AN: So other than some stiffness the ankle is fine. I'm a bit wary of stairs with full hands and tend to lean on the wall a bit. I know that doesn't help. It's a psychological crutch. I'm giving my youngest my old drafting table that my dad bought me as he's getting a new bedroom soon. My store has a nice compact one on sale that will run me less than $100 with my employee discount that has drawers and a flat place to put paint which my current drafting desk lacks. I want to water color again. I will make room if I have to. My 10 day rotation is turning into a 12 day rotation to cover all the shifts. What's 2 more days?

Chapter 7

"I got one." Gibbs said to Sam, bounding up the basement stairs.

"Oh?"

"Guy by the name of Mike Tallas. Remembers the murder. Says he had a buddy that swore he saw something but the guy disappeared a while after." Gibbs reached over and grabbed one of the cookies on the platter on the kitchen table.

"A second murder?" Sam asked him, deciding not to tell him those were lactation cookies.

"No way to tell yet. We'll have to meet him in West Virginia."

Sam nodded. "I'll get us a flight out to North Central."

Gibbs nodded and bit into his cookie. "'These are pretty good." He said around his mouthful.

Daniel came in. "Everyone going?"

"Harm should stay here in case Jack and Teal'c get lucky in their hunt or need something but yah. The three of us, Lonnie, and Gracie." Sam told him.

"I'll get us some hotel rooms while you book the flights." Daniel told Sam.

She nodded and smiled her thanks before grabbing her cell.

"He's just outside of Bridgeport." Gibbs told Daniel.

"Great, we can take the hotel shuttle from the airport then and just have a car dropped off."

"Civilian." Sam reminded Daniel as he walked out of the kitchen knowing otherwise he'd order a government issue from the motor pool that any nervous former military could spot like a cop at a drug deal.

Gibbs gave her an appreciative look. She was smart but she was sneaky too. Reminded him of Caitlin a bit really. He'd taken this assignment partially to get over her loss. Ari would pay for what he'd done… Gibbs shook his head. "Is it a good idea to take the baby?"

Sam shrugged. "I either have to bring her with me or stay home and I can't head up this investigation if I stay home." She tucked a tuft of hair behind her ear. She supposed she'd have to cut it shortly after the wedding which was a shame. She liked her hair long but the Air Force did not.

"All right. I'll see if I can dig anyone else up while you set up our flights." He snagged another cookie and left the kitchen.

Sam shook her head in amusement. He really did remind her a bit of Jack, even down to the haunted expression in his eyes sometimes.

"Hey… what about the…?"

"Not a problem." Sam told him as they approached the ticket counter to check their bags.

"Do you have anything to declare?" The Steward asked them in a bored voice.

"Nothing." Sam said and handed over the tickets and their collected IDs, all of which were military issue except Lonnie's.

They moved along to the TSA line and waited for their turn. It was early enough that the line was reasonable for a change. Sam pulled a chain from around her neck and put it in the tray with her purse. A sapphire glinted between diamonds off a ring on the chain.

The carry-on bags go through and one of the TSA agents looks oddly at the Zat in one of their bags then notices there's three of them. Gibbs watches them for a bit as Sam and Daniel walk through the metal detector that remains silent for both of them. When the agent calls over another agent and points at the odd folded shape, Gibbs pipes up. "That's the backup for my ED pump."

Daniel goggles and Sam just tilts her head back and grabs her neck, trying desperately to regain control of her facial expression. Behind Gibbs, Lonnie and a few other passengers giggle and snort.

"Yah let's go with that." Sam says.

The TSA agent gives Gibbs a hard look. He returns it with one of pointed 'dare me to explain further'. They were waved forward after the scanner doesn't blip on him either.

Lonnie walked through with the baby and follows the rest of them, shaking her head. She wasn't sure what she'd expected taking this job but she had to admit it wasn't this.

Once their luggage was stowed, they settled into their seats at the rear of the plane. Daniel sat next to the window, with Gibbs on the aisle where he could see the entire length of the cabin. Sam sat in front of Gibbs, and Lonnie sat in the window seat. After take-off, Sam raised the arms between her and Lonnie's seats so it would be easier for the two of them to move little Gracie between them. For now, though, Sam settled back to nurse Gracie, who was still fussy from the air pressure changes during take-off.

Gibbs had planted himself firmly in his seat, leaned back, and closed his eyes. It was thinking time for him, and he looked forward to the flight for no other reason than to mentally review all the information they had so far. Contrary to his relaxed appearance, he was completely aware of all the activity in the cabin of the plane. That meant he was aware that Daniel was staring at him.

"What?" he stabbed at Daniel, using his Gunny voice, hoping to make him uncomfortable enough to leave him alone.

Daniel had spent too much time with Jack to be put off by a little boss-man attitude. "Sorry, Gibbs. I was just wondering… I mean, Jack seemed to know you, and I... well, he never said, so I think, maybe... where do you and Jack know each other from?"

Gibbs' mouth turned down before he could completely blank his face. "Is that important?"

Sam, hearing Daniel ask the question she'd wanted the answer to since Gibbs first walked into the house, leaned toward the edge of her seat so she could hear Gibbs' answer. It wasn't really eavesdropping, she justified, after all, they knew she was there and Gibbs no doubt knew she could hear everything.

"Yes, I think it is," Daniel responded. "We know Jack trusts you, and that's enough for us. But I do think it's important. How would an Air Force special ops guy and a marine know each other? Specifically Jack, because he doesn't trust easily or just anyone and quite frankly I can't see that you're that different from most people. So?"

Gibbs leaned forward in his seat, his elbows on the arms of his chair, his head bent. He knew there was a lot of the story he couldn't tell, but he decided to give them what he could, and what he thought Jack wouldn't object to their knowing.

"We met on a mission during the Gulf." He leaned his head back and relaxed again, eyes closed.

"And? So? Therefore?" Daniel prodded with Jack's usual 'spit it out' expression.

Gibbs opened his eyes. "I can't tell you much more than that. I was assigned to a mission that went sideways. Jack's team pulled me out, but I don't remember much. I was in a coma for 19 days."

"Okay, I get that you can't tell us about the mission, but that still doesn't tell us how you and Jack know each other."

"The op was right after I heard that my wife and daughter were killed." His words were clipped.

"Oh," said Daniel, taken aback and feeling a little sick to his stomach. "I did not know. I'm sorry."

"Retired. Went to work for the Naval Investigative Service." Gibbs finished, making that statement a period to end Daniel's questions.

Sam, who had passed a sleeping Gracie off to Lonnie, turned around as far as she could and said softly, "Jack may have saved your butt during the Gulf, but that's not how you know him, is it?"

Gibbs was silent for a minute, then ground out. "It was after Jack lost his son. We ran into each other in DC."

He unbuckled his seatbelt, stood, and went to the back. There's not a lot of places to hide on a plane, but he found the obvious one, slammed the door shut and rammed home the "Occupied" bar.

Sam and Daniel looked at each other for a long moment. Sam's gut feelings about Gibbs being a lot like Jack had been dead on. He had more in common with Jack then she'd known.

"I didn't know." Daniel said under his breath.

Sam gave him a sympathetic look. She hadn't either when she'd chirped about being an auntie at Jack years ago. Thankfully, it hadn't been Jack so he had no memory of her making an ass of herself just to make conversation with her cute new CO. She shrugged.

Daniel sighed and picked his book back off his lap.

Lonnie gave Sam a concerned look. "He seemed mad."

Sam huffed a sigh out her nose. "Jack lost his son before he joined the unit we are in now." Sam would bet a dollar he and Gibbs met during mandatory grief counseling at the VA.

"Oh." Was all Lonnie said.

After they de-planed and rented a car, having decided to opt out of the sketchy looking hotel shuttle service, they drove to the hotel. Gibbs dropped his bag and left to meet the man who had information about a murder, leaving the rest to do a little research on their own.

Sam, Lonnie, and Daniel set up the rented port-a-crib from the hotel then sat down to wait. Sam had brought a deck of cards and they were using fish crackers from the convenience store around the corner to keep score.

Mike Tallas lived in a run down trailer park, on the edge of a run down area of town. The dirt road dead ended at the trailer park, and Gibbs could see a sad row of trailers that had seen better days. Tallas' place was at the end. An old, battered van with an open trailer like you see lawn guys use was pulled up to the side.

Gibbs parked the rental in the sparse grass next to the dirt road in front and unbuckled the seat belt. As he got out of the car, his eyes, behind their concealing sunglasses, swept the area for any indication someone else might be watching. He didn't see anything of concern, in fact the area was dead other than a one-eyed brown cat staring baleful at him from the top of a small shed about two trailers away, so he stepped on the wooden steps in front of the door and knocked. He stepped back down to the dirt, and away from the door.

The door screeched on its hinges as it opened, and an old, overweight balding man in a Mountaineers' football tee and sweatpants grunted out, "You Gibbs?"

Gibbs flashed his credentials, not giving the man time to really look at them. "Agent Gibbs. Are you Mike Tallas?"

"Yup. Come on in." Tallas stepped into the dark room enough for Gibbs to follow him, "Wanna beer? Got plenty."

"No, thanks."

"Well then, do you mind if I have one? Just got in from my job and showered a bit so I wouldn't stink." He motioned toward the couch, "Let's sit."

Gibbs looked over the room Tallas took a beer from the fridge and opened it. It looked like someone was at least attempting to keep it clean. The aging kitchen cabinet tops were cleared and wiped.

Once Tallas pulled a chair around to face Gibbs, he sat and took a slow pull of his beer. Nodding toward Gibbs, he said, "I understand you have some questions about a murder that happened a long time ago. Man, those were the days!" He shook his head and smiled.

If those were the days, Gibbs knew he was going to hear a long story. He'd met guys like Tallas before, decent guys who went through life never amounting to much, but never doing anything particularly bad. He said in his best buddy voice, "Mr. Tallas, I appreciate your time. My investigator didn't have many details, Why don't you tell me what happened from the beginning." My investigator is a shady piece of trash I wouldn't trust further than I could throw him.

Thirty minutes later, Gibbs knew that Tallas was proud of having been in the Air Force and passed OTS. He'd married after that, had a family, and dropped out of school to have more time for his kids. Since he hadn't finished his degree, he left the service (a nice way of saying he was pushed out, Gibbs thought) and owned a couple of small lawn businesses. His wife had died a few years back, and his kids were on their own, so here he was.

"But that's all about me. I guess you want to know about that murder."

"That is why I'm here."

Tallas stood. "Just a minute. I have something to show you about that." He left the room and came back bearing a huge photo album. He grinned. "I know, I know. You aren't interested in my kids' baseball trophies, but there is something in here you might be interested in." He started flipping pages, talking at the same time.

"We hadn't been there very long. We were all just getting to know each other and the instructors." He stopped and pointed to a picture. "That's my son. Third grade. Good kid." He flipped more pages. "Anyway, as I was saying, we were just getting to know each other. One Saturday night a group of us took off to one of the local taverns, ya know what I mean?" He stopped. "That's my daughter. Fifth grade." He said continued his story. "Anyway, some of the girls there were pretty wild, and some were just pretty. Most of them didn't want much to do with us, so we drank our way through the offerings, ya know?" He flipped more pages. "That is, me and this group of guys did. There was this one kid though, he couldn't have been more than twenty, awful young to be in OTS if you ask me. The bartender wasn't too good about checking IDs back in those days, ya know what I mean?"

"I do," Gibbs nodded. He hated people that just droned on and on, and Tallas was getting on his last nerve. He ground his teeth and reminded himself every now and then Tallas dropped a bit of information. "Go on."

Tallas flipped another couple of pages. Gibbs groaned inwardly. "So this one night, the kid got sicker 'n a dog. I pulled over and shoved him out the door and he ran toward the bushes. Maybe not running. His legs and arms were going all kinds of directions." Tallas laughed at the memory. "Kid was drunker than a skunk. I went back in when I heard him barfing. Just couldn't stand the smell, ya know? God, that kid! Worst barf smell ever. Worse than my kids. Smelled like he'd eaten a goat fur and all." He turned another page. "Ah, here."

Gibbs looked at the upside down photos of the OTS class. "So, the kid said he saw something?"

Tallas nodded. "Yup. He stumbled back to the car seemed like about half an hour later but it was probably only a few minutes and said he thought he'd seen a coupl'a guys hiding a body or something, then passed out cold on the back seat floor. Hey, I thought he had to be hallucinating, drunk as he was, but the next day the papers were full of some girl gone missing. She'd been at the same bar with her friends. Imagine that!"

"Yeah, imagine that. What happened to the kid? Did he remember anything?'

Tallas shook his head. "I don't know. The next day he was so hung over he didn't say much. Looked pretty grey. I wasn't so hot myself, ya see? The next week I saw him reading some letter and he freaked out. Not too long after that he transferred or something. Anyway, I never heard anything about him again."

"Did they find the girl?" Gibbs asked, even though he knew the answer.

"Nah, don't think so. The family finally gave up looking not long after she disappeared. Heard the parents died in the '80s and any surviving siblings left soon after."

"Do you know the name of the kid?" Gibbs asked. That was really why he was there. He, no, they, had to find that kid.

"Don't remember his name. We called Johnny or kid, or something." He shook his head. "But I do have a picture. See? This guy," he said, pointing to the youngest in the group of gangly young men. "You can have the picture if you want it."

Gibbs was staring at the picture. Oh yes, he definitely wanted that picture. "Yes, I would."

Tallas pulled the picture from the album and handed it to Gibbs, who was standing up. "Here ya go, then. Glad I could help. It's been a long time. Man, those were the days!"

Gibbs smiled and put the picture in his jacket pocket and patted it for safety. "Thank you, Mr. Tallas. We appreciate your help."

Later, driving back to the hotel, he couldn't help a smile. He wondered if Sam and Daniel would want to order in pizza.

"So how did you do?" Sam asked Gibbs, looking up from her hand and tapping the pile of cards on the table with a finger.

"Pretty good. Got a name, sort of, and a photo which should help more. We could check the yearbooks for that class, see if we can narrow things down. He said the guy transferred out though so we might strike out there."

"We'd know what year he'd graduate though so as long as he stayed in, a name narrows things down." Daniel said.

Gibbs looked at him. So Dr. Jones was useful after all. "It should help." He agreed and handed Daniel the photo Tallas had given him.

Daniel looked at it for a moment then walked away to his suitcase where he dug around a little then came back. He placed the photo on the table and looked at it through a magnifying lens.

Sam, whose eyes were sharper, looked over his shoulder.

"Daniel… that's…."

"Yup."

"Oh boy."

"I take it you know the guy?"

"Yah, you could say that." Sam says and bites her lip. Johnny who claimed to see two guys burying a body while vomiting his ill-conceived combination of imbibed substances in the bushes was a gawky nearly twenty year old Jack O'Neill.