Chapter 2

Mac grabbed his cell phone from the kitchen table and started scrolling through his contacts. There were several reservists he knew who lived down south, not close enough to New Orleans to get in and get an additional two people out. Having someone who knew ASL or at least had a basic grasp would be helpful.

Seeing a name, he smiled, knowing that he may have just found the perfect solution. A buddy of his from the force, a detective turned victims' advocate, had retired about six months ago, choosing New Orleans as the polar opposite of New York. Hitting the dial button, he hoped that Ethan was still in town, or somewhere near there. He wasn't the type to just bail when things looked bad. If people needed help, he generally stuck around.

Ethan Grant looked at his cell phone in surprise. New York? Mac Taylor? Must be important, Taylor wasn't someone to call on a whim. Not at a time like this. He looked up at a TV in the firehouse he was helping out at. The levees were gonna go, he could feel it. Whatever Taylor needed, he'd have to make it happen double time. "Taylor, we got a hurricane here, this better be important."

"Good to talk to you too, Grant. I can't think of anything more important than two deaf adults who might still be in their house as whatever is happening down there is going on. I have their daughter in the den of my buddy's house, and she can't get in touch with her parents. I really need a favor, I need them found."

He would owe Ethan, and was pretty sure that his friend would request manual labor for doing this. But helping out Jet's lab tech would make it worthwhile. "Their neighbor who helps out couldn't get them to answer the door, and she's fearing the worst. I can't let her drive down there, which is what she's planning. Tell me that you can or you know someone who can get over to their house."

"I can, signed up with the Guard when I got down here. Have a Hummer. Get me their details, Taylor, and I'll do my best." Ethan's sister was deaf, he knew why Taylor had called him rather than anyone else. "But do it fast, Mac. Things are going down here and if I can't get it done in the next couple hours, it's gonna get real bad real fast."

"Hold on a second, I can get you an address right now." Mac crossed the house and walked back into the den, glad to see that Abby had calmed down a little. "Jet, I have someone who will drive out and check out Abby's parents house, but he needs to know where he's going. He needs to do it now."

"Here, let me talk to him. I can give him an address and directions and then walk him through a couple of signs, something that my parents would recognize. He's really going to go for them?" Tears were welling back up in Abby's eyes. Here was a man who didn't even know her helping her out and finding her parents.

"We had a sign when I was little, like a code word. If someone didn't know the sign I knew that they weren't there because my parents asked them. They'll go with him if he knows the sign."

"His name is Ethan, and he's fluent in ASL. Lucked out that he retired down there not too long ago." Mac handed the phone over to Abby, and smiled as the young woman excitedly gave information to his friend.

Mac tugged Jet into the hallway, out of Abby's earshot and arranged them so that she couldn't lip read them. "So, are we out?" Mac shouldn't care, they'd been together a lifetime, it wouldn't change. But being together and being out were two different things.

"As out as out could be. What the hell ya thinking prancing around with your shirt undone? And the buttons on your jeans are still open." Jet flicked the exposed skin there.

"Says the man who thundered upstairs in his boxer shorts. I was going for comfort, and wasn't expecting anyone to just show up." Mac had been coming down to DC for years and had never had anyone besides Kelly show up.

Jet smirked, shrugging. "Shouldn't have been sanding that close to nude anyway."

"Is she cool with all of this? She's not going to run off and gossip to the whole Navy Yard that you have a male lover, is she?"

Jet inclined his head, nodding. "I think she's going to keep this very quiet. We're close and she respects me. We'll establish the rules, Mac. We'll work this out."

"Only you could have a groupie who won't ruin you, Beautiful Boy. Me, I'd get some crazy woman who was angry that I didn't choose her. You, you get a funky little Goth who doesn't care that the big bad Marine is sleeping with another big bad Marine. You're lucky I guess."

Mac liked Abby, at least the little he'd seen of her. Both Jet and Kelly had been raving about her since she joined NCIS. He fully understood why. "If you're not careful, I'm going to steal her out from underneath you. I need a good lab supervisor, and she'd be perfect. Something to shake up the NYPD."

"She wouldn't last two minutes in that political swamp. You want Abby, you come down here and work for NCIS or elsewhere, like you've been threatening." Mac gave him a curious look and Jet shook his head. "Don't tease me if you're not thinking seriously about it." Mac just continued staring. "Mac, you seriously starting to think about making the move?"

"I'm sick of making this drive, Jet. For twenty some odd years, I've made this drive. You've come up for just as many years." They had earned the chance to be together, without the miles between them. "I need a change, and I can't think of a better one than Washington. My two favorite people who aren't my parents live here, and they've been talking about moving to someplace milder and nearer their grandchild. Jet, it might be time."

"I'd like that," Jet admitted softly. "You wanna make the change, my door is wide open. You'd class up the place, Babe. And NCIS would love to have you." He reached over and placed his hand on Mac's head, stroking over his hair. "Thought of waking up next to you every day makes my night."

"Don't know if I could work at NCIS, that's your domain. I wouldn't want to try and force myself in. I'll find someplace to work or something to do. I've got money; I'm not in a rush to just take a job to have one." Mac thought he might be ready to leave New York. He had stayed longer than he should have, because he swore he could still feel Claire there. But it was time to move on, and that meant leaving the city he had adopted as home.

"When I go back, I'll start looking at my options. See if I can't create an exit strategy. It won't be immediately, but sometime soon."

"Like that, Babe. Really like that." With Kelly at college, Gibbs had been feeling out of sorts. This would change things, and he thought they were ready for it.

"You're just looking forward to potentially getting some when ever you want, and not having to wait until we get a weekend off to be together."

Jet wrapped his arms around Mac's waist. "So, I like doing and being done by you. You never objected, so why start now."

He heard a big sniffle and turned to find Abby off the phone, extending it to Mac. "Super Mac strikes again? What's happening, Abby? Is Mac's friend able to get to your folks?"