AN: Don't know where this came from but it's been running around in my head for a few days now in various forms and won't stop so I had to write it.

BACKGROUND: Basic idea is the typical NCIS twist of what if Kelly didn't die, but with my own spin: what if she was used to help take down the people who had tried to kill her and made it look like she was dead. If it was supposed to be a 'simple' case that just got out of hand? A case that was supposed to take a year of undercover work at most turning into 10 with her pretending to be the missing heiress of a family she never really fit into.

Gibbs doesn't know she's alive, but some people close to him do/did and have a few secrets of their own, now the case Kelly has spent years working on has blown up in her face, so to speak, and she is sent back to DC to meet her father, but will his guilt over what happened to her and her emotional scars over being someone else's unwanted child keep them from forming more then a working relationship?

The Second B

Prologue

Jennifer Shepard looked at the red head sitting in front of her: "you understand the risks?"

Rolling her eyes, the teenager once known to the world as Kelly Gibbs looked to Tobias Fornell: "is she serious?"

"Kells. . ." her father's best friend said in warning, he like the girl in question, was not happy about what was going on.

Leaning forward in her seat, Kelly glared at the older woman: "I'm not stupid lady, my degrees should prove that to you. My life was stolen from me by those two sociopaths. I want them brought down as much as the agencies do, if the only way for me to do it is to go into some town and pretend to be someone they made me into so be it," she told her as she leaned back into her seat: "besides, it's not like I have all that many memories of my life before them.
I remember my mom dying.
I remember some songs she and my dad sang to me.
I remember a boat.
I remember a man in a Marine uniform, but the face isn't clear.
That's it.
I'm the woman they brainwashed me to be and if it weren't for the forensic intern you have on staff and one of your agents you wouldn't have figured out who I used to be. So the question now is, how do you want me to bring them down and when and how do you plan on letting my father know I'm alive?"

Chapter 1

Ten Years Later
Landview, PA

Brody Lovett rolled his eyes as he slid into a seat across from Natalie Banks in the kitchen of her mother's home midmorning after talking her twin sister down from a panic attack: "Remind me again why the hell we're doing this?" he asked.

"Because Vance thinks this is a swell idea?" she told him without looking up from the laptop screen she was looking at.

"Come on Shep, there has to be more to this then I know."

"This is need to know and you. . ."

"Don't need to know," he finished for her. "Natalie, someone is stalking your sister in Nash's jacket."

"It's not his jacket. The forensics proved it," she told him without looking up.

"How the hell do you know that?"

Natalie looked up: "Vance's lab already has the tests back?"

Brody chuckled: "How the hell do you get the information as quickly as you do?"

"Contacts, Brody," she told him easily as she returned her attention to the laptop screen. "Besides, Abs has her own connections to town."

"You gonna tell me what those are?"

"You don't. . ."

"Need to know. . ." he finished for her. "I still don't know how the hell I'm supposed to do my job if I don't know. . ."

Natalie glared at him as she saved what she was working on and slammed the laptop shut: "Lovett, what is your 'job' here?"

"Watch your six."

"Anything else?"

"Help you gather intel."

"And?"

"Keep your cover intact."

"And what the hell part of that means you need to know everything about my mission in town other then that I'm making sure that Mitch Lawrence is a neutralized threat?" she demanded.

"None."

"Good. Now go and have that lunch with Jared you're supposed to and get whatever you can out of him about the stalker."

"You really think. . ."

"What does John say?" she asked him with a roll of her eyes not wanting to get into the many ways that she knew that her oh so loving husband wasn't who he claimed to be.

"He's jealous. . ."

Natalie laughed: "if he were he wouldn't have left me in that damned room to rot. He would've found me himself. No, he knows something. I just need to figure out what and how and then get a certain agent on his ass. It is long pass time that I put this case to bed."

"Exactly how long have you been working this case, Nat?" Brody wondered.

Natalie looked at him: "ever wondered why they called me Shep?"

"The former director?" he asked surprised as he tried to put the clues together. He knew that she had been with the agency longer them him, but he hadn't figured on her being connected to the dead woman with a reputation of being tougher on her agents then their current boss.

"Let's just say she recruited me."

"But you were in town before. . ." he started as he mentally did the math in his head.

"Never said she was the director when I got the job here Lovett. . ." Natalie cut him off. "I only said that she recruited me for this mission. Now get going. I have too much time invested in this to screw it up now."

Chapter 2

Natalie sat in the Buchanan family home as Bo, Clint, and John argued over what to do with her and Nora looked over at her with a smug smile.. A half hour before the man impersonating Nash had been arrested and the fact that Mitch Lawrence was alive had been revealed. The fact that the 'real' Jessica Buchanan had shown up and some Probie had slipped and referred to her as 'Shep' hadn't helped her case.

So here she was, sitting with her arms crossed over her stomach with a defiant look on her face listening to them trying to decide if they were going to bring her in on charges of fraud, just as she was about to tell them all to go to hell, she heard Nigel arguing with someone, as a smirk reached her lips. "You think this is funny?" Clint accused as he caught sight of her look.

"Nope," she replied simply.

"God damn it McBain, did moving to this town cause you to loose what little brain cells you had?" FBI agent Tobias Fornell demanded as he swooped into the room anger radiating off of him.

"Tobias?" John asked in surprise as he turned on the man he had once worked for.

"Ya think?" he asked as he looked over to Natalie. "Take the damned cuffs off of her. She's on our side."

"There's no way that Natalie is FBI," John said not making a move towards her.

"No, she's not," Leon Vance said as he walked into the room followed by Abby Scuito. "But take it from me you don't want to deal with whose team she is on."

"And who would that be? What type of person allows someone to fake being someone's child?" Vikki asked from where she sat in the background.

"Spencer Truman and Mitch Lawrence," Natalie told them as Abby took the cuffs off her and watched as she massaged her wrists.

"Still doesn't make her a fed," Nora told the men. "She's nothing or anything more than a vindictive bitch."

"Oh, she didn't just. . ." Abby muttered as Brody came in carrying a cartoon of files.

"Oh, she did. . ." Natalie said with a look that Tobias knew all too well, "hey, Toby, Jenny ever tell you what the second B stood for in MY name?"

Fornell shook his head: "what number?"

"5, 19, and 20--- to start," she shot back.

Tobias extended a hand to Brody who pulled out the numbered files Natalie had listed as the agent in charge chuckled: "sometimes you are too damned much like your father," he muttered.

"And that's a bad thing?" she asked.

"Kelly. . ." he started in exasperation. "Don't even. . ."

"So that's your real name?" Vikki asked, a touch of surprise. "Why lie?"

"Because Mitch helped the man who killed my mother. He had me kidnapped. Spencer Truman made sure that my memories were corrupted so that if something happened to your missing daughter she could be replaced.

Well something did.
DYFS stepped in and took her from Roxie.
Eventually they put me in her place.. . . . . I was in an accident and Abs did the forensics and. . ."

"And Natalie was picked to bring down Lawrence," Fornell interrupted. "That was 10 years ago.
We figured that it would be fairly quick.
Easy.
In and out.
We had other plans for Truman. . ."

"Only one case lead to another. . ." Abby put in.

"And her father is going to kill both of us," Vance said with a shake of his head as he looked at the FBI agent in charge.

"You're lying," Nora started, as John looked at her in surprise: "you're really a fed. What agency?"

"NCIS." Natalie said simply.

At that John laughed: "Yeah. Right. Now I know, you're lying. You wouldn't have fallen for Crammer's crap."

"She didn't. She had a full file on him," Abby put in. "Former Director Shepard wanted her to bring him down on the organ trafficking."

"Not to mention I needed her to help with the Santi connection," Fornell put in.

"One Shepard wouldn't share jurisdiction," John started to argue.

"She would if she didn't want me to make a call to a certain one of her agents," Natalie told him simply. "Two, she was the whole time. Fornell wouldn't give up his part in this and NCIS wouldn't give up theirs."

"What about Fitzgerald? She never said anything and. . ."

"She was an idiot," Tobias interrupted John. "She couldn't pick out an undercover even when told there was one in town. She was out to make a name for herself."

"And a place in his bed," Natalie muttered, earning an eye roll from Fornell: "what? It's the truth," she finished on a pout.

"The evidence in AC. . ." John countered as he ran a hand through his hair.

"My doing," Abby jumped in. "Didn't you think it strange that a cop who worked the beat that would've crossed paths with a known gambler and informer didn't know her kid?" she questioned the former FBI agent. "OK, so it was a few years later and her wardrobe was more expensive, but. . . well, he still should've known something about her. I mean flaming red hair is a bit of a give away."

"Who are you?" Bo asked her. "And don't tell me you're FBI."

"Nope. Forensics. NCIS," Abby answered.

"Dressed like that?" Nora scoffed.

"File 6," Abby countered annoyed. "And I'm a hell of a lot better then anyone you have on staff lady."

"No way. You wouldn't have put yourself in danger like that. Allowed Paul to almost. .." John started.

"I let Mitch."

"Oh hell no," Tobias said as he looked at his goddaughter. "He DID NOT. . ."

"I don't think he did," Natalie admitted with a shrug.

"If he weren't dead I'd. . ."

"Well he is," Natalie told him, "so get over it," she said getting to her feet and going to stand toe to toe with him.

"It's a good thing Shepard's dead, she'd take a glock to someone's head," Abby muttered.

"Her father's going to do a lot more than that if he finds out about this," Tobias sighed. "you really out to get me killed? Hell, for that he'd even have taken out Jen and he doesn't go after women!"

"He didn't. . ."

"DID. YOU. GET. A. KIT. DONE?" Tobias spit out.

"No," Natalie admitted as she deflated back into her seat. She had known that if she had and Jen or Tobias had found out she would've been pulled off the case and out of Landview and she didn't want to be. She didn't want to leave then not knowing about Vikki and having failed at her tasks, and she knew damned well that Tobias knew she hadn't had the kit done because he would've found out. He watched out for her like a hawk. They had had more then one fight over him wanting her out of town, usually with him relenting because of the fact the he knew it would lead to her endangering herself and/or her father going off the deep end.

Spinning around on John the agent in question glared: "You had a possible rape victim and you didn't have. . ." he started, his words stopped by Bo punching John in the jaw and knocking him to the ground while Clint advanced on him.

"Wow, almost as effective as you know who," Abby muttered as Vance shook his head.

"Why the hell do I deal with you people?" the black man wondered.

"Because you're a bureaucratic blowhard who wants a political career?" a voice asked from the door.

"Nice of you to show up," Natalie told the dark haired man in the doorway.

"Could've called, Shep."

"Could've just shown up, McClintock."

"Don't call me that," CJ Roberts sighed with a roll of his eyes. "And how the hell do you know that. . ."

"You do know where we're standing don't you, idiot?" she asked him.

"Well, duh!"

"Good, then apparently you didn't get your brains from the airhead although you act like it," she shot back. "Where's the stuff?"

"In the car. And what was that about the. . ."

"Do I look like I have time to explain? Get the stuff."

"You do know that I outrank you?" he asked staring at her in surprise.

"And you do know that I'm senior officer?" she shot back.

"She has a point," Tobias said as he sat on the edge of a desk and watched John come through with slight amusement. "Lovett go with him."

"I don't take orders from you," Brody started to protest.

"Lovett, NOW," Vance ordered.

"Yes, Sir," Brody responded as he hurried out.

"We really have to work on team building," Vance commented.

"You stick me with DiNutzo and I'm hitting you upside the head with a Glock," Fornelll told him.

"Do I even want to know?" Vance wondered as he shook his head and looked over to Natalie and Abby: "You," he said pointing to the red head: "Get packed and cleared out. You're reporting back to DC. I have an opening I need filled and a feeling I'll have less of a hard time getting you on that team then anyone else."

Fornell laughed: "you think he's going to want her in the field?"

"You think I'm going to let him tell me what to do? Or either of you two for that matter?" Natalie asked. "I've more then proved myself on the cases you two and Jenny kept me on over the last ten years. You keep me in the field or I find an agency that will and I won't talk him out of killing you."

"Get packed. We leave in an hour and a half. Scuito, help her then head down to the PD and make sure that they haven't completely screwed up the evidence we need."

"Got it," Abby said rising. "Any one from the team coming in to help?"

"A few from this investigation are on their way to help make sense of the so called files you girls keep," Tobias said as he looked at them: "really, this is supposed to make sense?" he asked as he took off his reading glasses.

"Did anything about this case make sense?" Natalie asked him.

"Does have a point," Abby laughed.

Toby rolled his eyes: "You know I'm getting stuck with DiNutzo right?"

"We better go easy on him then," Abby said as she and Natalie headed towards the door.

"Yeah, especially since you know who will make his life a living hell for a while."

Abby looked back over at her the Director of NCIS: "oh, he's not the one who needs to be worried."

"Don't I know it," Natalie sighed as they passed CJ and Lovett heading in with boxes of files.

"Where you two going?" CJ asked.

"Been reassigned," Natalie told him with ease. "Abs is helping me pack before she goes and makes sure that the LPD doesn't completely screw up the evidence."

"They're not that bad," he chided.

"Yeah, that's why so many people where charged with Truman's murder, oh, and why Lawrence was declared dead 3 times," she shot back with a roll of her eyes: "Really, Roberts one of these days, you're going to have to buy a clue with that trust fund of yours," she finished before walking off.

"What the hell is Shep's deal anyway?" he asked Brody.

Brody only shook his head: "Damned if any of us have figured it out."