Chapter 4

Entangled Past

The teams from the two agencies went their own separate ways from Sammi's house; Gibbs and his team back to NCIS, Sammi, the FBI pair and Fornell to his house to inspect the damage. Tony spent the entire trip complaining. 'How come Fornell's got a girl but not me? I mean – come on! It's not like –'

Kate bit her tongue and tuning out, kept driving. Gibbs rolled his eyes and carried on staring out the window.

The nagging feeling Gibbs couldn't quite shake finally hit him when they entered the bull pen. 'Where's Jane Doe?'

In point-of-fact, Jane Doe was in autopsy with Ducky. She was curled beside his desk, watching wide-eyed and with a child-like curiosity while he filled in paperwork. Every-so-often she would open her mouth as if to speak only to clamp it shut again when no articulate sounds formed. She inched up onto her knees to peer closer at the flowing script before scuttling back into the corner at any sign of the ME's eyes flickering towards her. The autopsy phone rang and Gibbs' clipped tones flowed down the line. 'Duck, take Jane Doe to Abby. Need you up here now.'

'Of course –, 'Click '-Jethro.'

When Ducky entered the bull pen the briefing was already in full swing. '-McGee, you're with Abby. Tony, get in touch with Fornell. I want the pair of them here now! Kate, put it on the screen.'

A black, block lettered logo appeared bearing the legend "THRUSH" and underneath, scrawled in red ink was one short phrase: "Remember Solo? Remember me?"

Kate was confused, 'Why would anyone send us a logo and message that doesn't make sense?'

Gibbs cocked his head and squinted at the plasma screen. 'Makes sense to someone.'

Tony hung up his desk phone. 'They're on their way, Boss."

Ducky's eyes widened in disbelief as his suppressed memories evoked by the message surfaced.

Once again, everyone turned as the lift doors opened and out stepped a tall, young man with black hair who was all charm and smiles. It seemed only Ducky recognized him. He was backing quickly away towards the safety of his autopsy, all the while muttering. 'No, no, no, no, no, no, no.' As the team turned he nearly sprinted towards the lift. The stranger gave chase yelling after the ME.

'Illya! Illya!'

An auditable 'huh?' ran around the room and after a final glance at each other, Gibbs ran after the pair, closely followed by Kate and Tony.

They charged into autopsy and caught one sight they had hoped to never see. Ducky was seated in his chair, head bowed, cradling a gun in his lap. The stranger was keeping his distance, hand outstretched and putting his own spin on the textbook speech to give to suicidal people.

'Illya. You don't wanna do that Illya. Illya, look at me.'

DiNozzo stared from one to the other then whispered, none to softly and to no-one in particular. 'What the hell's an "Illya"?'

Ducky raised his head just far enough for a piercing stare over his glasses, electric blue eyes shining through unfallen tears. His voice was suddenly laced with a Russian tone Kate was sure she had heard before. 'Illya is my name, Tony. My real name. A name I tried very hard to forget and the past that went with it.'

The stranger ignored the agents and continued his tirade. 'Illya – It's me. We stole a chemical equation from THRUSH before we destroyed their labs. It was a reversing drug – sets all your body systems back to wherever you code it to.'

Sammi stumbled through the doors, supported by Fornell. It seemed she had fallen out of the lift in her haste. 'Illya – listen to him. It's true. They tried it out on me first. We spent years coding it to a broad spectrum. THRUSH is starting up again – we need you.'

'I am not contemplating shooting myself, Napoleon–' and spinning the gun in his hand and loading it in one motion he stood, aiming straight at Napoleon's heart.

'You can't shoot us both, Illya.' They both slid their sleeves up revealing single shot hypodermics. Napoleon screwed the needle into his. 'One of these has got your name on it.'

Gibbs, Tony, Kate and Fornell watched in horror as Sammi darted right as Napoleon dodged left as the gun fired and caught Sammi square in the chest. As she collapsed against an autopsy table, sliding to the floor and coughing up blood, Fornell rushed to her side. Napoleon knocked the gun out of the ME's hand and slammed the needle home into his heart. Ducky's knees gave way and he collapsed into Napoleon's arms, catching the last glimpse of life in Sammi's periwinkle blue eyes as they glazed over forever, still held in Fornell's firm but shaking grip.

'Maybe now you'll believe your own eyes.' Murmured Napoleon and the collective eyes of the room widened (save for Fornell who only had eyes for Sammi's limp form) and someone (possibly Gibbs) swore at the effect of the cocktail of drugs.

Ducky's hair grew steadily more golden and lengthened until it was nearly collar length complete with bangs. His eyes cleared and brightened and his glasses fell from his face to smash on the floor as pounds dropped away and lines smoothed out while his back straightened, the vertebrae knitting together.

In a matter of minutes their aging Medical Examiner had lost nearly forty years.

'Wow!' was all Kate had to say in the matter.

Tony's mouth was somewhere around his ankles and Gibbs found himself considering a psychologist as well as an optometrist.

Eyes closed, Ducky/Illya leaned back into Napoleon. 'Pasha, I feel like полное и полное дерьмо.'

'Just a side effect, Illyusha. It'll wear off.' He rested his cheek against the, now young, Russian's hair then jerked away nearly causing his friend to overbalance backwards. 'Oh shit! Sammi!'

Napoleon stooped over her, sliding the needle strapped to her arm into her vein. 'Let's hope it's not too late.'

It wasn't.

Sammi's eyes flew open as air rushed into her lungs and, in the sudden shock of coming back from the dead, she grabbed at Fornell's shoulders nearly dragging him to the floor. 'Oh God! I'd forgotten how much that stuff hurts!' Using Fornell as a brace she turned her head until she caught sight of her shooter. 'You bastard! You shot me!'

Fornell winced violently, 'Jesus, Sammi! Could you yell any louder?'

'Sorry.'

Gibbs decided now would be a good time to interrupt. 'Dammit, Duck! What the hell's goin' on?'

Illya, leaning on his desk for support, sent apologetic puppy dog eyes across the room to Napoleon. 'I would have had to tell them one day.'

Napoleon sighed in defeat. 'Do we really have to tell them everything?'

At a nod from the exhausted blond, Sammi addressed the room at large. 'Perhaps you'd all better sit down for this part – might take a while.'