Changeling -- by DebC
Author's Notes: Author's Notes: This is a part of my immortal!Gibbs series, after Honor of a Promise Made. Thank you tokaylashay81 for the beta reading and comments, and for the encouragement, especially when it came to figuring out where to put Shannon and Kelly in Gibbs' different life.
The scenery blew past the eyes of one Leroy Jethro Gibbs as he stared out the only window in the crowded car of the train. It wasn't a passenger car, but one for transport, and all around him, the other soldiers were celebrating their return home at the end of the Great War.
"You! Yank!" one or another of them would call to him, occasionally, usually with an added question about long faces and rain on parades, but Gibbs couldn't bring himself to join in the festive atmosphere.
"You got a girl you're off to see?" One of them asked. Another asked if if was excited to be going home.
Gibbs was neither, so he shook his head. "Not headed home," he said simply, because he wasn't. Not to his home, at any rate, and most definitely not to any 'girl' of his. At the end of the line, there was a girl waiting for him, two of them in fact, but they belonged to James "Jimmy" Healy, a man with whom Gibbs had shared many a fox hole since the start of this war. Jimmy hadn't come home, and since that was partially Gibbs fault - at least in his own eyes, as Jimmy had been his buddy - and because Jimmy asked him on his death bed, he was headed into the heart of the Emerald Isle instead of hopping back across the pond to America.
His companions shrugged and returned to their own speculations of the welcome homes they each would receive when they stepped off the train at their various stops.
Gibbs' own destination was the end of the line, in the last town on the train's route. Only three other soldiers remained with him to the end, and by the time they arrived it was getting dark. The families who stood waiting outside wore the same tired expressions as the men who climbed out of the transport at long last. But those quickly gave way to smiles and hugs as mothers and fathers reunited with sons and husbands held tight to the wives and families they'd left behind. And then, one by one, they filed out towards their buggies and carts, leaving Gibbs alone at the station.
He reached inside his coat and pulled out a worn piece of paper which had been folded, wrinkled and smudged with the act of looking at it too many times. The address and directions were written in Jimmy's own, with added notes like, "Down the road, there'll be barn. Don't stop there, there's dogs." He remembered when Jimmy had given it too him, along with a hand-drawn sketch of his wife and daughter.
"Their names are Shannon and Kelly," his friend said in a quiet whisper, while the sounds of gun fire reached their ears from inside their fox hole. "If anythin' happens to me, Leroy me' Boy, promise you'll go and let them know I loved them well."
He thrust the papers into Gibbs' hands before he could protest the notion that something was going to befall James Healy and opened them to find himself staring at the rough charcoal sketch of a mother and a child who was no more than a babe. Drawn from memory, he couldn't help but think, because he knew the mail hadn't delivered recent photographs to his friend. "Jimmy, I ..."
"Don't say 'no,' Leroy. We both know what could happen to me won't at all happen to you. If it does, I want to know they're taken care of. Take them... take them to America with you, if you go back. Livin' is hard in our country right now."
Gibbs shook his head, trying to shake the specter of his friend's earnest face as he pressed the papers into his hands from his mind, and walked away from the lonely train station. The Army would have - he hoped - all ready notified the Healy's that Jimmy wasn't coming home. He hoped so, but that wasn't a guarantee at all. The post and telegraphs were slow sometimes. The Army itself was even slower. And no one ever really wanted to be the bearer of bad news.
He walked for over a mile or better, following Jimmy's instructions by the light of the moon and the feeling in his gut until his eyes were too heavy to see the words in front of him. In the distance, he could see a little bridge, over a little rivulet and knew without consulting Jimmy's directions that he was close. It made a good place to stop, and Gibbs made shelter in a hollow under the bridge where the bank pushed into water. He threw his coat over his body and settled in for the night, dreaming of Katie Ann and their Momma, and a warm, hearty stew simmering over the stone fireplace in their kitchen. Wishful thinking on a cold night in a strange land, and it wasn't the first time Gibbs had had such dreams. He thought of Katie Ann a lot these days, especially since Jimmy had died. He often wondered, belatedly, what it had been like the day someone from the Army came to ask about him. Oh, he knew he'd been listed as missing, but how had the news been received? Had Momma and Katie Ann cried? Had the Army man who'd come bullied or harassed them, believing perhaps they might know where the deserter had gone? Had their family been shunned afterwards, when the news spread? Or had it all been hushed up? Swept under the rug? In his dreams, he could see Katie Ann crying and holding Momma tightly while the older woman collapsed in tears. In dreams, it was often the end of her, and he awakened under bridge shaking with sorrow and not cold.
A quarter mile more in the bright morning sun, and he passed the barn Jimmy had warned him about, but no dogs came to greet or chase him, though he heard them barking in the distance. And still, he walked on, until mid-day, when the road brought him to modest cottage in the middle of the country side. Two-story, white washed walls, thatched roof. "It's not much to look at, as far as homes go, but it's home sweet home," Jimmy had said, and then asked him about his own home. Gibbs had shrugged and said, "Home is where I hand my hat, most days." Which had meant that the fox hole they shared was his home at that moment in time.
Today that meant the little hollow under the bridge where he'd slumbered the brief night away, or perhaps the humble home he now approached cautiously with his army back pack slung over one shoulder.
A woman, young and dressed in black, with a worn black shawl covering most of her red hair, answered the door for him almost before he had finished rapping upon it. Shannon, he knew immediately without looking at the sketch Jimmy had made. A small toddler in a similar black frock clung to her skirt, hiding her face from the stranger at the door. Gibbs felt the pain of losing Jimmy all over again as he took in their mourning clothes and knew that the Army had, indeed, informed them of his demise.
"May I help you... sir?" Shannon asked, but not before shooing her daughter off to somewhere inside the room behind them.
"Ma'am," Gibbs began, reaching into his coat pocket for the packet of letters Jimmy had written. Jimmy had been a practical man, when it came to the idea of his own death. He'd written letters, new ones, once a month for the entire war, burning the old ones when each new month came and went. These were the last, and Gibbs had taken them at his friend's last request, that they be given to his mother, wife, and small daughter. She'd been barely one year old when he had left them and now, she would grow up without a father. "My name is Gibbs," he said quietly. "I knew your husband, Jimmy, from the war. He was a good buddy of mine. He, ah, asked me to deliver these," he said, holding out the packet for her to take.
She took the letters, eyes fixing on the one with her name on it. "This is Jimmy's hand writing, to be sure, but how can I know that you speak true, Mister Gibbs?"
"I expect he might have mentioned me in the letter, ma'am," was Gibbs reply. "If you read it, that is."
Shannon hesitated, and from behind her came another voice, calling out, "Shannon, girl, is that a man's voice I hear?"
"Yes, Mother!" she answered. "Tis someone come to call, claimin' to be a friend o' Jimmy's. He's dressed the part, to be sure!" To Gibbs, she shook her head. "You'll wait here, won't you now?" and disappeared into the house without one more word for him.
Gibbs strained to hear them speaking from inside the house, but all he could pick up were bits and pieces of the phrases, some of it English and some of it the Irish gaelic which Jimmy spoke on occasion. And crying. The wrenching sobs which met his ears all but broke his heart.
Minutes passed, and then even more minutes. Gibbs legs hurt from standing, so he sat down with his back to the wall beside the door. Just when he was certain that they had forgotten him altogether in their grief, the door opened and Shannon looked down at him. "So you're still here, are you?" she asked him with little preamble.
"Yes, ma'am," he answered, looking up at her.
"Well, then, you'd best be coming inside, Mister Gibbs. Tis wicked cold at night, and it would be poor mannered of me to keep one of my husband's friends tarrying on the doorstep like so," she told him, almost sounding as if she were scolding him for not being inside by the hearth already.
"Yes, ma'am," Gibbs answered again, unable to keep back the smile which crept to his face. He could see the 'spit fire of a gal' Jimmy had spoken of so highly through the mourning shrouds. He stood, stretching his limbs which had stiffened in the chilling air, and followed her into the house.
*****
Days turned into weeks and three of those went by before Shannon approached Gibbs while he tended the chickens running around behind their cottage. He was attempting to build them a chicken coop, though the chickens did not seem to want one in the least. Since arriving at the Healy home, Gibbs had stepped into most of the roles his dead friend had filled, save one. He fixed things, tended the animals, white washed the outside of the house, carried water from the well so that Mrs. Healy - the elder one whom Shannon referred to only as Mother - could bath once it was heated, and sat by the fire at night, reading stories to Kelly out of an old, worn book of faerie tales.
"Mister Gibbs," Shannon began as she came to a stop in front of him.
"Yes, ma'am," he answered, having given up on the notion that Shannon would call him by any name but that one. She held Jimmy's letter clutched tightly in one hand, and he could see that some of the words had blurred together from her tears.
"Do you know what is in this, sir?" she asked of him.
"No, ma'am, I do not. I am but a humble delivery boy."
Shannon considered this answer and had to stifle the snort which almost escaped her mouth. Gibbs, in turn, found himself smirking. "I hardly think so, Mister Gibbs. I suspect you could take a guess at what was said in these pages," she accused.
"I did not read them," he insisted, "but your husband asked me to look after yourself and his daughter in the event of his death. I suspect he might have have mentioned it to you, as well."
She nodded her head in silent, but not submissive, agreement. There was nothing but challenge flashing in her eyes as she looked at him, and Gibbs suspected that whatever Jimmy might have told her, she needed to be sure of it before she trusted her family to a virtual stranger. "He might have, to be sure. And he also might have written some ... interesting things ... about you, Mister Gibbs."
"He might have, I expect," Gibbs answered in agreement.
"Are you okay, Leroy? You could have been hit!"
Jimmy's voice was thick with open concern, as they huddled together behind the ramshackle building whose wall threatened to crumble down on top of them for all the bullets it had seen in the course of this war.
"Never mind that," Gibbs answered through gritted teeth. "Can you see the door? We have to find cover." His voice was tight, and he hoped he could cover up the fact that he had been hit, had taken a bullet while pulling his friend to safety. Gibbs had nothing to lose, after all, but Jimmy had plenty.
"I think so," was Jimmy response, and he left Gibbs, crouching as he inched across the outer wall and rounded the corner. His body blurred around the edges, not from distance, and Gibbs swore under his breath. He'd taken a worse hit than he had thought and was bleeding out fast. No way he could hide it from his friend. Hell, he might not even be conscious when Jimmy...
... Gibbs surged forward, heaving a gasping breath as air filled his once empty lungs. Life, as it had many times before, surged back into him heedless of the laws of nature and God, which said it should not.
"Le-Leroy?!?" Jimmy's shocked voice came out the shadows near him, and Gibbs realized with horror that his loyal friend had not simply left his body, but had dragged it into the crumbling building - which he now realized was some kind of school house - with him. "By the Saints, Leroy! How is this possible? You were dead but a moment ago!"
Gibbs thought he knew what Jimmy had told her about himself. Shortly after his resurrection in front of his friend, Gibbs had shared the story of Immortals, as the old saw bones had explained it to him. James Healy had sat, wide eyed in wonder, listening to the whole thing. He inspected Gibbs' sword, pulled back his blood soaked uniform to look at the scar free skin where his deadly wound had been, and in an even greater miracle, he accepted it. Gibbs had expected rejection, denouncement even. Not the acceptance he received. Weeks later, Jimmy had come to him asking that, if anything happened to him, Gibbs would allow him to tell his Shannon about this miracle. Gibbs had been leery, but Jimmy had explained that Shannon would need to trust him. A secret like this would breed such trust.
"So are they true, then? These faerie tales of Jimmy's?" she asked him straight away, with a forwardness Gibbs could not help but appreciate.
"Yes, ma'am, they are," he confirmed.
Shannon laughed, and unfolded the letter to a page she had obviously poured over with some interest, and began quoting a part of it to him. It was a detailed description of Gibbs saving her husband's life, dying, and then returning from the dead before his eyes. She paused and then quoted a bit about orphaned Immortals, who never died. "So you're a changeling, then, Leroy Jethro Gibbs? Is that what I am to believe?"
"A ... changeling, ma'am?" Gibbs asked, utter confusion written all over his face.
"A changeling, a faerie child," Shannon explained. "The old stories tell us that faeries will sometimes covet human children and steal them away as babies, leaving a wee immortal faerie babe in its place."
"I see," Gibbs said, and he couldn't help the smile on his face as it bloomed. "I don't know about all of that, but I do that what Jimmy told you was the truth. However, if it is proof you need... " He reached for the Army pistol he kept upon him at all times and handed it to her butt first.
Shannon hesitated, and took it from him, but as she raised it to take aim, she hesitated again, and slowly lowered the weapon. Handing it back to him, she shook her head. "I'll not throw Jimmy's memory into despair by not believing him. If he says it is so, then so it is."
Gibbs stowed the gun with a curt nod of his head. "I thank you, ma'am. Dying is not a pleasant thing, even if it would not have been permanent."
At this, Shannon looked sad and pained. "It is permanent enough for the rest of us," she told him quickly. "Mother Healy, " - Jimmy's mother - "has not been the same since the news came of Jimmy's death. Her health is failing, though I doubt you've missed that fact."
"I had noticed it, yes," he agreed. It hardly seemed likely that the older woman would last the year, in his eyes.
Shannon continued. "There's a bank note on the home. Even with the pittance the Army gave us for Jimmy, it won't be enough to settle it. When she dies, Kelly and I will be out of a home."
"That's why Jimmy wanted me to look after you," Gibbs said as the revelation dawned on him.
"So it would seem," Shannon answered him in a soft, small voice that wasn't like her at all. Not the strong Irish woman he was slowly coming to know, but a woman who's whole world was being torn apart by war and death. "When she goes, Mister Gibbs, Kelly and I will go with you to America. It's what Jimmy wanted."
*****
Six months later - six months too soon, in Gibbs' opinion - Mrs. Healy succumbed to the slow death which had haunted her since her son's passing. They buried her with the rest of the Healy family in the cemetery of the churchyard. A good christian burial, what Jimmy would have wanted.
The bank gave them a month to clear out of their house and Gibbs paid for passage back to America for L. Jethro Gibbs, and his 'family.' Shannon and Kelly were to take his name, and he was changing his. Jimmy had called him Leroy, and Jimmy would be the last. It was to be 'Jethro' from then on. Leroy Gibbs remained behind in Ireland, like the changeling child returning home at last.