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He got used to the quiet sounds of woodwork in his basement, the quiet of a house after experiencing the possibility of a lifetime of noise. Sometimes, he could still hear his girls’ laughter. Could remember sleepless nights filled with baby cries that grew into mornings of being woken by little girl squeals.
He shut all that away, locked it in a compartment and filled the silence with sanding, with drilling, with his boat. It became the new melody of his life, and he refused to ever press play on the songs of the past again.
That is, until Kate Todd shoved her way into his life and added her own tune.
Now, along with the scraping of wood, his basement is filled with the sound of graphite scratching against clean paper. Of her soft sighs as she draws. Occasionally of crinkling balled up paper mixed with the sound of her frustration.
They work in tandem, his scraping and her scratching. And even though it was once his own personal sanctuary where he closed himself off and made the firm decision never to let anyone completely in, she’s the one who glares when he drops a tool and shatters the silence. She’s the one who tells him to turn the heat up when it gets too cold. She’s the one with slippers and blankets casually tossed all over his (their) basement.
Sometimes, like now, he forgets to pay attention to the work he’s actually doing on his boat, too busy paying attention to the lines of concentration on her forehead, the small frown of her mouth when she can’t figure out her next step, the way she bites her lip while she shades. It is those times that his work is shoddy, that he wonders how many nicks in his work were there before Kate and after Kate.
He’d take all the boat-builder mistakes to keep the after, keep it at always.
“I can feel you looking at me. Eyes on the boat, Gunny.” Her voice is another welcome sound in the quiet of his life, in their house. The hum of amusement on her tongue, keeping him in check. Keeping him from being too serious.
“Would rather keep them on you.”
She bites her cheek to keep from smiling, but the flush of her cheeks gives her away. She can hold her own in front of a suspect, can lock it down when necessary, but with him she’s always been an open book. She’s always told him she couldn’t help it, but he likes to think that she trusts him enough not to try.
“Gibbs, stop. I can’t concentrate with you staring at me!”
She smiles more these days, and he’s proud of her for finally asking for the help to get there. She’s so afraid of being weak; he doesn’t think she realizes she’s always been the stronger of the two of them. It takes a hell of a lot of strength to ask for help, even more to follow through and accept the help being offered. Dreams of Ari come less frequently these days, if ever, and when they do he’s right there to hold her through them. Together, they come out okay on the other side.
“Gibbs, seriously. Stop.”
He doesn’t. Instead, he puts his tools down and crosses the room to invade the space of the basement she claimed as her own, with a new couch and coffee table, scattered pencils and sketchbooks, extra light. She’s sitting with her legs curled up under her body, drowning in an old NIS sweatshirt of his with her sketchbook in her lap and a smile on her face, looking more in place in his basement than the boat ever did.
Even though there was a time he thought both looked absolutely ridiculous there.
He crowds her space sitting next to her, and she pulls the sketchbook into her chest and out of his view. Her eyes go owlish, her cheeks stained with embarrassment. She looks momentarily completely distraught, and he can’t imagine what he did in the two seconds it took to cross the room to ignite such a change. “What’s wrong?”
She holds the sketchbook tighter. “Nothing.”
Oh, he’s not playing that game. He reaches for the sketchbook, tugging it gently away from her chest. She whimpers (it’s adorable) and he holds her gaze even when he knows her drawing is visible. “I…” She opens and closes her mouth three times. “I didn’t realize I was even drawing her at first.”
Curiously, he glances down. The air leaves his lungs, and Kate rubs her face into his arm. He doesn’t know how she could flawlessly have drawn a sketch of his daughter, but there on the page, in Kate’s rough scratches of graphite, is Kelly.
He pulls the sketchbook into his own lap, feeling Kate’s eyes on his face as he traces the lines of his daughter. “You did this by memory? From photographs?”
He feels her shrug against his side. “She has your ears and eyes. And your smile.”
He doesn’t correct to had. Runs his fingers over the shading of her nose. “Didn’t get this from me, thank God.”
Before he even feels her move, Kate reaches up to touch his nose. He releases a really unflattering honking noise as she squeezes it. If anyone else heard him make that sound, it would probably effectively ruin his Marine and Special Agent Bad Ass Reputation. Kate just giggles. “I like your nose.”
She moves to take the sketchpad back, but he stops her. “Can I…Can I have this?”
She looks at him carefully, and he can feel her eyes searching him. He doesn’t know how to explain that for so long, he was two versions of Leroy Jethro Gibbs: The Gibbs from the past, and the Gibbs of now. It wasn’t until Special Agent Caitlin Todd showed up that the two started to mend, and he still feels the crack in the middle, still doesn’t feel completely whole, but ever since she’s asked to see his bed almost a year now before, he’s been getting closer and closer to being completed.
How can he explain that having something that is so very Kelly, but so very Kate, feels more like a blanket of peace settling over him than he ever could expect?
“Please,” he makes a show of asking. It isn’t a word he uses very often, but one, he realizes, he’s used from the start with her.
She kisses him soundly on the cheek, carefully tears the drawing from the sketchbook and hands it to him.
He sleeps well that night. Kate and Tony get into a car accident the next day.
Tony doesn’t call the director. He immediately calls Gibbs. He speaks clearly into the phone, his voice level, and Gibbs can hear Kate in the background, “Just tell him I’m fine. Tell him not to…tell him I’m okay.” He has no intentions on meeting them at the hospital. He has no intention of waiting that long. Knowing how he drives? He could probably beat the ambulances to the scene.
He drags Ducky out of autopsy. Agrees when Ziva says she’s coming with him, tells McGee to hold down the fort.
When they pull up to the scene, he can hear Tony cracking jokes with the EMTs. While Kate is his protégé, Tony has always been his first mate, and he recognizes Tony’s particular brand of keeping the mood light for what it is. The lighter he keeps the scene, the less he panics, the less Kate panics, the less Gibbs panics when he arrives.
They see Tony first, his hair stained red with blood, his eyes a little glossy. He smiles wide at them (for show or for real is anybody’s guess until Gibbs has Ducky check both of his agents out thoroughly, screw whatever training these EMTs have had) and Ziva is the first to scurry over to his side. Gibbs recognizes the anger in Ziva’s eyes – it’s the kind of anger that takes over in the place of confused fear.
Ducky starts to move towards Tony, too, but Gibbs grabs him and swings him in the direction of Kate. Personal bias be damned. Tony is surrounded by EMTs, he’s in good hands and he can wait.
When Gibbs finally spots Kate she looks small. An EMT is shining a light in her eyes and she blinks back from it before opening her eyes wide to follow. Gibbs shoves the EMT (and the light) out of the way and positions himself in front of her instead. His eyes take in her face, slowly and carefully cataloging every bump and scrape.
He turns to look at the truck, but one of her hands reaches out and grabs his face, holding it still. “No, don’t look at the truck. Just look at me.”
He fights against her grip, because he needs to see the truck. Needs to see all of the damage so he can process what happened, if she’s hurt, how he can fix this. But she holds strong. “I’m okay. I’m fine. Look at me, hey, Gibbs.”
He’s breathing kind of heavy.
“Jethro!” she snaps, and his eyes pop to hers. It is very rare that she calls him his given name (well, outside of the bedroom, anyway) and it gets his attention. She moves her hands from his face to grab at his own, pulling them under her shirt to rest on her stomach. She’s warm and alive and he can feel her. “I’m fine. Tony’s side took most of the impact.”
“You’re bleeding.”
She nods. “It wasn’t a great time, I won’t lie. I hurt everywhere. But I’m okay.”
She’s okay. She’s okay, and he is the Agent in charge at a scene with two of his teammates surrounded by EMTs, and he needs to pull it together. He needs to be Agent Gibbs for a little while longer so he can get her home.
“Go check on Tony,” Kate says as he straightens his shoulders.
“Duck,” he barks. “I want every scrape on her checked and double checked!”
“Don’t worry, Jethro, she’s in good hands.” He watches Ducky place a grandfatherly kiss on Kate’s forehead. When he turns to address Tony, he catches sight of the truck.
It is a mangled mess, and he gulps.
Toughen up, Marine.
It takes six hours before she’s safely in their bed, where she belongs, after giving statements and getting checked by EMTs and getting checked by Ducky and getting checked by Gibbs. They should be checked by a hospital, too, but Ziva promised to stay with Tony (who is mostly okay, besides for a concussion) and he just wants to be with Kate. He can’t stop seeing that damn truck half the size it’s supposed to be, mangled and on its side and wrapped around a goddamn tree.
He gently removes her clothes, runs calloused fingers along her soft skin. He needs to know every bruise she’ll have from this. Needs to feel the heat of her, the flutter of pulse everywhere he can feel it. He leans down to kiss the top of her breast, feeling her heart beat against his lips.
“Are you okay?” He whispers the question into her neck.
“I’m fine. I told you, I’m fine.”
“No, I mean…” He shakes his head and leans up to look down at her. Her brave little smile that is just for him. It’s a miracle she is in his bed, in his life. A miracle he gets to touch her and love her, and be loved by her. It is a goddamn miracle she convinced him to take that risk almost a year ago. She could have died on that rooftop then. In some alternate universe, Ari could have won.
But she did not die. And still, Gibbs could have lost. He could have given in to the fear of his past and refused to love her. He could have ignore how she fought for them, fought his instinct to retreat. Much like he knows she’s fighting right now, and it breaks his heart a little to know with absolute certainty that she thinks she needs to. That she thinks he’ll, once again, start retreating.
“Are you okay, Kate,” he asks again. “Were you afraid?”
Her eyes fill with moisture before she blinks it away. “Overwhelmed.”
“You were worried for me.”
“I was terrified for you.” Her admission is quiet, her fingernails dig into his skin.
His Katie. In a truck, spinning out of control, crashing into a tree. Bleeding, bruised. Thinking only of his pain, not about her own.
He does not deserve her. But he will never let her go. “I want to show you something.”
He pushes up off of her and rolls to the side of the bed, reaching into the night table drawer and pulling out a stack of papers. She props herself up on her elbows, watching him with a furrowed brow. He relaxes next to her, bringing up a finger to smooth her forehead before chucking the stack of papers into her lap.
“Had them drawn up right after I got shot. Haven’t signed them yet. Wanted to talk to you about them first, and then, well…” He shrugs. He doesn’t really know what he was waiting for, just that he was waiting.
Her eyes scan the papers. “What are they?”
Leroy Jethro Gibbs is not an emotional man. He does not want to make this into a moment. But he can see realization dawn on her features. See how her face lights up and her eyes are wide and clear and full of water. He can see the soft tug of a smile she tries to keep off her lips. That damn dimple on her cheek popping out anyway.
“For starters, don’t ever want you stuck in a waiting room again. So, you know, power of attorney papers. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with those kind of decisions anyway.” He shrugs it off, as if he just handed her the grocery list.
She thumbs through the papers. “And these?” Her voice is a breathy whisper.
“Oh. Well, you’re a lot younger than me. So, you know, odds are I’ll go first—“ She fixes him a glare that could kill, she doesn’t want to hear about him dying, but he ignores it. “Anyway, I’m leaving everything to you. If you agree to it, that is. Not that you’ll get much, you know the NCIS salary. Hey, maybe you’ll get a finished boat by then though.”
The look on her face is one of such love, such understanding and acceptance and real honest to God love, it nearly knocks him over. She knows what this is as much as he does. This is him giving her everything of a future he can short of a wedding. This is him handing himself over to her in every way he can besides adding a fifth marriage to his repertoire.
(Though, and he suspects she knows it, if she asked him to he would marry her. He would do anything to keep her in his future. He’s learned enough from his past.)
“I’ll sign them right now, Katie, if that’s all good with you.”
She shakes her head, and for a second he thinks she’s turning him down. “I want…I want papers drawn up, too. If, God forbid, something happened today… I know you of all people could talk your way into any hospital room you wanted. But I don’t want you to have to torture the poor hospital staff. I want to make it easier for them.”
The laughter rolls off her throat like goddamn sunshine. He pushes the papers aside to roll on top of her. The future can wait a little while longer. She could have been seriously hurt tonight. He just wants to feel how warm and soft and alive she is. Wants to feel how much she loves him, wants to show her how much he loves her.
Because, damn it, Ari could have killed her on that rooftop.
Instead, they’re here.