Disclaimer: The following story is a work of fiction. The characters are borrowed from the CBS network show NCIS for personal entertainment purposes only. No profit is or shall be made from this fan tribute to the show which is owned by TPTB. Any resemblance to actual persons is purely coincidental.

Set in time: NCIS 2013 mid-season 10

Main characters: Dr. Donald 'Ducky' Mallard, with Gibbs in a manner of speaking.

Spoiler warning: 06×13 "Broken Bird", 09×22 "Playing With Fire", 10×02 "Recovery".

A/N: A quiet little piece about Ducky to start the new year. Best wishes for 2015! - All terms in German will be explained to the best of my ability at the bottom.

Write A Book, Duck

(by VG LittleBear/vglb)

When Dr. Mallard had been on sick-leave, Gibbs hadn't wanted to see him thinking of work. He'd suggested a few things, among them to write a book. And Ducky was pretty sure Jethro had not been referring to the usual fare a doctor of his format was expected to publish.

Ducky had been published many a times both in the science and medical field. What his co-workers ignored, however, was that he had another arc to his bow. In fact he had a very successful series running under a pseudonym that should still have been a secret. He'd not even told his mother when he'd started, let alone let her guess that he had a second source of income in later years.

Donald had come across the express trains called D-Zug during his travels across German speaking Europe. The fast city-to-city trains immediately having hit his funny bone as his namesake, the Mallard, was not alone a specific kind of duck, but also a famous steam locomotive in the old country. The Mallard had attained 126 mph in June 1938, and held the world speed record among its kind ever since, and he had been, and still was, inordinately pleased about that.

When his slightly romanced travel reports had turned into short stories that were successfully published by prestigious newspapers, he'd signed them with the alias D. Zug. When London publishing houses had approached, and offered him an open-ended contract for more adventures with his characters, he'd kept the alias, and prudently protected his anonymity ever since.

Ducky's recurring characters were not based on thinly disguised colleagues from work, although his mother's friends and acquaintences might have recognized themselves in some of the escapades he wrote for his dashing lead character Matthew. Fortunately, or rather sadly, they had long since passed from life, and might even have been tickled to be remembered in such a fashion.

None of Ducky's friends had ever been told, but then Jethro had gotten hold of his CIA folder a few years ago. Dr. Mallard had been too perturbed by his shared history with Dr. Pain to think of it at the time, but of course his dossier would have mentioned his secret identity. Gibbs never let on he knew, but one day perusing Jethro's bookshelves, Ducky had found a number of books by D. Zug and knew he'd been busted.

Another layer of secretness gone between them. He was no better than Jethro at the "no more secrets between us" stuff. Even if this secret fell in the "fluffy" category, if only Abby knew. But she wouldn't, well not unless she started reading Gibbs' books. His rambling style would out him to the team if ever they looked inside the covers of his books. At least the jackets didn't show his countenance, nor had he made the mistake of giving away relevant information about himself. For all the jackets revealed, D. Zug could have been a woman. The slight mystery actually enhanced the popularity of his books, as both genders were equally claiming to know whether he was male or female. It allowed him to write his lady characters without fear of being called a chauvinist, while at the same time letting the rakes be rakes.

So when his latest book came out months after he was back at work, he wrote a dedication to Jethro on the flyleaf of his complimentary copy.

"Ein alter Mann ist doch kein D-Zug."

Knowing he'd expounded on the manifold meaning of the German expression to Jethro over the years for him 'to get it', he resisted adding a smiley face. Jimmy Palmer had introduced him to expressing his mood and intentions by those silly faces, even using them on handwritten notes. But using them on Jethro would defeat their purpose.

Chuckling slightly at his own witticism and fancy, Ducky placed the book on Jethro's low table in the living room for him to find when he came up from the basement.

While Ducky bustled off to the kitchen in search of the tea pot he'd gifted his friend with last year, he wondered how much his late mother had really known when she kept insisting Gibbs' name was Matthew.

- finis -

* D-Zug (Durchgangszug) = express train

Literal translation: "An old man is no express train."

Meaning: "I'm going as fast as I can/I can't go faster/Let me go at my own pace".

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this short story. If you did, please let me know! TIA