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February 25 2019………
This was always one of the most difficult times of the year for Gibbs. They say that time heals all the wounds but even no amount of time can ever possibly heal this particular wound and Gibbs has somehow made his peace with the fact that he was never going to be able to heal or let go.
Even though he has made his peace with it, it doesn't mean it became any easier, even after all these years there was not a single day that has passed by where he did not wish that somehow he could magically just erase this day from his life, that somehow this day never happened. Then life could have been completely different for our former Marnie turned Special Agent. He would have been completely different. He would still have his family with him. He would have had his girls with him. But no- would be, could be isn't life and life threw this giant curveball at him and for the past 30 years he had lived with it too.
But still this day never got any easier for him no matter how much time passed by. The day when he lost everything, the day when he lost his family,when he lost himself, the death anniversary of Shannon and Kelly.
Every year this day surfaced back all the painful memories which he tried so hard the whole year to bury deep inside him. And every year he would fall apart on this day and be hit by everything that ever happened to him in his life after that day.
If Gibbs had to break down his life's events he'll do it by dividing it into before and after this day. Because before this awful day happened his life was perfect and beautiful and clear like blue sky on a summer day. There was nothing but happiness and content in his life. But after this day his whole world just turned upside down like the sky on a cold, dark, stormy day and all he ever endured in his life was pain and suffering.
As usual, just like every year, this day finally arrived. But this year it was a little different.
Much to his displeasure today was his day off. Every year he would just throw himself at work and try so hard to get through that day and every year his job helped him get through,in one way or the other.
But this year he lost that little comfort too. They just wrapped up a case earlier that midnight and Vance asked well, more like ordered him to take the day off because he has been working continuously for the past 72 hours, and kicked him out of the bullpen saying' I don't want to see your grumpy face back here for another 24 hours Agent Gibbs.' Ans since Gibbs lost his argument battle with Vance, he had no other choice but to be alone on this day.
Of Course Vance did not know the real reason behind Gibbs not wanting to take that day off, if he had known he would have definitely respected his friend's wish, since after all he shared the same pain with him too.
But that day Vance thought that it was one of the days where Gibbs just stubbornly refused to go home even after the case is done and so with a very pure intention of having to see his friend have a life out of NCIS and to make Gibbs take some time for himself, Vance pulled rank and ordered Gibbs giving him this day off.
Gibbs knew that Vance meant well but still, he pulled himself into his car thinking,"Out of all the days in the year, why does this day have to be a day for Leon to do this to me?".
But even though he resented this day so much, he never missed visiting their graves every year,no matter what. This year was no different.
He started his car and drove towards the cemetery just like he does every year.
The usual 20 minute car drive felt like years for him with all their memories flashing back and forth in his mind the entire drive.
After what seemed like years, within 20 minutes he finally reached the cemetery.
He got out with a heavy heart and a tear filled eye, smoothed his suit and then took out two small neatly wrapped bouquets from the passenger seat of his car.
He left out a sad smile looking at those two bouquets. Lilies! They were Shannon's favourite. And just because her mom loved it Kelly followed the same and made lilies her favourite type of flower too. Kelly was a mama's girl just as much as she was a daddy's girl. She took from her mom so much more than he cared to admit. He let out a sad smile at that thought.
After a few minutes of staring into a void he finally bought himself the courage and walked towards their grave. The crunching sound of gravel beneath his feet as he took each step felt as if it mirrored the slow crack of his own heart.
The inscriptions on the stone read,
Shannon Gibbs:1955-1991;
Kelly Gibbs: 1982-1991.
Along with an empty space nearby reserved in his own name,
Leroy J : 1954-
The only difference between the two names and his name was that it only had the birth year and not the death year. But he felt as dead on the inside just like his girls. In fact the truth was he hasn't felt alive in a very very long time. Not since the day he lost them.
For a man like him, for someone who could handle everything, someone who is looked up to by his team, by his colleagues and by everyone else as a brave man, as an unbreakable man, for someone who has starred into the barrel of a gun even without a blink of fear, for someone who had saw and survived his fair share of explosions and who had lived through brutal and unspeakable tortures and still came out of all of it unscathed, this was something which always broke him from the inside. The pain of Losing his girls had been the most unbearable pain compared to any physical pain he had ever endured. And unlike all his physical scars this particular scar never really healed. It never got easy or the pain got any less, no matter how much time passed by.
He let out a deep painful breath and then slowly bent down, raising his hands reaching the bottom of the stone, placing the two bouquets near their names.
Every year he would come here, place the flowers, stand there for sometime and then return back to work; that has been his ritual for the past 30 years on this day.
Even though he remembers them during every minute and every second of his life, still he could never bring himself to stand in this place for more than 10 minutes but today was a little different, today he had nowhere to go, and even to his surprise today he felt like standing there for some more time. Today it looked like his heart seemed to take pity on him and show some mercy on him. Which he was so grateful for. Today even to his surprise his heart did not urge him to run from that place in pain like it did every other year.
Today he somehow had the courage to sit near their tombstones. So he sat down on the grass with his hand touching Shannon's inscription.
He slowly stroked her name which was written on the stone and as soon as he did that,tears threatened to flood his eyes and blur his vision but still he could feel those letters in his hands and all their memories slowly flashed right in front of his eyes like it was playing from an old cassette recorder, playing continuously on loop.
' I guess you are not a lumberjack. I have a rule: it's either rule number 1 or number 3. Never date a lumberjack. '
'You got a rule for everything?'
' Working on it. Everyone needs a code they can live by.'
' What's your name?? '
' I'm just gonna call you Gibbs'
' Daddy….Daddy….. Don't go daddy. Please don't go….. Daddy. '
' I want to hear it again.'
' I will take care. I will come back safe.'
' Not those words.'
' I love you…..'
' I love you too…..'
He sat there remembering the best days of his life for what felt like minutes for him but almost an hour has passed since he sat there. He did not do anything, he just sat there looking at their graves in silence.
Remembering his little girl's big doe blue eyes, Kelly's innocent smile whenever she looked at him, the way how she threw herself at him and wrapped him into a big bear hug whenever he got home from deployment, the feel of Shannon's soft kiss on his lips, the smell of his wife's pancakes in the morning, the way every time his heart swelled when he looked at his girls, the echoes of their laughter………
He drew a painful breath and looked back at them. He usually doesn't do this, but his time with Ducky over these years must be rubbing off on me he thought. He felt a little silly but he did it anyway. Hoping maybe at least maybe this would stop his heart from screaming to let out in pain. Or at least ease it a tiny bit.
'Today Vance gave me the day off, more like ordered to take the day off and he practically kicked me out of the bullpen. If you can believe it. And we caught the bad guy just like we do everyday. The team then went out for drinks to celebrate and even though they know that I'm gonna decline, they still asked me to come with them just like every other time and as usual I declined it. I just didn't feel like going, ya know…… Those things are just not for me I think….' He just spoke to a void but felt as if he was talking to his girls, 'By the way the boat is coming up pretty great. I think at this speed I might get her to sail within the end of this year.
"Kaise settled into the team quite well. You know the team had gone through so much in the past year but still, even after all that it seems like nothing changed Shannon, everything still looks the same,and it's a good thing I think. Wouldn't you say? They always seem to come up on top of everything no matter what."
Even without knowing he ended up telling them almost everything that happened in his life the past year. It may not be much but it did provide him with a little comfort. It took away a small amount of pain from his heavy heart. A small but sad smile spread across his face even without his own realisation.
He then took a deep breath and took his eyes away from the grave for a while and let his eyes wander around the place, watching the clear blue sky, listening to the symphony led by a flock of birds around him absentmindedly. But his mind just froze right there thinking about his girls. He missed them. A lot. No amount of words could ever describe it. Over the years he somehow managed to build another family for himself without his own realisation. His team and NCIS felt like a family. Sure. He loved his team like his own kids. They were his family now and he knew it and they knew it. But still that did not stop him from missing the family he had lost.
Is it true what they say isn't?? You can never truly get over the loss of a loved one. You hold on to them and their memories like it's the most precious thing in this entire world and you can only hope that the pain of their loss would hurt less with time but the void left by that loss, well you will never be able to fill it no matter what. All you can do is hold onto the memories and try your best to move on.
After a while he once again looked back at them but this time with a tear filled eyes, took a deep breath and whispered, "I miss you guys." He never said this out loud often. But whenever he did, tears always threatened to flood his icy blue eyes. His heart felt so heavy like it carried the weight of the entire world and he no longer had any more energy to fight back the tears, so he finally gave up letting them out of him. After all a man can only hold so much inside him. Even the great Leroy Jethro Gibbs had a breaking point.
Everyone did!!
A few moments passed by just like this but then suddenly he felt a familiar touch on the back of his shoulders, a gentle tap, he turned around with a little bit of astonishment to see who it was mostly because in the past 3 decades of his visit to this place there has never been even one person who came here or he saw here. That was mostly because no one, not even his team, his friends or anyone close to him knew about this place, much less ever came looking for him here. So the fact that someone had known to find him here today, much less came here looking for him, took him by surprise.
With his vision blurred by tears he couldn't see the person's face clearly but that soft touch on the back of his shoulders told him all he needed to know. He could identify that hand anywhere even with his eyes closed. A certain beautiful blonde psychologist was the owner of those lovely soft hands. His heart took a sudden nosedive at that thought. He blinked away the tears and looked up to find Jack standing right in front of him.
"Jack?" He rasped at her.
" Hey Cowboy!! "
She smiled, a sad smile but still his heart warmed at the sight. He has always loved her smile and it never ceased to amaze him how much he loved it. But then the reality sunk in and he blurted out the first thing that came to his mind.
"Ho-How did you….Wh- What are you doing here??"
Without giving a reply to him and avoiding his curious eyes Jack just went and sat beside him on the grass, she reached for his hand and gently stroked it. A silent acknowledgement that she was here for him and that he was not alone.
From the moment he confessed his biggest secret to her last year, since then she never stopped thinking about it or about his family. She has seen and experienced her fair share of loss over the decades but she couldn't even fathom how it would be to fight a war for months only to return to an empty home and to find out all his loved ones were gone, that all he had in his life was gone. She couldn't imagine what that must have felt like. What a loss like that could do to a person.
Because this day became one of the days she couldn't forget, even though she had no relation to this day, still for some reason this day stayed in her heart from the moment she found out about their deaths and she knew there was no other place in this world Gibbs was gonna be on this day than here.
Even though she knew Gibbs could handle everything on his own, he even preferred it and she even respected it to an extent. She understood it. After all, she was like him in that aspect. She preferred to handle things on her own. But no one deserved to be alone on a day like this. Especially not Gibbs.
It was also one of the reasons why they both became such close friends in this short amount of time was that they both were so similar in many ways.
They both always put up a brave front, they both always acted like they were so strong and brave and acted as if they were not at all vulnerable to anything and that nothing fazed them but the truth was on the inside they both were so broken and they both had so much pain hidden in them than anyone could imagine and that pain is what brought them together in the first place.
Even though they only knew each other for the past 1 year, he had always been with her during all her tough times in the last year. She couldn't imagine what would have happened to her if he was not there during those times in the past year and now she felt like it was her turn to be there for him and she wanted to be there for him today.
The fact that they both always tried to be there for the other is a great example of how much they both cared for each other. It was like an unspoken agreement between them. Them being there for the other and understanding each other when they needed it the most.
After spending an ample amount of time in total silence Gibbs eyes glittered with tears as Jack noticed them and she felt so helpless, if she could she would do anything to take away his pain. But all she could do was just sit there and watch him be in pain. Never in her life has she felt more helpless than she did at that moment.
So she did the only thing she could think of, she reached for his hands and held his fingers and interlocked them with hers and gave a slight squeeze while she gave a comforting smile to him.
Sometimes one small gesture can replace thousands of words and that is what happened there in between them at that time.
There were no words in between them at that moment but their eyes spoke everything for them in silence. His silent gratitude to her for being here and for understanding and her silent welcome and the acknowledgement that she was there and that he does not have to go through this alone. That she'll be here for him for as long as he needed her to be.
They both sat like that, holding each other's hands and speaking in silence for quite some time. It might have been one of the most painful days in his life. But having her there, her smile and her presence made all the difference for him. That maybe after all he was not as alone in this world as he thought he was. Maybe there was still hope in his life. Maybe he could still have a chance at happiness and peace and solace after all.
After all that's all it takes!! One person!! One person to remind us to breathe and to hold on when things get heavy and unbearable. One single person who truly understood us and who was always there for us. That one person can make all the difference in the world. And at that moment it was like a silent promise was exchanged between them when they both looked into each other's eyes. That they would be that person for one another no matter what. That they can always count on the other to be there and that they were never going to be alone as long as they had each other……..And what does one call this???? I am pretty sure it starts with L and ends with an E…..
Gibbs and Jack may not have said with words, hell they may not even know it yet, but deep down they were in love. Pure, innocent, true, deep love!!! One day they might finally realise it or they may not.....Who knows!! We can only hope that these two do!!
After all what is Love!! It's not about the grand gestures, it's not about hours and hours of phone calls or messages or I love you's, it's not about the expensive gifts or materials that can be bought. No!! Love was about the little things..It's about the ability to understand each other even without words and be there for one another when they need it the most….Which Gibbs and Jack always were……
And that is what love is isn't it????
Love:-
" It's not about Saying; It's about Showing "
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