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 is not telling.

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3- Wrong track

Dr. Donald Mallard smiled slightly when he walked into the bullpen the following morning. At first, he figured that the team had gone home late, but when a sound from one of the desks startled him, he noticed three sleeping figures there. They looked exhausted and he knew they would feel awful. The fourth desk was deserted, but he had a pretty good idea where he would find him.

Walking into autopsy, Mallard noticed the person sleeping on one of the tables. He went over and touched his shoulder. "Jethro?" The man shot up immediately and rubbed his eyes. "I figured that I would find you here. You didn´t answer your phone at home last night." The doctor explained and leaned against another table. "Are you going to tell me what is bothering you, my friend?"

Gibbs got up and stretched. "Nothing is bothering me, Duck. What makes you think that?" He said and straightened his clothes a bit, but his efforts didn´t really pay off. A night in the morgue usually left signs, even when one was still alive.

Ducky threw a stern look at him. "Jethro, I may be old, but you cannot fool me yet. How much did you have to take lately?" He inquired and nodded at the small bottle sitting on the edge of the table.

"About half a bottle in the last two weeks. Happened before, Duck. Always happens when there´s lots going on." He tried to defend himself, but knew that it wasn´t working. Ducky knew him too well for that.

"Jethro, when was your last check at the hospital? Did you go to that appointment I made for you?" Mallard asked, but he already knew the answer. "You need to be checked at least once every six months. They need to adjust your medication and you know that. If you don´t go, I have to declare you unfit for duty, as much as I hate to pull that on you, but you are endangering your health and safety."

Gibbs sighed. He hated these talks, but a part of him knew that his friend was right. "Okay, you win. Just make that damn appointment for me and I´ll go." He said and walked into the elevator. "Just don´t tell anyone." He added before the doors closed.

Up in the bullpen, his three agents were still asleep. At first, he wanted to yell at them and make them jump, but then, he realized how much work they really put into this job. Another realization that dawned on him was that he could lose this terrific team any time. It was not his decision how long he stayed on this job. He couldn´t do anything about it because nobody knew how much time he had left. He knelt down next to Kate and touched her shoulder. "Kate?" He asked and she started to stir. "Time to get up."

He moved on to McGee and Dinozzo, but he simply smacked their heads as he reached them. "Rise and shine, everyone. There´s a lot of work waiting for us on this beautiful day." He said, but inside, he didn´t feel as cheerful as he made it sound. He knew he had to tell them some day, but he was scared. It was hard to admit that to himself, but he really was. Except for Ducky, only the Director knew about his secret and he intended to leave it this way a little longer.

Three very sleepy heads appeared behind the desks. "Wow...what time is it?" Tony asked and got up slowly, stretching his aching back.

"Not late enough." Kate replied and tried to pull her hair into a ponytail. She felt like that one time a car had almost run her over and somehow she had felt lots better then.

"Kate, get that background check finished. Dinozzo, I´m waiting for the list of contacts on our marine. And McGee, Abby seems to have trouble with her computer, go give her a hand. I don´t want to wait days for that DNA analysis." Gibbs said and took a sip of coffee. He wanted to get a lead in this case. Robert Morgan left a wife and two small children and he wanted to find the person who had killed him.

Mallard came walking into the bullpen around noon, right after Abby had brought up the results of the second type of blood that had been found on the body. "Mr. Morgan was killed by hand. His neck is snapped -not from a fall. The fracture is too straight for that. I suspect someone with military training did that, since it´s a common defense technique taught especially in the marine corps." He said and handed two pieces of paper to him.

Gibbs just nodded and looked at them. One was the report on the dead marine, the other note was handwritten. "Tomorrow, 6 pm." It read and he sighed inwardly. On one hand, he knew he had to go, but on the other hand, it scared him every time again. "McGee, what do we have on Seargent William Farrow Jr?" He asked and only half listened to what the young agent rattled down. It didn´t fit. Though they had found Farrow´s blood on the body, the Seargent was almost a head smaller than the victim. "We´re heading for the base, I want to talk to everyone in Morgan´s group."

Kate grabbed her palm pilot and followed her co-workers to the truck. Interviewing possible suspects was the one part of this job she actually liked. It had nothing to do with violence or hunting anyone down. She could use her profiling skills on this and it made her feel good when she could rule out anyone.

The group consisted of six people, seven counting the victim, each one an expert in his field. They split up to conduct the interviews while Gibbs went to the CO, a Gunnery Seargent named Edward Ross. Kate took Farrow and a female PO named Richards. It didn´t take her very long to cross both names from the list of possible suspects. Farrow was a head smaller than the victim and rather slim. Richards wasn´t tall enough either. She was about to release Richards when the young woman hesitated for a moment. "Ma´am...it wasn´t Bill. He...he and Rob were just trying to help me." She said and Kate sat back down at the table.

"Robby saw that I had a black eye and he ran to Bill to ask him about it. Robby is my cousin, he was trying to protect me. I´ve been dating Bill for a while now..." The young woman slowly said and Kate felt a very bad feeling rising within her. "They started to fight, but then Bill told him about what that guy had done. They went up to protect me from him, to tell him that he would get in trouble if he touched me again...Bill got a call from his sister and stayed behind for just a moment. He couldn´t find Rob again that night and we didn´t know where he was until they told us he was dead..."

Kate felt that this was turning into an unexpected direction now and looked at Richards. "Who?" She simply asked and felt herself tensing up. She knew she had to react quickly in case the PO named someone from their list.

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I´m not really sure if I should go on with this story. It would be nice to see if there are actually people are actually interested to see it go on, but right now I´m not really seeing that -I´m really grateful for those who have taken the time to write a short review on it, so I hope I can get some more feedback to see if I should go on or rather put my story ideas on the shelf again...