A/N: I've decided to go on posting what I consider my most unusual work so far...It's a gen story and even if there is a bit of het, this isn't a pairing-centric fic...well, really, trilogy, because there are two more stories in this AU. You will understand more after you read it...

Night of Shame, Night of Joy

By Gunnery Sergeant

Set early in Season Six

Thanks to Finlaure for the betareading!

1-Shame

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was sitting at the counter of a bar near the Navy Yard, mind lost in thought, when a hand posed lightly on his back, snapping him out of his reverie.

Turning his head over his shoulder, he saw it was Ducky and smiled weakly.

"Hey, Duck," he greeted his friend.

"Hello, Jethro. Do you mind if I sit with you?"

"Of course not. Can I buy you something? Scotch? Brandy? Whiskey?" Gibbs asked, waving his hand to attract the bartender's attention.

"Whatever you're drinking will be fine," Ducky answered, climbing on the stool by his side.

Gibbs smirked. "I doubt you'd like drinking Coke."

"Coke?" the older man's eyebrows arched in surprise. "You're drinking Coke?"

"Yep," Gibbs replied and then ordered a Macallan for Ducky. When it arrived, his friend took a sip of the amber liquid, and then turned to face him with an intent look.

"I've never seen you drink Coke before, Jethro. I guess there is always a first time for everything, but I confess I was expecting you to have something stronger…especially this evening."

Gibbs nodded slowly, not surprised Ducky remembered the meaning this day had for him.

"I never drink alcohol on this anniversary," he said after a while. "Or better, I've stopped doing it long ago, after something…happened."

Ducky tilted his head and posed his hand again on his shoulder, squeezing gently. "Something very bad, I feel. Do you want to tell me about it, Jethro? It might do you well to talk about it."

Gibbs studied the older man, wondering if he could risk telling him, and decided that yes, he could. He had already told Ducky how he had chased and shot Shannon and Kelly's killer, an action that had made him a murdered, and his friend had not judged him. So what danger there was with revealing he was a rapist too?

He took a sip of his Coke then began speaking, lowly and slowly.

"As you may remember, back in 1997 I served as agent afloat on a carrier in the Med for six months. On the sixth anniversary of Shannon and Kelly's death, the ship docked in Beirut for repairs and I took the chance to go ashore and find a bar where to get drunk as I had done the previous five years."

Ducky nodded and encouraged him to go on with a wave of his hand.

"I went in the Christian area of the town and found a bar that sold liquors. I began my drinking routine, but long before I could begin to get drunk, I started to feel…well, strange."

His friend's eyes narrowed behind his glasses. "Strange? How?"

Gibbs took a deep breath. "Hot. Sweaty. Restless. And…"

"And?"

"Aroused, Duck. I've never been so hard in my whole life. It was incredibly painful..."

"Good Lord!" the ME exclaimed, leaning back on the stool. "Sounds like you were given an aphrodisiac and a strong one too."

"Yep. That was my blood tests said the next day, but back then I couldn't think straight enough to understand what was happening to me. The pain didn't allow me to focus on anything but finding a woman…" Gibbs swallowed hard, as he remembered his torment and need, the blood pounding in his ears, his shaking hand gripping the glass so hard he was afraid of breaking it. "I tried to resist, Duck. God knows I did, but when the bartender asked me if I wanted a girl… I couldn't say no."

His friend just nodded, his expression grim, but there was no judgment in his eyes, "I understand, Jethro."

"I was led into a room in the back of the bar. There was a bed, with a gagged girl tied to the headboard. I don't remember much of her… just that she was a typical Middle Eastern girl and that she was very young. She had eyes that were full of fear and anguish, looking at me from a bruised, swollen face. She had been beaten, and a part of me was still aware enough to know she wasn't there on her free will… but I didn't care. I just wanted her… needed her." Gibbs swallowed hard and looked away for a moment, before returning to face his friend, "The last thing I remember of that night is throwing my jacket away and lowering myself on top of her."

He hung his head, as shame returned to assault him, as it always did on this night and every time he had to deal with raped women. He waited for Ducky to say something, but when he finally did, there was no censure or disgust in his voice.

"What happened next?"

"The following morning I woke up with a terrible headache, and as tired as I had run a marathon. I was no longer in the back of the bar, but in a hotel room, not very far from that place. I was alone, naked… and, well, spent. I had bite marks on my neck and my back was scratched…" Gibbs drank a sip of his Coke and continued, "I was very confused in the beginning, but when my memory returned, I rushed back to the ship and had the medical officer on duty do some tests on my blood. So I discovered I had been duped with a natural aphrodisiac, something made with a bug or a beetle. Anyway, I wanted to return to the bar..." Gibbs shook his head, frustrated, "I don't really know what I wanted to – or could - do once there, but the repairs on the ship had been completed and there was no time. And so I left." He let out a deep sigh, "Since then, I've never touched a drop of alcohol on this day again, Ducky. What a way to honour my loved ones' memory, uh? Raping an innocent girl…" He fell silent, as he wondered once again what it had been of his victim. He just hoped he had not hurt her too badly and that somehow she had been able to go on with her life.

"Jethro," Ducky said after a while, "it wasn't your fault. You were drugged. The bug you mentioned is the so called "Spanish Fly", and it's one of the oldest and most powerful aphrodisiac known to mankind. There was no way you could have resisted its effect, especially because, by the rapidity it acted, I would say you were given a very high dose of it. You were a victim, as much as that poor girl was."

Gibbs shook his head, "No. I can't accept it. That's too easy of a way out. No matter what I was given, I was the one who raped her! You've no idea of what I did to her…"

Ducky stared at him, impassibly, "Well Jethro, from what you just told me, you've no idea either. You don't remember what happened that night."

Gibbs nodded, "Yeah, but what do you think could have happened given my condition and her being tied to a bed?"

"I don't know, but a very good friend of mine has a rule – I think its number eight – that says 'never take anything for granted'. I think you should follow it too. You woke up alone in a hotel room… how did you get there? You said you were 'spent' and that you had bite marks and your back was scratched. How could have the girl done that if she was gagged and tied? Is it not possible you somehow found another woman, maybe a prostitute, and went with her in that hotel?"

"Or maybe I raped the girl, left the bar and then, not yet satisfied, I slacked my lust on another woman…" Gibbs retorted, still unable to accept the absolution Ducky was offering.

"I agree it's possible you did that. The Spanish Fly is really powerful. But there is no proof you did it, Jethro, and for me a man is innocent until proved guilty. So, what would you say if I now offer you a glass of bourbon to wash away the taste of that Coke?" Ducky asked with a smile on his lips and hope in his eyes.

Gibbs looked at the older man for a long time. Was it possible his friend was right? Was it possible he had sex with a woman that wasn't the girl? As Ducky had said, she couldn't have left those marks on him, unless he had freed her from her ties and gag. And in any case those marks had been light; the kind a passionate lover leaves behind, not the wounds a raped woman inflicts on her abuser as she fights him.

He nodded to himself. Ducky was right: there was no proof he had raped the girl. Sure, the chances he did were still high, but it wasn't certain he had really done it, and Gibbs decided to be lenient with himself. He had been punishing and berating himself for the past twelve years. It was now time he put things in perspective and move on.

A slow smile spread on his face and he turned to look at the other man.

"I'd say that's a great idea, Duck," Gibbs answered his friend's question, leaning over to pour the Coke into the sink behind the counter, "A hell of a great idea."

To be completed in part 2

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