's like right out of the guy playbook."

For a moment, Tim's thinking that Jimmy has a way different playbook than he does, but it probably doesn't matter much. "I think it's safe to say that last night we not only tossed out the playbook, but that we set fire to it first and pissed on its ashes."

"Maybe." Jimmy sounds guarded at this, like he's reserving judgment and debating about if he needs to get really pissed. "What did you say to Breena?"

"Day after Tony and Ziva's wedding, Abby tells me that maybe you two might be willing to come play with us, which was the first time she told me that she and Breena had been talking about this, like really talking about it, and once I got my brain back online, the first thing I was wondering about was how your virgin-to-her-wedding-day wife got to the point of let's-have-sex-with-our-best-friends, too. And that's something I couldn't ask you. So, I flat out asked her about it."

Jimmy thinks about that, eyeing Tim… And it's an okay question, not too far out of line. He relaxes. "When was that?"

"Last Memorial Day, when I was showing her the anti-nausea points."

Jimmy thinks back, and remembers that. "You had that conversation with her when she was in a bikini while touching her?"

"Yeah, while wearing a wet bathing suit, with our whole family fifty feet away."

Jimmy laughs, rolling his eyes. "You really are a glutton for punishment, aren't you."

"Says the guy who wears skintight jeans to go out in public when he knows he's going to be walking around with a hard-on. Yeah, I'm the glutton for punishment." Tim drops the sarcasm. "But… You've talked with her about this, right?"

"Of course." She's my wife, of course I've talked to her about this. I'm the one who's supposed to be talking with her about this. Is pretty clear on Jimmy's face.

Tim nods, letting him, know he gets that. "Okay. I just… really liked the way she was thinking about it. And there's this part of me that's all Grrrr… My woman! Stay away! But if I could get it to shut up, this could be a really great."

Jimmy thinks about it. "I could see you watching what Breena and I were doing. Could tell you were getting off on it, and it didn't bother me." Jimmy lets that sit there, and then decides that if they're going to actually talk about this, then honesty is probably the best way to make sure it doesn't end up biting all four of them in the ass. "Okay, I really liked it. Taking getting caught one notch higher, you know." Tim nods; he gets that. "But, it's supposed to bother you, right? I mean, you watched Breena get off. That's supposed to piss me off, right? Not make me feel… turned on… and proud… kind of?"

Tim nods. "Best, hottest porn ever, because you're real, and actually having a good time, and… And you're watching us, so we're showing off, too, and you kick it up a bit because we're watching you, and…"

"And that feels kind of weird. Like it's wrong, but that's part of why it feels so good, but maybe it's not wrong, because it's you and Abby, so it's safe, but it's you and Abby, so maybe it's not safe and… Almost getting caught is one thing, putting on a show… And feeling like I'm… I mean, it felt really good, but…"

Okay, if Tim's filling in those blanks correctly, it looks like Jimmy is on the same page he is, and that makes Tim feel a lot better. "You could tell I was talking to Abby, right?"

"Yeah."

"We'll… tell each other stories. And last night was the first time she flat out said she wanted to have sex with you. Not… together, the two of us doing Breena-"

"Both of you with Breena?" Jimmy looks like he feels like he should be surprised about that, but isn't.

"Oh yeah! You don't have one of you and her with Abby?"

"Of course," Which is likely why he's not surprised. "We've had that one for years."

"Us, too. Anyway this was the first time your ass got tossed into the mix, and… It didn't piss me off. I felt like it should have. I mean, she's telling me she wants to have sex with you. But it didn't, and from there, I just ran the story, all four of us, and we passed it around, playing with it, and…" He feels like he's standing on the edge of the cliff, and takes a deep breath. "And… even with you in the mix, it was really hot, and… And then the three of us were dancing… and…" Just say it. He's not going to have a fit. He's your friend and he probably feels the same way, too. "And I really liked the idea of you and me with her."

"Hmm…"

Tim can't read the expression on Jimmy's face right now. He's got it intentionally blank. No! Don't just sit there saying hmmm! Do not leave me out here on my own with my balls flapping in the breeze. "Hmm… what?"

Blank crumbles, replaced with confusion, fear, and worry. "I don't know!" Jimmy snaps out. "Yeah, it's hot! You and me and Abby, or you and me and Breena, or…" and Tim's getting the sense Jimmy's having a similar debate about actually saying out loud what he's thinking that Tim just was. "Or maybe, you and Breena, you know, on your own, and me and Abby, on our own, but like, together, same room, same bed, watching each other…" Tim's not even sure how to respond to that, because it's nothing that he'd thought of, yet, though it's starting to bounce around in his head, now. And… yeah, he swallows hard as a whole slew of new erotic images go flashing through his head. That's not hitting him wrong, at all. He nods a little, and Jimmy knows he hasn't crossed the line, so he gets to his point. "It's really hot; it's don't think about it in public hot, but if it went wrong, it'd kill us, and I don't…" He shakes his head a little, eyes on Tim's, very earnest expression on his face. "This is everyone in the world who really matters to me, all in play because of this."

Tim nods, he understands that, feels it, too.

"And if it went right… Then what?"

Tim looks at him quizzically. Concerns about this going right are nothing that's occurred to him. "I'm not following you."

"It goes right, are we, just… what? Fuck buddies? Extra fun on long weekends? Abby's alone in the lab, and I've got a sample to run, do I get to play with her? If it's really good, do we move in together, form one family? Is Abby still yours and Breena mine? What the fuck does yours or mine even mean if we do this? Do we care if the kids have blonde hair and green eyes or brown hair and hazel eyes?"

"Er…" Absolutely none of that was something Tim had given any real thought. Beyond saying to Gibbs that if they could do it once, they'd probably want to do it a lot, he hadn't thought of anything beyond them still getting along and sex.

"Yeah." Jimmy nods at him, seeing the ideas really hit Tim.

Tim opens his mouth, not entirely sure what he is going to say next, but feeling like he needs to say something, when the sound of a truck pulling into their driveway lets both of them know Gibbs is less than a minute from the door. And less than a minute later they hear the door open along with, "Anyone awake? Got a little girl who wants to see Mom and Dad, here."

"Jimmy and I are in the kitchen," he calls out to Gibbs. A second later he's holding Kelly, kissing her forehead.

"Looks like you guys had a good night," he says to Tim and Jimmy dryly. And it occurs to Tim that not only do he and Jimmy both look really fucked, but they have to smell like it, too.

He flashes Gibbs a sheepish smile, but Jimmy either misses the insinuation or ignores it, and just says, with his trademark innocent smile, "Oh yeah. Ladies are still sleeping. You want a cup of coffee?"

Gibbs looks at both of them, staring long and hard before saying, "Nah. Was planning on heading up to the house, get a good day in on that." He looks at both of them, eyes lingering on the hickeys on Jimmy's throat. "Don't want to eat up your anniversary time off, but maybe you'll both come up and help?"

"This week's bootcamp is carpentry?"

"Sure." Gibbs says.

"Yeah, I can swing that." Jimmy answers, while Tim nods in agreement. "Want me to call Collin?"

Gibbs shakes his head. "Just you two."

"Okay." Jimmy's looking a little perplexed at this, but Tim's thinking he knows what's up.

Gibbs grabs his keys. "Got some errands to run, more mortar and tools to pick up. See you in a bit?"

Tim and Jimmy nod as he heads off.

Jimmy looks back to Tim, who's bouncing Kelly in his arms. "Okay, I know I missed at least half of that conversation. What the hell was that?"

"Dad's making sure we're not about to shoot ourselves in the ass."

"Okay, how could he possibly know? The man cannot actually be psychic, and I don't care how good he says his hearing is, he did not hear that conversation."

Tim's looking sheepish again. "I might have told him, a bit more than a year ago, that we were... kind of thinking about it."

"You talk to Breena and Gibbs about this, but not me?"

"You'd have hit me last year if I brought it up then. And… I couldn't have said it. But we're talking now."

"Why would you tell him..." Jimmy looks stupefied. "How do you even get into that conversation with him?"

"It's a longish story. Just... it was the week of Tony and Ziva's honeymoon, we were on stakeout, got talking, and he'd seen us dancing at the wedding, and was... I don't know, not curious, but... cautious, I guess.

"And it was like, two days after Abby said she and Breena had been talking about it, like actually doing it, talking about it, and that was a lot to process so... I asked for advice."

Jimmy knows Tim and Gibbs are closer than the rest of him, but the idea that Tim would ask Gibbs for advice on this floors him. For a second he sits there quietly, and then another thought hits. "What did he say?"

"Take it slow, trust my instincts, and don't do anything stupid."

"Take it slow?" Jimmy's utterly shocked by that. "I'd have been thinking he would have had something closer to 'Fuck around on Abby, and I will personally introduce your testicles to my hedge trimmers.'"

"Yeah, well, I didn't put it like, 'Hey, I'm kind of bored, and Breena's looking good. So, how about I go fuck up both of our marriages and wreck our kids' lives.' I'm sure that would have gotten hedge trimmer introductions in order. Abby put it as, if it ever happened, it'd be the four of us, all together. So, that's what I told him. And that if we could do it, it probably wouldn't just be a one off kind of thing."

"One off?"

"He asked if the girls were thinking like some sort of birthday treat for us, kind of like what they did for Valentine's, or if it'd be something we'd do a lot. And... like you said... I don't know... But, I mean, if we can do this, that would mean it was fun and good, so... We'd want to do it a lot, right?"

"I guess..." Jimmy's looking wary about this. "If we can do it."

"Yeah. If... I mean, we're not... committing to anything, right?"

"No!" Jimmy stops, thinks, staring at Tim. "But we're not ruling it out, either."

"No." He bites his lip. "We're... figuring it out."

"Yeah. Okay." At that Jimmy starts to laugh. Tim's just staring at him.

Finally Jimmy gets out, "We're two white-bread, suburban dads with minivans, responsible jobs, and likely PTA memberships and volunteering for the Girl Scouts in the not wildly distant future. Hell, I wear bow ties to work! How on earth do we end up here?"

Tim shakes his head slowly, smiling a little, also getting the irony of this. "I don't know. But we might as well enjoy it, right?"

"Oh yeah."

"So, we're good?"

"Yeah. We are. Whatever's coming, we'll figure it out."

"Okay. For future reference, wouldn't mind if you and Breena were the ones on the dance floor next time. We like to watch, too."

Jimmy nods. "Noted."


Gibbs and Ducky and Penny have been putting in full days at the house over the course of the last week. (Finals were last week. She's off until the summer session begins in June.) This has resulted in remarkably little work done on the actual house.

All the siding is off. They've got new plywood up in the places that needed it. Everything is wrapped in Tyvek, and in one tiny corner of the longest southern-facing wall of the house, there's the start of the masonry work.

The reason why it's only one tiny corner is laid out in the driveway. Penny had taken one look at the load of stone in their driveway, and promptly come to the conclusion that just randomly slapping rocks against the side of the house would not result in the kind of job they were looking for.

So she and Ducky marked off the size of the area they were going to work on, and began laying out the stones ahead of time. Supposedly this will result in maximum efficiency of stonework, and will prevent a situation where they end up having to stick twenty-five tiny stones all next to each other to fill in a gap. Gibbs isn't sure about that. He knows that what is has resulted in is Ducky and Penny puttering about in the driveway debating which stone goes where, while he grabs stones they've already laid out, one at a time, and gets them up, slowly.

Apparently this is how house building goes when you're working with scientists.

On the upside, the first wall's stones are laid out, so all he has to do today is keep schlepping them from the driveway to the side of the house and apply them and the mortar to the house.

And he does suppose it's nice that this is like putting together a puzzle when the pieces are already laid out right next to each other. It does let him immerse himself in the feel of wet mortar, hard stone, tapping and scraping each bit into place.

It's not wood. He'd be doing better with wood. But this is good, too.

As soon as Gibbs realized that Tony wasn't at Tim's place, he started to get a bit nervous. He remembered that conversation bit more than a year ago about maybe the four of them becoming more than friends. He saw, immediately recognizing the hot-date-gonna-get-so-laid look on both of the guys' faces when he went to pick up Kelly. Tony told him about the Valentine's Day treat the girls made, and how it completely fried Jimmy's brain. Didn't take him more than a second to put that all together with his original advice: take it slow, don't do anything stupid, and to make sure all babies were healthy and that everyone was settled.
Everyone's settled, all babies are healthy, it's been more than a year since he said that to Tim. If there's such a thing as a prime time to move on the four of them… foursome-ing… he guesses that'd be the term, it's probably now.

Gibbs's not sure if they did it or not last night. Both guys reeked of sex, so he knows on a basic level what happened, but he doesn't know if they crossed the line or just got close. He could feel something was up, but not well enough to know precisely what.

And he doesn't know if today's pick up the pieces and clean up time, or if… if something new's starting, or… or if they even have a clue what's going on.

He just hopes they didn't fuck things up.

Gibbs has gotten a few more feet of wall done when he hears Jimmy's car pull up. He sees both of them, dressed to work, amble out, look over the stones all over the driveway, and the head to him.

Tim's got a bag in his hand. "You have lunch?"

Gibbs shakes his head. He hasn't eaten yet. Though they got the electric working on Tuesday and now have a working fridge with food in it located in the kitchen.

Tim hands over the bag. "Club sandwich, chips, macaroni salad, and Elaine sends her love, hopes to see us all back for breakfast next week." With no Sunday morning church, they hadn't been doing pre-church breakfast.

Gibbs nods, opening up the bag. "Next Sunday?"

"We're fine with that, church or no. Not like we aren't up," Jimmy adds. He looks at the wall, looks at Gibbs kneeling in front of it, and looks at the rocks. "So, we talking or working?"

That's a bit more abrupt than Gibbs was hoping for. He still doesn't have a read for what happened last night, yet.

"Both."

"Then show us what to do." Tim says.

Gibbs does, picking up the next rock. They're of many different shapes and diameters, but they're all about an inch thick. The idea is to create the appearance of a stone wall. He applies the mortar to the board and the other stones, setting the newest one in place, tapping it down, making sure it's secure, and then scraping off the extra. It's not the fastest or tidiest job ever. Gibbs is very obviously not a mason, but he's got the basics down. (Thank you, YouTube.)

"Penny and Duck laid 'em all out. Grab some, measure where they go, twice, start from the bottom up, and get to work."

Tim and Jimmy nod, and get to it. Jimmy grabs his stone from a patch about ten feet away from Gibbs, and Tim snags the bottom of the other corner. (Righties, like say, Gibbs, tend to prefer to work left to right. Well, he likes to go right to left, so Tim homes in on the far edge of the wall.) They'd been at it for a moment when he hears Jimmy say to Tim. "Heads up."

Tim looks up and then quickly catches the SPF 50 sunblock that is flying toward his head. "Thanks. Already wearing some."

"Good. More goes on every hour fifteen."

"Yes, Doctor Palmer."

Jimmy nods, and goes back to applying stones to the wall. He's good at it. Might be some overlap between masonry and autopsy. At the very least, both require a certain level of manual dexterity, and the ability to manipulate malleable solids.

Gibbs keeps watch on them as he works. They seem fine, talking a little, joking some, mostly focused on doing something new and technically precise well. He's not catching any tension between them. There's a slight edge of 'are we in trouble' coming from both of them, but it's not so sharp as to affect how they're working, and it's aimed at him, not at each other.

After watching both of them for an hour, Gibbs decides to break for lunch. And him breaking for lunch means they both wrap up what they're doing to grab drinks and sit with him. Once he's got his bag unpacked, he asks, "Good time last night?" He's watching for the micro expressions, the little tells that neither of them know they do every time they talk.

"Yeah." Tim says, nodding. And yes, he had a good time. That's true. Gibbs gets the sense that there's some reticence to get too deep into it, but it's aimed at him, and it doesn't appear to be related to shame or regret.

Jimmy grins at him, wide happy expression. "Oh yeah!" And like with Tim, that's real, but there is also a reserve, and… yeah, it's aimed at him.

He catches the look the two of them give each other. Takes him a second to decide that look is, How much are we telling Dad?

Gibbs can see they're okay with each other, so… He should probably leave it alone. That's all that really matters on this. And any deeper than that is not, by any stretch of anyone's imagination, his business.

He's about ready to drop it, but Tim says, "We're fine; we're not being stupid; we're taking it slow, and we don't know exactly what's going to happen next, but nothing's happening without all four of us wholeheartedly agreeing to it."

Jimmy nods. "It's good you're looking out for us, but we're okay."

Gibbs looks at both of them, staring, trying to lay their souls bare with his eyes. "You sure?"

"Yeah," Jimmy says with a nod. Tim's nodding, too.

"You okay?" Tim asks.

Gibbs eyes narrow a bit. He hasn't bothered to think about this in terms of if he is okay. Gibbs thinks about it for a minute. If they're okay, really okay… and they look okay… Whatever it was they did last night, he's sure it didn't suddenly make both of them expert liars. So, yeah… he's okay.

Gibbs nods. Then he thinks some more. "But I won't be if you guys tear apart." He sighs. He hates trying to talk about deep, emotion-y things. "Be like having my heart ripped out if you four stopped getting along."

"Yeah." Jimmy says, looking from him to Tim, very serious. "I know."

Tim nods back at both of them, just as serious. "Me, too."

"Okay." Gibbs drinks some of his coffee and grabs his sandwich, chewing a bite, he says, "Back to work. Stone's aren't putting themselves up, and you're not eating."

Jimmy's getting up, but Tim hasn't moved. "If… and not saying it'll happen, but…" Tim rubs his face, looking a bit sheepish, so Jimmy sits down again, wanting to see where he's going to take this. Gibbs is watching this closely, too, getting a sense of where this might be going, but not sure. "If we… the four of us…get together, for real, like, serious, long-term, rest of our lives, for real… We were just… playing… last night. You still going to be okay, with us?"

Gibbs watches Tim, knows that it cost him to ask that, to lay out his need for approval that nakedly. He swallows, because, okay, if the four of them do become, whatever, it does strike him as sort of weird. Of course, a lot of things about Tim and Jimmy strike him as weird. But, at least right now, this feels more like kilts and man-of-honor weird than something he needs to actually get excited about weird.

He hates this because he has to take a moment and really feel whatever this is, because he doesn't want to just haul off with a quick answer and have it bite them later.

So, he takes the time, and Tim's looking a little nervous, so Gibbs puts his hand on Tim's signaling, be calm.

He's not feeling any immediate sense of disgust or problem. There's fear here, but that's fear of it falling apart, of their family ripped to shreds and people he loves in pain.

He exhales, trying to think of how to say this. "I'm always going to be okay with all of you. That's not changing. You are who you are, and you're good men, and I'm proud to have you as sons. But I want you to be happy. And, if you can keep the sort of good thing you've got with your own wives going while becoming… whatever this is… then yes, I'm going to be okay with you, all of you." He looks directly at Tim for this bit. "I don't care what combinations you're sleeping with each other in." He gives Jimmy a quick glance, too, but both of them know Tim's background well enough to know that matters a hell of a lot more to him than it does to Jimmy. "I also don't want to know." He hopes that'll prevent the occasional overshare Tim and Jimmy are known for, too.

Gibbs licks his lips, because there's more than that. "While back, I told Tony that rule twelve had changed. Don't date Ziva if you're not willing to marry her. It'd hurt so much if they screwed it up, you know?" Both of the younger guys are nodding. "So, that's what I'll tell you. If you do this, it better be a forever thing. I've already lost one family. I don't want to lose another one. Don't fuck around with this. Don't cross the line until you're willing to commit to it."

Tim nods, looking relieved. "Thanks."

Gibbs looks at Jimmy, who nods. He's happy to have this… conditional blessing of sorts… but it's clear that it matters a hell of a lot more to Tim.

Tim stands up, dusting off his jeans. "Okay, putting up stones."

Jimmy also stands, grabbing a trowel and then handing it to Tim. "This one's yours."

"Thanks."

"Didn't know they made these lefty," he says to Gibbs.

"Until this morning, I didn't either."


He's closing up the truck, whistling for Mona, letting her know it's time to go home, and can hear both of the guys talking, quietly, about something.

They walk over to him, and Tim starts, "Since we don't really know what we're doing yet, we're hoping to keep this quiet."

"Be a lot easier to figure this out if it's just the four of us doing the figuring out."

Tim adds, "If there's ever anything to be, out, about, we'll be out at home, but right now, this is just for us, okay?"

Gibbs nods. He can keep their secrets.

"Tim noticed that look you shot us last night, and Borin's not stupid, so we're guessing that she's probably wondering what that was."

Gibbs nods, she had wondered, but was willing to let it go when he said he couldn't talk about it.

"So, look, we don't want you feeling like you can't talk to her," Tim says. "Anything we hit you with, you can tell her, too."

"Don't want you feeling like you've got to shut her out."

Jimmy finishes with, "Just, don't want this going through everyone else, yet."

Gibbs can read that 'everyone else' means Tony specifically and to a lesser degree Ziva. He's not getting a feel if they're concerned about Ducky and Penny one way or another. And then something else hits him, 'everyone else' is the entire Slater clan. And 'everyone else' means not shooting them looks that Tony or Ziva or say Collin will pick up on at the next Bootcamp.

Gibbs nods. "No problem."


"Good talk?" Borin asks as he and Mona step into the house.

He nods, sitting down next to her on the sofa. She knew he wanted to talk to the guys, on his own, or she would have offered to go along on today's trip. She actually likes masonry. But, they needed 'guy time' so, instead she's catching up on the shows she likes to watch on her iPad.

Gibbs isn't sure where to start this, why he was concerned, what's going on.

"You get permission to tell me what's up?"

Say what you like about dating a cop, but they miss absolutely nothing.

He nods at that, too.

"So…"

He shakes his head, opening and closing his mouth.

"How bad is this?"

"It's not…" He does that I don't have words gesture, but finally gets some together. "They're tiptoeing around becoming a foursome. Not sure if they're staying where they are or going further."

Borin blinks a few times at that. She stares at Gibbs, and can see he's not on the warpath, no sense of anger, but… "Shouldn't you be getting out the sniper rifle and putting the fear of Dad into them?"

He shrugs. "If Tim and Abby and Breena and Jimmy all want to be… with each other… all of 'em, together, at once… Who am I supposed to shoot?"

Abbi opens and closes her mouth. She doesn't have an answer to that.

He looks at her, exactly on his face. "Is it cheating if you're all in it together?"

"I..." she's about to say, 'I'd say so," but thinks about it more, thinks about all together, at once, and comes up with a very uncertain, "No?"

Gibbs nods.

Abbi thinks about what she's seen of the four of them together, slotting it into that sort of a focus. And thinking about it, yeah, they are close. Really close. She's seen plenty of relationships like what Breena and Abby have, that almost effortless closeness between two women. She doesn't think she's seen too many examples of guys who similar levels of comfort with each other, but as she thinks about it, Tim and Jimmy do have that. And she can feel that's something Tony and Ziva are outside of.

"So, that's why you got tense when you realized Tony wasn't there?"

"Yeah. Know they won't do anything if he's along for the trip."

"You worried?"

He shrugs at that, too. "Feel like I should be. They seem okay. Right now, they are. But… I don't want them getting bit in the ass."

"Do you think they will get bit?"

He shakes his head. "Gut says no. They… feel… good with each other. If there's gonna be a problem, it'll be with the guys, and right now they feel solid. They're worried about getting bit, know what's at stake. Brains are in charge instead of balls, so that's good. And it looks like they're taking it slow, making sure they're all good. Maybe they'll never pull the trigger on it."

"But you think they will?"

Gibbs nods. He's feeling that in his gut to. "Tim asked if I'd be okay with it if all four of them became… I don't know if there's a word for it, a quadruple? Serious, long-term, married-style. You don't ask that if you're not gonna do it."

"Are you?"

"You know anyone who ever pulled it off? Two's hard enough for most people, four? That's juggling, what…" he thinks about it, the girls, the guys, all four of them, plus four couples, so… "seven relationships?"

Abbi shakes her head. "Not that I know personally. I mean, I know they're out there. I know it's not impossible, and supposedly four works better than three, but…"

"Yeah. If they can do it, yeah, I'm good with it. I mean… I'm from the seventies. I remember swinging. First sex book I ever read suggested fooling around with your friends as fun and a good way to get to know each other better and learn new tricks. Not like this is something I've never heard of. But I don't know anyone who made it work long-term." He sits quietly thinking about that, about all of it. "If anyone can do it, it's them, but I don't know if anyone can."

"And that scares you."

"Yeah."

Next

Shards To A Whole: Meet The Family

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 372: Meet The Family


Gibbs had last seen Borin on Tuesday, when they'd had that long talk and he invited her to Shabbos.

Now it's Friday, and he's hit the point (usually noonish) where he and Ziva need to decide who's house it's going to be at. So…

Phone in hand, he gets to calling.

"Hey, Ziver."

"Gibbs, our place this week. Pot roast is roasting away in the slow cooker." He loves the fact that she's good with direct and to the point. Though it also occurs to him that he might have gotten her in the middle of something. He's got the sense she's a bit distracted right now.

"Good. Feel like setting an extra plate?"

That gets what sounds like Ziva's undivided attention. "Yes! Borin is coming?"

"That's the plan. Next call is making sure she can come."

"Gibbs!" He can feel her smiling from here. "What changed? Why now?"

He flashes his best nope, not telling look at the phone, where it's completely useless.

"Gibbs?"

He rolls his eyes. "It's called a private life for a reason."

"Fine. But this is a good thing! Can't wait to see her again. Is she Abbi?"

He stares at the phone for a second wondering if she's asking if he's developed some sort of pet name for her, or if she thinks he calls his girlfriend by her last name. "I call her Abbi."

"Hmp. We used to call her Borin, but…"

"You and Tony still call Tim, McGee and Jimmy, Palmer, I don't think she'll be annoyed if you keep calling her Borin."

"Yes, but what about when her name is Gibbs? We will have gone from two Abbys to two Gibbses."

A sigh and massive eye roll. "Rein it in while she's there, okay? Tell Tony I don't want to hear anything about the fourth ex-Mrs. Gibbs, and if any of you call her Mom, you're all dead."

He can feel that smile, too. "Yes, Dad."

"What do you want me to bring?"

"Salad is good. Some sort of fresh, green vegetable. It's fleischig, so nothing with milk. Those brownies you got from Abby… This is going to be insane… From Abby McGee's baker were good."

"Noted. See you by sundown."

"Oh yes!"


Gibbs's picking Abbi up at her place, and then they're heading to Tony and Ziva's.

He's not nervous. Excited maybe, but not nervous.

It hits him, as he's driving, that he's never voluntarily shared a girlfriend with his family. Probably because last time he had one, they weren't precisely a family, yet. Though they were getting a lot closer, and that made it easier to let them see.

They met Susan, once, because they pretty much couldn't not meet her. It was Christmas time. He invites everyone he's on speaking terms with to his Christmas party, so it's not like he couldn't invite her.

But it did feel really odd to have her there, and them there, and have them see him be intimate with a woman. Not like he was ever smooching Hollis in the Bullpen. (At least, not when his team was still at work.) Not bad, but very odd.

This doesn't feel odd.


He heads to her door, and lets himself in. When she expects him, she leaves the door unlocked, and he doesn't have to knock. (Though he doesn't yet have a key, and has not pressed in that direction. He figures that when you date someone who can pick the locks to your home, that offering a key is doubly important, and that you need to wait until it's freely and comfortably given. Otherwise you're just barging on in.)

"Hello."

"Hi," he hears from upstairs, so he heads on up. She's standing in front of her closet, in her underwear, staring at her clothing.

For a moment, he settles in to enjoy the view.

"What's the dress code for this?" she asks, turning around, and as she faces him, he steps toward her for a hello kiss.

He's in his standard work clothes: slacks, t-shirt, golf-shirt, jacket. She sees that and nods. "Dress code is casual but not grubby. Dinner starts before sunset, so in the winter we're usually coming straight from work, so work clothes. Summertime things can get more casual. Girls wear sundresses. Tim'll wear a kilt."

She blinks slowly, looking confused. "McGee has a kilt?"

"He's got three of them now."

She looks irked and shakes her head slowly.

Gibbs shrugs. "He likes it. Abbs likes it—"

"DiNozzo teases the hell out of him about it."

"Not so much anymore. If you ever want to come to church with us, that's suit and tie and Sunday-best dressed up."

"You wear a suit and tie to church?"

Gibbs nods.

"I'll have to see that."

"I'm free on Sunday if you are."

She nods at that and then returns to her closet, pulling out a blouse, tailored gray trousers, and a navy jacket.


"I've never been to a Sabbath dinner before," she says as he pulls away from her place.

"Until Ziva and Tony hosted the first one back in… Molly was brand new, so gotta be more than two years ago, none of the rest of us had been either."

"Do I need to do anything?"

"Not if you don't want to. Join in as much or as little as you like, being there's the important part."

Abbi nods. She stares out the window while he drives and then asks, "Shabbos on Friday, church on Sunday… Do you have a religion?"

He laughs at that. It's a fair question, and something they haven't talked about. "Raised Episcopalian. Dog tags say I'm Protestant." He shakes his head. "I don't care much one way or another. Shabbos is home and family for Ziva and Tony, so I'm there. Church and Sunday dinner is home and family for Abby and Breena, so I'm there. You?"

"According to my dog tags, I'm also Protestant. Haven't been to church in… forever. Wasn't a big deal for my family, and the livestock needs to be taken care of every day. They don't care if it's Sunday and town's fifteen miles away and you've got to drive half an hour to get there for a service that's going when they like to be eating."

Gibbs nods at that.

"You believe in God?" she asks.

"Yeah. I pray, too. Been known to light the occasional candle. But, most of the… stuff… that's not important. Just there to help set the mood." He glances over to her, your turn on his face.

She shrugs. "Don't think about it much. Not sure I like the idea of some great, all-powerful, all-knowing being that lets all this shit happen. The bad stuff's easier if it's just us, you know?"

Gibbs nods. He understands that. "Tim'd agree with you on that."

She smiles. "You call him Tim now, and DiNozzo, Tony, and Palmer, Jimmy. When'd that happen?"

"Slowly, a little bit at a time."


They're in the elevator heading up toward Tony and Ziva's place. "No emergency stop," Abbi says, looking at the buttons.

Gibbs shakes his head.

"You ever… put that to good use? You know, at work?"

He looks at her and licks his lips, a very amused expression on his face. "Didn't think I was that fast."

She laughs at that, squeezing his hand. "Didn't answer me."

He shakes his head.

"Ever think about it?"

He kisses her ear and whispers quietly, "Oh yeah. First time you worked with us, I was thinkin' about it."

She gives him a quick kiss as the doors slide open. "Good." When she pulls back and they step out, she says, "So, how affectionate are we in front of them?"

Gibbs shrugs. "Whatever you're comfortable with. Duck and Penny don't touch a lot. The kids… no one makes out, but kisses and pets and hugs are common. More of us then there are chairs sometimes, so the girls'll sit in their guys' laps. Might get some stares if we're huggy, but I don't mind."

"Big, bad, Leroy Jethro Gibbs is huggy?" Borin is vastly amused by this idea.

"At home, I get to be whoever I want." He stops and pulls her close for a second, kissing her quickly. "And if I want to be huggy with the gorgeous redhead by my side, I can be huggy."

Abbi smiles. "Good. That's how home should be."


You work with people a half-dozen times, you spend some very intense hours with them on cases that are matters of life or death, and you develop a certain sense of them.

In some ways it's very deep and intimate.

In other ways it barely scratches the surface.

And when it came down to it, Borin, who had worked with and gone out for drinks with the MCRT a few times, really didn't have any sense for them as a family. Sort of. She has a sense of their positions in the family. She knows Gibbs is Dad, she knows Abby's the baby, the favorite who's doted on. DiNozzo's the oldest son; the brat who's allowed to get away with more than the others, but gets smacked on occasion for it to keep him in line. McGee's the invisible middle child. David's her dad's right hand, the child most like himself and the one he'd turn to if he needed something.

But, hearing Gibbs talk about them, she's fairly sure that those broad sketches are, at best, caricatures and likely, these days, quite a bit off.

If what Gibbs has told her is true, she's also never seen them as a family. She's seen a very close team of good friends. But that's not who they are now.

Even knowing that the people she is going to meet again have changed, and that this is going to be a much more intimate gathering, she isn't expecting Tony and Ziva's home to be so… homey. But it is.

It's warm and welcoming and smells amazing.

They're the first ones there, and even though she and David, who is now DiNozzo, and should probably just be Ziva, get along well, and have gone out for drinks and dinner a few times on their own, Abbi isn't expecting the warm hug when she walks in, or the way Gibbs gets hugged, too. (He is apparently not kidding about being allowed to be huggy at home. Ziva gets a warm squeeze and a kiss on the forehead.)

The house smells great, savory, spicy, beefy smells mingling with fresh baked bread. Borin knows Da—Ziva can cook. They've talked about that. But it's not an obvious concept in her mind. Ziva cooks. Because Ziva eats. And Ziva has a home, that she cooks in, that's very warm and comfortable looking, astoundingly tidy (magazine cover tidy, which staggers Abbi because she can't imagine any place that DiNozzo… Tony… lives being this organized) decorated in warm creams, bright yellows, and cooler rust tones.

There's a table set for ten plus a high chair, flowers, gracefully curved yellow calla lilies, flanking the source of one of the amazing smells in the house, two loaves of bread.

"You make the bread?"

Ziva smiles. "I do. If we're at his house," she indicates Gibbs, "he does, too."

Borin looks at Gibbs, surprise on her face. He shrugs. "Ziver's better at it."

"Because I've done it for years. And I did not have a two-year-old helper the last time I did it."

"Molly only helped once."

"How do you have time for that?"

Ziva smiles. "Once a month I make a large batch of the dough. It rises twice, and on the second rise I punch it down, braid it, put it on baking sheets, and freeze it. Then on Friday morning, I take it out of the freezer, and by the time we're back from work, it's thawed, risen, and ready to bake."

That's so easy that Abbi's thinking she's going to be baking more bread.

DiNozzo steps out of what Abbi's assuming is their bedroom a moment later, relaxed, white button down, blue jeans, hair damp, feet bare. "Borin! Ziva told me you were coming. We've been badgering him to bring you for months now." She gets a hug, and Gibbs gets a slap on the back.

Gibbs's eyes narrow slightly at that as Abbi turns to him, "Months?"

"They're easily excited," he says dryly.

Tony laughs.

They hear the door open, and a second later Borin has her arms full of Abby, blonde Abby, blonde Abby wearing normal, professional clothing, even her neck tattoo is missing, (She's not entirely sure what happened with that, but wow, it's a change!) hugging her. "You're here! Oh, this is so awesome! You should be here all the time! We've been waiting for you!" (Fortunately, Abby talking at a million miles an hour and knocking her over with boundless enthusiasm is exactly what she expects, so the shock of the different outside is rapidly soothed by the proof of the same inside.)

Gibbs licks his lips and quietly says to Borin, "Very easily excited."

Borin chuckles at that as Abby pulls back, giving Gibbs a warm hug, saying something quietly to him as she held him close. He smiles fondly at her.

Abbi notices McGee a few steps back. Who is also looking a lot different. Gibbs has talked about the whole Bootcamp thing, and she gets the idea that that kind of workout builds muscle and tone, but wow! And when the hell did he start wearing rolled up sleeves and a wrist cuff, let alone… yeah, that really is black nail polish… Okay, he and Abby switched. He went Goth, and she's clean cut, and apparently today is opposites day. There's a little, baby girl in his arms, and he's smiling at them. "Hi," she says.

He gives her a one-armed hug. "Hi."

"So this is Kelly?" She says, staring at the baby in his arms. She's small, but very alert, big... bluish-green eyes looking at everything, taking her in. She doesn't have much in the way of hair, very short blonde-brown wisps all over her head, but she's got a little head band made out of pink ribbons with tiny skulls on it, and a black onesie, also with a pink skull on it, so yeah, this is very much Tim and Abby's child.

He smiles at his daughter. "This is Kelly."

"She's beautiful."

"Thanks." Gibbs is hovering closer, so he also gets a one-armed hug from Tim along with. "She's got a new trick. Don't know if she'll do it now, but she kept doing it on the car ride over." He hands Kelly over to Gibbs. "Okay, baby, what do you have to say to Pop?"

Kelly looks at her grandfather and snuggles into him, tucking her head under his chin.

"Yep, she not—"

"Papapapapa."

"Good girl!" Tim coos at her.

Gibbs holds her out so he can see her face and kisses her. "So you're talking now? You know I'm gonna want to hear what you've got to say."

"Papapapapapapapapa!"

Tim smiles at the look on Gibbs face; he's just beaming at this. "She started day before yesterday. Don't get too excited, that's what she's calling me, and Abby, and Heather, and the mailman—"

"Sounds like she got that one right." Jimmy cuts in with, kissing Kelly's cheek and giving Gibbs a quick hug. Tim quickly whacks him on the back of his shoulder before giving him (and Anna, who Jimmy's carrying) a hug as well.

"You've met Jimmy, right?" Tim asks Abbi.

"Yes, briefly." She offers her hand and he shakes it.

"Hi. This is Anna," Yet another baby in the family. This one is even smaller, with a mop of wild, curly brown hair, looking at Pop... Wait, no, he's Uncle Jethro to Jimmy's kids, with big blue eyes. "her mom and older sister are around here somewhere. Glad to see he's finally brought you. The girls have been ragging on him for months."

"The girls?" Gibbs asks, raising an eyebrow, cut the bull on his face.

Jimmy looks pretty satisfied as he says, "I have given you exactly no crap at all about when you were going to bring Abbi home."

Gibbs thinks about that and comes to the conclusion that might be right. "That's because Tim's been doing it for you."

Jimmy nods. "Division of labor. He nags you on stuff like that. I make sure you don't rip that knee out again."

Tim laughs.

Tony slips over. "Oh, good the Wonder Twins are here." He gives both of the girls kisses. "We fighting or house-building for Bootcamp this week? I've got a new move I want to try out."

Abbi's got Wonder Twins? on her face as she looks from Tim to Jimmy. Okay, they look, similar...ish, maybe. Nope, she's not seeing it.

Jimmy catches it before Tim does. "We have the same birthday. Since he found that out, he's been calling us the Wonder Twins."

Tony shrugs. "Can't really call him Probie anymore; he outranks me, and these days you've got your own Autopsy Gremlin, so I needed something new."

Those seem like decent points to Borin. "What's the move?"

"It's really cool. But I could explain for a week and won't get it right. Happy to show it to you if we're fighting this weekend?" He looks to Gibbs. "Well, Jefé?"

"Thunder storms all day tomorrow and Sunday, I'm good with fighting."

"Excellent. You come, too, Borin, okay?"

She looks at Gibbs, not sure if this is something he wants to share. He nods.

"Sure. I'm on call, but if I don't get pulled away, I'll come."

"Uncle Jetro!" A small blur of curly brown hair came tearing in and tried to tackle Gibbs.

He picks her up and kisses her, one girl on each arm. "Hello Molly. I'd like you to meet someone, this is Abbi."

Molly looks over at Abbi and smiles at her for a second before starting to bounce on Gibbs' arm. "Horsey!"

"Let Uncle Jethro breathe for a moment." Breena scoots in to give Gibbs a hug and a kiss. "Hey, Jethro."

He kisses her back. "Hi."

Breena turns back toward Abbi and hugs her as Gibbs says, "This is Molly and Anna's mom, Breena Palmer."

"We're so happy to have you here. He hasn't been telling us nearly enough about you; you know him, he doesn't talk, but he's been glowing."

Were it not for the fact that he's got a baby on each arm, Breena would have gotten a very gentle headslap for that. Instead she gets the Gibbs look of death, which she turns to face, and absolutely grins at, letting Gibbs know that she purposely timed that comment for a moment when he could not properly retaliate.

"Your wife's getting sassy, Palmer."

Jimmy snorts. "What do you mean, getting?"

Breena laughs at that and kisses Gibbs' cheek again. "We get a shot to tease him once a blue moon, this is Christmas and Easter and all of our birthdays at once."

"I see, once again, we are the last ones here," Ducky's voice cascades over them.

"You have the longest trip," Tony replies. "Not that it's so far milewise, but they've got to get from Chevy Chase to here, and traffic's always insane."

"You brought her, Jethro! Wonderful. Abigail, may I present my wife, Penny Langston?" Ducky asks as he introduces Penny.

"She's also my grandmother," Tim adds, stepping over to hug both of them.

A second later Penny offers Abbi her hand. "Hello."

Abby with Anna and Kelly"Hello, Penny, and please, call me Abbi."

Abby McGee bops over, taking Kelly, who is getting pretty squirmy, from Gibbs. Two little guys at once when one of them is determined to try and leap out of your arms is a bad plan. "That's going to be interesting. He already calls me Abbs, so how about if both of us are in the same room, I'm Abbs and you're Abbi?"

Abbi nods. "That'll work."

"Almost time!" Ziva calls out.

Gibbs looks to Molly. "No time for Horsey now, how about a piggyback ride to your chair?"

She nods at that, and he lifts her to his shoulders, she gets settled, little toddler hands and arms holding tight around his forehead, chin resting on the crown of his head.


Dinner starts, as always, with Ziva lighting the candles, the Kiddush over the glass of wine, ritual hand washing, the blessing of the children, and then the blessing of the challah.

And then it's dinner time. Which with this group is chaotic and noisy, usually with a few conversations going on at once, for the first few minutes, but after a few minutes they settle into the somewhat traditional what we all did this week, where generally one, maybe two of them talks, and the others listen.

So, they got up to date on Tim's newest hire. ("Wait, we have a jet?" Tony asks. "Yeah!" "Why the hell are we always hopping military transports?" "Because Craig has it reserved 300 days a year, and Leon's got it another 30. Craig's so used to it being his own personal jet that he didn't bother to reserve it ahead of time, so I snagged it out from under him. He's got it reserved now, and no one else is ever going to see the damn thing again.")

Abby's court date. ("Oh, no…" she ran her fingers over her neck, smearing the makeup, in response to Abbi asking if she'd gotten the tattoo removed. "Lawyer thought I'd look more professional with it covered." She rolls her eyes. "Two advanced degrees, I've run my own lab for sixteen years, three guys reporting to me, expert witness on more cases than they can count, and a book full of publications to my name, but apparently all that flies out the window when jurors see a black spider web." "At least he didn't make you bleach the pink out of your hair," Breena adds. "He tried. I explained where he could shove that idea.")

Tony told his tale of Bishop and Draga crunching some numbers, looking for a pattern in a cold case, completely absorbed in what they were doing. When Tony and Ziva got up to go home, that triggered Bishop's awareness of her coffee cup being empty, and she decided to get a new drink for both her and Draga. Unfortunately Draga's Red Bull was not empty, so when she grabbed both cups and quickly whipped around to go get refills, she managed to spray Red Bull all over Tony, which is why he was getting out of the shower when Gibbs and Abbi got there.

Jimmy told them about quizzing Dr. Allan on possible causes of death, which amused Ducky to no end, because he remembers doing that to Jimmy, and told them about it.

Then he told them about him and Gibbs taking more siding off the house, and how, with any luck, if the weather would be kind enough to comply, one more day without rain should get the whole house done. Penny took over from there, talking about how they're hoping to do the bottom three feet of the house in stone, gray limestone and granite, that'll look a lot like the back patio, and the top section will be done in something that's a lot lighter and lower maintenance, but will look like split logs.

"So, we're build Gibbs his log cabin?" Tony asks.

"Bit bigger than any cabin I ever dreamed of."

"To say the least. Sounds like it'll look really cool. We doing the roof in shingles or slate or wood?" Abby asks.

"Shingles that are not cedar, but look like cedar," Ducky replies.

"Thinking none of you guys are going to want the work involved in real wood," Gibbs adds. The kids nod, from everything they know real wood seems like a lot more work than whatever this stuff'll be.

"How about you, Abbi, what's new and interesting at Coast Guard?" Abby McGee asks.

Borin sighs. "Not much new or interesting. No case for me this week. So, I handled reports. I made sure the paperwork got done. I bickered with legal about what we can do about the guy from HR who was embezzling from us. Then I made sure we were following our document retention compliance procedures."

Tim shudders. "Give me a simple murder any day."

Abbi nods vehemently in agreement. "Yeah." She gently touches Gibbs' hand. "Starting to think he had the right idea. Piss the higher ups off enough so they don't promote you, but be so good at your job you get all the cool cases."

Gibbs smiles at that and kisses the back of her hand. (It's possible that Abby and Breena cooed at that, but they did it quietly enough not to get the Gibbs glare of death aimed at them.)

"So, he tells me you're in charge of Cybercrime now?" Borin asks.

Tim nods. "Whole department. That's why I get to grab the jet. Last time you worked with us…"

"It was still the same team."

"Lot of change since then. Abby…ss." He stumbles on Abby versus Abbs. "Okay, I'm not going to be able to switch like that. She's my Abby and always has been."

"You've called me Abbs before."

"Like, what? Twice?"

Abby nods.

"Anyway, she has three LabRats working for her. I've got my Minions. You've heard about Tony's new team and Jimmy's new Autopsy Gremlin."

"I prefer assistant and so does Dr. Allan."

Mogwai"Okay, assistant," Tim says. He thinks for a second. "You've got an Autopsy Mogwai." Tony laughs so hard at that he practically chokes on his wine.

"It feels very different there, now," Ziva adds, whacking Tony's back as he gasps for breath.

"You aren't the same people," Breena replies.

"No, we are not. Speaking of becoming new people, has any of Ed's recent lesson sunk in?" Ziva asks Breena

Breena tilts her head toward her food and groans. Jimmy gives Abbi a brief re-cap on the great Ed drama, but holds off on the latest installment so Breena can tell it.

Breena sighs. "What Jimmy's left out is, just like you've all got a family business, we do, too. Our family runs eight funeral homes in the area, and my mom, dad, Amy, and I all work out of the same building. So, to say things are tense is an understatement. Dad's shut up, which I suppose is a sign of inching in the right direction, but if Amy walks into the room, he walks out."

The rest of the table winces, groans, and commiserates on that.

"He's driving Mom buggy. And Amy wants to scream. So, after two weeks of that, Collin comes in, wanting to have a 'man to man' talk." Another long sigh. "Obviously, I didn't get invited along to that chat, but the version I got went something like this: apparently Dad went off on him for just using Amy, and he went off on Dad for hurting her and then doubled down on a long rant on how Amy's more than just a body and if he actually loves her he'd put just as much value on her happiness as her virginity and… how a mutually beneficial relationship can't be 'using' someone. When Dad got back from that 'chat' he was bright pink and there was smoke pouring out of his ears.

"So, Sunday should be week three of no Collin and Amy at Sunday dinner." She looks to Gibbs and Tim and Abby. "Look, we're not going, either. So, if you want to… I mean, my mom would love to see you there, but…"

"We're going on strike in support of Amy?" Abby asks.

"Yeah. If you would?"

Tim nods. "Not a problem." He looks at Jimmy, "You already let Collin know he's invited to Bootcamp?"

Jimmy nods. "Making sure he knows all the future in-laws aren't jerks? Yeah, got it covered. He's more enthusiastic about MMA than carpentry, but whichever, he's signed up for." Then he squeezes Breena's hand. "Wanna tell them the good news?"

Breena smiles. "Did have one bright spot at work this week. Since I started working there, I've been saving ten percent of my salary, and using that to buy shares of the business. As of Thursday, I own fifty-one percent of the Brandon Street Slaters' Funeral Home."

That got many congratulations, wrapping up with Penny asking, "Does that change anything?"

"Not really. Suggested Amy work out of Uncle Wes' building for a bit. Told Dad he was going to be taking a vacation soon if he couldn't pull it together. But the day in, day out stuff is all the same. Our clients are having significantly worse days than we are, so that helps to keep things in perspective."

Dinner conversation waxes and wanes from there. More stories of the week interspersed with feeding babies, dessert flavored with stories of cases.

It was a good meal.


At the end of it, Borin joins the clean-up team. By mutual accord, once everyone knew their way around Tony and Ziva's kitchen, the rule became that whoever cooks doesn't have to clean up. So, Ziva and Tony get some relaxing time while at least four of the crew is on getting dishes in the dishwasher, pots and pans scrubbed and put back, and the table all cleared.

It's a quick job with that many people on it.

Ziva's not helping clean up, but she was enjoying the clean-up conversation. So, she's leaning against the door-jam between the kitchen and the dining room, chatting with everyone.

As that wraps up, Borin drifts over to the far wall. There are pictures there, lots of them.

"I've seen this before." She points to the Gibbs clan crest. Gibbs has his in the basement, on the wall, where he can see it easily when he's working. "But I don't know what this is."

Vacation TonyZiva smiles. "That's our Ketubah, marriage contract. You'll find one of these in most Jewish households."
Borin nods, watching Ziva snuggle Anna, who is trying to grab Ziva's hair.

"And these?" Borin points to the pictures.

Ziva smiles at them. "Ahhhh… At the top, we have a shot from Jimmy and Breena's wedding." It's the picture of Tony and Ziva, Tim and Abby, and Jimmy and Breena all goofing for the camera.

"That's from before you were a couple, right?"

"Yes. Not a lot of pictures of us from then or before then. Abbs has a few, I think." She points to the next shot down. "Breena took that one." It's one from the day they moved Tim and Abby in together. The day after they started dating. It's a candid shot, neither of them knew she took it. It's Tony working on putting together their kitchen table, looking across the room at Ziva, peace and joy in his eyes. "That's right after we started dating. This one," she points to a shot of Tony in his best man's tux, and her in her red steampunk bridesmaid's gown, "Is Tim and Abby's wedding."

"Costume wedding?"

"Steampunk wedding. Has Gibbs not shown you pictures?"

Borin shakes her head.

"Oh, no. No no no! You have to see pictures of that. Abbs!" Ziva calls out.

Abby McGee comes in a moment later. "Yeah?"

"He has not shown her pictures from your wedding, yet."

"Oh, you have to see the pictures! I've only got a few on my phone, but…" Abby hurries out, and a moment later she's back with her phone. "Okay. Do you know what steampunk is?"

Borin shakes her head.

"Really cool fantasy world. Steam and clockwork powered everything instead of internal combustion engines. Everything's all Victorian or Western. We knew we were going to have a Halloween wedding, and decided this was the look we'd go for. Here!" She hands Borin her phone, shot of Gibbs, in his morning suit, giving her away. "We thought he'd go like Old-West Sherriff look, but he kept it a surprise, and I step out all decked out in my dress, and there he is dressed to the nines."

Abbi stares at that, smiling. She flips through the shots, seeing mostly ones of Tim and Abby, but she finds another one of Gibbs and Abby dancing together. Everyone all dressed up and playing and having fun, and right this second, she would have really liked to have been there for that. She's smiling as she hands back Abby's phone. Then she looks back to the shots on the wall. There's Tony and Ziva dancing at their wedding, and the group shot of the whole family. The last shot is the two of them relaxing together on the beach. "Honeymoon shot?"

Ziva nods. "South Africa. It's a lot like California, but more interesting if you like safari."

By that point everything is cleaned and put away, so they wander out of the kitchen to join the larger group.


Abbi sees Gibbs on the sofa, he's got Molly on his right knee, bouncing her up and down while she shrieks with laughter. He's grinning at her, making funny faces.

Abbi goes to sit next to him, and quietly says, laughing, "You're such a goof."

"Is that a bad thing?"

She shakes her head, smiling at him. "No!"


"So, Ed and Jeanie are offering to take the girls for the weekend for an anniversary present. If you can scrounge up a babysitter for a night, the six of us could go out," Jimmy says to Abby and Ziva, as he strokes Breena's shoulder while she nurses Anna.

Abby immediately looked over to Gibbs, sending puppy eyes across the room. He has Molly on one knee, bouncing her up and down as she squeals with laughter and he talks to Borin. He's showing off, and that makes her grin.

But he's also into what he's doing and doesn't sense the puppy-dog eyes and look up. (Or he's dodging babysitting for a night.)

"We'll find someone, when are you thinking?"

"May 14th?" Jimmy half-says, half-asks. That's the day that works best for them, but it'd be great to get all six of them out, so if they need to adjust, they'll adjust.

"That sounds excellent, Jimmy," Ziva says.

"Yes, it does," Breena adds. "You know, it's finally Tim and Abby's turn to pick the club."

All three of the girls grin. Tony, who came over at the words, 'six of us could go out' sighs elaborately and rolls his eyes. "You're going to let him" he looks over to Tim, who's talking with Ducky and Penny by the piano, "pick the club we go to for your anniversary?"

"Technically, I'm going to let Breena pick, and she's decided that she wants to play Goth for a night, which means they're picking."

Ziva kisses Tony. "I have been wanting to see you in eyeliner and leather trousers for a while now."

"Oh God."

"Afraid of a little leather?" Jimmy asks, wicked grin on his face.

"No!"

"Wonderful." Ziva smiles even wider and happier.


"You're really good at this,"Abbi says to Gibbs. He's got Kelly in his arms. They've talked about his girls, and she's seen pictures, she knows about the room that's pink and has the bed for them along with the toys, but she's never seen Pop in action, let alone really grasped the fact that there were tiny people who would crawl all over him calling him Pop or Uncle Jethro.

She certainly likes seeing this, but it does come as something of a surprise to see him playing on the floor with babies.

Like she said, there's this, warm, soft, friendly, playful goofball hiding deep inside Gibbs, and apparently the magic ingredient for getting it out is baby girls. She likes it, likes seeing him so happy, but, it just really wasn't anything she was expecting to be in there.

"You want to hold her?" Gibbs asks her. Kelly's probably about half asleep, she just finished her pre-bedtime nurse, and in a few minutes he's going to be heading into the bedroom to put her down. But she's pretty easy and would probably go along with Borin helping out.

"Sure."

And in a moment she had a tired, but restful baby in her arms. It's a nice sensation. Not the sort of thing that's making her want to rush out and have six of her own kids, but it's still pleasant.

He leads Borin to Tony and Ziva's room, furthest one from the hubbub. Anna's already sleeping on the bed, Molly will be in here soon.

Borin's standing in the center of the bedroom, watching him rooting through Kelly's bag, he comes up with a onesie, wipes, and clean diaper.

He pets the back of Kelly's head and quietly says, "Abbi's going to help with bedtime. That okay with you, love?"

Kelly appears to approve. At least, she's not crying, but she's awfully sleepy, so she just might not think complaining is worth the effort.

"Good. We've got to be quiet, Anna's already asleep. She's on Aunt Ziva's bed waiting for you and Molly to join the sleepover." While he's talking to Kelly, he gets the changing mat on the floor and gestures for Borin to put her down. He takes care of the diaper, and gets her into her sleeping onesie, and then hands her back to Borin. "Back in a sec," he kisses Kelly's forehead, "Gotta wash my hands."

And a few seconds later he is back, and he takes her from Borin, Kelly on his lap, snuggled in close on his chest, sitting on the edge of Tony and Ziva's bed, Borin next to him, leaning against his shoulder listening to him recite Good Night Moon from memory while gently petting Kelly's back.

He kisses Kelly one last time, and then lays her down next to Anna.

"Good night, Kelly."

She yawns around her pacifier. "Papa."

And if that isn't the most ridiculously cute thing Borin's ever seen, she doesn't know what is.


On the ride home Gibbs asks, sounding a bit uncertain, "Was that too much? Everyone and everything all at once. Can be a lot."

"Oh. No. That was fine." Abbi wonders why he asked that, and realizes she's been very quietly watching the road go by as they head toward his place. "Just thinking."

"About?"

She shakes her head. "Sounds dumb, but… You're a dad. You're really a dad."

He glances at her quickly with a Well, yeah. Did you think I was kidding about that? sort of look.

"No. But… Didn't expect you to be that dad."

What did you expect? is on his face, and she reads it.

"More like at work. More team leader, less… playful."

He shrugs. "They don't need a leader anymore."

She shakes her head, watching the street slip by. "No. They don't. It's been a hell of two years, hasn't it?"

He smiles at that. "Yeah, it has."

Another few quiet miles. He probably shouldn't ask. They already talked about it once, but, especially if she's seeing him as an entirely different sort of dad…

"Making you think more about kids?"

She turns away from watching the street to him. "What? You mean, have I seen you in action now, and suddenly am I jonesing for a pile of my own?"

Yeah, he shouldn't have asked. He feels dumb as hell on that.

She catches that on his face and squeezes the hand that's on the gear shift, letting him know the question wasn't out of bounds. "No. Look, if anyone had ever asked me before tonight if the words 'cute' and 'Jethro Gibbs' could belong in the same sentence, I'd have said 'No.' And I'd have been wrong. You and the girls are painfully cute. If I had a biological clock to tick at me, it'd be bonging away like Big Ben chiming the hour. But, no. I'm not feeling that. I'm a good Aunt, and maybe… I'd be a good… step-grandma?" She winces a little at that, and he shakes his head, kissing her hand.

"Gotta earn some gray hair before you get Grandma. That's why even Tim calls her Penny."

"Uh huh." She says dryly, appreciating that he's trying to be sensitive to the fact that she's not even forty yet, and that's awfully young for Grandma, but not shut her out of his family. She shakes her head again. "I can't let the job go enough to be a good mom. Not the kind of mom I'd want to be. And that's always going to be true. No matter how cute you are with a pile of little, squirming rugrats."

"You need the job."

"I do."

Gibbs squeezes her hand. "I understand."

She smiles at him. "I figured you would."

Several quiet minutes go by. They get to his house and head in. Mona gets her petting and cuddles. Gibbs isn't entirely sure how to say this, not sure exactly what he's feeling, but once he gets Mona settled down, he turns to Abbi. "I know the job comes first. I know it has first call on your time and love. I get it. I lived it. And I don't begrudge you that life—"

They're standing in the foyer. Abbi's hanging up her coat. "Sounds like there's a huge 'but' coming up."

He licks his lips, staring at her, eyes earnest. "There is, but I don't think it's the one you're expecting. But… in the time you've got for me, the time you've got that isn't owned by the job… I'd like a co-grandparent. I'd like another person sharing my home and my life. I'd like that person to be you. And, for as much of it as you're willing to give me, I'd like to be in your life, too."

Once it came out, he found himself thinking so much for taking it slow. Damn it, Jethro, you need middle gears.

She blinks, staring at him, and says, quietly, "You're right, I wasn't expecting that."

God, please don't run away! "I wasn't expecting to say it, but it feels right. Here." He steps closer to her and places her hand on his chest. "You know?"

"Yeah, I do." And that's terrifying, because she does know, and it did feel right, and she felt a frisson of joy arc through her as he said it, but… It's been three months. Actually, no, it's still a week shy of three months. He's got ex-wives out the ears. This is stupid resonates through her head. Too fast! But it feels right. Feels so right. "So, what are you actually asking me?"

He smiles, shaking his head. "Would you believe I don't really know?"

Yes is very clear on her face. Of course, a big part of that is she doesn't know what the hell she's doing either.

"Keep a toothbrush and some clothing here? Move in? Get married? Or at least…" He licks his lips again, very aware of the fact that she's standing a step away, staring at him, hand still on his chest, his hand over it, but beyond that, not touching him. "Make it clear that that's my endgame? That's what I'm looking for. Hell, put that little heart thingy on your Facebook profile?"

She laughs at that last one, steps into him, and kisses him, then steps back, still holding his hand. "Won't work if you don't have a profile."

"Okay, not that." He smiles at her. "I'm not getting a Facebook profile." They stand there, quiet for a moment. Well, if you're not going to go slow… "Abbi…"

"Yeah."

"I think I love you, and I haven't said that to a woman in decades, and I'm terrified of screwing this up, and I don't know what I'm doing and probably never did. I've got three ex-wives, and I don't want you to be number four. But I'm happy when you're here, in a way I haven't been for a long time, in a way I never was with any of the ones that didn't work, and I hope, pray, that I make you happy, too. Make you happy like that."

She thinks about that. "You do make me happy. In a way I haven't been in a long time."

"I know I'm going too fast."

"Ya think?"

He appreciates getting that back from her. "Yeah, I think. So, from here I'll slow down. I love you. I want a future with you. I want you as part of my family and home. I've been divorced three times, and that's off the table now. Next time's 'til death do us part.' And I'm willing to take as long as needs be to get there."

Borin smiles at that. "Preferably of natural causes?"

He chuckles. "Depends on if I'm really as bad at this husband thing as my track record suggests."

She kisses him gently, touching his face. "You make me happy, Jethro. You make me want to shut off my brain and let my feelings take over, make me want to just jump in feet first, and let everything else fade away. But I can't do that. But I'm not going anywhere, and I like where you want this to go, so we'll take the time to get it all figured out."

He smiles at her and kisses her again.

Next

Shards To A Whole: Team Building

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 371: Team Building


In an effort to locate quality people for his pool of talent Tim has a specialized search in play for his news feed.

And on May 3rd, 2016, that search pays off.

He's writing up a plan. He's had it in play for a while, but, since they've now finished the active development stage of the paperwork software, he's got the time to put this into play. Namely, he's got 154 techs under his command, all of whom suddenly have a lot more free time, and that is a huge pool of talent.

So, he's writing up a memo about how he wants each member of Cybercrime spending at least one week a year studying, attacking, dissecting, all manner of closely scrutinizing their security protocols, looking for holes, weaknesses, or God, worse, spyware that's lurking in their code where it isn't supposed to be, and then one additional week on defense, building up extra walls, protecting them, when his computer chirps at him to let him know that something interesting is up.

And boy is it. His eyes flick through the storyline quickly, and before he has it done, he's already calling Abby.

"You okay on your own for a night?"

"Tim?" she asks, wondering what's up. Part of the whole Cybercrime thing is that he's not supposed to be just wandering off unexpectedly.

"Just went across the wire, three kids out of New Mexico just took down Anonymous. Got all of it, all of the servers, the nineteen people who were orchestrating it..." Yes, officially Anonymous is a collection of somewhat sympathetic to each other individuals all working toward vaguely similar goals, but, especially among law enforcement, there's always been the idea/hope that there was some sort of unifying force behind it, and if the story he's reading is right the answer to that was yes, and this girl... Cristin Brand, and her two buddies, just broke the whole thing open. "the fifty-four hundred people who were hacking, they took down the entire house of mirrors. The oldest one is seventeen. I want to be in the air in an hour and at her house offering her a job before the sun sets."

He can feel Abby smile.

"I think Kelly and I can do a night on our own. Go get your hacker!"

"Thanks. I'll call when I can."

"Love you."

"Love you, too."

Tim doesn't have a secretary. Every other Director at NCIS does. Why he doesn't has never occurred to him, but he's guessing it's because no one ever thought that his job would need one. After all, he already knows how to use a computer, which, from what he can see, is a lot of what the other Directors' Secretaries do.

He's never actually thought about that until right now when he's trying to figure out how to get in the air, while wrapping up his memo, and sending out another one for where he's going and why. Finally, he calls Vance's secretary and asks her what to do. He's found a commercial flight, but it leaves later than he'd like and won't get in until after ten.

He's hoping he can hop whatever Navy or Marine transport might be available and get there faster.

Karen gets him pointed in the right direction, and hooked into the air traffic schedule at Andrews, Norfolk, and Dover, and lets him know that NCIS does have a jet, and it is available to him, but as Director of Cybercrime, he's fourth on the list of people who get to use it.

But today, it's free. And tomorrow, it's free. So he snatches it, calling in with instructions to get ready to go, he'll be on the tarmac as soon as he can get there.


"Like the last five times, we are done talking to the press!" and the extremely irate woman with the black hair and brown eyes tries to shut the door in his face.

Tim's very glad that he got his foot in the door and that today's shoes are pretty tough, otherwise he'd have a very sore foot. She did not give the door a gentle push.

"I'm not with the press." He gets his ID out and the woman in front of him, who he's assuming is Cristin Brand's mother, squints her eyes to read it. She's frazzled. Probably didn't know what her daughter was up to, let alone expect the storm of reporters and tech bloggers who are camping out in front of her house. (They've actually got cops keeping them back. So the fact that they let him through probably should have been a hint he isn't a reporter.)

"What's NCIS?"

"Naval Criminal Investigative Service."

"We're not talking to you without a lawyer."

He holds up his hands. "I'm not here to interrogate your daughter; I'm here to offer her a job."

"What?" She's utterly stunned by that. Apparently none of the barracudas circling her home are headhunters. Their loss.

"May I come in?" It's got to be one hundred and ten out there, and sure, dry heat and all, but it's still hot! The fact that he's dressed for early May in DC is not helping the matter. Blue jeans, black button down, leather jacket (in the rental car) is not New Mexico-friendly clothing.

She squints at him again, but lets him in. A staggering wall of AC hits him, and for a second it feels really good, and then he's wishing he'd brought his jacket. Overheating to overchilled in less than five minutes. Splendid.

Enough of that, business time. She hasn't offered him a seat or a drink. She's got him standing in the foyer, looking at him warily.

"I'm Tim McGee, Director of Cybercrime for NCIS, we're a Federal Agency devoted to solving crimes involving Naval and Marine personnel and their families. We also work on terrorism and Naval and Marine security. Your daughter and her friends just counted one of the biggest hacking coups ever, and I want her working for me."

"Just like that. You've… You don't know anything about her."

"Are the stories true? Did she and her buddies take down Anonymous?"

"Yes."

"Then I want her, and when they turn eighteen, her buddies working for me. May I talk to her?"

"She hasn't even graduated high school, yet."

Tim thinks quickly, there's what, six weeks of school left for the year? He's not getting rid of Hepple until June, anyway. "She's a senior, right?"

"Yes."

"That's fine, I can't hire her until she's eighteen anyway. I'm comfortable with a whichever happens first start date."

Mrs. Brand (she still hasn't introduced herself, so he's hoping that's right) is still staring at him, dumbstruck. "Are you really serious?"

"I am dead serious. Yes, I do want to meet her and talk to her and see if this kind of job is interesting to her. But, if she wants it… We have what's called a Probationary Year. She'll work for us, be a full employee, but over the course of that year, if she's not happy or doesn't like it, she can leave and it's not a problem. No bad reviews, nothing like that. I just chalk it up to being a bad fit. If, at the end of the year, she wants a career with us, we're good to go."

"She's been accepted to MIT."

He nods. "MIT's a great school. I'm a Beaver, too. I got my MS there, class of 2002, and loved it. But, MIT also has a deferred acceptance program. She can work with me for a year, and if she doesn't love it, her place will still be waiting for her. Plus, they've put all of their classes online, so there's no reason why she can't study anything that takes her interest in her spare time. With as hot as she is right now, I'm certain that if she wants to work with me, and take a course or two a semester long distance with them, they will work with her to make sure it can happen. Trust me, they're going to want her on their alumni list.

"And, if she does love working with me, and just wants to work for me, four years from now, instead of being $170,000 in debt with no concrete job experience, she'll be…" Tim does a little quick math. "One hundred and forty thousand in the black, with four years of experience at a Federal agency, and the kind of skills that any firm would kill to have."

The assumed Mrs. Brand looks him over for a long minute, and then says, "Wait here. I'll go get her."

And, two minutes later Cristin Brand, the girl who got Anonymous, and her dad, had joined them in a sunny living room to hear more about this job at NCIS.


She's so young. He forgets exactly how young eighteen is, because it's been a long time, and there really aren't any teenagers in his life. She must have gone to school today, (Catholic school from the looks of it.) because she's in a plaid skirt, white shirt, and navy blue blazer. Her hair is long and black, her eyes are dark brown, like her mom's, and he's not sure if she's (and her Mom) half or a quarter Latino, (her Dad is blond with blue eyes) or just tan.

They talk, and she's smart, and enthusiastic, a little overwhelmed by all of this, little overwhelmed by him showing up and saying, 'Come with me, get to be a grown-up overnight, none of this messing around with college stuff, I'll give you a job and let you catch bad guys and save the day.'

After all, he remembers how it felt when he was not all that much older, and the FBI and IRS were offering him desk jobs and then Armstrong sauntered in and told him to leave that bullshit behind, come with him, and get to use a gun and put bad guys away.

(Though, in that he's sitting in her parents' living room, both of them watching him like a hawk, his version of 'leave this bullshit behind' is significantly more polite than Armstrong's was.)

But he's very much playing up the save the day angle, explaining their most recent cases, and how what they do literally saves lives, and she's impressed.

He asks her about what they did. Most science/hacking reporters know just enough about the subject to write something that other people who don't know anything about the subject find compelling. So, while he's sure that the main thrust of the coverage was right, took down the whole Anonymous syndicate, he's also sure the how and why aspects were, at best, glossed over.

So he gets her talking, and she spends two hours on it, working him through the whole thing, seeming to really enjoy talking about this with someone who gets it.

He's enjoying the conversation, too. She's got great instincts. She and her buddies can code like no one's business and they went in deep, built awesome covers, and broke the whole thing into pieces.

"When do you turn eighteen?" he asks as they wrap up.

"July 7th."

"If you want it, July 8th I've got a desk and a job waiting for you."

She's smiling at him, eyes bright. "Oh yeah."

"Wonder—"

"Wait a second. We are not letting you just snatch up our daughter," the now-introduced Marcella Brand says.

"Mom, I'll be eighteen. You can't stop me."

Tim holds up his hands. "Look, I get this. I've got a daughter of my own. You did college visits, right? Checked everything out, made sure the place looked good?"

All three Brands nod.

"Pack some bags. I've got a jet, so come back with me. Check it out. We pay travel expenses for people who come to interview, so putting you up for a night or two and then flying you back home won't be a problem." (He doesn't actually know if that's true or not, but if petty cash won't cover it, he'll pay out of pocket. He wants this girl on his team.)

"You have a jet?" David Brand asks.

"Not me personally. NCIS does. I've got 154 people under me all over the world, Cristin would be part of the 12 who report directly to me, but if I need to get to one of my other stations, I have to be able to travel."

"So, wait, you… what, read about her, grabbed a jet, and got here, just like that?" Marcella asks.

"Yes. I'm going to build the best Cybercrime division of any Federal Agency. You build something like that by investing is good people. You," he looks at Cristin, "are exactly the kind of person I want on my team. So, if you like, pack up, let's go see where you'll be working if you come with me."


He thinks it's the Lear jet that sells the Brands on the idea that this is a real job offer. The idea that his agency would go to this level of expense to come get her, and make her want to work for them, begins to settle them down.

Of course, after a day of annoying press badgering them (and they did swarm when they saw him leave with her) several hours outside of any contact with the rest of the world was probably pretty nice.

"You really want to hire me?" Cristin asks. She's been alternating between watching the sky and ground, and staring in awe at the jet. And Tim has to admit, it's an awfully cool jet. He did some staring in awe and fiddling with all the nifty little dohickies on the way over. Then he took pictures and spent a few minutes texting with Abby about the fact that he gets to use the Lear Jet!

"Yes."

"Don't I have to have a college degree or something?"

"I got some wiggle room from my boss on that. You've got to be over eighteen. You've got to do the job. Showing up on time, doing the work. You go to college, you can coast. You can play. You're more than smart enough that if you wanted to go and party for four years, you could. You come with me, you can't… Actually, you can do whatever you like on your off time. But, when you're on, you've got to be on, and they do random drug tests so you can't come up positive for anything. Beyond that, your off time is your own.

"So, for fifty hours a week, you'd be mine. The computer will spit out jobs, and you'll do them. They'll range from pretty easy stuff, NCIS agent in New Orleans, say, needs someone to track a suspect's computer history, to very hard stuff. You remember Ajay Khan?"

Her eyes go wide, and she nods. "That was you?"

Tim nods back. "Yeah. I'm the one who took him down. I had help. My partners actually grabbed him and made him talk, but I'm the one who found out what information we had to get out of him. Even thinking he was about to die, he was still trying to BS us, and I'm the guy who knew it was BS, so I got the right answer out of him."

"Wow."

"Thanks."

She stares at Tim for a few minutes, really looking at him, thinking. "So, why haven't I heard of you?"

Tim inclines his head, not exactly shrugging that off, but keeping the answer light. "Because I like it that way. Got a kindle on your phone?"

"Yeah."

He gets out his own phone, heads over to Amazon, and sends her a gift. "Maybe you have heard of me."

Her phone chirps to let her know it's got a new email and she sees the book he sent her. "You write books, too?"

He nods. "The job will take as much time as you'll let it, but it doesn't have to be your whole life. I've got a wife and baby girl at home, too. Cybercrime works twenty-four seven, but I work hard to make sure all of you have downtime, too. Once those pictures of us leaving your house go on the wire, some other agencies will get the idea that maybe they'd like to hire you, too. If I'm the only guy who shows up with a job offer in hand, I'll be stunned.

"They'll be good offers. Maybe better pay, maybe they'll say 'Go to college and we'll have a spot for you in four years.' They may offer to pay for college. I can't do that. But I can give you the best team, the best work/life balance, and the best cases. I can get you working now, and they likely won't. And I believe in teams, in the power of people who know how to work with each other, and how that makes the work better, makes you sharper, so as soon as they're old enough, your two friends'll get job offers, too.

"You won't always be working with them. They might not even end up at DC. I have to put people where I get openings, and the one I've got right now is in DC. The ones I have next year may be in Tokyo or Berlin or Detroit or… We've got stations all over the world.

"But if you let me, I'll leverage your skills, teach you to be an even better hacker than you are right now, and we'll catch killers and stop terrorists."

She stares at him with wide eyes. "I feel like I'm dreaming."

He smiles at that.


It's after ten when they get wheels on the ground. "So, get you settled and come in tomorrow morning, or come see everything now?"

The older Brands look like they're all in favor of settling down. Cristin wants to see Cybercrime.

So they go.

It's after eleven by the time they get in. "Pretty quiet this time of night. Ngyn and Connon are on, and I think Howard's still here. She's been hunting a digital terror cell for the last five days along with techs in Eido and Cartagena."

Brand's eyes light up at the big screen tvs, gaming stations, and snacks.

Tim sees that, and his Dad instincts are sharp enough to read the look. "That's for cooling off time. Sometimes it's good to have some time to just veg before you go back to it, and sometimes you need to cool off some before heading home. Either way, you can get it here." He points to the sofa and says to the adult Brands. "If they're too wired to drive, I don't let 'em go home without a nap or someone else driving."

"How old are most of your employees?"

"Cristin would be the youngest by six years. Next one is twenty-three, and she's a wunderkind, too. Most of the rest are somewhere between thirty and fifty-five."

"You're younger than a lot of your employees?" Dave Brand asks.

Tim nods. "NCIS respects talent more than years on the job. This time last year I was a field agent, actually carried a gun and arresting people. But I was better with a computer and had a better vision for where I wanted Cybercrime to go, so now I'm the guy in charge of it."

All three Brands look impressed by that.

He shows them the work stations, introduces Connon, who's busy working away. He explains what he's doing (pretty straightforward, just basic computer history for one of the guys upstairs) and tells the Brands a bit about working at NCIS.

Tim introduces them to Ngyn, whose eyes go wide when he introduces Brand. Then she looks to Tim and back to Brand, and immediately gets into a deep and heated conversation with Brand about what she'd done. Howard drifts over, sees the gab fest going on and hops into it, bringing over Caf-Pows and coffee.

"Cristin…" her dad says when it gets to 01:00.

She waves him off, her new buddies are awesome!

"Cristin, time for us to get some rest."

She pouts at him, but allows herself to be pulled away.

When Tim drops them off at the hotel he says, "There'll be a formal job offer in the mail tomorrow. If you want to come back tomorrow and meet more of my team, you're welcome to. If you want to just rest and head home, or do some sight-seeing, that's fine, too. I'll email you tickets for a return flight for tomorrow evening."


May 6th, Tim got a piece of mail, over-nighted from New Mexico. It was a signed job offer. He also got an email from Leon, short and to the point, You used the jet?

He sent back. Got five minutes to talk?

A minute after that, Sure.

He heads up to Vance's office, and as soon as he has the door shut he says, "I found my first seventeen-year-old."

Vance does not seem to think this is an answer to his comment about the jet, but says, "Tell me he starts after he turns eighteen?"

"She'll be eighteen in July, and she begins then."

He's not entirely sure if that look on Vance's face is amusement or concern. "You're hiring eighteen-year-old girls?"

"I hired the seventeen-year-old girl who flushed out Anonymous. I was at her house less than four hours after the news broke, which is why I needed the jet. And I gave her two best friends who helped offers to start the day they turn 18, in 2018."

"You going to have a space for them?"

"I'll make 'em if I have to. They're worth it. So, you saying I'm not supposed to use the jet? Karen," Vance's secretary, "said I was on the list for it."

"You are, just… Usually we send each other a note about it."

"Oh. Will do that next time."

"Good. Craig was surprised to see it wasn't sitting on the tarmac waiting for him."

"He didn't have it reserved."

"No, he didn't. He's the only one who uses it, so he didn't bother."

Tim gives Leon a not my fault sort of gesture. "Something blows up and I need to be there for it, unlike Jenner, I'll move. Someone hits my radar, someone I want for the team, I'll move on it. I've got no problem using Navy or Marine transport or going commercial, but if I need to be in Rota tomorrow, I'll be in Rota."

Leon smiles at that. "I'll remind Craig we've got a sign up system for a reason."

"Thanks."

Next

Chapter 370: The Knight's Lady

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 370: The Knight's Lady

As they settled into their third month of… whatever this thing they've got is, there are certain things that Borin deeply appreciates about Gibbs.

First off, he has never, not once, gotten sharp or annoyed with her when she's had to break a date. The fact that he doesn't get huffy about it, how, 'Look people's lives are on the line,' actually does trump dinner in front of the fire for him makes her happy and makes her try to miss fewer of said dinners.

She has, twice now, cut meetings that were running long, short, so that she could make it to his place for dinner.

His own personal level of been there/done that means that when she's stuck and spit-balling, he asks good questions and usually has good ideas. Though 'Tell 'em all to go fuck off,' one of his bits of advice, may not always be practical, but it is often a satisfying idea. And, even if she won't act on it, it's fun to have someone else who gets how annoying the brass is.

And, due to budget levels, she's still in the field on occasion. Like everyone else at CGIS under her, she takes a turn on call for weekends, but there are also cases where she gets called in because she is who she is and she's damn good at the job. If she's getting called in, it means the case is already at stratospheric levels of FUBAR, or 'delicate,' or both, so both times she was having very bad days, when she just needed to get out of her head, out of her world, out of all the shit that goes on and the monsters out there, when she headed to his place with a bottle in one hand and metaphorical steam pouring out of her ears, he was more than willing to knock back a few shots, fuck her until she couldn't see straight, and then just relax quietly, instead of asking her lots of questions about what was going on.

Though the second time it happened, after the first round, when she was laying against his chest, feeling the vaguely tickly roughness of his chest hair against her cheek, he quietly said, while petting her hair, "When it was me, there were some things I didn't want to take home. I wanted them out of my head as fast as I could get rid of them. So, I'm not gonna ask, because I'm thinking you don't want to talk, not because I'm not interested. If you do want to talk, I want to listen." She nodded at that and kissed his nipple.

"Just want to fuck until I can sleep."

He kissed the top of her head. "I'm good for that, too." And then flipped her onto her back and started to kiss his way down her chest.

She appreciates that she can bitch to him about the job, and he doesn't suggest that she should quit if she finds it so frustrating.

There are more, tangible, things she appreciates about him, as well.

He almost always smells good. Okay, not always. She'd been curled up on his sofa, reading, when he got home, raggedy, dirty, and sweaty from that day of tearing down chunks of the house of black mold (as she thinks of it) and she'd gotten up to hug him, gotten about three feet away, and promptly came to the conclusion that he smelled so bad that even Mona didn't want to get near him.

(He saw her come near, saw her stop, step back, stop breathing, and said, 'Give me fifteen minutes,' before depositing his clothing in the washer, and walking naked up to the shower. Fifteen minutes later, he was still in the shower, and she slipped in behind him, much happier with how this was working.)

But most of the time, he smells right to her. First time she can ever remember seriously thinking about stealing a t-shirt or two so she'd have something man scented to snuggle up against when she's alone.

And, if he knows she's coming over, he shaves. She likes that. Likes that he makes the effort, and how smooth his skin is newly shaved.

She likes how, sometimes, when he's not expecting her, and she just drops by, it's clear he hasn't shaved for a few days, and he's pleasantly stubbly.

Actually, she likes the fact that he's hairy all over. She's always said that if she wanted some sort of hairless, girly thing, she'd date women, and the men who can grow body hair, should. And he can, which she likes. Plus, she suspects he'd find the idea of ripping it all out or shaving it horrifying, which she also likes. She finds men who spend longer on their grooming than she does on hers disconcerting.

She likes the fact that he's in damn good shape. She's got men twenty years younger in her office that aren't in half as good of shape. A lot of them. She loves the fact that he can keep up with her. She works hard to keep her body the way it is, to make sure she's quick and limber and ready to deal with whatever may come her way, and she appreciates that if she says, "Get a swim with me?" because that's her exercise of choice (She knows he's more of a runner or fighter, and maybe one day she'll join in on Bootcamp, but not yet.) he grabs a pair of trunks and is ready to go.

She loves the fact that he can keep up with her on other levels as well. Sure, he's not twenty-two, or fifty-two for that matter, and his left knee won't agree to go along with marathon sex if they're kneeling, but he's happy to use his tongue and fingers when his dick's out of the game, and he can go a damn long time with said dick.

So, given this level of appreciation, she's getting… curious, is probably the right word, as to how he ended up with three ex-wives, because from everything she can see, he's a keeper.

But she's also not insane, and a man who's been divorced three times is a man wearing a huge, neon proceed with caution sign.


Of course, it's not just proceed with caution on his part. Though there's a lot of that. After all, three other women liked this man enough to marry him, and maybe he did have unerringly bad taste, but…

They had to think things were going good, right?

They must have liked him, too. Must have liked this whole, life-with-him-thing, right? That's part of the whole get married thing, you like being with each other.

And it went bad, somehow. Somehow this is good and right and fun and everything stopped being all of those things.

Three times.

And one time it didn't. One time where it was good and right and fun and love and everything a marriage is supposed to be, and then it was gone.

She knows all about the time it didn't go bad. About that weird space of the memory of something cherished and beloved and how to work a new life into that, letting it go enough to have a life, but keeping it close because it was so much who you are and were.

She's very aware that there's a boat in his driveway with no name on it. Everything else is done. It's ready for the water. Except for the name.

She stopped wearing it a decade ago, but she still has her engagement ring. She still has the pictures of the two of them, and she's sure Jethro has more than the shots he showed her.

So, she gets it. And she gets not knowing exactly what to do about that. She doesn't want him to feel like he has to cut Shannon and Kelly and who they were and what the meant to him out of his life. Just like she doesn't want to pretend there was no Liam, or burn his pictures, or any of the rest of it.

I'm not in love with her… He had said. And she's not in love with Liam, not anymore. But she still loves him, loves the life she had with him, and she knows Gibbs still loves Shannon and Kelly, loves the life he had with them.

She supposes that's a good thing. A man gets to fifty-seven years old and never loves anyone, and you've got to see that as an even bigger glowing, neon back the hell off sign than three ex-wives.


Then there's her own proceed with caution. This is good. It's very comfortable. It's easy in a way even Liam wasn't. It's really freaking scary because it is good and it is comfortable, and she could easily see herself snuggling into this man and staying there forever and she hasn't felt that way in a very long time and the last time that was true it got ripped away and…

And sometimes she feels like he's taking her apart. When they're at it slow and gentle, or just sitting around quietly, or when she's drifting off to sleep and he snuggles in just that little bit closer. Sometimes that feels like unraveling, cracking… shifting, like old dry plates of… something, armor maybe, are slowly moving into a new configuration.

And she's not sure if that's good of if that's just setting up for another heartbreak.

Lots of ands.

Abbi Borin hasn't had any hope about a man, or a relationship in a long time, and that's under all the ands, under the proceed with caution signs, under the fear and doubt, a tiny sprig of hope, trying to grow strong.


Still, three ex-wives. That's something to talk about it.

They're at his place, post-sex. She thinks this is true for both of them, it's certainly true for her, that it's easier to talk about intimate things when they're naked and relaxing.

There are some things she just can't talk about dressed. Her clothing is as much armor as her personality sometimes, and for some things it just has to come off before she can get into them.

So, she's laying across his bed, he's on his stomach, looking very content. She rolls a bit, so she's facing him, one leg draped over his hips, fingers gently stroking along his spine. He turns his face toward her, but his eyes are closed.

"So, three ex-wives?" she asks.

He doesn't exactly smile, but there's a sort of sheepish grin on his face as he opens his eyes, propping up on his elbows. "Yeah. Three ex-wives."

"Why?"

He rubs his face and looks uncomfortable, rolling onto his side to face her completely. "Because I really can be dumber than a box of rocks. And no one was kidding when they said the second B was for bastard."

"You still dumber than a box of rocks?"

He gives her his uncertain look. "I hope not. But I didn't think I was then, either. I do know I'm not a bastard, at least not that kind, anymore."

"That's a start."

He gives her his agreeing look. Then came the sheepish one. "I missed her." Sad smile. "And I chased after anything that was like her that I could find, and then I made sure it didn't work," he sighs, thinking about the trafficking he's hoping to do and wondering if this counts as an entirely new and even more spectacular way of making sure it never works again. "Trying to do better with you, because I'd like this to work."

She nods at that, kissing him.

"How about you?" He strokes her shoulder. "Ever get close after…" He doesn't know the name of her Marine.

"Liam. No." She shakes her head slightly. "Decent number of 'friends,' a few lovers, but I never let anyone stick around long enough to ask."

"Gonna let me stick around?" he asks, eyes serious and watching hers.

He can read the look on her face, the mix of knowing her past patterns and hoping to not repeat them, but knowing they're patterns for a reason. "Not planning on sending you off. Hope I don't scare you off." He can read the look on her face that says trying may not be succeeding, but she's going to try, and he can live with that. Trying might be all either of them can do. It's a good first step.

"What made you want to try again?"

The hip with the new scar is the one that's face up. Her fingers lightly ghost over it. "Just creased me, you know? Didn't even notice it until Flant told me I was bleeding, but it got me thinking. Wasn't sure if I wanted the job to be all I ever had or was. I don't want to give it up, but… I don't want it to be my everything, either. A week later, you want to get coffee, why not? I like you. I'd told you not to be a stranger. Worst comes to worst, we spend twenty minutes drinking coffee trying to think of something to say."

"Worst didn't come to worst."

"Nope. How about you, why'd you call?"

His eyes trail over her body, making one reason very clear. "Pretty red hair, great voice, you do your job well, you don't take shit from anyone, and you can stand up to me. My ideal woman."

She wiggles her butt a little. "Great ass didn't hurt, did it?"

He kisses her, hand resting on her bum. "Not at all." He could let it lie. They could just stay here, warm and comfortable and together, maybe nap some, maybe get some dinner. But he can't just let it lie. He's got to bring it up, because it's not fair, to either of them, to know what he wants to do, to know how bad it could be for her, and to do it anyway without telling her.

Like he said, he's not a bastard, not that kind, at least, not any more. The guy who married Stephanie to give himself a cover for fooling around with Jen is long, long gone. He takes a deep breath. "Why CGIS?"

She can feel this is important, to something, but she doesn't know what, or why it would be. "Wasn't supposed to be CGIS, didn't even know they had an investigative service. Was going to be FBI, or you guys. But, I finished FLETC in '05. It was the beginning of a six month hiring freeze. I was the last class to go through for a year. Coast Guard was small enough, and understaffed enough, that it still had a bit of budget left, so cool my heels for six months, and no promise of a job after, or go with them. I couldn't just sit there for half a year, so I applied, they liked me, I'm with the Coast Guard."

"It's not about serving the US or defending the borders from whatever's out there?"

She shakes her head. "If I could still do that, I'd still be a Marine. I can serve people. I need to serve people. But, patriotism's lost its shine over the years. I mean… what the fuck did we do over there, Jethro?" She rubs her eyes. "What did I lose my team for? Since '14 the whole bloody place is a mess again, and ISIS grabs a new chunk of it every day." She sighs, shaking her head, he can feel she's hit the point where angry on this is all burned out, and all that's left is defeat. "CGIS is about catching killers, tossing drug smugglers in jail, returning stolen people home, and feeling like… Feeling like there's a reason I'm still here."

He nods at that, gets that in his bones. The bullet, the blast misses by a hair and kills everyone else, and you've got to wonder why you're still there. Gotta make yourself feel like you earned the second chance.

She looks at him, head tilted, thinking about being just out of FLETC, and the prospect of six months of nothing followed by job hunting. She couldn't have done it. She still couldn't do it, day after day of just… nothing. "What are you doing, Gibbs?"

He sends her his huh? look, and she shakes her head. "I can't retire from this. I'm never going to be able to retire from this. And you're worse than I am. So, what are you doing? You didn't just retire. You'd be climbing the walls, going insane if all you had was woodworking and me. You need it, just the same way I do. So what are you doing?"

He smiles, and she catches the bit of wary sadness in the back of his eyes. "I don't know." He licks his lips and there's a sad smile on his face. "Hopin' I'm not a whole new level of stupid. I've got something in the works, but I don't know if it'll ever come to anything beyond in the works." He swallows. "Would you be willing to trust me on it? That if it ever goes from an idea to real, that I'll tell you about it first?"

She looks at him for a long moment. He's scared. His guard is up and he's trying to get away from something on this. And that scares her because this is Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and she's never seen him scared before. "Am I trusting you because it's dangerous or because it's illegal?"

"Yes."

"Oh, Lord." She winces and rubs her face. "Yes, I'll trust you on it, but don't make me. You're not telling me because you think I won't like it, won't stick around for it, so tell me now. If you're willing to set it in motion, you're already set on it, so, if this is it, this is it, let's get it done."

He nods and then kisses her, his eyes are so sad right now, and she's feeling sure that whatever he's going to come up with, it'll break her heart. "If I was going to do something… If my mind was already made up, and there was no talking me out of it… and if you'd approve of it… I'd hope… something where no one would get hurt… and someone, maybe several someones, in a very bad situation would get a much better one… but it was illegal, and if I got caught, you'd be in a shitload of trouble for not reporting it, 'cause it's in the realm of illegal you're in charge of…" He winces at that. "Would you want to know? Or would it be easier to not know, so you don't ever have to worry about not reporting it?" He figures that's specific enough for her to put the idea together and vague enough allow her to say, under oath, that she did not know what he was doing.

She ponders that for a long minute, thinking about what he's said and what she knows about him. No one gets hurt. So, he's not talking about sniping people. She knows she's got people who she wouldn't mind if they met a bullet, and she's sure he does, too. He wouldn't run drugs, not with what happened to his wife and daughter. Guns? That doesn't strike her as people in a bad situation to better. Bad situation to better… He's got to be talking about moving people.

That's not nearly as bad as she was afraid it could have been.

It's the hardest part of her job. For anyone who's got a conscience, at least. Poor, hungry people desperate for a better life, so desperate they're willing to literally die to try and get it, and it's her job to turn them away. They come in rafts, boats, in anything that'll float. Chesapeake isn't as big of an issue for that, but she did two years in Miami, where every day there was more of them.

It's why she transferred out of Miami. Couldn't stand fishing dehydrated, starved, sometimes dead people out of the water, and turning the living ones back to 'wait their turn in line.' She knows that for most of those people the line never ends, that there literally is no legal way to get into the US.

Poor, uneducated person, no family in the US, all he's got going for him is a willingness to put it all on the line for a better life. For him, they put up 10,000 visas a year, done by lottery. Tens of millions if not a hundred million people in that lottery. He's got a better shot of getting stuck by lightning than getting that visa. Next year, the exact same thing. Not like he gets a better shot of getting in the next year. Same odds. Because there is no 'line.'

But it's the job, and it's the law, and if she's stingy on allocating resources away from drug smuggling and murders to go after illegal aliens that's doing as much as she can do.

Gibbs can't even begin to put into words how much of a relief he finds this, when she asks, "Are you going to get caught?"

"Hope not." Because right now, that's all he can do. "Like I said, it's in the works. Don't have anything to move or plan on yet, so…"

"You gonna do more than hoping?" It's a serious question, gauging how carefully he's planning this.

He strokes her collar bone. "I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that I don't get caught. If it's hinky, we're not going to move on it. It's not some sort of go out in blaze of glory thing. I want to actually help."

She squeezes his hand, stopping his meandering finger. "And will 'everything in your power' extend to using my position in any way to help you not get caught?"

"No." He shakes his head. He won't, can't do that, or ask her to. "And I won't. I'll tell you, as specific as you like, if you want to know, or I'll go on 'fishing trips' if you don't, but I'll never ask for help, or for you to do anything that might get you in any trouble."

She nods and licks her lips. He's never seen that gesture on her, but he knows exactly what it means: a sort of contemplative uncomfortableness. "But you'd prefer I didn't ask what you were up to if I felt like I'd have to report it?"

"Yes." He thinks about that for a moment. "I guess I am asking you for something. I'm asking for you to look the other way. And I'm asking you to not ask me about it if you can't."

She kisses him, sweet and exasperated at the same time. "Jethro."

"Yeah?"

"Tell me about it. Don't want anything biting me in the ass as a surprise."

He lets the breath he didn't know he was holding out. "This goes right, and it never will."

He knows that look, it's extremely well-worn skepticism. "When does anything ever go 'right?'"

"Good point." And so, lying in bed, early May sunset mellowing into dark, Jethro tells her his plans. "It's just… ideas… right now." He tells her about Mike, and who Mike was, and what he thought Mike was doing, and what he and Penny and Ducky were trying to get started up. He tells her how they don't have any details, don't know how to find the girls, yet. But the boat's ready, the house will provide them with a launching point, how they have a lawyer on standby, how, right now, the ball is in Penny's court because she's the one on finding them a good contact.

For a long minute she just stares at him, and then sighs, pressing her hand to his chest. "You couldn't have designed a worse thing for me to know about if you had tried."

"I know," he looks and feels sorry about that.

"And there's no shot of changing your mind?"

He shakes his head, looking at her, eyes soft and earnest. "Abbi, is it the right thing to do? If we can find them, we're going to be getting abused girls to a better life. Is that wrong?"

"No." There's not a hint of doubt in her voice.

He lifts her hand from his chest and kisses her palm. "Then why would you want to try to change my mind?"

Her eyes shut, and she kisses him again, fingers cupping his cheek. She stares at him for a long moment, and he can feel her make the decision. "You ever get a text from me that says 'See you Tuesday' you drop everything and head for the hills, got it?"

He nods, knowing exactly how serious that is. "You don't—"

"Hush. It's the right thing to do, so why wouldn't I help?"

"It's your job to not help. Stopping guys like me is exactly your job."

She stares at him for a long time, thinking, and he doesn't try to rush her. Finally she says, "We do the job because it makes a difference. Because we give other people some peace, and maybe we save some people by putting the bad guys away. But most of the time, it's too little, too late. We provide closure. Maybe for once it'd be nice to help provide some openings."

He nods. "Yeah. Ziva and Tony have been talking about having a baby soonish, I hope, and she talked about that, about how it's time to stop devoting life to death, and start devoting it to life."

"Yeah. It's good, Gibbs."

He nods. "If we find someone, I'll tell you."

"Jethro, don't get caught."

He smiles at her. "Can you think of any better reason to get thrown in jail?"

"No… But… I don't want to be visiting you there." She stretches and slides her hand down his naked side. "They don't let you do this in jail."

He smiles, feeling, very content, very... secure right now. Very, right, all over. "Friday night Shabbos. Not sure if it's at my place or Ziva's yet, but, would you come?"

"You mean, like bringing me home to meet the family?"

"Yes."

"I'd love to go to Shabbos with you."

He grins at that. Imagining her as part of the family.

She stretches and sighs. "It got dark while we were talking."

He notices that for the first time. "Yep."

"You hungry?"

"Yes."

"Good, because if you're going to get me involved in a major criminal conspiracy, you better buy me a damn good dinner, too."

He smiles at that, sitting up. "Wherever you want, my treat."


They're in the shower when one other thing about this springs to mind. He's certain that Borin will keep silent on this, but he also knows that it's a good plan for the conspiracy members to know who is who.

He's washing her hair when he says, "About our plan. Ducky and Penny are part of it. You know about it. The kids… suspect something is up, they also know I can't retire, but they also have not and will not ask about it. It's not the sort of thing we'll be chatting about at family dinners."

She turns around so her hair is in the water, rinsing clean, and then gently taps his shoulder so he knows to turn. "They don't know to protect them?" she asks as she starts to shampoo his hair.

"Yes. They'd agree. They'd approve. They'd probably want to help. But the fewer the people who know, the better."

"So, why do I know? This is a case where not saying anything really would protect me."

"You know how you don't tell the people you love about the job to protect them?"

He can feel her nod, even if he can't see it. But he figures it'd be good to say this next bit face to face, so he turns around to say, "Has that ever worked out for you? It's never worked out for me. And it wouldn't have worked here. You ever found out, or if I got caught, you'd hate me for not telling you."

"I'd understand."

"Yeah, but you'd still be pissed."

She nods. She would be.

"And I don't want to be lying to you. I've done it. Not said. Protected partners, friends, family, lovers. And it never works. They're always angry after. Finally someone put it like this: when you say, 'I was trying to protect you,' what you're really doing is saying, 'I'm going to do what I'm going to do, and I don't want to have to deal with your emotional reaction to it.' And, that's not fair or kind to the person you don't want to deal with."

Borin nods at that. "Never thought about it that way, but… that makes a lot of sense. 'This is hard enough without you being horrified/scared or crying on me about it. And I cannot take anything else on top of this, so please, back off.'" She goes back to massaging the shampoo into his scalp. That feels good.

"Yep. And that's it. For you, and for me. But there's this other person who's scared and worried and… And I've done that… more times than I want to say. Never, ever works. I'm trying to not make the same mistakes I've already made a dozen times."

She switches them around again, so this time he's under the water, rinsing off. "So, you're saying, with me, you're going to make new and different mistakes?"

"That's the plan."

She laughs at that.

He looks at her, tenderness in his eyes, seriousness, too. There are a lot of feelings, ideas, all of which probably could translate into words, if he worked at it, for a long, long time.

She strokes his face, sees him working at this, and then kisses him. "It's okay, Gibbs. I get it."

He smiles and kisses her back. "What do you want for dinner?"

Next

Shards To A Whole: The House

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 369: The House


Thursday morning. The rest of the crew would be joining them on Saturday, but, like Gibbs said, he and Ducky now had something to do, every day, for at least the next three months.

Gibbs, of course, is used to this. And sure, this is a much bigger project than he's ever worked on before, but he's at least familiar with the ins and outs of something like this.

He has the sinking suspicion, as he picks Ducky up, and notices that for Ducky, grubby clothes equals scrubs (Gibbs supposes that makes a certain amount of sense: cheap, easily washed, easy to move in, cool, all of that is good, but it looks really odd.) that Ducky has likely never done anything even remotely like this.

It's also occurring to Gibbs, as they head toward the house, that he's never really done anything that involved managing Ducky before. He's never had to try to teach Ducky anything. Or, God, correct him on something.

Yeah, this'll be interesting.

Of course, today's version of interesting is somewhat less strenuous than tomorrow is likely to be.

First things first, they've got to get those fallen trees out of the way.

Once that's done, there's ordering a few dumpsters, making lists of the tools they're going to need, obtaining said tools, and then tomorrow they can begin the tear down.

Today's work is actually going to be fun, because ripping up trees with chainsaws is something that Gibbs really likes doing.

Plus, as they get out of the truck and head toward the first tree, chainsaw (Gibbs only has one) over his shoulder, Ducky with two hand saws, it hits Gibbs that this appears to be oak, which means as long as they roll the logs out of the way, he can use them later for something interesting.

"Branches come off first. Clean cuts, gonna want to save this."

Ducky nods at that, eyeballing the tree in front of them. It's dead. Very dead. There are littered brown leaves on the ground under the tree, and the twigs look dry and brittle. "And are we using the hand saws for the branches?"

"You are. I've got this."

"And why do you have that?" Ducky appears to be under the impression that the older guy should get the power tools.

"Have you ever used one before?"

"I've used bone saws before."

Gibbs flips off the safety and turns on the engine. "Not the same thing." He pulls his ear protection on, and hands ear plugs to Ducky before taking two large steps away from Duck, and starting up the chain saw. It buzzes to life with a hard kick, which is why Ducky didn't get to use it. If you've never done it before, that kick can be a surprise, and that surprise can kill you. Tim or Jimmy or Tony want to use this, that's one thing, but the girls and Ducky… he's got no idea how strong their arms are, and he's sure as hell not explaining to Penny how he handed Ducky a chainsaw and that was that.

He keeps an eye on Ducky as he works. (Okay, he keeps an eye on Ducky between choosing branches to remove, while he's actually sawing, he keeps his eyes on the tree.)

Eventually Ducky notices or senses it somehow. He pulls off his ear protection and gestures for Jethro to do likewise, so he shuts off the saw and does so.

"What?"

"I am fine, Jethro."

"Didn't say you weren't."

"You are staring at me as if you are afraid that at any second I will drop over with a heart attack."

Gibbs opens and closes his mouth. Because, yeah, okay, that is more or less exactly what he's doing, but he didn't think he was being that obvious about it.

"As of my last check up all of my arteries and veins were clear. And I am more than capable of" he mimics the motion he's using for sawing, "for hours without any ill effect."

"Okay. Just… Don't want to be bringing Penny any bad news."

"And I would prefer you didn't have to, either. But if it happens here, it happens here, and this," he gestures to indicate the work they're doing, "will not be the cause of it. I do not need you coddling me."

"Okay."

Ducky's voice grows serious. "Mother lived fifteen years too long. Slowly fading further and further away from the rest of the world a day at a time. I don't want that. Jethro, I am of sound mind, doing something I enjoy with someone I love, for the joy of other people I love, wrapped in spring sunshine. Can you think of a better way to go?"

"Duck…" He swallows hard at that; he doesn't want to think much about Ducky going any which way or another, and then sighs, blinking. Yes, it's a good way to go, but this a hell of a lot grimmer than Gibbs wants to be. He rubs his hand over his face, blinks again, and then forces a smile and says, "My girlfriend's almost twenty years younger than I am. I can think of a better way to go." Gibbs holds his face serious for almost a second before breaking into a huge smile and laughing.

Ducky's eyes go wide for that second, and then he starts to laugh, loud, belly laughing, along with Gibbs. After a moment, he takes off his glasses and, still chucking, wipes his eyes. He inhales long and deep, exhales, and says, "Le petit mort becomes le grande mort. I'll give you, that's a better way to go." He laughs again, and Gibbs laughs with him. "Bad for your lady friend."

Gibbs nods, agreeing with that.

"But good for you. We should all aspire to such ends."

"Amen, Duck."

Gibbs is about to put his ear protection back on when Ducky asks, "And is Ms. Borin your girlfriend?"

Gibbs looks up at him, startled.

"It's just, your previous women, Susan, Dr. Ryan, Ms. Hart, Hollis they were all friends. In fact, if memory serves, both Timothy and Anthony received headslaps for referring to Susan as your girlfriend."

Gibbs inclines his head at that, they did get headslaps, mostly for the gossip, but the girlfriend bit triggered it, too.

"Have you… spoken to her about what else it is we hope to do here?"

Gibbs shakes his head. No. He tried, but the fear of her leaving killed those words dead long before they had a shot of getting out of his mouth.

"In the old tales, the knight goes forth, and risks everything to do what is right. Thus he goes off to slay the dragon, knowing exactly what it is he risks, because the threat of the dragon is too great to be ignored. You are a knight, Jethro, you always have been.

"But there are myriad dragons out there. More dragons than there are knights. We can go and find one that doesn't risk you losing your lady in the process."

"You getting cold feet?"

"No." Ducky smiles. "I've married my lady. She'll be there to the end of my days, or hers, whichever of us goes first. My castle is secure. My loves are safe. I'm ready, willing, and able to go forth and slay dragons with you. My last grand adventure.

"But it doesn't have to be this adventure."

Gibbs sits down on the oak, patting the bark, Ducky sitting next to him.

"What else would I do? Really? Rachel suggested being an EMT."

"You'd be good at it. Cool head, able to deal with anyone who comes your way. The medical training is intensive, but I doubt you'd find it difficult. Private Detective, take up cases the police have given up on. You could teach self-defense. Work with battered women, teach them to fight and to shoot."

"So we can arrest them when they finally shoot the sons-of-bitches hurting them? I get into that, I'll end up doing a lot more than just practicing with my sniper rifle."

The look on Ducky's face indicates he doesn't necessarily see that as a problem.

Gibbs shakes his head. "Only one bullet left for that rifle, and it's got a target picked."

Ducky nods, well aware of who that bullet's for, should the need arise.

"I want to do it, Duck. It's… if you were to sit down for hours to come up with something that perfectly matched my skills and what I've got to offer, that's it."

Ducky nods, agreeing. Sailing skills, ability to read people at a glance, facility with language, nerves of steel, undercover skills, deep sympathy and protective nature, yes, this is Jethro's perfect job.

"But I want her, too."

Ducky smiles, sadly. "I'm afraid that may be a combination you cannot have."

"I know. I am, too." Gibbs swallows hard again, and pats the tree. "Come on." He puts his ear protectors back on, waits for Ducky to get up, and then fires up the chainsaw again.


Saturday morning. Bright and early. Tim's noticed it's a lot easier to get up bright and early on Saturday mornings these days. Probably because it's not like there's any shot of sleeping in. Kelly's up by seven every morning, so they pretty much are, too. Right now, Kelly's all dressed and ready to go. She's chilling out on Mom and Dad's bed, laying on her back, working on stuffing both sets of toes into her mouth.

Mom and Dad are somewhat less ready to go.

"Jethro's bringing all the tools, right?" he asks Abby as he's pulling on his oldest, rattiest jeans. (Not very old or ratty. Downside of all the weight he lost is that almost everything he owns and still wears is new.)

"Think so, why?" She's hunting through her closet for her overalls. It's been a while since she volunteered to build houses for Habitat For Humanity, but she's still got her gear somewhere.

"Just checking."

"Do you have tools to bring?"

Been a while since she's worn that. "Yes, but not for this part of it." Most of his tools are for electronics. He's got lots of good stuff for soldering, and a wide array of extremely high-tech micro tools for dealing with the delicate innards of a computer. On a much bigger scale, he's ready and able to fish cable through a house, splice wires, sink LED light sockets, and add in extra electric plugs. However, the hammer, saw, crowbar, wrenches, and various and sundry other around-the-house tools they have are all Abby's. "When we get to rewiring, I've got stuff."

"Found it!" Abby pulls her overalls and tool belt out of deep storage. "Now let's see if I can still fit my ass into these."

He pats her rear gently while kissing her neck, and then delves into the closet to find his work boots.


Out in the sun, breaking things, spending the day with most of his favorite people. Jimmy was really looking forward to this.

All was going well. They got their things, packed the girls into the backseat, and headed over to Ed and Jeannie's. Molly's going to get some quality time with Gramma and Papa. (Anna's staying with them, because she spends most of her time nursing and sleeping.) He and Breena were going to head off, and then breaking things!

Was and were are the operative words in those statements.

Apparently, last night, Amy and Collin dropped by to have a chat with Ed and Jeannie. Jeannie, of course, knew why they were there and what they had to talk about. Ed did not.

To say he did not take that conversation well would be an understatement along the lines of 'You know, absolute zero is a bit nippy.'

A very quick conference between Jeannie and Breena resulted in Ed coming along, because both of them thought that a chance to break things would be good for him.

So, as they're driving to the house, Jimmy now has, instead of an hour to just chat with his wife, alone, without small people interrupting, which he had been looking forward to, an hour with Ed fuming in his backseat, occasionally muttering things under his breath.

They've been in the car for ten, tense, minutes before something that's actually intelligible comes out of him. "Why would she lie to me?"

Jimmy bites his lip. He could answer. He wants to answer. He's got answers coming out his ears right now, but he feels Breena's hand on his wrist, so he doesn't. He stays quiet.

"She's not blind, Dad. She saw how you treated Jimmy, she saw the crap you've put me through, the crap you've put both of us through, and for some reason she wasn't eager to deal with that. You put me in an impossible situation, and you wonder why she didn't want to be there herself?"

Ed glares and looks out the window. "When it's Molly and Anna, you'll understand."

"No! I won't. You couldn't have designed a better husband for me if you tried, and you're still not fond of him. So, no, I'm not going to understand this. Molly or Anna fall in love with a good man, a man who's good for them, I'm not going to be a jerk about it."

"He'll understand," Ed says looking at Jimmy.

Jimmy glances at Breena, wondering if it's okay for him to talk, now, and she nods slightly. "It's my job to protect Molly and Anna's hearts, my job to raise them so they can find happiness and recognize it when they have it. It is not my job to constantly second guess them. It's not my job to try and wedge myself between them and the men or women or whoever it is they love. And it's sure as hell not my job to make them break down crying on their eventual mates because I'm being a flaming asshole about the fact that they want to get married. That's not my job, and it's not yours, and if you don't want Christine," Breena's youngest sister, "pulling the exact same crap on you, shape up, get over yourself, and welcome their men into your home."

"Collin's a good guy, Dad."

"If he was a good guy, he'd have married her. None of this shacking-up shit."

"Dad."

"It's bullshit. You love her. You're going to stay. You get married. This… he's playing house and then he's going to knock her up and run."

"We've already told him that if he tries to bail on his kids we'll kill him," Jimmy says. "He took it seriously."

"Who's we?"

"Me, Tim, Gibbs. After bootcamp. After letting him see that we could literally beat the shit out of him if we wanted to."

"Why were you doing that?"

"Because he is serious, and he's not insane, so he decided having a chat with the one other person who knows what it's like to be Ed Slater's son-in-law was a good plan." Breena already knows this, but Ed doesn't. "We would have been engaged six months earlier, but I was spending a lot of time figuring out if she was worth having to deal with you. And she is, but that was a lot of long nights thinking hard about it. And then it was another year of you making her miserable and me want to shoot you in the ass because of it. So no, no sane guy jumps into that without a lot of thought, because having someone you love ripped in two because her Dad is being an ass isn't fun. Every day of it kills you, and it kills her, and…"

Now Jimmy shuts up, because if he gets going on this too much, he's going to make Breena upset, and he's going to be in a bad mood, too.

He relaxes his fingers on the steering wheel, noticing they were clenching hard. "Getting married was supposed to be happy and fun. It was supposed to be joyful. And honestly, between you and Deering, I'm not sure who fucked over our wedding worse. You've got a chance of not doing that to Amy and Christine, so for God's sake, take it."

From then on, it's a very quiet drive to the house.


"Hammers, crowbars, duct tape… What else do you think we'll need?" Tony asks Ziva as she returns to the cart they're pushing through a Lowes on their way to the house.

"Tony, why do we have a shovel?" Ziva asks as she puts the tool belts she had grabbed into the cart.

"We need a shovel."

Ziva eyes the shovel; it was not in the cart when she went to grab tool belts. Granted, she doesn't know all that much about driveway snow removal, but she's fairly certain that the kind of shovel one uses for a driveway in winter does not look like the long handled, small-bladed object that Tony just put into their cart.

"What do we need that shovel for?"

"You'll see. So, this everything?"

"For today, at least. I'm sure we'll want other tools eventually." In that both of them are apartment dwellers, they don't have much in the way of tools. A few screwdrivers, okay, one screwdriver, phillips head, because a knife just won't do that job well, and one strap wrench. For anything else, if something goes wrong they call the maintenance guy, and he fixes it.

As they head toward the register, Tony turns the cart away, heading toward the plant section.

"Tony?"

"Come on." He takes them in deeper, surrounded by growing things. "I know you were seeing something in your head when we were there. Knew it was outside by where you were looking. Thinking it's some sort of tree, because that's home. So…" They're in a long row of young trees. Apples, peaches, pears, plums, cherries, further back are decorative ones.

Ninja Apples"Tony…" She's smiling at him.

"Not a whole lot of them. They've still got to fit into the car." They're young trees, yes, but young trees are still seven feet long. "But, we can start, at least. Get one or two in today."

Ziva starts hunting around. She knows basically nothing about growing fruit trees, but this part's probably pretty easy. She takes her phone out to see which ones do best in this area and comes up with a decision.
Two small trees, each with a tag that says Arkansas Black, and a picture of very dark red apples go into the cart, too.

Tony smiles at them, and at her. "Trust the ninja to go for black apples."

She smiles at him, eyes sparkling. "Ninja apples."


"Okay, so, this is also our home. We're gonna walk around the property, and you've got to stay inside of it. If you can do that, you can go run around. You go wandering somewhere else, I'm going to have to tie you up."

Woof.

Mona's excited. Twice now Jethro's left and come home smelling interesting, and she too wants to know what those smells are and where they're from.

He opens the door to his truck and she goes bounding out of the cab. Space. Lots of space. And it's green. And… oh a butterfly. And like that she's off like a black rocket, tearing after the butterfly.

Gibbs looks around at the work site. Yesterday and the Thursday, he and Ducky got the trees cut up and moved out of the way. They also cleared out the section of the house the tree took out.

He's not sure if he wants to tear all of the siding off first, and then go back in and reframe and Tyvek, or if it's a better idea to get this patch cleaned out to healthy wood (that's how he thinks of the parts of the house that aren't growing mold and mildew), reframe that section, put the plywood up, and then pull all of the siding off the whole house and go at it at once.

What he does know is that having a big hole in the house isn't a good plan.

Either way, he's got a load of lumber and a bunch of tarps in the back of his truck… so he's ready to move.


Ducky and Penny thought of something the rest of them didn't. Water. It was a very good thought.

Theoretically the water got turned on yesterday. But, whether or not it's good to drink is a whole different story. So, when they pulled up with a trunk full of bottles of water, Gibbs sighed with relief.

He'd brought burgers and burger fixings, figuring that with three acres of woods, and all the branches that are too small for good woodworking he'd have no problem getting the grill fired up and ready to cook, but somehow the idea that they'd want something to drink (beyond his own thermos filled with the coffee that goes everywhere with him) hadn't hit him.


Two by fours are not light.

And he's got a metaphorical ton of them in the back of his truck. (In reality, it's probably close to 600 pounds.) They need to get from his truck to a space he and Ducky cleared out for them (tarp already laid out so they're not sitting on wet ground.)

At first it's just Gibbs, Ducky, and Penny. Which makes for slow headway. Eventually Tony and Ziva show up, which speeds things up. Then Jimmy and Breena and Anna, and Ed with a black cloud hovering over his head. (Bad mood or not, he's still lugging wood like a champ.) And finally Abby and Tim with Kelly and the play pen the girls will be hanging out in.

At ten-months old Kelly's still pretty good on the stick her in one place and she stays there part of life. She's also still at three naps a day, so she gets to come along, too. At five months old, Anna sleeps and eats even more often. With any luck, they'll hang out in the play pen, amuse each other, and enjoy the shade. At least this one time. If it's a disaster, then they'll work something else out. But at least for right now (fourteen minutes into this experiment), they seem pretty content to hang out in the playpen, in the shade, watching the adults.

Once the whole crew is there, they make fast work of the lumber.

Ed eyes the siding, standing next to Gibbs, and says. "You got anyone who knows anything about plumbing?"

"Not really."

"Anyone can rip siding off. I've got a flashlight in the car. Show me where the steps to the basement are and I'll give your plumbing a once over."

"Thanks."

A minute later, Jethro's got him in the house, in the back of the kitchen, next to the pantry, at the basement steps. "Electric's not on, yet." He takes a few steps to the sink, and turns the water on. "Water works." It's kind of grayish brown. He shakes his head at it.

Ed nods, heading back into the basement; Gibbs following. They stop at the bottom two steps and Ed turns on his flash light. "Hopefully that's just it's been years since the water's been used." Ed looks around, they're the only two in the house. "She's living with him."

Gibbs nods.

"You knew."

He nods at that, too.

"Didn't say anything."

That's obvious is on Gibbs' face.

"Why?"

"Your daughter's so scared of wrecking things that she's not willing to talk to you, I'm not going to get into that."

Ed snorts. "He didn't come talk to me."

"Thought that happened last night."

"Didn't talk to me before."

"He doesn't want to marry you. He's not going to piss Amy off if she's saying keep quiet."

"He should have talked to me."

Gibbs nods. "Jimmy told him that."

Ed's eyes go wide. "Jimmy told him that?"

"Yeah. 'Cause it's the right thing to do. He talked to you, first. The way he was supposed to. And you laughed at him, even though your daughter loves him and he treats her like she's a goddess, you still laughed. You think he didn't tell her that? Or that she didn't tell Amy?

"Think she didn't see that, and understand it as you don't respect a gesture like that?

"You think Amy didn't watch and see everything you did to Jimmy. Think she didn't know how miserable you made Breena when they were getting married? Think she somehow missed all the snide comments and little putdowns you piled on him over the years?

"Collin's a good kid. He's serious about her. We could see it; she didn't want him talking to you, so he talked to us, about how to deal with you. Because no man in his right mind wants his woman crying on him about her dad.

"And that's what she's doing today, right? Crying? Because let me guess, they came over, and they sat you and Jeannie down, and they told you they're living together and they love each other, and you threw a fit, probably said some really mean things to her and him?"

Ed nods. "Just to him."

"They invited to Sunday dinner?"

"How can they be invited to Sunday dinner? We all get together, to go to church, which they aren't welcome at anymore—"

"Quit it. Three quarters of you family'll get booted out if that's the case. Jimmy and Breena are the only people I know or have ever heard of who are under the age of forty who waited until they got married. Your Minister had no problem letting Tim and Abby stand up with Jimmy and Breena for Molly, and they were living together then. And you're not going to suggest I stop coming because I've got a girlfriend I sleep with."
Ed's got the grace to look uncomfortable.

"Your girls are people. People like sex. You do. Your wife does. The stork brought none of your grand babies. Be happy for them that they found good men who love 'em, are good at it, and make 'em happy with it."

Ed looks really startled by that.

Gibbs shakes his head. "I only had my daughter for nine years. So, I didn't get to this part of it. But I had dreams for it. And I don't know Collin well enough to say for sure, but I've got a good feeling about him, but I do know Jimmy, and I would have given my right arm for Jimmy as a son-in-law. To have had a man love my girl the way he loves Breena…

"I've put away men who raped women, put away men who killed their wives, beat 'em up, tortured them. I've killed 'em, too. One… sick bastard stuck 'em in wedding dresses and kept them chained in abandoned rooms made to look like the '50s. I've seen every flavor of bad out there. And for just plain, old not getting along, I've lived it.

"Right now, I'm just getting started again, and you know who I'm looking at when I'm trying to figure out how to do this? Jimmy and Tim. Because they get it. Because they're good at it.

"I've got a lot of rules, and one of them is 'don't apologize, it's a sign of weakness,' but when I fuck up, fuck up bad, I apologize. And if I were you, I'd get Jimmy alone and I'd apologize for all the crap you've put him through. Then I'd do the exact same thing for Breena. Then I'd give Collin a call, offer to buy him a beer, and start trying to patch up the mess you've made with him, and if not for his sake or yours, you do it for Amy. You do that, you work at it, and you won't have this problem with Christine."

Ed nods, and Gibbs isn't sure if that's his way of saying I'll do that or I'm done talking about this but either way he knows they're done.

He heads back into the kitchen and sees Jimmy just standing there, staring at him.

"Uh… just checking in. Wanted to see what you were up to."

Gibbs inclines his head. "You heard?"

"Yeah."

Gibbs takes a step closer and puts his arm around Jimmy. "She'd have been the same age as Ziva, and I'd've been damn proud if she had picked you."

Jimmy nods, solemnly. "Thanks."

Gibbs shakes his head. "Nothing to say thanks for. You earned it. Lot of times over. Anyone who's not deliberately blind can see it."

"Still nice to hear."

Gibbs nods at that. "They get started."

"Yeah, feel like ripping off some aluminum siding installed just about the same time as Ed's sexual politics?"

Gibbs laughs at that. "Sure."


It's fun. Loud. Aluminum siding does not come off a house peaceful and quiet. And Abby's got some sort of music blasting out of their car. So, they can't really talk. But it's fun.

It's a beautiful day, the sun is shining bright overhead, they're working together at something happy, instead of the way they usually work together, at something tragic.

It's a good day.

Ed pops back up an hour later, vastly longer than it'd take to inspect the pipes, not nearly long enough for some serious soul searching.

"Good news. Your pipes are copper and in good shape. Bad news is your hot water heaters are older than Breena and so calcified you could use them as fossils."

Gibbs nods. Relieved about the pipes, and he'd already put new water heaters on the list, so that's not a blow.

Ed picks up a crowbar and finds a chunk of wall no one's working on, and gets to prying away.


It's during the lunch break that it occurs to Tim that, though it is April, and as a result cool out, it is still bright and sunny.

And as the biological result of many, many, many generations of pale-skinned, melanin-deficient Irish people breeding with each other, he's got a natural SPF of, maybe, on a good day, negative two.

He is realizing this because, while moving around, and working, and sweating he wasn't paying attention to anything but the work, but right now, relaxing into their lunch break, enjoying the scent of wood fire and burgers, it's hitting him that the bits of him that have been open to the sun, his face and arms, are burning.

He doesn't think his skin looks too pink, but he peels off his work gloves and winces. (This would also be when it hits him that he's wearing sunglasses. Brown-green sunglasses, which tone the red down on everything. And for that matter, so is everyone else around him.)

He takes them off and winces again, able to see what color his skin is. "Oh…"

Abby looks up from Kelly. She's nursing right now, and had been talking to their daughter. She looks at him and her eyes go wide.

"It's really bad, isn't it?"

Abby nods. "I've got sunscreen in my purse. In the car."

"Probably too late for that."

She nods at him. "It'll keep it from getting worse." She takes her glasses off, too, and winces again. "Oh, God, Tim. Wow, okay. At least it's just your face, neck, and arms. You have a long sleeve shirt in the car, right?"

He does. He'd worn a button-down over the t-shirt because it is cool, but working meant he warmed up pretty quick.

"Go get a lot of sunscreen and that shirt back on. Gibbs!"

He turns from the grill, and Tim sees his eyes go wide.

"Do you have an extra ball cap in the truck?"

He shakes his head. "Don't you have yours in your go bag?" he asks Tim.

"No. I don't need field gear in my go bag anymore."

"I have mine." Ziva replies. "Come, McGee, let's get you fixed up."

Back at his car, rubbing copious amounts of sun block on very tender skin, he figured out why everyone looked at him like he was some sort of bizarre creature. He's got a reverse raccoon look going. Two wide round bits around his eyes where the glasses were, the rest of his face, bright, flushed pink.

Ziva's cap (adjusted to fit him) helps to get more shade on his face, his long sleeve shirt means his arms are protected now, and as they're walking back to the patio she says, "You remember what poison ivy looks like, right?"

He shakes his head at her. "It's a summer plant. Don't have to worry about it in the spring."

"Are you sure? This will be miserable. This plus poison ivy…"

"I'm good, Ziva."

"Okay."

Tony's putting buns on plates as they get back, and he takes one look at Tim and says, "Time to take you out of the pot, McLobster, you're done."

"Yeah, thanks, Tony. You couldn't have noticed that before I was cooked?"

Tony spreads his hands wide. "I was doing my job."

"Yeah, well, me too."

"When you get home, Timothy, brew up a good strong tea, allow it to cool, soak paper towels in it, and then apply them to your burns. That will help with the swelling and pain."

"Thanks, Duck."

"My first tour of duty was in Korea, which is not, in fact, Scotland, or anything like Scotland. The height of sun screen back then was titanium dioxide paste. In addition to absolutely destroying any camouflage you may have had, it was utterly useless as sun screen. No one there had ever heard of an aloe plant, let alone had one, so tea compresses were all the first aid one could do for burned skin."

"Ugh." Tim says, wincing in sympathy.

Ducky nods. "Took two months before I stopped burning every single day."

"Oh." Tim shudders at that.

"Africa was worse. The only time I've ever had sun poisoning was in Africa."

"Ducky, no offense, but, I don't want to hear about sun poisoning."

"Why are we talking about sun… Good Lord, Tim, you forgot sunscreen didn't you?" Jimmy asks as he sits down.

"Very astute, Palmer," Tim says back. "Ducky's making sure I know how blessed I am to live in a world of sunblock." He turns to Ducky. "Trust me, I get it. Just forgot I needed it, because that's usually a summer thing."

"You don't wear it every day?"

"No. You do?"

Jimmy rolls his eyes. "What do you think that stuff I'm rubbing on myself when I get out of the shower is?"

"I try not to think about things like that."

Jimmy shakes his head. "Next time we're in the locker room, remind me to do a mole check on you."

"Me? You think either of those two do, either?" He points to Tony and Gibbs, both of whom are looking a little sheepish about this.

"Really?" Jimmy asks.

Tony and Gibbs shake their heads.

"Next bootcamp that's at the Navy yard, you're all getting checked out. 'Cause none of you are missing a melanoma on my watch."

Three heads nod.

"And you two, he points to Gibbs and Tony, start wearing sunblock."

"Why us and not him?" Tony asks.

"He should, too, but it's not as big of a deal. You and Gibbs go outside. He spends most of his time in front of a computer."

And quietly, lingering toward the back, Ed watches.


Breena's getting Anna in the car seat. Jimmy's tossing tool belts into the trunk. Ed stands next to Jimmy instead of getting in the car.

"Gibbs said you're the one who told Collin to talk to me."

Jimmy nods.

"Thanks."

Jimmy nods again, about to close the trunk of their car.

"That was a good thing to do. Even Jeannie was lying to me about it. So, thanks."

He turns to Ed. "Wasn't for you, Ed. He's asking about how to make you like him, and I've got nothing for that, because nothing I've ever done's managed to do it. But I do know that if he wants any shot of a decent life with Amy, she's got to be on his side, not yours. You make them chose, and her living with him was just putting it off. So, I told him that that's his acid test, if she's not willing to tell you, if she wants to keep hiding, then he's got to leave, because you'll rip them apart in the long run."

"You told him he should talk to me, too, though."

"Yeah. I did. It comes back to us, Ed. At least, I believe that, and in twenty years, I want the guys my girls love to come and talk to me, so yeah, I told him to talk to you. So did Tim, and Gibbs, because that's just basic courtesy. But it's not about you. It's about him being a stand up guy."

"Okay."

"You ready to go?" Jimmy's hands flatten on the door to the trunk, about to shut it.

"Almost," Ed says. Jimmy turns so he's leaning against the back of the car, arms crossed over his chest. Ed looks at him, really looking, seeing Jimmy. "I know you're a good husband."

"Great."

"And you're a good friend."

"Everyone knows that."

"You're a good father."

Jimmy nods, taking that as his due. "There was a time when that would have lit me up like a Christmas tree for a week. If you had said that to me back when Breena and I had been married for a year, I would have glowed." He shakes his head and then shrugs. "Maybe I hadn't earned it at a year. Anyone can do a year. You screw up the first year, you're trying to mess things up. Hell, Tony's dad, who's got a new wife every leap year, can manage a good first year.

"And, you know, if at any time, when our hearts were breaking during those days of losing Jon, if you had taken me aside and told me I was doing a good job, it would have mattered, and it would have helped.

"But now. Too little, too fucking late, Ed. I don't care what you think about me anymore. Caring about what other people think about me burned off when we lost Jon. There are men, who I respect, who's opinion of me matters, you are not one of them.

"I should respect you. You raised three wonderful girls, one of whom is the light of my life. You're a good grandfather. And if you ever figure out how to be as good of a father to a woman as you were to little girls, I will respect you. Breena's thirty-two, Amy's twenty-nine, Christine's twenty-six. They are adults, with lives and loves and jobs and hopes, and they need a Dad who can handle them as adults. You ever figure out how to do that, and I'll start caring again what you think of me."

Ed nods. Jimmy slams shut the trunk, and heads to the driver's seat.


It was a good day. They'd worked hard and enjoyed it. The north corner was re-framed, got new plywood up, and a quarter of the old siding is off of the house. Gibbs's tired, and sore, and, like Tim, a little (but only a little) sunburned.

A very good day.

He's looking forward to getting home, kicking back, few cold beers, call Abby, see if she wants some company, and if not, pizza and a game sounds good. Turn in early. His body might not have considered what it was doing right after he retired work, but it's certainly aware that today was work, and as a result, he's tired.

Tomorrow, after dinner, they'll get a few more hours in. (Tony and Ziva had decided to camp over tonight, so they'll get a full day in.) Rate they're going, they'll have all the old siding off by the end of next weekend.

It occurs to Gibbs that maybe he and Ducky and Penny should have a chat about what they're going to replace the old siding with. He sends a quick text off when he gets to a stop light.

A few more miles, and he pulls onto his street, and sees that his day just got better. There's a dark red Taurus sitting in his driveway.

He smiles and pats Mona. "We've got company for dinner."

Mona's not impressed by that, though she is in favor of dinner. She hops out of the truck a step behind him, and goes running for the doggie door, not wanting to wait for him to get the mail and head inside.

Almost nothing interesting in the mail, bills, bills, bills, and… It's huge, and thick, and he thinks he's slept on sheets that have a lower cotton count than the paper in this envelope. Lots of silver curly-cues, and a personalized Love stamp.

It's Senior's wedding invitation.

Well, at least his date's enthusiastic about him in a tux.

Speaking of said date, he steps into the house, and finds her sitting on his sofa, reading.

"Hey."

"Hi," she stands up, getting ready to hug him, and he takes a step toward her. He sees her stop, sees her wince a little, and stop breathing, and it hits him that he's been working in the sun all day, hard, and probably smells bad enough that he could knock a goat over.

He holds his hands up. "Fifteen minutes."

Borin nods.

Gibbs heads straight for his washer, tosses everything he's wearing (besides his boots) in there, and then goes to the shower.

He's still in there, enjoying hot water on sore shoulders, as Abby steps in, pressing up close against him, kissing his shoulder. He turns to face her, kissing her back.

"Take it you had a good day?" she asks.

"Yeah." He smiles at her. "And it's getting' even better."

Next


A/N: Sooo... The powers that be decided to have Abby Sciuto and Abby Borin on one show. Great. Now, I'm at the point in the story where Gibbs is thinking of Borin as Abby.

But, Abby and Abby is confusing, so from here on out Abby is Abigail McGee and Abbi is Abigail Borin.

Shards To A Whole: Decision Time

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 368: Decision Time

Ziva and Tony'sApparently it has been a quiet week at NCIS. Tony and Ziva are able to cut out early, so Shabbos is at their house. Which Gibbs thinks is just fine. Their home makes a very clear argument for why a place where they can all fit is a good idea.

He's got the pictures. Ducky and Penny are going to bring it up when they think the time is right. Probably after the 'what have we all been doing this week' part of the conversation.


He didn't get bombarded with 'You bringing Borin?' questions this week. That was nice. Several looks, and the 'So, what exciting happened to you this week?' question seemed to indicate that Borin-centric information would be welcome, but he didn't add anything.

Besides seeing her once, and mulling over what the hell to do with the fact that she's Coast Guard, and he wants to start trafficking people, not much Borin-centric stuff happened this week, and none of it is anything he's willing to tell them about.

Excitement for the week for the rest of them ranged from Breena getting to deal with a family that was so fractious that they had to schedule two separate viewings, complete with funeral service, so that the dead man's sons didn't have to be in the same room at the same time, to Penny enjoying the fun that is having a student show up to complain about his failing grade, even though he had A: not done any homework, B: only shown up for a quarter of the classes, and C: left half of the midterm blank.

"…I asked him what grade he thought would be appropriate for a man who did not even deign to attend the class regularly and he just stared at me like I was speaking in French. Finally he said, 'I need a B to graduate with a 3.0.'"

"What'd you say to that?" Tim asks his grandmother.

"'In that this is a junior level micro-medical engineering seminar you should be well enough versed with basic mathematical averages to know that it is mathematically impossible for you to get a B in this class. However, if you pull a C, which will require you to get As on everything in the rest of the class, turn in all of your homework, and ace the final, you can then take it again in September, get an A in it, average that with the C you may be able to pull this time, and then get your B.'"

"Let me guess, he had a fit?" Jimmy says between bites of roast beef.

"He glared at me and left. I got the note from the registrar that he's dropping the class today."

"All's well that ends well?" Ziva asks.

"This time. One of the little boogers complained to the Dean last semester. He didn't get very far with that." For a second, everything is quiet. Penny catches Ducky's eyes, and he nods, now's the time. "We had something we wanted to talk to all of you about."

That gets six sets of eyes staring at Penny. Most of them looking curious with a slight tinge of nervousness, after all that's a vaguely ominous phrase coming from the eighty-three-year-old clan Matriarch.

"Nothing bad. Ducky and I had been talking about how this is a very big family, one that will hopefully be getting bigger, and how it'd be nice to have a place where all of us can be together without bumping into each other and tripping over each other."

In that they're all tightly squeezed around a table made for several fewer people in a living/dining room combination that is only four feet longer than the table they're squeezed around, this seems like relevant point.

"A home, for all of us. A place for weekends and vacations, and down time. To be used by all of us, together, or on our own."

"We roped Jethro into this, and he found a place." Gibbs gets up from the crowded table, and heads to Tony and Ziva's room, where all the coats are currently hanging out on their bed. He finds the folder of pictures he'd taken, and brings it back to the table. He can hear Penny explaining how she and Ducky were thinking of buying it, but since it's for all of them, and would require a sizable time commitment, it would be a group decision.

"It's big," Jethro says, "Lots and lots of room for all of us. But it's gonna need a lot of work. And right now, it's really ugly."

"Are you trying to get us to turn it down?" Abby asks.

He shakes his head. "Trying to make sure you guys know how big of an undertaking this is going to be." He hands the photos to Tony, who had been sitting next to him. "We do this, and all of our off time, all summer long and probably the fall, is going to be spent on this."

Tony's flipping through the pictures, and then passes them to Ziva. She looks more slowly, smile spreading over her face. From her, the shots go to Breena, and down the table.

"But when we are done…" Ziva starts.

"If we just fix it up, don't change anything structural, it'll be ten bedrooms, seven baths, plenty of room, backyard to run around in. It's on the Potomac, and there's a boathouse for Shannon, little bit of a beach for swimming or fishing. If we go for it… We're going to have to redo so much of it to deal with the damage and the fact that it was decorated last in the '70s, that ripping down more walls and rearranging it into five suites wouldn't be a problem," Gibbs says. He'd been thinking about how best to deal with their collection of families, and the idea of setting it up so that each family had its own area, main room for Mom and Dad, auxiliary space for the kids, and then turn two of the smaller bedrooms (they didn't have their own baths anyway) into a play area made a lot of sense to him.

Breena smiles, getting this idea immediately. The pictures she's looking at are rough, but if anyone had seen the home her parents turned into their vacation place (bought shortly after Hurricane Andrew) they'd have never dreamed of what it eventually became. She can look at this house and see a lot of potential. Yeah, it's never going to be on the cover of Home and Garden, but they can make it into a damn fine home.

Her smile spreads. This is how her family built wealth that they hoped would last for generations. Variations on this theme is how her great-grandparents set up their business and homes. She looks around at the collection of people around her and feels very pleased by this.

Wealth isn't yours. It's something you use, build up, and pass more of onto your kids so they can do the same for theirs. The family she was born into isn't "rich," no gold plated china for them, no yachts, and south of France vacations were a once a decade sort of thing, not a hop on over every season type thing. They are at the top most range of comfortable. But she knows her Dad certainly hopes his grandchildren would be able to shift into full on "rich."

Steps like this is how they'll get there.

A house like this, all fixed up, on good land builds equity. Equity can be parlayed into top-flight educations (she looks at Tony and Ziva, knowing they're worried about finding a home in a good school district) and business loans. Those seeds grow more wealth, and with wealth comes choices, and choices bring many more paths to stable, comfortable lives.

Tony looks really nervous about this. Unlike Breena's family, his family was "rich" and he remembered the dark side of sibling squabbles over who got to use what, when. He remembers his Dad using his money as a club, a way to try and beat Tony into becoming another generation of businessman, constantly on the hunt for the next big score.

He has useless playboy cousins, and, sure he liked a good party as much as they did, but he didn't live for the party. That's not true. He did live for it, once. Just like them, he spent years running from one 'fun' high to the next.

And if winning the game wasn't a better high than any party ever, he'd still be there, yet another useless, charming DiNozzo, running from one empty high to the next.

And if a fire hadn't shown him what life could be, what it could mean, he'd have probably gone back to it as soon as school was done.

Constant fighting, constant nitpicking, constant sucking up, the way the money gets used to ensure the image of affection. He hates that, now, can feel how much it poisons everything. How you hate your aunts and uncles and grandparents because they're just walking bank accounts, and they loathe you because you're a parasite.

To say Tony's wary about this is a massive understatement.

At the same time, any home with Gibbs in it seems very unlikely to encourage that sort of behavior. And a home with an actual family in it, that too seems like it wouldn't encourage that.

But it still makes him nervous.

Ziva was born on it kibbutz, the idea of a family-owned home is second nature to her. Granted, the one she was born on grew orange and olives, and people came and people went, but there was always family there, at least some of them, a long branch of extended cousins and cousins of cousins, relatives by marriage or, like their family, long and dear association.

She's wondering, as she looks over the pictures, if they could grow something there. Obviously not oranges or olives, it's way too cold for that up here, but home for her has trees that blossom and grow fruits. Apples, maybe? She loves fall, now that she lives in a place that has autumns, and a grove of apple trees, with kids playing in it, picking fruit, as summer ends…

She likes the image a whole lot.

Jimmy's torn. He likes the idea of having this place, but he's also got a ton of continuing education units he's got to get done this summer. The paperwork software's bought him a lot of time, but right now he's using it to get Dr. Allan up to speed. He doesn't want to say, 'I can do this' and then end up short shifting his hours because he's got to spend a lot of his Saturdays in seminars so he can keep up his MD.

He's looking at the pictures, and Penny isn't kidding, this is a massive time commitment.

"I've got one hundred hours of CEUs planned for this summer. Five of my Saturdays are already booked for seminars, and I'm going to have a lot of homework and studying. I like the idea of this, but…"

"You do what you can, Jimmy. None of us are going to fuss if you're not putting up shingles because you're keeping up your MD," Abby says.

For her this is easy. Of course they're going to do it. The biggest issue she can see, and she's sure Tim's on the same page, because as soon as Gibbs said ten bedrooms they both looked at each other, his eyes asking and hers saying yes, is how they're going to get Ducky and Penny to take money from them.

A place like this, even if it is… She gets the pictures from Jimmy, opening the folder, Tim looking over her shoulder, and yeah, it's rough.

The Burrow"It's the Burrow on steroids," Tim whispers to her. And there is a certain resemblance to the Ron Weasley's version of a rickety-looking house with rooms added wherever, whenever a new one was needed.

She laughs a little at that. "Like the Weasleys'd ever let it get so beat up."

She keeps flipping through, and yeah, it's beat up, but it's also got to cost at least a million dollars, probably two, and that's a ton of money. Tim's on track to finish the last of the contracted Tibbs novels this summer. That's another three hundred thousand dollars coming in soon. Tuck more away for Kelly and retirement, but they'd still have a good chunk of cash to put into this.

"Is that black mold?" Tim asks.

"Don't know," Gibbs answers. "If you guys want to see it live, maybe snag some samples, we can go tomorrow."

Like for Abby, for Tim this is a no-brainer. Assuming this place is close enough so it's easy to get to for weekends, he's all for this. They already spend a lot of time just driving from one home to the others, something that cuts that out would be lovely.

He can imagine this, cut off little early on Friday, head to this house, Shabbos, weekend together, back to the real world Monday morning. Sure, not every weekend, and when the kids are older, they'll probably want to be home for time with their buddies, of course, this thing'll be big enough to bring some buddies along…

"All summer and fall, but it'll be ready by Christmas, right?" Tim says.

"Maybe." Gibbs isn't sure. Jimmy not being there for five of their working days will cut into this. "Hopefully. The outside will be done by then."

"Okay, definitely next year then." Tim puts the picture of the mantle in the center of the table. "Stockings hung by the chimney with care. All the kids together for Christmas morning. Hell, we'll have the room, if Ed and Jeannie, Senior and Delphine want to be here, too, we can do it up right. Everyone here, all at once, together."

Abby squeezes his hand gently. The Christmas he never had as a kid.

Gibbs nods along with that, and Penny says, "That's what we're thinking."

"So, let's go see this place, tomorrow," Breena says.


Ducky and Penny were expecting Tim and Abby to walk them to their car.

"We can put money into this," Tim tells his grandmother.

"Not a ton, not right now," Abby adds. Between the wedding and house all of the money from Most Precious was gone. Shadow Force was finished right before Kelly was born, and that had been earmarked for college and other kid expenses. Right now Tim is less than twenty thousand words from the end of the last of the Tibbs novels. Should have the full advance on that by November.

"But come fall we could kick in two hundred thousand."

Penny smiles at that, and shakes her head at them. "This is for fun. When you've got all of your basic expenses taken care of, you own your house free and clear, college for Kelly and any other children you'll have paid for, your own retirements set, then yes, we'll take your money for this. But not before then."

She and Ducky had come up with that as a good way to put Tim and Abby off without actually hinting as to why they didn't want them to have a financial stake in the property.

"We're close. House is paid for. Kelly's college fund is full," Tim says, he determined look on his face.

Penny shakes her head again. "I know you both want more than one child. You're going to have to do better than one college fund."

Tim rolls his eyes. He can write more books. They aren't thrilled about taking Tibbs books on spec, but on spec is better than no books at all. And all he has to do is say, 'Write me a contract,' and he'll have money set for at least three more of them. "We're not hurting for cash. At all. Between my salary, and Abby's, and the books… We can afford to put money into this, in a way none of the rest of them can." Though, as he thinks about it, Jimmy and Breena are likely getting close to having that sort of income. "Even that badly beat up, that house has to cost a ton, and even with us doing it, fixing it won't be cheap."

Penny stares at him. "When you two have five million in the bank, you can buy in."

"Penny!" Yeah, they aren't hurting for cash, but that's still at least a decade off, and likely more.

"Uh un. Not negotiable. We're old and well off. We can buy this outright and still not have to worry about outliving our money."

"You sure?" Tim asks his grandmother. "Don't want you hurting for this."

They both nod. "Your grandfather's pension alone is providing me with over ninety thousand a year, for the rest of my life. You want to guess how much I'm making in residuals from some of the patents I hold? Let alone my professorship?"

Tim holds up his hands. "Fine." Then they both look at Ducky.

"I appreciate your concern, but I am financially sound. And like your grandmother, I can afford to buy this without any risk out outliving my wealth. Even with this purchase, my charities of choice will still do well by me."

"Okay."

Ducky says, "When we buy, we'll be setting it up as a trust. Jethro will be one trustee since he's the one who knows what needs to be done to make this home livable. Breena, since from what we can see this is second nature to her, will be the other. The trust will cover not just the house, but money to be invested to maintain an income stream large enough to pay the taxes and upkeep on the house. I am sure, that by the time she is looking for a new trustee to replace Jethro, you will have no problem convincing her to accept an influx of operating capital from you."

"So, you're saying we're not putting any money in until we're the grandparents?" Tim says dryly.

"Oh, my, yes, that does seem to be a likely consequence of how we've set this up!" Ducky says, ironically. "Meanwhile, I suggest you research home wiring. Judging by the decor, my guess is that there will be quite a bit of work necessary to get this house able to provide the level of wifi you require."

"Point taken."


The pictures didn't do the place justice. It looks beaten up and ugly in the pictures. In real life it's tooth-achingly ugly.

They got there, a fine early April morning lighting the gnarled grass and weather-beaten home, and spread out to explore.

Tim and Abby are walking around, Kelly in her snuggli on Abby's chest, looking very intently at everything.

"I didn't know polyester came in colors this awful," he says as he kicks at the carpet in the room that was open to the elements, feeling his lungs starting to tighten up.

She shakes her head. "Get samples of it." She brought a collection of sterile test tubes. Part of making the decision on this is what level of hazmat this place is. If they can't disassemble it without getting sick, they're not going to bid on it.

"Don't need to, I can feel it's filled with mildew."

"Here." She swaps him Kelly for the sample tubes. "You need an inhaler?"

"God, no." Asthmatic lungs work by tightening up and shutting down to keep the stuff they don't like out. Inhalers work by opening them back up again. People who don't understand this think that taking a few hits on an inhaler is a good plan for an asthmatic sitting in the middle of whatever is setting of the asthma attack. Asthmatics know that you take the inhaler after you're away from what's setting you off, otherwise you're just going to make the problem worse. "That'd just get this crap even deeper into my lungs."

Abby isn't not asthmatic, but she's grasping the basic concept with ease. "Okay, get out of here."

"Good plan." He wheezes.


"Timothy?" Ducky asks as he heads back into the kitchen area, hands over Kelly, quickly, and starts coughing loudly. "Are you all right?"

"Lot of mildew in the…" he points toward the side of the house they'd been wandering around in, while coughing. "Lungs don't like it," he says when he can inhale again. "Just got to get away from it."

He spends a moment standing in front of the fireplace, not talking, because talking messes up how you breathe and will just make him cough more. After a few minutes, his lungs notice they're no longer under attack and begin to relax.

"Okay, better."

"Really?" Ducky sounds concerned as he pats Kelly's back. She's been staring at her father, wondering what that loud noise was.

"Yeah. I'll be fine."

"Do you have an inhaler?"

Tim shakes his head. "Not for years."

"Uh huh."

Tim catches that look in Ducky's eyes, and knows that by the time they come back to work on any sort of tear down for this project, he'll probably have a collection of inhalers to pick from.

"Mold, mildew, and dust triggered asthma. I'm allergic to cats, and it wouldn't shock me if there weren't a bunch of them living here over the years. I don't on well with Albuterol-based inhalers."

Ducky nods. "What does 'don't get on well' mean?"

"Mean's I'll make Abby mainlining Caff-Pow and speed look tame."

"Jittery?"

He smiles, self-depreciating, and nods definitively. "Yeah." He looks around the house again. "Granted, if you want me working on this twenty-four seven at about three times my normal speed, Albuterol might be a good plan."

"Have you tried Xopenex?"

Tim takes Kelly back, slipping her into the snuggli. "Don't think so. I haven't had an inhaler in probably eight years. Besides now and dropping Penny's things off at your house in that dust storm, I've wanted one, maybe, twice in all that time. Is it new?"

"Enough. I believe it's been out for a decade or so. When we get back to the…" But Ducky doesn't have his prescription pad at the Navy Yard anymore. "I shall send Jimmy a note and tell him to write you a script for it. Fill it on Monday. Whether we buy this home or not, you should have an inhaler on the off chance you need one."

"Sure." It can sit in his go bag and collect dust until it expires like the last one did.

"McGee!" he hears Tony yell out. Fortunately from the sound of it, he's in the other, hopefully mildew-free, wing of the house.

"Off to investigate," he says to Ducky, who nods at him.

It takes a few minutes, due to how rooms were haphazardly applied to this house, the hallways are of a long and winding nature, but he finds Tony and Jimmy standing in the middle of a bedroom, smirking.

"What?"

"We found your room." Tony says, still smirking, and Jimmy's on the verge of laughing.

Tim looks around at it. Okay, it's a bedroom, decent size, no carpet, that's a selling point, harvest gold wallpaper, that's not, and, like the rest of the house, it's got one electrical socket per room. (Ducky wasn't kidding, he's going to be rewiring the whole damn house to get this thing ready. Barely any electric, no cable at all, and wifi, what the hell is that?) It's got its own bathroom, which is nice, but he's really not seeing why this particular one is his.

However Jimmy and Tony are just standing there, grinning at him, really enjoying this joke.

So he looks around again, and still doesn't see it.

"What?"

Tony points up. There's a large patch of the ceiling covered in mirrors. "Figured that was about your speed," Tony says before both he and Jimmy succumb to giggles.

Tim looks at them, and then snorts. "Amateurs." He wiggles his index finger at them, as he steps below the mirrors. "Come here, let's learn how to use mirrors. Your wives will thank me." He points up. "Mirrors on the ceiling don't give you a very good view. And in most positions only one of you can see them. Lame view for only one of you, that's a job done by someone who doesn't know what they're doing." He heads to the middle of the room and looks around for a bit. Then two steps to the left. "If you do know what you're doing… The bed goes here. You want the mirrors…" He points to back of the closet door, and the front of the bathroom door. "Though you'll close the door a little bit more to get a really good angle. And you want a vanity, there." He points to one more wall. "That way you can both see, from any angle you like, you don't get the distortion from the mirrors being over your head. Upside down and backwards is more likely to make you seasick than turned on, and, better yet, you don't look like a freaking pervert if anyone just walks into your room." Tim stands there, smiling, enjoying the look of surprise on Jimmy and Tony's faces.

"I'm never going to be able to set foot in your room again, will I?" Tony says.

"You're the one who brought it up." Tim looks around some more, and heads into the bathroom. One of the nicer ones. He comes out nodding and quickly texts Abby. A few minutes later, she wanders in. "This one ours?" he asks.

She looks around, looks up, looks around again, and says, "Once you move those mirrors, sure. Closet and bathroom doors, and," she points to the same spot on the wall where he said the vanity should go, "there, right?"

He nods, smiling.

"Good. Yeah, I like this room. It gets good light." She heads out for a moment and then comes back in. "Ohhh, and the one next to it is that little octagonal one. We knock the wall down between them…"

Tim nods back to her, getting this idea. They're close to the end of the hallway here. The little octagonal room is off of this one, and then there's another room at the end of the hall, that opens into the octagonal one."

"There's another room next to that, and then the other side of the hall's got another bedroom/bathroom combo. You want to share the room without a bathroom for our girls?" Abby asks Jimmy. "Put them in there. That way we've got them between us. And you guys take the next master bedroom?"

"Let me go find Breena and take a look," Jimmy says.

Abby smiles at that, looks at Tony and Tim standing around and says, "Okay, glad we've got that set. Gotta get more samples." She kisses Kelly and Tim, and heads back out again to grab some more mildew.


An hour later they're all sitting on the back patio.

"Assuming that your tests show that the micro-organisms that are growing on this house are non-toxic, should we put a bid on this home?" Ducky asks.

"Didn't see any signs of termites," Gibbs says. "But the whole north corner of the house needs to be ripped down and redone."

"Windows and doors are ancient," Breena adds. "If they're younger than Abby is, I'd be amazed."

"There's nothing in the way of insulation, either," Gibbs adds. "But all the siding's coming down, so Tyveking everything won't be too hard."

Tim hadn't been able to check out the exposed wiring in the north corner of the house, but Abby had taken pictures for him. "We're tearing out the drywall in pretty much every wall on the inside, because the whole place needs to be re-wired. That'll make adding extra insulation, easier, too."

"Don't know anything about plumbing," Jimmy says, holding onto Anna, as Molly runs around in the grass beyond them. "But I know grout is not supposed to be black and I'm fairly sure the tile is supposed to be attached to the walls and floors in the bathrooms, not lose."

"So, we're looking at ripping off the roof and the siding, tearing out all of the windows and door, taking down most of the interior walls, chipping off all the tile, rewiring everything, likely re-plumbing it, all new appliances, and just for kicks, redoing a bunch of the walls. Are we keeping any of this place?" Tony asks. "Or would it just be easier to low-ball the bid, see if they'll bite for the price of just the land, bring in the bulldozers, and start from scratch." The others all stare at him as he says that. "What? I wasn't always asleep when my dad talked real estate."

They all look at Jethro. He shakes his head. "Nah. The bones look good. Structure is sound. The kind of messing with walls we're talking about is more about moving around where the drywall goes than tearing out studs."

"So, are we doing it?" Penny asks.

Jethro smiles. "I'm in. Tests come back clean, I can start working on tear down and designing what the inside'll look like."

"We're in," Abby says. "We'll hit the Navy Yard on the way home. I'll get the samples cooking. Hopefully, by start of work Monday I'll know if we should put a bid in."

"I think Molly approves," Breena says, as they can hear her laughing as she runs around. She looks at Jimmy and he nods. "We're in."

Tony's looking at the place. It's very much not a mansion for pampered brats. He really hopes it won't be when they're done. Ziva's looking out at the yard, and the trees beyond, seeing… something, gardens in her mind, probably. She looks happy here, really happy, and he can imagine her planting things, enjoying a space to make things grow.

"We're in," he says.

"All right. We'll get the report back from Abigail and if all is well, we'll place the bid on Monday," Ducky says.


On Monday, Ducky got the call.

"Abigail?"

"It's mildew, and mold, and a lot of other little nasties, but none of it's toxic. Keep Tim out of it or get him a face mask, and we're good to go on teardown."

Ducky felt the smile spread across his face. "Wonderful! We'll get on it."

He and Penny sat down, and talked, and went through their finances to see how fast they could shift money around. Then they placed a bid. Twenty-five percent below the asking price, but to sweeten the deal they offered immediate closing. Cashier's check in hand as soon as the paperwork could be drawn up.

Wednesday morning everyone got a text from Penny: Saturday morning, get your grubby clothes on; we've got work to do!

Next