Working Together Chapter 9
The next morning found Christina waiting patiently to go to the NCIS compound while both her husband and son paced nervously. They jumped at a knock on the door and Jane went to answer it a moment later Cooper was walking into the room.
"The messages will be conveyed by text message so pick your wording carefully" Cooper said to the room at large.
"That might be interesting as I don't really know how to text" Christina said ruefully.
"Maybe Lj can help you with that" Cooper replied smiling. "Maybe" Christina smiled back.
As they were still having trouble getting Lincoln into the compound with his prior convictions, he was going to spend the day talking to various contacts and had to say goodbye to his mother now. Lincoln actually preferred saying goodbye now rather than drawing it out over the day and was also relieved that he was finally going to be sure of Lj's safety.
Christina looked around once they were inside the compound and heading towards Director Shepherd's office. On the right were a lot of closed doors with keypads in front of them on the left was a handrail leading to a staircase that led to a floor below. Christina paused for a moment looking at the open area below, it was big and airy with two rows of desks, two on each side. If she didn't know any better she would think it could be any work station in the country, the main difference being the desks were bigger and instead of graphs, statistics or personal things behind the desks there were most wanted posters and for the moment at least, there didn't seem to be anyone around.
Aldo was also looking around for any sign of his younger son but so far had not seen anyone fitting his description.
The group stopped outside the door opposite the stairs, one of the few half open and went in. Inside was a secretary who had obviously been waiting for them, she immediately knocked on the door behind her and poked her head around the door, there was a murmur of feminine voices and then the sectretary turned and smiled at them "Director Shepherd would like to see you straight away."
Christina was generally quite a good judge of character and she immediately took a liking to the no-nonsense Director in front of her as they were introduced. Then the Director led them out of her office and into another part of the building where Agent Morris and his team were waiting for them. Aldo and Jane immediately sat down with them and went to work, while another agent led Christina and Cooper to a interview room.
For the next two hours Christina told all she knew about the Company and their agents starting with all that happened to her when Aldo first left her when she was six months pregnant with Micheal. Christina may not have been so forthcoming if she had known Micheal was on the other side of the glass along with Director Shepherd listening to every word while his team kept him informed about their progress on the details of her trip home.
Christina then had lunch as Jane and then Aldo each took their turns in the room. Finally Aldo came out of the interview room and they sat down and talked with Agent Morris about the methods of communication. "I am one of the agents that it will go through" Agent Morris told them "the agent in charge of Mrs Burrows and her grandson is the other."
"Is that other Micheal Scofield?" Cooper asked directly.
Agent Morris looked at Cooper "At this time we will not give names and we would prefer if you didn't either." Cooper nodded that was answer enough anyway.
After another hour of waiting patiently as Aldo and Jane started working together with Agent Morris and his team, Christina saw Director Shepherd herself approaching, she smiled at all of them in turn before turning to Christina, "it is time to go."
Christina hugged Cooper, Jane, and Aldo each in turn before turning to the Director with her head held high, although Aldo would have noticed the tension in her shoulders. "Then what are we waiting for, lets go!"
Christina was led to a familiar looking big room with a couple of rows of desks on either side. It wasn't until she saw the stairs opposite that she realized that she had seen the room before from a different viewpoint. This time there were two men behind desks, they immediately got up and introduced themselves, the shorter one was introduced as Agent Timothy McGee while the taller one came over to her with a smile and asked if she was really old enough to be Micheal's mother. His name was Agent Anthony DeNozzo.
"Where is Ziva?" The Director asked.
"She is already at the house" Agent McGee replied, "Micheal is just downstairs with Abby, he should be back in a minute." The Director nodded and motioned for Christina to take a seat at one of the desks. Christina looked around her and realized she had been wrong, there were personal effects at the desks. In front of her was a photo of a man and a woman, she looked at it for a moment before realizing that she was looking at a photo of her son.
Christina was broken out of her reverie by the sound of footsteps, she looked up and caught her breath, there he was coming towards her. She jumped up out of her seat with butterflies in her stomach unsure of what to do. How do you greet the son you havn't seen in eighteen years? It turned out words were not needed as he just came straight over and enfolded her in a hug. Christina returned the hug fiercely and when she finally pulled back and Micheal kissed her cheek she realized that sometimes relationships could stay strong no matter what or how many years lay between them.