Price of the Past
Author: Gosgirl
Rating: Eventual M
Pairing: Abby/Gibbs
Category: Romance / angst
Spoilers: Season 5, Requiem
Summary: Will Gibbs' brush with death mark the end of their relationship or a way into the future? Established Gabby. Post-episode tag to Requiem.
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended. NCIS and its characters are the property of DPB and CBS. If I had a silver-haired, blue-eyed Marine with a cabin to play with, do you think I'd have time for writing?
Author's Note: originally written for the prompt 'stay' on the Gabby Shipper Forum, but which expanded way beyond what I originally intended… I know, you're shocked coz that never happens to me!
Big hugs to Kesterpan and Gibbsredhoodie for letting me talk this one through with them so many times. This story is also a birthday present for WiththeGrain and Gibbsredhoodie, who spookily share a birthday next week... although it's perhaps a little unfair to have asked Hoodie to beta her own present, so I hope she'll forgive me!
Chapter 1 – Too High a Price?
In the end, they all left him.
And now he feared Abby would do the same... and take his heart with her.
He doubted he'd survive it.
By the time it got to this stage in his past relationships, Gibbs usually felt a tinge of relief mixed in with the hurt when his soon-to-be ex-wives and lovers walked away.
And now, the bittersweet irony of his girls telling him it was okay to go back, implying he had more to live for, didn't go unnoticed when the very reason for Gibbs wanting to stay might be about to walk away from him.
Abby.
They'd only been together a few months, since his difficult break-up with Hollis and Abby's painful parting from Marty. Since then, he'd been gradually moving Abby in. She'd just given up the lease to her apartment and next week, they were going to finally clear the place and move her into his house completely.
It was something they both wanted, to see if they could make this work. And even though they were still finding their feet in this new relationship, both at work and home, Gibbs felt more content than he'd been in years... and it was all down to Abby.
Until Maddie's sudden reappearance in his life had thrown him into emotional turmoil, resulting in him trying to turn the clock back and do for Kelly's friend what he'd been unable to do for his own daughter... save her.
Once again, his past had shown its ability to blindside him and drag raw wounds back to the surface.
Gibbs had hoped Abby would understand how Maddie was a glimpse of what might have been. As he'd said to Ducky, he looked at Maddie and saw Kelly… as his daughter might have been if she'd lived.
Maddie seemed like almost the last living connection to his dead child, so how could he not do everything in his power to try and help her?
He'd needed to do it.
He felt he owed it to Kelly and Shannon to at least try.
But now Gibbs didn't know whether his actions in going off grid had damaged not only his relationship with his lover but with his Senior Field Agent too. When he'd left DiNozzo at the hospital earlier, the look in Tony's eyes had clearly said 'later' and Gibbs suspected the reckoning for not allowing Tony to protect his six... again... wouldn't be long in coming.
It wasn't the first time and Gibbs doubted it would be the last.
But Gibbs had to acknowledge that if it hadn't been for Tony's actions, he and Maddie would have died in that river. So both Tony and Abby had earned a degree of 'I told you so'... however much Gibbs didn't like to admit it.
Along with Ducky, Tony was one of the few people who knew about his relationship with Abby. So no doubt Tony's annoyance with Gibbs would be as much to do with his boss and friend putting his own life at risk, as it was for putting Abby through hell.
Gibbs hadn't seen Abby since he'd rushed out of NCIS earlier until she'd arrived at the hospital where the three of them were being checked over after their dip in the Potomac.
And there she'd just stopped in her tracks as she bustled through the door before rushing forward and wrapping him a tight but very silent hug, her eyes bright with unshed tears and accusations. After pulling back to do the same to Tony and Maddie, Abby then sat quietly by his SFA's bedside, clutching Tony's hand.
Gibbs understood why she did so but it hurt nevertheless to see Abby shy away from him without a word and go to Tony's side.
And a silent Abby was never good news.
As Gibbs made to leave the hospital later, Abby had murmured quietly that she wanted to sit with Tony for a while longer before coming home... and Gibbs wondered if that was the last time he'd hear Abby refer to his house as home.
The sad reproach in those green eyes as Gibbs left the room was heart-rending.
She also didn't argue with him about staying at the hospital and Gibbs didn't know whether to be relieved or worried.
In view of his SFA's medical history and damaged lungs, the medics insisted DiNozzo stay at least overnight under observation and on IV antibiotics, which had greatly pissed Tony off. Gibbs and Maddie had been similarly advised to stay put till the morning to be monitored and pumped full of preventative antibiotics but unlike Gibbs, Maddie had agreed.
The doctors had tried to insist Gibbs stay too but he'd threatened to discharge himself anyway if they did that. So the doctors reluctantly acquiesced, merely giving him the antibiotics in tablet form to try and ward off whatever Gibbs might have caught from the less than clean waters of the Potomac.
They'd also extracted a promise that he'd call a doctor if he developed any signs of a cough or started to run a fever, and that he would allow himself to be checked over again thoroughly in the morning.
Gibbs had agreed, fairly sure that Ducky would be on his case anyway if he didn't. He'd taken the tablets with him, but they were currently sitting on his bedside table unopened as he sat down in the basement, steadily lowering the level in the bourbon bottle at his elbow.
He also wasn't proud to admit that he really wanted to get out of the hospital to get away from Tony as well... to put off the inevitable confrontation until after he'd settled his mind, if he could.
But he couldn't have sat and brooded at the hospital... he needed his basement and boat... and bourbon.
He felt exhausted, both mentally and physically, and despite taking a hot shower when he got home, he still felt sore and was covered in bruises, not least from Tony's CPR.
His mental exhaustion stemmed partly from all the emotions triggered by the past days and Maddie's reappearance in his life, and their near brush with death, rising up to choke him.
After the adrenaline rush... he was now surrounded by the calm of his basement. But the quiet wasn't doing its usual job of calming his mind; and he didn't think he could sleep any time soon.
Not until Abby arrived home… or didn't.
His boat wasn't helping either, for once. He'd tried to lose himself in the usually soothing work on The Kelly, but found he couldn't empty his mind enough to let it centre him.
So now, he was sat on a sawhorse, staring at the photos on his workbench... the well thumbed one of Kelly and Maddie which she'd given him, and the new one Abby had taken of himself and Maddie in the bullpen.
He'd already reburied the girls' memory box back in the garden.
He couldn't even face opening it... not yet.
Maybe never.
He'd tried but it was too much and he wanted to put it back just where his daughter and Maddie had intended it to lie buried. In a way, it felt like he was laying his daughter to rest once again.
To hold in his hands something new of his daughter's after all this time had been both special and shattering... a lifeline connecting back to her and a torment in so many other ways.
This week, the finding of that box alone had been enough to trigger a truckload of memories and the emotional baggage that went with it, without adding the danger Maddie had unwittingly found herself in on top of it all.
He'd almost reached his limit of what he could handle.
But both the box and all it meant, plus his girls telling him to go back, had also made him realise that he couldn't continue to live in the past all the time. He had to make the effort to move forward somehow... to make peace with their memories.
To accept that it was okay to revisit his past but that he couldn't set up permanent residence there.
He'd told Hollis only a few months ago that he'd moved on from his first wife and daughter and knew he hadn't convinced her at the time. He wasn't sure he'd believed it himself either.
But he shouldn't let his memories run his life, as he had been doing.
He had a future.
But recognizing that and doing something about it were two different things.
And the most important thing Gibbs had to do right now was try and salvage his relationship with Abby, if he could... if she'd let him and hadn't already made up her mind that all his baggage wasn't worth the effort of carrying it with him.
She was the best thing that had happened to him in years.
When Maddie had reappeared in his life, he'd feared that by dragging Abby into his problems, he'd be making life harder for her. That it would just be another reminder that he had a wife and child that he still loved.
The memory of how Hollis had reacted to the sudden news of Shannon and Kelly had also been at the back of his mind and maybe that was part of the reason he'd handled it so badly with Abby now.
He didn't want to hurt her and so these past few days he'd kept her at arm's length, not only at work but at home.
He hadn't told her what the box of mementoes was. Abby had noticed it the night before in the basement but apart from a curious glance at both it and him, she'd left the subject alone... and for that he'd been thankful, at the time.
If he couldn't face it on his own, he certainly couldn't share it… not yet.
But with the benefit of hindsight now, Gibbs could acknowledge how Abby might see that as him retreating again and hiding things from her, which it was but not solely for the reason she might be thinking.
And the timing sucked... as always.
Just when they started to think about making a life together, he'd shut her out the moment someone from his past appeared... and he couldn't blame it entirely on Maddie being in danger for making him react that way.
He'd just retreated into his turtle shell because it was less painful that way... it was easier than sharing... easier than talking about it.
Gibbs was drawn out of his maudlin thoughts by the sound of the front door opening, and he held his breath as he waited to see if Abby would come down to the basement to see him. But those familiar footsteps crossed the hall and headed straight upstairs.
His heart squeezed in his chest at the thought that Abby had returned merely to pack up her stuff and leave.
TBC…