People run for a wide variety of reasons and, depending on who and when they are asked, the explanation can span the gambit from the extremely unsophisticated all the way to the seriously complicated. Some people justify running as a simple, unpretentious method of exercise...which it certainly is...or they defend running as a community-minded means of taking part in a local charity event, which occurs often in most major cities throughout the globe. They may run to catch the bus that takes them to work each day. They may run because they're late for an important appointment or they may run to be one of the first in line at a special sale. They may even run to escape that angry, growling Rottweiller which is rapidly gaining ground, making snarling snaps at their retreating ass. Regardless of the motivation, there's no doubt the physical, mental, and emotional rewards of running are boundless, and many people strive to make it an essential part of their daily routine.
The woman runs every morning to stay in shape, so the next criminal down the line doesn't do a credible Roadrunner imitation, leaving her in a floating puff of dust, making her look like some damn, pansy-assed fool in front of her enemies. She runs to keep her scarred lungs strong and sound and, specifically, to minimize the occasional worried look tossed her way whenever she happens to muffle a cough in front of a man. She runs to fill that eerie void of time, when sleep has inexplicably vanished and her body can no longer stay abed, her mind churning endlessly upon things she'd rather forget.
But the truth was she was tired of running.
Specifically, Bastiana runs so the silence and solitude and repetitive motion of sneaker soles hitting ground can purge those fickle demons lurking in the dark, barely hidden recesses of her mind, flushing her brain of all the unwanted accumulation, temporarily easing the still-lingering ache of regret which remains from all the mistakes she's made in her life...and she's made many...,including the ill-timed and poorly handled departure Of Alan Woodford.
At the same time, Woodfornt was pulling his cock while yelling: "You are mine you lit"
Bastiana didn't give him time to finish, she just jumped to kick him with her right foot in the stomach then with her left she kicked his face in a graceful flip in the air.
He fell back to hit the window, staring at her in shock before it changed to anger.
He snarled in anger."Bastiana Bastiana.."
"Baatiana..Bastiana.."
"Miss Wolf"
The sharp voice of the director finally penetrates the fog she's in and suddenly the courtroom comes back into focus. She apologizes quietly, "I'm sorry, can you repeat the question?"
Harvey Specter might have looked murderous had anyone else zoned out on him , but he was just worried. The woman always took her job very seriously, so something was definitely up.
"B?Are you ok?"
At the sound of his frightened voice, Baatiana looks at Mike and gives her a strained smile.
"I'm okay. Nothing's wrong."
But her voice is a little shaky so he doesn't really believe her.
"Are you sure?" Mike immediately started to check on her with his hands and eyes but was confused when he saw a sharp glare on Bastiana's face. And it was directed at him.
'"I am fine! Do I look like an invalid to you?!" She snapped sharply, then stepped away from Mike and stormed out of the room.
Mike stood there frozen and a little hurt, while the others stared after Bastiana with confused expressions on their faces.
"I didn't know Bastiana could even snap at one of her siblings." Harvey whispered in confusion Jessica.
"She never did that before in all the time I had known her." Jessica answered looking worried.
"I have a bad feeling about this." A He muttered quietly, but they heard him anyway.
"Tell me about it." Jessica murmured back.
Without another word, Bastiana just walked out from, brows furrowed in suspicion and worry. She decided to stay away from the others until they forgot about the behaviour. She knew they are probably worry about her, and that Mike was an overprotective mother hen, but she couldn't help it! An irrational fear always consume her whenever something from her past was out to get her and the fact that Baatina still have night terros and panic attacks, who just loves to do anything that could risk her life, wasn't exactly helping.
"Bastiana?" she looked up at the sound of her name to see Harvey standing at her open doorway with a concerned look on his face. She must have forgot to close the door, but it's okay, she won't mind Harveys' company right now.
He turned his eyes towards Bastiana then. "Can I talk to you for a second?"
The woman looked up at him startled but nodded and got to her feet with his.
"What's going on with you?" Harvey demanded firmly, crossing his arms across his chest.
"Nothing. I'm fine." Bastiana answered calmly with a shrug, which she failed in trying to make it casual.
"Yeah, and my name is Natasha." The man snarked with a roll of his eyes. "Don't bullshit me, Wolf. I know you are not well. We are in this together so you need to be honest with me!"
The woman pierced her lips stubbornly as they both stared each other down for a few seconds, before she sighed and looked away.
"In three days is the anniversary!"She finally admitted, not looking at him."The day that Alan Woodford took me!"
Harvey's face softened immediately and, after muttering a few curse words at himself, he murmured, "On shit!"
Three years since the abduct her. Three years have been passed since Bastiana came face to face with death. Every year when this day come, every member of the family even Jessica and Olivia try to stay away from her but a part of them wanted to stay with her.
He still hunted her thoughts, her mind, her entire existence. He was her beginning, her heaven and her hell.
During those days she wanted to be alone after all being lonely wasn't new to Bastiana.
Sure, she was surrounded by people. She has her family at the law firm, she has Jessica and Olivia. She knows if she were to reach out to them, ask for help when her mind was somewhere dark and deep and she was thinking thoughts she really shouldn't be—well, she knew they would help her.
But sometimes, loneliness came no matter how many people you had in your life.
Look," Bastiana rasped, rubbing at her face. "I know that I am behind with my clients but Mi..."
"I don't care about work!"Harvey admitted."I care about you!"
He expected laughter, some form of mockery, a teasing jab at the very least, but Bastiana just said,"Don't!"
Harvey felt the building shake and she stood up, looking around."What?!."
Baatiana's eyes stung as she whispered,"Don't care about me. You have a girlfriend to worry about!"
There was a deafening silence after that. Bastiana was sure the both of them had stopped breathing. He could hear a clock ticking, the gentle, distant hum of traffic five stories down, never heard except for moments like this, moments that felt out of time and out of place.
Harvey just looked at her and she wondered if he'd been too harsh because Harvey was - Harvey was -
He honestly kind of looked how he had when he was tripping acid, in the seconds before he started crying. His eyes were wide and he looked dazed. If it were anyone else Bastiana would have thought he looked like he'd been socked but that wasn't how Harvey took a punch. Harvey would've probably preferred a punch.
The previous silence was broken by the sound of fifteen cell phones.
She felt sick, and she looked down just as her phone buzzed forgetting about Harvey when she saw Gibbs' name on her screen.
Harvey was glaring at her and her phone call but the man's features softened a little at her smile. Bastiana watched Harvey leave the room like his ass was on fire. She caught herself smiling softly and immediately frowned.
She didn't understand what was attracting him. Since their first, she felt drawn and closer to the stoic and powerfull man.
Which was strange. She was surrounded constantly with overly attractive men, but she never felt this drawn to anyone of them before.
The agent Leroy Gethro Gibbs was different somehow, and she needs to find out why.
Gibbs walked into the bullpen and sat down at his desk. Finally becoming aware of the pair of eyes trained on him, he glared.
"What?" He bellowed.
"Boss, you were whistling. I didn't know you whistled." McGee stated.
"No, McGee I was not whistling."
'Actually, Gibbs, you were." Tony added.
"Fine, I was whistling, maybe if you would concentrate on the case instead of my musical abilities we might actually solve it. I'm going for coffee." Getting up he walked to the stairs and left the bullpen and two very confused agents.
"Didn't he just go for coffee?" McGee asked Tony who was looking at his boss surprisingly.
Coming back after a few minutes, he sat at his desk ignoring the two agent. After a few hours, McGee and Tony noticed Gibbs getting edgier and more apt to snap over something small than he usually was.
The phone rang and they both nearly jump out of their skin.
"Gibbs." He said, growling into the phone. But before their eyes, Gibbs' whole expression changed and morphed into one of bliss as even his voice changed emanating a softer tone.
"How long until the end?"
"Two hours? Are you sure?"
"Be there in fifteen minutes." Hanging up the phone, he grabbed his badge and his gun, and practically ran out of the building. "Going to lunch", he called over his shoulder to McGee and Tony who just stared open mouthed at one another.
"It is only 12 in the morning and he's going for another coffee?" Tony asked."Its like his 9th?"
McGee nodded. "Did you hear the rest...it sounds like...I mean...but he..." McGee struggled with the words.
"Just spit it out McShatter."
"It sounds like he's having an affair."
Tony sighed. "It does sound like that, but this is Gibbs and I don't believe he is capable of that. Maybe it is meant in some other context."
McGee nodded. "I don't disagree, I can't see that being the kind of thing Gibbs would do given the kind of man he is, but it is hard to put that conversation in a different context."
"Agreed, but for now we will just wait and watch and then investigate. After all, isn't that our job? To investigate and have each other's backs?"
"I'm not sure if spying on our boss to see if he is having an affair counts, but yes. That is what we do."
Gibbs stopped by a cafe on the way, he took his usual and the very complicated order Bastiana got every morning. How she could drink such a sugary thing was lost on him. He climbed in his car. He headed to the park, carefully holding Bastiana's cup on the passenger seat before heading to the school.
He reached the school and immediately spotted Bastiana.
"Baatiana!" he called out, walking towards her. The woman waved at him, a cup of coffee in her hand.
"I brought you coffee." they said at the same time as they reached each other. They both blushed and exchanged cups, fingers lingering slightly more than needed. They sipped in silence, warming their hands on the cups.
They threw their cups in the trash.
"How are you Leory?"
Gibbs smiles softly."I am fine and bored as hell at the office , not knowing what to do without having investigation a murder case!"
Bastiana grins." An agent to the bone, adrenalin junkie!"
Gibbs laughs.
"Says the corporate law shark"
Bastiana laughs, a sound that sounds like music to his ears. The ringing of the bell and seeing the batch of teacher's they were all new to her. Walking away from Gibbs toward over to where the other parents were waiting. As one of the teachers walked up to her holding a clip board in his hands.
"Who are you here to pick up?" He asked
"Jason Wolf , I am Bastiana Wold." She said as she showed her ID to him, he took it and then handed it back.
"Thank you he'll be right out that's one of the last classes getting let out." H said as he walked back over to where the other two teachers were talking.
"B!" Jason yelled and wearing a giant grin and only waits half a second after he walked out of the school to crash into her with a hug
"Hey!" Bastiama wraps her arms around the kid and squeezes tight. "You ready for a fun day out?"
Jason shouts in excitement, "Yeah! Where are we going?"
"I thought we could take a trip to the aquarium, get some lunch, and then maybe ice cream?"
Jason looks up at Gibbs, his enthusiasm both palpable and a little contagious. "You're coming too, right?"
Gibbw looks like a deer caught in headlights, when the kid asks him.
Jason perked up, "You're my daddy's boss?"
Gibbs nodded, "Yep."
Jason grinned, "So you can tell him to let me to have ice screm before dinner!"
Gibbs laughed, "I would, but I don't think it's a good idea."
Jaosn pouted, "why not?"
Gibbs chuckled again, "He doesn't always listen."
Jason smiled and climbed onto Bastiana's lap. Bastiana adjusted him and Jason leaned his head on Bastiana's shoulder.
Gibbs listens to Jason talk about all the fish he wants to see today with a smile on his face, but internally he's extremely anxious about spending the day together. He used to do these day trips on his days off with Kelly all the time, back then, before Pedro Hernandez. They'd go to the zoo, to the movies, or just hang out at the park on a nice sunny day like today.
Gibbs never thought he'd get to do this again, after what went down, and he's determined not to screw it up.
Bastiana pays for the entrance tickets to the aquarium. Gibba still insists on paying for himself but Bastiana hands the lady at the front desk his card, ignoring Gibbs's protests. "You can get the ice cream, later." she says, as a compromise.
Jaaon heads straight for the Touch Exhibit first, his favorite. He gently places one finger in the water, in awe of the stingrays swimming around it. Gibbs laughs when Jason jumps in surprise at one of them sliding under the pad of his forefinger. "They're so soft!"
Gibbs nods. "There's a shark touch tank over there." he points.
"He was at a surfing lesson a couple of months ago and the lifeguard made everyone get out of the water after spotting a shark close by--Jason saw it too, and he's been a little spooked since." Bastiana explains, ruffling her kids' bouncy curls.
Jason shakes his head. "It's ok. Can we go see an octopus?"
Bastiana nods, leading the way.
Gibbs had explained something to Jason while Bastiana was watching them are , when a random elderly couple walks over and compliments their little "family". "I do hope we're not intruding, but we just wanted to say how beautiful your family is. God bless." one of them says, smiling.
The other woman makes little kissy faces at Jaaon, who's bright blue eyes light up. "Have a good day!" she says, and then takes her wife's hand, "Come on Margaret, the sharks are waiting.
They visit the gift shop before leaving. Jason ends up leaving the store with a giant whale Gibbs has to tuck under his arm.
They drive downtown after that for some much anticipated ice cream, Gibbs shakes his head. "You got the tickets, I'll get the ice cream. Least I can do. Watermelon misto shake, right?" he asks, remembering Bastiana's favorite. She nods, and Gibbs takes Jason with him to order at the Rita's take out window in the middle of the little parking lot so the kid can pick out what he wants.
Bastiana gets back into the car to wait and check her phone. She had informed Amy to not let nobody disturb her for the rest of the day only if it was a matter of life or death.
They eat their ice cream in the car and Jason regails them with stories about his friends from school and his favorite teacher, misses Hudson, and about his new art project he's working on.
Gibbs wishes he could freeze time to this one moment for a while, but eventually they have to head back, it's getting late and the kis are tired. Jason ends up falling asleep in the front seat, ice cream on his cheek and nose.
After a few minutes, Gibbs found himself in the apartment of Bastiana watching her as Bastiana walks toward the room of Jason carrying him careful not to wake him from his peaceful slumber, rocking him ever so gently.
Soon Bastiana was singing along with the song, this is the song she sang:
"You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are gray
You'll never know, dear
How much I love you
Please don't take
My sunshine away."
"The other night, dear
As I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you
In my arms
When I awoke, dear
I was mistaken
So I hung my head and I cried
You are my sunshine.."
Gibbw watched his friend dancing with her grandson in her arms and as he listened to the words of the song.
He couldn't put it into words. Well, he could, but it wasn't anything he could tell her. She had looked at the child the way he wished she would look at him. He suddenly pictured that expression of hers in a whole different way. It was a vision in front of his eyes. Not an entirely unwelcome vision either. She wasn't looking at a Jason, she was looking at a baby in her arms. One she had just given birth to. Her baby. Their baby.
He blinked, and the vision went away. Where had that come from?
"Leroy!" a voice said, breaking Gibbs from his thoughts.
She reached out, touched the side of his face, and said."What's wrong?"
"Nothing, nothing at all," says Gibbs smiling at her. "I just...I really enjoyed it."
"Me too," says Bastiana giving Gibbs a amile. "beer or wine?"
"Beer is good," says Gibbs as Baatiana gets up and walks over to the fridge.
"Joson is handful!"Gibbs pointed out.
Bastiana odded, a slight grin flitting across her eatures.
"You have no idea!"She answered and start talking about Tony in younger age.
it was just nice to listen to her talk for a while. Seeing Bastiana enthuse about the positive caused a warm feeling in his chest – and that was fine, what person wouldn't feel good at seeing their friend happy, right?
…That was all it was, right…?
Somehow, Gibbs couldn't quite convince himself of that.
"Jason is the only reason that I am alive!"
She was silent for a few minutes.
Gibbs doesn't hesitate wrapping his arm tightly around her torso. "I'm here," he whispers to her, breath tickling the hair on her neck.
And Bastiana just. . . breaks.
Nothing she does can hold back the sobs that spill from hervchest, deep, pained cries that don't seem to be stopping at any point. And Gibbs doesn't try to fix her, or make her stop crying.
He just holds her, and he keeps whispering that he's there, over and over and over again, until all Bastiana can hear and feel is him.
She doesn't register when her cries finally taper off into the occasional hitched, unsteady breath, but when she finally comes back to herself, she's hyperaware of Gibbs's chest rising against hee back, his thumb rubbing soothingly against her side, his breath against her neck.
"Leory?" Her voice cracks.
"Yeah?"
"I feel like maybe I died that day," Bastiana murmurs instead of any of the other thoughts in her head. "I feel like I died that day, and it's just taking my body a long time to catch up." And, God, do I want it to, she doesn't add.
Gibbs' arm tightens around him. "Bastiana," ahe stresses, heartbroken. There's tears in his voice. "You're not dead. You're still here. Uou survived."
"I wish I didn't."
Gibbs' next breath sounds more like a sob. "You don't mean that."
Before him stands a woman who, for all her smugness and power, has been constantly beaten and hurt by the world around her and by those who cares about. A woman shrouded in loneliness, who knows no other way to live but to be alone, so much so that she perpetuates it himself, attacking her siblings, ensuring their disdain, because she does not know how else to exist. And yet. And yet here she stands before him, afraid for the first time to be truly alone and what it means, and speaking to him because despite the many layers she's built around her heart, it has always responded to him.
So ge stands, and heads over to her, unafraid. He reaches her, and locks eyes with her, and neither breathes for some time, both expectantly awaiting her response.
"I'm fucking scared, okay?! I'm having nightmares and I can't fucking sleep! When I'm at work I constantly feel like I'm in someone's crosshairs and I can't do my job if I'm always looking over my shoulder! And I can't get the image of my family faces' stood in front of my hospital's bed and my only thought was how devastated they would be if I be gone but I the same time I thought that finally i will be in peace!"Bastiana was firmly in Gibbs' face by the end of her rant, panting with his eyes flickering down to Gibbs' lips then back to his eyes.
"let it out, Bastiana ''was all what Gibbs managed to say as he felt Baatiana's grieve as his own. It all brought memories when Shannon and Kelly died and the grieve that overwhelmed him that he got drunk every night just to sleep through the night.
"I know the feeling!"
Gibbs doesn't try to hide the fact that he is now crying, shoulders trembling with every quiet sob.
"When I found out that my girls were died I was devastated!"He says, starting to pace, wishing he had better words to bargain with. Why is he always so bad with words?
"I drowning my self into the work and alcohol. Starting hating and blaming myself..Starting questioning myself what will happen if I didn't let Shannon testify or what would happened to me if I had pulled the trigger!"
Upon this revelation, Bastiana just looked at him like he was an alien from another planet! Shocked, beyond reason.
"After that I drunk myself to death, i put a gun in my head!"Gibbs says, laughing as he gives up because what the hell is he trying to say? He has no clue.
"Do you know that stopped me?"
"What?"She with furrowed dark eyebrows.
"Nothing!"
"I'm sorry," She whispers, shaking her head.
Baatiana can't leave him to cry. And as he sits beside her, wrapping an arm around hia shoulders, Bastiana can't hold back her tears either. They rest their heads together, clinging on, and grieving.
"Are you okay?"
Laughing at Gibbs' question, Bastiana tries to keep the bitterness from her voice. "Not really."
"I know."
"You?"
"Not even close."
Gibbs holds his glass up in a toast. "We're doing great," he says in a far more sarcastic tone than he planned on. Baetiana thinks this is hilarious though and her laughter soothes some of the ache in Gibbs' chest.
"You know what I want right know?"Bastiana asks, her voice subdued. "I want wine. Lots and lots of wine."
"We can do that."
"Give me a minute to check on Jason!"
The woman sighed and made her way towards the door to Jason's room, The gleam of Jason's nightlight was coming through the gap of the slightly open door.
Different toys were strewn across the floor of the room: Marvel and DC player figurines, mini trains. There were a few different books sitting in a small bookshelf in the corner. All of them were Jason' favorites; ones he would read over and over again. It seemed he got that particular trait from his mother.
Her eyes fall on her grandson and she could feel her heart melt. Jason Wolf was the reason that Bastiana was alive. After he had been born, the little boy gave her the reset she needed, it made Bastiana get up of bed and start feeling like a human again, it took all of her out of that deep hole of sadness and grief she was in after the trial, it gave her a reason to start focusing on something else, to start living again.
Going back to where her grandson was sleeping, ahe kissed his forehead, and left the bedroom allowing him to sleep.
"Is he okay?" Gibbs asks when Bastiana joins him, already having opened a bottle each and poured generous glasses.
"Yeah. He's good."
Chips?"
"Please," Bastiana says, getting comfortable in the corner of the couch. Good. Gibbs will do the same once he has two bowls of chips, and maybe a little chocolate, ready to eat. It's going to be a very, very long night.
Tony was not expecting a call this late into the evening. The couple the only thing they wanted to do when they came back was a hot shower and to relax as tomorrow's hard work begins again. He definitely was not expecting a call from his twin this late either. There was a feeling at the pit of his stomach that told him something was wrong, but he chose to ignore it, hoping it was nothing.
Katrina was the kitchen, wearing a black nightgown with lace and Tony wanted to make her scream his name on the kitchen floor. They finally got the house for themselves while Jason was with his grandmother , the only thing that it was in Tonight's mind was his wife. He just wanted to sit down and watch her.
He loved looking at her, loved watching her eyes when she worked, loved her constant overexcitement, loved the determination on her face when he fought side by side with the family, the way she moved when she was explaining something to them. He loved everything about her, even her habit of constantly asking questions, or supplying sarcastic remarks.
He decided to answer the phone as he would not let him concentrate.
''Amy, if this is you telling me that you let Travis crash that car I'm going to murder you both." said Tony trying to make a joke about the fact that his twin was driving an expensive and beautiful car but when he received no response, he frowned, "Amy?"
"Antony?"
"Amy?"Tony sat up straight in his chair, his heart pounding against his chest. Amy or another of his fqmily members never used a quiet voice...unless they was scared or in trouble. "Amy...what did you do? What happened?"
"Sperm donor is at New York!"
What?"Tony shouted. He shouted. Tony Wolf can't even remember the last time he yelled because of the oppressive rules in this house but this had him fired up beyond reason. "What the fuck this shit happened!" Tony had his hands balled into fists and was visibly shaking with the rage he was holding back.
A sudden loud braying sound interrupted Tony's indignant little tirade. Turning to see what all the commotion was about, he spotted Katrina resting in the doorframe.
"Thank for inform me sister!"he'd said in his low baritone. Tony threw her phone at the wall in anger and started pacing the floor.
"Tony?" she had asked breathlessly.
"It's nothing, sweetheart." His voice was steady and firm. "Just go to bed and I will be there in a minute!"
She had stood shocked silent for nearly five minutes before she'd mutely nodded. He had dropped her hand after one more squeeze, turned on his heel and left with no more said between them.