Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS or its characters.
Chapter 12
Having another source of information was always a good thing, so when Jackson mentioned Sheriff Gantry's joke, Ducky used the excuse of getting them some fresh drinks in order to make a discreet phone call to the man himself. He needed to clarify what he had been told. Luckily Ducky still had the number from when Jethro had given it to him just in case something happened to his dad and Ed Gantry was unable to get hold of him.
"Sheriff Gantry speaking." A rough masculine voice stated when the phone line connected after the fourth ring.
"Sheriff, this is Doctor Mallard calling." Ducky replied.
"Jethro's friend? Is everything alright with Jack?" Gantry asked with concern.
"Yes sorry, didn't mean to alarm you, Jethro and Jackson are both well, there is however something I would like to discuss with you, if you can spare me a few minutes"
"Sure, go ahead and shoot, I've got some free time." Gantry welcomed.
Having given the idea some prior thought, Ducky explained that they were in the middle of a case which may link back to Stillwater and that whilst Gibbs and his team were tracking down other leads he had taken the time to have a chat with Gibbs senior; however Jackson was having trouble remembering anything that occurred in the latter half of 1976, he wasn't too surprised at the soft chuckle he heard on the end of the line.
"Now that doesn't surprise me." Gantry informed, trying to keep the laughter out of his voice.
"Oh, why might that be?" Ducky feigned innocently.
"Well I suppose it won't hurt to tell you, but Jackson won't want that boy of his finding out, no one else knows what happened in that time, hell I'm not even sure anything did really happen." Gantry warned.
"You have my word Sheriff" Ducky said.
"When Leroy left home and joined the Marines, things went downhill for a little while where Jackson was concerned."
"May I ask how?"
"Well it started off slowly, an extra pint or two each night at the bar, however after a couple of months he wasn't really paying much attention to how much alcohol he was consuming each night, how he managed to keep the store running is still beyond me."
"I see…"
"Oh I don't think you do, after all I'm just getting started…"
NCIS
Leon Vance liked to think that there wasn't much left in the world that could stun him anymore, after all you don't get to be head of a federal agency if you remain naïve to the real world; yet at this precise moment that's what he was, he was stunned. He had been speaking to Tim's 'Uncle' for the last few minutes trying to get some more clarification on the issue; he was thankful that aside from himself and one lone technician, that he knew would keep his mouth shut; the MTAC room was completely empty.
"I'm sorry, I think I missed that." Vance said, as he shook off the shock. "Would you mind repeating what you just said Admiral McGee? There must be a fault on the line."
The man, who sat in his office aboard the USS Hornet, let out a huff of frustration "In a nut shell, our family would have been a hell of a lot better off, if that waste of a space had never been born in the first place!"
"I see." Vance replied, even though he really didn't and those had not been the original words the man had spoken, when Leon had asked about the man's relationship with his nephew, but the Admiral wasn't done.
"He is the most ungrateful son of a bitch, after all our family did for him; he goes and refuse to join the navy, which would have been the respectful thing for him to have done, claiming that his seasickness was a due to a vestibular disorder, never heard such poppycock in my life! Patrick should have never taken him in like he did, I told him at the time he was being a fool, as far as I'm concerned the only time I want to hear that boy's name mentioned to me again is when he's dead, and even then it will be too soon. That boy deserves whatever happens to him, he and he alone is solely responsible for the death of my brother Patrick." Admiral McGee growled "Now I have much more important things to do than waste my time on him!"
"Very well I apologise for disturbing you, thank you for your time Admiral." Vance responded, fighting to keep his voice even, as he gave the signal to cut the feed, sighing he looked at the technician and decide to remind him the MTAC rule. "What was just discussed here doesn't leave this room, have you got that?"
"Yes sir!"
NCIS
Gibbs turned to see where the gasp had come from, only to find Sarah McGee standing just inside the doorway of the waiting room; immediately his concern for Tim increased.
"Sarah, what is it? Why are you out here? Is Tim okay?" Gibbs question urgently
"I….I think he's waking up" Sarah stammered shocked, she had only caught the tail end of the argument going on between the two older men in the room, but she had heard Mexico mentioned and knew whatever had happened in Mexico must have been bad because she remembered that Tim had point blank refused to talk about it to her when he'd got back. Quickly pushing those thoughts to the back of her mind for another time, she brought herself back to the here and now. "I was coming to find you and that blond Doctor guy."
The moment he heard the news that Tim was possibly waking up Gibbs was moving, the unfinished heated discussion with Tony left hanging in the air, with a glare at the man himself as he also made to move Gibbs rushed back to Tim's room, the coffee run completely forgotten.
Tony made to move, but the glare he received from Gibbs had him stopping in his tracks and Ziva was quick with a distraction of her own as she snagged hold of Tony's arm starting to pull him in the other direction, towards the opposite door. "I'm sure the nurse answering the call to the room will contact Doctor Pitt for you, Sarah; however we should locate Ducky."
The moment they were alone in the hall way Tony let rip. "What the hell was that?!"
"You know that I agree with you on this, that like you I supported Tim in his decision, however this is not the time or the place for an argument, Tony!" Ziva replied just as forcefully. "Gibbs will not hear anything you say in the heat of the moment; let us get through this difficult situation with McGee first and then we will deal with Gibbs' oversights concerning Abby. Now we should find Ducky and call Vance, yes?"
Realising his partner was correct, Tony let out a frustrated sigh. "Yeah….yeah okay I'll call Vance, let him know and try to get an update."
"You should take heart in what we are witnessing Tony." Ziva stated with a sly smile; when she saw the questioning look on Tony's face she elaborated. "Gibbs obviously does care about Tim, even if he has never shown it before."
NCIS
Gibbs crashed into the room, barely stopping in time as he almost ran into the nurse already in the room attending Tim.
"Woo, where's the fire?" The nurse playfully laughed, taking in the look on the older man's face that was full of hope.
"He waking up?" Gibbs asked, never taking his eyes of the young man in the bed, as he moved round the nurse and made his way to the other side where the chairs were situated.
"It looks that way, might take him a little while though, waking up after heavy anesthetic will take time." the nurse warned, "I've paged Doctor Pitt, he should be here any moment."
"Thank you." Sarah acknowledged, also smiling as she tried not to giggle at the man Tim had always told her never got flustered. The change in the man from just moments before was quite dizzying.
"What?" Gibbs questioned after he caught the way Sarah was looking at him out of the corner of his eye.
"You….you're….." Sarah's voice trailed as she looked for the right words to effectively describe what she was seeing.
"I'm what?"
"I don't know the only way I can define it is like a kid a Christmas." Sarah scrunched up her face; it wasn't the best interpretation but it would have to do for the time being and to her surprise Gibbs laughed.
"Never told anyone else this." Gibbs confessed as he absentmindedly went back to watching Tim to make sure he didn't miss him waking. "But I always wanted a kid brother."
It was then that a small moan emerged from the man in question.
NCIS
"You see Doctor Mallard…" Sheriff Gantry started to explain.
"Oh call me Ducky, please." Ducky interrupted.
"Okay, Ducky. There was this young woman, Alison Milton, who came home to Stillwater towards the end of that year, she and her on and off again boyfriend/fiancé had broken up again and this time it was permanent due to the fact that he had been badly injured whilst serving his country in the Navy."
"Alison took a temporary position working evenings in the pub, Jack took a bit of a liking to her and they became real friendly like. Well anyways to cut a long story short, a few days before New Year's Eve I caught her sneaking out of Jack's place early in the morning. Made a bit of a joke about it with the old guy later, I mean she was what early thirties and he was knocking on for fifty, man did he get mad, yelled at me about disparaging a woman's good name and all that."
"Not that it mattered, a few days later the boyfriend/fiancé turns up looking for her, turns out the poor guy was paralysed and just needed some time to get his head around the fact. They left town by the end of that week. Jack sobered up real quick in the New Year too; heard from Chuck that his cousin was married and knocked up within a couple of months."
"I'm sorry did you say Chuck's cousin?" Ducky queried.
"Yeah, Chuck's old man had a sister quite a few years older than he was, she and her husband had two boys and four girls. Now let me get this right Rebecca's the youngest of the four and she was in the same year as Jethro, Chuck and me at school; Alison was the oldest child, so she was about eleven or twelve when we were just babies."
"Well thank you Sheriff, I think you've cleared everything up just nicely." Ducky said, still shocked at what he had just heard, how was he ever going to explain to Jethro that he was indirectly linked to Chuck Wilson of all people!