TUESDAY
My last session was rather revealing. According to Agent Todd - and Agent DiNozzo, if his insistence that 'it was his idea first' is correct - the source of tension is the fact that their boss is a dog with an old bone he may or may not choke upon. According to Agent McGee and Miss Sciuto, the source of tension is the male-female difficulties one might find on a team.
And if one is to take Dr. Mallard at his word, it appears to be both.
My professional opinion is that while the last session was rather revealing, it was hardly productive in terms of healing the breaches resulting, because now Agent Gibbs is glaring at Dr. Mallard, and Agent Todd is still upset with Agents McGee and DiNozzo, and to a lesser extent, Miss Sciuto.
Since talking is obviously not this team's forte, I have decided to try another technique, commonly used for teens or children in dealing with traumas. I strongly wish I did not have to resort to this technique, but since the team does act in some ways rather...young-at-heart-ish, this might work.
Painting and art therapy are ways for patients to be able to reveal their feelings on paper, without words. I have amply supplied all sorts of different paints and color pencils and crayons in hopes that this might succeed where the talk therapy has not.
I will say that Agent Todd asked me privately whether or not she had to, and I quote, 'continue this torture.' She pointed out that she had quite successfully vented her frustrations, and as a result, she should be off the hook.
I certainly cannot object to such reasoning, but I did not need to. Agent Gibbs had glared at her and declared that since she got them into this mess - Director Morrow extended their therapy from three team sessions to five - she had to stay.
On an unrelated note, Agent DiNozzo took my secretary out on a date. Is that professional mispractice, as I had no idea until this morning?
"What's the point of this one, doc?" Tony asked as he leaned back in his chair at the huge table.
The psychiatrist put down a huge stack of drawing paper on the newspaper-covered table. "This is simply a warm-up exercise."
"Warming up to shoot you?" Gibbs asked sharply.
"Oh, no, uh.... In this exercise, we simply draw, paint, whatever you like to do. Why don't we each draw three pictures of the most significant things in our lives? Traumatic events that became turning points in our lives."
Tony groaned, and McGee looked pained.
"For example," Dr. Havsy said, ignoring them. "When I was eighteen, I was driving cross state to visit a friend, and I didn't find out my gas gauge was broken until it was too late."
"That's not the only thing of yours that's broken," Tony muttered. McGee and Abby snickered.
"That was actually pretty good, Tony," Kate commented, smiling.
"Thanks, Kate."
"Anyhow," the psychiatrist said sharply, "Even as I dialed my cell phone for help, there came a foot-traveller, pushing a cart with him. He had extra gas on him because - "
"He's not the only one," Tony grumbled, and this time even Gibbs chuckled.
Havsy glared darkly at Tony " - because he thought the world was going to end soon, and he would need the fuel for after he survived the ecological holocaust."
"The wack job sounds like he went to my college," Kate muttered.
"USC?" Gibbs asked pointedly. "That would make sense."
"Funny, Gibbs. I went to USC for a year for law school. I went to college elsewhere."
"To make a long story short - " Havsy said impatiently.
"There's more?" Abby exclaimed. "That's even longer than Ducky's stories, and at least his are interesting!"
" - after seeing this fellow's obvious but sadly irrational conviction he would be the only one to survive an imminent earth catastrophe, I made the decision to become a psychiatrist."
Six pairs of eyes stared blankly at him. "Sunstroke?" Tony asked.
"What?"
"Or frostbite," McGee supplied. "If it's wintertime."
"What?"
"Well, you just said your brain was addled when you made the decision," Tony replied, miffed at the psychiatrist's tone. "Sunstroke. Or probie's frostbite."
"Maybe it was the fumes from the gasoline," Abby suggested, her eyes gleaming excitedly.
"NO! NO!" Havsy shouted. "I became a psychiatrist to help people with mental...difficulties."
"So now we have mental difficulties," Gibbs said tonelessly, glaring at the psychiatrist.
"No, no, not at all." Havsy threw up his hands. "How did we even get on this? Oh. For example, I'd draw a picture of my car breaking down, and meeting this man, who gave me life direction."
"This man gave you life direction?" Kate asked incredulously. "And people think asking God for direction is stupid?"
"JUST DRAW. THREE PICTURES OF THE TRAUMAS TURNED TURNING POINTS IN YOUR LIFE."
"He yells more than you, Kate."
"Shut up, Tony."
"You know what," the psychiatrist suggested. "Make that three pictures of significant things at NCIS."
"I've only been here two years!" Kate protested. "Even McGee's been at NCIS longer than I have, even if he hasn't been on the team that long."
"THREE."
10.30 AM TUESDAY
I am calmer now. A nice, long sip of tea helped, as did the nice stroll around the building. Seeing all the medical doctors throughout Bethesda helping to change lives has put me in a better mood.
They have had half an hour each to do a picture, and I certainly won't hold it against them if they have less than three. Even one good picture will be full of things to talk about, and to help the healing process begin.
I see that they are talking, and it comforts me some.
"So!" Dr. Havsy smiled. "Let's begin. Who would like to start?"
A paint-covered Abby raised her hand. "Me! Me!"
"All right, Miss Sciuto. Please tell us what your picture is of, and what it means to you."
Abby held up her first one. "This, is my artist's rendition of 'Sad End to a Draino Drinker.' You can see the reds and the blues, where the poison obviously affected the bloodflow of - "
"Miss Sciuto, if you don't mind, 'Sad End to a Draino Drinker'?"
"A petty officer drank Draino and ended. Sadly," Tony retorted impatiently.
"It's traumatic, don't you think?" Abby protested.
"Hey Abs, can I have that one? I loved that lab art one you had."
"Sure, Tony." Abby nodded, then returned to her picture. "This was one of the first lab art pictures I ever made. I mean, a pictoral version of the photo I took which I blew up into my lab art, which personalizes my lab. It symbolizes my realization that I would permanently settle at NCIS. The decorating, I mean - that shows I was ready to settle."
"Oh, okay," Dr. Havsy scribbled furiously. "Why don't we move on to - "
"Hey, I'm not done!" Abby exclaimed. "I still have two more."
"Uh...why don't we each do a picture first," the psychiatrist nodded. "We'll take turns. Dr. Mallard?"
"Well, I began by sketching the playing fields of Eton, as that was where I first became interested in the medical field. It was a brilliant class on the history of the first medical school in - "
"Dr. Mallard, there's nothing on your paper," Havsy cut in, pointing at the few lines on the construction paper, deciding at the moment not to point out that there was nothing traumatic about the experience.
"Oh well, this," Ducky sighed. "I began it. I got a little distracted, I suppose. But that shouldn't be a problem. I can - "
"Why don't I give you time to...touch it up, Dr. Mallard, and we'll move on to McGee."
McGee held up the three sheets of paper, taped together. "I made it kind of like a comic strip," he said with a big grin. "Like a story thing."
"Like the 'Continuing Adventures of L.J. Tibbs'?" Tony needled him, and Kate laughed. McGee glared.
"So, I'll be quick. This first one" he pointed to the colored pencil picture of a door with a broken window "signifies the first time I met Tony and Kate and Agent Gibbs and Ducky and Abby. It was a case about a missing petty officer."
"Very good," Dr. Havsy nodded encouragingly and seemingly much more happily. "Tell us about the broken window. What does the window stand for?"
McGee blinked. "A window."
"It's...it's broken," the doctor replied encouragingly. This was good. This was talking. He was getting somewhere. "What's the significance of that?"
"Tony threw a rock through the window so we could reach the handle to open the door to get inside," McGee explained suspiciously, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Attaboy, Tony," Gibbs nodded approvingly.
"Thanks, boss. You would've been proud of my football arm."
Dr. Havsy frowned. "Isn't that breaking and entering?"
"Nooo," Tony said, making a face. "The breaking was the window. The entering was the door. Get it straight."
The psychiatrist slowly counted to ten. "And your middle panel, Agent McGee?"
"Hey!" Abby protested. "How come I only got to talk about one?"
"Don't worry, Abby," McGee consoled. "I'll make it quick." She conceded. "This is the case that got me a permanent position on Agent Gibbs' team."
Dr. Havsy blinked. "It's a math problem done wrong."
"I...I know. Agent DiNozzo...is not a math whiz." Kate snickered, and Tony whacked McGee on the back of the head. "Ow! It was the only thing I could draw!"
"You couldn't draw a little blind girl? Or money?" Tony glared.
"And the last panel?"
"He gets to present THREE pictures?!" Abby protested. "That's really not fair!"
"She's got a point," Kate said, nodding.
"The last one's blank, because my future at NCIS has yet to be written," McGee finished with a flourish.
"Suck up," Tony muttered.
"Agent DiNozzo," Dr. Havsy was starting to get impatient. "Why don't you go next."
Tony grinned and pulled out his pictures, beaming with anticipation. Kate rolled her eyes.
He held up a picture of a woman in a bikini on a beach. "This...is Puerto Rico."
"It's a woman lying on the ground."
"It's sand! And a palm tree!"
"Tony, there is NOTHING traumatic about that picture except that it proves you think like a Neanderthal."
"Excuse me, Kate, but there is PLENTY traumatic about this picture. First, there's only ONE woman. And my second trauma was all that money I spent on a Puerto Rican two-piece." Tony turned to the doctor. "Which I bought for Kate, and she won't wear!"
"Can I slap him?" Kate asked Gibbs.
Gibbs nodded.
WHAP
"Boss!" Tony frowned.
"All right, Agent Todd, why don't you tell us--"
"HEY! I wasn't done!" Tony frowned. "What is it with you. You let probie show all three of his pictures, but you cut me and Abby and Ducky off? Playing favorites is very bad. I should at least get to explain why this picture is important. Besides the two-piece I got for Kate."
"I'm sorry, Agent DiNozzo, please explain," came the exasperated tone.
"Roosevelt Roads...the naval base on Puerto Rico."
"And?"
"That's my reason. Unfortunately, it's closed now. That's VERY traumatic," Tony declared, glaring at Kate.
"Agent Todd," the doctor moved on quickly. "Please. Picture."
Kate sat up and held up her first picture, a crude outline drawing of a crude baby rattle. "This symbolizes my birth. Which, as a doctor," she said pointedly, "you know can be extremely traumatic for a newborn."
He had been about to argue, but how could he object to that reasoning? She was correct. So why did he get the feeling he was being played? "Katie, may I call you Katie?"
"No."
"Kate?"
"No."
"Agent Todd." When she didn't object, he continued. "I guess I wasn't clear. I meant, a picture of something significant to your time at NCIS."
"This is significant," Kate replied sweetly. "If I hadn't been born, then I wouldn't come to NCIS."
Abby snickered.
"All right," Dr. Havsy sighed. She obviously was annoyed about being stuck here. "Agent G - "
"I'm not done," Kate replied firmly, daring the psychiatrist to go on without her. She put up the second picture. It was a picture of a tombstone. "This is when I die. That will be the permanent end of my association with NCIS, either as an active employee or as a retired one."
Dr. Havsy frowned, and his eyes got a slightly annoyed streak at the game the NCIS agent was playing. "If your first picture is your birth and the second is your death," he challenged, "what's the third?"
"You watch your tone with my team," Gibbs growled.
"The third," Kate replied, sitting up. She produced a well-sketched picture of the psychiatrist.
In a criminal line-up.
Tony and McGee began laughing, and even Abby and Ducky were chuckling. Gibbs just smiled, pleased.
"Gibbs says he'll give me his Christmas bonus if I can achieve this," she smiled sweetly. "That would be one of the finest contributions I could make to society."
Dr. Havsy ground his teeth. "Agent Gibbs?"
"You don't want to see it," Abby warned. "Really, you don't."
"I do," Dr. Havsy half-hissed. "Please, go ahead, Agent Gibbs."
Gibbs just looked at him.
"Agent Gibbs, please."
Kate sighed and reached behind them to the desk where Gibbs' pictures were. She held up the first one. It was entirely black. In fact, it looked like he hadn't even bothered to use a paintbrush, just poured the small jar of black paint on the paper.
"There's some black paint on the floor," Abby said apologetically, as if reading his mind.
"Okay...um, what's the significance of this?" Dr. Havsy asked nervously, hoping it didn't mean HIS demise at the team leader's hands.
"I like it."
Dr. Havsy blinked. "That's it?"
"That's it."
"Can we see the second picture?"
"Don't bother," Kate supplied. "They're the same."
Dr. Havsy grabbed the other two. Sure enough, they were the exact same. All black. "I don't believe this."
"Are you callin' Kate a liar?" Tony asked sharply, and the rest of the team looked at the doctor angrily. Kate sat up with an air of wounded pride.
"No, no, not that at all - "
"That's what you were saying," Gibbs retorted, "by looking at my other two pictures. You didn't believe Kate."
"I just can't believe someone named Agent of the Year six times would do something as inane as this!" Dr. Havsy exclaimed. "and just because 'he likes it'?! How do you put up with that?"
Tony snorted. "Doc. Take a look at Gibbs. You're going to tell him 'no'?"
Chapter End Notes:
Posted to ff.net 9/18-9/23/05.