It was the end of the first week in September of 2008. This summer was the most quiet in NCIS history, according to Gibbs. Normally, there would be at least twenty cases; this summer, there were six. The newly minted Master Sergeant Jacklyn Singer was planning to take her first vacation in six years in the form of the medical leave that had piled up in her name. She wanted to take some of it now, before the 'autumn rush of the loonies' began, according to DiNozzo. Cleared already by Director Shepard and even given Gibbs' silent blessing, she had locked up her clinic on the Friday and headed back to her house. Abby came with her for a drink and to talk.

"So, Jack, how are you doing?" Jack paused for a moment as she packed up her clothes on top of the weapons stash that she always carried with her. She thought about her answer before turning back to Abby as she sipped her beer.

"Abs, to be honest... I'm doing better, but I've been better. Who would've thought that after knowing a guy for a month after not seeing him for over a decade, I'd be this torn up about him." She leaned against the side of her bed and nodded her head. "What with my bout with the Croatoan virus, burying my friends, SERE, it's been what I can consider a crappy summer." She tried to laugh, but it came out sounding forced. "But, I got a new job, I've moved up in the ranks, and met some old and new friends. And now, I'm taking my long-awaited vacation."

Abby laughed as she looked over her still-injured friend. By now, her collarbone was mostly healed, but her arm was still in its cast. The bruises and cuts to her face were pretty much healed up, but there would be an awesome scar on her arm as the knife wound there was not quite healed. All in all, she wasn't in the best state to be travelling by herself, but she would be fine for the most part. "Please, Jack, let me come with you, please?"

Abby was so adorable when she begged, but on this, Jack was adamant. She needed some alone time, away from the Corps and away from NCIS. Abby was her dearest friend, but sometimes, space was needed for a relationship to flourish. "Abs, I already told you. I'm going out on medical leave." As she spoke, she winced as the bruised ribs shifted a bit. That was one of a couple injuries that only she and the CO that gave it to her knew about. "Director Shepard wants me to be back in top shape and completely healed by the end of the month. Not that my work isn't good enough injured, but it's her wish and my orders." She pretended to punch Abby's chin with a right cross. "Besides, you wouldn't want to hang around a hunter/Marine on vacation, Abs. We get trigger-happy when we're bored."

Abby pouted some more, but helped Jack finish up her packing. She was leaving to drive to Kansas that afternoon, driving through the night and making it there by morning. She would spend a week in Kansas with old friends, before going up to South Dakota to spend another week with her dad. She would come back in time for the big rush of cases as foretold by DiNozzo.

When the packing was done Abby left, slightly forlorn but placated by the promise that Jack would be back feeling better. Jack sighed as she closed and locked the door behind her as Abby left. She so missed Kansas, the place where she would spend her half of her summers as a kid. Gathering up her bags, she winced and grimaced her way down the driveway and tossed her bags in the trunk of her Camaro. Her baby purred to life as soon as she turned the key in the ignition, rolling out of the driveway without any halts. Showing her ID to the MP at the entrance to the base, she left Quantico with a happy heart.


It was seventeen hours on the road, but she made it to Kansas City by seven the next morning, taking the breaks as she needed to. Stopping at a rest stop for a stretch and fill-up on the tank, she changed into a white Under-Armour shirt and worn blue jeans. She wanted to impress her old friend and mentor, and this was just the way to do it: it was also the surest way to a slap to the back of the head, but what could she do about it? The trip to Lawrence after that break was short and brief, but not short enough. She pulled up to her mentor's house and stopped her car. Walking up the familiar concrete path and knocking on the door, she tucked her head to her chin and waited for her reaction.

"Oh mah lord! Jacklyn Singer?" A plump African American woman opened the door and grabbed Jack so fast that she had little time to reaction; the sound of her Creole accent reminded Jacklyn of awesome times in the past. Why did she stop visiting this place, anyway? Pushing her away, the lady took in the giant of a woman as she towered head and shoulders over her mentor.

"Hi, Missouri." As she let her come inside, she smacked Jack's head as quick as she could. "Ow!" Jack rubbed the back of her head at the impact site. "What was that for?"

"For not visitin'! For joinin' up with the Marines, and not givin' your aunt Missouri peace of mind for all those years!" As quick as she smacked the back of the Marine's head, Missouri snaked her arms around her protege and hugged tight. Jacklyn felt that in her ribs, but she let Missouri do it anyway. She had missed her mentor; it had been so long. "But, you're back!" Taking a closer look, she shook her head. "I'm sorry about Dean, hun. He was a good man."

Jack sighed and twisted the rings on her finger. "Yeah... that he was." Missouri led her inside, sitting her on the couch.

"Don't even think about puttin' your dirty shoes on mah nice clean table!" Jack had just sat down as Missouri wandered into the kitchen.

"Wasn't gonna, Missouri!" She shouted back as Missouri handed her a cup of milk tea.

"Don't you dare lie to a psychic, child!" They both laughed as Missouri sat down next to her. "Now, you just tell your ol' aunt what's been going on in that min' of yours."

Jacklyn sat back and began to tell it all from the beginning: from when she moved away from her father. She stuck to the facts, but she threw in a couple of funny stories about boot camp that made her laugh. Missouri just watched her, gauging her thoughts and reactions as her young protege told her about Iraq, about all the men she lost, about Dean, about her sickness, but also about her new job and team, Gibbs, and meeting up with Abby again. The tale, all in all, took until high noon. When she was finished, they both just sat there.

"Mah word, child!" Missouri began to walk into her little kitchen, past the beaded strands that Jack expertly walked under without a sound. "You are somethin'. Ain't that the truth." Missouri tossed her an apple. "So, Master Sergeant Jacklyn Singer, what would you like to do this fine week that you and I have together?"

Jack just laughed and finished her tea, tossing her apple one-handed up in the air a couple of times. She knew it was a good idea to come here.


Jack spent that week with Missouri learning about herbs and symbology, but Missouri also taught her more about voodoo, going back to where they had left off from her last visit. When she wasn't working at the kitchen table copying out the notes diligently that Missouri beat into her, she was in the garden harvesting the herbs or going out into the organic marketplace for some that were pretty rare and wouldn't grow in arid Kansas. With the voodoo lessons, Missouri, an experience houngan of the Haitian voodoo herself, taught her the components of goofer dust, the names of the loa and their symbols, and the morality debates that once were the highlight of her summer visits. They would debate on issues that affected the hunters, playing both sides of the coin to see the issue in its full depth. Particularly, it involved the killing of humans when exorcising demons. Would you exorcise a demon from a dying human, or would you let the demon free to have havoc on the earth?

It was strange. Most people on their vacations would go fishing or camping, but not Jack. Her idea of a vacation was exactly this: learning from her last remaining mentors. She loved the flow of information as it came from Missouri's mouth and through her pen onto paper. This was what calmed her down at the end of the day. Target practice worked just as well, but there was those pesky laws about shooting firearms within city limits without just cause. Besides, that was what shooting ranges were for. But this week was about her, and Missouri was most willing to oblige to continue her learning.

Besides their lessons, Missouri told her about Dean and Sam, and even their dad John. She was the one to place John on the path of hunting when he called her up and asked her to take a look at his burnt house. She was the one to tell him that supernatural things existed, and not all of them were kind to humans. She told Jack about little Dean, the one that had trailed her around the scrap yard before he would grow into her lover. However, she didn't want to see the old house of the Winchesters, or go by the school that Dean would have been enrolled in come that September. It was painful to still think of Dean as dead, but that was part of the healing process. With time, it would get better, hopefully.

Among other things, Missouri passed on her recipes. Nothing, but nothing, was better than a steaming bowl of Aunt Missouri's jambalaya. At least once a week, she would make it when Jacklyn used to visit in the summer times. Cornbread, jambalaya, gumbo: she wrote down those secret recipes to keep close to her kitchen when she got back to DC. She would have gained at least ten pounds on this trip if she didn't keep up her workout.

As a treat, Missouri bought them tickets to visit New Orleans for three days while she visited with some of her fellow practitioners. She gave Jack free rein on the city, and so she explored the shops and open-air bazaars. She spent a little on amulets for her team, little protective measures in case her two jobs collided, but a bit more on additional books to add to her library. As an awesome find, she found a rolled-up hemp carpet, undyed from the 'Motherland' as Missouri referred to Africa and done up with little designs in brightly-hued thread. It was one-of-a-kind, but the seller saw the military dog-tags and jarhead haircut on her and gave her the mat for half-price. She tried to pay more, knowing that Hurricane Katrina had pummelled this area of the country three years ago, and was still trying to recover. But he just shook his head and gave her the mat at his cut price.

Every day, be it in Lawrence or on Rue Bourbon, Jack kept up her work out regime. Running through the locals, using trees as chin-up bars, she kept with it. Throughout the SERE training, she was taunted by both her instructors and her fellow trainees not just because she was female, but also because she was muscular, more so than some of the guys. It was like Parris Island all over again: she had earned the respect of the men by training just as hard as they did, harder still when it came to their final test. She was kept in the hole for three days before they came after her, nursing her bruised ribs. She didn't reveal anything about the unit still in the woods, even when the CO pig-stuck her in the arm and made her bleed. He was a sadist through and through, but now she had friends who were SEALs, Rangers, and Delta Force from when she had kept the CO's attention on her long enough to let the other time break them out of the makeshift prison. They were connections in the military to help keep her connected, and as favours that she had collected from them all.

Some of the neighbourhood children in Lawrence took a liking to Jack as she ran past their houses in the mornings. Whenever she wore her Marine workout shirt and track pants, they came out in droves to try and keep pace with her. She was a hero to them; they invited her to join in their games, to help them play basketball, and tell them about Iraq. When the mothers saw that, they tried to tell their children to be polite and to leave her alone, Jack just shook her head, telling them that she didn't mind. It was a nod to her missing childhood as she played hoops with the local kids. They were normal, like she never could be, but they made her feel normal for that little sliver of time. It was living the American Dream, as Tony would try to tell her. She liked it.

On the final day of the week, when she would head out to South Dakota to be with Bobby, she was up late. Seeing the clock read nine-o'-clock before she rolled her carcass out of bed was definitely an odd feeling. The trunk of her Camaro was full of little mason jars of herbs that she was missing back home, as well as bags of goofer dust, her finds from New Orleans, and her weapons bag among her packed belongings (never leave home without it). She smelled the coffee that Missouri was brewing and ran downstairs. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Missouri reading the newspaper and sipping a mug.

"Don't even think about it, chile." Damn, she was good. Jack had just placed her hand on a mug, determined for some coffee. "Not until you talk with your Auntie." Holding back a sigh, she walked backwards until she sat in the chair and looked at Missouri. For a while, both of them said nothing. Jack knew that Missouri was trying to get a read on her, and so she just let her. There was nothing that she could do to ward off a psychic's search, at least nothing that she knew of, anyway.

"Did you love him, Jacky?" Wow, it was right to the hard stuff. Jack brought her hand to Dean's amulet as it hung around her neck. She had no idea why Sam would part with it, but she wore it nonetheless. "Were you truly in love with Dean?"

She took a moment to think of her answer. "Missouri, do you believe in soulmates?" Her mentor nodded, wondering about this new unexpected line of questioning. "Well, Dean was my soulmate. We were like two sides of a coin. We're stubborn, determined, and loyal to our loved ones. He brought me out of my funk from Iraq with a single kiss. We both taught each other something about ourselves: Dean taught me that it's okay to be unsure of ourselves, and I taught him that sometimes, family doesn't need to know everything." She ran her finger on the table cloth. "Did I love him? Yes. Do I miss him? Swounds, I do. But I just gotta move on. SERE was the second step. This trip," she tapped that same finger against the table, "this trip was the third step."

Missouri still looked a little confused. "What was the first step, hun?"

Jack lifted up her shirt and showed Missouri her newest tattoo. "Remembering him." Missouri gasped when she saw her name among all the hunters. "It's a list of the hunters that helped me become who I am, Auntie." She pulled the shirt back down and sat in the chair.

Both of them smiled for a moment. Missouri slapped the table and got up, pouring Jack a cup to drink. "Now, when you go and visit your dad, don't you dare go sharing my recipes with him. Or I'll slap the back of your hand with my spoon."

Jack held up her hands. "Wasn't gonna, Missouri. Wasn't even gonna share them with my team back in DC." At that, Missouri nodded her head.

"Speaking of your team, Jacky, here." She reached for a large Mason jar full of dried herb leaves. "Give this to Abby. She needs to focus more when she does her work; I can sense her from all the way out here. One tablespoon of that in hot water in the morning, and she'll never need another Caf-Pow again." Jack couldn't picture Abby without her Caf-Pow, but she took the jar anyway.

Come noon, she was all ready to go. Giving Missouri one last hug, she revved her Camaro into gear and made her way to the I-29. She had six hours to kill before she reached Sioux Falls. With Led Zeppelin screaming from her radio, she slipped her shades on her head and zoomed off into the distance.


Bobby was waiting for her when she stopped just in front of her old home, holding a beer for her in his hands. They exchanged stories, and poured a little on the ground for Dean and the other hunters that they knew. Unlike Missouri, he had tried to head-slap her when he saw the new tattoo. Jack just ducked and pinned his arm to the wall.

During that week, Bobby and Jack trained, just like they used to. She ran in and among the busted up cars, and in the afternoon they competed in marksmanship. Bobby couldn't keep up with the martial arts, so she won in that category. However, he patched her up as the bruises continued to fade and her shoulder and arm got better. It was hard enough training with a busted arm and broken fingers, but that busted shoulder would take another month to heal. Her ears were red from all the shouting as Bobby discovered the true extent of the damage, but she just ignored him.

One of her goals in coming out here was to get back her books. In New Orleans, she had found similar ones for him, but she wanted her personal copies back. So, she and Bobby swore and cursed as they organized his books and cleaned up the old house. She didn't say a word as they cleaned away the empty liquor bottles from his desk. SERE was her way of coping; drinking was his.

On the Thursday two days before she was supposed to head back to DC, they were just sitting around the kitchen tableand having some lunch when the phone rang. Bobby picked it up, only to hang it up again. "Who was it, Dad?" Jack looked from across the kitchen as she sipped her beer.

"Just some idjit wantin' money." The phone rang again, and Bobby answered it again. This time Jack heard the threat that he gave the caller, but didn't speak. It was his business, probably: someone wanting a part for their car that he didn't have.

Later that day, the doorbell rang. This time, Jack was the one to answer. Her dad wasn't expecting any customers, but it could've be anyone. If it was a demon, then the silver knife and rock salt-loaded shotgun on the table near the door would work just fine. She unlocked the dead bolts and opened the door, only to have her heart stop. The person standing in front of her, was Dean.