The thin material of the sweat soaked scrub top peeled against her skin as she shrugged out of it. The trails of her hair hung limply against the side of her face as she clasped the sides of the sink and exhaled slowly. Looking into the post-op room mirror, caked with the almost intangible and paradoxical grime of sterility, she smiled tiredly. Being the Chief of Surgery at the most major hospital and trauma centre in DC had always been her dream.
She had worked for it.
She had sacrificed for it.
She had fought for it.
Every day was a new day, a new learning experience and she relished and thrived in the never ending chasm of opportunity. Looking at her tired face now, she smiled wistfully as she remembered the creaseless and carefree visage she had landed in America with. The one she had left Ireland with, accompanied with nothing but a singular suitcase and the beaming and bursting pride of her rural parents. She was looking at a very different face now. One with thirty years more experience than the one that had bounced off the proverbial boat.
Sighing, she pulled herself off the sink and realised that the longing to be a twenty something again with everything laid out before them was at a particularly high point today. She loathed aging, though she managed to do so with an almost seamless grace. Her green eyes still sparkled with the same enthusiasm as her toddler self had possessed, and her fiery red hair remained as fierce as ever. A rigorous moisturising regime in combination with a steadfastly health conscious diet had ensured her skin was as soft and supple as it had ever been, her deep set dimples as prominent as ever. All in all, at fifty…she looked damned good.
Setting to work scrubbing the eight hour operation from her person, her mind wandered further and the cause of her unusual concern with her appearance swum before her eyes. She felt her lips curve upwards in that ridiculous smile that he, or even the thought of him, brought about. She felt her heart quicken somewhat and actually laughed softly at her foolishness. But she couldn't help it. There was just something about him. The way he automatically commanded respect the moment he walked into a room, and yet his gentle nature was so clear to see if you bothered to look. The way his eyes, though having already seen so much, still sparkled and twinkled like blue pools of excitement.
The way his hands…
She blinked, and pulled herself together. She was at work for crying out loud. But the truth was…she couldn't wait to be finished work. Her chuckle lilted from her once more. Dr Cloda O'Brien…was not the person that sprung to mind when one visualised the final yard dash. She was a self confessed and outward proponent of being a workaholic. It's how she got to the position she held. Dedication and sacrifice and not rushing out the door to kiss her husband and greet her children at six pm. Because…there were no children, and there was no husband.
Not anymore.
There hadn't been for a very long time.
Her nose wrinkled at her consciousness, the disastrous break up of her marriage with a man who wanted her but couldn't understand her. A man who would rather coo over his brother's children, than have children of his own. A man she loved with her every fibre throughout a tumultuous and often oppressive marriage, and yet a man who couldn't satisfy her. The allure of chalk and cheese wearing off in the middle of the three am fight about work schedules and their persistent state of childlessness.
She smiled softly as she found those painful thoughts easier than ever to push away.
She just had to imagine his face.
His crooked little smile.
Him….
The door creaked open and she was suddenly snapping back to the present as a laughing duo of interns suddenly choked on their laughter and writhed in their own nervousness. Sighing, she adopted her "work" persona, and offered the youngsters a professional nod as she swept past them. They didn't breathe until she was a solid twenty feet away.
That was the effect she had on people.
On subordinates in particular.
She was respected, but feared. She was approachable, but also closed off as all hell. She could smile, but she rarely did. She didn't do small talk, she did to the point talk. She needed a copious amount of tea, she would kill those who stood in her way. She laid claim to the mind behind medical and surgical breakthroughs, she volunteered at the free children's clinic.
She was…complex.
That's what the whispered conclusion of her being around the water cooler was. She was fierce, but she had a golden heart that few witnessed. She had suffered through a long and unhappy marriage, both parties unable to let go. She had…trouble breaking free. There had been restraining orders, sympathetic judges and nodding lawyers. Administration staff had also volunteered into the gossip pool that her ex was in jail now, for harassing another woman.
All of which had been greeted with sanctimonious nods of approval.
Striding through the halls now, experience teaching her to be oblivious of the way junior doctors sprang apart like the metaphorical parting of the sea to allow her passage, she entered her spacious and luxurious office. The office that over three hundred bright, young, ambitious doctors from all over DC had set their sights on.
The one she had beaten them off for.
Her office.
Quickly using her private bathroom to change back into her staple, no nonsense suit pants and blouse, she threw herself behind her desk. One or two last minute type ups, and she was free. Well, as free as an anchor like pager and contracted on call could allow for. But…free-ish nonetheless. Free…to meet him. To feel the days stress, the strain of the lives that literally rested in her bare hands melt away at his simplest touch. To recline with a comfort she had never known into his safe arms, his broad chest and his warm presence. As if on cue, her cell rattled on the desk top.
Feeling her stomach dance with the ridiculous butterflies that she had scolded herself for, she grinned.
The grin that had been habitual, when she was an intern, and then an attending.
Those grins had become less frequent however, until they were nearly buried under atrophied facial muscles as the stress and strains of the job she loved so much crept up on her. The stress and strains he made disappear with one gentle stroke of his thumb across her still very prominent cheekbones.
He was literally her self prescribed medication.
One hundred percent organic to boot.
A rarity.
The message was short, clipped and to the point…but she could feel the smirk in it. His usual confident, but not as seemingly poplar belief would have it, arrogant parlance that he had down to a fine art. Her heat skipped an annoying beat as she looked down at the files that could wait till tomorrow, but a mere three months ago she wouldn't have dreamt of the possibility of doing so.
Now though…her grin grew wider as she stood and shrugged into her suit jacket.
Flicking the desk lamp off, she grabbed her…she didn't like to think what number, tea of the day and swept from the office. It was a mere eight pm, and the looks of shock that were exchanged between the nursing staff as she clocked off for the day were intense. Striding past them and bidding them a clipped goodnight accompanied by rather dire warnings to keep her patients alive, she was soon landing on the ground floor of the cavernous hospital.
Scowling at herself, she stopped to check her appearance in the many floor length mirrors.
She had always been described as willowy, with her long legs and naturally slim physique. Her pale and lightly freckled complexion accompanied by her vivid hair and eyes had often been the envy of her friends at school, where she was often called the "walking advertisement for Ireland." Her parents had loved that, the sheer Irish-ness of their only daughter a delight to their caring minds.
It had been years since she'd truly cared about her appearance.
Rolling her eyes at her girlishness, she straightened one flyaway amber lock and exited the building into the balmy evening air. One quick glance around the car lot and she spied him. Leaning against his stubbornly beat up old car, trademark coffee and eye twinkle in hand. The grin spread across her face once more, and she found herself free of the usual rebukes that used to come with it.
With other men…over the years, she'd always been aloof, hard to pin down. Purposely so, desperate to avoid the head over heels love she had had for her ex husband, which had led to so much pain. But with him…she just couldn't. She couldn't be analytical and intelligent about things, she just…couldn't. She had found a naturalness about herself with him that she had almost forgotten. A naturalness that didn't mind that much when she fell over such was her clumsiness. A naturalness that just laughed along with him when he never failed to catch her in his arms. A naturalness that rendered her unbidden, uninhibited.
It was almost painfully refreshing.
There was only one dent, one nick in the coat of armoured freedom.
She had tried to tell him once or twice, before baulking inwardly. Telling herself that it was much too soon and that he would run for the hills. Telling herself she was insane to risk messing up whatever…it was, that they had. Telling herself that she didn't really need it, and the unsatisfied feeling she had had in other relationships where her secret remained secreted wasn't indicative of how she would feel with him.
That they were perfectly fine the way they were, and she didn't need to screw it up.
Whatever "it" was.
Reaching him, she looked up, slightly taller that he was and smiled her wide smile as he planted a soft kiss on her lips and took her in his arms. The smell of him was intoxicating to her. A real world smell that almost reminded her of home. Where it was much more common to find a man bathed in coal dust, than in sanitizing gel. Nearly every man she met was a doctor or a lawyer, such was the climate DC provided. It was…so nice, to breath in his more earthy smell. Of hard work and wood shavings. Of soap and old time aftershave.
He was intoxicating, but in such a good way.
Her loud stomach rumbling suddenly interrupted her inhalation.
"You're hungry again, Dr O'Brien," he murmured softly into her hair, and the playfully admonishing tone in his voice made her knees tremble. He had a thing about her not looking after herself, which she had picked up on even in their short…whatever it was. Snuggling into his chest, she shrugged slightly. "Been a busy day Gibbs," she chuckled, "no time for roasting a steak over an open fire, you know what I mean?"
Rolling his eyes as he released her and opened her side of his car for her convenience, Gibbs' trademark smirk played upon his lips as he arched that brow that made Cloda feel quite faint.
"Not eating anything all day…again? What am I going to do with you hmm?"
She smiled softly as he closed the door on his teasing words and clutched her now reclaimed tea tight to her chest as his solid torso slid into the seat beside her, filling the car with his soothing, strong presence. She glanced at his hands as they found the steering wheel, large and gentle and suppressed a choked little sigh of longing.
If only she could tell him…
….
TBC
….
A/N: Ok, so I've wanted to do this kind of a storyline for a long time but haven't been able to pluck up the guts to do it but a rainy, lazy Sunday kinda brought it out! I never write about OC's, because I think they can be hard to visualise in an already established cast, so that's why this chapter is quite Cloda heavy, but it'll balance out. I just didn't want to go down the Jenny etc road with this! She's Irish because simply because I am and it's easy to write about! I'm intending for this to be a sort of multi-chaptered fic if there's interest! Their relationship is literally at the start, and will progress from here in a fashion I'm sure you can deduce! Anyhow, pretty nervous author here as this is totally out of my comfort zone so please let me know you guys think!
-This isn't related to my other NCIS stories which are still ongoing!
-Other stories that have just been updated will be updated again soon!
-For those following "Sacrificial Intelligence" and "Loathing, Love and Lilly," there'll be one more chapter of each up soon and then they're done!
-Inks