DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NCIS OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS!

OPENING THE PAST

****This chapter contains spoilers from the end of season 7 and beginning of season 8. Sorry I had to use them to let the story flow the way it ran in my head. Proceed with caution!****

CH 3

Karin waited trying not to let his silence unnerve her. She knew he was looking for the words. The words that could tell his story in the fewest words.

Gibbs sensed her nervousness and rested his hand on hers. It calmed them both having that contact. He searched for where to begin.

"Shannon," he swallowed, cleared his throat and began again. "Shannon was the only other woman who loved me for me, besides my mother," he grinned. "With all my faults: my temper, my silence, all of it- she accepted it.

"We met here, in Stillwater. I was leaving for the Corps; she was heading off for college." He smiled remembering their train ride. "We talked. Well she talked, but I listened. We saw each other whenever time would allow. When she finished college, she got a job as a teacher. Eventually we married and were blessed with our daughter, Kelly."

Karin listened transfixed by the love he still felt evidenced in his voice. Though she might have once been filled with jealousy, now she knew that it was all a part of what made him who he was.

"What happened?" she asked quietly.

"We moved to California when I got stationed at Pendleton. It was hard. Shannon missed her parents and they, especially her mother were less than pleased with me. Even more so after they were murdered."

Karin's eyes widened, "Murdered?"

"I was overseas in Kuwait when it happened. A drug dealer, whom Shannon witnessed kill one of his dealers found them in protective custody. He shot the agent driving the car and they were killed in the crash."

"Oh, Jethro," Karin couldn't help but feel his sadness.

"When I finally got home and laid them to rest I knew that I had to find the man responsible."

"Did you?" Karin asked knowing what the obvious answer had to be.

Gibbs only nodded staring into her eyes.

Karin knew what he was saying without the words. It scared her, even though she understood why he would've done what he had done. Silence stretched on as she absorbed this 'secret' he'd shared. She weighed all she knew about him.

He had been a sniper, so he'd obviously planned and killed before. He'd been an agent for 20 years and certainly there had been numerous deaths at his hand on the job. Would this one unsanctioned, yet completely justified death change how she felt about him or how she viewed him?

She stood and he remained sitting watching her. He knew this was what had to be done. His three failed marriages may not be a direct result of his never talking to them about what he'd done, but it was always buried inside him and they could never know all of him.

This way if Karin walked, it would be an honest break and he wouldn't hold it against her. It was a horrible thing he'd done. No regrets, but not something that's easy to be accepted and forgiven.

He watched as she went to refill her cup and he leaned back into the sofa. It was her move now. Being a man who likes to control things, it was difficult to sit and wait. But he would. He owed her that.

Karin refilled her cup and ran her finger along the rim. What he hadn't said she had been able to surmise. She had questions, not for Jethro as much as for herself. Could she share a life with someone that for all intents and purposes was a murderer, even a hypocrite considering his career? Did she really see him that way?

It was a secret, of that she was certain. How many knew it, she had no idea. Did the team know? Yet they still stood by him every day. They had known him longer, but did they know him better?

She stood in a daze all the questions swirling in her mind. Time passed, how much she was unaware, still he wasn't coming to her for an answer, allowing her to come to her conclusion on her own.

She found the need to sit and pulled out a chair from the table. She placed her cup down without much thought of her actions. He'd brought her here, his old home to tell her things that he couldn't reveal back home. There had to be more of a reason then to keep her from running away and not looking back.

Strangely that thought never manifested itself. She didn't want to run away. Even knowing something as awful as he had done, she didn't want to leave him. Could she keep his secret? Would she stand by him if it did ever become public knowledge?

She knew the answers. Supposed she knew them all along, but she had to let them run the gamut of her mind. She loved him and his past revealed more sadness than horror in her eye. For how many years had he kept his dead wife and daughter a secret? Was it only to hide his revenge? Or was the pain of that loss more than he wanted to relive?

When she stood to rinse out her cup Jack was standing at the sink having already put his cup in the drainer. He had been watching her, silently. She smiled briefly at him; embarrassed that he'd seen her trying to come terms with all the information she'd been given. Did Jack even know?

"You're staying?" he asked. Yeah, he must know.

She nodded, "Yes, I'm staying." She lifted a shoulder, "What can I say, your son has stolen my heart."

Jack chuckled, "Hope he treats it right."

She looked at him and then rinsed her cup. "How long have you known?" she asked putting her cup next to Jack's.

"He told me last spring. I had a visitor bent on her own revenge."

"Her revenge?" Karin was taken aback.

He nodded, "The daughter of the dirt bag that killed our girls."

She didn't miss the animosity he emitted. Shannon and Kelly must've been just as important to him as they had been to Jethro. She put her hand on his arm. "She wasn't successful."

"No. I scared her off, but she had friends that shot the store all to hell."

"You escaped unharmed," she looked him over.

"Barely made it to the root cellar before the barrage began. They ran off when the sirens got closer. Spent the next five months under my boy's watchful eye," he smiled remembering how the two of them had gotten under each other's skin- just like old times.

"Good you had him to protect you."

"He's always considered himself a protector. His only failure was being away when the girls were killed. I always thought he'd let it eat away at him. He didn't talk to me for a long time after funeral. With all the anger he harbored I should've known what he'd do. Maybe I could've stopped him or maybe it was something he had to do."

"You know I think he would've done whatever it took to protect them. Maybe he saw it as course overdue. Whatever his reasons, I can't hold it against him." She gave Jack a hug, "I think he takes a lot after you. You're both good men."

Jack smiled, "Don't know about that, but thanks all the same."

She left him there as she rejoined Jethro to let him know she was going to stick by him. She found him with his head resting on the back of the sofa one arm slung over his eyes. He didn't move, but he knew she was there.

"I don't know that I deserve you," he said softly. Had he been reliving all his grief while she was away?

She sat down lightly beside him curling her legs under her so she could face him. She lifted his arm off his face and he turned his head to look at her. His eyes were red and watery.

"I think I'm lucky to have someone who can love so fiercely that he'd go beyond all reason to right a wrong," she informed him.

He let his head fall onto her shoulder and she held him close. "Any other secrets you need to tell me about," she teased.

He sat up and held her hands taking his time to tell her the rest though not a secret still things she deserved to know. "Shannon was my first wife," he stated simply waiting for her to ask the obvious follow up question.

"Oh? How many wives have you had?" she wondered how he could've remarried after suffering the losses he had.

"Three others. They didn't last very long. A year or two at most," he admitted.

Karin was stunned, but weighed the news of three divorces over the darker news and decided they didn't come close. "Why didn't they last?" she wondered aloud.

"I didn't know how to be with them. I couldn't tell them what I had done. Eventually, with a secret hidden between us, things would fall apart."

"But then why are you telling me, now?" she asked quizzically.

He smirked, "I figure if we're going to have a chance of any kind of future you needed to know. I'd rather have you walk away now because of knowing what I've done than because I couldn't tell you."

"Okay," she uncurled her legs and snuggled under his arm. "Now we can move forward. Wherever that may lead us."

He nodded, "Sounds good." He pulled her close and when she looked up at him, he brought his lips down to meet hers.