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"Do it again, and I will kill you."
- Michelle Mackey
***
When Mackey steps into work this morning, she's not expecting to be drawn into the world of undercover drug deals. One, because the N in NCIS stands for Navy and not Narcotics, and two, because she just really hates drugs.
People die for them.
People get hooked on them.
Also, if you bust a bag of coke, it gets everywhere like flour and flour is a pain to clean up. There's a reason she stopped making homemade birthday cakes during Trey's middle school years... but Evie goes home sick at 8:30 in the morning.
That's stranger than the dead man on Doc's table.
Dee gets weird soon after, of course, because he and Evie are 'inexplicably tied together.'
"He's been very dodgy, Boss. Got punched in the face by someone, but won't say who it is," Blue tattles.
Mackey ensures they're good with supplies before she grills half her team for questions that inevitably won't get answers, seeing as JD is distracted again. He's half-sentence into yet another rant on Bondi waves, and how the winds- or lack thereof- have been 'ruining the vibe-os,' every time he feels an itch in his body to surf, which is every damn day, at this point.
Hour by hour, the assumption whittles down on Mackey like divine knowledge sent from heaven: she is effectively a mother of five.
And she's about had it.
"That's it- silence! Everybody shut up before I throw something hard and fast at your face," she orders, raising a hand. "Next one who talks out of turn is getting chained to my desk. Got that? Tied to my desk, actually, with duct tape and a mouth gag, and... violence, now you-"
She ignores JD's jesting whistle and points to DeShawn, whose cheek is dark red and purple.
"Dee, you have one minute to tell me who did that to your face and why the Constable's desk looks like a warzone. Where she is? She wouldn't miss lunch sushi ever, even if she had Salmonella and was vomiting out all of her guts."
DeShawn looks at his feet, his hands. As Mackey grunts, he meets her eyes, and says, with slight hesitation, "Evie withheld evidence and punched me in the face and I'm worried she's being blackmailed or forced to do something she doesn't want to do."
Shit.
Mackey's already grabbing her gun.
"Where is she?" she asks. Dee mirrors her, fumbling with his desk key.
"In the city but West of downtown. Some kind of store, but like, for drug runners or chemists or something-"
"Blue?"
"On it!"
"Dee?"
"Yeah, heard. I'll update you on the way."
"Perfect." Mackey goes for the car keys and then her hat. One brisk motion of her hand and JD and Dee are quick to follow, leaving the creaky NCIS HQ door to slam behind them.
She has a special agent to murder.
It's worse than she thought it'd be.
Evie looks about ready to cry. Dee is fixing to jump ship and go with her- twin flames and all that- but JD is strangely quiet. Mackey puts on her best 'Boss' face. With eyes that mean business, she breaks the silence into pieces and crumbles all false pretenses. "Care to explain, Constable?"
"I didn't ask for any of this."
Mackey furrows her brows. She glances at JD. "Okay... and what does 'this' entail, exactly?"
"Kane had a gun to my head," Evie explains. "He forced my hand. Me for Goddard, and if I don't go back out there, he... dies."
A barrel on Evie's temple? A gun to her head?! Mackey is seething.
Oh- Hell, no.
"That man out there is not my responsibility, Evie Cooper," she states plainly, too bitter to hide her disdain. "You are. You are my number one priority."
"Oh, come off it, Boss. I'm an asset-"
"An asset I want coming home in one piece."
"E, come on. You know she's right, let's just... let's go home. We can work this from a different angle," but Evie is Evie: stubborn and unrelenting and infuriating.
"Don't you get it?! I can't!"
Her whisper strains through her teeth, eyes darting from Dee to the aisle and back again.
"I leave, he dies and everything is fucked. I can't fuck it all up. Not-" she catches her breath. She swallows, pushing Dee off her shoulder. "I can't do this, again. You have to go. I'm... I'm sorry-" and she lurches out of reach; bolts like lightning, blending into blues and blacks.
"Evie, wai-"
Dee's hand slaps against metal. There's no one in front of him. All that's left of Evie's presence is a line of clear plastic canisters hugging the walls and the hushed worries of a name- "Cooper!" before the words die out.
Michelle is pissed. Fucking enraged, then a loud, "Jess... where have... yeah, dicking around- hold your hand next time, huh?" pierces her ears and the somberness takes over, determination swiftly replacing the anger.
"Boss, what do we do? Do we get her? Do we stay? I don't... say the word and I'll extract."
Mackey shakes her head. "No."
"No?" Both JD and Dee respond at once.
Mackey repeats herself. "No. She's capable. There's a reason she was undercover drug. So, if she thinks she has an 'in'... can do this mission without blowing what's left of her cover, that's her call. It's our job to make sure she doesn't die."
"And how do we do that?" Dee asks.
Mackey takes a deep breath. She thinks of all the ways this could go wrong. Death, death, blowing up to death, getting shot to death... she replaces those worries with something more applicable: action.
"Easy," she replies. "We don't let her do it alone."
"Next time, Evie Tulip Cooper. If you decide to go undercover, you are doing it alone!" DeShawn doesn't even hide his relief when Evie nudges him with her head, awkward side hug somewhat accomplished, and when she protests mutedly- "my middle name isn't Tulip. It's not... would never be f'ckin Tulip"- Mackey's lips break with a chuckle.
Her nose is bloody. Her fingers are sweaty. The lab is blown to shit, and El Maestro is sitting in a cop car, waiting to be escorted to Headquarters.
JD groans, "now look at what you've done. She's laughing."
"Did someone give her pain meds? That's the first time I've heard her laugh and it's, well..." Evie shoots Mackey a sheepish smile, her sneakers kicking dirt and rubble.
Mackey's hand goes to her nose.
It's probably broken. Doesn't hurt as much as she thought it would, though. She's grown out of the pain, it seems; something she hadn't really noticed until now... kind of like the lone wolf act. A party of one, then two, and then six.
Her knees bump together, night and day difference compared to the heat of the fire, and when she looks up, Evie is still quiet before her, smiling mournfully. She stiffens every once in a while. Even under DeShawn's arm, she glances down the street, where a raggedy silhouette has long since faded into the foreground. It's a softer, hastier sadness- longing and hatred all mixed into regret- and Mackey knows she'll never truly get over it.
Traumatic backstories are a staple of womanhood, at this point. Teenage pregnancies, age differences, grooming...
It sucks ass.
And of course, like everything else, they'll have to talk about the lying thing. Shitty older men aside, Mackey isn't letting Evie off the hook. The second the harbor is in sight and the others are occupied with pointless bickering, they're going to have a nice long discussion about what it means to be an NCIS agent. Where Evie will no doubt hand Mackey her badge, expecting to be fired, and Mackey will get to say 'yeah, no. Absolutely not. You're stuck with us forever," but for now, the semantics don't matter.
Right now, her team is alive.
The main bad guy is dead.
Kane is gone, courtesy of a cold glare and harsh words, "expect a meeting with you and your superior officer. You pull shit like this again, and I will make your life a living hell," and the only injury on deck is Mackey's nose, which is definitely broken. A voice hovers in, "... isn't paying attention. Think it's gone to her head?... Macka... hey, Macka-"
JD's hazy face takes up space in the sunlight. Mackey squints. She asks, "hmmm?" unsure if the question is aimed at her or someone else. There are lights everywhere, flickering like Christmas.
Hot cocoa would be nice... cold cocoa maybe. A mocha? Iced mocha... ice?
"There she is," JD replies, and his eyes are soft. Like there's something there that Mackey isn't able to decipher. "Ambo is here. Wanna get you looked over before we debrief, yeah? Make sure that head of yours isn't a lost cause."
Mackey sobers up quick. "Touch me and die."
"Uh, yeah. Forgot to mention, Boss don't do ambulances," Dee calls out. "Good way to lose your hand," and JD's arm quickly withdraws.
"Seriously?" he asks. Mackey nods.
"Dead."
"There's history in that statement, isn't there? Something badass and cool... secret agent military stuff that folks like us aren't privy to."
He wags a finger between Evie and himself with a slight grin on his lips. He's hiding his worry under a guise of humor- he and Evie are both good at that. An Aussie thing, maybe?- but it's been a long day. Way too long and way too tiring, so Mackey eases his worries.
"Nah. I'm just the GOAT, you know?"
"Psh, yeah right-"
"I'm serious."
She lets him help her off the curb. Once they're neck and neck, brushing elbows, she nudges JD in the shoulder, gives DeShawn a wink- you good? Yeah, you? As good as I can be- and chuckles once more.
"GOATs like me... well," she smiles. "We're just built different."