A/N:
NCIS folks: Gill and Cal are experts in lie detection, using facial expression (reading emotion), vocal stress analysis and other expertise. The Lightman Group helps various law enforcement agencies and other people when the truth is at stake. Emily is Cal's daughter.
LTM folks: Kate and Gibbs are federal agents who work for NCIS, investigating crimes affecting the US Navy or Marines. Kate is ex-Secret Service. Gibbs is a team leader and is reknowned for his gut instincts.
It's not necessary to understand the small pieces of foreign languages to follow the story, but I have provided a crib sheet at the end in case anyone is interested!
Друзья
She's pretty sure college brochures are actually designed to send would-be students crazy. They're supposedly to help you decide, to give you all the information so you can make informed choices, but Emily suspects it's a front, and there's a secret conspiracy to make them confusing and overwhelming instead. Maybe it's a way to weed out the weak links, to thin out the field; only the students with the time and intelligence to make sense of the prospectus will be able to apply.
At the moment, she feels like she's the wounded antelope the big cats have separated from the herd, and who is, basically, screwed.
She could use a listening ear, but apparently her usual sounding boards have deserted her. Just when she's having a panic and needs someone to talk to, neither Gill nor her dad are in their offices.
It's out of desperation as much as anything that when she sees Gibbs sitting outside in the sun and drinking a cup of coffee, she strides over and plonks herself down opposite him. "Applying for college sucks."
He doesn't comment, just looks at her, the expression on his face one which invites her to continue.
"I don't know how they expect me to make all these decisions when I've barely even left the country and I don't know what's useful, and suppose I choose the wrong thing and I hate it? I shouldn't have to make decisions like this when I've never even been to Europe, it's ridiculous."
He looks a little lost, and she realises she has entirely failed to explain herself, is rabbiting on and making very little sense.
"Everywhere I wanna go there's a language requirement, and part of me is really excited. I want to be able to speak another language, I've always wanted to, I'd even like to do a semester abroad somewhere, get really good, but-" She sighs. "We did Spanish in school and I hated it. What if I'm just no good at languages?"
"Oh, right. And you haven't been out of the country much."
"Zulia, with my dad, which barely counts. A trip with school. I don't know where I'd want to go. And when I tried to speak Spanish to people in Mexico, I completely embarrassed myself. I'm hopeless at it." She shakes her head. She's downright scared by all the choices she has to make. "But I'll eventually need language classes to graduate, and I think it would be better to do it at the start, but that means I have to have some idea what I want to study and there are so many choices and I'm just... it's too much, you know? I need to narrow it down, but all I know for sure is 'not Spanish', which doesn't help much." Then of course there's her biggest fear. "Spanish is supposed to be easy, so what if I pick something else and I just can't do it?" She adds it in a low voice, embarrassed to admit it but almost relieved to say it aloud to somebody. And somehow she's sure Gibbs is unlikely to tell her she's stupid, or that she's being silly about this.
He shakes his head. "Everyone finds different languages easier or more difficult. Just because you struggled with Spanish... don't mean much. Don't worry about it."
"Really?"
He gives her a wonky grin. "Honest."
"Oh. Okay. Well, I really hope you're right." She pulls out one of her many brochures and flips through it. "They have so many choices, though. I still don't know how I'm supposed to pick. I mean - I'm pretty sure not Chinese or Japanese, or Arabic. I do not need a language where I practically have to become an artist as well as a linguist, but even just the European languages they offer... it's kind of crazy."
"Why not try somethin' new?"
She pulls a face. "How? The only person I can think of who's fluent in another language is Ria, and I already know I don't like Spanish. It's not like I know anyone who speaks anything interesting. I mean, there are all these options and I don't know how I'm supposed to decide what's going to be useful or what I'll enjoy, you know?"
Gibbs shrugs, He suddenly looks almost... shy. Which seems like a really weird word to use about him, because he's usually about as shy as her dad. "I could help," he offers quietly.
She blinks. "You could?"
He nods. "I speak a couple other languages besides English. Know a bit in a few more."
"Really?"
He nods again, smiles. "Uh-huh."
Her curiosity is piqued. "What do you speak?"
"Well, besides Spanish, there's Russian, and Serbo-Croat... I can speak French." He pulls a face, as if he dislikes admitting that. "Couple more I could give you an idea of. Oh, and ASL."
"ASL?"
He makes a few fluid and expressive gestures with his hands. "American sign language. I'm pretty fluent."
She gawks at him. "That is so cool."
He smiles again, and looks down, and this time he looks embarrassed, which might even be stranger than seeing him look shy. "Well, if any of those seem interestin' to ya..."
"Are you kidding? Russian? I had no idea I knew anyone who spoke Russian. And sign language. And I don't even know where they speak - what was it? Serbo-Croat? Is that really ignorant of me?"
Gibbs smile grows wider as she speaks, and then he laughs. "Nah, it ain't ignorant. If you were a bit older you'd remember the wars, but these days it's pretty peaceful over there. Whole bunch of little countries speak these interconnected languages, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-"
"Oh! Bosnia! Dad was there, I think." She frowns, tries to remember why the name means something to her. "I think it was for work, though - he doesn't talk about it much. Sometime before I was born?."
Gibbs nods. "The Yugoslav wars were... not pretty. If your dad was caught up in that..." He trails off, and Emily is more than enough of her father's daughter to guess Gibbs has personal experience of the kinds of things her dad saw or did over there.
She makes a unilateral decision not to enquire further.
"So... yeah, if you want I could teach you a little, see if there's anything..."
Emily's grateful Gibbs changed the subject so she doesn't have to. "I'd love that." He looks so pleased she can't help grinning back at him. She doesn't know Gibbs very well, but she knows Gill and her dad like him a lot and trust him completely, and it's more than enough for her to be happy to spend some time with him. He always seems sad, for some reason, and it's nice to see his face light up. It's almost like she's doing him a favour by letting him do her a favour.
"Where d'ya wanna start?"
She thinks about it for a few moments, chewing her lip. In school her language lessons always seem pretty dry and boring, but maybe it's different outside of a classroom.
"Um. I guess learning to introduce myself would make sense?"
He grins again. "Smart girl. So... How about Russian first? Меня зовут Гибс. Как тебя зовут?"
Apparently Gibbs believes in immersion teaching, and for a while she's completely confused, but to her surprise she discovers it's also really enjoyable. Much better than a dry grammar lesson, but Gibbs also doesn't make her feel stupid when she takes a while to figure out what he's saying, and she had no idea languages could actually be fun.
She also realises she had no idea what Russian sounded like, or at least she's only ever heard bad guys in cheesy movies barking it, and it's much prettier than she thought.
"So... menya zavut Emily, ya amerikanka, i ya zhivu v Amerika - no, v Amerik-" She gives him a pleading look.
"В Америке."
"V Amerike."
"And now you can introduce yourself in Russian. Clearly, you ain't bad at languages, Emily."
She beams at him, absolutely bursting with pride in herself. "This is so cool. Can you write it down? So I can practice?"
"Sure." He tugs her notebook over. "Should I write it in Cyrillic as well?"
Em opens her mouth, but for a moment nothing comes out. "In what?"
He smiles again. "Russian and a lot of the other Slavic languages use the Cyrillic alphabet." He writes a couple of things down to show her. "I can write it out in Latin letters too, but I thought you might like to see both."
"Oh, right." She suddenly feels incredibly ignorant. "I should know that. You must think I'm so stupid."
"Nah. Most people don't even bother tryin' to learn another language. Let alone one with a different alphabet, or that isn't common where they live. You want to learn and you're bright and interested and-" He stops, shakes his head, and when he continues his voice is softer and his expression earnest. "You're a good kid, Emily. Don't ever feel bad about not knowin' somethin', or about askin' questions. 'S the only way you'll learn stuff. Curiosity's a good thing." He laughs. "Well, most of the time, anyway."
"Okay." She grins. "Can I blame you next time my dad tells me I'm too nosy for my own good, then?"
More laughter. "Hell, why not? Can't get more mad at me than he was when I got shot at, right?"
Emily can't argue with that. Her dad had a lot to say about Gibbs' lack of fear and how it was going to get them all killed, but since her dad took himself off to Afghanistan and almost got himself blown up over a year before he even met Gibbs, she's inclined to think he's being melodramatic. Plus, she has it on pretty good authority Gibbs went out of his way to make sure he was in the line of fire, rather than Cal, which makes Emily inclined to trust her dad is probably, if anything, slightly safer with Gibbs watching his back.
"He'll probably be mad at you for teaching me languages they speak thousands of miles away, too - in case you were wondering about that."
He shrugs, rolls his eyes. She gets the impression he's getting pretty used to her dad by now. "I'll live. You wanna do some more Russian or try somethin' else?"
"Hmmm. Something else, I think. How would I say all that in Serbo-Croat?"
"Ладно." He grins, and she gets the impression he's kinda sorta showing off a bit, and it's really unexpected and funny. She can't get over how different he seems to the solemn faced man she's rarely spoken to before today. "Okay, okay, I'll take it easy on you on this one. We'll start with 'Зовем се Емили'..."
Learning one on one with someone who knows and loves the languages they're teaching is a whole different experience, she discovers, and by the time she can introduce herself in three different languages, she's decided the college requirements don't scare her nearly so much any more, even though she also feels like her brain is overflowing.
"I don't know how you keep all this in your head at the same time. And you speak Spanish and French, too?"
He does the almost-shy, somewhat proud smile again. "Best with Slavic languages. And I wouldn't fool anyone I was native, not for long, anyway. Gets easier once you have the hang of how to learn a language, too, and if you're livin' somewhere and you gotta communicate then you get better real fast."
She's not completely certain it's as simple as all that, but she doesn't want to embarrass him so she lets the modesty slide.
She glances down at the notebook page on which he's written down the various phrases he's taught her, and two versions of the Cyrillic alphabet. She can't help wondering if she could convince a couple of her friends to learn it. She's sure they could find some use for writing cryptic notes in it (she's pretty sure she could drive her dad crazy by using an alphabet he doesn't know, too), and it would be fun to have someone else to practise with, if she could just convince them.
There's one guaranteed way she can think of to get teenagers interested in a new language. It seems like a long shot, but she decides to ask anyway. "Could you teach me how to swear?"
Gibbs looks at her for a second and then bursts out laughing. "I don't think your dad'd thank me for that, Em."
She pulls a face. "Well, it was worth a try."
He cocks an eyebrow at her, shakes his head, but he's grinning again, and she somehow feels like she's achieved more this last half hour than just learning a few new bits of what seem to her to be really exotic languages.
She glances at her watch and realises it's actually been more like an hour. "Oh, man, look at the time." She gets up, shoves her belongings back into her bag. "I have to go, but- thanks, this was so great." She grins. "Or, I mean-" She concentrates. "Spasiba and hvala and-" She makes the sign for thank you, then when Gibbs nods to say she's got it right and signs 'You're welcome', she can't help doing a little happy dance. "You'll teach me some more soon, right?"
For a second he looks surprised, and then his face lights up with the biggest smile she's ever seen him smile. She's never seen him look so happy before, and she's both taken aback and touched to have somehow put that expression on his face.
He nods. "It'd be a pleasure, Emily."
"Thank you!" On a whim, she leans down and gives him a brief, one armed hug, and then she feels sort of embarrassed and walks away fast. But when she reaches the edge of the quad and turns to wave and sign 'Thank you' again, he gives her another grin and waves back, and she kind of thinks maybe she's made a new friend.
~ fin ~
Language A/N: I tried to make the transliterations more or less how you'd say it, not necessarily how they're written, but no transliteration is 100% accurate for everyone's accent, so treat these as approximations.
zh is an imperfect but relatively common way of transliterating a sound that is approximately the sound in the middle of pleasure or leisure or the French j in je or jambon.
So, disclaimer firmly in place:
Друзья druz'ja = friends (Russian)
Меня зовут Гибс. Как тебя зовут? menya zavut Gibbs. kak tebya zavut? = My name is Gibbs. What's your name? (Russian)
Меня зовут Эмили, я американка, и я живу в Америке. Menya zavut Emily, ya amerikanka, i ya zhivu v Amerike. = My name is Emily, I'm an American, and I live in America (Russian)
Ладно ladna = okay, sure, all right (Russian)
Зовем се Емили. Zovem se Emily = My name is Emily (Serbian/Croatian)
Спасибо. Spasiba = Thank you (Russian)
Хвала. Hvala = Thank you (Serbian/Croatian)