CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: A TERRITORY DISPUTE (NCIS)

Gibbs was silent as he drove McGee and DiNozzo back to NCIS. This wasn't an odd occurrence, as Gibbs was generally described as a functional mute, but the fact that McGee and Tony weren't bickering as per usual made the whole thing rather somber. Tony eventually cleared his throat and spelled out the obvious.

"We're missing something."

"You think so?" Gibbs replied sarcastically.

"She…didn't look like she did in that driver's license photo," Tony remarked after a moment.

"Well, no, DiNozzo," Gibbs snapped back. "Torture tends to take it out of a person. Especially a girl as small as her."

Tony replied with silence. He was surprised to see his boss so frustrated over one little interview. "Is there something going on in your gut, boss?"

"Yeah," Gibbs replied, stepping on the gas and making the car rocket forwards. "I have a feeling that bastard isn't done with her yet. And I don't give a damn what the FBI thinks, I'm not letting this one go just yet."

When they walked back into NCIS, Ziva was waiting for them. Immediately she cornered Tony at his desk. "So," she started teasingly, "was she as pretty as her picture made her out to be?"

"Not really," DiNozzo began, before Ziva cut him off.

"Ha! They never are, are they. I mean, most women say they are just not photogenic, but the truth is—"

"Well, I don't know Ziva, I'm sure she'd be a real knockout if she weren't starved, covered in bruises and lacerations, and had a little color in her," Tony snapped. Ziva's eyes widened, shocked.

"She is dead?" she asked.

"No," Gibbs said, coming in and sitting down at his desk. Ziva turned to look at him. "Tortured."

Ziva's reaction was immediate. Her mouth tightened, her eyes darkened, and her expression grew grim. Her team didn't need to guess as to why. They knew she was thinking back to the time when she had been tortured in Somalia by the terrorist Saleem. It was a part of their team's history that was difficult to revisit. "By whom?"

"A man named Ewan Renwick. We need everything we can get on him. McGee!"

"Yes, boss!" the probie said attentively. He had been sitting at his desk.

"I need a full background on Renwick. And Hale, while you're at it. We obviously missed some big stuff the first time around. Primarily that she's an agent for the FBI."

"She is?" Ziva asked, further shocked.

"Ziver," Gibbs continued, using the nickname he occasionally used when he was feeling particularly affectionate towards Ziva, "help McGee gather intel. DiNozzo…find something productive to do. I need to talk to the Director."

"Sure thing, boss."

Gibbs left his team to work and made his way up the stairs to the Director's top floor office. His mind was filled with the images of Jason' Lyons' body and of Natalie Hale's banged up appearance. He had to connect the dots. He had to.

He strode past the Director's secretary, who looked annoyed and unsurprised that Gibbs didn't ask to see the Director before walking in. He opened the door to the office and came face to face with a tall, dark-skinned man.

Director Leon Vance looked up when the door opened as he flipped through some files on his desk. "Agent Gibbs. To what do I owe the disruption?"

Gibbs didn't dance around the subject. "I want a case the FBI seems eager to stake a claim on."

Vance looked up, curious. "And why do you need me?"

Gibbs gave him an incredulous look. "To do your Director stuff. To get us the case."

"What kind of case is this?"

"Homicide, kidnapping, torture…some other stuff I'm not completely sure on. All I know is I have one body downstairs and a very hurt and traumatized woman sitting smack in the middle of the FBI and I know the name of the perp."

Now Vance looked interested. "Can you be more clear?"

"The body in autopsy is a lance corporal who was executed in front of his ex-girlfriend as a form of psychological torture. The bastard physically harmed her as well, and she just got out of the hospital. But she's an agent for the FBI, and they want this case for personal reasons. And I have this feeling that on their own they're going to screw up."

"So what do you want me to do?" Vance asked, leaning back in his chair and staring down Gibbs.

"Get me the case. Or at least negotiate a cooperation with them."

"I can't promise you anything, but I'm thinking cooperation is the best you're going to get," Vance said, jotting something down on a piece of paper. When he looked up, he just shook his head. Gibbs was already gone.

On his way down the stairs, Gibbs pulled out his phone and typed in a familiar number. He lifted the phone to his ear and waited three rings until his contact picked up.

"What do you want, Gibbs, it's my day off."

Gibbs gave a grin. "Meet me at the usual spot in fifteen minutes?"

There was a grumble. "You're lucky I haven't gotten my coffee yet this morning."

Gibbs gave a short laugh and then hung up. He made his way quickly to his desk and grabbed his keys.

"Going somewhere, boss?" DiNozzo asked.

"Coffee. I'll be back in thirty."

He left before they could say another word, entering the elevator and walking his way out of NCIS in a timely fashion.

The coffee shop was locally owned and frequented by many naval yard employees and other folks who lived in the area. Gibbs knew it'd take a while for his contact to get there, so he bought a coffee and read a newspaper while he waited. He didn't look up until he heard the scratching of the chair next to him being pulled out, and the slight sound of someone sitting down.

He glanced up. "Hey there, Fornell."

Tobias Fornell, Gibbs' friend and best contact at the FBI, looked at him shrewdly. "Why am I here and not watching cartoons with my daughter, Gibbs?"

Gibbs leaned forward and took a sip of his coffee. "What do you know about Agent Natalie Hale?"

Fornell looked surprised. "Agent Hale? Like, the Agent Hale from the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit?"

Gibbs nodded.

Fornell sighed, looking a little bit morose. "Agent Hale was always nothing but kind to me and anyone around her. Wasn't your usual agent, you know. She had some awful past I don't know anything about, but she was always really warm towards everyone. She wasn't in my unit, but I saw her on occasion and we crossed paths on a couple local cases. No one had a bad thing to say about her, and let me tell you Gibbs, from what I've heard she's a damn good agent. She's one of the best for someone so young."

"But?"

"It's all anyone's talked about the last couple weeks. The BAU kept most of the info on lockdown, but some word slipped out. Apparently, she'd been taken hostage by a man who was torturing her and sending footage of it to her team so that they would find her father for the man. It was devastating. Her team at the BAU has suffered a lot of loss, and this incident has only added to it. The only other team I've ever seen work as cohesively together as a family would be…well, your team at NCIS, Gibbs."

"He sent footage of the torture?" Gibbs said. "So you have it on record?"

"Well, he managed to somehow set up a live feed, so her team saw everything that happened to her as it happened. From what I've heard, she was unaware of this for the duration of her capture."

"But you have it on record?" Gibbs asked again.

"Why?"

"She's linked to a dead marine I have in my autopsy room at NCIS," Gibbs said. "Vance is working on making it a joint case. I just want some sort of solid evidence to sift through."

"If you're asking me to get you those videos, Gibbs, I don't know if I can do that."

Gibbs looked skeptical. "I know you have a security clearance high enough to get twice the classified material."

"It's not an issue of security clearance," Fornell explained. "This is...in house, you know? I don't want to step on anyone's toes who I'm going to have to work with in the future."

"C'mon, there's got to be somebody you can call."

"Gibbs, those videos are not only confidential, they're also full of very…sensitive material. I know personally that if their unit chief figured out they'd been given to a different agency, he would not take it well. Like I said, that BAU team is a closely knit bunch. It'll take more than a phone call to get what you want."

"The fact that they're so emotionally overwhelmed right now is exactly why I need those videos," Gibbs argued. "They won't be able to look at it without bias. That's what my team can do, and then we might find something that'll lead us to the bastard."

"Gibbs, I don't know—"

"Have you seen her?" Gibbs asked abruptly, cutting him off.

Fornell looked surprised at his question. "Well, no Gibbs, I already told you, they're not in my unit—"

"She looks like she hasn't eaten more than a bit of bread for the past couple weeks," he started, "which is more than likely true. She's paler than McGee, which is saying something. And she's hobbling around on crutches, barely with enough energy to keep up a conversation, much less walk or defend herself. She's covered from head to toe with bruises and cuts, and I don't even want to know what's underneath the giant sweatshirt and jeans she was wearing. She's in horrible shape physically, I don't even want to know where she's at mentally and emotionally…and if her team is scarred as well, they won't be able to help her. But my team can."

Fornell looked at Gibbs for a moment, trying to size him up. "Why are you so intent on this one?"

"Because there's a young woman sitting huddled in an weakly fortified apartment, terrified and scarred and hurting, and the only people who are going to be able to help her is my team!" Gibbs exclaimed, getting frustrated.

"You sure it's not something else?" Fornell asked.

Gibbs narrowed his eyes. He knew what Fornell was hinting. Agent Hale had to somewhere in her mid to late twenties, about the same age Gibbs' daughter Kelly would be if she hadn't been murdered at the tender age of eight. And there were similarities between them, just looks-wise. They had nearly the same eyes, so identical that they had almost shocked Gibbs to the point of freezing when he had seen her. Hale's hair was quite a bit darker than Kelly's, and it had a bit of red in it, but that difference only reminded him of Shannon, his first wife who had died along with their daughter. And the way she held herself, as though she knew she was vulnerable but was going to do her damn best not to show it….

He didn't really know what it was. Maybe Hale reminded him of his lost family, or maybe she didn't. But whatever it was, he was going to try to help her any way he could. "Can you make a call or not?" Gibbs said in response.

Fornell heaved a large sigh. "I'll see what I can do. Aaron Hotchner can be a difficult man to bargain with, but I'm sure that when the Directors speak it'll make my job a lot easier. I'll get you something you can use, Jethro."

"I owe you one, Tobias," he replied, getting up.

"Not yet," Fornell replied. "Like I said, Hotchner can be difficult."

"Who's he, again?" Gibbs asked. This Hotchner character seemed to be coming up a lot in conversation.

"Agent Hale's unit chief. I think they refer to him as Hotch."

Gibbs remembered the tough agent who had burst into Hale's apartment mentioning a guy named Hotch. He nodded and then tossed a quick tip on the table.

"See you around." He said nothing else and left.

I'm trying very hard to make the NCIS parts fit in kind of seamlessly, so that if you don't watch NCIS you aren't ridiculously lost, so if you ARE ridiculously lost please tell me and I'll try to improve that as I continue onward. Thanks for reading guys! ~ Lacey :)