A/N: Descriptions of past child abuse (Leslie's) in this section.
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Sam and Tony walked side by side to the cafeteria, he liked the fact that she was tall and confidently matched his stride. He could tell that Sam was a little bothered by what Leslie had just said. He was about to break the quiet when Sam said, “I don't understand how people can do things like that to children.”
“Me either.” Tony decided that they really needed to lighten the mood a little and he teased, “So how many do you have? Six, seven?”
She looked at him in mock horror, “Ah, no. None actually. I am an auntie though, my brother has kids. What about you? Is there a little Tony Junior running around?”
“Not to my knowledge. I don't think the world is quite ready for two Anthony DiNozzos.”
They had reached the cafeteria and started pouring and fixing the coffees and Tony was chuckling. Sam shot him a questioning look, “What's so funny?”
“Just that I must be slipping because I haven't managed to find out yet if you have a boyfriend or not. So much for being a smooth operator.”
Sam blushed and cleared her throat gently, what was it about Tony that kept making her do that? Maybe she was too used to the military men she worked with every day, they saw her as a teammate or a comrade, and although they knew she was a woman it was taboo for them to acknowledge it. Tony on the other hand was not hiding the fact that he was attracted to her and it had been a really long time since anyone had just flirted so shamelessly with her. She was enjoying the attention and it made her feel very self confident so she teased back, “Why thinking about applying for the job?”
Without missing a beat he retorted as he balanced three of the coffees, “Maybe. Why don't you tell me about the fringe benefits on the walk back and I'll let you know.”
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Leslie had pushed her sleeves up and splashed some cool water on her face. After she had patted her face dry with a paper towel she went to pull her sleeves back down but her attention was drawn to a couple of small circular scars on her forearm. And although she didn't want it to, the memory of receiving them flashed in her mind.
Her stepfather had been a brutal, domineering man. He had beaten her mother into becoming a mute, submissive rag and then started on six year old Leslie. He pulled her out of school, telling the school board she was being home schooled for religious reasons. In reality it was so no one would see the welts from his belt, or the finger shaped bruises on her arms, or the cigarette burns he was particularly fond of inflicting. His “teaching” sessions were always followed by him spending some quality time in her bedroom as he fondled and groped and satisfied himself. They lived far out in the Virginia countryside and there was no one to hear the cries, or the screams.
He managed to contain himself to just the beatings and fondlings for two whole years before her mother set him off about something and he beat her unconscious. Unable to satisfy his lust on her unconscious mother, he stormed into Leslie's bedroom and threw her to the mattress on the floor in the corner and brutally raped her. The rapes became an almost daily occurrence after that, and Leslie would swear that her mother was relieved, because if he was with Leslie he wasn't hurting her.
Things had gone from bad to worse for Leslie when her mother finally committed suicide. He locked in her room, barely giving her enough food and water to live. The living conditions degraded to worse than the apartment they had found Jackie in and Leslie was so weak and broken that she wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. Her salvation came in the form of an undercover agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that was posing as a buyer for the moonshine her stepfather bootlegged. He had caught a glimpse of the starved, dirty Leslie that was looking out through a window as he and her stepfather talked business in the yard. His eyes met hers and she actually let her self think for just that moment that he had kind eyes, and that maybe he wouldn't hurt her.
The very next day the property was raided and Leslie watched as her stepfather tried to shoot it out with the agents. The agent that she had seen the day before ended up being the one to put a bullet in her stepfather's head although she wouldn't find that out until she was an adult. When the door to her room was kicked in, the agent was the first one through the door. She was trying to hide in the corner with her hands over her ears attempting to block out the gunfire and shouting. The agent simply hit his knees not too far into the room and waited. When she finally met his eyes he said gently, “Sweetheart, how'd you like to get outta here?” When she nodded silently he held out his hand and she saw him almost crying when she finally took it.
She stared at those little round scars and absently rubbed them with the other hand, and she smiled remembering those first words that her adopted father said to her. A dedicated federal agent, he had a wife and two sons about Leslie's age. He had taken what happened to Leslie very personally, to the point of making a nuisance of himself to the social workers and the hospital staff taking care of her. He was the only one that could make the little girl smile. And when she was released from the hospital and put in the children's home, it only took one visit there for he and his wife to start the adoption process rolling. Tony reminded her of him, fun loving on the outside, serious on the inside. She made a mental note to call her father later, he always seemed to know what to say to make her feel better. And she wondered for a second what her father would think of Gibbs.
With that thought causing a silly little look on her face, and a final tug on her sleeves she headed out to see about this Colonel, something in her gut telling her that he was another good man.
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Gibbs was leaning up against the wall facing the restroom door and he smiled when he saw the lighthearted look on her face as Leslie came out. He handed her a coffee and he asked, “What's so funny?”
She shook her head gently, “Nothing. Just thinking about my dad. Remind me to tell you about him some time.”
“How about over dinner later?”
“You know, I think I would really like that, Jethro.”
They went into the seating area and Leslie said to Jack and Sam, “Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter, I would like to apologize. And without making excuses, this strike has been very difficult on all of us in my department, and I've been handling the worst cases personally. But it doesn't forgive my behavior and I'm sorry.”
Jack spoke up, “First off, it's Jack. Second, I'm the one that needs to apologize. My mouth works faster than my brain sometimes.”
“How about we call it even and just chalk it up to a bad day all around?”
“Works for me.”
They all sat down and Leslie gave them a little more detail about Jackie's condition, but she couldn't release the specifics. They were not relatives. Jack was getting more and more frustrated. He understood where she was coming from, and that it could cost her her job and her license if she divulged the information. But he had had enough. “Leslie, may I speak to you privately for a minute?”
“Um, sure. We can borrow the nurses break room.”
The two of them left, leaving the others to talk among themselves. Jack's actions nailed Gibbs suspicions and when Gibbs met Sam's eyes, she gave him a knowing little look that confirmed it.
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In the break room Leslie didn't hesitate to start, “Jack, look, I would tell you if I could. Honest.”
Jack slipped a packet of papers out of his jacket pocket, and blurted out, “We were lovers.”
That stopped Leslie in her tracks, “Excuse me?”
Jack let out a big breath, “Daniel and I were more than just teammates, Leslie, we were lovers. And we were together almost four years before he went MIA. If we could have gone somewhere and gotten married we would have. But we couldn't because of my position. We were a family though, and there are a whole lot of folks back in Colorado that consider themselves part of that family. And you can be damn sure that if either Daniel or I or anyone else in our “family” had known about Jackie that she wouldn't have spent another second in that hell hole.”
Leslie softened her tone, she could see the pain in Jack's eyes and knew he wasn't lying about their relationship, “Jack, I can't imagine how hard on you this all must be. But legally I can't tell you anything. I'm not even supposed to let you see her, but I will. I just can't give you the private medical information.”
He handed her the papers he was holding, “This is something we had drawn up three years ago, Daniel called it our “Life Contract”. It basically tries to protect us legally as if we had been married. There is a section specifically about children in there giving full parental rights to any children either of us may have had to the surviving partner. It should cover any legal issues.”
Leslie flipped through the thick packet, it was an extremely thorough document. She quickly read and re-read the section on children, then looked at the signatures and dates on the last few pages, the men had gone through the bother of having it the signatures and dates amended every six months to show that it was still in force. She had worked with some same-sex couples in the past that could have benefited from having such a contract. She decided to accept it at face value. She wasn't handing the child over to them, just providing information. The contract would still have to pass a judge's scrutiny before custody would be granted.
Leslie sighed and looked up to meet Jack's expectant eyes, “I'll need a copy of this for my case file.”
Jack nodded, not concerned, the contract was drawn up without any references to the actual nature of their relationship.
“Do you want Sam to be privy to the information as well? Or would you rather we discuss her condition here?”
“That family thing I was talking about? Sam's a big part of it. You can think of her as Daniel's sister. Anything you can tell me, you can tell her. And to answer your next question, yes, she knows about us.”
“Okay, let's head back out. As part of the investigation, NCIS is already aware of what I'm going to tell you.”
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They made their way back out to the seating area where the others were waiting. Gibbs gave Leslie a little questioning eyebrow and she just gave him a little wink in reply, letting him know that everything went okay.
They were all quiet as Leslie gave them all the information she had from the doctor's about Jackie's condition and showed them the photos from the apartment and the dirty room where Jackie had been living. When she was done, a painful quiet had overtaken the seating area. The idea that someone would put their filthy hands on Daniel's child made Jack's blood boil. Sam had just slapped her hand over her mouth and was trying not to cry, although her eyes were welling with tears. Tony was sitting next to her and he didn't even think about it or hesitate, he just put his hand on her back and rubbed gently.
Jack was trying to keep his emotions under control, but he needed a minute to do that and he got up and went to stand alone by the window, gripping the sill so tightly his knuckles were white.
Leslie quietly put the file and pictures away in her briefcase. This was not her first time telling people about the horrific things that had been done to a child and she wasn't immune by any means, but kept her emotions under control. When she looked up, she meet Gibbs' gaze and his eyes were full of sadness and compassion.
They were all so wrapped up in their own emotions that none of them immediately noticed little Jackie until she tugged on the leg of Jack's jeans and said, “Jaaaack.”
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Jack was deep in a fantasy about sticking a block of C4 where the sun doesn't shine on the sick freak that had touched Jackie when he felt something tugging on his pant leg. He looked down into a pair of blue eyes that he would have known anywhere and he heard his name singsonged in a painfully familiar way just before she threw her arms in the air asking to be picked up.
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The others all took in the sight of Jackie standing there wearing Tony's shirt like an enormous floppy bathrobe over her hospital pajamas, hanging on to one ear of her bunny as she held her arms up, waiting for Jack to pick her up.
Tony was the first to say anything, “She talked.”
Sam whispered in to her hand, “Oh my god, she's so tiny.”
Gibbs just watched as Jack bent down on one knee and Jackie latched onto him. When Jack stood up with the child in his arms, Gibbs saw her whisper something to Jack that made Jack's eyes go a little wild for a second.
Leslie was concerned, how on earth did Jackie know Jack's name?
What none of them heard Jackie whisper to Jack was, “Daddy said you would come.”
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tbc...
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