AN: Different sailors, as well as different websites, will give you different definitions of what to call a boat, and how she's rigged. Quite happy to discuss how I see 'Stephanie' with people who know more than I do, but I'm using the terms I was taught in my youth when I was just a pair of hands crewing for people who knew what they were talking about, and all I had to say was 'aye aye, skip!'

I tried to research how long it would take to sail from Occoquan to Norfolk, but although I could figure the speed, I couldn't work out the sailing distance. Sorry!

Hap Says Hello

by scousemuz1k

Only Abe was there to see him off; he was the only one he'd told the where and when, and hadn't been sure he'd come anyway. But here they stood, on the aft deck of the Stephanie, after he'd given the old doctor a tour of the boat, clinking glasses (brought by Abe) of champagne (also brought by Abe.) Champagne, for freaks sake...

"Come on, Gibbs, you have to have a ceremony. You have to let me say 'bon voyage', my friend."

That wasn't what DiNozzo had said the other night... 'Fair winds and following seas'... stoppit.

"What sort of thing d'you put in the log?" Abe asked suddenly. Gibbs had shown him the new book in the wheelhouse, its only entry so far the date and place where the Stephanie had taken to the water for the first time.

"Oh, latitude, longitude, date and duration of trip, sighting of other vessels, anything unusual... it's just a record."

"Hmm. You should keep a journal." He reached for the canvas bag he'd brought the champagne in, and pulled out a deep red leather-bound book, about the size of a desk diary. He handed it to Gibbs, who looked at it as if it would open up of its own accord and snap at his hand.

"A journal? Me? No way, Doc! Have enough trouble talking, let alone writing."

"Take it anyway. It's actually easier to write than talk. You might change your mind." Gibbs didn't want to be an oaf, so he took it. Abe wasn't done. "Had a feeling you'd say that, so..." He pulled something else out of the bag. It was a ziplock containing pens, some of them clearly filched from the clinic and the golf club, and about a dozen postcards of the Potomac, Rappahannock, DC, and Chesapeake Bay. "Your starter kit, Gibbs," he said cheerfully, but with an underlying hint of steel that the Marine didn't miss. "Even you can manage postcards. Do it."

Gibbs understood. He wanted to get away from everything and everybody. But if he let them get away from him, before he understood why he shouldn't... damn it, Abe knew him better than he did himself.

He felt strange... the last time he'd felt like this was the last time he deployed; he'd been leaving behind everything he cared about in the world then. What was he leaving now? Half of him wanted to be out there on the open water; beginning whatever this was that he was... beginning; the other half felt an odd reluctance, and it wasn't Abe he was thinking about.

The Mustang had swept neatly, backwards, up to the kerb, and DiNozzo had got out carefully, using only his right arm to push himself upright.

"Gibbs..."

"DiNozzo... was workin' in the basement – didn't hear ya. Er... door wasn't locked to keep you out."

The younger man had nodded a grave acceptance of the truth of that, and not forced him into some half-lie by asking why the door was locked; Gibbs wondered if he simply didn't care, or wasn't nosy, (although he had a feeling that one wasn't right,) didn't want to embarrass him, or did he already know the reason? Not knowing the answers put the usual frown on his face, and he saw DiNozzo hesitate, his face clouded. His body language was suggesting rapid retreat. Gibbs pulled his horns in, the Shannon angel loud in his left ear – hadn't he been wanting to talk to the guy not five minutes ago?

He'd invited him in, gruffly, at a loss; DiNozzo had followed him into the house, still hesitating.

"Ya want coffee?"

"Sure... can I dilute it with some hot water? Nobody in the agency can take it as strong as you."

Gibbs, never a gracious host, had shrugged. The agency was the last thing on his mind now. When the coffee was done, they'd sat at the kitchen table.

"So..." he'd met the younger man's eyes, inviting DiNozzo to realize that if he wanted to talk he was going to have to do the work. Unfair. Again. Never mind...

"Kay... couple of things. I'll look after McGee. And Abby, even if she never speaks to me again. And Ducky. Ziva... well, Ziva's moving on," maybe some regret there, Gibbs thought, " but I'll look after her where I can. And I meant what I said – I always had your six, and I always will. You'll believe it one day."

Now it was Gibbs' turn for a solemn nod. If he couldn't appreciate the why, he could at least acknowledge the sincerity.

"And the other thing?"

The guy was painfully tense. "You... you were my boss for five years. You'll be gone soon, and neither of us has a clue when we'll meet again. Got to give things a chance... Just couldn't let you go off without saying something... anything... I don't know. I should go."

"Nah. Wait up..." He'd wished he could talk to him and here he was... hadn't given a thought to what about, or how... "Did Ducky tell you he sent me to talk to a crim-psych?"

For the first time, the ghost of a smile. "No kidding? He just said a friend."

"Hmph. Him and this friend had been talking... guy says you mean somethin' to me. Ya wanna explain what he means?"

"I'd sooner let you remember in your own time, Gibbs..." An incredulous, horrified pause. "Wait, wait, wait – you're not asking – am I into you? I don't swing that way, Gibbs, come on, you must know, neither do you – is that what's bugging you?"

"No!" Had he been thinking that? Was that what had triggered this boiling resentment? Was that what Abe had been getting at? Nah... "No... no. Five years I can't remember, that's bugging me..."

"You getting a head-ache? You want me to find you some Advil?" DiNozzo paused, and Gibbs shook his head. "There are other relationships – not sure I want to try to define ours – you may want to re-define it when you remember..." The kid paused again; dammit, why did he look so lost? What was he saying? "Might not ever have been what you wanted, and I just dumped it on you. I respected you... always wanted your approval... Gibbs, this was such a bad idea. I'm making things worse. I should just go."

He'd stood up, all gangly and long legged. Gibbs had found himself glancing at the basement door.

"Want a drink before you go? One for the road?" He moved towards the door, but DiNozzo shook his head.

"That's your sanctum. Don't invite me down there until you know exactly who it is you're inviting, and then if you still want to share a drink with me, I'll come." He paused. "All you need to remember right now is I'm here for you. If you need me. Nothing will change that. Fair winds and following seas, Gibbs."

He'd stepped forwards as if he intended to maybe shake the older man's hand, or hug him, and Gibbs couldn't keep himself from stiffening in alarm. DiNozzo had stopped, nodded sharply, and left without a fuss, while Gibbs tried to figure out how to kick his own ass. The kid's tryin' – way to go, Jethro. For the first time since he'd woken from the coma, he felt guilty for hurting the guy. And hell, without the hug or handshake he hadn't wanted anyway, he'd felt abandoned.

He chugged the last of the champagne, as Abe waited patiently, observing that an important train of thought was happening, and not wanting to interrupt. Realising it, Gibbs brought his musings sharply to an end, and stored them away to chew on later.

"OK," he said finally. "Postcards it is. Thanks, Doc."

Abe looked at him. "Go on, then," he said. "Let me see how this bird flies." He shook hands with the Marine, and stepped carefully up from the deck to the jetty. "Gotta get this hip fixed," he grunted. "God speed." Stooping carefully, he unhitched the mooring rope and dropped it down to Gibbs, then stepped back with an air of finality.

With the single headsail already raised, the little sloop was in motion at once, heading down past the end of the short wooden pier. There was a good reason many people chose Occoquan, or even further down-river to begin their journeys; upstream the winds were crossways and erratic, and even here Gibbs had to tack before he found enough good air to raise the mainsail, and run the whole, elegant Bermuda rig. Abe watched for a while; he'd done all he could. He limped back to his Audi and drove slowly away.

Less than half a mile distant, on higher ground, a Mustang was parked among heady-smelling pine trees. Its driver sat on a wing, binoculars in his hand. He'd known when Gibbs had left his house that morning; his computer set to alert him the moment the tracker on the Marine's truck started to move. He knew where Gibbs was going; it had taken McGee about three minutes to find where the Stephanie was berthed, and maybe another ten to get her GPS code. Tim had offered to come with him, but hadn't been offended when his old friend, nemesis, and new boss had said he needed to go alone.

"Unless you want to come? For yourself, I mean."

"No... I was offering for you. Get gone." He'd disconnected.

Tony watched the dark brown boat with its new sails gleaming white, moving out into the bay in the hazy, early morning light, to head south down the river. Through the powerful glasses, he could see Gibbs raising the sail, then he disappeared into the wheelhouse. Tony waited, but he didn't come out again. Stephanie headed down towards Quantico, until only her sails made a bright dot of silver, against the chiaroscuro of cloud shadow, mist and sunlight on the water.

'There should be a sound-track,' he thought. Mendelssohn, Fingal's Cave... Khachaturian, the Spartacus Adagio... they'd used it in that imported Brit thing about sailing ships that he'd loved watching as a boy. Vangelis, The Conquest of Paradise... yes, that was the one for this scene, broad and emotional... he wasn't going to hum it... hell, if he'd wanted to he couldn't; the lump in his throat was ridiculously huge. What was he doing here?

He carded his fingers through his hair. Trust Gibbs, damn him... he'd recognised there was love in what Tony felt for him; didn't want it... was that why he put the wrong slant on it? He couldn't have telegraphed 'Keep away' more clearly if he'd used semaphore. He sighed; his crappy childhood wasn't Gibbs' fault; nor was his foolish tendency to push the surrogate father thing onto him. Although... it had worked well enough, in its very downbeat way, hadn't it? For a while. Nothing lasts. The odds were that since Gibbs had ended up hating the sight of him, if he ever remembered how things had been, he wouldn't want to go back.

The tiny patch of silver winked out as the sun disappeared behind a cloud, and when it emerged again, it was impossible to spot the boat any more in the haze.

He shrugged his shoulders hard, to try and dislodge some of the bitter pain weighing them down. A wry smile spread over his face; Gibbs might want to be alone, but he must surely know Tim could read a GPS signal. And if he disabled it, he still didn't know about the tiny chip Tim had given Ducky, Ducky had given Abe, and Abe had carefully hidden under the binding of that journal. Tony laughed sadly. Nothing was going to stop him being a good surrogate son. Nothing. He got back into his car and put it into reverse. Back to DC – he had a new team to build and take care of.

Gibbs saw a flash as he happened to glance towards the land, and he frowned in irritation. Rubberneckers – they should get out and sail something themselves instead of watching the people who did. Huh... maybe they were bird-watching, or looking for dolphins; whatever, they weren't going to watch him. He went into the wheelhouse and stayed there.

After a few minutes he opened the drawer where he kept the log, glad that Abe wasn't there to see how he'd put both the journal and the cache of postcards underneath it, out of sight, out of mind. And yet... When he'd entered the time he'd set sail into the log, he hesitated, inexplicably, before lifting the red book out instead of covering it again with the more mundane brown one. Slowly, he set it down on the small chart table, opened it, and stood staring at the crisp whiteness of the page, his mind unwillingly dragging him back to his conversation with DiNozzo. He took a pen from the wallet, and wrote the date, then: you may want to redefine it when you remember – might not ever have been what you wanted and I just dumped it on you.

He looked at what he'd written for a long time; out here on the water the accompanying headache didn't seem to appear, but not a glimmer of any sort of enlightenment did either. Well, the Stephanie was heading down-river at a good rate of knots; he'd sit here and watch the world go by and think nothing. In a while he'd set the self-steering gear for a short time, (it ate electricity and he hadn't had it put in for his benefit anyway, it was what most buyers demanded these days. Not that it wasn't useful...) and fix something to eat. By evening he'd reach Norfolk, where he'd already booked an overnight berth at the Naval Sailing Center. From there it was a short walk to the Joint Forces Staff College where Abby was teaching her course. He'd sleep, probably like a log, with lungs full of sea air, and in the morning he'd walk over and surprise her.

He'd take her to lunch, and ask her what DiNozzo had meant; although he knew she'd probably tell him, just as everyone else had done, that he must remember things for himself. The difference was that Abby couldn't lie successfully to save her life, especially when it was him she was lying to. When she'd visited him at home at the weekend, though, she'd been too busy reassuring him that it was fine for him to go, and he'd been too busy talking her down from the high of unexpectedly loving what she was doing, to want to go there.

"Well yes, I wondered at first, I thought I'd be getting a lot of bored...anythings, who were there because they had to be, not because they wanted to be, but it turned out they'd all requested the course because they thought it'd help them to do their jobs better, and maybe help to get justice for someone!"

She counted on her fingers. "Three doctors, two men, one lady. Six nurses. Three marine privates and a corporal. One detective from VA State Police. And... a Gunny! I've already spoken to the Principal about doing an advanced course if they can all get to it... maybe in the Spring... although I really want a bigger class-room; it's kind of like a lab in a janitor's store, I couldn't even keep Hap in there, let alone a class of keen students -"

"Keep Hap?"

Had he imagined the look of panic that flashed across her face? He didn't imagine, especially where Abby was concerned; nobody wore their feelings as openly as she did.

"Keep Hap? No, that's not what I said. Be happy. Nobody could be happy working in such a small space. I have fifteen students, Gibbs... how can we be happy in a broom cupboard?"

Well, if she didn't want to say, he wasn't going to ask, but he'd been there when she'd phoned McGee, and he'd heard the strange noises... Looked like Abby was still being a law unto herself; he supposed it was unreasonable to ask her to stop altogether. Abby, stop being Abby...

Another thing he'd been determined not to ask was if she'd spoken to DiNozzo; the guy had wondered if she'd ever forgive him, and although much as he didn't want to admit it, since the one thing he'd remembered without any doubt was the warmth of his relationship with her, he rather felt it should be the other way round. But it wasn't just none of his business, it was something he couldn't handle. He'd encouraged her... was it guilt, or more? Or what?

He shook himself back to the present and stared at the writing again, and hoped Abby would take pity on him and tell him what she knew without his having to try to wheedle it out of her.

NCISNCISNCIS

Gibbs liked the Naval Marina; the craft there belonged to serious sailors, not weekenders. Stephanie was right at home there. In the morning he awoke quite late, with a healthy hunger, and after bringing the log up to date, a strong coffee or three and a good breakfast, he took a walk round admiring other boats. (He modestly accepted a few compliments when he admitted he'd built Stephanie himself.) He killed a bit more time with a visit to the Marina store, then set off for the Staff College.

The first person he met after he'd found his way to the science block directed him to Abby's domain, where her class were milling around in ordered chaos gathering things up at the end of the morning session.

"Make sure you've not left anything fermenting, guys, Angela, you need to re-seal that pot... Gunny, it won't be done any faster just cuz you glare at it... see you back here at 13.30 hours... Giiibbbs!"

He'd taken great pleasure in materialising at her elbow. "Can I buy a lady lunch?"

"Oh, you bet! Gibbs, it's so good to see you -"

"Saw you Sunday, Abs -"

"And it's now Tuesday! Have you sailed here? Gibbs, that's so cool! Does she handle well? Does it feel good being out there on the open sea?"

"Got another ten miles or so before I can say that, Abs. But yeah, it feels good. Lunch -"

Her face sobered suddenly. " Lunch... Gibbs, we need to go back to my quarters – " she pulled a face as she said the word – "We can eat there, but there's something I have to do..."

"Hap."

"How did you – oh, you're Gibbs, you know everything." She dropped her voice to what was, for her, a whisper. "You mustn't tell anyone... I'll try to find him a home, really I will, but if they find out before I do, they'll make me get rid of him, and maybe he'll have to be put down, and really, he didn't deserve to be abandoned in the first place – he's just a pup... I saw to it that he got all his jabs,and he's healthy and well behaved –"

They entered the residential block, and she unlocked her door and pushed it open. The first thing Gibbs saw was the pile of sofa cushions and bedding in the tiny lobby, and the fact that every other door was shut. "He gets so bored shut in one room, so I always come home at lunch time..." She opened the door to the bed/sitting room, where the third thing Gibbs noticed was the heavy canvas wrapping on the bed, and the single chair and small two seater sofa minus their cushions. That was after the second thing he noticed, which was being sexually assaulted by a nose trying to get at his scrotum from the rear.

"Hap, stop it! Bad dog!" Gibbs turned to meet the perpetrator, who backed off looking guilty, and went to Abby for a reassuring fuss. "He's a bit socially inept," she said apologetically.

"McGee said 'puppy'," Gibbs mused. "No way." Hap was chocolate brown-ish, big-ish, adolescent-ish, Labrador-ish, something else-ish, probably Clydesdale. He was the most ish dog Gibbs had ever seen, and as Abby bustled around putting cushions back so they could sit, the two got to know each other.

Hap didn't have a problem – new friend, instant love, that's how you did things in his world. Gibbs had minor reservations; Hap was large and energetic, wanted to dole out sloppy kisses, and wasn't embarrassed about where he stuck his nose. He seemed to mean well...

Abby made chicken salad sandwiches, and Hap went to sit on his (shredded) old sleeping bag, looking hopeful.

"He won't come and grab the food out of my hand any more," Abby said proudly, "but he still needs more skilled training than I can give him." Alarm bells clanged, hell, klaxons went off in Gibbs' head, but he chomped on his sandwich and said nothing.

"I found him out in the rain the second night I was here," Abby went on after a while. "He was trying to hide under the bushes by the lab entrance. I er... brought him home. He'd clearly had no training of any sort, but we're getting along now." Since he'd been polite enough not to ask, she gave him her last sandwich.

"He chews things up."

"He's getting better... he's bored... I got him checked over, the veterinarian thinks he's not quite a year old, no microchip, nothing."

Hap lay down on his side, yawned and belched.

"Thought you said he was well behaved," Gibbs remarked.

"He is, he just has problems with manners." As she spoke there came the sound of abdominal gurgling, and then a quiet hiss. Hap grinned. Gibbs gagged as an appalling smell drifted across the room.

"Abs..."

"Er... yes... he has other social problems..." She brightened. "He doesn't do it very often!"

Gibbs looked at the grinning mutt, feeling fate's grip closing on him inexorably. "So, Hap. Short for Happy?"

Abby looked embarrassed. "Er... Mishap... or Hapless. I'm not sure which."

Three days later, Abe got a postcard.

Norfolk,VA. Hi Doc, Got myself a travelling companion. Canine. Got conned by Abby. Hap says hello. Gibbs

AN: I'm hoping to tell much of the story in postcards; and not that I'm too lazy to write them myself or anything, I'd love any fellow writers (or readers, you KNOW who I'm talking to, don't you...) who'd like to to contribute. Got two brilliant ones already, would love more. With due credit given of course. I thought a group write might be fun... PM me if you'd like.