Originally I hadn't planned on going on after Gibbs found her and knows that she's his daughter. However now I feel like that's no point to end it and so I'll go on. I hope that's ok with you.

Chapter 13: His

The last time he had felt this sick had been when Mike Franks had told him about 9/11 when he had woken up from his coma. Back then he had thrown up his steak lunch into a nearby trash bin. This time his stomach was empty, but still it made him gag and vomit. He barely made it to the men's room and couldn't get into a stall anymore. The sink had to do.

When his stomach settled and there was not even fluid coming up anymore, his throat burned, his stomach hurt and he was shaking so hard he had to hold onto the edge of the sink for stability. He opened the tap and washed out his mouth the best he could. He let the water run and washed his face, using the green paper towels to dry it afterwards. When he looked into the mirror above the sink he could see his ashen face and his blood shot eyes.

She was his daughter. Joelle was his child and she hated him, because she thought he didn't care about her and had left her willingly in the hands of a man, he knew was going to get her killed at one point. His own flesh and blood had not only been lied to and trained for the secret service against her mother's will, she had also been forced to kill and to fight, had been captured, beaten, tortured and raped. By that time she had been only fourteen years old. His child. His daughter. And from her point of view it was all his fault.

He gagged again just thinking about it, wanted to cry, wanted to punch someone and scream. He felt like a caged animal suddenly and he didn't know what to do anymore. He gripped the sink and held his head down while he tried to think and fight the urge to drive to the hospital and put a bullet through Eli David's head.

I never got a letter, he thought again and again. This thought kept him from thinking about anything else. I never got a letter.

When he walked out of the bathroom after nearly half an hour he walked directly into the interrogation room, not even thinking about consulting Ducky first. She needed to know, and he needed to say it.

Both Tony and Joelle jumped up when the door slammed open and hit the wall. He must look like a mad man, but he didn't care. Joelle watched him, ready to fight if he attacked.

"Leave," he said to Tony, who seemed unsure if he should follow the request. "And turn the camera off," he remembered.

"Boss, I don't think..." Tony tried talking him out of it, but he was so furious at this point that he was sure he'd kill even his own agent if he tried getting in his way.

"I said leave!" he hollered, expecting Tony to flee. Instead he turned around to Joelle.

"It's ok, Ziva and I are on the other side. We won't let anything happen to you, ok?" he asked Joelle gently, while she still stared at him. She nodded quietly and seemed to have made a plan in her mind how to attack best. Hesitantly DiNozzo left and closed the door behind him.

He waited until the red blinking light of the camera disappeared and used the time to calm himself down a bit. Then he sat down, while Joelle was still standing, rooted to the same spot.

"I heard what happened," he started as calmly as he could. "And if I could I would kill this bastard myself," he said, getting upset again. Joelle just watched him, her face expressionless. "I know you hate me," he went on, "and right now I hate myself, but you have to believe me: I never got any letter from Jenny! I didn't know, Joelle! I swear I didn't know," he said desperately and tried to catch her eyes. she held his look, the expression in her green eyes unreadable, even for him. "If I had had a clue, I would have come for you, no matter if you were my daughter or not. The fact alone that you're Jenny's daughter would have been enough for me to come and get you," he vowed. Still, no reaction. "There was no letter, she never told me and Ziva didn't say anything... there was no way I could have known," he said more to himself than to her, trying to convince himself that he really never had had a chance. If he hadn't pushed her away after their one night stand. If he had paid more attention when she had come back. If he had really talked to her for once while they were under cover. If he had searched for her when she had left him. If he had pushed her more when she had come back. If he had told her what he had felt for her. If he had pressured her when he had known something wasn't right with the Frog case. If... he was lost in the endless possibilities and missed opportunities. If he just hadn't been a stubborn ass for years he could have known. There was no excuse for that.

"I'm so sorry," he apologized and wasn't ashamed when he buried his face in his hands and let a few tears escape, before he was able to control himself again. Crying didn't change anything.

"She said she'd write you a letter with an explanation and where you could find me," Joelle insisted, still standing on the other side of the small room, as far away from him as possible.

"I never got a letter," he swore again. He looked her in the eyes once more, knowing from Ziva and Eli David that she had inherited his ability to detect lies miles away. "I never got a letter. I didn't know," he repeated slowly.

"She said she'd write it," she said again, quietly this time, resigned.

"I found a letter in her study, addressed to me. But she never got farther than "Dear Jethro"," he said, pulled his walled out of his jeans pocket and placed the letter on the table.

"She still didn't know how to tell you," Joelle whispered and picked up the letter, staring at her mother's handwriting on the otherwise blank page. "Oh, mom," she sighed deeply and started to cry.

"I will take care of you now. Nothing will ever happen to you again," he tried to calm her without touching her or reaching out for her, but his words only served to upset her even more.

"No! This is all your fault! With your stupid marriages and stupid prejudices against her. Do you know how much she loved you? There never was any other man in her life that meant anything to her! No matter how much you hurt her or how you insulted her, she always had hope that one day you would come and see her, tell her you loved her and she could finally tell you about me," Joelle yelled at him, crumbled the letter into a ball and threw it at him. "But you pushed her away, told her you didn't remember your past together only to give her a photo after wards. You flaunted your relationship with that woman in front of her eyes and you never cared enough to call her on the crap she pulled! You can read people, you knew she was sick, you knew she had a personal reason for hunting down La Grenouille and you did NOTHING to make her talk," she screamed.

"I tried, but she didn't talk to me. She lied to me, told me I was wrong. I am not a damn mind reader!" he yelled back and jumped off his chair, angry at Joelle and Jenny and the whole situation. "Your mother kept her mouth shut for thirteen years! There were enough opportunities when she could have told me about you." It was low to blame a dead woman, but he couldn't take any more beating. What he was doing to himself was already enough.

"She was too scared to tell you," Joelle was just as furious, if not even more so. Her eyes were full of fire now, her cheeks flushed, her curls jumping up and down around her face while she was yelling at him.

"What was she afraid of? There's nothing I could have done except for being a father."

"You barely cared for her without knowing about me... you would have hated her! You were not ready to be a father," she screamed.

"I am a father! I just didn't know it," he sensed that this was going nowhere. Joelle's voice as already hoarse from all the crying and screaming she had done these last days and weeks.

"You are not. You're daughter is dead and I won't bring her back," Joelle said, now at a more normal volume. "I'm not Kelly and I will never be. I am not a daughter anymore. I am an assassin, and that's all I'll ever be," she added, her voice breaking as she spoke the words.

"You are your mother's daughter and you're my daughter. And none of what happened is your fault. We, the people who should have been protecting you, messed it up and you're the victim here. Nothing I will say or do is going to change that, but I won't let you down again," he said just as quietly.

"I killed six people, maybe seven if Eli won't make it. I will spend the rest of my life locked up. You can't help me." Her voice reached that cold, quiet, silky tone again. She was putting up her walls again and hid the emotions behind them. She reminded him a lot of Ziva in that moment, she did the same. However Ziva had learned to trust him, Joelle maybe never would. Maybe it was too late and she was already too damaged and still he refused to give up on her.

"I won't let that happen. You need help, not punishment," he replied and picked the crumbled letter off the floor, unfolded it, re-folded it neatly and put it back in his wallet. She stared at him again, the silence was back. "Ziva will be with you in a minute," he said and then left the room and closed the door behind him. He needed a plan, he needed to help her, her needed to fix her. He needed his daughter.

TBC