AN: Thank you to my amazing betas, Otrame and SatuD2, who helped me so much with making this fic what it is!
This fic has been drastically rewritten as of January 2018, with many scenes altered, added, or removed, getting ready for the third and final instalment beginning in a few weeks, after Unexpected Magic is similarly altered.
(See the end for more notes)
.
.
Chapter One: Kate and the Bad Day
.
There's a vampire on Air Force One, and Kate is pretty sure that she's going to lose her job over it.
Don't get her wrong, she's no bigot. On the shortlist of things that she hates most—public bathrooms, sunfish, and badge-wielding assholes—vampires as a species aren't listed, except when she's on protection detail for the president himself and one waltzes onto her damn plane. As soon as he sees her, he zeroes in, smiling at her with his mouth too wide and his sharp-white canines bared. It's not a nice smile; it's a hungry one. She wants to reach for her gun, or maybe a stake, at the sight of it.
By the end of today, she's sure she's going to have gone for one of those things.
This entire security detail has been an endless parade of men with both badges and inflated ego. As he watches her with a gaze that she can only describe as 'predatory', she's fast reaching the end of her temper.
"Excuse me," he says, leaning in close. There's a whiff of his cologne and the barest hint of sweat biting at the air between them, and she chooses to stare at a point between those dangerous eyes and the stupid, slicked-back hair above them. It's more comfortable than his smile. "You'll need to stand clear so I can take measurements for my crime scene sketches, thanks."
It's the tone of his voice that gets her, the one that's a sneer away from adding 'sweetheart' to the end of his sentence. In that moment, he's not just NCIS's pet vampire come to investigate the commander who'd died on her watch; he's every other piggish male she's ever had the misfortune of looking her up and down and disregarding the piece on her hip or her extensive skill set.
"Right," she says, and goes to find his superior officer. If she has to deal with a vampire, she wants to know who's holding his leash.
The man she finds at the end of that chain, one 'Agent Jethro Gibbs', is slightly more palatable, even if he's every bit the cowboy that the FBI agent they'd so unceremoniously kicked off the plane had called him. He's grey-haired, sharp-eyed, and seems to think rules don't apply to him. The only thing comforting about that stare when it's levelled at her is that it's followed by a smile that's disarming purely because of his personality, not because of his species. No sharp canines mar the expression, no startling blankness to those off-grey eyes.
When she confronts him about his gung-ho requisitioning of both the presidential aircraft and Secret Service's investigation, he's flippant. Dismissive. Just as determined to get his own way as the vampire is, but he wears the confidence more easily, requesting blueprints for the plane that they both know he's not going to get.
It's a test she doesn't care if she passes or not; they're not getting them.
"The only thing you're getting," she tells him with a smile that's as sweet as his isn't, "is off my damn plane. I can't risk them getting out, and I don't trust you an inch. You lied to get here."
For the first time, he switches off the intensity and goes for a flirtier approach, pausing close enough to her that she can smell wood shavings, coffee, and something only describable as 'wild'. Whatever it is, it sets her teeth on edge; she's beginning to get the notion that humans might be outnumbered on this particular aircraft.
"NCIS does not leak," he says. "Those plans get out, you can shoot DiNozzo."
"Would that work?" she asks dryly. "I was under the impression bullets don't work so well on the already dead."
That smile again, and she can tell he's judging her, weighing her up to estimate her worth. "Bullets work pretty well on almost anything, depending on who's firing," he replies.
.
.
Maybe she's never worked a crime scene before—and damn Gibbs for judging her on that, like not knowing his arbitrary set of 'rules' by rote reduces her in his eyes—but she knows enough to be careful when the stomach flu she's picked up kicks in right in the middle of a case of death by unknown toxin. There's nothing dignified about being sick on a plane in the middle of an investigation with strangers heading it: there's no privacy, no comfort, and Gibbs makes her puke into an evidence bag, staring her down throughout the entire act. It's mortifying, and it makes her look weak in front of men who she can tell would cut her down in a second. She tries to put as much of her displeasure in her glare as possible, but he's completely unsympathetic and the way DiNozzo is studying her does nothing to help her churning gut.
The only thing this moment does have going for it is Ducky.
NCIS's medical examiner is nothing like she'd have expected—someone who's a cross between Gibbs and Tony, all of the perve with none of the confidence—after meeting the other two on the team. Kate has always considered herself an excellent judge of character, and there's something so charming about the man that she can't help but relax around him. "I owe you an apology, Doctor," she tells him, embarrassed of her earlier abrasiveness towards him.
He chuckles and waves her apology away. "Oh, please, it's Ducky to my associates." She's not sure if it's the reassuring cadence of his voice or the cool hand he brushes against her arm, but she feels better immediately.
It occurs to her that it's probably neither, because there's a split second where he's a much younger man leaning over her but, when she blinks and looks again, he's just the same as before. The same young eyes in an age-lined face, the same neat hair and perfectly straight bowtie. When he straightens and stands with the ease of youth, she swears that she can hear the slightest tinkling of a bell.
Kate considers herself an excellent judge of character; however, she's never been great at getting species right.
When Ducky finally leaves, she lifts her head and Agent Gibbs is there, head cocked to one side. She wonders if he knows how much he resembles her Grandma's spaniels when he tilts his head like that, as though he's trying to work out a particularly difficult trick.
"You don't trust us," he says, and it's not a question.
"I don't know you," she replies, and he looks pleased.
.
.
It's at about the point that she's given an order she's pretty sure she has zero chance of successfully fulfilling, that some small part of her seriously begins to plan out her resume in her head. There's no way that she's getting out of this one without at least a serious demotion, and she can't even really blame the vampire for it. Guess it's time to suck it up and resign herself to a career of maybe, just maybe, the most prestigious detail she's ever given again being to walk the president's pet teacup griffin.
But she's not going to pretend that she's happy about it. Opportunities in homeland security are few and far between for someone like her, without magic or inhuman abilities backing her up. She's the first to admit she went for the Secret Service not just because she knew it was work she'd be fantastic at, that would prove her worth in a world that shits on the strength of anyone with 'human' listed on their license.
After all, it's not like the justice department could have offered her anything more than desk jockey—times are changing but not fast enough. Unless she's a werewolf, the FBI isn't interested, and NCIS seems to take the dregs of those the other agencies scorn. Satyrs, pixies, and, apparently, even vampires. It's not even a competition when she has one foot over the starting line of the evolutionary gate, stuck to the ground while they have—in some cases literal—wings to soar over every hurdle she has to face.
If she's sour when she faces Gibbs and realises he's not going to listen to reason, she has the right to be. If she loses this job, it's going to take years to claw her way up to a decent position with another agency. Even with the anti-discrimination laws, it's no secret that a human agent can never keep up with the supernaturally inclined.
In the end, it's by the skin of her teeth that she hangs on. NCIS, damn them, steal the body out from under her, vanishing into the night like the pack of thieves—and she's impressed, sure, and a little sore that she doesn't get to have that much fun on the job, but that's a small, childish part of her—and the only saving grace is the three-a.m. phone-call she gets from her superior informing her that they're now 'sharing' the investigation with NCIS.
Sharing the investigation, she assumes, is code for 'they have the body and this is as good as it gets'.
"I don't think I can work with them," she stupidly says, regretting it instantly. Never mind what she 'thinks', if she doesn't work with them, she isn't worth the metal her badge is stamped on—that she's informed she will very quickly lose if she doesn't take this advice to heart. Like it or not, for the time being at least, she's partnered with Agent Gibbs and his skeevy vampire and she better make the best of it. She has five hours to shower, sleep, and then make her way to the NCIS headquarters to report to her acting supervisor, Gibbs himself.
It could be worse, she supposes.
She could be working under DiNozzo instead of beside him.
.
.
DiNozzo hasn't grown on her at all, but about the point she watches Gibbs face down their murderer without flinching is when she realises he's more than just weathered features and a steady glare. There's a resolve there that's not just admirable but also calming, even in a high-stakes situation, and he's smiling in his mostly-serious, all-cocky manner at the unstable man.
"Get your hands in the air," he drawls. He's ridiculously outgunned against Leonard's automatic, and Kate is unarmed and unable to help.
This isn't exactly how any of them had wanted this case to end.
"Sure," Leonard says calmly, turning with the automatic held level at Gibbs' chest. He fires. Kate shouts, expecting to see the NCIS agent shot. But Gibbs moves faster than she could have imagined a man his age moving, the bullets missing him by a hair's breadth, and fires twice into the assassin's chest. Heart still skipping a little unevenly as she moves forward to check that their murderer is dead, Gibbs stalls her on her way.
This time, as he hands her the gun, his smile is genuine. His scent is sharper, more dangerous, and she readjusts her opinion of him once more; maybe Secret Service is wrong to recruit humans only. Whatever Gibbs is, she wants twenty at her back any time she's going to be under fire.
"I expected something a little flashier," she teases him, unable to hide the shakiness in her voice.
"Flashy gets you killed," he remarks with astounding calm. "Flashy doesn't tend to work as well as a bullet."
She is never going to understand this man.
.
.
As it turns out, it's not the vampire that loses her her job: it's her own stubborn pride. She'd messed up badly enough today that she's not sure if she's even going to look for a job in another agency, or just take this as a hint and go back to college to reskill elsewhere. Maybe she can become a psychologist, like her sister, put her never-used profiling skills to use for once. And isn't Rachel going to be unbearable about that?
She tenders her resignation, isn't surprised when it's immediately accepted, and leaves the job with the feeling that she's never really going to recover from this. It's this she's musing over as she registers the footsteps pounding the pavement behind her without consciously recognising them, reaching automatically for a gun she no longer carries.
Gibbs isn't even panting when he slides to a stop next to her. "I heard you quit."
Great. Now she's going to be the laughing stock of NCIS as well as Secret Service. "Happy news gets around fast," she mutters, sore that he's seeing this but not sorry that she did it. "Yes, I resigned. It was the right thing to do." It was the only thing to do; she'd broken the rules.
She tries not to let it show how much that hurts.
Gibbs outpaces her without looking back as he ducks under the security bar of the parking lot. "Yup," he says, leaving her staring blankly after him like he hadn't just chased her out of the airfield. But, he continues: "Pull that crap at NCIS, I won't give you a chance to resign."
A job offer?
At NCIS?
"You want me to work with that vampire?" she calls after him before she can stop herself.
Looking over his shoulder at her finally, he laughs, a rolling bark of a sound. "DiNozzo's an acquired taste," he says, and smiles. "See you Monday, Agent Todd."
And he's gone, just as quickly and inexplicably as he'd appeared.
When she considers his offer, she thinks, well, why not? If there's anything she's learned over the past two days, it's that she has horizons that seriously need broadening.
And besides, what could possibly go wrong?