What Really Happens: NCIS

Chapter 73

After someone, I have never seen before, tells me where Gibbs is, I run into Vance's office without waiting for an invitation from his secretary. When I open the doors, the three men who were down stairs are out of hand cuffs and drinking sodas. They are sitting next to each other at the table he has in there. Vance and Gibbs are standing there with their eyes on me. They are shocked to see me, but I can't say what I have to say. Not in front of the three men that don't know what I know.

"Do you need something Peters?" Gibbs asks as I hold my breath.

His eyes aren't stabbing my body like Vance's. He has no personality showing in his eyes. It's like I can't see a soul in them. It's making me more nervous than seeing the three men sitting at the table.

"Yes, I need to talk to you."

He walks pass me and leaves the room. I turn to the four men in the room and apologize for interrupting. I almost accidentally curtsy to be polite. My excitement is getting to the best of me. My smile is from ear to ear to tell him what I have.

"Why are they together?"

He raises his eyebrows. "Why are who together?"

"The three guys in there. What about rule 1?"

"You know about rule 1?"

"Yeah, I know about rule 1."

"They're with me and Vance so they aren't alone." He puts his hands up for me to drop this subject. "What did you want to tell me?"

"I know what it means!"

He stares at me with a blank expression as I lightly jump off my feet. "What, what means?"

"The graffiti on the lamp! The juice box." I build up the suspense like Abby does with him.

"Peters." Which I now remember, he doesn't like when she does that. He likes to know what we have when we have it. He's really good at knowing we have something before we have it. I don't know how he does it, but I guess that's why he's the boss.

"Give me juice!" I smile when I tell him what I know.

He looks at me with a confused look sticking out his neck. "Give you the what?"

"You give me the juice and I give you mine. In translation, you give me respect, and I give you respect." I can tell this still doesn't make any sense to him.

Tony, Tim, and Abby come in behind him. They probably got something, but this is my time to shine. I finally remembered what the graffiti means, and I won't let it get away from me again.

"It's confusing but that's how they wanted it to be. They don't want you to know what they are saying because they want to know who you are. They can tell what kind of person you are by your response. If you ask them politely, they will give you "juice". But if you come out your face, it's downhill from there."

"Come out your what?" They say simultaneously with a confused look.

I lower my excitement voice and return back to normal. I thought they would have at least tried to guess what it all means. They just sucked the fun out of it. "If you rub them the wrong way, I guess." If my mom heard me say what I said before, I think she would've washed my mouth out with soap. I didn't say a bad word. To her, slang was a bad language to pick up.

Tony laughs but Tim covers his mouth. "Not now DiNozzo."

Abby looks at me to make sure I'm done talking. I give her a look and she begins.

"Gibbs, we know that only two other people were in that apartment. We looked at all his felonies, then looked at Sean's. Sean wasn't a part of any of it. His record is clean."

My head jerks up the moment I hear his name. Of course, Sean would never do any of the things I saw on Johns record. I know they're just doing their job and looking for Johns murderer. I can tell them now that it wasn't him. The fact that his record his clean means that he is close to getting out of here.

"Do we know if two out of those three in there were them?"

Which reminds me. I pull the gloves out of my pocket, that I took when Tony and I were scoping out the evidence. I walk back into the room, and all eyes are on me. I smile and wave at the men that have one thing in common with Sean, that jacket.

They moan and groan as I take their drinks, but I pay no attention to it. "Bye Vance!" I see him smile out of the corner of my eye.

"Bye Peters." I like his friendly face more than his serious face. I think that's the reason why he's the boss.

I walk pass the four I left behind and make my way to the lab. I hear their footsteps behind me. I'm too proud of myself that I remembered what the juice box meant that I constantly saw around town. I'm also excited to get these finger prints from the men the way Abby does it. I rather use tape and put it on the can. I know Abby would refuse because it would take too long. Actually, I think Abby would be fine with it. Gibbs on the other hand, would be impatient.

"Peters." I turn around. He points to me and Abby takes the cans out of my hands and makes her way to the lab. I pout because I wanted to do the finger printing.

The idea of making an old friend free because of something we talked about when we were kids, is an amazing thought. I can't do that if people don't stop interrupting me.

"Abby will take care of that. I need you out on the field with us today." My mouth drops open, but no words come out. I don't want to go back to my town with them. They will find out too much. I've already said too much and it's not even lunch time yet. They will know exactly what it was like to be me growing up. They will know everything I had to deal with. The people I came in contact with. The way I have to walk the streets, so no one messes with me. They will know everything I wanted to hide from them since the beginning.

I didn't expect to get along with them so well that they are family now. When I got this job, I thought I was going to show up, do the job and leave. Obviously, I was wrong and I'm happy about it. Now, they are going to know what I had to deal with when going through everything I went through. This is the last thing I ever wanted to happen.

Gibbs comes to me with Tim and Tony heading down the stairs. "I told you I was going to need your help today."

Just like that, I'm getting mentally ready for what might be the second worse day of my life.