Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to NCIS, only original characters and the plot belong to me.

AN: This is going to be a longer piece, the team will eventually be in it, I know it's very original character centric right now, and if you guys don't want it I can always remove it, but it's going to be three or four chapters, maybe five before the team appears. There will be romance later in the story, most likely Kibbs and maybe some Tiva...that said, yes this is AU, obviously if both Kate and Ziva are around. I will use Leon Vance as the director.

AN2: The stories I already have in progress on this site are on hold until further notice. But I feel this story will take hold and be finished. I got a lot of it already in my head and the more I write the clearer the picture becomes. Hope you enjoy it. Leave your comments when you are done, and thank you for reading.

dark rolling sea.

Mind Games

Devin Beck woke with a start. She was covered in sweat and her heart was pounding. She glanced at her bedside clock and sighed, another five AM waking. She slumped back against her pillows and stared at her ceiling. The dream had come again; she just wished she could remember it.

She never remembered what happened in her dreams, just that she was panicked and sweaty when she woke, and the blankets and sheets were always in a knot around her. Not to mention the soreness of her muscles, most likely caused by thrashing around. But the dream never stayed with her after she woke, never lingered in her mind.

Most nights she assumed it was of that fateful day almost twenty years ago that changed her life forever, but she had never been able to remember what had happened in that Los Angeles home. The doctor called it psychogenic amnesia, caused by the emotional trauma suffered. The trauma so great, her memory shut down to preserve the sanity of the being, closing out all access to the brutal sites she saw, terrifying sounds she heard.

She untangled herself from the knotted up bedding and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. After grabbing a quick shower and dressing for the day, she headed into the kitchen for breakfast. A bagel and a cup of juice later, she was out the door headed towards the office. She knew with it being only six in the morning she'd be the first one from her shift there, but she had cases she could look at.

Sometimes she wondered why she settled in Baltimore, but deep inside she knew. She couldn't live in small town America anymore, but she also didn't want to be away from Nick Beck, the man that raised her. He was what she had that resembled a family, or at least what accepted her as family. It was also close enough to home to drive there if she ever felt the urge to…visit.

Blowing out a breath to calm her rampaging mind, she settled in behind the wheel for the short drive to the station. Once inside she nodded to Conner Deitrich, who ran the watch desk overnight. The young officer smiled back to her before returning his attention to the phone call he was taking. Devin made it to her desk, one of many jammed into a room much too small for what it held. But that was what they had, and if they managed just right, you avoided slamming elbows with your neighbor.

Sitting down behind her desk she unclipped her gun and badge from her belt and locked them in the top drawer. She then opened the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out two binders and plopped them down on her desk. She spread them out and stared at each of them a moment before deciding to open the one on the left first.

A cold case now, it had been almost a year ago that the murder had taken place. As junior partner, she was the one that had to do the follow up and brush up every six months on it. Her partner usually handled those kinds of things, but this case was different and it had struck a cord with Eddie Miller, her partner. Usually tough as nails, and devoid of emotion, she had noticed the toll this particular case had taken on him. She had refrained from commenting, knowing it would just cause more problems if she did, and obediently accepted the assignment of follow up on the sad case. It was never easy to deal with a murder of a child, and when it went unsolved it was even tougher.

After flipping through the thin file and making some new notes, she made a list of people to call and touch base with on the case before sliding the binder back into place in the drawer. The second binder was an old case that had caught her attention recently. She had been down in archives with Eddie and they had come across a murder that had happened almost thirty years ago.

Eddie had opened the files and showed her what had been done and she had never seen anything so gruesome, and wondered how someone could do such a thing. The bodies that were found weren't only murdered, but the killer had tortured and mutilated them for months before he finally killed them. The killer had been found; a man named William James Eriksson, and confessed to over twenty five killings.

Whenever Devin had spare time now, she read through the interviews, and looked at the case, paying particular attention to the mindset of Eriksson and how he portrayed what he did. Devin was engrossed in the case, and missed the others filing in, until Eddie slid unceremoniously into the chair next to her with a sigh. Devin looked up to find her partner rumpled and looking as if he hadn't slept in days.

"Eddie, you look like you slept under the bridge last night, you ok?"

"Eh, problems with Louise," he mumbled grumpily as he slammed down some coffee. Devin watched him a moment. Louise was his wife of fifteen years; they had two children together, a boy of fourteen, and a girl of ten.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing to worry about, Dev, sure it'll blow over, what you working on?"

"Nothing. Just couldn't sleep and came in to work on some stuff. Just looking at Eriksson again."

"Don't get too sucked in by that psycho," Eddie replied making a face. "He's evil in a way that you rarely see in a human being."

"I'm just fascinated by the psychological aspect of all this. Just wonder how a man can do what he did and not show remorse, or guilt. And his smile."

"Like I said, Dev, don't get sucked into his bullshit. Evil has a way of ruining good people. What we got for today?"

"Cap hasn't been around yet; you actually made it in before roll for once."

"Hey now, girl," Eddie feigned before laughing. "This old dog makes it in once in a while for roll."

"I guess so," Devin replied with a smile. "Everyone is milling towards the conference room, guess we'd better start that way too."

After roll, Devin and Eddie were assigned an attempted murder case. They drove to the hospital and spoke with the doctor that was treating their victim and asked when they would be able to question him. The doctor was hesitant to let them in, and warned them that they had sedated the man to keep him from hurting himself further. Devin got the impression that the doctor didn't believe the story the man had given as to what happened.

"Something we should know, Doctor Weinsted?" Devin asked as she leaned against a wall in the waiting area.

"I've already told you everything," Weinsted replied defensively.

"You're just agitated," Devin replied with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. "And you're hostile towards the victim. Makes me think you don't believe his story."

"We'll determine if he's telling the truth or not, Dr. Weinsted," Eddie added giving Devin a glare. Devin shrugged again and looked down the hall away from the two men. The doctor huffed for a moment, obviously offended by Devin's remarks before he replied.

"You can see him in half an hour, the drugs should be subsiding by then and he'll be a little more coherent. You can wait here until that time," Weinsted gritted before storming off down the hall.

"That man has a bug up his ass about something," Devin replied as she pushed from the wall and flopped heavily into a hard plastic chair.

"That doesn't mean you should ruin our relationship with him," Eddie said with a smile as he patted his younger partner's knee. "Be nice, eh kid?"

"Just saying," Devin replied as she closed her eyes.

"You don't look like you got much sleep last night either. What's eating you?"

"That damn dream again," Devin mumbled as she sat forward and rubbed a hand over her face.

"Which dream?"

"I don't know," she replied irritably and then realized what she was doing. "Sorry."

"Hey, kid, you ok?" Eddie asked as he let a hand drop on her shoulder. She could hear the genuine concern in his voice and she licked her lips and sucked in a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

"Just this dream I have sometimes. Not very often, but enough to drive me nuts."

"What's it about?"

"That's just it. I wake up covered in sweat, panicked, and the bedding in a knot, muscles aching, but I have no idea what the dream was about."

"No recollection at all. Nothing lingers?"

"Yeah, nothing. Just I know it scared the hell out of me, but can't remember it, so I guess really it didn't. I don't know."

"What's going in your life when you have the dream? Is there a commonality?"

"I don't think so," Devin said wearily. She knew Eddie knew part of her history, but she didn't know how much of it he knew. She wasn't in the mood to open up and spill the traumatic events of twenty years ago, not that she could. Nobody really knew what happened, since her memory of the event was gone, and no other witnesses survived. She blew out a frustrated breath and felt the hand on her shoulder squeeze softly.

"You know I'm here, right? If you ever need someone to lean on, talk to, whatever. Don't kill yourself keeping it all bottled up."

"Thanks, Eddie," Devin replied with a smile. His hand lingered a moment longer on her shoulder before it slowly dropped to his side. Devin always knew there was a strong bond between the two of them and she wondered where it had come from. Maybe it was just being partners for two years, spending half your time with someone makes you connect with them. They know what you're going through better than anyone else could.

They saw a nurse approaching them and both rose to their feet as she came to a stop in front of them. She looked from Devin to Eddie and then addressed Eddie. Devin had to smile, that happened a lot. She was often viewed as the kid tagging along with daddy, but really it didn't bother her…she did look like she was about fifteen and not twenty eight.

"Are you Detectives Miller and Beck?"

"Yes, I'm Miller, she's Beck," Eddie replied.

"Dr. Weinsted said you can see Mr. Tanner now. He's calmed a little and his mind is more coherent now that the sedative has had a chance to metabolize. This way."

Once in the room Devin hung back slightly as Eddie walked up to the bed. Both could tell that Mr. Tanner was agitated and scared. His eyes darted from detective to detective, his tongue darting out to lick his lips every few seconds. Eddie spoke first.

"Mr. Tanner, I'm Detective Eddie Miller with Baltimore PD. That's my partner Detective Devin Beck. We're here to ask you what happened."

"That crazy son of a bitch tried to kill me," Tanner hissed out and then winced. Eddie nodded slowly.

"Start from the beginning."

"I don't know who he was, he just came out of the shadows, I never got a good look at him. He blind sided me over the head and bam I hit the ground like a ton of bricks. Then he shot me. Mother fucker shot me."

"Easy now," Eddie cooed before continuing. "And you didn't see anything?"

"No," Tanner said empathically shaking his head violently from side to side. "Not a god dammed thing! This asshole just out and busts me up, and that stupid doctor thinks I made it all up! He called a fucking shrink."

"Easy now, we're trying to get to the bottom of this," Eddie replied in a calming voice. Tanner nodded slowly, but Devin could still see the agitation in his body.

"Did he hit you over the head with his hand, or did he use something?"

"I didn't see but I can tell you it felt like a metal pipe or something. It was heavy and hard."

"And when he shot you, did you get a look at him?"

"No, my eye sight was blurred from the blow to the head, and he kept to the shadow. God my head is splitting right now," Tanner continued before closing his eyes and leaning back against the pillows. Eddie looked at Devin before he finished up.

"We'll be back to talk to you later, Mr. Tanner, once you've had a chance to recover a little more. Try to think of something you might not be remembering right now."

Tanner simply nodded slowly, his eyes still closed. Eddie motioned to leave and Devin led the way into the hallway. They were at the car before either of them spoke, and it wasn't until Eddie unlocked the doors and they were both inside before that happened.

"What do you think?" Eddie asked.

"I think he's telling the truth. But something made the doctor suspicious."

"He had wounds on his hands," Eddie replied glancing sideway at Devin to gauge her reaction.

"Yeah, I saw those. And they didn't look like defensive wounds, nor did he say he fought back."

"Maybe whoever hit him and shot him was acting in self defense."

"Possibly. But still, Eddie, I believe him. He seemed genuine to me."

"Yeah, that's the problem, to me too."

"So,"

"We hit the crime scene, and see what evidence we can find. Maybe it can tell us what really happened in that alley."