Fic: Out of the Ashes | DCU/NCIS/Rizzoli & Isles | Kate Todd (Maura Isles), Jason Todd | PG-13 | 1/1
Title: Out of the Ashes
Fandom: DCU/NCIS/Rizzoli & Isles (/Highlander, sort of)
Characters: Kate Todd (Maura Isles), Jason Todd
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,420
Prompts: For comment_fic: 1) Highlander/NCIS/Rizzoli & Isles, Kate (Maura), Kate's been a lot of things in her long, long life. She never expected to go straight from NCIS agent to medical examiner, though. [ here] & 2) NCIS/Rizoli & Isles/Highlander/DCU, Kate Todd & Jason Todd, Even though he wasn't biologically her son, she still kept an eye on him, even if she'd moved on through several new lives. [ here]; For dcu_freeforall: Phoenix/Resurrection
Summary: Through the years, Kate’s been keeping an eye on her stepson from afar, even though her life’s circumstances have taken her through the Secret Service, NCIS, and now Boston PD.
Disclaimer: A lot of other people own it, including DC and WB. I own nothing, dammit!
Author's Notes: I’ve been wanting to write this one for a long while. An NCIS agent named Kate Todd? The bunny was practically gift-wrapped for me. XD This fic takes a tour through Highlander, but not quite in the same way, and it wants to be a 'verse (*eyes it sideways*). Also, my first NCIS and R&I fic. *bites nails and looks hopeful*
Out of the Ashes
Looking back, Kate-Maura now, though she still thinks of herself as Kate-knows she should've seen it sooner. Her son. Jason. Of course this would be his life, the same way it was hers. Of course he would have to go through hell and come out immortal on the other side. Of course he'd feel the pain that comes with the transformation.
Of course he'd lose his mind, the same way she did.
With a sigh, she lifts her glass to her lips and takes a long sip of whiskey, the drink burning on the way down the same way she remembers the waters of the Pit searing her when she was dunked. It shouldn't be such a fresh memory, her trip into immortality so long ago now that that bitch, Talia, hadn't even been born yet, nevertheless, it's there, as clear as if it'd happened yesterday. But the trip down memory lane isn't why she's here.
Well, not entirely why she's here.
She needs to see him, needs to make sure he's okay. Even if he's not actually her flesh and blood; she did raise him, at least for enough years that he thought of her as his mother, rather than that other woman. Her teeth grind involuntarily just thinking about it. If it hadn't been for Sheila, he'd never have gone to Africa, wound up dead. Wound up in a Pit later, his life renewed in ways that weren't all they were cracked up to be.
A sigh, and she takes another shot, draining her glass. It couldn't be helped, though, she supposes, staring into the glass as she turns it in her fingers and leans against the bar with her elbows. Jay is too much like his father, always chasing something that can't be reached. That's what got Willis killed, and it should've been obvious that it would do the same for Jason.
The thought of Willis makes her laugh to herself. She'd loved him entirely too much for her own good. Got in so deep with him that there was no hope of getting out, not with his gorgeous little toddler that took to her so fast that Jay might as well have been her own.
She was doomed from the get-go. Was it any wonder she kept Willis's name even after things went to hell?
But Kate still wishes she could've been here, that she hadn't had to leave. After taking a slice to the abdomen-damn Gotham gangs and their stupid turf wars-and lying in excruciating pain for months as her insides healed wrong over and over, it'd been a mercy that her old mentor had come looking for her, had taken her away and given her the care she'd needed. She couldn't have been any help to Jay in that condition, but damn it'd hurt to leave him behind as she moved into a new life without him, Jason believing her dead.
If it had only been a few weeks before she was healed well enough to know what had happened to her, she might have even gone back for him. As it was, too many months had passed, a year, more, and when she got her head screwed on straight, it was far too late. Jason was already gone, taken off the streets by someone with resources far better than she could've given him at the time.
Willis hadn't exactly left her a rich woman.
So with a heavy heart, she'd done the only thing she could, and taken on the life that her mentor had set up for her. Kate Todd, Secret Service Agent. How strange that it would lead her into NCIS, where she met Ducky, who was in the same boat she was. It was nice to have someone to work with that knew her pain. And Abby, who will eventually join them.
The connections at her disposal then allowed her to check in on Jason for the first time in two years, and surprise, surprise, Jason had grown from barely a teen into a bright young man wearing even brighter colors as he flew through the canyons of Gotham on the wings of the Bat. Oh, how she'd been proud, even if she couldn't tell a soul, not even Abby, who would've loved to hear all about him.
But that pride was shattered when she learned of his death at the hands of that maniac, Joker, and his subsequent resurrection via the Pit. All she wanted at the time was to run to her boy and hold him, keep him close, and defend him against all-comers. Not that that could've been.
Then there was the reset, the bullet through her brain that 'killed' her in front of her friends and colleagues, and not only did she lose her job, her life, she'd known that her connection to Jason had been severed. To her sources in Gotham, she was dead, and would never be believed to be herself afterward. She'd had to leave her life and her name behind, move to a new town, take on a new name, a new profession, a new set of colleagues.
Thank goodness for Ducky, that'd not only known what to do when she wound up on his table, but also helped her transition, to slip into a new life, ironically, doing what he did.
It was all right for a while, the hectic life of a Boston PD Medical Examiner keeping her busy. She even cultivated a few new friendships, used her old mentor to play her adoptive mother to complete the illusion, and Maura Isles had been born.
Wasn't until a few missing persons cases and a body or three led Jane and Korsak to Gotham that she finally had to face what she'd left behind, again.
And now here she is, sitting in a bar in Crime Alley, the clientele different enough that she isn't worried about being recognized, waiting to see her son.
It's probably too risky, knowing what she knows about him. Knowing that for a time, he'd become a cold-hearted killer and had taken on the streets of Gotham on his own, kicking ass and taking names, as Abby or Tony might say. Hell, Gibbs would probably give her a hard slap to the head for doing this, if he knew. But he doesn't. None of them do. None of them, none of her friends and colleagues now, no one save her old mentor have any clue as to her relationship with the young man calling himself the Red Hood.
She hopes that's enough to justify this. That if no one but the three of them know, it'll be okay. That Jason's used to the weird things of the world enough that he won't just spook and run.
That when he sees her sitting at the bar, he won't have a heart attack-not that it'd kill him.
Motioning to the bar tender, she gets a refill on her whiskey, tucks her blonde hair behind an ear-God, who'd have ever thought she'd go blonde?-and taps her fingers on the bar, forcing herself calm. And that's when the door to the place opens and a young man strides in. She hardly recognizes him, his expression is so … so defeated. So dark. It breaks her heart to see it, her bright boy that flew through the night after he'd been rescued by just the right person, looking so broken.
He must've had a hard night, she reasons, watching him cross the bar to settle in at a table in the far corner. That look … she knows it too well. Has seen it on her own face too many times to count. Except, on her own face, it meant she'd had to leave another life behind.
Maybe Jay's feeling the same way. Maybe … maybe he’s as lonely as she’s been. The thought makes her heart clench, and she drains her whiskey in one long swallow, setting the glass back on the bar and abandoning it as she stands.
Now or never.
It’s a few quick steps over to Jason’s table in the far corner, and without preamble, she sits in the chair opposite him. “Hello, Jason,” she says quietly, silently praying that he won’t run, that he’ll know her for who she is, that-
The look that crosses his face is one of shock, of terror and hope and love and longing and such terrible despair that it makes Kate want to cry. His mouth drops open, his widened eyes twinkling and so bright blue, and finally, after the longest moment, a single word crosses his lips.
“Mom?”
And everything is okay.
~*~*~*~
Fandom: DCU/NCIS/Rizzoli & Isles (/Highlander, sort of)
Characters: Kate Todd (Maura Isles), Jason Todd
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,420
Prompts: For comment_fic: 1) Highlander/NCIS/Rizzoli & Isles, Kate (Maura), Kate's been a lot of things in her long, long life. She never expected to go straight from NCIS agent to medical examiner, though. [ here] & 2) NCIS/Rizoli & Isles/Highlander/DCU, Kate Todd & Jason Todd, Even though he wasn't biologically her son, she still kept an eye on him, even if she'd moved on through several new lives. [ here]; For dcu_freeforall: Phoenix/Resurrection
Summary: Through the years, Kate’s been keeping an eye on her stepson from afar, even though her life’s circumstances have taken her through the Secret Service, NCIS, and now Boston PD.
Disclaimer: A lot of other people own it, including DC and WB. I own nothing, dammit!
Author's Notes: I’ve been wanting to write this one for a long while. An NCIS agent named Kate Todd? The bunny was practically gift-wrapped for me. XD This fic takes a tour through Highlander, but not quite in the same way, and it wants to be a 'verse (*eyes it sideways*). Also, my first NCIS and R&I fic. *bites nails and looks hopeful*
Out of the Ashes
Looking back, Kate-Maura now, though she still thinks of herself as Kate-knows she should've seen it sooner. Her son. Jason. Of course this would be his life, the same way it was hers. Of course he would have to go through hell and come out immortal on the other side. Of course he'd feel the pain that comes with the transformation.
Of course he'd lose his mind, the same way she did.
With a sigh, she lifts her glass to her lips and takes a long sip of whiskey, the drink burning on the way down the same way she remembers the waters of the Pit searing her when she was dunked. It shouldn't be such a fresh memory, her trip into immortality so long ago now that that bitch, Talia, hadn't even been born yet, nevertheless, it's there, as clear as if it'd happened yesterday. But the trip down memory lane isn't why she's here.
Well, not entirely why she's here.
She needs to see him, needs to make sure he's okay. Even if he's not actually her flesh and blood; she did raise him, at least for enough years that he thought of her as his mother, rather than that other woman. Her teeth grind involuntarily just thinking about it. If it hadn't been for Sheila, he'd never have gone to Africa, wound up dead. Wound up in a Pit later, his life renewed in ways that weren't all they were cracked up to be.
A sigh, and she takes another shot, draining her glass. It couldn't be helped, though, she supposes, staring into the glass as she turns it in her fingers and leans against the bar with her elbows. Jay is too much like his father, always chasing something that can't be reached. That's what got Willis killed, and it should've been obvious that it would do the same for Jason.
The thought of Willis makes her laugh to herself. She'd loved him entirely too much for her own good. Got in so deep with him that there was no hope of getting out, not with his gorgeous little toddler that took to her so fast that Jay might as well have been her own.
She was doomed from the get-go. Was it any wonder she kept Willis's name even after things went to hell?
But Kate still wishes she could've been here, that she hadn't had to leave. After taking a slice to the abdomen-damn Gotham gangs and their stupid turf wars-and lying in excruciating pain for months as her insides healed wrong over and over, it'd been a mercy that her old mentor had come looking for her, had taken her away and given her the care she'd needed. She couldn't have been any help to Jay in that condition, but damn it'd hurt to leave him behind as she moved into a new life without him, Jason believing her dead.
If it had only been a few weeks before she was healed well enough to know what had happened to her, she might have even gone back for him. As it was, too many months had passed, a year, more, and when she got her head screwed on straight, it was far too late. Jason was already gone, taken off the streets by someone with resources far better than she could've given him at the time.
Willis hadn't exactly left her a rich woman.
So with a heavy heart, she'd done the only thing she could, and taken on the life that her mentor had set up for her. Kate Todd, Secret Service Agent. How strange that it would lead her into NCIS, where she met Ducky, who was in the same boat she was. It was nice to have someone to work with that knew her pain. And Abby, who will eventually join them.
The connections at her disposal then allowed her to check in on Jason for the first time in two years, and surprise, surprise, Jason had grown from barely a teen into a bright young man wearing even brighter colors as he flew through the canyons of Gotham on the wings of the Bat. Oh, how she'd been proud, even if she couldn't tell a soul, not even Abby, who would've loved to hear all about him.
But that pride was shattered when she learned of his death at the hands of that maniac, Joker, and his subsequent resurrection via the Pit. All she wanted at the time was to run to her boy and hold him, keep him close, and defend him against all-comers. Not that that could've been.
Then there was the reset, the bullet through her brain that 'killed' her in front of her friends and colleagues, and not only did she lose her job, her life, she'd known that her connection to Jason had been severed. To her sources in Gotham, she was dead, and would never be believed to be herself afterward. She'd had to leave her life and her name behind, move to a new town, take on a new name, a new profession, a new set of colleagues.
Thank goodness for Ducky, that'd not only known what to do when she wound up on his table, but also helped her transition, to slip into a new life, ironically, doing what he did.
It was all right for a while, the hectic life of a Boston PD Medical Examiner keeping her busy. She even cultivated a few new friendships, used her old mentor to play her adoptive mother to complete the illusion, and Maura Isles had been born.
Wasn't until a few missing persons cases and a body or three led Jane and Korsak to Gotham that she finally had to face what she'd left behind, again.
And now here she is, sitting in a bar in Crime Alley, the clientele different enough that she isn't worried about being recognized, waiting to see her son.
It's probably too risky, knowing what she knows about him. Knowing that for a time, he'd become a cold-hearted killer and had taken on the streets of Gotham on his own, kicking ass and taking names, as Abby or Tony might say. Hell, Gibbs would probably give her a hard slap to the head for doing this, if he knew. But he doesn't. None of them do. None of them, none of her friends and colleagues now, no one save her old mentor have any clue as to her relationship with the young man calling himself the Red Hood.
She hopes that's enough to justify this. That if no one but the three of them know, it'll be okay. That Jason's used to the weird things of the world enough that he won't just spook and run.
That when he sees her sitting at the bar, he won't have a heart attack-not that it'd kill him.
Motioning to the bar tender, she gets a refill on her whiskey, tucks her blonde hair behind an ear-God, who'd have ever thought she'd go blonde?-and taps her fingers on the bar, forcing herself calm. And that's when the door to the place opens and a young man strides in. She hardly recognizes him, his expression is so … so defeated. So dark. It breaks her heart to see it, her bright boy that flew through the night after he'd been rescued by just the right person, looking so broken.
He must've had a hard night, she reasons, watching him cross the bar to settle in at a table in the far corner. That look … she knows it too well. Has seen it on her own face too many times to count. Except, on her own face, it meant she'd had to leave another life behind.
Maybe Jay's feeling the same way. Maybe … maybe he’s as lonely as she’s been. The thought makes her heart clench, and she drains her whiskey in one long swallow, setting the glass back on the bar and abandoning it as she stands.
Now or never.
It’s a few quick steps over to Jason’s table in the far corner, and without preamble, she sits in the chair opposite him. “Hello, Jason,” she says quietly, silently praying that he won’t run, that he’ll know her for who she is, that-
The look that crosses his face is one of shock, of terror and hope and love and longing and such terrible despair that it makes Kate want to cry. His mouth drops open, his widened eyes twinkling and so bright blue, and finally, after the longest moment, a single word crosses his lips.
“Mom?”
And everything is okay.
~*~*~*~