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May/September
By Vivian Bloodmark
Summary: A 1000 word one-shot. DiNozzo Sr. and Gibbs give each other a very nasty look in "Flesh and Blood," when Tony's father walks by with Abby. What's the real reason for that animosity?
Leroy Jethro Gibbs already did not like Tony DiNozzo Sr. He'd spent several years getting to know, and, eventually, to like Tony DiNozzo Jr, and Sr. had already demonstrated that he had all of Tony's negative traits, and very few of the positive, redeeming, endearing ones. Still, Gibbs had decided to let the whole thing go. He'd said his piece, had made it very, even painfully clear to Tony's father that the best choice for everyone would be for Tony and his dad to get back in touch with each other…and that DiNozzo Sr. would have to be the instigator. That's where it would have ended, as far as Gibbs was concerned, if DiNozzo Sr. hadn't swaggered up to Gibbs' own desk, with Abby Sciuto smiling on his arm.
True, Abby's smile had been a nervous one. A good girl at heart, she was obviously a little bit creeped out by DiNozzo Sr's lecherous commentary. Tony and Ziva were definitely bothered by it, and that was to be expected. What Gibbs hadn't expected was his own violently negative surge of revulsion upon seeing Abby that close to that unappealing man.
Gibbs knew that lately, he'd been busy, distracted, frustrated by both the personal and professional aspects of his life. He'd been spending less and less time focused on the members of his team, and they had, apparently accepted that, taking care of their own business and interacting on the purely workplace-oriented level that had seemed appropriate at the time. They were grown men and women, and they knew what it meant to focus on the job. At least, most of them did.
Abby was a little bit different. In some ways, Gibbs knew, she was mature, calculating, intelligent and shrewd. Those were the traits that she'd been hired for, the parts of her she used to get the job done or to come through in a pinch. There were other times, however, when Abby was naïve, over-affectionate, undisciplined and needy, and those were the things that really came to mind when Gibbs thought about Abby. Lately, he'd been thinking about Abby quite a bit, and maybe that was the reason that he'd been ever so careful to treat her exactly the same way that he was treating the rest of his team. There was no doubt in his mind that she didn't' appreciate that, but for some reason, being too familiar with Abby made him uncomfortable and a little bit nervous, the way he'd felt long ago when trying to talk to girls in the seventh and eighth grade. If he'd thought about it properly, Gibbs would have understood the implications of that. He made a point not to think too hard about it. Those thoughts and those feelings, he knew, had no place in the office, and no place in his carefully calculated, mission-oriented lifestyle.
Just when he thought he had himself under total control, Tony DiNozzo Sr. had taken a tour around NCIS, and come back with eyes leering suggestively at Abby, telling her he needed to ask her a few more questions. The reason Abby had been more okay with it than she normally would have been was probably because she was so starved for attention lately, and if she couldn't have it from Gibbs, she'd settle for taking it from someone else. She was flattered by it, almost attracted by the idea that someone else found her attractive. That was Gibbs' fault, he knew, and there was nothing, under the circumstances, that he could say about it, even if the idea of her smiling at another man did make his blood being to absolutely boil.
For all the years that he'd known her, Gibbs had carefully manufactured himself into a father figure for Abby, until he almost believed, himself, that he truly had only paternal feelings for her. He knew that the age difference between them was far too great for him to be able to make any legitimate advances without seeming like a terribly creepy old man trying to take advantage of a professional power dynamic. She could, and occasionally did, have other men her own age, other men who might be able to give her something other than the depressing knowledge of her own eventual mortality. Hell, thought Gibbs, she could, and occasionally did, have McGee, who was a very good man, a talented field agent, and a big softie who wore his heart on his sleeve. The kind of people who belonged with Abby were ones who could appeal to her youth and optimism, something that a hardened former marine who could easily have been her father would not be able to offer her.
Yet, at the moment that Tony's father brought Abby over to Gibbs' desk, Gibbs tried to fight down the desire to step forward, take her by the arm, and give her all the attention she could ever ask for and that he could ever imagine. If she was capable of being flattered by the advances of Tony's father, she was certainly able to be attracted someone much closer to home. Literary types called an age difference like Gibbs' and Abby's a "May/September romance." Even though it was only March, Gibbs decided that he was starting to like the idea.
As Abby and DiNozzo Sr. walked away, Gibbs tried to catch her eye. When they turned the corner, she glanced back at him, and, giving him a little, conspiratorial smile, she wrinkled her nose and made a face, indicating to Gibbs that she wasn't totally enamored of her elderly escort, and was being a good girl by taking one for the team.
Gibbs' heart lifted, and for a moment, he wasn't angry anymore. After all, he got to spend almost every day with Abby. He'd let Tony's father have his fun for the moment. That would be theappropriate, professional thing to do.