a/n: This story is a series of snapshots on the Joy Buchanan Universe. This chapter in particular deals on a very painful aspect, and I've tried to be as candid as possible on the reactions of those involved. Pain and suffering become unbearable when it is mixed with misunderstandings, but it becomes bearable when, despite the series of unfortunate events that happen in our lives, if we learn to live on hope.
Without hope, there is no life.
Winter - Gibbs
There is beauty in winter. You just have to know where to look to find it. - Buchanan to Gibbs
The cold bitter wind was restlessly attacking the agents standing at the crime scene. Tony was rubbing his arms up and down, trying in vain to bring a little warmth to his almost frozen limbs.
"Why did we have to be the on-duty team this weekend?" he whines, shuffling his feet in the snow.
"Have you forgotten to wear your thermal underwear again, Tony?" Ziva asked, snickering.
"Don't gloat, it's not nice," Tony groused, his teeth chattering in the cold.
"You cold, DiNozzo?" McGee asks from where he's taking shots of the deceased petty officer.
"It's freezing out here, McGenius. What do you think?"
"Maybe you should have watched Weather Channel before leaving your place today," says Joy, without looking up from the notebook she is using to sketch the scene. "You would know that we're scheduled to have the Big Freeze of the season, starting today."
"Big Freeze?" Ziva looks confused at her teammate.
"Yep…biggest snow storm of the season. Comes when the northern artic air fronts combine with winds reaching fifty miles per hour. They're expecting at least ten inches of snow in the next twenty four hours," McGee said, taking another picture of the crime scene.
Gibbs helps Ducky up the hill, his hand supporting him whenever Ducky missteps in the fluffy snow.
"Thank you, Jethro."
Gibbs just smirks and nods to his agents, "What have you got?"
His agents rush to give him an update and McGee goes first. "Petty Officer Thomas Muller, 25, arrived in Norfolk with the USS Intrepid just three days ago. No known family. He grew up in foster homes until he graduated from high school, when he joined the Navy."
Tony points to a man with a Labrador at his feet, a couple of feet away. "Muller's body was found by a runner with his dog. The dog picked the scent of blood, ran off the trail, guiding the man to our dead petty officer."
"It snowed heavily over the last couple of hours and the body was hidden under a ratty blanket behind this bush," says Ziva, pointing to the naked branches of a small shrub.
"Since it was covered with snow, the dog tried to dig it out. The runner initially believed it was a dead animal, but when he saw his dog with a human hand in its mouth, he called Metro."
"Did he touch the body?" Ducky asked, looking at the state of the dead man in his snowy grave.
"Just to check his pulse. When he verified Muller was already dead, he took his mobile phone and reported the body. Any disturbance of the body was made by his overly enthusiastic dog, Clipper, who tried to dig the body out from under the snow," says Joy, looking at her notes.
She looks up at Gibbs, "We already took samples from the witness and his dog and we have his address and contact information. Can we let him go?"
Gibbs looks around the scene and at the man shivering in the wind, "Yeah, tell him not to leave town."
Joy leaves to talk with their witness, who had been shivering for hours in the cold. Gibbs, for a moment, stares at his profiler's back. Since her return to duty a couple of months ago, Gibbs noticed she had been very careful in her interaction with others. She seemed to be a little sensitive about things around her.
Gibbs shrugs and turns to the M.E. who is studying the body, "What can you tell me, Duck?"
NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS
They return to the bullpen, enjoying the heated air of the building. Further investigation yields a hotel room booked in Muller's name. Ziva and Tony leave to collect any evidence and interview the hotel Manager. Joy and McGee start working up a profile, doing searches on his life, trying to find patterns.
Gibbs moves his hand to his coffee cup and when he lifts the cup to drink, he notices it's empty. He leaves to get more. When he returns with his traditional black in his cup and some already running on his veins, he finds his profiler standing by the window, staring at the snow falling outside. She has a lost look on her face and a hot cup of something in her hand.
He approaches her and she smiles at him, "I needed a hot tea just to warm up."
Gibbs looks back to the bullpen. McGee is nowhere to be seen. Glancing back at Joy, she answers his silent question. "He's down with Abby, reviewing some computer forensics way too advanced for me to follow. Once they can speak in a language I understand, they'll come up to share their findings."
"Tony and Ziva?"
"Not back yet."
Gibbs smirks and takes a sip of his coffee. Joy sips her tea and glances at him.
"What are you thinking?"
Gibbs shrugs.
"Nothing important. You?"
She looks through the window to the snowflakes silently falling down. "I love winter. I hate the cold, but I love snow and everything related to it. There were winters back in Montana that we stayed snowed in. Dad would gather all of us before the fireplace, get his guitar and teach some new songs he had researched for the church choir. We would stay huddled under blankets, with cocoa cups in our hands, singing until we simply started dropping off to sleep, exhausted. He would leave us sleeping piled up one over the other and mom would be mad at him the following morning."
She laughs remembering those nights in Montana and leans against the window, looking at Gibbs. "Mom would shriek at him: 'Why didn't you take them to bed? They'll catch a chill!' and he would answer, 'You're welcome to try to move six sleepy children upstairs. My knees won't take it.'"
"He told me about his leg, how it permanently put him on the ground, never to fly again."
Joy nods silently, her eyes with a lost expression. Gibbs senses that she's introspective again.
"Anything on your mind?"
"Hmm?" she blinks and looks at him again, not having heard his last question.
"Anything bothering you? You've been… distant lately." He studies her face as she carefully tries to hide her thoughts, not meeting his eyes. She has a good poker face most of the time, but her eyes always reveal what she's thinking.
"Nothing important. I always get introspective at this of the year: review my choices, my path in life and consider possible outcomes for the next year." She bites her lip in an unconscious gesture that she always does whenever she wants to say something but has no idea how.
Gibbs mimics her position and leans against the window, silently signaling he wants to hear more.
"It's an anniversary of sorts, too." She says softly, looking at him with troubled eyes. "Seven years ago last Monday, I had surgery due to my endometriosis. Once I got out of the OR, they told me they did what they could, but I would never have children of my own."
"You never know how much you want something until someone tells you that you won't ever have it. Then, children were such an abstract prospect to me, with my dangerous job and total lack of love life."
Gibbs can hear the pain in her voice. His two agents had been together for almost three years now and he could see how devoted they were to each other. He also knew how it pained Joy not being able to offer a family to McGee. He remembered the small talk they had in Norfolk. Gibbs had kept his promise by not telling her parents the secret she had trusted him with, but he also saw how Maggie was not even discreet in her questions about when the two young lovers would finally give her a grandchild.
McGee and Buchanan would politely smile and say nothing.
"You have to tell them sometime, you know." Gibbs remembers how Joseph is with Priscilla and how he indirectly hinted that he expected a green eyed grandchild soon.
"I know," she winces, turning once again to stare at the silently falling snow. "But you know my dad. He'll be so hurt because I hid it from him."
"One way or the other, he will figure it out. It'll be better if he learns it from you than from somebody else."
Gibbs leaves her by the windows moving back to his desk. He sits and starts going through the papers on his desk. After a few moments, Joy comes to his desk, deep in thought.
"Have you ever…" she shakes her head and stops. "Forget it. It's not important."
"No…your started it…just say it." He folds his arms and leans back on his chair, studying his fidgeting profiler.
She leans her head to the right, studying him for a moment. He stares right back at her, as he knows that, whenever she's ready to say what's on her mind, she will.
Finally… "Have you ever wished you made different choices in your life? Or that you had another chance to make it right?"
He thinks about his life. His father, Shannon, Kelly, his ex-wives. The agents that had come and gone under his command. The ones who had stayed.
He sighs and sits straighter in his chair, "I'm all open for other chances. Hell, I've been divorced three times."
Joy laughs and looks away. "Winters for me, maybe even more than summers or spring, represent a new beginning. It's when nature goes to sleep for a while, preparing for a new spring yet to come. Even though you know all the seeds planted might not germinate in the following spring, the promise is still there. And that's what gives us hope in our darkest hours."
She smiles softly, "Don't ever give up trying, Boss. Your spring will come. It just might not have the flowers you planted before, and some different types of weeds might appear that you were not expecting, but it will come."
Gibbs studies his profiler, who is now playing with her stress Guinness pint squeezing it in her hand, "besides, there's beauty in winter. You just have to know where to look to find it." She smiles at him, a big bright smile and he can't help but return it to her.
At that moment McGee and Abby come up to the bullpen, "Boss, we found something."
Joy looks at them and Gibbs stands up, "What have you got, Abs?"