Chapter One
Gibbs always went with his gut. Week after week, case after case, Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs always caught the bad guy, whether it was through force or some odd, silent form of psychological torture that involved a very demoralizing stare. But this time, for the first time in years, Agent Gibbs found himself in, oddly enough, danger. Now, it wasn't uncommon for him to be held at gunpoint once in a while, but this was flat-out mortal peril. Handcuffed and chained to a sunken ship at the bottom of the ocean kind of mortal peril. So, without backup, but with a horrible feeling in his infamous gut, Gibbs stormed the streets of Washington D.C.
The night air was cool against his face as his feet, heavy with fatigue, slapped the sidewalk. As opposed to his usual calm and collected demeanor, Gibbs was acting strangely agitated, like the times when he's just about to close a really dramatic case, and the suspect's not cooperating. His pace quickened, and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Across the street stood a familiar looking woman, with her back to him, talking on a cell phone. Immediately his breath hitched in his throat and he ducked into an alleyway.
Lurking out of sight, Gibbs observed as the woman walked along and entered a car parked near a long since closed bakery, her distinguishing silver hair catching his attention in the glow of the streetlamp. Slinking along the walls of the city, so as not to be seen, he made his way towards the parked car. And just as he felt the time was right, Gibbs approached the vehicle and took a blatant look inside at the woman in the driver's seat. Confused warm brown eyes stared back at him, and he instantly let his guard down, for the moment. It wasn't her. Giving himself a mental head slap, he nodded to the woman in the car and continued on his way. As he covered more distance, Gibbs' nervousness reared its ugly head once again as he caught a glimpse of himself in a reflective store window.
His blue eyes, usually penetrating and hard, were worn and red with the hours of sleepless nights, bags fully formed beneath them. His hair was a wreck, and badly needed a wash, as did his over-worn outfit. Overall, Gibbs looked more like a haphazard drunk than a distinguished federal agent. His appearance surprised himself, but he thought he actually looked pretty good for a man who spent the last three days being chased around, well, everywhere by a psychopath who seemed like she was almost better than him at playing the game. Almost.
Retrieving his phone from his pocket, he cautiously turned it on, knowing that it was a major risk in the era where a murder can be convicted by a single technologically traced phone call. Gibbs looked through his missed calls which rounded out for a grand total of twenty-seven since Monday. Of course they were worried about him. He knew from the beginning that they would be. It hurt him not to be able to contact his team, but he knew that for their safety, it was imperative that he remained relatively undetectable. Donning his cloak of invisibility once more, he turned off the cell phone.
His gut told him to keep going, but exhaustion was getting the best of him. He slumped down next to some empty crates and tried to do some major thinking. He loved his team. Really, he did. It was just that in recent days, he had been finding that things had been changing.
At the beginning of their fusion at NCIS, Gibbs was the backbone of his team; they could do nothing without him. They were all so young and unsure of themselves at the time, and like any good surrogate father would, he always saw past their sometimes masquerading attitudes and supported them in whatever problems they faced. But years had passed, and the kids, for lack of a better phrase, grew up. His agents were not the insecure little teenagers they once were. He knew that they could handle whatever life threw their way, and that the inevitable day would soon come for them to fly the nest. It seemed, nowadays, that things might function just fine without Papa Gibbs.
So, tired and somewhat delirious, Gibbs remembered his team. The stakeouts, the long hours of paperwork and puzzling over soldiers, questionable wives, so-called business partners, and the occasional child were all in good fun, or work. However, he was feeling that he overshot the mark a little bit, like he should have quit while he was on top of his game. Maybe it was the coffee, the politics, or the aching knees, but Mexico was looking friendlier and friendlier every day.
It might have been the weariness, or the fact that a dose of poison was slipped in his drink this morning, but Agent Gibbs unavoidably fell into a deep sleep with familiar words like "On your six, boss," and "These abrasions were done post-mortem, Jethro," still buzzing about his brain.