Family is family

by Phoebe Darling

Family is family and family is everything. Horatio's half sister he never knew about reaches out when she is attacked. But by who. Was it connected to him or for another reason and will he get there in time to save her. Is there a limit that Horatio would go to save his sister's life.

2. Family is Everything

Family is Everything: Chapter 4

When Horatio had Ryan access Renee's military personnel file, it sent up a red flag to the NCIS office in Washington DC as well as her commanding officer in Afghanistan.

Her CO contacted the Director of NCIS Leon Vance, asking him if it was they who were trying to access a restricted file. Vance had no personal knowledge of what the C.O. was talking about, so he called Senior Agent Gibbs in to ask him. Now Gibbs had no idea what they were talking about but said he'd have Agent McGee look into it.

McGee being the excellent hacker he was he easily found out who was looking at the file- quickly telling Gibbs that it was an officer with Miami-Dade crime lab-going on to tell Gibbs that the file was that of a Marine who was captured and tortured for information in Afghanistan. She was held for months until she escaped and found her way back to base. She was a canine handler and trainer before her capture and when she escaped her captors put a massive price on her head dead or alive. It was no longer safe for her to stay in the country. She was shipped back to the states where she joined Border Patrol as a canine trainer and handler in Texas. She was so good at her job that the local drug cartels put a price on her head, so she left to Miami-Dade where she was attacked and tortured by Serbian Mercenaries but they still have no idea who hired them.

McGee knew what Gibbs was thinking, and he was spot on. Gibbs wordlessly went to Vance's office to talk the director into letting them help Miami-Dade in capturing the criminal responsible for the kidnapping and torture of a United States Marine.
Since Gibbs was, a Marine Vance knew that he would not take no for an answer so he relented saying, "Let me call Miami-Dade and ask if they could use the help."
"Lieutenant Caine you have a phone call from the Director of NCIS in D.C. It's about your sister's case," is what Horatio heard from the receptionist.

"I'll take it in my office," is how he responded.

"This is Lieutenant Caine, Director, how can I help you."

"I have an agent here who is a former Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant who is determined to help since they never leave a man behind. Could you use a little help maybe some fresh eyes and more resources? I can send two agents to assist you with the case of your officer's assault. You, of course, would be in charge. My Agent wants to help a fellow Marine."

"I certainly could use some fresh eyes since we have hit a roadblock and have not made any progress in quite a while," Horatio responds surprised him since he usually doesn't ask for help from outside agencies.

"My agents will be wheels up in twenty minutes and down at the Miami International Airport in two and a half hours, Agents Gibbs and McGee will meet you there."

"I'll send an officer to pick them up and bring them to the lab. Thank you for the offer."

From Horatio's point of view that was the strangest phone call in a long time.
Back in DC, Vance called Gibbs in to give him the go-ahead to take Tim McGee with him and help any way that they could. When Gibbs got the go-ahead, he tells McGee, "Wheels up in twenty, McGee we have an assault of a Marine in Miami."
McGee was slightly caught off guard, but he was ready since he keeps a go bag in his car.

Gibbs and McGee managed to get a flight to Miami with a Navy SEAL team who were flying down for a training mission. One of the SEALS recognized Gibbs as the agent who had saved his kid brother from a terrorist cell in D.C. and in a move of thanks he takes out his SEAL dive knife and presented it to Gibbs as a gift. When the two N.C.I.S agents arrived at the Miami Dade International Airport, they were greeted by Detective Frank Tripp. Tripp was sent to pick them up by Lieutenant Horatio Caine.

In classic Tripp style, Frank introduced himself to these new agents in his gruff Texan voice.

"My name is Sergeant Frank Tripp, Lieutenant Caine sent me," Tripp extended his hand to shake the new agent's hands

Gibbs and McGee were very interested in getting to the lab to catch the criminal responsible for the attack on a Marine. With Renee being a fellow Marine, Gibbs was determined to solve her assault and murder. Gibbs and McGee were under the impression that Renee had been killed since that is how the lab was processing the case. Horatio was not willing to risk his sister's life since he knew that whoever it was that hired the mercenaries would try again if they thought that she had survived the assault.

Horatio met the agents at the front of the building to escort them inside. Once in the elevator, Horatio pulls a move straight from Gibbs' playbook. He stops the elevator to talk to the new agents about the case. He didn't want to risk someone else hearing the information. Horatio tells them that Renee was alive, but they were treating it as a homicide to keep the victim safe and that the victim was Horatio's half-sister.

When Gibbs saw someone pulling one of his moves he knew something was up but he couldn't have thought that the information would be what it was. Hearing that Sergeant Kerrigan was alive Gibbs was relieved, but now he wanted to ask her some questions. "If Sergeant Kerrigan is alive then I need to ask her a few questions about her attack," Gibbs says to Horatio. Horatio is not sure that he wants to put his sister through another interview but he ultimately relents and leads the two federal agents into his office. Renee was busy entering information into the database on his desktop computer in his office. Horatio just reminded himself that once you're a Marine you will always be a Marine.

Addressing her at her rank, Gibbs knew that she would feel more comfortable to open up more and be much more relaxed. Gibbs called it, and Renee jumped to her feet at attention.

"Staff Sergeant Kerrigan, I'm Gunnery Sergeant Gibbs, Senior Field Agent of NCIS Washington, D.C. They sent us to help investigate your assault and attempted murder. At ease Staff Sergeant, Marines take care of their own", Gibbs says winking at her. Asking his fellow Marine, "What can you remember about your attack at your house. Can you remember anything that you might have forgotten when your brother talked to you."

Renee quickly felt at ease since this person understood what she went through. She knew that this fellow Marine had her back and would help Horatio understand what it is to be a Marine.

"I think that I remember a few new details but I'm not certain," she tells her superior officer. Renee might have left the Marine Corps but she still respects the Marine Hierarchy and the Marine Corps motto "Semper fidelis" Always Faithful.

"I remember my attacker telling me that he doesn't care how long it takes for him to break me because he was going to break me no matter what." I'm a Marine and a canine officer I would sooner die then give up my dog and that was what he was asking me to do. Echo and Charlie are my partners and they would gladly die to protect me so I owe them as much. In a way my canines are stronger Marines than a lot of human Marines that I know. I trust my dogs more than I trust most people. Present company excepted of course.

The case was a very complicated one by any standards. Gibbs and Horatio both saw different things when they looked at Renee. When Horatio looked at his sister, he saw a vulnerable woman. He saw a person who a few months ago was barely alive but fought to live. He saw a person who a few days ago was declared dead.
When Gibbs looked at her, he saw a Marine. He saw a strong, resilient woman who could kick ass. Gibbs never saw Renee as the victim he never saw her laying there on life support, or heard her heart flatlining. He was indeed fresh eyes.

McGee and Benton worked very well together to follow the electronic bread crumb trail to find the person who hired the Serbian Mercenaries to kill Renee. The email that sent the Serbian's the money went all over the world bouncing around like a pinball machine. When Gibbs and Horatio came in to the A.V. lab, Benton started to tell them what they found, but McGee stopped him since he knew his boss had little patience for technology so he needed to dumb it down for Gibbs.

"We were able to follow the email to a location out in Hialeah." McGee was able to translate tech speak so Gibbs could understand. Horatio was halfway out of the building when he remembered Gibbs. "Are you coming?" he asked the Agent.
Without saying anything, Gibbs ran right behind Horatio. Dave and McGee gave their bosses the address of the person suspected to have hired the Mercenaries who had attempted to kill Renee. Driving to the address, Horatio calls Tripp for police backup. Pulling into the driveway, the pair was out of the Hummer immediately after Horatio had parked. Tripp arrived right after Horatio and Gibbs had gotten out of the Hummer.

Quickly the three of them began to clear the house. They searched the house for anyone but there was no one there. Horatio touched the computer to see if they had just missed the suspect. He noticed that the computer was still warm, so he opened it up. What was revealed was beyond shocking when he opened it up to a received email that read. "Kerrigan alive and staying at 235 North East 117th Street, Biscayne Park."

Horatio was horrified, quickly turning to face his friend franticly asking Tripp, "Tell me that Renee was not dropped off at home yet."
Tripp nodded yes, "I dropped her off on my way here, why?"

"He knows she's alive and where she is," Horatio yells all while running back to the Hummer. He was not going to lose her again. Gibbs was again right behind Horatio when he got to the Hummer.

At the other side of town Renee was outside the house by the swimming pool, getting ready to do her nightly swim. She had fed the dogs and secured them for the night in their crates in her room. The crates were custom made to make them bulletproof for up to .30-06 Springfield. She replaced the doorknob with a deadbolt she makes her room as secure as she could. Her dogs are always secured in the bedroom. She would swim, then go to bed. When a noise, got her attention. Hearing the noise caused the hair on the back of her neck to stand up, and everything in her told her she was being watched.

Suddenly she feels intense pain in her right shoulder. Looking down, she sees her blue swimsuit turn red with her blood. She had been shot again. Falling to her knees, she didn't have enough strength to stand up. Her body just hurt so much and she was just so tired.

Thinking that she must have passed out since the next thing she knows she's tied up to a chair and someone who sounded oh so familiar to her was talking to her. For the life of her, she couldn't place him. This person never asked her any questions directly he just talked at her. It wasn't until he brought out his tools of torture that she was able to place him. This is the same person who tortured her in Afghanistan as well as when she was tortured in the warehouse in Miami a few months before. Renee didn't know how but somehow he found her. She was going to die, and she knew it. No one was coming to save her as far as she knew. Her brother would find her when he got home later that night since she recognized that she was still in his yard.

A few miles away, her brother was trying to get home, and she hoped they would be there by some miracle. Horatio didn't want to let her attackers know that he was coming so he drove with the sirens off but the lights on. This caused some people who were driving to take a while to see his lights so it looks a little longer than he would've liked.

Renee's captors never said anything directly to her, they just started to torture her almost for the fun of it. First, he broke her fingers but he got bored with that quickly, so he started to burn her with cigarettes. Doing that for several minutes he started to take out a cattle prod. After several minutes of the torture, he callously asked, "Aren't you going to beg for your life?"

Being the Marine she was, Renee spits on him. That was the wrong thing to do since he responded by electrocuting her with the jacked up cattle prod. Renee stifled back a scream of pain. She was not going to give this monster the satisfaction of hearing her scream. By this time, Horatio was only a block away but she didn't know that he was that close. She wasn't sure she could fight any longer because she was just so tired. Her torturer was done with her so he was busy getting ready to push her into the pool while she was still tied to the chair. Her attacker knew that she would drown.

However, he never heard Horatio pull up in the Hummer until he heard Horatio kick down the front door. In a panic, he pushed her chair backwards causing her to hit the back of head on the concrete then he pushed her in the pool with her still tied up to the chair causing her to sink to the bottom of the pool very quickly. Gibbs and Horatio had heard a splash which caused them to run to the open sliding glass door. It was a classic shootout, but her attacker was going to die whether it was by Horatio's hand or by Gibbs's. Horatio was looking around for his sister when he noticed something at the bottom of the swimming pool, and his heart sank. Nodding to Gibbs, he dove in to find his sister tied to her pool chair. They made eye contact when they both nodded to each other. Horatio knew that she could hold her breath for a long time, he just didn't know how long she had been down there. Surfacing, Horatio saw that Gibbs had already put two bullets into the attacker's chest and one bullet in his head. "Knife I need a knife," he pleads with Gibbs for help with cutting his sister free from her chair.

Not knowing Gibbs rule #9, Never go anywhere without a knife. Gibbs tossed his pocket knife that he always carries to his new friend. His other knife was a fixed blade and he couldn't throw that one since it would cut Horatio fairly deep. Horatio went back down to the bottom to cut her loose. Getting back to the bottom of the pool Horatio had noticed that his sister was no longer conscious. Gibbs dove down to help Horatio cut Renee loose using the dive knife that the SEAL had given him. When they got her loose they both grabbed her from under her armpits and swam to the surface. Once at the surface, they swam as fast as they could to take her to the stairs and get Renee out of the pool. Her head was bleeding rather profusely from hitting her head on the concrete.

When they gently placed her on the concrete Horatio desperately checks her for a carotid pulse. He did feel a very weak pulse, so at least she was alive. When he loses her pulse, he just panicked. Horatio just had to get her heart beating again, he couldn't lose her... Not like this... Starting CPR, he didn't stop until the paramedics got there. Knowing that if CPR was being administered when the paramedics got to the scene they would have to continue until they got to the hospital. He was not willing to give up. The paramedics had a portable defibrillator in the ambulance. The medics shock her heart once at 250 joules but get no response. Charging it to 300 joules they try again but still get no response. Finally when they charge it to 360 joules. Shocking her heart they get a steady heartbeat.
The paramedics were able to get the water out of her lungs by feeding a long, thin tube, called a suction catheter, down her windpipe to the water and sucked it out. This got her breathing on her own. She wouldn't open her eyes or respond in other way though Horatio tried to get her awake by shaking her gently. He thought to himself, "My God Nae why do these things always seem to happen to you. This is your third coma in just as many months." Part of him was glad she was in a coma. She could use the time to heal. His sister overworked herself, and it almost killed her. Renee needs to rest, but she doesn't do still. Gibbs wanted to stay to make sure she is okay, but he sent McGee home since he was married and had two small children.
Sitting in her room watching her sleep, the duo's attention was suddenly drawn to Renee as she slept. Her eyes were darting under her eyelids, and she was twitching like crazy. Gibbs looks over at Horatio to see him totally focused on his sister. Asking Horatio, "Does she do this often?"

"Only when she sleeps. She rarely sleeps more than two to four hours a night and even when she sleeps she only does it like one hour at a time. At least she's asleep," Horatio responded.

Renee continues to twitch and jerk in her sleep. While she was in the coma, Gibbs allowed Horatio to read his sister's full unredacted military personnel file. What was revealed make it quite clear why she didn't want to sleep and why when she did, she twitched and jerked the whole time.

While in Afghanistan, she was kidnapped twice. The first time was during her second tour of duty when she was held captive for three months. During that time she was routinely tortured and beaten. The Navy Seals with a few Marines attached to the NAVY came to her rescue eventually. Her canine partner was killed trying to stop her kidnapping. Renee saw her partner, Atlas, get shot point-blank with an AK-47 right in front of her. Witnessing her partners death caused her to go quietly with the kidnappers without fighting. Renee blamed herself for her partner's death and when she was rescued she was sent stateside for a full psychiatric evaluation which she did eventually pass. Five months after she was sent stateside, Renee was cleared for duty and was sent back to Afghanistan for another tour of duty. She was fine for her third and forth tours, but on her fifth tour of duty, she got separated from her canine and the group. The Taliban grabbed her again, but this time nobody knew where she was being held. No one was coming to save her since they thought that she left willingly since she still blamed herself for her first partner's death. That idea couldn't be further than the truth. This time she was held for five months during that time she was beaten, waterboarded, flogged, and tortured when they burned with acid repeatedly on her back. How she got out of where she was being held she couldn't remember. By the time she managed to get back to base, everyone had thought she was dead. To be honest she looked like she was dead, she was so bloody. Her commanding officer then had to tell her that her young canine partner, Delta, had been killed when he went searching for her on his own. He had left the base during the night and was found dead near the side of the road a few days later. They found several bullet wounds on the dog. She never recovered from the death of Delta, and when the military found out that she had a price on her head, they sent her back to the states to be rotated out. The military was sorry to lose her since she was the best canine trainer and handler they had in decades.

Closing her file, Horatio was startled by his sister thrashing in her bed. She was flailing around so wild that her brother and Gibbs had to hold her down until the doctors could come in and administer a sedative. Horatio was both horrified and amazed by what his sister had gone through. The information in this file made it clear why she was so intent on protecting her canine partners at all costs. Renee developed a routine of light twitching, turned into thrashing followed by sedation every day all day. This went on for four days straight.

On day five, Horatio was outside taking Echo for her bathroom walk, and Gibbs was taking a phone call from his boss Leon Vance back in Washington D.C. His boss was calling him back to his office since they had gotten a new case. This left Renee alone for a few minutes. During this small period just so happened to be the time that she opened her eyes. She may have opened her eyes, but she was not awake, she was deep in a very vivid delirious hallucination. She pulled off her sensors and pulled out her I.V. and was on her feet without anyone being any the wiser. It was then that she saw the SEAL dive knife that Gibbs left out from when he got dressed so she grabbed it. Right then, an unsuspecting nurse walked in the room. Before the nurse knew it, Renee was standing behind her holding her by her neck. Renee had put the knife up to the nurses throat and was pushing down almost to the point where it was breaking the skin. Scared for her life, the nurse screamed for help. The screams got all the nurses and doctors to be in her hospital room, attempting to talk Renee down, unaware that she was delirious. For about five minutes it was a standoff between a delirious Renee and a room full of doctors and nurses when Horatio and Echo stepped off the elevator. Hearing all the commotion around his sister's room elevated his fears. Without a word Horatio hands Gibbs Echo's leash and walks into his sister's room.

It wasn't until he got into the room and he saw the whole situation he quickly realized that she was in another delirium. Horatio was able to get the other doctors and nurses out, so it was just the three of them as he was trying to get his sister to let go of her hostage. He was eventually able to get her to let go of the nurse when he pointed out that the nurse was innocent woman, but it was still a volatile situation as he still needed to get the knife away from his sister. That was easier said than done since he didn't want to hurt her so he couldn't do what he would normally do to defuse the situation. He would normally shoot the person, but this person was not only his baby sister, but she was not aware of what she was doing or where she was at the time.
The knife that Renee had grabbed was a large Navy SEAL dive knife about five inches in length that was given to Gibbs by a SEAL friend as a gift. Gibbs had left the knife on the table in Renee's room when he stepped out to take a phone call from his boss back in D.C.

Looking at the knife in his sister's hand with the blade sticking out of the bottom of her left hand. It was in the classic hold but she had done a defensive knife spin maneuver moving the blade from sticking out the top of her hand to be sticking out of the bottom of her closed fist. Horatio had only one thought in his head and that was that he just had to get that knife away from her before she hurt herself or someone else. The blade of the knife was five inches of double-edged blades. One side was a flat edge, and the other side of the blade was serrated much like a saw blade. Horatio just had to get that blade away from her without hurting his sister in the process. Slowly Horatio reached out to his sister while he attempted to talk her into giving the knife to him. In her delirium, she did not recognize her brother as the person in front of her. Defensively she lashed out and she sliced Horatio from the center of his left hand to his elbow. Horatio should have stopped and sought medical treatment for the cut, but he was not going to give up on keeping his baby sister safe. He quickly regrouped and grabbed her left hand with his right hand, since her left hand still had the knife firmly in its grip. Renee refused to give up the knife, so she spun around towards the inside, and by doing so, pushed her brother against the wall of her hospital room. At the top of her lungs, Renee was screaming, "Let me go, you monster. You can't keep me; you can't break me." During the ensuing struggle, Renee slashed at her brother. Again she screamed, "Let me go, let me go; I'm not going to go quietly, you can't take me alive." She was getting weaker and weaker but Horatio didn't quite understand why. Desperate to get away she used the last of her energy to drive the knife deep into Horatio's outer thigh.

Horatio let out a suppressed scream, but he didn't have any time to react since his sister had suddenly stopped struggling against his hold. Thinking that she had snapped out of her delirium, Horatio loosened his grip on his sister's upper body. When his sister slipped lifelessly towards the tile floor, Horatio realized that she was not conscious and he was able to grab her body before she slammed the floor, it was then, and only then her brother saw what hit his arm earlier and why she stopped fighting against his touch. It was blood that hit his arm earlier apparently during the struggle Renee accidentally sliced both her arms from her elbows to her wrists multiple times. Some of the slashed were shallow and smooth while others were deep and jagged. Renee lost so much blood that she eventually lost consciousness, which explains why she stopped resisting him.

Fearing, he lost her Horatio screams, "Help, nurse get me a nurse. She's cut herself badly."

When the nurses heard Horatio scream for a medic, they rushed back into the room. Horatio quickly told the doctor what had happened in the room and how he got his sister to drop the knife, all while hiding the knife sticking out of his thigh since his sister was his priority. She needed the medical staff more than he did, and since he had left the knife in his leg, he was in no real danger of bleeding to death. His sister had lost so much blood they weren't sure if they could save her. Renee was strong, but with everything she has endured, she was in a severely weakened state. This whole time Gibbs was just outside the door keeping both Echo and the nonessential staff back unaware of what was going on in the room. When the nurses finally rush Renee into surgery, Gibbs was finally able to look into the room.

Walking into her room was like walking into a war zone. Bloody gauzes cluttered the floor, and a large pool of blood was near the wall. Gibbs remembered thinking to himself, "How can anyone lose that much blood and survive," but Gibbs doesn't know how strong Renee was and that she's fought her way back from the brink on multiple occasions. After the scare of Renee being in her delirum Gibbs called Vance back telling him, "McGee can handle the case. I can't leave Renee yet. She was stable but she woke to a hallucination and now she is critical again. I'll go back to D.C when she is stable again." Vance knew that he would never get Gibbs away from a fellow Marine in need so he let Gibbs stay.

Before they took her in Horatio offered to donate his blood since he was the same rare blood type as his sister. Renee was losing blood as fast as they could put it in. During surgery, the doctors needed to close her injuries to her forearms and wrists. After the medical staff had wheeled her into surgery, Alexx finally got a good view of Horatio and the knife sticking out of his thigh, when Horatio finally dropped the sheet that he had been using to shield his injury. Alexx asks her friend, "So do you want me to take that knife out of your thigh, or do you want to keep it there for emergencies? Don't worry about your sister she is in good hands."

Horatio needed to be wheeled into another surgery room to tie off the arteries and veins that were severed when the blade entered his thigh. As Renee's gurney was wheeled back into her hospital room, Horatio was waiting with great anticipation.

Due to her delirious outburst, the doctors decided to take precautions to prevent her from doing it again. Putting restraints on both of her wrists and both her ankles this left Renee tied to the bed. Seeing his baby sister like that just about killed Horatio. The next three days went by with Renee on powerful sedatives through her I.V. which kept her asleep and prevented any further outbursts. The doctors did let her come off the sedatives, but if Renee started to thrash around Horatio or Gibbs would push the sedative button, and the morphine drip would put more sedative painkillers into her vein.

On day eight, when Renee came off the sedatives, she didn't start to thrash but rather opened her eyes-having no memory why she was in restraints. "What happened Horatio? Why am I... Where am I?" We're her first words to her brother. "I had the strangest dream. I dreamed that I was back in Afghanistan. Back in the cave with my torturer. I was fighting to escape." Renee told her brother to which her brother answered.

Quietly thought to himself, "Now I know where she was and what she was doing in her delirium." Horatio looked at his sister, "Well you were in a coma for a week, and you had a delusional outburst the last time you woke up. You had a knife, and we wrestled over it. You cut your arms all the way down to your wrists. I almost lost you."

Renee suddenly gave her brother a pained look. "I slashed someone and had somebody else at knife-point please tell me I didn't do that to someone," she begged her brother. Horatio was unable to relieve her fear when she looked at his right hand all bandaged up with a small amount of blood seeping through the gauze. "I stabbed you; I'm so sorry." Her brother soothingly tells Renee that it's okay she was in a delirium, and it wasn't her fault in the slightest. "Tell whoever it was that I held at knife-point that I'm sorry," she quietly asks her brother to which he responds with "it's okay they know you were delirious."

"We did get the guy that put the hit out on you and the dogs. The monster who tortured you is dead. Your safe since we got everyone involved in the assault, kidnapping, and torture. Everyone is either dead or in custody," Horatio finished talking to his sister.

Renee was still in the recovery ward at Miami-Dade General Hospital when Gibbs was called back to Washington D.C. "Leroy Jethro Gibbs" managed to prove to Horatio a point that Renee had been trying to make over and over to get her brother to understand that when you are a Marine, you do not stop until the job was complete. Gibbs could have left and gone home to his team in D.C., but Renee was not awake yet, and he didn't know whether Renee was going to survive or not so Gibbs stayed until he knew those two things. His role in her case was to solve her assault and make sure that this Marine was going to be okay, since solving her case was only half of Gibbs's mission. Winking at Renee Gibbs tells her, "Rule #9 is NEVER go anywhere without a knife," giving her the SEAL dive knife and a thigh sheath. Since he would never be able to carry it past the security screener at the airport and he was very proud of this fellow Marine and her sheer will to survive.

Renee gratefully accepted the gift and tells her new friend that she will never go anywhere without the new knife. She removes the blade from the sheath inspecting it closely before she places it back in the sheath and attaches the knifes thigh holster to her left thigh. Being a lefty Renee had a lot of things on her left side. Her Sig Sauer P-226 was always on her left hip along with about two extra gun magazines. She had a third on her right side. Now the knife will always be attached to her left thigh since Gibbs told her is Rule #9- Never go anywhere without a knife. She was very grateful that Gibbs was able to show her brother just how deep the Marine vow and connection goes.

"If you ever need anything and I mean anything don't hesitate to call me anytime," Gibbs tells his new friends. Getting into a cab in front of the hospital he shakes the hand of Horatio and graciously accepts the hug that Renee offered to this fellow Marine. Both Renee and Horatio were sorry to see their new friend go but also hoped that they would never have to call him for help. However, they knew that they have a powerful ally in D.C should the need ever arise.

Renee had tried but failed multiple times to teach Horatio that once you are a Marine, you will always be a Marine. Everyone knows that there is no such thing as an ex-Marine.

Her body was getting stronger and stronger every day since her delusional outburst, which was really more of a vivid hallucination than anything when she grabbed a nurse and held her at knife-point.

The outburst that caused Renee to slash her brother's hand and arm that leads them into a struggle which ended with her slicing her wrists by accident. She nearly bled to death before she lost consciousness. While Renee has no actual memory of the incident, it traumatized Horatio beyond description seeing his sister in that state and him being completely and utterly powerless to help his baby sister. To Renee it was just a dream but to poor Horatio it was a horrible nightmare that he couldn't escape from.

Renee had to beg her brother to go back to work since she knew that Miami needed him more than she needed her brother with her at all times. The doctors wanted Renee to stay in the hospital for observation, and Renee wanted her brother to leave the hospital. Horatio was not willing to leave her alone there.

When Horatio left her in her room to talk to her doctor, Renee had called Eric, "Please you have to get him out of here. He is driving me crazy. Make up a reason why you need him in the lab. Even for just an hour. Please I beg you," she begs Eric to call Horatio. Luckily for Renee, Eric knew Horatio's personality, and he also knew just how concerned for his family Horatio can get.

As luck would have it, the team got a new case that they really needed Horatio since it involved an unexploded bomb and Horatio was the team's explosives and arson expert. To Renee's relief, Horatio's cellphone rang shortly after he walked back into her hospital room.

"Nae... Sweetheart, I have to go to the lab. Something came up, and they need me. It looks like you will be getting your wish." Horatio tells his sister lovingly since she has been begging him to leave for some time.

Horatio reluctantly left the hospital to aid his team in finding the bomber by disassembling the bomb and looking for the bomber's signature. Every bomber has a signature that they leave on or in the bomb whether they mean to or not. It took about a day for Horatio to isolate the bomb fragments that contained the bomber's signature. The bomber had twisted the wire connecting the PETN (Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate) explosive and blasting caps to the detonator three times counterclockwise. The signature sounded very familiar to Horatio, so he had Ryan search for unsolved bombings in the area during the last year.

Horatio's gut instinct turned out to be dead on. There had been three unsolved bombings in the last year, and one of them matched the signature of this bomber after Horatio working with the FBI did a controlled detonation so they were able to use the pieces of both devices to rebuild a complete bomb to enter into the federal bomb database.

With Horatio gone to the crime lab, Renee was able to talk her doctors into letting her out early since the medical staff didn't really want Horatio back at the hospital. He was constantly asking them how she was and if she was getting better, he was not only driving his sister crazy, but the doctors and the nurses too. Her doctor agreed, but only if Renee agreed to continue with her strength and balance training and have regular check-ins with him. She told her doctor that she had grown up surfing and he told her that surfing would work as both a strength training and balance exercise.
When Horatio had finished at the lab, and he got back to the hospital, the doctors had informed him that Renee would be discharged from the hospital the following day. Horatio was thrilled to hear that his baby sister was being released in a day. He just wanted his sister home where she belonged.

Renee and Horatio walked out of the hospital the next day. When the two of them walked through the front door of Horatio's house, they were both nearly knocked down by two large very excited dogs. Echo weighed eighty pounds, and Charlie, who weighed sixty-five pounds were both police dogs, and they were both very happy to see their partner again after two weeks. The four of them settled into a routine fairly quickly, with Horatio going to the lab before Renee. She met her brother at the lab after her morning surf session. Horatio had taught her how to work in the lab in an effort to keep her busy and the dogs just relaxing at the house for a change.

When Renee was young, she lived in small town in South Texas near the Gulf of Mexico. Her hometown was so close to the Gulf that they had a Surf team with Renee as the team's star athlete. She was offered a full athletic scholarship to Texas University but turned it down to join the United States Marine Corps, and the rest is history. Renee was not your typical female.

She was a horse trainer before she was even in high school. Before her eighteenth birthday, she had already trained close to a dozen mustangs and sold them to the Border Patrol for their mounted division. She would go to the horse auctions near her and she would bid on two yearling foals at a time. She usually chose fillies since they are more protective of their owners than colts. Renee knew that the little girls would grow up to be testy but loyal beyond description. Most mares will protect their riders at all costs. She learned that when her personal horse who was a beautiful black and white paint mustang that Renee had bought at auction when she was just 12 and trained her by herself. After training and riding the mare for three years the mare refused to throw her off when then were being attacked by a mountain lion. The mare could have thrown her and saved herself so easily but the mare faced the predator and fought it off until the cat had grabbed the horses muzzle and was suffocating her. Finally Renee had managed to get her Browning BAR .30-06 rifle out of the scabbard on the offside of her leather western saddle and shot the cat dead. From then on she would only work with mares and fillies. Her horses were fought over by the members of the mounted patrol since they were that well trained. Renee might have only been sixteen to seventeen years old, but she knew what she was doing since she had been training horses since she was just 11 years old. Riding horses since before she could even walk Renee was almost impossible for a horse to throw off. When she joined the Marine Corps right out of high school Renee was forced to sell the mare that saved her life. She would earn the horse's trust and never forced herself on them. She would never use fear or force to get the Mustangs to do anything. Using her proven method, her horses would do anything she asked them to do and do anything to keep her safe. Renee was their leader since the Mustangs trusted her implicitly, and she trusted them implicitly. The mares that she worked with saw her as their lead mare. She often fired bizarre weapons since her mom would bey any kind of firearm that young Renee would ask for. Firing the strange guns off her horses backs or near them, made they were bomb-proof. The largest gun she ever fired from next to the mustangs was a 50 B.M.G. chambered with armor-piercing incendiary rounds. She would never fire that type of gun off of the Mustangs since she was not strong enough to life a gun that weighed forty pounds over her shoulder and withstand the massive recoil that it had. Mustangs that were trained by Renee didn't flinch a muscle when the gun that fired the bullet traveling nineteen hundred miles an hour. The largest gun she ever fired off the horses back was a Henry Repeating Arms Rifle-lever action chambered in a 45-70 Government extreme penetrating rounds. This ammo and gun are more famously known as an elephant gun and elephant rounds. This round travels much slower than the 50 BMG but still had great stopping power. Traveling at 818 mph it can penetrate the thick skull of an elephant. Her horses never gave any of the guns that she fired while she was mounted on them or standing next to them any notice. The Mustangs were even tank-proof and helicopter-proof, though she never told anyone how she managed to expose her horses to enough tank fire to make them bomb-proof. Helicopters were easier to expose them to since she kept her horses near the local small craft airport which had several helicopters going in and out at all hours of the day. Customs and Border patrol even kept their helicopters at that particular airport.

During Marine boot camp she was awarded the highest marks available for marksmanship. Renee was able to out target shoot her trainer when she repeatedly hit forty out of forty of the targets since you don't need to hit anywhere near that many to pass. Hitting all her targets long-distance shots from an impressive two miles away. Her drill sergeant and other high ranking officers begged her to become a sniper, but her heart and passion was dog training. She started out as a dog handler but when her trainer saw Renee's connection to the dogs and her ability to train even the shyest dog to become a military working dog they told the base commander that Renee needed to be transferred to another base and given her own training commission since Renee was clearly an expert in the field. She taught her trainers more than they could teach her. Renee could take just a normal shelter dog and teach it to do anything. Dogs trained by Renee were the most sought after and highly desired military working dogs of the entire United States Marine Corps. Her dogs were unstoppable and loyal to their handlers almost to a fault since only the death of the dogs was able to stop a dog from reuniting with their partner. Dogs trained by Renee were awarded the purple heart and the Lois Pope K-9 Medal of Courage ( the highest honor a canine can earn) more than all other trainers combined.

For two weeks, Renee had a routine where Horatio would leave for work and Renee would grab her surfboard, and wet suit jump in her truck and drive down to her favorite surf spot. One day while she was getting ready to paddle out to her spot, Renee was standing next to her truck with her back facing the parking lot, when she thought that she had heard a car backfire. The sound of the backfire caused her to fall forward a little. Thinking to herself that she was getting a little jumpy with everything that has happened to her lately.

After her surf session, while she was standing in the shower rinsing the salt water off of her, she thought that she had felt something drip down her back. Thinking that it was only water, she didn't give it another thought and drying herself off with her sun-warmed black towel. Putting on her black cotton t-shirt and olive drab 5-11 stryker Cargo pants and strapping the SEAL dive knife that Gibbs' had given her to her thigh sheath. She clipped her Sig Sauer P-226 to her left hip then she laced up her black combat boots. Renee might have left the Marines five years before but she still dressed like an active duty Marine. She was rushing to get dressed since she was already a little late to the lab. Horatio and his team were waiting there for her.

This routine lasted about two more weeks until one night when Horatio and Renee had just finished watching television in the living room, and they were getting ready for bed. Horatio was already in the hall with Echo when shots rang out from a car outside through his living room window. The gunshots didn't stop for what seemed like ten minutes, but in reality it was probably only ten seconds. The shots just went on...And on none stop. Without thinking Horatio dove for cover while grabbing Echo. He managed to get Echo to lay down all while the bullets were flying into the house. With Horatio laying in the hall he couldn't see his sister, but he clearly heard a car peel-out in the street in front of his house.

Horatio screams out to his sister, "Nae... Nae... Baby... Sweetheart... Are you alright?"

Scrambling to his feet, the panic began to rise in him when he didn't get a response from his sister. "Nae... Nae... Don't do this to me. Please just say something... Anything," he begged his sister.

Rounding the corner of the hall into the living room, he saw why he didn't get a response from his sister. To his horror, his sister was laying face down on the carpet with one of her dogs laying on top of her.

Horatio feared that his sister was shot, so he rushed over to her side. Getting there he realized that the dog was Charlie and that the dog had been shot in the shoulder. Realizing that Horatio quickly knew what happened.

Charlie had jumped on his sister knocking her down, taking the bullet for Renee. Charlie was still alive but first thing first he had to turn his sister over and see if Renee was hurt in the drive-by shooting.

Turning his sister over, he was relieved to see that she was not hurt. Renee's eyes opened, and she gasped for air and coughed as she caught her breath. She just had the wind knocked out of her when Charlie had jumped on her knocking her down. When Renee was finally able to talk, she was more concerned with where Charlie was then her getting wind knocked out of her. Echo had already come over to Renee when Horatio had turned Renee over to check her for any injuries. Renee was just starting to panic when she spoke to her brother.
"H, what happened? The last thing that I remember was standing up to walk to bed with Charlie. Where's Charlie!" Scanning the room quickly, Renee saw shattered glass everywhere and bullets sticking out of the walls and pillows. Her eyes finally settle on the form of Charlie laying almost motionless on the floor.
"Charlie! God no not Charlie… Charlie!" Renee screamed while she rushed to be by her former partner and best friend's side.

When Charlie saw that Renee was okay, she let out a soft whimper and attempted to wag her tail with a quiet thump...thump...thump all while she tried to get up to go to her partner.
"Easy girl... Shhhh... Relax Sweetheart, you are okay," Renee whispered to her canine partner.

Realizing that his sister was okay, Horatio turned his attention to Charlie. Horatio gathered the dog in his arms, and both he and Renee ran into the garage and jumped into the Hummer. They needed to get their hero to the emergency vet as quickly as they could if they were going to save her.
"We have to get her to the vet as fast as possible H. You don't understand what this dog has done for me and just how many times she has saved my life. We have to save her," Renee pleads with her brother to just hurry up and get them to the vet.
Running into the emergency vet's office carrying the sixty-five-pound dog in his arms, Horatio and Renee were both breathless. The two of them had run the whole way from the Hummer to the office.

"Help... Our dog was shot in a drive-by. She is an M.D.P.D. police canine," Renee told the receptionist at the front desk.

The receptionist told the waiting surgeon who rushed out carrying a stretcher to bring the injured canine into surgery to remove the bullet fragments. Charlie's x-rays showed that the bullet entered the dogs just left of her chest and had exited out the dogs shoulder shattering the bone beyond repair, causing the surgeon to have to amputate the dog's entire shoulder blade and all the bone and bullet shards. The bullet itself had fragmented on impact with the dogs shoulder bone.

Renee and Horatio were both waiting at the vet hospital until the doctor came out with the good news. They were able to take the hero dog home the next day but go home to where Horatio's house was now a crime scene.

Horatio called his team to get to his house and process it as a crime scene. He was determined to get the people responsible for the drive by shooting. Most of his team went to his house to gather evidence but Eric drove to the emergency vet to question his brother in law and Horatio's sister about what happened at the house. The sooner they interviewed the two cops the faster they could solve the crime.
The crime lab still had no idea who and why someone would shoot up Horatio's house and who was the target. Horatio was convinced that he was the target since they had already got the person who put the hit out on Renee and her dogs. Renee however, just knew that she was the target. She couldn't explain why she felt that way just that she did. She just thought that the person that they had shot at Horatio's house, the person who had tortured her in Afghanistan and at the warehouse in Miami would really have no reason to want her dead that badly since he was just hired to torture her in both places and nothing else.

Calleigh the teams ballistic's expert was able to trace the bullets used in the drive-by to a small newly formed gang looking to make a name for themselves. When Horatio and the team went to the gang's last know location some of the gang attempted to engage the police officers in a shootout, not realizing that they were messing with an excellent shooter who had impeccable aim, that person being Horatio. Some of the gang however were smart enough to surrender to the police since the police's only connection to any crime was that they had bought the bullets, but the police could not single out a gang member as the shooter just yet.

One of the smart ones was the gang leader Juan Ortega who came in without incident. Horatio was very eager to talk to the suspect and ask him why would he shoot up Horatio's house and who was the target.

Surprisingly Juan was very open to talking with or without a lawyer. Quickly signing a release form to talk to the cops without a lawyer. Juan knew that he had information that Horatio wanted and that Horatio would accept a deal in exchange for the information.

"I can tell you who the target was and the reason that we shot your house up, but I can't tell you who hired us since we were hired through the TOR network which is totally anonymous in exchange for immunity for the shooting," was what Juan offered to a very shocked Horatio and Frank Tripp.

Before Tripp could process what he just heard, he hears Horatio say, "Deal". Neither of the two officers were prepared to hear what Juan had to say.

"You were not the target; it was the woman that was staying with you. We were hired to kill her in exchange for a large shipment of weapons. We needed the weapons to make a name for ourselves. Shooting up the home of a very well known and feared police officer was just icing on the cake as far as street creds were concerned." The gang leader finished talking, and Horatio and Tripp just stood there too stunned to talk.

With this realization, Horatio had a choice to make. Does he just move the two of them back to his house now that they had got the shooters or does he move the two of them into a safe house until they catch the actual person who wants her dead? The more Horatio learns about his sister, the prouder and prouder he was getting. This small fearless person was not only his baby sister, but she was also a highly decorated Marine and Border Patrol officer plus a well known and loved Miami-Dade Police Officer just like him. He has known that she was his sister for about four months and she had almost died an equal number of times.

He couldn't think of a stronger, braver, or more courageous person than his baby sister. Horatio just couldn't risk her life nor the lives of her canine partners any more than she has already risked them.

Horatio was not willing to move them to a safe house since he still didn't know who gave up her location the last time she was tortured at Horatio's house, so he opted just to move them all into the crime lab since they had sleeper couches in the offices and showers in the bathrooms. Horatio and his team would take the dogs for their walks since he didn't want to give any shooter a chance to shoot and kill his sister. This set up worked quite well for about a month since the team had nothing to go on to find out who hired the gang since the teams Audio Video guy Dave Benton was unable to trace the post putting the hit out on Renee, but he was able to remove it and to place a tracer on the name, so if someone tries to put the hit out again on Renee they would be able to trace it back to the sender, hopefully.

Renee was going a little stir crazy by this time since she had been cooped up for a month with no access to the outside. Horatio eventually caved from her incessant begging and allowed her to go outside for a few minutes with a full police escort. Renee walked out of the crime lab with full police guard just so she could enjoy the sun for a few minutes. She just adored the sun, happy to feel the warmth on her body but just as she turns to go back inside a single shot rang out. Horatio was standing next to his sister when the shot rang out. The shot met its intended target.

Horatio was hit with high-velocity blood spatter from his sister as Renee dropped to the ground gasping for air. Horatio fumbled to catch her before she hit the ground. She had been shot in the lung, which caused a collapsed lung.

"I can't breathe; it hurts to breathe," she whispered to her brother as she was starting to panic. She was trying to take big deep breaths and just couldn't catch her breath.

"Nae... Sweetie, please just relax and take slow, easy, shallow breaths." Horatio told his baby sister before she loses consciousness in his arms.

Horatio looks up searching the building tops for a shooter but sees nothing. The shooter had got away, or so it seemed. Getting to the hospital, Renee was rushed into surgery to remove the bullet and re-inflate her collapsed lung.

When Renee was brought to the hospital with the bullet in her lung, the doctors brought her into X-rays to locate it. You can imagine their complete shock when they found a mysterious bullet still in her back. Her records showed no bullet there, but they could clearly see a .22 lodged in her back about halfway up. It was deep in her scarred up mid back.

"Horatio can we ask you something; it's about your sister? Did she tell you she was shot in her back?" Horatio was very confused, to say the least.

He had no idea what they were talking about until they showed him the X-rays that showed a .22 in her back. He just kept thinking about it and told the doctors that Renee had told him about hearing a car backfire and how she fell forward, and he told the doctors. He also told them that Renee had no pain sensation in her back from previous trauma so she would ever even know if she was shot in the back. Horatio then thought to himself that he couldn't let his sister out of his sight or the sight of his team. She needed someone with her at all times for her safety.
When the bullet in her lung was removed, and it was handed to Calleigh in an evidence bag, it was up to Calleigh to find Renee's shooter. The bullet in Renee's back could wait the one in her lung was more important.

Calleigh found a partial fingerprint with enough ridge detail to enter into the AFIS database. The results were quick and surprising when they got a hit on INTERPOL. The shooter was a disavowed disgraced former M.I. 6 agent turned mercenary who works for the highest bidder.

The agent was named Nigel Black, and he was wanted in connection to several unsolved assassinations of high ranking law enforcement officers as well as high ranking military officials from multiple countries. By just looking at him Nigel looked like just your average nondescript Englishman.

The team might have identified the shooter, but they still needed to find him in a population of six point one million people. Dave Benton had the idea to put a photo of the suspect on social media since six point one million pairs of eyes looking for him would be more effective at locating the suspect than just the dozen or so pairs of eyes that the team had.

Horatio didn't want to put the population in danger for fear that someone would try to approach the suspect and get themselves shot. His trepidation aside he did give Dave the go-ahead to put the photo up on social media with a hotline to phone in sightings.
Dave's idea ended up locating the suspect when a tip came in that the person that they were looking for was spotted shopping at the local market. The sighting was verified when the team found a photo of the suspect on Close Circuit TV.

Horatio wanted to be the one who brought the suspect in since the shooter had shot Horatio's sister. Renee had survived this shooting but Horatio didn't know how many more times Renee could fight for her life since he was not sure how many fights she had left.

Nigel didn't put up a fight and came in peacefully since he might be a mercenary, but he did not kill innocent bystanders for anything just like he would not kill children or animals for money either.

When the team's results took them to INTERPOL, it also let N.C.I.S. know that a hit came in on the INTERPOL network. Gibbs recognized the location of the hit was the same as Staff Sergeant Renee Kerrigan's last known location. Gibbs called Horatio to talk to his friend and asked him what was going on in Miami in terms of the INTERPOL link and whether or not Horatio needed any back up with questioning the suspect.

Horatio saw Gibbs not only as a great ally but also a good friend since Gibbs helped Horatio save Renee when she was tortured about three months ago. Horatio felt that he owed Gibbs a great deal. Gibbs also stayed with Horatio at the hospital until Renee was not only wake but also was clearly going to survive. Gibbs was there when Renee had her delusional outburst.

Horatio trusted Gibbs with his life and the life of his sister. Gibbs was one of the few people that Horatio knew were safe to tell the details of what had happened to Renee since Gibbs was there the last time.

Horatio didn't want to say something to the suspect that he shouldn't so he waited the two and a half hours for Gibbs to fly down from D.C. to aid in the interview. This also let the suspect sit and wait in the hole. Horatio had hoped that spending some time in the hole would make the suspect more willing to talk to them.

Horatio himself drove down to the airport to pick up Gibbs, who had called in a favor and was able to borrow the F.B.I.'s G-5 jet to fly down to Miami. Taking Gibbs straight to the police station Horatio was eager to interview the suspect.

Gibbs just sat there in the interview room in total silence and just lets the suspect get so uncomfortable that they just blurt out a confession. The suspect fell into the Gibbs trap and confessed to everything without Gibbs saying a single word. Nigel's lawyer could not argue that Gibbs coerced the confession from his client since the video of the interview would show that Gibbs never said a word.

Horatio told himself while he watched Gibbs' tactics, "Maybe this would work on a lot of the suspects I come across."

After Gibbs and Horatio had secured a confession from Nigel Black, Calleigh was free to enter the bullet that was pulled out of Renee's scared up back into the database and search for that shooter.

The results for that shooting was no less shocking that Nigel Black's. The shooting at Renee's favorite surf spot was a drive by in the sense that it was done from a car and nobody knew that it even happened in the first place. The shooter was linked to the crime lab.

The night shift had a different set of workers and they had not been cleared by Horatio since he was the boss of the day shift in the crime lab he didn't clear the night shift in the slightest. This worker was even a friend of Walter. Walter had moved from the night shift to the day shift and had earned Horatio's respect and trust over the years. Finding out that the shooter was linked to the night shift Calleigh went to ask Walter about this new suspect.

"Walter, can you tell me about Ava Waterson- Smith? She is connected to Renee's shooting at her Surf spot. I think that she was the one who shot Renee in the back."
When Walter heard that Calleigh thought that Ava was the shooter he realized that he might have screwed up. Confessing to Calleigh, "I think that I totally screwed up. I went out for drinks about a month ago with Ava. I think that Renee's routine might have come up." "I can totally see Ava doing this though. She is cagey and there is something just off with her."

Calleigh reassured Walter that she wouldn't tell Horatio about Walter's fear and rather she would leave Walter out of the reports.

Calleigh called Tripp with her theory about Ava shooting Renee. Calleigh knew a sympathetic judge who she though would issue a arrest warrent with the information that they had.

Waiting until Ava was at work thinking that there was no way the Ava would try to shoot her way out of the crime lab. Calleigh thought wrong. Ava pulled out her Sig Sauer and tried to shoot Calleigh and Tripp who were attempting to arrest her. It was at that moment when upstairs Horatio thought that he had heard shots being fired in the lab.

Taking the elevator down to garage level he walked out and into a shootout. Ava had Calleigh and Tripp pinned down behind a Hummer. Horatio in his classic style took a single shot and Ava dropped dead.

"What took you so long H," Tripp asked his long time friend. A question that Horatio answered with a sarcastic response, "What I thought that it was the T.V." Well now they found out who shot Renee at her surf spot but not why she did it. They can't ask her since she was dead.

Renee just couldn't seem to catch a break. It seemed that whoever it was that put the hit out on Renee was not going to stop until he got what he wanted. As far as Horatio was concerned, this had to stop NOW. Talking to the suspect, it became clear that whoever it is that keeps putting the hit out on Renee will not stop until they put her in the ground.

Sitting in the lab's lunchroom, the Police Commissioner came up to Renee and told her that he wanted Renee to talk at a press conference that he was setting up on the major drug bust that Renee was a leading agent with Echo. The commissioner even wanted Echo there since the dog was the one that really apprehended the suspect and solved the case. From Renee's point of view, Echo was the real hero, not her, but you can't say no to the Police Commissioner if he asks you to do something.

Renee was very concerned about standing out and bringing attention to what she does, but when Horatio told her that he would be right there with her, she agreed. A few minutes before the conference, Horatio handed her a capsule to take. When she asked him what it was for he told her lovingly that it would help with the anxiety she was having. Without another question, she took the capsule.

The capsule did help relax her to the point where she could talk in public since public speaking had always been a phobia of hers. Renee could do everything from hitting a target at two miles away to training mustangs and dogs to work with people. She could run farther and lift more than most men but for the life of her she just couldn't get up and talk to large groups of people. After a few minutes of the commissioner talking, he brought Horatio to introduce Renee. When Renee then started to talk and to answer the press's questions. At about that time she thought that she had heard a single gunshot off in the distance. Only a few seconds later, she feels a burning in her chest, and she starts to drop.
Horatio was only a few feet from his sister, and he just rushed to his sister's side, but he was not fast enough to catch her. Renee was laying face down in a pool of her own blood. Horatio's heart stopped, and he carefully turns his sister over to look at her. Their eyes meet, and she whispers something to her big brother.

"I can't breathe; I can't feel anything. I'm so scared H, I don't want to die. I'm not ready…," Horatio hears his baby sister weakly speaking. The only thing that he could think was, "This cannot be happening."

"Stay with me, Nae... Sweetheart...I know you're tired, but please I beg you don't go to sleep since you might not ever wake up," he begs his sister.

"I can't... I'm sorry H, but…"
Renee lets out half a breath and stared lifelessly at her brother as her whole body goes limp. Her hand that was holding Horatio's arm slips off hitting the ground hard she never finished her sentence.

"Nae... Nae... But what?" he begs his sister to come back.

Horatio doesn't scare easily, but at this time he was scared. Did his baby sister just die in his arms? Did the only blood family he had left die in his arms like his mother, brother, and his wife already did?

Horatio was not going to give up on his little sister, so he starts to give her C.P.R. all while the news stations were busy recording for their news live at the courthouse.

"Don't you die on me Nae... Don't you dare... Sweetheart, don't you die on me... You have to keep fighting... Come on breathe... Damn it... Breathe…" H is begging his sister at this point. If Renee died, H was alone.

When the paramedics got to the scene, they pull out the defibrillator, and they attempt to restart her heart. Charging the machine to 250 joules, they shock her heart but get no response. Increasing it to 300 joules, they attempt to jump-start her heart again. Again they get no response. The try one last time to restart her heart with 350 joules but Renee offered no response. The medics are forced to confirm Horatio's greatest fear. Renee had been killed. Renee had survived five tours of duty in Afghanistan, a decade in the Marines, three years on the border, two years with M.D.P.D., four kidnapping and torture incidents, a drive-by shooting, and two gunshot wounds only to be shot dead at a press conference.

Holding his sister's body in his arms he just sits down and holds her close. Horatio doesn't usually outwardly show his emotions but this time he couldn't stop it, he just sobbed and sobbed over the sister that he never had the chance to get to know about. Renee only came into his life five months before when she sent him a message saying that she was his half sister and that she needed his help.

Since then she has impressed her brother with her courage, bravery, strength, and sheer will. She had almost died half a dozen times in the five months that he had known her. He loved her more than he could explain.

When Tom Loman finally got to the scene he needed to get Horatio away from his sister so that Tom could get her ready to move to the morgue. But how do you get a big brother away from the body of his baby sister that he felt that he failed. Tom knew that Horatio was blaming himself for Renee's death even though he also knew that Horatio was not to blame at all.

Tom called Eric on the phone to come to the scene since Tom needed Eric's help to get Horatio away from Rene.

The news media ran a story all while the investigation was still underway. "Local Canine Handler Sergeant Kerrigan was shot dead while giving a press conference about a drug bust she took part in."

Across town Sergeant James O'Shae and his daughter Piper were watching Forensic Files when it was interrupted for the breaking news story. James froze when he heard that Sgt. Kerrigan had been shot and killed. Thinking to himself that he thought that he knew her. When the story continued, "Sgt. Kerrigan was a former Marine," then James knew that he did know her. He was the Marine sniper that was attached to the SEAL Team that saved her during her second tour of duty when she was kidnapped the first time. When the news story finished with a piece of information that was news to James.

"Sergeant Kerrigan's brother Lieutenant Horatio Caine was investigating the shooting." James knew that name too. Horatio had saved little Piper's life six months before when she was shot and Horatio had carried her to his Hummer and rushed her to the hospital. James knew what he had to do. Getting Piper ready the two of them rushed to the lab to see their friend and see if he needed any help.

Horatio was still sobbing and didn't hear his brother in law approaching him until Eric called his name.

"H, are you okay? Tom needs to get to Renee. We need to move her so that we can get whoever it was that shot her." Eric tries to talk Horatio into leaving his sister's body.

"She's dead Eric, I lost her... My baby sister was shot dead at a damn press conference." Horatio is finally able to tell Eric what happened.

Ryan managed to get the news footage of the shooting but it proved to be relatively useless since none of the footage showed the direction that the shot came from. Nobody knew where the shot came from since everyone interviewed gave a different direction.

Gently Tom tells Horatio that she would be moved to the morgue and he would do the autopsy on her and give Horatio the results before anyone else.

Horatio reluctantly allowed Tom to move Renee, but he really didn't want his sister out of his sight. He couldn't believe that his baby sister was just shot and killed right in front of him.

Horatio disappeared when Tom moved in to take his sister to the morgue. Unknown to Dr. Loman Horatio was actually at the morgue waiting for his sister when Loman got there with Horatio's sisters body.

Again Tom calls Eric for back up since Horatio wouldn't allow Tom to start the autopsy. "Eric, it's Tom again, yeah Horatio is here at the Morgue and will not let me start the autopsy on her. Can you get down here to help me."

When Eric got to the morgue, he saw his brother still covered in Renee's blood talking to Tom. "H, you need to change, Renee's blood is on your shirt. We need you at the scene to walk us through what happened."

To which Horatio nodded and wordlessly followed his brother. H usually drove the Hummer to the scene, but Eric didn't want H behind the wheel with what had just happened Eric didn't feel H was in the right state of mind to be left alone or to drive. Horatio didn't argue with his brother since Eric was probably right.

Dave Benton the teams Audio Visual guy had thought that he could use some of his software to at least figure out what direction the shot had come from.

Calleigh had gotten the bullet from Tom, so she had that piece of evidence to put it through the ballistic database hopefully. She didn't get anything from the federal database in terms of who shot the gun, but she was able to tell it was from an M40A, but that was all that came up. The team had nothing to go on, and they knew that Horatio was not going to accept that since someone had shot and killed his baby sister.

Horatio thought to himself that whoever it was that kept putting a hit out on his sister finally got their wish Renee was dead. Maybe they will finally let their guard down, and that is when they make mistakes. That is when they get caught. Horatio's phone rang and he answered it with a very shaky voice, "Are you sure?" When Eric asked who it was Horatio just brushed it off with the response no one important.

Whoever it was just made the biggest and last mistake of his life. Nobody hurts Horatio's family and lives to tell about it. He would take this person down it if it was the last thing that Horatio does.

At the scene of the crime, Echo pulled free of Horatio's grasp and ran up to the group of witnesses, who were yet to be interviewed by the police. When Horatio saw where she was going, his senses started to go into overdrive. Echo sits and starts to paw at the feet of a younger, taller Hispanic male who then started to act very suspicious. Sitting and Pawing was a trained signal for Echo. It meant she smelled drugs and firearms on the person.

Seeing the behavior of this person change so drastically and rapidly piqued Horatio's interest. "Hey, you...can I ask you a few questions," Horatio shouted at the suspicious person. Horatio however, knew very well that this person not going to stay there waiting for Horatio to get there at talk to him.

The unidentified suspect then turned around and ran, and Echo was snarling and barking at the suspect. Horatio knew that they needed to question the suspect alive, so Horatio gives Echo the attack command that his sister had taught him when she was recovering from her first torture incident. He knew that Echo could catch the suspect long before he would be able to.

Echo had the suspect in her mouth within minutes of her getting the command. She had grabbed the suspects gun hand so he couldn't shoot her. The suspect did drop the gun, but he picked it up and pistol-whipped the dog. Echo let go when she was knocked unconscious with a loud yelp.

She was just coming around when Horatio found her. The poor dog had blood running down the side of her face from the deep wound that the gun handle had made. Horatio knew that his sister would never forgive him if Echo was killed getting this guy, so he told Echo, "Good girl, at ease... You did well."

When he gave the police canine the stand-down command, he heard a noise of someone moving in the sewer system that they were hiding out in. It was very, very dark down there, so he yells out to whoever it was that was moving around.
"M.D.P.D. stop or I will shoot," a command that was answered by a bullet whizzing past his head missing him by inches. Horatio emptied his gun's magazine into the area that the shots came from.

Horatio hears something hitting the ground hard, and the bullets stop flying. H approaches the suspect who was shot and killed by ten bullet wounds. Horatio had shot eleven rounds and only missed once. The guns magazine held ten rounds but as with most police officers he always kept one bullet in the chamber.

Natalia ran the suspects D.N.A and fingerprints through AFIS, and CODIS and the results were interesting to Horatio.

When Horatio shot and killed Victor Hernandez who Dave confirmed was the person who kept putting hits out on Horatio's sister when Dave traced the I.P. address to Victors computer Horatio was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
Saying out loud to the room with all of his team inside, "Looks like we got your killer your safe now, sweetheart."

Everyone was very confused as to why Horatio said it like Renee was alive when they all saw her die. When Horatio saw the DNA results he went into his office for a few minutes before walking back out and gathered his team into one of the interview rooms and shuts both the blinds and the door. He wanted privacy when he debriefed the teams. Before Horatio has a chance to start the debriefing someone knocks on the door.

"Come in," Horatio calls out. Renee just walks into the room and everyone except Horatio was shocked. Renee begins to explain how and why they faked her death.

"Horatio and I agreed that the attempts were not going to stop without me being dead unless we made people think that I was dead. We had to make it look good so when the Police Commissioner came and asked me to talk at the conference Horatio, and I thought that this would be the perfect time to do it since it would be broadcasted across the country. Horatio had drawn my blood into those transfusion bags, and we taped three of them to the outside of my flack vest, and I put my shirt on over and buttoned it up. Now we had Gibbs stand on a hillside about two miles away so nobody would see him, since Gibbs was a sniper in the Marines. Before the conference, Horatio gave me a capsule with tetrodotoxin in it. Tetrodotoxin is a neurotoxin that paralyzes the muscles. Gibbs made the shot that hit the kevlar, and the blood packs and the tetrodotoxin stopped my heart enough to fool the medic and the M.E. I fell face down in the blood that we had already drawn out, so I looked like I got hit in the heart. Before the medics got to the scene Horatio had the officers block everyones view so he could fix something on me. In reality he removed the blood transfusions packs. Horatio left my flack vest on since the vests don't stop all bullets. The paramedics removed my vest and shocked my heart. Tetrodotoxin paralysis's the muscles so my would not have restarted as long as the toxin was in active in my system so the defibrillator would not have worked on my heart until Tom gave me the antidote then used the defibrillator on me."

Turning to face her brother she addresses he directly.

"I'm so sorry that I scared you with how the Tetrodotoxin affected me. I realize that you didn't know what it would look like. I really didn't want to scare you so bad."

Facing the rest of the team she continues with the debriefing.

"When you saw Horatio at the scene he really thought that I was dead. He never saw the effects the human body directly so he really thought that he had killed me when he gave the capsule. I came too in the morgue after Horatio told Tom what had actually happened and that I was not dead. Tom gave me the antidote and called H to let him know I was awake. Tom brought me up when you all were out at the scene. The media ran the story that Horatio had told them. It was all a work of fiction." "We just knew that the person who wanted me dead would let their guard down and finally make a mistake that Horatio could take them out. When I heard it was Victor, it all made sense to me. I kept stopping Victor's contraband coming across the border. Victor moved to Miami thinking that he could start over, but he didn't realize that you were my brother and that I moved here to be with you until I stopped him in that huge drug bust the one that the press conference was about. He saw that as an opportunity to shoot me himself, but Gibbs shot me before Victor could do it. He was there at the courthouse, and he saw me die, so he felt comfortable enough to make a move with moving his drugs since I was out of the way, but we still got him." "We didn't want any of you to know about it for fear of it not working. I mean I could have died from tetrodotoxin poisoning, and we didn't want any of you guys to have to live with the thought that you shooting me actually killed me since we were not sure that it would work out the way that it did." Finishing her explanation, Renee sits down next to her brother.

Just as Renee finished talking to the team when Charlie who had been in the room the whole time jumped up without making a sound and ran down the hall towards the elevator.
Running behind Charlie, Renee stopped in her tracks. She could swear that she heard a voice that she hadn't heard in a very long time. When Horatio caught up with his sister he asked her what was wrong.

"I know that voice, It's Sergeant O'Shae, I know him from Afghanistan. He saved me years ago when I was kidnapped the first time. I have no idea why he is here," she tells her brother.

Horatio responds to her statement, "I'll go and see what he wants. I know him too. I saved his daughter six months ago when she was shot."

Before they can do anything they could hear Piper squeal with delight. "Look daddy its an old Malinois, her collar says her name is Charlie," she beams up at her father. James looks down very surprised, "Charlie is that you." Telling his daughter that he knew the dog from Afghanistan.

Horatio continued forward to talk to his friend. "What can I do for you James." Surprised James looks up to see Horatio approaching him. Piper jumps up and runs to give her hero a hug. "Horatio I'm so sorry to hear about your baby sister." She tells him in a very loving way, James looks at Horatio and tells him that if he can do anything to help just let him know. At that time Renee had seen enough and walks around the corner to look at her old friend.

"Hello, James long time no see," she tells her old friend as she approaches her fellow Marine for a long over due hug.

James' jaw dropped and he went white as a ghost. "I thought that you were dead."

"I faked my death since someone kept putting a hit out on me," she tells her Marine friend. She then hugged him and looked over at Piper.

"This can't be your little girl, Piper could it." She asks the little girl and too her surprise Piper answered. "Yes, I'm Piper, how do you know my dad?"

"Well your daddy saved my life years ago and Charlie here saved your daddy's life." Renee lovingly answered the little girl.
Horatio and his team might have finally killed the person who wanted Renee dead, but they still needed to find the mole who gave up her location when she was grabbed at Horatio's house and tortured. That person still evaded the team, but they would get him eventually. Until then, Horatio and Renee were just glad that the nightmare of her dying from being killed by a hired hitman was over.

Renee was finally able to move back to her actual house, and she had Horatio move in until his house was no longer a war zone. She felt that she owed him that much. Renee also wanted her brother to go with her and the dogs on a road trip to pick up the new little puppy from Echo's breeder just outside New Orleans. The breeder had called a few days ago and told her that the puppy is now ready to train for canine work.

Renee loved Echo's breeder since they had a lifetime guarantee for health and if for whatever reason you can't keep the pup he would take the pup back no matter how old the pup is or if the pup needs any medical treatment. All the puppies that this breeder sold were all housebroken and know the seven basic commands which are; Sit. Stay, Come, Off, Down, Heal, and No. Echo's breeder had been breeding Catahoula Leopard Dogs since the breed was founded in fact he is a founding father of the breed.