Disclaimer: don't own them, I just use them for my own entertainment.
Tony had found a quick excuse to depart from the lab after Gibbs' revelation. True, he was going to find the rest of the team and impart some knowledge upon them, but it wasn't because he was a gossip, no never! It was because he believed that the team needed to have the knowledge to deal with any situation, and that included the fact that Gibbs had a niece. And that the niece was in the lab, and liked farting hippos. And him. And Abby. Mostly he wanted to boast about the fact that he'd managed to charm a 'gorgeous young thing'. Winding his co-workers up was such an amusing pastime after all.
His eyes rolling to the ceiling, Gibbs watched his senior field agent depart, with little doubt as to where he was headed. As he shifted to turn back to Abby, the baby began to grizzle softly, and he patted her back, shushing her gently until she quietened. "Hush Kaylee, shhh."
Abby Scuito wasn't one to miss details, no matter how offhand they might be delivered. Nor did she miss the similarity between the name he had called the baby, and his own daughter's name – Kelly- and she doubted it was a coincidence. "Kaylee, huh?" she smiled, a questioning note in her voice that she knew Gibbs would recognise.
"Kaylee Shannon." Gibbs' response was almost flat. "Yes, this little one is named after her Aunty and Cousin."
"What happened to her parents?" to Abby, this was the overwhelming question. It was accepted that there were things about Gibbs that she had never known, and things that she never would – but she thought that if he was going to walk in here and leave her with a baby, no matter how slight that length of time had been, she deserved to know the circumstances.
"I got a call this morning. Maria was in a car crash on her way to work. She died on impact."
Assuming Maria was the Mother, Abby tilted her head to the side, waiting for Gibbs to continue, but it seemed he wasn't going to, so she had to ask, "What about her dad?"
A hard look came into the man's eyes, almost causing Abby to take a step backwards. She had only seen that look in his eyes when Ari had killed Kate – a more serious version of the one she had seen when Michael Mauer had almost killed herself – the look reserved for the times when he would like to kill someone who had hurt a person he loved. "He is not part of Kaylee's life, and if he has any sense, he'll keep it that way."
Accepting his hard words with a simple nod, Abby steered the conversation back onto what she hoped was safer ground, "Is she going to stay with you?"
At that question, Gibbs looked very tired, and he sat – she could almost say sank – onto Abby's desk chair. Suddenly, he looked older than he was, and not at all the confident man she was used to. "I don't know if I can do it again, Abby."
She fixed him with a look – a serious, heartfelt look, one that he hadn't seen often on her face, one that meant she truly, utterly meant what she was about to say. And when she said it, it was only three words, but to him they meant the world.
"Let me help."