Blog writing has been moved to website

I've decided that reading a story at a blog - at least a story like this one, isn't really very efficent.

So I'm moving The People Out There to my Thunder Child science fiction webzine, where I promise it will be updated more often.

ThePeopleOutThere/

McGee's Musings, Day 2

Here I am...sitting here trying to think of something to write... it's been a pretty slow week so far. There's little point in blogging about my day when nothing's really happening. I've been streamlining some code with most of my mind, and thinking about characters with the little bit left over.

Well...that's a lousy simile..I'll think of something better.

Tony makes an interesting character. Tony DiNozzo... he's kind of a tortured character, actually. Well...everyone here who works under Gibbs seems to be tortured, except Abby.

I'm not really that tortured... sure I had my hands on a lot of money for a few months, before I decided to invest in a hedge fund and see it all disappear...

But Tony.... grew up in a wealthy family who cut him off for some reason he's never said... I think his dad was an alcoholic...and just a week or so ago he'd been so sure he was going to inherit $35 mil from his rich uncle in England...and instead he owes his cousin $10,000.

Tony hasn't been very happy since that happened.

And Ziva... well Ziva seems to have issues with her father too. Her father is the head of Mossad, and you know how these top people feel about sacrificing their people, even apparently when it's their own flesh and blood.

And of course Gibbs, and his first wife who was killed by drug dealers....

Fertile field for characterization there.

McGee's Musings: A Month in the Life of Thom E. Gemcity

I'm having a hard time getting started with my next novel.... you'd think with all the cases I've been involved with at NCIS, not to mention all the plots that should be in decades worth of case-files, that I wouldn't have any problem getting ideas for stuff to write about... but nothing's coming.

I suppose part of it might be my financial difficulties. I made a good bit off my first novel, and I bought the car and the clothes...but I sank most of it into a hedge fund - a nice, secure hedge fund.... that went belly up. I'm not really in financial difficulties -- I make a good salary as an NCIS agent and I'm not extravagant with that money, but just the thought of all that money I lost - if I'd known it was going to disappear I would have gotten a bit more enjoyment out of it!

I finished my second novel by my deadline, although that was a lot of work... and my publisher didn't like it. She asked for revisions and I did them. But the critics have panned it and my loyal readers didn't buy it... and I need a killer third book to get my fans back...and nothing's coming.

So I've decided I'm not even going to think about it for the next month or so. Instead, I'm going to write up the next month of my life like a novel, like a month in the life of Thom E. Gemcity.

I'm going to type it here, on this blog.

So I hope you, my loyal fans, will like it and review it. When it comes to writer's block, nothing helps the author crash through it like fans expressing their appreciation.

People Out There Final Part

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."

People Out There Part Six

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.

II.

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 her), 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...

III.

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.

The People Out There Part Five

II. More People Out There
Part IV

Let us go back in time and space. It's not supposed to be done. Oh, no, it's not supposed to be done. But Gamma is curious and what the Great One doesn't know....

I.

It's three days ago, and Mark Harmon is playing flag football with several of his friends, including Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo from his television show, NCIS.

Francesca, aka Frankie, juked around the pitifully inept protection of the center, Jeff, and brought Mark down to the ground, where he hit his head.

Not very hard, but the people out there chose that moment to Charge him, and all of a sudden Mark Harmon was no longer on the ground but transferred into a different dimension where the world of the NCIS television program existed for real.

And on the ground in his place... was Special Agent Gibbs.

Gibbs blinked away the dazzling white light blinding him, and then, still on his back, froze. What the hell?

He'd been throwing spirals to Ziva and Tony in an otherwise deserted field, and now all of a sudden in addition to Ziva and Tony there was a crowd of people circled around him, looking at him.

"You okay, Mark?" asked a beautiful black woman, bending over him, laughing.

"I...I'm not sure."

"C'mon, Mark, this is delay of game," said Tony DiNozzo, also laughing. "You're trying to get a sympathy do over, aren'tcha?"

Gibbs rose to his feet and gave DiNozzo one of his patented glares.

"Uh, Mark?" said DiNozzo. "What's the matter?"

"Why do you keep calling me Mark, DiNozzo?" Gibbs said irritably.

"Uh...what?" said DiNozzo, replacing his smile with a sober face in an instant, as was his wont.
"He's Mister Harmon to you, Mike," the black woman laughed at him.

"Hey, it wasn't me who knocked him down in a game of flag football, Frankie!"

Gibbs wiped a hand over his face. His head was pounding and he was feeling very confused. Why was everyone calling him Mark? Where'd they all come from so quickly, also? What the hell was going on?

"Jesus, Mark, I'm sorry," the black woman said, concern replacing the amusement on her face, as she touched his arm. "You look like you have a concussion, or something. I'd better drive you to the doctor."

"No, I'm fine, don't worry about it. I'll just sit over here and have a beer. You guys carry on."
Gibbs had seen the cooler by the bench out of the corner of his eye. He walked over to it now, opened it up, and as he'd expected, found bottles of beer and cans of pop inside. He picked up a beer, shook off the ice, twisted off the cap, and drank long and deep.

He looked at DiNozzo and Ziva, who were not participating in the scrimmage on the field, but rather talking amongst themselves...and looking at him while they were doing it. Then they came over to him.

"Uh...Mark," said Ziva. "You called Mike....DiNozzo."

Gibbs looked at Ziva. Her long hair was pulled back in a ponytail, she wore black sweats - nothing like what she'd been wearing a few minutes ago when he'd been throwing spirals. And DiNozzo, the same. Instead of his Property of Ohio State sweatshirt, he was wearing a t-shirt. And it was hot, and muggy.

And where the hell was the DC skyline? Where was the capitol building?

"Mark," said Ziva, "I think we'd better drive you home." (Despite Cote's adventure of a few days ago, when she had been Charged by the people out there, she remembered none of it. That strange event had faded from her mind within seconds, just as a dream disappears once you wake up, snatch at it desperately though you may...)

"DiNozzo. Ziva. What's going on? Why do you keep calling me Mark? What kind of a game are you playing?"

DiNozzo and Ziva exchanged glances.

"You're name is Mark Harmon," DiNozzo said, softly. "You're an actor, and you play the role of Gibbs in a TV show called NCIS. I play Tony DiNozzo, but my real name is Michael Weatherly. Look."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, and showed Gibbs his driver's license. Gibbs pulled it out of its holder and looked at it... then he handed it back to ...Michael Weatherly, and pulled out his own wallet. He looked at the driver's license. Mark Harmon. An address in California.

He looked through the wallet. Photos of a woman he didn't recognize. One of him, the woman, and two little boys, in a family photo pose. Several of two boys, in various age stages...each one of them looked a little bit like him...as if they were his sons. Gibbs blinked wetness out of his eyes.
He dropped the wallet and buried his face in his hands. Had he hit his head? Was he hallucinating? Or was he having a psychotic episode?

"C'mon, Mark, we're going to drive you home."

"No." Gibbs snapped. "Not home." He couldn't face a wife he didn't know, two sons he wouldn't recognize.

"Okay, okay, not your home, my home," said...the man calling himself Michael Weatherly. "Cote, you want to come along?"

"Of course, Mike" said Ziva... Cote?... "I'll just go let the others know we're leaving."
Gibbs walked with Mike toward a street lined with parked cars.

"Mark...you should let us take you to a doctor...you must've bumped your head."

Gibbs turned on him. "No doctor. Listen, DiN... Mike. I appreciate I seem to be acting kind of weird, but I'm asking you as a favor. I just need to go somewhere to think."

"Hey, Mark, no problem. Like I said, we'll go to my house. Kick back with a few beers. I've got DVDs of our show, I'll fire 'em up. You'll remember what's what in no time."

"Okay, Mike," said Zi–Cote, returning. "I've told 'em Mark is fine, just a bit woozy, and we're going over to your place to chill out. And I told them not to say anything about this to Pam, either."

...told 'em, thought Gibbs. Chill out?

If anything could really have convinced him that this woman was not Ziva, that would be it. Ziva didn't talk like that. But this woman had the accent down, she looked exactly like Ziva... that Michael Weatherly guy looked and sounded exactly like DiNozzo...jesus.

As they drove through the city, Gibbs sat in the back seat, thinking hard. Either he was having a psychotic episode, or he was being played. Those were the only two options. The nonsense of them being actors - that was just a joke. No one would try to play him with a far-fetched story like that. So he must be having a psychotic episode.

Well...maybe psychotic wasn't the right word. He didn't feel like going around and killing anybody or everybody. He didn't think anybody - except the usual suspects - were circling around trying to kill him, and that he'd have to take them out in a pre-emptive strike before hand.

So...he wasn't having a psychotic episode. He was just having some kind of harmless hallucination, due to a blow on the head. He'd go with these people to their house, knock back a few beers, and start seeing things the way they really were.

II.

"Okay, Mark..." began Mike as he brought the car to a halt in the driveway of his home.
"Stop calling me Mark," Gibbs said brusquely. "The name's Gibbs."

"Right, sorry, Gibbs. Let's go in. Cote, I'm going to get us some drinks. You want to cue up the DVD?"

"Sure."

Gibbs followed...Cote...what kind of name was that? Sounded Spanish.. into a luxuriously appointed living room. This guy Mike certainly had money, and liked to spend it.

"Have a seat...Gibbs," said Cote. He sat down and stared up at her, and saw her staring at him intently. It was she who blinked first. She turned away and went to a bookcase, which seemed to be entirely full of DVD cases. That'd be Tony for you...and apparently Michael Weatherly as well.

She picked out the first DVD in a row, stared at it for a few seconds, then put it back and moved over two more cases.

Mike came in at that second, the necks of three beer bottles grasped in between his fingers. He handed one to Cote, one to him, and set down with the other one himself.

"You're staring with Episode One, Season One?" he asked Cote.

"No," she replied. "I thought...best not. How about Season Three, episode four. My debut episode as part of the team. 'Silver War.'"

"Yeah...or wait a minute." Mike snapped his fingers. "Why not just show him the 'Making of NCIS', on the first dis of the first seasonk. The one where he's talking about the show. That ought to snap him out of it!"

"No," said Gibbs. "I want to see this "Silver War."

So they turned on "Silver War." And after that came "Switch" and then "The Voyeurs' Web" and so on. And each one, all the action happened exactly as it had happened, except conflated into 45 minutes. And at the beginning and end of each episode, the names of actors superimposed over the faces he knew so well.

And as the shows unrolled, Mike kept bringing out the beers, and the time rolled by, until finally his cell phone went off.

Automatically, Gibbs pulled it out of his pocket and flipped it open. The name on the ID was Pam. Pam..... oh, yeah...this Mark Harmon's wife.

Crap.

"Hello. Pam."

"Mark, for goodness sake, are you okay? Frankie called me an hour ago, told me what happened..."

"It's okay, Pam. I'm at...Mike's. I..."

Mike took the phone from his hand, and Gibbs let him.

"Hi, Pam, it's Mike," said Mike. "Here's the thing. I had an argument with Amelia today, about the next time I'd get to see my son August, you know... yeah, I know you know!.... but we've been sitting here and Mark's been letting me vent and we've had too many beers, so he's going to stay here tonight and sleep it off, and I'll be driving him over to your house in the morning."
"But, Mike, is he oka?. Frankie said..."

"Yeah, he's fine. He was woozy for a minutes earlier today, yeah, but like I said, then I had that argument..."

"Okay, Mike. Let me talk to him, please."

Mike handed the phone back to Gibbs, who spoke into it, "Hi, Pam. Yeah...better safe than sorry. See you tomorrow..... I...I love you too."

He snapped the phone shut, then looked over at Mike. "Thanks for that," he said.
"No problem. And anyway, you're going to have to stay here. I'll go make up the spare room." He turned and looked at Cote.

"Cote...you've been knocking 'em back pretty good, too. Not to mention the fact that you left your car at the field. I'll make up the other spare room for you, okay?"

"Thanks, Mike."

"How many spare rooms does he have?" Gibbs asked as Mike left the room.

"Just two," said Cote with a smile. Then the smile faded. "So...you don't remember....you're still Gibbs?"

"I'm still Gibbs."

For some reason, Cote believed him. Not that he didn't remember that he was Gibbs, but that he was Gibbs. She didn't know why she thought this was possible, she just did. Her mouth suddenly went dry, and she felt warmth spreading through her as she gazed at him.

Mark Harmon and Pam Dawber were the perfect couple...and she'd never have presumed to try to cut him out with his wife, not only because she wasn't a man-stealer but because she knew how deeply they were in love....but this man sitting in front of her...it couldn't be possible but it was...he was Gibbs...

And she'd always had a secret liking for Gibbs...

Gibbs felt the heat between them as well... He was a one-woman man when he had a woman...but this Pam Dawber was not his wife and he'd be waking up sooner or later...and he really needed a woman's touch right now.

Mike returned to the room. "Okay, they're all set. You guys ready to..."

"Yeah," said Gibbs. He got up, and extended a hand. "Thanks for your hospitality, Mike...but I have every confidence I'll wake up tomorrow back where I'm supposed to be, and you'll be DiNozzo like you're supposed to be."

"I...I hope so," he said.

"I'll turn in too," Cote said.

So Mike showed Gibbs to his door, and Gibbs went inside and looked around. There was another door, which led to a bathroom, and there was a toothbrush and a shaver there. Gibbs brushed his teeth, and washed his face, and took off his shirt as he returned to the bedroom.
He looked down at his arms and chest and belly...not quite the muscle tone he was used to...no...don't go there...he was tired, that was all...

There was a soft knock on the door.

Gibbs heart leapt. He'd hoped she'd come.

He opened the door, silently stepped back and let her enter.

She wasn't "Cote," Gibbs thought to himself as he stepped close to her and placed his hands on her hips. She couldn't be. She was Ziva - beautiful, charming, deadly - and for this one night, he could have her...

He kissed her, gently, and she responded as gently. Her eyes were open...he gazed into them as he kissed her. Then he took hold of her sweatshirt and raised it over her head as she lifted her arms to help him, and his hands were unhooking her bra and cupping her breasts...then they were maneuvering back towards the bed...and she was positioning herself on top...

"Alpha! What are they doing?"

"I ... I don't know! Are they ill?"

"Oh, my goodness. I don't think they're ill...they appear to be enjoying themselves."

"Oh...dear...are they supposed to be doing that? My, she's flexible."

"Oh, my goodness. If the Great One hears of this..."

More People Out There Chapter Four

II. More People Out There
Part III

I.
Mark walked with Pauley back down to her sanctum, leaving McGee, Ziva and Tony exchanging glances. Mark took special care to pick up the water-filled coffee cup and tilt it in Tony's direction as they passed by his desk, and Tony quirked his eyebrows as if appreciating the joke that was apparently in store for Abby.

Ziva was thinking that that embrace between Abby and Gibbs had been a little bit too...too something. They hadn't lip-locked or anything (she had learned that expression from Tony, of course), and she knew that Gibbs and Abby had always enjoyed a special relationship, but there had been something about that embrace...Gibbs had held her so desperately.

There was a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach... jealousy?, Ziva wondered. She had always found Gibbs attractive...that silvery hair and those blue eyes, not to mention his skills with rifle and the martial arts...but he'd always seemed so dead set against co-workers dating...and now...was his and Abby's relationship progressing to a different level?...and if so, why Abby and not her?! Although Abby's eccentricities were charming in a certain way, surely a gung-ho ex-marine - at least not one of Gibbs generation, would find Abby attractive in a sexual sense? Especially since none of her tattoos were of ships or aquatic mammals or anything of that nature?

Men, thought Ziva. So confusing.

McGee was thinking that Abby had gazed deeply into the eyes of Tony, Ziva and Gibbs, and hadn't given him so much as a look or a wave! He felt a little hurt by that. Her character's death in his next book was going to be particularly gruesome, he decided petulantly. Then he grinned. She'd like that. He'd get a kiss out of that, he was sure!

As far as Tony was concerned, Mark's stratagem at his exit, with the coffee cup, hadn't worked .
He couldn't forget that reaction of Mark's when he'd said, "Who are you and what have you done with the real Gibbs?" Tony was good at reading people's reactions and that had been a guilty reaction.

But how could that man in Gibbs' shoes be an impostor? He looked exactly like Gibbs, he sounded exactly like Gibbs...but he sure didn't drink like Gibbs...

Tony rubbed his face with his hands. He'd have to find out. The question was...how to do it?

II.

Pauley and Mark waited until they'd gotten into the innermost part of her sanctum, with the glass door closed, before they spoke.

Then Pauley said irrespressibly, "Oh, God, Mark, isn't this so cool! I can't believe it! We're actually in NCIS-land!"

"How long have you been...uh...?"

"Just about half-an-hour or so. I was in my house, reading a book. I got up to get some lunch, there was this tremendous pain in my head, and next thing I knew I was here, in the lab! I could not believe my eyes."

"And you're happy about this, are you?"

"Well, du-uh! Of course! Oh! Mark...oh... how long have you been...?"

"Two days, Pauley. More than two days. And I can't...there's no reasonable explanation for this...I thought I'd gone insane."

"Don't think of it that way at all," said Pauley in typical Abbs fashion, bringing up both hands and shaking him by the shoulders. "We've been transferred into a parallel universe, where the NCIS universe really exists. Easy."

Mark grinned despite himself. "Okay, Pauley. I'll grant you the fact that we're not insane, we've just been transferred into a parallel universe. But here's two important questions. How did it happen, and more importantly, how do we get back?"

Pauley paced up and down a couple of times, beating her fists together gently under her chin. Then she snapped her fingers.

"Obvious, Mark. Quantum Leap."

"The TV show?"

"Exactly. We've been brought here by some mystical force to do something. Save somebody, or something. And as soon as we do that, wham bam thank you ma'am, we'll pop back into our real universe!"

Mark laughed, a little weakly. "That sounds good, Pauley, but come on. What could I do here, that the real Gibbs couldn't do ten times better? And even though you've got a degree in forensics yourself, are you really better than Abbs would be at solving something?"

Pauley shrugged. "Well, it must not be our investigative skills that are needed here, but our interpersonal skills. Now me, I'm the same everywhere," she grinned, "but you...you get along with everybody about a hundred times better than Gibbs would. Maybe you have to be nice to somebody that Gibbs wouldn't be nice to."

Mark did indeed, to put it in Pauley's parlance, feel a hundred times better than he had just thirty minutes ago. Pauley's matter-of-fact acceptance of their predicament was refreshing and reassuring.

But to be transported into this alternative universe, if such it was, just to be nice to someone? That couldn't be it. It had to be something more serious than that...

III.

Tony DiNozzo rested his face in his hands. He'd just completed a search of UCLA's football database. No one named Jethro Leroy Gibbs had ever played football for UCLA, let alone quarterback.

Come to that, no one named Jethro Leroy Gibbs had ever played football for any college. Gibbs had gone into the marines right after high school.

"Maybe Gibbs was just yanking that guy's chain," he thought, hopefully, but hope was snuffed out as Tony continued to think.

That man wasn't Gibbs, that was all there was to it.

So who was he, and where the hell was Gibbs, and what was he going to do now?