I started this over a year ago for a challenge issued on NFA. I finished it weeks ago, 9 months after the challenge deadline. Hope you enjoy!
The chapters in Finding Home that lead into this are #67 and #241. Most of this story takes place between Finding Home chapters #245 and #247.
Finding Home: Roots before Branches
Tim smiled as Rob picked up the phone, "Hey Tim!"
"Hi Rob, you busy?"
"No, just relaxing for a few minutes."
Tim chuffed, "Good, you need to do that! Rob, when you were all here at Thanksgiving and were talking about DNA, you said you were looking into your mother Ellen's history and thinking about looking for your father but got sidetracked."
"Yeah, I remember that."
"I'm sticking my nose in but my whole perspective changed with all the memories, all the knowledge I've regained and I've been wondering if that could happen for you too. Not that your perspective needs changing, but I know how much it's meant to me to find out who I am, and where I came from. If you ever do want to start researching again, I'm happy to help. Obviously I can't do it for you but any tips on deep searches into cyberspace, I'm your guy!"
Rob huffed, "Thanks Bro, I've been thinking about it but it seems daunting."
"What you'd find or how to find it?"
Rob sighed, "I don't know, maybe both? Although really I guess it's how to find the information and then I'll figure out how to deal with what I find. Can't be too horrible, I'm here after all."
Tim grimaced at that, thinking of Rob's birth mother, Ellen Brill; she would never win any prizes for maternal love and care! "If you'd like, I can send you some ideas for searches, I can write them out so all you have to do is plug them into your search engine and hit Enter."
"Wow, really? That'd be great, Tim, thanks; then I'll have no excuses for procrastinating!"
The brothers talked for several more minutes about the specific information Rob wanted before they ended the call. Tim started on his project right away but then Anna wanted to talk with him, then Jorry and by the time he got the specifics set up in search lingo and sent them to Rob it was weeks later. He hoped Rob would feel the wait worth it as during those weeks Tim had also found a plastic bag filled with papers he'd kept since their lives on the street. He remembered Ellen had filled out forms all three kids needed for school and he still had copies. Now he did a fist pump when he found them. Ellen listed her birth date as March 15, 1960; he smirked when he saw her signature, he'd taught himself to copy it and when she wasn't available and after she left them, he signed her name. Nobody had noticed the almost microscopic 'tm' he'd included, indicating he was signing on her behalf. He used it through high school; by the time he was filling out papers for college Geordie was their legal guardian and he signed everything.
XXX
Rob grinned as he opened the e-mail from Tim. He couldn't believe the work that must have gone into the search strings Tim set up for him. He sat quietly for a moment, thinking about his brother and how grateful he was that they'd finally healed the breach in their relationship that he'd caused with his attitude years ago. When they'd talked about it, when he'd apologized to Tim, his brother looked at him with love and wrapped his arms around him. "Rob, do you remember Sarah's teen years?"
Rob shuddered and nodded. Tim continued, "She was rebelling which is fairly common. You didn't and for years I said I was still waiting for your rebellious phase. I believe that's what you hit those months in Greece."
They'd talked for a long time and both men felt immeasurably better. In many respects, Rob thought they were closer than they'd ever been. And he had a sneaking suspicion that becoming a foster-father would give him even more insight to his brother and their relationship.
Now while his laptop booted up, he took the DNA report out of the mailing envelope it had lived in since he'd received it years ago. Smiling he remembered that day too.
With a tired sigh Rob sorted through the mail, separating his from James' and Sarah's. When he got to the big envelope he stared at it, wondering what secrets it would reveal. He'd waited so long and now here it was. He hoped it would be the start of unraveling the secrets of his existence. He laughed at himself, could he possibly sound any more self-important? He tucked the envelope and the rest of the mail in his pack and with renewed energy bounded upstairs to the flat. The others weren't home so he dumped the mail on the kitchen table, his hand hovering over the big envelope. Finally he snatched it up and sinking into the most comfortable chair, tore the top off the envelope and pulled out the contents.
This was the report on his DNA. With his family's encouragement, Rob had ordered it from an online ancestry site, sending in the cheek swab when the kit arrived. Now he looked at the report, amused that he was already mentally reviewing everything he'd learned in school about Deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA. Firmly putting all that aside, he looked at the chart.
He wasn't surprised to find that he was 48.5% sub Saharan African, 40% European (French), 10% Southern European (Spanish) and 1.5% American Indian. So…he was pretty much half African-American with French, Spanish and Native American ancestors. He figured the European roots were from his mother and the rest from his father about whom he knew nothing. He looked at the chart for a long time, pondering what to do next.
His phone chimed with a reminder he was due to meet his study group in less than an hour. Rob folded up the DNA report and tucked it back in the envelope, leaving it on the table. When he was home later that night, James was having a cup of tea and patted the chair next to him, "Come sit, have a cuppa."
Rob chuckled, "Sure, as long as it's a cuppa coffee!"
His flatmate shook his head, "Your loss. So…I've been eying this big envelope. You want to wait for Sarah?"
Rob shook his head, "No, you can look."
James read the report aloud and then looked at Rob. "This is pretty cool!"
Rob laughed, "Well, it's good to know, anyway. "
The other man looked at him quizzically, "You going to look deeper?"
"Deeper than my DNA?"
"Point taken, let me rephrase that. Do you want to know more about your birth family?"
"I don't know. Sort of. I figure my father never knew I existed, who knows if my mother even knew who he was?"
His friend looked at him, "You'll never know unless you go looking, Rob. And it might not be what you think."
Rob nodded. "Yeah, I thought of that. For my life, it's not important, I have a wonderful family and I know I'm loved. But yeah, I do want to know and medically speaking it's always a good idea." He paused, thinking, "I'm just not sure where to start."
"Ok, let's see what you have to start with. Your mother's name was Ellen Brill. Uh, do you remember what color hair and eyes she had?"
Rob scrunched his face in thought. "Brown? Maybe I'll write Lu at the shelter, see if she remembers and if she'll ask Nate and Juanita what they remember about her. Tim says Juanita didn't like her and she always remembers people she doesn't like!" The two men chuckled at that.
James nodded, "That's a good place to start. When did you last see her?"
Rob sighed, "She used to sneak out once we'd been checked in for the night; she usually waited until it was dark out and for a while we thought that's what had happened. But then we came out of hiding…oh, you probably don't know that. When Tim was 12, he was stabbed, the staff at the hospital threatened to call CPS so Sarah and I helped him leave and we hid out for a few weeks until Geordie said the cops quit looking for us. It was after that when Tim talked to the other kids who'd been at the shelter that day and they remembered seeing her come in with us that afternoon. She must have slipped out during all the commotion when Tim was hurt." He looked at the horrified expression on his friend's face and shook his head, "Go ahead and say it."
"Of all the cold hearted…she had no concern for you or Sarah? Not to mention poor Tim?"
"No. Oh there was something there, she showed up at the shelter most of the time so we could go in, but not that day."
James shook his head and they went back to talking about Rob's ancestry.
Now Rob flexed his long fingers, determined to start digging. Following Tim's instructions, he set up his first search for Ellen Brill with her birthdate. Ignoring people with the same name, he eventually found what he hoped was the right Ellen Brill, born 3/15/60 in New Haven CT.
On Rob's next day off, he did more work online, finding her birth certificate on the ancestry site along with her parents' names. Rob was satisfied with that information; someday he might do more, but that was enough for now. However it didn't tell him anything about his father and he admitted he was more curious about him than Ellen.
Rob was two when Tim rescued him in 1986, so Ellen would have been 24 when he was born. After striking out finding his birth certificate online he thought about what he'd learned years ago when he'd started this process. It had taken a few weeks to hear back from Lu, but finally he received a long letter from her. Lu remembered that Ellen spoke well when she wasn't high; sober she seemed to have a decent education. Juanita said she remembered her being a snob which had been laughable under the circumstances. Nate only remembered that she had light brown hair. Lu also included a photo she'd found with Ellen in it and yes, Rob's mother did indeed have light brown hair in contrast to his own which was dark brown, almost black, and her eyes were blue. Lu also remembered the only conversation she'd ever had with the woman, about their college days. Lu majored in Social Services and she said Ellen claimed to be an art major. She didn't know if Ellen had graduated, but he decided to pursue that anyway.
Rob had no wish to know any more about his Brill grandparents. His next step was to search for a marriage certificate for Ellen but didn't find one. Undaunted, he used another of Tim's suggested searches and made a list of colleges and universities within a 100 mile radius of New Haven and started searching for Ellen Brill college student, circa 1978-82. There were so many institutions of higher learning on his first search that he limited the parameters to those offering degrees in Art. That shortened the list and he was proud of himself for extrapolating that idea from Tim's suggestions. From there he set up the search for Ellen.
He finally found records for Ellen Brill as a student at a college in New York and was thrilled to find the school's yearbooks online. Now seriously on the hunt, he combed through them and matched the photos he found of Ellen in the yearbooks with the one taken at the shelter. He looked through the years she'd been there; in the books for what he thought would have been her last two years she was featured in several candid shots. In most of them she was with a tall slender young African-American man. This was exciting; this guy looked kind of like him, could this be his father? They certainly shared the same build! He went back through the class photos until he found his photo and name, Theodore R. Owens (Ted).
He had to let that sit for a while. Between work and renovating the house with Ned, he was crazy busy. He was happy with the information he'd found; Ellen and Ted certainly looked like they'd been a couple. Maybe he wasn't the result of a casual or stoned hookup after all. It was nearly Easter before he had time to do more research on Theodore (Ted) Owens. He ran the name through Tim's favorite search engine and was sad when he found a newspaper article that mentioned the death of Theodore R. Owens in a car accident in 1984, just three months before Rob's birth. The article mentioned his fiancée, Ellen Brill, gave the man's age and that the young man was from Cincinnati, OH. Rob took that information and went back to the ancestry site to search for Theodore (Ted). When he found him on a 1980 census, he saved his work and exited out, first printing out the college photos and the article on Ted Owens.
When he showed Ned, his partner smiled and hugged him, "Proud of you, Hon! I know this couldn't have been easy."
Rob smiled, "Tim helped." Ned beamed at him and they looked at the photos together.
Ned picked up the photo of Ellen and Ted together, "They met in college?"
"Don't know that for sure but they're in several photos together in the yearbook."
"Wonder what he was studying…"
"Keep looking in the folder, Neddie."
Ned filtered through the photos and found the article on the car crash that had taken Rob's father's life.
"Oh man, he died…right before you were born!" He looked over at his lover, "So he must have known about you and look, this says they were engaged."
"Yeah, they were serious, he wasn't just a hookup like I've always thought and she probably wasn't a druggie at that point…"
"Do you want to look at the police report? I can get that for you."
Rob scrunched his face in thought, "Maybe later, not tonight though."
Ned was still reading, "Hey look, it says he was a recent graduate with a degree in science!"
Rob beamed, "Yes! I wonder if he was going to be a doctor…like me?!" He went through everything in the folder several more times.
He was so excited he couldn't sleep that night. He had a father before Tim, before Gibbs! He'd had parents, well sort of, they were future parents but still, they must have loved each other. After a few hours of tossing and turning, he gave up and booted up his laptop. He logged into the ancestry site again and smiled when he realized that someone, he was sure it was Ned or Tim, started an account for him. Using the information they'd found in the newspaper article, he was able to find his father's birth certificate. He noted names, dates and locations from that and then sat back, finally ready to sleep. He made sure the information he'd found was input and saved to his family tree before quitting for the night.
Days passed before he had a block of time to do any more research although he really should have been sleeping or getting the house ready for the foster children he and Ned would soon bring home. He painted the trim in what would be the girls' room and then took a break, sitting in front of his laptop. He logged on to his ancestry account and decided to do more research into his father's family. He looked for death notices for his father and found a very brief one that didn't tell him anything he didn't already know. Pulling up the information on his grandparents, he looked at a census from 1970, hoping that would at least tell him whether his father had siblings. He found his grandfather, Thomas R. Owens, listed as head of household and in that household were his grandmother Teresa L. Owens and their children, Theodore, age 10, Tyler age 7 and Tara, age 4.
Rob grinned; he had biological relatives, ones he might look like! He remembered Tim saying how much it meant to him to discover that he looked like Uncle Jim after they'd found their family. Now he'd found more family. It was possible his grandparents were still alive plus he had an aunt and uncle. He added them to his family tree, printing it out. The print went in the folder to show Ned, Dad and Rhea when they were here.
It was still sitting there days later when the Gibbses were working on the house after Easter. Ned, Rhea and Rob were shopping with Melody and Sasha and planned to visit the girls' new school and daycare while Jethro continued working on the house.
Jethro entered the newly renovated kitchen for a coffee refill and noticed the folder on the counter with a note on top that said "Dad and Rhea". He picked it up, frowning and fished around in his pockets for his reading glasses. Damn things, he was getting more dependent on them by the day and he hated it, felt like his own body was betraying him.
Once he had the stupid things on, he looked at the list. Family Tree for Rob Gibbs Mallard, ok, this should be interesting! He'd heard about the initial findings and was glad Rob decided to look deeper. He noticed the maternal side had names and nothing else while the paternal side had a lot more information. He poured his coffee as he looked at the 'tree'. He read the names of the family and frowned, there was something about the names of Rob's uncle and aunt. He said the names out loud, "Tyler Owens, sister named Tara. Tyler Owens from OH, with a younger sister named Tara."
He knew the names, he knew them but he didn't have it yet. It must be a case though as he hadn't spent much time in Ohio, didn't know anyone there except the guy who ran the bait shop by the spot on the river near Chillicothe where he, Jack and Tobias liked to fish. He put the list back on the table; it would come to him eventually. Drinking his coffee he headed to the basement to do some finish work on a project for his new foster granddaughters; that usually did wonders for clearing his mind. He was still sanding an hour later when his phone buzzed with a call from his eldest, "Hey Dad, Vance was by, asking if you and Rhea were coming into the office while you're here."
Gibbs started to speak and then hesitated, "Not sure, Tony. Probably not until next week when the girls go back to school and daycare. We don't want to miss any time with them." After ending the call he stood there in the basement…Vance…those names were somehow connected with the Director.
He repeated the names again and stood stock still, his cell phone still in his hand. He knew the connection now; they were from Vance's case in Chicago back in…2009, when he'd pulled Tim and Ziva with him, taking the lead. They'd been afraid he was going to play the same games as Jenny, that he had his own personal agenda. That was his friend the boxer, murdered by the kid at the gym. Tyler Owens, DAMN! He remembered his doubts now, Vance said the guy was a former Marine but there were no records. And the detached retina that Jackie, huh, that was the first time he'd met her, mentioned had forced Leon out of the ring had actually been Owens'. Or Owens also had a detached retina which would be a pretty big coincidence.
He remembered his conversation with the SecNav in the basement here, months before that case. Davenport had looked at the file Trent Kort had dumped on Gibbs and said he knew everything he needed to know about Vance. Gibbs had put the puzzle out of his mind after they'd closed the Owens' case; if Secretary Davenport was comfortable with the mystery, then he'd let it go.
But now…he shook his head, thinking about the situation. Should he just leave it alone and see where it took Rob? He didn't much like that idea; he wanted to protect his son and Ned from whatever mess this was. He wondered if they could get photos of the uncle and aunt, maybe school pictures, something from at least high school. He knew the kids used Google to find stuff, maybe he could figure out from there what high school Rob's father had gone to and then he could call and see if he could get a class photo. He cleaned up and went back upstairs.
Finding Rob's laptop, he went online and typed the word Google and got a long blank box with the word Google. Ok, so far so good. He typed in Theodore R. Owens and pressed the Enter key. Oh geez, there were a lot of listings, he moved the arrow thingy down the page, seeing more pages listed. Maybe he should put the town in. He went back to the line with the name and added Cincinnati OH. That worked better, there were fewer pages now but he really wanted to know the high school and he realized he should have put in the uncle's name, not the father's, otherwise he'd have to do more poking around. So he went back to the line and changed the name to Tyler Owens, left the city and state in and typed in high school. He grinned when he saw the results; he wasn't so bad at this after all!
He briefly thought about calling Tim and bragging a little but this was really Rob's business, he still wasn't sure he should be doing this. But he was his father, he had an obligation to protect, he could brag later. He clicked on the item showing the high school and the year graduated. It took him to some site about classmates and there was a tiny gray box next to Tyler's name that said photo. He clicked on it but nothing happened. Dang! Well, at least he knew the high school, he'd find the number and call tomorrow to see if he could get a photo faxed to him. He didn't know how to get out of where he was but there was an arrow at the top pointing backwards and it took him back to the Google thing. It took him a few more clicks before he got back to a blank Google screen. There, that was enough! By now he was hungry so he made himself a sandwich, admiring the new refrigerator.
By the time he finished eating, he'd made a decision. He did not want to go behind Leon's back with all this. The man had been a huge help to Tim and their whole family, he'd become a friend and a member of the extended family. They'd built a lot of trust in each other over the years and he didn't want to mess that up, although he still wanted to protect Rob. Mind made up, he called Vance's cell. "Vance."
"Gibbs. Need to talk with you about something personal. Nothing's wrong - have some information I need to run by you."
"Ok, shoot."
"Rather do it in person."
Vance sighed, "Have to leave at 1700 for a meeting at the Pentagon; I have time before that."
"Ok. This might be important, not sure."
"All right, come on in."
Gibbs nodded, "Be there in 30." He had a quick cup of coffee, showered, dressed, left a note for the others and was in the office in 27 minutes and upstairs in the Director's suite in two more minutes. Ms. Cook smiled and waved him into the inner office.
Vance was sitting at his conference table looking at a file so Gibbs joined him with the file folder that held Rob's papers. "Rob's tracing his biological family. He found his mother's parents; then he started poking around and found his father and paternal grandparents in Cincinnati, also found an uncle and aunt. He made a print out of the names and left it in a folder to show me and Rhea. I looked at the list and well, here, you look at it."
With a puzzled frown, Vance took the list to look at the names and had to swallow several times when he saw the name of Rob's father. He knew what was coming next. He sighed, closed his eyes for a full minute, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Jethro…"
"I don't need to know anything, Leon, I'm just trying to protect Robbie and you if necessary and I didn't know what this would mean to you; but I don't need to know, I don't want to know."
"You would have liked my brother Ted, he was a great guy. He was my best friend and what happened to him was…"
There was an emotional pause, "I'll have to tell Rob." Leon looked up, "Is he home now?"
"No, he, Ned and Rhea took their new foster daughters shopping and some other errands."
Vance shook his head, "We were told Ellen lost the baby. She was in the car that night, did you know that?"
Gibbs shook his head. Leon huffed, "Her name is on the McGee case file, isn't it? Ellen Brill."
"Yeah."
"It never crossed my mind. What happened to her?"
"Don't know much. She was a drug user; she acted as Tim and Sarah's shelter mother so they could stay there and not the transient camp. Tim used to take money from her when she was asleep to feed the three of them; he never knew where she got it; she would never give him any when he asked. When Tim was stabbed, she took off, they never saw her again." Gibbs sighed, "I thought she might have been another victim of Svetlana's but I could never find anything conclusive. Tim thinks maybe the dirtbag who stabbed him paid her off but we haven't said anything to Rob. Can't prove anything unless we go looking for her and he doesn't want to do that."
Leon sat in silence for a few minutes before speaking softly. "I wonder if she got hooked on drugs when she was injured." He paused before continuing, "My parents never recovered from losing Ted. Sure, they had Tara and me but...he was the eldest, the crown prince of the family."
"Are they still alive, Leon?"
Vance shook his head, "No. My dad had a stroke a few days after Ted was killed; he never really recovered from that, died 3 years later and my mom a couple of years after that. I'd left home by then, moved to Chicago and then the mess…"
"Told you I don't need to know, I trust who you are now."
"Appreciate that and I can't tell you more than that anyway."
"What about the car crash?"
"It was not an accident - did you see where it happened?"
Gibbs shook his head and winced when Vance told him the name of the town. In the fifties and sixties it had been a notorious Klan stronghold but that had supposedly changed years before Ted's death. "So how was it ruled?"
"Wasn't, it's a cold case."
"Still?"
"Yeah, with my situation, I really couldn't – and can't - delve into it and Tara just wanted to let it go."
Gibbs opened his mouth to say something and then shut it again. Not everyone approached justice the way he had when his wife and child were murdered. And it was entirely possible the police force of the town was involved.
Leon leaned back in his chair, "I'm an uncle! And to Rob Gibbs Mallard, an outstanding young man, raised by another outstanding young man! Gibbs, this must make us relatives of some kind."
Gibbs chuckled, "I guess so but I sure wouldn't know what to call it."
"Will you have him call me? Or no, I should call him. Yeah, let's do that, I'll call him this evening." He sighed, "Good thing Rob already knows about things being classified."
Gibbs grinned, "Cheer up, could be worse, it could be Sarah - who hates the word classified!"
Leon huffed and then shook his head, "All this time…you know after Ted died my parents went to the hospital to see Ellen but her parents wouldn't let them see her, said she was too traumatized and that she'd lost the baby, that they would remind her too much of Ted. Dad had his stroke two or three days later." He sat in thought. "I wonder what happened to Ellen? The woman I knew, my brother's fiancée, would never have abandoned her child. She was excited, they were both excited about the baby and my parents were over the top about having a grandchild. It did take them a while to get used to the idea of having a white daughter-in-law though." He shrugged one shoulder. "Rob's the important one now."
Gibbs nodded and taking the folder, gave Leon a pat on the shoulder as he left.
Between Rob's work and home life and Vance's busy schedule, it was nearly a month before the two talked. After finding the information about his parents, Rob put the issue on the back burner. His father was dead and his mother had abandoned him long ago; he wasn't sure he wanted to try to find his uncle or aunt. He'd set out to find his ancestry and he had, that was enough for now.
One night he was home, doing the dishes while Ned was upstairs helping Melody with her homework. When Director Vance knocked on the door, Rob welcomed him in, turning to call Ned. Vance gestured to him. "Actually Rob, I'm here to see you."
Rob looked at him, frowning and Vance sighed. "Rob, when you were working on your family tree, you left the folder out and your father saw it. The names sounded familiar to him and when he remembered, he came to me. And now, finally, I'm here to talk with you about all of it."
Rob was really confused about what Leon Vance might have to do with the Owens family but he supposed he'd known them or something. The two men sat at the kitchen table and to Rob's surprise, Leon poured two cups of coffee and gave him one.
He sat next to him and took a breath, "There's no easy way to tell you this, Rob, so I'm just going to say it. Your father, Ted Owens, was my brother."
Rob's jaw dropped and he looked at the man he thought of as his brother's boss, the boss of all his federal siblings; who'd become a family friend. Then his brain registered that Leon Vance was not called Tyler Owens.
Leon saw the thought when it hit and leaned forward, "I can't tell you why I'm no longer called Tyler Owens, it's highly classified and I had to get permission to tell you even this much. But I can show you photos of Ted and me, with our parents, with my sister Tara. We can have DNA tests done; just know that because of the situation I cannot publicly acknowledge that you're my nephew. It would endanger you, Ned, our kids, me and probably the rest of the family – and a bunch of other people." He paused and then smiled, "You are my nephew, Rob, son of my older brother, my best friend and I'm beyond happy to know that you're his son. He would be so proud of you!"
Rob was listening, he heard the words but his mind was whirling too fast to keep up. Finally he looked up, "You're my uncle. I have an uncle, right here. And an aunt?"
"Yes, Tara is your aunt. She lives in Chicago."
"Can you, we, tell her?"
"Maybe; we'll try to figure out a way. Her husband doesn't know about me, so it's even more delicate."
Rob nodded, saying, "My dad knows."
"Yes, he knows that I was originally Owens because he figured it out, but that's all he knows. No one else knows."
"Dad didn't tell Tim?"
"No, your dad doesn't even know everything I've told you; he does know it's highly classified and he won't ask."
"Oh. Wow."
"Yeah."
"Your kids…?"
"No, well, yeah, they knew I had an older brother that died but they don't know the names."
"So as far as they can be told, my father was a Vance?"
"Yes."
Rob thought about that. "I didn't know I was an Owens, I don't think it really matters if I think of the name as "Vance" instead."
"Thank you."
"What happens now?"
"I brought some photos with me, made copies for you." Vance took an envelope out of his jacket pocket and removed a stack of photos. Rob smiled at the first one, the man he knew was his father standing next to Ellen with his hand on her pregnant belly - that was him! He blinked back tears, "They wanted me."
"Oh yeah, they were very much in love and so excited about having you!"
"But they weren't married yet."
"No, Ellen didn't want to get married while she was pregnant. She didn't want it to look like that's why they were getting married."
Rob nodded, "I like that." He looked at his uncle, "They met in college?"
"Yes, she was an art major and he was pre-med, did you know that?"
Rob shook his head, "I knew he had a Bachelor's in Science and hoped, but I didn't know."
"Yes, he was going to be a doctor, a pediatrician."
"Just like me!"
"Yeah. He was going to work in the inner cities, help the black kids."
Rob nodded, "Like I want to help the homeless kids."
Vance smiled, "Yes, you're a chip off the old block without even knowing it!"
"How they'd meet?"
Vance grinned, "At orientation the week before they started their freshman year!"
"Wow! Um, do you know if Ellen graduated?"
"Yes, she did; both families were there for the graduations; I think that was the first time the Owens and the Brills met."
"Huh, I wonder what happened to her. I can see her getting into drugs if she was hurt and in pain, but why didn't her parents help her, especially after I was born?"
His uncle shook his head, "Unfortunately, I don't know. The Brills told my parents that Ellen lost the baby and then wouldn't allow them to see her. My father had a debilitating stroke a few days later and my mother was totally involved in caring for him until he died 3 years later. So for the Owens family that was the end of the story…until now."
"That's really sad and now I'm glad I decided not to contact my Brill grandparents."
Vance sighed, "I understand why you'd feel that way, Rob, but just remember they were in shock and were probably scared if they figured out what happened to Ted. They might have changed over the years. People do, you know."
Rob nodded, thinking how much Dad had changed from the man he'd thought of as Tim's mean boss - and then something clicked, "What happened to Ted? What do you mean? Wasn't it an accident?"
"No son, he was murdered. He and Ellen were driving through a town that had been known as a KKK enclave years before. It was infamous for that but supposedly things had changed. I don't know why they were there but…from what we learned, they stopped at a stop sign and a car rammed them from behind and another car from the front. They pulled Ellen out and then beat your father to death."
Rob closed his eyes and he felt his uncle's arms around his shoulders as the tears rolled down his face. "Because he was black? Driving while brown?"
"Yeah but even worse, he had a white girl with him, a pregnant white girl with a ring on her finger."
"Oh God." Rob cried for his father who had died a horrible death just because he loved his mother and for his mother because she must have seen it all and maybe turned to drugs to forget.
He ached for Ted and Ellen. His uncle whispered to him, "Your father's not hurting any more, son. Just remember that. And wherever he is, I'm sure he's very proud of you."
"It's so wrong though."
"Yeah, it is, still is." His uncle sighed, "It's a cold case, Rob. And because of my situation, we can't do anything about it."
Rob looked up, "Is your situation ever going to change?"
"Yes, but I don't know when."
He nodded, "We'll wait then; one thing I've learned from my dad and Tim, there's no statute of limitation on murder."
His uncle gave him another hug before releasing him. "Are you okay with all this?"
Rob nodded, "Yes and thank you for trusting me enough to tell me. That means a lot." He gave his uncle a watery smile, "I'm proud to be your nephew no matter who knows it or what our names are!"
Leon patted him on the shoulder, "You, me and your dad."
"Not Ned?"
His uncle sighed, "No; that was the only way I could get permission - by promising we wouldn't tell anyone else, including Ned. You can tell him you're my nephew but nothing about the names or the rest of the story. I'll tell him that our relationship needs to be kept quiet, he'll understand that. Now, unfortunately, I have to go. I'll be in touch, hope we can find some time for you to come over to the house when Jared is home and we can get Kayla on Skype – for the three of you to meet as cousins!"
Rob smiled, "I'd like that!"
"If you need anything, ever…I know you have a strong family but if ever…"
"I have your number on my contacts list, it's been there for years. Tim put it back on there after you let Dad get his team back that time."
Rob smiled when his uncle chuckled.
"Thanks for the pictures; it's great to know I look like someone!"
His uncle nodded, "You do, now that I know you're Ted's son, I see a strong resemblance."
Rob smiled, that was really good to hear. Vance left and Rob sat at the table, looking through the photos. He'd known who he was for years now: lover, brother, son, doctor, nephew, uncle, cousin, recently adding father, but now he knew where he'd come from. And best of all was the knowledge that his parents, his first parents, had loved each other and him, they'd wanted him. That made all the difference in the world.
The End
The episodes referred to aired in Season 6: "Cloak", where we first meet SecNav Davenport and he visits Gibbs' basement and the other is "Knockout" when Vance's friend "Tyler Owens" meets an untimely death in Chicago.
For more of Vance and Rob's story, see "Finding Home: Through the Years", Part three, The Surprise