Voicemail - Personal

May 06, 2008 01:54

This is Alex Cabot. I can't come to the phone right now, so please leave your name and number, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

voicemail

Leave a comment

famous_gut November 23 2011, 04:20:47 UTC
It all started with a question.

“Hey, Duck. Shouldn’t Jimmy be helping you with that?”

The man known as Donald “Ducky” Mallard looked over his glasses with an expression of confusion.

“I’m sorry Jethro, Who?”

“Jimmy,” Gibbs replied, gesturing at Jimmy’s workstation... or rather what should have been Jimmy’s workstation. “Your assistant.”

Ducky’s face squenched up in concern. “Jethro, I haven’t had an assistant since Gerald took leave of us.”

What followed next... wasn’t pleasant. Cases that the team had been working on went up in smoke. His team were now giving him strange looks whenever he walked into the room and hushed conversations ended quickly when he turned the corner.

Eventually there was an inquiry. And then psych evaluations. And after coming in one day to find that Timothy McGee’s desk was gone... a forced leave of absence.

He was down in the basement when he got the call from Tony. It was about an old case he had worked on. “Hell, Tony,” Gibbs said as he ran his hand over his boat frame. “Just ask Ziva. She knows.”

“Zima? Boss, have you knocked your head again? Nobody drinks that stuff anymore.”

Gibbs said nothing and hung up. He stayed down in his basement for a long, long time doing nothing but sitting in the dark and drinking whiskey.

When he finally pulled himself away from his bunk, he went over to the table and started to write a letter.

********

Dear Alex,

I hope this letter finds you well and still in Fandom. I know I didn’t leave on the best of terms but hopefully you’ve found some way of forgiving me.

Things here have gotten strange. Fandom Island kind of strange. People who I’ve worked with for years have disappeared and no one seems to remember them. My usual coffee shop is now an empty lot. Cases I’ve worked on and people I’ve helped no longer exist. Everyone thinks I’ve lost it and there are times I have to wonder if that’s truly the case.

I used to think that between the Corps, NCIS and Fandom there wasn’t a situation that I couldn’t handle. Turns out I was completely wrong.

If this gets to you, you’ll find what used to be a time capsule of my daughter’s. It’s one of the few things I still have of hers. If what I think is really happening, I need to know that her memory is safe with someone I trust.

She’s the only memory in this world I truly care about, Alex. Please keep it safe.

And in case it matters: You were the best ex-wife I could have ever asked for.

Love,
Gibbs

*****

He put the letter in an envelope and he put that into a box which contained a strawberry shortcake lunch box and Polaroids of a little girl standing next to the boat frame in Gibbs’ basement in Fandom.

After spending a few moments addressing the box to a certain law firm in Fandom, Gibbs was out the door and on his way to the local post office.

The next day there never was Leroy Jethro Gibbs of the USMC or NCIS.

In fact there wasn’t much else in that universe to speak of. It was just gone.

Reply


Leave a comment

Up