Hi, guys! I hope you're all doing well! I have been... slightly stressed with uni work recently, so I decided to destress by pumping out another chapter for you guys that you'll hopefully enjoy! The story is moving slowly, but I'm hoping to reach the main action part within the next few chapters (if all goes to plan and the storyline decides to stay similar to the original). I really hope you guys are enjoying the story!
Thanks to Alicori and DS2010 for your reviews! I'm glad you guys are enjoying the story, and I'm liking how you're analysing and commenting on the characters' behaviours!
Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy what I've got written fory'all! Read on!
Tony sighed as he climbed out of the car, the two of them (himself and Ziva) finally pulling up to their destination.
Tasked with finding out more about the Petty Officer, the two of them headed to the last known place of work the man was seen at – the military base in Quantico. Reaching the area, there didn't appear to be many individuals around; for the time of day, it was fairly quiet, with no one out doing exercises or living their military lives out in the sun (the second part was exactly what Tony had said as they walked around, looking for their destination).
Reaching their first stop on what was probably a list of different places to visit, Tony stepped up to the front door and knocked.
The two waited only a few moments, before a young woman arrived at the door, looking confused. "Uh… hi?" she asked.
Tony and Ziva each raised a single eyebrow. The young woman was apparently only in a night gown, belt loosely tied at the waist and her hair tied up into a messy bun. There weren't even slippers on her feet.
Noticing their scrutinising looks, she folded her arms across her chest in an effort to keep the gown held more tightly around herself. "Is there something that you want?" she asked. "We don't accept all those door-to-door sales…"
Ziva was the first to pull out her badge, flashing it to the young woman. "Agents David and DiNozzo, NCIS," she introduced them both. "Does this house happen to be registered under Petty Officer Peter Marks?"
The girl's brows furrowed. "Yes…"
"We'd like to ask you a few questions about Petty Officer Marks," Tony said, a grim expression on his face as he tucked his badge back into his inner pocket.
"May we come in?" Ziva asked.
The woman glanced back into the house, seemingly thinking about it, before nodding to the two agents. "Sure, come in." She stepped aside, allowing them both in before shutting the door behind them. "Uh, lounge is the first room on the right."
The two agents nodded as they headed through, the young woman following behind them quietly. Once they were seated in the lounge, on the only two-seated couch in the room, the girl awkwardly sat opposite them on one of the armchairs.
"So… what's this about Peter…?" she asked slowly, looking between the two agents.
Tony pulled out a notebook as Ziva began to speak. "What is your relation to the Petty Officer?" she asked.
"We're… friends," the young woman answered. "We worked together, got close, dated a couple of times, but he broke it off every time." She shrugged a little. "It sucked every time, but we're still friends. He lets me house-share with him and a couple of others."
Tony's eyebrows rose at that. "Others?"
"Yeah – Williams and Richards." Her eyes widened slightly. "Oh, forgot to mention: I'm Petty Officer Tracy Green."
Tony nodded and noted this down.
"And where are the others?" Ziva asked, raising an eyebrow. Surely this young woman couldn't have been home alone?
"As far as I know, Williams is upstairs," she answered, her head nodding in the direction of the staircase. "He said he was going to use his time off to play some video games. Richards went out for a run earlier on, but he's not back yet."
"And you?" Tony asked, earning himself a glare from Ziva. "What are you going on your time off?"
"Sleeping," Tracy replied bluntly.
"When was the last time you saw Petty Officer Marks?" Ziva asked, changing the subject and forging Tony back on track.
The young Petty Officer sitting opposite them had to think about that for a moment. "I… think it was sometime last week?" she offered. "He said he wanted to get away for a little while whilst he was on leave, but not go too far. Apparently his family helped him get a place somewhere off-base – I've never been there before, personally, but I guess I believe him. Either way, he said he was going to be away for a couple of weeks to get a breather. I'm not expecting him back until next week at the earliest." Her brows furrowed. "Why the questions about Peter, though? Has something happened?"
Ziva hesitated for a moment. "A couple of days ago, Petty Officer Marks was found murdered in his off-base home."
The girl's eyes bugged out as she slapped her hands over her mouth in shock. "What?" she breathed, disbelieving.
"Wait, wait, Peter's dead?!"
The two agents' heads turned to see a young man – probably around the same age as the woman sitting opposite them, dark-skinned with close-cropped hair – standing at the doorway to the lounge. His hands clutched to the doorframe tightly, his eyes wide.
Ziva gave a slow nod. "Yes."
"How? Why?"
"I'm guessing you're Petty Officer Williams?" Tony asked, though Ziva responded to that for the standing male by stamping on Tony's foot.
"He was found shot in his lounge," she informed the two. "As for the 'why', that is something we are attempting to find out, which is why we are here." She looked between the two young individuals. "If you could provide us with as much information about the Petty Officer as possible, that would be helpful."
"Anything like what he's like, what he did, who he spoke to…" Tony trailed off.
The Petty Officers shared a look – one that Ziva didn't quite catch – before Williams moved to join the group, sitting on the arm of Green's armchair.
"What would you like to know?" he asked, a determined expression on his features.
When Gibbs returned to the house that evening – mainly to prepare dinner for the kids and then head straight back to the office – he had to admit that he was more than surprised at what he heard.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
The house was practically silent. There was no noise – no yelling, no arguing, no Andrew throwing tantrums or getting angry for no specific reason. It was almost scary.
The only thing that could've been scarier than that would've been Andrew and Alex getting along and being like friends. Of course, that couldn't happen, right?
At dinner, he was proven oh so wrong.
Andrew didn't even so much as spare a look in Alex's direction, let alone send him a dirty look. Dinner was a whole lot more peaceful than the previous couple of days, and he got the feeling that he could actually head back into the office without a headache. This was… almost too good to be true.
Or maybe he could take this chance and get everyone to have an early night and start afresh the next day. After all, he wanted to take advantage of this peace whilst he could.
Tony didn't quite seem to understand when he picked up the phone.
"You want us… to go home… early…? But we've barely started the case! And Ziva and I need—"
"Go home. We start early tomorrow." Gibbs ended the call without any further argument. He was pretty sure the other two would also be just as confused about going home early, but they wouldn't argue – it was an early night off.
Besides, Gibbs had a boat waiting in the basement for him. A new project. One that he wanted to keep this time.
Putting his phone down, the man stood from his armchair in the lounge and moved out into the hallway, heading for the basement. Just as he reached the doorway, however, he changed his mind and decided to head upstairs to check on the kids – at least make sure Andrew and Alex weren't attempting to kill each other behind his back instead of to his face.
Heading to Jessica's door first, he knocked on it gently, waiting to see whether he would get a reply. When he got none, he popped his head in, to find that the little girl was at her desk, sketching away with a pair of earphones in and connected to an iPod. He smiled slightly. Only eight years old and she was practically behaving like someone twice her age. He retreated from the room and shut the door quietly, deciding to go and check on the two boys.
Upon popping his head into Andrew's room he found that they were pretty much just as content – Andrew was on the iPad, as usual, and Alex was on his Nintendo DS. The boys were pretty much silent, earphones in and on complete opposite sides of the room to each other. Probably not exactly what Gibbs wanted when he'd told them to get along, but at least they weren't fighting. That was a step in the right direction.
Andrew was the first to notice Gibbs stood there, and he pulled out an earphone, lowering the iPad from his face. "Yes, Gibbs?" he asked, looking confused.
"Just came to check up on you," Gibbs responded, a slight smile on his face. "Everything alright?"
Andrew nodded. "Aren't you heading back to the office?" he asked with a frown. "I thought you had more work to do?"
"It's too late to head back," Gibbs responded, leaning on the doorframe. "Needed a rest."
Andrew pursed his lips, seeming to think about Gibbs' claim, before asking, "Are you finally going to sleep in your own bed tonight?"
The look on Gibbs' face showed that he knew Andrew was jabbing at him childishly, causing the teen to only respond to the look with a slight grin.
"It's a genuine question."
"Are you still going out tomorrow?"
Andrew appeared slightly disgruntled that Gibbs had responded to his teasing with a question, but decided to answer it anyway, his eyes glancing over to Alex (who he could guess was listening, even with earphones in) before back at his foster father. "Yeah, I am…" he replied slowly, pursing his lips and gritting his teeth before continuing to say the next thing, "and Alex is coming with."
Gibbs was pretty sure his eyebrows shot up at that moment. Of all the things he expected, it clearly wasn't that Alex would be heading out with Andrew to the park with his friends for a catch up before school started – if anything, he thought he would have to convince the teen to take the other boy out with him so that Jessica could spend some time with her own friends (or rather, friend, since she was so solitary) and he didn't have to stay in witness protection with just agents the whole day. "Are you sure?" he asked, seriously wondering what was going on.
Andrew shrugged before glancing over at Alex, noticing how this time the other boy was watching him. "Yeah, I guess I'm sure." He still didn't trust Alex – and he made that clear in the expression on his face as he looked at the other boy, but he was willing to let him hang out with his friends… if only to keep an eye on him.
Gibbs' eyes narrowed slightly at the look the boys shared, wondering whether Andrew really wanted Alex to go along with him, but in the end decided to drop it. Something was going on, and he would find out when he needed to. Hopefully before it was too late.
"Alright, I'll be in the basement," the older man announced, turning to leave the two alone when Andrew spoke up.
"Can we work a bit on my project at the end of the week?" he asked. The look on his face was considerably more hopeful than he had when Gibbs first entered the room, and the man smiled. That project was Andrew's pride and joy – it wasn't due into school for at least another year (how his teacher had come up with a deadline like that, Gibbs had no idea) but the teen was excited to start on it, and was already journaling everything that went on in his life. Heck, he was sure that this whole thing about Alex was already in there.
"Sure, if we're both free." He resisted the urge to chuckle at the look of despair on Andrew's face, because he understood – by them both being free, Gibbs meant that only if he finished the case… and Andrew wasn't getting ready for school. And they both knew that Gibbs had a rule about getting ready for school on the last night of the weekend.
"We'll talk about it later, alright?" The man moved to head off again. "I'll be down in the basement if you need me."
Once Gibbs had left, Alex furrowed his brows at Andrew, looking very confused. "What's in the basement…?" he asked, not sure whether it was something he should be concerned about or not.
Andrew just smirked ever so slightly as he returned to focusing on the iPad in front of him. "A boat."
Alex blinked for a few moments, not quite comprehending what he'd just been told.
"A… boat?"
"Alex, come on!"
The blonde blinked as he looked around himself. He was… in a room of some kind. A large room. Open-plan. It looked more like a hallway with seating if he was honest, maybe a bit more square-shaped than rectangular… but the doors leading off the room he was standing him just confirmed that.
When he noticed the semi-circular desk with the suited man standing behind it he concluded that it had to be a hotel lobby of some sort. Though… why any reception would have a sports theme, Alex had no idea.
"This is ridiculous."
He knew it was him talking – he recognised his own voice – but he couldn't control it. Had this happened before? What was going on?
Turning (again, involuntarily) towards what he assumed was the entrance to the hotel reception, Alex spotted a familiar girl – or rather, young woman – standing by the doors, her dark hair tied up into a messy bun but somehow still managing to fit in with the long baggy t-shirt and leggings she was wearing. There was a smile spread across her freckled face.
"You look fine," she responded, giving him a once over. He looked down at himself.
He was in a dark t-shirt and khaki shorts with more pockets than he could count. On his feet he wore a pair of vans that he recognised from… a little while back, though it occurred to him that his toes had now reached the front and it wouldn't be long before the shoes became a tight squeeze. What a shame. He'd liked these ones.
"I look like an upper-class Brit on holiday," he deadpanned. "Oh wait, I am one."
"If you're trying to imply that you look like a git, you're not wrong. You're just… a good-looking git."
"Wow, thanks."
"You are very welcome." She approached him and tugged on his arm, trying to pull him towards the door. "Now come on – we're going to be late! Mum needed us to be in the car five minutes ago! We're going to get caught in traffic at this rate, and then we won't get to go shopping!"
He raised an eyebrow at her, though he stumbled after her obediently. "Who said I wanted to go shopping?"
"Your outdated wardrobe. Now come on!"
He feigned irritation as he was dragged out of the building, though as they passed through the now open doorway, something caught his eye.
A man – not so unusual – in black from his hat to his polished black suit and shoes – a bit more unusual, considering it was pretty hot that day – stood on the corner, leaning on the wall – very unusual, since you wouldn't want to lean on the wall in a suit as polished as that. At least, that was his own opinion.
He also spotted something tucked in at the man's waist, just about concealed underneath the suit blazer he wore. He narrowed his eyes to get a better look. Was that—
Alex gasped as he shot upright, his t-shirt clinging to his chest and his hair all over the place. He could feel his heart beating erratically in his chest and he took deep breaths in an attempt to calm down before he did something stupid like wake Andrew up with something akin to a panic attack.
Honestly, he didn't have much of an idea why he'd started panicking at the dream. It seemed… it seemed like a normal dream. Like a memory of something that happened – an event that had occurred in his past. And from the way the girl – Sabina – looked…
Wait.
Alex froze, his eyes wide as he realised what exactly he had been dreaming about, what his brain was playing back to him.
That… that was one of the days he had forgotten, before the… well, whatever happened that landed him in hospital. His memory was returning to him.
He wasn't sure whether he liked it or not.
Looking over towards where Andrew's alarm stood, he realised the clock read 4am. He could already see that the sky was slowly getting lighter, and he pursed his lips. It wasn't that he wasn't sure whether he would be able to get back to sleep… it was more that he was certain that it wouldn't happen unless he told Gibbs about it. And, looking at the time, he doubted the man would be up and alert enough to listen to him explain everything that he could remember.
Unzipping the sleeping bag and pulling himself out, he glanced around the dimly-lit room for a few moments before his eyes landed on Andrew's iPad, and an idea came to mind. It probably wasn't a great idea, considering Andrew would likely murder him on the spot for even thinking about touching the device, but it would be the best way to get the information to Gibbs without waking him up.
Picking up the tablet, he paused for a second, trying to come up with an idea for the password. From what he could recall, Andrew was the same age as him…
1997.
He mentally cursed when that came up as wrong. Though, at least it meant he wasn't stupid enough to use his own birth year as his password.
Although…
2003. The iPad unlocked.
Alex's lips quirked up into a slight smile. He was clearly dumb enough to use his sister's birth year.
He had to blink a couple of times for his eyes to get used to the bright screen shining in his face, before scrolling along to find the in-built notepad. Pressing on it, he winced when the device made a loud clicking sound. His eyes widened when he heard Andrew shift in bed, mumbling, before settling down again.
Alex's eyes quickly darted over the screen before he found the function to mute the iPad, and as soon as that was done he took a deep breath, closing his eyes momentarily, before he moved to start typing what he could remember.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
