Chapter 21

Tim woke up on the couch during the night and went upstairs to his own bed. Checking his phone, he was amused to see his father had turned it off. So much for Rule 3!

He woke at his usual time Tuesday morning, feeling much better. He laughed later when he checked his e-mail and found one with an attached leave request form filled in for him, with Gibbs' electronic signature. Pam Cook sent him a copy with Vance's electronic signature and a smiley face asking him to also sign and return. He did so and then got the kids up and ready for their day. While they ate breakfast, he called Mac. For all he knew the man had plans for the day, then Tim would reschedule.

His grandfather was thrilled he was coming for a visit today; he had no plans and told Tim to bring his swim stuff. Tim laughed, telling him it was already in the car. He took the kids to day care, telling them he'd be out of town for the day and their grandfather or Uncle Tony would pick them up that evening. He felt a little guilty for doing this without them but felt he really needed to do it by himself. Selfishly, he wanted some time with his grandfather before the kids met him.

The drive to Fenwick was about 2 ½ hours and Tim made good time. He pulled up at his grandfather's bungalow about 10:30 and looked at the view as he gathered his belongings, camera, beach bag and iPad with all of his photos. The place was literally on the beach and every bit as small as Mac had told them.

He hoped their rental was nearby and did a 180 turn, looking for any large houses. He smiled when he saw the large two-story Victorian beach house right across the street and wondered if it would be theirs for the July 4th holiday. He knocked on the door of the bungalow and smiled as it was quickly opened by an older man, nearly as tall as he was with close to the same build and the same hair. Tim was relieved to see that at nearly 80, Mac's hair was still on his head, although thin.

"Hi Grandpa, I'm Tim!"

"Know you anywhere son, like looking in a mirror. Well more like an old photo of me."

They hugged and Mac kissed him, holding onto him and whispering how glad he was he'd survived, his baby grandson. Tim understood this man's grief was similar to that of his father. Mac lost his only child and not one but two grandbabies although he'd had 8 years with Kelly. Then his marriage had tanked although that was probably a blessing.

Eventually they entered the house and Tim smiled, it was a charming little beach house, perfect for a single person or a very close couple. Mac returned his smile, "I don't spend much time indoors here. Rainy days mostly but even then I'll head over to the clubhouse."

"Do you rent this house every year?"

His grandfather winked, "Used to but I bought it after we talked. With you, Jethro and my great grands so close, I couldn't resist. I've rented this place for about 9 years now. Had an apartment up here before that, rented it with a friend every year but she died and it was more than I wanted to maintain."

"Sorry you lost her."

"She was a good woman and we had 18 years together, much happier than with my ex. I met her up here and it was her idea to move to Florida for the winter and early spring and then live up here on the beach the rest of the year. We would have married but she had her finances all set up and neither of us cared if we made it legal." He chuckled, "Turned out she left me a good chunk of her estate so it wouldn't have mattered but it saved us wasting time on paperwork!"

Tim smiled, "Hey, I'm in law enforcement, I know all about paperwork!"

"C'mon, it's a little early for a swim but I've got my chairs and umbrella down there, we can have a drink and talk. I hope you brought pictures!"

"I brought my tablet which has all my pictures!"

"Will it be all right in the sand and the damp?"

"Yes, I have a cover on it so nothing can get into the electronics."

"Smart thinking! Now, the bathroom's to your right; go change and I'll help you with the sunscreen." He laughed at the surprised look on Tim's face. "I'm as pale as you in the winter. Before they started marketing sunscreen around the time you were born, I had to use zinc oxide and wear long sleeves. So my nose and arms would be pale, my face a little pink because I wore hats in the sun and my legs and feet were always red."

"Wow, I've never thought about it but I'm lucky to have been born after it was available."

He quickly changed his clothes, slipped on his flip flops, grabbed a shirt, towel, sunglasses, sun hat, tablet and lastly his sunscreen rated SPF 50, stuffing everything but the sunscreen into a smaller bag. He quickly slathered the sunscreen on what he could reach. In the main room, Grandpa Mac took the tube from him and slathered it on his back.

Putting the cap back on, his grandfather chuckled as he handed it back to Tim. "Guess there's something new or you just haven't told me."

"Huh?"

"It's been a while, but I still recognize a love bite when I see one."

Tim's eyes almost popped out of his head, he'd forgotten! Laughing, he nodded. "Busted! Yes, I've been dating or trying to date someone but with kids, work, and everything going on it's been tough to have any private time together. We were finally successful the other night." He leaned in closer, "We got in trouble though."

"What? I have to hear this! Let's get outside first."

The two of them walked down to what looked like a permanent encampment on the sand, complete with chairs, reclining lounge chairs, two umbrellas heavily weighted down and a locked cooler.

"I take a walk on the beach in the morning; put the day's ice in along with drinks, sandwiches, books, whatever I might want that day. Makes it easier, then I only have to go up to the house once, for the bathroom."

"Don't the books get damp?"

"Ha, knew you were my grandson! Love that's your first concern, just like your sister and your mother!"

Tim grinned; he loved that.

"The books are wrapped in double plastic storage bags. And there's a tray that fits in the top of the cooler, sandwiches and books go there so neither get soggy."

As they sat down, Mac opened the cooler. "See, everything's all set up."

Tim peered inside and then at his grandfather. "I didn't say…didn't want to brag."

"But I like wordplay and I figured out years ago that Thom E. Gemcity is an anagram for Timothy McGee. When your father called and said your adopted name was Timothy McGee, I decided that was you. My grandson, the famous author!"

Tim laughed, "It's been interesting, I'll tell you that. And the money has really helped us recover from years of poverty."

"Tell me about your life, Tim. About your sister, brothers and your life as a Navy brat, when you should have been a Marine brat."

Tim smiled, "Devil dog brat."

"That so?"

"What my dad tells me. How about we look at pictures and I'll tell you about the more interesting ones."

"All right."

They sat for over two hours with Mac looking at his photos and listening to his stories. He started with the most current ones so Mac would know who was who when everyone showed up for the Fourth of July. He went back as far as Ziva's last year and then went to his earliest photos and started forward. Mac carefully studied the photos of Tim as a baby with the McGees. "You certainly don't look premature."

"I remember going to the doctor a lot in Puerto Rico where we lived until I was about 3 but it was normal to me. I think I had frequent checkups, I don't remember being sick. I have allergies, asthma and a problem with seasickness but other than that I'm fine."

"That's good son."

Eventually they got hungry and ate the sandwiches Mac had purchased that morning. "Normally I just make peanut butter and jelly but I wanted something special for today, so I went to the deli. I got turkey, seems pretty neutral."

When he described the sandwich, Tim grinned, "That's my usual Monday sandwich." At his grandfather's questioning look, he explained, "We eat in the office as we rarely have time to go out and we trade off weeks for getting lunch. Over the years, we've established a routine: Deli on Monday, Italian on Tuesday, Thai or Cuban on Wednesday when we need a little more spice for the rest of the week, Greek or Polish on Thursday. Friday is Chinese because we take whatever is leftover home or if we're working the weekend, we stash it in the breakroom refrigerator."

"So today you're missing…Italian?"

"Pizza usually yes. That's also our team dinner of choice. When we have tough cases, we don't go home until we can't investigate any further. The pizza and Chinese places deliver, most of the others don't."

"What do you mean you don't go home?"

"We work until we run into a brick wall in our investigation. Might be because it's after midnight and we can't reach anyone we need to talk to or we're waiting for warrants or for electronic searches to give us more information. Depending on what time it is and how soon we estimate we can get back to work, Boss will send us home for a few hours or order us to get some shuteye at our desks. If we've been there more than two days straight, our director now dictates we go home for at least 8 hours. Usually we rotate that so that there's always two of us working and two getting some sleep. We all keep extra clothes there and there are showers in the gym."

"But no beds or cots?"

"No, Boss says they used to have them but regulations forced the agencies to get rid of them."

"Do you get confused at work, between Boss and Dad?"

"Not too much; it's easier now that the whole team knows and I'll only be working for him for three more weeks and three days. Going to be so strange!"

"Tell me about your dad. It's been so many years."

"I met him twelve years ago on a terrorist case out of Norfolk. I was working down there and a dead body showed up that I had no authority to investigate. So I called in the Major Case Response Team from the DC Navy Yard and that's when I met him." Tim grinned. "I followed procedures, wore a face mask and gloves and he made a little fun of me. I stood up to him and he liked that, kept requesting me for TAD to the Navy Yard. The man I met then is a lot different from the Gibbs I know now, even before I knew he was my father."

"How so?"

"He was a hard ass Marine; didn't put up with anything. Lived by strict rules and demanded his team did too. Never smiled, one of his nicer nicknames is 'Stone Face'. He can tear you apart with his tongue but we call him our functional mute. On our team, you quickly learn nonverbal communication skills or you don't last. It's funny to watch, we can have an entire conversation without saying a word, not even signing. We didn't realize that until our director clipped some security footage of our bullpen and showed us.

"We all know ASL, which is American Sign Language; it's saved our butts a few times. With Gibbs, when you're in trouble you know it, he's very direct and when it's over, it's over. If you ever need help, he's there for you. He handpicks his team members and it's still viewed as a blessing and a curse to be assigned to him. I was hazed, pranked, and teased when I transferred in, but after the years on the street, it wasn't bad and I learned so much. The man I work for now has mellowed quite a bit. He'll pat our shoulders; tell us he's proud of us, that we've done a good job. He'd never have done that even 8 years ago."

"What changed?"

"Us, I think. Three of us were together on his team for 8 years and we went through some tumultuous times. Over the years, the team, our Medical Examiners and our Forensic scientist have become family. At first we were a work family, now we're family outside of work too. We've lost people and that's brought us closer together. My first year on the team, we lost a teammate to a terrorist and we've lost more over the years. One of our previous directors was Dad's former agent and…a former girlfriend. She was killed in the line of duty several years ago. Dad's best friend and actually the agent who took over Mom and Kelly's case was killed on a case four years ago. That was tough, he was Dad's first boss at the agency and they kept in touch when Mike retired. When Dad got too crazy or hurt, we'd call Mike and he'd come up from his beach in Mexico and straighten out 'his Probie'. When he died, we felt we'd lost one of us, part of the family. He was the last of the cowboys, Mike Franks."

"I know that name. Yes, from Shannon and Kelly's case, I remember. Tall skinny guy, always looked like he needed a shave, talked with a southern twang."

Tim smiled, "Born and bred in Louisiana; served as a Marine in Vietnam. Took care of Dad after the girls died. Made sure he ate and slept. If it weren't for him, I don't think Jethro Gibbs would be alive now."

Mac sighed, "We certainly weren't there for him. Joann blamed him for everything. I was too shattered to be much help to anyone. I assumed Jack would have been there for him."

"No. They had a falling out at the funeral, before or after I don't know and they didn't speak for 15 years. No one knew Boss had any family until we caught a case that took us to Stillwater. We didn't even know about Shannon and Kelly until Boss was hurt and woke up missing over a decade of memory. To him, he'd just been told the girls were dead. That's when we first met Franks, he was the only one Boss recognized. He left and went to Mexico with Mike; we didn't see or hear from him for three months."

"But you said you knew Jack."

Tim smiled, "I did; we all did. After the case in Stillwater, the two reconciled and Jack came down for Christmas that year. He brought candy into the office and made an instant hit. We had him for 6 years after that. He'd come down a couple of times a year and we'd see him. He treated us like he would his grandkids and when he died; he left each of us a letter and a personalized photo album."

Tim had to swallow, "I loved him, the only grandfather I'd ever known. He told us stories about Boss as a kid. That was fun. One year he stayed with Boss over the summer and we saw Jack with Mike Franks and Tobias Fornell, he's one of Dad's best friends. I'll tell you more about him later. Anyway, when Jack and Mike were both there, poor Boss almost didn't know what to do, his two father figures in the same room! We thought the house would implode from all that energy!"

Mac asked about Fornell and in the course of explaining Tobias, Tim mentioned the three ex-wives.

"Jethro has three ex-wives?"

"Yes, all beautiful strong women, redheads. Unfortunately, none of them magically turned into Shannon once they were married."

"Have you met them?"

Tim tried to stop his shudder but Mac caught it and started laughing. He laughed so hard he had tears rolling down his face. Finally, he stopped and caught his breath, drinking the water Tim pulled out of the cooler.

"Oh my Timothy that was priceless. Now you have to tell me and you said this Tobias was married to one of them?"

"Yes, he describes himself as the second ex-husband of Dad's first ex-wife."

"You have to love them being able to tease about it."

"You should see them whenever she's around! Tobias and Diane have a daughter together, Emily, so they have to be in contact. Tobias refers to Diane as 'the devil's spawn' or 'she-devil' and Dad just shudders. And I've had to spend more time with her than I liked…she cried all over me!" Then he told them the story of Col. Mann, Director Jenny Shepard and ex-wife number three, Stephanie, all meeting at NCIS and Gibbs' attempts to melt into the carpet. "And of course we were fascinated, current girlfriend, past girlfriend and former wife; as Tony put it, like a train wreck you can't help but watch."

"And what about the second one?"

"Rebecca. Yes, we met her last year. She and Diane teamed up, showed up at a crime scene; that was frightening!"

"And no children from the three of them?"

Tim shook his head and Mac was silent, apparently out of questions. Tim wanted to know about his mother as she was growing up and heard some wonderful stories. When one of Mac's friends walked down the beach, he asked why they hadn't been in the water yet and they laughed, they'd been so busy talking most of the afternoon was gone and Tim needed to leave in an hour. They went for a wade just so Tim could say he'd been in.

The drive home seemed to take longer but Tim smiled the whole way. His grandfather was excited about the Fourth of July invasion and could hardly wait to meet his great grandchildren, Ellie and of course see his son-in-law after so many years. When Tim later told him Tobias Fornell would be there he chuckled, "Oh, I'm going to get some Jethro stories out of him; this is going to be fun!"