Chapter 1

Dabi Moore-Gibbs rested her forehead on the slide of her gun in prayer. She was with Fran Tucker, her friend and NCIS agent in the making, and they were both hiding in an abandoned building on a supposed-to-be abandoned military base, a base that had a few ghost stories circulating it. Fran, being the avid ghost hunter that she was, had been determined to check it out and Dabi had been dragged along with her.

Getting on to the base hadn't been a problem, not at seven in the evening. No, the problem had been when they had discovered a large cache of weapons of varying types. There was everything from handguns, like the one Dabi had helped herself to, along with a couple of spare clips, to M72 LAWs (Light Anti-tank Weapons), a couple of SMAWs (Shoulder-Launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon), assault rifles of varying calibers, survival gear, and a couple boxes of grenades. They had even found bayonet knives in one box, one of which was now strapped to Dabi's leg.

Both Dabi and Fran had snapped photos like crazy, then gotten the hell out of the area as fast as possible.

Then Fran had discovered a new problem. The cell phone signal in that area was gone. There was no way for either of them to call for help.

How the hell did things get this far? Dabi wondered, watching as her friend scanned the area with the night vision goggles she'd helped herself to from the weapons and supply cache. Her mind drifted back.

Six months ago:

"Help! Pop-Pop's in trouble! He can't breathe and his chest hurts!" was the frantic message Gibbs got on his phone. Ignoring Vance and SecNav Sarah Porter, with whom he had been in a meeting with, Gibbs tore out of the room. He only just heard Vance yell after him.

"I want a report later, Gibbs!"

"Where?" Gibbs texted.

"Bakery! Hurry! The ambulance is on the way! Get Ducky, please!"

Gibbs was rapidly dialing for the medical examiner when the elevator doors whooshed open. It was Abby, and she had her ear to her phone.

"Gibbs! Pop-Pop's in trouble!" said Abby frantically.

"I just got the same message," said Gibbs. "You calling Ducky?"

"He's on his way, said he'll meet us at my truck."

"Make it mine," said Gibbs.

"You catch that, Ducky?" Abby asked. There was an apparent affirmative, because Abby hung up.

They made it to the Kranz Bakery in record time, only to see an ambulance there, with no lights flashing, and the doors open.

"I have a really bad feeling about this," Abby whimpered.

They tore inside, while Ducky stopped to talk to the paramedics. In the back area there was the feeling of stunned silence. People were huddled around, some crying quietly, others whispering amongst themselves, like they were afraid to raise their voices.

"What happened?" Gibbs demanded to a worker. "Where's Dabi and Sharee?"

"They're in the back," said the worker, wiping her eyes.

"And Daniel?" Abby asked hesitantly.

The worker shook her head, wiping her tear-streaked eyes. "They're saying it was a heart attack. He just suddenly clutched his chest, said it hurt, and he couldn't breathe."

Gibbs tore into the back room, where the office usually was, pushing and shoving as he needed to, to get to his daughter.

Daniel was on the floor, his shirt open, and tubes and wires on him, eyes closed and still as death. Dabi and Sharee were seated on the couch, arms around each other tightly. Sharee was sobbing but what got Gibbs was the blank look on Dabi's face.

Daniel was gone. And Dabi's world was shattered once again.

Somehow Gibbs got them out of the office and up stairs into their home. The paramedics would remove Daniel's body and take him to the hospital for an autopsy, as per standard procedure, before transporting him to the funeral home for a Jewish funeral.

As he made coffee and tea for them, Abby and Ducky joined them.

"I spoke to the paramedics, Jethro. They're saying it was an acute myocardial infarction," said Ducky, talking to Gibbs quietly. "Possibly brought on by coronary artery disease, which Sharee had admitted Daniel was struggling with, something he never willingly admitted to anyone but Sharee."

"A heart attack?" Gibbs repeated in disbelief.

"And a serious one. From what I was able to gather, the poor man was a ticking time bomb and it was only a matter of time before his heart finally gave out." Ducky sighed heavily. "They say he fought, Jethro, that he fought hard, but he lost."

"My god," Gibbs groaned. "This is going to kill Dabi."

"It won't kill her, but I suspect you are going to have your hands full for a while," said Ducky.

Time passed in a daze for Dabi. She couldn't remember the details, just fractions of a moment.

Watching her grandfather be covered in a plain white shroud, or a tachrichim, as according to Jewish tradition, with his prayer shawl wrapped around him.

Hearing "Baruch atah Hashem Elokeinu melech haolam, dayan ha'emet." from the family rabi. Blessed are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, the true Judge. Hearing "Baruch dayan emet," from others in the Jewish community. Blessed be the one true Judge.

The cemetery. Watching Gibbs and other men carry the plain pine box to the grave, where her grandfather would be buried next to his parents, and stopping seven times to recite Psalm 91.

Sitting Shiva next to her grandmother.

Being cold. No matter how warmly she dressed, she was always cold.

Eric attended the funeral, but she could see his heart wasn't in it. She suspected he wouldn't be around much longer. Not that she cared any more. People were always leaving her.

Her mom was gone. The Navy officer died despite her best attempts to help him. The Marine died in Hawaii, trying to protect her. Jackson Gibbs, he didn't have much time left. Ziva was gone, heading back home to Israel after that fiasco with that lawyer and Gibbs. Her dad was going to leave her one day, she was certain of that. Nana too. Azan was gone.

The world hurt too much.

Time passed. She didn't know how long because the days seem to blend in to one another. She worked the bakery, trying to help Nana carry on. Pop-Pop had willed his half of the bakery to her and left a stipulation that Fran was to have free room and board for as long as she needed to, until she could find her own way in the world.

She dropped out of college, too busy with the bakery to focus on school any more.

Eric left her, unable to handle her any more. He claimed she wasn't the girl he'd known anymore, that he needed someone with more life. She hadn't responded, just took off the claddagh ring, put it on the bench they were sitting on, and walked away. Gibbs found her somewhere over by the Lincoln Memorial several hours later, sitting in front of Abe's feet, soaked to the bone and not caring.

For a time she drifted. The days blended in to each other, and the grief, well, that never seemed to end. It was like a cold lump of ice that sat in her chest, day in and day out.

The world felt so cold.

And then there was Leo.

And just like the North Star, he became the light she desperately needed to find her way home again.

Except she didn't know it at the time.

Leo wasn't tall, wasn't heavily muscular like most young men who worked out, but he was well-built and physically fit, with muscles in all the right places, tidy dirty blonde hair and brown eyes that looked as if they could see right in to her soul, and that scared Dabi. He had a Marine tattoo on one arm that was reveled when he took off his jacket at his apartment, which was more like a loft above a gym he kept an eye on for the owner in exchange for reduced rent.

She had been walking home when she'd passed a group of guys who made gestures at her suggesting she come over and join them. She'd refused and kept on walking. One of them had made a grab at her and, in no mood to be tangled with, she had swung.

That had started the fight and it was a fight she had begun to lose, due to sheer numbers.

Then Leo had intervened, just as one of them had begun ripping at her shirt. Swinging a long length of rebar and pulling kicks she was envious of, he'd managed to get enough of the gang members away long enough to grab her and haul her out of there.

He'd gotten her to a safe, well-lit area that the gang members couldn't follow them to without risk of being caught by police. Then he'd looked at her in concern.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I'll live. That whole thing was stupid."

"You ain't kidding," he replied, signing.

Her eyebrows furrowed. "You sign pretty good but your speech says you hear."

He grinned. "I have a little brother who's deaf. He's ten inches taller than me and would thump me faster than Road Runner if I didn't sign properly."

"If he's taller than you, why do you call him little?"

"Because he's younger than me by about ten months and I don't let him forget it!"

Dabi found herself smiling; she couldn't help it. Then she flinched when he touched her face. "You need some first aid. C'mon, I know a safe place," he said.

Curious about him, she followed him to a building that proclaimed itself to be a gym but looked more like an old industry warehouse. He lead her up the fire escape in the back to what turned out to be his apartment.

"I won't hurt you, I promise," he said as they entered the room. She looked at him nervously.

"Said the spider to the fly," she couldn't help but say.

He grinned at that. "Serious trust issues, I take it?"

"Major."

He nodded, heading for what appeared to be the kitchen and pulling out a First Aid kit. As she sat down at the small table, carefully taking off her torn and dirty jacket, he brought the kit to the table and fetched a warm, wet face cloth. As he did, a calico cat appeared at her feet, sniffing the air curiously.

It was not a big cat, but it was furry, bushy-like. He didn't have much of a tail, but he had bright yellow eyes and a fang that hung over one lip. He wasn't a beautiful cat, but he could have been a very serious contender for Crookshanks, from Harry Potter.

Dabi was intrigued. "Hello," she said, letting the cat sniff her fingers. He sniffed, then head-butted her hand in silent demand to be petted. Allowing the cat to jump up on her lap, she obliged with the demand, feeling something in her melt a little bit.

"I see you've met Rocky," said the man, coming back.

"Rocky?"

"Rocky Balboa, the boxer," he said. "I'm Leo, by the way." He showed her the sign for lion.

"Dabi," she said. She flinched when the warm cloth touched her split lip.

"What were you doing out there at that time of night? Pretty girl like you, thought you'd be at home, getting ready for school."

"Couldn't sleep. I work at the Kranz Bakery with my grandmother," she found herself admitting. "Thought I'd go get some coffee or something. What about you?"

"Forgot to get some cat food for Rocky," he said, carefully cleaning her cuts and scrapes. "That furball makes my life hell if I forget."

She found herself smiling.

As he cleaned her scraped knuckles, he noticed the Hawaiian tattoo under the sleeve of her short-sleeve shirt.

"Nice tat," he said.

She pushed the sleeve up the rest of the way so he could see it better. "Got it in Hawaii from a local artist."

"Hawaii, huh? Beautiful place."

"It is, when you're not being shot at," she found herself admitting.

"Shot at?" he repeated, his eyes going wide.

Dabi shrugged. "Gun runner I was able to identify while in L.A. kidnapped me and took me to Hawaii with the intention of selling me on the sex slave market."

"Jeeze. How did you get away?"

"One of the guys was to take me to a shed for holding. He wound up with my knife in the base of his skull," Dabi replied flatly. "My dad's a former Marine; he taught me how to fight with a knife." She deliberately omitted the federal agent part for now.

She looked up at Leo, expecting to see horror, or at least embarrassment. Instead, she saw kindness and sympathy.

"That must've been hard," he said.

For a moment Dabi could have sworn he was looking right into her soul, and from that moment on, whether she liked it or not, she was hooked.

She found herself staying longer than she'd planned on. When he pressed a warm cup of Chamomile Lemon tea into her hands and Rocky dug his claws into her legs, it was hard to do much.

She told him about L.A. and Hawaii. About her grandfather dying. About her mother being killed by a drunk driver at eleven. Losing Azan. Jarvis. Her dad and the Navy officer.

She woke up the next morning on his couch, covered by a blanket, her phone showing several messages from Fran, her dad, and Nana, all asking where she was.

And the light shone a little bit brighter.

Present day:

"I thought you said this place was abandoned," Dabi said to Fran.

"It's supposed to be," Fran said, peering out of the window of the building where they were hiding. "Records say it was abandoned after the Cold War, when the whole Put-'Em-Up thing between Russia and the USA died down."

"According to Dad, it never did die down completely," Dabi said. "That's a large part of the reason why he speaks Russian as well as he does. We need to get out of here and get back to the road, get a signal, and get my dad down here."

"We may have a problem doing that," Fran admitted. She pointed in a direction. "I'm seeing a camp fire. I think this place has got visitors."

"And you want to see who they are," Dabi guessed. Fran nodded. Dabi sighed heavily. "Fine. We get pictures, information, and then we head back. I do not want to get caught in the middle of a gun fight."

"Fair enough. If we meet up with someone, we could grab a guy and do some head thumping," Fran suggested. "We need more information and they might be the ones who have it."

"They may not talk," Dabi warned her.

Fran smiled coldly. "Wanna bet?"

Dabi looked at Fran with wide eyes. "I fear you."

"Been learning about interrogation," Fran admitted. "I've picked up a few things."

"Fine. Low and slow."

"Low and slow."