dottieb
Intelligence Specialist
Posts: 735
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Post by dottieb on Jun 8, 2005 22:51:31 GMT -5
I can only imagine what Gibbs' reaction is gonna be. I would have never thought of killing him with his own boat, but that's quite ingenious. Unfortunately, now he'll never get it done unless somehow the after life works to his advantage in that regard. Maybe the ghosts will be able to get the boat our of the basement.
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Post by ceindreadh on Jun 11, 2005 19:05:00 GMT -5
Title: Death be not proud 6/? Author: Ceindreadh Email: Ceindreadh@eircom.net Website: n/a Permission to archive: Yes Fandom(s): NCIS Genre (general, hetero or slash) Gen Pairing/Characters: n/a Rating: FRT 13 Summary: What happened after Twilight Warnings: Death fic (duh!). Notes: This is a sick and twisted idea that I got after reading a post regarding Twilight. I apologize in advance but I just couldn't help myself <g> Acknowledgments: I don't own the characters, I'm only borrowing them and I promise to return them in minty fresh condition when I'm finished.
[Part 06]
"Actually there's another bright side to this," added Tony.
Kate glared at him as he continued, "At least now I don't have the most embarrassing death. I mean, think of it. Getting squished by a boat has got to be waaaay more embarrassing than slipping in the bathroom. Poor Gibbs, everybody'll be sitting around and reminiscing about their death and he'll have to say somebody pushed a boat on top of him and...and he's behind me, isn't he?"
Kate nodded and let herself sink through the steps out of sight.
"Oh boy," said Tony, turning quickly around. "Hey boss, how's it going?" he asked brightly.
"DiNozzo," Gibbs had the voice of a man who was rapidly running out of patience...nothing unusual there. "Why are you standing around in my basement...in a pair of boxer shorts?"
"Because it was too cold to go commando...ouch!" this last was following a swat on the head. "Look Boss, you might want to sit down for a minute while I explain things."
"DiNozzo, I've had a very long day and I'm not in the mood for whatever scrape you've got yourself into. Just get out, and if you're going to play strip poker, then *please* learn how to cheat properly." Gibbs had his hand on Tony's arm ready to lead him up the stairs.
"Jethro," said Ducky, emerging from the shadows. He had felt it would be best if Gibbs wasn't suddenly confronted by the ghosts of all his team at once. To that end he had suggested that Kate and McGee stay out of Gibbs immediate sight. "You really need to sit down and listen to what we have to say."
"Ducky? Is this some kind of intervention or something? And really shouldn't you have changed out of your scrubs before you came over?"
Ducky had almost forgotten what he was wearing, "Ah, yes, I would have changed, but circumstances dictated otherwise."
"I said I was sorry," came McGee's voice from a darkened corner.
Gibbs spun around quickly. "Ducky, did you hear that? Sounded like McGee."
"Jethro," Ducky tried to get his attention. "I really think you should sit down and listen to what Tony and I have to say."
"I'm not going crazy, Ducky," protested Gibbs. "I know I heard his voice."
Ducky sighed, "I can see this isn't going to work. Everybody, please come out."
Abby was the first to emerge. "Hey Gibbs."
"Did...did you just walk through the wall?"
"Yep, isn't this just the coolest thing ever?"
"Not especially, now do you mind telling me just what's going on and..." Gibbs voice trailed off as McGee followed Abby out of the wall. "McGee? But you're dead. I saw them bring your body to the morgue..."
"Hey boss," said Kate, standing up behind Gibbs. He spun round to look at her and then did a most unGibbs like thing. With all the team watching him, he fainted.
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Gibbs could hear voices all around him.
"I never knew ghosts could faint. You sure he's dead, Ducky? Maybe the boat just knocked him out."
"From what I could see of the body Tony, I'm afraid that Gibbs is indeed deceased."
"Besides," and this was Abby's voice. "The fact that he's still doing a wicked witch of the west impression the other side of the basement while his ghost is over here is a pretty good sign."
"Wasn't that the wicked witch of the east that ended up under the house?" This was McGee's voice. "And the wicked witch of the west was the one who melted."
"Whichever it was, it's still a pretty nasty way to go." This was Tony again. "On the plus side, I don't think the boat took too much damage."
"Well it did have a nice soft landing. Poor Jethro, when I think of all the times he's cheated death in his life, it does seem strange that he should die in such an...unfortunate way."
"Look, it was an accident, okay?" Kate sounded really irritated by now. "And besides, what sort of idiot spends his time lying under a boat?"
"The idiot who happens to be your *boss*," growled Gibbs, finally opening his eyes and sitting up. "And for your information, I fell asleep down here." That the sleep had been precipitated by several shots of whisky was something Gibbs felt no need to explain. What did need explaining however was just why he was being haunted by the ghosts of his dead team. That, and why there were so many of them.
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One set of explanations later and Gibbs was still none the wiser. "I don't believe in ghosts," he announced.
"Well we sure believe in you, boss," grinned Tony. "And I'm sure you believe in yourself...you know I was kinda beginning to miss that glare of yours."
"Okay, assuming for the sake of argument, why exactly are all of ghosts. Ducky, you're the death expert, what do you make of all this." An observer would have noted how quickly the team had fallen into their usual roles once Gibbs was there to push them on.
"Well there's many stories and myths about the origin of ghosts," Ducky began. "I could go on for years without repeating myself."
"An eternity of Ducky telling stories," Tony whispered to Kate. "Well at least it'll make the time pass."
"I'm less worried about an eternity of Ducky telling stories than I am an eternity of Gibbs without any coffee," Kate whispered back. Tony grimaced in response.
"But the most usual reasons for somebody becoming a ghost are either due to unfinished business to attend to..."
"And I think we all know what *that* is," said Gibbs.
"...or if the person or persons responsible for their death have not been brought to justice. That would indeed fit in well. Timothy and Caitlin's killers have yet to be caught."
"Well technically McGee was responsible for *my* death," said Kate.
"Yes, but since his spirit is not at rest then yours cannot rest either. The same holds true for me. My spirit is tied to the spirits of both of you."
"And mine is tied to the rest of you," added Abby. "And Gibbs, you're tied to the lot of us so you can't rest until we do."
McGee looked puzzled, "But that doesn't explain Tony."
"McGee," said Kate, "*Nobody* can explain Tony."
"But yeah," said Abby, "How come Tony's still hanging around if he died by accident."
Tony shrugged, "You know me, never one to miss a good party!"
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To be continued
(I think there's only about one more chapter left in this, but I've said that before and been wrong!)
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Post by Nici on Jun 11, 2005 19:24:54 GMT -5
hehe ... I loved it ceindreadh!! Great job! ;D
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littlecate
Intelligence Specialist
"and they say that a hero can save us"
Posts: 728
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Post by littlecate on Jun 11, 2005 20:30:54 GMT -5
i love this story
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Free
Intelligence Specialist
Just look at that grin!
Posts: 606
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Post by Free on Jun 16, 2005 10:14:34 GMT -5
Ceindreadh! Please accept my undying (as opposed to the characters' disability in this area) fannish love of your fic.
This is just so much fun. I adore it. ;D
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Post by Gatorgrad on Jun 16, 2005 15:51:51 GMT -5
This is great!!! We need more...
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Post by ceindreadh on Jun 16, 2005 17:59:10 GMT -5
Title: Death be not proud 7/7 Author: Ceindreadh Email: Ceindreadh@eircom.net Website: n/a Permission to archive: Yes Fandom(s): NCIS Genre (general, hetero or slash) Gen Pairing/Characters: n/a Rating: FRT 13 Summary: What happened after Twilight Warnings: Death fic (duh!). Notes: This is a sick and twisted idea that I got after reading a post regarding Twilight. I apologize in advance but I just couldn't help myself <g> Acknowledgments: I don't own them, I'm only borrowing them and I promise to return them in minty fresh condition when I'm finished.
[Part 07]
"Party or no party," snapped Gibbs, "We can't sit around here forever." He groaned in annoyance. "What the hell are the odds of the entire team dying on the same day?"
"Um, probably somewhere up in the millions or maybe bill..." McGee shut up quickly when Gibbs glared at him.
"Does anybody have anything constructive to say?"
"Well I can find Ari no matter where he is," said Kate. "Plus I know the license number of the car he's driving."
"And that's going to help us how exactly Kate? We can't exactly set up a roadblock and catch the nice guy. Now maybe if you hadn't dropped a boat on my head..."
"Hey, I was trying to write the license number on the side so you could do something about it," snapped Kate.
"Gee," whispered McGee to Abby, "Gibbs is just as cranky dead as he was alive."
"That's probably because he hasn't had any coffee for ages. Course now he's not gonna be getting his caffeine fix any more. Boy, this could get interesting."
A look of horror passed across McGee's face. "Isn't there anyway we could get him some?"
"I don't know," said Abby. "Maybe we could kill a mug of coffee or something."
"We could always torch a Starbucks," said Tony who had been eavesdropping.
"DiNozzo, if you have something constructive to add to the discussion then feel free to enlighten us," interrupted Gibbs.
"No Boss, I'm good."
"Right then, we need to figure out some way to take down Ari, has anybody any suggestions." Gibbs saw Tony start to open his mouth, "Any *useful* suggestions."
"I was only gonna suggest we haunt him a bit," said Tony. "Maybe shake him into making a mistake or something that'll get him caught."
"You know DiNozzo, that's not a completely bad idea."
"Probably because it was Ducky who suggested it before," said Kate.
"Well whoever thought of it, it's the only workable plan we've got so far. All right everybody, listen up. This is how it's going to work."
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Ari looked over his shoulder as he armed the bomb. His hands were not quite as steady as they used to be. Four weeks since he had shot Caitlin and he had been more affected by her death than he would have thought possible. It seemed like every time he looked in a mirror, there she was looking over his shoulder. He was getting very little sleep at night and what little sleep he *did* get was disrupted by voices telling him long rambling stories about how murderers always got their comeuppance.
Days weren't much better. Ari kept seeing figures in the shadows. Sometimes it was Kate, the bullet wound prominent in the center of her forehead. Other times it was Gibbs, his face looking like thunder.
Once Ari had woken in the middle of the night and was sure he'd caught a glimpse of that Doctor Mallard he had once held hostage. The Doctor had been dressed in surgical scrubs and looked like he was ready to perform an autopsy.
The worst hallucination though had got to be the half naked man wandering around. "I'm not gay," Ari had told himself the first time he had seen him. "It's just my imagination." It hadn't worked, and the dreams and hallucinations had increased in number until Ari was barely able to tell illusion from reality. That was why this was going to be his last assignment. After setting this bomb to blow up, he was going to go far far away and take a well-deserved period of rest. All he had to do was set this bomb.
It was a delicate operation, one that Ari would trust to nobody else. One mistake while arming the bomb and it would blow up in his face instead of being ready to be placed in position for later detonation. All Ari needed to do was connect the blue wire to the explosive charge in just the right position...
There was a sudden sound behind Ari, almost as if six people had suddenly yelled, "BOO!" Ari's hand slipped. "Oh no," was all he managed to say before the bomb detonated.
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Gibbs and the team stood round their fallen enemy. For the last four weeks they had worked in shifts to make Ari's life a living hell. The original plan had been merely to observe what he was doing and figure out a way to disrupt any acts of terrorism he was going to perform. That or communicate his plans to somebody in a position to stop him. Direct contact with anyone from NCIS had been ruled out, Gibbs having no intention of increasing the size of his team.
The plan had changed however once Abby discovered that with a bit of concentration, the ghosts could make themselves appear for short spaces of time. And it was Ducky who noticed that when Ari was asleep, he seemed to be able to hear them talking.
Ducky had whiled away many a night sitting at Ari's bedside and regaling the sleeping man with tales of the most gruesome autopsies he had performed.
And now their plans had worked and Ari was dead. And as the eyes of his ghost opened, Gibbs stepped up to him and said, "I've been waiting for what seems like an eternity for this."
He was about to say more, when Tony spoke up, "Um Boss, you know what Ducky told us about how when you die all your victims show up to get a piece of the action?"
"Yeah, so?"
"Look around you Boss."
Gibbs turned around. The once empty warehouse was filled with ghosts. Most of them looking at Ari with revenge in their eyes.
"Come on Boss, I think we should let these guys handle it. I mean, we died in the line of duty so to speak. This lot, most of them were innocents. Figure they should get to do the honors."
Gibbs hesitated only slightly before a smile came over his face. Stepping aside he said, "Be my guest," to the crowd of ghosts before him.
As the NCIS team walked away, they could hear Ari begin to scream.
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"So what happens now?" Abby asked as they walked through the walls and into the twilight.
"Well since Ari is dead, then that should break the chain," answered Ducky. "So I suppose we'll all move on to whatever plane of existence awaits us."
"But what about Tony?" asked Abby. "He's not really part of the chain. Does that mean he's stuck here on his own as a ghost?"
They all looked at Tony. "I think that Tony as part of the team had his destiny inextricably linked with the rest of us," said Ducky, finally. "All for one and one for all."
"Ducky's right," said Gibbs decisively. "We're a team and we always will be." He held out his hand. Ducky put his hand on top of Gibbs, followed by Tony, McGee, Kate, Abby and finally Gibbs' other hand.
And slowly they all faded away.
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The End
ceindreadh
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Post by ceindreadh on Jun 16, 2005 18:32:29 GMT -5
And here's one that my muse insisted I write.
Title: Successor Author: Ceindreadh Email: Ceindreadh@eircom.net Website: n/a Permission to archive: Yes Fandom(s): NCIS Genre (general, hetero or slash) Gen Pairing/Characters: n/a Rating: FRT 13 Summary: Post fic to Twilight. Life goes on. Warnings: None Disclaimer. I don't own the NCIS characters, I'm only borrowing them, and I promise to return them in minty fresh condition when I'm finished.
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It was six months later when she*walked into my life.
Six months after Special Agent Kate Todd had died in the line of duty. Hah, line of duty. She hadn't been killed 'in the line of duty'. She had been killed because she was my colleague, somebody I cared about. Her death hadn't been a result of her actions as an agent, it had been her proximity to *me* that had killed her.
She had been murdered plain and simple by a cold-blooded cowardly assassin named Ari. He hadn't even had the balls to kill her face to face. No, that nice guy had shot her from a distance, giving her no chance whatsoever to defend herself, and every day I woke up and promised myself that he was going to pay.
But Ari had proved to be just as elusive as ever, and in the meantime, life went on. Director Morrow told me that we didn't have the resources for personal vendettas. Ari would remain on our wanted lists, but without any new information coming in, we had no way of finding him. So we went back to our jobs, back to solving murders, tracking down terrorists, but never the one we wanted.
It was two weeks after Kate's death...Kate's *murder* that the first replacement arrived. Not that anybody could ever take her place, but boy they tried. That first one was on some sort of investigative exchange program from Australia. She lasted about three weeks before transferring to another office. I'm not saying I was a total nice guy to her, and I'm definitely not saying that she deserved any of the sweets I threw at her. She was a good agent, a competent investigator, could shoot like Annie Oakley and more than hold her own in a fight. Heck, she even managed to keep Tony on a short rein. But she had one major flaw that couldn't be cured...she wasn't Kate.
And so she left, and so did all the others, both male and female agents that they tried to palm off on me as a replacement. Some lasted a few days, others only a few hours. One showed up at 9am, got sent for my coffee at eleven and never returned. DiNozzo joked that she'd transferred to the Arctic rather than come back, but I knew he was lying...we don't have any agents stationed up there. The longest that anybody lasted was this one kid that stuck it out with us for two weeks. Of course that was probably because for ten days of those two weeks DiNozzo and I were investigating a case in Gitmo and he'd been stuck in the office on his own until we came back.
It became a joke with DiNozzo. We'd get a new recruit and he would instantly predict how long it would be before I scared them off. It was almost uncanny how accurate he could be, although I had a sneaking suspicion that if one of the probies looked like lasting longer than he had predicted, that Tony was not above throwing a little scare into them himself to help them on their way.
Why did I do it? It was for their own good. Kate had died because she was one of my team...because she was close to me and because Ari knew how much it would hurt me to lose her. I was under no illusions that Ari's aim had been off and he had hit Kate by accident. He had hit the target that he had intended to hit because he knew it'd hurt me worse to watch one of my team die.
So Kate was dead because she was on my team and that day I swore that it would never happen again. There was no sure way that I could guarantee the safety of anyone on my team, so I did the next best thing and made sure that there wasn't anybody on my team to be in danger.
McGee was easy to get rid of. There was always some sort of computer related project going on that his I.T. skills would be ideally suited for. A couple of weeks after Kate's death and he'd been offered a new posting. I couldn't understand half the words in the job description, but McGee was plenty qualified and it was a promotion and it got him transferred out of the line of fire.
DiNozzo wasn't as easy to get rid of and God knows I tried my best. I pulled all the strings I could to get him another posting, but somehow for one reason or another no matter how good an offer Tony was given, it was never enough to persuade him to transfer.
He called me on it a month or so later. "I know what you're doing, Boss," he told me. "You want to fix it so the next time Ari takes a potshot at you that there'll be nobody about to get in the way. Well it's not gonna work, I'm not going anywhere."
"You'll go quickly enough if I fire you," I snapped back at him. He looked a bit taken aback. And I admit that it wasn't the first time it had crossed my mind. But I couldn't do it to him. Tony was a good agent and it wouldn't have been fair to screw up his career with a black mark like that on his resume. On the other hand, better that than see him lying on the ground in front of me with his brains blown out.
"Boss, look you need somebody around to watch your back, right? Right boss?" I ignored him at first, but I had to admit that he was right. Not to his face of course. But I stopped trying to get him transferred out and concentrated my efforts on making sure that nobody else transferred *in* to the danger zone. DiNozzo, once he'd figured out what was going on, was just as willing to play the part of the partner from hell in order to ensure that the newbies didn't hang around.
Until *she* showed up. I heard her before I saw her, she'd stopped at DiNozzo's desk and said she was supposed to report to Special Agent Gibbs...two 'B's. She even had my name written on a bit of paper so as not to forget it.
So Tony pointed her in my direction and I gave her my usual spiel about how we didn't need a new agent and she could just report back and get a new assignment. I went back to what I was doing, only to look up a few minutes later to see her still standing there.
"I was told to report here," she said again. "If you don't want me here then fine, but you're going to have to cut the orders for me."
She must have noticed how exasperated I was getting because she quickly added, "Look, I know that I'm the latest in a long list of agents who've come and gone in the last few months, so I'm not gonna take it personally if you want me to take a hike. But this is my first time in DC for while and I'd kinda like to stick around for a few days, so how about I sit in a corner for a while and then at the end of the week if you still want to transfer me out then at least it won't look so bad on my file, okay?"
If I'd had less coffee that day then I'd probably have told her to take a hike but four cups in and I was feeling mellow - or at least as mellow as I get - so I said she could stick around...but not at Kate's desk.
I glanced over at her once or twice as she sat at McGee's old desk. Her file was on the screen in front of me. Four years in NCIS, a few commendations on her file, by all accounts a model agent. But still not Kate. And to me all she was was just another potential victim for Ari or anybody else trying to get to me. So I figured I'd send her packing at the end of the week. Heck, it might get Morrow off my back if I at least occasionally appeared to give the newbies a chance.
Of course life would have been a lot simpler if I'd kept to that resolve. But after a few hours of tidying paperclips on the desk she asked me if she could do something to make herself useful around the place, so I dumped a bundle of phone records on the desk and told her to go through them and find any calls between about a dozen different numbers. And when she'd sorted through that there was another stack of records to go through and by the end of the day she'd cleared a bunch of paper trails that would have taken DiNozzo all day and half the night, *and* she'd managed to prove that our prime suspect in a robbery had a cast iron alibi.
That in itself was almost enough to make me get rid of her on the spot, but I'd promised her a week, so I did the next best thing. I told Tony to take her to lunch the next day. Hey, I said *I'd* give her a week. If she couldn't last that long then that was *her* problem.
Only thing was, it didn't work. She and DiNozzo came back from their lunch break laughing over a shared joke and as soon as she took a bathroom break DiNozzo was at my desk in a flash, his face lit up like a kid with a stray puppy. "Can we keep her, Boss? Please, please? She's fun and she's smart and you wouldn't believe half the cases she's worked."
"You want her to stick around?" My voice was even as I looked him in the eye.
"Well yeah Boss. I mean, no disrespect but she's a heck of a lot easier on the eyes than you are."
I shrugged. "Well if you really like her that much. And I'm sure you won't mind getting her blood on your face next time Ari shows up." I knew from the look on Tony's face that I'd gone too far. "sweets," I swore under my breath. "Look, Tony, I didn't mean that, okay? She's a good kid and a good agent, and in other circumstances I wouldn't mind having her on the team. But it's just too dangerous. I don't want to have to sit through another memorial service for somebody who got in the way. I don't want to have to tell another family that their daughter isn't coming back because she was working on my team. She's leaving at the end of the week, is that clear?"
"Crystal clear, Boss," said Tony, in a subdued voice. Head down he started to head back to his desk and then turned back to me. "You know, Kate would have hated this. She'd have hated the thought that her death was screwing you up so badly that you were pushing everybody away. sweets, she'd be the first person to tell you that it's all part of the job we do. We have to move on Boss, we can't keep looking over our shoulders just in case somebody's got it in for us. We have to get on with our lives. Kate would have wanted that." He walked away again and this time didn't look back.
The truth hurts and I spent half the night working away at my boat and trying to ignore what DiNozzo had said. But I couldn't forget it for the simple reason that he was right. I prided myself on being able to tell a good Agent from a mediocre one within five minutes of working with them. In any other situation I would have grabbed at the chance to add her to my team. Heck, that's how I'd picked up Kate. But how could I do it again, knowing that I might as well paint a bulls eye on her forehead.
I watched her the next day. We were all working late and she'd ordered take out and I watched as DiNozzo tried to steal a French fry from her plate only to get a plastic fork to the back of his hand. It was the sort of trick he'd have tried on Kate, only Kate would have probably just yelled at him to keep his hands off her food and then DiNozzo would have teased her about something or other. And it was like Kate was whispering in my ear, telling me to take a chance, that we all have to move on.
So on the Friday when she was packing up her things I told her that she could stay to finish up the case she'd been helping us on. And after that case was another and then another, and six months after that she was still there.
And while I never quite shook the feeling that agents on my team might as well wear a target on their backs, I did move past it. Probably helped by the fact that we eventually tracked down Ari and as luck would have it, he resisted arrest. Kate would have been proud of the fact that I actually *did* try to take him alive, and it really was a good shoot. It was probably appropriate that Kate's successor was the one whose bullet was the actual fatal one. Although how Ducky was able to tell from all the bullets which one had killed Ari, was anybody's guess. Nobody felt like arguing the point. Instead the whole team went out and drank a toast to Kate's memory.
So life went on in NCIS. Kate hadn't been the first agent to die on my watch and I knew she wouldn't be the last. Losing an agent was never going to get any easier but that was part of the job. And having a team around me that I could trust was always going to make the job a lot easier.
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The End
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Free
Intelligence Specialist
Just look at that grin!
Posts: 606
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Post by Free on Jun 18, 2005 22:10:45 GMT -5
I really enjoyed 'Death be not proud', ceindreadh. It poked fun at the seriousness of the ep final and I liked that view of it. And to top it all off, they were all in character! Excellent work. ;D I liked 'Successor' too. Nice way of showing Gibbs' conflict and the gradual moving on of the team. I'm kinda amused by the fact that both fics kill Ari off. Great work on both of them.
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Post by ceindreadh on Jun 22, 2005 18:18:27 GMT -5
What is it with Muses...you wait ages for inspiration and then a whole bunch lands on you at once. This is a fic I planned out when I should have been working today. It's more serious than my Death be not Proud one and it has spoilers for Twilight. Thanks to CallsItGal for the transcript which filled in a few blanks for me.
Title - Dreams that you don't dare dream Author: Ceindreadh Email: Ceindreadh@eircom.net Website: n/a Permission to archive: Yes Fandom(s): NCIS Genre (general, hetero or slash) gen Pairing/Characters: n/a Rating: FRT 13 Summary: Twilight wasn't the first time Abby's had dreams Warnings: spoilers for Bete Noir, Missing, Twilight Notes: don't blame me, blame my muse Acknowledgments: I don't own them, I'm only borrowing them and I promise to return them in minty fresh condition when I'm finished.
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Abby knew from her early teens that she had some small measure of psychic ability.
It had never been anything major; she'd never been able to predict lottery numbers or what questions would come on a school test. But every now and then she would have these dreams, special dreams that had a nasty habit of coming true. They had started simply enough. One night she had woken in a cold sweat after dreaming that her pet tarantula had escaped from its habitat and been accidentally sucked up in the vacuum cleaner. Two days later, Fluffy had indeed suffered that very same fate. Abby's mother had been most apologetic, signing, "I'm sorry," over and over again.
At first Abby thought nothing of the dream. Her mother, not being very fond of the spider, had threatened often enough that if Fluffy escaped one more time then she would suck him up in the cleaner. It wasn't until the second dream came true that Abby started to wonder. Again she had woken in a cold sweat, this time from a dream where her mother had stepped out into the road and been knocked down by a speeding car. So vivid was that dream that Abby had rushed into her parents bedroom to reassure herself that her mother was still alive.
A few days later, Mrs. Sciuto and Abby had been crossing a road when a reckless driver had nearly hit both of them. Only the fact that Abby had recognized the road from her dream had given her the few seconds warning she had needed to drag her mother and herself out of harms way.
And so it continued. Not very often, but at least once or twice every year Abby would wake up from a vivid dream with the distinct feeling that it was going to come true. It wasn't always bad dreams though. One night she woke up from a dream of being at her cousin's wedding and making out with a Goth guy under the table during the reception. It all happened exactly as in the dream, but Abby had to wonder, had the dream really been a foretelling of the future, or had she made the future to coincide with her dream. While Goth boy had been hot enough, Abby didn't think that she would have jumped him so quickly if it hadn't been for the dream. She would have at least waited until after the dessert.
So Abby grew up with her strange dreams. She tried to avoid telling people about them, having received plenty of skeptical glances before she knew better. But sometimes though it was impossible to avoid it. That time she'd told Ducky that she'd dreamed of being on his autopsy table. It had been one of her special dreams, she had known that from the moment she'd woken up in her coffin. And she knew that unless she managed to change something, then sooner or later she would end up cut open on Ducky's table just like in her dream.
Abby hadn't meant to say anything about it, but Ducky had noticed that she hadn't been down to see him in a while and had asked her if she'd been avoiding him. Much as Abby loved Ducky, she really didn't want to tell him about her ability. People always treated her differently once she'd told them. Even if people believed her, no, *especially* if the person believed her, things were never the same between them. There was always a suspicion in peoples eyes, especially if something bad happened and they would look at Abby accusingly as if to ask her why she hadn't been able to prevent it.
The story about developing a phobia was only half a truth. Abby just knew, in the same way that people just know things even in ordinary dreams, that not only would she end up on a table in Autopsy, but that that would be where she'd meet her death. The only question was how and when, and the only way Abby could think of avoiding it was to simply avoid Autopsy.
And then Ari showed up and took Ducky and Gerald hostage and Abby was forced to tell Kate about her dream. So Kate had taken Abby's place down in Autopsy and afterwards Abby knew with a chilling certainty that if she had taken the evidence down as Ducky had asked, then something would have happened. She would have probably gone bouncing in as normal and been in the wrong place at the wrong time and would have ended up dead on the table.
The next time Abby spoke to Kate about a dream she was a little more circumspect. "I've got a bad feeling about this," she had told Kate after hearing that Tony was going to be trailing a suspect. But there wasn't anything else she could have told her. In her dream Tony had been lying unconscious on the ground. Gun clutched in one hand, mobile phone lying discarded on the ground beside him. And Abby had known that Tony's life was in danger but had no way of doing anything about it. Much as Abby liked her, she knew that Kate was not exactly one to pay heed to supernatural warnings like that so Abby had done the best she could by speaking of 'bad feelings'. In the end it wasn't enough, but fortunately Tony had come through without any serious harm. And it had worked out for the best, as if Abby *had* been able to prevent Tony from being drugged by the waitress, then that Marine would have been murdered just like his buddies.
So Abby kept her head down and hoped each night before she settled down in her coffin that this night would be a peaceful one without a special dream to wrench her from her sleep. And for almost a year her sleep was undisturbed, at least by that sort of dream. And then one night she sat upright in her coffin, heart pounding, pulse racing and tears streaming down her face. "No," she said to herself. "I won't let it happen like that." The image of Tony with blood splattered on his face was fixed firmly in her mind.
Abby wrapped a blanket round herself and sat at the foot of her coffin trying to focus on what she had seen in her dream. Tony with the blood on his face and looking dazed and shocked...but uninjured. Abby almost whooped for joy as she realized, "It's not his blood, he's gonna be okay." But her joy was short-lived as the next thought hit her. "If it's not Tony's blood, it's got to be somebody else's..." And there were really only two options...Gibbs or Kate...Kate or Gibbs.
The image of Tony in her dream was still uppermost in Abby's mind when Tony showed up in her lab a few days later. "Tony! You're back!" She wanted badly to tell him about her dream, to make sure that he'd be on the lookout for any danger threatening Gibbs or Kate, but one look at his exhausted face and Abby knew that she couldn't lay this burden on him. Tony was barely able to look after himself. Gibbs was likely to be totally skeptical about dreams, so it wasn't until later on when Gibbs had left her alone with Kate that Abby was finally able to warn somebody.
But Kate was no more help than Gibbs would have been. "Hey, it was just a bete noire." And she had walked out of the lab. Abby had watched her go, wishing that she could be as certain as Kate seemed to be. But this was one of her special dreams, she knew that as surely as she knew the chemical compounds she analyzed every day.
"Maybe it won't be today," Abby told herself as she sat back down at her desk. "This could be something from waaaay into the future and maybe even my warning Kate will have changed what's gonna happen." No matter how much Abby tried to reason with herself, she still had a sense of impending doom and there was nothing she could do except sit in her lab and wait for Gibbs and his team to report back from their mission.
Hours passed and although Abby had plenty of work to be doing, she couldn't concentrate on any of it and instead just sat and watched the phone.
And then it rang. Abby picked it up and listened to the voice on the other end.
The only sound in the lab was that of Abby's sobs.
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The End
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jtbwriter
Forensic Specialist
Rule 14-when nothing else makes sense-believe.
Posts: 232
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Post by jtbwriter on Jun 22, 2005 22:51:53 GMT -5
C-this was so sad-but good! I wonder how DPB is going to handle this-poor Abby! I love how you backstoried the dreams-it really worked with the bit from "Bete Noire"! Good fic-thanks!
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littlecate
Intelligence Specialist
"and they say that a hero can save us"
Posts: 728
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Post by littlecate on Jun 23, 2005 0:39:31 GMT -5
omg so sad. you did a great job
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Post by nikkinor on Jun 23, 2005 11:28:10 GMT -5
Aw, that was just plain sad at the end, your a great fic writer and I hope to see lots more from you.
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Post by ceindreadh on Jul 1, 2005 18:32:50 GMT -5
Okay, I originally intended Sucessor to be a one off fic, but somehow Tony kept pestering me to write his side of it, so here it is. Enjoy.
Title: Successor part 2 Author: Ceindreadh Email: Ceindreadh@eircom.net Website: n/a Permission to archive: Yes Fandom(s): NCIS Genre (general, hetero or slash) Gen Pairing/Characters: n/a Rating: FRT 13 Summary: Post fic to Twilight. Life goes on. Warnings: None Disclaimer. I don't own the NCIS characters, I'm only borrowing them, and I promise to return them in minty fresh condition when I'm finished.
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Successor - part 02 (Tony's POV)
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I'd like to be able to say from the start that I knew how special Elizabeth was going to be. I mean, it's always the thing you hear people say "Oh I could tell from the moment I met them" whatever. Like they've got some sort of sixth sense about people when in reality most of them are faking it. So yeah, when I first met Elizabeth, I didn't think anything other than here was yet another newbie to scare away. Well okay, I was also thinking about how much I could annoy her by calling her Liz, or Lizzie, or Beth or Betty or whatever. But then I remembered that she wasn't going to be hanging around long enough for any of that.
Now don't get me wrong, I didn't agree with Gibbs's attitude. I know he felt that hanging round him was way too dangerous, but somehow I didn't think Ari was going to be hanging around just waiting to pick us off one by one. That nice guy probably had bigger fish to fry. But Gibbs was adamant about wanting to keep as few people as possible in the line of fire, so I went along with him. Mainly because I figured if I argued too much then Gibbs would have second thoughts about keeping me around. And while I didn't figure Ari was going to come after him again, I still felt that *somebody* needed to watch Gibbs's back.
So I played along with his little game. I watched as he systematically made sure that nobody wanted to work with him for longer than a week, and yes, I sometimes lent a helping hand to speed the newbie's on their way. I'm not especially proud of the way I treated some of them. But I kept reminding myself that it was for their own good, right?
We'd been without a newbie for a few weeks now and I was starting to think that maybe they'd got the hint upstairs. Or maybe they'd just run out of agents to assign to Gibbs team. I know I'd overheard a few people swearing that they'd quit rather than work with Gibbs.
So when Elizabeth showed up, I thought nothing of it. Just another newbie to torment for a few days. It was good though, because I'd been getting a bit bored the last few weeks. Life was always more interesting with somebody around to tease. I caught myself looking over at Kate's empty desk and a pang of regret hit me. Six months after Ari had murdered her and I still missed her. Oh I'd gone through all the stages of grief, anger, denial, whatever, and was now firmly settled in acceptance. But it still sucked. Kate should have been here giving newbies a hard time just like I was. She should have been there for me to annoy and tease. It wasn't right that the last memory I had of her was of her lying on that rooftop blood pooling around her. It wasn't right that every time I caught the scent of fresh blood all I could think about was Kate and how I'd worn her blood on my face.
The first scene we'd worked after Kate's death made me sick...literally. It hadn't been an excessively gory one. Single gunshot wound, but the guy had bled...a lot. And when I walked in and caught the scent of the blood, for a minute I was back on the rooftop watching Kate's body. I guess I was lucky...I managed to make it outside of the room before throwing up, and the taste of vomit in my mouth sort of cancelled out the smell of blood. But since then, any time I've gone near a crime scene that there's gonna be blood at, I make sure I've got a jar of vapo rub or something to stop me smelling it. Ducky taught me that little trick the first time I stood in on an autopsy he was doing. The guy had been dead in the water for several days before ending up on Ducky's table and the smell was something you wouldn't believe. So Ducky let me in on a mortician's secret, mainly to stop me puking all over his nice clean Autopsy.
But anyway, where was I...vapo rub, blood, Kate. Oh yeah, Elizabeth's first day. Well like I said, there was nothing special about her. I mean, she looked nice enough, but there wasn't really anything about her that would make her stand out in a crowd. Suppose that's no harm when you're in N.C.I.S. But anyway, she walked up to my desk and said that she was looking for Special Agent Gibbs. And then she looked a bit of paper and added "With two B's" and she sort of smiled at me and I got the impression that she knew exactly what the second B was supposed to stand for. So I smiled back at her. Now that I think of it, that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, given that I was supposed to be scaring her off. But I figured that hey, she'd made me smile with that line so I could at least be nice to her...for her first day anyway. Besides, odds were she wouldn't be coming back for a second day.
So I directed her over to Gibbs's desk where her 'interview' with him went pretty much as I'd expected it would. Except for the part about her convincing him to give her a week. I thought she'd have been out the door five minutes later. Guess first impressions aren't all they're cracked up to be.
Anyway, she was sitting at McGee's old desk for the day. You know I really missed McGee those first few weeks. I know the Probie had himself a hot new job doing computer techy stuff and I know that Gibbs was the one who'd set him up for it. But I missed the little guy. It was fun having somebody around who looked up to me like he did. Maybe I should lean on Gibbs a bit, persuade him to keep one of the newbies around for longer than a week...and maybe I should just swat myself on the head, save him the trouble.
So Elizabeth was left to do some paperwork while Gibbs and I got on with the real investigative stuff, only when we got back to the office that evening, she waved a bunch of notes at us excitedly and told us she'd found something good. Course it turned out that she'd managed to clear the guy who we'd figured to be the main man for a bunch of robberies we were investigating. I could tell that Gibbs wasn't too happy about having wasted so many hours building a case against him only to have it pulled out from under us. But he didn't act ticked. He even muttered "Good work" under his breath. But I knew he was annoyed. Why else would he have ordered me to take her to lunch the next day and made it clear to me that it wasn't supposed to be a chance to make friends.
I knew what he meant. He wanted me to be as annoying and obnoxious and behave as much like a jerk as possible so Elizabeth wouldn't even last the week. It wasn't because he was ticked at her, Gibbs wasn't that petty and he always approved of work that was well done, but I knew that he didn't want Elizabeth to turn out to be a good worker because that'd be one less excuse he could use to get rid of her. So from his point of view if she couldn't handle the DiNozzo charm that would be one way of getting her out of the picture and out of harms way. So all I had to do was scare her off. Easy, right?
And I was gonna to do that, honest. But we sort of got to talking and she started telling me about some of the cases she'd done, and I filled her in on some of my cases and I ended up talking about Kate for the first time in months.
Not that I hadn't thought about Kate. I had...a lot...but there were so few people around that I could talk to about her without opening up old wounds. Gibbs never mentioned Kate to me and I knew better than to bring up the subject with him. Ducky would talk for hours about her, but every time he mentioned her name it was like somebody had stuck a knife in his guts. And Abby...she had draped a black cloth over Kate's desk as soon as she'd heard the news. Wouldn't let anybody touch it until after the funeral. And even now, six months later, she kept changing the subject whenever Kate's name came up. We were all still hurting, and somehow it was a relief to be able to talk to somebody about Kate who wasn't going to get angry or upset or withdrawn when her name was mentioned.
"You'd have liked Kate," I said, as I chewed on a toothpick. "She didn't take any crap from anybody. She'd have stood up to Gibbs the same way you did yesterday. Very brave of you, might I say. Most people tend to quake in their boots when Gibbs glares at them like he did you."
She grinned at me and said "Well it's easy to be brave when you've got nothing to lose. The way I figured it, the worst that was going to happen was that Gibbs would send me packing, right? But everybody knows he's been going through new agents like wildfire. So there wouldn't be any blame on me for only lasting a day. Everybody would just put it down to Gibbs being Gibbs." She took a swig from her coffee. "And if I last the week then it'll look good that I was able to hang on that long. It's a win win situation for me."
I belatedly remembered that I was supposed to be acting like a jerk, so I reached over to try and snag the last of her fries, only to get rapped on the knuckles with her fork. She grinned at me even as she told me that the next time I tried that it wouldn't be the flat edge of the fork she'd use.
I think that was the moment when I knew I wanted her on the team. Let's face it, I was fed up with the revolving door of agents we'd had in the last few months. I wanted a bit of stability in the team. And if I'm being honest, I wanted somebody on the team to watch both mine and Gibbs's backs.
So the first opportunity I got, I told Gibbs I thought we should let her stick around. I mean, I don't mind the extra workload that came with just the two of us working a case, but there was no sense in working that hard if we didn't have to. Plus I liked Elizabeth. She was fun to talk to, she was smart. But as Gibbs pointed out, she was also a target. I knew in my heart that Gibbs was just trying to look out for her safety, but we were NCIS agents. Danger was part of the job. Of course I didn't know then that one day I'd understand exactly where he was coming from.
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To be continued
ceindreadh
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Post by ceindreadh on Jul 5, 2005 17:58:57 GMT -5
Title: Successor part 3 Author: Ceindreadh Email: Ceindreadh@eircom.net Website: n/a Permission to archive: Yes Fandom(s): NCIS Genre (general, hetero or slash) Gen Pairing/Characters: n/a Rating: FRT 13 Summary: Post fic to Twilight. Life goes on. Warnings: None Disclaimer. I don't own the NCIS characters, I'm only borrowing them, and I promise to return them in minty fresh condition when I'm finished.
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Successor - part 03 (Ducky's POV)
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My first proper meeting with Elizabeth took place in Autopsy, as did most of my meetings with new people. Not, I hasten to add, that she was availing of my professional services, thank goodness. But she showed up in Autopsy one afternoon, as I was midway through cutting open a Lieutenant.
The young man in question had been found by the side of the road with some rather curious indentations in his chest. It wasn't until I looked at some of the photos of the Lieutenant that I realized where I'd seen those types of indentations before. It was many many years ago when I was in practice in England and a young man, a stable hand had been found dead in one of the loose boxes. Everybody had suspected it was murder, but the bruises on his chest proved to be an exact match for the horseshoes worn by one of the more highly-strung mares in the stables. I had the grooms check the mare's shoes, and sure enough there were traces of fibers found in her shoes. Not that we had the technology to match them to the shirt the stable hand was wearing at the time, but it was enough for the Coroner to record a verdict of accidental death. Of course what nobody knew until later, much later, was that the stable hands wife had been stepping out with the owner of the highly-strung mare. Unfortunately by the time their involvement with each other had been revealed, the case had been closed and the local constabulary showed no inclination to reopen it. What a grieving widow got up to with the lord of the manor was nobody's business but their own I was told in no uncertain terms. And of course I had no *proof* that anything untoward had taken place. In fact it was equally likely that the stable hand, having gotten wind of his wife's infidelity had been engaged in some nefarious activities of his own. In any event, the lord and the widow came to a bad end as well. Tragic really, but rather ironic in its own way...but where was I...ah yes, the young Lieutenant Schaeffer.
"So, Lieutenant Schaeffer," I said, as I leaned over the body on my Autopsy table. "What can you tell me about the horse that caused all this damage to you."
"Do they ever answer you?" I had heard the door to Autopsy open a few seconds earlier, so having a question addressed to me wasn't a surprise.
"Not directly," I replied, while still concentrating on Lieutenant Schaefer's mid section. "But nonetheless they do almost invariably provide the answers to most of my questions. Life would be considerably easier however, if they were able to actually speak to me." I turned away from Lieutenant Schaefer and cast my attention towards my visitor. I recognized her immediately. Rumor and gossip travels fast through N.C.I.S. and I was aware that Gibbs had been landed with an agent who had already lasted a week without being sent packing. What with one thing and another, I hadn't made her acquaintance as yet. Jethro had had a run of cases that hadn't required the services of an M.E. and as such I had had no excuse to meet the young lady for myself.
She was most unlike Caitlin in appearance. That was a relief to start with. Hardly a day went past without my seeing somebody in the street and having to catch my breath because they looked or sounded or even simply walked like Kate did. It's not an uncommon phenomenon I know, but it remains a most disconcerting, and sometimes a most distressing experience for all concerned.
The first time, as I recall, it was only a few days after poor Kate's funeral. There had been a young woman walking across the street from me, and I could have sworn it was her. The fact that I had performed Kate's autopsy the week before and had my hands inside her skull as I tried to ascertain the track of the bullet that that murdering nice guy Ari had killed her with, didn't matter to me. I was convinced that there had been some terrible mix up. It was fortunate that Jethro had been with me at the time that I saw Kate's doppelganger across the road. As it was, I had stepped off the pavement without thinking and it was only his quick reactions that dragged me out of the path of an oncoming car and prevented me from ending up on my own autopsy table.
Jethro, poor lad, was quite furious with me. He yelled at me about how he had just buried one member of his team and the last thing he wanted was to have to give another eulogy. I probably should have told him that that wouldn't be necessary, as I had already made arrangements to will my body to medical science. After all, having worked on so many corpses during my career, I feel it only appropriate that I allow myself to be accorded the same treatment. But then of course there would probably still be a memorial service, and of course it would be only right to allow Jethro to alleviate any grief he might feel by saying a few words. Some people feel that by participating in the funerals or memorials for the dead can provide some sense of closure. But in Kate's case that hadn't been so. I knew that I for one would feel no closure whatsoever until Ari was stretched out on my Autopsy table and I with my bone saw in hand. And if he were dead at the time, well, so much the better.
I make no claim to psychic ability; that would be more in Abigail's field. So when I met Elizabeth, I had no idea that she would be instrumental in bringing some closure not only to me, but also to others. All I knew was that I was happy to have had the chance to make her acquaintance before Gibbs got a chance to scare her away.
I suppose that one thing to be said for Gibbs attitude was that at least I was getting to meet a wide range of people in a short space of time, even if our acquaintance was destined to be brief...at least in some cases. For instance, there was that young lady from Norfolk who proved quite interested in keeping up contact even after Gibbs had scared her off. Unfortunately her next posting proved to be a considerable distance away and we were unable to continue our brief association, much to my disappointment...but where was I. Ah yes, young Elizabeth.
"You must be the new Special Agent on Gibbs team," I said, smiling at her as I left Lieutenant Schaeffer to his own devices for the time being. "I'm Doctor Mallard."
"Pleased to meet you, Doctor Mallard. Special Agent Elizabeth Webster." She held out her hand to shake mine, but I could see her hesitate as she saw the blood on the gloves I was wearing.
"Please, call me Ducky," I said, as I removed my gloves. "Everybody else does."
"Ducky," she said. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your work."
"It's always a pleasure to be interrupted by an attractive woman."
"Well if I see one then I'll be sure to send her along."
"And what may I do for you, Elizabeth?" I asked as I escorted her away from the table. "An autopsy report, some details regarding time or cause of death? Or perhaps a quick spot of lunch."
"I've already eaten thanks," she said with a quick smile. "Although looking at your latest guest, I'm half wishing I hadn't. But actually I came here by mistake. I think I pressed the wrong button in the elevator, so I thought I'd better find somebody and get my bearings before I got hopelessly lost. I was actually heading for the forensics lab to speak to Abby."
"Ah yes, Abby's lab is directly above mine. Just take the lift back up one floor." I would have directed her to follow the loud music, but sad to say, since Kate's death, Abby hadn't been playing her music quite as loudly as she used to. Now that I come to think about it, Abby had changed a lot in the months since Kate's death. Her normal perky demeanor had become quite subdued. And if Jethro had been hard on Kate's replacements, well that was nothing to the treatment that Abby had meted out to them. Oh she never let it affect her work or the cases that were investigated. All her forensic work was as meticulous as ever, but whereas once one could walk into her laboratory and be assured of finding something weird and wonderful and non-forensic related to amuse oneself with, now it was all business. I don't think she even realized she was doing it. But I had noticed, and I missed the old Abby, just as much as I missed Kate.
Elizabeth seemed rather hesitant to leave, and loath though I was to admit it, I was sure that it wasn't simply my pleasant company that kept her lingering. When I asked her if anything was the matter, she confided in me that she wasn't sure that Abby liked her all that much, "I know I've only met her once before, but I really felt that she'd rather I wasn't there."
"My dear child, I'm afraid it's nothing personal. But dear Abigail was a close friend to Caitlin Todd, and I'm afraid that anybody who she sees as taking her place is bound to get short shrift from her." I patted Elizabeth reassuringly on the shoulder, sighing heavily as I did so. I knew how Abby felt. I had felt the same way for the first few months after Kate's shocking death, resenting the living for simply being alive when Kate was dead.
"She was really that special?" Elizabeth's voice broke through my reverie.
"Yes my dear, she was."
I'm afraid that Elizabeth didn't seem entirely happy at the prospect of having to live up to such a paragon as Kate had been. But I reassured her as best as I could that it would only be a matter of time before she was accepted as an agent in her own right and not just as a temporary, soon to be replaced, substitute for Kate. After all, the fact that she was still there after a week was surely a good sign, as well as the rumor I'd heard that Tony had actually stood up to Gibbs and argued in favor of keeping her.
So I waved her away that morning and said a silent prayer that I would never open a body bag and see her face staring up at me. It was a prayer that I made regularly when I had contact with the NCIS agents who had become my friends and family throughout the years. Sadly, all too often that prayer wasn't answered. Only time could tell.
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To be continued
Ceindreadh
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