They Were His Eyes
"I'll go in first. You sit here until I come and get you."
The young woman at his side nodded, her eyes transfixed to the large letters outside the building.
N.C.I.S.
He was in there.
Suddenly, a warm hand was resting on her arm, and she smiled, grateful that he was trying to comfort her, even if it wasn't working. "Don't worry, Lilly." Then he thought better of how stupid that sounded and just smiled. "I'll be back soon."
The door opened, closed, and then she was alone.
"Gibbs."
"Tobias."
He sighed, "Jethro, we need to talk."
"Now's not a good time."
"Trust me, there won't ever be a good time for something like this."
That made him pause. Tobias was always a little secretive, but they had an understanding, a way of circling around each other that Tobias wasn't playing at today. This was probably serious, but he didn't have time right now for serious. One new case, two new dead navy recruits, a whole lot of blood. Now was definitely not the time.
"That sounds ominous, Boss; and you know what happens when Fornell get's ominous." Tony, always the joker.
"No, what happenes?" And McGee, ever the quizzical practical one.
"We get more bodies, yeah!" Abby, always so eager, ready to save the world one more test at a time.
"That is not entirely accurate, the last time Agent Fornell spoke in that tone we apprehended two of the most dangerous criminals in the world." Ziva, ever the practical warrior.
"Yes, but as I recall, there wasn't enough evidence to hold one of the men." Ducky, his friend, and that annoying voice constantly in the back of his mind.
"Thanks for reminding us Duck. Now Tobias, unless you've got some information concerning two dead navy recruits found floating in the Patomic, I suggest you—"
"This can't wait." And just like that, he knew it couldn't.
Nodding he looked over at the elevator doors. "My office?"
Tobias nodded and turned to walk towards the elevator.
The young woman with the sad eyes standing in their retreat path stopped them.
"Lilly?" And it was obvious that it hurt Fornell to say her name, so obvious, the rest of his team turned to look, and to stare. Because the girl wasn't looking at Fornell, she was looking at him, and the tears in her eyes belonged to a victim, but not the kind he was used to dealing with.
His manners took over. "Are you alright, miss?" He stumbled over the title, too young for mama but too old for miss. On the other hand, neither one felt right.
She didn't move for a moment, not until one crocodile tear escaped her baby blue eyes and rolled over a cheek as pale as death. She didn't lift her hand to wipe it away.
Then Fornell moved, and it all felt so wrong. "Lilly," he took a step and reached for her arm, "I thought you were going to stay in the—" She stepped away from him, from that hand, but her eyes, they never left his, and he felt trapped by them as he struggled to remember where he'd seen them before.
"Lilly?" Fornell said it, but he let it roll over his own silent tongue anyway. No, that wasn't right, that wasn't her name.
And then she spoke.
"Are you Gunnery Sargent Leroy Jethro Gibbs?" The tears in her eyes made her voice liquid and rough, as if she didn't want to ask the question, as if just forcing the words past her lips was painful. Her eyes didn't leave his though, and so he didn't look away.
He nodded.
Then her eyes closed, as if she were in the most excrutiating pain and there was no way out. He watched the stress lines form along her face, saw her body start to shake in reaction. He watched her, and felt a part of himself respond to her pain. Before he knew that his legs had moved he was next to her, touching her, and somehow, it felt right to comfort her.
"Why don't you sit down?"
Before his eyes the clouds parted. It started so small, one muscle then another, a twitch and then the corners of her mouth rose and her eyes fluttered open, and suddenly the tears of pain weren't for pain at all, but were instead of an entirely different variety. And there was sorrow in her eyes, sorrow and sadness, but also a look of triumph.
Her voice was like warm water, "I think it might be you that needs to sit down." She looked like she wanted to say something else, maybe his name, but she bit her lip instead and just looked at him, her eyes roaming his face now, memorizing every curve and angle as if she were afraid of forgetting him.
He guided her over to Tony's desk and pulled the chair around so she could sit. She accepted it only when he sat on the edge of the desk himself.
"Lilly, right?" She started at the sound of her name before the pain was back in her eyes and this time she had to look away, disappointed. The break in contact seemed to free him as well and he turned to look at Tobias. His look asked the question, but he didn't like the answer.
"Ask her, Jethro. It's my mess to clean up, but it's her story to tell." That made him curious, Tobias didn't own up to a mistake unless it was serious, and usually not until he'd hammered the facts through his thick skull at least twice.
Then she spoke.
"I've thought about this moment for months now. Maybe years really; though I never really thought I'd have the chance." She looked up, her eyes shining pools that seemed to hold him captive all over again. "I've been through a hundred different ways to say this and none of them feel like they're right." She shook her head and another tear fell and he felt his heart break just a little more. "I don't know what I'm supposed to say, I don't know how to say this and not kill you in the process."
That he knew how to answer. Leaning forward he caught her eye and gave her a nod. "Just start, from the beginning."
She smiled, and then did.
"Twenty-five years ago you married a woman named Shannon and had a daughter named Kelly." She didn't pause, but in his mind he braced himself. "Eight years later Shannon witnessed a terrible crime and couldn't let it go. Three days later you went to Iraq to serve your country." New tears sprang to her eyes, "Three weeks after you left a man in a Marine uniform came to the house and Kelly opened the door. The man told Shannon that her husband was dead, killed in action. And Kelly went up to her room and cried for a week."
That was wrong. He was never reported dead. Sure he'd been injured but never reported as—
"When the FBI came and asked Shannon to testify against the criminal who's crime she'd witnessed, she agreed. It was so perfect you see. Here was the FBI promising to take her and her daughter way from everything that could possibly remind them of their fallen soldier. So she said yes, and they packed only a handful of things they couldn't live without and followed the FBI agent to his car." She paused then, looking away from him, "Kelly packed her stuffed horse, and her dad's medal of honor."
She shook herself, and he watched the strength come into her as she met his eyes once again. "Then the FBI agents staged a scene that made it look like Shannon and Kelly were killed in an explosion."
He couldn't help it, his whole body reeled back as if struck, and deep within his chest his heart pounded and the words, "No! No! No!" kept repeating over and over. But she went on.
"The agents gave Shannon and Kelly new names and a new place to live, but they couldn't take away everything they'd left behind. They couldn't make the pain of losing their soldier go away. For the new Kelly, the pain was debilitating, but for the new Shannon, the pain was unbearable." She paused again, and this time when she looked away, she didn't immediately look back. "She couldn't bear it, and so she used the one thing she'd brought with her from her old life, she used her soldier's gun and stopped the pain."
He didn't know he'd been standing until his legs gave out on him and he sat heavily on the corner of his desk, knocking over a silver picture frame that everyone knew didn't contain a picture.
She continued. "The new Kelly found her mother and didn't know what to do, so she called the FBI agents who made it all go away. But the new Kelly wasn't a top priority, she hadn't witnessed the crime, and besides, someone had killed the bad man in Mexico anyway. The FBI didn't need the little girl anymore, but there was no one to give her too. So they gave her another new identiy, and a new family in Florida, and then," here she paused, "they forgot about her."
"Then a few months ago I was watching an old TV show my friend had taped. In the middle of the show an emergency news report flashed across the screen. I got up to get popcorn, the show I was watching was from months before so the news was old. But just as I was about to leave the room, I saw a man, a man that looked—" her voice caught, and new tears swam in her eyes, and he found that her tears were answered with his own. "I saw a man who looked exactly like my father, the father I'd lost fifteen years before. He was far in the background of the shot, but I knew it was him, and I knew how to find him—he had the letters N.C.I.S. across his vest."
Her mouth twitched into a sad smile, "So I went to the FBI and told them what happened and showed them the tape. They stalled, and hummed and hawed, and then eventually, they told me about an agent who worked with N.C.I.S., Agent Fornell. So I went to see him, told him who I was, told him that I needed to know if I was right. He didn't believe me of course." At this she looked over at Tobias and gave him a genuine smile that made his blood boil and pain lance through his heart. "Agent Fornell said there was only one way to know for sure. So he took a sample of my DNA and told me he'd call me."
Her eyes were back on his now and there was joy, triumph, and a deep unabiding sadness in her eyes. When she stood, he found he didn't have the strength to follow. "When Tobias came to my apartment, when he looked at me, I knew, I knew I was right. I knew my father hadn't died. It all made sense to me. I thought he was dead, he thought I was dead, and so neither one of us had ever gone to look for the other. But," and her hand came up then, hesitant at first, and then bolder, until it wrapped around his frozen fingers and offered him warmth, "now I knew the truth. My father was alive, and I didn't want to waste another second being alone."
He couldn't have looked away from her if he tried. Couldn't have stopped the tears if he'd wanted too. It wasn't possible, it couldn't be possible! Not after all this time!
And then he looked, really and truly looked, and he realized why her eyes looked so familiar.
They were his eyes.