a/n: this is an LB/SF tag set a small amount of time after Lucy was born, based on a line in the 'Wake Me Up When September Ends' collection in which Gibbs notes that sometimes Jenny sleeps in the baby's room - jibbsgal1 requested I do a story on it, and finally, we have it ! say Lucy is about 4 months old at this point.
It was well after midnight when Leroy Jethro Gibbs startled groggily awake and blinked heavily at the headboard directly in front of him. He stared for a moment, listening hard, and groaned internally, dropping his head hard to his pillow, when all he heard was silence, and not a crying, demanding baby.
Lately, his mind had started some sort of paternal, biological initiative that had him waking up intermittently throughout the nights even if Lucy wasn't crying – which meant even on the baby's most peaceful nights, he wasn't getting any damn sleep.
He shifted onto his sight, resigned to ten or so minutes of wakefulness – and it was then he noticed his wife's side of the bed was empty. He blinked a few times to wake himself up and studied her pillow for a moment before he reached out and ran his hand over it, and her sheets, to see if she'd been gone long.
There was no body heat there, and he frowned. When he'd gone back to sleep two hours ago, she'd been taking Lucy back to bed after feeding her. He rolled onto his back and put his hands behind his head for a few minutes, waiting impatiently. She didn't reappear, so he got up and went looking for her – and found her, predictably, in the nursery.
She was curled in the rocking chair, staring through the bars of Lucy's crib, watching her sleep.
Gibbs braced his arm against the doorframe and cleared his throat quietly, arching an eyebrow inquisitively. She looked over, rallying from her reverie a little, and her lips pursed.
Her eyes were slightly defiant.
"What're you doing?" he asked quietly.
She got up, pushing her hair back stiffly. She shrugged, drew her eyes away from their daughter, and shrugged again. She walked forward with purpose, as if she would walk right past him, but he caught her gently, and cleared his throat of sleep.
"Jen, what's wrong?" he asked pointedly.
She stared at his shoulder. She seemed anxious; tense. She didn't look at him, and her cheeks were pale – her lower lip red from being bitten sharply. She grit her teeth.
"I am being stupid," she growled loftily.
"Jen," he prompted, ignoring her.
She shrugged roughly. She compressed her lips hard, and then seemed to change her mind. She took a deep breath, and chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment.
"I come in here … when I wake up … unsettled," she paused, as if unsure if she was satisfied with that word. He nodded; he knew that happened to her on occasion. She went on: "To make sure she's here. Because after Peter died … I'd wake up scared … thinking it was a dream," she licked her lips, "and I'd go into his room," she lifted her eyes, her voice sinking, "and he wasn't there."
Gibbs looked at her intently, listening. He sighed, not out of frustration with her, or exhaustion, but because he was just sorry that she'd never be able to stop suffering over that boy – and sometimes, he wondered if she'd ever be able to really, satisfactorily, cope with it.
He reached out and touched her shoulders and, to his surprise, she was in his arms in an instant – surprisingly, as Jenny usually took coaxing to let herself be comforted. Her hands moved up his back quickly, and she squeezed him tightly. She pressed her face so close to him that he felt her lashes move as she squeezed her eyes shut. He leaned back against the doorframe, and looked at Lucy's crib. He could just see her tiny, sleeping form through the bars of the crib.
He ran his hand over Jenny's hair and down her back. He couldn't imagine what he could say so he was, as usual, silent.
He finally reached up and took her hands, squeezing her fingers and loosening her grip on him. He moved towards the crib and tugged her with him. She placed her hand on his arm.
"Don't wake her up," she said tersely, her voice hoarse. "I never wake her up. I just watch – "
"You think you'd feel better if you held her?" he asked seriously.
She swallowed.
"You want her to sleep with us?" he tried, slightly at a loss.
"No, no, our bed is ours," she muttered. She shoved her hair back again. Her lips shook a little, and she looked into the crib. "God, this is pathetic."
He shook his head.
"It's not pathetic, Jen."
She snorted.
"I didn't have this," she started, "this," she paused, trying to find a word, "paralyzing fear … with Peter … I was – nervous, but excited, and just," she broke off.
He knew the feeling: he remembered when he'd been a new father to Kelly. Worry was the plague of parenthood, but in those that were charmed, it was abstract, in a 'but that would never happen to me' sort of vein – but the worst had happened to Jenny, and it cast a shadow over everything.
"With her," Jen said, her voice cracking, "when I have a moment to think, when I'm not at work, or tending to her, I am so scared that," she stopped.
She went and sat in the rocking chair, and she looked angry.
"I want to be alone."
He snorted derisively, and folded his arms.
"The hell you do."
She gave him a narrow glare, like she was infuriated he knew her that well.
"I hate feeling like this," she hissed. "I hate being a slave to this … this ... fear and how – I don't know what to call it, Jethro! I want to be happy! I want to look at her and just … I want it to be like it was with Peter; just optimism and chaos and," she grit her teeth. "It's awful to look at her sometimes and be so fucking afraid that I get – I get," she looked guilty, and swallowed hard. "I get wary of attachment."
She looked at him like he might be revolted by her, but he just shrugged. He turned away, and reached into the crib – somehow, he picked her up without waking her, and while he was settling her against his chest, he cleared his throat.
"I get it," he said.
"You get it?" she quoted. "You never lost a child," she sneered.
There was the sharpness, the brutality, the Jen who was hard to comfort. He let the attack bounce off of him; no, he hadn't lost a child.
"Lost my wife," he retorted bluntly.
She compressed her lips, and watched him hold Lucy.
"So?" she challenged.
"So," he repeated testily. "That pathetic stuff you just said … s'how I think about you, sometimes. Losin' you."
Her mouth fell open, and that gave him a bit of pride – not much made Jenny speechless, or took her that off guard. She stared at him, and her cheeks flushed. She ran her hands over her knees nervously, and moved her lips.
"You…think about losing me?" she asked quietly.
It struck her heard; melted something in her chest. She – struggled more, with losing Peter than she did with losing Jim – she had somehow reconciled the loss of Jim more quickly, once she had started to move forward with Jethro – and she didn't constantly fear the loss of Jethro as she was fearing losing Lucy – maybe because he rarely left the goddamn house but to go to NCIS, Kelly's, or the recruiting office.
"Every damn day," Gibbs said curtly.
She tilted her head back, and laughed roughly.
"That's just fuckin' great," she swore into the silence. "We're both so afraid of death, we can't live the lives we have. We should give Lucy to the Addams Family – "
"Jenny," he interrupted. He approached her, and sat on the footrest for the rocker, Lucy still asleep on his shoulder, small and warm and sweet. Jenny bit her lip, and took a deep breath.
"Well?" she asked, a hint of sarcasm in her brittle tone. "How do you get through those thoughts?" she asked grudgingly – relenting to him; asking him for help.
He sighed tiredly.
"What happened to Shannon … wasn't my fault. No matter what I did, I couldn't change it. If I could have kept her safe, I would've. But I couldn't."
"I don't understand," Jenny said tightly; rapidly. "You just accept it?" she spat.
"Jenny," he said wearily. "You're lookin' at acceptance the wrong way. It's not failure or forgetting. It's getting through it."
"Every time I think I have – " she began, frustrated.
"Jen, it's been over twenty years, and I got days when I'm not over it!" he interrupted heavily; sharply. She stared at him with wide eyes.
"But I don't scare you," she murmured.
He gave her a quick grin, and she licked her lip and shook her head, smiling a little, though it was thin.
"I mean – you're terrified of me, Duke – but what I intend to say is: you aren't afraid to love me."
"No," he said firmly. "You do love Lucy."
"Of course I love her," Jenny said huskily. She swallowed painfully. "Reluctantly," she whispered. She paled again. "I love her, but when I think of how much I loved – love – Peter, and how badly losing him … how much it hurt … "
She leaned forward, and put her hand on Lucy's sleeping back.
"I don't know how to get through this … having Lucy set me back a little," she admitted.
"Stop trying to forget Peter," Gibbs told her shortly.
"You bastard," she began furiously, her eyes flashing.
"You know what I mean. Stop trying to get through it by smothering it, or locking it up."
She curled her fingers against their baby gently.
"Where is all of this coming from, Confucius?" she asked incredulously. "You are such a godforsaken mute – you're so stoic and monosyllabic – who told you all this, your shrink? Oprah, is that what you watch while I'm at work – when did you stop smothering your wife?"
He tried to pick a question to answer.
"Kelly said she watched me fall apart," he admitted grudgingly. "I never talked about her mother."
"You and Kelly talk about her all the time," Jenny pointed out.
"Now," Gibbs said.
Jenny stroked Lucy's back, remembering how she'd found out about Shannon: Kelly had told her, and railed that Gibbs never once said a word about her, never told anyone, never addressed it – but he was right; he mentioned Shannon freely, now.
"When-?" she began.
"When I had to start being with you," Gibbs said pointedly. "I had to stop being married to Shannon."
He looked away, and shifted Lucy into his arms in a cradle, holding her very close. He set his jaw.
"I started talking to Kelly about her Mom," he muttered. "It just worked."
Jenny was silent for a long time, and then she made a soft, hoarse noise.
"When you talked about her, you weren't confronted with that striking pain every time," she worked out slowly. "It started to be … about the good times … and not the horror … and then live was more about – living."
He just looked at her, letting her know she'd nailed it, glad he hadn't had to find the words to describe that. Lucy squirmed in his arms, and he leaned forwards gently passing her to her mother. His knees pressed hers, and he let his hand rest on Lucy's head. Jenny compressed her lips, and pulled Lucy against her. She nodded to herself, rocking a little.
"You make me an irrational, impossible promise, Jethro."
"Yeah?" he prompted hoarsely.
"It's just lip service," she whispered, meeting his eyes. "I know you are human. I know there are things we can't control."
"What, Jenny?"
"Don't ever let anything happen to her, Jethro," she asked shakily.
He stood, and kissed the corner of her mouth.
"'Course I won't," he promised gruffly.
Lip service, because they were both people who knew that promises couldn't always be kept – but they knew the fear of the worst didn't have to dictate their lives.
She smiled at him, and got up. She laid Lucy gingerly back in her crib, and eyed the baby intently.
"You stayin'/?" Gibbs asked mildly.
She thought about it a moment, and then took a deep breath.
"Jethro," she said quietly. "I want to talk about Peter."
He crossed his arms, and set his shoulders back. She had talked about Peter before, yes. On occasion, she mentioned him, but it was always with difficulty, always almost angrily, and never for long – it was always with pain, it was rare, and she never said more than a thing or two, before it seemed like she regretted even trying to remember, instead of sticking to running away from the memories.
She meant now that she wanted to talk – really talk: face it head on.
"I miss him," Jenny said, and the simple honesty of it, the rawness, was sad for him to hear.
She moved away from the crib, and pushed her hair back. She looked at him a little uncertainly, and then licked her lips.
"That's it?" Gibbs asked lightly, and she laughed, some of the anxiety evaporating from her eyes.
"Easy on me, Cowboy, I haven't felt this emotional since you told me you lay awake at night like an eighteenth century literary gentleman, scared of losing me."
"That was five minutes ago, Jen."
"Damn, this whole night has been a Bryan Adams concert."
He smiled at her wryly. She bit her lip.
He reached out and slid his arm around her waist, pulling her close. He grinned, and then tugged her to their bedroom – back in bed, comfortable, he wrapped his arms around her and nudged her bare shoulder with his lips encouragingly, ears open, legs tangled up in hers. She needed to start letting Peter rest in peace; she needed to start being Lucy's mother, before anything else.
"I don't know how to talk about him," she ventured in a small voice. "I'm better at … systematically destroying your manhood."
He snorted gruffly. He thought for a moment.
"Second birthday," he suggested, choosing a random milestone that was probably easy for her to remember.
"Jethro, I think I might still sleep in Lucy's room sometimes."
He nodded.
"And If I so choose such an arrangement for an evening, I want you to leave me be."
"Okay," he muttered, lips against her jaw for a moment.
"Second birthday," she murmured, sighing hoarsely – and then she laughed quietly. "Oh – Jim, in his infinite wisdom … he got him a Nerf gun … "
The first time she really talked about Peter was grueling – hard for him to listen to, even, because it was so hard for her, and it made him feel something in the pit of his stomach, some worry for Kelly, and for Lucy – but it got easier with time, and the easier it got – the less Jenny slept in Lucy's room.
I'd like to dedicate this to a friend of mine whose daughter was killed just Thursday night. I know it won't mean much, and I know she probably won't ever know about this, but at least if she does, she'll known I was thinking about her, and thinking about Winter.
-Alexandra
story #201