Dazed and confused, I sat in the director's office about a hellish day later, the sunshine making me squint after the dark plane ride home. After all, some questions needed to be answered. A bomb had exploded in a random warehouse in the middle of the Haitian community, killing at least twenty people, most of them bystanders and some of them employees of said warehouse. Many people were injured, but the children that came out had been saved, chattering about their torture and rape stories. Even the NCIS team sent in there to raid it was slightly injured by the experience, but survived.
And yet…yet…a lone intern from NCIS escaped underground and through the sewage system, coming out almost unharmed (well, except for a few head slaps from Tony and Gibbs). She was holding an old piece of paper, supposedly containing more evidence on the Black Crusade and their final warehouse in Washington, DC. And that crucial piece of evidence was to be presented to the director soon enough, by me of all people, who barely escaped.
Of course, I knew that the director wasn't blaming me for anything, even for Simon pushing me into the bombproof (if I can all it that) tunnel system. She said so herself before I could say a word, adding that she would have done the same thing, especially if her gut was bothering her and telling her to move to the rescue. It didn't matter how illegal her escape was or if put herself in danger, she would have gone out to find Gibbs too.
"Even if Gibbs asked you to stay put?" I asked her, anxiously waiting for Gibbs to come in and yell at me some more, as was mentioned when I was summoned to the office. "Even if you knew you would be blamed for escaping illegally from a police station, of all places?"
"Even if he did," the director reassured me, frankness lining her green eyes. "And even if it meant being charged with vandalism."
And I guess that's all the director's been doing after telling me that, reassuring me all this time and making sure nobody blamed me for anything. Even after telling me that Mara's death had been linked to the Black Crusade case already (with Abby finding fingerprints on the director's walls matching an unknown person from the Pentagon file), she had been very sympathetic. She talked to me about taking some time off, but I shook my head no. She talked about my career goals and dreams, but all I could do was listen to her lecture. I could tell that she knew more about me than what was necessary and had been snooping, but talking about my future seemed to be the only thing we could tread on without my tears coming down about anything: murder, rape and persecution.
"You're still a part of this family, more so than before," the director said to me after telling me of the many possibilities and places she was planning for me to go to (Germany being the top of the list), seeing that I was worried about my place in NCIS going up in smoke. "No agent without a grain of salt would go after Gibbs and his team like that. No agent without much training would dare disobey Gibbs and run off into a warehouse about to explode. You seem to be one of the braver ones."
"It makes me feel a little guilty," I admitted freely.
"Well, it is better to seek forgiveness than to ask for permission," the director seemed to remind me, although where that came from, I didn't know.
"What does that mean?"
The director raised an eyebrow. "Rule number eighteen."
"When am I going to learn all of these rules everybody here follows mostly?" I asked.
"Whenever I get to them," Gibbs brusquely said to me as he entered the office abruptly and with the director's secretary trying to stop him in the open doorway. She closed it behind Gibbs, mouth opened in shock. "Now, let's get down to business."
The director winked at me at the side, to keep on reassuring me that she was on my side, and kept her professional stance in check, much as she was annoyed that Gibbs got past her secretary again. "So, Jethro, have the two men, Seth Austin and Felix Henderson, been found?"
"Not yet," Gibbs answered, annoyed. "We don't know where they are. And that's not good enough."
"We know that Seth Austin is with the Black Crusade," I offered, taking out the paper Simon gave to me out and standing up. "Ewenso Simon even gave me this, which is –"
"Which is what?" Gibbs turned to face me, barking. "What do you have?"
I bristled. "I told you on the plane that Simon gave me this piece of paper and –"
Gibbs immediately snatched the paper out of my hands, unfolding the old wrinkles and looking at it. "What did Simon say it was?" he asked me slowly, nicer, when his eyes glanced at it without glasses, squinting.
"He said that it was the Washington, DC warehouse," I replied, feeling proud for avoiding another yelling fest with Gibbs (Ashbury Park and on the plane, it wasn't good, let me tell you). "He didn't give me an address, but the floor plans. There's also a place where it self-detonates."
Director Shepard got up from her desk and walked around it, also wanting to see the paper. "It looks like it is underground," she commented when she saw it. "But where could it be?"
"Construction site?" I threw out randomly.
"It could also be an old factory or business," Director Shepard suggested.
"Either way, we need to find out where this is," Gibbs said, determined. Then, folding the paper into its crevices and throwing it back at me, he added, "Take that to Abby and McGee when you can. Have them go through every city plan and track this place down."
"Anything else, Boss?" I asked sarcastically, aware that the director covering her snickering misdeed before Gibbs caught her.
"Yeah," Gibbs said, annoyed. "Don't you dare disobey orders again or I'll kick your ass. Do you understand me?"
"I have been listening since you've been caught me behind the scene of the crime, crawling out from the sewers," I replied hotly, acid dripping from my tongue. "I don't know how many times you need to remind me of it."
"I don't know how many times I need to tell you to stay put." Gibbs threw his famous scowl at me, but I ignored it.
"My gut was telling me differently." I crossed my arms stubbornly. "What would have happened if Simon and I didn't come after you and your reinforcements and the Black Crusade workers left in there? You would have been stuck in that building and died. Simon's former boss was going to blow it up anyway. You, McGee, Tony, Ziva and all those children would have died."
"You don't focus on things that could have happened," Gibbs stated. "You focus on the present."
"I thought being an agent was considering all possibilities and acting when you know what's in front of you."
"I think we need to get this floor plan down to Abby," Director Shepard interrupted nicely, gently taking the paper from me and giving it to Gibbs instead. "Why don't you take this down to Abby? Let me talk to our intern before she has to run off again. I do have things for her to do before you bark more orders at her."
Gibbs grudgingly agreed (knowing that the director having things for me to do was a lie), not trying to fight this time and withdrawing from the battle. It was strange that he conceded to the director, but he did, leaving with the evidence. It was just the same way he entered. And when he exited, he didn't even close the door.
Instead, Director Shepard closed the door behind Gibbs and motioned that I sit down again. "He's worried about you, you know that?"
"I'm not his daughter," I tartly replied as I did, still annoyed. "He's not my keeper with a key."
The director walked over and sat back down at her desk. "You look too much like his daughter Kelly, except for maybe the hair and eyes. When your father stopped by yesterday, wondering about you, he did mention that Gibbs' first wife was very distantly related to his wife, your mother."
My ears perked up and my curiosity was piqued. "Wait…my father's out of the medical clinic? How is he? And what do you mean, Gibbs' first wife?"
The director laughed, answering my questions in order. "Your father was escorted here by a nurse and was pushed around in a wheelchair, cleared by security and back and forth from home to the clinic. He's fine mostly, but has to be evaluated still and is being monitored. In his spare time, he's been researching about Gibbs and found out more him and about his four wives."
"Four wives?" I mouthed.
"Yes, Gibbs had four wives and a daughter. The last three, he divorced. The first, Shannon, was killed with their daughter, Kelly, while he was overseas."
My heart fell, now realizing the sadness Gibbs briefly showed me a few times already and knowing where it came from. "Oh, my God…"
"So, if he acts nasty and slaps you in the back of the head, don't take it to heart," the director said. "He does love everyone here, in his own way. We are the only family he has left."
"And you're making me a part of this family?" I asked, again curious.
"You are a part of this family, like I said," the director corrected. "Before we even met you, we've been considering new agents for NCIS. We've lost too many that we needed new blood and not just Ziva, who Gibbs is barely warming up to. It was coincidence almost, I think, that we recruited you for this case when I was looking at you to begin with. You may have been the witness to a dead body, but you were also a candidate for this agency for a long time now. Your school records were looked into first. Next were your psychological records. Although they weren't perfect, you still were capable of being an agent. Only one thing bothered me though."
"Other than we're not supposed to believe in coincidences?" I asked her, remembering what McGee had said in what seemed like days before.
Director Shepard was taken back for a moment and she showed it briefly. "No, we're not all supposed to believe in coincidences. However, the one thing that bothered me was your reaction to your mother's death last year. Was it purely shock because you discovered her body or is there something about your career choice that you don't like?"
I was surprised by the question in turn, but not by much. Everybody wondered what made me twitch every time I thought about Mom and how I found her dead, but I couldn't tell them how, not even Mara and Jay. They also wondered the same about my career choice before her death, wondering how strong I really am to handle guys as bad as Dad. Granted, I hated the police. However, to help change the system instead of complaining about it was the best bet I had and they knew it. I wanted to be the change in this world and start where I hated.
"I'm aware that my career choice is a little more than unique," I began honestly. "However, Director Shepard, discovering my mother dead was something different than that. To understand this, you had to understand her and then our relationship. And this is what shocked me the most about her death too."
I then cleared my throat, trying not to let the tears fall as the bittersweet memories flooded me. "My mother was my life, even though she was the only person there for me, who wanted me and had gone to great lengths to make sure I was conceived. She was my support system, the one person that held me together, even though she had born me as a rape child. Even though she herself was declared insane some years before I was born, she had a life form all to herself, a spark that could never be lit again. She had strength and endurance when she needed it. She put her children first, but her marriage to my father was also something totally different from us.
"You see, Director, although Mom was originally from a happy family situated up in northern Maine, she was a victim of Kent State University, but in a different way. Professor MacNara, Colonel Henderson and Dad had known her in those days. Professor MacNara said that she was a bookish person, preferring to study her major, music theory, and smoke pot than to date. She couldn't even date my father yet, who she met while he was on leave, before he was wounded and sent back home. She was very shy. She had few friends and the ones that she had she kept she was close to, especially one, Sandra Lee Scheuer. The two of them were both against the war in Vietnam at the time, but would not join the campus protests because of the violence.
"On May 4, 1970, Mom and Sandra were walking to class together, aware of the turmoil already boiling up on campus and trying to avoid it. Mom's minor had been speech therapy, just in case musical theory didn't catch on, so the two had a common interest and could easily go study together when the going was tough. So, after their noontime lunch, the two decided to run for it, since the protests had been vicious and the Ohio State National Guard had been called in. A mutual friend, Tom Grace, joined them to go to class, wanting to be there in just case something happened while the National Guard was around.
"At about twelve-thirty, when the National Guard was ordered to shoot after declaring martial law per order of Governor Rhodes, Mom heard the shots and ducked back in the doorway, narrowly getting shot in the head. Tom Grace was hit in the ankle. However, Sandra was hit in the throat. Tom Grace, still on the ground and covering his head, called Mom over, yelling that Sandra had been hit. She came, but she could nothing for Sandra. She died in Mom's arms about five minutes later from a loss of blood."
The sad story only made me think of one song, which described Mom and Tom Grace so well, the two most disturbed by Sandra's death.
What if you knew her,
And found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?
"That one incident destroyed my mother's life and was the start of her thoughts of suicide," I continued. "It wasn't just that her friend died in her arms, but that three others, two that she knew personally, were also dead. Political turmoil and chaos had made her frightened of her own shadow, knowing that even college students could be shot for just protesting. From then on, she could not deal with school and with people. She locked herself up for two years at her parents' farmhouse in Connor Township, Maine. She would let nobody inside of her world except for the same few people in her life and even then, when my father proposed to her, she was not there. She was almost like a ghost herself.
"Eventually, the shock wore off of her a little, but the haunted eyes remained, even up to the day she died. She returned to school finally, finishing her degree in music theory and speech therapy at Ohio State in 1974. A year later, she married my father, still unable to find a job. Mara was born a year after that, followed by Jay the following year. I was born in 1983.
"In the years following Kent State, Mom had been searching for one person to unload herself upon, but to protect at the same time. When my father started beating on us kids, me especially since I was the unwanted child, she took me under her wings. I was the most like her, in both temperament and appearance. I was the one child with a deep understanding of the world, more so than Jay and Mara, and could comfort her when she told me most of the horrible truth, except not saying when, where and how. Because of this attachment though, she took me and made me her child, acting as if I was the only one, which made my elder siblings all the more jealous of me, although they would never admit it.
"The years flew by. With each passing one though, Mom grew more attached to me, but she never knew of the deep depression I shared with her. I was the child most beaten upon, so I was the most prone to jumping off of bridges and saying that I fell down the stairs when I didn't. However, when all else failed, Mom was there, sharing and teaching. She shared all of her sorrows, drinks and pot with me for several years. She took me to parties to forget my own troubles when I was a teenager. She and I sang and danced in her room to music, where she always taught me of social, political and personal change. We were almost inseparable, identical sisters in every sense of the word. She was the one to encourage and I was the one to listen and vice versa. We kept each others' secrets even, mine especially, because I was the one who needed a life. She pushed me to school and the career that I'm majoring in now because of the change I wanted to see.
"Eventually though, all of the secrets, drugs and lessons in the world could not keep Mom from herself. That was her own secret, that she could not control her addictions and obsessions. Her main one was death, one that she passed onto me, even though it's still a shocker to me to see something once alive now dead. It was a puzzle to her as well as it is to me, but one that she would experience once perhaps, so she put herself in front of the dangling carrot to see if she could take it and then come back maybe. She wanted to taste it, even once, but to do so would leave me behind and she realized it. That would have been her only regret.
"At the same time though, Mom was tired. She was tired of her life dragging on and her career never picking up. She was tired of being a housewife and watching her children get eaten alive by the world. She could do nothing but watch and cry and remember. She was worsening with each year. Finally, about this time last year, she had enough. She was taking the carrot. She was going to die and to squash that one regret she had."
"Leaving you and your siblings," Director Shepard said softly.
"Right," I replied, knowing that half of it was the truth. "Drunk, high and depressed, she found some rope in the shed behind the house. Without my father not home to stop her, my brother in basic training, my sister out of the house often and myself in school, she could have done what she pleased. So, she tied it into a noose. She brought it back inside to her room. She stripped her clothes, standing on her bed naked. She then hung on end of the rope on her light fixture above her bed and the other around her neck. Then, she jumped off, dangling until she lost her breath and her neck broke. She was dead when I found her."
The director's eyes started to turn red, as if she had been crying when I told the story and I had not noticed. "So, you found her," she stated, her voice thick and shaky.
"Yes," I replied, letting out some air, realizing that my secret was out. "Yes, I did. I didn't know what to do. I shook her, I cut her body down. I tried waking her up, but she wouldn't because she was dead. She was dead. And that was how I was found by Mara, who came home early and heard me crying and screaming loudly. I was crying and screaming on my mother's naked body and they had to pull me away. The paramedics debated on taking me too, but Mara had to con them out of it. I was stunned, she said, and needed to rest."
"And this made you continue your career?"
"I wanted to find out the whole truth and not just what Mom told me. The day I did though was the day she died. From then on out, after the funeral, I grew stronger and more resistant, finding more ways to escape. I had to finish what she encouraged me to do and help others find closure, even though I could not it for the longest time."
"And today?" The director asked me, trying to search my own eyes.
"Today," I mused, rubbing my chin to think. "Today, I mostly find closure in my mother's death, even after a year, but one song will always haunt me. To be an NCIS agent, I will always help family and friends remember the fondest memories of their lost one if it comes down to that, but I will never want them to go through the same thing I did, to remember by one little song, and to be haunted by it forever."
Above lyrics are from the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song, "Ohio" from their 1974 album So Far.