Price of the Past
Chapter 4 – Someone To Lean On
Gradually drifting awake next morning, the first sensation that penetrated Abby's sleep fogged brain was warmth and something tickling her nose. Her face was pressed into the back of Gibbs' neck, nose nuzzled into his hair, her hand resting on his waist. Heat radiated from the hard body in front of her, his scent soaking into her senses.
Dragging her eyes open and trying to focus, Abby was presented with a close-up view of the short silver hairs on the back of his neck, his broad shoulders right under her nose.
Taking a moment to remind herself how lucky she was that he was here and alive, Abby pressed a soft kiss against his skin. Gibbs began to stir slightly and mumbled her name as he rolled over but didn't wake.
Abby stared at his face, close by on the pillow, allowing her eyes to roam over the features she loved and knew so well. Gibbs always looked younger when he slept, the lines around his eyes and mouth less finely etched.
Unable to help herself, she reached out to brush strands of tousled hair off his forehead and Gibbs shifted nearer. His arm slid round her waist and head came to rest on her chest as his legs tangled with hers.
His warm breath washed over her skin, even as the slight rasp of his stubble scratched. She wrapped her arms round his shoulders, one hand cradling the back of his head and buried her nose in his hair, absorbing the feel of him nestled in her arms.
Gibbs slept on, his breathing steady and even. She stroked his hair gently, brushing her lips gently over his forehead... quite content to stay here holding him all day if she could. It was going to be a busy day but she figured she could let him sleep a while longer.
She was still mad at him.
And deeply hurt.
But she did feel better for starting to clear the air between them last night. It had been obvious from his behaviour that Gibbs did realize how much he'd screwed up, not only with her but with Tony.
And that was half the battle.
A stubborn Gibbs in denial that there was anything wrong was almost impossible to reach.
A Gibbs who'd admitted he'd made mistakes was one who would at least listen. And if his words last night were anything to go by, maybe he would at least try from now on; and that was all she could ask.
The very fact that he listened to her last night and actually talked a bit was a big first step for Gibbs.
It didn't mean things were going to be okay but it was a start.
And although she wasn't about to let him off the hook entirely, she was feeling uncertain how best to handle things now.
If she continued to put him through the wringer, it would only result in his walls slamming up. Gibbs had to do things in his own time and pushing him would only end up making them both more miserable.
And she wasn't a nag.
She'd made her point so maybe it would be pointless going on about it? Although she was hardly the poster girl for knowing how to deal with problems in relationships... so Abby lay there going back and forth in her head about what to do next.
Okay, Abigail, break it down.
Gibbs was trying to cope with the emotional battering from having a living reminder of his dead daughter suddenly turn up in his life and all the stress and pain that revived for him, and the guilt triggered by his actions in going off lone wolf and nearly getting three people killed.
One alone would have been difficult enough for Gibbs.
Both at once were a recipe for disaster.
So whatever hurt and anger she was still feeling had to be tempered by how best to handle him now... which would also depend on how he reacted today.
And she didn't underestimate the impact of seeing his girls while he was drowning. She had no idea whether it had ever happened to him before but the strain would still be enormous.
But he'd come back.
Had chosen to live.
Had chosen her.
Ultimately, she could forgive him anything for the joy of that.
Abby felt him stir and his head came up, sleepy eyes opening to reveal a sliver of blue. Instead of waking fairly quickly as he usually did, Gibbs mumbled something and snuggled back against her, his grip tightening as he settled himself more firmly against her front, pressing her into the mattress.
She could work out the exact moment when Gibbs remembered the night before as she felt the instant tension in his body, before his head came up again, his eyes examining her face as if trying to gauge her mood.
"Hey." She ran her fingers along his jawline and over his lips, feeling him kiss her fingertips and smiled at the familiar gesture.
"Hey." His voice was gravelly from sleep and he relaxed slightly against her as if he satisfied with what he could see in her expression. "Sleep okay?"
"Like the proverbial tree trunk, and so did you, I think." As far as she could remember, she'd slept right through the night, and it was now well past dawn. "Although I think the bourbon and pills helped knock you out."
He shifted slightly, rubbing his hand over his face. "Feels like it." He peered past her at the bedside alarm clock, sighing when he saw the time.
She ran her hands along his back. "We're okay for a bit, I think... Time for breakfast before we go pick up Tony and Maddie at the hospital. I'm guessing you didn't have any dinner last night?"
Gibbs shook his head. "Wasn't hungry."
Abby gave him a wry smile. "Neither did I... apart from a very tired sandwich from the vending machine at the hospital which I think had been there since the Sixties."
Abby leaned in for a quick kiss and felt his surprise as he returned it, before she leaped out of bed, heading for the ensuite, conscious of his eyes on her back.
By the time she'd cleaned her teeth and hopped into the shower, Gibbs had joined her in the bathroom. She heard him cleaning his teeth as she showered and when he didn't appear behind her in the shower as he usually did when they got up at the same time, she poked her head round the curtain.
"You gonna join me?"
Abby hated the wariness in his eyes and guarded expression on his face as Gibbs turned to meet her gaze. She disappeared back inside the shower before he could answer, biting her lip as she waited to see if he would join her, not sure if she was handling this right or not.
She had no benchmark data for an argument with Gibbs... this was all uncharted waters and she was making it up as she went.
And Gibbs was treating her like she was a bomb about to go off and she wasn't sure how to react to that, except just act normally as she would any other morning.
She heard him shedding his sleepwear, breathing a sigh of relief when he got into the shower behind her, strong hands circling her waist to rest on her stomach and she leaned back into his hard chest. She rested her own arms on his as his face bent to her neck, just nuzzling lightly as he breathed her in.
She stood there enjoying the quiet intimacy for a few moments before asking quietly. "Will you wash my hair?" She normally didn't have to ask but felt like she was tiptoeing around this morning.
His arms squeezed her waist and he dropped a soft kiss on her shoulder. She turned to see his face, relieved when she saw a slight smile tug at his lips as he reached for her shampoo.
They shared a shower, keeping it caring and tender, making it all about absorbing the closeness. His touches were gentle as he washed her hair, something she loved him to do, and this time he treated her as if she were fragile and about to break.
She returned the favour, loving the feel of his body under her hands and they helped dry each other off. Her throat tightened with emotion when Gibbs wrapped her in a towel, his large hands gentle.
Abby examined his face but his walls were still partly up, his expression hard to read. "Why did you hesitate about joining me in the shower?"
He shrugged but kept his eyes averted as he continued to dry her off. "Wasn't sure if I'd be welcome."
"Why not?"
She waited him out and he eventually answered, his eyes raising to hers. "Thought you'd be still mad at me."
"Well, I am... doesn't mean we can't share a shower. You've been watching me like I'm some wild animal you've got cornered and you can't work out if I'm gonna make a run for it or leap for your throat." She waved her hands. "It's just me in here... what's wrong?"
He stared at her for a moment. "You're acting normally."
Admittedly, Abby was a bit subdued but it wasn't what he was expecting the morning after their first big fight.
It wasn't what he normally got.
He was used to the brooding silences, the loaded comments, the slammed doors which usually followed an argument, and he'd usually spend the next day wondering if the next thing he said or did would dig him into a bigger hole.
So avoidance and silence had become a way of dealing with the aftermath.
"What were you expecting, Gibbs?" she asked, somewhat nervously.
Gibbs shrugged and didn't answer, not sure how to tell her without hurting her further, and she pushed him slightly in the chest. "Tell me, Gibbs, please. Were you expecting me to sulk and give you the silent treatment or rant and rave at you again?"
"Either... both."
Abby frowned, biting her lip. "Is that what you thought I'd do?"
"S'what usually happens." He winced inwardly as he said it, figuring it was the wrong thing to say by the sudden narrowing of Abby's eyes. "And god knows, I usually deserve it."
"And what? You thought I'd be the same as everyone else, huh? That I'd behave the same as other women?"
When he nodded, bracing himself for the flaring of her temper, she surprised him again by suddenly deflating, her shoulders slumping, her eyes sad.
"Oh, Gibbs... like I'm just so thrilled at being compared with Diane... or Hollis. That... really, really hurts... almost as much as the rest of it. Did you really think I was like all the others? That I'd act like they did? You've always said how different I am and that's what you... liked about me. How could you think that? How could you forget it's me and not... them?" Her voice choked in her throat as she trailed off.
His heart squeezed at the look in her eyes and it galvanised him to reach out and pull her a hug, relieved when she didn't push him away but slid her arms around him and pressed her face into his neck.
He couldn't explain it, not easily.
His past bitter experiences had so coloured the way he approached relationships that it had become almost an ingrained habit... so conditioned was he to screwing up. The scars from his most recent break up with Hollis were still fresh in his head and weren't helping him approach this relationship differently.
But Abby was right.
He shouldn't have expected her to act like most of his other women. He shouldn't have forgotten who she was, that she fought for the people she loved and didn't hold grudges... and that although her temper was fierce, it flared quickly and subsided just as fast.
He cupped her face, catching her gaze, trying to pour every ounce of feeling into his eyes. "I'm sorry."
Her eyes widened slightly in surprise and he saw a flash of amusement in the green depths. "Wow... this has to be a new record, even for you Gibbs. Breaking Rule 3, 8 and 6 all in a few days."
"Rule 6 doesn't apply to you, Abbs."
She gazed at him seriously, placing her hands over his on her face. "I'll say this once and then we'll try and forget it, okay? Don't lump me in with them. Yes, I'm pissed at you. Yes, I'm hurt and I don't know how we're going to get through it but I hope we will coz like I told you last night, I'm not walking away. I think we're worth fighting for and I hope you feel the same."
"Yeah, I do. I screwed the pooch, big time... in lots of ways but gonna try and put it right. I'm just..." He trailed off, not sure how to put it into words and it took a few moments to get his thoughts in order. "Guess I'm used to everyone walking away when it gets tough."
"And you thought I'd do the same?" She moved closer, wrapping her arms round him rested against him.
She'd seen how wary and pessimistic he was last night and it had shocked her that he thought she was going to leave. Did Gibbs really think she'd give up on him... on them... so soon, and without a fight?
It was like he'd forgotten she knew him, with all his faults.
Although the vulnerable guy she'd seen last night was a Gibbs she'd never seen before. She'd never seen him quite so rattled; more used to the decisive man who bore himself with such confidence at work and who was the rock everyone else relied on.
So this side of him was new, a stark contrast, and it left her feeling more than a little unsettled and unsure how to deal with it.
So to see Gibbs so shaken up over the prospect of losing her was a shock.
She was used to her own insecurities and feeling unsure of herself in relationships. So she'd sort of expected him to be her strength when things got tough. Instead, she'd been faced with the guy who retreated, the guy who assumed he was going to fuck up everything in his personal life... the guy who felt he was responsible for the failure of every marriage and every relationship he'd had since Shannon.
So could she be the strong one for a while when she wasn't quite sure how?
But the fact that he'd allowed himself to be vulnerable in front of her was a big thing for a man who found it hard to open up to anyone.
So she had to put him first and try and help him get through it all.
It wasn't the first time she'd felt anger at the women he'd been involved with, that they'd knocked his self confidence in his personal life so badly that he'd react like this.
All those failures couldn't be all his fault... surely?
But maybe that was partly it? Based on what had happened before, Gibbs didn't think he was worth fighting for? And at the first sign of a problem, even a pretty big one like this, he assumed she was going to walk away?
Well, she wasn't going to and she was going to beat that into him at every opportunity. She wasn't going to give up on him like everyone else.
She was going to love him until he believed it.
If he met her even part of the way as he'd promised he'd try to, she was going to drag him the rest of the way if it was the last thing she did.
His words when they came were hesitant but filled with such pain that her heart twisted in her chest and she tightened her arms round him. "Wasn't sure if you'd come back home last night... and when you did, whether it was just to pack up and leave."
She raised her head from his shoulder. "And now what do you think?"
"That I'm lucky... that I'm not gonna take it for granted." He trailed his fingers down her cheek, gazing at her face. "Thank you for coming back."
He wrapped her in his arms and she nestled against him. "It's my home, or so you keep telling me... you're my home."
Gibbs offered to make omelettes to make up for neither of them having any dinner last night. Abby watched him as she sipped her coffee, sitting at the table and scribbling a grocery list to stock the cupboards and to cater for an extra mouth to feed this weekend.
But for the events of the past few days, it was a familiar domestic scene. Since she'd almost moved in, they'd slipped into a routine that had surprised them both by how right it had felt so quickly.
The atmosphere was easier than earlier, both still slightly awkward and wary around one another, both watching the other when their backs were turned. Given how physically and emotionally at ease they usually were with each other, the slightest hesitancy and awkwardness showed up.
Abby's phone screamed with a text arriving and she picked it up, chuckling softly as she read it. She held up the phone as Gibbs slid a plate in front of her and read it out. "Tony... bring breakfast. Food here sucks."
She was rewarded with a small but genuine smile as Gibbs replied. "We'll pick something up on the way in."
As they ate, next to go off was Gibbs' phone and he answered it with his usual terse greeting, meeting her eyes with a rueful smile as he heard the voice at the other end. "Hey Duck."
Abby listened to his responses, guessing the other half of the conversation from Gibbs' impatient tone as he tried to assure the M.E. that yes, he was okay and that yes, he had taken his tablets. Abby suppressed a chuckle as she remembered having to almost stand over him as he dressed this morning and refusing the leave the bedroom until he took his pills.
After he ended the call with Ducky, Abby cleared the plates away, returning with more coffee and Gibbs snagged her arm as she moved to turn away. He urged her to sit on his lap and she went willingly, sliding her arms round his neck.
"Are we gonna be okay?" He slid his hand to her neck, stroking along her jawline with his thumb.
She leaned in to kiss him. "We will be."
TBC...