II. More People Out There

Part V

I.

Pauley Perrette and Mark Harmon had sat in Abby Sciuto's innermost sanctum for the last hour, eating Little Debbie Snack Cakes and discussing their situation.

"Well, Pauley," said Mark, "I'm feeling a lot better now. I was coming close to losing it this morning, I have to admit it. I thought I was going crazy."

"Not a problem, Gibbs," Pauley said with a grin. "I've got to call you Gibbs and you've got to call me Abby, remember."

"Yeah, yeah," Mark said with a grin of his own. "Abby. Now...I've got to go back up there and act like Gibbs."

"Yeah...it'll be the greatest acting performance of your career!"

"You think you're joking? But what about you?"

"Oh, I can bluff my way through, down here. I know how to use most of the equipment, and if something goes hinky I can always call McGee down to help me." Pauley paused for a second, thinking, then grinned. "In fact, it might be kind of fun to talk to McGee..."

"Hold on, there, girl. I mean Abby. Let's not go overboard here. Remember that anything you do here could come back to haunt the real Abby, always assuming you're right and we're going to get back to our right places after we do...whatever it is we're supposed to do."

Pauley grimaced, but nodded. "You're right, of course. Don't worry, Gibbs, I'll behave myself."

"Okay. Well...I guess I'd better go make my entrance."

II.

Mark grabbed a last Little Debbie and munched on it as he stepped into the elevator. The doors slid open on the main floor and he walked out and headed to his desk, in full Gibbs mode.

"What, Boss, no coffee?" said Tony DiNozzo.

"You have an obsession with my coffee, DiNozzo?" Mark demanded as he circled his desk and sat down.

"No, Boss," Tony said quickly.

"That's too bad. Because if you were, you could go out and get me one while I get caught up on my email."

"On it, Boss!" Tony said, jumping to his feet.

Ziva looked after his bustling form with a slight smile, then returned to the files of paper on her desk.

McGee got up from his desk, coughed, and said, "Boss...you told me to remind you..."

Gibbs recognized his cue. "Remind me of what, McGee?"

"That package...you got on Saturday..."

"Oh. Right." In truth, he had forgotten about it. He'd hoped...and expected...that he'd be back where he belonged by now.

Mark pulled the package out of the drawer and withdrew the scroll from it again. Looking at it now, when he was functioning on all cylinders, it still didn't mean anything to him. Why would someone send it to him..that is, Gibbs, and say it was urgent?

"Okay, McGee, make yourself useful," Mark said. "See if you can't track down what this scroll is supposed to be depicting, and then...take it down to Abby and have her analyze it." Take that, Pauley!

"Analyze it for what, Boss?"

"Well, to see how old it is, for a start, McGee." said Mark impatiently. "What it's made of, and if what it's made from will tell us where it came from. Stuff like that."

"Of course. Got it, Boss."

Mark then turned on his computer, and waited for it to boot up. Uh oh...he thought as he waited...there was that one episode, where Fornell had commented on him not having his machine password protected...if the real Gibbs had taken that to heart...

But not so, the screen and all its little doodads came up with no problem.

Mark tapped his fingers on the desk for a few seconds. What would happen, he wondered, if he pulled up the IMDb and looked up actor Mark Harmon. Would he exist here, in this world? Would Pam exist...?

He decided he didn't want to find out.

He pulled up his email, and saw with dismay that the inbox contained over 20 messages. He'd been joking with that bit about checking his email...but here it was...Well, he'd better read them...who knew when a sender of one of them might not come here personally to talk to him if he didn't receive a reply.

"Here's your coffee, Boss," he heard dimly, and he raised a hand in acknowledgment.

My god this is boring, Mark thought a couple of hours later. When he'd first started the day he'd hoped that no crimes would come up, now he found himself wishing that something would pop. People who watched the show always had the impression that murders were happening every day, and solved in 24 hours... He remembered a rather famous quote from Raymond Burr regarding Perry Mason...when asked why he'd never lost a case. "But madam, you only see the cases I try on Thursday nights."

Well, he found himself wishing it was Tuesday and something would happen...

Not a murder, he thought to himself. But something, where I can go and be nice to someone, so I can get the hell out of here.

III.

After Mark had left her sanctum, Pauley amused herself by walking around admiring all the equipment that was hers, all hers, and ensuring that she did indeed no how to operate them...or at least, how to turn them on.

But her mind was elsewhere. Someone...or something....had missed a great opportunity, she thought. She remembered a conversation she and McGee had been having...which episode had it been in...oh yeah, "Road Kill," when McGee had asked her who she thought could beat Gibbs in a fight, and he'd said Gibbs (because Gibbs had appeared behind them), and she'd gone off into a riff about whether it should be an 'evil twin' or a Gibbs clone...and wouldn't that have been so cool...if Mark had been brought in to meet the real Gibbs and they'd have had to fight...

Of course Mark was an actor who'd had a bit of martial arts training and Gibbs was a marine who knew how to snap someone's neck in any number of different ways...no, Mark vs Gibbs wasn't fair...but how about if they....whoever they were... could create an evil twin of Gibbs? Now that's a fight she'd pay to see...

IV.

Tony DiNozzo was not a happy man. In his mind's eye, all he could see were images of Gibbs in a cell...or dead...while his impersonator sat so calmly at his desk slurping coffee.

Or was he just imagining things? Maybe that bump on the head Gibbs had had somewhere, that he wasn't talking about, had just scrambled his brains for a while. Scrambled brains...maybe it was Gibbs, but he'd been brainwashed? Like in The Manchurian Candidate? Not the newer one, with Denzel Washington that had sucked, but the great one with Laurence Harvey and Angela Lansbury?

Jesus. Tony buried his head in his hands. That type of stuff didn't happen to Gibbs!

But what if it had?

He watched as Gibbs got up from his desk, tossed his coffee cup into the garbage, and strode from the room. He looked around. McGee had left a few minutes ago to go down to Abby's lab, and Ziva had gone to lunch.

Tony darted out from behind his desk, around Gibbs', and plucked the coffee cup out of the trash with the tiniest of grips on its rim - just the way he'd delivered it in the first place.

It was possible to get fingerprints off styrofoam. Not a lot of people knew that.

Molybdenum disulphide suspension would do the trick, or mercury powder.

He'd go in to Abby's lab later on tonight, when she was safely gone, and bring up the prints. (He knew that if he asked her to pull up the prints herself, but then took them away rather than let her run them through the system, she'd bombard him with questions, which he didn't want to have to bother with.)

And once he got the prints, he'd run them through the department's database, and see if they matched Gibbs.

And if they didn't match...he and that little piece of ... would have a little talk.

Tony cracked his knuckles. Yeah. A little talk.

V.

Mark returned to his desk, bearing a coffee cup loaded with water, and saw the flashing light on the phone set. He dialed into the system, tensely.

But, no. No call of any crime, anywhere. Instead just the Director's assistant letting him know he'd been seconded to a meeting the following Monday with someone named Martine Ketch, a Regulator from the Royal Navy, whatever the hell a Regulator was. Well, please God Gibbs would be back in time to handle that...

Mark dropped the receiver back into the cradle in disgust.

Then his cellphone rang.

Mark dug it out and flipped it open. Ah, this was promising, he thought as he read the name on the ID.

"Yeah, Gibbs."

After several seconds listening, he said, "Right, we'll be there." and flipped the phone shut.

"Okay, everybody, let's go," he barked. "We've got an appearance at Oceana."

"An a-ppearance?" queried Ziva. "Don't you mean disappearance? "

"Nope, said Mark. "A-ppearance."

"Of whom? Man? Wife? Family?"

"Plane," said Gibbs, "grabbing his gear" out of his desk as he'd done so many times in the past. "McGee, Ziva, in the van." he said, tossing the keys to McGee. "Tony, you're with me."

VI.

Mark sat beside Tony as he drove expertly through the traffic toward Oceana Naval Base in Norfolk, Virginia. He knew he had to do something about Tony - the guy was having doubts. And considering the kind of work they were engaged in.... well, not him but Gibbs and his team – Tony couldn't afford to have any doubts in his leader, and vice versa.

"Do you think we have squirrels in the office, DiNozzo?" he asked casually, gazing out the windshield.

"Squirrels, boss? Don't know what you're talking about." said Tony.

"Well, it was a funny thing. I threw my coffee cup in the garbage this morning...and when I came back an hour later, that cup was gone."

"Maybe it was McGee," Tony suggested in his straight-faced way. "I think he's starting a styrofoam collection."

"That must be it. Because no one would go through all the bother of trying to check my fingerprints, when they could just tag along with me as I get my retina scanned to enter practically every room in the place."

"Retina scan," Tony murmured, chagrined. "I should have thought of that."

"Yes, you should...but I guess that's your old cop training coming through, DiNozzo. All they ever think about is fingerprints."

Tony drove on for some minutes in silence, stealing a sideways glance at Mark every now and then.

"It's just...UCLA," he said apologetically.

Mark turned his blue eyes on DiNozzo.

"What about UCLA? The best university in the country?"

"Well..you said you played for them. But you didn't."

"I say a lot of things when I'm playing football, DiNozzo. Don't you?"

"Well, yeah, boss. I say those kinds of things. But I didn't think you'd say those kinds of things."

"Every guy says those kinds of things, DiNozzo."

"That's true, Boss."

They continued the drive in silence.

Almost, I'm convinced, thought Tony.

They finally arrived at Oceana, driving through the security gates and coming to a halt in front of the military police office.

Tony got out of his side of the car, Mark out of the other.

There's one way to be sure, thought Tony. He gritted his teeth. If he was right, he was right. If he was wrong...well, it was a far, far better thing he did...

As Mark came around the side of the car, Tony said, "Put 'em up, Boss." It was the only warning he gave. He then lifted his arm and aimed an overhand right at his boss's jaw, as hard and fast as he could.

Mark had the reflexes of a lifelong athlete, and besides, he'd played this scene before. He reacted instantly, sawying aside, clamping Tony's arm under his right arm, and punching him in the chin, lightly, with his left. He then swept his leg behind DiNozzo's, breaking his balance, and lowering him to the ground.

A carbon copy of the choreography from the first few minutes of "The Boneyard"...

"You looking for more fighting lessons, DiNozzo?" Mark asked, with his left hand pressed hard against Tony's throat.

Tony grinned up at him. Mark stood up, extending his hand to help Tony to his feet. As he pulled, his foot slipped out from under him and he fell backward...hitting his head.

Now.

VII.

The ways of the Televinvisichronomicon are not linear.

Thus, Gibbs, who had spent only a little under 24 hours in the world of Mark Harmon, and who was still sleeping next to Cote de Pablo, opened his eyes to find himself standing up, throwing spirals to Ziva and DiNozzo, at the exact same instant he had been sucked out of that reality...while simultaneously Mark Harmon blinked up at Frankie, Mike and Cote.

"Mark, are you okay?" asked Frankie with concern.

Mark blinked up at her, as he allowed Mike and Cote to help haul him to his feet.

He stared around at the scenery, at the guys around him, then looked closely at Mike and Cote.

"I just had... the most weird-ass dream..." he said...

"What dream? You were on your back for two seconds!"

Mark shrugged, as the memories already started to fade away.

"Yeah, weird. Hey, Frankie, we're playing flag football, ya know!"

And at the same time, Pauley Perrette, who had been at home and who had stood up to get a book, suddenly wobbled, felt nauseous, blinked, and decided she'd better have some chocolate before she did anything else.

"Did the timelines not just become intertwined, Gamma?"

"Merely compressed at different speeds, Alpha. Nothing to worry about. Is that not so, Oh Great One?"

"Perhaps so, Alpha. More experimentation will be necessary in future."

Alpha and Gamma exchanged looks with each other, then surreptitiously each raised an appendage and exchanged the equivalent of "high fives."

"Yes, Oh Great One. Much more experimentation will be needed."

AUTHORS NOTE

1. This story is now complete. (I thought about getting Abby as Pauley into the mix, but that will have to wait for another story!)

2. I'll take up the sequel, in a separate file, after the New Year. It'll be Michael Weatherly turn first.

3. Thanks very much to everyone who reviewed the chapters. Your encouragement helped fuel the fire of creativity.