Questions and Answers

by SherryGabs

Gibbs tells McGee how he came to join the Marines.

Questions and Answers

By SherryGabs

Rated: K+ (A few naughty words, but nothing big. Underage alcohol use.)

Summary: Gibbs tells McGee how he came to join the Marines.

Disclaimer: I don't own the NCIS characters. Only play with them on occasion and return them whole and healthy.

Notes: Spoiler for Heartland. Mostly non-canon back story of Gibbs' youth. This story was conceived from the line from Heartland when Ed the sheriff tells Gibbs that he didn't think they would end up on the same side of the law. While I might mention a scene or two from my last story 'Words and Whiskey', this story takes place after that and can stand alone. And, no, not all my stories will be from Heartland. There were just a couple of ideas spawned from the show and now it should be out of my system.

Hope you like it. Let me know.

************

"Boss, you have got to show me how you do that," Tim watched in wonder as Gibbs quickly picked the lock on the front door of the house they were breaking into. "You're even quicker than Ziva."

"It's not so hard, McGee," Gibbs said slowly with his gravely voice, his eyes shining mischievously. He put his lock-picking tools in his jacket pocket. "Just takes the right tools, patience, and a lot of practice. You ready?" he asked, sliding his Sig out of its holster.

"Yes," Tim already had his gun out and ready.

"DiNozzo, David," Gibbs spoke into the mic on his sleeve. "You in position?"

"Just waiting for your signal, Boss," DiNozzo reported from the other side of the house. "Back door was left wide open."

"Go!"

Both sides of the house were entered simultaneously. Going from room to room, each room left after "Clear" being broadcast for the others to hear. They had been expecting to find resistance from their chief kidnapping suspect, Lance Corporal Jeffrey Addams, but he appeared to have flown the coop. The last room entered was the small back bedroom.

Tied to the bed was the female captain they had been looking for. There didn't appear to be any obvious signs of serious injury, though she looked exhausted and dehydrated. Her eyes watered with gratitude as Gibbs took off the gag over her mouth.

"Are you all right, Captain Mackey?" he asked as he took his knife out to cut the nylon rope tying her to the bed.

"I-I th-think so," she gasped. "He just left....the lance corporal....only moments ago."

"That explains the open back door," Ziva said. "He may not have gotten off the base yet. I will call security to close off the exits."

"Already done, Zeever," Gibbs stated, having thought of that before they entered the house.

Ziva rolled her eyes and shrugged. "Of course."

"Gotta think ahead, ninja woman," Tony teased her. She punched his arm, earning a painful scowl.

Gibbs helped the captain sit up on the edge of the bed. "Do you know why LCpl. Addams took you, Captain?"

She nodded wearily. "He became obsessed with me. He kept asking me out, but I just wasn't interested. Not to mention that I outrank him, so it's against regs. He wouldn't take no for an answer."

"Did he hurt you at all, ma'am?" McGee asked, looking her over carefully.

"No, he never touched me harmfully. But I haven't had any water or food since he brought me here two days ago."

"You need to get checked out at the hospital," Gibbs informed her. "After your fluids have been replenished, and you've had a good meal and rest, we'll need a statement from you."

She nodded and rubbed her hands down her strained face.

Gibbs phone rang and giving the captain a sympathetic look--and glad they wouldn't be needing Ducky for this case--he turned to answer it. "Yeah, Gibbs."

He listened for a few seconds, then said, "Good. Hold onto him, we'll be right there." He turned back to his team. "MPs have Addams. Ziva, call an ambulance and go with her to the hospital. Stay until she's settled in, then get back to the office. DiNozzo, McGee, you're with me."

Three hours later, after gathering all the information they'd need and letting Addams stew in the interrogation room, Gibbs got some answers to the state of mind of Lance Corporal Addams. His three agents watched from the other side of the one-way glass as the distraught man ranted about his hatred of the Marine Corp and their rules and regulations. Why the only reason he'd enlisted was to make his old man happy. The only satisfying thing he got out of it was being able to spill the blood of every filthy Iraqi (his words) he could during his one and only tour.

When asked why he'd kidnapped Captain Mackey, Addams stood up suddenly, knocking his chair backwards and raved. "She shouldn't have turned me down! I love her! Why can't she see that?!"

"Sit down, Lance Corporal!" Gibbs ordered, standing up himself.

"No!" Addams tried to run towards the one-way mirror, thinking maybe his Janet might be on the other side watching. But Gibbs grabbed him and bent him over the table, holding the struggling man's arms behind his back.

"Janet! Are you there?" Addams screamed at the mirror. "Please, Janet! I love you! Why are you doing this?"

"A little help in here!" Gibbs shouted at the mirror. The lance corporal was doing his best to get loose.

Only seconds later, the three agents burst into the room. Ziva and Tony helped Gibbs hold Addams down while McGee put cuffs on his wrists. Addams continued to struggle as Ziva and Tony pulled him from the room.

"Goddamn Marine regulations!" he shouted from the hallway. "Screw them! Rank don't matter, Janet! I love you!"

"Wow! What a fruit loop," McGee said, staring at the doorway. "If he hates being a Marine so much, why doesn't he just quit?"

Gibbs chuckled as he gathered up his papers from the table and put them in a folder. "McGee, you can't just quit the Marines. You either get discharged for some reason or you fulfill your time. It's not like a nine-to-five civilian job."

"Oh, yeah," McGee hoped his expression didn't look too stupid. He actually knew all that already.

"Doesn't really matter for Addams anymore," Gibbs stated matter-of-factly. "His active duty days are over."

***************

Later, McGee sat at his computer finishing up his final report. He liked his reports detailed and precise, which is why he was often spending later hours than Tony and Ziva in the bullpen. The other two had already finished theirs and were gone for the night. Gibbs sat at his desk waiting for Tim's report and working on his own never-ending paperwork.

McGee was thinking about Addams and wondered why the man had joined the Marines in the first place. Couldn't he have just explained to his father he wasn't interested in the military and wanted something different? Certainly his father couldn't actually force his adult son into the military against his will. Tim thought of his own father and realized he was lucky to have been able to choose his own way in life. His father just wanted him to be happy in whatever he chose.

He glanced over to Gibbs. His boss was the only Marine—well, ex-Marine—he'd known personally. He'd always seemed proud to have served; yet Tim knew that some of his duties had left scars. Not all physical either. Some were buried much deeper than the skin. Thinking about this made McGee wonder what had motivated Gibbs to join up. Was it a patriotic call? Was it like McGee had always assumed, that his boss wanted to serve his country to the best of his abilities? Or was he like Addams; pressured by his father to enlist? Tim thought back to their trip to Stillwater and remembered Jackson Gibbs. The old man didn't give the impression of being like that.

Curious now, Tim wondered if he asked Gibbs, would his boss answer or not. He knew the man didn't like to talk about his past very much but he had been opening up more the past couple of years. And this subject didn't seem to be too incredibly personal.

Deciding he'd take the chance, Tim hit the print button on his keyboard and went to the printer to get the pages. After stapling them he went to Gibbs desk and laid them down next to the paperwork Gibbs was working. Nervously, he cleared his throat.

"Boss? Can I ask you a question?"

Gibbs picked up McGee's report, quickly scanned the first page, then set it on top of Tony's and Ziva's reports to look at more thoroughly later. He took his glasses off and rubbed his tired eyes.

"Sure, Tim. What is it?"

"Well," he swallowed his nervousness. "I was thinking about LCpl. Addams and the Marines and why he even bothered. Then I started thinking about you, because you were a Marine and I was just wondering....."

"Spit it out, McGee," Gibbs said after McGee's hesitation.

Tim cleared his throat again. Geez, he hated being the shy type. "What made you want to enlist? In the Marines, I mean."

Gibbs looked at the young agent, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly. "That's a loaded question, McGee."

Tim wondered now if he should have just kept quiet. "That's okay, you don't have to answer. I was just wondering."

Gibbs held up his hand to stop him. "Wait. I didn't say I wouldn't answer." He looked down at his desk top, took a breath, then looked back up to Tim. "I had to."

Tim's brow furrowed in confusion. "Had to?"

"Yeah, had to," Gibbs sighed. He wondered if he should tell Tim the whole long story, or just a short quick explanation to half-way satisfy his curiosity. He rarely had personal conversations with his youngest agent; he did moreso with Ziva and Tony, mostly because they asked more questions. Tim just always seemed to be afraid to invade his personal space. Deciding it was high time to let McGee in on a little part of his life, he chose to go for the long version.

Gibbs looked at his watch. "I'll explain it, but not here. It's past seven and I'm hungry. Follow me home and we'll order pizza."

Home? Gibbs' house? Pizza? Tim wondered if the floor was going to open up and drop him straight down to autopsy. "You sure?"

Gibbs smiled at the timid voice. "Yes. Come on," his drawl stretched out. Gibbs stood up, grabbed his coat and keys and started towards the elevator. McGee stared after him a second, then blinked, realizing he was expected to follow. He quickly grabbed his stuff and ran after his boss.

*************

An hour later found both men in Gibbs' basement taking the first slices from the delivered pizza and the first bottles from the six pack of Coors Gibbs grabbed from his fridge. Tim studied the half-finished boat that took up most of the floor. He desperately wanted to ask how he was going to get it out of the basement once it was finished, but didn't want to sound like an idiot. He had never been alone with Gibbs in his house before, let alone in the beloved basement, and was very nervous.

Gibbs could easily sense this since he knew Tim so well. He pulled a stool over for Tim to sit on and a saw horse for himself. "Relax, McGee, I don't bite."

"Relaxing, Boss." Tim sat down and tried to settle down by downing half the bottle of beer at once.

Gibbs rolled his eyes and took a couple of large swallows from his own bottle. Maybe this conversation would be a good thing. Maybe spending time together would make McGee less nervous around him. He'd improved a lot in the last few years. DiNozzo's teasing hardly bothered him at all anymore, and McGee could give back as well as he got from Tony. He'd improved a hell of a lot as an agent, too.

"So," Gibbs started, "you want to know what made me join the Marines."

Tim swallowed his mouthful of pizza. "Well, you got me pretty curious when you said you had to enlist. But if you don't want to—"

"No, I want to," Gibbs stalled him, "but it's sort of a long story. Starts out when I was a teenager." Gibbs smiled and chuckled. "And I was one hell of a rotten teenager."

Tim choked on his last bite. Gibbs continued anyway.

"Everything was fine and normal with life in that tiny town for the most part. I had my friends, my parents, baseball in the summer, football in the fall, sledding in the winter. I was just your average, happy, well-rounded kid. That all changed when I was fourteen." Gibbs eyes took on a far-away look. "That's when my mom was killed in a car accident."

Gibbs could see that McGee was about to stop him and offer up an apology, but he held up his hand. "It's all right. It was a long time ago and I'm well over it."

Tim nodded and kept quiet. He wondered if he would ever get over losing a parent, even though it was a part of life. But to lose one as a child?

Gibbs took another bite of his pizza, not really tasting it, and washed it down with another swallow of his beer. "After that, things changed. I changed. I became angry that she'd died. I blamed my dad for letting it happen, even though he had no way of preventing it. I even blamed myself. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I couldn't help thinking that way at the time.

"It was just Dad and I after that and we settled into our new existence, such as it was. I finished up junior high, not caring that my grades were slowly dropping. I was quiet, surly, started spending more time alone or with Uncle L.J. when I wasn't working at the store."

"L.J.?" Tim interrupted, remembering the picture of the man from Jackson's store. "Your dad said you were named after him."

Gibbs smiled. "Yeah. He was Dad's business partner and best friend. I took a lot of ribbing from some people for being named after a black man, but I was proud of it. He was a good man. He's the one who got me started in woodworking." He waved a finger along the walls over his work bench. "A lot of these tools were his. He left them to me when he died almost a year after my mom did. He had a heart attack."

"Oh, um...."

"Once again, Tim, it was a long time ago."

"Right." Tim felt sorry for the older man for his losses, but knew Gibbs would not want pity.

"I think Dad took L.J.'s death harder than he did Mom's. I learned much later that my parents marriage wasn't very good. They probably only stayed together for my benefit." 'Must run in the family,' he thought to himself.

"Anyways, the next fall I started high school and things only went downhill from there. Over the next couple of years I started fighting a lot and getting into trouble at school. My grades were barely passing and I couldn't seem to care about them anyway. The only classes I got anything out of was gym and shop. I still played baseball and football on the school teams until my junior year."

Gibbs stopped and sighed sadly. "My knee got messed up during a football game early in the season. It took me out for the rest of the season."

"But you were able to play again your senior year, weren't you?" Tim asked. He'd seen Gibbs throw a football and knew he must have been good.

Gibbs shook his head and smiled sadly. "Never made it to senior year. I dropped out of school after that last game."

"What?!" Tim couldn't help but show his shock. Education was everything to McGee. He'd started college at 16 and to throw away an education—to him—was just wrong! He looked down, hoping Gibbs wouldn't see the disillusionment in his eyes.

But Gibbs had seen it. "I know it's a disappointment to you, Tim. I know how you love learning and what education means to you, but it wasn't the same for me. Learning comes easy to you, but it didn't for me. It was a struggle. It was probably my frame of mind at the time, but I hated school. The best part of it was football and when that ended, I didn't see any need to continue with it. I regret that now and wish I would have finished and done better. But I can't change what's happened." He shook his head. "Ducky once told me I had more street smarts than book smarts."

Tim had always found it amusing that Gibbs didn't seem at all interested in technology that everyone else handled with ease. Now he had to wonder if Gibbs just wasn't able to learn any of it. Yet, he was so intelligent in other areas. Gibbs had a brilliant mind when it came to investigating, interrogating, knowing the law, anti-terrorism, anything military. Really, anything that didn't need to be learned from a book, but learned from experience. But, aside from modern technology, Gibbs still always seemed quite intelligent to McGee. The man was just a complete mystery to Tim sometimes.

Tim thought he should say something, at least. "I bet your dad wasn't too happy about that."

"No, he wasn't. But I wasn't going to change my mind and absolutely refused to go back to school. So, he gave in and signed the papers. After I was off the crutches for my knee, he insisted I had to get a real job. Not just spend a couple of hours a day stocking and cleaning his store, or working on the Charger I was trying to restore.

"I thought it would be easy, but it wasn't. There wasn't a whole lot of jobs available in a small town to begin with, let alone to someone without a diploma. The one place that was always hiring was Winslow's Mining Co., but Dad didn't want me working in a dangerous coal mine like he had to and I wasn't about to work for Chuck Winslow's father anyway. Chuck and I were always getting into fights--I mean like actually trying to kill each other fights. Unfortunately, most of the time he had Ed with him. They would both eventually get me on the ground and Ed would hold me while Chuck did the punching and kicking." Gibbs laughed. "Winslow was never brave enough to even attempt fighting me unless Ed was with him. But the few times I did get him alone, he got the snot beat right out of him."

He chuckled again at the memory. "Both our dads were pretty pissed about it all. Dad even brought his precious Winchester out once to separate us. I think that was the maddest I'd ever seen him up until then."

"Jackson didn't strike me as being an overly aggressive type," Tim remembered from his visit to Stillwater.

"He's not," Gibbs agreed. "He'd yell occasionally, which I ignored. He tried grounding me, which I ignored, so he gave up on that. He was never one for physical punishment, so I wasn't really afraid of him in any way."

Tim shifted on his tool and reached for another beer. "My parents kept a paddle hanging on a wall in the kitchen to remind Sarah and I about the consequences of misbehaving." He winced remembering only too well the pain on his backside when that paddle hit home.

"Dad didn't believe in hitting children in any way. He must have had an iron will, cuz I was horrible to him during those years and he should have been sorely tempted to lay me out flat on more than one occasion." Gibbs voice grew quiet as he said, "I don't think he knew what the hell to do with me, and I didn't make anything easy for him."

"Did you ever find a job?"

"Yep. Part-time for a carpenter. It would have been ideal for an eventual full-time career. I actually really liked the work." Gibbs rolled his eyes and made a face. "But I screwed that up, too."

"How?" Tim could actually see Gibbs being a carpenter since he loved working with his hands.

"Jonas had two other guys working for him--Ronny and Eric. They were in their early twenties and liked to party. They started inviting me to their weekend get-togethers, which usually ended up with all of us getting completely shit-faced. Dad was usually already in bed by the time I got home, so he never really noticed. I never had bad hangovers the next day, so it was easy for him to miss." Gibbs shook his head. "Until about a month or so later when he got called in the middle of the night to come get me from the sheriff's office."

"Ooooh!" McGee face screwed up in sympathy.

"Yeah, oooh," Gibbs agreed. He stood up from the sawhorse and leaned against the work bench. "I was walking home from Eric's place and ran into Chuck and Ed. Needless to say, words were thrown and punches were thrown, and I was left in the dust. I was so pissed at being caught off guard by them I picked up a rock and threw it through the plate glass window of the barber shop. You wouldn't believe how loud shattering glass sounds in the still of the night. Next thing I hear is a deputy yelling at me to 'freeze where I was'."

"You were arrested." Tim stated. He was having a hard time wrapping his head around the idea that his revered boss was a juvenile delinquent.

"Hmm hmm. Dad came into the jail and looked me up and down; saw I was still half-drunk and had been fighting. At first his face was red with anger and embarrassment that his son would do such a thing. Then that looked changed to disappointment and shame, and that kinda stung." Gibbs sighed. "I'd much rather he be angry.

"Since I was only seventeen and still a juvenile they released me. Dad tried to get out of me who I'd been with, but I wasn't going to rat on anyone. I was charged with underage drinking and vandalism. Had to pay restitution for the window and a fine for the drinking. Dad ranted about how I better get my shit together and think about my future before I ruined it completely."

"Did you lose your carpentry job then?"

"Nope. That came a few months later. I never told Jonas about my arrest and don't think anyone else did either." Gibbs opened a new bottle of beer and tossed the cap onto the bench. "Ronny and Eric were such great influences on me." He smirked sarcastically. "They bought liquor for me, taught me how to roll a proper joint, and showed me how to pick a lock in case it ever became necessary." Gibbs waved his free arm. "They showed me that I could be just like them and not care about anything but having a good time. Hell, I thought they were cool! I was just happy they'd let a skinny runt like me hang around with them."

Gibbs wound down with a long breath and a quieter voice. "I thought I could trust them. I thought they would back me up if I ever needed them. Boy, was I ever wrong."

"What happened?" Tim could see that something important was coming up.

"I was more careful over the next couple of months. I still hung around Eric and Ronny, but tried to be more discreet. They started talking about quitting working for Jonas, but wanted one final big paycheck. I didn't know what they were talking about. Ronny told me to practice my lock picking, that he might let me use it for something fun. So, I practiced and got pretty good at it.

"A few weeks later on a Friday night we were sitting around Ronny's apartment. We were drinking and they were smoking a lot of pot, too. I wasn't, but was getting buzzed just from the smoke. Ronny asked if I wanted to prove I could pick a lock quick. I said 'sure'. Then he said we were going to break into Jonas's house and take the money from the cash box he kept there from his business. I wasn't too sure about it cuz Jonas had been good to me and I liked him. Plus, that would have been a pretty serious crime. Not like just busting a window.

"But.... I was half-stoned and didn't want to look like a kid to those guys, so I went along with it. We waited till we knew Jonas would be sound asleep and went up to his back door. I had the door unlocked in less than a minute. Eric told me Jonas kept the cash box in a kitchen cabinet. They followed me into the kitchen, but waited in the doorway. Eric pointed to the cabinet where he thought the box was. I opened the door and, as my luck would have it, it squeaked very loudly. Ronny cussed at me and told me to hurry up.

"I got the box down on the counter and started on its lock." Gibbs ran his hand down his face. "About half a minute later all hell breaks loose." He chuckled ironically. "Jonas had woken up from the noise and came into the kitchen with a shotgun. It was dark so he couldn't tell who he was shooting at, he was just shooting at an intruder. Luckily, he was a bad shot.

"He flipped the light on and saw me frozen stiff with fear. Then he looked down at his cash box and back up at me with a very angry, disappointed stare. I looked over to the doorway where Eric and Ronny were, but they were gone. Jonas told me not to move and I didn't. Then he called the sheriff."

"Your buddies left you there holding the bag, or box, so to speak," Tim said. "That just sucks."

"Yeah. It hit me like a ton of bricks. They used me to get the money. It would be my fingerprints on the cabinet door and my fingerprints on the cash box. If things got screwed up, it would be me taking the fall. Good friends, weren't they?"

"How did your dad react?"

"He refused to come to the sheriff's office. I didn't see him until the arraignment and then he told me he was not going to post bail so I might as well man-up and plead guilty. Things were different this time. I'd already turned eighteen so was an adult. Breaking and entering, attempted theft, under the influence. It all meant possibly a year at the county correctional facility. So I pled guilty and before the judge handed down his sentence he wanted a conference with Jonas and my dad."

Tim nodded his head, somehow knowing how this was going to turn out.

"After their meeting, Dad and I stood before the judge and he just stared down at me for a minute, very coldly. He was trying to intimidate me and it was working--I was scared," Gibbs admitted with a smile. "He told me that after speaking with Jonas and Dad, they believed that I could be turned around and given a second chance if I chose to. So he gave me two choices. I could either spend twelve months at county or get my G.E.D. and join the military branch of my choice.

"I looked over at Dad and wanted to say 'Is he nuts?'. Dad leaned over and whispered that I better make the right choice and that I should be thankful Vietnam was over."

Tim had to agree with that. "Did you tell them about Eric's and Ronny's involvement? How they tricked you?"

"I wasn't going to cover for them anymore, so yeah; but they'd left town. I think the judge took their coercion into account when he decided to give me a choice."

"What made you choose the Marines instead of the other branches? Marines would be the toughest." Tim doubted he himself could have ever gotten through boot camp in any of the military branches.

"The next town west of Stillwater had recruiting offices and I went to them to get pamphlets and ask questions. I had time to look them over and think on it since I had to get a G.E.D. before signing on anyway. I eventually chose the Marines because they were the toughest. After getting arrested and spending a couple of nights in jail, a lot of wind got blown out of my sails. The possibility of spending a year in prison and life beyond that terrified me. And I was truly sorry that I'd disappointed Jonas and Dad. So I figured I'd let the Marines dish out all the punishment they could on me. I felt I deserved it."

"How hard was it to get a G.E.D.?" Certainly, at least in his mind, getting an equivalent diploma had to be harder than just finishing school. But he didn't really know anyone else who'd had to go that route.

Gibbs sat back down on the saw horse. "Turned out not to be that hard really," he shrugged. "Dad figured since I had a hard time in school, that it would help if I had a tutor. You'll never guess who he got."

Tim thought a moment. "Don't tell me it was Chuck Winslow!"

Gibbs laughed at Tim's expression. "No! Chuck couldn't think his way out of a paper bag. It was Ed." He shook his head in amusement. "He was a senior and turned out to be top of his class. The first time he showed up and I saw who it was, I was about to say 'Forget it! No way!'. Ed didn't look all too pleased either, but he was being paid and wanted the money. Dad grabbed us both by the arm and forcefully sat us down at the table. He told me I was going to listen and was going to learn. He told Ed to treat me with respect, and that he himself was going to remain close by and ready to intervene in case we decided to go ape shit on each other."

Tim laughed at that, picturing the Gibbs' house torn apart.

"That first time was kind of touchy, but eventually I discovered that Ed wasn't so bad a guy when he wasn't around Chuck. He actually did know his stuff and he taught me how to study properly. I finally figured out the reason I did so bad in school was because I let anger and frustration overrule my desire to learn anything useful from school. After being arrested and letting go of much of those negative feelings, I was able to concentrate on studying and learning, and found it was a whole lot easier. When test time came, I passed with flying colors. I would never admit it to Ed, but I probably couldn't have done it without his help."

Once again Tim thought back to their driving into Stillwater for the LaCombe case. How the sheriff had stopped them as they got out of their car.

"When Ed said he didn't think you two would ever end up on the same side of the law, I just assumed—"

"That he was talking about himself not being on the good side." Gibbs finished for him. "Didn't ever occur to you that it would be me on the bad side, huh?"

"No, actually. Never." Tim admitted.

"Yeah, well, I'm full of surprises." Gibbs stood up and began gathering empty beer bottles to put in the trash.

'Yeah, you sure are,' Tim thought as he picked up the now empty pizza box, folded it in half and pushed it into the trash can. Earlier in the day when he wondered what had made Gibbs want to join the Marines, never in a million years would have thought a judge had given him the choice of Marines or prison. None of this was even hinted at when he'd been in Stillwater. He smiled and shook his head in amazement at the thought.

"Surprised you, I take it?" Gibbs asked, seeing Tim's expression and already knowing the answer.

"Well, yeah, sure," Tim admitted, then because he felt so much less nervous around Gibbs, decided to elaborate. "I've only known you as Mr. law enforcement--almost always by the book--ready to eat the poor guy in interrogation--head slapping Special Agent Gibbs." He smiled shyly. "It's actually kind of nice to know you were actually a somewhat normal, awkward, gullible, non-perfect kid.... like the rest of us."

Gibbs always knew McGee thought highly of him and kept him on a pedestal as someone to look up to and aspire to be like. Maybe it was good to have brought himself down a peg. Tim didn't need an idol. He was strong and smart enough to learn to lead in his own way.

"Never have and never will claim to be perfect," Gibbs pointed out simply. "I have a lot of regrets in my life, but joining the Marines was never one of them. Turned out to be the best decision I ever made."

Tim could guess why and he counted off the reasons. "You fit in. You discovered you were meant to be a soldier; and at the same time you realized you could change the course of your life and serve your country to the best of your abilities. By doing this you could absolve yourself of any past transgressions because you came out a better man for it."

"Very good." Gibbs was impressed. "Yes, there is all that, which is true. But there's one other thing that very few people know." Gibbs decided to share another memory. He'd never told anyone before because it was one of those things that still brought pain when he thought of his past. But since it came out to everyone a couple of years earlier that he'd had a wife and daughter who were killed, he found it actually helped a little to talk about them sometimes. And tonight he was in the mood to share.

"Remember that little train station on the edge of Stillwater?"

Tim nodded, remembering. "We passed it on the way in and out of town."

"Well, it was that little train station, where I was sitting waiting for the train that would start my way to Paris Island, that I met Shannon."

Tim tried not to look shocked at this admission. Gibbs had never spoken to him about his wife before and Tim never would have brought the subject up himself for fear of upsetting his boss. He looked into Gibbs' eyes and, instead of seeing the expected sadness, the blue eyes had a gleam of contentment. This gave him encouragement.

"Really? Was she from Stillwater? Or passing through? You'd never seen her before?" 'Okay, stop Tim,' he told himself. 'Before you swallow your tongue.'

Gibbs smiled indulgently. 'Typical McGee.' "Her aunt owned a dress shop in town. Shannon was staying with her for a couple of weeks before going off to college. I'd seen her a couple of times but never spoken to her. I got the courage up to speak to her while we waited for the train." He chuckled softly at the memory. "One of the first things she asked me was if I was a lumberjack. She said she had a rule about not dating lumberjacks. She had several rules to live by as a matter of fact."

Tim's face lit up with excitement as he loudly asked, "She taught you "The Rules"?!" 'No way Tony knows this!' he thought. "Well, I'm sure not all the ones you use now, but some of them, right?"

"A few of mine were based on hers, but I made my own list of rules from experience over the years. But, yes, the whole idea of having a list came from her. Comes in very handy."

Tim had a satisfied smirk on his face. He was probably one of the few people on the planet who knew some things about his boss's life that nobody else knew. He felt honored that he would be entrusted with that information. And he would keep it all to himself; he knew Gibbs would want it that way. Of course, he figured Tony probably knew some things he himself didn't and suddenly wondered if Tony had ever asked Gibbs the same questions.

"Boss? Has Tony ever asked why you joined the Marines or asked where you got your rules from?"

Gibbs grinned. Tony was always asking questions, but only sometimes got the answers he wanted to hear. "As for the rules—I just let him think I made them up on my own. He did ask once about my recruitment, but I just told him 'It was a tough choice to make, but better than the alternative.' I could see the question marks pop out all over his face but refused to elaborate and shoo'd him away. I like to tell things in my own time, and on this particular subject, it was your time."

Tim smiled shyly. "Thanks, Boss. It means a lot that you'd trust me that much."

"I've always trusted you, Tim." He sighed. "Never be afraid to approach me to talk if there's something on your mind. I know I can be a brick wall sometimes, but I'd like to think I'm mellowing out somewhat in my old age. And more willing to let people I care about in a little more."

Once again, Tim felt honored to be included as one of those people.

"You're not that old yet."

"Tell that to my knees!" Gibbs grimaced as he gently pushed Tim towards the basement stairs. "Enough for tonight. Get lost, I got work to do." He nodded towards his boat.

"Gotcha." Tim knew his boss well enough to know he wanted some alone time now and wasn't insulted. He was halfway up the stairs when Gibbs called out to him.

"McGee."

Tim backed down a couple of steps so he could see Gibbs who was picking up his sander. "Yeah, Boss?"

"If you're not busy Saturday night.... come back and I'll teach you how to pick a lock."

"Really?" Tim looked over in wonder.

"Yeah, really." Gibbs smiled tolerantly at the excited puppy dog look he received. "Bring Chinese!"

Tim grinned from ear to ear. "Will do."

That grin stayed on Tim's face as he drove home to his apartment. He was elated that he had been privileged to be let inside an unknown part of Gibbs life. The mischievous side of him couldn't help but think how he now had one or two things up on Tony. Soon to be more when he learned how to pick locks. Tim swore to himself he would practice till he was as good as Gibbs or Ziva.

The first thing Tim did when he arrived home was boot up his computer to research where he could buy his own lock-pick set.

The End

Well, this turned out longer than I thought it would. Hope it's not too wordy. I usually work on this late at night and sometimes half asleep. Let me know what you think.