"What I saw in Kuwait—before that, I was different. It took something from me. That's what war does. Sometimes, I think if my girls had been there when I got home, maybe they wouldn't have recognized me. Maybe there wouldn't have been enough of me left for them to hang on to. Maybe the best of me was gone. You come home and you're like half a person. The other half of you is still back there, where at least it made sense. Where, even with the bullets and the blood and the chaos, you knew what mattered. You knew that the guy next to you was willing to die for you, and you for him. And you look around and think…it shouldn't take a war to make the world that simple."

He listened as Gibbs spoke.

It wasn't often that his boss would say much more than a few sentences at a time. But over the years, he had learned that if Gibbs had reason to speak, you listened. And what he was saying now was riveting and deeply personal. Even after everything they had gone through in Paraguay, he wasn't sure that Gibbs had ever opened himself up so much.

And when Gibbs finished, they looked at each other.

When his boss had asked him if he had a minute, he hadn't been sure what Gibbs had wanted.

He hadn't expected his boss to bare his soul about how war had changed him.

Before he joined NCIS, he had been different too. He had been naïve and ignorant of the evils of the world. Of course, he hadn't been so foolish that he hadn't known that those evils existed. But he had never come face to face with them. It hadn't taken long for him to see the dark side of humanity. Within six months of joining NCIS, ecoterrorists had murdered and stuffed a sailor into a vat of acid so that they could sneak onto a submarine and murder over a hundred more men.

And that had just been the start. The crimes they investigated, the death that he had witnessed, the death that he had caused, it had changed him too.

Then there was Paraguay.

Even if he had made his peace with it, he would never be able to forget the two months of deprivation, pain, and the cruelty of men who enjoyed hurting others. He would never forget how he had been forced to watch Gibbs endure pain to protect him or the guilt he saw in his boss' eyes when he was tortured by El Doctor.

But despite the horrible thing they had experienced, Gibbs was right: their world had been simple. They took one day at a time. Sometimes one hour at a time. They just had to do enough to live to fight another day. And he knew without a doubt that Gibbs would do anything, including give his own life, to make sure that he made it off that steamer alive. And Gibbs knew he would do the same for him. It had brought him comfort even when he had been at his lowest.

In the months after they had returned home, he had wondered if he was still the same man that Delilah had fallen in love with. Between the nightmares and anxiety, he had felt like a shadow of himself for a long time and it had taken many sessions with Doctor Grace before he finally felt like he had emerged from the darkness of Paraguay. He could never go back to the man he was before. He had his scars, some literal and some metaphorical, but they did not define him.

Seeing Joe relive the terror of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor that was just as acute as it had been eighty years ago and hearing Gibbs describe how war had changed him as a young man, he couldn't help but wonder what his father had been like before he went to Vietnam. And not for the first time, he regretted that he hadn't pressed his father to open up about a time in his life that had profoundly impacted him. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that the wounds his father suffered in that war had scarred him for life.

"You should get going," Gibbs said when he didn't say anything.

He wasn't sure if Gibbs was uncomfortable by what he said and eager to get away, or if Gibbs was trying to provide him with a reason to leave in case he was uncomfortable with the personal nature of the conversation. But that wasn't the case at all.

It had just given him a lot to think about.

"I never could talk to my dad about his time in Vietnam," he said. Gibbs looked surprised for a moment but then focused on him. "Not that talking with him about any topic was ever easy," he added. "I tried bringing it up a few times when we started talking more after he got sick. But I could see the look in his eyes." He looked down at his hands. "It wouldn't have ended well, so I dropped it." He frowned. "I still regret that."

"You didn't want to fight," Gibbs said softly.

"Yeah," he replied. "Especially not at the end." He frowned slightly. "Growing up with my dad wasn't easy. He had impossibly high standards. He expected military discipline and order even at home. And he was strict. Getting in trouble with him was something I tried to avoid at all costs."

"How often did you get caught?" Gibbs asked astutely.

"Not as often as my sister," he replied causing Gibbs to chuckle. "I didn't always get away with things though. And getting in trouble with dad came with a dressing down that he had perfected on unruly sailors over his career. It was awful, but he never raised a hand to me or Sarah. Except once.

"I was sixteen and we were arguing about me joining the navy. I brought up Vietnam. It made me so mad that he would constantly tell me how that war made him the man he was, but he would never explain how."

"He hit you?" Gibbs asked, surprised.

"Slapped," he corrected. "First and only time it ever happened." Gibbs expression darkened. "He didn't hit me hard, but it still shocked the heck out of me," he said hastily. "In hindsight, I think it shocked him too, but he was always really good at concealing his emotions." He frowned. "That was the last time I ever brought up Vietnam with my father. But I keep thinking it would have been good for both of us to talk about it. It was always the elephant in the room, you know?"

Gibbs was looking at him thoughtfully, but he couldn't tell what his boss was thinking. Of course, even on a good day, he had a hard time figuring out what Gibbs was thinking. He wondered what Gibbs had thought of his dad. As far as he knew, Gibbs had only met his father a few times during the case that ultimately ended his father's career. Given everything, that wasn't exactly the best first impression his father could have made.

"Joe didn't want to talk about what happened to him on the Arizona," he continued, ignoring the urge to ask Gibbs for his opinion on his father. "After hearing what he said, I can understand why. Maybe it was the same for my father?" he wondered. "Maybe his experiences in Vietnam were so awful that he didn't want to relive it either? Dad always was so in control of his emotions. Nothing could bother him like bringing up Vietnam did."

Confused, Gibbs said, "I thought your father served on a carrier during the war."

"He did," he replied. Gibbs looked at him questioningly. "For his second tour. Found out he served his first tour on a swift boat when I looked up his record." Gibbs eyes widened slightly. "Yeah."

"What made you look up his record after all this time?" Gibbs asked as he stood up and walked to his kitchen.

"It was the case with Ray Jennings," he replied as he heard Gibbs open his fridge.

A moment later, Gibbs returned with a couple bottles of beer. Gibbs looked at him questioningly. Considering that they were talking about his father, he nodded. Gibbs twisted off the cap, tossed it on the coffee table and handed him the beverage before retaking his seat. Gibbs quickly opened his beer and tossed the cap next to his.

"When I went to see Ray that second time, I tried to find common ground with him," he said. "I told Ray that my father had been in the navy and had done two tours in Vietnam. But you know that didn't help. He shut me down." Gibbs nodded. He had been there for that conversation. "When I went back the last time, Ray shut me down again. Told me that just because my father rode a ship to Vietnam, that didn't mean I knew what Ray had gone through. He was right but that was because my father never spoke about that time in his life."

He sipped his beer and Gibbs mirrored him.

Looking up his father's record had filled in some of the gaps. It told him where his father had been stationed and what commendations he had received. But it didn't tell him what his father had experienced.

"My father was nineteen when he went to Vietnam," he said. "My grandfather gave him permission to enlist straight out of high school over Penny's objections."

"Your grandfather was in the navy, wasn't he?"

"He was career navy," he said as he nodded again. "And my great-grandfather served in the navy in World War I. He and my great-grandmother had just immigrated to the US and he felt it was his duty to serve his new country." Gibbs smiled slightly. "My grandfather served in the Pacific in World War II," he replied. "He wasn't at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked. He was on the Enterprise..."

"Which was on patrol that morning," Gibbs interjected. He nodded, unsurprised that Gibbs knew his history. "The Enterprise saw heavy action during the war. He knew what his son was getting into."

"Penny wanted my father to attend the Naval Academy first," he said. "I guess she hoped that the war would be over by the time that my father graduated. But that was exactly why my father wanted to enlist."

"He was afraid it would be over before he finished at the Academy. He didn't want to miss the action," Gibbs said softly. "Knew plenty of guys who thought that." Gibbs sighed. "It didn't turn out well for a lot of them." He shook his head as he recalled the Vietnam War Memorial. "Surprised he didn't want to go in as an officer though. Not easy for an enlisted man to get an appointment to the Academy."

"My grandfather was an Admiral," he countered. Gibbs shrugged. "Dad figured he wouldn't have any trouble getting an appointment to the Academy with his pedigree. He enlisted in sixty-five and volunteered to serve as a gunner's mate on a PCF."

"So, he was in the thick of it," Gibbs said as he sipped his beer.

"Yeah," he said. "For his first tour anyway. Dad accepted an appointment to the Naval Academy when he got home and served his next tour on the Seahawk as an officer. He never once mentioned that first tour." He sipped the beer. "I haven't dug deep enough into military records to get specific details of his time on the PCF but from his reactions to questions about his time in Vietnam, I have a pretty good idea it was rough."

"My dad didn't talk about his time in the war either," Gibbs said as he sipped his beer. "I got stories about him and his buddies getting into trouble when they were stationed in England or how he had Betty Grable painted on the nose of his P-51." He chuckled. The image of a Jackson Gibbs painting a pinup girl on his plane clashed with the wholesome and sweet old man he knew. "About the worst story he ever told was when he was hit over France. His radio and his instruments were knocked out. He was disoriented and low on fuel. Another pilot pointed him in the direction of England. He must have told me that story a hundred times, but it took almost all his life to tell me that the pilot had been German."

"German?" he asked. "Why would a German pilot help an American find his way home?"

"A moment of human compassion in the midst of a terrible war," Gibbs said as he sipped his beer. "I had you look for him in Dad's unit, remember?"

"Walter Beck," he said as he recalled the search. He knew that Gibbs and his father had gone to see Walter Beck after Abby found him in the hospice care, but his boss hadn't told them any more about why his father had been so eager to find the man. And they hadn't attempted to ask either since neither he nor Abby expected Gibbs to explain himself. "He was Luftwaffe?"

"Yeah," Gibbs said with a laugh. "Dad tracked him down after the war to thank him. Beck settled in the States after the war. He was in hospice care and wrote a letter to my father. Dad wanted to introduce me to Beck."

"To show him what came of his act of compassion," he said. Gibbs nodded as he sipped his beer. His boss had a slight smile on his face although it seemed bittersweet.

"I spent a lot of years estranged from my dad," Gibbs said. He snorted involuntarily. He had too. "And once I got that back…"

"It wasn't enough," he finished. Gibbs nodded and met his eye. Gibbs looked at him empathetically. He shrugged slightly and they sipped their drinks. "I know what you mean. My dad and I, well you know we never really saw eye to eye. He always had this idea of what his son ought to be and he never really liked what he actually got." Gibbs looked at him questioningly. "My dad had his life planned out and it included a son that followed the McGee family tradition."

"Joining the navy," Gibbs interjected.

"No matter how successful I was, no matter what top tier colleges I got into, I would always be a disappointment because I hadn't gone to the Academy and joined the navy," he said sadly. "It didn't help that my father didn't really have a high opinion of NCIS agents in general. He always referred to NIS agents as a bunch of useless paper-pushers."

"I got that impression from him," Gibbs replied. "He didn't know you were a field agent?"

"He knew," he replied. "But you have to admit, Gibbs. Our team isn't exactly normal even for field teams." Gibbs shrugged but didn't argue. "After we started talking more, I told him about some of our more interesting cases."

"What did he have to say then?" Gibbs asked.

"He thought I made up a few of them," he replied. "But you have to admit a killer robotic car or an exploding jetpack is weird…" Gibbs looked at him pointedly and he knew his boss was thinking of other cases. Ari. The Chimera. Somalia. The Reynosa Cartel. The Navy Yard Bombing. He shrugged. "Once he realized I wasn't making up things, I think he was impressed." He smiled. "I think he was more impressed with Delilah though."

Taken off guard, Gibbs chuckled. "Well yeah," Gibbs said.

"It still wasn't the navy though," he said. Gibbs' smile faded. "He tried to hide it, but I don't think Dad ever got over the fact that I didn't enlist." He looked at Gibbs. "Came real close though. Dad had filled out my application to the Academy and set up an interview for me my senior year," he said. He looked at Gibbs. "I was within minutes of leaving the house for the interview."

"But you didn't want to join the navy," Gibbs inferred.

He shook his head. Maybe when he had been a kid, that had been his dream but as he got older, he realized that joining the navy was something he definitely didn't want.

"You'd have gone through with the interview?" Gibbs asked.

"I didn't think I had much of a choice," he retorted. Gibbs looked at him in surprise. "I was sixteen and Dad's word was the law in our house. Disobeying him wasn't an option." He sipped his beer. "Not that we didn't fight about it," he added.

"You'd have done well in the Navy," Gibbs said.

He snorted causing Gibbs to eye him.

"I'm not disagreeing with you, boss," he said hastily. "The structure, the work, the service to a cause greater than myself. I'd have been fine with that." He shook his head. "But I wouldn't have been happy. Serving in the navy was my father's dream, not mine."

"Why's that?" Gibbs asked, genuinely curious.

He sipped his beer.

"Did you know that my first apartment in DC was the first place I got to live in for longer than two years?" he asked. Gibbs shook his head. "My father was on the fast track for Admiral, which meant that he changed posts on average every two years. Sometimes it was as short as eighteen months."

"Is that why you stayed in your tiny apartment so long?" Gibbs asked.

He nodded.

"Just as soon as I made any friends, we'd have to move again," he said. "Not that it was all new people. Saw lots of the same families at the different bases like my friend Valeri who works for NCIS now." Gibbs nodded. "She couldn't understand how I could spend so long in one place, but it feels good to put down roots here."

"Is that why you turned down that promotion in Japan, years ago?"

"That and I didn't want to give up our work on the MCRT," he replied unsurprised that Gibbs knew about that promotion. "I really love my job and even the absurd amount of money Splendifida offered wasn't enough to convince me to leave NCIS." Gibbs looked at him wryly. "It was a lot of money, boss. But I didn't join NCIS for the money."

Gibbs snorted. "No one does," Gibbs replied.

"In hind sight, I had a lot of great experiences as a Navy brat," he said. "I got to see the world and I met a lot of great people. But I always felt like I wasn't really living my life. If I joined the navy, I'd never really be in control. I needed to chart my own course."

"Wasn't the course your father wanted for you," Gibbs said.

"No," he replied as he recalled the talk with his father.

Chloe had come over to talk about his impending Academy interview and his father had overheard him telling her that he wanted nothing to do with the Navy. After his father had dismissed Chloe, he had expected to be dressed down and told how he needed to do his duty as a McGee. That the Navy would make him a man and that he should accept his responsibility.

Instead, they sat on his bed and they probably had their first conversation where his father had listened to him when he told him that he didn't want to enlist in the Navy. He talked about his love of writing and dancing and computers. And he explained how he just knew the Navy wasn't for him and he didn't want to enlist.

And for the first time, his father acknowledged that it was his life and that he had to make his own decisions. His father had suspected that he knew what he wanted to do with his life, but that wasn't the case at all. He had spent his high school career expecting that he was going to be forced to join the navy and he hadn't made any other plans.

With his future suddenly up to him, he spent the next few weeks talking with his mother and Penny about different options for college. And of course, Chloe gave him her opinion. She advocated for him to apply Julliard, but he never put in his application. He loved to tap dance, but it was a passion not a calling.

He applied to a dozen different top tier universities and got into all of them, and ultimately chose MIT. But it wasn't until he was moved into his dorm that he finally felt like he was living his life. It might have been the best moment of his life if his father hadn't missed it because he been deployed.

"It wasn't because I didn't love the navy," he said quickly.

"Didn't think it was," Gibbs retorted. "You picked NCIS for a reason."

He nodded. "Just because I didn't want to serve in the navy didn't mean I couldn't still serve it. I think my father came to appreciate that I chose NCIS instead of some other agency."

Gibbs smiled and held out his beer bottle. He clinked his bottle against Gibbs' before sipping his beer.

"I don't think you've ever said," he said slowly. He knew what he was going to ask was personal and he wasn't sure if he was going to cross a line. But Gibbs had opened the door to a personal line of conversation. "Why did you leave the Marines?"

Gibbs's smile faded and looked down at his bottle. For a moment, he thought he had gone too far. But then Gibbs said, "My injuries were bad enough and my hitch was close enough to being up that I was given the opportunity to take an honorable discharge. Before Shannon and Kelley died, I hadn't considered it. Even with the deployments and the risks, it had been a good life for us, and I loved being a Marine."

Gibbs fell silent and he watched as his boss organized his thoughts.

"Maybe part of the reason was my experience in Kuwait," Gibbs said. Gibbs took a sip of his beer and swallowed hard. "We were pushing towards the airport and met heavy resistance. During a firefight, a grenade landed near our position. Lieutenant Cameron, he ran to it."

"He jumped on the grenade?" he asked in surprise.

"Didn't make it," Gibbs said. "But he would have." Gibbs looked at him and he could see the anguish in his boss' eyes. "He still took enough of the blast that he saved us. He bled out in my arms."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Me too," Gibbs replied. "He was ten years my junior. Just a kid really." Gibbs chuckled. "But even the senior enlisted older than me respected him. He was a good man and a hell of an officer. He didn't deserve to have his life cut so short."

"You got out because of what happened to Lieutenant Cameron?" he asked tentatively.

"That and because of what happened to my girls," Gibbs said softly. "Right or wrong, I blamed myself for what happened to them." He opened his mouth to object, but Gibbs cut him off. "I wasn't there for them. I wasn't there to protect them. And I wasn't there because I was deployed. I tried to move on, and I took another mission to Columbia."

He remembered the case that involved a marine, PFC Tomás Tamayo and how Gibbs had been in Columbia in ninety-one. But they never learned why he had been there. The mission was still classified.

Gibbs sighed. "But my head and my heart weren't in it anymore," Gibbs said. "So, when they gave me the option to take the discharge, I did."

"Boss," he said. "It wasn't your fault. And it wasn't the Marines either…"

Gibbs waved him off. "I know that, McGee," he said. "But at the time, I wasn't thinking straight. Even came close to eating my own gun." He blinked in shock, but Gibbs wasn't looking at him. He was looking at the beer bottle in his hands. For an instant, he pictured an image of a young, distraught Gibbs considering suicide. "Was in chaos for a long time," Gibbs added softly.

"After the bombing of the Conrad Gala," he said tentatively. He knew what happened to Delilah could never really compare to losing a wife and child, but he knew the chaos that Gibbs described. "I don't really remember too much about the time after the bombing. It's all a blur. I remember bits and pieces but mostly I remember the fear that I was going to lose Delilah. And the guilt." He glanced up at Gibbs. "I wasn't there to protect her either boss. Maybe if I had been, she'd have been ok."

"Or you both could have been killed," Gibbs replied gently.

"Maybe," he replied. "But at the time, I kept thinking that I could have done something more. Maybe I could have done something to catch Parsa before he attacked the gala? What if we had realized that the explosion at the garage was a ruse? Or if I had been at Delilah's side when the drone hit, maybe I could have protected her." Gibbs cleared his throat, interrupting him. Smiling bashfully, he realized he had been working himself up again over events that had happened years ago. "I was stuck in this endless feedback loop in my head that was being fed by the guilt that I didn't protect Delilah." He met Gibbs' eye. "Got better when you came to the hospital to sit with me though."

"I didn't do anything," Gibbs objected. "I just sat with you, McGee."

"I know," he replied. "But you sitting with me. It forced me to slow down and think about what happened. What didn't happen and what was going to happen next. Even if you didn't say anything, it helped to have you there. I was finally able to just breathe and process it all, you know?"

Gibbs smiled slightly and he suddenly he remembered Gibbs' gift at his wedding and the inscription on the watch. He shrugged lightly and sipped his beer.

"Glad I could help," Gibbs said honestly. "I didn't have that after Shannon and Kelly died. I wasn't talking to my Dad and my unit was still in Kuwait. I didn't have anyone to help me sort through the chaos." Gibbs frowned. "Not sure I would have accepted the help anyway. Took a call from Franks to get me out of my daze."

"He was the one who got you into NIS," he said. "You were still in California?"

"Yeah. Even if my unit was still in Kuwait, I was still stationed at Pendleton," Gibbs replied. "Not that there was much for me to do. Which didn't help." Gibbs smiled slightly. "I guess Franks had been keeping an eye on me and when he heard I was getting out of the corps, he called me into his office and asked if I had considered what I was going to do with myself. I didn't have anything in mind. So when he suggested joining him at NIS, I figured what the hell. It was as good as anything I could think of, so I put in my application." Gibbs smiled. "It gave me a sense of purpose that I needed. And the opportunity to do right by those who were serving us." Gibbs hesitated for split second before he me met his eye. "And maybe make up for what I did."

Pedro Hernandez.

The unspoken name hung between them ominously.

Gibbs' admission last year had taken him off guard.

He had never expected his boss to admit that he had killed Hernandez. And he still wasn't sure what Gibbs expected them to do with that information. Given the statute of limitations in Mexico, Gibbs couldn't be tried for the crime. But even if he couldn't be tried, would NCIS want a confessed murderer serving as an agent?

But it wasn't just the confession that had taken him off guard, it was how Gibbs had confessed. The stopped elevator. The eerie glow of the emergency blue light. Gibbs unusually serious expression.

Gibbs had locked eyes with him as he confessed that he had killed the man who killed his family. It was like they were the only two people in the elevator. It felt like Gibbs wasn't confessing to Bishop or Torres. His boss was confessing to him.

He had wanted to talk to Gibbs about it, but he hadn't been sure how to bring it up in conversation. Even now, with Gibbs broaching the subject, he still wasn't sure what to say.

He didn't blame Gibbs for his actions. In fact, if anyone had a case for justifiable homicide, it was Gibbs. At the very least, it was a moment of temporary insanity driven by grief.

And it wasn't as if he hadn't suspected that Gibbs had been the one to shoot Hernandez. He'd suspected it from the time he escorted Abby to Mexico, and they had investigated Pedro's truck. Low level drug dealers like Hernandez weren't assassinated by snipers unless they had committed a crime against one.

Ok if he were to be honest, he hadn't considered it at the time. Between his stomach issues and doing his best to protect Abby after they had been threatened by the Reynosa cartel, he didn't put the pieces together until later when they crossed paths with Agent Mitchell and discovered that Pedro Hernandez had been involved with Shannon and Kelly's murder.

"You think you need to make up for what you did?" he asked.

"Don't you?" Gibbs challenged.

"Honestly?" he asked. Gibbs nodded sharply. "I don't know. Hernandez was a drug dealer who murdered a marine. He assassinated a NIS agent which led to the death of two civilians. If he hadn't been stopped, who's to say what other crimes he would have committed? Actually, I'm pretty sure that the marine he killed wasn't the first murder he had committed." Gibbs frowned. "Hernandez should have been extradited from Mexico and put on trial for what he did."

"But he wasn't," Gibbs replied. "And what I did, wasn't justice."

"Yeah it was," he replied to Gibbs surprise. "It wasn't legal," he countered. Gibbs frowned and looked like he wanted to argue that he was splitting hairs, but he shook his head. He had more to say. "We like to think that justice and the law are the same thing. Usually they are. But the law failed Shannon and Kelly and NIS Agent Mitchell. And it failed you Gibbs. It should have never come to what you did."

"No," Gibbs conceded.

"Do you regret it?" he asked.

Gibbs set his empty beer bottle down on the coffee table.

"No," Gibbs replied. "Hernandez was a murderer. And he would have killed again. I don't doubt that." He nodded in agreement. "I regret that I had to take matters into my own hands. Like you said, it should have never come to it." Gibbs looked up at him. "When I joined NIS, it was because I didn't want anyone to have to go through what I did."

"To make sure that justice and the law were the same," he said. Gibbs nodded. "Why did you tell us what you did?" he asked. "During the Deakin case?"

"After he tried to have me killed, I confronted him at his bowling alley," Gibbs said.

"Yeah," he replied. "I remember. Torres followed you."

"Deakin called me out for going after him for doing the same thing I had done. For taking the law in my own hands," Gibbs said with a sigh. "Said I was ashamed to tell you what I did. And he was right. I was ashamed to tell you. If we were going to arrest Deakin for taking the law into his hands, you'd have to arrest me too. You don't get to apply the law any different to me just because I'm your boss."

"Last I checked, we don't arrest people for crimes committed in Mexico, boss," he countered. Gibbs looked at him in irritation, but he didn't let him interrupt. "And we definitely can't arrest someone for a crime that has passed the statute of limitations. Only way we could have arrested you was if Mexico put out a warrant and I'm pretty sure they aren't too concerned about a drug dealer murdered thirty years ago."

Gibbs frowned but didn't contradict him.

"Were you worried that we'd think less of you?" he asked.

Gibbs looked at him and for a fleeting instant, he saw Gibbs' worry.

"Do you?" Gibbs asked after a moment.

"No," he replied without thinking. When Gibbs looked at him skeptically, he said, "No. I don't Gibbs. I refuse to judge you for something that happened thirty years ago. And I'm not going to judge you for something you did when you were pushed to your limits. After everything you went through? How long was it between Cameron's death and finding out that no one was going to do anything about the man who killed your family?"

"Six months," Gibbs replied. "And most of that was in the hospital. Which didn't help." Gibbs sighed. "I had months on end where all I could think about was my injuries and my girls."

He looked at Gibbs sympathetically. "That's a lot for anyone to take," he said. "Anyone would snap under those conditions."

"Marines don't snap," Gibbs retorted.

"Really?" he asked incredulously. "Pretty sure there's a case or two that we've had over the years that proves otherwise." Gibbs rolled his eyes but didn't contradict him. "I think after seventeen years, I can judge your character for myself," he continued. "With everything we've been through, all the times you've saved my life, after everything you've taught me, that tells me all I need to know about you, Gibbs. One lapse of judgement doesn't negate all that."

"Maybe it should," Gibbs murmured. "Deakin was right calling me out. I ought to be in a cell right next to him."

"I'm not gonna arrest you Gibbs," he replied. "If I was, I'd have done it last year."

To his surprise, Gibbs started laughing. Blinking, he wondered if his boss had cracked.

"After the Deakin case, I called the Doc," Gibbs said. "Broke rule four."

"Yeah, I know," he replied even as he wondered what had bothered Gibbs so much that he had called their psychiatrist.

"No," Gibbs said shaking his head. "Again. Told the Doc the same thing I told you. Told her what I did. Told her I was gonna turn myself in."

"Into what?" he asked. Gibbs looked at him pointedly. "The police? Why?"

"Well if you weren't gonna do anything, I figured someone ought to," Gibbs retorted. He looked at Gibbs incredulously. "What I did made me just like the people we arrest. It wasn't right that I got to walk around."

"After thirty years, you finally decided that you needed to go to jail for what you did?" he asked in confusion. "Because you told us your secret?" Gibbs nodded. "That was your catalyst?" he asked still astounded.

"She talked me out of it," Gibbs offered.

"I'll have to remember to thank her the next time I see her," he replied.

"It bothered me that you knew," Gibbs said softly. "Was worried what you'd think of me. Grace said you'd say something if you had a problem with what I did," Gibbs said.

"And we didn't," he said.

"Then why do I get the feeling that you wanted to?" Gibbs asked challengingly.

"Because I did have a problem, but it was never about what you did," he replied as he met Gibbs' eye, challenging his boss to contradict him. When Gibbs didn't say anything, he continued, "I can't imagine how I'd react if something happened to Delilah and the twins. And if I knew the guy responsible was walking around?"

He trailed off. He wanted to think he wouldn't do the same as Gibbs had done, that he wouldn't take the law into his own hands, but he couldn't say that for certain. He glanced at Gibbs and with the way his boss was looking at him, he could tell that Gibbs knew what he was thinking.

"Mostly, I couldn't figure out what you expected us to do with that information," he said changing the topic. Even thinking about losing Delilah and the kids made his chest tighten. "I never considered turning you in though."

"I appreciate that Tim," Gibbs said softly.

He finished his beer and set the bottle onto the table.

"You mind if I ask what brought all this on?" he asked tentatively.

Gibbs shrugged his head. "Something Joe said," Gibbs replied softly. "That talking about what happened at Pearl Harbor made him feel lighter. Asked if I had ever shared what I saw. Said it might make me feel lighter too. Figured if I was going to share with anyone, it ought to be you." He looked at Gibbs, speechless. "Like you said, after everything we've been through together."

He met Gibbs' eye and nodded, acknowledging the silent understanding of what it meant for his boss to share such personal feelings with him.

He glanced at the sea urn that held Joe's cremains.

"He was something, wasn't he?" he asked.

Gibbs laughed. "Yeah he was."

"You sure you don't want me to go with you?" he asked. "I'd be honored to accompany you and Joe to Pearl."

"I know," Gibbs replied. "But I got this McGee. You don't spend enough time with your family as it is. He wouldn't have wanted you to give up time with your kids just to see his ashes interred on the ship."

"He wouldn't," he said with a laugh. "When Palmer was examining the burns on Joe's arm, Jimmy mentioned the phone calls I had been getting and how it was annoying me. When I told Joe that Jimmy's exam wasn't enough proof, he marched himself back to interrogation. Told me to find the DNA that would prove he had been on the Arizona. And he told me that life was too short to be bent out of shape over crap phone calls and I should go be grumpy somewhere else. Then he slammed the door in my face."

Gibbs laughed. Unable to stop himself, he laughed too.

"He wasn't wrong," Gibbs said.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Which is part of the reason I agreed to go to the birthday fiesta."

"Sounds like a heck of a party," Gibbs said with a smile.

"It does," he replied. "Hopefully Torres' enchiladas recipe can do the Garcia family proud. Delilah and I were planning to do a test run tonight."

"Then you should get going," Gibbs said as he stood. "I gotta finish packing anyway."

"Ok," he replied as he stood up. "I'll see you when you get back."

Walking to the door, he paused to pick up the grate.

"McGee," Gibbs said stopping him again. "Thanks for listening."

"Sure," he said. "Any time." Gibbs nodded. Suddenly realizing that it sounded like some platitude, he added, "I mean that."

"I know," Gibbs replied, meeting his eye.

"Did it help?" he asked before he thought better of it.

Gibbs looked thoughtful for a moment before he nodded. "Yeah." Gibbs smiled slightly. "It did." Gibbs looked up at him. "Did it help you?"

He wanted to protest but a pointed look from Gibbs stopped him.

The conversation with Gibbs had given him a lot of perspective both on his boss and on his father. It wasn't a substitute for the conversation that he really wanted, but since his father passed, this was as close as he could get. Hearing how war had changed Gibbs, how the pain, horror and loss still resonated thirty and even eighty years later for Joe, made him feel even more for his father. He was sorry that his father had never been able to unburden himself before he passed like Gibbs and Joe had.

And finally discussing Gibbs' confession had felt good. It was good to hear more on the circumstances that led Gibbs to matters into his own hands. It was good to finally tell Gibbs that he didn't blame him for his actions or that he didn't think less of him. And it was good to know why Gibbs had finally confessed.

"Yeah," he replied honestly.

"Good," Gibbs said. "Now go before Delilah gets mad at me for keeping you," Gibbs said playfully.

Snorting, he replied, "You don't want that," he replied.

Picking up the grate, he nodded one last time as he left. Gibbs did seem a little lighter and if he were honest, he felt a little lighter too.

While I'm sorry that the season had to end a little early, I am extremely grateful that we got to end it with Arizona. It was truly a wonderful episode and I loved that Gibbs chose Tim to open up to. They've been through so much and it was only natural that Gibbs felt comfortable enough to talk to. I know that the longer conversation wouldn't have fit within the context of the episode but I definitely felt that their conversation would have been much longer in real life. I couldn't help but imagine what else these two would have discussed and how it would not only help Gibbs but also help McGee understand his father, who seemed to have been profoundly impacted by his two tours in Vietnam. I hope everyone is staying safe and that you enjoyed my interpretation of a what a longer heart-to-heart conversation might have looked like between this surrogate father and son duo.