Chapter 1

"What the hell is this?"

The agencies rarely shared information so readily, so seeing an inches-thick folder on his desk that had come from Fornell was a surprise.

"No idea, Gibbs." Tony shrugged. "It must have been delivered last night."

The envelope felt like it contained a case file of some sort. Jethro opened it, pulling out a piece of white paper, a note scrawled messily rather than in Tobias' precise hand.

I may lose my job over this, but I knew I had to get this to you, Jethro. We're investigating the murder of a U.S. Marshal and this was one of her assignments. I know you'll know what to do with this information. Good luck, old friend. Tobias.

Jethro tossed the note aside, flipping the folder open. He stopped suddenly at the first picture of a woman in her twenties, a bright smile on her face, long hair flowing in the wind. A picture of the same woman, decades older edged out from behind the first. Fine lines surrounded her eyes, but otherwise...

The first page behind the photos had a phone number and he punched them in mechanically, hands shaking, gasps coming to him, his mind whirling. This couldn't be what it appeared. It was impossible! But he couldn't help but have hope. Pictures could be doctored, he knew that, but...

One ring. Two rings. Three rings ... His hand was sweaty now and he gripped the receiver tightly.

"Boss?" McGee stepped closer uncertainly, but stopped when Jethro waved him away. "I'm getting Ducky."

Four rings. Five...

"Hello?"

He knew that voice. Voices could be faked too, but he knew. She was breathing, she was alive!

"Hello? Who is this?" Her voice had turned sharp now. "If you don't talk, I'm hanging up, you dirtbag."

He couldn't find his voice. He was shaking too much to speak, to think.

"Fine! Don't call again!"

"NO! Don't hangup!" The words ran together in his haste to get them out. He sniffed and realized he was crying.

Tony stood over his desk, a questioning look in his eyes, but he couldn't deal with him now.

"Jethro?" Shannon Gibbs was in shock. Her husband wasn't supposed to know how that she was alive, but he was still on the other end of the phone. "You can't call here, you can't know about me. This is bad, in ways you can't even imagine. Hang up and forget you ever knew this phone number. It's too dangerous, for all of us."

"Oh, hell no, sweetheart." It was her. IT WAS HER! Ducky reached out to touch his arm and Jethro shifted aside. He didn't care what the team thought, not even Tony.

"Listen to me carefully here. I work for a federal agency. You'll be safe with me. I'm coming to get both of you right now. Are you armed and are you safe? Your agent has been murdered. It'll take me fifteen minutes, if that, to get there. All I need you two to do is stay safe. Do you hear me, honey? I'm coming to get you right now. Just stay safe. God ... stay safe. Here's my cell number. Call if you need me."

How the hell had they placed her in DC, right around the corner from them?

"DiNozzo, McGee, Ziva, come on!"

"Jethro?"

"No time now, Duck. Later. Later..."

Jenny was running down the stairs. "Agent Gibbs! Where are you going? I need to brief you on—"

"LATER!" Nothing was keeping him from her. He pounded the down button and slumped against the wall of the car as it all caught up with him.

"Boss? What's the assignment?" DiNozzo looked as concerned as he ever had.

"U.S. Marshal dead. We're taking her local assignment into custody. Two women, twenty-four, forty-four. Names..." He trailed off, swallowing. "Aliases are Shawna and Kerry Brown."

They stepped out of the elevator, and waited a single beat for Gibbs to give the orders. When he didn't, Tony took charge. "McGee, you and Ziva take one car, I'll go with Gibbs. This is big."

Tony followed Jethro to the car, running everything over in his mind. As he slid into the passenger seat, he looked over at Gibbs. "Shannon and Kelly are alive?"

"I just talked to Shannon," Gibbs said quietly, peeling out.

Tony flipped his cell phone open and relayed directions to McGee and Ziva and soon they were at a home in Northwest.

"Gibbs!" Tony called as their boss raced up the sidewalk and pounded on the door. "Get your gun out, you idiot!" He spoke softly, not wanting to alarm Gibbs. He, McGee, and Ziva had their weapons out and were covering Gibbs, but if this was some trap, he was in trouble.

Jethro stood tall as the door cracked open a millimeter. "Let me in, you're safe. It's okay." He couldn't tell f it was Shannon or Kelly and he wasn't going to force the door open and scare them. That was how people got dead and he wasn't going to lose any of his people.

"Please open up. It's okay. We're going to get you someplace secure. I promise you, honey. Trust me."

Kelly heard a voice that she recognized, and came out from behind the couch where she was hiding. "Mom said not to trust anyone, not even if they say they can be trusted. What's your name? You sound familiar, but I don't think I know you."

Opening the door, but leaving the chain locked, she looked out at who was there. "What are you doing here? Mom isn't going to be happy. We aren't allowed visitors."

"You know me, sweetheart." There he went crying again. "My god ... look at you, Princess Kelly. Kel ... it's Dad. Let me in. It's Daddy." His voice broke on the word and he extended a shaking hand to the gap in the door.

Tony came up behind him, weapon in hand, gently squeezing his shoulder. "Put your weapon away, DiNozzo, she isn't a threat. Cover me back to back if you think Ziva and McGee don't have us."

"Kelly, look into my eyes and listen to my voice. You know me. I ... I promised you I'd come back, and I did ... but ... you and your mom were gone. I came back, Kelly. I never broke that promise."

"No, my dad died, when I was little. In the war, you're not my dad." Kelly wanted to believe, more than anything in the world, that her dad was alive. He had called her princess, just like this man did. And he looked kind of like her dad did, older, but his hair was still the same.

"You look like my dad, you sound like him too. But it's a trick. You aren't him, he died. He never would have left us alone all this time."

"No, Kelly, I'm here. Is that what they told you? I just found out you and your mom were alive a few minutes ago, Kelly. Open the door, honey. Just let me in. My guys will stay out here, I'll leave my gun and vest behind if you need me to."

He took his gun and vest off, took his baseball cap off, stripped off his jacket. "Let me in, Kel. Your mom and I just talked. She knows I'm on the way. My guys, they're NCIS, just like the agents who took care of you and your mom at Pendleton."

He rifled through memories, coming up with one that might verify him in her mind. "You still have the little white stuffed bear I got you? What did you call him, Snowflake? Yeah, that was it, Snowflake. And you used to make me sing that little song about the bear and his friend the seal. What was his name? Slinky the seal?"

"God, baby girl, just let your old man in. It's dangerous for us to be out here and I don't want to force the door open but if I have to, I will."

"No one knows about Slinky." Kelly didn't want to let him in, but he knew things that no one else did. Closing the door, she slid the chain and opened the door again. "Snowflake is in my room, you won him for me at the base fair before you shipped out the last time."

Letting the man in who looked like her dad was one thing, but when the rest of the people he was with tried to follow them in, she started to get upset again. "Just you, they can't come in. Mom doesn't like people here, you only. They can wait outside."

"Stand down, all of you. It's okay. I have my phone, I have my radio. And I will be the only one entering. I'll check in every five minutes. Just leave us alone for now. You too, Tony."

"Not a good idea, Jet. You don't know who else is in there." The redhead could be Gibbs' daughter, looked enough like his first wife that it made sense. But those eyes, they were her father's eyes, and there was no doubting who she was. "Let one of us come in with you. Someone needs to watch your six."

"My family is in there, DiNozzo. I'll be okay." Jethro acted like he was going to cuff the younger man, when in actuality he stroked the back of his hair and his neck, out of sight of Ziva and McGee. "It'll be okay, Tony. Let me do this." Tony obediently 'Owwed' and Jethro gave him the smallest of nods. It'd be okay. For all of them.

Jethro closed the door and jammed a wooden block under it before turning back to Kelly. "C'mere, sweetheart." It took all the restraint he had to stop himself from yanking her into his arms, but he knew he had to be careful. She was on guard already.

She was just as gorgeous as her mother, but she had his eyes, his jaw, his chin cleft. "Twenty-four now, Kelly. When I last saw you, you were seven. My little princess. All grown up. Where is your mother? I'm going to get you both to NICS headquarters right now. You'll be safe with me, Kelly. Just take my hand."

"Mom was upstairs when the shooting started. I yelled, but she didn't answer." Kelly held her hand back for just a second, but decided since she had already let him in, she may as well go all the way. Putting her hand in his, she immediately remembered when she was younger and her favorite thing to do was hold her dad's hand, how safe it made her feel. "Why are people shooting at us? I was reading when I heard shots. I think Mom's hurt, but she always told me if I heard anything like a gun shot, I had to hide. That's what I did, but she wouldn't say anything to let me know she was ok."

"Shooting?" Jethro pulled her into a tight hug, kissing the top of her head. "You did great, Kel. Stay low and in here for now and I'll check on your mom. If I need help, I'm gonna ask one of my guys to come in, you need to remove the block securing the door and come up the stairs, okay? Let me check on Mom, honey."

He wasn't going to lose them. Dammit, he wasn't going to lose them. "I'm in, Tony. I'm okay. Prepare to enter but wait for my call. Have Ziva check the perimeter." He radioed off as he bounded up the stairs.

Kelly did what she was told, crawling over to the door, and moving the blocks, unlocking the door before crawling back to where she had been hiding.

"Shan! Shannon, it's Jethro. How bad is it, honey?" He saw her lying on the ground, bleeding, and his heart almost stopped. She was breathing normally, though. Jethro applied pressure to what looked to be a through and through of the shoulder and she groaned.

"Shan ... breathe deeply. It's okay, sweetheart." He choked off a sob. "I'm here, Shan, and you're crazy if you think I'm letting you go now."

Opening her eyes, all Shannon could feel was pain. "You never listen, Jethro." Her voice was raspy, and tinged with emotion. "Do I owe you thanks for the bullets? I hang up on you and get shot. Wake up, you're here in the room with me. It's been years since anyone shot at us and one phone call from you changes all of that."

"No, baby, you were already targeted before I called you. Someone killed your Marshal, honey. The agent who tipped me off probably saved your lives."

He tucked a strand of her hair back and spoke into his mic. "DiNozzo, get in here, cover the door. Just stay at the door. Don't spook her, got it?"

"Has that ever worked before? Telling me not to talk?" Shannon let herself relax, knowing that Jethro was going to take care of everything. She should have known they couldn't come back to Washington, and not have him find out.

"Nah, but we have seventeen years of you talking for me to catch up on. Guess I'm owed."

He scooped Shannon into his arms for the first time in seventeen years. "Hang on, Shan. Hang on, honey. It feels worse than it is." He spared a second to pull her head to his, kissing her forehead."

"Still as cocky as ever, aren't you. Should have expected that when you called. You shocked me, I was coming up to pack, it was obvious we were going to have to leave again, quickly." Shannon bit off a swear word when her shoulder was jostled on the first step. "Be careful with me, I'm not a sack of potatoes, Jethro. You used to be better at this, sweeping me off my feet and taking me off to bed. You've lost your touch over a couple of wives."

"I lost a hell of a lot more the day you left me and don't bitch about my lack of finesse while I'm trying to save your life, when all I can think about is how beautiful you are and all the time we lost. And the fact that Kelly thinks I died in the war, Shannon. We've got a lot of talking to do, so save your breath for when it really matters."

"Don't worry about the blood, Shan. It'll be okay. I'm..." He never apologized. "It's a lot to take in right now. If I'm a bastard, that's why. I'll settle down, you'll get the edge off, we'll talk. We have a lot to catch up on and it sounds like you know about the mess I made of things without you."

Jethro paused a brief second, need overwhelming sense. "I have to do this." He pressed his mouth against hers, seventeen years of longing and love and lust for her telegraphing its way to her. "Won't be enough, but I had to taste you. Seventeen goddamn years, Shannon. And your mouth and your kisses are the same."

And she still made his heart race.

"Mmmmmm ... Jethro. Still have the best lips of anyone I ever knew. It's always been you, there hasn't been anyone else for me." There hadn't been a chance to even consider a relationship, even if she had wanted to. Kelly had needed extra attention and she'd been under lock and key since she'd been run off the road and left for dead.

"Longer than that, how long had you been gone before we had to leave? I never wanted to do that, I never meant for it to happen. They told us you were dead to begin with, to get us to go. I didn't even know you were alive for a couple years. And I found out accidentally, reading the paper about some case you had wrapped. By then, I was trapped. I couldn't just tell Kelly, sorry baby, your daddy's alive, but we can't go see him."

"Seven, eight months And I was damn near dead for a while. I want to know everything when I can think. I can't think with you here bleeding. God ... I could have lost you again and not even known it."

As soon as he hit the bottom step, he nodded to Tony. "Kel, come over here. I need you to pace me to the car and then duck down in the back seat with my friend Tony here. Mom and I will be up front. Tony, call Ducky once we're in transit. Through and through left shoulder, you guys get back here and bag and tag. Call Fornell. No ... I'll call him. I owe him."

Kelly came out into the open living room area, and saw her mother. Her eyes were open, but she was obviously in pain. She looked at the man her father said to sit with and stepped towards him. "Is he safe? He looks a little dodgy. How do you know he's not one of the bad guys?"

"Special Agent Tony DiNozzo, it's nice to meet you, Kelly. I've seen all sorts of pictures of you, your dad is a good friend of mine." Tony turned on the charm that had caused a number of women, and one special man, to fall into his arms. He placed himself between the boss' daughter and the window, making sure that if anyone shot at them, they'd hit him instead of her. "I promise that you'll be perfectly safe with me."

"Dad?" It was the first time she'd said the word and her voice cracked, emotion welling up in her throat. She knew they had to get out of there, but she needed to be sure.

"He's safe, Kelly. He's NCIS along with me. He's worked with me for seven years. I promise you he's safe. I'll explain everything as soon as we have you guys in a safe, secure place." When she called him "Dad," his heart clenched. He'd waited so damn long to hear that word and he could almost hate Shannon for letting Kel believe he'd left her and never come home."

He knew she needed his assurance, maybe even more than Shan. "Change in plan. Tony, you take Shannon, I'll take Kel. Maybe he'll pass muster, Shan. If not, just let the guy think you died and destroy him for seventeen years." He didn't know if Kel was shell shocked or just very unused to any stresses, but he was worried. He needed to get her moving, but he couldn't traumatize her.

Jethro crossed the room and eased his wife into Tony's arms. "You guard her with your life, DiNozzo, got it?"

Tony nodded, knowing his life had just gotten a hell of a lot more complicated. "Same shoulder as you, boss. You guys will have matching scars."

"Yeah. Thanks for pointing that out." He reached up to cuff Tony again, but stroked his neck again, trying to communicate his emotions, emotions he couldn't even untangle.

"Hey, Shannon. I'm Special Agent DiNozzo. Tony. Wrap your good arm around my neck, okay?" Tony radioed McGee and Ziva, telling them to radio him back when everything looked secure.

"Here's hoping you have better skills than Jethro."

"Oh, he does, Shannon. I have no complaints about his skills. And his loyalty and trust. Nice to have a partner that didn't screw me thoroughly."

Turning her head into the agent's neck, she took a deep breath trying to prepare herself for the movement to start again. She was surprised when she smelled the same scent that she had always associated with her husband; Old Spice, coffee and sawdust. Though he didn't look the part, she supposed he could be an old-fashioned boy and wore an old-fashioned cologne. Most people drank coffee, but the sawdust, that was a distinctive scent that went along with a specific hobby.

Whispering in Tony's ear, Shannon tried to make her position very clear. "Drop me and you will live to regret it, Special Agent DiNozzo. We're going to need to talk, I think we share something in common and we'll need to work out visitation rights. Keep it quiet, Jethro doesn't know that I know his little secret."

"Which secret is that?" Tony said in an undertone. "He your boss too?" Tony moved her gently, preparing himself for the full on run to the car when clear was called. "You and boss got some unfinished business, huh? He's probably not the same guy you remember. They tell me losing you changed him."

"The secret that you two share the same aftershave and sawdust. Can't pin the exact brand of coffee, that was never my thing. But it's obvious that he's more than just your boss." Shannon knew he wasn't the same man, could never be the exact man she fell in love with. But he didn't seem to have changed that much. "I'm sure it did, as well as all the divorces. But he's still my Jethro, somewhere under the gruff and bluster."

"That's where you're wrong. He's my Jethro now, Shannon. He might be yours again, but for now, his heart and his body and soul belong to me. And mine to him. Sounds like you'll have to earn the right to be his again. You cut him deep. And I'm not sure I can forgive you for hurting him, even if he can. I've watched him break apart time and time again."

"Until you can provide him with a daughter, who I had no control over taking away from him, Special Agent, he's still my Jethro. This wasn't my choice, like it or not. So until you know what I've gone through, you've got no room to talk."

"And until you know what he's gone through, neither do you, sweetheart. He threw himself in harm's way in passive suicide, risking the lives of my fellow agents as well as his own. All because he couldn't get you out of his mind. If you knew for a minute he thought you were dead and you didn't get word to him, I don't want to hear it. He may be 'your' Jethro, but I was the one who put him back together again and again."

"I had to think of Kelly. It wasn't just me these maniacs were after, it was my daughter. And when you're in that situation, you tend to do whatever the person protecting you says. I couldn't just drop everything and call Jethro, thinking he'd just swoop in and save me."

"You should have trusted him." Tony's voice softened. "He would have moved heaven and earth to keep you both safe. Don't you see the guy I see? The one who will move mountains to right a wrong? He can't have changed so much."

"Come on McGee! How long does it take." Jethro was pacing, Kelly tucked against his chest. Tony hadn't even grabbed his vest where Gibbs had dropped it outside the door. What a stupid probie mistake. He took off his own one handed and handed it silently to Jethro, who draped it around Kelly.

"I was a housewife, with a little girl who was in a coma because we'd been run off the road, and my husband was in Saudi Arabia. When a federal marshal walks up to you and says you're leaving, you leave." Shannon wanted to believe that Jethro could have done something, but he also could have been killed in front of her. "They told me he was dead. I learned later he was in a coma, the same time Kelly was." She'd been young and wanted to protect the family she had left. "I don't expect you to understand. Even if I had said no, what would have happened. I'd have gotten us both killed before Jethro woke up and came home. I did what I had to, to keep my child safe."

"What about now, Shannon? Can you trust him now? He'll still move heaven and earth to help you. Just please don't hurt him again. I don't think he could take it." He sighed. "You and I have to talk, but not here and not in front of him, okay? Get everything established. Pecking order to start. I'd like to say I'm noble enough to step away, but I'm not. I love him, Shannon. You're going to have to deal with that. If not for me, then for Jet."

"It was never trust. I always trusted him. It was keeping everyone safe. You'll have to forgive me if I didn't want to see the man I loved dead. Now that he's involved, I trust him with my life, and more, with Kelly's life. I have spent the last twelve years trying to keep Jethro uninvolved in this mess."

Shannon sighed, this boy, she could hardly think of him as a man, he was still too young, was going to be a problem. He wasn't going to give up on the man he loved, something she could commiserate about. "Let me get used to the fact that Jethro is here, then we'll talk about pecking order, as you say. Second wife isn't a position you cherish, is it? Are you man enough to take a back seat if that's what Jethro wants? It's not about you and me, it's about him."