April Fool´s Day 2: The Boat
Disclaimer: I don´t own any characters or anything!
Summary: Tony comes up with a very special prank for Gibbs and everyone seems to be in, but will they live long enough to have a good laugh?
Additional note: I came up with this around 2 am last night and it just wouldn´t go away, so I thought I´d just go ahead and share it with you.
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Abby was staying with Kate for the night and set up her laptop in the livingroom. "I put a chip into Gibbs´ cell last time he left it lying around in my lab. This way we always know where he´s at. I even added a perimeter alert when he pulls in closer than 5 miles. The base is about 15 miles from his house, so we got plenty of time. Ducky made sure they are keeping him really busy there." She told Kate, who was smiling about her friend´s excitement.
At 7 am, Abby watched the GPRS signal leave the house and alerted everyone that they were ready to roll. They met half an hour later at the house. Gibbs loved to keep his private life private, which was an advantage for them as he lived a bit off the main road. His place was surrounded by trees that made it hard to see what was going on there. McGee´s cousin checked the outside wall of the basement and grinned. "Heck, that´s just a simple cardboard wall with some cement smeared on. Don doesn´t even need to go in -we just have to take the wood off on the outside and can unscrew the boards afterwards. No need to get a new wall built at all." He said and they grinned.
Tony´s friend Hector got there with his truck two hours later, just when the wall had been removed. After the men had loaded the boat onto the truck, Abby and Kate cleaned out the basement. Everything went well and around4 pm, the wall was up again. They lifted it up once without fixating it yet while Kate and Tony stood inside the basement.
When they took it down again, both grinned. "Looks like the old one -no way to tell a difference." Tony said and they finally screwed it on. The outside of the house was laid out with wooden planks, which were easily put back over the wall. They had sorted all screws and planks to put it together the same way it used to be. It was9 pm when they were finally done. Hector brought the boat into a storage section only two blocks from NCIS headquarters.
All were tired, but somehow very excited. They knew that Gibbs would be back the following morning. Ducky had driven up to the base to make sure he was still being held for examination and he was indeed. Abby stayed at Kate´s place again, being too tired to drive home. She checked the laptop again and found the signal still at the base. "I wish I could be a fly on the wall in his basement tomorrow. Bet he first checks on his boat when he comes back."
Next morning, all were back at the office at 7:30 am already. They finished their work and waited patiently. Gibbs would walk out of the elevator at 8:10 am sharp, like he always did. Kate was running a search for a license plate on her computer and kept glancing at her watch. 8:09 am. She looked at Tony who was grinning widely. 8:10 am. The doors of the elevator slid open and they put their best pokerface on. "Good morning, Gibbs." Kate called at him and she could see from his face that he had indeed looked into his basement before coming in for work this morning. "I don´t know what´s good about this morning, Agent Todd." He snapped at her and took his phone out. "Gibbs. I need someone to look at my house, someone stole my boat out of the basement. No, a real boat, one that is used to go for a tour on the lake. Yes, out of the basement. No, I am not kidding you. Hey, don´t you..." He shouted into the receiver and Kate dove under her desk to hide the grin on her face. "Todd, what you doing down there?" He demanded immediately.
She pulled a pen out of her bag and got up again. "Dropped my pen, boss. Something wrong?" She asked and looked at him. He was upset, really upset. In fact, he didn´t even try to read her eyes when she met his gaze, which was highly unusual.
He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. "Somebody stole my boat." He said and she threw a puzzled look at him.
"You´ve got your boat in your basement -how could someone steal it?" She asked and saw that McGee was making a beeline for the restrooms. Obviously, he was about to break down with laughter.
"No clue, that´s the problem there." He said and continued to mutter curses.
Ducky turned up half an hour later and looked at Gibbs. "Jethro, you do look unwell today. Is there something wrong?" He asked, his voice full of concern, which caused Tony to take a dive beneath his desk this time.
"My boat is gone. I´m going to kill the bastard who did that if I find him. If there´s one scratch on that boat, I promise he´s dead." Gibbs said between clenched teeth and started to pace the room. "The police called me crazy when I told them -they seriously advised me to see someone about it."
Kate got up. "I´ll be in the lab, need to get something checked." She said and walked to the elevator. When the doors closed, she couldn´t help smiling. He finally got the payback for all the little mean things they had endured over the last months. Abby was bouncing off the walls when she told her. "He´s completely confused. Never seen him like that."
"Wow, awesome. So, what are we going to do now?" Abby asked and handed her a cup of caf-pow from her desk.
"Ducky will send him to a therapist he knows well. He´ll be there a whole day and get back really late at night. We´ll put the boat back and when the therapist comes along to have a look at the lost boat, it will be there again like nothing happened." Kate told her and Abby squealed with delight.