Comfortable Surroundings (fic/rp for meet_thunder)
There's a comfort and peace in knowing that Heather is downstairs working. He is lying in bed, exhausted, and far more sore than he'd like to let on, but he's home and he's alive. One more day where he beat the monsters and the demons and came home to rest.
He knows she changed the bed linens and that she's locked the garage door to keep him from giving into restlessness. Downstairs in the kitchen are foods that won't upset his still healing digestive system. James has been playing quietly, moving back and forth all day, but settled down for his nap right next to Gibbs on the bed.
It isn't perfect. They'd both prefer DC but being that close to Jenny just isn't an option. Daniel is not with them. Charles is dragging his feet. Jenny hates them. Gibbs finds comfort in the truth that over the last fifteen years, he and Heather were able to talk, were able to face so many of the issues that kept them apart. It makes this transition to living together easier, especially with the gunshot wound to his gut. He was lucky, he knows. He doesn't deny that he held on not for himself but for Heather and the boys.
But for all the imperfections, all the lingering issues and the words he and Heather have not yet spoken, it is a life he is happy with. Happy. A word that eluded him for so long. He sought, but rarely found, comfort in his cold basement, sleeping on splintered wood. With Heather he is realizing how much of it was self-imposed loneliness and how he clung to Shannon's memory (and to an extent his relationship with Jenny) to remind him of what he could be.
Even lying still, listening to his son sleep, he knows what he is. Good and bad, mistakes and heroics. He understands. And it makes him as restless as he is at peace.
He knows she changed the bed linens and that she's locked the garage door to keep him from giving into restlessness. Downstairs in the kitchen are foods that won't upset his still healing digestive system. James has been playing quietly, moving back and forth all day, but settled down for his nap right next to Gibbs on the bed.
It isn't perfect. They'd both prefer DC but being that close to Jenny just isn't an option. Daniel is not with them. Charles is dragging his feet. Jenny hates them. Gibbs finds comfort in the truth that over the last fifteen years, he and Heather were able to talk, were able to face so many of the issues that kept them apart. It makes this transition to living together easier, especially with the gunshot wound to his gut. He was lucky, he knows. He doesn't deny that he held on not for himself but for Heather and the boys.
But for all the imperfections, all the lingering issues and the words he and Heather have not yet spoken, it is a life he is happy with. Happy. A word that eluded him for so long. He sought, but rarely found, comfort in his cold basement, sleeping on splintered wood. With Heather he is realizing how much of it was self-imposed loneliness and how he clung to Shannon's memory (and to an extent his relationship with Jenny) to remind him of what he could be.
Even lying still, listening to his son sleep, he knows what he is. Good and bad, mistakes and heroics. He understands. And it makes him as restless as he is at peace.