Chapter 3

They left the cottage reluctantly, on the third morning, after wonderfully soft sunny hours spent mostly on the beach and the front porch. They'd even made it to the pond, and the old family cemetery where Tim's great grandparents, the original builders of the cottage, were buried. During their stay, they'd had the talk John requested. Both men found it difficult but necessary as Tim's father told him more about his illness and treatment, his acknowledgement that he'd waited too long to seek medical help, fearing it would throw a wrench into his career plans, his wishes for his last days and any funerary services. He had no worries about his mother or his daughter, he told Tim, as he knew his son was very close to both women and already looked out for them, when they allowed it. Tim was shocked when John admitted he had not yet told his mother or daughter of his illness. Now that he was on medical leave, he knew it was time to let them and his former wife know and he promised Tim he would do so as soon as they returned home. He further shocked Tim by again acknowledging how proud he was of his accomplishments; the man knew more about his son's life than that son had ever dared dream.

Following "the talk", John continued to fill Tim's head with more stories, which he later captured on his laptop. To Tim's surprise and delight, the Admiral turned the tables on him and wanted to know more about Tim's writing and his work at NCIS, asking him to tell him about some of the cases not featured in his books. Tim spent a few hours telling his dad about some of the stranger and sometimes amusing, in a dark humor sort of way, things that had happened to the team. The koala on the submarine was an instant hit with John. When his father wanted to know what he wasn't telling him, Tim just shook his head. "Can't talk about everything, Dad, you know that. I can tell you I lost a teammate to a terrorist my first year on the team."

"So your team gets sent out of the country?"

"Yeah, sometimes; some or all of the team have been to Gitmo, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Mexico, Israel, Columbia and Canada. But this happened in Norfolk." Tim noticed his father's eyes widen a bit.

"Tim, I had no idea you'd be handling things like that. I thought the FBI and DHS would take those cases."

"From Leroy Jethro Gibbs? Not going to happen, Dad. And in that case, none of the other agencies bel…" Tim suddenly snapped his mouth shut, feeling he was too close to divulging classified information.

His father gave him a knowing grin and shook his head.
"Stopped yourself in time, did you?"

Tim nodded. Giving himself a mental shake, he resumed his storytelling with the case of the corpse found smoked in the furnace chimney at Quantico. At a team dinner, Gibbs had taken great delight telling them about Fornell's speechlessness when meeting the widow. Later in the case, the three field agents had been in Observation during the interrogation of that same widow and Tim enjoyed seeing his father's eyes once again widen as he wove the story of the missing toe.

"So you do work with the FBI? I hadn't realized that."

"Yes sir; FBI, DHS, NSA, CIA, ONI, Great Britain's MI6, Israel's Mossad, not to mention our sister agency CGIS and occasionally Army CID."

"I had no idea NCIS would be so …versatile! When you work with those other agencies, they have the lead then?"

Tim started laughing, he laughed so hard he nearly spilled his coffee. His father, having no idea what had tickled his funny bone simply sat, enjoying his son's merriment. The younger man finally stopped and wiped his eyes.

"Oh Dad. Would you give up the lead? Unless ordered to do so, of course."

"Hell no!"

"Dad…you and Gibbs, so much alike. Other agencies hate working with us; they know Gibbs is going to take the lead, whether it's officially his or not. Unless he's given a direct order, then he plays nice. Nice-ish. One time the FBI got a bug up their butts about our Director and they shut us down, all of HQ, we weren't allowed to investigate or even really know what they were fishing for. This was Fornell again – he was involved in the Norfolk terrorist case, and he is actually a good friend of Gibbs since they were married to the same woman; they brought in the NCIS Assistant Director to club Gibbs into submission. Did that stop my boss? No, he just moved the investigation offsite; we hid out in his basement investigating the FBI, using ancient equipment and photos of an autopsy - and we figured it out! The FBI was still chasing their tails while we figured it out. Of course, it was the CIA that had done the dirty deed – this was the murder of one of the largest arms dealers in the world."

His father sat up straighter than ever, jaw dropped, staring at him. "Ok, murder of the world's largest arms dealer…is one thing, what did your director have to do with that? "

"Maybe nothing, never have been sure, but she had some sort of grudge against the guy for years and Tony, you know, my teammate, had been undercover dating the arms dealer's daughter for nearly a year. And then his car blew up and…"

John interrupted, "Maybe nothing? And dating the daught...whose car, the arms dealer's?"

"No, Tony's, but he wasn't in it, although we didn't know that until later that day. We thought he was dead until Ducky found out the dead guy had never had the plague like Tony had. Nobody's ever said it officially, but the CIA blew up his car, although the guy we usually get stuck working with denied it."

"The plague? Tony's had the plague and his car, a Federal Agent's car, was blown up by the CIA?"

"Yeah, some nutjob dying of a brain tumor was mad at General Westmoreland, so she sent NCIS an envelope full of plague virus and Tony was the lucky one to open it. The car? Maybe…nobody's admitting anything really. But Tony hates the guy, hell, we all hate the guy!"

"Westmoreland? He retired years ago and he's been dead for nearly a decade. And who do you hate… the CIA guy?"

"Yeah, although we haven't seen him since the Port to Port killer case, when he lost an eye – he was the guy's handler and things got way out of control..." Tim paused, remembering, "We lost another teammate during that case, extended family really. He was Gibbs' first boss at NCIS, still his mentor, best friend – still called Gibbs his Probie - we all loved that cowboy. When Gibbs was blown up, Mike Franks came up from Mexico and helped him get his head straight. After Gibbs quit, he went and stayed with Mike for a few months while he recovered from the explosion. Mike was kind of like an ornery great uncle to the rest of us. He was murdered by the P2P killer." He stopped, giving himself a moment to remember the man they'd relied on to come to Gibbs' rescue when things got too crazy.

"Unbelievable, the plague, explosions, serial killers, people losing eyes, cars blowing up, terrorists. Son, you would have had a more peaceful life in the Navy!" His father said, laughing. "And please, please, go back to Gibbs and Fornell being married to the same woman! I have got to know about that."

Pulling out of his memories of Mike Franks, and once again amazed at this new relaxed, laughing man who at least physically resembled his father, the 'stiff as a stick' Admiral, Tim filled John in on the few publicly known details he knew about Gibbs & Diane, Fornell, Diane & their daughter, and Diane & her current husband, here he crossed his fingers behind his back, hopefully still her husband! When he stopped, his father shook his head, saying, "I'm not sure what amazes me more, the Diane stories or your case stories, but oh no, she was in one of your cases!" He caught a strange expression passing quickly through those green eyes in front of him, "What, there's something you're not telling me? Is it classified?" He noticed the tell, his kid's ears were turning bright red. "Oh HO, Timothy! Tell me!" Tim drew a deep breath and as succinctly as possible, told his father of the second case involving Diane Sterling, skipping merrily over the details of his non-involvement with the woman. Because really, nothing happened.

"My God, this is the stuff that doesn't get in your books! I don't even want to think about the classified cases! And what about you, son? Aside from Diane, have you had any unusual 'adventures' during a case?"

"Got mauled by a drug dog stuffed full of cocaine," Tim pulled up the sleeve on his left arm, showed the scar; pulling the sleeve back down, he reached for the neckline of his shirt and pulled down the right side to display that scar, "here and here. Waded in a hot tub full of bugs and a rotting body, fell off a roof, oh," here he chuckled, "chased a suspect through a carwash, told off a deputy Secretary of State, helped Gibbs disarm a bomb, helped find a mole uh somewhere, a couple of moles, actually, pulled Tony up off the railing of the 5th floor of a parking garage – huh, that was another mole, took lead and solved a case involving a murdered guy who'd apparently flown his jet pack while dead, was given a personal death threat by a drug cartel in Mexico, held hostage in a prison riot, got pepper sprayed in that – solved a murder that day too, got tortured while avenging a teammate in …not important where, got impaled by shards of glass when NCIS HQ was blown up last year. " He paused and noticed the Admiral's eyes were so wide they threatened to fall out. " It's rarely dull! I love that we stop the bad guys from hurting you, Dad, the Navy, the Marines and their families. The level of satisfaction that brings to me – to the whole team – is well worth the risks."

"You have had a few 'adventures', son, and some that sound pretty frightening even to this tough old sailor. I am very grateful you haven't been seriously injured or killed… pulling Tony up, have you gotten over your fear of heights?" Tim shook his head and the Admiral continued, "I did not know you were injured in that explosion, Timothy, Penny never mentioned it."

"I didn't tell Penny or Sarah, Dad. Gibbs was with us at the hospital and I only had to stay at Bethesda for a few days to make sure I didn't have any latent blast injuries, since on our floor at NCIS I was the only survivor that close to the bomb. When no other injuries manifested and a lot of other people were badly hurt or killed, I just told her I was fine." He smirked at his father, "She didn't ask for any details so I didn't give her any."

"I know I've said this a few times in the last few weeks, Tim, I'll just keep saying it. I am so proud of you, the man you've become and the work you do. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm grateful you didn't cave into my demands, that you didn't listen to me and followed your own path." Standing, he gave his son a strong hug.