Kamseen
"Come on, sweetie, time to wake up to go to school," said Lisa, kissing Priscilla's soft hair.
"Don't wanna."
"Not negotiable, young lady."
"But I wanna stay with Jetooo," she pouts.
"Morning," says Sarah from the doorway, and she smiles at Lisa arguing with Priscilla, as it reminds her of her mom having the same problem with her.
"Morning, Sarah," she turns to Pri, who has her arms folded and is pouting, looking at her mother with a frown, "come on, young lady."
"No, wanna stay with Jetoo."
"Pri," sighs Lisa.
"We could watch her," says Sarah, "me and Matt, we're not going anywhere, we're staying inside, so if she wants to stay..." She leaves the offer hanging in the air, and as she looks at the little girl, and sees a huge grin appearing on her face.
"MOMMY, YES YES," she stands up on her bed, and starts to jump, "I can stay with aunt Sarah and uncle Matt, then uncle Matt can play with me with Legos and Sarah with my dollies!"
Lisa smiles, and looks at Sarah, "I hope you know what you're getting yourself into."
NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS
At the breakfast table, Jake and Matt eat the like there's no tomorrow, and Lisa slaps their heads, ordering them to slow down.
"Manners, we have visitors in the house." Both blush, and start eating at a slower pace.
Joy, on the other hand, is studying Sarah and Matt. He seems to be much more relaxed that morning, and the dark circles on Sarah's face, caused by sleepless nights and endless hours of crying, were starting to fade, and there was a healthy glow on her skin that hadn't been there the night before.
"May I have the salt, please?" says Sarah.
Joy's mind watches the scene like a slow motion movie, as Matt takes the salt from Jake and moves it to give it to Sarah. There's a slight caress of his fingers when he deposits the salt shaker in her open palm, and her hand takes its sweet time to close over it.
The scene lasted mere seconds, but when she looks at her brother's face, he's blushing and he's breathing deeply. He feels her burning gaze, and he turns to her, and he blushes even deeper under her scrutiny.
She smiles thinly, and looks at Timothy, who is talking with Jake about his time in MIT.
Thank God for Mr. Oblivious.
She looks again at Matt, who is studying his bacon and eggs very carefully. He looks up, and his eyes cross with his sister's.
If he finds out, you're so dead, she thinks.
Lisa stands up from the table, and Jake finishes his juice and stands up as well.
"Jake, I need to talk to you." The teenager fidgets a little, but agrees.
Joy stands up, and asks him to follow her to the living room. Tim looks at her back as she leaves, then at Matt and Sarah, who are not done yet. Priscilla is happily feeding toast to Jethro, who is lapping the little girl's fingers.
"Go," says Sarah, and he glances at Matt, back to Sarah, and follows Joy to the living room.
Underneath the table, Sarah takes Matt's hand, and he squeezes it.
NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS
"Take a seat, Jake," says Joy, and the gangly teenager sits down on the sofa, and starts moving his legs nervously.
"I'm not going to lecture you, just relax."
"What's this about, aunt Joy?"
"Do you know what I do at NCIS?" She asks, and the young man shrugs, uninterested.
"You solve cases, I think." He mutters.
"I solve murders, Jake," she corrects him, and he runs his hand over his curly reddish brown hair, moving it away from his eyes, "a murder happens, we investigate, and we bring this person to justice."
"Ok," he shrugs.
"Sometimes, besides that, we also have to protect witnesses," she says, "people who were in the wrong time at the wrong place, and they've seen something that they shouldn't have, and that makes them targets," she leans towards her nephew, "then we," she points to Tim, who had sat down beside her in the sofa, "have to protect them."
The teenager look from his aunt to her partner, and shrugs, "And?"
"Remember the little boy from yesterday, the one that played video games with you?"
"Rick," Jake says, "he's ok, for a kid."
"His father was just murdered. He's hurting. And he needs help." Jake just looks at his aunt, trying to figure out what her point was with this talk.
"School is sometimes like a forest, filled with dangers. Children in there are not so innocent, they move and act like a pack of wolves, and there are two basic behaviors in the pack. You either are a predator or prey."
"Rick is hurt, and in pack language, it means that he's weak. The pack doesn't accept weak members, so its instinct is to destroy the weak members in it, to turn the pack stronger," her gaze burns Jake, and Jake frowns at what his aunt is saying to him, "do you understand what I'm saying?"
"I think I do," says Jake, after a pause.
"Weak members in a pack will only survive if another pack member protects them; if they are not protected, they are doomed," says Joy, and she sees her nephew thinking, "Rick lost his father, now he's vulnerable: people will attack him, just because they feel that he will be an easy target, " Jake lifts his head and looks Joy in the eyes, "as a special agent, both for the FBI and NCIS, we are honor bound to defend the weak, and to protect the innocent, and serve justice for those who can't fight."
"So, I'm asking you to be my very special agent today: I want you to protect someone weaker than you, who without your help, stands no chance against the trials he must face in the next few days," she studies Jake, who is staring at her, silently, "do you think you can do it?"
"We're not even in the same school block, I'm in high school, we might meet during lunch break, but that's all."
"But you can make sure that the others in the pack find out that he's not alone," says Joy.
Tim studies the teenager, who is struggling with his aunt's request, "Do you think you can do it? Do you think you can act like a special agent?"
After thinking, Jake shrugs, "Ok, let's do it."
NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS
Lisa drives Jake to school, while Joy and Tim go to the office in Norfolk. Matt and Sarah stay with Priscilla, who is enjoying Jethro's company immensely. They interview the co-workers of Veseley, again, and go through his desk again. They find the records of the incoming delivery that Lannie had mentioned the night before, and talk with the commanding officer of the base. He informs them that they checked and rechecked the documents, there's nothing wrong to be found in it.
They visit the widow, again, and find Tara Beckinsale visiting her. She insists on staying to offer support to the widow during the interview, but Joy basically has to order her to leave.
"She's a friend, I trust her," says Lannie, after Joy guides Mrs. Beckinsale out.
"Well, she's not my friend, so I don't trust her. Your husband has been killed, for no apparent reason, and until we find out why someone would want him dead, I would have to suggest you not trust anyone either."
They leave the house, and Joy and Tim imitate the same position Gibbs and Joy had the last time they were in Norfolk.
"Tim, what do you see when you look at this street?"
"What do I see?" He looks down the road, and sees the movement of the people and the houses and cars, "I see houses, lamp posts, people. Two teenagers, probably brother and sister, fixing their bike, a woman watering her plants, the gardener cutting the grass, a father kissing his wife goodbye, who is holding their baby on her arms," he look down at her, and she has a frown at her forehead.
"Why, what do you see?" He supports his six on the hood of the car, and folds his arms, waiting for an answer, which takes some minutes to come.
Joy looks at the street, at the people in their everyday life: loving, working, living. She sighs, and says softly:
"Gideon, many, many years ago," she glances at Tim briefly, then looks down the street, "told me that I have a gift, that he merely fine tuned it. That I did naturally what took people years to learn, and all he had to do was to teach me how to interpret the signs correctly and transform it into useful information."
She points down the street with her chin, and continues talking:
"The third house over there is not empty, even though there is a foreclosure sign on the lawn. The gardener working on the fifth house slept or is sleeping with the teenager across the street and the foxy lady watering her roses in her front yard two blocks down."
Tim's face becomes a comic mask, as she keeps up her analysis of the people on that street.
"The father who's saying goodbye to his family is having an affair with the lady who is peeking from the window in the third houseon the block, and the baby his wife is holding, well, it's not his."
McGee looks from Joy to the street, and looks at the people on it with different eyes. He frowns as he starts to see the glances, the touches and the veiled meaning behind their actions, things that he had not seen but Joy, as a profiler, had seen them after just seconds of analysis.
"How?" he is flabbergasted, as she is good, but he never imagined that she was that good.
"Gideon called it a gift, Dad called it a curse, as, in order to interact in society, you have to at least pretend that you believe in the lies it presents to you, and I was never good at acting."
He looks down at her, and she continues, "Was it just me or you also noticed the unhealthy interest Mrs. Beckinsale had in our investigation?"
"She was very eager to sit in on our questioning of the widow."
"Too eager," Joy frowns at the thought.
"Do you think that she might be somehow involved with Veseley's death?" McGee studies Joy's face, and he's sees the same focused air on it as so many other times before when they profiled together.
"I don't know yet, but her concern towards Mrs. Veseley didn't seem genuine. And that worries me."
He stands up, "It seems reason enough to visit the Beckingsales."
Joy smiles, and both go into the car, and drive away.