GIBBS
Gibbs wasn't sure what 'neeps and tatties' were, and couldn't imagine why such a strange phrase might be used as a password. Given how surreal this day had already been, though, random words given to a talking gargoyle who then moved aside to reveal a moving staircase in stone? That was probably one of the less strange things he'd seen in the last hour or so.
"So now the Room of Requirement is recruiting staff for us? When Dumbledore wakes up I shall be having words with him. He should have told me about their visit."
McGonagall had received the news that three strangers from an American federal agency had turned up in the cloakroom with a mixture of emotions, largely annoyance and anger, but hadn't seemed the least bit surprised.
Caitlin actually laughed. "It was years ago." That little snippet had given the team a shock when they had figured it out. It had only been a few months for Gibbs - in Hogwarts it had been twenty years since the team was last here. "Even Dumbledore couldn't have known they would ever come back, Minerva!"
McGonagall looked - well, the best word Gibbs could think of was pissed. "He should have known better than to dabble in time magic. There's a reason we don't do that sort of thing," she grumbled. "And at the very least he should have told me the Room had done this before. Heaven knows what mischief could have been caused..."
Apparently a building or room (he wasn't clear whether the blame lay with the Room of Requirement or Hogwarts as a whole) acting autonomously was an irritation. A fairly major but not particularly unexpected one. Caitlin, now she'd gotten her bearings, didn't seem at all fazed by McGonagall's umbrage. She was smiling sweetly, radiating calm and certainty.
Gibbs was fairly sure he would've preferred it if either of them were at least mildly shocked, and found himself wishing again that they'd brought Ducky along. Caitlin's soft coaxing rather reminded him of the old man and his gentle but razor sharp wisdom and insight. The ME's equanimity the last time they had visited the school had been oddly reassuring.
As for talking about Dumbledore waking up... He didn't even want to go there. There was no possible meaning that he could think of for waking up a dead man which seemed remotely like something he wanted to witness. He'd explained his job to his dad as the dead telling stories, and he was aware that Ducky regularly had conversations with the bodies in his care, but in this place he had no confidence they weren't talking quite literally.
"This is most irregular."
The headmistress seemed like a woman who wouldn't tolerate any kind of nonsense. She was obviously relatively elderly, at least by normal standards, but it didn't seem to be slowing her down much. Maybe it was different for wizards. She was - he rummaged in his brain for the right word, then smiled to himself when he found it - spry. She would get on well with his father.
"We did talk about letting the children meet some real muggles, Minerva." That was Caitlin, her voice quiet but persuasive. He got the impression that this was a tried and true method to convince McGonagall, and also that not everyone got to call her by her first name.
"Well. Well." She huffed a little, but even someone with considerably less skill at reading people than Gibbs could've seen that she was weakening. He found himself wondering if Caitlin had somehow inherited Kate's profiling skills, then shook his head at the ridiculous thought.
"Well. I suppose you had better introduce me to these people, Caitlin. Then we shall see what can be done."
Once introductions had been made, he was entirely happy to sit back for once and let DiNozzo handle the details. Words floated back now and then towards the couch he'd settled on - things he understood, like Tony's explanation of the agency, the headmisstress's insistence that any contact must be under a condition of complete secrecy, and other, practical things.
There were other things, however, that made no sense at all, like ravenclaw, slytherin, ministry of magic, fidelius charm. He hoped Ziva's usually excellent memory worked as well under completely bizarre circumstances as it did under dangerous ones. She and Tony would definitely be doing the heavy lifting today.
The office was full of interesting things to look at, while his brain attempted to process all the weirdness. Several of the walls were lined with thick, well bound books. Some of the titles were fascinating, but then he got to Accidental Amputation in Apparition: Splinching - Causes, Cures, and Limb Reattachment, and decided he'd rather not know.
Over in a corner was what appeared to be a bowl that in other circumstances he would've said contained dry ice and some sort of light show, but that seemed unlikely here. Behind the headmistress he noticed a portrait of Dumbledore. It was one of the few things in the room that held any familiarity, though, strangely, the artist had painted him asleep. It took Gibbs a while to realise that the painting also appeared to be breathing, a realisation that rather appalled him. It did, at least, give a slightly less disturbing connotation to the idea of waking the wizard up.
Then of course, there was Kate - or rather, Caitlin. His gaze kept returning to her, and although in looks she was entirely familiar, she was the thing that worried and confused him the most. She was enough like the Kate he remembered for it to completely frazzle his brain, and different enough that he didn't know how to even start figuring out the connection between the two women. There had to be one, that was certain. There was no way in the world that this could be a coincidence, even if he had believed in coincidences in the first place.
The fact that the surname she had 'remembered' for herself was Gibbs... He didn't know what to make of that, what it meant - whether it meant anything at all. McGonagall had noticed he had the same name, he had seen her react, but to his relief she hadn't made any comment. He wouldn't have known what to tell her.
Kate had always held a kind of fascination for him, intriguing and infuriating him in equal measure. She would challenge him, sometimes more even than Tony did, with that self confidence and even swagger that had first caught his eye on Air Force One. She'd stood her ground, dared him to overlook or dismiss her.
Then at other times she would allow a case, a witness or a suspect to get so deep under her skin that she seemed to regress to being an uncertain, insecure little girl who was desperate for approval. For his approval - seeking validation, not yet able to know for herself when she'd done a good job.
He'd been hard on her, wanting to help her grow into the agent his gut told him she could be, and the thought that the most sincere compliment he'd ever given to her had been seconds before she died... that had haunted him. Losing an agent (a colleague - a friend) was never easy, but it had happened so suddenly; a rare moment of triumph turned sour in a split second.
It didn't help that he had never been able to work out how she had felt about him. Heck, he hadn't been able to pin down how exactly he felt about her. He wasn't one for what ifs, but a treacherous part of his mind sometimes wondered... suppose he'd asked for her phone number instead of offering her a job?
Caitlin was... well, she didn't seem as headstrong or bossy as Kate could be, but there was a strength in her quietness, and it was clear she knew how to convince people to her point of view. Something about her suggested she was grounded and secure in a way Kate was not. For a woman who knew so little about herself, who only had a name and a few years of memories as a foundation, she seemed remarkably at peace.
She was also just as beautiful as he remembered Kate being; an expressive mouth, dark, liquid eyes, deep dimples that appeared when she smiled, soft, wavy hair that gleamed auburn when it caught the light.
He found himself staring at her again, and forced himself to look away, though he heard her footsteps approach and was painfully aware of her proximity when she perched on the edge of the couch seat next to him.
For a short while she sat in silence, and Gibbs allowed himself to relax a little. Then suddenly she startled him with a question.
"What was she like?"
He looked at her without actually facing her. "Who?" It was a good assumption she was asking about Kate, but he kind of hoped she wasn't. At least asking for clarification gave him a few moments grace.
"Kate. This woman who looks like me."
"Looked."
She shut her eyes briefly. "Looked like me." Her tone was apologetic.
"Uh..." He floundered, wishing she would have this conversation with someone, anyone else but him. Serves me right for leaving Tony to sort this out.
"Please, Agent Gibbs." It felt strange to hear her address him so formally. "I have no family, no home except Hogwarts. You can understand why I am curious." Her voice was soft, persuasive, and out of the corner of his eye he could see the pleading in her eyes.
"She was..." How the heck was he supposed to describe Kate to her? To talk about Kate to someone who practically was Kate? "Stubborn. Persistent. A pain in the ass." He laughed. "She had Tony round her little finger, and she knew it. Tim too. Great shot. Ballsy. Argumentative. She could be funny. Brave - she was on the President's Secret Service detail before she came to NCIS." He hadn't realised he had so much to say. He took a deep breath as snippets of memory swirled in his mind.
"She really cared, about the team, about... Tried to get me to open up a time or two." He always wished he had somehow told her thank you for trying, let her know he'd appreciated it more than he had ever admitted. "Put her life on the line for others. She took a bullet for me." Two, really, but thinking about that still hurt. "We miss her still. She had beautiful eyes..." He trailed off. Somewhere along the way he'd instinctively turned towards her, and her cheeks had flushed pink at the compliment.
"Thank you," she murmured. He had no idea if the thank you was for that or for satisfying her curiosity about Kate. He had no idea where the compliment had come from, either, though it was certainly true.
"She was a good agent. A good person."
She nodded, looking down at the string of red beads she was turning over and over in her fingers. He got the impression it wasn't nerves, but more something to focus on as she thought about what he'd said. The beads reminded him of something, though he couldn't pin it down. They were a little old fashioned, not really the kind of jewellery he could imagine Kate wearing.
"Why do you keep looking at me like that?" she asked suddenly.
He frowned. "Like what?" He had been looking at her - studying her - almost couldn't help it. He'd noticed Tony having the same problem. She was Kate but she wasn't, a riddle they couldn't yet solve.
"Like..." She shook her head, and her blush deepened. "I don't know."
Oh. Like that. He'd gotten quite good, way back when, at not looking at her like he could swallow her whole, but he was a few years out of practice now. "Sorry." It came out without a conscious thought, and then he laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"You always did make me want to break rules."
She raised an eyebrow at him in a Kate type way, and it was both achingly familiar and long missed. "Break rules?"
He sighed and shook his head. "Long story. I- well... maybe another time."
"So, do you think you- you might... come back?"
She sounded wistful, but also a little embarrassed to be asking. He allowed himself to smile at her. "I hope so, Caitlin. I sure hope so."
