Title: The Benton Case
Author: nikkinor
Rating: K+
Summary: "The thing that still bothers him is that he never caught the dirt bag, he's still out there somewhere, maybe killing another helpless little girl."
Spoilers: None
Prompt: Children
Number: 28
Word Count: 543
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Her hair is long and dark brown. Her eyes are green and are open wider that he thought possible. Her right hand is clutching a soft purple teddy bear; the only thing the beast that killed her would give her for her pain. Her left hand is pressed limply against her stomach, pointlessly trying to stop the bleeding that stopped hours ago. Her face is covered in dried tears, the only way she could show the terrible pain she had been put through. She is tied down at her ankles and her chest, thick leather straps that had created bloody scars where she had fought against them. Her face looked so distressed, he didn't think he'd ever get the image of the little girls dead body out of his mind.
Gibbs had told him the only way to stop seeing her in his sleep was to catch the dirt bag who did it and to watch him rot in jail. He had tried his best for two weeks strait to find a sick and twisted murderer that he hated more than the nightmares that appeared every night with her dead corpse pleading for his help.
Her name was Lesley and she was only seven years old when she was murdered. He couldn't look at the crime scene photos wither in them without thinking of his own little sister. He wouldn't go down to the morgue until the funeral home had taken her away, he was to scared that he'd picture his sister on a cold metal slab in Lesley's place and throw up on Ducky's floor.
Tony told him to go to a bar he knows and get so drunk he couldn't remember how old he was, let alone the murder of a small girl. He had declined the drunken memory loss method. He later heard from Abby that Tony had went out alone that night and gotten so drunk he couldn't remember his own name just so he could forget the murder of Lesley Benton. He almost wished that he had gone with him, just to keep his company while they tried not to remember in their own ways.
The thing that still bothers him is that he never caught the dirt bag, he's still out there somewhere, maybe killing another helpless little girl.
He works the cold case when they have down time at NCIS. He won't let it go, he won't let that little girl down. He'll get into the case real deep sometimes and almost finds something that could break it, but right when he gets close he finds a flaw in his thoughts and never does find that 'something'.
He'll still work on it every now and then; he does plan on giving up till her finds her killer. H will find him someday, he's sure of that. It might take him a lifetime to do it, but he's not going to let her down. The next time he works that case, he doesn't want to see her face begging for help in his dreams when he's done.
It was his first case involving a child, and Tim took it harder than more Agents. But he's determined to find a murderer, and Tim knows he can do it.