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Three days in the woods. Gibbs throws a flashlight into the bag. An extra pair of underwear, just in case. Anti-tick spray. Now where did he put the waterproof matches?
"You're going for a hike?"
"I got some days off coming to me."
Space. Space away from his own home, from the faces he sees around him every day. From his own thoughts crowding him. From opening the door and seeing someone there that he's happy to see.
"The house will be locked down."
"That's good," Palmer mumbles.
"So if you got something here you'll need..."
"No, that's okay." Worried eyes follow Gibbs as he moves around the house, picking things up, putting things down.
Gibbs doesn't want to know what Palmer's thinking. He barely knows what he's thinking. Just that he needs to be away, and he doesn't like that feeling. It feels too familiar, like old faded photographs, like vague childhood memories. It tastes of old regrets. And still he packs.
"You're going alone?"
"Yup."
"Isn't it dangerous?"
Gibbs gives him an incredulous look.
"Right. Sorry," Palmer says, and sits down with a thump. Gibbs moves to the kitchen. There's a small first aid kit above the sink.
"I'll be gone three days," he calls out. There's no answer. He wasn't really expecting one.
He also wasn't expecting Palmer to follow him into the kitchen. He stands tense by the sink with the white rectangular box in his hand, waiting for a response to arrive.
Palmer kisses him. On the cheek, chaste.
"Have a great time out there," he says warmly, and Gibbs can recognize sincerity when he hears it. And then Palmer stands back. And walks back into the living room, and to the front door, and out of Gibbs' house.
Gibbs, agitated, heads back to the sofa and throws the first aid kit into the backpack almost angrily.
--
So right, space. No work and no memories on every wall, and no other man in his house at all hours, and even though Gibbs knows for a fact that there were days and days they didn't see each other, it doesn't change the feeling that at any moment there could be a knock on the door and he wouldn't say no. Didn't change the feeling, that old feeling in dark blue silver nights, of waking to see another head on the pillow next to him, breathing in and out softly, peacefully, curls mussed and eyes closed and lips, even in sleep, half-stretched in a little smile.
Stars over his head and the wide, deep, amazing sky of rural areas, away from the city and its million lights. Hands under his head, ankles crossed, Gibbs stays outside his tent, stays awake for half the night and watches the sky.
Next day on the trail, the sun beating down on him, and he realizes he's too old for this. Not for the trail; for the games. He's never liked the games. Was thankful he was spared most of them by marrying young, or at least deciding young, marrying a little later, not that it mattered one bit. But games were played and he got used to it. And he thought he was too old to change, but the truth is, he's too old not to change.
If he wanted space, he has his basement and his work, and the least intrusive lover on the planet, a guy who got off sometimes on being left alone in a corner. Though Gibbs finds that he can do without so much space. Looks at his cell phone and thinks to call and shrugs and puts it back into his pocket. Probably not a lot of reception up here anyway. But he smiles a little. He'll come back home in a couple of days and call Palmer over.
Sun about to set and Gibbs starts planning to settle down and raise that little plastic doghouse they called a tent at the store, when something catches his eye. A ditch off the trail, something looks funny, something smells wrong. He walks over and peers down into the gully.
And sighs, and picks up his phone, and walks up the trail a little to get better reception. And calls.
"Grab your gear."
"Gibbs! Aren't you on a hike?"
Gibbs gives coordinates and trail markings to DiNozzo and hangs up, and heads back to the place with the least pleasant odour around and sets up his camp for the night.
--
The smell of coffee brewing makes the night tolerable. Gibbs is wide awake at the crack of dawn, when grumbling voices calling to each other from the trail alert him to the presence of his team, a good twenty minutes before they show up.
"Three hours in the woods," Tony complains, "and I don't even know if it's our jurisdiction."
"Vance get on your case?", Gibbs asks with a noted lack of sympathy.
"Told him you made the call and I completely trust your judgement," Tony replies sweetly, rolling the ball of responsibility deftly back to Gibbs' door. Since it's barely five in the morning, Gibbs accepts the infraction.
"The ME van is too big to go all the way up the trail," McGee says, scrunching his nose, peering into the ditch.
Gibbs frowns. "Think we'll need to haul it on foot?"
"No, they found a way to handle it," Tony says, a little too chipper. Gibbs glances behind him to see Ducky and Palmer lumbering up the hillside with what looked like a large delivery cart. "They got it from the supermarket down in the town," Tony informs gleefully.
"Good thinking," Gibbs mutters.
"We're parked just down the road," Ducky calls, waving at him, while Palmer struggles to keep the trolley from rolling off the track. Gibbs likes the little spark of unidentified feeling he gets seeing them both heading his way.
"Coffee?", he offers. The three agents and Ducky shake their heads politely, Ducky hiding a smile; his version of the black brew is too strong for them, he knows. But Palmer nods, hesitant.
"Um, if we have time, I don't mind." He glances questioningly at Ducky, then at Gibbs. "It's just been a really long night."
This flare of feeling Gibbs can identify; jealousy. Weird, misplaced jealousy.
"Well, I did get a bit of a nap on the way over here," Ducky relents. "You go ahead, have a cup, if you're sure it won't corrode your esophagus. I'll start on the time of death and the rest of the little things..."
"I'll get the camera," Tony says, after sending Palmer a strange look.
"Checking footprints around the glitch," Ziva announces.
"Ditch," McGee corrects her absently. "I'm gonna try for fingerprints, although I think the body might be too decomposed for that."
"And half-eaten," Ducky calls cheerfully from inside the gully.
"Yeah, thanks," McGee mumbles, maneuvering carefully down the slope.
--
Gibbs pours steaming black liquid from the soot-stained pot into the thermal cup. Palmer wraps his fingers around it, taking a sip.
"Strong," he says, grinning, a little breathless. Gibbs nods. "I like the contradictions," Palmer says after another sip, gesturing to the small fire. "Kinda poetic."
"What?", Gibbs says. His mind is half on the case, and half not, which bothers him. He's too happy to have this morning under the trees, with the chirping birds and the only thermal mug in Palmer's hands.
"Old, rustic tin pot," Palmer says, "technologically enhanced plastic cup."
"I think it's copper," Gibbs says. Shrugs. "Got it in Morocco."
"It's classic," Palmer says and takes another, longer gulp. And smiles beatifically. "I think I burned my throat."
Gibbs finds himself smiling back in reflex. "Got a little greedy."
"Mmmmyeah," Palmer says. Something about the curve of his lips tells Gibbs he's no longer thinking about the coffee.
"There's a dead body not twenty feet from you," Gibbs reminds him.
Palmer startles, as if woken from a dream. "Yes. Sorry. Thanks for the coffee."
He thrusts the mug back into Gibbs' hands and hurries down the ditch, slipping a little ungracefully in the mud. Gibbs looks after him, then takes a sip himself. It's gonna be a long morning.
--
"I drove all niiiiight," Tony sings for the fourth time in the last hour. "I just keep going back to this one line."
"I wonder why," Gibbs grumbles.
They're both exhausted. NCIS is waiting. Ducky insisted on at least two people per vehicle, to keep each other awake; and so Tony 'shacked up', per his words, with Gibbs, while Ziva took McGee for a scare ride. The autopsy van took off, housing three.
"I don't know the rest of the words," Tony confesses. Gibbs says nothing. Then Tony cheers up. "But it keeps us up, am I right?"
Gibbs says nothing again. He actually knows a few more words. About seven more. He doesn't know the rest, but he's pretty sure the song isn't about a dead body in the woods.
Tony glances at him sideways. Gibbs lets him.
Until he opens his mouth again. "I drove a..."
"Quiet," Gibbs says.
"Yes boss. Sorry." Tony falls silent. Momentarily. He looks around him and starts drumming his fingers on his knee. "I just feel like I'll fall asleep if it's too quiet, you know? I have to keep talking.... to stay aliiiive!"
He opens wide dramatic eyes at Gibbs. Gibbs restrains a small smile.
"Oh my God. Maybe I caught it from Ducky," Tony says, with well-emulated mock-fear.
Gibbs chuckles.
Tony looks out the window. Plays with the radio. Plays with his phone.
Glances at Gibbs again.
"Something troubling you, DiNozzo?"
Tony fidgets for a moment, and then blurts what's on his mind. "One question, boss."
Gibbs waits.
Tony takes a deep breath. "Were you alone when you called?"
Gibbs glances at his agent's face in the mirror. Curiosity mingled with some nervousness. The fact he dared asking tells Gibbs the curiosity was eating at him.
"Yes," he finally says, looking at the road disappearing under them at high speed, the trees blurring by. "I was alone."