Hey- sorry it took so long to do something with this. I couldn't figure out how Gibbs and Lisa's first meeting should go and I got stuck. So here is a re write of the original story. I added more detail and feeling to the chap in an effort to...make it seem more real, I guess.
Hoping that ya'll enjoy the changes. I'm going to try and make some more chapters while I can to get the story rolling.
The funeral and the immediate trip afterwards were both for a lack of a better word...chaotic.
Not that she had managed to pay that much attention to either one. She was...understandably numb to what was going on around her. After all, burying one's mother was difficult. Especially for a twelve year old kid with no known (to her anyways) relatives.
Luckily, her mom's lawyer had managed to discuss everything about what was to be done with her before she had passed on. So he knew and understood what had to be done once she'd been laid to rest.
The moment that the funeral was over- she vaguely recalled some people giving her hugs and telling her that everything would be fine. Before she was dragged off to a car and loaded into it with a few bags filled with her meager belongings.
After all, her mother's ex-husband Erin wasn't going to take her in. and frankly, she's be suspicious of him if he did.
Mostly because he was an abusive jerk that had delighted in causing trouble for her and knocking her around for the last six months or so of being married to her mom. Why? She didn't know.
She'd never really done anything to the guy to cause him to have a strong dislike of her. He just did.
In fact one of the reasons that her mom had divorced the guy was because she'd come home to find him trying to choke her. Up until then, her mom hadn't been paying any attention to the weird bruises and stuff that would pop up on her every other week or so.
She couldn't exactly blame her though, she'd been recently diagnosed with a terminal illness and had been trying to sort herself and her affairs out while she could. So it was only natural that she'd missed some stuff that was going on. Or at least that was what she firmly believed anyways.
It was easier to say that her mom hadn't known anything about Erin hurting her since she really wanted to believe that her mom didn't purposefully turn a blind eye to her being abused for months and months on end.
Huffing to herself, she dug through one of her bags to her MP3 player in the hopes that some music might help to occupy her mind a bit and distract her. Maybe if she listened to something upbeat it might distract her from her current situation since no one had bothered to tell her anything.
And she was sort of worried at the moment that she was going to end up in foster care.
"Lisa?" The driver said, trying to get her attention. Her head snapped up and she paused in rummaging through her bag so that she could give him her attention since this was the first time since she'd been loaded into his vehicle that the man had actually bothered to speak to her. "Do you need a pit stop or anything to eat? It's going to be another hour or so before we reach our destination. So if you need either of those- now would be the time to say something."
"I'm good. Thanks." She said, making a conscious effort to at least try and be polite despite how curt her tone must have sounded to him.
"Alright. I just thought that I'd check." He said kindly before then adding, "I'm Frank by the way. I'm an old friend of your mother's. In fact we used to work together back you were born."
She frowned and wondered what exactly he was doing driving her to god-knew-where if he was such a good friend of her late mom's. Her face must have reflected her thoughts since Frank finally said, "I was instructed to take you straight to your new legal guardian."
"So I'm not going into foster care?"
"Nope. I'm taking you to another friend. His name's Jethro Gibbs. He and your momma go way way back. He's a nice guy." Lisa didn't bother to point out that her mother had assumed that Erin was a 'nice' guy too. She supposed that arguing at this point would be pointless and decided that she'd just have to see for herself if her new legal guardian was up to snuff.
If he wasn't...she'd go straight to the police or Child's Services and have herself removed from his care. And then she'd put his abusive ass in prison.
Gibbs stared at the letter that had been left on his desk with a great deal of trepidation. His blue eyes scanning and then re scanning the words that his ex-wife had written for him over and over again in disbelief, anger, and even resentment slowly settled in.
He had a kid. No- scratch that. He had a daughter.
And while he was...kind of happy about that fact since he'd longed for the joy of being a parent for more than a few years now. He was utterly outraged that his ex had kept their- no- his daughter from him for so damned long. I mean, how fucking dare she keep his baby from him?
Sure the letter more or less told him some of her reasons why. And part of him did understand her initial fear and concern about the girl possibly getting ill and dying too. But that just made him that much angrier about being kept in the dark about his daughter's existence.
After all, they had created a life together. And if his baby had gotten ill and been dying...then who was his ex to cheat him out of being able to spend a few precious days, weeks, months, years with his baby while he could?
How could anyone be so damned cruel? He wondered.
Taking a shaky breath, he set the letter aside and silently vowed to himself that he'd burn the damned thing later when he was alone and then reached for the manila envelope sitting on his desk again and pulled the rest of it's contents out and slowly began to go through them, hoping to god that his ex had planned to send hid daughter to him now that she was gone.
Because if he had to track her down in foster care- he would be so pissed that there was no telling what he might do to someone if they dared to get in his way or stop him from finding his little girl. And he wouldn't give a shit if he wound up in jail or not.
Luckily, his ex's lawyer had sent him some legal documents, including papers stating that he was his little girl's new legal guardian. Which did seem to calm his temper.
But only a little bit.
He'd also been sent some pictures of his daughter and a copy of his ex's will stating their she was leaving some family heirlooms, some properties, and even some money to their daughter. She'd even left him a few things that had a great deal of sentimental value to them both as well.
Setting the papers aside, he began to shift through the pictures that had been sent to him of his daughter and couldn't help the way that his hands trembled a little bit as he looked through them. Seeing his baby girl for the first time ever was...something that was bittersweet to him.
His daughter was a perfect carbon copy of him. She had his dark hair, his eyes- though the color was green instead of blue- his smile... She must have been channeling Abby for the pictures though.
She always seemed to be decked out in black from head to toe. There was no trace of any pink or pastel colors that most young girls seemed to favor.
Which was something that made him snort a little bit as his lips twitched a tad in amusement.
Something told him that she and Abby would be great friends once they met. And poor McGee would find himself suddenly saddled with not one- little trouble maker, but two of them.
As if he wasn't enough of a mother hen already.
Gibbs could only imagine the chaos that the two would bring the rest of them if they were around each other for too long. Picking up the most recent picture of his little girl and quickly pulled his wallet out and found a nice slot for it before grabbing a couple of her baby pictures off of his desk and doing the same with them as well.
Once he was done he slipped his wallet back into his pant's pocket and then gathered everything back up and stuffed it all back into the envelope and re sealed it and then stood up and tucking the envelope underneath his arm- he walked towards his bosses office to ask for a week off work so that he could try and get his baby settled once she finally arrived.
