A few hours later, Gibbs, Shannon, Tim, and Kelly were all finishing up dinner. "That was amazing, Shannon, as usual," Gibbs said. His wife's cooking was one of the many things he'd missed about this woman.
"Thanks, sweetheart. Now, I cooked, so you people are on cleanup," Shannon said before getting up and leaving the room.
"Wouldn't expect it any other way," Gibbs said. This was the way it had always been. Shannon was the cook in the family, unless it came to barbequing, and he'd take care of the cleanup."
"Well, at least we have a dishwasher here, so it shouldn't be too bad," Kelly said as she began to get up.
"Uh, Kel, why don't you just go relax. Tim and I will take care of it," Gibbs said. Now was as good a time as any for him to have that talk with his agent slash son-in-law.
"Dad, I should help too. I ate too. Besides, it'll go faster if we all pitch in," Kelly said.
Gibbs sent his daughter a look. Did she really not see what he was trying to do here? She had brought this to his attention and asked him to fix it. For that to work, he needed to talk to McGee… no, Tim, alone. He had to start calling him by his first name. For one, calling him 'McGee' while he called the others by their first names were probably part of the problem, and for another, he had to stop thinking of him as his agent. It was hard to face, but that wasn't what he was anymore.
Kelly finally got what her father was trying to do after a minute. "Um, on second thought, I am kind of beat. I'm gonna go sit with Mom in the living room," she said before making a hasty retreat.
Tim was nervous. He'd have had to be really dumb not to know something was going on from the exchange between his wife and father-in-law. Something was going on and his wife was in on it.
Gibbs stood up and grabbed a bunch of dishes before motioning for Tim to follow him into the kitchen.
Tim sighed. He stood up, grabbed the rest of the dishes and followed the older man.
"You rinse, I'll load," Gibbs said as he dropped the dishes in the sink and then opened up the dish washer.
Tim nodded before throwing his own dishes in the sink. He turned the water off and started rinsing dishes before handing them to Gibbs. "What's going on, Boss?"
Gibbs sighed. He wasn't sure how to start this conversation. He knew it had to happen, but it wasn't something he was good at. Showing emotion like this was something he only ever really showed Shannon and Kelly. "It has been brought to my attention that we have a problem."
Tim frowned at his boss. He had no idea what Gibbs was talking about. He didn't see any problems. "What kind of problem, Boss?"
"The kind that has you thinking you're less important than the rest of the team," Gibbs said.
Tim looked at Gibbs for a minute before turning and staring into the sink. "Damn it, Kelly." He loved his wife, but sometimes she was a bit like Abby in the way that she blabbed thinks that were meant to be private. She was obviously good at keeping serious secrets, like the truth about who she was, but she had a tendency to blab other things.
"Don't blame her. She did it to look out for you. You had a problem and she wanted to help fix it," Gibbs said.
"I…I don't have a problem. There is no problem," Tim said. He didn't see this as a problem, just the way things were.
"The fact that you don't think so is a problem in itself. You're under the impression that you don't matter," Gibbs said.
"That's not what I said. Kelly asked me if we were close and I said not really," Tim told him.
"Same thing. You see it as that I'm closer to Tony and Ziva than you, that I care about them more," Gibbs said.
"I guess, but I understand. I'm alright with it," Tim said. Okay, so that wasn't completely true. He had felt hurt by the fact that the others seemed to matter more, but he was used to being thought of as less than. He'd learned to live with it. It hurt, but he could deal.
"Well, I'm not alright with it and you shouldn't be either. I didn't even know you felt that way. If I had, I would've found a way to fix it long before now," Gibbs said.
"There's nothing to fix. Look, I get it. Tony and even Ziva have more in common with you and Abby was like another daughter to you. I understand," Tim said.
Gibbs chuckled humorlessly. "Yeah, I'm sure you do. You're used to coming in second, aren't you?"
Tim looked at Gibbs with a mixture of shock and betrayal on his face. Gibbs knew about his parents which meant Shannon had betrayed his trust a second time. She'd broken the promise she'd made years ago to never say a word.
Gibbs shook her head. "All she would say was that your parents wouldn't be receiving any medals. She wouldn't say anything else, said it wasn't her place."
Tim relaxed. Shannon hadn't betrayed him. She hadn't given Gibbs any specific information. "Okay, so my parents weren't the best. To them, I was always a disappointment."
"If they saw it that way then they're fools. I don't see you as a disappointment," Gibbs said firmly. Tim was a great agent and an even better man. His parents didn't know what they'd passed over.
"Really? You're saying you wouldn't rather Kelly be with someone like Tony than me?" Tim asked skeptically. He couldn't help but feel like Gibbs probably wished to have Tony as a son-in-law compared to him.
Gibbs gave him an incredulous look. "Are you crazy? If Tony came anywhere near my daughter, I'd have shot him." Tony was a good guy, but he was a player. He went after a different girl every week. He wasn't the type of guy he wanted Kelly with.
"Really?" Tim asked sounding surprised.
"Oh, yeah. Look, I don't like Kelly being with anyone, but between you and DiNozzo, you win," Gibbs said.
Tim smiled. He liked that he won over Tony at something with Gibbs. It was petty and childish, he knew, but he couldn't help it. He'd always felt second best to Tony in Gibbs' eyes.
"I never saw you as less than the others, Tim. If I wasn't as attentive to you, it was because you never seemed to need it. No one tried to kill you as much and you seemed well adjusted. I thought you had a good family and would go to them if you needed help," Gibbs said.
Tim looked towards the living room where Kelly and Shannon were, because they were always who he thought about when he thought of family. "I would've if I could've, but I didn't know where they were. Of course I know that's not what you were alluding to. That stopped being an option years ago."
Gibbs nodded. "I broke my own rules. I assumed. I assumed you had decent parents because you seemed well adjusted. You seemed happy."
Tim shrugged. "I didn't have horrible parents. I wasn't abused. They didn't send me on suicide missions like Ziva's father or send me off to military school like Tony's. They just didn't care."
"You say that like it's nothing. It's not nothing, in fact, not caring is the worst thing a parent can do. Well, let me make it clear now, I do care. Don't ever think I don't again. I'm sorry you didn't know that before," Gibbs said.
Tim smiled. "Come on, Boss, let's not go breaking Rule six."
"You're family. Rule six doesn't apply with family," Gibbs said.
Tim couldn't describe how he felt when Gibbs called him family. It was technically the truth, but he never thought Gibbs would see it that way. It felt so good hear that he did, that he saw him as something other than just an agent or just the person married to his daughter. "Thank, Boss."
Gibbs shook his head. "Gibbs. I'm not your boss anymore. It's just Gibbs."