~
Nikki Jardine was a damn good intelligence operative. She spoke five languages and various dialects, had superior tech skills and some of the best contacts in the field. Above all else, she had great instincts and her instincts were telling her that something was wrong with the research McGee and Ziva asked her to do. At first, she found everything she expected: the wealthy DiNozzo family, dysfunctional parents, lackluster academic history followed by exceptional athletic and professional qualities. Nothing new. The first interesting clue Nikki found was a note in an obscure medical file, a mysterious genetic mutation first documented over one hundred years ago in some distant relative from Cardiff. The hand written page was ripped and stained. It had been photographed and added to the digital records of Torchwood London, an urban legend of an English intelligence agency that Nikki happened to know was real.
Name: Breck Annesley
Aged: 24 years
Condition: Abdominal Contusion and spontaneously generating orifice. Patient complains of nausea, enteritis, hot flashes, epistaxis, and unrelenting desi
Unrelenting what? Nikki wondered when she looked at the damaged document. Then she read the words that she couldn’t seem to get out of her head: spontaneously generating orifice. ‘What in the world is that?,’ she wondered and tried to put it out of her mind, but then she saw it again. And three more times before she reported back to McGee and David, telling them that there was nothing out of the ordinary besides the vague mention of a hereditary genetic mutation. She didn’t bother to mention the term because it seemed too sensational to be of any importance. She didn’t mention Torchwood or the Doctor either, which she’d heard about before and was intrigued to find mentioned in two of the older British records, but why would she? Both were the stuff of legend and even though she believed in them, it was foolish to try to explain them to others- especially someone who’d never heard of either. Besides, it wasn’t the first time Jardine had seen reference to these legendary entities and she doubted it would be the last. She was more concerned with the idea of a spontaneously generating orifice.
In the end it was those words that ate away at her until she found herself mindlessly searching for intel again, specifically searching for the meaning of that term. It had been a few weeks since she last accessed DiNozzo’s information but the difficulty she had in finding anything was an immediate red flag. Anthony DiNozzo Jr. existed, but his medical records and family records did not. Or, more precisely, they had been redacted. Agent Jardine started to worry after she rechecked records with several US and British government agencies and found they had all been modified. What little she could find had no traces of spontaneous orifice generation or even a genetic mutation. There weren’t too many agencies in the world that could orchestrate this kind of cover-up. Jardine didn’t know what this was, but she knew it was something serious. She had to tell someone and Agent Gibbs was the first person that came to mind.
Like everyone affiliated with NCIS, Jardine knew about Gibbs’ famous gut and she felt foolish bringing him a story about how her gut was telling her that something was going on. Instead, she decided to run it by McGee since it involved the research he’d asked her to do. And if Gibbs just happened to be there when she did, well, she couldn’t help that, could she? It didn’t help matters that when she went to speak to Agent McGee there was a picture of her cousin on the flat screen and the team was vetting her. The fact that it was Martha who told her about the Doctor and Torchwood, and a dozen other amazing stories could not have been a coincidence. That’s a rule, she smiled as she remembered, rule 39.
She hoped she wasn’t betraying Martha’s confidence, but this was too important. Besides, Nikki couldn’t imagine her cousin doing anything unethical and felt certain that if there was anything strange happening, they would need Martha’s expertise. She stood behind Tony’s cubicle and gave her casual input as three pairs of eyes looked at her in surprise.
“How do you know the illusive Dr. Martha Jones- and is she single?” Tony asked, seemingly surprised himself at the change of subject. He was actually glad when Agent Jardine ignored him.
“She’s my cousin.” Nikki answered, looking at Tim and Ziva. “Actually Aunt Francine is my godmother, but ever since my brother and her little brother, Leo, started dating we’ve been joking that we’re in-laws now.” Jardine said, moving to McGee’s desk before acknowledging the silence. “I can see you’re in the middle of something, but I wanted to run something by you, McGee. It’s kind of important so call me when you’re free,” she said with her back to Tony, making eyes over her shoulder.
“Sure Nikki, but we need to know what you can tell us about Martha Jones.”
“Smart girl. Got her medical degree from Imperial College but didn’t get a chance to practice before being offered a coveted position with a secret government agency... Why do you need to know about Martha?”
“She stole our corpse,” Ziva hissed, staring at the flat screen.
“Not ours, technically. Well, not anymore.” McGee sighed.
“What do you mean?”
Tony rubbed his face and groaned. He couldn’t take much more of this; not only was he horny as hell, but his patience was non-existent. “This morning she was a marine and within minutes she was suddenly an ex-marine. Who the heck changes records that fast?”
“Apparently a secret government agency,” Tim rejoined to no one in particular so Tony ignored him.
“Nikki, we need Martha’s number.” Tony snapped irritably.
“So you can harass my little cousin? Why not? Why don’t I just ask her to stop by?” Nikki’s sarcasm was obvious to anyone paying attention.
“Oh, could you do that? Just drop her in the interrogation room,” DiNozzo sighed, amazed at how easy that had been. He was totally oblivious to Jardine’s outrage until he heard Ziva try to calm the intelligence agent down. “Too much? I meant the conference room,” he said, bewilder at Nikki’s anger and Ziva’s look of censure.
“Why should I give you Martha?”
“Because a marine has been killed and she’s covering it up,” Gibbs said, coming around the corner to stand in front of Agent Jardine.
“I’ll call, but she hasn’t done anything wrong. I know Martha; she’s doing her job,” Nikki Jardine promised, hoping to God she was right. Gibbs picked up his desk phone and thrust it toward Jardine who reluctantly took it and dialed the number. Once the phone was in her hand, Nikki dialed the numbers easily; she had questions of her own for Martha. The phone rang three times before there was a click as Gibbs hit the speaker button.
~
10 weeks earlier
Eliot Spencer was frustrated. He knew it was stupid to get out of the truck- he didn’t need Hardison’s big mouth panic attack to tell him that. But Eliot was depressed and more than a little fatalistic. When he thought about Anthony DiNozzo, he ached inside for the love he would never have. It made him careless so that he did stupid things like charging blindly into a forest filled with dangerous radiation. But this wasn’t Eliot’s first time at the rodeo- Damien Moreau had made sure of that. In fact, it was working for Moreau that made Eliot jump out of the truck and explore. When he’d first come to run Moreau’s crew, his boss was involved in some bid to rule the earth, or so he always said, and once he’d learned the plan, Eliot thought he had a good chance of succeeding. Supposedly there was a miracle drug that could wipe out any disease known to man. Damien Moreau was the financial backer of the Pharm, a British pharmaceutical company that harvested alien technology for human gain. Eliot saw the AIDS patients and more than a few people in the last stages of cancer who looked miraculously healed mere days after taking the drug. The only catch? The drug inevitably killed each trial volunteer. When Moreau ordered Eliot to have each of the trial patients assassinated, Eliot knew he’d eventually resign; his job had always involved killing, but he’d always been able to avoid killing innocent people.
Still, he did the job, and it was only the first in a long line of deplorable acts he would commit in the name of Damien Moreau. He worked for Moreau for 18 months and in that time, he learned there were aliens and secret government agencies that knew all about them. He laughed to himself, thinking about how surprised Hardison would be to find out Eliot was a part of several major alien events and government conspiracies. In fact, it was the illusive Doctor who explained to Eliot that not all radiation is harmful to all life-forms. He remembered that the Foamosi can withstand large amounts of radiation and that Time Lords like the Doctor, play with radioactive Rontagen blocks as toddlers. Having all this knowledge didn’t make Eliot feel invincible, but it did remind him that he’d once done a little time travelling himself. He’d been in the Tardis and because of that, he was a bit impervious when it came to your average biological threats and it was lucky too, since he was always getting himself into dangerous situations. He knew someone was out here, looking at him, but he didn’t know how he knew. Nor could he explain it to Hardison who wouldn’t listen anyway. Better to just hop out and explore myself, he thought, leaving his genius lackey to swelter and curse in the truck.
“Hell,” he said, slamming the door, “least I didn’t wear the camo for nothing.”
Eliot moved quickly away from the SUV and in less than ten seconds, Hardison lost all trace of him. Eliot smelled the scent of the forest burning, but he saw no fire. The air was thick and heavy, but it was clear. It was hard to breathe, but Eliot crouched down low and moved forward, blending in with the brush and wondering what lie just ahead, obscured by the wall of forest. He hoped he wouldn’t show signs of radiation exposure later, but right now, he felt fine. He moved through the dense forest without a sound, noting the rising temperature with each step forward. Eliot saw and heard nothing but foliage yet he felt heat so extreme that he stopped moving and looked at himself. His sleeves billowed as if he stood in front of a fan and the hair that wasn’t plastered to his face with sweat, blew back in hot waves. There was something here. Instead of walking forward, he walked to the side, looking for the heat to dissipate at some point so he could move forward again. Eliot took off his shirt to wave in front of him, fully expecting it to disintegrate in the cloaking shield of some invisible behemoth of a ship. He heard the sound of a heavy door slam and knew Hardison had finally tucked himself away in an elaborate biohazard suit.
“Eliot! You better not be melted on the ground ‘cause I will leave your charbroiled ass in the forest to rot with the rest of the large gutted mammals!” Eliot could hear Alex’s worried bluster even though he couldn’t see his friend yet. Suddenly there was a crackle of electricity along his skin and a feeling of being suctioned away.
“Hardison! Go back to the truck,” was all Eliot could yell before he was screaming with the pain of being pulled apart atom by atom.
When Eliot awoke, he found himself naked in a cold concrete cell with his wrists shackled to chains hanging from the ceiling and his ankles chained to the floor. He had a pit of fear growing in his stomach which told him there were worse things than being kidnapped. It was hours before anyone came and when they did, he missed seeing their faces. Eliot must have dozed because he was jolted to awareness by a hood placed over his head and a clipped conversation in a language he’d never heard. But not gagged, he thought.
“Bring me your shit-for-brains leader. He’s got the wrong guy,” Eliot said, hoping he was right, but knowing it probably wasn’t a mistake. He didn’t know if they understood him, but he heard angry grunting and words that vaguely sounded like Russian thugs hawking poisonous spitballs. When globs of slime hit his chest and legs and began to burn his skin, he thanked God his face was already covered and figured these men were not average muscle. But when the freezing water hit his face so hard he couldn’t tell he wore a hood, he damned small mercies. What good was a face without spit burns if he drowned? No matter how he turned his head, his prisoners aimed the hose directly into his mouth. He could just barely breathe because he was no stranger to this torture technique; after a quick jerk of his head he inhaled and tried to appear to fight until his breath ran out again. But he was still light headed from the lack of oxygen. They laughed and played this game for what felt like forever, but it was probably only twenty minutes. When they got bored, he heard them shuffle away.
When they came back, they started touching him.
Eliot was held and pulled open and prodded and it was all accompanied by the quiet grunts of approval and short, growling comments from people he had yet to see. “Watch it!” Eliot growled and shivered when huge, bumpy fingers parted his cheeks. It felt like the man wore a glove of tough leather. There was a sudden outburst, the unmistakable sound of raucous laughter, and the quick, brutal shove of long digit that seemed to be the size of a modest dildo. Eliot did his best to not make a sound, to not cry out, but the finger started to move and in only seconds, it found the jumble of nerves and tore a deep groan out of Eliot. The finger rubbed relentlessly and though Eliot was a master at tantric breathing, he was having a hard time holding back.
“That’s enough, HrokVosta,” a familiar voice admonished and received a grumbling complaint in answer. The finger was removed. “Leave us.” After a few seconds, the newcomer removed Eliot’s hood. Eliot gave him the evilest of glares.
“Damien Moreau,” he hissed.
“Eliot Spencer. I would unlock your manacles, but I’m sure you’d feel some obligation to attack me, despite the fact that I’m your only chance of getting out of here alive.”
Damien Moreau was the scourge of the gutter in a ten thousand dollar suit and a luxury jet. The last time Eliot saw him, Nate had convinced the president of San Lorenzo to put Moreau in prison to avoid a political public relations disaster. Of course, it was a disaster cleverly orchestrated by Eliot and the rest of the team, but Damien felt betrayed by Eliot alone. If he were honest with himself, he would admit that he admired Eliot Spenser’s beauty from the moment they met and he’d decided the younger man had to be his immediately. Eliot’s lethal expertise and silent nature only added to his appeal. The two men shared several torrid moments until Eliot realized Damien was a sociopath. He watched the handsome mogul rape a 14 year girl in Indonesia then kill her when he learned her father was a well-connected diplomat. They would never be able to prove it, but Eliot made sure the family knew the face of the man responsible for their daughter’s death. After that, Eliot refused to speak to Moreau- even if he was the head the man’s security. Damien found Eliot’s principled rejection alluring. He thought Eliot was being a child, but was charmed by the blonde’s stubbornness. Looking at Eliot naked and silently seething, Damien admitted to himself that he was more than a little infatuated with the mercenary. Still, he would teach him a lesson.
“I thought I was at the top of your hitlist.” Eliot said.
“You are. Right beneath Nathan Ford.”
“Beneath? I’ve known you longer! You probably even think I betrayed you- as if I ever liked you-“
“Oh, you liked me well enough in the beginning,” Damien smiled suavely. Eliot was silent.
“That was before I realized how sick you are.”
“We all have our faults. Besides, what you call sick, I call survival-“
“Since when is the rape and murder of a child ‘survival’?”
“Since it allows me to continue to make this world a better place to live. Do you realize that soon, the world will be free of all diseases? Well, for a price, of course. I’d be known as the man who cured the world- I would be a good friend to have,” Damien smiled calmly, as if they were old drinking buddies.
“I thought that alien drug was destroyed. Why use it in cattle if you want to cure humans?” Eliot asked, actually interested.
“Backwards, I know, but my scientists assured me that it was part of the process to test the wombs of different species to find out if other large mammals are more compatible. I know you’re an animal lover, Eliot, so I want to put your mind at ease; we’re done with that route. The idea was to find a womb strong enough to withstand the Mayfly. If we can do that we’ll be one step closer to our miracle drug. The secret is in evolution, Eliot- specifically the evolution of man. And we happened to find the perfect guinea pig- a man with a womb.” Damien paused for dramatic effect, but Eliot’s heart stopped as his thoughts went to Tony. He had the perfect poker face, even while he thought about how thorough Damien Moreau’s intel had always been. He didn’t think Damien had Tony, but he wasn’t willing to bet Tony’s life on it.
“Sounds like science fiction to me.” Eliot shivered but made sure to look Moreau in the eyes.
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it. But you will. Very soon, actually. I’m working with Trullians who’ve used the healing powers of the Mayfly for millennia. They think they can replicate this new womb so you’ll get to be our test dummy.”
“Just kill me already. We both know that the only way this ends is with my stomach ripped apart. Why bother?”
“Because just killing you would be too easy. Besides, I’ve always wondered about how hard you are to kill,” Moreau admitted honestly and Eliot, for the first time, was scared for himself. “This way, I can humiliate you and use you as bait all at the same time.” Damien pushed Eliot’s wet hair behind his ears in a disturbingly gentle manner before stepping up to kiss his prisoner passionately. Eliot jerked away, spitting in disgust in lieu of cursing. He looked Damien in the eyes once again, refusing to be cowed.
Old Friends by joblo
Author's Chapter Notes:
Sometimes, proof is overrated.