Fandom(s): NCIS Genre (general, hetero or slash) Gen Pairing/Characters: n/a Rating: FRT 13 Summary: Post fic to Twilight. Life goes on.
Warnings: None Disclaimer. I don't own the NCIS characters - only Elizabeth - I'm only borrowing them, and I promise to return them in minty fresh condition when I'm finished.
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Successor - part 05 Gibbs's second thoughts
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Even though I'd more or less acknowledged the fact that Elizabeth was going to be sticking around for longer than a week, it still took a while before I treated her as a fully-fledged agent. The instinct to protect her as much as possible was strong in my mind and it was almost a month before I allowed her in the field. I would have kept her on desk duties indefinitely if she hadn't confronted me about it one day.
"Boss." She was starting to pick up some of DiNozzo's habits. Fortunately none of the more annoying ones, but I admit it felt good to hear another voice calling me 'Boss'. Anyway, I'd just gotten back from a meeting with Director Morrow and was ready to head out to a crime scene when Elizabeth blocked my way. "Boss, isn't it about time you started taking me with you and Tony?" There was a dangerous look in her eyes. The same look she tended to get when Tony was pushing things a bit too far.
I'd seen it only the other day when DiNozzo was trying to get her to type up a report for him. He'd found out that she was able to touch type and was trying to play on her team spirit by insisting that they share the workload. "Oh come on Elizabeth," he had said coaxingly. "You'll get this typed up in half the time. Pleeeeese." He had his back to me as I approached from the elevator so I couldn't see whether he was trying the lost puppy expression. It had never really worked on Kate, and I could see that Elizabeth was pretty immune to it as well. "Tell you what, you type up my report...and I'll show you my scars." Her response was to say, "Tell you what Tony, you type up your own report and I won't make you any new ones." Then she shot him that look and he backed away so quickly that he nearly bumped into me and narrowly avoided wearing my coffee.
But I was made of sterner stuff than DiNozzo and was immune to that sort of non-verbal aggression. Heck, I was a master of it myself and not about to be intimidated by a virtual novice who would have had to stand on tiptoes to even look me in the eye. "Special Agent Faulkner, what makes you think you're ready to work in the field?"
"Uh, four years working as a field agent before I transferred here, that's what. Boss, I'm not some wet behind the ears probationer who can't even take the safety off her gun. I've worked in the field before, I can handle it."
I knew that she was right. Her record spoke for itself, and if that wasn't vocal enough I also had DiNozzo on my back about getting Elizabeth out in the field. Practically every case we worked he was making snarky comments about how we'd have processed a scene or finished interviewing suspects a hell of a lot quicker if there were three of us doing it rather than two. The annoying thing was that he was right. And to be honest, there was no real reason for not having Elizabeth in the field. Only my desire to keep her out of harms way as much as possible.
But since I had more or less accepted the fact that she was going to stick around, at least for the foreseeable future, it would have been unfair of me to restrict her to paperwork that could be done by any agent only half as qualified as her. Okay, I had no problem with being unfair if it kept her safe. But as she reminded me, she was an N.C.I.S. agent who'd plenty of experience with fieldwork.
So I decided I'd let her work outside the office. But while I couldn't guarantee that I'd be able to protect her from Ari, I figured that I'd at least make sure she could handle herself against the rest of the lowlife perps we came up against.
Her shooting skills were good, not excellent by any means, but she had a high average on the firing range and practiced regularly. I'd kept myself apprised of her scores and noticed that on days when she'd had a run in with DiNozzo, her groupings tended to be considerably lower down the target body than was recommended. But hey, any guy she shot like that clearly wasn't going to pose much of a threat afterwards.
So the only thing left was to see could she handle herself in a combat situation. "Okay then. Fifteen hundred hours in the gym. I'll take you through some close quarters combat training. You perform to my standards and I'll take you out on the next case we get. Okay?"
"Of course." She walked away and I was sure I heard her say a muffled "YES!" as she got back to her desk.
I knew she wasn't going to be quite so happy after I'd finished with her. Now I was brought up to respect women. I have never laid my hand on a woman in anger...unless she was shooting at me or something. But I had no intention of treating Elizabeth like cut glass just because she was female. If she got into a struggle with a suspect, they weren't going to go easy on her because she was a woman, and neither would I.
Tony was there watching as I threw Elizabeth to the ground for what must have been the fifth or sixth time. All credit to her, she didn't complain or kick up a fuss, just picked herself up and came at me again. "You're not trying, Special Agent Faulkner," I snapped at her, trying to make her lose control. "Keep dancing around like that and you might make a suspect so dizzy he'll fall over, but that's the only way you'll beat him." I jabbed at her with my fist and watched as she ducked out of the way, but instead of attacking, she just kept out of my reach. "Dammit, try attacking for a change. Stop holding back." I knew from her record that Elizabeth had CQC training but she wasn't showing much signs of it.
"Hey," she snapped back at me, "I just don't want to hurt you and make you mad is all."
Okay, that made me stop in my tracks and laugh. "I promise you Elizabeth, that even if you did manage to hurt me, I will not get mad or take it personally. Okay?"
"Um, okay..."
"Right, now that we've got that out of the way, attack me."
"Shouldn't we have some ground rules or something?"
Now I was starting to get annoyed, "Rules? This is a combat situation, there are no rul..." And that's when she kicked me in the groin.
I have to admit, that it was a well-aimed kick, and if it hadn't been for my protective cup then she could have done some serious damage. But she'd kicked hard enough to make me sink to my knees and for a few seconds the gym was spinning around me.
I could hear Elizabeth saying to DiNozzo, in a voice tinged with a little panic, "He did say he wouldn't get mad, right? And there weren't any rules."
Then DiNozzo's voice replying, "Technically he just said rul...and then he groaned, but I'm pretty sure that's what he meant"
I felt DiNozzo's hand on my back, "Uh Boss, you want me to get an ice pack or something?"
I shook my head and then heard Elizabeth's voice again. "If I start running now, how far do you think I'd get before he caught me?"
"Ooh, I don't know. Gibbs can run pretty fast for a guy his age. Hey look, he's standing up. Guess we'll find out!"
"You don't have to start running," I growled as I climbed unsteadily to my feet. DiNozzo was looking at me, his expression half amused, half sympathetic. Elizabeth on the other hand was half worried, and half defiant.
"Boss, I'm sorry about that. But you did say..."
"Yeah Boss," chimed in Tony. "And you have to admit, she really got you. Mind you, she'd never have taken me by surprise like that. I mean, I've seen that movie a hundred times."
"Movie?" I probably should have known what he was talking about, but I was still in pain, okay.
"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid. See Butch is about to have a knife fight with one of his team and he asks are there any rules."
Elizabeth chimed in, "And the guy starts to say that there aren't any." Oh great, I thought, another movie buff.
"And that's when Butch gets him where it hurts." DiNozzo turned to Elizabeth. "I just love that movie."
"Yeah, 'you fool, the fall's gonna kill you."
"When you've quite finished," I interrupted. They fell silent and looked at me. "We still have another fifteen minutes to go."
"You want to keep going, Boss?" said Tony. "Shouldn't you be taking it easy for a bit?"
"I should," I said, and I just know that I had an evil grin on my face as I clapped DiNozzo on the back. "That's why you are going to do the next fifteen minutes."
I have to admit, that it was almost worth the pain to see the petrified look that appeared on DiNozzo's face. Not to mention the evil grin that showed up on Elizabeth's. Funny how she seemed to have no qualms about attacking Tony in a practice session. She still ended up flat on her back more often than not, but she was able to react quickly and on a few occasions had managed to sweep Tony's legs out from under him before he could stop her. And once or twice, she even managed to keep on her feet while knocking him to the ground. On those occasions she faked a quick kick to the groin while not making contact, telling me that that would be her cue to and I'm quoting her, "run like hell"
So all in all, I was a lot happier about the prospect of letting Elizabeth out of the office. I knew that should Ari come after us again that there'd be little enough I could do about it, but at least she was as well prepared as I could make her for dealing with other dangerous elements.
Tony was delighted to have her out in the field, and on several occasions I even let them out without my supervision. They worked well together and seemed to get on fine.
Which is why it was such a surprise when Tony stopped by my desk after coming back from a case and said that he wanted Elizabeth off our team.
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To be continued.
Ceindreadh