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Prompt #28: Connection - They had something special, Gibbs thought. Something he had with Jenny, once upon a time.

Words: 510


Gibbs prided himself on being able to read and know people pretty damn well. To combat situations that he knows are dangerous and unavoidable, he fashioned The Rules. In the words of his first love and wife Shannon, "Everyone needs a code they can live by."

For the wayward souls who find their way into his life and under his wing, he teaches them these Rules. Not only because knowing them makes them easier to work with, but because it would help them deal with those same inevitable situations that their lives as NCIS agents throw at them. They learn to honor and commit to those Rules just as rigorously as he does.

Gibbs's most important Rule is Rule 12: "Never date a coworker." It's ironclad. It's absolute.

It's going to get completely blown away by Tony and Ziva one day. He sees the signs. They're actually quite obvious, once you know what to look for.

It's almost like what happened with him and Jenny. They met, and almost instantly, there was chemistry. Volatile chemistry. They worked well together, meshed together. He taught her everything he knew, and she managed to teach him a couple things as well.

Which is why Rule 12 was created. They got close, much too close, and it ended bad. They parted with unresolved feelings, and Gibbs never wanted anyone to have that particular type of heartache hell in them.

He cut McGee and Abby some slack because, let's face it, McGee wasn't about to last very long with Abby. She was too...much for him. When they did part, they stayed friends. Good friends. So Gibbs never pursued the matter. Not even when McGee started getting the guts and the balls to be tougher than before, tough enough to protect himself and those he cared about, and when he and Abby started sharing those moments again...

But that's another story.

Tony and Ziva were Gibbs and Jenny, just younger and much, much different. Gibbs had not been a disinherited playboy who'd slept his way through a good portion of D.C.'s hottest women; Jenny had not been a cold-blooded assassin raised by the director of a very powerful organization of killers and spies. Individually, they were completely different.

Paired up? It was like looking into the past.

Tony tried to guide, while Ziva tried to overachieve. He flirted, she flirted back. They had each other's backs, both on the job and off. They got each other on a deeper level than anybody, including thier own parents. It was the type of connection that inevitably led to a deeper relationship. But as Gibbs had learned the hard way, such relationships could kill a steady partnership.

But then again, Tony and Ziva aren't him and Jenny. Maybe they'd have a different outcome.

However, Rule 12 still stood. "Never date a coworker."

They'd just have to convince him otherwise.


Gibbs would not make it easy for them. Overprotective father, much?

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