A/N: This is just something that was rolling around in my head, so I wrote it down one day while I was working on my other story, Forgive Me, it was right after Tony came to see Gibbs and I realized that Gibbs' memories probably hurt him more than most people think. So, it's just his thoughts on certain things. I really hope you guys enjoy it!

The stars are suspended on strings that
are pulled up in the daytime and let down
at night.


Life was surprisingly like a sunrise to Leroy Jethro Gibbs. There were beautiful moments, when the sun rose up over the horizon, blazing the sky with a mixture of reds and oranges, lighting up his day and making everything seem very beautiful. Then there were the moments were the sun dipped down under the horizon, turning the nice formality of the day into the dark and unexpected night, turning everything cold and dead.

Cold and dead. That's how everyone in the world winds up, cold and dead, laying on a cold metal slab for someone to cut you open, to determine what horrible, or in rare cases not so horrible, causes made you exit this world. He knew this from experience.

Every person that he had ever loved, really truly loved from the bottom of his heart, ended up laying on that cold metal slab.

Shannon and Kelly. They were the people that he loved the most in this world, the people that he would always love and carry in his heart, they were his family. There used to be a time, before Shannon and Kelly's tragic death and NCIS, where Gibbs felt like he had something to say, now he was just a man of few words. He used to be able to look at Kelly and tell her words of wisdom that he hoped she would always remember, whisper sweet nothings into her ears while she cried for him to stay home or when she fell down and scraped her knee. Now he communicated his wisdom through his rules, the gentle touches that he sometimes shared with his team or the knowing look he would give them. He was there for them and he didn't need to say that aloud, they already knew it, they could see it.

Shannon changed his life forever, and he would always love her above all else. She wasn't just beautiful, but she had a beautiful soul. He learned so many things from her, the rules that everyone needed to live by; the rules that he taught his team to help them survive, but the most important thing she taught him was to love.

He had never been an easy person to love and sometimes, when he was younger, he felt like the only people that loved him was his family, because even as a child family was important. Then his mother died, one of the very people he loved most in the world and his father moved on too quick, making their already troubled relationship nonexistent.

Then everything happened quickly after that. Shannon and Kelly died, bringing the worst days he would ever experience. He stops talking to his father, becoming more and more isolated as the days pass. He kills the man that murdered his wife and child, and finds no satisfaction in the death he brings, because he wishes the man suffered more. Then he's introduced to NCIS.

NCIS. He never knew that four little letters would change his life forever and bring some of the best days he would experience, next to those treasured memories with Shannon and Kelly.

During his 'probie' years he met Mike and they were more alike then anyone thought, everything he learnt about being a field agent was from Mike. Mike knew things about him that nobody else knew, things that other people couldn't even begin to guess. He trusted Mike with everything, even his life. They were practically family, he was the grandfather of Gibbs' goddaughter.

Another face flashes before his eyes. The fiery red hair and teasing, flirty smile, Jenny.

Gibbs thought he would never love anyone the way he loved Shannon, until he met Jenny, and at times it pained him to admit that. She was a fiery woman that knew exactly what she wanted, and she knew how to get it. Unfortunately for him, if what she wanted didn't fit into her plan, then she lost it which means she lost him.

They had some great memories including Paris, which was on of the worst kept secrets at NCIS, but then there were more. All of the long stakes outs they did together, all the time they went out for Chinese after a long day at work, every time the sun hit her red hair perfectly and she smiled up at him. Those would always be with him, but so would the fact that she ended up on a cold metal slab for him. He would always remember that Jenny gave her life trying to save him, not that she had much time left before she died. She was sick, really sick, and she kept it from Gibbs. If she would have told him, him would have been there for her everyday, until the very last day. Instead it was Mike that was there for her on her last day, and he did a shitty job protecting her, because she still died. Gibbs wished more than anything that Jenny would have told him about her sickness or at the very least told him about LA, because maybe he could have protected her-he could have saved her.

With all of the death and destruction that rained down around Jethro, you would think he would be used to it by now, but he wasn't especially when it came to a member of his team. Kate. She was beautiful and brave, but like so many before and after her, she died for him, but she didn't give her life willingly it was stolen by Ari.

Every one of these lives were blood on his hands and he felt the guilt of them everyday. The blood of the men he killed as a sniper stayed with him too, but he was more affected by the death of the people that he loved, because they were family and family was the most important thing to Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

One thing that helped wash the blood away, even if just for a moment, was the sting of the bourbon as it made its way down his throat. Then, in the morning while he was getting ready for work, the blood would appear again and the guilt would whisper menacing little thoughts in his head all day.

Not everyone he loved was dead, well not yet. He loved his team and was going to protect them at all cost, and he was determined that none of them were going to end up on that cold metal slab. He remembered their faces every time they got hurt on the job, physically or emotionally. Tony's face when Jeanne accused him of murdering her father, McGee's face as he quit NCIS to protect his sister, Abby's face as she cried over losing Jenny and Kate, Ducky's face when he was charged for war crimes, and the look on Ziva's face as she sat in the interrogation room crying, only weeks after her return from Somalia, and all of these faces came back to haunt him, flashing before his eyes and he blamed himself. It might be irrational, but it was his team and he was suppose to protect them-at all cost

He also wasn't a fool. He saw the happiness on their faces at times too. Abby's face when he brought her a Caf-Pow! McGee's face when Gibbs told him he did good work. Ducky's face when he came back from his 'retirement'. Then he saw Tony and Ziva's faces, and knew that it was too far gone for anyone to enforce rule number twelve. Gibbs would watch as they teased each other, the twinkle in both of their eyes as they gazed at each other. He remembered the time Ziva was gone in Somalia, and the horrible times with Michael that lead up to Somalia, and felt a pang of sadness as he saw Tony's heartbroken face flash before his eyes.

He wanted to tell them that rule number twelve was for their own protection. Not just on the job, but off the job as well. A distracted field agent could result in death but two broken field agents were useless. Jenny was the reason for the rule, not the exception like he let everyone believe, but he got hurt and he hurt her. Maybe Tony and Ziva would be okay, they could live happily ever after and rule twelve could disappear for ever. Hell, Abby and McGee might even be okay if they decide to take a shot at dating again. Some rules were meant to be broken, somethings are inevitable.

So Gibbs takes another drink of his bourbon, the blood and guilt temporarily fading away, as he starts to sand the side of his boat. He's in his basement, following his usual routine consisting of drinking, sanding and remembering. Time might be the healer of all wounds, but his bourbon was doing the job tonight. Normally he didn't think about all of these things, they never left completely either, but they were there. Maybe things wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't Jenny's birthday, if she was there to celebrate it, growing another year older, living another year longer. But, she wasn't and she would never celebrate another birthday again, so he feels the guilt flare back up, and takes another drink of his bourbon, then another and another.

He thought life might not be like a sunrise after all. It was more like a summer night. The sky is cloudless and pitch black, but every once in a while there are stars, and when the stars shine they are beautiful then there are those rare occasions when a shooting star would blaze through the sky and everything was perfect, until it disappeared.

Please review :)
-Tay