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Gibbs had always felt self assured. Even when Ed and others had picked on him when he was younger, he’d known exactly what he wanted to do with his life. It wasn’t what his father wanted for him.
Only his mother had really understood why Gibbs behaved the way he did. Small town life was not for him. He needed to be doing bigger and better things.
He couldn’t stay and work the general store like his father did. He believed in the American dream. He believed that you could make of yourself whatever you wanted.
To that end, he enlisted in the Marines. That was one of the few decisions he could never regret. In fact, it was as he was heading for basic that he met Shannon.
Shannon was an angel. Pure beauty, pure love, and far better than someone like he deserved. They married and had a child, Kelly.
He thought all of his dreams had come true. Then they shattered at his feet in so many pieces it was impossible to retrieve. When he received word that they’d been killed, his heart stuttered.
He couldn’t even finish out his tour of duty. It was strange he was away from them for months, he hadn’t taken advantage of the time he did have to spend with them, and now he was lost. He was lost inside himself.
Lost, wanting what he could never regain. He tried. Oh boy did he try. He dated woman after woman, taking on a preference for redheads that he’d never had before Shannon.
None of them worked out. He even married one, Diane, but all she did was take him for everything he had. At least, his work at NCIS would prevent what he experienced from happening to others or at the very least give them the closure that he still didn’t have even after three years.
Even if he did have to put up with that stupid Feeb, Fornell. He’d tried to warn the guy about Diane, but the man hadn’t wanted to listen. He couldn’t exactly blame him.
His life was no longer the stellar life that anyone would want. He married another redhead, Rebecca. She couldn’t give him what he was searching for either.
He remained lost. When he came home and found her in bed with another man, he blew a gasket. He ordered her to get out.
He then hid himself in the basement and drank copious amounts of bourbon in an attempt to cope with losing the best thing that ever happened to him. He went to work and put in his hours and then he went home and drank. This was his pattern for the next two weeks.
That was before Fornell showed up with the single malt scotch he liked. “What are we drinking to?”
“Losing the best part of us.”
“Being cleaned out.”
Gibbs glanced up at that. “Diane?”
“Yep.”
“You should have listened.”
“Let’s just get drunk, you bastard.”
Gibbs chuckled and took another drink. “To being bastards.”
Fornell raised his glass and drank too. That night they poured out their misery to each other. It didn’t stop either of them from being crotchety old men, but it did make them remember that they didn’t have to be lost inside themselves.
Unfortunately, it didn’t stop Gibbs from marrying redheads. He married one more, Stephanie. He hoped this one would work out, but apparently she couldn’t handle him throwing himself into his work instead of into the bourbon.
After that, he swore off marrying redheads. That would at least prevent him from becoming more destitute than he already was. Of course, that meant he spent all his time at work since at least there he could accomplish something meaningful.
No one could stand to be with him for long. He guessed he pushed them too hard because that’s how he pushed himself. It was the only way he could avoid getting lost again and he couldn’t go down that road any longer.
He’d shoved all his feelings down and buried them, hopefully to never surface again. If that made him more of a bastard, well he didn’t care. He got the job done and that was all that mattered.
Still he could tell that Tom was getting frustrated with his one man show, so when a cop tackled him to the ground Gibbs didn’t hesitate to take advantage of it. When it was discovered that his partner was one of the dirty cops Gibbs was after, Gibbs offered DiNozzo a job. He didn’t expect it to solve anything.
In fact, he was surprised to find that he didn’t mind DiNozzo’s circumlocution. With Tony on the team, interagency cooperation improved. Mostly because Gibbs didn’t have to talk to the idiots anymore.
When Tony lasted more than two years, a record for him, Gibbs knew that this was the start of something good. Not for his personal life, mind, as Tony was as driven as he was. Gibbs didn’t know what Tony’s demons were, but he knew they were there.
Sometimes Tony would come over just to talk and they’d drink and Tony would take the spare room bed while Gibbs took the couch. In his way, Tony became as much if not more of a friend than Fornell. Regardless whether it was DiNozzo, Fornell, or himself his basement was certainly well used.
It wasn’t until a bomb exploded and gave him amnesia that the feelings he’d buried resurfaced. He knew it was stupid to go to Mexico, but he’d needed time away from it all to sort out everything. He’d been lost for so long that he wasn’t even sure who he was anymore.
Mexico helped. He knew Jenny and others thought that he was just running away and that going to Mexico wouldn’t help anything, but they were wrong. By the time he came back from Mexico, he was a changed man.
The mustache may have been the only physical evidence of the soul searching he’d done, but everything was different now. He wasn’t lost anymore. Now, he played the role of comforter and friend instead of the other way around.
He still missed Shannon. He probably always would, but the hurt was no longer eating him up inside. He was no longer trapped inside his feelings.
He could date people that weren’t redheads now. Life wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t the dream he’d always thought he’d have, but he was serving his country and doing good and that was all that he could ask for.