( what I've become )
Shared Jurisdiction
Earning Trust
Gibbs vs Slayers
Out of the Ordinary
A Little Field Trip
Offbeat Questioning
Road Map to the Truth
time gap
time gap
The Requisite Father Embarrassment
Finding Safety
My Fierce Friend
Waiting to Be Found
The Pain of Survival
The Heart Finds a Perch
Haunted By Secrets
Your Truth is What You Wish For
Interagency Cooperation
Got You
Plea Bargains
Evil Plans Within Plans
Floating in Limbo
The Anger Cools
Heart-to-Heart
Plans in Motion
A Good Impression
Pleasant Surprise
Organizational Structure
Foundation of Understanding
Learning to Cope
To Be Seen
A Case of Nerves
Where You Stand
The Theme: Awkward
Good Match
A New Normal
Seen Beyond
Learning Curve
Conflict of Interest
Totally Not a Bribe
What We’re Fighting For
Diary: Prologue
Photographs of Home
Comfort vs Oblivion
Blowing Off Steam
move in circles
Battle Plans
Snowed In
Mutual Embarrassment
Warm Welcome
Ghosts in Ultraviolet
*Technically part of the second ‘phase’, but I’m segregating them here because otherwise plot would just appear and disappear without warning. I’m using numbered lists for this one.
1. Meeting the Redfields
2. Meeting the President’s Daughter
3. Haunting Echoes
4. Another Sparda
Alternative Paths (abandoned)
*This is not the pseudo-time travel fic you were looking for, but you found it anyway. And other oddities.
Great Scott!
being goofy
Leon's First Apartment
“Don’t ask me whether I like guys or I like girls. That’s not how this works.” Xander is defensive, arms crossed, unable to meet Gibbs’ eyes.
Logically, he’d known that this was possible. He’s met fellow Marines, and it was easy enough to be nice and respectful. But distant, because it’s none of his business, really.
He’d never really considered that from his flesh and blood. Traditional home, traditional family, traditional life. Except none of that’s going to happen.
He has no idea how to respond. He also knows that if he responds incorrectly he’ll lose his family, the only family he has left, and he absolutely refuses to let that happen.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” he confesses. “I’m going to mess up. I’ll do my best, but your old man has to learn some new tricks.”
Judging by the hopeful smile, apparently it was enough.
And then a thought occurs to him. A horrible pain and regret—but if there’s anyone who can take those things and build something out of them, it’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Because he’d had a daughter, once. He’d taken this for granted before it had all been taken away.
It’s a dark joke, but maybe Xander will understand. “Maybe I should start greeting all your dates with a shotgun?”
He groans and hides his head in his hands, but he’s equally amused and embarrassed. “You’re not the only one,” is all he says, but Gibbs suspects that’s as close to an endorsement as he’s going to get. (He’s also slightly concerned if it’s bad enough the Scoobies feel the need to use more than just words as a shovel speech. At the beginning he’d said he’d had a bad run with romance, just like his real dad—but how much worse had it been?)
( Xander hasn't had to explain to someone who didn't know in a while. )
( and even more questions )
“You wanted to see me?”
Gibbs starts and turns. There’s the kid with an eyepatch, standing in the doorway to the bathroom. Blending in. “Were you covert ops?” he asks incredulously, and the brunet snorts.
“Just…having trouble dealing. But I’m not the only one.” The look is pointed, and Gibbs feels guilty.
He has a grown-up son. The loss of his wife and daughter still feels fresh, even though it’s been fifteen years, but he has a grown-up son. “I’m sorry.”
The stare is…searching. Disappointed, maybe. And then the kid—Alex, he thinks—speaks again. “I think someone would have something to say about saying sorry, but then, pride is an issue, too. I’d appreciate it if you don’t let it happen again.” A short pause, then a laugh. “And, believe it or not, you’re still better than that bastard Mom married.”
Gibbs nearly dives on that question, thirsty for answers, despite the pang that feels like a knife, and then notices…Of course. His son’s hurting. “Enjoying this, aren’t you?”
The look instantly turns into confusion, and he elaborates though he wishes he didn’t have to, “Hurting me.”
It instantly clears up, and that pained chuckle returns. “That obvious, am I?” A sigh. “I try to be the good guy, but sometimes when I’m hurting I just lash out and hurt the people I care about. And I am. Hurting. That doesn’t mean it’s any easier to see you in pain, Dad.” It’s the first time since he’s woken up and looked at the kid with such confusion in his eyes that Alex has said that word. “Yeah, I’m getting used to this. And you will too, because I’m pretty sure I got my stubbornness from somewhere, just like my tendency to verbally attack. I’m not going anywhere, and you aren’t either, no matter what you think.”
Gibbs snorts and they both ignore the wetness in each others’ eyes as a matter of common courtesy, and Gibbs realizes as he goes to the refrigerator that the kid was a lot sneakier than he thought because all the alcohol was missing (not something he really enjoys, but as a man who would go to the depths of hell for his family, sacrificing booze to save his son from bad memories is almost no sacrifice at all) and there’s a pot of coffee brewing instead, judging by the smell. Sitting in comfortable silence, cups in hand, feels almost like a new beginning.
Tony’s flirting with the stranger.
The brunette smiles tightly. “Nice knowing you, Stark,” and walks over to sit at Gibbs’ desk.
It takes all of two seconds for that to sink in. There’s only one person who ever calls him Stark. There’s only one person Gibbs lets sit at his desk. The looks are familiar, now that he thinks about the appearance. The woman has an eyepatch.
And there’s a presence behind him. He’s doomed.
“Yes, it’s me. Yes, I’m a girl. Don’t shoot me, Dad.”
“This job never gets any easier.” Gibbs hadn’t expected to find anyone in the office this early after they’d run into some rather ugly bureaucratic red tape, but Redgrave’s just sitting in the dark, a cup in his hand, at the desk he commandeered for his own.
“You’re young,” he replies reflexively.
“Yeah.” The response is only factual, without emotion. There’s a silence. Gibbs would like to hate this, this interloper, this meddler.
He can’t. There’s no military stint in Redgrave-or-Harris’s file, but he holds himself like a Marine. He can joke around like DiNozzo, but when it’s time to be serious he’s one hundred percent serious. Still like Tony, really. He’s good at his job, he respects the team, he’s honest. Even when there are things he can’t say, he tries to get around that, tries to at least give a few words to fill in some of the gaps. His team are just as good as he’d said, since they’d managed to catch a few things in the alley even the trained lab techs hadn’t. He treats them like they’re family, and they respond in kind.
The silence stretches out, and then the young man’s face crumples. He’s trying to keep it together, but it’s hard. “Two of my Sl—Agents are dead,” he mumbles. It’s the first slip Gibbs has caught, and even as he feels sympathy move in him, he makes a mental note for later. “It was just supposed to be a little recon.”
“Drink?” he asks quietly.
“It sounds great, but no thanks.” The only response is a raised eyebrow, but it’s rarely failed, and it does not do so this time. “I don’t ever want to become my Dad, so. Starting down that road’s a bad choice.” It didn’t take much to guess where this was going after the results of Abby’s search came in.
“Alcoholic?” Redgrave hadn’t said much of anything, other than jokes, about his life, but the mask was starting to fall out of place.
“Alcoholic abusive bastard, but let’s not get personal.” The laugh is bitter, but it’s quickly gone. “Y’know, the coffee was probably also an eleven, but I went with it anyway. Now I’m on the verge of babbling like Willow, my heart’s beating at probably about a thousand times a minute, and I’m probably going to shake myself off the planet any second now.”
That’s enough to put the NCIS Agent on high alert. “Medical emergency?”
“Nah, I’ll be okay. Eventually.” This time, the smile is real. “Thanks for the concern, though.” This isn’t a man used to worry on his behalf. Gibbs relies on his patience to quiet his anger and goes to get a glass of water for the kid.
“What was all that about?” DiNozzo asks when they finally get done with the man (whom they’ll probably be looking into later to see if they can’t find some reason to call for an arrest). He’s probably trying to distract himself from Gibbs’ driving, but even Gibbs is interested in the answers.
Even given the driving, Redgrave could be sleeping, seat leaned back as far as it would go and hands folded behind his head. The seat’s practically on DiNozzo’s lap, which isn’t helping the fact that he’s not comfortable with the situation. No one has a grasp on who these people are, and for a man who prides himself on his understanding of people, that’s a problem.
“Like the claw marks, that map looks familiar. I’m just not placing it. As for the rest, culprits from our side of the tracks like hunting at night. So that’s when we hunt, too.” He shrugs slightly, barely moving in his seat as Gibbs takes a turn too fast. “Ophelia—”
“Orelia,” one of the twins corrects without looking up from her smartphone.
“What, you mean she’s not from Hamlet?” Redgrave jokes, before looking thoughtful again. “These lovely shades,” he taps them, “…were designed by a good friend of mine after we binge watched the King of Bling himself, the man who was given a number in place of a name, Mr. 007. They’re actually a camera. It’s perfectly legal for me to have them. Unfortunately, you lot, not so much, so I can’t just lend it to you no matter how much you give me those puppy dog eyes, Stark.”
“Giving you a number and taking away your name,” DiNozzo responds without even thinking, and then thinks about it. “That’s—how did you—”
“Magic,” Redgrave responds with jazz hands and then apparently falls asleep in a moving vehicle being driven by Gibbs.
He’s certainly brave.
It’s slightly worrying when they reach the newest crime scene and the kid is as unfazed as Ducky with the body. All he does is wrinkle his nose a little and push his sunglasses back up. “Man, this is worse than back in ’03,” he remarks, voice calm and steady.
One of his ‘agents’ isn’t quite so lucky; she runs off the crime scene to throw up in the bushes, and the others look a little green.
“Hey, Sierra. I thought I said, after you could barely look at the pictures, that you could wait in the car?” At least he cares about his agents.
“I didn’t want to be the wuss,” she mumbles, miserable, and DiNozzo quickly takes pity on her.
“Well, why don’t you help me bag and tag?” That way, she doesn’t have to look at the giant mass of blood and body parts splattered over the brick wall.
The quiet one—Isabelle?—nods and takes the camera. Her manner is no-nonsense and businesslike and Redgrave grins in approval.
He crouches, staring at the stain fixedly.
“Redgrave?” Kate asks, looking disturbed.
“I’m thinking.” He points at a particular spot on the wall. “Those marks? Pretty sure I’ve seen them before. Claw-weapons. Just trying to place them.”
“We’ll keep the nosy ones out,” the one who’d been hurting Tony says with a smile and takes two of her friend’s arms to join the police at the barricade.
Redgrave taps on his communications device. “Willow-lite, you there?”
“The name’s Orelia, and yeah, I’m here, and yes, I’m going through the databases. No hits as of yet. I’ll keep you updated. Oh, and Willow will be glad to know that yes, the sunglasses are working and probably everyone in the field should wear them.” She sounds sarcastic, long-suffering even.
“Don’t worry, she enjoys her job,” Redgrave assures them.
“We’ll help talk to people,” the last two add together, smiling. They could be non-identical twins.
“Get everything you can, and we’ll see you back at base,” Redgrave acknowledges, thoughtful and distracted.
( vague uneasiness )
“Haunt the past. Do not let the past haunt you,” one of the girls says sagely to Abby, who looks confused.
“That sounds good and all, but what does it mean?” she asks.
Gibbs watches from above as Xander smiles into his hot chocolate.
And then they return, and Gibbs’ reluctantly neutral estimation of the man plummets. “Girls?” Gibbs hisses. What kind of a group are they, that they’d put women perhaps not adults yet in the line of fire?
“If you are, for a second, hinting that they’re not every bit as competent as we are, then I feel no sympathy for the wrath that shall befall you. For it shall, after all, befall you. Not my own, I’d like to point out, just to be clear. And they…they chose this. If they wanted other things, college or the beauty store or what have you, they’re more in charge of their destinies than you or I.” Xander shrugs.
“‘If we have the ability to take action, we have the responsibility to take action,’” a pretty brunette states from across the room. She shouldn’t have been able to hear their conversation from that distance, but a glance at Redgrave shows the guy isn’t the least bit surprised—he rolls his eye, a smile playing around his lips.
Gibbs’ gut is telling him something, in Abby’s terms, is hinky. There’s something going on with this whole thing, and he just has to figure out what.
All three in the room are aware of the details of the case. There’s not much reason to go over it now. “Look up a group called the ISWC,” Gibbs asks once he gets away. Specifically, the guy’s going to bring in his people so that they can actually get started.
“Me, Boss?” Tony asks, and Gibbs rolls his eyes.
“Everyone. That includes you, DiNozzo. We’re going to be working with them.” It goes without saying that he wants to make sure that he can trust these people to have his six.
“I am on it!” Abby states with enthusiasm.
“What’s a ‘shovel speech’?” Tim asks worriedly.
As expected, Tony looks delighted. “This is over Abby, right?”
Kate, on the other hand, rolls her eyes. “Men. We’re not your possessions to fight over.”
“Actually, the reigning queens of the Shovel Speech, finally trademarked, are both women, and I’m pretty sure that’s why a lot of my dates seem to somehow get scared off. It’s obviously not the Babylon 5, because anyone incapable of enjoying the plots aren’t really people you want to be dealing with romantically anyway,” a casual voice that none of them recognize joins the conversation, and McGee glances over and flinches.
“Are you harassing my agents again, Harris?” Gibbs asks from behind them. He’d appeared almost as silently as the man wearing an eyepatch.
“Only on behalf of a certain brilliant, beautiful, bestest sister, sir.” The smile and salute are almost mocking, on first glance, but there’s something real, honest there that DiNozzo can’t quite put into words. “Speaking of which, case or visit?”
“I’d wait.” It’s like they’re speaking a different language.
“Great, okay. I do have a little time off, so assuming it’s quick, I don’t have to miss her. Hear that, men? Carry on with enthusiasm, for your lab tech’s sake!” And he’s gone.
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