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Published:
2022-12-24
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2022-12-25
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Santa's Helper

Summary:

A two-shot set in season 4. On Christmas Eve, a girl goes missing without a trace, and there are no clues until Tim sees child who is more than she seems.

Notes:

This is an idea that actually germinated in my brain last Christmas but I didn't have the time or the oomph to do it. I haven't quite finished the second chapter but I will and get it posted tomorrow night! Merry Christmas!

Chapter Text

Santa's Helper
by Enthusiastic Fish

Chapter 1

Set in season 4...

Tim was not in a holiday mood as he headed into work. In fact, he wasn't in the mood for a lot of things. This whole year had gone from amazing to horrible and he didn't see that changing much in the next few weeks. Not only was he working on Christmas this year, he still was feeling a bit of a chill from his coworkers because of his book.

Why did Sarah have to mention it? he thought to himself for a millionth time. Given the circumstances, he didn't have the heart to berate her for it, but still...

None of them would have read it. None of them would have known. Deep Six was popular but not in a J. K. Rowling, take-the-world-by-storm way. It was simply a book that sold well in its genre. He could have enjoyed it, reaped the rewards and all without anyone knowing about it.

Before all of that, he had thought about asking one of his teammates to switch with him for Christmas. He was off on New Year's and he had intended to offer to take New Year's this year. He really just wanted to have a nice quiet Christmas with his family after everything that had happened. Sarah had wanted that, too, and she had been disappointed when he had told her that she'd be heading home for the holidays without him. She'd actually been a little clingy since that whole thing. He didn't blame her and he'd always had a soft spot for his little sister. He wanted to be there for her.

Alas. There was no way he'd ask for that now. He could just imagine what Tony would say.

As he reached the building, he saw a young girl, dressed in a wool coat in a deep, rich red color. She skipped past him.

"Merry Christmas!" she said brightly.

"Uh...merry Christmas," Tim said back and looked around. He didn't see any adults and she was way too young be here by herself early in the morning. "Should you be..."

He stopped.

The little girl was nowhere to be seen. He turned away from NCIS and started looking around. Where could she have gone?

He walked around the building, over to Willard Park, and he even started over to the Barry, but there was no sign of her.

Strange.

"Probie! You're going to be late and not even best-selling authors are allowed to be late," Tony shouted at him.

Tim looked back toward the building. Sure enough, there was Tony about to go inside. Tim looked around once more. Maybe her parent had just been out of sight and so he'd missed it. It wasn't like there were many people around first thing in the morning here. Just people going to work.

"McGee! Come on!"

Tim convinced himself that it was fine. Since he couldn't see her in any place that would be dangerous and quite frankly couldn't see her at all, it was probably fine. Still...

"Probie!"

Tim grimaced and jogged over to the building.

"Man, Tony, you're not my mother. What's with treating me like a kid late for school?"

Tony raised an eyebrow. "You can't afford to get out of Gibbs' good graces, McAuthor," he said. "He might take that Messianic complex thing personally...especially if he gets reminded of it too often.

Tim rolled his eyes and didn't dignify that with a response.

"What were you doing over there anyway?"

"A little girl walked by and then, I didn't see her and I didn't see an adult with her either. I was just making sure that nothing had happened." Tim paused. "Did you see anyone as you were coming in?"

"Nope, but I wasn't looking for anyone but you, McGee," Tony said dramatically and reached for him.

Tim rolled his eyes again and shoved Tony away.

"Knock it off."

"Someone's in a crabby mood. I would think that with all the money you made off of mocking your colleagues, you'd be happier."

Tim was so tired of hearing that. It wasn't as constant now, but it was still bad enough. Thankfully, Ziva was off on vacation right now and so that was one less person mad at him. He strode ahead of Tony and reached Henry first to go through security.

"Morning, Agent McGee," the old security guard said.

"Hey, Henry," Tim said. "Did you see a little girl outside when you came in?"

"Nope, but I'm in pretty early, you know. Gotta beat you younguns somehow. Why?"

"I just saw a girl and I was wondering what she was doing here so early."

"Well, I know Janice over in the Navy museum has a daughter. Never met her or anything, but she's mentioned it before."

"Oh, that's probably it," Tim said, relieved that he could come up with a genuine reason why he had seen the girl. She had probably gone into the museum with her mother and, because it wasn't open yet, Tim hadn't thought to look there.

He skipped the elevator and took the stairs to avoid more snide comments from Tony. When he got up to the bullpen, the usual Christmas tree was up with the box for donated toys. Tim made a mental note to get something to donate. He'd always liked this tradition.

"McGee! You're not being paid to look at the Christmas lights," Gibbs said, sounding annoyed.

"Right, Boss," Tim said and hurried to his desk. He sat down quickly before Tony was off the elevator. No more fodder for the Tony cannon.

"Don't get comfortable. Where's Tony?"

"Just coming," Tim said. "He was right behind me."

"Good."

There was a ding and Tony got off the elevator.

"Hey, Probie. What's with not waiting for me?"

"Just wanted to get to work, Tony," Tim said. "You're the one who was rushing me."

Thwack!

Tim was surprised to get a Gibbs slap so early in the day. Tony's expression was one of surprise as well.

"What's up, Boss?" he asked.

"Daughter of an admiral has gone missing. They think she was kidnapped," Gibbs snapped. "You ready to work or bicker with each other?"

That was not a question that needed a response. They both grabbed their bags and followed as Gibbs stalked toward the elevator.

"On your six, Boss," Tony said.

For the moment, joking and teasing were set aside. Gibbs had a thing about kids and one going missing was going to make it doubly bad.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tony stepped closer to Tim as they were investigating the girl's room. Her name was stenciled on the wall in capital letters: SARAH. There were curly-cues all around the letters. Tim was surprised to see that the girl had the same name as his sister. What were the odds of that? Overall, the room looked like that of a typical tweener. A little bit messy but there was no real sign of a disturbance of any kind so far. If the kidnapper had actually taken Sarah from the bedroom, it had been done very quickly without much in the way of resistance.

"When does Ziva get back?" Tony asked in a low voice, lest Gibbs was in earshot.

"Not in time to be here and act as an extra buffer," Tim murmured.

"Yeah. Well, I'll keep going in here. You want to go out to the backyard and see if the admiral is right that they got in through her window?"

"Yeah, sure," Tim said.

That wasn't true. Going downstairs meant that he'd have to risk walking near Gibbs and to risk the possibility that he wouldn't still be talking to the admiral and could focus on whoever was present, demanding instant results that everyone knew were impossible to achieve but would still be expected anyway.

Still, they did need to check out the backyard and he could definitely say he had a specific goal in mind.

A deep breath and Tim went down the stairs, and a dog started barking at him. He paused only for a moment and then out into the backyard. Gibbs was still talking to Admiral Erikson and his wife so Tim moved quickly and then took a moment to look at the setting. The yard was fully fenced, but the fence wasn't so high that it was insurmountable by an agile adult.

However, that being said, he didn't see any footprints. Granted, there wasn't a lot of snow on the ground yet this year, but still, someone coming into the yard, grabbing a little girl and then carrying her out with him or her should leave some kind of impression in the ground. It wasn't frozen and that should mean that there was something from the shoes of the kidnapper. He started documenting the lack of evidence of an intruder. Then, he took photos of the window. Unlike the fence, this window would be hard to access from the outside.

How would he have gotten in and then out with Sarah? Tim asked himself.

"You'd better have something, McGee," Gibbs said as he walked outside, shutting the door firmly behind him. As he did, the dog started barking inside again.

"It's more what I don't have, Boss," Tim said.

Gibbs raised a demanding eyebrow and Tim hurried to explain.

"There's no sign of anyone coming into the backyard. There's no sign of an intruder in the bedroom. I was trying to figure out how someone would have got into her room, kidnapped her and got back to the yard with a little girl in his arms."

"What are you saying?"

"Are we sure it's an abduction?" Tim asked.

Tim watched as Gibbs looked around the yard and back into the house.

"I'm sure they searched the house, but kids have run away before. And..." Tim stopped, not sure if he should mention another possibility.

"And what, McGee?" Gibbs asked.

"Well..." Tim lowered his voice. He didn't even like that he'd thought of this. "Tony always says to suspect the wife. ...should we maybe suspect the parents?"

Gibbs' eyebrow went up again.

"I know that's not the most likely possibility, but right now, I don't see any sign of an abduction, at least not the way they said it happened, and they have a dog. Wouldn't the dog have noticed someone coming in the ground floor? He barked at me and he just barked as you came out."

"Keep working," Gibbs said and then went back into the house.

The dog started barking again.

Tim took a breath. Honestly, he was starting to think that it was most likely that Sarah had run away on her own rather than being kidnapped. Why would the parents assume kidnapping right off anyway? Was it just because the admiral was an important person? Maybe.

After spending a couple of hours searching around the house, Gibbs sent Tim back to NCIS to start processing while he and Tony canvassed the neighborhood. As Tim was loading everything in the truck, Tony came up behind him.

"Did you really suggest that it might have been the parents, McGee?" Tony asked as Tim was packing the evidence bags away.

"Yeah."

"You really said that? To Gibbs?"

Tim turned around to face Tony and his brow furrowed.

"It's not like I was saying that they're definitely guilty or anything. But I don't think an abduction makes any sense with what we're seeing right now. ...do you?"

"No, but you know Gibbs and kids."

"Yeah, I do. I think it would be better to remove the possibility first if we can, rather than pretending it's not an option."

"You're the author," Tony said, shrugging.

Tim rolled his eyes again at the renewed mention. He had hoped that work would keep it from coming up yet again. Instead of responding, he got in the truck and drove back to NCIS. Then, he took everything down to Abby so that she could start running prints and processing all the evidence.

"Looks like we'll be working over Christmas if we don't find her," Abby said.

"I would be anyway. But Maybe we'll find her really fast. If she left on her own, she could just be lost and we can get her home."

"Maybe," Abby said, but she looked doubtful.

Tim was as well, really. If Sarah had simply left and was fine, then she probably would have been found already. She was just old enough to get herself into trouble but probably not old enough to get herself out of trouble.

"Well, we can at least get started," Tim said. "I'll go and see what I can find from her background while you're running prints and stuff."

"Stuff?" Abby repeated with a grin. "That's not your usual eloquence, Mr. Gemcity."

"Can everyone just drop that already?" Tim asked.

"Hey, I liked it. When's the sequel coming out?"

"Maybe never at the rate I'm going. Anyway, it's Christmas. I'm distracted," Tim said, forcing a smile. Then, he went back upstairs and sat down at his desk to start the process of finding whatever he could about the family.

As Tim sat down, he was silently grateful that he didn't have to stay and coordinate with Metro. He still worried about working with them even more than a year later. The times they'd actually interacted, Tim usually tried to find a way to be conveniently elsewhere. Gibbs had probably noticed but he hadn't said anything about it. Tim actually had wondered on occasion if Gibbs had deliberately allowed him to avoid the Metro police.

I'll have to get over it eventually, he said to himself. And it was true, but not yet.

He refocused on his task. It was more important to find a missing girl than anything else. He started building a history of the admiral's family to see if there was anything that would indicate someone wishing ill on the family. At first glance there was nothing.

At second glance there was nothing.

Then, on a third glance, Tim saw something that stopped him cold. Sarah was a tail-ender in her family. She was the youngest by almost 10 years, but Admiral Erikson had three other children. The first two were both boys from a previous marriage. One was married and the other just starting college. Then, were was a daughter named Marla, the first child of Admiral Erikson's second marriage. She had died at about six years old on a family vacation when she had wandered away from the family and fallen into a river. There was a picture included in the obituary.

It was the same little girl in a red coat that he had seen that morning. Tim would swear to it. Quickly, he jumped up and ran down to the front doors.

"Where are you off to in such a hurry, Agent McGee?" Henry asked.

"The museum," Tim said. "I'll be back in a few minutes if Gibbs and Tony get back and ask."

Then, he ran to the museum and stepped inside.

"Hello?" he called. He knew Janice very slightly but it was a formal acquaintance. He knew this was going to be a very odd conversation.

"Hello!" came a voice in response and Janice came out from the back. "Hello, Agent McGee, isn't it?"

"Yes," Tim said. "I have a question I need to ask you and I know it will sound weird but it's part of a case I'm working on."

"Okay. What is it?"

"You have a daughter, right?"

"Yes."

"Is she here today?"

Janice's brow furrowed. "No, she's home, making up some schoolwork that she pretended she didn't have. She wanted to come with me to work but I wouldn't let her. High school is too important."

"High school?"

"Yes. She's a senior."

"Oh. Thanks."

"That was for a case?" Janice asked. "What does your case have to do with my daughter?"

"Nothing. I knew it would sound weird. That's all I needed. Thank you."

Janice was definitely giving him an odd look that Tim knew he deserved. "Um... you're welcome. Merry Christmas."

"You, too," Tim said and then left the museum, feeling a sense of disquiet.

As he walked back toward the building, he started looking around as if he would see the little girl who had been there that morning. What was going on? Instead of going back inside, he started to look around the Navy Yard again. He walked toward the N Street entrance and there was a flash of red just going behind the wall. Tim lengthened his stride and went off the Yard. There was a little girl walking down the sidewalk all by herself. She looked to be only about six years old.

Feeling stupid, he called out, but there was no acknowledgment. Finally, he tried the name he had read.

"Marla?"

The little girl stopped walking and turned around with a big smile.

"You know my name!" she said happily.

"Yes, I do," Tim said.

"Thank you. What's your name?"

"My name is Tim. What are you doing here?"

"Looking for someone to help me."

"Help you what?"

"Come on! We have to do it before Christmas!" Marla started skipping down the sidewalk, away from the Yard.

"Do what?" Tim asked. He paused and looked back down the sidewalk. No one around. He should go back and tell Gibbs and Tony what was going on.

Yeah, right. I can hear them already. Tony especially. This whole thing makes no sense. I shouldn't do this.

But no matter what, could he really just leave this little girl... who may or may not be a ghost... alone on the street? He made the decision to go along with her. He'd probably regret it later, but oh, well. He ran after Marla and caught up with her.

"Do what, Marla?" he asked again.

"Help. I'm Santa's helper and you can be, too! Mom and Dad made a wish for Christmas and I get to help them!"

"What's their wish?" Tim asked. "And why do you need me?"

"Sarah needs to get home. I can't be home, but she can if someone finds her."

"Where is she?"

"I don't know."

"Then, where are you going?" Tim asked.

"Where she is," Marla said patiently.

"How can you, if you don't know where she is?"

"Because you're with me! Together we'll find her! Then, you can take her home."

Finally, Tim couldn't resist. He reached out and tried to touch Marla's arm. His hand went right through her. Marla giggled at his actions.

"Come on! We'll find her!"

This wasn't making any sense and it was getting dark and cold but now that he'd started, Tim didn't feel like he could stop. So he followed Marla as she skipped along, looking completely confident as only a child could.