Disclaimer: If I claim to own NCIS, I will be placed in the comfy chair until lunchtime, with only a cup of coffee at eleven.

Spoilers: Minor mini-spoilers for Heartland. Just the pre-road trip squad room conversation.

Summary: I found it amusing that the team's descriptions of how Gibbs came into being were not actually about Gibbs. These are six mostly unconnected incidents in which Gibbs observes…things.

Tony squatted beside the Marine corporal's body on the sidewalk, snapping pictures. "Looks kinda personal, huh, boss?"

Gibbs frowned as he looked down at the mangled face of the dead man, having just walked away from interviewing a shaky eyewitness who thought she could recognize the attacker. "Ya think?"

"Well, he let someone get close enough to jam a switchblade through his eye and, uh, into his brain."

"Quite right, Tony," Ducky confirmed, his gloves snapping as he removed them. "And before he died, as well. I can't be entirely certain until Cpl. Foster and I become better acquainted whether the cause of death was the knife or the bullet wound in his chest, but a blade driven through the orbital plate into the frontal lobe could cause instant death or a variety of other consequences, depending on the exact length and angle of the blade. It really is a question of luck, sometimes. Did you know at Harvard they have the skull of Phineas Gage, a railroad worker who survived…"

"To the end of one of your stories?" Tony finished. He flinched away from Gibbs' raised hand. "Sorry. I love Ducky's stories, but I just thought the audience was a little bigger and closer than he'd prefer at the moment."

Gibbs turned and noted that the curious local LEOs had moved much closer, allowing the crowd of gawkers to do the same. Included in the group were quite a few Marines from the nearby base who didn't need the impression that Foster's case was being taken lightly. He walked up to the closest uniformed officers, one of whom was loudly saying, "At least they got that witness. That always makes it easier."

Gibbs leveled a glare at them and ordered, "Back these people up."

One of the Marines in the crowd suddenly shouted, "It's one of ours, isn't it?"

After a brief series of conversations with the grunts present, Gibbs stepped back through the imaginary barrier to where Palmer was helping Ducky transfer the body onto the gurney. He seized Tony's shoulder and pulled him out of his crouch. "What do you have so far?"

"Wallet's missing, but I doubt robbery was the motive. You don't stab a guy in the brain if all you want is his credit cards. And Ducky said there's no defensive wounds, so…I mean, even a drunk Marine isn't letting too many pointy objects near him without some kind of reaction."

"He was not drunk," Ziva said, appearing at Tony's shoulder. "The bartender of the restaurant across the street said that Cpl. Foster was drinking Sprite. He also appeared to be waiting for a person who did not arrive. He gave up after an hour. The bartender said he left just before five-thirty."

"Just in time to get murdered," Gibbs muttered. Raising his voice, he said, "None of the men I talked to were friendly with him. Couldn't tell me if he had any enemies either."

"The restaurant seemed to have a lot of tables for two. Perhaps he had an angry girlfriend or wife who stood him up and waited for him outside."

"Ziva, someone shoved a knife into his brain through his eye. I don't think a girl could do that." Tony immediately caught his mistake himself and corrected, "I mean a regular girl, so don't even think you're gonna demonstrate any ninja-girl proof on me."

Gibbs, who didn't correct either of them with the information that the witness had identified the attacker as male, was about to walk away to check in with McGee, still canvassing the block, when Tony shouted, "Boss!"

The next thing he knew, shots were being fired as he struggled to get off the ground. Whatever was keeping him pinned was clearly doing the same to Ziva, lying beside him. She shouted, "Tony, get off me!"

Gibbs was fairly certain Tony wasn't obeying the command when the weight lifted a second later, as he was sprinting into the crowd shouting, "Make a hole!"

Springing from the ground, Gibbs did a quick survey of the scene, making sure none of his people were hurt before following Ziva. By the time he caught up, she was helping Tony pulled a handcuffed man off the sidewalk down the street. He grinned as he leaned over to pick up a revolver with his jacket sleeve carefully pulled over his hand. "Think it'll match the bullet in our dead Marine, boss?"

"I think it'll match the bullets fired thirty seconds ago, at the very least. Public endangerment."

Tony nodded, guiding their suspect back toward the scene. "Like…" he paused to make sure they were out of earshot, "Ziva's driving."

When the man, who lacked ID and refused to give his name, was safely in the back of a police cruiser, Gibbs walked over to inspect the bullet holes in the rear door of the truck. McGee's head popped out from around the side. "Um, boss, should we have someone take Ms. Haines back to NCIS?"

Gibbs handed him a set of keys. "Yeah. Take her in the car. Go."

He wondered if he should have given more thought to the decision, sitting in the cab of the truck with Tony and Ziva on the way back to base over an hour later. She was leaning into his space in the passenger's seat. "I never even saw a gun. How did you manage to pull both Gibbs and I down before the suspect even showed he had a weapon?"

"Instinct. I saw a guy staring at us and our eyewitness and he had his hand tucked inside his jacket."

"And you tackled us on the off chance he started shooting?"

"Hey, he did start shooting. I worked Homicide in Baltimore for two years. It's not that uncommon for the killer to blend in with the crowd and try to find out what the cops know."

Gibbs ended the conversation by making a hard turn, throwing them both into the passenger's side door. "Behave you two, unless you don't feel like going home early."

In the garage a few minutes later, he overheard Tony say, "You should really thank me for the tackling. Not only did you not get shot, but we get to go home early because we caught the guy."

"The fact that we are leaving early only serves to make up for where you put your hand when you knocked me down."

"I was only thinking about protecting you!"

Gibbs shook his head and pressed the button for the elevator.