Viva Mexico
Disclaimer: I don´t own any characters or anything!
Summary: Post-Hiatus. Gibbs moves to Mexico after resigning from duty. The team is ambushed and soon news is out that an old enemy is back. Will Gibbs come back to save them or does it need a little more to convince him that the team needs him?
1- Rainy Day
It was a cold and rainy day in early June. Mike Franks pulled his coat closer as he watched the main entrance of NCIS headquarters. Jenny´s call had woken him the previous night and he hadn´t been able to think much about what she had said. Now his mind was spinning and he tried to think of the right thing to do. He asked himself why he had made the way to Washington at all. Not only was it so much warmer in Mexico, but there seemed to be less to worry about. For some reason he had almost forgotten how the headquarters looked -and how nasty the weather in Washington could be.
His thoughts were interrupted when a man walked out of the building. Franks would have known him from a million others, but he remained on the other side of the street and just watched him. Even from here he could sense how upset his former agent was -and how much older he seemed all of the sudden. Gibbs was not just some agent, he was probably the best NCIS had ever seen -so it was just natural that Director Shepard was upset about her best agent resigning from service, but Franks already knew that it was useless to try and talk him out of it. It was not like Gibbs to change his mind once he had made it up.
After watching Gibbs leaving, Franks turned around and walked towards the city center. He had another day until a plane would bring him back home. It had taken him a while to call Mexico home, but after a few years he had finally managed to do so. Washington was still very special to him, maybe because of his time at the NCIS, he wasn´t sure about the reasons. He had a room at a small hotel just around the corner from NCIS headquarters, but he didn´t intend to return there yet.
NCIS building, same time
For one of those rare moments, the bullpen was completely silent. Everyone was still staring at the doors of the elevator that had closed behind their boss just a few moments ago. Ex-boss it should be, but none of them was ready to call him that just yet. Ziva recovered first and walked back to her desk. She leaned against it with her hands folded in front of her chest and looked around. She could sense how much it hurt the rest of the team. Abby seemed at the edge to tears, something she had never expected to see from her. Usually the goth was good at hiding her feelings, but today it seemed like a different story.
McGee still stared at the silver metal doors with his jaw hanging down. Even though it looked rather stupid, not even Dinozzo made a joke about it. He too was shocked to the bones. After a few moments, Ducky was the next to recover. "I shall return to morgue." He simply said and turned around, taking the stairs for some reason not known to anyone else.
After what seemed like hours, Abby flung herself at McGee, who pulled her into a hug. Such gestures of affection were usually not seen around here, but today nobody cared, not even Jenny Shepard, who had been watching the whole scene from above with moist eyes. It was not only a professional relationship between her and Gibbs, but much more than most had known. Even though years had passed since then, but she still regarded him as a friend. She knew him better than most others and knew that he had really left them now. The time at the hospital when he had been closer to death than to life had not been as painful as the moment when the elevator doors closed behind him.
Tony sighed and returned to his desk. "It´s your team now." Gibbs had told him and those words were still echoing in his mind. It was like a dream -more like a nightmare actually. Tony had worked with Gibbs for more than 4 years and even though both men had never seemed awfully close, there was a special thing between them, something that was almost like friendship. He knew that it was not only the recent events after Gibbs had been injured severely and almost died. Another event had taken its toll on their leader -Kate´s death had hurt him, but not many people knew that. Not all had seen his tears that very night after Ari had shot her on the rooftop.
They would move on, like they had a year ago, but it got more difficult now with their leader gone. It was not that they were inexperienced or even helpless without Gibbs -all of them were seasoned investigators and had solved more cases than anyone else around NCIS. It was just the thought that Gibbs would not be there anymore. No slaps on the back of the head. No more grumpy remarks or angry looks. And no more trips to the Starbuck´s four blocks away.