Gibbs flashed his badge at the local police officer and received a puzzled frown in return.

"NCIS?" the cop, the detective in charge of the murder investigation, questioned. "Never heard of it."

"Used to be NIS," Gibbs said promptly. It had only been a couple years since the Naval Investigative Service had been renamed to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and although Gibbs had only joined since the change, he could still remember a time in his military career when it was the former. If he wanted to get technical, he could also remember the ONI as well. Not that the officer who still stood there puzzling over this badge would have any knowledge of that office.

"You're a federal agent?" the detective asked. "So you're here about that guy we found yesterday, the sailor?"

Gibbs barely suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. He'd already been looking for the Naval lieutenant, who had been reported AWOL a week prior to the discovery of his body. Or, rather, a body in a uniform, as Gibbs had yet to meet with the coroner and confirm the identity if the man he assumed was Lieutenant Dover. He nodded his head once, indicating the detective had the right of it. "I have been investigating the disappearance of one Lieutenant Michael Dover, who was reported AWOL last week when he failed to check in off leave. My director sent me up here to see if your guy is our guy."

The detective shrugged and lead Gibbs into the precinct. "We don't have much to go on, Agent Gibbs," he explained. "Body was pretty badly burnt up. I can take you down the coroner, if you'd like?"

"I would," Gibbs confirmed. "Where was the body found?"

******

Lieutenant Michael Dover had family in Seacouver, Washington: a nineteen year old brother named John, who lived in the city and hung out at a coffee shop with all the other anti-war weirdos. He had shoulder length hair that looked like it hadn't been washed in days, wore his pants down on his hips so that Gibbs could see the pattern of his boxers, and had a backwards hat with a peace sign on it.

"Did your brother contact you while he was here?" Gibbs asked shortly after flashing the young man his badge.

John Dover shook his head. "Man, I had no idea Mike was in town at all. I swear. I already told one cop already --"

"Detective Pierce, I know," Gibbs said, interrupting his denial. "I'm with the Department of Defense, and not the police department. I was put on your brother's case when he failed to return to Norfolk after his leave was up." Gibbs' gut was telling him that the boy knew something he wasn't saying, but it was too soon to figure out what that was. "If your brother didn't come all the way out here to see you, I don't suppose you know who he might have been visiting?" he asked, and was rewarded by a flash of nerves crossing the young man's face. He knew something alright, and whatever it was, he didn't seem too keen to share.

"No, no, I don't," John Dover said. "Look, Mister Gibbs..."

"Agent Gibbs," Gibbs corrected him.

"Agent Gibbs," John echoed. "I don't know. I haven't seen my brother since I left Philadelphia to come up here."

"Fair enough." Gibbs handed him a card with his name and cellphone number on it. His room number at the hotel where he was staying was also scribbled on the back of the card. "Call me when you have something useful to add."

"If, don't you mean?" John asked, looking the card over.

"Nope," Gibbs countered. "Definitely meant 'when.'" He was confident that the young man would call, once he had time to think about it and realize that he had nothing to lose.

******

Gibbs' next step was to check out the supposed crime scene, where the body of the missing Navy Lieutenant had been found behind a dumpster in an alley. Not for the last time, he wished he had more of his team - Mike's team - with him, but there were other things going on back home right now and the Mike had only spared him because it was necessary and because he'd figured Gibbs could handle it by himself. Coming from Mike Franks, it was high praise, but that didn't make it any less frustrating that he was reduced to making do with what the coroner gave him and some photocopies of Detective Pierce's police report. The only recourse left to him was to simply look around and see what, if anything, the police had missed from their own investigation.

The alley was typically filthy and abandoned. It had been taped off with police tape, but that had been torn down after the body had been removed. Gibbs consulted the police report and shook his head as he looked at the alley. "It doesn't add up," he told his invisible team. There was nothing in the evidence which linked the body to this alley, other than it having been found there. His gut was speaking to him again, and it said the murder had taken place somewhere else. The investigation he now conducted was mostly sifting through the remains of the Seacouver PD's previous investigation. If Gibbs was as big a dick as his ex-wife claimed he was, he'd be back at the police department, pointing out all the failures in this cluster fuck. But their cluster fuck did manage to turn up some unaccounted for blood spatter. There, a few steps away from the dumpster when the body had been found... and there... a few more steps away... and there...

It wasn't a lot of blood. Hell, it wasn't even steady, and what there was had been trampled under too many feet and too much garbage. It made a hell of a lot of sense that no one noticed it, but Gibbs did. Gibbs noticed, and he followed the trail of the alley and into another, and then another.

He had lost it and was searching in vain for something to revive his search when he felt the familiar buzz in the back on his mind. He froze where he stood, letting the sensation fill his senses before slowly turning around and facing the mouth of the alley.

A man in a long, black trench coat stood there, his sword just barely gleaming in the light of the setting sun, and Gibbs sighed inwardly. Of all the things he needed right now, it was this, he thought bitterly.

"My name is Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod," the Immortal said.

Gibbs had his sword out of of instinct, but he made no move to attack the other man. "Leroy Jethro Gibbs," he said instantly. "But I'm kinda busy right now and don't have time for this bullshit."

"Bullshit?" MacLeod chuckled and, for a moment, lowered his sword. "Assuming I believe you," he said, "what's more important than the Gathering?"

"Murder," Gibbs said quickly enough. "Justice. Take your pick."

"So which are you, the murderer... or the one seeking the justice?" MacLeod asked, but he lowered his sword. It was a good sign, in Gibbs' eyes. It was the last thing he needed was an enemy. Or to be dead.

In response, Gibbs put away his sword and pulled out his badge, flashing it to the other man. "I'm a federal agent, investigating the death of a Navy lieutenant."

"The body that was found in the dumpster?" MacLeod asked; Gibbs nodded his head. "You're looking in the wrong place, then. The alley you want is back that way."

MacLeod started to point, but Gibbs shook his head, irritated now. "I just came from there," he said, explaining about the blood trail he'd followed.

"You can track?" MacLeod raised his eyebrows.

"Living as long as we do, you learn a few tricks," Gibbs countered. His tricks had been learned from the Indians - Native American's, he corrected himself - when he and Leonard stayed with them before the Gold Rush.

"That you do," MacLeod agreed. His sword was gone now, too, and walked over to Gibbs, slowly as if he still mistrusted him. Which was good, because Gibbs certainly did not trust him, either. "What've you got so far?"

"Sporadic blood trail leading from the dumpster of the alley to this one, where it just seems to have vanished. Could have been because the body was dumped here and moved." He shook his head, mostly to himself. It didn't fit. One alley was as good as the other. Why wouldn't they just dump the body here?

"Why go to all that trouble?" MacLeod asked.

"That's what I'm here to find out," Gibbs said grimly.

"Good luck, then," MacLeod answered just as grimly. "Let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

Gibbs considered it. He didn't know this Duncan MacLeod from any other Immortal he'd run into over the centuries. And that meant he should be careful. Careful of MacLeod and careful of his head. But his gut told him otherwise, and Gibbs had never known his gut to be wrong.

"Well," he said with a half sigh and a quirk at the corner of his mouth which might have been a smile or a grimace, depending on the point of view. "I could use an insider's eye view. You know the area. Maybe you can point me in the right direction?"

"It's better than killing each other," Duncan commented off hand, though he nodded in agreement. "My dojo is about a block away from here. It might be that some of the patrons saw something."

"The police didn't ask?" Gibbs looked at MacLeod in surprise.

"Why would they? They were looking in the wrong alley, right?"

******

And they were looking in the wrong alley, Gibbs came to realize as the next couple of days progressed.

Dover's brother finally called, saying that he'd 'just remembered' that one of his brother's ex-girlfriends lived in Seacouver and it was possible - but unlikely - that he might have come to visit her. A little pressing, and Gibbs had a name for the ex and not too long after that, he had an address as well.

The girlfriend was sporting a black eye when he met with her, though it was starting to turn yellow. She evaded all of his questions, like they usually do, and Gibbs went back to his hotel to cool off. Not that pacing around the room in any way constituted cooling off. If anything, he was more frustrated than ever. He knew the woman he'd visited today had been beaten, despite her insistence that nothing more severe than her stepping on a rake in the back yard was the matter.

Naturally, Gibbs did not believe it in the least.

He was still fuming over it when MacLeod to let him know that they had something on their end. One of the dojo patrons had recognized a car from the pictures Gibbs had given them to show around. It was a silver-gray sedan belonging to the ex-girlfriend's husband.

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me," was Gibbs' only commented.

By the end of the next day, the whole story came tumbling out. The girlfriend, Elaina, had been writing to Dover for months. Long letters full of despair and longing to get back to the past. How she regretted not having waiting for him to get out boot camp now that she knew what the future really held for her. Hindsight was twenty-twenty like that, as Gibbs well knew.

The younger brother had contacted her on his brother's behalf, with some crazy scheme for them to run away and leave the abuser husband far behind.

Except her husband wasn't as stupid as he looked and when Dover had come to free his lady love, he'd found himself staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.

He'd been shot, shoved into the silver-gray sedan and driven as far from the upscale apartment as they could get.

Gibbs' investigation supplied the rest. He hadn't been dead when they dumped him in the first alley, the one close to DeSalvo's dojo, and after his body had hit the ground, he'd been able to get up and make a run for it. Possibly fearing that his assassin was still after him, or just wanting to get away, he had hidden behind the dumpster, where he slowly bled out at last.

Ballistics matched the gun to one owned by Elaina's husband, Ron Huberd, and Gibbs was soon in possession of plane tickets back to D.C.

******

"You didn't have to trust me, you know?" MacLeod said, tossing Gibbs a beer.

"Nope," Gibbs agreed.

"But you did anyway."

Gibbs took a long pull of the beer, swallowed and looked intently at the bottle before giving his consideration to MacLeod. "You could have taken my head, too, but you didn't," he pointed out.

"I still could."

There was a playfulness which undermined the smugness in Duncan's voice and made made Gibbs smile. "You could try, you mean."

"Touché," Duncan responded. "But neither one of us seems to be in a hurry to test that theory."

"Nope," Gibbs agreed with a nod of his head. "Maybe next time?" he suggested, grinning just a little.

Duncan laughed and downed the last of his beer. There wouldn't be a next time. At least not for the taking of heads.