Chapter 1
Slowly, she opened her eyes, staring in confusion at the silver blur in her hand. As her eyes focused, Abby realized it was a flask, Gibbs’ flask. Sitting up slowly, she tried to piece together what had happened the night before.
She was sitting on the floor inside a pagan circle, candles that had burned down to the bottom surrounded the circle in five points, white sand drawing out the design. She sat there, rubbing her thumb against the smooth silver of the flask.
Abby remembered going to see Gibbs, talking to him, trying to comfort him and then leaving Gibbs’ house defeated. She had come back to the Navy Yard, back to her lab. She’d researched and explored, trying to find any way she could help him. Finally, she had come across a website that had detailed a…spell, for lack of a better word. And in a last ditch, desperate moment, she had attempted it. Working on the directions, she had sought out the needed items, creating the drawing she printed out. Once she was done, she had taken her place in the middle.
Sitting down, she held the flask in one hand and tried to find what to do next on the instructions. But there was nothing, no words, no séance. Frustrated, she tossed the words aside and held the flask to her chest.
“I need help. To whoever is listening, please. Gibbs deserves so much more than he has. He’s lost his wife, his little girl. He’s trusted people and was betrayed. He’s tried to find love again, or just someone to find companionship with. But it’s never worked. He needs her. Gibbs needs Shannon. But he can’t have her. He’s just so lost, not loving, not trusting. Please, please help him.” But nothing happened; no swoosh of air or flicker of candles.
After she’d spoken the words from her heart, Abby had almost given up, defeat setting in. Desperate, she gave it one last try, holding Gibbs’ face in her mind, and then she felt the flask heat up. Before she could even work up the need to examine the flask, she’d slid into unconsciousness.
And then she’d woken up here, on the floor. “God, I’m a fool sometimes,” she moaned, standing up. Pain shot through her body as blood rushed into places that had fallen asleep. Rolling her eyes, Abby put the flask on her desk next to her computer and set about cleaning up her lab. Looking at the time, she put a rush on her movements, hoping Gibbs would be in soon with his promised Caf-Pow.
~*~
L.J. “Jet” Gibbs’ head hurt. He’d been training men late into the night, had come home, and collapsed in bed without even changing clothes. He’d taken a lot of body blows yesterday, but nothing to the head. Even as elite as the men he was training were, he was still one step faster, his reactions honed by his time as a Marine and used every day.
He blinked his eyes open and ran a hand through his hair, looking around in confusion. This wasn’t his house in Northern Virginia, it was an office building and not his office. The company he co-owned didn’t have cubicles, for one, and the bright wall color hurt his eyes.
He looked over as two men approached, one in a suit and the other in a sports coat and a button down dress shirt. He was way underdressed in worn but comfortable jeans and a casual button-down shirt, though the brand was designer. Before he could speak, explain himself, the men approached.
Walking over to his desk, Tim greeted Gibbs. “Hey, Boss. Good morning. You’re here early.” Putting his bag on the ground, he unhooked his gun and badge, putting them in a drawer. Scooting his chair up to his desk, he tapped a few keys and then waited for his computer to come up. Looking up, he saw Ziva coming out of the elevator. When she got to her desk, she smiled at him.
“Good morning, Tim. Tony. Morning, Gibbs. How is everyone today?” Looking closely at Gibbs, she asked him in confusion, “Gibbs? What did you do to yourself? You seem…different. Your hair is darker, and your face…” Leaving her pack on her desk, she walked up to him. She leaned on the desk, eyeing him closely.
Boss? They thought he was their boss? Before he had enough intel to formulate a coherent answer, the woman was at his desk. None of this made sense, but he wouldn’t tip his hand yet, not until he knew what was going on. When the woman said his hair was darker, he reached up, fingering a few strands. What was wrong with it?
“My face?” he asked, arching a brow.
“Zeevah,” Tony drawled. “Boss.” When Ziva asked what Bossman had done with himself, Tony took a close look at Gibbs, coughing to hide his gasp of shock. Bossman’s hair was dark, mostly pepper and only a little salt and his hair wasn’t high and tight any more. It was short and a little on the spiky side. It was Gibbs, but he looked different"really different.
And it wasn’t just the hair. There was something about the way he was sitting, too. Tony gave McGee and then Ziva a long look. “Anyone want to call Duck and Abbs?” he asked casually, wondering if they were seeing the same strangeness he was.
“Why do we need to call Ducky and Abby?” Tim looked between Ziva and Tony, not understanding what was happening between the agents. But when Ziva gave him a look filled with danger that caused a tremor to shake through his body, Tim turned to his phone and dialed Ducky first.
They wanted to call a duck? Jet didn’t understand. “Hey, what about my face,” he demanded, looking at the woman, knowing his eyes must be blazing.
Tony immediately stepped between them, even though he knew he didn’t need to protect Ziva from Gibbs. Normally anyway. Something about this made him worry and Tony was afraid there was a powder keg waiting to explode. “I’m calling Abbs, Ziva…”
Ducky was puttering around in Autopsy when his phone rang. “Hello?” he asked.
“Hey Ducky, it’s Tim. Do you think you could come up to the squad room?” Moving closer to the receiver, he whispered, “It’s kind of important.”
“Why yes, of course, my dear boy. What seems to be the problem?” Ducky asked, concerned. “You haven’t been out on a call this morning, have you?”
“No, Ducky. Nothing like that. Something’s wrong…with Gibbs,” he whispered urgently.
“Oh,” Ducky said, comprehension dawning. “I’ll be right up then, Timothy.” Ducky hung up the phone and rushed to the elevator, punching the button anxiously.
Tony gave Ziva a significant look as he dialed Abby. As she picked up, he began talking in a low, urgent tone, expecting to feel the head slap at any moment. “Squad room, now. You think he was bad yesterday. It’s worse today.”
“What’s wrong?” Abby asked quickly, nervous breaths catching in her throat. Putting the flask into her pocket, she hopped off her chair. “Tony? What’s wrong with Gibbs?” Abby was worried suddenly that her experiment, her attempt at finding Gibbs happiness had gone wrong. Of course not, Sciuto, she berated herself. You can’t actually do that stuff.
“Don’t know exactly. But…get up here, Abbs. Gotta see it to believe it,” Tony said.
“I’m on my way, Tony. Just… don’t do anything stupid.” What was going on up there? Was it her fault? And Abby knew, down in her gut, that whatever was going wrong upstairs had some direct link with what she had done in her lab.
“Not planning to,” Tony said, disconnecting and just in the nick of time.
~*~
Jet had had enough and stood, rounding the desk and looming over the woman. “You deaf? What about my face?”
The threat pushed her too far and Ziva was already too on edge. Something was drastically wrong, and when Gibbs rounded on her like he was going to throw a punch, Ziva reacted on her purely trained instinct. Kicking out her leg, she dropped him. Stepping on his neck, she pulled out her Sig. “Who are you? And what the hell is going on here?”
A part of him"the warrior part"was impressed with her. The other part was deeply concerned. He had no idea who she was or why he was here and he was at a complete disadvantage. He used some of the techniques he taught police, military, and federal agents and soon had her disarmed and on her back, his forearm pressing against her windpipe for a moment, before he stood.
Tony had no idea what the hell was going on, but when Gibbs disarmed Ziva, he pulled his Sig out, aiming it with shaking hands at their boss. “Get away from her, Gibbs. Now. Don’t make us hurt you.”
It was very rare for Ziva to have her gun taken away from her. And as impressed as she was, it didn’t keep her from feeling pissed. Spinning in a circle, she kicked Gibbs’ legs out from under him, and with the other leg, kicked her gun out from his hands. Stepping back, she pulled out her backup from her ankle and trained it on him.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Tim jumping up and hesitating. No one wanted to pull their guns on Gibbs. But this… this just didn’t seem like Gibbs. Something was very, very wrong.
As she kicked his legs out and he fell in a trained fall, Jet pulled his own weapon out, aiming it at the one who wasn’t moving fast enough. “You might take me out, but I’ll nail one of you first. Who the hell are you and what do you want?”
“Put the gun down, Gibbs,” Tony roared in his best ‘Gibbs voice.’ “Ziva, stand down. Probie… you too. This is Gibbs, I’ll cover him.” Even though Tony said the words, he knew something was very wrong. This wasn’t the man who had left last night. Even so, he had to maintain control somehow.
“Everyone, settle down,” Tony said, trying to regain calmness.
Despite his orders, neither one of them were going to drop their weapons. Ziva raised hers up a hairsbreadth as she moved slowly into a position that would have the three of them in a half moon shape around Gibbs. She could easily take him out before he pulled the trigger. Everyone in the room knew that. Everyone but the Gibbs who was not Gibbs. But deep down, she didn’t know if she’d be able to pull the trigger.
“Stand down, Ziva! That is an order,” Tony tried, but she still wasn’t listening. “Gibbs, put the gun away.”
“Hell no. I look like an idiot?”
“No…” Tony sighed, trying to figure out a way through this.
Ducky was jamming the elevator button by the time it had arrived, carrying a very worried Abigail. “Abby, have you any idea what is going on? Timothy said something is the matter with Jethro.”
“God, Ducky. I think I screwed up. Well, I don’t know if I screwed up. But if something’s wrong with Gibbs, if something’s really hinky, I think… I think it’s my fault.”
“What did you do, dear girl?” Ducky asked, but they’d arrived on the floor and he stepped out to see. “Oh, dear,” Ducky said quietly. A man with dark hair and Jethro’s build stood with his back to them and Tony had his gun trained on the man. “Abby… you need to leave.” He presumed Jethro was hurt and lying on the ground somewhere.
“Oh, God. No!” Abby cried. Pushing her way past Ducky, she ignored his command and charged into the melee. Even as different as he was, Abby still recognized Gibbs. Standing in front of Gibbs, she put herself in between him and all the guns. Probably not a smart idea, Sciuto, she thought to herself as she noticed the tension vibrating in the room.
Tim’s gun wavered as Abby put herself in the path of any bullet. “Abby, no!”
“Abby, move!” Tony said, realizing how much they’d lost control of the situation. “Abby, get away, you’re not helping.”
“Move it,” the guy told Abby and Tony winced. There was nothing of Gibbs in his voice. “You wanna get killed?”
Ducky was finding it uncharacteristically hard to form words and coherent thoughts. “Jethro, my dear boy. Whatever is the problem?” He noted that Gibbs’ appearance had changed somewhat, and it didn’t look like a trick of the lighting.
“Who are you people?”
“Boss... it’s us,” Tony said, trying to keep his voice gentle. Had Gibbs lost his memory again? But even if so, that didn’t explain the darker hair, the less weathered face.
Turning around, Abby looked at him, her face closer to him than all the others. Keeping her eyes soft and her face relaxed, she stared into his eyes and saw nothing of the man she knew and loved. This was an entirely different person, younger, harder in ways that the other Gibbs was not.
She felt the team surge forward slightly, though they didn’t charge. Ignoring the primal instinct to survive, she curled her hand over the barrel of the gun, wrapping around his hand as well.
“No, I don’t want to die. I’d rather stay in one piece, sans any of those bullets you guys are ready to fling. But I think the situation has gotten out of hand. Don’t you all?” she asked, breaking his eye contact and looking at everyone around her. She was scared out of her mind, but there was no way she was going to let the situation get any worse.
“Please.” She looked back at him, at the new Gibbs, looked him dead in the eyes and hoped he would believe her. “Please, put the gun down. We can figure out what’s going on here. I promise.”
Jet was in complete fight or flight mode and instinct told him to shoot through the woman, but there was something in her green eyes that made him listen, that made him loosen his grip on his weapon. “Who are you people?” he asked focusing only on her and stowing his weapon slowly. “How the hell did I get here and where the hell is here? And how come you all know me but I don’t know you?”
Tony shot an uneasy look toward Ziva, but lowered his own gun when Gibbs did. He didn’t know what was going on with the man, but the more he studied him, the more he realized that this wasn’t the Gibbs they knew.
“Who is he?” Ducky whispered and all Tony could do was shrug.
Reluctantly, Ziva lowered her weapon as well, seeing Tim storing his. Keeping one eye on the imposter, she walked slowly to her gun. Putting her backup away, she grabbed her Sig, checking for damage.
Tim’s hands were shaking in fear and anger as he watched Abby standing in front of the man. She could have been hurt. She could have been shot! But typical Abby, she ran head first into the situation without thinking of her safety.
Giving a big sigh of relief, Abby smiled at the younger version of Gibbs. Answers were starting to filter through her mind as all the possibilities of what had happened ran like lightning through her synapses. “My name’s Abby. And this is…this is everyone. Look, it’s probably not a good idea to talk here,” she said, gesturing to all the agents around them at the ready, wondering what had gotten into the team. “If you can…trust that everything will be okay, we could all go somewhere quiet and talk this out. I promise, no Wild West shootouts. Please?”
Jet looked at her for a long moment, studying her eyes and trying to read the truth there. Pulling in a sharp breath, he nodded, motioning for her to lead the way. He’d follow, but he’d stay wary and aware for now. Especially of the other woman and the guy who appeared to be the leader.
“If she pulls a gun on me again, I’m shooting first, asking questions later,” he warned.
Breathing another sigh of relief, she nodded. “Don’t worry. She won’t. Well, at least I think she won’t.” Abby knew she couldn’t really promise that. But the situation had to be worked out before someone ended up dead.
“Make sure she won’t,” Jet shot back.
Biting on her lower lip, Abby didn’t know what to say to ease the situation. “She won’t,” she repeated, trying to sound more confident. “Ducky? Do you have any guests? Could we use autopsy?”
“No… no guests at all, Abigail. I…well, yes, very well then,” he stammered. “Mr. Palmer will be in later today and it is quiet at present, though, of course that can, and often does, change.”
“Ducky…” Tony warned, giving Abby a look. She seemed to know more about this than all of them combined.
“Autopsy?” Jet asked, balking. “Don’t think so. Me alone. All of you. In a room with however many weapons, scalpels, blade saws. No… that isn’t happening. Find a better place.” He folded his arms over his chest, maintaining his cool, but only barely.
“How ‘bout my lab? Though I don’t know if you’d feel safe in there, or anywhere, for that matter. But there are lots of windows and two ways in or out. Maybe not so trapped?” she offered.
“I don’t feel trapped. I just want to know what the hell is going on. All of a sudden I was…here. Not my house, not my bed. You’re all calling me by my name, but I don’t know you.”
Hell, was he losing his mind?
“We don’t know you either,” Tony remarked. “Though you look like someone we know. Abbs, is the picture still on your phone? Show him. Show him the picture on your phone.” Tony was feeling desperate. This guy was on the knife’s edge and they didn’t need to push him, especially since they knew he had a gun on him.
“What about outside in the park?” Ducky suggested. “Lots of open spaces…”
“Enough,” Ziva ordered. “We need to contain the situation. Abby’s lab. Less likely to be overheard or interrupted. She will show you the picture and we will talk. And I promise not to pull my gun on you again. Abby, lead the way.”
He wasn’t about to take orders from her. Her least of all. “No. How do I get out of here? I’ll figure it out myself then.” He wasn’t a “situation” to be contained. Hell, he wasn’t even interested in dealing with her, period, end of story.
“You,” he told the girl who was mediating. “You and one other person but not her. I’ll talk to you and you alone.”
“Tony, then.” Looking at Tony, she asked, “What about the conference room, since there are only three of us now?”
Tony nodded. “Yeah… yeah, that works. Everyone just stay here, don’t gossip.”
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