Chapter Five Act Four

"Back to NCIS?" Angel asks the next morning coming to the stop at the bottom of the stairs.

Her outfit today is variances of the color green. The cardigan sweater matches with the dress pants that are covering ankle length boots and of course hair thingies holding up her hair in pigtails.

"You have school today," Gibbs says picking up his wallet and cell phone up off the coffee table.

"I should be there for Zach," Angel says trying to sound convincing. "He needs me."

"Zach will be fine," Gibbs says slipping his coat on. "Come on, Zach!"

Zach walks down the stairs.

"Ready to go, Zach?" Angel asks.

"Yes," Zach says.

"We're dropping Angel off at school first," Gibbs says. "Is that ok?"

"Sure," Zach says walking on the front door.

Gibbs looks at his daughter who sighs then goes outside.

Gibbs follows closing the door behind him and locking it now having something to lock it for.

"When was it?" Gibbs asks McGee as they are waiting for Ziva to convince the secretary to talk.

"When was what?" McGee asks looking down at his coffee.

Gibbs looks at McGee a moment before asking. "When were you tortured?"

McGee looks up bewildered at the question, "How…"

"You never answered Ziva's question," Gibbs states.

"That doesn't mean I was tortured," McGee asserts.

"But you were," Gibbs says.

McGee s quiet for a moment before he asks, "Can we do this later? I…I don't want to talk about this…here."

"Alright, Tim," Gibbs says and takes a sip of coffee.

"Thanks, Boss," McGee says with a bit of a smile before concentrating on his coffee and going back to waiting on Ziva.

Gibbs watches Zach hug his father thinking back to another child, a girl helping him on his boat.

"Daddy?" the girl in his memories asks.

"Daddy?" this time the memory girl is joined with another little girl.

"Daddy?" a third time brings Gibbs back into the present.

He looks down at his daughter who is tugging on his hand.

"Ready to go home, Daddy?" Angel asks with a smile looking so much like the memory girl it almost hurts.

"Yeah, Angel," he responses with his own smile. "I am,"

"Good," Angel says then yells across the bullpen. "Papa, let's go."

"Coming, Princess," Tony says then says goodbye to McGee before heading towards his mate and daughter.

Angel grabs Tony's hand with her free one.

Tony looks down with a smile at his daughter then looks at Gibbs and pauses.

"Everything's ok?" Tony asks Gibbs.

"Yeah," Gibbs says. "Everything's great."

End of Chapter and story.

The coda will come out hopefully next week.

It will be a one shot crossover with Batman (but I'm putting it under Teen Titans) where McGee talks about him being tortured.

After that I'll put out Coda to Beta Noire which will explain why Gerald didn't come back to work (hint – Mpreg)

Random fact – no Salem witches were burned at the stake. The deaths were mostly due to hangings and dying in jail. However one man was crushed when he was made to lie down and a board was placed on his chest. Then stones were placed on the board until his chest cavity collapsed.