Disclaimer: If they were mine, the storyline would be different. That's true of many things. Sadly, they are not.
When the phone call came, she didn't hesitate. She called the chief medical examiner, explained she needed to be gone for a few days on family business and made the arrangements for a flight into Washington, D.C. She went home, packed a bag, kissed her husband and children and promised to be home soon. Before she left, her husband found a bottle of whiskey in the back of the closet and pressed it into her hands, knowing it would be needed.
She left a message on her best friend's voice mail on the way to the airport. Briefly she told him what had happened and found she choked on the last words. Like Timmy was. She clicked off only to have him call her right back. Go, the lieutenant told her, if anyone will understand, it is you.
The airplane approached Washington in the dark and rain. She disembarked without a word to her fellow passengers, already in her own world. She found her bag, the whiskey and a taxi cab.
The driver was gruff, foreign, with a far-off look in his eyes. They were flat as if they had seen too much. He was young and seemed old at the same time. She surveyed him with her mother's eyes and shook her head, tipping him well and softly telling him, Thank you, sugar, when the taxi stopped at NCIS. For a moment there was surprise in those eyes as she spoke and then again they were flat.
The rain had slowed to a drizzle. She entered the brownstone office building, submitting to the security scanner and showing her Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's identification. The guard gave her directions and she headed into the elevator. It descended to the morgue and for the first time she took a full breath.
Less than a year ago her mentor had flown to Miami to spend the weekend. He had pulled her from her grief and her bed when even her husband was unable to rouse, sent her for a shower, made chicken soup for her and told her children stories. While her husband went to work and her children to school, he had sat with her on the beach while she cried for her lost son.
It is why we are called to this profession, he told her then. Because we know their spirits are with us for a little while longer. And he knows you've loved him.
The hallway to the morgue was silent, as befits a tomb. The overhead lights were old florescent bulbs, yellow and dim.
She took one more breath, nodding to herself. She pressed her palm firmly against the sensor. The doors slid open, revealing the autopsy lab.
A man between older and old, still wearing pale greenish-blue scrubs turned from his workstation, his handholding a pen and poised above an entry book he couldn't bring himself to write in. At first his face held confusion and then surprise.
"Alexandra?" he asked weakly.
"Yes, Ducky," Alexx said, stepping into the room. "Agent Gibbs called me. He said you could use a friend tonight."
Ducky rested his pen in the book and ran his hand over his hair, pulling off the surgical cap. He tried to think of what to say but his shoulders slumped instead.
"Caitlin is in the drawer," Ducky told her sadly. "I've lost her, too."
Alexx crossed the space between them. "I am so sorry, honey," she said, taking his hand.
Ducky nodded, taking a breath, squeezing her hand, feeling how warm it was. "I – I'm glad you're here."
"Of course I'm here," she said. "I'll be here as long as you need me."
Ducky nodded again. Alexx pulled out the bottle of whiskey and a flicker of humor danced across his eyes.
"I believe, I have some glasses around here," he told her, untying his scrubs. He pulled a drawer under the work station open, found the glasses and motioned for Alexx to follow him.
The doctors left the autopsy lab together, Alexx's hand slipped through Ducky's arm. The entry for his medical log book could wait until later. Caitlin's spirit would be with them for a little while longer.