More People Out There

Chapter One: Mark Harmon Takes a Little Trip

II. More People Out There

"Has our next subject been acquired?"
"Yes, oh Great One."
"Has the Teleinvisichronomicon been properly charged?"
"Yes, oh Great One."
"Very good. Prepare to activate on my signal."

I.

Mark Harmon, who had been the starting quarterback for UCLA for two years in the 70s, enjoyed playing flag football on the weekends. It was fun, it was relaxing, and it helped keep him in shape for the demands of his show, NCIS.

It was a friendly game, and everyone, men and women, joined in. Occasionally his friends from the cast and crew of the show would stop by and participate. Indeed, on this occasion, Cote de Pablo was on his team, and Michael Weatherly was on the other side.

Pam Dawber, his wife of over twenty years, was not there. She didn't play, but normally roamed the sidelines cheering him on, supervising the giant ice chests full of pop and beer and the barbecue afterward. But today a friend had called her, who was feeling poorly, and Pam had gone over to her house to cheer her up.

Mark called out the play, cried "Hut, hut, hut," and then "Hike!"

Jeff hiked the ball, then straightened up, looking from side to side to see who he needed to block. Mark dropped back, looking for receivers. His team was down by three, time was running out, he needed a first down or his team would have to give up the ball. Cote was streaking down the field and waving her hand signaling she was open.

Frankie (short for Francesca), on the other side of the line, was well aware that this was flag football, but she was intent on winning the game and she had to stop Mark. So she juked past Jeff as if he were standing still (a feat which she automatically registered she would rub into his face at the barbecue after the game) and grabbed for Mark. Mark twisted away, Francesca kept reaching out as she fell, and her hands got tangled in with his feet. Mark fell backwards, his head hit the dirt, and...

Now.

He hadn't hit his head very hard, just a bump, thought Mark, yet he felt a blinding pain. He tried to blink away the stars, but he could hardly see. After another few blinks, however, the pain in his head subsided and his eyesight had cleared.

And he was on his hands and knees. How had that happened? He'd been on his back...he didn't remember rolling over, let alone getting to his hands and knees...

He looked upward, and found himself looking up into the faces of Cote and Michael. He looked past them - there was no one else. The field was empty.

"You okay, Gibbs?" asked Cote.

"Of course," said Mark, getting to his feet easily. Wait a minute. Had she just called him Gibbs? Mark grinned. Occasionally they'd slip up on set, calling each other by their real names when they were filming. He'd never been called by his role name when out in public. At least...not by his fellow cast members!

Mark looked around, and puzzlement made his grin fade. Where was Jeff? Where was Francesca? Where were the other twenty people who'd just been here? And what had happened to Michael and Cote? Both of them were wearing different clothing than they had been, and neither one was wearing a flag. Cote was carrying a football, though, and they both looked as if they'd been running - sweaty of skin and hair.

The field was different, too....the grass browner, and the weather... much cooler than it had been.

Too cold for California.

"What happened, Boss?" said Michael. "One second you were standing there, next second you just dropped down like you'd been punched."

"I must have hit my head harder than I thought," said Mark. "I'm feeling just a bit woozy."
"When did you hit your head, Gibbs?" asked Cote with concern.

Mark stared at them. What had Michael just said... he'd been standing up and suddenly fallen? And why were both of them calling him Gibbs?

Mark did a slow rotation, and saw a skyline that damn well looked like Washington DC, not California. What the hell....?

"Wait a minute," he said, snapping his fingers. "You're gaslighting me, aren't you?"

Cote looked at him, bewildered. "Gas ... lighting?" She glanced at Michael.

"Gaslight!" said Michael happily. "1944. Charles Boyer. Ingrid Bergman. Boyer tries to drive Bergman insane, by playing tricks on her in their house, in particular by claiming that he doesn't notice the gaslight dimming and brightening, always at six p.m. Hence the term, 'to gaslight'. Boss, I never would have thought you would know that term, let alone the movie!"

"Why would we be trying to Gaslight you, Gibbs?" asked...God, it had to be, Ziva.

What would Gibbs do? Make a throwaway comment and walk away. "Some people would do anything to win a football game, Ziva," he said, and walked away.

Where the hell was he walking to? That bench over there, with the cooler and a couple of footballs beside it. There'd be beer in there, he had no doubt.

And as he had suspected.... Mark picked up a bottle, shook the ice off it, twisted off the cap, and drank long and deep.

Michael and Cote had followed him.

Mark wiped a hand over his face. He felt perfectly fine..no ringing in his ears, no residual pain from that little head bump, nothing to indicate that he was having hallucinations or dreaming or anything.

But that must be what had happened. He'd knocked his head, now he was dreaming, and he'd be waking up any minute now. Until that happened, he'd better just go with the flow.

He looked around at the scenery again. There, across the street, was the NCIS building, and this must be the recreational field they used. He'd seen it, a couple of years ago, when he and the cast and crew of the show had been given tours of the building. That'd been an enjoyable time, actually. They'd spent a couple of days undergoing the same kind of training the NCIS agents did, on how to carry firearms, how to shoot them, clean them, how to investigate rooms, and so on.

"Let's say I've forgotten the last five minutes," Mark said. "Fill me in on what's going on here."

Michael and Cote exchanged glances, then Michael said, "We're practicing for the sixth annual Christmas charity flag football match between the FBI and the NCIS, boss. Ziva and I showed up early, but not as early as you. I did it because I love football, by the way, I'm sure Ziva was just after brownie points. Any-ouch-way, you've been throwing us spirals for the last ten minutes. You'd just thrown one to Ziva, and I was standing here watching you. Then, wham. You just went down on all fours. We came up to you in a hurry, and that brings us up to date."

"Weird," said Mark, just for something to say.

"When did you hit your head, Gibbs?" Ziva asked again. "Perhaps you have a concussion?"

"Don't worry about it. Ziva." said Mark. "I just mis-spoke. Well, let's get back to work." He finished the beer, extended his hand for the football she held, and gestured them to head on down the field.

Before they could do so, his cell phone rang.

He dug into his pocket, pulled out the phone, flipped it open. Timothy McGee was the ID of the caller. Mark sighed. He held it to his ear. "Yeah?"

"Boss, I just thought I'd let you know. A package arrived for you at the office today. It's marked Urgent. Did you want to..."

He tailed off.

Mark thought very quickly. He wanted to get away from Cote and Michael -- or Ziva and Tony, whatever – give himself time to think and hopefully wake up from this dream...use this as an excuse. "Sure," he said, "I'll come in."

He flipped the phone closed. "That was McGee," he said. "I've got to go to the office."

"Do you need us, Boss?"

"No," said Mark. "Stay here, wait for the rest of the crew. You guys need a lot of work if we're to beat the FBI."

He didn't know if that were true or not, but it was a Gibbs-like thing to say.

"I also think I'd better take the rest of the day off. Just to be safe. So carry on without me."

He then turned to look at the NCIS building, took a deep breath, and headed across.

Behind him, out of earshot, Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David looked at each other.

"That wasn't like Gibbs," Ziva said quietly. "He'd never take a day off, 'just to be safe.' He'd stay here til he hulled over."

"Keeled over," Tony corrected. "You're right. Maybe he just remembered he had a date, or something."

"Should we go after him...?"

At that point two groups of NCIS agents and office workers converged and arrived, and there was an exchange of greetings and banter. Tony and Zia shrugged shoulders at each other, and then turned to concentrate on football.

II.

He'd been recognized by a security guard when he'd entered the building...but the guard had called back when he'd tried to walk past, to show his ID, which fortunately he had in his pocket.
The lobby surroundings looked familiar...they'd been in some episode or another, and so by moving slowly he was able, eventually, to find his way to the command center. Sean...make that McGee, was waiting for him, also dressed in sweats, and started talking as soon as he stepped onto the main floor.

"Hi, Boss, sorry to call you on a Saturday, but I'd come in early to clean up some details before getting out to the field. I'm working on a couple of interesting algorithms that will help us track phones faster , and..and...I." he came to a stop.

There was a long beat, then Mark said, "And what, McGee?" in his best Gibbs-like manner.

"Uh, sorry, I was just waiting for you to raise an eyebrow...or tell me to get to the point...but you never...raised..."

"Get to the point, McGee."

"Right. Well, Cheryl brought in the mail, and she pointed out that you had a UPS package marked Urgent and For Your Eyes Only, and I thought you might like to know that, seeing as how you were just across the street, and...and..."

Mark had continued to just stare at him, without maneuvering his eyebrows in any way.
"And what?"

"And...I was waiting for you to interrupt again..."

Mark gave his Gibbs "slight grin." Just the merest upward twitch of his lips to indicate amusement.

He turned away from McGee, who had Sean Murray's mannerisms down pat...or was it the other way around...and sat behind what he knew was his desk. Indeed, there was a brown-paper wrapped package there, about 10 X 8 X 4. The size of a ream of paper.

The sender's name was Richard Bradford. Not a character name he remembered from within the show..

Mark surreptitiously wiped his damp palms on his sweats, then opened up the top right hand drawer of his desk. Everything in it looked exactly like the props in that drawer on the NCIS set...he took out the knife, opened it, and slit open the tape sealing the package. He lifted up the cover, to find inside a scroll. Carefully he took it out and unrolled it. It was of some type of light fabric, and painted on it was a landscape scene, with blue lines for rivers, brown lines for mountains, and so on. It was very pretty, and looked very old, but doubtless some military person had picked it up in a BX or PX somewhere in Japan (for it resonated to him of Nippon) and had decided to send it to him. To Gibbs, that is.

Well, he'd leave it here, for the real Gibbs to find in the morning.

He was going to go home, go to sleep, and hope that when he woke up, it'd be in his own, real bed in the real world.

Mark looked up to see McGee, anxiously hovering.

"You did good, McGee," Mark said, as he closed up the box and placed it in the right hand drawer. "Remind me on Monday where I put that, okay?"

McGee's forehead creased. "Uh...what, Boss?"

"Oh, never mind. Anyway, I'm going home."

"But....what about the football practice?"

"That's still going on. In fact, you should get over to the field right now."

"Uh...yes, Boss."

McGee sketched a bit of salute, and hurried from the room.

Mark rubbed his hands over his face.

Home. How was he going to get home?

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Driver's license. Address on the license.

Easy.

But...how to get there...and in what?

He knew what his car in the show looked like..but he had no idea where it was.

Hell, he'd call a cab.

Thus it was that, fifteen minutes later, DiNozzo, David and McGee, who were bunched together arguing about who was most inept at running routes, and Abby, who was in charge of the liquid refreshment on the sidelines and leading the cheers, witnessed their Boss exit from the NCIS building and, instead of walking into the parking lot for his car, get into a Yellow Cab that drove off down the street.

Each one thought to himself, putting it more or less profanely depending on their personality: What's going on with Gibbs?

TO BE CONTINUED.