Untanglement

[miss_lucy21]

So, I've got a new NCIS:LA case fic slowly percolating in my head (the case itself is pretty harrowing, actually), and there's a bit of West Coast/East Coast collaborating going on (i.e., OSP needs information that's tangentially connected to an old Team Gibbs case, but Team Gibbs isn't working the case with OSP, they're just sharing resources). I'm really nonlinear when I'm in the beginning stages of writing a longer story, so I start with bits and pieces of scenes and conversations that eventually get hooked up together. One that's hanging around in my head right now is between G and Gibbs whereupon G asks Gibbs what he knew about what Hetty knew about G's background (because in my head, Gibbs has known Hetty for a while, probably longer than G has directly known Hetty. I have *no* idea why I think that is true, I just do) and that lead to the bigger question I've got here.

What's Hetty's timeline? We know (or at least we think we know- there's some question in my mind as to how much Hetty's conversation with Alexa was truth and how much was cover) that Hetty was likely born towards the end of World War II or very shortly after (that much I believed). Whether the rest of it was true, well, that's a different story. We're sure that she was with the CIA, probably for most of her career. We've established that she was with the CIA in 1966, because she was Clara's handler at that point. Which makes it very possible that assignment was her first assignment, because she would have only been around 20; that might also explain why she feels so strongly about her failure to protect Clara and her efforts to protect G. There's a lot of exploits attached to her, although what's real and what's mystique is probably impossible to say. So, when does she leave the CIA and join NCIS? She's definitely with OSP prior to 2006, and it sounds like she had been the head of the department prior to Macy, but she stepped down when an agent in her charge was killed (also, Vance seems to have been involved in that to some degree, or at the very least was highly aware of it. Was Vance part of OSP at some point? It would make a hell of a lot of sense...). So, sometime in the early 2000s or late 1990s? She would have been with the CIA at least 40 years as of 1996, provided that she moved directly from the CIA to NCIS (I think this is likely). Maybe the increased domestic security concerns convinced her to jump ship, or maybe NCIS is semi-retirement for her. But yeah, all of a sudden it occurred to me Hetty's timeline would be something that needs untangling.

(As an aside, I absolutely love the scenes with Hetty and Alexa. They are fantastic. They're extremely well written- beautiful symbolism and tension- and well acted.)

Comments

[hagar_972]

Hetty being born in the second half of the 1940s figures. This would make her exceptionally young for the job at the 1966 assignment (apparently she was already recognized as a star), and would indeed help explain the long-term impact and involvement. It also makes Clara the template for Sullivan - Hetty hates losing people she's responsible for.

What we know about Vance's career is that he was a recent college grad and on that Amsterdam op in 1991 and that his last post before Director (2008) was head of the San Diego office. That gives us 27yr of career to play with, and some involvement with OSP in there makes total sense. Sullivan was in, what, 1996? So you can build Vance's OSP period around that.

We have really good reasons to think she was with the CIA through the cold war, so that gives us 1960-1980s, maybe a little into the 1990s. This means that she joined NCIS somewhere in the early 1990s, because by 1996-7 we already get the Sullivan mess.

If she was worried about domestic security, NCIS wouldn't have been her first stop - and any agency should've grabbed her with both hands. Semi-retirement is an option, particularly as the NCIS-verse builds NCIS to be the "cowboys" of federal agencies, and so where she'll have the most relative freedom.

Also, ooh, casefic. (And do you need a beta?)

[miss_lucy21]

Yeah, she would have been *awfully* young, but I don't think she's likely to have been born before 1944 at the earliest. If she was born in 1946, she'd be 66 this year, which sounds about right to me. She *is* pretty exceptional, so I feel reasonably confident in thinking she could have gotten through secondary school by 16.

I hadn't realized the Sullivan affair was that early, but that timing works. If she joins NCIS after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, that works out. And yeah, semi-retirement makes more sense. The relative freedom probably was pretty attractive.

Vance in OSP in the 90s works pretty well. Hmm. He and Gibbs worked together somewhere in there, too, if I remember that episode correctly. And that could tie in with my gut feeling that Gibbs knows Hetty (and that Jenny did too).

Yes, casefic! I haven't done that in a long time. And I will probably need a beta when I get to the point where there's more than random paragraphs in a file :o)

[hagar_972]

IIRC it was stated that the Sullivan affair occured 10yr before S1, hence 1996. (The relevant ep was early in S1.) I could be wrong, but that's easy to check as we know exactly which ep this was mentioned in.

The Amsterdam ep tells us that Gibbs and Vance met about then, and were introduced to each other, but not whether they actually worked together. Personally, I think that parallel spheres with little to no direct contact works better.

Personally, it would make more sense to me that Vance worked primarily intel at first (which means a lot of overseas, with NCIS) but got out of that into HQ-type intel as fast as he could, being familiar with the risks. (Direct risks, such as being killed, and indirect, such as becomgin dispensible to your agency and superiors and being blocked out of the promotion track.) We know he has a degree in cryptography and his "computer mojo" is so reknowned that McGee is pre-familiar and impressed by it, so something in SigInt is totally a possibility and SigInt has been biiiiiiiig since then and is only getting bigger. Vance's skill set would also be useful for counter-intelligence, but they and SigInt trade people a lot. So it's UC -> electronic intel -> command track. We can surmise that he worked UC for at least five years, because he was around for the Sullivan mess in '96.

Gibbs and Jenny worked an overseas UC in - what was it, 1993, I think? And Gibbs worked an overseas UC (with a high likelihood of CIA involvement) in 2000-2001-ish, which was when he met G. However, we have reasons to believe that Gibbs' UCs had more to do with the criminal side of things, ranging into weapons trade, and not going into hardcore intel work. (Which seems to be more what Vance was doing; Gibbs is not cut out for it, anyway.) He could've engaged with Hetty a either of these time frames. If it was 1993 then she was the relatively new head of OSP, if it was 2001 then she was in some other senior role there. (Macy was running the shop in 2001, and it's strongly suggested that she and Gibbs did not interact directly between her investigating him in 1990 and him coming to LA in Legend.)

Also, beta is way more than nitpicking. I'm pretty good for bouncing ideas off of and picking holes in worldbuilding and plotting, as you might've noticed *points to discussion above*. Consider me volunteered for the job - you should be able to see my email on my profile page.

[miss_lucy21]

Ok, so Sullivan would have been roughly 1999, since S1 is 2009. Leon might have moved up by then, but maybe not.

And yeah, Gibbs is not an intelligence analyst. He's definitely the guy you send out to act on the intelligence someone else gathered. Interestingly, I think G could be a little more like Vance- able to do both, but maybe more on the active side of things. This may be part of why G seems to have grown on Vance somewhat from when they met in S1 to the end of S2/beginning of S3. They speak more of the same language. (I think G's still plenty wary of Vance, but he at least trusted him enough to call home in Romania, which is something.)

I shall consider you volunteered and shoot you an email when I get a chance to put something coherent together. Thank you!

[hagar_972]

Ok, so Sullivan would have been roughly 1999, since S1 is 2009.

*facepalm* That's just typical me. I remembered the frame, I remembered where the refs are at, I remembered that '06 is important, and then I messed it up. (See: the mix I made in replying to Sol. I remembered Vance was on campus and close to graduation, and recruitment usually happens at the end of undergrad.)

Vance would've wanted to get out of working UC as quickly as possible. It really is a career-stopper, if you do it for too long. Also, "intelligence" doesn't mean "analyst". Short-short version, everybody at OSP are at least as much intel as law enforcement. (Also, it really doesn't surprise me that Vance is fond of G - when you look at Vance's early life and career, he might see bits of himself in G. And considering the role Eli played for Vance...) But these are all things that, if they're important to the story, we'll cover in the emails.

[sailorsol]

Do we actually know if Vance went to college? I mean, the "real" Leon Vance graduated from the US Naval Academy as a Marine, but Vance isn't the real Leon Vance. He got a master's degree from the Naval War College in Newport, RI (this is where he gets recruited to go on the mission that he wasn't supposed to survive, where he meets Eli David), so even if he doesn't actually have a bachelor's degree, he has a master's.

[hagar_972]

He was recruited for the Amsterdam op on college grounds, at about the time of his graduation.

ETA: and this is why I should not be replying to comments at 00:15. *hides in corner* But the overall structure still holds, even if some things need to be pushed around.

(And he would've needed BA-level knowledge to survive a Master's.)

[sailorsol]

Not strictly true, at the War College. As long as he could keep up with the assignments, it's mostly case studies and history and whatnot. (Not that I listened to Robin complain about it for the year or so it took her to get her master's from the NWC or anything.)

[miss_lucy21]

I tend to think he's got *some* college background for much the same reasoning that I think Sam does- if he grew up in a middle class African American home (which I'm betting he did), then some kind of post-secondary education was probably not considered optional.

[sailorsol]

It was heavily implied in 6x18 "Knockout" that he came from a lower-class family in Chicago; he was friends with the real Leon Vance growing up, who had managed to get out of the crappy neighborhood by getting a Marine Corps scholarship. When the real Leon Vance found out he couldn't go active duty because of a boxing injury, he switched places with the guy we know as Leon Vance (I think his sister might have said his real name at one point, I haven't seen the episode in a while) so that he'd have a chance to get out of the bad neighborhood.

[miss_lucy21]

Wow, I think I missed that episode. That was one of the seasons I didn't have tv the whole time, so I didn't see some of the episodes when they first ran and they're kind of hit or miss sometimes in syndication. I know I've seen the first half of the season (at least up to "Cloak" and "Dagger"), and I know I've seen both parts of "Legend" and "Aliyah", but that must have been one of the ones I missed. Interesting. That wasn't quite the background I'd had in mind, but it also fits. And explains a few things, for sure.

[sailorsol]

That episode is one of the reasons I dislike and distrust Vance so much; he's been lying about things most of his life. And it's very heavily implied that his wife doesn't know the truth (that his real name isn't Leon Vance, that he has a sister). I can understand wanting to get out of a bad situation and make something of yourself, but... I don't know. There's something about it that just sets my teeth on edge, every time I think about it.

[miss_lucy21]

Yeah, Vance has long pinged my "don't trust this one" radar. He's very slippery and he's equally as much of a bastard as Gibbs is, but without some of the redeeming factors that Gibbs can sometimes display.

[hagar_972]

...i'm the only person around here who actually likes Vance, aren't I.

(I'm just thinking of him as a deep-cover agent. Really, it's not that different from the LA people. Yes, he's done it in his private life before any agency got their hands on him, but - if he has a security clearance, then somebody in the system totally knows that about him because seriously, you don't get through intel-grade vetting with that sort of thing coming up [at least around here, but the Shin-Beit are Fucking Scary], and he's cleared through a psych eval with someone who knows that about him. And, unlike - say - Hetty, he doesn't use what people don't know or thing they know about him to manipulate people who are dependent on him.)

(I love Hetty. I also think that some of her treatment of G is shady and that he's disturbingly vulnerable there.)

[miss_lucy21]

There is that. I don't necessarily dislike him. He just makes me nervous.

And yeah, I love Hetty too, but she is definitely G's weak spot and in a way that I don't think he sees. Or wants to see.

[hagar_972]

It's established that G lets Hetty manipulates him. Compare and contrast with Sam - Sam plays him, sometimes, but G seems aware of what's going on while it's going on and it's a sort of a care behavior between them. Whereas with Hetty, it looks more like G making himself not notice. (The episodes with the wall-climbing. That's the ur-example. Gotta hand it to Chris O'Donnell's acting, there.)

It makes psychological sense, but I still find it disturbing. I don't know if i'd call it a weak spot - Sam is definitey a weak spot (threaten Sam, and we know how G gets); Hetty is more like a systemic weakness.