Title: Graveside Grieving
Rating: T for violence
Spoilers: None for now…
Summary: Final goodbyes are the hardest to say.

Author's Note: This will be a variety of POVs, characters' graves and pairings. If there's one you want me to write - shippy or gen - let me know. It's going to be on a first come, first served basis though - I'm writing them in the order that I get the requests. I'm starting with Gabby because that's my primary ship, but the shipping's secondary to the angst, if that makes any sense. So hopefully non-Gabbyers won't be too put off.

I'm not aiming to do multi-chaptered for any one death - so you won't see a chapter two of this with Gibbs investigating events. If you want that, go read TrivetteLoverHeather's Blind Faith. This is just concentrating on graveside stuff, and the different way characters deal with the death of a loved one.

Gibbs – Abby's grave

Gibbs/Abby

Abby is buried in the pouring rain, on a bleak Tuesday in April.

A little while earlier, the church service was crowded with the people who loved her, a swathe of mourners dressed in black. There were so many attendees that once the pews were filled, a couple of dozen were left to stand at the back of the room.

Over half of her colleagues from the Navy Yard were present, as well as the nuns she'd befriended and bowled with. The rest of the congregation were friends she'd won from various places, some obviously identifying as 'alternative', others giving no clues as to where she'd met them. Abby didn't discriminate when it came to handing out smiles and hugs, and every person present – from her young niece to the oldest of the nuns – loved her in return.

Now that they've moved on from the church to the cemetery, the crowd has respectfully dwindled to close friends and family. At the pastor's side stands Abby's only surviving family member, the brother who moved up to DC not long after she did. Josh stands straight and pale, holding an umbrella over his wife and three-year-old daughter's heads.

Gibbs and his team represent NCIS. Ziva, McGee and Tony stand shoulder-to-shoulder, as if drawing comfort from one another. The boys are teary-eyed, though they don't break down and cry. Between them, Ziva is more stoic than usual; her face a mask, her body motionless.

Gibbs declined to share Ducky's umbrella, standing slightly apart from the rest, barely aware of the driving rain that soaks his shirt and drips from his skin. His gaze is fixed on the headstone that will mark Abby's final resting place from this day forward, and he reads the newly-carved words over and over.

Abigail Sciuto

March 27 1969 – April 16 2009

Beloved Sister, Aunt, Friend.

She hated the sun, but she brought it into our lives.

Rest in Peace

Gibbs doesn't hear the final words of the priest, nor feel Ducky's hand on his shoulder, as Abby's coffin is lowered into the ground. One foot, two, three, four, five, six…

"Boss?"

DiNozzo's voice is strained. Gibbs glances up to see his team all staring at him, knowing the loss of his favourite has hit him hard. "We're going back to Ducky's for a while. To have a few drinks, and… remember her. You coming?"

He shakes his head, feeling the chill of the spring rain at last. "Later, maybe. Need to dry off first."

His words fool neither them nor himself. They all know that while the team sits around, recalling Abby's life and letting alcohol gently numb away their grief, Gibbs will be in his basement, finding catharsis in sawdust and solitude.

They each touch his shoulder on their way past him, joining the trickle of mourners leaving the gravesite. Soon he's alone, save for the men charged with the task of filling in the grave – of actually burying Abby.

Their presence is an insistent reminder of what must be done, and with a pain in his heart that's almost physical, he turns and walks away.

His mind is a blank as he drives home, the image of Abby's headstone imprinted on his consciousness. On autopilot, he strips off his wet clothes, takes a scalding shower that does nothing to warm him, and dresses in less formal attire.

The rain has ceased, and a couple of patches of blue sky are peeking through the storm-clouds. It's not a conscious decision to return to the cemetery. A little under an hour later, he simply finds himself there, following the smell of freshly turned earth to the turf that's been rolled out to cover the newly-filled grave.

Her coffin, the one she used to sleep in, is buried under six feet of dirt. He'll never look upon her face again, never kiss her cheek or watch her hands move animatedly as she speaks without sound.

He can't think of the rest – of her body pressed against his, her warm lips meeting his own. Their relationship had been new – barely three months old – when she met her premature end.

He crouches by the gravestone, resting a hand on the damp turf, her name on his lips. Her last moments have been burned into his brain since he witnessed them.

Her smile widened to a grin in response to something he said. Then her eye-contact wavered to something behind him; her eyes widened, breath catching in preparation to warn him. "Gibbs-"

It was the last word she ever spoke. With surprising strength, she ploughed into him, knocking him to the ground as the shot sliced the air where he'd been.

He didn't realise Abby had been hit, at first. He instinctively drew his weapon and fired at the shooter, double-tapping the heart. Then, his agent training guiding him, he sprinted over to check the shots had hit their mark, kicking away the guy's weapon before realising Abby hadn't picked herself up to follow him.

And that his jacket sleeve was glistening with blood.

He ran back to the spot where they'd fallen, yelling her name and getting no response. She'd taken a bullet to the chest – not the heart, but as near as damnit. Gasping for breath her punctured lung couldn't retain, her eyes glazed with shock, she reached out to him.

Less than two minutes later, she was dead.

His gut wrenches with guilt and grief as the memories pour over each other: how he'd closed her eyes with a shaking hand; how he'd held her warm, lifeless corpse, stroking her hair, whispering more apologies than he'd ever made in his life against her neck until Ducky prised him away. Looking up, bloodstained and numb, he'd seen a collection of his colleagues standing a short way off, by the Navy Yard's rear entrance, motionless and disbelieving.

The moment is so immediate, so vivid, that he can't get enough air. At that moment, he almost doesn't care. Abby is six feet below him, lying cold and still in the coffin she slept in the entire time that he'd known her. A few times during their short-lived relationship, she'd tried to persuade him to share it with her, insisting it was big enough for two. He'd always refused, amused by her wide-eyed protests as he carried her to her bed.

"I'm so sorry, Abbs," he says softly, running his hand over her headstone a final time before turning away.

Right now, he'd give anything he has to be in there with her.