11- A Secret
Abby caught up with him shortly before the doors closed. "Am I right to believe that you need a ride? Oh, I´m not sure how the house looks...those police people went through almost everything." She told him and he rolled his eyes, but she simply ignored it for now. "Hey, no problem. I´ll take you home and get the house sorted out while you get some rest." Abby said, feeling anything but tired at the moment. The point where one was tired and ready to sleep had passed a long time ago. She knew that he had no choice but to accept her offer. She just knew him too well.
Arriving at the house, Abby walked up to the front door and unlocked it. It wasn´t unusual to her that she had the key to his house. They were more than just co-workers and it was anything but random that she was working with him. Nobody knew about her secret except for Gibbs and she knew that he would never tell anyone. The house looked a lot better than she had expected. Only a few dirt tracks lead through the hallway and into the livingroom.
Gibbs dropped onto the couch, groaning when he moved his injured shoulder a bit. He wasn´t actually tired as he had slept a lot during the last day. He watched her clean up most of the dirt. "Abbs, stop cleaning, you´re going to drop dead if you don´t get some rest." He told her after a while and she sat down next to him.
"If you say so, boss." She replied and put her head on his shoulder. She was careful not to touch his bruised ribs or hurt his shoulder even more. After a moment she found a comfortable position and smiled as she listened to his heart beating. It was the one thing that could always make her calm down.
"Abbs, we´ve been through this before. It´s not like you haven´t usedmy first namebefore." He said and smiled when she nestled up close to him. He remembered the day they had met for the first time. It had been a dark and very painful day, but watchingher now so close to him, he knew that his patience had paid out.
"Okay...if you insist." She murmured and opened her eyes again. "You know what makes me wonder?" She then asked and looked into his blue eyes.
"What, Abbs?" He replied and put his right arm around her. For a short moment, he saw young girl he had known a long time ago in front of his inner eye.
"What would happen if anyone ever found out about us?" She asked and snuggled closer, her eyes slowly closing. Finally, exhaustion was claiming its toll and she was more than willing to pay it.
"I don´t know. I´ve been wondering about it once in a while. One day they will, but not yet, Abby. For now, you need to sleep." He said and watched her fall asleep. Gibbs knew that he would have to tell someone about it at some point, but not yet. Ever since he had seen her for the very first time, he had sensed that she was something special. When that fateful day in October almost 20 years ago had come around, he had not hesitated for a second, eventhough he had known that it would change his life. The events of that day had resulted in his resignation from the marine corps and landed him at NCIS. It had changed his life in many aspects, but he had never regretted making this promise all those years ago.
With this memory, he dozed off as well, sleeping peacefully as he knew that Kate would recover and he had not been responsible for anything. The recent events would follow all of them for a while, but eventually, things would return to normal at some point. After all, he now knew how close the team was and it was a good thing to his mind. Some time, he would tell them about the little secret, but right now all of them needed time to recover.
END