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Lucky
Kate had been surprised how easily and smoothly she'd fitted in. Hana and Rich argued while she and Will teased each other, then Will and Rich would go off into some overly complex bantering while she and Hana rolled their eyes and laughed at the stupidity of the menfolk. It felt like they'd just been waiting for her to turn up and complete their team, and she loved having a niche where she belonged.
Today, Rich was being more than usually grumpy, and they had driven to the scene in uncharacteristic silence. Kate was sure it wasn't personal, but it was a startling change from the atmosphere she was used to. Neither Hana nor Will seemed surprised or thrown by Rich's mood, and she hoped she'd learn to weather it as well as they did.
At the trailhead, a few more LEOs were standing around looking severe. Kate didn't recognise any of them, but she wasn't yet familiar with many people outside of NCIS. The governor's task force had pulled them in a few times, but they rarely crossed paths with regular HPD. She hoped there wouldn't be too much jurisdictional posturing over this case.
There were a few uniforms, one or two Kate assumed must be detectives, and a small man who gave Kate a nervous glance. She guessed he was the ME, but he made no attempt to introduce himself, and when Kate gave him a smile, his eyes widened and he looked down at his kitbag.
After supplies were gathered, Rich gave his team a dark look (Kate had no idea why), then harrumphed and turned away to start off down the trail. Kate looked at Will, who rolled his eyes and followed.
"Is he usually like this when there's a new case?" she asked, as they entered the lush green shade of the forest.
Will frowned. "Depends on the case. He's not big on working with outsiders, either. Not you, I mean, you're a member of the team now, and anyway, he's worked with you before, but the ME isn't really one of us - we borrow whomever is available from HPD. HPD homicide aren't wild about us taking over a case, even though we've every right when one of the victims was a sailor, and Rich hates the pissing contests." He pulled a face and shrugged. "And I don't know what it was like when you worked in DC, but not many Navy personnel get murdered around here, so..."
Ahhh. Understanding dawned. "So on top of everything else, you don't have the same coping mechanisms we did."
He shrugged and nodded. "Something like that. Rich acts like a hardass, but he would much rather be taking down a sailor for drug possession than trying to figure out why one was killed."
Kate nodded. "That explains a lot."
"Bit gruffer than your last boss, is he?"
She burst out laughing. "Oh God, no." It took a second (and a glare back at her from Rich) to stifle her mirth.
Will's eyebrows rose in a way she was already familiar with. "No?"
"With Gibbs, it was always just 'grab your gear', and you followed, and if you slowed him down he would..."
"Tear you a new one?"
She frowned. How on earth could she explain Gibbs to someone who'd never experienced his leadership style? "Not... exactly... Gibbs usually just... glared."
She tried to imbue the word with all the intensity of a Gibbs-glare.
Will gave her a slightly odd look. Evidently it hadn't worked. "Glared?"
"It's scarier than it sounds."
He screwed up his face. "I should think it would have to be."
"I don't know how else to explain, but trust me, it is. Especially if you're not used to it." She grinned. "Gibbs is a lot kinder than he acts, though he probably wouldn't thank me for telling you that. He's a good guy. But... he's a former Marine and if you called him a bastard he'd take it as a compliment, and he's not... easy, though he's really good at his job." She smiled again. Oh, she'd missed them all, but in a strange way she'd really missed Gibbs and his gut and his ridiculous rules. "He's sort of a legend in DC and it's well deserved."
Will still didn't look convinced, then suddenly his expression changed to one of surprise and... maybe awe? "Wait... do you mean the Gibbs?"
She shot him a look. "The Gibbs?
"The case Rich always talks about. The mummy. The faked lottery win and the black widow. The 'animated hottie'." Will using scare quotes was somehow extremely amusing. "The phoney federales fingerprint match."
Kate blinked. This was all sounding rather familiar. "Um, yes?"
Will laughed softly and nodded. "Okay, now I understand."
"You do?"
"I knew you'd worked with Rich before, I didn't realise it was that case."
She frowned. "Sorry, I'm still not with you." She remembered the case, sure, but how Will knew so much about it...
"My first murder case here, we had a body that, well, it hadn't been found right away and it was... not in good shape."
He grimaced, and Kate nodded. Those were always among her least favourite cases, too. In Hawaii's climate? She didn't want to imagine.
"Rich-" Will shrugged as he continued "-I suppose he realised that as a, you know, linguist and intelligence analyst, it wasn't something I was very familiar with, so he was trying to take my mind off it by talking about another dead body instead." He rolled his eyes, and Kate couldn't help but laugh at his expression. Only people in their business would try to distract you from one dead body with another.
"So he told me about a case that had him flying back to Norfolk because of this guy who was mummified in a cargo pod, and he went on and on about Gibbs and his team and-" His eyes lit up as he remembered something. "Hey, it must've been you who tricked the woman into coming back in, then?"
She nodded, amused Rich had told the story in such detail, and more so that Will seemed to have the whole thing committed to memory. "Yes. We couldn't arrest her, we had no grounds to bring her in, so..." She grinned. "I'd only been at NCIS for about a month. It had to be voluntary. Gibbs, well... he just sent me to go get her. Didn't tell me how, or anything. I had to get creative. Looking back, I'm pretty sure it was a lesson or a test or-"
"A test?"
"Gibbs, he... he likes to keep his team on their toes. He recruited me from the Secret Service, he gave me the opportunity, but I think he thought I was a little soft, a little naïve, so-" she shrugged, smiled "-he took it upon himself to do something about that."
"Well, to hear Rich tell it, Gibbs is a scary guy. No wonder Rich was excited about you coming here."
"He was?"
Will laughed. "You didn't hear it from me, but yes. I suppose he thought if you could survive two years on Gibbs' team..."
"He's really not that bad, honestly. I think Rich was just sore we dragged him away from the sunshine in November."
"That would definitely not be a way to get on his good side."
"He bitched about it to anyone who'd listen, then kept missing his flights back so he could help us with the case." She thought about it. "He didn't give the best first impression, but he stuck around when it mattered."
Will grinned. "That sounds like Rich."
Kate smiled back. "Yeah, it does, doesn't it?" Rich had started the case as 'the schmuck', but by the end he'd proven his worth. Even Gibbs, who had expressed his displeasure at her moving to Hawaii quite colourfully, hadn't been able to find anything bad to say about Rich as her new boss.
The trail eventually opened out into a clearing, one which Kate thought would be exceptionally pretty if it weren't for the dead bodies.
As tasks were assigned, it was organised chaos for a couple of minutes. Kate couldn't help noticing the ME seemed barely to notice the kerfuffle, concentrating instead on the victims, and she wondered if that was an ME thing. Unlike Ducky, he kept his counsel, going about his preliminary examinations methodically and silently, but although she missed the inevitable 'When I was a young man...' moment, his odd serenity in the midst of the confusion was familiar.
Kate found herself hanging back, unwilling to get to close to the scene. It had been a long while...
Hana swore - or at least it seemed like she was swearing by the tone of voice and facial expression, but Kate wasn't even sure what language it was, so she could only guess. "You okay?"
"Ah, yeah." Hana looked disgusted. "Just... stay over there and don't ask what I stepped in, a'right?"
Kate cringed. "All right."
Hana glanced up at her. "You okay, Kate? You look... kinda green."
Kate told herself firmly that barfing was not an option. "I haven't worked a crime scene like this in... well, years."
The mechanics of it were familiar, she could take photos and measurements and do sketches in her sleep, but while she'd often feared for her own life over the last seven years, she hadn't had to analyse how someone else had died in a long time. She'd forgotten how disturbing it could be, and on top of that it gave her painful nostalgia for the MCRT and all their foibles, good and bad.
"I guess it's a bit different here than in DC, too," said Will.
Kate gave herself a shake and tried to get her mind back on the job. "You could say that. Very few crime scenes in DC have such an incredible view, for starters..."
Hana grinned at the attempted humour. "You'll be fine," she said with a decisive nod, then got on with taking photos.
Kate got out her sketch pad. At least this was one thing she'd kept up wherever she went. As well as keeping her sane when nothing else could, it was a useful asset. The ability to capture a crime scene quickly and accurately was a real, tangible skill she could offer her new team.
She found herself a place to perch and set about getting it down on paper, scribbling down measurements when they were yelled to her, and finding that turning the distressing 3D reality into a 2D grayscale image was helping her cope with the situation. They'd been extremely happy to hand over the reins to her when they found out she could draw, but maybe it would help her, too.
It really was a beautiful view, if it weren't for the bodies in the foreground. Kate couldn't quite see coming back to this exact spot - she had a feeling her first murder case on the islands would be a memory she'd rather not revisit - but if there was another trail with this same outlook, she'd love to try and capture it.
She got so caught up in her drawing, she didn't notice Will's approach.
"You really are good at that."
She jumped. "Don't do that to me."
He chuckled. "Sorry." He didn't look at all sorry, so she thumped him in the shoulder. "Ow!"
"Maybe next time you won't creep up on me."
He rubbed his shoulder and pouted. "I definitely won't. I thought Hana was the dangerous one."
She grinned up at him, and couldn't resist the temptation to pat his cheek. "You'll live. And you'll remember."
He rolled his eyes. "Anyway, how are you doing?"
Kate looked over the scene again, then down at her drawing. "Okay, I think." She shuddered. "I'm really glad murders are the exception not the rule here. I'm not sure I want to get used to this again."
Will parked his backside down next to her. "I dare say we'd all agree with you on that one." Evidence had been bagged and tagged, the bodies would shortly be zipped into body bags, but the controlled mayhem of a murder scene and the bloodstains on the ground were reminder enough of what had happened here. "You know it's bad when even Hana went a little green."
Kate nodded. "Our team in DC was specifically tasked for major crimes, so we investigated murders all over Maryland and Virginia. You'd think we would be immune, but occasionally we'd get a case that would surprise even Gibbs."
"Feel free not to tell me those stories, especially if they're grisly."
She laughed at his expression of distaste. "Don't worry, I have no desire to relive the bloody ones. I don't mind telling you the funny ones, though."
Will grinned. "Now that would suit me very well indeed." He gestured out at the activity in front of them. "What would it be like back in DC?"
"Hmmm." She thought about it. "Well, DiNozzo would be cracking some highly inappropriate joke right about now, and McGee would probably be trying to pretend he didn't find it funny."
Will snorted. Given the kind of relationship he had with Rich, Kate suspected he knew exactly what she meant.
"Ducky - he's our ME - would be telling us a long and involved story about when he was in some remote country and he had to perform an autopsy on someone who'd died in some really improbable way. The kind of story where you would swear he was making it up, except that nobody would ever make up a story that farfetched and expect you to believe them. Oh, and no one would never hear the end of the story, because Ducky always gets interrupted. I mean always. Half his stories only get told to corpses." She cocked an eyebrow at Will. "You and he would get on really well..."
"Are you trying to tell me I talk too much?"
She winked. "Hey, I didn't say it..."
He narrowed his eyes at her but let the comment pass. "And Gibbs?"
She laughed softly. "Gibbs would be rolling his eyes at Tony, taking notes, seeing the things we were all missing, barking occasionally that we were doing something wrong and were useless idiots, cuffing the backs of heads, somehow creating order out of chaos and probably solving the case while he was at it."
"You miss them."
Kate forced out a smile, though suddenly she felt like crying. "Yes. Yes, I do. Really a lot."
Will slung an arm round her shoulder, then pulled her in for a brief hug and to drop a kiss on her hair before releasing her. "I am sorry. But we'll do our best to look after you here."
It was such a sweet, friendly gesture, and so entirely unexpected, for a second Kate didn't quite know what to do with herself.
Will laughed at her stunned goldfish expression. "Sorry, Kate, I didn't mean to embarrass you."
"No, it's not... it's just..." She looked up at him. "You've all been so kind to me. It's taking me a little while to get used to it."
He shrugged. "We like you. It's easy to be kind."
Kate shook her head. "I was really lucky, with my old team, I mean. Don't get me wrong, they could be hard work sometimes, and we had a heavy caseload, but the upsides... they more than made up for it. I guess I didn't dare expect to get so lucky a second time." She wasn't sure she could even explain it to her own satisfaction, never mind Will's. "I'm still coming to terms with being back in the country, being me again, leaving 'Suzana' behind, never mind everything else. I used to dream of coming home, being part of a close-knit team again, but I never really expected it to come true. I think part of me is expecting to wake up at any moment and find myself back there, living under the radar, undercover, trying not to get dead." She laughed, gestured to the view and the blue sky. "I mean, it's Hawaii, for God's sake."
"Yes, it does take one a little while to get used to living and working in paradise. I promise, once you've found yourself stuck in a traffic jam on H1 a few times, it will begin to feel a lot more real."
Will's dry tone made her laugh, then Rich was yelling something and Hana was denying all knowledge and Will strode into the fray with a sigh like an overworked schoolteacher trying to corral wayward six-year-olds.
Kate watched the animated discussion that ensued and grinned. She was lucky, incredibly lucky, and she had had enough bad luck in the last seven years to truly appreciate her good fortune.
~ fin ~