Missing scene short story for NCIS season 8 episode "Out of the Frying Pan" which aired on March 22, 2011. I own nothing of NCIS. I'm just borrowing and not getting paid.
Title - Gibbs, Vance and the Axe
Rating - K+
Warnings - spoilers for the episode and conflict between characters and I call DiNozzo a suck up.
Brief synopsis if you missed it or can't put story content with the episode title (I had to look up the name of the title because I couldn't remember it) – Eighteen year old Nick Peyton had been accused of murdering his retired Marine Colonel father with an axe. The evidence seems to support that conclusion, but as a favor to the US Attorney, Director Leon Vance has the boxes of evidence and the suspect brought to NCIS from the Metro Police Dept. Vance wants Gibbs to get a confession to wrap it all up in a nice neat bow. Gibbs and DiNozzo get the kid to admit that he doesn't remember much about that night because of his use of illegal drugs. They also notice that he doesn't seem upset about his Dad being dead and the kid isn't 100% truthful about things when they question him.
Throughout the day Gibbs is bothered by his anger toward Vance who has personal reasons for wanting the kid to hang. That anger is interfering with his usually accurate gut feelings and keeping him from seeing the truth. David, DiNozzo and McGee have been convinced from the beginning that the kid did it and have only been looking at the evidence because Gibbs told them to. Tensions flare between Vance and Gibbs until finally Vance gives him three hours before he will take on the kid himself which he does, with an axe. He goes into the interrogation room and stalks around the young man like a predatory animal and then bellows at him about being a failure and the reason his Mom left. He goes on to call him an embarrassment to his father and when the kid asks how he knows that, Vance tells him that his Dad, Colonel Peyton told him. It turns out that they were friends. The berating goes on with the director summarizing the circumstantial case against him and then in a show of power (and rage) Vance slams the axe down through a picture of the kid's dad and the blade embeds into the table top. The kid breaks and confesses that he killed his father. Vance goes to Gibbs who had been watching and tells him that it's over, they have a taped confession and he's calling the US Attorney. Gibbs doesn't believe the confession and tells Vance that he swung an axe at a scared kid. He then starts to trust his gut and begins the task of finding the real murderer by first reviewing the evidence and new information that Abby, McGee and Ducky have uncovered.
This missing scene story, which is totally fictional and came from my brain, takes place after Gibbs gets the kid to admit that he only confessed because he doesn't remember and because the evidence says he probably did it. Gibbs is more convinced than ever that the teen did not kill his father, but he doesn't have much time to prove it and he doesn't have the support of his team because they watched a video of the confession and they totally believe it. Gibbs is angry at Vance, he knows the confession is bogus and he's disappointed in David, DiNozzo and McGee because not one of them expressed any dismay let alone any outrage at how the so called confession had been obtained. The conclusion spoiler to the episode will be in a paragraph after this missing scene for those who didn't see it and want to know what happened.
NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS
"C'mon, the kid admitted it," Anthony DiNozzo declared to the other two team members as they lounged at their desks. Confident that Director Leon Vance had secured a confession where Gibbs had failed, he was ready to add the red letter event to a short list that he'd been compiling for years. Gibbs failing wasn't something that happened very often and he was feeling the need to document it for all time and maybe even put a star next to the entry. In a strange sort of way that he couldn't yet understand, his opinion of Vance had gone up at least a notch.
In the subdued lighting of the bullpen, McGee sighed and half nodded, but kept his head down behind his computer monitor and said nothing. He still couldn't believe the boss hadn't gotten the kid to confess and he secretly wondered if the man he'd come to admire had lost his edge. Vance had succeeded in getting the kid to admit his crime and while the axe hitting the table had been shocking... and loud, the younger agent didn't see it as a problem because the teenager hadn't been touched. There had been no bodily harm so no crime, no foul. McGee stared at his shoes wondering if he truly believed that and if so, why did if feel wrong?
Ziva on the other hand was more than willing to engage in verbal sparing with the senior field agent. "Innocent people do not confess," she exclaimed knowingly, her deep set gaze trained on DiNozzo. She didn't care about the methods used to get people to confess, though she knew that she was supposed to, especially now. The United States has rules about such things and she'd taken an oath, but in this case she hadn't been the one to swing the axe in the interrogation room so in a warped kind of a way it had been acceptable. She suspected a simple thumb tap would have made the murderer squeal his confession and she didn't have a problem with that since the teen was a monster. What she wasn't thinking about was that mental coercion can make people say almost anything and it wasn't always the truth.
"Where's Gibbs?" The Director's voice carried from the stairs to the bullpen with no problem at all and all three agents jumped from their chairs.
Vance hadn't been having second thoughts about the confession, but Gibbs was refusing to let it go and because of that Vance had waited to call the US Attorney. He entered the work area and glared at the three silent agents before asking again. "Where is Agent Gibbs?"
McGee chimed in first since he was certain that he'd been the last person Gibbs had talked to before leaving the third floor. "I don't know where he is now, but he was here," and he looked at his watch nervously, "about 52 minutes ago."
DiNozzo looked like he wanted to blurt out something sarcastic about the number of minutes, but he wisely kept quiet. Ziva had no gumption to stay silent and volunteered her information. "Gibbs returned from seeing Abby and Ducky and asked McGee about some phone calls."
McGee nodded. "Uh, that's right Director." He then briefly told Vance about the six phone calls to the house yesterday from a prepaid cell.
Vance weighed their answers against what he already knew. Gibbs hadn't believed the admission. Speaking to the teen had convinced him even more that it had been a false confession. The kid had admitted he only confessed because he didn't remember everything about that night and it seemed like all the evidence pointed to him so he must be guilty. The Metro Police hadn't done a great job investigating, thinking from the beginning that the case was water tight, and NCIS had discovered some things about the evidence, the body and possible witnesses/suspects that should have been checked out. Gibbs had interrogated the neighbor and for a while thought he might have killed the boy's father. The man's daughter and Nick had been more than friends, had done drugs together, had been in rehab at the same time and then his daughter had died of an overdose. He didn't blame Nick: he blamed Nick's father for being a lousy father and for allowing Nick to be out of control. The man had then asked for a lawyer, but told Gibbs that he'd seen the Mother at the house just the night before. Not convinced that the guy was innocent but with nothing concrete to hold him on and needing to pursue the Mother, the neighbor had been released. Gibbs had taken the teen from holding and now both were away from the Navy Yard and the team didn't know where he'd gone or what he was doing. Taking out his phone, Vance pulled up the contact list and clicked on a name.
Gibbs answered on the second ring. "Yeah, Gibbs."
Because the suspect needed to be in someone's custody, Vance started out with an easy question. "Where's Nick Peyton?"
Gibbs suppressed a sigh and replied, "He's here… with me."
The Director was already angry at Gibbs. "Where is here?" When Gibbs didn't respond quickly enough he forged ahead with more questions, one right after the other. "Why did you take him from the Navy Yard? Where are you? What are you up to?"
Gibbs couldn't stop the chuckle that bubbled from his throat. "Relax Leon. We're on our way back."
"You had better have a good explanation," Vance growled, hearing Gibbs end the call before he could click off his own phone. Ignoring the looks from Ziva, Tim and Tony, he left the bullpen, took the stairs two at a time and returned to his office without a backward glance. The three team members, dismissing looks from each other and other agents and employees in the vicinity, stayed silent and returned to their desks to think about things or do whatever.
A while later Gibbs exited the elevator on the third floor with Nick Peyton in tow. Both had cups in hand: Gibbs with coffee and Nick with something else. DiNozzo, the ever helpful very special agent aka suck up that he could so easily be, and who had not said a word to Director Vance, suddenly found his tongue as soon as he spied Gibbs.
"Vance was here, Boss, and he wasn't happy. You want me to take the kid back to a holding room? I'm sure Metro will be happy to come get him."
Gibbs waved Nick to a chair, ignoring DiNozzo for the moment. The senior field agent flicked his eyes from Gibbs to Ziva and then to McGee before looking at the teen and back to Gibbs. "Boss?"
As if the team didn't exist, Gibbs addressed Nick. "You need to get back into rehab... now." On top of his drug problem, Nick would be carrying a lot of guilt about his friend's death, his Father's death, his Mother leaving, his Mother being a murderer and his own behavior and role in all the events. "Counseling too."
The young man, who had had a very rough day, dipped his head in a resigned nod. "You... can... uh... Can you help me do that?"
Aware of the three agents on his team now standing close enough to his work area to hear everything that was said, Gibbs gazed at the boy whose eyes contributed to a bit of a haunted look about his face. He was glad the kid hadn't murdered his Dad and he had some measure of remorse for getting the kid to get his Mom to implicate herself, though there really hadn't been an alternative. Knowing that Nick had lost both his folks, one to death, the other to jail and soon to be prison, he couldn't help but have some compassion for the young man who needed to grow up fast to get his life on the right track. "If you're ready," he told him softly, "I can make a call." The kid looked relieved and scared, but a little fear could be a good thing.
Nick sighed, "Yeah, I'm ready." Then a pained look swept his face before he timidly asked, "Do you think I could see my Mom before I go?"
Gibbs nodded, but didn't say anything. He was waiting for his team who stood dumbfounded. Had they not figured it out yet? Still harboring some disappointment in them he said simply, "Nick isn't going back to jail. The charges against him have been dismissed."
The End
Conclusion or the rest of the story. While interrogating the neighbor, Gibbs found out that the kid's Mom had returned and he suspected she was responsible for the death of Nick's father, her ex-husband Colonel Peyton. He convinced the kid that the truth needed to come out and put a wire on him. The kid went into a diner to meet with his Mom who hugged him and told him how mcuh she had missed him. She say she left because she didn't think she could be a good Mom. Nick asked if she had been taking her medication and she told him no. Nick used to steal her meds and thought that could have been a reason for her to leave. He wanted to know when she'd come back and she told him two weeks earlier and that she had gone to the house to see him, but only the Colonel had been there. They argued and fought, she hit him with something and he went down. She didn't think she had hit him that hard, but he died. Then she got the idea to implicate the neighbor by using the man's axe that she retrieved from his back yard. She rationalized using the axe by saying that she couldn't just leave him there because the police would think Nick had done it. Getting and using the axe would make them think the neighbor had done it. Nick looked sad when he showed his Mom that he'd been wearing a wire to record their conversation. Gibbs came into the diner and waited by the door as Nick told his Mom he loved her before walking out. Back at the office, the team packs up the case files and Gibbs gives Vance, who is up on the landing, a meaningful look.
Thanks very much for reading. Even flames are gratefully accepted.