Chapter 3
Surprises
She drove steadily for several hours when she reached the navy yard in Virginia, she showed her ID card and passed right through the gates and made her way to the autopsy garage. Once there she left the body with two orderlies and the assistant ME, Jimmy Palmer, before she made her way up to the squad room.
The lift doors dinged as she exited and made her way to Gibbs' teams section and stopped dead in her tracks. A dark haired, good looking man looked up at her and rose from his seat.
"Hi, special agent Anthony DiNozzo, can I help you?" The man asked, a slight flirtation in his voice.
"I'm looking for Dr Mallard, he knows I'm here..." She paused as the other man in the section stood up and stared at her. That was a face she couldn't forget.
"Oh my god. Katie-Lou?" The second man asked and walked towards her.
"Tim? Hay, its good to see you." She hugged the second man tightly and he sighed in her ear.
"What are you doing here? I thought you were in Edinburgh?" McGee asked, holding Catriona at arms length.
"I was, then I came back to the US three years ago. What are you doing here?" She asked, DiNozzo completely forgotten.
"I work here. Where are you now?"
"NCIS New Orleans, I'm their ME." She smiled and Tim smiled back.
"So what are you doing here?" He asked again and then turned around as Catriona's eyes glazed with tears as another man entered the bullpen. "Ducky? This is..."
"Oh, my duckling, come here." Ducky said and Catriona pulled from Tim's embrace to hug Ducky, her arms around his neck.
"Papa... He's gone." She wept in his shoulder and Ducky rubbed her back.
"Papa? Ducky's your dad?" Tim asked, stunned.
"Catriona is my adopted daughter and my goddaughter. I took her in when her parents died." Ducky explained. "Who's gone?"
"Andy. I brought him to you, I can't do the... The deed, alone and I don't trust any one to do it in New Orleans." She explained, with a sniff. Her voice slipping back to her native Scottish lilt.
"Oh, Catriona, that's what you meant on the phone. Come on, duckling. Let's go have some tea. Come on." Ducky said his arms around his daughter- for that's what she was. Adopted or not- and lead her down to Autopsy for a cup of tea.
Once they were gone, Tony turned on Tim.
"What was that?"
"She never told me she was Ducky's daughter- adopted or not." Tim muttered.
"You know her, Tim?" Ziva asked, rising from behind the desk to stand with him and Tony as Ducky left with 'Catriona',
"Yeah, we were at John Hopkins together. She never said anything though... About Ducky, that was a surprise." Tim was confused but his heart still swelled with love for the woman he'd lost when she'd returned to Edinburgh and he let himself remember their first meeting in the student housing at John Hopkins.