Gibbs stopped at the diner for breakfast and more coffee and endured the pleasant ribbing from his favorite server, then went to the store knowing it wouldn't be too busy this early in the morning and he bought enough stuff to fill his fridge, freezer and cupboards. He wanted food in the house for when Tony was over. He thought about how grocery shopping had been with Tony in North Carolina and the memory warmed him as he filled the shopping cart with the stuff he knew Tony liked and the stuff he liked.

When Gibbs got home he wasn't surprised to see Cyril Taft's car sitting in his driveway. He got out of the car when Gibbs parked.

"Hey, Gibbs," Cyril greeted him as Gibbs pulled his overnight bag from the backseat.

"Cyril," Gibbs said with a nod.

"Thought you got home Friday."

"I did."

"Came by Saturday afternoon and you weren't home. Came by last evening and you still weren't home."

Gibbs shrugged. "I'm here now."

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

"You enjoy the vacation?"

"Yeah."

"Can I come in?"

"Yeah."

"You gonna say anything besides yeah all day?"

"Yeah."

Cyril laughed. "You're a funny guy, Gibbs."

"Yeah," Gibbs agreed but grinned a little.

"Holy crap, what'd you do? Buy the entire store?" he asked as Gibbs opened the trunk full of groceries.

"About," Gibbs said. "You gonna stand there all day or are you gonna help me carry them in?"

Cyril rolled his eyes but grabbed a few bags. "You must be a bear to work for. I don't know how Tony, Tim and Ellie have put up with you so long."

"They're a lot tougher than you."

"Probably," Cyril affably agreed. "But…Wow, you have vegetables in here!" Cyril announced as he set the bags down and glanced over at the bags in Gibbs' hand as he set them down.

Gibbs rolled his eyes.

Cyril pointed at the vegetables. "Gibbs, that's real food."

"Steak is real food!"

"Ah, you got that too. At least you're eating something besides steak now. Did Tony teach you about food groups?"

Gibbs ignored him as he walked back outside to get more and Cyril helped him. As Gibbs put away the perishable food, he glanced up at Cyril as the other man emptied bags with him. "Why are you here?"

"I can't come over just to see my favorite patient?"

Gibbs rolled his eyes. "You don't like me that much."

"I actually do like you, Gibbs, but yes, I have a reason for being here."

"You gonna stand there all day or are you going to tell me?"

"Maybe both."

"Get to the point."

"Wow! Vacation didn't change your attitude even a little."

Gibbs turned and glared. Actually, his attitude had changed a whole lot, he just still didn't have the patience for people who couldn't just get to the point. One of the reasons he liked Tony so well was because Tony knew he would tolerate so much and then he would get to the point because he knew Gibbs wouldn't tolerate beyond.

"Okay, okay," Cyril said with a sigh. "I got a phone call from Ducky yesterday morning. I don't know how you do it, Gibbs. Ducky is one of the most mild-mannered men I've ever met and you managed to piss him off. He's scary when he's pissed."

"Yeah," Gibbs agreed partly because it made him laugh to do it, not that he was going to show Cyril that yet, but also because he wanted to acknowledge that he knew Ducky was pissed and he intended to fix it.

"So, I was wondering…will you let me examine your chest wound so I can ease his mind?"

"Yeah," Gibbs said and headed toward the bathroom, indicating that Cyril should follow. He took off his shirt and stood there under the bright overhead light of the bathroom and patiently waited for Cyril to examine him.

"Looks good. Healed well. Your color is good too. You got some sun." Cyril palpated the wound site and asked about pain.

"Tender, but not bad. Doesn't hurt if you don't press on it."

"Noted. I think in another week I can clear you for desk duty."

Gibbs put his shirt back on but didn't respond.

"I thought you'd be happy about that."

Gibbs shrugged. "Gonna retire," he finally said.

"Damn, Gibbs. Didn't see that coming, the first weeks you were growling about going back to work."

"And you said my attitude hadn't changed."

"Does that have anything to do with why you didn't let Ducky examine you?"

Gibbs looked up then and met Cyril's gaze. "That's between Duck and me."

Cyril looked a little surprised. "Okay then," he said. Gibbs walked back to the kitchen to finish putting the groceries away. Cyril stood in the doorway out of the way.

"If you want to make yourself useful, make coffee," Gibbs said.

Cyril snorted. "You sure know how to make a guy feel welcome, Gibbs."

"Heads up," Gibbs said and tossed the coffee can and Cyril caught it.

They were silent a moment as Cyril made coffee and Gibbs finished his chore. Gibbs took down two mugs, inspected them for dust, rinsed them off and set them on the counter.

"Don't you have to go to work today?" Gibbs asked as he poured coffee for them after it finished brewing.

"Nah, I take Monday mornings off now, just stay late on Tuesdays. Helps my staff get the work week off to a good start without having to worry about what I'm doing."

Gibbs snorted. "When are you going asea again?"

"Next month, I think. You're healed well enough now that I feel comfortable leaving you for weeks at a time."

"Didn't have to stick around here for me," Gibbs said before drinking down half his coffee.

"Yeah, I did actually. You nearly died on my operating table. I was worried about you."

"I'm fine."

"I can see that. You seem less angry now than I've seen you since I met you. Did you swallow your stupid pride and apologize to Tony?"

"Yeah," Gibbs said again but suppressed the smile.

"Really?" At Gibbs nod, Cyril smiled. "Did he accept it?"

"Yeah." Gibbs thought about it leaving it at that but decided Cyril deserved a little better than that. "He and I are good now."

"You know he cares about you a lot, right?"

Gibbs sighed. "Yeah. I know."

"Do you care about him?"

Gibbs' icy glare could've frozen fire.

"Easy, Marine," Cyril said with a smile. "You stayed angry at him so long I wondered."

"You think I'd go on vacation with him if I didn't?" Gibbs bit out.

"Didn't it strike you as odd that he invited you on vacation? You're supposed to go on vacation to get away from your coworkers."

"I told you we're friends."

"Oh sure, I get that, but you usually don't go on vacations with friends. You usually go with significant others."

"He and Zoe broke up." He took another sip of his coffee. "He said he didn't want to go alone."

"Most guys would seek female companionship."

"Who said he didn't?" Gibbs had a sense where Cyril might be going with this line of commentary and he wasn't ready to open that can of worms, at least not quite yet.

"What about you? Did you seek female companionship too?"

Gibbs glared again.

Cyril grinned. "None of my business, got it."

Gibbs stopped glaring, drained the rest of his coffee and got up to pour another cup. He hated to admit it but he liked Cyril Taft, more than he let on. Cyril was more tactful usually, but he was still a straight shooter and he was learning how to manage him. He was no Tony in that respect, but he could hold his own. He reminded himself yet again that he was letting people in and this man did save him in more ways than one. He actually owed Cyril for saving his relationship with Tony because he'd forced him to pull his head out of his ass before he lost Tony forever. Still, he wasn't going to talk about his sex life with anyone except Tony.

"You're moving better, pain is better then?"

"About 1 to 2 out of 10," Gibbs admitted. "Was 4 after the long drive home."

"That's a significant improvement."

"Was relaxing."

"Glad to hear it." Cyril stood up. "It seems like you actually had a good time."

Gibbs nodded. "I really did. It…helped."

Cyril smiled warmly. "Glad to hear that, Gibbs. It's been rough the last few months though I think you brought a lot of that on yourself."

"Yeah," Gibbs said. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"Everything," Gibbs said with all the sincerity he could muster.

"You're welcome," Cyril said quietly. "All right, Gibbs. Thanks for the coffee even if I had to make it. I'm heading out. Mind if I stop in next Monday morning?"

"Call first. I might be busy."

Cyril snorted. "Take it easy, Gibbs."

Gibbs saluted him and he left. He grabbed his phone and called Vance.

"Hey Gibbs, how are you doing?" Vance said when he answered the phone.

"Doing good. I'm going to retire."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Gibbs said, smirking a little to himself. That seemed to be the word of the day. Tony would be amused. "What do I need to do?"

"Nothing yet. I'll let HR know so they can get the paperwork going. They'll contact you when they need you to fill in what they can't and sign them. How was your vacation?"

"Great."

Vance snorted. "Why Gibbs, that's almost chatty. You feeling better?"

"Yeah," Gibbs said again. "Let me know when the paperwork is ready." He hung up. That was as sociable as he was going to be right now. He had things to do.

He knew cleaning out Kelly's room was going to be the hardest part so he kept that for last. He cleaned out the spare room. He had old clothes in there he didn't use anymore and he went through them. There actually wasn't that much in there since he didn't really buy a lot of material things. He bought new clothes when he needed them, wore his old clothes until they were wore out and realized he'd neglected the task for a while, especially in light of his recent injuries. He stripped the bed and carefully lifted the mattress gauging his pain level as he did. The chest wound ached a little but it wasn't too bad and he carefully inspected the springs and frowned. They had fatigued over time and sleeping on this thing wouldn't be comfortable anymore. It needed to go. He knew the bed in Kelly's room would also need to go so he held off on calling a recycling center. He figured the bed in his bedroom would need to go as well. That's when he realized he never tested the bed in his and Shannon's bedroom. The lack of use over the years may have dried out the mattress the way it had Shannon's old clothes. He went downstairs and opened the door. The air was just starting to be a little stale from being closed up the last couple of days and he went in and sat down on the bed, then laid down. He heard a slight crunching sound and sighed. Dried out. The mattress would break down fast. That was going to go too.

He ran his hands down his face. He should've done this a long time ago. Why hadn't he done all this a long time ago? Could he really use the job as an excuse for not dealing with his ghosts? Deep down, he knew the answer was yes. He let them stop him from living. He knew better than anyone that facing the pain gets you through it faster then avoiding it but he'd been avoiding this since he died. Given, in Mexico, he had faced more of it and he had reached a point where he could let his team in a little more than before, but when he returned from Mexico, he never faced the ghosts living in his house. He closed them up, locked them in a room and walked away.

Now that he promised Kelly he would have good days again, he knew he had to exorcise those ghosts. Losing Kelly was always going to hurt like hell. He sensed she knew that but just didn't want him to be miserable about everything. Shannon wanted him to be happy too. He realized that's what they always wanted for him. It was only now that he felt he could let it happen. He'd found someone worth letting go of the past for. The fact that Tony acknowledged and cared about his pain over his girls made all the difference in the world. Tony wouldn't make him shut them out. He thought about the quilt again. He looked forward to showing it to Tony. It was old-fashioned, hand-made, and colorful, made out of scraps of Shannon's childhood clothes, blankets, and other materials that Shannon had loved. Gibbs had also been pleased to see the material of one of his flannel shirts that had wore out that Shannon's grandmother had procured from his father. He thought Tony would love it.