The Bracelet

Disclaimer: I don´t own any characters or anything

Summary: What is the meaning of the bracelet Gibbs is wearing? Ducky knows, but ihe´s not telling.

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1- A new case

"We got a body, get your gear." Gibbs called at his agents and put his cell phone back into his pocket. His fingers brushed the small bottle in just that pocket, but he ignored it for now. Heading towards the garage, he heard his three agents following him. It was just another case on just another day, nothing special about it, but yet, his gut feeling told him that something about this case would cause upheaval.

When they were in the truck, Kate looked at their boss. "Any information about this case yet?" She asked and looked at her palm pilot. It was a rather sunny day in late October and the leaves had turned red and orange, which looked actually really pretty. She watched the landscape as they drove and wondered when she would have time to go for a ride again. She hadn´t been to the stables for quite a while now. They had worked almost 24/7 for the last weeks on three major cases. It was Friday, but somehow she knew that they wouldn´t get this weekend off either.

"Nothing yet. Police is just securing the scene until we get there. Found his ID and immediately cleared the scene, I guess they learned it by now." Gibbs replied while he took a left turn at a crossing. The truck swayed dangerously, but none of the agents even blinked. They had gotten used to his driving by now. Actually, it seemed a bit less dangerous today, but none really thought about it much.

The park stopped next to a police car and they got out. "NCIS." Gibbs introduced them briefly and waited for the officer to let them pass. "Kate, pictures, McGee, measurements, Dinozzo, check the area." He ordered and walked over to the body that lay next to a tree a few feet away from the main road. Mallard and Palmer came walking over about the same minute.

"Hello, Jethro. What do we have here?" The medical examiner asked as he pulled his gloves on.

"I guess you´re going to tell me soon, Duck." Gibbs replied and looked around for anything that gave him a clue what had happened here. There were cigarette buds and some blood on the ground. He took a sample and bagged everything for Abby to look at. She would be able to tell him more about it. The sun was shining brightly, which gave them good light to work in.

"Boss, there´s some fabric on a fence over here. Looks like silk." Dinozzo called at him and he got up again. "There are footprints as well, three different ones as far as I can see it."

Gibbs nodded. "Well, just take a print and bag that fabric." He told his agent and realized that he had trouble focussing his eyes on anything for a second. He knew this feeling just too well and walked up to the truck, taking out his coffee. He slipped the small bottle out of his pocket and dripped some of the contents into his coffee. Taking a large sip of the warm fluid, he closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he felt better and walked back to the scene. "Anything on the COD, Duck?"

"There seems a blunt head trauma, but I am not certain this is the COD yet. I will be able to tell you more after a proper autopsy, Jethro." Mallard replied and nodded at his assistant to close the body bag. He got up and looked at Gibbs. "Are you feeling quite all right today?" He asked, noting that Gibbs looked slightly pale.

"Sure do, Duck." The answer came a bit too quickly, but knowing his friend, Mallard decided not to inquire any further right now.

Kate had finished taking pictures of the scene and had overheard the last bit of conversation. She frowned slightly. Having worked with Gibbs for so long, she noted a slight undertone in his voice that usually wasn´t there. It wasn´t easy to notice, but as a profiler, she had been trained to note such subtle changes. She made a mental note to ask Ducky about it later on and returned to the truck.

"Hey, Kate, you know that picture would look great on a shirt?" She heard Tony say and spun around. He was holding his PDA in front of him, showing a very familiar picture to her.

"Tony! You said you deleted that!" She said and tried to grab the device from him, but he slipped it back into his pocket and grinned. "I wonder if our intel magazine is still taking pictures for the "My best friend and me"-contest. You and your cowboy friend sure look cute." She snapped back at him, but he just grinned.

"Kate, Kate, Kate. That is not me and everyone will notice." He said and slowly got a bit worried when she continued to grin at him. "Hey, don´t do anything you´ll regret later on. I mean, hey, that was just a joke. You didn´t really think I would do that? We´re friends."

"You better be talking about this case." Gibbs´ voice broke the short silence between them as he got back into the truck. "I want everything about our dead marine as soon as we´re back at the office." He snapped and both agents exchanged a look of horror. They weren´t quite sure why he was so pissed off all of the sudden. His mood had been rather good all day long, at least until a few minutes ago.