Gibbs grabbed his ringing phone off of his basement workbench, smiling at the personalised ring-tone that the twins had programmed into it when they were both home for the family's early 'Thanksgiving'. He answered the call, tucked the phone between his ear and his shoulder, and scrubbed his hands on an old rag in an effort to remove the worst of the sawdust.

To his surprise, there was only silence from Leigh, and he checked that he hadn't accidentally disconnected the call when he'd wedged the phone in place. Surprise quickly turned to concern.

'Leigh?' he prompted.

His concern escalated when the only reply was a half-smothered sob.

'Leigh? Are you alright? What's the matter?'

He was already upstairs and reaching for his keys when she finally answered, in a small voice that reminding him all too clearly of the girl she'd once been.

'You were right, Uncle Gibbs...'

Leigh hadn't called him 'Uncle' on a regular basis since before she'd graduated from high school. Hearing it from her now did nothing to reassure him.

'What was I right about, Leigh?'

'I got an old-fashioned CO.'

Gibbs relaxed slightly. Leigh was a young officer in her first posting. He was surprised it had taken her this long to call him in tears, wondering if she was in over her head. Remembering a similar conversation during her plebe summer all those years ago, he dropped the keys back onto the hall table and headed into the living room to sit down.

'What happened?'

'Got a whippin'...'

He took a deep breath, pushing down a rush of anger. He was no stranger to that form of informal military discipline. He'd experienced it himself as a young Marine, and had used it with his own men as a Gunny. He'd even warned Leigh about it... and told her that he hoped she'd have a commanding officer who cared enough to spank her when she needed it. He had no problem – in theory – with his surrogate granddaughter paying for her mistakes with a sore backside. But, he was surprised to discover, he was far from happy that it was no longer an abstract scenario. It was the first time one of 'his' girls had been spanked by someone who wasn't family, or, in the case of school authorities, at least someone the family knew and trusted. And even though he approved of the command strategy, and was glad that there were still officers who cared enough to use it, that didn't mean he had to like the stark reminder that Leigh was no longer a little girl.

'What'd ya' do?' he asked, carefully keeping his voice neutral. It wouldn't help anything for Leigh to figure out just how pissed he was right now at her nameless, faceless CO.

'Nearly sank a ship.'

'You did what?' Gibbs knew he didn't manage to keep his astonishment out of his voice. Leave it to Leigh... she really knew how to screw up big. Maybe he didn't have quite so much of a problem with her getting spanked for it, now...

'Two ships, actually. I was directing traffic...'

Gibbs nodded to himself. Leigh's first posting was at Norfolk, doing the equivalent of air traffic control for the busy port. She wasn't thrilled about it, finding it simultaneously stressful and uninteresting, but she knew she had to get through it with relatively good fitreps in order to stay on track for flight school next spring.

'...and my attention must have wandered or something, and I misread one of the trajectories and... well... the Ronald Reagan almost ran into the Eisenhower.'

Gibbs smothered a laugh. It really wasn't funny, but for the life of him, all he could see was Leigh as a toddler, splashing wildly in the bathtub, playing 'bumper boats' with her plastic toys.

'Leigh...'

'I know! I screwed up! And my CO's already made it very clear just how badly I screwed up! But... it really hurt, Uncle Gibbs! And... and... I just... I...'

His face softened in sympathy. He had no doubt that it had been a painful lesson, and, however much she deserved it, he wished she hadn't had to learn it.

Leigh sniffled for a long moment before he heard her take a deep breath and try to pull herself together.

'I thought your paddle was bad...' she complained.

'He used his belt?' he asked, even though he was pretty sure he knew the answer. It was SOP... or, as close to 'SOP' as something that nobody ever admitted to, on the record, could get.

'Yeah...' Leigh sniffed. 'I never knew how much those things hurt!'

Gibbs winced in sympathy. He could still remember – vividly! – his own first whipping from his first CO, and he'd already known what a leather belt across the ass was like, having been there more than a few times with his father. Leigh'd been spanked before, of course, but none of them had ever felt the need to take a belt to her. No wonder she was finding this hard to handle.

'It gets better...'

'I know. It's just...'

'I know. Trust me, Leigh. I know...'

Leigh sniffled again.

'Yeah...'

They talked for a few more minutes, until he was sure she was alright, then he sent her off to find an icepack and a couple of painkillers. He hoped she didn't have to learn many more lessons this way, he thought, thumbing off his phone and going in search of his bottle of bourbon.