Chapter Seventeen
Gibbs was relieved when Abby left him in silence, saying something about going to the cafeteria and getting a Caf-Pow. He was still coming to terms with everything Dante DiNozzo had dredged up inside, knowing he needed to get through it before he could adjust and figure things out with DiNozzo.
Gibbs drifted to the window at the end of the hallway, looking out at the city. Richmond felt so much more southern to him than DC did, even though they were only a hundred miles apart. Knowing he was stalling, Gibbs pulled his phone out and dialed a number he’d only called once since Shannon and Kelly’s deaths. He wanted to talk to Jack again, even though they’d just spoken.
The phone rang a few times before the gruff voice Gibbs knew so well picked up. “General Store, can I help ya?”
“It’s me again,” Gibbs said quietly.
“Leroy?” Jack asked and Gibbs could hear the hopeful tone in his voice.
“Yeah.”
“You becoming a talker in your old age?” Jack asked, chuckling. Gibbs heard his father take a sharply indrawn breath. “That boy of yours, he still…?”
“Holding his own,” Gibbs said, speaking in a hurry to reassure the older man. “Just was…thinking.” It sounded lame even to his own ears, but Gibbs knew Jack would understand that he’d needed to make contact.
“Doing an awful lot of that lately, Leroy. Ya okay, Son?”
Gibbs sighed heavily. There was no easy way to broach this subject, so he had to plunge onward, hoping that Jack would be able to connect the dots and fill in the picture himself. Jack had always been good at reading what his son couldn’t say, hadn’t said.
“Worried,” he admitted. “DiNozzo’s in bad shape.”
“DiNozzo is it?” Jack asked.
“Yeah.”
“What’s he makin’ ya think about, Leroy?”
Gibbs took a deep breath, trying to drag air into his lungs. The pain of saying her name, of remembering everything that happened, still threatened to crush him under its weight. But maybe it was time…
“Mom.”
There was a sigh and then silence on the other line. Gibbs couldn’t even hear his father breathe until he sniffed once and let out a slow breath. “Mom? What about her, Leroy?” His father’s voice was suddenly tentative, uncertain, wary. He realized Jackson was readying himself for a confrontation and guilt ran through him.
“Was she sick all my life?”
Silence fell again and Gibbs could almost imagine what Jackson was going through. “Better told in person, Leroy. It wasn’t pretty and I don’t want to fight about her, God rest her soul.” What he didn’t say was as important as what he did say and Gibbs nodded. He had his answer.
“It was a lot worse than I remember,” he surmised, his own voice as gentle and regretful as his father’s.
“Wish you didn’t remember any of it, Leroy. She was so sick…I tried…”
“Not blaming you. Not fighting about this,” Gibbs insisted, keeping his voice soft and non confrontational. “I just want to know if it was as bad…”
“It was. What’s this got to do with your man there, Leroy?”
“Think he went through the same thing I did growing up, Jack. Brought a lot of memories back.”
“And you’re tryin’ to make sense of it. Good…Bout time, Son. Bout time.” Jack pulled in another long breath. “Know I don’t have any right askin’ it but…ya want me down there, Son? Boy should have someone who understands around.”
“Me or DiNozzo?”
“Both of ya. Be glad to be there. Want to be there, Leroy.”
Gobbs couldn’t say yes. Not when things were so raw within him, not when things were still so unpredictable. “Think about it, Jack, and I’ll get back to ya.”
“No, Leroy! No more running! You’ve run from everything when life got too hard. Me, the Marines after Shannon and Kelly died. You ran away from those wives of yours You’ll hang up and it’ll be another seventeen damn years until I talk to my boy again. Don’t know that I have seventeen years left, Son. And ya gotta be tired of the running, Leroy.”
Gibbs had his finger on the disconnect button when those words penetrated and he froze. He had run…then…and now. What the hell good was he to Tony if he was running from the truth?
“Bad idea, Jack…”
“What have I got to lose, Leroy? Already lost ya. Willing to stake everything on the chance to make it right between us. Wouldn’t you do the same if you were in my shoes? You’re still a father too, ya know.”
Gibbs blinked back emotion rapidly. He’d never looked at his relationship with Jack and correlated it to his relationship with his daughter before. Yeah…in Jack’s position, he’d move heaven and earth to try, no matter how old he was, no matter what walls had been put up. No matter what the cost to him personally was.
Jack wasn’t getting any younger, and maybe this situation was what they needed to start to see eye to eye.
“All right. Let me get ya a plane ticket, Jack. Not in DC right now, I’m in Richmond.”
“Richmond, eh? You living there or just with your boy while he’s injured?”
“Just with DiNozzo.” He heard his father tapping on keys. “All right, Leroy. Got myself a plane ticket and I’ll be there before sunset. Where are ya?”
Gibbs gave the information to Jack and hung up. He leaned against the window, blinking back tears, mind firmly on fathers and children, on shattered dreams and lost potential, of having one more moment with his little girl.
“Got ya some piping hot coffee! Hello?” Gibbs blinked, realizing there was someone tapping his arm repeatedly. He’d zoned out, his mind occupied with thoughts of Kelly, of memories of the good times as a father and husband. He had to wonder what his wife and daughter would think of all of this.
“Thanks, Kell"Abbs.” His hand shook slightly as he took the cup and he sipped the coffee mechanically. It was crappy coffee, but he’d drink it for the caffeine, and to please the girl who had become another daughter of sorts to him.
“Did you just…Gibbs are you okay? You just called me…”
Gibbs nodded. He had, not any point denying it. “Yeah. I’m…okay.” He didn’t address the fact that he’d called Abby by his daughter’s name. The team was all screwed up with family in his head anyway.
“Thinking a lot about family, huh? With Tony’s dad and all?” she asked, giving him a hug. Gibbs leaned into her warmth, resting his cheek against her hair before pulling back and leaning against the wall.
“Everything’s changed, Abbs. For all of us. Everyone’s gonna look at Tony different now. We’ll all look at Tony different now. He won’t be just the frat boy who clowns around any more.” Like it or not, Tony was going to be looked at as a crime victim for a good long time.
“Gibbs, do not tell me any of that means a thing to you because I know better. You know the Tony he tries to hide behind all of that surface crap.”
“Never did or I wouldn’t have hired him,” Gibbs assured. “This thing with his father. Always knew about DiNozzo’s masks. Just had no idea that things went so deep with him.”
“I did,” Abby admitted, toying with the straw on her drink. “He and I would watch really bad movies and get drunk and sometimes he’d talk about you and other times he’d talk about his family and what happened to him back then. Gibbs it was awful. They were terrible to Tony, like epic movie bad, or soap opera bad, or like VC Andrew book bad, without all the gross sex. You know?”
Gibbs shrugged as if what Abby said made sense and she continued. “It wasn’t just a spanking ‘cause he was bad, it was a lot more than that. Abandonment, verbal and emotional crap they put him though. When you look behind what Tony tells you and see what he hides, that is where the real deep dark stuff lives.”
She paused and Gibbs sensed she was wrestling with something.
“You might be buying what Dante DiNozzo is selling, Gibbs, but you have to be real careful. He’s a slick salesman and he isn’t above using Tony to get what he wants.”
“He was sick, Abbs. You heard me.”
“You really think he took a magic pill and changed?”
“No, Abbs. Think it took a lot of pain and a lot of time. But if it checks out and Tony’s is willing to give him a chance, we’re not standing in his way. Ya understand me?”
Her eyes widened and she sipped loudly on the straw, the sickly sweet scent of her fruity drink making Gibbs’ stomach clench. She just watched him, uncharacteristically silent except for the sounds of her drinking. When she was done, she walked to the trash can with precise steps.
“That look in your eyes is ‘cause you went through what Tony did, isn’t it, Gibbs? That was what you said about ghosts of the past, right? It is. I may not be a profiler, but I have a degree in Gibbs…”
There wasn’t any point in answering, so he just nodded.
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