Hard Case: NCIS fan fiction

Chapter 30

Zara's POV

I watched Trent Murphy through the screen in the boat shed, watched him fiddling nervously with his hands as he waited in the interrogation room. It was taking all the willpower I possessed  to stop me from going in there and strangling him with my bare hands. Or strangling him from out here like Darth Vader. Whichever worked best.

"He doesn't look like a bad father." I turned my head to Deeks who was stood next me, observing Murphy.

"Misguided is often the same as bad. When people start meddling in things that they don't understand, it's always the innocent who suffer." I told him, and I could almost see the wheels in his mind turning, see what he was thinking, what they were all thinking.

"But... I mean, he just wanted his kid to have superpowers. That's not that bad. What kid wouldn't want superpowers?"

I looked up at the ceiling, attempting to refrain from rolling my eyes.

"I knew you would say that."

"What?"

"Why wouldn't you want superpowers?" I mimicked his voice, my sarcasm crystal clear, and Deeks seemed surprised at my annoyance.

"I didn't want powers. I never asked for this, never wanted this to happen, to me or my family."

"What do you mean?" The confusion was present on Deeks' face. I sighed, and attempted to explain.

"When I first got these powers, it felt like every cell inside me was moving at the speed of light, from side to side, and it hurt. It felt like my insides were on fire. Luckily, that part only lasted about two weeks, but unluckily, that was probably the part that hurt the least. After that, things started moving whenever I got mad, sad, happy, scared, excited- with every emotion, there was almost an outburst of energy from my body, and things around me would move. I was scared people would begin to notice, that they would call me a freak, that my family wouldn't love me anymore. So I tried my best to control it; but I didn't know how. So I tried directing it inward. And it worked."

With a sigh, I pulled up the sleeve of my long-sleeved shirt, showing my forearm to Deeks.

"Wh-what are those?" He took my arm with his hands, concern in his voice, and he pointed at one of the hundreds of marks covering the skin.

"Scarring." Was my simple reply.

"Scarring? Scarring from what?"

"Fractures, bruising. And they cover most of my body too. Why did you think I almost always wear long sleeves? It's too much effort to try and cover them with make-up every day." I gently pried my arm from Deeks' hands, pulling my sleeve back down as he looked at me incredulously.

"It took me almost a year to fully control it. I tried everything I could think of. I tried to control my emotions, I didn't talk at all for a while, but that didn't work, and neither did not touching other people. I tried sleeping more, I tried sleeping less, I tried exercising more, I tried exercising less, I tried eating more, I tried eating less, I tried being vegetarian, I tried being vegan, I even tried not eating at all, but nothing worked. But it was meditation and breathing exercises that helped prevent the breaks and bruises, stopped the energy from building up. And when I started running, somehow I learnt to direct the energy, and that's how I can do what I can today. But it was a long and extremely painful process, and I wouldn't wish it on anybody else, least of all an innocent kid."

"Zara... I had no idea..." Deeks started.

"But the worst thing is, I was one of the lucky ones. My sister was killed in the experiment, and my brother... he was never the same. He became a different person, a part of himself he couldn't control." I hung my head.

Silence filled the room.

"Zara-" Deeks tried to say something, but stopped as we watched Callen walk into the interrogation room.

"Try not to strangle him like Darth Vader. Or, do, I wouldn't mind being in a star wars movie." Deeks' usual joking tone came back into his voice, and I laughed at his mischievous grin.

"Well, while I will try to not strangle Trent Murphy, perhaps I will be Darth Vader at some stage during this investigation." I joked along with him, but didn't add the last part of the sentence that appeared into my thoughts. I certainly did want to strangle the people who had done this to me and my family.

a/n: well, i've been gone for a while. i'm not going to make any excuses, or any promises of writing more because i think anyone knows by now that it's not consistent, but i have reached peak procrastination against the 3 assignments i'm meant to be doing right now. so here ya go, another chapter, and any aos (agents of shield) fans may recognise Zara's story as being slightly similarly to Skye's/Daisy/Quake/ Destroyer of Worlds. (anyone who has watched season 5 please comment because i don't have any friends who watch it and by golly that was an intense season and FITZSIMMONS)