Trauma Queen: A NCIS Fanfiction

Chapter Seventeen

I felt like I was staring at a clone of myself. Looking into the eyes of Corporal Gina Marie, I saw myself at age twenty. She and I shared the same blonde hair and brown eyes, as well as body figure. I felt frozen in space as I looked down at her.

"You okay Cahn?" Gibbs asked, coming up beside me.

It took me a second before I nodded slowly at him. "Yeah Boss. It's just... she looks so much like me when I was her age. I'm sure it's just a coincidence."

Gibbs took a sip of his coffee. "I don't believe in coincidences." And then he was gone.

I shook the creeped-out feeling from my body and focused on taking photographs of the body. She was lying supine, her hands across her stomach, folded. She had both of her wrists sliced down to the vein and I cringed just looking at it. I'd seen injuries like these before, but never on someone I couldn't save. She also had an "N" carved into her neck on the left side. It looked like it was done post-mortum, but that was only a guess. Ducky would be the only one able to determine that.

The scene was very clean. There were no footprints, no blood trails, no pools of blood underneath our victim. There was absolutely nothing leading us to the killer. The grass around the body looked almost undisturbed, as if she was literally dropped here from above.

"Our marine died between 6 and 8 hours ago Jethro." Ducky pulled he liver thermometer out of the girl. "I'll know more when I get her back home."

"I need a cause of death as soon as possible Duck." Gibbs always spoke very matter of factly and I didn't know how he did it. How did he never show emotion in his vocal tone?

"Oh yes of course." Ducky stood, waving Jimmy over.

"Bag what little evidence there is and get it to Abby as soon as possible. We now have two open cases." Gibbs spoke to us.

"On it Boss," we all said in unison. We all smiled at each other; it was clear how close we were as a team.

Once we had some blades of grass and our Corporal's ID badge in bags, we headed back to NCIS headquarters, all in different cars. As it was Saturday and we were called from home, none of us were particularly enthralled to be there. I for one, was quite grumpy about it. I was looking forward to a relaxing day with Tim, maybe playing video games. But instead, I was at work, taking on two cases at once.

"So," Tim said, getting in the driver seat, "I was kind of looking forward to hanging out today instead of being at work."

It was as if he read my mind. "Me, too." And there I went again with my awkwardness. I really had no idea how to navigate these situations. Tim snickered at me. "What?"

"Nothing. It's a little funny how awkward you are."

I folded my arms across my chest. "Hey you're not any better!"

"I never said I was." Tim flashed me a smile and a quick glance out of the corner of his eye.

"I'd like a rain check on this relaxing hang out day thing?" I face palmed myself. I was so bad with guys.

He laughed. "Yeah I'd like that."

"Maybe some gaming or something!"

"I'm going to kick your little ass."

I smirked. "You weren't calling my ass little last night."

He playfully swatted at my arm, sending me into a laughing fit. His face turned bright red. "So only Ziva and Abby know about this right?"

"I think so. Why?" I turned my head so I could face him.

"Just curious. I guess maybe we shouldn't let Gibbs find out about any of this."

"Tim, we went on one date and did whatever last night. I don't even know what this is." I immediately regretted saying that and I was sure it came out much harsher than I intended it to. "Wait, I didn't mean that. Like I just..." my voice trailed off and I was annoyed with myself.

"No, yeah. I get what you're trying to say I think."

"So," I started not sure of where the sentence was going, "that's a nice shirt." I cringed internally after I spoke. That's apparently the smartest thing I could think of.

He laughed nervously. "Thanks?"

"Yup."

The rest of the ride was silent. The only noise was the revving of the engine and the honking of horns on the streets. I looked straight out the windshield, trying not to dwell on the fact I said something so stupid.

I don't even know what this is. I thought. How stupid am I? I really like him and what if I fucked it up before we even slept together.

After our date, we didn't get past kissing because he specifically didn't want to rush things and he wasn't one to have sex on the first date. Honestly, I really wanted to, but I wasn't going to say that because you know, consent is super important. And after being with someone who raped a bunch of girls, I was always one to care about consent.

We were the first two back in the office at headquarters and I took my seat silently, hoping my monitor would flash on quicker than it usually did. When it was on and I had a cup of coffee in my hand, I tried to find out everything I could about Corporal Gina Marie. A simple search led me to her MySpace page which was that of a typical young woman. There as nothing out of the ordinary. I found her military records which were completely pristine. She didn't even have a record of a scuffed boot. She lived in an apartment in Arlington, Virginia before she was assigned to live in Quantico. She went to MIT for a year, but dropped out because of mental health issues.

I leaned back in my chair, hoping I could find something noteworthy on this girl. What was interesting about her? Well, for starters, she looked like me and she went to MIT. I pulled up the MIT registrar and started to breakdown their firewalls. The only noise in our little office was my fingers typing away at the keyboard, hoping to hack into the registrar's records.

When I finally had the record of her time at MIT, I flipped through the few pages there were. She was on a scholarship for Electrical Engineering and she was originally from Cleveland, Ohio. She lived in the same dorm I did my freshman year. She took sixteen credits both semesters she was there and had a 2.7 GPA.

There was something about her that didn't seem right though. Something that felt very familiar about her. On a hunch, I did a search on Liam's trial and the testimonies from the girls who he raped. There was a video clip of him being escorted out of the courthouse and I clicked it, hoping to find something.

I kept the sound off and searched through the crowds of people, trying not to look at his face. He still gave me those terrifying chills. As he was being put into the cop car I stopped the video, zoomed in on the back, and cleared up the image. I leaned back in my chair as I looked at the image; Gina Marie was there that day and she was holding Cassidy Marie, one of Liam's victims, in her arms. That's where I knew her from. She was Cassidy's younger sister. And now, I was trying to find out who murdered her.