Fic: What We Were (Rizzoli & Isles x-over)
Title: What We Were
Author: marciavandecamp
Shows: Rizzoli & Isles / NCIS
Characters: Kate/Tony, Maura/Jane
Rating: NC-17 (for the later chapters)
Chapter Two: Washington D.C - Introducing the team in DC; Tony's reading a forensic magazine when he comes across a picture of a woman that reminds him of his former partner and he remembers their last moments together.
Words: 2661
A/N: I can only say it again, this is AU so please don't take every detail mentioned on one of the shows so very seriously. I had to make a few changes to make it fit my storyline ;)
'Stop that!' she said for the third time and look at him over the edge of the computer screen. Tony knew that Ziva was pissed off by his behaviour but he enjoyed teasing her way too much to stop. He leaned back in his chair; hands on the back of his head and his legs crossed. He knew just from the look on her face that the teasing grin on his lips made her want to throw something at her partner.
'What?' he asked innocently and laughed.
'You know exactly what I'm talking about,' Ziva said and got up from her chair; Tony immediately sat straight up in his own chair, never loosing her out of view, ready for any kind of attack she was about to launch against him.
With the time he'd learned not to underestimate Probationary Special Agent Ziva David; it wasn't that he didn't like her, he was just bored rigid and Gibbs wasn't around to slap some sense into him while he walked by. At the beginning Tony had enjoyed it; leaning back and doing nothing for a while until it actually started to bore him.
But where exactly is Gibbs? He thought and Ziva returned to her desk; she knew that Tony's eyes were watching her until she sat down, safely hidden behind her computer.
'You're worse then any 5-year old,' she said.
'Since when do you know anything about kids?'
'First you bother everyone and then you run away,' she said and Tony smiled.
They weren't working an actual case at the moment but Tony knew it was just a matter of time until there'd be a dead marine somewhere to keep them busy. He pulled himself closer to his desk and woke his computer with moving the mouse slightly. There was nothing new either and he probably should've known it. For a moment he considered sending an email to Ziva, but dropped the thought for the better. He sighed and asked himself why they were sitting there, while they could as well be... doing what exactly?
He knew his boss long enough to suspect that something was going on; something he didn't bother to share yet. With any other agent he would've wasted his time with trying to get some information but he wouldn't dare to cross that line with Gibbs.
'What now?' Ziva asked and Tony hadn't realized that she was watching him. It seemed a little weird to her that he was so quiet all of sudden, something told her that he was up to something.
'Nothing,' he said and leaned back in his chair ad Ziva raised an eyebrow at him. 'Why the hell are we stuck here?'
'Because that's our job,' Ziva reminded him.
'Yeah, but I could as well be somewhere else... somewhere more entertaining and wait for a a case...'
'Sure.'
'Where's Gibbs anyways?' her asked more to himself.
'Probably at home, working on his boat...' Ziva said. Tony could actually picture him doing that the moment they were talking about it.
In the past Gibbs had always used the physical work as a distraction. He hid in his basement, trying to ignore one of his ex-wives; trying to forget about everyone and everything and especially to think about something that troubled him. Be it the death of an NCIS Agent or a case that was yet unknown to Tony.
'And where the hell is McGee? Where is everyone?' he asked and threw his hands in the air.
'Last time I saw him he was in the lab talking to Abby about some new computer technique,' she informed him. 'Don't ask.'
'Interesting,' he said and the tone of his voice couldn't be less caring; Ziva laughed.
'At least he's got something to do,' she reminded him and watched him getting up from his chair.
'Where are you going?'
'Trying to find something to do,' he said and headed toward the elevator; Ziva watched him leaving until he was out of sight and shook her head in silence.
As soon as he stepped out of the elevator and into the morgue, everything around him changed. The air was cold but it wasn't the kind of cold you'd like on a warm summer days. It was quiet but he knew Ducky was there; probably performing an autopsy on a guy they'd found a couple of days ago. He was a member of a local drug gang though he was certainly quite useless since he was already dead by the time they found him.
'And what the hell am I doing here?' he asked himself; knowing that Ducky would have one or two things to say but Tony wasn't really in the mood for one of his never-ending stories either. He entered the autopsy room and was greeted with a foul smell released when Ducky had opened the chest with a Y-incision.
'Tony,' he said with a bit of a surprise when he looked up from the corpse. Judging by the tone of his voice they could as well be talking over a cup of coffee and not over a dead body whose chest was gaping open; probably nothing but an empty cavity by now.
'To what do I owe you the honour of your visit?' he asked and Tony kept a safe distance between him and the autopsy table- He'd never had a problem with autopsies itself but with the smell of death and decay that he wouldn't get out of his mind, or his clothes, should he stay any longer.
'Nothing actually,' he said and turned around, snagging a mag from the stack that Ducky kept on a table next to the door.
'Forensic Medicine' was printed on the cover and Tony asked himself if that was really that right thing to keep himself entertained but since he had no other options in store it was better then nothing at all.
'That was quick,' Ziva said and looked at him again.
'What are you actually doing there?' he wanted to know.
'Nothing that should concern you,' she answered and focused her attention on the screen in front of her. He took a deep breath and looked at the cover of Forensic Medicine.
'That's gonna be interesting,' he whispered to himself and started flipping the pages. It had quite a lot of pages compared to other magazines and was probably terribly expensive just like any of these specialized mags. While he flipped through it, he scanned each page and headline for something that might cause a little bit of interest.
'Sounds boring...' he whispered to himself and Ziva heard the sound of pages being turned. 'Too much text... Too many dead bodies... that looks gross!' he said and there was yet more page-turning.
'Don't care... bor-' Ziva looked at her partner again because he'd stopped talking before finishing the sentence and he kept staring at something in front of him. Something had actually caught his interest but Ziva couldn't say if that was it; for a moment he seemed confused.
'Found something?' she wanted to know.
'I might have,' he whispered after a couple of seconds and checked the date on the front page of the mag; it said 'April 2011.'
'Young woman still alive in the morgue after being declared dead by officials.'
It wasn't the terrifying imagination of the poor woman being in the dead fridge for hours until someone actually realized that she wasn't dead or the fact that the 'dead woman' was brought to the local hospital where she ended up taking hostages with one of the hostages being a cop or the fact that the aforementioned woman was killed in order to save the hostages that caught his interest.
It was the image of the assigned ME at the bottom of the article that made him hold his breath for a moment. He read the caption that said:
'Dr. Maura Isles, Medical Examiner with the Boston Police Department.'
'This can't be true,' he thought and shook his head. The woman in the picture was a beautiful woman, maybe in her mid-thirties, wearing a black shirt and a white lab coat. Her blonde hair fell loosely on her shoulders. He felt a wave of emotions rushing through his body; something that hadn't happened to him in the last six years. He looked into her eyes and asked himself how many times he'd seen these eyes glaring at him over the edge of her computer screen where Ziva sat now. Despite the blonde hair, the woman was a striking image of Special Agent Caitlin Todd.
'Kate,' he thought and closed his eyes for a second. He'd tried to forget about her all those years. He had missed her for quite a long time after she was gone and he didn't remember how much he actually missed her, until now. He couldn't believe it but he couldn't take his eyes off the picture either; maybe it was just coincidence.
'There's no such thing as coincidence,' he heard Gibbs' voice in his head. What else should it be?
The picture of the Medical Examiner brought some memories back; he leaned back in his chair with the mag in his hand.
Some things ha never left him since the day Kate died. The question 'what if?' was something that had tortured him for a pretty long time; it was gone when he stopped thinking of her any longer, but it never left entirely.
What if it was him instead of Kate? They should've seen it coming; they should've known.
'Yeah, how's the president?' had been the very first thing he'd said to Secret Service Agent Caitlin Todd on an Air Force One plane.
'He's fine,' she'd answered and he'd known right from the beginning that she wouldn't back off until the case was solved. Kate had not been too happy to have them at the crime scene, he could tell from the way she behaved, they way she'd talked to them.
He'd called her 'Secret Service Chick' and by the time she'd told them that the only reason why she didn't shoot them was that she'd wanted to avoid further delay, Tony had known that Kate wasn't one of these women who'd accept an apology with a bunch of pretty flowers, she'd been more likely to throw the flowers straight back into your face.
A sad smile crossed his lips and he was taken back to the present when his boss called his name an the sound of his voice indicated that it wasn't the first time he'd called him.
'DiNozzo!'
'Yes boss,' he answered and cleared his throat. Gibbs hadn't missed the confusion on Tony's face and the fact that he was obviously hiding something but he ignored it for now.
'I need you to check something for me,' Gibbs said and walked off; Tony quickly put the mag in one of the drawers and followed his boss.
Three days later he climbed up the stairs, feeling his body slowing down with every step he took. He hadn't been on the roof for the last six years exactly. It was the 24th of May and it had been exactly six years ago since Kate died here. He'd never been someone to simply walk away, but stepping into the chilling morning breeze that announced yet another sunny day, seemed harder then he ever imagined.
They'd stepped onto the roof with a warning but neither one had paid attention when they prepared their guns.
'Shooter!' he heard Kate screamed and when DiNozzo turned around he saw Kate running toward them to catch the bullet; saving Gibbs' life.
It all happened so fast, Tony thought. He walked on the roof slowly and looked at the spot where Kate had stood.
Why did no one see it coming?
He took a few more steps to the center and though there was nothing that appeared to be unusual, he knew that this was the spot where Kate had died.
Tony and Gibbs shot the shooter.
'Kate?' Tony asked and was the first one to reach her; Gibbs crouched down beside her.
'You okay?' Tony asked when they found the bullet in the bullet-proof vest she was wearing.
'Ouch,' she said and opened her eyes; they'd made jokes when they helped her back to her feet and she stood between Gibbs and Tony.
Tony stopped on the same spot where he stood when Kate was killed; it felt weird to be there and it made him think of all those things that had changed since Kate died. It was the usual thing, people thinking of all the things that they wanted to say to another person but never did and now it was too late. He shook his head and felt the morning breeze on his face.
'Protection detail's over Kate,' Gibbs said.
'You did good,' Tony said and Kate looked at him with an expression of surprise on her face.
'For once DiNozzo's right,' Gibbs agreed.
'Wow... I thought I'd die before I ever heard a comp-' she said when the sound of a gunshot appeared and Kate died less then a second later.
They were joking, Tony thought and shook his head again. He walked to the edge of the roof and sat down, looking at the spot where he just stood. Kate was right, it'd probably been the only compliment he ever made her and he really meant it; he regretted that he didn't do it more often. His elbows rested on his knees and he stared into the air.
He liked Kate; he liked her a lot but he never told her so. He had no idea if she suspected something or if she even felt the same way but instead of being brave enough to act like a grown-up man he wasted his time with teasing her until it was too late. He admired her strength and the way she worked; she was a wonderful person and he highly respected her though it mightn't have looked like it most of the time. He never seriously tried to ask her out on a date; he was secretly afraid she'd turn him down.
'Never date a co-worker,' he heard Gibbs again; it might've been one of the reasons why he didn't do it but it wasn't the only.
He closed his eyes and once again heard the gunshot that killed her; though he was shell-shocked the first second, he'd never forget what happened in the seconds after Kate's death. He still felt her warm blood splatter his face; he could still smell it, feel it sticking to his face. The second the blood hit his face it felt like iron piercing through his skin. He'd looked at Kate laying by his feet, a pool of blood beneath her head and a entrance wound on her forehead; her eyes were open and eerily empty. He'd turned his head to the direction of the shot, by then he hadn't understood what had just happened.
He heard the door at the other side of the roof, but he didn't bother to look who it was.
'It's been a long time,' he heard Gibbs asking quietly when he approached.
'I know,' was all Tony said.
'You miss her?' Gibbs asked.
'Never thought I would...' he answered and Gibbs understood; there was nothing funny in his voice when he laughed.
'She was great,' Gibbs said and sat down next to him. 'I knew there was something...' he said and Tony nodded.
'Wanna tell me?' Gibbs asked and Tony knew he was talked about three days ago when Tony was lost in thoughts.
'I found this in one of Ducky's magazines,' he said and pulled the page out of his pocket and handed it to Gibbs who still hesitated. 'It was the April 2011 issue,' he explained and moved his hand so Gibbs would open the folded page and looked into Kate's face; or so he thought.
1. Boston
x-posted on rizzoli_isles
Author: marciavandecamp
Shows: Rizzoli & Isles / NCIS
Characters: Kate/Tony, Maura/Jane
Rating: NC-17 (for the later chapters)
Chapter Two: Washington D.C - Introducing the team in DC; Tony's reading a forensic magazine when he comes across a picture of a woman that reminds him of his former partner and he remembers their last moments together.
Words: 2661
A/N: I can only say it again, this is AU so please don't take every detail mentioned on one of the shows so very seriously. I had to make a few changes to make it fit my storyline ;)
'Stop that!' she said for the third time and look at him over the edge of the computer screen. Tony knew that Ziva was pissed off by his behaviour but he enjoyed teasing her way too much to stop. He leaned back in his chair; hands on the back of his head and his legs crossed. He knew just from the look on her face that the teasing grin on his lips made her want to throw something at her partner.
'What?' he asked innocently and laughed.
'You know exactly what I'm talking about,' Ziva said and got up from her chair; Tony immediately sat straight up in his own chair, never loosing her out of view, ready for any kind of attack she was about to launch against him.
With the time he'd learned not to underestimate Probationary Special Agent Ziva David; it wasn't that he didn't like her, he was just bored rigid and Gibbs wasn't around to slap some sense into him while he walked by. At the beginning Tony had enjoyed it; leaning back and doing nothing for a while until it actually started to bore him.
But where exactly is Gibbs? He thought and Ziva returned to her desk; she knew that Tony's eyes were watching her until she sat down, safely hidden behind her computer.
'You're worse then any 5-year old,' she said.
'Since when do you know anything about kids?'
'First you bother everyone and then you run away,' she said and Tony smiled.
They weren't working an actual case at the moment but Tony knew it was just a matter of time until there'd be a dead marine somewhere to keep them busy. He pulled himself closer to his desk and woke his computer with moving the mouse slightly. There was nothing new either and he probably should've known it. For a moment he considered sending an email to Ziva, but dropped the thought for the better. He sighed and asked himself why they were sitting there, while they could as well be... doing what exactly?
He knew his boss long enough to suspect that something was going on; something he didn't bother to share yet. With any other agent he would've wasted his time with trying to get some information but he wouldn't dare to cross that line with Gibbs.
'What now?' Ziva asked and Tony hadn't realized that she was watching him. It seemed a little weird to her that he was so quiet all of sudden, something told her that he was up to something.
'Nothing,' he said and leaned back in his chair ad Ziva raised an eyebrow at him. 'Why the hell are we stuck here?'
'Because that's our job,' Ziva reminded him.
'Yeah, but I could as well be somewhere else... somewhere more entertaining and wait for a a case...'
'Sure.'
'Where's Gibbs anyways?' her asked more to himself.
'Probably at home, working on his boat...' Ziva said. Tony could actually picture him doing that the moment they were talking about it.
In the past Gibbs had always used the physical work as a distraction. He hid in his basement, trying to ignore one of his ex-wives; trying to forget about everyone and everything and especially to think about something that troubled him. Be it the death of an NCIS Agent or a case that was yet unknown to Tony.
'And where the hell is McGee? Where is everyone?' he asked and threw his hands in the air.
'Last time I saw him he was in the lab talking to Abby about some new computer technique,' she informed him. 'Don't ask.'
'Interesting,' he said and the tone of his voice couldn't be less caring; Ziva laughed.
'At least he's got something to do,' she reminded him and watched him getting up from his chair.
'Where are you going?'
'Trying to find something to do,' he said and headed toward the elevator; Ziva watched him leaving until he was out of sight and shook her head in silence.
As soon as he stepped out of the elevator and into the morgue, everything around him changed. The air was cold but it wasn't the kind of cold you'd like on a warm summer days. It was quiet but he knew Ducky was there; probably performing an autopsy on a guy they'd found a couple of days ago. He was a member of a local drug gang though he was certainly quite useless since he was already dead by the time they found him.
'And what the hell am I doing here?' he asked himself; knowing that Ducky would have one or two things to say but Tony wasn't really in the mood for one of his never-ending stories either. He entered the autopsy room and was greeted with a foul smell released when Ducky had opened the chest with a Y-incision.
'Tony,' he said with a bit of a surprise when he looked up from the corpse. Judging by the tone of his voice they could as well be talking over a cup of coffee and not over a dead body whose chest was gaping open; probably nothing but an empty cavity by now.
'To what do I owe you the honour of your visit?' he asked and Tony kept a safe distance between him and the autopsy table- He'd never had a problem with autopsies itself but with the smell of death and decay that he wouldn't get out of his mind, or his clothes, should he stay any longer.
'Nothing actually,' he said and turned around, snagging a mag from the stack that Ducky kept on a table next to the door.
'Forensic Medicine' was printed on the cover and Tony asked himself if that was really that right thing to keep himself entertained but since he had no other options in store it was better then nothing at all.
'That was quick,' Ziva said and looked at him again.
'What are you actually doing there?' he wanted to know.
'Nothing that should concern you,' she answered and focused her attention on the screen in front of her. He took a deep breath and looked at the cover of Forensic Medicine.
'That's gonna be interesting,' he whispered to himself and started flipping the pages. It had quite a lot of pages compared to other magazines and was probably terribly expensive just like any of these specialized mags. While he flipped through it, he scanned each page and headline for something that might cause a little bit of interest.
'Sounds boring...' he whispered to himself and Ziva heard the sound of pages being turned. 'Too much text... Too many dead bodies... that looks gross!' he said and there was yet more page-turning.
'Don't care... bor-' Ziva looked at her partner again because he'd stopped talking before finishing the sentence and he kept staring at something in front of him. Something had actually caught his interest but Ziva couldn't say if that was it; for a moment he seemed confused.
'Found something?' she wanted to know.
'I might have,' he whispered after a couple of seconds and checked the date on the front page of the mag; it said 'April 2011.'
'Young woman still alive in the morgue after being declared dead by officials.'
It wasn't the terrifying imagination of the poor woman being in the dead fridge for hours until someone actually realized that she wasn't dead or the fact that the 'dead woman' was brought to the local hospital where she ended up taking hostages with one of the hostages being a cop or the fact that the aforementioned woman was killed in order to save the hostages that caught his interest.
It was the image of the assigned ME at the bottom of the article that made him hold his breath for a moment. He read the caption that said:
'Dr. Maura Isles, Medical Examiner with the Boston Police Department.'
'This can't be true,' he thought and shook his head. The woman in the picture was a beautiful woman, maybe in her mid-thirties, wearing a black shirt and a white lab coat. Her blonde hair fell loosely on her shoulders. He felt a wave of emotions rushing through his body; something that hadn't happened to him in the last six years. He looked into her eyes and asked himself how many times he'd seen these eyes glaring at him over the edge of her computer screen where Ziva sat now. Despite the blonde hair, the woman was a striking image of Special Agent Caitlin Todd.
'Kate,' he thought and closed his eyes for a second. He'd tried to forget about her all those years. He had missed her for quite a long time after she was gone and he didn't remember how much he actually missed her, until now. He couldn't believe it but he couldn't take his eyes off the picture either; maybe it was just coincidence.
'There's no such thing as coincidence,' he heard Gibbs' voice in his head. What else should it be?
The picture of the Medical Examiner brought some memories back; he leaned back in his chair with the mag in his hand.
Some things ha never left him since the day Kate died. The question 'what if?' was something that had tortured him for a pretty long time; it was gone when he stopped thinking of her any longer, but it never left entirely.
What if it was him instead of Kate? They should've seen it coming; they should've known.
'Yeah, how's the president?' had been the very first thing he'd said to Secret Service Agent Caitlin Todd on an Air Force One plane.
'He's fine,' she'd answered and he'd known right from the beginning that she wouldn't back off until the case was solved. Kate had not been too happy to have them at the crime scene, he could tell from the way she behaved, they way she'd talked to them.
He'd called her 'Secret Service Chick' and by the time she'd told them that the only reason why she didn't shoot them was that she'd wanted to avoid further delay, Tony had known that Kate wasn't one of these women who'd accept an apology with a bunch of pretty flowers, she'd been more likely to throw the flowers straight back into your face.
A sad smile crossed his lips and he was taken back to the present when his boss called his name an the sound of his voice indicated that it wasn't the first time he'd called him.
'DiNozzo!'
'Yes boss,' he answered and cleared his throat. Gibbs hadn't missed the confusion on Tony's face and the fact that he was obviously hiding something but he ignored it for now.
'I need you to check something for me,' Gibbs said and walked off; Tony quickly put the mag in one of the drawers and followed his boss.
Three days later he climbed up the stairs, feeling his body slowing down with every step he took. He hadn't been on the roof for the last six years exactly. It was the 24th of May and it had been exactly six years ago since Kate died here. He'd never been someone to simply walk away, but stepping into the chilling morning breeze that announced yet another sunny day, seemed harder then he ever imagined.
They'd stepped onto the roof with a warning but neither one had paid attention when they prepared their guns.
'Shooter!' he heard Kate screamed and when DiNozzo turned around he saw Kate running toward them to catch the bullet; saving Gibbs' life.
It all happened so fast, Tony thought. He walked on the roof slowly and looked at the spot where Kate had stood.
Why did no one see it coming?
He took a few more steps to the center and though there was nothing that appeared to be unusual, he knew that this was the spot where Kate had died.
Tony and Gibbs shot the shooter.
'Kate?' Tony asked and was the first one to reach her; Gibbs crouched down beside her.
'You okay?' Tony asked when they found the bullet in the bullet-proof vest she was wearing.
'Ouch,' she said and opened her eyes; they'd made jokes when they helped her back to her feet and she stood between Gibbs and Tony.
Tony stopped on the same spot where he stood when Kate was killed; it felt weird to be there and it made him think of all those things that had changed since Kate died. It was the usual thing, people thinking of all the things that they wanted to say to another person but never did and now it was too late. He shook his head and felt the morning breeze on his face.
'Protection detail's over Kate,' Gibbs said.
'You did good,' Tony said and Kate looked at him with an expression of surprise on her face.
'For once DiNozzo's right,' Gibbs agreed.
'Wow... I thought I'd die before I ever heard a comp-' she said when the sound of a gunshot appeared and Kate died less then a second later.
They were joking, Tony thought and shook his head again. He walked to the edge of the roof and sat down, looking at the spot where he just stood. Kate was right, it'd probably been the only compliment he ever made her and he really meant it; he regretted that he didn't do it more often. His elbows rested on his knees and he stared into the air.
He liked Kate; he liked her a lot but he never told her so. He had no idea if she suspected something or if she even felt the same way but instead of being brave enough to act like a grown-up man he wasted his time with teasing her until it was too late. He admired her strength and the way she worked; she was a wonderful person and he highly respected her though it mightn't have looked like it most of the time. He never seriously tried to ask her out on a date; he was secretly afraid she'd turn him down.
'Never date a co-worker,' he heard Gibbs again; it might've been one of the reasons why he didn't do it but it wasn't the only.
He closed his eyes and once again heard the gunshot that killed her; though he was shell-shocked the first second, he'd never forget what happened in the seconds after Kate's death. He still felt her warm blood splatter his face; he could still smell it, feel it sticking to his face. The second the blood hit his face it felt like iron piercing through his skin. He'd looked at Kate laying by his feet, a pool of blood beneath her head and a entrance wound on her forehead; her eyes were open and eerily empty. He'd turned his head to the direction of the shot, by then he hadn't understood what had just happened.
He heard the door at the other side of the roof, but he didn't bother to look who it was.
'It's been a long time,' he heard Gibbs asking quietly when he approached.
'I know,' was all Tony said.
'You miss her?' Gibbs asked.
'Never thought I would...' he answered and Gibbs understood; there was nothing funny in his voice when he laughed.
'She was great,' Gibbs said and sat down next to him. 'I knew there was something...' he said and Tony nodded.
'Wanna tell me?' Gibbs asked and Tony knew he was talked about three days ago when Tony was lost in thoughts.
'I found this in one of Ducky's magazines,' he said and pulled the page out of his pocket and handed it to Gibbs who still hesitated. 'It was the April 2011 issue,' he explained and moved his hand so Gibbs would open the folded page and looked into Kate's face; or so he thought.
1. Boston
x-posted on rizzoli_isles