Gibbs snapped out of a daze as he felt a hand on his knee, the woman sitting beside him gently touching it as she stood up from their couch. He ripped his eyes away from the awful film that she had begged him to watch to look up at the copper-haired woman. "Where ya goin?" He regretfully asked her, unsure of whether or not his words might upset her, as everything he said did these days.
"I'm not feeling too well, I'm gonna go to bed." Diane Gibbs told her husband, a knot in her stomach that she'd felt since their earlier fight had only gotten worse since they sat down to watch one of her favorite movies.
"I thought you wanted to watch the movie." Gibbs said with a hint of resentment in his tone, considering coming upstairs to watch the movie with her had cut into precious time with his boat in the basement. A fact, that had started their earlier argument in the first place.
"I did, but my stomach feels off, Woodchuck." Diane said, placing a hand over her abdomen. She first began to feel sick during the yelling and the screaming half an hour before, thus giving Diane the impression that all the fights with her husband had been making her nauseous from the stress and ugly emotions. But when the nausea and fluctuating body temperature did not subside, she decided that perhaps she truly was coming down with something and she should get some rest before she spent the next day leaning over the toilet. "You coming to bed with me?" She asked quietly, the fear of whatever his answer would be making her start to feel worse as her body temperature rose once more though her nausea made her body start to shiver.
"I'll be up in a bit." Jethro told her.
Diane then headed for the stairs, though she didn't believe him, knowing that he most certainly was about to go back down to that damned boat. But her stomach hurt too much for her to argue anymore and she slowly made it to the staircase, grabbing the railing with one hand while the other stayed on her aching belly. The tears she felt forming in her eyes only made her feel more sick as she longed for her husband just to hold her and tell her she'd be okay and that he'd take care of her and make her some tea. But she knew better. Instead, he was probably going to ignore her and her requests for the next day and go to work at NCIS while she stayed home turning green…as usual.
Diane was surprised to make it to the bedroom without a stop in the bathroom to vomit on the way. She mustered up enough strength and agility to remove her bra, skillfully, from under her light-long-sleeved shirt and carefully climb into the bed under the covers without bothering to even change her clothes.
Two minutes. That's how long she lasted under the covers before having to remove them to try and bring her body temperature back down.
Five minutes. That's how long it took before she had to pull the covers over herself yet again as she begun to shiver.
It wasn't long before her tears rolled down her temples and she curled up into a ball, just the stress of her body temperature changing so drastically over and over again causing Diane to wish she were dead. Maybe if she died, Jethro would finally feel the same way about her as he did his first wife. Diane refused to even think the woman's name.
She'd never be good enough. How could she ever be good enough?
She awoke the next morning, only then realizing that she had cried herself to sleep when she felt the dried tears on her face. Carefully blinking her eyes open, she thought to herself that her stomach finally felt better and it was a lack of sleep or all the fighting after all that caused her nausea the night before. She sat up in the bed and stretched out her arms with a hum, taking in a deep breath, nowhere even near surprised when she saw that the bed beside her was empty and Jethro was either already gone for work or asleep downstairs. Once she exhaled her deep breath out into the air in front of her, that nausea came back full force and stronger than before as she immediately threw the covers off herself and rushed to the bathroom down the hall, barely making it to the toilet to vomit.
This was the only time that Diane was grateful to Gibbs for forgetting to put the toilet seat back down.
She often wondered to herself if his first wife ever let that fly in her house. Especially with a little girl around. The poor child must have fallen into the toilet multiple times on Jethro's watch if that were true. If not…then Diane wondered if Gibbs only left the seat up nowadays to spite HER specifically.
Either way, she was now grateful for the habit as she gripped the sides of the commode while she got sick. It didn't take long for her to begin sobbing when she was done, missing her mother now and the way she would lightly rub her back to calm her down when she was sick as a child.
Diane had always pictured her future husband taking that place to comfort her as much as her mom could. But instead, she ended up with Jethro. Someone who made her feel safe when they first met. Someone so mysterious and interesting. Someone with a past pain that seemed to give Diane the feeling of being needed. Gibbs needed her. He needed her to fill that void when Shanno-when SHE died. Diane wanted to be that for him. She thought she WAS that for him when he proposed to her. But after their wedding, it was as if Jethro realized Diane was not going to be what he needed once they said the "I do's" and the fighting began.
None of that mattered in that moment, however, because all Diane cared about right now was being taken care of in her sickness. But he never came. He never came to the bathroom to calm her down or see if she was alright. He wasn't there.
He was down in the basement hammering at the boat and she knew this for a fact because she heard the hammer. That only made her sob more as she flushed the toilet and mustered up the strength to stand.
She looked at herself in the mirror, mentally asking herself why she was putting herself through this marriage any longer. Then she'd remember. She'd remember the way he looked at her the first time they met. She'd remember the way she felt weak in the knees catching his eye across the bar, his smile completely melting her insides while his eyes undressed her and she WANTED them to. She'd remember wishing he would come toward her and he immediately did. That night they met changed everything and she could never bring herself to leave him whenever she thought about it. The butterflies in her stomach would flutter any time she remembered the first time he said her name and she would fall in love with him all over again.
He was her Kryptonite. And for no good reason other than the fact that he was the first man she ever loved so intensely that she needed him. Diane never needed a man before and in fact, she believed she would never NEED a man growing up, but that she wanted one. But Jethro rocked her world. And she had no idea why exactly. Perhaps a shrink would know why. Why was she staying with him?
She knew Gibbs wasn't a bad man. Maybe that was the reason. He was unequivocally good. And he was a gentleman and attractive. And though she hated his focus on his woodwork…she couldn't help but find it sexy. And damn, was he good in bed. The look in his eyes as he made love to her, or….whatever HE would call it…made her long for him to only look at her that way.
Maybe THAT'S why she couldn't leave him. She didn't want him to ever look at another woman with those eyes but her. Only her. She wanted to be his and only his and if she left him…he would look at other women that way. He would touch other women in places that Diane could not control and that thought made her angry and possessive.
But it hurt. It hurt to stay with him. But she couldn't let go.
She sighed before splashing some cold water in her face and she left the bathroom, heading for the stairs to go and search for her husband.
Following the sounds of his hand tools, Diane made her way to the basement staircase, holding the railing while she descended them.
"Did you get ANY sleep last night, Leroy?"
The redhead's raspy voice was exaggerated in her exhaustion and Gibbs noticed that immediately. "Did YOU?" He wondered.
"I did. But I think I'm calling into work today." She admitted, reaching the last step.
"Still sick?" He asked her, never actually looking up at her as he was too busy with the boat.
"Yeah. I just-….well, don't go in the upstairs bathroom." She half joked.
"Contagious?" He asked her.
"Probably."
"Well, whatcha comin down here for?" Gibbs asked her, though he meant it light-heartedly, it still stung in Diane's chest. "I don't wanna catch it." He added salt to the wound.
"I missed you." She admitted and she wasn't lying. She DID miss him. Very much. Especially the version of him that could make her laugh when she was upset and the version that had made her excited for life after she'd become a boring Accountant. "Why didn't you come to bed last night?" She guessed, but had a feeling she was right.
"Wanted to give you some space if you were sick." He answered. "Turns out I made the right choice." He blew sawdust off the slab of wood he was holding.
Diane just stood there at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for him to look at her, but…nothing. "I didn't want space." She finally said, breaking the silence.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Her husband asked.
"What kind of question is that, Woodchuck? What do you think it means?" Diane asked, frustration already clear in her voice.
Gibbs finally took a second to look at her, though it wasn't the look that she wanted. Instead of looking into his eyes to see compassion or concern, Diane saw irritation and annoyance. Her assumption of what he was feeling was only confirmed by the next thing that he said. "Why do you always gotta come down into my space and start a fight?" He asked with a hint of anger in his tone.
"I wasn't starting a fight, Leroy." She said with a hint of sadness in her tone though she tried not to show it on her face.
"It sounded like you were." He assumed impatiently.
"Well, I wasn't." She unintentionally snapped at him.
Gibbs scoffed and shook his head with a wry chuckle as he continued to focus on the slab of wood in his hands, lightly laughing at her.
Diane remained at the bottom of the stairs for what felt like hours though it was only minutes before the pain she'd been holding back got the better of her and she grabbed the thing closest to her, which happened to be a tennis racket that hung up on the basement wall, and she mindlessly took a swing at her husband who effortlessly blocked the tennis racket from hitting him, grabbing her wrist.
He stood up from his stool, tightening his grip on her wrist as he looked deep into her eyes. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." He warned quietly.
"You're hurting me." Diane said, her voice breaking as tears fell down her face.
Gibbs let go of her wrist, trusting that she wouldn't try to hit him a second time and he was right, Diane just allowing the tennis racket to fall to the floor.
"Go." Her husband told her. "I don't want you down here again." He said calmly, banning her from the basement. His own wife.
Diane watched him sit down on the stool once again, her eyes fixating on that stupid boat and that's when she finally felt it….the boat was what he needed. Not her.
She felt sick once again and she turned to run upstairs to get sick once more.
A week had gone by and Diane's stomach only worsened. Her thoughts of it possibly being the Flu becoming more and more of wishful thinking than what she thought was really going on…..Her marriage was beginning to physically harm her now as it had had enough of destroying her mentally. It was time to destroy her in other ways. Or so she thought.
It wasn't until she received a phone call from a girlfriend at work that Diane thought of another possibility.
Later that day, around lunchtime, Diane's friend arrived at the house when they both knew Gibbs would be at NCIS, too busy on a case to care about Diane's physical state.
"Is this something that you want?" Her friend, Rosemary asked her as Diane stared at the timer on her kitchen counter. "With him?"
"Yes." Diane answered immediately. "Maybe this is what he needs. Another child…a LIVING child could be his purpose. And if I'm the one who gives it to him…he will love me again." Diane said, actually feeling hopeful for the first time in months.
"Are you sure he EVER loved you?" Rosemary asked carefully. "You deserve to be loved always and not just when it's convenient for him."
"Yes, of course he loved me." Diane said, though she wasn't so sure herself if that were true anymore. "And a baby will bring that love back." She impatiently tapped her foot on the linoleum floor, hoping the timer would just hurry up already. "I've always wanted to be a mom. I'd be damn good at it too." She said with certainty.
"Hell yeah, you would." Rosemary smiled. "Do you want a girl or a boy?"
"Either one is perfect." Diane said truthfully. "If it's a girl, I can raise her to be strong and independent. And if it's a boy, I can raise him to be caring and gentle and teach him how to treat women the way we are SUPPOSED to be treated. But most of all, I just want someone to look at me with complete and undeniable amounts of love. And I'm gonna spoil them as much as I can."
"Diane, I have something to tell you." Rosemary said, a hint of reluctance and hesitation in her tone.
"Oh, wait. Wait!" Diane said as the timer went off and she grinned. "It's time to look!" She happily went over to the opposite counter in the kitchen where she had set her pregnancy test down. She took a deep breath before she got a good look at it and she let out an audible gasp. "It's positive, it's positive!" She spoke so fast out of excitement. "I am actually pregnant! Oh my god! This is amazing!" She almost teared up from both relief and excitement. She was relieved that she was not sick and excited to tell her husband the news, hoping it would stop their constant fighting.
"I am so happy for you." Rosemary said though she wasn't sure if she was actually excited for her friend in this loveless marriage or not, nor was she able to tell her the bad news that she had now.
Over the moon, Diane quickly said, "Let's go out to celebrate!"
By the time Diane returned home from her day out with Rosemary, Gibbs' pickup truck was in the driveway. "Oh, he's already home." Diane said as she removed her seatbelt and opened Rosemary's car door on the passenger side to get out. "Thank you for today. I really needed it." She smiled at her friend. "I guess I'll be seeing you at work tomorrow then, huh? Seeing as I'm no longer sick." She chuckled.
Rosemary sighed, gently touching Diane's arm before she could exit the vehicle. "That's what I've been meaning to talk to you about."
"Hm? What? What's wrong?" Diane wondered, sitting back in the car again.
"Things at work aren't good." Rosemary decided she just needed to rip off the bandaid. "There are rumors that they are thinking about lay-offs….In OUR department."
"They're just rumors, right?" Diane asked. "Cause unless I hear it directly from the guys upstairs, I'm not believing any of it."
"It's serious, Diane." Rosemary tried to assure her. "Just….be prepared in case the rumors ARE true. Okay?"
"It'll be fine, Rose." Diane said with unexpected optimism. "Besides…I'm having a baby. I don't have time to be worried about some boring desk job anyway." She smiled and got out of the car, shutting the door but leaning over to look at Rose through the open car window. "See you later."
She happily waved goodbye to her friend and headed inside, thinking of all the baby clothes, toys, and furniture that she looked at in the mall that day with Rosemary, planning out in her head what she would make the nursery look like with Gibbs.
"Leroy?" Diane called to her husband, standing at the top of the basement stairs, looking down into the forbidden (to her) room. "Leroy." She said once more.
"Diane, we talked about this." Gibbs sighed, staining the wood in front of him.
"I know, I know. 'Don't come down there.'" She said, "But can you come up here for a second, please? I have something to show you. It's really important."
"In a bit."
"No. Now!" She didn't mean to snap again, but she knew that if she did not make him come upstairs at this moment, it would be hours before he finally remembered that he promised to go up and join her. "It'll only take a minute." She said in a calmer voice, though she hoped it would be longer than one minute.
He sighed again and set his things down, going upstairs for her because he himself was done with all the fighting and he knew that if he didn't go up with her now, he'd never hear the end of it.
Once Diane had led Gibbs into the kitchen, she turned around to look him in the eye. "I bet you're wondering where I was when you got home." She, of course, did not receive a response to that, her husband sticking to his moniker, the Man of Few Words. "Rosemary and I went out to look at a couple of things."
"Feel better?" He asked her considering she hadn't left their house or even their room in days.
"Yes, actually. It turns out I wasn't sick." She said, already having a hard time containing her bright smile. She went further into the kitchen, receiving the positive pregnancy test from the counter and she handed it to her husband.
Leroy looked down at the test in his hand, just staring at it without a word.
It felt like time stopped for him while Diane felt like a year went by before she spoke. "Well? Are you excited?" She asked him with a wide grin on her face.
"When did we-" Gibbs' first instinct was to find out the time of conception for whatever reason even he didn't understand. A question he immediately regretted starting.
Diane's smile faded. "Are you kidding me, Leroy? No, 'I'm so excited!?' No, 'Oh my god, you're pregnant?' Nothing?" She felt sick again, now knowing that it's morning sickness not even helping the situation. "You immediately jump to that as if what? What? You think it's not yours? You think I fucked somebody else? Is that it? You think I'd do that to you? To us? Go to Hell, Leroy!"
"Hey….Hey!" Gibbs shouted. "Why are you putting words in my mouth?" He asked quieter when he got her attention. "It was just a question."
"Yeah, a really dumb one. Does it even matter WHEN, Leroy? We're having a baby. Our very own baby. Aren't you happy?" She wondered aloud, her voice cracking slightly as her eyes stung with tears again.
"Yeah…Sure I am." He responded though not as enthusiastically as Diane had hoped for.
"Why do I feel like there's a but in there somewhere?" His wife asked with heartbreak.
"I…I'm not ready." He admitted. "But-"
"Oh. No buts!" Diane shook her head, bumping his shoulder as she walked by him and stepped into the living room with anger, turning to face him from the other room. "When? When, Leroy, are you going to be ready?! We've been talking about babies since the wedding. I want one and I want one now. And I am pregnant whether you like it or not, okay? So it's happening. It's happening and I want my husband to be excited with me." Her tears fell but she quickly wiped them away in the hopes that he wouldn't think of her as weak.
"Well, I can't fake emotions for you, Diane."
"So you're not excited." She assumed with a pained nod.
"I didn't say that." Gibbs replied with annoyance in his tone, a tone she knew all too well from him.
"You JUST said that you can't fake being excited!"
"You always wonder why I don't talk to you? THIS is why, Diane!" He started to raise his voice to match his wife's volume now. "You always put words in my mouth!"
"Because you don't use your OWN words, Leroy! It's like I have to guess what you're thinking or feeling or make up scenarios in my head of what I WANT you to say to me." She admitted.
"I'm not a puppet."
"No. Most of the time it's like you're not even here." She folded her arms over her chest.
"Oh, come on. That is bullshit." He said in a quieter tone but a harsh one.
"Is it?" She asked him. "You can't even remember the last time we had sex."
"That's because all we ever do is fight."
"Because you're never here!" She raised her voice again.
"I have work, Diane! What do you want me to do? Drop everything for you?" He asked her.
"No, not everything. But this entire time I thought I was sick, did you help me out once? No. You didn't. You avoided me. That's not what a husband does, Leroy."
"I won't put my life on hold for a little stomach flu. My job is too important. I can't afford to miss work days like you can."
"Oh, so I'm lazy now?" Diane asked, feeling offended now.
"I never said that. Where the hell did you get that?"
"Oh, do this. Oh, do that. I'm not your maid, Leroy. I'm your WIFE! And I want to be treated like one, damn it!" Her voice cracked at the end as she sobbed and went up the stairs, crying the whole way as she struggled to catch her breath.
Gibbs watched her leave the room, sighing to himself once she was out of sight and he looked down at the pregnancy test in his hand, the thought of Shannon and Kelly stabbing him in the chest once again and he turned to go back to the basement, setting the pregnancy test down in a glass of nails and screws on his woodwork table down there.
They didn't speak for the next week, which was crucial considering the day after the pregnancy test, Diane had gone back to work to find out that she WAS one of the Accountants laid off at the firm.
She never told Jethro that she lost her job, only knowing another fight would occur and this one wouldn't go well considering what happened in their last one. What happened, exactly? She learned the truth. That no matter what she did, whether it was to love him harder than she'd ever loved anyone before or to do something so simple as to give him a baby….he would still never love her. The only thing she COULD do would be to bring Shannon and Kelly back from the dead, but then even if she did that….Gibbs would forget all about her and focus only on them. Diane could bet that he would never build another boat if he had them back.
She spent the few days they hadn't talked just thinking about what she could do to be happy and all she could think of was the baby. She knew the baby would at least change HER life if not Jethro's. At least she wouldn't be upstairs all alone anymore.
She handed him his morning coffee one day without a word and placed a plate of eggs and bacon in front of him though the combination of smells made her feel nauseous again. She didn't dare tell him though, afraid that he'd shout at her for complaining. She sucked it up and sacrificed the mornings that she actually did not feel sick to please him the way she always did.
"I have my first ultrasound at eleven." She said flatly, not expecting him to want to know or even care as she sat down at the table across from him, sipping on some water. "At Saint Joe's." She had no idea why she told him the name of the hospital because she was certain he'd never skip work anyway, but she still told him, a part of her still hoping her knight in shining armor would manifest in him out of nowhere.
"Kay." Was all he said as he read the paper and sipped his coffee, grateful that Diane actually had learned how to make it the way he liked, enjoying every gulp before he stood up to leave for work without even a goodbye.
His wife, later on that day, nearly jumped an inch in the air from her hospital bed when her Woodchuck came barging into her room at the hospital.
"You came." She said as he stepped over to stand beside her. "She was just about to start." Diane told him as the nurse placed the ultrasound gel on the redhead's stomach.
"I take it you're Daddy?" The nurse asked.
Gibbs nodded without a word and lightly picked up Diane's hand in his own, looking down into her hopeful eyes with a gentle, apologetic smile. Diane softly smiled back at him, squeezing her husband's hand.
"Nervous?" The nurse asked them.
"Yes." Diane looked at her with a childlike smile, the look of hope and wonder on her face almost causing Gibbs to break down right there for the way he treated her about this news. He saw how happy the idea of a baby made her and he squeezed her hand to let her know that he was there for her and this wasn't a dream. Her smile only grew more as she felt him do that, trying to remember the last time he made her feel this safe or sure about something.
"That's normal. Especially for your first child." The nurse finally placed the ultrasound wand on Diane's stomach and began to move it around as she watched the monitor.
It was silent for a while save for the sounds coming from the machine before Diane finally spoke. "Can you see it?"
"Mmmm, I'm having a little trouble finding it. But that's normal. Your baby is very small right now, so they like to hide." The nurse chuckled, continuing to search for the baby on the screen. She only tried for another minute or two before she hummed again and set the ultrasound wand down. "I'll be right back. Maybe the doctor will have a better eye."
"Okay." Diane said in a chipper voice, something Gibbs hadn't heard from her since their wedding night.
The nurse smiled at them before leaving the room.
The ride home was quiet. A quiet that Gibbs hadn't realized he would hate so much. He usually begged God to make Diane be quiet, but something was different. Something in her told him that what they had heard at the hospital was a game changer and everything was about to explode.
He could feel it the moment the doctor told them that Diane was never pregnant and the home test was a false positive. He could feel it when the doctor said it was possible that Diane had created a pregnancy in her mind to compensate for how unhappy their marriage was. It was something called a Phantom Pregnancy. Her body had formed the symptoms of a pregnancy, thus explaining the morning sickness and her sudden need to pee a lot after the fights with Gibbs. Eventually her own mind came up with a reason to stay. And a part of Gibbs could feel her slipping away from him in the truck on the way home.
Overall, ignoring the pain and the hurt that Diane felt when she learned the truth about her deceitful body, she mostly felt relieved that she had taken the bus to the hospital and that Gibbs had surprised her there because she knew that if she were driving right now, she might drive herself into a tree.
This was worse than she ever could have imagined. Her high hopes for a better marriage and a saving grace in it had only been a fake dream she had created in her own mind to give her a reason to get passed all the ugly only to reveal that the ugly had gotten so bad that her own body had said "enough" before her mind could.
The moment they got home, Diane sat on the end of the couch, hugging the end pillow and staring into the empty fireplace while Gibbs watched her for a moment, unsure of what to say. "Maybe next time." He soon said, suggesting that perhaps she could become pregnant the next time that they had sex.
But Diane knew better. "Is that what you want?" She asked him quietly. "Really." The seriousness in her voice actually began to scare Jethro. "Is that what you want?" She repeated, looking up into his eyes finally.
The married couple continued to look at each other for a while, the damaged husband remaining silent without an answer to her question for far too long.
Diane soon understood what the answer was without verbal confirmation and she stood, headed for the stairs though Jethro stopped her. He gently took his wife's hand before she could pass him.
The redhead lost her breath at the touch and turned to look up into Gibbs' eyes for a moment. There it was. That look she had longed for from him for months. The compassion and concern in them making her weak in the knees yet again. "Oh, Leroy." She said before they crashed into each other in a passionate kiss. Diane poured out every feeling she had into it. Her sadness, her anger, her loneliness. She gave him everything and he spent their whole marriage throwing it all away on some boat. Gibbs' feelings in the kiss were simpler than that. An apology. That's what it was.
It didn't take long before the both of them were tearing each other's clothes off and they somehow ended up on the couch, making love all afternoon as if to tell each other how sorry they were for all the fighting. But somewhere in the middle of all that, Diane still knew how this would go. He wouldn't change. He was too set in his ways and still too in love with Shannon to ever fully love Diane.
After their fourth or fifth time going at it in their living room, Diane carefully stood, grabbing her clothes and heading upstairs to pack her bags.
Still lying on the couch, Jethro closed his eyes, letting out a sigh as it finally dawned on him that he ruined his second chance at love.
It felt as if only a week had passed since that day when Jethro opened his eyes again after a long deep breath as he took in the fresh air at Meridian Hill Park. He looked around for the murder suspect he and Agent Dinozzo were searching for before bringing his watch up to his mouth. "Anything, Dinozzo?" He asked into the device.
"Nothing, Boss." Tony responded from yards away, playing Frisby with a service dog. "YOU see anything?" He asked Gibbs, bending down to take the Frisby from the pup.
Gibbs kept looking around from the bench he was seated at. The moment he opened his mouth to reply to his Senior Field Agent, his mind drew a blank. His eyes caught the woman he hadn't seen in over two years. The woman who drained his bank account in their divorce to compensate for her losing her job. The woman he now couldn't stand, causing him to stand up and go to her and the familiar man walking beside her.
The couple, trying to enjoy a walk in the park, were cut off on the sidewalk by Agent Gibbs.
"Leroy." Diane said as she looked up at him. "I'm surprised to see you outside, Woodchuck."
"I'm working." Gibbs said.
"Ah. Of course you are." Diane said with a bit of disappointment. "Oh, uh…This is Tobias. Tobias Fornell."
"We've met actually." Tobias said. "Once or twice on a case?" He asked for confirmation.
"Yeah." Gibbs nodded once, finding it amusing that someone who he was considering to maybe become friends with in the future was now with his own ex wife, but he held back his laughter. His eyes fell to Diane's bulging stomach, her hand over it revealing a wedding ring.
Diane noticed where he was looking and cleared her throat. "We are married now." She said, stating the obvious. "And it's a girl." She said, referring to the baby in her pregnant belly as she caressed it.
Gibbs looked back up into his ex wife's eyes, reading them and seeing the sparkle she had in them without him. "I'm happy for you." He said, genuinely feeling that way for her. "You'll be a great mom."
"Uh, Boss. Suspect approaching on your six." Tony said through his ear piece to Gibbs.
"Gotta go." Gibbs said to the Fornells. "Good luck." He said, about to turn and leave.
"Wait, Leroy." Diane said softly. "We should have coffee some time….all of us." She suggested, hoping that meant there were no hard feelings.
Gibbs just looked at her briefly, then at Tobias, then back at Diane. "Yeah." He nodded. "Sure." He turned around, getting back to work as he smirked to himself, doubting a friendship between the three of them would ever work. As if they'd have coffee every weekend and grow close and the Fornells would name him godfather to their daughter, whom they would probably name Emma or Emily or something like that.
"Yeah right." He thought to himself, internally laughing at the ridiculousness of such a thought.
