Title- Snooping

Complete

Author- PTBvisiongrrl

Part- 1/1

Date- 7/9/11

Rating – K+

Pairings/Characters- mainly Gabby, some Tiva

Warnings- mild language

Spoilers- pre-series

Disclaimers- Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…

Summary: How/why did Gibbs learn ASL? A bit of his past gets wrapped up in the present, providing an explanation and a little piece of the mystery that is Gibbs.

Author's Note: I had this idea and had to get it down. This is just a one-shot, although it could have been much, much more…I just don't have it in me to start (and finish) another long story right now, though.

Tony answered his phone, hardly surprised it began ringing after Gibbs's phone had gone unanswered just minutes earlier. Bob, the senior security officer at the desk and the only one brave enough to ever call Gibbs directly, asked Tony where Gibbs was, as there were two visitors in the lobby waiting for him.

"Really?" Tony asked. "Who? Is it for the McCracken case?"

"It's a personal visit," Bob answered. "It's a younger Marine, Corporal Merryweather, and a woman in her forties. Merryweather says Gibbs didn't know they were coming."

Looking up at the mezzanine, Tony thought quickly. "He's in MTAC with the Director; should be out shortly, I think. I'll call him on his cell and get back to you." While he cringed at interrupting, curiosity was eating him alive. Gibbs did not get personal visits at the office, much less unannounced ones.

Gibbs picked up on the third ring. "What, DiNozzo?"

His abrupt tone barely phased Tony. "You have two visitors waiting for you in the lobby, a Corporal Merryweather and a woman."

"What was the name?" Gibbs asked, his voice totally different. Cold and brusque was replaced with—warmth. "Merryweather?" Gibbs confirmed. "I'll be right down."

Tony was amazed at the speed at which Gibbs flew through the MTAC door, down the steps, and into the elevator.

NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS

It didn't take long before Gibbs was back up, with a tall, mid-twenties African-American Marine and a shorter, attractive African-American woman about ten years older than Tony on his arm. Gibbs spoke to the woman, careful to face her, Tony noted as he watched the tour. The three of them ended up at the bullpen before heading down to Autopsy and the Labby.

The wide smile and the sound of Gibbs's laughter had preceded them, totally stunning Tony. He had never seen Gibbs so…happy. Who was this woman?

When Gibbs introduced Jackie Leigh to Tony, he spelled Tony's name in sign language—one of the few "words" Tony knew in sign language, learned as self-defense against Gibbs and Abby talking about him as if he weren't there when he was. Tony smiled widely in secret glee, greeting the woman warmly and making sure that she could read his lips, as Gibbs himself had done on the tour. He shook the young man's hand in greeting as well. "Nice to meet you both. Friends of Gibbs are always a pleasure to see—wait, he's never had a friend stop by before. So how do you three know each other?"

The head slap was hardly unexpected, but the one that followed to Gibbs's own head from the small woman was. "Holy crap! You Gibbs-slapped Gibbs!" Tony stated in amazement, waiting to see what would happen. Gibbs was a quintessential gentleman, would never hit a lady—but Tony had also never seen Gibbs Gibbs-slapped before. Who knew what might occur?

Corporal Merryweather spoke up, "I always wondered where she got that from. Now I know."

Gibbs chuckled, rubbing his head. "Jackie Leigh, you always were pretty good at that."

Tony slowly sat back down, still avidly watching. "So you've been friends for a long time, huh? Who started the slaps, you or Gibbs?"

One sharp stare from Gibbs amid chuckles from Jackie Leigh had Tony quickly refocusing on a file in front of him, listening to Gibbs direct the two visitors to the basement. "You'll love Abby, Jackie."

NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS

Once Gibbs was gone, and Tony heard from Abby that Gibbs was going to lunch with his two visitors—again, an unprecedented event, his boss actually taking lunch at all, much less to actually eat with people—he headed down to the lab for her help.

Abby was surprisingly reticent about helping. "If he wanted us to know how he knows Jackie Leigh, he would have told us. And you know if we start poking our nose into it, he's gonna know, because he knows everything, and get pissed. Do you really want Gibbs mad at you, or are you just that much of a busy body?" she asked.

"I'm gonna burst, Abs!" Tony begged. "Help me out here! We know nothing about Gibbs, other than he was a Marine, likes to build boats, has three ex-wives, and seriously likes the red heads. C'mon. Aren't you the least bit curious?"

"About Bossman?" Abby laughed. "Hell, yes. But I also like my job and Gibbs not mad at me."

"Please?" Tony pouted at her, glad that she had gotten friendlier over the past months. His first few weeks at NCIS dealing with Abby had been rocky, to say the least. "I don't have your mad computer skills. I don't think I can do it on my own."

Abby sighed. "Seriously? You're a frickin' investigator. You do this every day." But she pushed him aside and sat down in front of her computer. She finally banished him, after he was like Pop-Goes-The-Weasel over her shoulder one time too many, trying to read the database information she was pulling up. She promised him a full report after work, over dinner at his place, if he would keep Gibbs away for the afternoon and leave her alone as well.

NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS

Luckily the McCracken case cracked early that afternoon, allowing apprehension, interrogation, and paperwork to be completed at a reasonable 7 PM. Abby shut down her babies at Tony's phone call, and met him at his house just as pizza was being delivered. She breathed in deeply as she stepped through the door and commented, "I have perfect timing."

Tony quickly plated up two slices for her, handing it and a beer over to her before shooing Abby into the living room with the pizza box. He managed to inhale four slices and two beers in the time it took her to finish half that, even with him rushing her. Once the last bite was gone, he tossed her paper plate into the box, dumped the box on the kitchen counter, and brought her out a second beer. "Spill!" he demanded.

Taking a long swallow, Abby teased Tony and enjoyed making him wait. While she didn't dislike DiNozzo anymore—she had taken a bit to figure out that he wasn't as empty headed and pretty boy as he acted, and then a bit longer to learn to overlook his act—she did enjoy making him squirm. "I found out a lot more than I thought I would…"

Tony threw himself down on the sofa. "Details! Is she some secret love child of his? A baby-momma?"

Beer almost came out of Abby's nose. "Jackie Leigh Merryweather, nee Brown, was Gibbs's foster sister."

"What?" Tony yelped. "I thought he was an only child, and both his parents were dead."

"Nope," Abby drank again, once her coughing had subsided. "Just his mom. His dad still runs a general store in Stillwater, Pennsylvania. The same store, in fact, that Jackie Leigh's mom and dad ran with Gibbs's parents."

"Then why does he talk about his dad like he's dead?" Tony could hardly sit still, as some of the mystery of Leroy Jethro Gibbs was revealed.

"Dunno," Abby shrugged. "You talk about your dad the same way."

Tony brushed that off with redirection. "So how did she end up his foster sister?"

"Her parents were killed in a car crash that also took her hearing." Abby shook her head. "Gibbs's family took her in, and she lived with them until she was 13."

"So that's why he knows sign language. Did you know any of that?" Tony asked.

"No," Abby was quiet. "He knows I know sign language because of my parents, but Gibbs never really explained where he learned it. But this must be it."

Tony considered her statement. "I know how private Gibbs is, but I figured you knew that much."

"Bossman doesn't let me that far into his head," Abby answered.

The silence built for a few moments as they considered the situation. "So, why did she move at 13?"

"Couldn't find why. Just a transfer of custody to Violet Olsen, her maternal grandmother, of Georgia, after Gibbs's mom died. Maybe Olsen decided that a teenage girl needed a woman in the house, and took over then."

"That must have been hard on Gibbs," Tony stated.

"Yeah, it was," came from the doorway, making them both jump. "You could have just asked me."

Abby was by far the quickest to recover and the braver of the two. "Didn't think you'd tell us, or we would have."

Grabbing a beer from the kitchen, Gibbs took a seat on the over-stuffed recliner, the only other place, aside from the floor, to sit. "Jackie was like a little sister to me growing up, and when her parents died, I asked my mom and dad to make sure she stayed with us. She was always shy, and it was tough to be a little black girl in the mining town I grew up in—and then to add in deaf as well?" Gibbs shook his head. "Abs is right about why she left us. I didn't like it, but I understood it. I kept in touch with her, though."

"Wow," Tony said. "Why did she show up at headquarters today? Why didn't she tell you?"

"I haven't seen her since she got married," Gibbs sipped his beer. "I gave her away. Her husband died of cancer while I was deployed; didn't make it back for the funeral. Left her with two small boys, Calvin and Leroy, and not much in the way of skills to earn a living. Her grandmother—she was old school, didn't think a deaf girl needed to go to college, even though Jackie could have gotten scholarships."

"Which son was that today?" Tony asked, trying to egg Gibbs on to finishing the story.

"Calvin, her oldest." Gibbs smiled crookedly. "He's having a baby of his own soon, and Jackie is staying with him and his wife at Anacostia until after the baby is born. She brought his crib up with her to pass on, and some kids stuff she had saved from him and his brother. Thought it'd be fun to surprise me."

Abby smiled back at Gibbs's good mood, considering her and Tony's snooping. "I'll bet you made that crib, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Gibbs answered. "I did. It was nice to see them both."

"You going to see them some more, since she's so close now?" Tony asked.

"Hopefully yes," Gibbs agreed, finishing his beer and standing up. "Next time I find you two 'investigating' me behind my back, a head slap will be the least of your worries. Got it?"

Happy to have escaped the wrath of Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and glad to see him in a good mood for the first time in forever, they quickly answered with affirmatives.