"Mama!"

Little Ya'akov Yitzchak cried out loudly as he clenched his eyes tightly, tears pooling in the corners and threatening to spill down his cheeks. Aiming to carve, clean little paths in the dirt covering his face. The Nazi who held his arm steady, merely growled at the child's antics as he dug the brand roughly into the skin of the child's forearm. 8...a screech that ripped from the child's throat...2...another choking shriek, tears dripping from his eyes...7...a wail pierced the air, the child's voice slightly hoarse as the number was gouged into his skin,...6...a low moan slipped between the child's lips, his mind was a milky haze of pain...2...Ya'akov let out a small choking sob, the Nazi barely heard it...9...finally as the last number was carved, the young jewish child went limp and slipped into the grey dirt beneath his feet.

Two other Nazis surge forwards and heave the limp boy to his feet. All the Nazis are a blur of blond hair and blue eyes, they all look the same to Ya'akov as he blinked up at them hazily. He can't remember how old he is...not surely anyway...he remembers being three, when he was first taken here, to Auschwitz. He could be seven...he could be nine...he didn't really remember anymore. His days were a haze, growing clearer somedays...growing more hazy the next.

She was beautiful and she knew that Ya'akov wouldn't be missed, he was a mere child, a Jew. He couldn't do enough work like the others and the rest of the prisoners. So she chose him, led him away in the dead of night, she bit his fingers and her own before pressing them together. It felt like pure liquid fire was being poured into his veins, Ya'akov remembered his screams, rough and strained as they ripped from his engorged and raw throat. After she was done blooding him, she left him there to lick his own fingers and stare up at the night sky. As soon as he could, he staggered to his feet and ran as hard and as fast as he could.

That was where he met a man with orange hair and a stern set to his mouth. Larten Crespley helped the half-starved child to his feet and in his eyes he saw the child he had once been, a child in that same position, shoving spiderwebs into his mouth to use as food. This boy was just like he had been.

"What is your name, child?"

The child had merely looked up with hollowed eyes at Larten's question, the child had the eyes of a corpse and for a moment, he thought the boy was too far gone. But after clearing his mouth a couple times, the little boy whispered.

"827629."

Larten raised an eyebrow at the list of numbers. Was a list of numbers considered a name now? Why did the little boy have a list of numbers for a name?

"Where are you from?"

"Auschwitz."

Then it all made sense, the boy was a jewish prisoner from Auschwitz. Larten was surprised that he hadn't noticed earlier, the way the little boy's shaking hand would linger on the inside of his wrist. Where his number must have been.

"Do you have another name?"

"...Mama used to call me Ya'akov Yitzchak..."

Larten nodded at the name and he motioned for the little child to follow him. The child who looked at him with confusion and a whispered question. But Larten was quick to reassure him, the boy was smarter than he seemed at first glance.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Somewhere safe."

-TimeSkip-

Jimmy Palmer stared at himself in the mirror, taking in the curly brown locks that used to mark him as a Jew, along with the number on his wrist that used to be his name. That's what they did to you in Auschwitz, they took away everything that made you, you. They gave you an identity that was a number and a yellow star, and paraded you around in shame. Until your body was beaten and broken and burned, until your ashes fell down like rain.

As was the nature of Auschwitz, of any camp. He lightly fingered the numbers, he always expected the skin to feel raised, wrong and distorted, but the pale skin was milky smooth and otherwise flawless, the faded and carved in ink as much a part of his wrist now as a freckle or birth mark would be.

There's no equivalent of the trauma it left behind, the grizzly wounds it represented. It was ugly, pure and simple. Jimmy couldn't help smiling slightly as he remembered how he grew up in the Cirque with his mentor Larten Crespley, he'd been in an act with the older vampire for his first few years in the Cirque but he'd soon gotten used to being a freak and he got an act of his own. As a trapeze artist.

He'd been the Cirque du freak's first trapeze artist. His best friend Cormac Limbs was the only performer his age in the Cirque, even though Jimmy was slightly older. In fact, Cormac was the one who first shortened his 'Ya'akov' into Jacob, James and finally Jimmy.

Cormac was also the one who comforted a distressed Jimmy when Truska offered the newly recruited vampire, a shower. Cormac had already realized about Jimmy's past, so he was the one who informed the others. They avoided the subjects of showers, gas chambers, Germans, and yellow stars, afterwards. Jimmy finished looking at himself in the mirror and lathered himself with sunscreen before heading out.

-TimeSkip-

Jimmy bent down and studied the body that he was tasked to lift on the gurney and to insert him into the coroner van. Ducky was chatting with Gibbs about the death of the corpse, but Jimmy was still studying him carefully. He felt as though there was something wrong with the bald twenty year old marine. His neck was twisted oddly, clearing showing the fact that his neck had been snapped like a twig with a strong hand. But it seemed as there was something white coming out of his mouth.

With a white gloved hand, Jimmy reached forwards and tugged on the foreign white object that seemed to be sticking oddly out. But Jimmy couldn't say that he was surprised when the object turned out to be a crumpled piece of paper. It was when he unfolded the paper, that Jimmy gasped hoarsely, the flyer dropping from his hands like it was a hot coal. Jimmy flinched away, covering his eyes with a pair of pale shaking hands as the flyer slowly fluttered down, onto the corpse.

Jimmy heard it as a few members of the Team rushed over to grab the dropped flyer. Though to Jimmy's relief, nobody touched him. But by the rate that he was shaking and quivering frantically, he didn't want anyone to touch him. He didn't understand what he was feeling...if it was fear...excitement...horror...shame. He wasn't sure, but when he heard McGee's tentative voice whispering the title of the flyer, Jimmy felt the pain wash over him.

"What's the Cirque du freak?"