Chapter Fourteen: Kate and the Selkie
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They've had no leads on the case of a missing Petty Officer, and Gibbs has sent her and the freshly re-instated DiNozzo back to talk with the wife. Tony keeps up a constant chatter on the way to the home, tapping his hands on the steering wheel along with the beat of the radio's music and recounting every movie he can think of where the wife was responsible for the husband's murder.
"She didn't kill her husband, Tony." Kate's exhausted. She leans her head against the cool glass of the window and thinks of the wife's grief-stricken face and the two wide-eyed children watching from the door as she'd tried to keep it together for the NCIS team. The children were the image of their mother, fair-haired and blue-eyed. Kate glances down at a picture of the father, noting his dark eyes and deeply tanned skin.
"She certainly doesn't seem to think he's coming back though," Tony points out. "Come on, Kate. Haven't you ever seen Thelma and Louise? 'My husband wasn't sweet to me. Look how I turned out'." He mimics the voice, pitching his own in a high falsetto.
"Have you ever considered that you have trust issues with women?" she asks him dryly, closing her eyes and chasing a niggling thought in the back of her mind that evades her. He stops talking as he considers her words.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he says finally, hurt. Single bed, she thinks but doesn't say. The last thing she needs is a pissed off DiNozzo haunting her workday. "We could have a Kill Bill situation here." Tony's voice is over-loud as he ignores her crankiness. "Maybe an ex-lover, furious at being scorned, she's been driven mad with grief over the loss of her unborn child…"
Kate sits up so sharply her head smacks the glass. Tony jerks in surprise, the car drifting sideways slightly before he corrects it and glances at her accusingly.
"The children," she says, thinking of the two frightened kids watching her from the hall. Two kids watching her, but three children in the pictures on the wall. "How many children in the family?" She rifles frantically through her file, finding a picture of the family, all of them, blonde-haired wife and the two fair children, the father holding a dark-haired toddler with huge brown eyes in his arms.
"Two kids from the mother's former marriage, one from the current," Tony says, shooting a glance at the picture. "Bet you can't guess which is which."
Kate stares at the sombre looking toddler. "Where's the youngest? We were at the house for hours, looking for evidence. Why didn't we see him?"
"Day-care? Family?" Tony pauses, thinking. "Why send only the youngest away?"
Kate thinks back to the initial interview with the mother and tries to approach it from another angle. Tony's right, she seems sure that her husband won't return. Clearly grieving. Grieving a loss… of a child, or a husband?
And why would she report her husband missing, but not her child?
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Tony talks with the wife, his charming mask firmly in place. Kate excuses herself to the bathroom and wanders down the hallway examining the pictures on the wall. All three children, equally featured. Every sign of devoted parents. She opens a door and finds herself in a nursery. Running her hand along the soft blanket folded in the crib, the smell of baby powder is strong in the air. The room is cheerfully decorated, walls painted with pictures of the ocean, seals and dolphins gambolling in the waves. A drawer she pulls open is full of neatly stacked clothes, no gaps to show where any have been taken out for an overnight stay. A diaper bag sits near the door, stocked and untouched. She bumps against a dresser as she crouches to read the spines of the picture books on the small shelf, knocking a few stuffed toys to the ground. Picking up a battered rabbit, she smiles at its tattered ear and faded bow-tie, clearly a well-loved relic from one of the older siblings. The other toys are new, fur soft and fine, a cheerful looking whale and two more seals, button noses shiny.
That thought is back, niggling at her mind, accompanied by what Gibbs would call a 'gut feeling'. She examines the toys before putting them back and trying to focus on what's catching her eye.
The pictures books, old and new. Old books featuring jungle animals with frozen smiles and neon-coloured fur. Old books with people and cities and brightly coloured automobiles, all of them well-worn. A selection of brand new books, beaches and rivers, an alphabet book of sea life. When she runs her finger over them, the old books leave a fine trail of dust on her hand.
She picks up the bunny and carefully closes the nursery door behind her, tiptoeing along to the other bedroom where the two older children look up from their drawing. "Hello," she greets them from the doorway. "My name is Kate. What are your names?"
"Ally," the older girl says suspiciously, green crayon forgotten in her hand. "This is Alex. Why are you here?"
"I'm helping find your dad. I'm with the police." Kate sits next to them and holds the bunny out watching as the smaller boy takes it and pats the ears lovingly. "Is this yours?" she asks him.
"It was," Ally replies, looking from the rabbit to Kate. "He gave it to Dylan when he was born. I gave him my cat toy, Buttons." She looks down, biting at her lip, and Kate can see her face reddening with the effort not to cry. "He likes Buttons better." Kate spots an orange patch of fur on one of the beds, half-covered by the girl's pillow.
"Where is Dylan?" Kate asks them softly. The younger boy looks unfazed by the question, smiling at her and hugging his bunny. The girl seems torn. Upset. Guilty.
"He went with Daddy because Mommy played a trick," she says finally, her voice a whisper. "He didn't take Buttons, even though Dilly likes him better."
"Where did Daddy take Dylan?" Kate's gut is churning. She thinks of the sea-themed nursery, the dark-liquid eyes of the boy and his father.
Tony hadn't seen it but, she doubts Tony is the kind of person to have had fairy-tales read to him as a child. The same with McGee. Gibbs? Maybe, but, somehow, he'd missed it too. That was a benefit of being human, she supposes. Her parents had still read her stories without laughing at the inaccuracies.
"He asked me to open the box," Ally says, and now she really is crying, a trickle of snot touching her lip. "He said he'd surprise me if I opened the smelly box, but he didn't surprise me at all, he just went." Alex hands her his picture with crayon-grubby hands. She looks down at it and feels her heart sink in her chest.
The mother cries when Kate returns to the kitchen and places the drawing on the table in front of her. "I loved him so much," she tells Kate between sobs. "They were my life, and everyone said that he'd leave if he got the chance, that I'd never keep him. And now he's gone and he took our son, and I'll never find them again."
Tony studies the picture, his brow furrowed. The three figures on the beach, blonde hair sticking out wildly as they face the ocean, holding hands.
The two shapes in the waves, indistinct.
"Where did you hide it?" she asks the woman gently and sees the dawning comprehension on Tony's face.
The grieving wife leads them to the attic, pointing them up the stairs. She grabs Kate's hand as Kate goes to follow Tony up the ascent, her hand clammy and grip tight. Kate meets her eyes and sees the pain and guilt there. "Would he have stayed?" she asks, and Kate can hear the begging in her words. "If I hadn't done it, if I'd trusted him, would he have stayed?"
Kate doesn't answer, just climbs into the attic and finds Tony standing in front of a holly-wood chest, his eyes downcast. He can't touch the pale timber, but she can. When she opens the lid, she can smell the tang of sea-salt and a wild smell that reminds her a little of Gibbs.
She thinks of her nana, reading her stories about seals who find human lovers and join them on the land, only to inevitably return to the ocean. She had asked her nana if they ever had happy endings, if they ever lived happily ever after. Her nana had smiled at her and said, "Of course. They don't write stories about people living out their lives in quiet peace. As long as you never break the one rule."
Selkies are fae, and no one should ever try to trick the fae.
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She's not going home to Indianapolis this year for Thanksgiving. Her brothers are all busy with their new lives and her sister caring, but distant. Kate can't help but think of the wife and her two remaining children celebrating Thanksgiving at a table with two empty places, the father and son somewhere unknown.
Sometimes, it's hard to remember what to be thankful for.
A knock at her door interrupts her morose musings, and she answers it with a sighed, "What do you want, Tony?"
Tony grins wickedly at her, gleeful at having caught her out in a lie. She'd adamantly told them she was going home for Thanksgiving, refusing to allow their pity. "I knew you were lying. You get all squirrelly when you try to hide things from me."
"So, you decided to make my day even worse?" she snaps at him.
He shrugs, holding up a six pack of beer and a bag of half-thawed steaks. "Thought you might want to join us."
The steaks drip onto her hallway carpet as Kate wrinkles her nose at them and asks, "Join who?"
He doesn't even need to answer the question as Abby appears, waving her arms in excitement. "Kate! We're going to Gibbs' for lunch, come with us! Ducky's coming! Gibbs makes the best steak, which I guess makes sense, because he's a carnivore and all, although Tony is a terrible cook and he's a carnivore too, so…"
Kate's not stupid enough to think she can fight the combined efforts of Abby and Tony and ducks back into her apartment to find her keys, half-listening to Abby chatter on about their team's culinary skills. It's not until she's in the car on their way to their boss's house when she wonders if either of the other two had bothered to let Gibbs know that they were coming.
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Turns out, Gibbs is expecting them anyway, merely raising an eyebrow at Kate when she trails in after the other two and setting out another place.
"Who else is coming?" Tony asks, counting the plates on the table.
"Ducky's bringing Palmer," Gibbs responds mildly. Kate counts the places as well, coming up with one extra and exchanging a curious look with Tony.
"You got a lady friend coming, Boss?" Tony asks cheekily. He opens a beer and flops back onto the couch with relish. Kate eyes his shirt, knowing that the skin underneath is marred with the pocked scarring of the healed wound he'd taken for her. He'd refused to let her see it, ignoring all her attempts to peek and merely telling her that the scarring would fade in time. She's even offered to tell him what her tattoo is if he shows her, an offer that he'd seemed sorely tempted by but, ultimately, refused.
"No lady would be found dead in this place," grumbles a voice from the doorway. Three heads turn to see Ducky and Palmer letting themselves in, trailed by a cranky looking Fornell. "Not unless she really likes boats."
Palmer looks nervously from Gibbs to Fornell, sidling past with Echolalia at his heels and creeping to Abby's side. Kate doesn't blame him. She can't imagine a car-ride with the irritable FBI agent would have been fun for their anxious autopsy tech, even with Ducky refereeing.
"What are you doing here?" Tony asks, looking sorely put out.
"Tobias has been keeping my mother and I company this past month," Ducky answers, smiling genially. "Jethro was kind enough to extend an invitation to dine to us all, an invitation that we were happy to accept."
Kate studies the new lines on Fornell's face and thinks that perhaps this is the first time the man has been out of hiding since he'd been framed. "Is that safe? I mean, you're supposed to be dead."
"Safe enough," Gibbs replies. That seems to be the end of it as he hurries into the kitchen and shoos Palmer away from his fridge.
"I've never seen Ducky's house," Tony mutters in her ear. "He wouldn't even let me stay when my place was being fumigated."
"I'd take Fornell as a house guest any day over you." Kate pokes her tongue out at him childishly. "I bet he doesn't leave the toilet seat up."
Any reply DiNozzo had planned is cut off by a growl behind her. Kate turns, spotting Echo standing rigidly near her, ears and tail held stiffly upright. "Hey girl," she greets her nervously, looking about for Palmer and extending her hand to the dog's nose. "What's up with you?"
Echo sniffs at her hand, and then bays. Three echoing barks resonate throughout the house. They sink deeply into her bones, chilling her through and through until she doesn't think she'll ever be warm again, staggering back and feeling the floor become indistinct below her.
For a moment, the room fades and leaves her standing alone on a foggy, broken path.
She blinks and she's back. Everyone is staring at her. The barks are followed by silence, broken only by Echo's sad whine as she flops to the ground in front of Kate and eyes her miserably from under a fringe of fur. Kate stares at the dog, before slowly raising her eyes to look at the others in the room. Gibbs' face is expressionless. Fornell seems unfazed.
Abby laughs nervously at the still form of the dog. "Aww, I thought she liked you," she teases Kate. "Why is she growling?" Tony laughs behind her, his voice strange. Ducky's face is still, gaze locked on Echo, and his hand trembles slightly around the stem of his wine-glass.
"I don't feel right," Kate says, and her voice is a thousand miles away, back on that foggy path. She blinks again, and feels the world slip once more. Magic, she recognises, and sways.
Palmer is the only one watching her, and his face is chalk-white with horror. Kate looks at him and feels fear slam into her like a kick in the gut.
"Jimmy?" she asks, her voice catching in her throat as she fights the bizarre urge to back away. He doesn't say anything, just stares at her with those wide, terrified eyes. Her head spins under the weight of that terror.
The echoes of the baying in her ears becomes a roar and she falls towards the waiting path.