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I Will Rescue You

Title and story inspired the song “Rescue” by Lauren Daigle.

Summary: The team solves a case, and Aurora learns to open up.

Warnings: Mentions of kidnapping, gun and knife usage, and attempted suicide (from the perpetrator, not heavily detailed.)

Word Count: 3.4k

A/N: I just want to thank everyone for all the new support recently, it means the world to me that people are reading my story!

I’m so excited for the next upcoming chapters! We will get Bradley soon I promise! The next chapter though, is going to shift the story to what I’ve been waiting for! And probably what everyone else has been waiting for! 🫣Please listen to the song if you can! I love having songs for each chapter. This one definitely has a double meaning, where not only do they rescue someone, but Aurora gets rescued by her found family. 💛

Shoutout to my beta reader, and editor @reginleight!

On that note! Please enjoy the chapter. As always, comments, reblogs, and feedback are appreciated! 🤭

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“Okay, what do you have for me?” Gibbs asks.

It was the next day and Aurora had come back to the office, with a clearer mindset, and the determination to crack this case..

Tony, Ziva, McGee, and Aurora were researching anything and everything they could on the petty officer and who would have motive to kill him.

“Girlfriend checks out. She was at a job conference with coworkers able to back up her story,” McGee was the first to reply.

“Same with Lieutenant Seresin,” Aurora follows up. “We were able to eliminate him as a suspect due to the DNA Abby had found under the victim’s fingernails when he was defending himself, as well as on a metal pipe aka the murder weapon. And he was seen by a few officers on board that he was passed out in his bunk.”

“Anyone else, or are you just telling me that we have run out of suspects?” Gibbs sighs, his frustration beginning to show.

“I think I found something,” Tony reports, quickly setting down his phone.

“An ex-girlfriend of the petty officer. Her name is-”

“Emma Reynolds. Made several calls to our petty officer, including the night that he was killed,” Ziva interrupts Tony.

“Made several voicemails threatening him too,” Tony interjects after Ziva interrupted him.

“Why didn’t we find that in our initial search?” Gibbs asks.

“They were erased. We just got the cell phone restored due to the information Abby got.” Ziva shrugs.

“What does she say in the voicemail?” McGee asks.

“Listen for yourself,” Dinozzo replies, putting the voicemail on speaker for the group to listen..

“You will regret ever dumping me. You get to go off and date a new girl while getting the satisfaction of being in a happy relationship? No way! You’re going to pay for what you did. Including whoever told you about me cheating on you!”

“So we have a motive and evidence!” Aurora exclaims.

“Is that enough for a warrant?” McGee quirks a brow in question.

All of a sudden, a phone rings out causing everyone to look toward the source. Aurora.

“Sorry, oh wait, hold on,” Aurora tells them, confused at seeing the caller ID. “It’s Jake.”

“Jake?” Gibbs asks.

“Lieutenant Seresin,” Aurora explains before answering the phone. “Agent Benjamin.”

“Why did you kidnap me?” Jake questions, his voice sounding a bit far away.

“Because you are the only person who knows my identity, and now you’re going to take the blame for Derek’s death!” a female voice yells out.

“NCIS is going to find you, and when they do they’re going to put you in jail” Jake retorts, his voice raising almost matching the woman’s.

“Jake’s been kidnapped by the killer, sounds female,” Aurora examines the call, as she places her phone on speaker. From what she can gather, Jake must have dialed her number so they could find him.

“Fits the ex-girlfriend's motive,” Tony affirms.

“McGee-”

“On it boss,” McGee says, interrupting Gibbs as he starts tracing the phone. While he does that, the team starts gearing up so they could leave as soon as they had the location. Aurora sets the phone down and mutes her side of the call. She makes sure to grab her knife, gun, and badge.

“Alright, got it. Looks like an abandoned house 15 minutes from here.”

“Let’s go!” Gibbs shouts as the team runs out, hoping to save Jake on time and capture the killer.

—

“David, secure the perimeter. Artemis, you and I will go in from the front. Dinozzo, McGee, side entrance and back got it?”

“Got it boss.” They all reply.

Everyone moved into position, as Aurora adjusted her vest, making sure her gun was loaded. On Gibb’s signal, she kicks down the door to the abandoned house.

“Freeze! NCIS!” she yells out, aiming her gun inside the house.

Jake Seresin was tied up to a chair, eyes a bit glazed over, while a woman holding a gun to his head stood behind him. Remembering the picture and profile she’d seen, Aurora instantly recognized her as the ex-girlfriend, Emma Reynolds.

Aurora’s eyes flashed from when she was tied up and tortured, before the memory could overtake her, she shook it off and fought against it. She had to get Jake safely out of here, she needed to do her job.

Noting Emma’s facial expression, it appeared she did not expect the NCIS team to find her so soon.

“You come any closer, and Lieutenant Seresin here gets a bullet in his brain!” the woman threatens.

“Emma, you don’t want to do that!” Gibbs shouts at her.

“Emma, just put the gun down-” Aurora yells before she is interrupted by Emma.

“NO! I will not go to jail for something that was justified! Derek deserved to die! He got what was coming to him!”

“Emma, calm down. Here I’ll put my gun away, just put yours down too.” Aurora slowly began to holster her gun. Gibbs, standing next to Aurora, kept his gun trained on the woman in case she decides to change her target.

Seeing as she wasn’t going to make a move in doing so just yet, Gibbs spoke up. “Just let Lieutenant Seresin go. He’s an innocent bystander-”

“No, he isn’t! If it wasn’t for him, Derek wouldn’t have broken up with me!”

“You cheated on him with another officer on the ship! He thought it was me! I had to tell him!” Jake yells out to defend himself.

“And y-you were going to take the b-blame for his death,” Emma stamers.

“Emma, it’s over. Put down the gun!” Aurora shouts at the woman. There was a bang, and soon Ziva, McGee, and Tony surrounds her, guns in hand.

Emma grew frustrated. “I’m not going to jail!”

“There is no other way, Emma!” Aurora tells her.

Slowly, Emma removes the gun from Jake’s head.

Aurora sighs in relief until seeing Emma then turn the gun to her own head. Just as she’s about to pull the trigger, Aurora acts quickly, whipping out her knife and expertly throwing it at the gun, knocking it clean from Emma’s hand.

Left defenseless and with no more cards up her sleeve, Ziva takes her down just as Tony retrieves the knocked gun. Gibbs and Aurora let out a breath that they were holding before Aurora helps McGee untie Jake from the chair. She grabs her knife that was left impaled into the wall before kneeling down beside Jake, scanning over his body for any injuries. A small scratch on his cheek, and a small bump on his head, but other than that he seemed unharmed.

“You came,” Jake smiles at Aurora.

“You called,” she replied, smirking at him. She uses her knife to help cut away any remaining rope. McGee then unties the last of the rope leaving Jake no longer bound to the chair. He stands up and sways a little. Aurora quickly puts her knife in her holster and stands to support him before he could fall.

“Ok Hangman, time to get you checked by the paramedics,” she chuckles at Jake’s actions, leading him outside to where local LEOs and paramedics were on the scene.

Gibbs was talking to a local LEO while Aurora helped Jake sit at the back of the ambulance, with Tony, Ziva, and McGee trailing behind them.

“Thank you. All of you,” Jake says, giving all of them a sincere look of gratitude.

“It’s our job, we’re just glad you’re alright,” Ziva says, speaking for the team. Her eyes just so happen to wander to Aurora, suspecting there might be something going on between the two in front of her.

“I’m really glad you’re okay, Jake,” Aurora smiles.

The paramedics soon come up saying that they will need to bring the lieutenant to the hospital for a check up. Before they could leave, Aurora stopped Jake, giving him a concerned look. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“Nah,” shaking his head, Jake gave her a confident grin. “I’ll just get a quick check up and head to NCIS for a statement. I’ll meet you back at the Navy yard, Mitchell?”

She smiles at hearing her last name.

“See ya in a bit then, Hangman.” Jake waves to all of them as he’s loaded into the back of the ambulance, soon disappearing from sight as they leave. Aurora turns around and sees her team looking at her, confused.

“Mitchell?” Ziva asks, confused.

Aurora sighs. “I’ll explain when we get back to the Navy yard.”

—

“So, wait. Your last name is actually Mitchell?” McGee asks incredulously, trying to wrap his head around the new information. In fact, the whole team was trying to wrap their heads around this one.

Aurora sat down at her desk in the bullpen, while Tony, Ziva, Abby, McGee, and Palmer stood around her.

“Yep,” Aurora confirms as she puts her hand under her chin, trying to gauge her team’s response and facial expressions.

Tony and McGee looked at each other, before they ran to their desks to pull up information. Aurora and Ziva look at each other and roll their eyes as Abby and Palmer chuckle at their antics. McGee then says he found something and puts it up on the bullpen TV screen. On it, showed her dad’s profile.

“Woah, he’s hot.” Abby acknowledges looking at her dad’s official Navy photo.

“Abby!” Aurora laughs at her outburst. Ziva nods approvingly at Abby’s comment, agreeing with her.

“Wait, I have another one too,” Tony says, as he puts another profile up on the screen right next to her dad’s. It was her brother’s.

“Oh, he’s cute too! How are you related to good looking men, Rory?” Abby asks as Aurora chuckles at her antics, choosing not to answer the rhetorical question.

“Your dad is Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell?!” Tony said, not believing it.

Aurora laughs and nods. “And that’s my brother. You both work fast.”

“Wait? What’s a Maverick?” Ziva asks, confused.

“Not a what, a who. Maverick is his call sign. States here Captain Mitchell is a highly decorated captain, a naval aviator graduated from Top Gun in ‘86,” McGee summarized from the profile he found “Has medals and awards, and currently is the pilot in a secret Mach 10 project, called the Darkstar.”

“Callsign?” Ziva’s brows furrow. “What’s a callsign?”

“A nickname each naval aviator has rather than using their actual name,” Aurora explains.

“And then there’s Chief Petty Officer Peyton Benjamin-Mitchell. He’s a naval aviation mechanic, graduated from the Naval Academy, currently deployed on the USS Franklin, with a stop in Japan,” Tony reads from the profile.

“Well that explains the postcard,” Ziva acknowledges.

“Actually half,” Aurora smirks at Ziva and Abby knowing they’ll be wondering what she meant by that.

“Your dad is a legend!” McGee exclaims. “I’ve heard of the Mitchell name from my dad so many times.”

“The Mitchell Legacy,” Aurora sarcastically mumbles.

“Why didn’t you tell us this before? Why are you telling us now?” Ziva asks.

Aurora takes a deep breath and lets it out.

“I didn’t want you all to treat me differently,” Aurora shrugs. “Take you, for example, Ziva. Everyone connects you to your dad who’s the head director of Mossad. They assume things about you and you’ve had to prove them wrong, as well as step up to your position. I just wanted a clean slate, a way to make my own name and not be connected to the Mitchell name,” she explains.

“But why tell us now?” Abby reiterates Ziva’s last question, standing next to the woman.

Aurora looks at all of them and smiles. “Because it was time to come clean to you all. You are also my family, you have been there for me, and I figured it was time to trust you all to know the rest of me.”

Abby finally bursts, throwing her arms around her friend in a big hug, Ziva joining in as well.

“Wait, then how does Lieutenant Seresin know about your last name?” McGee asks.

“Because I know her brother and her boyfriend,” a voice interrupts and they all turn towards it. Jake Seresin stood there, back from the hospital, smirking at them.

“Wait, boyfriend?!” The team yells out, as Aurora rolls her eyes at Jake.

“Best friend.” Aurora corrects, looking at him. “Glad to see you’re doing better.”

“Well, I guess I have you to thank for that,” he confesses.

“McGee, you should probably bring Lieutenant Seresin to the conference room for his statement? Gibbs is probably waiting for him there,” Tony tells McGee, his tone commandeering. McGee rolled his eyes, but didn’t argue.

“Sure, right this way Lieutenant,” McGee says, leading Jake to the stairs up the conference room.

They all watch Jake and McGee disappear going up the stairs before then turning back to Aurora.

“Ok, talk to us about this best friend/boyfriend of yours!” Abby exclaims, excitedly.

“And your brother!” Ziva insists.

Aurora groans but then proceeds to tell them all about Bradley and Peyton.

—

“So, you’re heading out?” Aurora asks Jake. He had just come back down after having to give his statement on the case and went straight to joining Aurora at her desk.

“Yep, the USS Seahawk is bound for departure in a few hours,” Jake replies, as he takes a look at the picture she had pinned on a corkboard behind her.

After she came clean to her team, she started putting pictures of her family that she had hid away in her desk drawer, including the postcard from Bradley and Peyron.

“Wow, what a way to spend time off the ship. Kidnapped, spending most of the time in the Navy Yard,” Aurora sarcastically replies to him.

“I still can’t believe she hid in your car that you were borrowing, hit you on the head, drove the car with you in it, and then dragged you into that abandoned house And you STILL didn’t wake up until she tightened the rope,” Aurora looks at Jake in disbelief.

“Hey, she had a strong arm, and upper body strength!” Jake remarks, tearing his gaze away from the corkboard.

“It’s a good thing she was so focused on kidnapping you, she forgot to take your phone away.”

“I’m just glad your number was the one I pressed, and not like your brother’s,” Jake cringes at the thought.

Aurora nods, because Peyton wouldn’t answer since he’s at sea.

Deep down, she was sad he was leaving. She had really bonded with Jake, and he was one of the reasons why she started opening up to her team.

“At least I finally got to meet THE Artemis. Everyone is going to be so jealous,” Jake teases.

Aurora laughs and smiles at him. “Be safe? I know how you flyboys get when you’re in those fighter jets,” she sassily remarks at him.

“Always am safe,” he winks at her.

She shakes her head. “And, please don’t give Bradley a hard time when you see him. I know you two butt heads a lot of times,” she advises.

“Well, he starts it,” he protests, making her chuckle at his remark.

“And you and Peyton? I won’t say anything.” She winks.

Jake rolls his eyes, looking away. “Nothing is even there.”

“Yet.”

“You be safe too Mitchell,” changing the subject, Jake returns his gaze to her. “Still can’t believe you brought a knife to a gunfight.”

“Hey, that knife saved your life!” They both chuckle. Jake turns to the rest of the team to give them a goodbye and thanks as well. Aurora stands up after he says his last goodbye to Tony, who also weirdly he had bonded with as well.

“Let me walk you to the elevators,” Aurora volunteers. Without any protest from him, they walk to the elevator as Jake hits the button to go down.

“Call me sometime,” Jake tells her as they stand waiting for the elevator.

She chuckles and shakes her head. “Here we go again with the flirting.”

“Hey, what are friends for?” Jake jokes. Once the elevator doors open and Jake’s inside, he gives Aurora one final wave goodbye.

“See you next time, Artemis.”

“See ya around, Hangman.”

—

“You heading home yet Arty-choke?” Dinozzo asks Aurora, as the team starts packing up for the day.

“That was the worst nickname you’ve ever made up, DiNaggy,” Aurora retorts looking up from what she was writing.

“Hey, I give my best with what’s been given! And DiNaggy isn’t your best either.”

“It is, you nag me a lot. But I am still partial to DiNutsos.”

Tony sticks his tongue out at her in retaliation.

“I still can’t believe your brother’s nickname is Apollo, when we gave you Artemis. What are the odds of that happening?” McGee ponders.

“I still can’t believe you came from a Naval aviation legacy, and still went into a career Navy adjacent,” Tony marvels at Aurora’s background.

“And I still can’t believe you all are still here,” Gibbs snaps as he looks up from his paperwork that he was finishing. “Do you need me to assign more work?”

“Nope!” “No thanks!” Tony and McGee reply, grabbing their bags and saying their goodbyes to everyone before heading out for the elevators..

Shaking her head, Aurora went back to writing, noticing out of the corner of her eye when Ziva approached her desk.

“Hey, wanna go to the bar with Abby and I? I’ll buy the first round,” Ziva offers, trying to convince her friend to go out with them.

“Yeah, can I actually meet you both there? I’m just going to finish up something and make a quick phone call real quick. I can’t stay out too long though. I want to get home to my puppy,” Aurora replies.

Ziva chuckles. “Yeah, sounds good. See you in a bit!” She walks out, headed to the elevators as Aurora goes back to her writing.

A few minutes pass by as she folds the paper, and puts it in an envelope. As she’s about to write on the envelope, she sees Gibbs turn off his desk light, a signal that he’s heading home.

Gibbs stands and turns to Aurora. “You doing alright, kiddo? You did good today.”

She smiles at Gibbs. “I’m doing a lot better, Gibbs. Thank you for today, last night, and for all the days that I’ve been on this team,” she tells him.

Gibbs chuckles, and kisses the top of her head, a fatherly gesture. “We’re always here for you, Artemis. Go home soon, alright?”

“Yes’sir,” Aurora says, giving a mock salute as Gibbs shakes his head before heading out.

Sighing, she puts a hand to her head. No panic attacks today, for that Aurora was grateful. She knew she was going to have to take it a few days at a time. She was going to schedule a therapist that was recommended to her by McGee and she was going to be alright.

Coming out of her thoughts, Aurora went back to the envelope, putting the name and address on it before slipping it into her bag. She was going to mail it out in the morning. Peyton and Bradley would get it hopefully at a speedy pace. She then turns her chair and sees her corkboard, not as bare anymore.

Pictures of her family, Bradley, Goose, Carole, Ice and Sarah were now displayed proudly. She takes a photo into her hands, holding it as if it would help the memory come back to life. The last picture she had of the trio, taken by her Uncle Goose at the graduation party. Aurora in the middle laughing while Peyton made a funny face and Bradley smiling down at Aurora. The one time she can remember being happy.

She smiles as she puts the photo next to a photo of the NCIS team during one Thanksgiving she had spent with them when she wasn’t able to go home to San Diego that year. She leans back into her chair, biting the inside of her cheek.

Aurora was nervous for this phone call, but she knew it was something she needed to do sooner rather than later. She grabs her phone off her desk and clicks on the number that she had called a few times. Putting the phone to her ear, she waits and listens to the phone ring until she hears the person answer on the other end.

“Hello?”

Aurora’s eyes started to water at hearing his voice, a voice she had missed and wished she had called more often. She took a deep breath, nervous to come clean to him about everything, her panic attacks, her PTSD. Aurora was scared of his reaction because she knew all he wanted was to protect her. But she was ready to tell him, no more hiding.

“Hi dad.”

---

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Disclaimer: This story is fictitious. All works are written by me and only posted here. Please do not copy, repost, or plagiarize on any other platform without my permission!

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