fic- "The First" NCIS part 4 of 5
Title: The First
Author: CJ aka WritinginCT
Fandom: NCIS
Pairing: Gibbs/OFC, Gibbs/DiNozzo (non-explicit), Gibbs/Abby (implied), DiNozzo/Abby (implied)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Dark story, BDSM, Angst, AU
Disclaimer: I don’t own the recognizable characters I’m just inspired by them. Hopefully they’ve had fun playing in my sandbox.
Comments: This plot just started flowing from the keys. Gibbs had to have a first red head right? The timeline for Gibbs’ past deviates wildly from canon and his first wife and daughter don’t exist in my AU. Heavy Gibbs/OFC angst.
Feedback: Love it? Hate it? Want to offer me a book deal to write original fiction? Email me!
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Her confidant took her outside into the sun and fresh air. The plants and flowers in the hospital garden gave everything a clean, natural smell. No blood, no antiseptic. And as she closed her eyes and drank in the smell and sun she smiled. Smiled for the first time since the darkness had claimed her.
Her confidant never judged, never questioned her right to her feelings. Never questioned why she would place all her trust in Him, why she would allow Him to do anything to her.
Her confidant knew. Trust was something he understood. And he understood that she had retreated into that trust in the darkness praying that He would find her. And he also understood how angry she was at Him for leaving her in the darkness and pain for so long. And most importantly he understood how guilty she felt for that anger.
But today her confidant was just glad to see her smile, even for just a moment. She was moving back towards the light.
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Evie paused a moment looking at the heavy oak door in front of her and chuckled, thinking to herself that some things never change. She grabbed the brass handle and opened the door and walked into a scene that hadn’t changed in fifteen years.
The bar was enormous and the room adorned in oak and brass, the familiar green and four-leaf clovers present on mirrors and other décor. The man behind the bar was a little greyer and a little more on the portly side but his smile as she slid into a bar stool was exactly the same.
“N’here’s a face that hasn’t lit up this room in a long time.” He said in a thick brogue. “Is it really you, McFergus? Or are ya jest a trick the little people are playing on me?”
She smiled and teased back in her own brogue, “Och Danny, do I look fey to you?”
“Lass, y’re always a vision. I’ve missed ya.”
“I’ve missed you too, Danny.”
He didn’t even ask her what she wanted, he just poured a coffee and doctored it with Irish cream and whiskey. He placed it in front of her with a flourish.
She grinned as she sipped it, “You remembered.”
“In forty years of tending bar, I’ve never forgotten a friend’s favorite.”
“So Danny, how is your family? How many grandchildren are you up to?”
As they slipped easily into conversation she was surprised at how comfortable she was back in this bar. It was like coming home. The only thing missing was a laughing, blue-eyed man next to her. They had spent many nights here. Danny had a soft spot for cops and could always be counted on for burgers or sandwiches at all hours, he took care of them and they all took care of him and the bar. Danny was the one that made sure Gibbs ate while Evie was in the hospital. He would bring food and brow beat and guilt Gibbs into eating and taking care of himself.
Danny’s face grew serious for a moment, “Ya know lass, yer man was a mess when ya left.”
She dropped her eyes down to her mug, “Yeah.”
“He still loves ya you know.”
She looked at him and said without much conviction, “That was a long time ago, Danny.”
His expression turned skeptical, “Ha! That’s why he comes in here every St. Patty’s day and drinks a single toast to yer picture over thar. You broke his heart lass. I can see it in his eyes.” He paused and looked at her, “But maybe his wasn’t the only heart broken, aye?
She didn’t know what to say, she had. She took her mug and went over to the wall of framed photos. She found their picture in the same spot it had been in since Danny hung it up. It was a silly, drunken picture taken the first St. Patrick’s day that they were together. Evie had on a “Kiss Me I’m Irish” t-shirt and He was doing exactly that, both with empty shot glasses in hand. They had gotten so incredibly drunk that night, and the hangovers the next day were spectacular.
But she thought as she ran a finger over His image, “That was a day to relive.”
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Gibbs sat at the kitchen table clutching His coffee mug. Their grumbling stomachs, fueled by too much liquor, had made their presence known a while ago so Tony started some water boiling for a quick pasta supper.
“She liked Matthew. Trusted him. I think part of it was that he could get in her headspace. He would visit her all hours of the day and night. Anytime she needed him. She still wouldn’t talk to me or anyone else but she poured her heart out to him.” Gibbs sounded almost annoyed at that.
Tony thought for a moment, trying to be objective, difficult given that his feelings for Him, “You know, maybe it wasn’t You. Maybe she just felt safe talking to him because she could just dump everything on him and not have to worry about hurting him.”
“What do you mean? There wasn’t anything she couldn’t tell me.”
“Even if she was angry at You?”
He didn’t say anything, just glared at Tony. Tony tried to clarify, “Her emotions had to be all over the place, Boss, and real or not, justified or not, I’ll bet she was angry. Angry at Stetson, angry at the FBI, and even angry at You for not protecting her. And I bet as much as you loved each other that she felt guilty as hell about it, knowing You would never hurt her. So maybe this Matthew was someone she could dump all those feelings on and help her sort out what was what.”
“I never thought about it that way.”
“I can’t imagine You did, You had your own emotional soup to chew on.”
“But she still left me, Tony. What does that say?”
“I don’t know. You haven’t told me that part of the story yet.”
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Her boss visited. Well the boss of her boss, the Director himself. He only stayed a few minutes but promised her that she would always have a place at the agency. He told her to concentrate on getting well and he would handle everything else. She didn’t speak to him but acknowledged him with a nod.
She and her confidant talked about the future and where she saw herself. She wanted to chase the monsters in the dark. Chase them so they couldn’t hurt anyone else. But she needed to find her own pieces first. Put herself back together. And she had to do it on her own.
Her confidant helped her find a place to go to heal. Away from here. Away from Him. So far away.
It had always been her choice to be His. But loving Him was never part of that choice, it was something bigger than both of them. Her heart would always be His. And it was the one part of her million shattered pieces that she wouldn’t bring with her to Seattle.
The night before she left she sat with a pen in hand trying to find the words to tell Him why she was leaving. But none would come. She finally settled on two and left the note for Him with her confidant.
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Evie said her goodbyes to Danny and caught a cab back to her hotel. She decided as she sunk up to her ears into a hot tub that she was very glad the day was over, it just couldn’t have gotten any worse.
When she finally crawled into bed, with most of the lights on because she still couldn’t bear to be alone in the dark, she thought about the man she had hurt so badly so long ago and cried. Cried for what they had. Cried for what they could have had. Cried for obviously causing Him so much pain earlier. And cried because she still ached to have Him hold her.
When sleep finally took her off to dreamland she found herself on a sailboat with Him holding her in the warm sun as the waves gently rocked them. And in her sleep, Evie smiled.
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They ate their pasta in relative silence. Tony could see Gibbs trying to put together the rest of the story. He looked tired to Tony’s trained eye, bone tired. Tony couldn’t even begin to imagine the weight of all this that Gibbs had carried for so many years. Tony thought about Abby and how he would feel if any of this had happened to her, the thought made his stomach flip and he dropped his fork with a clunk.
“She and her little partner in crime, Matthew found this private clinic out in Seattle that specialized in treating people with alternative lifestyles. He made the arrangements to have her treated there. The little weasel even got her a first-class plane ticket courtesy of her Director. I had gone home to shower and catch a few hours sleep and when I got back her room was empty. Just empty, Tony. I didn’t know what to think.” Gibbs stood and brought His plate to the sink and went through the motions of rinsing it on auto-pilot.
“They didn’t talk to You about it?” Tony asked in disbelief.
“No. Nobody said a word. They paged Matthew for me and when he got there he explained where she was and that she was safe. And he gave me this damn note that she left…” His voice trailed off as He again got lost in His memories. He stood there for a long moment staring out the window over the sink, gripping the sink with white knuckles.
Tony stood and closed the distance between them to stand beside Him at the sink. He placed a loving hand on His back and gently rubbed and quietly asked, “What did the note say?”
He let himself be comforted by Tony, His body so hungry for something, anything that would ease the pain that coursing through Him.
He turned to face Tony and with fresh tears rimming his eyes he whispered, “All it said was ‘I’m sorry.’ That was all she left me, Tony.”
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He never came. He never followed. And her shattered soul had so desperately wanted Him to.
The place she where she lived was warm and inviting, and most importantly, safe. She could talk to them about all of her feelings and fears. They understood when the monster in the dark would rip screams from her throat in the middle of the night, and there were soothing words and strong arms holding her as she cried it out, but they weren’t His arms. And they understood that too.
Her body healed, although the monster had left his mark. Scars crisscrossed her body, a constant reminder of the horror she had endured. She often felt like her body was no longer her own, and was terrified that He would be repulsed by the sight of it.
She had moments of happiness that grew into hours and, later on, even days. She was healing. She was once again becoming a child of the light.
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Evie’s dreams were a mixed lot as she slept. She dreamt of sailboats and warm sand only to be dragged into darkness with the feel of evil hands on her. She woke with a start, breathless and biting back a scream. She used techniques she had learned a long time ago in the clinic to calm herself and bring herself back to reality. She wasn’t in danger and she wasn’t trapped in the dark with a monster.
Finally calm, she got up and went to the bathroom and splashed some water on her face. She looked at the reflection looking back at her and wondered what He had seen earlier. Did He notice the little lines around her eyes and mouth? Did He think she looked too thin? Did He think she looked old? Did He think she looked broken? Did He think she was repulsive?
She noticed something and brought her hand to her neck, right at the edge of the t-shirt she was sleeping in, a thin, silvery white scar started. She was lucky. It was the only one of her scars that was actually visible in normal clothing and it was small in comparison to some of the others.
In a moment of defiance, she pulled the t-shirt over her head to stand naked in the harsh light of the hotel bathroom. She never looked at herself naked anymore. She traced the thin lines on her breasts with a finger. There were bigger, deeper scars on her stomach and thighs and she traced each one of them. Turning were she stood she traced each scar on her back with her eyes. She turned and faced the mirror dead-on once again and tried to look at herself objectively.
She smiled remembering a treasured visit she had had with Matthew about five years ago when he had come to Seattle for a conference. They had kept in contact through the years and she cherished his friendship and he hers. He brought the wine and she made him dinner, and they talked. He had asked her how her social life was faring and she told him that she didn’t have one. So he had bluntly asked her when she had had sex last and her silence was all the answer he had needed, she hadn’t since the rape. The two bottles of wine they had shared had brought down some of her walls and she confided through her tears that she thought she was horribly disfigured and that no man would want her.
Nothing he could say would convince her otherwise so he took direct action and dragged her by the hand into her bedroom and stood her in front of the mirror. He described in great detail what men saw when they looked at her. And with a wicked little wink he had grabbed her t-shirt and pulled it up and over her head before she had a chance to protest. She tried to cover herself with her arms but he gently tugged her wrists down to her sides and whispered in her ear as he ran a gentle hand over her stomach touching scars and smooth skin equally, “Any man that has the luck to be this close to you and only see your scars is both blind and a fool and doesn’t deserve you anyway.”
He leaned in and gently kissed her shoulder, not caring that his lips half fell on scar tissue. She turned in his arms and he embraced her tightly. He could feel how starved for human contact she was and that she was terrified that he would let go. He managed to get her t-shirt back on her and they curled up on her bed and he let her cling to him as he held her and stroked her hair. They fell asleep that way and for Evie it was the first night in ten years that she didn’t have a nightmare.
Evie slipped her shirt back on and looked herself square in the eye one more time before going back to bed. The memory of Matthew holding her was fresh in her mind and she was just nodding off to sleep when she realized that at some point in her mind’s eye He had replaced Matthew as the one holding her and stoking her hair and she reveled in the fantasy.
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Abby couldn’t sleep. She had already decided to head over to Gibbs’ house first thing in the morning. She went over and over her conversation with Eveline earlier. She couldn’t imagine the pain and heartache she and Gibbs had been through. And it was so painfully clear that Eveline still loved Him.
Deciding to act first and worry about consequences later she fired up her laptop and did some digging.
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Tony didn’t hesitate, he simply pulled Him into a tight embrace and didn’t let go. And he was angry with himself, how could He be in this much pain for so long and neither he or Abby notice? Tony held on for dear life and slid a strong hand to His nape and stroked gently.
“She just left, Tony. And I didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want me. Didn’t need me. And I let her go. I just let her go. Oh god, why did I let her go?”
Tony let Him sob and vent all the heartbreak that he had bottled up for so long. When He quieted Tony pulled back a bit and took His face in both hands and brought His red-rimmed eyes up to meet his. “It was her decision. Her choice. I know You loved her, and still love her. But You can’t bottle up all this guilt inside You about things that You couldn’t control.”
“I should have gone after her.”
Tony challenged gently, sensing they were getting to the crux of the matter, “So why didn’t You?”
Fresh, silent tears streamed down His cheeks and Tony wiped them away with his thumbs. His reply was barely a whisper, “I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“That she hated me. I wouldn’t have been able to stand it if she hated me. So I never chanced it.”
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Gibbs had nothing more to say. There just wasn’t anything left to say. Tony could see how exhausted He was, how defeated, yet His body was still wired taunt. Tony gently led Him upstairs, the quiet man silently complying. Tony started the shower and efficiently stripped off his own clothes and then peeled off the many layers Gibbs was wearing. He gave Him a little nudge and got Him under the hot water and climbed in after Him.
His body was one big knot under Tony’s strong hands. The slippery shower gel letting his hands slide easily over His back and shoulders. The shower was eerily quiet. There was none of the normal teasing, none of the normal banter, none of the normal arousal. Just quiet. Tony got them washed and rinsed and was trying to process in his own head what to do. They toweled off and Tony placed a gentle hand on His back to guide Him towards the bed.
He pulled back the covers and nudged Him to lie down and He complied, the eerie silence almost overpowering in the room. Tony went around to the other side of the bed and crawled in, not exactly sure how his next action would be taken. They didn’t cuddle, didn’t hold each other, they had Abby for that particular need. But somehow Tony knew that that was exactly what He needed tonight. But not from Abby.
Tony slid towards the center of the bed and spooned up behind Him, noticing that He was gripping the pillow so hard His knuckles were white. He started with a gentle stroke on His arm, softly running his hand all the way down His arm to those tense knuckles.
Again and again he repeated the motion, not saying anything in the quiet where all he could hear was the sound of their breathing. Until he heard Him bite back a sob. And then he wrapped his arms around Him tightly and whispered in His ear, “Let it go.”
When He shook His head, refusing, Tony squeezed harder and said in a firm, low tone that he had never used with Him, “Let it go. I’ve got You.”
The sound began as a low vibration, a testament to the fact that He was still fighting to contain it, until He couldn’t and it erupted as a heartbreaking wail. Wave after wave He sobbed, crying for her, crying for Him, and crying for what was lost. Crying because He could. He held on to the arms Tony had wrapped around Him in a death grip as if he were afraid Tony would let go.
He was broken, He had shattered. And in that moment, everything that He had been teaching Tony in the past year all fell in line for Tony. He recognized the exact moment He had shattered. Recognized that he had given Him exactly what he needed. And recognized that He still needed more.
Tony kept that low, firm tone and reassured Him, “I’m not leaving.” He entwined their fingers and continued, “Let it all go, I’ve got You.” Tony felt Him relax back in to him slightly as he held Him through the storm.
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Remainder of "The First" chapters can be found here.