Title: Made to be Broken 25 – Aliyah
Author: Jo. R (driftingatdusk)
Rating: FR-15
Pairing: Abby/Gibbs, past Gibbs/other females
Category: Post-ep, Angst, Romance
Spoilers: Aliyah
Summary: Some rules are made to be broken.
****
Few things scared Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Few things wore him down and left him broken. He was a stronger man than that, had overcome so much to be the man he was. One of the ways he achieved that was to not let people get close to them, to shut them out and keep them at a distance so when he lost them – and he was certain that he inevitably would – it wouldn't hurt as much.
Letting Abby Sciuto through those defences had maybe been a mistake on his part, a miscalculation eleven years ago when she'd first turned those big green eyes on him, bright with fury, and snapped that she had one pair of hands, Goddamn it, and she'd get to his evidence when she could.
He'd spent half of the night trying to help her, invariably getting in her way and being banned from the lab and the other half keeping her supplied with caffeine to keep her going. If he remembered right, too, he'd bought her her first ever Caf-Pow that morning as a thank you, a treat for doing what he considered to be a good job under exceptional circumstances.
Doctor Donald 'Ducky' Mallard had smirked at him when he found out. The slightly older man, one of the few he'd actually let himself care about to call a friend at the time, had shook his head and wondered what it was about the black-haired Forensic Specialist that kept Gibbs from snapping right back.
Abby had been the first to truly work her way into his heart. He'd loved his ex-wives in their own way, cared for them all. He'd loved Jenny, would've been willing to try to love her the way she deserved if she'd have stayed. With Abby, it hadn't been his choice. It hadn't been a sudden thing, he hadn't woken up one more with the realisation that there was something special about this woman; it'd been slow and sweet and gradual and had happened without him really being aware of it until he'd realised that his life was so much better, so much brighter with her in it.
But part of him, a tiny part, almost wished it hadn't happened.
If he hadn't let Abby in, if she wasn't so warm and caring and kind and everything he loved about her and wouldn't want to change, would the others have come to mean so much? Was she the catalyst that let the others matter?
It was a thought that stayed with him on the plane ride home from Tel Aviv. A thought that came to him every time he looked over at Tony and saw the pain the younger agent couldn't quite hide, pain that reverberated somewhere inside him.
It was a thought that came to him every time he thought of Ziva, of how he'd left her behind to an uncertain fate.
It was a thought that came to him when he pictured having to tell the others waiting at home -McGee, Ducky, Abby – that Ziva wasn't coming back.
Did it hurt so much because he'd let himself be happy? Because he'd healed more in the last year than he had done in the eighteen since Shannon and Kelly's deaths?
Because he didn't deserve it?
The plane touched down but he barely felt the landing. He listened to Director Vance make his calls in the car, his heart constricting when the Director took a moment away from dealing with business matters to call his wife and children and tell them he was okay. His fingers itched to call Abby, to tell her he was okay.
But to do that would be a lie.
****
Abby came home just minutes after Ducky had left. He wondered first if they'd time it that way.
Then he wondered when he'd come to think of his house as being Abby's home, too.
He waited for the shouting, the crying, the angry claims that it was all his fault and he'd made the wrong decision. He waited on having to correct her like he'd had Ducky, on having to explain that Ziva had made the decision herself when she'd forced him to choose between herself and Tony.
While he'd always been able to see the vulnerability in Ziva and shared with her the secret of Ari's true killer, Tony had been his for longer. Tony, who'd grown so much but still had things to learn, Tony who had a vulnerable side, too, beneath the playboy, happy-go-lucky person he liked to portray.
She didn't speak, though, and he almost found he was disappointed by that.
Almost, because what she did do made him feel guilty about his thoughts about her being to blame for the ache in his chest before even the guilt was washed away.
She came up behind him and put her arms around him, resting her forehead against his back between his shoulder blades.
Her arms trembled and he felt the warmth of her tears through his t-shirt.
Turning, the knowledge that she was hurting almost eclipsing what he himself felt, Gibbs took her in his arms, a hand moving to the back of her head as he cradled her close.
He gave himself a mental head-slap for his earlier thoughts and tightened his arms around her, closing his eyes against the uncomfortable sting there.
"She'll come back, won't she?" Abby asked a long time later, curled up against him in the arm chair of the living room. She lifted her tear-stained face up to his, her eyes pleading with him. "She'll realise we love her and she belongs here and she'll come back?"
Gibbs shook his head, unable to answer. Unable to lie. He touched her face tenderly, his hand cupping her cheek. "I hope so, Abs" he said eventually, meaning it. "I really hope so."
****
End.
Author's Note: Yes, this series will be continued throughout season seven. I've got ideas for every ep up until 'Ignition' and I'm sure something will come to me for 'Flesh and Blood' as soon as I see it, too :)