Shards To A Whole: Caution

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 374: Caution


Tim wakes to the smell of coffee the next morning, which he finds a little confusing because he's the one who makes the coffee in the morning.

Then it clicks. Jimmy and Breena crashed at their place last night.

Which is also when the rest of last night hit him.

Abby's still sleeping, so he gently kisses her neck, eases out of bed, finds a pair of pajama pants, puts them on, and heads downstairs.

Jimmy's sitting at his kitchen table, in his boxers and t-shirt, drinking his coffee, and reading something on his phone.

"You look comfy."

"I am, thanks." He pushes a second cup of coffee toward Tim. "Figured you'd be down less than ten minutes after you smelled it."

"Yeah." He takes a sip; it's the way he likes it. "Thanks."

"No problem."

"Sleep well?"

"Yeah, the bed in your guest room is good."

They sit there, drinking their coffee in silence, and that silence is significantly less comfortable than usual. Finally Tim says, "So, um… last night, was that weird?"

Jimmy looks up from his phone, and Tim sees the hickies on his collar bone and throat, while realizing he's got fingernail marks down his back, no shirt, and he didn't bother to wash his eye makeup off last night, so he's likely got raccoon eyes to go with the rest of it. They both look utterly fucked. "Getting off watching each other have sex at a club, all four of us basically spending the next three hours making out with each other, then getting off again, listening to each other have sex. Do you have to ask?"

Yeah, there's some sarcasm there, but not nearly as much as there could be, so Tim says, "I do. Cause I'm alternating between completely freaked out and totally okay with it. How about you?"

Jimmy takes a long drink of his coffee and then sighs. "Yeah, it's weird, but... not in a bad way."

Tim's not looking at Jimmy as he says, "Yeah. Maybe in a I-really-liked-it-but-I-don't-want-to-think-too-hard-about-it sort of way."

"In a we-never-ever-tell-Tony-about-it sort of way."

Tim's nodding almost violently in agreement with that, and Jimmy smiles at him, and uncomfortable fell apart. "So, we're good?"

"Yeah, we're good," Jimmy says. "Think the girls are?"

"If what Abby's telling me is right, they want to take this a lot further than just showing off for each other, so yeah, I think they're good."

"Err…" Jimmy looks somewhat uncomfortable at that. But Tim notices, only somewhat.

"Yeah." Tim drinks more of his coffee.

"Not sure I'd want to go there."

"Yeah. Like, it's a hot idea, but…"

"But…" Jimmy nods. "I mean, we've talked about it, and it's a fun fantasy, but…"

Tim nods, he knows exactly what Jimmy means by this. "Abby says they won't ambush us with it. They'll let us know ahead of time and give us plenty of room to back out."

"That's a good thing. 'Cause if it went wrong, it'd go really wrong."

"Yeah. And I don't want that."

"Me, either."

Tim takes another sip of his coffee. Part of him wants to leave it there, get up, make some eggs for them, and just let it lie. Keep this in the realm of fantasy and the occasional live show. He's thinking being the ones in the booth, watching the show would be a whole lot of fun, too.

But the part of him that knows how much he likes those fantasies is awfully sure Jimmy really likes those fantasies, too. So, he swallows again, trying to ease his nerve-generated dry mouth, looking for some moisture so he'll be able to speak, and says, "What if it didn't go wrong?"

Jimmy's staring at him, looking awfully startled by that. He carefully puts his coffee cup down full attention with laser focus on Tim. "You think it might not?"

Tim shrugs. "I don't know. I was talking with Breena about—"

"You talked to Breena about this?" Jimmy looks stunned and a bit angry at that.

"You haven't talked to Abby?"

"No!" Tim gave Jimmy a cut the bullshit look. "Not exactly. She's your wife. I'm not going to talk to her about having sex with me."

"Well, what does 'not exactly' mean?"

"I talked to Breena, and Breena talked to her, and next thing I knew we had Valentine's videos of the girls making out. That's like right out of the guy playbook."

For a moment, Tim's thinking that Jimmy has a way different playbook than he does, but it probably doesn't matter much. "I think it's safe to say that last night we not only tossed out the playbook, but that we set fire to it first and pissed on its ashes."

"Maybe." Jimmy sounds guarded at this, like he's reserving judgment and debating about if he needs to get really pissed. "What did you say to Breena?"

"Day after Tony and Ziva's wedding, Abby tells me that maybe you two might be willing to come play with us, which was the first time she told me that she and Breena had been talking about this, like really talking about it, and once I got my brain back online, the first thing I was wondering about was how your virgin-to-her-wedding-day wife got to the point of let's-have-sex-with-our-best-friends, too. And that's something I couldn't ask you. So, I flat out asked her about it."

Jimmy thinks about that, eyeing Tim… And it's an okay question, not too far out of line. He relaxes. "When was that?"

"Last Memorial Day, when I was showing her the anti-nausea points."

Jimmy thinks back, and remembers that. "You had that conversation with her when she was in a bikini while touching her?"

"Yeah, while wearing a wet bathing suit, with our whole family fifty feet away."

Jimmy laughs, rolling his eyes. "You really are a glutton for punishment, aren't you."

"Says the guy who wears skintight jeans to go out in public when he knows he's going to be walking around with a hard-on. Yeah, I'm the glutton for punishment." Tim drops the sarcasm. "But… You've talked with her about this, right?"

"Of course." She's my wife, of course I've talked to her about this. I'm the one who's supposed to be talking with her about this. Is pretty clear on Jimmy's face.

Tim nods, letting him, know he gets that. "Okay. I just… really liked the way she was thinking about it. And there's this part of me that's all Grrrr… My woman! Stay away! But if I could get it to shut up, this could be a really great."

Jimmy thinks about it. "I could see you watching what Breena and I were doing. Could tell you were getting off on it, and it didn't bother me." Jimmy lets that sit there, and then decides that if they're going to actually talk about this, then honesty is probably the best way to make sure it doesn't end up biting all four of them in the ass. "Okay, I really liked it. Taking getting caught one notch higher, you know." Tim nods; he gets that. "But, it's supposed to bother you, right? I mean, you watched Breena get off. That's supposed to piss me off, right? Not make me feel… turned on… and proud… kind of?"

Tim nods. "Best, hottest porn ever, because you're real, and actually having a good time, and… And you're watching us, so we're showing off, too, and you kick it up a bit because we're watching you, and…"

"And that feels kind of weird. Like it's wrong, but that's part of why it feels so good, but maybe it's not wrong, because it's you and Abby, so it's safe, but it's you and Abby, so maybe it's not safe and… Almost getting caught is one thing, putting on a show… And feeling like I'm… I mean, it felt really good, but…"

Okay, if Tim's filling in those blanks correctly, it looks like Jimmy is on the same page he is, and that makes Tim feel a lot better. "You could tell I was talking to Abby, right?"

"Yeah."

"We'll… tell each other stories. And last night was the first time she flat out said she wanted to have sex with you. Not… together, the two of us doing Breena-"

"Both of you with Breena?" Jimmy looks like he feels like he should be surprised about that, but isn't.

"Oh yeah! You don't have one of you and her with Abby?"

"Of course," Which is likely why he's not surprised. "We've had that one for years."

"Us, too. Anyway this was the first time your ass got tossed into the mix, and… It didn't piss me off. I felt like it should have. I mean, she's telling me she wants to have sex with you. But it didn't, and from there, I just ran the story, all four of us, and we passed it around, playing with it, and…" He feels like he's standing on the edge of the cliff, and takes a deep breath. "And… even with you in the mix, it was really hot, and… And then the three of us were dancing… and…" Just say it. He's not going to have a fit. He's your friend and he probably feels the same way, too. "And I really liked the idea of you and me with her."

"Hmm…"

Tim can't read the expression on Jimmy's face right now. He's got it intentionally blank. No! Don't just sit there saying hmmm! Do not leave me out here on my own with my balls flapping in the breeze. "Hmm… what?"

Blank crumbles, replaced with confusion, fear, and worry. "I don't know!" Jimmy snaps out. "Yeah, it's hot! You and me and Abby, or you and me and Breena, or…" and Tim's getting the sense Jimmy's having a similar debate about actually saying out loud what he's thinking that Tim just was. "Or maybe, you and Breena, you know, on your own, and me and Abby, on our own, but like, together, same room, same bed, watching each other…" Tim's not even sure how to respond to that, because it's nothing that he'd thought of, yet, though it's starting to bounce around in his head, now. And… yeah, he swallows hard as a whole slew of new erotic images go flashing through his head. That's not hitting him wrong, at all. He nods a little, and Jimmy knows he hasn't crossed the line, so he gets to his point. "It's really hot; it's don't think about it in public hot, but if it went wrong, it'd kill us, and I don't…" He shakes his head a little, eyes on Tim's, very earnest expression on his face. "This is everyone in the world who really matters to me, all in play because of this."

Tim nods, he understands that, feels it, too.

"And if it went right… Then what?"

Tim looks at him quizzically. Concerns about this going right are nothing that's occurred to him. "I'm not following you."

"It goes right, are we, just… what? Fuck buddies? Extra fun on long weekends? Abby's alone in the lab, and I've got a sample to run, do I get to play with her? If it's really good, do we move in together, form one family? Is Abby still yours and Breena mine? What the fuck does yours or mine even mean if we do this? Do we care if the kids have blonde hair and green eyes or brown hair and hazel eyes?"

"Er…" Absolutely none of that was something Tim had given any real thought. Beyond saying to Gibbs that if they could do it once, they'd probably want to do it a lot, he hadn't thought of anything beyond them still getting along and sex.

"Yeah." Jimmy nods at him, seeing the ideas really hit Tim.

Tim opens his mouth, not entirely sure what he is going to say next, but feeling like he needs to say something, when the sound of a truck pulling into their driveway lets both of them know Gibbs is less than a minute from the door. And less than a minute later they hear the door open along with, "Anyone awake? Got a little girl who wants to see Mom and Dad, here."

"Jimmy and I are in the kitchen," he calls out to Gibbs. A second later he's holding Kelly, kissing her forehead.

"Looks like you guys had a good night," he says to Tim and Jimmy dryly. And it occurs to Tim that not only do he and Jimmy both look really fucked, but they have to smell like it, too.

He flashes Gibbs a sheepish smile, but Jimmy either misses the insinuation or ignores it, and just says, with his trademark innocent smile, "Oh yeah. Ladies are still sleeping. You want a cup of coffee?"

Gibbs looks at both of them, staring long and hard before saying, "Nah. Was planning on heading up to the house, get a good day in on that." He looks at both of them, eyes lingering on the hickeys on Jimmy's throat. "Don't want to eat up your anniversary time off, but maybe you'll both come up and help?"

"This week's bootcamp is carpentry?"

"Sure." Gibbs says.

"Yeah, I can swing that." Jimmy answers, while Tim nods in agreement. "Want me to call Collin?"

Gibbs shakes his head. "Just you two."

"Okay." Jimmy's looking a little perplexed at this, but Tim's thinking he knows what's up.

Gibbs grabs his keys. "Got some errands to run, more mortar and tools to pick up. See you in a bit?"

Tim and Jimmy nod as he heads off.

Jimmy looks back to Tim, who's bouncing Kelly in his arms. "Okay, I know I missed at least half of that conversation. What the hell was that?"

"Dad's making sure we're not about to shoot ourselves in the ass."

"Okay, how could he possibly know? The man cannot actually be psychic, and I don't care how good he says his hearing is, he did not hear that conversation."

Tim's looking sheepish again. "I might have told him, a bit more than a year ago, that we were... kind of thinking about it."

"You talk to Breena and Gibbs about this, but not me?"

"You'd have hit me last year if I brought it up then. And… I couldn't have said it. But we're talking now."

"Why would you tell him..." Jimmy looks stupefied. "How do you even get into that conversation with him?"

"It's a longish story. Just... it was the week of Tony and Ziva's honeymoon, we were on stakeout, got talking, and he'd seen us dancing at the wedding, and was... I don't know, not curious, but... cautious, I guess.

"And it was like, two days after Abby said she and Breena had been talking about it, like actually doing it, talking about it, and that was a lot to process so... I asked for advice."

Jimmy knows Tim and Gibbs are closer than the rest of him, but the idea that Tim would ask Gibbs for advice on this floors him. For a second he sits there quietly, and then another thought hits. "What did he say?"

"Take it slow, trust my instincts, and don't do anything stupid."

"Take it slow?" Jimmy's utterly shocked by that. "I'd have been thinking he would have had something closer to 'Fuck around on Abby, and I will personally introduce your testicles to my hedge trimmers.'"

"Yeah, well, I didn't put it like, 'Hey, I'm kind of bored, and Breena's looking good. So, how about I go fuck up both of our marriages and wreck our kids' lives.' I'm sure that would have gotten hedge trimmer introductions in order. Abby put it as, if it ever happened, it'd be the four of us, all together. So, that's what I told him. And that if we could do it, it probably wouldn't just be a one off kind of thing."

"One off?"

"He asked if the girls were thinking like some sort of birthday treat for us, kind of like what they did for Valentine's, or if it'd be something we'd do a lot. And... like you said... I don't know... But, I mean, if we can do this, that would mean it was fun and good, so... We'd want to do it a lot, right?"

"I guess..." Jimmy's looking wary about this. "If we can do it."

"Yeah. If... I mean, we're not... committing to anything, right?"

"No!" Jimmy stops, thinks, staring at Tim. "But we're not ruling it out, either."

"No." He bites his lip. "We're... figuring it out."

"Yeah. Okay." At that Jimmy starts to laugh. Tim's just staring at him.

Finally Jimmy gets out, "We're two white-bread, suburban dads with minivans, responsible jobs, and likely PTA memberships and volunteering for the Girl Scouts in the not wildly distant future. Hell, I wear bow ties to work! How on earth do we end up here?"

Tim shakes his head slowly, smiling a little, also getting the irony of this. "I don't know. But we might as well enjoy it, right?"

"Oh yeah."

"So, we're good?"

"Yeah. We are. Whatever's coming, we'll figure it out."

"Okay. For future reference, wouldn't mind if you and Breena were the ones on the dance floor next time. We like to watch, too."

Jimmy nods. "Noted."

---

Gibbs and Ducky and Penny have been putting in full days at the house over the course of the last week. (Finals were last week. She's off until the summer session begins in June.) This has resulted in remarkably little work done on the actual house.

All the siding is off. They've got new plywood up in the places that needed it. Everything is wrapped in Tyvek, and in one tiny corner of the longest southern-facing wall of the house, there's the start of the masonry work.

The reason why it's only one tiny corner is laid out in the driveway. Penny had taken one look at the load of stone in their driveway, and promptly come to the conclusion that just randomly slapping rocks against the side of the house would not result in the kind of job they were looking for.

So she and Ducky marked off the size of the area they were going to work on, and began laying out the stones ahead of time. Supposedly this will result in maximum efficiency of stonework, and will prevent a situation where they end up having to stick twenty-five tiny stones all next to each other to fill in a gap. Gibbs isn't sure about that. He knows that what is has resulted in is Ducky and Penny puttering about in the driveway debating which stone goes where, while he grabs stones they've already laid out, one at a time, and gets them up, slowly.

Apparently this is how house building goes when you're working with scientists.

On the upside, the first wall's stones are laid out, so all he has to do today is keep schlepping them from the driveway to the side of the house and apply them and the mortar to the house.

And he does suppose it's nice that this is like putting together a puzzle when the pieces are already laid out right next to each other. It does let him immerse himself in the feel of wet mortar, hard stone, tapping and scraping each bit into place.

It's not wood. He'd be doing better with wood. But this is good, too.

As soon as Gibbs realized that Tony wasn't at Tim's place, he started to get a bit nervous. He remembered that conversation bit more than a year ago about maybe the four of them becoming more than friends. He saw, immediately recognizing the hot-date-gonna-get-so-laid look on both of the guys' faces when he went to pick up Kelly. Tony told him about the Valentine's Day treat the girls made, and how it completely fried Jimmy's brain. Didn't take him more than a second to put that all together with his original advice: take it slow, don't do anything stupid, and to make sure all babies were healthy and that everyone was settled.
Everyone's settled, all babies are healthy, it's been more than a year since he said that to Tim. If there's such a thing as a prime time to move on the four of them… foursome-ing… he guesses that'd be the term, it's probably now.

Gibbs's not sure if they did it or not last night. Both guys reeked of sex, so he knows on a basic level what happened, but he doesn't know if they crossed the line or just got close. He could feel something was up, but not well enough to know precisely what.

And he doesn't know if today's pick up the pieces and clean up time, or if… if something new's starting, or… or if they even have a clue what's going on.

He just hopes they didn't fuck things up.

---

Gibbs has gotten a few more feet of wall done when he hears Jimmy's car pull up. He sees both of them, dressed to work, amble out, look over the stones all over the driveway, and the head to him.

Tim's got a bag in his hand. "You have lunch?"

Gibbs shakes his head. He hasn't eaten yet. Though they got the electric working on Tuesday and now have a working fridge with food in it located in the kitchen.

Tim hands over the bag. "Club sandwich, chips, macaroni salad, and Elaine sends her love, hopes to see us all back for breakfast next week." With no Sunday morning church, they hadn't been doing pre-church breakfast.

Gibbs nods, opening up the bag. "Next Sunday?"

"We're fine with that, church or no. Not like we aren't up," Jimmy adds. He looks at the wall, looks at Gibbs kneeling in front of it, and looks at the rocks. "So, we talking or working?"

That's a bit more abrupt than Gibbs was hoping for. He still doesn't have a read for what happened last night, yet.

"Both."

"Then show us what to do." Tim says.

Gibbs does, picking up the next rock. They're of many different shapes and diameters, but they're all about an inch thick. The idea is to create the appearance of a stone wall. He applies the mortar to the board and the other stones, setting the newest one in place, tapping it down, making sure it's secure, and then scraping off the extra. It's not the fastest or tidiest job ever. Gibbs is very obviously not a mason, but he's got the basics down. (Thank you, YouTube.)

"Penny and Duck laid 'em all out. Grab some, measure where they go, twice, start from the bottom up, and get to work."

Tim and Jimmy nod, and get to it. Jimmy grabs his stone from a patch about ten feet away from Gibbs, and Tim snags the bottom of the other corner. (Righties, like say, Gibbs, tend to prefer to work left to right. Well, he likes to go right to left, so Tim homes in on the far edge of the wall.) They'd been at it for a moment when he hears Jimmy say to Tim. "Heads up."

Tim looks up and then quickly catches the SPF 50 sunblock that is flying toward his head. "Thanks. Already wearing some."

"Good. More goes on every hour fifteen."

"Yes, Doctor Palmer."

Jimmy nods, and goes back to applying stones to the wall. He's good at it. Might be some overlap between masonry and autopsy. At the very least, both require a certain level of manual dexterity, and the ability to manipulate malleable solids.

Gibbs keeps watch on them as he works. They seem fine, talking a little, joking some, mostly focused on doing something new and technically precise well. He's not catching any tension between them. There's a slight edge of 'are we in trouble' coming from both of them, but it's not so sharp as to affect how they're working, and it's aimed at him, not at each other.

After watching both of them for an hour, Gibbs decides to break for lunch. And him breaking for lunch means they both wrap up what they're doing to grab drinks and sit with him. Once he's got his bag unpacked, he asks, "Good time last night?" He's watching for the micro expressions, the little tells that neither of them know they do every time they talk.

"Yeah." Tim says, nodding. And yes, he had a good time. That's true. Gibbs gets the sense that there's some reticence to get too deep into it, but it's aimed at him, and it doesn't appear to be related to shame or regret.

Jimmy grins at him, wide happy expression. "Oh yeah!" And like with Tim, that's real, but there is also a reserve, and… yeah, it's aimed at him.

He catches the look the two of them give each other. Takes him a second to decide that look is, How much are we telling Dad?

Gibbs can see they're okay with each other, so… He should probably leave it alone. That's all that really matters on this. And any deeper than that is not, by any stretch of anyone's imagination, his business.

He's about ready to drop it, but Tim says, "We're fine; we're not being stupid; we're taking it slow, and we don't know exactly what's going to happen next, but nothing's happening without all four of us wholeheartedly agreeing to it."

Jimmy nods. "It's good you're looking out for us, but we're okay."

Gibbs looks at both of them, staring, trying to lay their souls bare with his eyes. "You sure?"

"Yeah," Jimmy says with a nod. Tim's nodding, too.

"You okay?" Tim asks.

Gibbs eyes narrow a bit. He hasn't bothered to think about this in terms of if he is okay. Gibbs thinks about it for a minute. If they're okay, really okay… and they look okay… Whatever it was they did last night, he's sure it didn't suddenly make both of them expert liars. So, yeah… he's okay.

Gibbs nods. Then he thinks some more. "But I won't be if you guys tear apart." He sighs. He hates trying to talk about deep, emotion-y things. "Be like having my heart ripped out if you four stopped getting along."

"Yeah." Jimmy says, looking from him to Tim, very serious. "I know."

Tim nods back at both of them, just as serious. "Me, too."

"Okay." Gibbs drinks some of his coffee and grabs his sandwich, chewing a bite, he says, "Back to work. Stone's aren't putting themselves up, and you're not eating."

Jimmy's getting up, but Tim hasn't moved. "If… and not saying it'll happen, but…" Tim rubs his face, looking a bit sheepish, so Jimmy sits down again, wanting to see where he's going to take this. Gibbs is watching this closely, too, getting a sense of where this might be going, but not sure. "If we… the four of us…get together, for real, like, serious, long-term, rest of our lives, for real… We were just… playing… last night. You still going to be okay, with us?"

Gibbs watches Tim, knows that it cost him to ask that, to lay out his need for approval that nakedly. He swallows, because, okay, if the four of them do become, whatever, it does strike him as sort of weird. Of course, a lot of things about Tim and Jimmy strike him as weird. But, at least right now, this feels more like kilts and man-of-honor weird than something he needs to actually get excited about weird.

He hates this because he has to take a moment and really feel whatever this is, because he doesn't want to just haul off with a quick answer and have it bite them later.

So, he takes the time, and Tim's looking a little nervous, so Gibbs puts his hand on Tim's signaling, be calm.

He's not feeling any immediate sense of disgust or problem. There's fear here, but that's fear of it falling apart, of their family ripped to shreds and people he loves in pain.

He exhales, trying to think of how to say this. "I'm always going to be okay with all of you. That's not changing. You are who you are, and you're good men, and I'm proud to have you as sons. But I want you to be happy. And, if you can keep the sort of good thing you've got with your own wives going while becoming… whatever this is… then yes, I'm going to be okay with you, all of you." He looks directly at Tim for this bit. "I don't care what combinations you're sleeping with each other in." He gives Jimmy a quick glance, too, but both of them know Tim's background well enough to know that matters a hell of a lot more to him than it does to Jimmy. "I also don't want to know." He hopes that'll prevent the occasional overshare Tim and Jimmy are known for, too.

Gibbs licks his lips, because there's more than that. "While back, I told Tony that rule twelve had changed. Don't date Ziva if you're not willing to marry her. It'd hurt so much if they screwed it up, you know?" Both of the younger guys are nodding. "So, that's what I'll tell you. If you do this, it better be a forever thing. I've already lost one family. I don't want to lose another one. Don't fuck around with this. Don't cross the line until you're willing to commit to it."

Tim nods, looking relieved. "Thanks."

Gibbs looks at Jimmy, who nods. He's happy to have this… conditional blessing of sorts… but it's clear that it matters a hell of a lot more to Tim.

Tim stands up, dusting off his jeans. "Okay, putting up stones."

Jimmy also stands, grabbing a trowel and then handing it to Tim. "This one's yours."

"Thanks."

"Didn't know they made these lefty," he says to Gibbs.

"Until this morning, I didn't either."

---

He's closing up the truck, whistling for Mona, letting her know it's time to go home, and can hear both of the guys talking, quietly, about something.

They walk over to him, and Tim starts, "Since we don't really know what we're doing yet, we're hoping to keep this quiet."

"Be a lot easier to figure this out if it's just the four of us doing the figuring out."

Tim adds, "If there's ever anything to be, out, about, we'll be out at home, but right now, this is just for us, okay?"

Gibbs nods. He can keep their secrets.

"Tim noticed that look you shot us last night, and Borin's not stupid, so we're guessing that she's probably wondering what that was."

Gibbs nods, she had wondered, but was willing to let it go when he said he couldn't talk about it.

"So, look, we don't want you feeling like you can't talk to her," Tim says. "Anything we hit you with, you can tell her, too."

"Don't want you feeling like you've got to shut her out."

Jimmy finishes with, "Just, don't want this going through everyone else, yet."

Gibbs can read that 'everyone else' means Tony specifically and to a lesser degree Ziva. He's not getting a feel if they're concerned about Ducky and Penny one way or another. And then something else hits him, 'everyone else' is the entire Slater clan. And 'everyone else' means not shooting them looks that Tony or Ziva or say Collin will pick up on at the next Bootcamp.

Gibbs nods. "No problem."

---

"Good talk?" Borin asks as he and Mona step into the house.

He nods, sitting down next to her on the sofa. She knew he wanted to talk to the guys, on his own, or she would have offered to go along on today's trip. She actually likes masonry. But, they needed 'guy time' so, instead she's catching up on the shows she likes to watch on her iPad.

Gibbs isn't sure where to start this, why he was concerned, what's going on.

"You get permission to tell me what's up?"

Say what you like about dating a cop, but they miss absolutely nothing.

He nods at that, too.

"So…"

He shakes his head, opening and closing his mouth.

"How bad is this?"

"It's not…" He does that I don't have words gesture, but finally gets some together. "They're tiptoeing around becoming a foursome. Not sure if they're staying where they are or going further."

Borin blinks a few times at that. She stares at Gibbs, and can see he's not on the warpath, no sense of anger, but… "Shouldn't you be getting out the sniper rifle and putting the fear of Dad into them?"

He shrugs. "If Tim and Abby and Breena and Jimmy all want to be… with each other… all of 'em, together, at once… Who am I supposed to shoot?"

Abbi opens and closes her mouth. She doesn't have an answer to that.

He looks at her, exactly on his face. "Is it cheating if you're all in it together?"

"I..." she's about to say, 'I'd say so," but thinks about it more, thinks about all together, at once, and comes up with a very uncertain, "No?"

Gibbs nods.

Abbi thinks about what she's seen of the four of them together, slotting it into that sort of a focus. And thinking about it, yeah, they are close. Really close. She's seen plenty of relationships like what Breena and Abby have, that almost effortless closeness between two women. She doesn't think she's seen too many examples of guys who similar levels of comfort with each other, but as she thinks about it, Tim and Jimmy do have that. And she can feel that's something Tony and Ziva are outside of.

"So, that's why you got tense when you realized Tony wasn't there?"

"Yeah. Know they won't do anything if he's along for the trip."

"You worried?"

He shrugs at that, too. "Feel like I should be. They seem okay. Right now, they are. But… I don't want them getting bit in the ass."

"Do you think they will get bit?"

He shakes his head. "Gut says no. They… feel… good with each other. If there's gonna be a problem, it'll be with the guys, and right now they feel solid. They're worried about getting bit, know what's at stake. Brains are in charge instead of balls, so that's good. And it looks like they're taking it slow, making sure they're all good. Maybe they'll never pull the trigger on it."

"But you think they will?"

Gibbs nods. He's feeling that in his gut to. "Tim asked if I'd be okay with it if all four of them became… I don't know if there's a word for it, a quadruple? Serious, long-term, married-style. You don't ask that if you're not gonna do it."

"Are you?"

"You know anyone who ever pulled it off? Two's hard enough for most people, four? That's juggling, what…" he thinks about it, the girls, the guys, all four of them, plus four couples, so… "seven relationships?"

Abbi shakes her head. "Not that I know personally. I mean, I know they're out there. I know it's not impossible, and supposedly four works better than three, but…"

"Yeah. If they can do it, yeah, I'm good with it. I mean… I'm from the seventies. I remember swinging. First sex book I ever read suggested fooling around with your friends as fun and a good way to get to know each other better and learn new tricks. Not like this is something I've never heard of. But I don't know anyone who made it work long-term." He sits quietly thinking about that, about all of it. "If anyone can do it, it's them, but I don't know if anyone can."

"And that scares you."

"Yeah."

Next

Shards To A Whole: Big Brother

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.


Chapter 359: Big Brother

The McGees

"McGee," Tim's not really paying attention as he answers his phone. He's staring at his computer, scanning the code in front of him, hoping to get everything done in time so he can snag lunch with Jimmy and Abby.

"Tim?" That's not a Minion. His attention shifts away from the screen to the voice in his ear.

"Hey Sarah, what's up?"

"Glen asked me to marry him!"

He feels the smile spread across his face. "Congratulations. Date picked?"

"It's been two days."

"No, then. Sounds like you had an extra-special Valentine's?"

"Yep!" She sounds really excited. His email beeps, and he brings it up on his computer, seeing a shot of her left hand and the diamond solitaire sitting on her ring finger. Kind of plain by his tastes, but it's very simple and elegant, so he can see Sarah loving it.

"Looks like Glenn did good."

"Oh yeah."

He knows that tone of voice. The ultra-satisfied timbre of someone who's gotten exactly what she wanted. "You sound happy, are you?"

"Yeah, I am."

"Good." He nods, pleased. Then a thought hits. He is a big brother. A big brother who is soon to also be a brother-in-law, and he's feeling like he may have some duty toward his sister and her soon-to-be husband, so he says, "Come to Sunday breakfast with us?"

Not like Sarah just met him, she feels the change in how he's thinking about this, so she sounds a little wary when she says, "Why?"

Tim grins, but she can't see it. "Show of clan strength. I'm not doing my job as a big brother if I don't scare the snot out of him at least once."

"Really?" He can feel the eye roll aimed in his direction.

"Yep. It's in the big brother handbook. I'm required by law to take him out and make sure he knows that I and all of my friends will beat him within an inch of his life if he hurts you."

He hears an exasperated sigh. "Isn't that Dad's job?"

Tim snorts. "Like he'd do it."

He can feel her roll her eyes, again. "Fine." Sigh, palpable I'm humoring your vibes radiate off of Sarah. "When's Sunday breakfast?"

"Same as with the christening. Eight."

"You and all your friends?"

"Just me and the guys."

"How progressive of you," she says dryly.

He shakes his head. "No… You don't want us bringing the girls in! We want to scare him into behaving well. We bring in Abby and Ziva, and he'll wet his pants and run for the hills. He'll change his name, and you'll never see him again. We're just going to make sure he knows the rules."

"You're going to have way too much fun with this, aren't you?"

He's grinning. "That's entirely likely. So, you'll come?"

"Sure. Penny'll be there, right? I've called three times, but haven't been able to get a hold of her."

"Uh…" He doesn't actually know if she'll be there. "They're… somewhere. I'll ask Jimmy how long he's got Autopsy on his own."

"What do you mean somewhere?"

"Errr…" The flaw in Ducky's brilliant whirlwind romance wedding was suddenly staring him in the face, well, talking in his ear.

"Tim?"

"They um…" he says the next bit very fast, "kind of got married on Sunday, and are on their honeymoon."

"What?!"

"It was a surprise."

"How do you have a surprise wedding? It's a wedding, the one thing you can't do as a surprise. You've got forms to fill out and paperwork and…"

"I don't think they bothered with that. It was Molly's birthday party. She was down for her nap. Party was breaking up. He kissed her, said some really romantic things, whipped out the rings, asked to be her husband, asked her to be his wife, gave us just enough time to hug everyone and drink a toast, and then they were off on their honeymoon. Fifteen minutes, tops."

"If they didn't bother with the paperwork, it's not a wedding."

Tim shrugs. You ask him, they're married. The paperwork strikes him as extraneous. But that's a moot point right now. "I just… don't know when they'll be back. Don't know where they went. Jimmy thinks it's somewhere warm, but… For all we know they could be touring the fjords. But I can find out when they'll be back. Jimmy'll know."

"Fine. Let me know."

"Okay. So… Sunday? Putting the fear of big brother into Glenn?"

She sighs. "Sure."

"Good!"

He feels her roll her eyes one last time, and then she says, "Bye, " and hangs up.

---

He did get lunch with Jimmy and Abby (though it's takeout. They're in Autopsy, which isn't Tim's favorite place to eat, but Jimmy's on solo, so he has to be around if anyone needs him.)

"This is really clean?" Tim asks. They're sitting around one of the stainless steel autopsy tables, food still in its containers, but Tim's still a bit squeamish.

"Hosed off, washed down with alcohol, hosed off again, and tested three times a week for bacteria content, but if you'd like I can grab one of the sterile drapes we use for the bodies," Jimmy says as he opens his chicken curry.

Tim sighs, opening his carton of beef and green beans, making sure his chopsticks don't touch the table. Abby gently pokes him but he feels he's within his rights to have irrational hang-ups about eating on the autopsy tables.

Jimmy shakes his head. "Your desk is a bubbling cauldron of raging bacterial sex compared to this table."

"I know." Tim holds up his hands. "I don't want to think about it."

Jimmy smirks. Then takes a bite of his curry. "So, anything interesting today?"

"Oh." Tim looks to Abby, who's digging into her organic tofu-veggie stir fry. "You were right. I got the call today. Glenn proposed on Valentine's. They're coming for Sunday breakfast, so we're on put the fear of Big Brother into Glenn duty."

Abby's grinning at that. "Ohhh… That'll be fun."

Jimmy looks at her with wide eyes, and Tim shakes his head. "No. Me, Jimmy, Gibbs, Tony if he shows. If I let you put the fear of Abby into him, he'll run screaming for the hills." She's somewhere between pouting and pleased at that. She wants in on the fun, but enjoys having her superiority at this recognized.

"Breena told me Amy's bummed. No ring for her," Jimmy says.

"She and Collin have only been together for what… a year?" Abby asks. She and Breena (and over the course of a few Sundays, Amy, too) have talked about this.

Jimmy nods. "Something like that. Apparently he moved in last week, but Ed doesn't know, yet."

Tim cringes. "Oh, that's going to be a mess."

"Yeah, Breena's thinking she was hoping to present it as, 'We're getting married! Oh, and Colin's all moved in.'"

"He gonna flip out about them living together?" Tim asks.

"Well, he almost bit my head off for having sex with his daughter after we got married, so I can't imagine he'll be cool with Colin doing it before."

Tim shakes his head. "You know, I'm going to enjoy not being in the middle of that."

Jimmy and Abby both nod in agreement.

Abby takes a sip of her water, eating another bite of her lunch. Jimmy watches her. She's been eating really healthy lately. She even skipped birthday cake at Molly's party. (Hell, even he had a bite of that cake, because like her mama, Breena can really bake when she puts her mind to it.)

"Okay, what's with the ultra-healthy food. Are you trying to lose weight?"

"What?" She looks up at him, really startled and unhappy. "Do you think I need to lose weight?"

(Tim is very glad to not be in the middle of this, either. He pulls a few inches further back from the table and gets ready to duck if need be.)

"No! You look great. That's why I'm worried you might be trying to. You're drinking water, haven't seen a Pepsi, let alone a Caf-Pow in weeks, or any other sugar for that matter, and you've got, what, whole grain rice in your vegetarian stir-fry? What's going on?"

She looks at Tim, eyes slightly narrowed.

"I didn't say anything. We eat together all the time; he was bound to notice."

She sighs. "Since… the miscarriage… I've been trying to eat better. Don't want it to happen again." Her eyes narrow at Tim again. "He thinks it's silly."

"It's not silly, but… I don't think it'll do much, that's all. It can't hurt, but…" He shrugs. "It feels like a placebo to me, so if it tricks your body into doing what you want it to do, that's great, but I don't think it's science."

He looks at Jimmy who's got the I shouldn't have opened this can of worms look on his face. "You're the doctor, how much does it matter if the tofu's organic or not?"

"Uh…" He's frantically thinking of a way to get out of this. "Do I look like your OB? 'Cause that's who you need to talk to."

They both give him their That's a bullshit answer look.

"Fine. I don't know. I don't think it matters much, but if this job teaches you anything it's the everyone is different and just because something works, or doesn't, for 99% of the population doesn't mean it'll work, or not, for you. And the placebo thing is real, and it works. They've got cases of people who didn't get their chemo drugs, they were given sterile solution by accident, and still got better. No one's suggesting that's a good plan for Joe Average, but if you can swing it… And like Tim says, it can't hurt."

"But you don't think it really helps, do you?" Abby asks.

"I'm not an OB. I'm not a nutritionist. I know I've got a very delicately balanced system and all organic or not didn't make any difference I could tell. Upping veggies, that made me feel better. Saying goodbye to most carbs, same result. More good fats, more meat, and more eggs to replace those carbs, my body seemed to like that a lot. But one of the steps I tried, back when I was first diagnosed, was to do natural sugars instead of processed one, and I never saw any difference by subbing out white sugar for honey or maple syrup. Getting rid of high fructose corn syrup didn't help. So, sure eat the veggies, get lots of them. And protein is your friend, enjoy it," he points to his own curry, "real meat, nuts, and there's cream in the sauce, higher fat content means I won't get hungry again as soon as I do when I do all veg. I'd recommend that for anyone trying to eat better. No one ever ended up in worse health because they stopped sucking down piles of caffeinated sugar, so saying goodbye to the Caf-Pows and sleeping more isn't a bad plan. But I've got no idea if it'll affect your fertility at all."

Then he looks at Tim and back to Abby. "Neither of you drink much, but cold turkey, for both of you, is something that's got actual science behind it, proving that it helps… Sort of. For guys it helps with sperm count."

"Likely not a problem," Abby says.

Tim shrugs, unless they've been insanely lucky, she's right.

"For women not drinking while you're trying to get pregnant and the first few months helps avoid miscarriage, but… the information on that's kind of sketchy. In this country at least, the kind of woman who admits to drinking while pregnant isn't the kind of woman who's just having a glass of wine with dinner once a week. They know binge drinking causes problems. They know alcoholism causes problems. They know not drinking at all avoids them. They know that women who have fewer than two drinks a day are fine, but that's an average, and your mileage may vary, and you can't really prove something is safe, so the rule of thumb is no alcohol at all."

"So what you're saying is that best anyone knows we're already drinking less than the amount that would make a difference?" Tim asks.

"Probably. Not drinking won't hurt. None of this will hurt. But since you aren't binge drinking, it may not help, either. Just, I wouldn't stress out about it. Oh, speaking of things you can do that there's some science behind, stressing out about it does make fertility rates drop."

"You wouldn't stress out about it because you're not in spitting distance of the end of your fertility," Abby says to Jimmy. "Forty-two is next month. I'm getting to the end of my store of eggs and I don't want to waste any of them, so anything that may help just got added to the to-do list."

Jimmy nods. "Want me to do some research? Or give you my Physician's log in for PubMed? That'll get you full access to any of the articles you want."

Tim thinks that's a good way to diffuse the situation. And Abby nods. "Yes. Thanks."

---

Tim's been back at his desk for a few minutes when Jimmy texts him.

Come back down?

Okay.

He tells Soth he'll be in Autopsy, and if anyone needs him to head over and grab him, and then goes.

"Jimmy?"

"Here." He backs out of the storage closet. "Just getting more forms. When's that paperwork software going live?"

Tim crosses his fingers. "Week from tomorrow beta testing starts. You know you'll have to fill your stuff out by hand and do it with the computer while testing, right?"

"Yeah, if it doesn't work, yada yada yada. I got it the first time."

"Good. What's up?"

"How's she doing, really?"

Tim sighs. "Okay. Really. You know how much she loves not being in control, and she can't control this, but she can control what she eats, so the food's gotten really healthy. And you know we do morning yoga, or at least as much as we can."

Jimmy nods; he's familiar with how small people put a crimp in any sort of morning plans you might have.

"She's added some fertility poses and is centering the meditation that way. And like with the food, it doesn't hurt, but I don't think it actually helps, either. So, she's kind of frustrated with me because I'm not all gung ho on this."

"Frustrated?" Tim can tell Jimmy's asking if he's 'editing' the situation.

Tim shakes his head, frustrated isn't code for angry. "Yeah. Not angry. I'm not being a jerk about it. But she'd like me to be a better cheerleader on it, and I'm trying. I'm buying the organic veggies and making the food she likes when I'm on dinner duty, but my enthusiasm levels are leaving something to be desired."

"You're charting, right?"

"Of course, but… no egg to even shoot for, yet. Hoping we'd have gotten another chance by now, but…"

"But she's nursing and almost forty-two and every month isn't realistic right now."

"Right. From what we can tell, if there's an egg around we've gotten pregnant. Just... And that's only happened once so…"

"You okay, Tim?"

Tim shrugs. "Yeah. I'd love more kids but, right now at least, I could be happy with just Kelly."

Jimmy doesn't ask out loud, but Tim can see the look, the way he's watching to see if that's real or not.

Tim shrugs again, it's real enough. "I don't need it the way she does." Jimmy nods, that's definitely real. "So we're both trying to stay cool, because we both do know that massive, stressed-out, hissy fit isn't going to help. I'm working on being supportive. I mean, I'm eating the veggies, too, and doing the yoga, and I can not drink. Not like that's a problem, at all. But there's really only so much I can do for this and none of it seems really useful, you know?"

"See your OB?"

"If we get to six months post-nursing without her getting pregnant, that's the plan."

"Stop nursing sooner?"

"Maybe. We talked about it when Kelly was new, planned to nurse for a year, but if she wants to cut out earlier and buy more time, I'll support that."

"It sounds-"

"Really reasonable?"

"Yeah."

"It is. Apparently 'reasonable' is cold comfort when you're jonesing for another baby."

Jimmy nods, he knows all about that. "Yeah."

Tim's phone beeps and he looks at it. "Gotta run."

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah. You know how the job system works?"

"Sure."

"I'm the available tech with the highest specialty rating for the case that just came in. I gotta move."

"Go move!"

---

Glenn Holland actually is a good guy. He's warm, funny, smart, and Tim understands why his sister loves him. As potential husbands go, he approves.

This does not, however, get him a pass from being dragged to the side by the various males of clan Gibbs as Sunday breakfast comes to a close.

Glenn half-smiles at him as he notices he's being pulled further and further back from the rest of the crowd, who are getting in cars and heading toward church. He holds his hands up, "Look, your Dad already did the hurt my little girl and I'll kill you in ways that hurt so bad just imagining them will make you break out in a cold sweat."

Tim nods at that. Bit surprised that the Admiral would make the effort, but he was always good at scaring the shit out of people by threatening them.

"This isn't the hurt my sister and die speech. Unlike my Dad, I actually know something about being a good husband." He points to Jimmy, Ducky, and Gibbs who are all surrounding Glenn. "They do, too. Any husband who's been around for more than a year will do something that hurts his wife sooner or later. Even if you're trying, it'll happen. That's just being alive and being a human being in close proximity to another human being every day for the rest of your life."

He can feel Jimmy thinking toothpaste even though he doesn't say it.

"This isn't even the marry her and you will stay married for the rest of your life, speech. We all know that can be a recipe for misery, and I don't want that for her, or you for that matter."

"So what is this?" Glenn looks legitimately curious. This is very much not the conversation he had with Admiral McGee.

"The rules. They're simple, and there aren't a lot of them. One: as long as you are a firefighter, you will have life insurance. You will have about five times more life insurance than you think you need. You stop being a firefighter, you can go back to the basic just get the job done level, but as long as you're out there risking your life running into burning buildings, you are going to make sure that she and your kids are covered.

"Two: If it doesn't work out, and you guys decide to split, you will pay child support and you will be a dad. I want it in your mind that there are men who will literally hunt you to the end of the earth and will fuck you over so badly on so many different levels you'll wish your parents had never met if you try to skip out on your kids."

Glenn nods with that, seems to agree, but he's looking a little disturbed at the language. He's never seen Tim be anything other than mild-mannered computer guy, the cursing is unsettling.

Tim takes that nod as his due, and also as a sign of Glenn being a basically decent guy. Then he doubles down. "If you think my Dad was scary, I want you to remember something, I learned everything he ever had to offer and then I spent the next fifteen years of my life putting away killers. I've got a library of twisted shit so vast and so varied that it'd make him blanch if he ever had to come face to face with it."

Glenn starts to look very disturbed. Tim finds that deeply satisfying.

"Three: If you ever find yourself contemplating something stupid, something where the words, 'I never meant to hurt you' translate into 'I never meant for you to find out,' don't do it." Glenn quickly nods along to that. "Honestly, you ever get in trouble, any kind, where you really are thinking, 'I never meant for you to find out,' come to us, we're amazingly resourceful at solving problems and helping each other cope with wanting things that are bad for you."

Jimmy's nodding along with that. "Anytime. Really. We're good at this, and our wedding present to you is that if you need it, help is always on offer."

Tim hadn't expect this to go that far, but he figures Jimmy's doing well, so he rolls with it.

"Look, you hurt her accidentally, that's just being alive. You hurt her intentionally. You do something where you know that if she finds out about it, it will make her cry, then I will make you cry. Make her cry badly enough, and next thing you know every FBI agent on Earth will be in your home pulling more kiddie porn than you ever knew could exist off of your hard drive. And then you'll get transferred to whatever holding cell has the guys who were the victims of pedophiles in it." Tim smiles blandly. "That's assuming they," he looks at Jimmy, Ducky, and Gibbs, "don't get you first." Glenn's eyes are very wide right now. He's thinking having the Admiral beat the shit out of him is vastly preferable to what McGee the younger will do.

Tim clasps a hand over Glenn's shoulder. "There is exactly one acceptable reason for my sister to be crying on me about something you did intentionally, and that's because you got hurt or died saving someone else. We good?"

Glenn nods slowly. "We're good."

"Wonderful."

Tim watches Glenn head back Sarah's car, he sees the somewhat stunned look on his face and enjoys it. Glenn says something to Sarah, but he can't lip read well enough to know what.

But Gibbs laughs and says, "He just told your sister, 'Your family is fucking terrifying.'" Gibbs put his arm around Tim's shoulder and nods slowly. "Good job."

Tim grins at him. "Thanks, I was well-trained."

---

He gets out of church and turns his phone back on. (He may be a heathen atheist, but he's a heathen atheist with manners; he turns his phone off in church. The Minions know that's a black out time for him, and where he is so if it's urgent enough they can go and get him.) There's a very irate text from his sister on there that says, KIDDIE PORN?

He laughs.

To any sane man, that's the scariest threat in my arsenal.

TIM! What the fuck?

Love you, too, Sis. And it looks like he does, too, so this'll never be any sort of issue.

You don't do that to people, don't say that… Just… Tim!

Honestly, is he bothered? Did he think I was out of line?

There's a pause. Abby's getting Kelly buckled into her car seat. "Trouble?"

"I don't think so. She's less than perfectly happy with my Fear of Big Brother technique."

Abby nods.

No. He's taking notes for when his little sister gets engaged.

Good man!

Ugh. Men!

:)

---

It's after Sunday dinner, after Bootcamp, and just like Glenn didn't have any trouble figuring out he was being weeded out of the herd for a private conversation, Tim's not having any issues with figuring it out, either.
Jimmy and Gibbs look... concerned.

"What?" he finally asks.

Jimmy looks to Gibbs. Gibbs looks back. They both look at Tim. Tim gets the sense they didn't plan this out, just came to the conclusion, at the same time, that it had to happen.

"Wedding coming up," Gibbs says.

"And your mom and dad'll probably be there, right?"

Tim had indeed already come to that conclusion, talked with Abby about it a bit. "Yeah. Probably."

"You going to go?" Jimmy asks.

Tim shrugs. "I don't know. I want to see her get married. I want to be there for her, and support her, and celebrate with her, but I could easily go the rest of my life without ever seeing either of them again." He shrugs again. "How about this, I'll burn that bridge when I come to it? When she gets a date and everything set, when we know for a fact The Admiral is actually attending, because if she picks a time when he's on duty, he won't. He didn't get out of a shift for her birth, I can't imagine he'll take time off for her wedding. When we know that… We'll figure it out from there."

Gibbs nods at that, and Jimmy seems to think that's an okay place to be.

Next

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 264

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.


Chapter 264: Clan Gibbs

When Gibbs was a child, church, Sunday dinner, and gathering with the whole family had been part of every week. It wasn't a huge gathering, not like this never-ending crowd of Slaters, but his parents, his Aunt, her family, his grandparents, and their siblings, all got together.

But in his family, the women were the glue. His grandmother died, and Sunday dinner limped along for a few years, his mom and his aunt keeping it going. But his mom got sick, and then she died, and his aunt didn't have the heart to do it on her own.

Shannon had lived in Stillwater when they were courting, and when he was in town, he went to church and Sunday supper at their home.

They'd moved around a lot, finally gotten settled in DC, and his mother and father-in-law eventually moved down, wanting to be closer to Kelly and Shannon. His dad even made it down a few times a year.

For two years, Sunday dinner was at his house. He doesn't think about that too much. Not that they aren't good memories. They are. But like a lot of his good memories, they hurt. Though that's starting to get better. Maybe not good, but it's not an open wound held together by tendrils of avenging anger and numbing booze anymore.

But like his birth family, the women were the glue, and when his girls died…

This time though, he's here for his boys. He's glad to see Tim giving Jimmy some back-up on this. Visiting your in-laws shouldn't be walking into a lion's den, but if it is, it's good to have friends at your back. And if they're going to invite him to come along, he'll come along and keep an eye on Jimmy's flanks.

Like with Tim's first visit, he's very aware that no one in this family is going out of their way to make Jimmy welcome.

Not that Gibbs is known for hospitality, but there is a bottle of Gin (And a bottle of Absinthe is in the works for a birthday present. No, it's not legal in the US. Some favors are in the process of being called in, and buddy of a buddy who'll getting home on leave soon should have a few bottles stowed in his luggage.) in his basement next to the Scotch and Bourbon.

There's black coffee strong enough to peel the tar off the roof, and it was handed to him by Jeannie within seconds of him entering her home. And sure, it may not be there for just him, but he doesn't notice anyone else drinking it.

So, he's welcome, and judging by the fact that no one else is drinking coffee, they have gone out of their way to extend a welcome to him.

But not to Jimmy.

The girls are mingling easily. Abby's been getting some interested looks. If he had to guess, she's explained her tattoos about nine times. But it's mostly curious, not much hostile. Though Abby being Abby tends to smother hostile with warm happiness.

And Kelly's got an adoring collection of bigger girls cooing over her. Something about tween girls, they like babies, especially darling little ones in a tiny pink sun dress. (Apparently Abby and Tim decided Kelly didn't need to break out the goth-wear for church.)

Of course, this is probably a very girl friendly house. His always was. Kelly and her little tribe of buddies giggling in his backyard, he can remember that very clearly, smiles a little at it.

Tim and Jimmy tend to stay together, and near him. They don't mingle as easily, but conversation around this group tends to range from business issues, to the Nationals, (Turns out Jimmy's a fan. Gibbs takes some ribbing for the Pirates, but the look of death killed it pretty fast. Then the idea that Tim doesn't have a team percolates through, and apparently that had about the same effect as walking into the Slaters' in a skirt and eyeliner. Wedding ring, baby daughter in his arms, wife who he's kissed a few times, it doesn't matter, the collection of Slater Uncles and Cousins are fairly sure he's gay. Can't be a man without a team. Tim just rolled his eyes.) and back to the business.

They spend so much time in their own little NCIS world, where everyone knows everyone else, that Gibbs has never had to really think much about who he is in relation to these people he's collected into his family. But, this isn't NCIS. The various Slaters have met him maybe three times.

He's a vaguely familiar face somehow attached to Jimmy.

And of course, there are some stories, and they can see who he came in with, but, "Oh, you're Tim and Abby's…" and that's how that sentence goes. It just sort of trails off, because they don't know where he fits.

First time it happens he just lets it go. Doesn't answer. Smiles, nods, shakes hands, moves onto the next introduction.

Second time, he catches Tim's eye, (Wants to make sure this is okay with him. He knows Abby'll be good with what he wants to say.) and Tim nods, knowing what that look means. So he says, "Kind of complicated, but Dad'll cover it."

"I thought you were Jimmy's boss." Breena's cousin says.

He shook his head. "Duck's Jimmy's Boss. I'm Tim's, or used to be, until last week."

"Long as you're there, you're still my Boss," Tim says.

"Something happen?" The cousin, Fred, asks.

"I'm retiring in January. He's taking over his own department soon. New member of the team just joined up. Slid Tony into the Boss slot to make everything run better."

"Oh." Fred doesn't seem to get that, but he's willing to nod and smile.

"It's disappointing, right?" Ed says. Gibbs had been standing on the back porch, leaning against the railing, watching the kids run around the backyard, grabbing a few minutes of quiet. (Okay, it's not quiet, there are five shrieking kids playing something tag-like, but it's also not making small talk with strangers. Maybe restful is a better word.) Ed joining him wasn't exactly what he was hoping for for this moment.

Ed's looking at him expectantly. Gibbs raises his eyebrows a bit.

"You have girls, and you want something for them, a kind of future, a man strong enough to be a… man. And they bring home these cute, fluffy things and expect you to think that they'll make great husbands."

It's possible that Ed isn't talking about Jimmy, though Gibbs doesn't think that's the case, but he might as well make sure. So he looks, pointedly, through the sliding glass door separating them from the dining room, at the twit that Amy's got hanging on her arm. Handbag, that's what Tony'd call him. And, really, he's probably not a bad guy, but as a cute, fluffy thing goes, he'll fit the bill.

Ed sighs. "Yeah. Him, too. He's a 'consultant' for graphic design firms. I think that's code for unemployed. I run a successful business, and she brings me a long line of unemployed or barely employed guys. But, you're a Marine, all Hoo Rah, and… your girls brought you the Clown and Tech Support. At least DiNozzo looks like he's got some backbone hiding under that Clown exterior."

Gibbs gives him a long, cold look.

"You, me, we aren't going to be around forever, and they pick cute. Cute doesn't keep the wolf from the door."

Gibbs' look was nearing absolute zero.

Ed is watching Amy talk with the Handbag, leaning into him, hanging on his every word as he strokes her back. "I worry for them. Don't want push to come to shove and for them to find out they've got no one to back them up."

And, yes, that resonates with Gibbs, but, nope, no one is saying that about his boys. "You think I know tough when I see it?"

Ed looks away from Amy to him. "Sure."

"Think I've seen my fair share of losers and creeps?"

"Probably yours are a few others."

Gibbs nods; that's true. "I am not disappointed in Jimmy, Tim or Tony. There are five men I trust with my life. Four of 'em I want at my back in a fight, and two of them are in your home right now, one's married to your daughter. Wolf comes to the door, Jimmy'll snap it's neck, and before it stops twitching, Tim'll shoot it between the eyes from 200 meters away with a hand gun. All of my boys are capable of defending their own nests, and they watch each other's as well.

"He was a cute fluffy thing." Gibbs remembered Jimmy from 2002. Cute and fluffy, good way to describe him. "I thought Jimmy was goofy as Hell when I first met him. But he's not anymore. He's as strong as any man needs to be. Losing a child ruins men. It breaks them, wounds them so they never get back up again. You see the funeral. I see what happens months, years, later. Jimmy didn't leave when they lost Jon, he didn't break, and he didn't let your daughter or granddaughter down. Push came to shove, and shoved him hard enough to flatten another man. Jimmy stood through it. You're worried he's not strong enough to be the man your daughter needs, then you're not looking. Man's made of steel. He wasn't when they started dating, but he is now."

Ed doesn't look like he knows what to do with that. Finally he says, "You can pick anyone in the world at your back, and you'd take Jimmy?"

"Any man in the world: Jimmy for hand to hand. Tim for a fire fight. Tony if there's a shot of talking our way out. Tobias if it's time to go out in a blaze of glory. And I want Duck somewhere safe, but able to see it all, for counsel."

Ed thinks about what Gibbs said for a moment and then says, "Any man. Let me guess, if we're talking anyone, it's Ziva for hand to hand, Ziva in a fire fight, Tony for talking his way out, and Fornell for the last stand."

Gibbs shrugs, that's not precisely wrong, but… "Not anymore."

That stuns Ed, more than anything else Gibbs has said.

"She's still a better fighter than the boys. Should be too, she's younger and trained for it her whole life. She's a better fighter than I am. Better than Tony. Jimmy can go six minutes with her, which is four more than I can—"

"Four more than you could have at thirty-seven?"

"She was thirteen when I was thirty-seven."

Ed gives him the, I know what you're doing look, but doesn't say anything else.

"I'm pretty sure she's not. But these days, there's always a shot she's pregnant, so, if there's any chance of getting her out of the fight, of making sure she's not the one at my back, I'd take it. Not gonna happen because she's stubborn as hell, but if it's my choice, she won't be in the line of fire."

Ed nods at that. He understands that in his bones. Women and children first, even if the woman in question is Ziva DiNozzo.

The sermon popped into Gibbs' mind. "You paying any attention to the sermon?"

Ed nods. "Enough."

"God gives us the lessons we need to learn in the people around us. That was the point of it. I don't think He forgot you when He was handing out lessons."

Ed smiles at that, acknowledging the point. "So, what am I teaching you?"

"Same thing He's trying to teach you with Jimmy, see the man inside the man."

"And what's your gut saying?"

"You're a jerk, but a good dad."

"Back at you."

"You could be a good father-in-law, too. Could be a great dad and make that daughter you love beyond anything else a whole lot happier by not treating her man like the enemy."

Ed shrugs at that. And Gibbs gets that as much as Ed does worry for his girls. As much as there is genuine concern, there's also a very large serving of him not wanting to be a good father-in-law, of him not wanting to share his daughters with another man. There's absolutely nothing wrong with Jimmy; other than the fact that he's not Ed.

Jimmy headed out a few minutes later. "'Bout time for us to head off."

Gibbs nods. He turns to Ed. "Thanks for the invite."

"You're welcome. Any and every Sunday, we're here."

This time the nod is aimed at Ed, not Jimmy.

Then Ed checked his watch. "Thought you said Bootcamp was at four?"

Gibbs nods, yet again. Ed had been asking about what it is they do on Sunday afternoons.

"It's ten past two."

"Yep."

"Doesn't take you that long to get downtown."

Jimmy lifts the corners of his mouth in a manner that could be called a smile, if you weren't paying attention or didn't know him well. "Gotta eat first, Ed."

"Of course. You're in a house full of food, but you've got to go out to eat."

Jimmy stiffened slightly. He could just take it, let it roll over him, like he does every week. But Gibbs is standing right next to him, watching, and he catches the faint, do it, you need to flavor of his look.

So he does. "Yeah, Ed, I need to eat. I need to eat every few hours when I'm awake, otherwise my blood sugar crashes, and that's a bad thing. And I'm standing next to a house full of food. Food all over the place." He looks at the cup in Gibbs' hand. "I see you've got Gibbs' drink. He's never been here before. You've only met him four times. But you've got exactly what he likes." Jimmy nods again, that not quite smile still on his face. He sighs. "But, yes, I have to leave your home to find food that won't make me sick. And I've got to do it soon, otherwise I'll start to feel woozy and won't have the energy for Bootcamp. So, it's time for us to go." Jimmy turned toward the patio door.

"Fine, go find food 'that doesn't make you sick.'" Ed rolls his eyes. "But really, how much energy can this take? According to Gibbs you mostly fight with Tim, and he's the precision shooter, not the muscle. Gibbs and Ziva train you, not fight you. When it's time to fight, you go up against the other skin and bones toothpick who's best skill is a gun."

Jimmy turns slowly back toward Ed, exhaling quietly. Gibbs is still flashing him the do it, you need to look at him. "Okay, Ed, you want to see what a workout looks like when a Marine and a Mossad-trained assassin are in charge of putting you through your paces? You want to see what training looks like? You want to see what us skin and bone toothpicks can do? Want to see how good even the least talented member of our team is when it comes to fighting? Hell, you want to take a shot at me? We meet up at four. Get your ass over to the Navy Yard and find out for yourself."

They're walking out of the house and Gibbs says quietly to him. "Glad you did it."

"Wonderful. Let's see if I can do this without embarrassing myself."

Gibbs puts his hand on Jimmy's shoulder. "You won't."

"Who are you texting?" Tim asks as he and Gibbs grab a table, and Jimmy orders himself some lunch.

"Letting Ziva know what's up."

"Stacking the deck in Jimmy's favor?"

Gibbs nods. "Like you're not going to pull your punches?"

"Not too much, I mean, I don't have to, not anymore. When we play to our own strengths, he's better. But he's going to be nervous, so I'll make sure it's close, but I don't intend to win any of our fights today."

"Exactly. Ziva's not going to throw any of them, but she'll probably move a little slower, telegraph her moves a little clearer."

Jimmy sits down, grilled salmon salad, bowl of three bean soup, and a diet Pepsi on a tray.

"How crazy is it that I can find a better low-carb lunch at a bakery than at my in-laws' house?"

Tim shrugs. They did this last week, and he had to admit, pulling into a Panera after leaving the land of carbs seemed strange to him. But, it is one of the few places Jimmy can get a decent lunch, fast.

"So this is what, fight club for geeks?" Ed asks, two minutes after finding Tim, Jimmy, and Gibbs at the NCIS gym.

"Come on, Ed, if you know enough to ask that question, you know the first rule of Fight Club." Tony says as he and Ziva enter.

"Tony?" Jimmy asks. Both Tim and Jimmy are pretty surprised to see him here today. He's never come to Bootcamp, probably for the same reason that Gibbs rarely fights. He's got a position and getting his ass kicked is not conductive to keeping it.

"Heard Ed was coming, decided I had to see this," he says with a big smile, clapping his hand on Ed's shoulder as Ziva gives each of the guys a hello hug.

"Great." Last thing Jimmy wants for this was a crowd.

Tony smiles. "Want to see the Gremlin take a bite out of his old man."

"The Gremlin?" Ed looks startled by that.

"What Tony calls Jimmy," Tim adds, you really don't want to know why on his face.

"Why?" Ed asks, starting to sound a little concerned.

Tony just shook his head and looked stern. "You ever see that movie? Sure, Jimmy looks like a stuffed animal, all cute and harmless, but hit the wrong trigger, and he'll mess you up! Breena ever tell you the story about how he drove a car into a suspect who was running away from us?" Ed shook his head. "Nope? It's a good story." Tony nods to the rest of them. "Go get started. I'll keep an eye on Ed." Tim, Jimmy, Gibbs, and Ziva headed off to warm up. "You know, Ed, Fight Club really was a great movie, but so many people forget the twist. Well, not forget it. Everyone knows the twist. They don't internalize it. They watch it and then stuff it in the cool story file, but don't change because of it. Kind of sad really.

"Edward Norton was brilliant in that movie. Starts off so soft and mild, letting everyone push him around. You never expect the twist. He's so good at just blending in and taking it that you never even suspect he's got Tyler Durden hiding in there." He smiles some more at Ed, who's staring to look a little nervous about this.

"Oh, well, enough movie trivia. So, what's your background with this? Jimmy got to this kind of late, but he's catching up, fast. And Tim, well… you've got to be able to fight to be a field agent. Can't pass FLETC without a martial arts proficiency. Me, I played every sport you can think of, and then boxing on top of that. First time I went up against Gibbs, I was dancing around, showing off, telling him how I used to box. I asked him if he'd ever boxed in the Corp, and he said no. So I was thinking I'd take it easy on him, and ten seconds later I was on the floor, and he had my arm pinned behind my back with his knee on my kidney. Then he told me, 'They taught us to fight.' And Ziva, well…" He looks at his wife, who is stretching with Jimmy and Tim, and smiles fondly at her. "Hey, Ziva," he calls out.

"Tony?"

"If you had to sum up your training, how'd you do it?"

She's loosening up, leaning forward, her ankle on the top rope of the ring. "You said, 'They taught Gibbs to fight?'"

"Yep."

"They taught me to kill."

He smiles back at her and says to Ed, "They taught her to kill. And she's good at it. We ever need someone to go in unarmed, it'll be Ziva. So, Ed, you remember the last rule of Fight Club?"

"No."

Tony smiles, he's enjoying this way too much. "If it's your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight."

And while it's true that Tyler Durden's Fight Club turns men from cookie dough to carved wood might not be precisely true, it's close enough. Right now Jimmy and Tim are in the best shape of their lives. (Sure, Tim's not giving Pitt a run for his money muscle-definition-wise, but Jimmy is. This might be the difference between no carbs and just not a whole lot of them.) And Ziva's awfully lean and strong right now, too.

Gibbs has been looking better these last three months. Sure, he's not the guy he was in his Marine days, but… well, he's not getting there, yet, either, but he can see where getting there begins from where he is right now, and hopes to have gotten back to who he used to be within a year (okay, year and a half).

But, with Tony prattling on next to him, filling him in on exactly what they do at Bootcamp (Tony's making a lot of it up, telling a good story, because, that's what he does. Compared to Somali terrorists, playing Ed's like riding a tricycle. But Ed doesn't know that.) Ed's noticing that Jimmy and Tim are indeed thin, but they are not toothpicks.

And they are very, very much not skin and bones.

And he probably, no definitely, doesn't want to get into a fight with either of them.

Jimmy's focusing on Ziva.

He's decidedly not focusing on Ed.

Not at all.

He's not seeing Tony standing there, next to Ed, hand on his shoulder, narrating the action, filling in bits and pieces of stories of how Ziva used to kill or disable men with the moves she's using, and how he's dodging, evading, using her momentum against her.

He's not hearing about how a second slower and that kick would have gotten him in the jaw or how the thumb lock he's using on Ziva right now is something she taught them as a way to easily disable an opponent.

Nope. He's focused on "Ziva." He's so focused on "Ziva" that it's only now occurring to him that she should have handed his ass to him a few minutes ago.

And that actually does snap his attention away from "not focusing on Ed" to really focusing on Ziva. She sees it when she has his whole attention and ups her game to go with it.

That's when he gets it. They are not going to let him look bad. He doesn't have to worry about this, because they've got his back. Ziva's not going to let him win, that'd be way too obvious. But they won't let him look like a twit, either.

And with that he does start to relax and enjoy himself.

That's also, as he spinning on his back leg, landing a kick that Ziva dodged, when he realizes exactly what this is and why Tony's here, too. (And honestly, he wouldn't be shocked if Ducky, Fornell, or Vance were to decide to come play, too. Though he's kind of hoping they don't.)

It's a show of clan strength. The same way dragging the potential son-in-laws to church is for the Slaters. This is his clan, showing off that its strength means the literal ability to end your life should they desire to do so.

He catches Ziva's knee, blocking that hit, planning to use it to toss her off balance, but apparently that's what she wanted him to do, because by doing that, he's got both hands occupied and can't block the punch the follows up. He did manage to get her off balance, but dodging the punch sends him down, too. She's up faster than he is, so it's her round. She offers a hand, and pulls him up.

"Good round. Another?"

"Sure."

"This what they usually do?" Ed asks Tony.

"Sure. Warm up time…"

"That's warm up time?"

Jimmy's on his third round with Ziva. Gibbs and Tim are working with each other.

"Yeah, that's warm up time. Jimmy's better attacking than on defense. So right now, he's up against Ziva. Main thing he's doing is learning how to see what she's going to do next and block it. Tim's thing is precision. Give him a gun and he can hit a dime on the goal post from the fifty yard line, but when it comes to fist and foot, he's not quite that controlled. That's what he's doing with Gibbs, working on making sure he can hit a dime at full speed with his off hand in close combat. I imagine in a few months they'll get to knives, but right now it's all fist and foot."

"Why aren't you doing this?" Ed asks Tony.

Tony shook his head a little. "Do I look stupid to you? I don't want to get into a fight with them. Hell, I don't even like running after perps anymore. You hit a certain age, and you don't want to be a punching bag. Okay, sure, Gibbs is insane, and he likes this stuff, and Tim and Jimmy are endorphin junkies, but I'm not. I like not having bruises. I mean, do you really want to get into a fight with them? Actually, I guess you do, that's why you're here. So, you better start getting warmed up and ready, because if you go at this cold, they'll kill you."

Usually, after working with Ziva, Jimmy and Tim go up against each other. These days those are free fights, no holds barred (Okay, not really, by mutual accord and respect, eyes and balls are off limits, but there's no set rule against it.), do whatever you like, first one to hit the floor loses.

Usually, that's when Gibbs and Ziva regroup, go over strategy, watch what and how they're learning, and plan out what sorts of things the guys need to work on.

But this is very much not a usual week.

And Gibbs already has a plan in place.

He and Tim finish up, and as they're heading toward the ring he says, "You and Jimmy, two rounds, take it easy, Ziva and I'll keep Ed busy. He won't be watching you two much."

Tim nods. He doesn't know where this is going, but he gets the basic instruction here is conserve your energy, more stuff coming up later.

Usually, they go for an hour, hour ten if things are going well, and he knows today is going to run longer than that.

So, as Ziva slips out from between the ropes, Tim joins Jimmy, quietly giving him the heads up, and they face off.

Ziva heads over to Gibbs, her usual plan, but sees that Gibbs is heading over to Ed.

"Tony taking care of you?" Gibbs asks as they get closer. Ed's working on one of the punching bags. Tony's keeping it steady for him. His form is good, speed decent. Gibbs is getting the idea that Ed probably boxed in college or high school, remembered what he learned, but hasn't used it in thirty or forty years.

"Yes."

"Great. You're up with Ziva next."

"Ziva?" Ed stops dead and just stares at her.

"Yes," Ziva says, looking pretty happy at this.

Gibbs gives Ziva a stern look. "Ziva, no eyes, no balls, no throat, no finger locks. Ed's got to be able to use his hands tomorrow."

"Yes, Gibbs." She's smiling pleasantly at Ed.

Ed's looking terrified.

"You start with Ziva because she's good enough and has enough control to not accidentally hurt you. Even if you are swinging wild and don't know what you're doing, she won't let you accidentally hurt her. You start with Ziva, and once you get good, you end with Ziva, because she's the one who knows what she's doing."

"I can't hit a girl!"

Ziva just grins at him. Gibbs claps his hand on Ed's shoulder and smiles. Tony says, "If I was you, I wouldn't worry about hitting a girl." He fishes a fifty out of his wallet. "This is yours if you can manage to lay a hand on her."

Gibbs laughs. "Come on, Ed. Time to see what Bootcamp really looks like."

Ziva puts Ed through his paces. Gibbs and Tony watch Tim and Jimmy work with each other.

"What's the plan?" Tony asks Gibbs.

"I'm up against Jimmy next."

"Really?" Tony knows where Gibbs is going to take this, and… He gets it, but that Gibbs'll do it takes his breath away.

"Yeah." Gibbs turns to Tony. "You make sure Ed gets it."

"Not a problem, been doing that all day. So, you're really gonna let him win?"

"Let? Have you been watching what he's doing?"

Tony shrugs. "Not exactly what I meant. Until I started letting you win, you made my life a living Hell. Once Ed's gone, you gonna give Jimmy any crap?"

Gibbs shakes his head. (He has a somewhat different memory of how that went down, and DiNozzo letting him win isn't part of it. Though as he thinks about it, it's probably a good idea that Tony hasn't decided he needs to go toe to toe against Draga, and just possibly Tony learned that from his own experience of being the young half of the equation when it came to working with him.)

Tony's watching him think about it and says, "You're going after him after he's been up against Ziva and McGee."

"Gotta do something to even it up. Won't look right if he drops me one minute in."

Tony shakes his head. Palmer creaming Gibbs a minute in isn't anything he's ever going to believe can happen, even if he does actually get to see it live. It's like the sun rising in the west, it's just wrong.

"When did we get old?"

Gibbs laughs at that, very amused. There's a huge difference between ten and twenty years old. But not so much between twenty, thirty, and forty. But forty and fifty, which is where Tony is, oh yeah, lots of difference. Fifty and sixty, where Gibbs is, not as much, but he can feel it. "After Jimmy and I are done, we'll see if Ed still wants to take a swing at him."

"And if he does?" Tony asks.

"I don't think he's that stupid."

That got a chuckle out of Tony.

"Okay, Jimmy, you and me."

Both Jimmy and Tim are flashing very clear are you sure about this expressions at him. Gibbs nods at both of them.

Tim stares at both of them. Be careful aimed at Gibbs. And Abby'll pout at me if you hurt him aimed at Jimmy.

Jimmy's looking back at Tim with What the hell is wrong with you? He's going to eat me alive and pick his teeth with my bones, and you think Abby's going to pout at me?

Tim smiles at that. He's a bit more immune to the aura of Gibbs than Jimmy is.

Gibbs heads in and Jimmy's looking warily at him.

"Gonna be okay, Jimmy."

He looks at Ed. He's close enough to see, but not really hear.

"Sure?"

"Yeah."

"You gonna take a dive or something."

Gibbs shakes his head. "Won't need to."

Jimmy's not looking like he believes that.

"Focus on me. Enjoy it. Then go have a chat with him."

The Marines teach you to fight and kill. All four limbs working together to drop your opponent as fast as possible. It's not fancy. Not (especially in the '70s when Gibbs was learning it) elegant. It's the martial arts equivalent of napalm. The point is overwhelming, conquering force. As long as the job is destruction, it gets the job done.

Mossad teaches you how to strike fast and precise. Maximum damage for minimum effort. How to get exactly the target you're aiming at and no one, nothing else. It's the fighting style of a small force, that must, because of its size be stronger. The fighting style of David who's facing a never-ending line of Golliaths. A group of men who have to be able to take ten, fifteen, maybe twenty men off the board for every man they can afford to lose.

If Tim has a fighting style, it's watch and wait. See the moves coming at you, look for the hole, dart into it, and knock the other guy on his ass.

And if Jimmy has a fighting style, it's a hybrid of the above three.

Gibbs is fighting fierce and fast. He's been conserving his energy for the last hour, intentionally not fighting until now. He makes sure Jimmy is on defense, the weaker of his skill set. But, Jimmy's spent most of his hours getting beaten by Tim when Tim is on defense. He knows how to play it, even if it's not his best skill.

Defense is a patience skill. At least that's how Tim plays it, how he uses it to take Jimmy down. But fighting isn't about patience, not for Jimmy. He's got yoga for that. Fighting is speed and aggression and pumping blood and fast breath and spiking adrenaline and endorphins.

He'd dodging fast, hard punches, using his legs and forearms to block kicks, his extra two inches of reach keeps Gibbs from getting too close, and while he's at it he realizes this is the shot Gibbs is giving him. Gibbs was a sniper. Gibbs kills with a knife. Gibbs is patience and defense, and attacking fast and hard isn't his best skill. He's matching his weakness to Jimmy's but he's got to be sure that Jimmy's better playing to his weak side than he is.

Because Jimmy does spend hours a week doing yoga. Because he can focus when he wants to, focus hard and tight, and slow the world down to beating heart and aware breath. It's not that he can't do it when he fights, it's that he usually doesn't want to.

But right now, more than ever, he wants to take the time to do this right. So he's focused, more focused on a fight than he ever has been, and he channeling the patience he needs to do this right, to see where to hop in, and use Ziva's precision to hit exactly what he's aiming for.

And he sees it about two minutes in. Gibb's is balanced on his left leg. He saw Ziva do a version of this, kicking at his head and taking his ankle out from under him. He doesn't have Ziva's speed, can't do it in one move. But he thinks he can pull this off in two fast moves. The punch toward Gibbs' head is a feint, pushing him a little further back, forcing more weight on that back leg, over balancing him just a bit further, and from that punch he immediate drops into the sweeping kick that takes that leg out from under Gibbs, and a second after that he's up and standing and Gibbs is on his back on the ring, looking up at him, and, there's an awfully pleased smile on his face.

Jimmy feels the smile on his face as well.

Which means it's time for part two of this, have a "chat" with Ed.

Getting into a fist fight with your father-in-law is probably a ridiculously stupid idea. On the list of top ten stupid ideas, it's probably on par with going up against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

And Jimmy isn't immune to iocane powder.

On the other hand, there's no shot Ed will respect him less for it. Unless he loses. But he just beat Gibbs. Just figured out how to own his defense. So he can't imagine Ed winning unless he was secretly a ninja back in the day. (For example, he's pretty certain he could take Ducky, but not enough to bet on it. He saw what Ducky did to those three Ninja wannabes. Ed, however, is a rather different story.)

So, as he gives Gibbs a hand up, sees the pride in his eyes, the go on, get him, in his look, he's ready for this. He faces Ed, makes sure he's looking at him. Then he checks with Gibbs. "You good?"

"Fine."

"Good." He headed to the ropes, leaning, forearms against them. He's hot, heart beating fast and hard, bright pink, dripping sweat, bit tired, and high as a kite on endorphins right now. For a few heartbeats he just stands there, staring at Ed. Then he runs his hands through his hair, mostly just moving it around a little, cooling off a bit, then wiped his face.

"Well, Ed, it's been an hour. I'm tired, so that'd even the odds some. You're all loose and warmed up." He sighed, stared down at Ed for a few more heartbeats, shook his head a little at how ridiculous this is. "You've wanted to take a shot at me since Breena brought me home the first time." He spread his arms wide, palms up, his hands are taped, so he can't exactly use his fingers to gesture, come on up, but he's getting the point across. "I'll even give you the first shot free." And then he smiled, cold, brilliant, challenging.

It's the smile of a man who just realized he can kill you with his bare hands if he feels like it. And he might decide he feels like it.

Tony said to Tim and Ziva, very quietly. "He's fucking terrifying when he wants to be."

"Indeed." Ziva said.

Tim nodded. He doesn't want to be on the other end of that smile. Ever. And if Ed's got more than three brain cells to rub together, he's about to shit his pants. (Gibbs standing behind Jimmy, arms crossed, grinning, insanely proud, is probably also not a comfort for Ed.)

The smile fell, and all they can see is cool contempt on Jimmy's face. "Well?"

Ed slowly shook his head. "Nope."

Jimmy nodded. "Good." He slipped between the ropes and headed down. Ed backed away from him, but in less than two steps found Tony and Tim immediately behind him, cutting off any chance of escape he might have. "Long time ago, I told you you didn't have to respect me, and you don't. No one gets respect by demanding it. Me telling you to do it won't make it happen." Jimmy smiled again, and hell, it's not aimed at him, but Tim's feeling a distinct desire to get the fuck away from that smile. "But you should respect me. I treat your daughter like a queen, my queen, and your grandchildren have been and will be adored every single day of their lives."

Ed nods, looking very nervous. He's got no idea what Jimmy'll do next. For that matter neither does Tony or Tim, but they're on high alert to back any play he comes up with.

"Like, I said, I can't make you respect me. But just like I fake it and am always polite to you, and you are always given a proper welcome in my home, from now on you will treat me with basic politeness. No more snide remarks. No more inviting me to a meal and then only serving food that will make me sick. We clear?"

Ed nodded again. "Yes."

Jimmy smiled one more time. "Great. Time to hit the showers."

Abby got a text about half an hour after that. It's from Tim. Everyone's fine. Jimmy stood up to Ed. Didn't have to hit him to do it. Details and celebratory dinner is at Ducky and Penny's as soon as we can get there.

She was at Jimmy and Breena's, heard the chirp of Breena's phone, probably showing a very similar message from Jimmy, and sent back a quick. Be there soon.

Two hours later, when food had been consumed, and celebratory beverages drunk, and the whole crew was in a very mellow, possibly even silly mood, when Jimmy said, "We should have a crest."

"A crest?" Tony's giving him the you are such a geek stare. But Tim's nodding, and Gibbs isn't horrified by the idea, but not sold on it either. Ducky warmed to it immediately, and ramped up into a full on history of heraldry.

Eight minutes later, after the cursory Crests For Dummies lecture by Dr. Mallard, Jimmy's sitting back, nodding along.

"A crest, or a tartan, or something. We don't have a name in common. But, something that says, Clan Gibbs would be good."

Abby's listening to this, not saying anything, but she's definitely paying attention.

Christmas is coming (well, in five months), and a symbolic gesture of family... Oh yes, she's listening, paying attention, and thinking.

They'd been home for a bit over an hour when Abby sat next to Tim, holding out a piece of paper to him.

It's a sketch, colored in with Sharpies, but he can see what she's thinking with this.

It's a shield, which makes sense, crests are done of a shield. It's broken into quarters by a solid gold line. Top right quarter is sable on argent. Top of that quarter says Palmer. In the center is the black cross of mortuary services, the black caduceus, (also of the mortuary service) outlined in white over top of the cross. Top left quarter is argent on sable. Across the top of that quarter is McGee. It's a computer sitting next to a microscope. Bottom right quarter, sable on azure, DiNozzo across the bottom of that quarter, below a knife leaning against a badge. Bottom left quarter Vert over Gules. At the bottom it read Langston-Mallard, and it's an open book, one page covered in equations the other page with a story.

And in the center, where the golden lines crossed was a partially unfurled scroll, silver over argent. At its top was Gibbs, then below that Rules, and below that 1. Never… it's small enough you can't read anything beyond the never.

Tim looked over Abby's shoulder, at her finished crest, and said, "So, I guess I know what everyone is getting for Christmas."

She smiled up at him. "You like it?"

"Oh yeah."

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A/N: Sorry that one took a while. Next chapter's pretty long too, might take a while. (Though that one has a good breaking point, so might be two shorter ones and up faster.)

Argent=white sable=black azure=blue vert=green gules=red. And though Abby knows the names of the colors, she liked the look/modern symbology that goes with them better than the old.

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