a/n: THINLY VEILED SOCIAL COMMENTARY + JIBBS-ISH UNDERTONE xoxo [also I wrote this story in ~Ireland~ la-dee-da]
Murphy's Law:
anything that can go wrong, will go wrong
In this line of work, there were always days when Murphy's Law prevailed—and even if the dirt bag was in custody and the nightmare was over, he still considered the whole thing a failure if his entire team had taken a hell of beating to achieve the end.
He rubbed his hand over his jaw tensely, wincing when he remembered that the skin was scraped raw and red and the bone was bruised magnificently. He grit his teeth and leaned forward on his knees, looking up when Decker entered the room, leaning in the doorway, a wet rag held to his bloody nose.
"Fuckin' Christ, Gibbs," he growled thickly, spitting blood from his busted lip into his palm and rubbing it carelessly on his jeans. "That was a hell of a lot more than we bargained for."
The men they'd been outnumbered by may not have had guns, but they'd had dangerous weapons of the homemade sort, and fists as tough as steel.
Gibbs grunted, wincing again, and pushed his shoulders back—he swore and bit back a shout; dislocated, his shoulder was dislocated, and he should get it looked at—later; he'd bother with it later.
"Burley?" he asked Decker.
"He's tryin—" began Decker, as Burley came storming into the room, kicking the heavy hotel door open and then shouting a curse as the pain shot up his sprained ankle and spread over his battered body. He licked a swollen lip, looking menacing with a black eye and a bloody nose of his own, and shrugged violently.
"She won't open the goddamn door, Gibbs," he groused, annoyed.
Gibbs glared at him.
"She answer you?"
"She needs her fuckin' head checked!" Burley retorted, rolling his eyes.
"Yeah, Stan, he knocked her pretty good," Decker said defensively, stepping forward. "I'll try, boss—she's probably just embarrassed," he said, flushing a little – he left the room, rag dripping blood and water as he went.
Burley fumed and glared at Gibbs, and Gibbs shot him a warning look.
"You talk to her like you just talked to me?" he asked roughly.
"Nah, Boss, I sweet-talked her like she's my lover," Burley said sarcastically. "You can't tell me to 'see to Shepard' and then blame me when she wants to act like a Disney princess because she got roughed up a little."
Gibbs stood up, his jaw tight, and gave Burley a dangerous look.
"S'not the same for her," he growled.
"Yeah, yeah – we're all supposed to be equal, 'cept when somethin' like this happens—"
Gibbs stepped into Burley's face and cut him off with a look, shaking his head slightly—now was not the time for Burley to start bitching about how much he hated the complexities of integrating women into teams.
"She's your team mate, Stan," Gibbs growled under his breath. "You take care of 'er, you don't give 'er crap for—"
"Look, Gibbs, someone rips my shirt off in front of my team mates, m'not gonna lock myself in a bathroom and refuse to get medical attention—"
"Jesus, Stan, that's 'cause you're a fuckin' guy," Decker growled, shoving him in the back as he came back into the room. He looked sour, too, and shrugged at Gibbs: "She snapped at me, too," he said abruptly. "'Don't you think you've all seen enough, Will?' she barked—I'm nice to her, I don't know why she's actin' like that to me."
Gibbs shot him a warning look, too, and stepped back from Burley. He rubbed his jaw, hardly cognizant of the pain this time, and grit his teeth, shaking his head. He hadn't particularly wanted to deal with Shepard after what had happened—they were all in bad shape, and since the first thing she'd done was barricade herself in a bathroom, he'd immediately not wanted anything to do with it—it was hard for him to deal with her sometimes; he was so unused to more feminine reactions to the job, and he didn't want to do anything that would offend her or hurt her.
He cleared his throat and shoved past Decker and Burley, storming down the hall to the other room. He made his way to the tightly shut bathroom door and swallowed hard a few times, forcing himself not to be so gruff with her. He stood there a moment, listening to small, almost inaudible shuffling noises, and then he lifted his hand and knocked firmly.
Predictably, there was no answer.
He knocked again; she violently banged on the door, and said nothing.
He smirked a little, waited a few moments, and knocked again.
"I can tell you to leave me the fuck alone in five languages—would you prefer French, Arabic—"
"Jen," he interrupted curtly. "It's Gibbs," he said.
She fell silent. He put his hand on the doorknob and rattled it pointedly, resting his hand there and giving her another long moment of silence. He was about to take his knife from his pocket and break in when he heard the slow click of her turning the lock—and presumably the sound of her moving away from the door. He waited a moment, allowing her a few moments to compose herself, and then he opened the door and stepped inside.
He knew most of the blood wasn't hers, but it still gave him pause to look at her. She wiped at her face, smearing the blood on her hands across her cheek, and then wrapped her arms around her middle again—she was sitting against the bathtub, her shoulders pulled in, making herself small. Her lip was bleeding, there was an ugly bruise blooming across her eye and forehead, her neck was marked with red, and her jeans were ripped near the thighs.
He left the door wide open, figuring she'd feel less threatened or intimidated that way, and eyed her a moment. He turned to the sink and grabbed a hand towel, running cold water over it and wringing it out. He crouched down in front of her and reached out.
She reared her head back, and he paused, blinking at her patiently.
"Lip's busted," he said gruffly. "'M not gonna hurt you."
"I know that," she snapped, her speech slurred by the swollen lip.
He gave her another patient look, and she leaned her head forward. He rested one palm on the side of her head, and touched the wet towel to her mouth with the other, applying enough pressure to stem the slow trickle of blood and clean her mouth off. She watched him, her eyes dull, and cleared her throat.
"I'm not scared of you," she said into the cloth, her words muffled. "I'm not scared of Decker or Burley, either," she asserted.
He nodded.
"Why wouldn't you let 'em in?" he asked.
She narrowed her eyes, and said nothing to him. She fell silent for a long time, and then she swallowed hard.
"Fear and humiliation are different emotions," she said.
"You got nothin' to be ashamed of, Jen," Gibbs growled calmly. "Nothin's your fault."
"No," she agreed in a hiss. "It isn't my fault if some gangbanger rips off my shirt and reveals my breasts in a parking garage," she hissed. Her voice shook. "I didn't say I felt guilty; I said humiliated."
Gibbs blinked and met her eyes, studying her intently. He moved the cloth over her face, applying pressure to ease the throbbing of her bruise, wiping off blood. She grit her teeth, and her muscles moved as she winced and swallowed again.
"It's what they wanted," she muttered.
Gibbs gave her a sharp look.
"Stan and Will don't wanna see you assaulted or raped, Jen," he said curtly. "They're hard on you, and Stan's a dick to you—"
"That's not what I meant," she mumbled, pushing his hand away. She took the towel from him and ran it over her hands, cleaning out the gravel from her scrapes and cuts. "It's every goddamn day, the off-hand comments about my body, my sexuality, my looks—they confuse treating me like one of the guys, like an equal, with degrading me in…subtle ways—"
"They're teasin'—
"No," she snapped harshly. "No, Gibbs," she said firmly. "Stan—he's a sexist, he doesn't hide it—Decker...the damn problem is he's a nice guy, he can't see what hurts and what's not okay," she told him. "I ignore it. I put up with it because I'm stronger than runnin' to HR every time one of them says something ignorant—but my body and my sex are not a joke," she paused. "Jethro."
She licked her lips, and tilted her head back. She sucked in her breath hard.
"It felt like a joke today," she said weakly, shaking her head. She closed her eyes, and he watched a few long-held back tears run down her cheeks, making a dirty path to her neck. "He wasn't going to rape me. He didn't have it in him—he pulled off my clothes to humiliate me—I can't fight without my breasts protected; the first instinct was to cover myself instead of strike back," she bit her lip a moment, and then looked at him. "You know the worst part?"
He tilted his head, choosing his word carefully.
"Cold?" he asked.
She gave a hoarse laugh, and closed her eyes a moment.
"They looked," she said, her voice soft, cracking. "Stan, and Will, both of them—they looked. Before they tried to give me a coat, or check if I was alright—it was more important to them—to see my breasts."
Gibbs set his jaw, his eyes narrowing. He hadn't been the first to get to her when everything had blown up in their faces—he'd had an inkling of what was going on, because suddenly Shepard's shirt had been used to snap him in the back of the neck—but it was Burley and Decker who'd gone to her aid while Gibbs cleaned up the attackers—he'd only gotten to her in time to see Decker fumble to snatch a coat from a dead body and shove it at Shepard.
Jenny bit her busted lip and tilted her head back again. She shifted her legs, and he noticed her jeans weren't just slashed—she had a knife wound along her inner thigh. He touched her hand and grunted, indicating the wound. She looked down at it and winced, licking her lip.
"It didn't hurt until you pointed it out," she mumbled hoarsely, her brow furrowing.
She slouched against the tub, taking the towel and pressing it to the cut. She sucked in her breath, tears of pain spilling down her cheeks—but her face didn't crumple or change. He realized, when she hunched her shoulders, that she was still only wearing the dead guy's jacket.
"Jen," he muttered, shifting, and pulling off his shirt deftly.
He pressed it into her free hand, and leaned forward to take over cleaning the cut on her thigh. She stopped, staring at his bent head, how focused he was on the wound, and she slipped out of the jacket subtly, pulling his bloody, wrinkled t-shirt on and crossing her arms.
He was still looking at the cut.
She snorted quietly, her eyes on his bare back, the muscles rippling beneath as he moved.
"There's not even a second thought to you taking your shirt off," she remarked significantly.
He grunted and shrugged, eyeing the wound critically.
"This need stitches," he assessed grimly.
She slid down a little, sighing hoarsely.
"My head," she complained.
He sat back and knelt next to her, pulling his hands through her hair to examine her head—she had a massive gash near her scalp, and he grit his teeth, swearing under his breath.
"Jesus Christ, Jen," he growled softly. "This needs stitches, too." He was suddenly struck with how important it was to get her to a hospital—he hadn't realized she was so badly injured, and it occurred to him that Burley and Decker must have actually been stupid enough to stare at her nakedness instead of checking her for injuries.
She made a soft noise, and closed her eyes. She licked her lips, and held the wet cloth to her mouth again, sucking on it a little.
"You try not to play favorites by letting us duke it out," she said, speaking up shakily. "I know—you don't want them to think you're fucking me," she added softly. She shook her head. "You're the team leader, Jethro," she said. "You have to lay down the law—it's complicated, all the gender relations…but it's complicated because men made it that way, and they never thought we'd figure out that it's fucked."
She swallowed hard, and wiped at her eyes. She hated that she had to deviate from her job, from who she was, and her intelligence, to try to explain this to the men she worked with—products of a system they inadvertently contributed to, and didn't bother to try and reform because it aided them. Gibbs nodded, trying to sort out her words, taking them to heart—she called him a chauvinist over and over, but it was always with a smirk or a laugh—and now he wondered how many times he'd really done damage, or at what point respect for women turned into condescension.
He cleared his throat and rested his hand on her shoulder, starting to stand.
"C'mon, Jen," he said gently. "You've got to see a doctor."
She nodded, and let him help her up, grasping the sink. She swallowed hard, pale—and to think, if she hadn't been so unwilling to face her team mates, the men who should have her back, she'd have been seen to earlier—she wouldn't need the attention so immediately now. He noticed she was limping, and anger at Burley and Decker flared again.
She stopped to look in the mirror, and pushed her hair back—she looked awful, plain and simple—pale and raw and beaten, and his t-shirt was drowning her—everything that could have gone wrong, had gone wrong.
She met his eyes in the mirror, and smiled a little.
"Jenny," he said gruffly. He shrugged. "Why'd you let me in?" he asked her bluntly.
She'd refused Burley, she'd refused Decker—he may be more aloof than them when it came to interacting with her, and that was for selfish rather than noble reasons, but he knew he'd had his fair share of sexist moments.
She pursed her lips, and took a deep breath.
There were some men who confused respect and condescension and he wasn't one of them—Leroy Jethro Gibbs knew respect was respect.
She cleared some of the rawness from her throat, and answered:
"You didn't look."
-alexandra
story #183