Chapter Three
The Goddess is having too much fun with me.
When the world gradually lightens, sight and sound come back on and I'm lying down, bright lights from the white ceiling in front of my eyes and my mother is drawing back her hand from the side of my face and I can feel her Healing energy throughout my body. Whatever I'm laying on is hard, and my mind fills in 'cloth covered metal table', something I'm sure I never want to know myself to be on.
Memories of so many years fill in details of a familiar room but I have no time to orient myself. My mother and father, Two people, a man and woman, dressed now thank the Goddess, stand on either side of my head, dad on my left; and they are the worst two people in the entire world I can imagine transitioning in on unannounced.
I hadn't recognized them in the first second I had before being slammed to the floor, did recognize them in the second and was profoundly shocked; I remember that. I plead the Fifth; you can't ever get used to walking in on your parents when they were-.
And because I'm still dazed I reach up with my left hand, touch his face and in an almost mindless sing-song voice say the first stupid-headed thing that pops into my addled brain: "Oh Goddess, you're so young!"
"What?"
Adrenaline slaps me awake better than a hand to my cheek and I pull my own back as memory restores itself. "Nothing." I then ask the most ridiculous questions I have in weeks, not because I don't know the answers all too well but only because I probably should. "Where am I? What happened?"
"You fainted," dad tells me. I can't stop staring into his young face; he looks hardly any older than I do! And mom, she's so beautiful, so young…. "You're in NCIS Autopsy."
x
I look at the blue scrubs he's wearing, an image I've known forever, but I bite my tongue to keep from asking 'am I dead?' Dazed is one thing, stupid is unforgivable. And in twenty four years I've never managed to put anything over on either of them.
The realization of that, and the second burst of adrenaline that accompanies it, kicks my brain hard enough for me to know I have to be very, very careful. "I'm sorry; I think I know why I fainted. I haven't eaten in - a while." Like twenty five plus years.
"What do you remember?" mom asks from my right, her voice heavy with apprehension. I can read her thoughts clearly on her face. 'Do you remember catching us?'
"I came down here to see Doctor Mallard." I look around, knowing I won't find him. I know, from their stories, where he is. "Is he here?"
"No," dad tells me.
"It's after seven," mom says.
It was reasonable for all of us to expect to have been alone here, undoubtedly why they'd chosen this time for their private rendezvous. I certainly expected the hour to be safe.
"He's gone to La Chateau Julienne for dinner," dad tells me, as though expecting I would know where Julienne is. I do, but that's beside the point.
I remember the story very well. Ducky had met uncle Tim and his future wife - future wife, they weren't even dating - aunt Abby and her friend Dawn Caldwell for dinner just before the Carson case began. That's why I'd expected Autopsy to be empty, at least until they come in with the bodies of Albert and Nikita Morrison. Dad had been on the scene, mom had been home, she wasn't a Field Agent back then, she'd worked for the Legal department.
Unfortunately, though understandably, they'd certainly never mentioned what they'd been doing here before the murders.
For a brief instant I think of what it would be like to see everyone as they are now. It'd be just like seeing mom and dad, an infinitely bad idea, I know, but still.
Today uncle Ducky is alive and well. He will die years from now immediately after teeing off on the 18th hole in Glasgow at the ripe age of 80, so fast, I'm told, that he never knew it. They haven't even met Sammy Sky Marsden yet.
Aunt Abby is still enjoying her Goth period, long before a Professorship in Forensic Science at George Washington University will force her to more sedate styles. Uncle Tim, dear uncle Tim, author of over a dozen Best Sellers, is not yet a Professor of Computer Forensics at G.W.U. He's not even DATING his future wife - to say nothing of having two sons and a daughter - and she's still a parochial Priest. She was elevated to Bishop of the Diocese of Washington four years ago and would think me nuts if I ever dared let it slip by calling her 'your Grace', or worse, 'aunt Siobhan'.
Then again, I might really slip, call her 'Mother McGee' - the only formal title I'd ever known her as - and really screw things up!
No, best to do what I came to do and not lay eyes on a single one of them.
x
"I'm Jimmy Palmer, Assistant Medical Examiner," dad says and extends his hand, reminding me that only a second of real time has passed while I was playing mental badminton. Mom introduces herself too and the situation is just too surreal for words.
"Hi," I take his hand, half expecting the universe to explode in some sort of temporal cataclysm, "I'm Su Lin P -" Damn! "Parker," I finish, covering it up with a fake cough.
I am going to Hell.
He looks over my red dress and doesn't find a Visitor's Pass. This time is clearly for show, he'd seen long ago that I had no authorization to be here. "This building is secure."
I glance at mom on my right and track her eyes to the small silver Wiccan circle star pinned over my left breast. It'd never occurred to me to remove it before transitioning.
I am so absolutely going to Hell.
x
There's only one thing I can think of to do, and it will either get me out of this mess or make everything blow up in my face - more than it already has. I reach into the pocket of my dress and draw out the leather ID case. I open it carefully and keep a tight grip, not letting them see the ID side, just the shield. I don't meet his eyes. "I'm from New York."
I put it away immediately and thank the Goddess when I look up and see he's satisfied.
"Doctor Mallard won't be coming back tonight." Oh, how little you suspect. "You can see him in the morning."
Actually, seeing him is no part of my plan. I should avoid them at all costs, especially uncle LeeJay, who can see through a lie the way I see through glass. "It's all right; tomorrow will be fine."
I sit up, grateful not to be hit with another jolt of vertigo. My body has adjusted to the Earth's motion on a wildly different orientation even if my brain hasn't.
"You should eat something," dad says.
"Huh?"
"You fainted. Your blood sugar may be low. There's a 24 hour cafeteria on 4, I can bring you up so you can get something.
"Jimmy." I glance to my right in time to see mom glare at him. She is not happy.
"What?" he looks at her, completely innocent; clearly not understanding her annoyance.
I can't blame either of them. He can't know why he'd made the offer or has any concern at all for my well being, and it is too freaky for words that I saw jealousy in mom's eyes.
x
"I'm fine, Mr. Palmer. The truth is I'm mildly diabetic, but I have my meds."
He nods, being quite familiar with the problem and its symptoms. He should be; I'd inherited that little problem from him, though it hadn't manifested itself until puberty.
I'm saved any further half-truths and outright lies by a ringing. He steps over to a table and picks up a device that's nearly half the size of his hand, having to lift the lid of the antique and hold one end to his ear and the other end of the… cell phone… to his lips. Boy, how things change in two plus decades.
"Yes, doctor?" He listens, his eyes on mom and her expression is equally unguarded. "Yes, sir, I can drive to the Navy Yard, pick up the van and drive over there."
'Dad,' I think, mildly disappointed, 'you are such a fibber.'
He closes the phone. "There's been a murder, two murders, actually."
"At Chateau Julienne?" He nods, actually not as annoyed as mom is. "Can't there be just one night without something-?"
"He's there with Agent McGee, Abby and her friend Dawn Caldwell and the new Chaplain the Director just appointed. Doctor Mallard was taking them all out to dinner."
Mom sighs, looks at her watch, "Short dinner."
"They never even got seated. I have to go."
"Not too fast," she cautions, "it'll take you more than twenty minutes to get 'here'."
"Oh, yeah."
"Look," I say, not wanting to linger any longer and definitely do not want to know how they plan to waste those twenty minutes, "I'd better be going, it was really nice to meet you. I've got to run."
I don't quite run out the sliding doors, but it's pretty damn close.
x
I hit the Down button on the wall, determined to find a good place to wait unobserved in the garage until I sense the opening of a Mobius portal. The doors open a second later, there are three people already in the car and I can do no more than glance at them before I board and turn to the door.
Dana or one of the other Goddesses is definitely having too good a time at my expense. Why else would she put me in an elevator car with uncle LeeJay, uncle Tony and aunt Ziva?
x
I feel them at my back like a psychic weight. I'd allowed myself no more than a glimpse before I turned away but in my mind I can still see them. Uncle LeeJay is alive, his grey hair peppered with brown rather than the snow white I'd come to know as an adult; but his piercing eyes remained unchanged through the decades.
Uncle Tony's hair is still all dark, not with the distinguished spots of grey at each temple. Today he is Senior Field Agent; in my 'today' he sits in aunt Jennifer's old office. Aunt Ziva is still the fiery, exotic beauty I knew before she returned to Israel eight years ago to take up a post as Deputy Director of Mossad.
"What are you doing here at this hour, Probette?" uncle Tony's voice manages to convey little doubt that he feels he knows the answer.
Against my will I turn, but when I look up into his face my voice just shuts off. I know I'm standing here like a blank eyed idiot but I simply can't say a word.
"Sorry," he says, "I thought you were someone else."
His eyes then actually stroke my body in a way they never, ever have before. He now knows me to be a stranger, or thinks he does. He thought I was mom; we look enough alike at first glance 'today' except my hair's a lot shorter and inherited some of dad's curliness to make a wave to my shoulders, but there's enough of-
"I'm Tony, by the way."
"S-Su L-Lin," I stammer. Yes, Dana or Hecate or someone is definitely having too good a time with me.
"I've never seen you here before."
"I - I - I'm just here for a little bit."
"Well, maybe we can get together for a–"
Thank the Goddess the doors open on the garage and we get out. My mouth hangs open and nothing will come out. A man I've known – who's known me since I was in diapers – is hitting on me?
"Come on, DiNozzo," LeeJay demands impatiently as he heads off with Ziva to his car.
"On your six, boss," he calls, trots after them and leaves me standing here gaping like a goldfish tossed onto the lawn. I read his eyes; he'd rather have been on my six! Or my twelve.
As Tony reaches the others, LeeJay's hand comes up quickly and smacks the back of Tony's head, a gesture I've seen a thousand times.
"Thank you, boss."
I watch them get into a car and drive up the ramp leading to the street. Left behind in the silence, I really want to find a place to lie down.