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Gibbs glanced at the caller ID as he grabbed for the ringing phone on the coffee table. Hitting the on button and putting the phone to his ear, he rolled onto his back then raised his left arm over his head to shield his eyes from the light streaming through the front window. "Gibbs." He heard his voice break with the first use of the morning.

"It's Booth, Jethro. Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you! What're you doing sleeping in this morning, you Jarhead? Keep this up and next thing you know people will be calling you a WIMP." Booth chided his cousin.

In one fluid movement, Gibbs gave a low chuckle as he tucked the phone between his shoulder and his ear and rolled over to grab his wristwatch in the disarray on the table in front of the couch. "Yeah, Grunt, I was up past four balls last night writing your reports so don't give me grief this morning!"

Giving an answering chuckle, Booth continued, "I just wanted to let you know that I'm headed up to see Pops. Bones and I talked after you left last night and I decided that it was foolish to put this off. I'd only find more excuses to let it slide. I have the charts with me and a copy of the advisory that was issued after the sailboat went down."

As he swung his feet to the floor and rubbed his free hand through his hair, Gibbs pushed himself to this feet as he asked, "How do you think he'll react?" Padding barefoot into the kitchen to push the button on the coffee maker, stretching his shoulders back and cracked his neck from side to side. "Any idea?"

"He's a good man, Jethro. I think that he has some regrets over this grudge, but we'll see." Booth checked the rear view and side mirrors in preparation for changing lanes. "Truth be told, I'm guessing it will take him a little time to process the information, but that he'll want to try to heal the relationship. Are you going to talk to Jackson about it?"

Pursing his lips and blowing his breath out, Gibbs shook his head. "I have to think about how best to handle that. Give me a call after you talk to Hank and we'll see what our next move should be, eh?"

"That's an alpha mike foxtrot to you, Jethro! As you were, Jarhead! You can go back to checking your eyelids for light leaks." Booth laughed out loud and moved to disconnect the call on his Bluetooth, just catching Gibbs' responding "Oorah!"

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His grandfather in the games room, Booth walked over to where Hank was sitting and smiled at him. "Hey Pops. I thought I'd come by and see how you're doing."

Hank looked up from his dominoes with a look of concern. "Seeley? What are you doing here? It's not the weekend, are Tempe and Christine okay?"

Patting his grandfather's shoulder, Booth assured him. "Pops! Don't worry! Everyone's fine. I just decided that I wanted to come and visit you that's all."

Still worried, Hank nodded his head. Turning his head to the other men at the table, he told his friends, "Sorry, boys. I'm going to have a visit with my grandson."

Shaking off the helping hand that Booth offered, Hank stood with a little effort, unhooked his cane from the back of the chair and used it to point towards the doorway. "Why don't we go to my room for a while."

Nervously, Booth clutched the tube tightly in his hand. "Actually, I thought maybe we'd go out to lunch. My treat if your up to it."

Giving his grandson a puzzled look, Hank shook his head. "If I'm up to it? Are you sure Tempe and Christine are okay, Seeley? He acknowledged the nod of affirmation from his grandson. "Let me just grab a jacket and we can head over to the that diner you like down the road."

As he followed his grandfather down the hall, Booth studied how frail the man who'd raised him was getting. Biting his lower lip, he reigned in his emotions.

Hank walked over to the closet and grabbed his jacket off the hook inside the door. Turning he noted that his grandson had taken a seat on the small couch in the sitting area of his room. Hank walked across the room and sat in the wing back chair across from his grandson.

"Hey Pops, do you remember me telling you I had a case I was going to work on with Jethro Gibbs?"

Not sure why his grandson was nervous, Hank started to get irritated. "Of course I do. I'm not senile yet. Did you talk to him about your father? Did you find out if your father was lying to you about why Jethro went overseas?"

Leaning back against the couch, Booth sighed. "Yeah, I talked to him. It turns out my old man was a liar as well as a mean drunk. Jethro was sent to South Korea because the Marines needed him there. He didn't ask for the transfer. All of these years I hated Jethro and now I find out that the guy isn't what I thought he was, what Dad led me to believe about him . . . . You know Pops it's time like this that I find it really hard to practice turning the other cheek. It's just that sometimes it seems like that sorry bastard did everything he could to destroy my childhood. I know he was an alcohlic, but sometimes it seems like I'm letting that be an excuse for his actions, for the things he did."

Booth leaned forward on the couch, staring down at his hands. "Jethro told me he got Dad to some A.A. meetings. I guess that was the time when things were a little better at home, before Mom left, before Jethro was transferred overseas. You know, just from experience with G.A. I know that Dad never did the twelve steps. At least he never did them with me! Pops, I know he was your son and you feel responsible for some of this but, you know and I know that Dad's alcoholism was not your fault anymore than my gambling addiction is anyone's fault. It's just a fact."

He looked up at the older man sitting across from him. "Sometimes, Pops's, it's just more difficult than others. Now I find out that I let him influence how I felt about the only family I have left in this world besides you and Jared, well and Bones and the baby. It makes me so mad." Giving a sad smile, he continued, "And it makes me sad, Pops. Sad that he was such a pitiful man and that he was so scared that he had to ruin the lives of everyone around him."

Sighing, Hank reached across and patted his grandson's knee. "Son, I'm sorry you had a father like that; but, we can't undo the past. We have to live with the hand we were dealt. I'm glad you straightened out that thing with Jethro. You're right, you don't have much family left and it's worse for Jethro. As far as I know, besides his father, we're all he has left too. He had a wife and daughter; but, they were murdered. I tried to keep track of him even though Jackson and I weren't talking to each other. I don't know if you know that I wrote to Jethro occasionally and he wrote back. I should have made an effort to get to know him better than I did."

He gave a derisive laugh. "But, our lives get busy, don't they? We take people for granted, we think that we have time to say things. To catch up." Hank shook his head as he looked across at the young man sitting on the couch. Booth nodded with a sad smile on his face."You think we would learn, wouldn't you? We don't though. We get better for awhile but we get busy and we know that they are busy. That's what happened with me and Jethro. I got distracted and he had a busy life. I just never wanted to intrude into his life. I can see it was a mistake."

The two men sat quietly for awhile, each lost in their own thoughts. Hank looked over at his grandson. "After his wife and daughter were murdered I think I wrote to him one more time; but, he just seemed to want to shut himself away from what little family he had left and I sure didn't want to force him to keep in contact with me. I should have though. I realize now that I wasn't fair to him. I knew he was grieving and I should have kept writing to him to remind him that he had more than his father, but well . . ."

Seeing the sadness on his grandfather's face, Booth shook his head. "I guess we've all made mistakes, Pop, but I think we can finally fix some of them. I know I've started to. I worked a case with Jethro and I really liked doing it. He's smart and he's a good investigator. Bones likes him and I think we're going to try to stay in touch. Bones thinks Christine could use an older relative as a role model. She has her Uncle Russ and Uncle Jared." Booth smiled at the warmth that came over him when he spoke of his family. "And of course there's you and Max. Temperance had this really long anthropological reason, but what it boiled down to is we don't have very many relatives and Bones doesn't want us lose contact with any of them." Clearing his throat, Booth stared at his grandfather. "Any of them Pops."

Puzzled, Hank responded, "Okay?"

Holding up the cylinder he had brought with him, Booth opened one end and then pulled out the charts it held. "It's like this, Pops. I want to talk to you about the boat wreck that killed your father."

Irritated, Hank held up his hands. "Son, I don't want to talk about that anymore. It doesn't change anything. My father is still dead and hashing it over and over is just painful to me."

Tapping the chart against his knee, Booth frowned at his grandfather. "Pops, what I want to talk to you about isn't a rehash. I have some new information about that wreck and I think you need to know about it."

Intrigued, Hank stared at the chart in Booth's hand. "What new information?"

Glad that his grandfather appeared willing to listen, Booth opened the chart. "This is a chart of the upper Chesapeake Bay around the time of the accident. It would have been like the one your father had on his boat." Pointing to a small red x on the chart, Booth continued, "This is where your wreck happened. You can see that the chart shows that it's open water and should have allowed for smooth sailing."

Putting on his glasses, Hank stared at the chart and the small x. Shrugging his shoulders, Hank asked, "And?"

Booth pulled a second chart from underneath and laid it on top. "Now this chart came out a year after your accident. If you look where the little red x is you'll see that it shows an underwater obstruction. A sail boat sank in that spot a week earlier. A week before you and Jackson and your Dad went out on the bay. Given the depth of the water and the size of the boat that went down, the sailboat's mast would have been just below the water. When Jackson drove the boat over that spot, the bottom of your boat was probably holed by the mast. In all likelihood, that would have been what caused the wreck and ultimately the death of your father. Jackson didn't do anything wrong. It was an accident Pops. The whole thing was an accident."

Filled with emotion, Hank swallowed, stared at the chart and blew air through his partially closed lips. Standing, he walked over to the bathroom, entered the room and closed the door behind him. Booth watched his grandfather struggle with his emotions until the door was safely shut behind him. Not sure what was going to happen next, he rolled up the charts and put them back in the cylinder. While he waited, Booth leaned back and closed his eyes, trying to control his own emotions.

After awhile, Hank came back out of the bathroom and sat back down on his couch. "Son, I'm glad you showed this to me. I've been a fool. All this time, I blamed Jackson for something that he wasn't responsible for. I just . . . I don't know what to do with this though. I'm pretty sure that Jackson won't talk to me even if I try. We've been at war with each other too long, almost seventy years. That's a lot of anger to overcome, Shrimp."

A lump in his throat, Booth leaned forward. "You know, Pops, I've hated Jethro since I was nine years old. I've talked with my sponsor about it. I've done the steps. There have been times when I think it's better, then something happens and it all comes back. That's thirty three years of hate, but now . . . because of the case I worked on with him, I talked to him and I found out the truth. And now . . . well now he's part of my family again. I think if I can overcome my hatred for Jethro then Jackson might do that too."

Booth looked his grandfather in the eye. "You know what my sponsor said to me when I talked to him about it, Pops?" Watching his grandfather shake his head, Booth continued. "He told me to pray about it." Giving a low chuckle, he said, "Pops! Even Bones told me to pray about it!" Booth shook his head at Hank's response, "I know! Pops, even if Jackson won't forgive you, at least you would have the satisfaction that you tried. Wouldn't you like to try to bury the hatchet? If you want to then let me know, Jethro and I have talked it over and we've decided that if you're game we'll try to help you and Jackson make up. It's up to you though. We won't force the issue. It's your decision."

His hand on his grandson's knee, Hank replied, "Let me think it over Shrimp. I'll let you know what I decide in a few days."

Placing his hand over Hank's hand, Booth squeezed it lightly. "Sure thing Pops. Just let me know what you want to do. Now, how about you grab your jacket and we head over and get some lunch at that diner? I'll even share my French Fries with you if you want some!"

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A/N: definitions of military slang used in this chapter can be found in wiktionary. FFN doesn't like it if you mention internet addresses; so, I can't give you the address.

[We've been around the military for many years; so, you just knew we had to show off sometime.]