Gibbs sat there on the edge of his bed. He had not found himself in this position for quite some years. He felt stupid, he felt ashamed, he felt vulnerable and he felt guilty. Each of these feelings fought for dominance and surged through his body and mind, each competing to be the worst feeling in the world ever and then finally all deciding to band together in one final attempt to break him.
His temper had long been his Achilles heel and it had brought him into a lot of strife especially through his teenage years. Then being sent to his room had been a regular occurrence; he didn't think that would happen in his own house. He had thought he was beyond all of that, he thought he was in control but that was all a lie. He had just become better at masking it all.
He thought of Tony and of the little boy who had wormed his way into his heart. The little boy who despite what he had done had hugged him and loved him. Tony didn't look on him with disapproval, or with disappointment, he just loved him unconditionally, trusted him to do the right thing unconditionally and expected him to follow the same rules and receive the same consequences that he had been telling the kid about only days previously.
He couldn't be a hypocrite; he couldn't teach the kid about right and wrong and the consequences of his actions if he wasn't able to differentiate the line between the two and control himself. However that was the problem; he could see the line, and anger or not he had crossed it knowing he was doing so. What was it that made him cross that line? Love, fear of losing Tony, fear of letting Shannon down, fear of having to live his life in the knowledge that he had done nothing to try to save Tony. He had done it out of love; sure there was anger too, an anger that had removed the last vestiges of his self control, but he had done it for Tony.
His problem was that the very reasons he had done it had almost been the very reasons he might have lost everything and everyone he had done it for. He couldn't risk doing that again, not now that Tony was safe, not now that the kid relied on him and Shannon to keep him that way. He needed to be able to focus, to ensure that he didn't run off like an angry child at the next hurdle and there were bound to be more along the way.
Gibbs knew that there was only one way he was going to get over this feeling and that his father was offering to deliver it but how could he, a grown man with a wife (and now a child to care for) ask his father to deal with him as he had when he was a kid himself, a teenager. He knew that it would be painful, god it was going to be embarrassing but he knew that in the past it was the only way to assuage his guilt.
He went over to the closet and rummaged through the boxes that he'd stacked in there only a few months previously after he and Shannon had moved in. What he was looking for lay buried amidst a pile of stuff he had since he had last been at home with his dad and before leaving the for the marines. Pushing through all of the gathered detritus of his youth he found what he wanted wrapped in an old piece of blue velvet cloth.
He opened up the material and considered the item that lay within.
Gathering up every last bit of courage he could, he made his way downstairs into the still house, through the lounge and into the kitchen and out of the screen door at the back and down to the shed.
His approach was anything but swift. It took a good ten minutes for him to approach the shed door and another 5 for him to open it. His father watched his slow progression forward through the cobweb covered window. Proud of the decision his son was just about to make, whilst at the same time hating the prospect of what his son was going to expect him to do.
The shed door finally opened, creaking slowly much like the old bones and joints Jackson put into motion as he stood up from his perch to meet his errant son.
"So you've made your decision?" he asked as he cast an eye over the object in his sons hands.
"Yes Sir," answered Gibbs sounding a great deal surer than he truly felt.
"You kept that after all these years?" commented Jackson nodding towards the object Gibbs now held out to him.
"Couldn't bring myself to get rid of it," Gibbs felt himself almost let out a nervous chuckle, "guess me and it spent a lot of time together, almost feel as if it became a part of me."
"Well we all went on a few outings to the woodshed together," chuckled Jackson taking it from his son and turning it over in his hands.
The two stood there for a few silent moments before Jackson asked, "are you sure about this?"
"Yes Sir," answered Gibbs, "I can't do what I need to do for my family if I have to fight the perpetual guilt and shame, I need to feel as if I've paid for it properly, like when I was a kid."
"I'm proud of you Leroy," stated Jackson, "more than you can imagine. It takes a real man to do this, true courage and it tells me you are ready to be like a father to that little boy."
"Where do you want me Dad?" asked Gibbs just wanting to now get this over and done with.
"Come here son," Jackson beckoned Gibbs to him, kissed him on the forehead and then placing his left foot onto a low step stool guided his son over his knee.
Taking a deep breath to steady himself and placing a comforting hand in the middle of his boys lower back he raised the wooden paddle above the jean clad backside.