The holiday episode of "NCIS" season 14 featured a heartrending outcome for Ducky.

Titled "The Tie that Binds," episode 10 offered a look at Ducky's family's past.

NCIS learned that Green was being investigated for selling classified information overseas. Surprisingly, he had with him the address of the home where Ducky used to reside with his mother, Victoria. Quinn told the other team members it might have been a coincidence, but Gibbs and McGee thought otherwise.

Ducky did not recognize Green, but the information that he had spent time in Majorca sent him into a flashback. In the flashback, the Young Ducky brought a date into his mother's house. Unfortunately, Victoria was there, who had arrived early from Majorca. When Ducky and his date arrived, she was lying on the couch, naked under a blanket. Worse was, there was a naked man in the wardrobe. His name was Balthazar.

In the present, Vance stopped Torres and Reeves' arm wrestling match so they could help him ponder what Green's secret Crimean bank account had to do with Victoria.

McGee and Quinn were dispatched to investigate further after learning from Abby that Green had visited Ducky's former house. McGee recognized that the house had a fancy doorbell camera which could send video to the cloud and back in the lab. They also found a footage showing Green pulling up a car few days ago.

Meanwhile in her lab, Abby told Gibbs that Green's rideshare request was intercepted by a third party, which she said might be the killer. Abby said that after leaving their former residence, Green called up a certain Balthazar Kilmeany. Ducky overheard this and told them that Balthazar was the name of his mom's ex-fiance. This led to another flashback, showing Ducky threatening Balthazar. It turned out that Balthazar was just an alias, since he was a con man who bilked women out of their money. However, it was true that he fell in love with Victoria.

Back to the present, the team tracked down the man who drove Green to Ducky and his mom's old residence. They learned that he was a private investigator hired to look into Balthazar. In the house, they found a hard drive that proved that Green was only set up to take the fall for selling secrets, including the secret bank account, which was opened by someone named Balthazar Kilmeany. It turned out that the name was used by con men as their alias for decades.

While that was a real shocker, what stuck with Ducky more was that Victoria had placed the ad looking for Balthazar, particularly since she had Alzheimer's towards the end of her life.

Inside the lab, Ducky was worried that he took away his mother's only chance at true love. He thought he had caused her to end up alone for the rest of her life.

The final flashback in the episode saw Victoria melt down after being abandoned by Balthazar. The guilty young Ducky asked his mom to move to America and live with him, but she resisted at first. In the end, she moved with him.

Another piece of Victoria's past dawned on Ducky when he learned from Mr. Rin that he and Victoria had been lovers beginning in the 90's. The gardener told Gibbs that he was the one who took out the classified ad looking for Balthazar. He also confessed that upon learning that the NCIS would visit, he ran away because they made mention of Balthazar's name and it made him nervous.

Mr. Rin's mention of the theater helped the team crack the case. They arrested Green's son-in-law, Logan, for framing Green and stealing secrets. The case was finally closed.

Meanwhile, Ducky spent the following day poring over Victoria's diary. He was thrilled to know that Mr. Rin and his mom indeed fell in love with each other.

Mr. Rin entered the morgue and asked Ducky to call him Takumi. The rest of the team then gathered with gifts and good to celebrate the holidays.