Chapter Text
The raids on Alejandro Fuentes’ warehouses resulted in the complete dismantling of his organization and hundreds of arrests all over the country, as well as the subsequent investigation into the remainder of Michael Connolly’s weapons manufacturing company. Two weeks later, Gibbs was sitting in the bullpen with his team, finishing their reports on the latest case, when the phone on his desk rang. Vance’s secretary politely requested that Gibbs and his team come up to Vance’s office to speak with the Director. Gibbs agreed easily, hanging up the phone and directing his team to follow him up the stairs. They were joined at the top of the stairs by a nervous Abby coming out of the elevator and the four of them made their way to Vance’s office. They were waved in immediately by the secretary, then Gibbs opened the door to see Vance speaking easily with General O’Neill and Dave Sheppard. O’Neill was in his typical black BDUs, but Dave wore a neatly tailored, gray pin-striped suit with a bright blue tie against a pale blue shirt.
“Agents, Ms. Scuito,” Vance greeted them, “Come on in. Take a seat please.”
Tim sat next to Abby on the far side of the table, Tony opposite them next to Director Vance. Gibbs took the seat at the end of the table, opposite O’Neill, with Dave taking the final seat next to Abby.
“I suppose you’re all wondering why I brought you here today,” O’Neill said with a mostly straight face.
Dave rolled his eyes and mumbled under his breath, “I knew I should’ve brought Davis.”
“General O’Neill, this is the rest of Agent Gibbs’ team,” Vance motioned around the table as he spoke, “Agent Tony DiNozzo, Agent Tim McGee, and Ms. Abby Scuito.”
“I’ve met them,” O’Neill gave a friendly wave, “Sort of. Hello again.”
“Agents,” Vance continued, ignoring O’Neill, “This is General Jack O’Neill and this is Dave Sheppard.”
“We’ve met as well,” Dave smothered the urge to smile, “Except for Ms. Scuito.”
“Are we in some sort of trouble?” Abby fidgeted in her chair.
“Did you do something that you should be in trouble for, Abby?” O’Neill asked with a smirk.
“No one’s in trouble,” Dave said quickly, giving O’Neill an exasperated look, “Jack, maybe you better let me do the talking.”
“Then why did I even have to come with?” O’Neill complained.
“The President is annoyed with you because you were playing solitaire while he was briefing the new SecNav on the program,” Dave said evenly, “And also because you set John and EJ loose on the IOA last week instead of sending them straight home. They had a list of demands three pages long. The IOA agreed to two pages. This was somewhere on page one.”
O’Neill considered the memory for a moment before breaking into a wide grin.
“Worth it,” he decided, waving a hand across the table generously, “Continue on, Dave.”
Dave stood to hand out a stack of folders to everyone sitting at the table, along with a pen for each of them, before sitting back down.
“More non-disclosure agreements?” Gibbs questioned as he opened the folder in front of him, “The whole team signed a stack of these already.”
“Those were for the information you obtained on the Baumann case,” Dave explained, “These are for something else.”
“Something else?” Vance inquired.
“Unfortunately,” Dave looked apologetic, “I can’t tell you anything else unless you sign them. But it’ll be worth it if you do.”
“And if we don’t?” Gibbs looked across the table to the younger man.
“Then Jack and I will go have lunch,” Dave gave a one-shouldered shrug, “and get back to work. We’re not going to force you to do anything.”
After a moment of hesitation, Abby uncapped her pen and signed her name with a flourish at the bottom of each of the sheets. The rest of the group followed suit, pushing the folders back down to Dave when they finished.
“The IOA has graciously,” O’Neill snorted, earning another glare from Dave before the younger man continued speaking, “decided to increase the program’s budget by thirty-five percent this year. This means that we'll be able to hire a lot of new people to work at the base. The increase in personnel means we need to increase security in the City as well.”
“The City?” Tim asked curiously.
“It’s one of the names for the base where Colonel Sheppard and Colonel Baran live,” Dave explained, “Since the City operates almost independently from the rest of the program, it was decided that NCIS agents would be a good choice for a few of those security slots.”
“Like being Agent Afloat?” Vance leaned back in his chair.
“Exactly,” Dave agreed, “Granted, there’s not much crime in the City, from what I understand, but after reviewing the files of Agent Gibbs’ team and seeing them in action, Colonel Baran suggested that their team might be a good fit.”
“Suggested, my ass,” O’Neill muttered, “Woman harassed me for three hours.”
“Jack,” Dave warned and O'Neill rolled his eyes.
“Mostly EJ wants Ms. Scuito to come work in one of her labs,” O’Neill smiled at the young Goth, “But she and John both had a lot of good things to say about the rest of the team.”
“Where is this base located?” Tony wondered.
“That’s classified until you sign your employment contract,” Dave said calmly.
“What kind of things would we be doing there?” Abby asked with a keen interest, “Would we get to see more cool stuff like that shooty-laser-thing?”
“You would be assigned to one of the science labs,” Dave informed her, “Depending on which lab you’re assigned and because of your unique status, you’d most likely have your choice of projects.”
“And yes,” O’Neill added, “There’s lots of cool stuff in the City. Especially for you, Abby.”
“Why is Abby so special?” Tim questioned, receiving a smack to his arm from the woman in question.
“Colonel Baran believes that Ms. Scuito possesses a unique gene that makes her especially qualified to work in the City,” Dave explained carefully, “The rest of you may or may not have it as well, but EJ says Ms. Scuito’s expression of the gene is stronger than at least half the people we have already, which means she would be in high demand in the science department.”
“What would the rest of us be doing?” Tony asked cautiously.
“A lot of the same work you would do on a ship,” Dave continued his explanation, “Investigating crimes and such, but you’d each have additional duties as well. Agent McGee would likely be asked to work part-time with the IT department, which is actually quite a bit more complicated and interesting than it sounds. Colonel Baran wants Agent DiNozzo to join one of the first-contact or diplomacy teams, provided he can complete the program’s physical training with adequate scores. Colonel Sheppard seemed quite impressed with Agent Gibbs’ military record and will probably ask him to serve as a weapons instructor.”
“They’d be required to do all that in addition to their normal NCIS duties?” Vance questioned carefully.
“No one in the City does only one thing,” O’Neill shrugged, “They’re pretty cut-off, so everyone pitches in where they can.”
“How cut-off exactly?” Tim asked warily.
“You’ll be able to email friends and family as often as you'd like which, barring random emergencies, would be delivered once a week,” O’Neill informed them, “Plus you’ll be able to take a week of leave stateside once every three months. But no phone or video calls and regular mail takes at least two weeks and a dozen security screenings to get there.”
“How long would my agents be there?” Vance questioned, “Are we talking about a permanent career move or a temporary duty-station?”
“I’d be willing to offer them a fifteen month contract to start,” O’Neill turned his attention to Vance, “after which we could re-evaluate. But we’ve found that ninety percent of the people who sign contracts to work in the City end up staying there a long time. If that happens, we'll terminate your agents' employment with NCIS and they'll come work for me instead. Some of the people in the City, Colonel Sheppard included, have been there since the beginning, going on nine years now. They consider the City their home and they've built full lives there.”
“And if we don’t like it there?” Gibbs wondered, “Or if there are other problems?”
“Then you’ll spend the remainder of your contract at the Cheyenne Mountain complex,” Dave answered easily, “or be released from it completely, depending on the severity of the problem. You’ll be asked to sign another stack of non-disclosure agreements when you leave. We’re not going to force anyone to stay in the program if they don’t want to be there.”
“Unless they get the neuralizer working by then,” O’Neill grinned, “In which case, you won’t remember a thing if you leave.”
“Wait, really?” Tony sat forward in his chair, “Do you really have people working on a neuralizer?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny such information,” O’Neill deadpanned.
“Why a fifteen month contract?” Tim wondered, ignoring Tony's gleeful smile, “Why not just a year?”
“There is a three-month training period,” Dave explained, “Six weeks standard training and an additional six weeks of training because you’re civilians going to the City.”
“How long do we have to decide?” Tony inquired.
“I’ll need your answers by the end of the week,” Dave told him, “So we can either start your training or start looking for alternates. It’s not an all-or-nothing deal for your team. If only some of you want to sign up, that’s fine too.”
“Is it worth it?” Abby asked seriously, getting to the heart of the matter as only she could, “The being cut-off, all the extra work, all the training, all the secrecy. Is what we’d be doing there worth all that?”
“Absolutely,” O’Neill answered sincerely, “Every single minute of it.”
“Gibbs,” Abby turned to him, “You know I love my job, right? Like, really love it. It’s awesome. But I think I want to do this.”
“Me too, Boss,” Tony added quietly.
“I need to talk to Delilah first,” Tim said hesitantly, “But I do too.”
Gibbs looked over the eager faces of his team, then directed his attention to O’Neill, holding the man’s sharp gaze, “Can you guarantee the safety of my team?”
“No, I can’t,” O’Neill spoke honestly, “The City is dangerous. What they do there is dangerous. We had to invent new forms of hazard pay for the type of things they have to deal with every day. It’s in the middle of hostile territory, cut-off from what most people consider civilization, and they're at the center of a large-scale war.”
“But?” Gibbs prompted.
“But the people who work in the City are the best and brightest the entire world has to offer,” O’Neill smiled warmly, “The things they do there, the things they’ve accomplished, are truly amazing. And I don’t use that word lightly, Gibbs. I can’t guarantee that your team will be safe, but I can promise you that they’ll be protected by the best I have to offer.”
“An honest answer,” Gibbs returned the smile.
“I’m pretty sure you just took my best team for the next fifteen months,” Vance scowled at Gibbs and O’Neill, then turned to see Abby bouncing in her chair excitedly, “if not permanently. I’m not sure how I feel about this.”
“I’d say I was sorry,” O’Neill flashed him a grin, “but it’d be a lie.”