Chapter One

Gibbs looked around the deck, smiling at his lover and their family and friends. This was a special day for them and as he piloted the Big Fish to their destination, he thought back about their journey to this day. It really had started the day Mitas found the skeleton. That had caused Tim to flashback to the loss of his first love Joey and their friends; Jethro had been there to console and support him. The two men had admitted their attraction to each other and that had quickly turned to passion and love. After their stay on the island and the trip home on the ship they'd built, the Big Fish, their first attempt at reaching home had not gone well. It had taken intervention by the State Department to bring them back to the U.S. Gibbs smiled to himself now, thinking back to the day they'd finally made it home and the days that followed.

Six months ago, on the Big Fish docked at the Navy Yard

He walked out of the pilot's tower and stood grinning back at them as they snapped to attention, gave him a sharp salute and then swarmed him, cheering madly. They'd made it, they were home!

After a long and noisy group hug, they noticed other noises coming from behind them and turned to find that a large crowd had gathered on the dock below and was cheering their homecoming. As they each spotted familiar faces, Tony lowered their rarely used gangplank. Now the group of 6 waited impatiently as Sarah McGee along with an attractive older woman who must be Penny, an older man who looked remarkably like Tony, two young men who bore a resemblance to Cory, and Abby, Jimmy and Tobias Fornell rushed up. Gibbs was not the least bit surprised when Penny reached out and grabbed both Tim and Ducky, and was quickly joined by Sarah and Jimmy. Gibbs smiled as Abby ran right into his arms. As she cried and babbled a little, he looked over her shoulder, his heart lurching as he saw another familiar face, one he hadn't seen in far too long, working his way up the gangplank.

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he whispered to Abby, giving her a quick kiss. She nodded, stepping aside and running to Ziva, who was being introduced to Mitas' brothers. Gibbs gave Tobias a quick one-armed hug and patted Jimmy, who was wrapped in Ducky's arms, on the back as he walked past him to greet his father.

Pride and memories of past problems took flight from both men as one slowly made his way up the gangplank and the other made his way to him through the happy crowd. By the time Jethro reached him, Jack had reached the top of the gangplank and stood looking at the ship. When he spotted his son, he held his arms open, tears running down his face. Jethro stepped into his arms and held on for dear life, thankful for the chance to see his father, to hold him close.

The two finally broke apart when Fornell tapped Gibbs on the shoulder.

"Jethro, Jack, excuse me but you need to see who is here. This is an official welcome."

Gibbs turned and saw the Secretary of State standing on the dock with a fair number of Suits, and lot of people with cameras and microphones in back of her. As he made eye contact, she called out, "Permission to come aboard, Captain." He called out, "Permission granted, Madam Secretary."

She walked up the gangplank and greeted each of them while the cameras clicked, shaking their hands, thanking them for their work, dedication and perseverance. She turned to Gibbs, "I won't stay long, Special Agent Gibbs. I know your return got off to a very rocky start and the President and I want to assure you and your crew that we are very happy that you survived. You have returned home to a welcoming nation. Having a group of good guys return from the dead is truly something to celebrate! And personally," she leaned in closer to Gibbs, "you have my thanks for bringing that thing home. I know that was a huge risk; you've done a favor for your country."

"Out of curiosity, ma'am, what will happen with it now?" Gibbs kept his voice low.

"We're going to the UN Security Council tomorrow afternoon with the fact that it exists and where it was placed. The President has already contacted the President of the Russian Federation, so there will be no real surprises at the UN. The press will be told tomorrow afternoon, after the meeting at the UN so please be prepared. We'll keep your names out of it, but it won't take long for some smart journalist to put two and two together. The White House communications staff will be in touch with all of you." She smiled. "There will be some drama but since the Soviet Union no longer exists and the leaders that ordered the weapon are either dead or no longer in power, there won't be much. However I will be curious to hear what the Russians have to say tomorrow about their attempted retrieval from Chimera. You're lucky - we're lucky - they didn't know anyone survived. In the meantime, the weapon is in the process of being dismantled." He nodded, relieved to hear that. She continued, "I understand that all but one of your crew was exposed to the weapon, the Navy will be handling your medical follow-ups." Gibbs frowned but nodded, Ducky had warned him and he knew the procedure.

After a few more minutes chatting with the crew and their families and looking at a few of the photos, the Secretary left. Other friends kept back by her security team then swarmed on board. Fornell had told him that only a select number of the press had been allowed aboard the Yard and that small group was kept off the gangplank, forced to watch and record from the dock.

Gibbs was introduced to a friend of Ziva's, an Officer Bashan from the Israeli embassy. Even though they considered themselves Ziva's family, he was glad that Ziva had someone there specifically for her, just as he'd been grateful that both his own father and DiNozzo Senior were there. After meeting Bashan and thanking him for his part in the offer of asylum, he turned away from the conversation, looking over the happy crowd on deck. He spun in surprise when he heard "Probie!" It was Mike Franks and the two of them greeted each other happily, for once not trading affectionate insults.

Nearly an hour after the Secretary's departure, a crowd of NCIS employees poured out of the building and headed to the ship to greet their once and future co-workers. Abby was still wrapped up in Tony and Ziva and Tim with Penny and Sarah, but Jimmy noticed and moved toward Fornell.

Tobias smiled at the young man, "It's ok, Jimmy, remember that now they know how right you and Abby were and how very wrong they were."

Jimmy nodded, "Still not sure I want to see any of them." Mitas was nearby and overheard the conversation, "Hey, Jimmy, I'm going to take my brothers on a tour of the ship, how about you come along? You can join us if you'd like, Agent Fornell." Both men nodded and Cory led them down the stairs and first to the animal pens where he introduced them to GG, Phyllis and Duke and the new babies Tilly and Alfie. Then a quick peek at the plant nursery and back through the galley to the bunkrooms and through the rest of the living quarters on the Big Fish.

The visitors were amazed at the thought, the work, and the amenities that had gone into the ship. Fornell was intrigued when Mitas pointed out the parts of the original assault craft and both Jimmy and Tobias laughed when they saw Gibbs' makeshift workbench and then had to explain it to Mike and Dan Mitas. They were properly impressed when Mitas told them that Ziva's crutches were homemade and that he, Tim and Tony had helped Gibbs make them while they were on 'Repair Island' repairing the hull. Fornell wanted to see the repaired spot so Mitas led them to the forward section of the lower deck. He told them the story of finding the large containers and floating them back to the bay to make a sort of dam while they dug the channel for the ship.

When the visitors heard that everything had been chronicled, Jimmy and Tobias said, in unison, "Tim!" Mitas nodded and then told them a little bit about all of them working on the chronicles and their fireside readings, ending with Tony's movie renditions; they got a kick out of that. By the time they'd seen the ship, they'd heard several wonderful stories about the crew and couldn't wait to see the photos and read the chronicles. Heading back to the upper deck, Jimmy was relieved to see most of his former colleagues from NCIS had gone back to work, leaving behind just his friends and their families.

Fornell grinned as he looked around the upper deck; he was having a great time. Not only had his old friend returned from the dead, he'd been able to help him instead of the usual scenario with Gibbs having to save his butt. And he loved this ship, it really was pretty cool. He wondered what the group had planned for it now. He made his way over to Jethro who was standing next to Tim, talking with Penny, Ducky and Jethro's father, Jack. Penny greeted him with a kiss to the cheek and Tim's eyes widened. "'S ok, Tim, I got to know Penny, Sarah, Jack and DiNozzo Senior pretty well while you were gone." Tim nodded back at him, accepting that. Tobias was happy to see the kid had his sister tucked under his arm; that was good because the young woman had been a wreck the entire time they'd been gone. One minute believing Abby, the next minute mourning her brother and regretting her attitude toward him before his death. Not to mention the young woman's hatred of NCIS and Jennifer Shepard in particular. He looked around and saw that the former NCIS director had not shown up. He hadn't expected her to; Jethro had already told him of his worries about her not protecting or supporting Abby and Jimmy and with the way things had gone, Tobias figured everyone was better off with her absence. He did wonder if the new Director, Leon Vance, would show up to meet his returning agents. Realizing he had not updated Gibbs with that information, he pulled his friend aside.

"Haven't had a chance to tell you about Shepard yet. She got bumped upstairs, a cushy promotion with the CIA. Now that I know what happened, the pieces are fitting together. I'm betting it was a reward for keeping her mouth shut about Chimera and the truth about you guys. That's why the Bureau, that is my team, put Abby and Jimmy under protection and then helped them transfer. The spooks were pressuring them to shut up about the possibility of you guys being alive and your former boss sure wasn't going to lift a hand to show any support or help them in any way. In fact she was doing a good deal of the pressuring, managed to convince some of the NCIS staff to ostracize the two for their efforts. That's why Jimmy wasn't so happy to see the folks from NCIS, it was just a few people but it was more than enough."

Gibbs listened to Fornell, his mind whirling with the news. He'd always known Jenny was all about herself and her goals, but he had hoped she would have been professional enough to help Abby and Jimmy, not to mention their families. He asked Tobias about that, whether she'd helped any of their families, but his old friend just looked at him sadly. Fornell started to tell him about Vance but was interrupted by a voice calling from the dock.

"Ahoy Big Fish, permission to come aboard?" From his position, Gibbs couldn't see who it was and not recognizing the voice, he looked at Tobias, a puzzled look on his face.