Chapter 12: Parents evening
It was the evening of Rory's first parent evening for her new school. Rory had previous parents evenings, so it wasn't as if this was a new phenomenon however this parents evening meant her parents were going to be forced together for a solid 15 minutes in very close proximity, and that was something that had not happened for a while. At boarding school her teachers would have video call parents evenings with her parents, separately, and it worked. Things were different now, she was back in America, her parents were attending together, and Rory wasn't quite sure if they would be able to spend a whole 15 minutes not arguing. Ever since her milkshake outing with Jay her parents fighting had increased to the point they were no longer talking. If her dad was dropping her off at her mom's he didn't even get out of the car anymore, Ziva had said things were tense at work and Abby had said that she was worried about her 'el jefe' because he didn't seem himself.
"Okay so I should be back in an hour." Jenny said walking into the living room fastening an earring into her ear. "You sure you're going to be okay alone?" Jenny asked and Rory rolled her eyes.
"Mom I am legit never alone you are taking your protection detail with you meaning there will be a detail stationed outside the door, I know that." Jenny leant down and kissed her daughter on the side of her head.
"Well okay, there is left over pasta in the fridge, you didn't want dinner." Jenny said looking at her daughter sceptically.
"I had a big snack at the mall with the girls." Rory said brushing off her mom's concerns. Jenny nodded and began to walk towards the door. "Mom," Rory called, and Jenny turned to her. "Think you and dad can make it out of the school gates before you start to argue?" Rory asked half mockingly and half serious.
Jenny laughed, "I promise to not start something Aurora , but your father, well his behaviour is up to him." Rory's head hit the pillow and she groaned; she was never going to hear the end of it if her parents were caught having one of their usual fights on school grounds. Jenny pressed a kiss to her daughters head, grabbed her bag and headed out the door.
When her detail walked her to the door Jenny saw Gibbs leaning against the wall. "Are you carrying?" She asked him and he cocked an eyebrow at her, studying her for a moment, "I would rather not bring my detail in with me." Gibbs nodded and opened his jacket to show Melvin and Stan he was carrying.
Jenny and Gibbs walked into the school and sat down in silence, they had a fight during the week and things were still frosty between the parents. Surprisingly Gibbs broke the silence for once, "Rory have a good week at school, haven't really spoke much to her this week she's been dodging my calls." Jenny offered Gibbs a soft smile, Rory had been keeping both of her parents at arm's length and it was causing a toll on both Jenny and Gibbs.
"She spent the night with Ziva and after that she seemed slightly better, she had a day with the girls at the mall this afternoon, so she bought some new shoes and I think that helped." Jenny laughed and Gibbs smirked.
"Like mother like daughter." Gibbs retorted and before Jenny could fire back her retort the guidance counsellor opened the door.
"Parents for Aurora Joy Shepard-Gibbs?" She asked and Jenny and Gibbs both stood and followed the guidance counsellor into the office. "So first I would just like to say Rory is such an asset to our school, she has settled in well according to all of her teachers." Jenny smirked to herself, of course her daughter was doing well. "Academically she is ahead of her classmates in languages and science, she spent time in Europe yes?"
"We lived in Paris for about a year, so she went to a bilingual school" Jenny said.
"Well she is being pushed so please don't worry about that, she's joined the glee club and doing well," the guidance counsellor began to trail off and Jenny and Gibbs looked at each other and then back to the counsellor.
"There is something you aren't saying, and we would appreciate it if you gave it to us straight." Gibbs said gruffly and Jenny shot him a look.
"Well I don't know if at home you have noticed a change in Rory's behaviour?" Jenny narrowed her eyes at the counsellor, Rory was a good kid, she behaved well and there hadn't been much change. "Well obviously moving from boarding school back home and splitting time with divorced parents can be an adjustment, and I do think it's great that you've agreed to Rory having some counselling but changes at home ca-"
"Excuse me!" Gibbs interrupted, "our daughter does NOT need counselling." He growled and the guidance counsellor began to sit further back, intimidated by the famous Gibbs stare.
"What Rory's dad means to say is could you maybe elaborate as to why you believe Rory need counselling and how we approved this?" Jenny asked more calmly, forever the politician. Gibbs muttered something under his breath and Jenny shot him a sharp look, this was not how she wanted this evening to go.
"Well," she said taking a deep breath, "Rory has been having some concentration issues when in class some days and has had a few panic attack moments in class." Jenny sat their dumbfounded surely not her little girl. "After speaking with some teachers, it became apparent Rory has been struggling with the amount of fighting going on at home." Jenny could feel Gibbs tense up beside her. They had been fighting a lot, but they thought they had managed to shield Rory from that, evidently not. "and with Mr Gibbs signing the permission form."
Jenny snapped her head round and faced Gibbs, "you signed that without my permission." She hissed at him, "you knew about this."
"I didn't know a damned thing about it! I didn't sign any counselling permission slip, only thing I signed was some piece of paper for music class that she said you had already seen!" Gibbs shouted back and the counsellor slid the piece of paper forward and Gibbs realised Rory had lied about what the piece of paper had been for. "Well she lied about what it was!"
"This is just so goddamn typical of you Jethro," Jenny huffed, "if you had any communication skills at all then we could have discussed the note and realised that it wasn't what you thought it was, but no Leroy Jethro Gibbs does not do communication!"
"I don't do communication?" Gibbs scoffed, "maybe if you didn't pick a fight with me every time I try and talk to you Jen we would be able to communicate better for once-"
"Okay I think that's enough of that," the guidance counsellor interrupted, and Jenny's cheeks were tinted red, embarrassed for losing her demeanour in front of a complete stranger. "I think it is evident that there is a communication breakdown in the family and maybe the pair of you speaking to someone would help with Rory's issues."
Gibbs stood up and his chair flew backwards at the force, "I do not need to see some shrink and neither does my child, tear that slip up she isn't going." He said as he stormed out of the room.
Jenny looked at the chair where Gibbs was just sat with sheer shock on her face, turning back to the guidance counsellor she smiled politely. "I will have a discussion with Rory and her father, and we will get back to you on what we decide to do." Jenny shook the ladies hand, "thank you for your time." Jenny stormed down the hall spotting Gibbs out the corner of her eye, "do not speak to me right now Jethro." She hissed at him as she got outside the school building.
"I will give you a ride back we can talk to Rory about-"
"Do not even think about coming near the house tonight Jethro." Jenny hissed, "the way you acted in there was petulant and pathetic, I will discuss things with Rory, and you can come over Sunday to talk as a family, but you need to calm down." Jenny narrowed her eyes at him, "I won't have that anger and disrespect around Rory if she is struggling Jethro." With that Jenny hopped into the back of her town car and left Gibbs standing alone.
Jenny was sat in the back of her car staring at her house, "everything okay ma'am?" Melvin asked shaking Jenny out of her thoughts.
She gathered her pocket book and smiled, "Yes sorry Melvin it has been a long day, I will be in for the evening why don't you get home." Jenny barely heard his thank you as she headed up the steps and into her Georgetown home. Rory was sat watching Gilmore girls on the couch cuddled up with a blanket.
Jenny sat down and played with her daughters hair and Rory turned her head to face her mom. "Everything go okay?" Rory asked sceptically, feeling the tension radiating off of her mother.
Jenny nodded, "yes, you're one bright cookie Aurora Joy, you have some dinner?"
"Yeah had the left over pasta." Jenny pressed a kiss to her daughters hair.
"Okay, I'm going to make a coffee, want a hot chocolate?" Rory shook her head and Jenny walked into the kitchen. Jenny went to throw one of the coffee filters in the bin, but it was full. Jenny rolled her eyes, how had it managed to get so full of kitchen Roll, Noemi would have taken it out before she left.
There was a feeling, maybe it was the gut feelings she had inherited from her old partner, the father of her child or maybe it was her mother's intuition, but Jenny felt the need to dig through the trash. Jenny found the thrown out pasta that Rory had said she had eating as well as her lunch she should have taken to school. Jenny allowed a few tears to escape from her eyes before she brushed them away, straightened herself up and hit speed dial number one. "Our daughter is not okay Jethro, meet me at the house tomorrow at 7am, I want us to calmly discuss things before she wakes up and we talk to her." She chokes out trying to hold her tears back.
"Okay Jen, see you in the morning."
Neither Jenny nor Gibbs slept at all that night. Jenny had spent the first few hours tossing and turning trying to get some sleep, after giving up she spent the whole night researching possible different diagnoses about what could be going on with her daughter. This just stressed Jenny out more as she was reading papers on the effects childhood trauma and divorce has on them later on in life. Gibbs and herself may have never been married and divorced but they sure as hell had been playing that role pretty well. Gibbs spent the whole night working on his boat, not that it was relaxing him any, he kept getting splinters and hammering his thumb, his burboun wasn't much solace either.
It was 7am on the dot when Gibbs knocked on Jenny's front door 2 cups of coffee in hand, it felt weird to knock, in years gone by he would just walk in, no need to knock. Gibbs was flashing back to a time when they were sneaking around back in the day, Rory was at camp and he let himself in and threw himself onto Jenny' bed. Gibbs couldn't take his eyes off of her when she opened the door, the way the jeans showed off her toned legs and the blouse that showed enough cleavage to make his mouth dry.
"My eyes are up here Jethro," Jenny said with a smirk, stepping aside to let Gibbs in, he hands her a coffee and she sighs inhaling the scent. "Thank you, let's go into the kitchen." Gibbs sat himself down at the breakfast bar and began to drink his coffee.
"Take it you didn't sleep either." He stated, he could tell from the dark circles forming under her eyes and the way she was inhaling the coffee.
"She's been hiding and throwing out food Jethro," Jenny blurted out and Gibbs just looked stunned. "I noticed she was eating less but I don't know I just thought it was normal but I was taking the trash out and the dinner she said she ate was in the trash with her lunch and I phoned Noemi and turns out she's been telling her she is eating with me and telling me she's already ate." The damn broke and the tears she had been trying to hold in escaped down her cheeks. "Jethro how did we not know she was struggling."
Gibbs pulled Jenny into his lap and help her while she cried, pressing a kiss into her head. "She's gonna be okay Jen," he grabbed her chin and lifted it, so they looked into each other's eyes. "We are going to talk to her, we are going to get through it together because we are her parents." Jenny nodded and inched closer to his face when Rory cleared her throat and they jumped a part.
"What's going on, is everything okay?" Rory asked sceptically, it wasn't often she saw her parents like this, actually she didn't think she had ever seen her parents like this, her mom with tears streaming down her face and her dad who just looked broken.
"Let's go sit down in the living room Ror," Gibbs said getting up off of his seat.
"No tell me what's going on." Rory said defiantly crossing her arms.
"The guidance counsellor told us about the counselling Rory." Jenny said and Rory raced out of the room.
Gibbs turned to Jenny, "well I think that went well." Jenny rolled her eyes and chased her daughter up the stairs Gibbs hot on her heels.
Jenny lightly knocked on Rory's bedroom door inching it open to see her daughter curled up under a blanket on her bed. "Go away," she snuffles, and Jenny sat down on the bed beside her.
"We can't do that Ror bear, so your dad and I, we are going to sit here until you are ready to talk to us, and we will listen, no judgement." Jenny said shooting Gibbs a warning look as he sat on Rory's desk chair.
They sat there for a while, Jenny stroking Rory's hair while she shook, Gibbs had moved the chair closer so he could be beside her head. "I just got a bit overwhelmed when I came home," a tiny voice said. Jenny had never seen Rory look and sound so young in a very long time. "I was trying to make friends and jumping back and forward between different houses and there was always so much fighting and I felt like it was all my fault that maybe if I stayed away in London you guys wouldn't fight so much all the time." Jenny stroked Rory's hair as she choked out some sobs, her brain and her heart fighting with each other about what to stay next.
"Listen Aurora Joy, your dad and I, well our relationship is complicated, and we fight because well we both are stubborn and pig headed, and I am so sorry that you have been caught in the middle of all of this. We both love you and that will never change no matter what. We are so happy that you're home with us."
"I just want you to be happy Ror, that all I ever want. Your mom and I haven't always been the best at being able to agree on how to handle things, but we are always on your side." Rory took her dads hand and squeezed it tightly. "Do you, I uh," Gibbs stuttered over his words and Jenny gave him a puzzled look. "Do you feel going to speak to someone is going to help you start to feel better?" He asked softly, therapy wasn't for him, he was pretty sure he didn't believe in it but if it's what Rory needed he would make sure she could get it.
"Yeah," Rory squeaked out and Gibbs pressed a kiss to her head.
"Well them your mom and I are going to work out how we can get you the best help possible okay, you can go talk to the school one but maybe we can find one who specialises in this area." He suggested almost unsure he was saying and doing the right thing until Jenny reached over and put her hand in his and looked him dead in the eye.
"I think that's the best idea your dad has ever had."