This chapter is pretty much written for Lynn DiNozzo, because of her review, which said, "I do, however, wish you would have put some of Gibbs/Tim's conversation, but that does leave some for the imagination!"
So, here is the conversation.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything from NCIS (except from some printed pictures and pictures on my Ipod and DVD's . I do not make any money from my writing hopefully, yet! J).
And, if names in my fanfictions match names from people you know, or are also used in other stories, I am sorry, I am horrible at making names up.
Thank you CALLEN37 for beta-reading my stories!
~Goldfishmind
Chapter 18
Gibbs was sanding his boat in his dark basement; he did not bother to turn on some lights. Then he heard a knock on his door. Only one person he knew would actually knock. Then the door opened and footsteps walked to the stairs. The stairs creaked and Gibbs looked up. McGee was trying to walk down the stairs without falling the rest of the way. When he reached the bottom, he looked up at Gibbs.
"Hey," McGee actually didn't know what to say.
"Hey," Gibbs grabbed a cup and turned it around, so the inside was laying on his working bench then he grabbed his bottle of bourbon and poured some into the cup, just as he did with every visitor. He gave the cup to McGee. McGee took a sip and made a face.
"You don't have to drink it, ya know." Gibbs resumed sanding. McGee nodded and leaned back against the stairs.
"Is there a reason you are here?" Gibbs asked.
"Well, just, I don't understand." McGee sighed.
"You are so much like my dad, but how can you still be so… normal?"
Gibbs looked up in surprise. "You are calling me normal? I've never heard that."
"Okay, not normal, but you drink, what I hear from Tony, you drink a lot; especially when you are mad or sad. But how do you stay sober, or stay out of trouble?"
Gibbs shrugged. He realized when McGee never came to him when he was in trouble or wanted to talk to him about things that bothered him.
"I always tried so hard to please my father..." he took a breath and obviously tried not to cry.
"Why was everything I did wrong? Why could I never satisfy him by working my ass off at school? I tried so hard to get high marks, because I could never make it into the Navy with my seasickness. Why? How could I have made him happier? Why was every decision I made wrong?" Gibbs looked at McGee who looked distraught. He walked towards him and shook his shoulder a bit in a comforting manner.
"I don't know all of your decisions, but the ones which were important, were good. Even with everything that has happened in your past, done by your role model, you won. You are so different from him. In a good way, Tim."
Tim just looked at the ground his face sad.
"Tim, you are still a wonderful person. He couldn't change that."
Gibbs patted Tim's shoulder and walked over to his working bench. He took two sanders and gave one to Tim.
Both lost in their own thoughts, they were busy.