It had been a few weeks since the Autopsy incident, as Jack had come to call it, and still the team asked her questions about her alter-life. Finally, she put a stop to it all, if not for the sake of quiet but for the sake of her own sanity. Gathering all of them up, she invited them over to her place after work that day. She needed to be on familiar and comfortable ground in order to answer these questions, the questions that were the staple of her childhood and teenage years all the way until now. She never told them that over the weekend after the incident, she had headed out to Blue Earth, Minnesota. It was a seventeen hour trip, but she made it in fourteen; she broke how many speeding regulations, but she didn't care. She loaded up her trunk with everything from Pastor Jim's lock-up, his 'Tomb' as he called it in life. It was where he kept all of his research, all of his weapons. Everything was now hers. On her return, she organized her safe room to fit it all, as well as tidying it up a touch for her guests.
Gibbs was the first to arrive. He didn't knock on the door, but he regretted it the moment that he stepped through when he saw Jack and one of the Marine wives sitting at her table. "Jethro, give us a minute, will you?" He turned away, but he couldn't get the sight of her holding the wife's hand or the tears that were falling from the wife's face out of his head. That was why she looked familiar: she was the wife that Jack had given the flag to at the funeral that they had all attended before her SERE assignment. He heard her sigh for a moment and talk in quiet tones. Jack was obviously comforting the woman. It only took several minutes before the wife left.
Jack's place had changed from the last time that they had visited. He saw several symbols painted discretely on the walls that looked African, while the feathered masks were definitely Aztec. There were dream-catchers, Celtic symbols, and what looked like Hebrew letters painted on the walls to look decorative, but he was sure that they held some other measure for his medical officer. There were also weapons, looked tribal from the lack of use and sense of display on them. Other than that, this house looked no different from any other that he had gone into to interrogate families. When the wife left, he turned back to Jack and looked at her.
"Decided to stop hiding them up in my room." She paused by the symbols. "Adinkra symbols, Gibbs, from Ghana. Each symbols means a different thing, but it's a form of communication." She sighed and ran her good hand through her hair. She was still looking worse for wear from her SERE assignment. Ducky had finally allowed her to remove the cast, but he saw the massive scars on her arm from what looked like a surgery. She saw where he was looking, and poured herself a finger of whiskey from her table. "Ducky was furious when I didn't tell him. Because of the CO's... enthusiasm at SERE, I now have three screws and one iron rod in my arm and wrist to keep them together. The bone-saws at Bethesda were furious when they saw the damage the first time around. From what I heard, the CO from the SERE program has been... retired, since then." She sighed and winced as she ran her hand over her shoulder and collarbone. "Still a little tender, though." A little tender? From where Gibbs was standing across the room, he could see the bruises on her shoulder joint that almost ran down to her elbow.
"The others will be here soon." She nodded and sat down, letting Gibbs sit as well.
"I'd prefer to do this in one fell blow, Gibbs, if you wouldn't mind waiting." He did nothing, but she knew that he was agreeing with her. He sipped at his coffee, counting down the seconds that it took for the rest of the team to come. In total, seven hundred and twenty seconds passed by in complete silence until the door bell rang. Jack got up and opened the door, letting Tony, McGee, Ducky, Palmer, Abby, and Ziva in without a word. They were all talking and joking around, that was until Jack cleared her throat for a moment.
"So, I know you guys all have questions." Tony scoffed at her; a few? "But, let me explain first from the very beginning." She leaned back in her chair and sipped at the whiskey in her hand. "I have never done this before, so bear with me. Most people that I know are either from the Corps, armed forces, or hunters. I don't have that many friends, outside of you lot. However," her face hardened for a moment, "if you even think about looking up any of the names or pursuing any leads into my background, I'm gone." She placed the whiskey down on the table, leaned forward so that she was sitting in the middle of the leather seat, and began her story.
"I was three when I first started this. A demon possessed my mother, and my father killed her before my eyes. That night, we both promised each other that we would never allow ourselves to be weak again. The very next day, we got a phone call from one Missouri Moseley. She's a psychic, the best damn one in the state of Kansas. She, and another hunter by the name of Rufus Turner, got my dad started in the hunting business. He would do hunts, research the demons, and I would learn from his research.
"Caleb Reeves, Daniel Elkins, and Pastor Jim Murphy taught me everything that I know. Caleb was in charge of my physical training: he gave me regimes to work through since I was four and until I was sixteen and could fight him and beat him every time. Daniel Elkins taught me tracking, how to read the trails, how to sense when the monsters are around. Pastor Jim, he was the researcher behind it all. He taught me the exorcisms, the prayers; hell, everything that I know on my book shelves I learned from him. I would spend my summers between Missouri and Jim, learning from the both of them.
"My first kill was at the age of six. I took down a ghost. Simple salt-and-burn." She paused at the hunter term. "You find the bones of the ghost, salt them, and then burn them. That usually solves the problem. The same applies with poltergeists, only they tend to revolve around an object in the house that they haunt.
"I met John Winchester and his boys when I was ten. At the time, Dean was just an annoyance that would follow me around the junkyard with little Sammy in tow. They would pop in every once in a while. I was hunting a lot more those days, usually just weekend trips. I would spend some of those weekends at Abby's place while her uncle and my dad hunted." Everyone looked at Abby, who just nodded at Jack. "Abs isn't a hunter, so don't pester her, guys.
"When I was twenty, I moved from South Dakota to Chesapeake Bay. Became a paramedic. Joined the Corps, got my house. Went overseas. During that time, all of them: Caleb, Elkins, John, Pastor Jim... they were all killed by the same things that we all hunted. Came back here in April, reunited with my dad and the Winchester brothers. Fell in love with Dean." She rubbed the ring around her finger before continuing. "Three weeks after I came back, Dean was dead. He had made a deal with a crossroads demon a year earlier to save his brother, and the price was his soul. I watched as his body was ripped apart, as the life in his eyes left.
"During the time of that mysterious biohazard scare, when I was the one infected and got to stay at Bethesda, Abby found out that the contagion was actually a strain of demonic biological warfare. It does... terrible things to a person's system. My dad, he got it out of me. But it just reminded me that death comes to us all, and that sooner or later, I would join Dean and the rest of the hunters that have fallen in this war.
"When I took my vacation back in the first week of September, Dean came to my dad's house in South Dakota, alive and whole. It took some convincing to assure me that it was really him. He told me that he was pulled out of Hell. Later, he confirmed that it was by an angel. Makes sense, since the omens add up." She stopped, finished with what she would share, and looked at the flabbergasted looks on the team's faces, sans Gibbs and Abby. "Now you can ask your questions."
McGee, surprisingly, was the first. "How do you know?" He fidgeted in his seat. "I mean, where's the proof?"
"The legends of old, McGee, are usually all based on truth. People don't make these things up." She got up from her seat and pulled out a Bible from her shelf. "Angels and demons are written in here, which I believe some of you read." She pulled out a copy of the Talmud and the Koran. "They're in here as well." She ran her hand over the spines of her books. "Every culture has its own myths about monsters, its own tales. It's just a matter of finding them and the right way to kill them, if they do harm to humans. Some of them are good monsters, but the majority just like to create chaos."
"How do you kill them?" Of course, Tony would ask that question.
"Depends. Salt is the best deterrent. Usually works on ghosts and spirits. Demons can't cross pure salt lines. Has to be un-iodized, though. Rock salt only. Fire works, too, usually for more corporeal forms. Prayer and exorcisms for demons. Silver for werewolves. Depends."
Ducky was surprisingly calm. "Have you ever met any of these things?"
Jack just laughed. "Ducky, I've met a lot of things. Wendigos, ghosts, werewolves, vampires... demons are most often. I've fought countless cultural demons, but I can't list them off the top of my head anymore. The hardest one was a Vanir in one of the old Scandinavian towns on the coast. Had to wait a certain time in the year to find a certain tree and burn it, without the town knowing. Wouldn't make me a popular girl if they had found out." She stood in front of them, leaning against one of the bookcases. "Are you all still wearing the pendants I gave you?" All but Tony lifted up the cord.
When Gibbs stared at him, Tony began to look nervous. "Come on, Boss! I... this can't be real! I mean, demons? Angels? Naw... it's not possible!" Jack finished off her whiskey.
"Guys, I want to show something before I finish off the Q&A session." Turning around, she stripped off her shirt. For the first time, her team saw all the scars, all the tattoos. She kept her bra on, but began to show them. "Tony, I've been doing this my whole life. I know some things are hard to explain, but it's real. What you saw back in Autopsy, the dead security guard, he was possessed by the same demon that did this." She pointed to a scar below her left collarbone. "He held me at knife point, wearing my mother's skin, and brought me before my dad. This one," she pointed to the top of a burn scar on her hip, "was from a hellhound hunt. My backup got careless with the flares, and he shot one at me. All of these, Tony, except for the ones from the surgery, are from my hunting." She slipped her shirt back on. "You may not believe, Tony, but I do. Can you wear this, at least to keep my mind happy?" She passed him another of the amulets, and he placed it grudgingly on.
Jack, why don't you show them the room downstairs? Abby signed to her. Gibbs looked between them, the first confused look on his face today.
I'm getting to it, Abs. Jack nodded and led them to the bookcase. She pushed it aside with her good arm and placed her hand against a top-of-the-line scanner. Taking a breath, she waited for a moment before the door opened. The team looked inside at the forbidden texts, the collection of weapons. "Tony, this is what you use to hunt demons." She moved her hand along the shelves of guns and knives. "This is why, if you suspect anything following you, you come to my place. It's the safest place in the city; not even Gibbs' place is safer than mine. You come to my door at any hour of the day, pour a ring of salt around yourself, and pray to whatever gods you believe in. Pray loud and hard, and it should work."
She began to sign once more to Abs. Take them upstairs, Abby. I need a moment. That was all it took before Jack passed out, hitting the ground just as hard as a falling brick.
She woke up to a hand gently slapping her cheek. The light was shining through the windows; she wasn't in her basement anymore. She blinked her eyes a couple of times and slapped her hand against the ground. She heard Ducky mumble, but Abby poured some holy water on her face and she woke up.
"Abs. Second book case, third shelf. Small bottle." She waved her hand, motioning her to move faster. There was a small hip flask that was pressed in her hand. Jack drank from it slowly. Ducky took it away from her and smelled it. "It's safe, Ducky. Nothing illegal." Abby helped her to sit up against her couch and take a few breaths. "It's getting better, Abs." Gibbs thought back in the last few weeks. Jack had seemed quite different: she was weaker. She had been paler than normal. What was going on?
Abby seemed to be the only one in the room understanding what was happening. She looked at her friends and told them to leave as she helped Jack up the stairs and away from the team. Gibbs followed them, watching Abby lay Jack out on her bed and pour salt around her. Jack moaned in bed as her eyes rolled back in her skull for a moment. Abby kept murmuring Latin, making Jack roll on the bed. "What the hell?" Abby jolted when she heard Gibbs. But then she sat down with a sigh.
"Her SERE training was more than what she told you. She was interrogated for two weeks, Gibbs. Her team watched as she was beaten within an inch of her life. The man broke her arm in five places, her wrist in three. She was hung by her dislocated shoulder and collarbone for two days. Broken ribs, the ones barely healed from Iraq, were re-broken. No food, no water. Her nose was broken four times; it's a wonder she can breathe through it. Multiple black eyes. Her arm was sliced open. She has a knife wound on her leg, but it's also healed." She rubbed a small circle in her best friend's hand. Her voice became monotone as she listed off her friend's injuries. Gibbs grew angrier and angrier as he finally realized what his medical officer had gone through. Why hadn't she told him the truth first off? "And remember, she suffered from Croatoan as well this summer. It's a miracle that she's even alive." Gibbs was still confused, so Abby broke it down for him even further. "It's that demon virus; spread by blood. Makes the infected demonic and violent. No cure. Usually, you die from it if you don't spread it. Uncle Bobby came and cured her, but she nearly died from that as well. Plus, she's been working herself to exhaustion working for us and the Corps. Did you know that she still hunts on the weekend, trying to keep people safe? She's a hero!" Now Abs was babbling, but Gibbs didn't stop her.
"Why she is reacting like this?" Gibbs was worried about a demon possession, but Abby shook her head.
"It's a result of the Croatoan virus in her system. When she experiences high stress levels, the virus footprint flares up. Uncle Bobby got rid of it, yes, but her DNA will forever recognize and fight it in her system. She'll remain in the circle of salt until morning. By then, it should be better."
Gibbs wasn't quite finished with the questions. "What did she take downstairs?"
"It's a tea that Missouri made for her. It helps her to control the pain and encourages her healing. She has to drink it every few hours. It's like an instant shot of 'get better'. Her bruises are getting better at least. She has to drink it for another three weeks, then she would be good to go. The only problem is that she doesn't rest. Even when she was on vacation, she still worked." By now, Abby was crying.
Gibbs said nothing, just sat on her other side and watched over as Jack appeared to dream about something terrible. "Why didn't she tell me?"
Abby scoffed. "Gibbs, you're like her father figure. Bobby's always gone on hunts, even when we were kids. She never truly had someone to watch over her and care for her like you. I mean, Uncle Bobby's great, but he's a Marine and he raised his girl to be a soldier. Jack never took mind at it; she loved it. But when she came here, to work for you, she told me that this was the most fun ever that she has had in a long time. I mean, six years overseas? She's a machine, but now she's too tired to hide it anymore. Gibbs, you're the first person to give a damn about how she feels."
Between the two, there was silence. Both of them waited, waited for the one person on the bed to wake up.