Title: A Second Chance
Rating: T to be safe – two teeny-tiny little curse words
Spoilers: Deliverance, Hiatus I & II, Escaped, Borderland, Bloodbath
Author's Note: From Chirugal's Hiatus Week 12 prompt "A Second Chance". While there are technically spoilers from Borderland, this is set immediately after Deliverance. I just needed the information we get in Borderland :)
Disclaimer: I don't own anything except what I write. NCIS and all its characters, plots, and quotes are all Mr. Bellisario's…I just play with them every now and then.
"Most people don't get a second chance."
Opening his beer, Gibbs thought over the case they just closed. It had certainly brought back memories – '91 had been a rough year in every possible way. He reached instinctively for the old bullet wound; even though it was long healed, he could still remember the pain, so strong at the time that it was almost a living being trying to force him out of his own body. But Rose…Rose had been a blessing, though he most definitely didn't appreciate it at the time. That mission could have gone either way, and at the time he'd thought that it should have gone the way it didn't.
That day – the day when Rose found him – was his first second chance. She had made the choice for him to live, and once he was capable of coherent thought again, he promised himself that he'd make that gift of life count. He'd live for Shannon and Kelly – and find justice for them. Looking back, maybe he hadn't done so well on the first part after all, but he damn sure had gotten justice. Or was it vengeance?
It hit him – hard – that he'd gotten another second chance. Not with NCIS – Jen had never closed the door on his return. No, he'd been given another chance by his team, his friends. He'd walked out on them - I walked out on her – without a word, disappeared for months, then just showed up again. Sure, there had been a little harbored resentment (especially from Ducky), but they worked it out and things were back to normal. Well, as normal as they ever got with a team comprised of a Marine, a womanizing movie-buff, a trained assassin, a computer genius, an ME who doubles as a shrink, and a happy Goth forensic scientist.
Abby. He'd left without allowing her to speak because he knew he'd stay if she had asked. She had worked her way into his heart over the years he'd know her – and she knew it. There was every reason to think that she would have shunned him when he finally came back, but, no, in typical Abby fashion, she'd cuffed them together and opened her heart right back up to him.
Damn. He'd been blind. Again. He loved her. When that crazy ex of hers had been stalking her, he was prepared to do whatever it took to keep her safe. If anything like that had happened to his ex-wives, well…maybe not so much. He thought of Abby the way he had thought of Shannon, loved her the same way. No, he hadn't forgotten Shannon, but now he remembered that promise he'd made himself in Colombia. It was time to start living again, living the way she would have wanted – happily.
He was going to need a Caf-Pow and a dozen black roses.