Summary: Sometimes shadows stop and stay for a while.

Note: This is a follow-up to the Ducky/Sandy snippet "The Vast, Terrible In-Between." That was supposed to be a one-shot; I had no plans to continue it. But as so often happens in the Ducky & Sandy universe, the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglay. So. This is AU cubed; Ducky and Sandy are AU to the NCIS canon universe—this is AU for their universe. As noted with "Vast," If you haven't read any of the Ducky & Sandy tales, in order they are TGIF, OHIM, Life Is What Happens, CHAOS! and My Life. You can easily follow this knowing that Ducky got married, but I would suggest reading "Vast" if nothing else.

Betas/Cheerleaders/Lab Assistants: Shara Michelle, Jan. McNeville, dozens of people on my email list and the CAA! Forum; in real life, Dixie for information on weapons and novice shooting.

Genre: Angst

Pairing: Ducky/OFC

Rating/Warnings: T (cuss words; violence; disturbing imagery)

Spoilers: If you haven't seen "Meat Puzzle" from season 2, 1) where have you been? 2) stop reading and go watch it right now; we'll wait.

Disclaimer: All NCIS characters are the property of Bellisarius Productions, Paramount, CBS and the appropriate copyright holders within those companies. All other characters for this story (barring real persons mentioned in passing) are my original creation and property.

Time: March-May, 2009

Watch Out For Shadows, Sometimes They Move When You're Not Looking At Them
(J. Michael Straczynski, "The Coming of Shadows" (Babylon 5))

by Aunt Kitty

CHAPTER ONE

"McGee just called. Mary Hanlan does not live in your neighborhood."

Ducky's eyes closed briefly and I saw him mouth 'thank god.' But the fear in his eyes hadn't changed. "When?" he asked, voice amazingly even.

"December. Overturned on appeal. She was in a halfway house until last month. No parole, so she's not required to file an address—"

I was having a relatively quiet nervous breakdown. Ducky had said nothing since telling me to call Gibbs. "What? What?" I had said, over and over; he just sat on the stepstool, staring into space while the water ran in the sink. Silence. Heavy, tense silence.

My conversation with Gibbs was almost as terse.

"Gibbs."

"Gibbs, it's Sandy Mallard—"

"What's wrong?" (I could say it was rattling that he immediately leaped to a bad conclusion, but I did sound a little hysterical in just my introduction.)

"Ducky said to call you, call you now, he's in the kitchen, he's dead white—" I didn't have to worry about Ducky overhearing me, I was on the living room/office extension.

"Is he sick? Heart attack? Call 911, don't—"

"No, no, I—I just told him about meeting a neighbor, he said, 'Call Gibbs, call Gibbs now'—"

"What neighbor?"

"Just a woman—Mary, Mary Hanlan—"

"What?" he said sharply.

"Mary Hanlan…?"

For a Marine, Gibbs keeps his language pretty clean. An occasional 'damn' or 'hell' is the usual, with the rare foray into something pithier. He let loose with a string of undeleted expletives that outdid me on my worst day, snapped unintelligible (to me) orders to his team and ended with, "Do not leave! Lock the doors, do not move otherwise! I'm sending Ziva and Tony, I'll get the local LEOs over there now—"

I was shaking so hard, I literally fell into Ducky's chair. "Gibbs, what—"

He was probably realizing he was freaking me out (Understatement!) and dropped it down a notch. "Sandy—Mary Hanlan is bad news—"

"Yeah, I kinda got that. What—"

"She is sneaky, she is devious, she is psychotic."

"She seemed so nice," I blurted out.

"Like a scorpion. Do not open the door. The codeword is Shanghai, if they don't use it, don't let them in—"

"Jeez, Gibbs, I'll recognize Ziva and—"

"Do. Not. Let. Them. In. Without. That. Code!" he barked.

"But—"

"If they don't use the code, they may be under duress. Forced to knock on the door because someone you don't want coming in is holding a gun on them."

I was starting to hyperventilate. A hand dropped to my shoulder and I let out a screech and jumped, slamming into the seat back.

"Sorry." Ducky's voice was gentle, at odds with the hard, angry, almost dangerous look on his face. (You thought he was pissed when you went gallivanting all over town to nail an embezzling accountant masquerading as a nurse? Baby, you ain't seen nothin' yet.) He took the phone from my limp hand. "Jethro." He listened for a moment. "Shanghai." He nodded, listening. Receiver tucked between shoulder and ear, he pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk and removed a lockbox I'd never seen before. When he opened it and I saw what was inside, I wished I'd never seen it, period.

It was a gun.

/ / /

I stayed upstairs with the baby, locked in her room until I heard voices of safety downstairs: Gibbs, Ziva and Tony. I didn't even leave when I heard—and saw, thanks to the lights-no-siren arrival flashing through the window—two "local LEOs" (Reston cops) in the house.

I left Allie sleeping peacefully and soundly and ran downstairs. Gibbs and company were sitting in the living room, Gibbs looking as grim as Ducky did.

"McGee just called. Mary Hanlan does not live in your neighborhood."

Ducky's eyes closed briefly and I saw him mouth 'thank god.' But the fear in his eyes hadn't changed. "When?" he asked, voice amazingly even.

"December. Overturned on appeal. She was in a halfway house until last month. No parole, so she's not required to file an address—"

I went right over the edge and kept on falling. "Appeal? Parole?" I yelled. (Mother was sound asleep and would never hear a thing.) "Who is this Mary Hanlan? Why did she put you into Defcon One mode? What the hell is going on?"

Ziva put a hand on my arm; I calmed down slightly and sat down—fell down—next to Ducky.

Silence. "You wanna do the talking, Duck?"

Ducky wouldn't even look up at me; after a long moment, he shook his head: no.

Gibbs sighed. "Back in February of oh-five we had a case that was… weirder than the normal run. 'Someone' left a bunch of barrels at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Full of alcohol and… parts."

"Parts?" I asked reluctantly.

"Body parts."

I squeaked and clamped a hand over my mouth. Good idea, because by the time Gibbs was through, I was ready to toss my cookies.

I couldn't even look over at Ducky while Gibbs told the tale of the Hanlan family. I had asked him once about the small but vicious scar on his neck. "Shaving accident," he had joked; I dropped the subject, figuring if he wanted to tell me, he would. He hadn't, so he didn't. Truth was kinda different.

"And… she's… out," I said evenly as Gibbs wound down the tale of revenge, violence and all-around psychotic and sociopathic behavior—and a soupçon of more than suspected incest as the capper. "How? Why?" (The Hanlan family was crazier than anything Jonathan Kellerman has cooked up—and I had stopped reading his stuff because even though it was very well written the creepy and sick bad guys were just too creepy and sick.)

"Appeal. Defense claimed Mary was the innocent victim of Vincent Hanlan. Got a couple of shrinks to back her up and an appeals judge who agreed," he said with definite disgust in his voice.

"But—you arrested her." I turned from Gibbs to Ducky, who still didn't look at me. (Wouldn't? Or couldn't?) "You were her victim. Why weren't either of you at the trial?"

Tony answered. "We all received notice—well, all but Ziva." That's right; she hadn't linked up with NCIS until later that year—a month or two before Halloween. I remembered her mentioning it when Abby tried to get me to say yes to Allie going out trick-or-treating. "They were using court records and transcripts; we were on alert that we could be called in for additional testimony. No one was. Nobody thought any more about it—and the automatic notification when she was freed wasn't so automatic."

"And she's—" My voice started to shake. "She's going after Ducky."

Gibbs nodded. He didn't point out the obvious: I was now probably a target, too. And, given that she lost her favorite son during their partially successful quest for vengeance, it would probably be quite logical (in her universe) to say, 'I lost my son—you lose your daughter.' It took a superhuman effort not to tear upstairs, grab Allie and head for safer ground.

(Say—Mars?)

I listened numbly while plans were formed around me. Order of protection. (Yeah, those work really well. Just ask all the women whose stalkers ignored that piece of paper. Oh, yeah—you can't…because they're dead.) Protection detail in place 24/7 for all of us. McGee was back at the Navy Yard, reading Kim Mitchell's team in on the old case and current information. He had called Gibbs again with the information that Mary Hanlan wasn't listed anywhere in the tri-state area, but her ex-husband (they had divorced during the first trial) and remaining son still lived where they had four years ago. Mitchell's team was en route and would relieve Tony and Ziva; in the morning they would switch over to Joe Tenley's team. I would have preferred Tony and Ziva, but I understood: they were the primary investigative team on this—it was personal. Plus they had worked a full shift and it was closing in on ten at night. But the real question I had was, "Four agents?"

Gibbs exchanged a short look with Ducky. "Four protectees. Ducky. You. Ducky's mom." He hesitated a split second. "Peanut. Four agents."

"Suzy?" I blurted. If something happened to her because Ducky was the target, he would never live with the guilt. We would never live with the guilt.

"We'll make sure to have five during the day." He checked Ducky's gun over and looked… pleased. "Well maintained. Score?"

"Ninety-four."

Ziva looked impressed. "Excellent, Ducky. When was the last time you were in the field?"

(You mean other than being kidnapped and almost murdered by exsanguination?)

(And what do you mean—in the field? Since when does NCIS send out their M.E. on an assignment?)

"Armed? Several years. But it has been impressed upon me to keep my skills current." (Gibbs. Bet it's Gibbs.)

She nodded in pleased agreement. "We should visit the target range together one day."

(Oh, hell no. Over my dead—)

(Let's not go there.)

Ziva and Tony were relieved by a foursome I only partly recognized—Carmen MacKenzie and Paul Elkins; I had met them at the Christmas party a few months before—the other two, Marcia Cox and Thomas Jones (I swear to god, yes, Tom Jones) were new to me.

Agent Cox took a chair outside Mother's room. MacKenzie and Jones cruised up and downstairs, silently going through rooms and doorways, passing each other on the stairs and communicating via whispers over tiny microphones. Elkins circled around the perimeter of the house. They did a visual check on us every half hour. I should have felt safe; why didn't I?

I knew all of this because if you think I slept one minute that night, you're crazier than Abbie Hoffman running for political office in Arizona.

Ducky didn't get much sleep, either. Every few minutes one or the other of us would get up and check on Allie. At midnight we finally gave up, put her port-a-crib in the corner of our room and parked her soundly sleeping diapered butt where she was within eyesight at all times. It made it easier for our watchdogs to keep an eye on us; amazingly it didn't feel like a prison cell. And then… we talked. Whispers. Murmurs. Hushed tones of guilt and regret.

And let's not forget fear. Lots and lots of fear.

There were times when I was growing up that I thought I had an offbeat family. For the Hanlan clan, offbeat would be a noble goal. The Manson Family would fit right in at their Thanksgiving table.

We worked our way through a nightmare that was going to leave me sleepless for a year up to what was a relatively minor point but the only one even slightly in my control. "A gun. Ducky… we have your mother—god knows I love her, but, not the most stable and reliable—"

He sighed in agreement.

"But now we have a child in the house—!"

"And we have a lockbox that is hidden and extremely secure. It has a thumbprint lock as well as a combination. No one else can get in. Not even you."

Unless they have an Abby to break the code and someone hacks off your thumb. Not a thought that would normally pop into my head—but this was a far from normal night. "I'll accept that—but, Ducky… you never told me." I'm not MacGyver, but I'm not crazy about guns. I was kind of peeved. (I was avoiding the real topic like crazy.)

He looked embarrassed. "I truly thought I had. I'm sorry."

I sighed. "Forgiven."

"Perhaps…" he said slowly, "you should learn to shoot."

I was about to blurt out, "Are you effing nuts?" and was hit with a sudden cascade vision: Mary Hanlan. Allie in her crib. Mother sitting in the back yard. Allie holding her arms up, wanting to be picked up. The Hammer House of Horrors film that Gibbs had recited. Allie, being picked up… and carried off by Mary Hanlan.

I clenched my fists. "Yes."