Kelly watched from 4 cars back as the blue Dodge pulled into a public lot across from a nursing home. She had tailed the government issued car from the Navy Yard headed south, not getting off the highway until they were outside of Richmond.
She had been productive during the silent drive from Philadelphia to Washington. From the back seat she had searched the internet for Captain Joe Norton, finding an article regarding his murder and then the surprising detail that at the time of his death he had been with his fiancé; a Ms. Joann Fielding.
Keeping an eye on the silver haired man exiting the car, she made an inconspicuous loop of the block and pulled into the far end of the lot. Grabbing her USMC sweatshirt from the backseat, she flipped up the hood over her hair and moved around the shrubs until she was within hearing distance of the bench where Gibbs had sat next to a familiar, elderly woman.
"…Norton." He was finishing by the time Kelly came within earshot.
"What are you talking about?" Joann shook her head, "I thought we put this all behind us years ago."
"You lied to me, Joann." His eyes were so angrily focused on the other woman that Kelly suspected she could have been doing cartwheels and he'd never have noticed her.
"I did not." Joann protested again. "I told you I killed him."
Kelly flinched and held her breath.
"But you didn't tell me the real reason why." Gibbs leaned in, "You knew he took Kelly from the hospital. You knew she was alive!" He was yelling now, pausing only to avoid catching the attention of passersby.
"What are you talking about Jethro?" Joann shook her head.
His eyes narrowed, "I was stuck at Walter Reed. You flew out to San Diego to pick out the caskets. You met with the coroner. You knew."
"Knew what?" She leaned in, looking over his face as analytically as he was evaluating hers.
Sensing something, Gibbs pulled back, "Why don't you start from the beginning." He tensed, "The whole truth this time."
Joann sighed, "Yes, Mac and I flew to San Diego and met with the coroner but I couldn't bring myself to look at the girls. Mac did...well, he looked at Shannon." She brought a shaking hand to her face, "He said it was horrible and he couldn't bare seeing our little Kelly in the same condition."
She dropped her hand, looking at it in her lap, ""It didn't register for me for a long time, but something that day stuck out to me; the coroner mentioned that Kelly must have taken after her father." She reached for his hands, "We all knew how much like you she was, but with her mother's hair, strangers who didn't know you never would have said Kelly took after anyone but Shannon."
She sighed, "But on the 15th anniversary I started to think about it. I was divorced, retired; I was starting to take stock of my life and found myself revisiting those days."
She looked to Gibbs, "That's when I hired that investigator, Hendricks. There was no reason for hope but I was an old woman with too much money and nothing left but to grasp at straws."
"The cartel killed Hendricks for snooping around." Gibbs reminded her.
"But he investigated for over 2 years prior to that." She corrected. "He told me that Pendleton had no record of Kelly's death the same day as Shannon's. That the death was recorded at a hospital up the road, a day later."
"You found Miguel Fulkroad." Gibbs provided.
Joann frowned, "How do you….?"
He brushed her off, "What came next?"
She hesitated, looking him over and sighing, "Fulkroad's trail went cold once he went off with those arabs but…"
"What?" Gibbs leaned in, "What Arabs?"
"I don't know." Joann shrugged, "Whatever arabs he was selling drugs for. That's what Hendricks said anyway."
He blinked and shook his head, "Okay..."
"So," She gestured, "Hendricks also found that Norton and Fulkroad were sharing an apartment when the girls were killed."
Her voice lowered and raised intensity, "He was working for them too, the Rey-Nosas. They took her, Fulkroad and Norton. Fulkroad killed her and Norton knew. He had to have." Her eyes hardened, "What you did avenged Shannon but I avenged our Kelly."
Kelly's eyebrows rose and she looked around the bush, attempting to see his reaction.
Gibbs was looking down, his lips in a tight grimace, "You don't know that Joann…" He looked up, "You should have come to me. When you first started to suspect...you should have come to me."
"Oh;" She rolled her eyes, "As if you'd have listened."
His eyes flashed, "She's my daughter! Had you any respect for me you'd know I would have listened and I would have investigated." He exhaled sharply through his nose, "And I would have found him Joann. I would have found him and gotten him to tell me everything." He looked away with a shake of his head, "9 years ago…I could have started looking."
Joann put a hand on his cheek, redirecting his attention to her, "Looking for what? Why are you here now Jethro? How did you know about the doctor?"
Gibbs shook his head and stood, gesturing to a woman in nurse scrubs at the far side of the walkway. The nurse approached, "Ready to go back in now Joann?"
The older woman glared at Gibbs, "You need to tell me, Jethro!"
He swallowed, "Be well Joann." He looked at her with sad eyes, leaning in to place a kiss on her forehead before turning away.
Kelly backpedaled away from the bench, moving around the far side of the bush and easily making it to her car unseen.
She bit her lip, flashing through what she had just heard. Her eyes flicked to the nurse guiding her reluctant grandmother back to the building and then watched over the roof of her car as Gibbs approached the parking lot. His eyes were focused just ahead of his feet and his shoulders were tight.
Pursing her lips she took in a deep breath and squared her shoulders. Turning away from her car, she jogged to the blue Dodge and crossed her arms, leaning against it with faux casualness. She focused on leveling her breath as she watched him approach.
About 50 feet from her, his steps hesitated. He continued his approach but still didn't look up, "What was the point of hiding behind the bush if you were just going to wait for me at the car?"
She blinked, "You knew I was there?"
He came to a stop, meeting her eyes, "I have a feeling that the teenage years weren't all easy with you."
"I don't let things go." She lifted her chin.
He sighed, "Suppose that shouldn't be a surprise."
She tilted her head, "That was Grandma."
Gibbs nodded.
"You didn't tell her I'm alive."
He shrugged, "Didn't figure it was for me to decide."
"She killed Norton?" Kelly shoved her hands into the pouch of her sweatshirt.
Gibbs pressed his lips together and leaned against the car next to her, "Told you; some people don't react well to grief."
She looked down, her brain trying to reconcile the memory of the grandmother who would bring her Amish chocolates, with a killer.
"And you?" Kelly's eyes darted to the side, looking at him obliquely. "What did she mean by how you avenged Mom?"
He looked away, just above the horizon, pressing on the inside of his lips.
When it became clear he wasn't about to answer, Kelly tilted her head, "I wouldn't talk about the crash for a long time." She waited for him to look her way, "My case worker made me see a child psychologist for a while." She took a shaky breath, "It wasn't until 9th grade that I stopped calling it an 'accident' and went through the news articles; finally put it in context...finally understood what happened."
She clenched her teeth, remembering the anger that had bubbled inside of her during those days. Pulling her hands from her sweatshirt she turned to face him more directly, "What happened to Pedro Hernandez?"
Gibbs' eyes flicked down to hers. He stared at her for a long, silent moment before the tendons in his cheek tensed. "He died."
She didn't move, didn't look away.
He relaxed, facing the ground with a wince. "Of my life's regrets that's not one of them." He brought his eyes up to meet hers, "But I understand if you see it differently."
She pulled away from his eyes. Shadows of remembered confusion and anger and pain tore through her and she tightened her arms across her chest. She glanced up; he was patiently, blankly looking at her, waiting.
She frowned, taking the time to look him over; measuring the man in front of her against the Dad she had known. The man she remembered was infallible. He had darker, shorter hair. He always wore t-shirts and fatigue jackets, laughed often, pulled pranks and had smile lines but no wrinkles.
It seemed the only thing two decades hadn't changed was his eyes; the same cerulean blue that looked back at her from the mirror every morning and the same cerulean blue that looked up at her from her son's trusting face.
She dropped her gaze, focusing on the index finger of his right hand. She knew without touching that the same callouses were still there. Her thumb absently stroked the similar callous on her own trigger finger.
Swallowing, she looked up, "You know what I'm thinking?"
A curious tension pulled on his lips and he shook his head, "No."
"I'm thinking about how hard it was for me to request my transfer to Quantico."
His brow furrowed and he tilted his head.
She relaxed her arms, looking at the logo on her sweatshirt. "I'm a Marine and I was actively seeking a safer assignment. That goes against everything that we're supposed to be."
He lifted a shoulder, "There's nothing wrong with looking out for your family. Thousands of Marines do that every year."
"You didn't." She replied levelly.
His eyes went round and he exhaled, "Kelly…I should have been there…"
"Stop." She shook her head, "That's not what I'm saying."
He froze.
She gave him a sad smile, "What I'm saying is that being deployed with a family at home takes a strength that I don't know if I have." She shook her head, "But I know if I were to be deployed that I'd feel guilty for the time not at home and if something were to happen to Jeremy and Jack while I was gone…"
She faded away with a grimace, teeth clenched, "Well God help anyone responsible for hurting my family."
Gibbs didn't say anything, pressure pushing at the corner of his eyes.
She took a breath, stance softening, "Look, about what I said in Philadelphia…" She shifted, "I don't apologize very often…"
"Then don't do it now." He cut her off, "You weren't wrong to be curious."
"And I understand why you didn't want to tell me." She shook her head, biting her lip, "I can't believe Grandma killed someone."
"That's because you were never on her bad side." Gibbs smirked.
Kelly exhaled, "I told Lieutenant Joe, I mean, Norton...I told him about Grandma."
Gibbs tilted his head.
"When he said he was dropping me off with my new family." She clarified. "I told him about Grandma and Grandpa Mac and Grampy." She shook her head, "But I couldn't tell him anything more than they lived in Pennsylvania. He promised me he would look into it and find them for me." She felt the moisture begin to build in her eyes, "When he never came back I just assumed they didn't want me..."
"Kells..." He reached out a hand, holding her shoulder.
"I know...I know now." She nodded rapidly, wiping at her face and taking a deep breath. She pulled on a smile and looked at him with a self-conscious grin, "Before these last few days I couldn't have remembered the last time I cried."
He smirked and blew a short, amused breath out his nose but didn't pull back his hand. He looked to the park over her shoulder and tilted his head at a street vendor, "Buy you a hot chocolate? With marshmallows?"
She rolled her eyes, "Is that supposed to make everything better?"
"No." He shook his head, "But could be a step in the right direction."