Chapter Twenty-Five: Afterward
Thanks, of course, to my wonderful beta, Otrame.
A second thank you to everyone who read, reviewed, favourited this piece. I'm only writing one more story in for NCIS, the finale to the Seelie Court trilogy (beginning with Impractically Magic), and then I'm leaving the fandom for good. For those of you who aren't following that piece, it's been an absolute blast to chat to and know all of you, and I hope we meet again one day. Thank you everyone!
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There's a long stretch of time when Gibbs does a double take every time he walks into his kitchen in the morning.
There's a long time when, for a split second every morning, he hears a child laughing and has to remind himself what year it is.
There's a long stretch of time when things aren't perfect, not by a long shot, but they're pretty damn good.
Gibbs treasures every damn minute of it.
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They dance around each other for a while.
It's strange. Going from living on his own, to basically living with Kate, to being back on his own but with a kid in tow, all in the space of three years… it didn't really prepare him for living in a home. An actual home.
Not an apartment he keeps carefully impersonal to remind himself that everything is temporary.
Not a couch in Kate's living room to remind himself that he's extraneous.
Not a run-down, derelict apartment in the shadiest corners of random cities to hunker down in and flinch at every noise. There's no reminder of being hunted here.
An honest to god home with Bea in her own room that Gibbs helps her paint and a bookcase with actual books tucked alongside Tony's slowly regrowing DVD collection. Fitz has a place in front of the fire, with Kali by her side. Bea goes to playgroup. Goes to kindy. She'll be in school eventually, not long now.
A home with Gibbs who doesn't push him. They sleep in the same bed but if they touch in the night, it's fleeting. They share breakfast together but when Gibbs kisses him, it's shy and over far too soon.
There's a photo of Kate on the mantel, right next to Shannon and Kelly.
And one day Tony wants to be pushed.
"It's been three months," he says, closing the bedroom door beside him and stripping his shirt off. He sees Gibbs twitch when he throws it over the nearby chair. Gibbs is a folder, not a thrower.
Yeah, it's a home with fights too, and they're nowhere near as satisfying as the ones with Kate since Gibbs doesn't bite back and there's no angry sex after.
"Yeah it has," Gibbs says, flicking the page of his book and peering at him over the top of his glasses. "Good to see Bea's been teaching you how to tell time."
"It's been three months since I moved in. Since we moved in." Tony slides onto the bed. There's a thunk at the door as Fitz walks into it, clearly not expecting it to be shut. He hears her muttering angrily, Kali's soft laugh, them padding away. "You know…" He brings his mouth flush with Gibbs', closing his eyes and just hovering there. "You don't have to tiptoe around me."
Gibbs breaks the moment, tilting his head back and claiming Tony in a kiss that's just as hungry as Tony expected. His glasses bump Tony's nose, earning a huff of irritation from the other man as he pulls them off and tosses them onto the bedside table.
"Not tiptoeing, DiNozzo," he says as Tony slides into the bed next to him and continues exploring with his mouth, nipping at his jaw, his throat, his shoulder. "All you had to do was ask."
"Okay," Tony says, voice muffled by the warm skin he's pressed against. "I'm asking."
"It's about damn time."
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Tim McGee has spent his life being underestimated. People assume things about him.
They see his hobbies and they assume he's nothing more than a geek. They see his smile and his reservedness and they underestimate his ability to do his job. They see his daemon and they assume so much more.
Chameleons. Shy. Harmless. Easily hidden. Oh, your daemon is male? Gay. Faggot. Freak.
They rarely think 'adaptable.'
They'd be right if they did.
He's under his desk, arguing with Chitta in a low voice over which of the connections of his desktop is fried, when a shadow falls over his legs.
"Very Special Agent Timothy McGawky," says the last voice Tim had expected to hear in the NCIS bullpen again. "Look at you, all dusty. Good to know things never change."
Tim sticks his head out from under the desk, Chitta on his shoulder, and his daemon promptly cops a long, wet tongue to the side of his head.
"Hi, Chitterino," Fitz says, wagging her tail madly. "Did you miss us?"
"Are you back?" Tim asks, stupidly perhaps, but Tony's wearing jeans and a polo and a grin that Tim is only just starting to realize he's missed. The endless rotation of replacements after Langer finally walked out was starting to grate on them all. "Like, back back? For good back?"
Tony shrugs. "Maybe. You'll be the probie again." He winks.
Tim stands up and he can feel the grin trying to break through. He doesn't give in though. "We'd be glad to have you, Tony," he says, honestly. "But I'm not a probie anymore."
Tony examines him.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "You're not, are you?"
Gibbs lets the back of his hand swipe across the back of Tony's head as he strides past. Tony doesn't even flinch. "Hasn't been for a long time," he says without expression in his voice. "Director wants you, DiNozzo. Move your ass. You're on my clock now."
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Abby opens her door to find Tony pouting.
It's always a gift to find Tony pouting, he manages to pull the look off so well. Gibbs is a damn lucky man, damn lucky.
Then again, Tony is too… she's not averse to a bit of silver fox herself.
Anyway.
"She said that?" Abby asks Tony, not because she didn't hear him, but because this is the most ego-fulfilling thing she's heard all week. And with Timmy around, she hears a lot of ego-fulfilling things. It's really not hard to make that particular compliment canary sing. "Say again what she said."
Tony scowls, and Fitz picks up on the pouting. Abby fights the urge to dawww at the sad looking doggie. "She said," he mutters. "That career day is for 'interesting' jobs."
Abby squeaks. "And?"
"And… since I'm not 'interesting', she would like someone slightly more…"
"Clever? Talented? Sciency? Goth?"
"… Yes."
This is the best thing ever. Wait. "What about Gibbs?"
Surely Bea couldn't call Gibbs uninteresting.
Tony smirks. "Tarred with the same brush. Regulated to the 'boring' box along with me and Tim and Ziva."
Abby pats him on the shoulder, consolingly. "It's okay, Tony. I bet Gibbs handled it a lot better than you did as well."
"I'm not boring," Tony mumbles, almost inaudible.
Still. Gibbs or not Gibbs, this is wonderful.
Abby has always loved school.
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Ziva David doesn't have a whole lot of experience with 'family'.
But she is learning.
"Pot… luck," she says slowly, eyes scanning the bat-afflicted invitation the excitable Abby has just thrust at her over her desk. "You would like me to bring a pot?"
"No, Ziva, gosh. Don't you people have dinner parties in Israel?" Abby beams, helping Mort climb onto her shoulder without slipping off the slick surface of the leather jacket she is wearing.
"Not with pots. Not generally."
It takes Abby an hour to get to the end of her explanation of what turns out to be a very simple concept, but the end result is Ziva stepping into Gibbs' home with a covered plate of falafel and Farif strolling uneasily by her side.
His uneasiness is understandable. Last time she came to one of Abby's 'dinners', somebody attempted to Velcro an amusing hat to his head. Ziva is pretty sure it was Mort.
She would not admit it, but she was almost disappointed that they failed.
There is a moment, even after all these years, when she stands on the sidelines looking in at the happy crowd of her workmates, and she is not entirely sure of how to become a part of that crowd.
"Auntie Ziva!" A small hand grabs hers, no hesitation in the bright smile that beams up at her. "I have to read a book at school, and it has Farif in it!"
"Does it?" Ziva asks, allowing herself to be tugged across the room. Lex bounds over, ducking through Farif's legs as a hare before shifting and settling as a fluffy-coated cheetah cub, purring loudly. "Sounds like a wonderful book."
"Oh it is!" Lex declares. "I'm going to be a cheetah when I settle, for sure."
"Last week you were going to be a fox," Bea says, looking down at him.
"Was not. I was always going to be a cheetah!"
"Was too!"
"Okay, lets not drag 'Auntie' Ziva into another one of your endless arguments," Tony says, appearing at her side and rescuing her arm from Bea's sticky grip. "Go find the book and bring it here. Lex, don't sass her. Bea, don't… just don't. Whatever it is you're thinking of doing."
"It is okay, Tony," Ziva says, smiling. "I do not mind."
She doubts she ever will.
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The week before Bea's sixth birthday, Gibbs comes home and Senior is standing on his porch.
"They're not home for another hour," he says in lieu of greeting, his discomfort with the man still high. "Some show Tony wanted to see." Kali sniffs and ignores them both, turning her head away.
"I know," Senior says quietly, holding up a small wrapped present. "Brought something for you to give her from me."
Gibbs pauses. He doesn't take the box, not right away. "Could wait and give it to her yourself."
Senior shakes his head slowly, and Gibbs knows what this is.
He takes the box.
"Tony's never going to forgive you for this," he warns the older man. "You know him. He doesn't take well to being walked away from."
"No, you're right," Senior replies. His bird daemon shrinks into his collar, beak downturned. "He prefers to be the one walking away. Which he should have, years ago. I'm not good for them."
Gibbs watches him leave, shoulders stubbornly upright. "Whatever mess you're in, Mr. DiNozzo," he calls after him. "We'll help you."
The man pauses with his hand on his car door handle. "Why? You don't like me. I would have taken Elizabeth from you in a heartbeat and never given you another thought. And if you think I'm at all happy with this… thing… you have going with my son..."
"This thing?" Gibbs says, his voice ice, and Senior's mouth twitches unhappily. "Is our family. Of which you're… unhappily… a part of. And we will help you. You thought you'd lost him once. Have you forgotten that fear?"
There's a moment when maybe he might have taken the offer.
Unlike his son, the father never learnt that it's okay to lean on others.
"No," Senior says, and gets in the car.
He doesn't say goodbye, and when Gibbs gives the box to Tony, his face says everything.
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He steps out of the car and the wind buffets him. He can see three familiar figures standing in the distance, at unfamiliar graves.
"Come along, Netta," he chides his daemon, as she expresses her displeasure at the cold air. "Jethro didn't ask us along to be polite. He wants us here."
The walk is short but still leaves them both panting, the rise of the hill sharp enough to really get the muscles working. Ah well. Good for the heart, good for the soul, that's what Ducky always says.
He's pretty sure Netta would disagree.
Anthony is hanging back, of course. He watches the two by the graves, his face solemn, but he's not yet firm enough in his surety of Jethro's heart to step forward and join them. He always could be silly.
"Anthony," Ducky greets him. Fitzperte waves her tail in a similar fashion to Anthony's half-hand-wave, beaming at seeing the porcupine ambling up the hill towards them. "We're not too late, are we?"
"No," Anthony says quietly. "Just in time. Bea wanted you to come. She said it was your idea in the first place."
"Well, actually, using candles for mourning was far before my time," Ducky begins, but Netta clears her throat. He trails off, smiling. "A story for another time, perhaps. For now, the purpose we're here for…"
He walks forward, Anthony trailing behind. Jethro is crouched, his fingers pressed against the thick lawn covering the smaller of the graves. Elizabeth stands by his side, her face serious with the weight of the moment. Ahlexus is similarly sombre; a rangy hound today that sits neatly beside her with his muzzle turned against the wind.
Ducky wonders how long it has been since Jethro has been here.
He wonders if he would have come at all if Elizabeth hadn't asked him to.
They light the candles in glasses to shelter them from the wind, passing them between them. Elizabeth holds Anthony's hand. She smiles at Jethro.
"You should go first," she says, nudging him gently, and Ducky notes suddenly that at some point the girl has gotten rather tall. As is the way with children, he supposes. They do have a tendency to grow.
He does almost wish she'd stop though. It's odd to see her at Jethro's elbow in height, and odder still to think she'll be taller yet until she's done.
There's an odd habit of people to ascribe to children the qualities of their parents, as though they are incapable of forming no virtues of their own without parental influence. Ducky tries to avoid this.
It is hard, however, when he can see Anthony's influence in her smile, and Caitlin in the spark of stubbornness in her eyes.
It's even harder when she stands like Jethro, straight-backed and certain.
Jethro takes a deep breath. Ducky holds his own and waits.
He's not unaware of the step they're taking here. This is a man drowning in his past finally allowing himself to climb free of the waves.
"Shannon," Jethro says finally, placing the candle on the grave. "It's been a while…"
He's not much of a talker, their Jethro, but when the time is right, he almost always knows what to say.
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As they walk from the graveyard, Bea is thoughtful.
She lets Daddy walk ahead with Ducky, and falls back by Leroy's side. He slows his pace to match hers, his expression impossible to understand. One day she'll get better at reading his facial expressions. Daddy is pretty good at it.
She assumes it comes with practice. Probably more practice than she's had time for yet. Maybe when she's eleven it will be easier.
"You must miss her," she says, quietly because this kinda hurts, a little. The thought of him losing his Kelly. It's hard to properly imagine, until she thinks of Daddy losing her, and that hurts way too much. "Kelly, I mean. Did coming here… did it help?"
Leroy doesn't answer. Sometimes he doesn't. She does what Daddy does, and just lets it go. He'll answer her when he's good and ready, and not before.
"I'm sorry you lost your daughter," she says finally, awkwardly, because that's what people say when someone dies, and she is sorry. "And Shannon as well." That one is harder to be sorry for because one part of her wishes Shannon is here so Leroy can't be sad about it anymore, and the other part points out that if she is here, than maybe her and Daddy wouldn't be. At least, not with Leroy anyway.
"Didn't lose my daughter," Leroy says eventually, and he stops and looks at her with that really sharp kinda looking, like Kali when she's hunting mice, or Fitz when she wants a biscuit. "I'm still her dad, no matter what." His mouth twitches and it's practically a shout of joy. "Only difference is now I got two daughters, instead of one. And I'm glad of it."
Oh.
Oh.
She smiles and takes his hand.
They walk the last stretch to the car together.
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It was almost like the end of a long story.
In the years to come, Leroy Gibbs would become very familiar with stories.
An ex-marine walks into a house that hasn't been a home for a long time, and finds it not empty. There's a cop from Baltimore, the treasured memories of those passed, and a child with arms held out to him. Gibbs isn't lonely.
What happens next is the after.
What happens next is the rest of their lives.