It became a running joke over the next two months that Gibbs was running a home for wayward women. Abby had installed herself in a bedroom on the third floor; Kate stayed on the second floor, across the hall from Gibbs’s own bedroom. And Gibbs found himself in the unusual position of actually enjoying the atmosphere in his home for the first time in a long time.
They tiptoed around each other for the first couple of weeks, tempers short in the honeymoon stage of their new situation, with the added stress of feeling somewhat under siege. However, Abby and Kate were best of friends, and when they both began to feel more comfortable dealing with Gibbs in an extracurricular capacity, they both began to settle down.
Gibbs, for his part, found the new arrangement to be… surprising. The first time he came home to find dinner on the table, he was startled. The first time he came out of his bedroom at 0500 to catch sight of a shower-wet Kate in just a towel disappearing into her bedroom, he was astonished. The first time he realized that he actually liked hearing feminine laughter drifting down his basement stairs while he was working on his boat, he was floored. And he slowly began to realize that he might be more than just floored; he might be falling for his very lovely co-worker.
Kate’s pregnancy began to show. At first it was a slight thickening around her waist, just enough to make her complain that her pants no longer fit properly (and then no longer fit at all). Then it seemed that overnight she was walking around with a basketball under her shirt. It was Gibbs who coined the affectionate nickname for her baby bump when, at three in the morning on a Saturday, after an evening with his boat and his bourbon, he teasingly accused her of smuggling pumpkins out of the neighbor’s garden.
Abby had stared in shock after he made his statement, wondering if Kate was going to explode. She’d spent most of the day crying in her room - the stress, her hormones, and the boredom of desk duty were getting to her; Abby feared that Gibbs’s joke might send her up the stairs in tears again. But Kate had surprised Abby and herself when she stared at Gibbs for a long moment and then burst out laughing. "You caught me, Gibbs," she replied, smiling for the first time in a few days. "Busted." From that moment, Kate’s baby bump became known as The Punkin.
One Friday night late in her sixth month, Kate came down into the basement while Gibbs was working on the boat. Abby was asleep upstairs, but Kate couldn’t sleep, and she found the sound of his tools on wood inexplicably soothing. Gibbs paused in his work to help her hoist herself up onto the workbench where she could lean back against the wall, then returned to his planer, waiting to see if she would talk to him or simply sit in companionable silence.
Tonight she wanted to talk. She sat quietly for about fifteen minutes, her left hand almost idly rubbing at The Punkin, before taking a breath and saying, "The doctor says it’s a boy."
Gibbs’s hands stopped moving for a brief moment as he absorbed that information. Without replying, he moved around the boat so that he was facing her, and began working again. He waited to see what else she would say.
He heard a soft rattle; glancing around the rib in front of him, he could see that she was holding a small piece of paper, staring at it or possibly staring through it. An ultrasound photograph. "I don’t think I realized how real this actually is before today," she said softly, gesturing with the picture. "I mean, I knew it was real, but this…" She shrugged.
He switched to sandpaper, waiting.
She leaned her head back against the wall. "This is my son," she whispered.
He swallowed hard, watching her as he rubbed with the heavy-grain sandpaper.
She closed her eyes, and he could see the tears sliding down her cheeks. "I can’t hate him." She pushed her hands into her hair, frustrated. "He’s a baby. He can’t help how he got here. But he is here, and he’s mine."
Gibbs switched to a finer grain of sandpaper.
"I’m going to keep him," Kate finally said. Her voice was thick with the tears that were sliding down her face. "I think I can do this by myself."
He spoke for the first time. "Won’t be by yourself."
She looked up at him. "What?"
He leaned on the boat and pinned her with his eyes. "Woulda thought the last couple of months would have convinced you that you’re not alone."
She smiled slightly. "I know, Gibbs, but I’m not gonna be living with you forever. Eventually you’ll get him, and I’ll go home."
He looked down for a moment, then looked back up at her, wondering whether he was completely crazy. "You don’t have to."
She blinked at him. "Sorry?"
"You don’t have to go." He put down the sandpaper and came back around the boat to stand in front of her. He started to speak, paused, and went over to get his mug and take a sip before returning, visibly searching for words the whole time.
She watched him with unreadable eyes. He was clearly nervous, which was something she’d never seen from Gibbs before. She wasn’t sure what was up with him saying she didn’t have to go - was he inviting her to move in with him? And if so, why? Gibbs was too much of a lone wolf for Kate to ever believe that he simply liked the company - especially hormonal, mood-swingish company that would be accompanied in approximately three months by two a.m. feedings and the enticing aroma of diapers. There had to be something else here. But what?
He put his mug down and reached out, carefully taking her hand. He didn’t know how she was going to react - which made what he was about to do either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. He laced his fingers with hers and looked up into her eyes. "I… want you to stay," he whispered.
She stared at him, her eyes wide as the full import of what he was asking slammed into her. Her hand clenched almost convulsively around his, and she swallowed hard. But he wasn’t done speaking.
"I know this is a bad time," he continued. "Possibly the worst time I could ever have chosen. But it’s something I want you to think about, because… I like having you here, and…" He trailed off, searching for words. Finally, he shrugged. "I like you," he finished, lamely.
She blinked staring at him, and felt her lips trying to twitch. She fought the urge - now was definitely not the time to start laughing. She squeezed his hand again instead, allowing just the slightest smile to show through on her face. "Gibbs," she said softly, sitting forward, "are you asking me to break Rule Twelve with you?"
He ran his free hand through his hair. "Well… yeah." He paused. "I know you’re not ready for… a lot of things. And I know it might make things complicated at work. But I was hoping maybe… we could try?"
She swallowed, studying his face and choosing her words carefully. "You’re right," she said softly. "I’m not ready for a lot of things. And it could get complicated. But yeah. We can try." She smiled, scooting forward and pulling him into a hug. "After all, my son’s going to need a father, right?"
He wrapped his arms around her, closing his eyes and resting his chin on her head. The scent of her apple shampoo surrounded him and he held her tightly. "Kate," he whispered, "this might be a bad idea."
"I know," she said into his shirt. "There are hundreds of reasons why we shouldn’t do this."
He didn’t let go. Neither did she. Neither of them saw the figure at the top of the stairs quietly back away from the basement door and vanish into the darkened house.
Once back in her own room, Abby tossed herself into her bed and snuggled into her pillows, grinning broadly. She’d been hoping for something like this, and felt privileged to have watched it begin. She thought of the look that would grace Tony’s face when he found out, and giggled madly before falling back to sleep.
As Kate’s sixth month rolled into her seventh, Abby found herself delighted to have a front row seat for the development of Kate and Gibbs’s newborn romance. She watched as they grew even more comfortable around one another, trading casual touches in a way that they never had before, tentatively sharing one another’s personal space, and making occasional sweet gestures that made even Abby’s commitment-phobic heart melt.
Gibbs brought home flowers some nights; Kate exclaimed over them and put them in a vase in the center of the dining table. Kate cooked, occasionally with Abby’s help; Gibbs always raved about the food, even when it was a nothing-special meal like pork chops and eggs. Abby sat back and watched it all with a huge grin that never left her face.
One night near the middle of Kate’s seventh month, Abby snuck halfway down the stairs to simply watch them, lying together on the living room couch, Gibbs idly rubbing Kate’s swollen feet and ankles while they watched a movie together. She leaned back against the banister for a long time and just watched them, finding an inexplicable comfort in their obvious and silent affection. Something about the two of them together almost restored her faith in humanity. Almost.
The call came a few days after that, on a Saturday evening while Gibbs and Kate were working on dinner and Abby was closeted upstairs with her laptop, working on a paper for a forensic journal. Kate was closer to the phone, so she answered it. "Gibbs residence."
"Kate?"
Kate blinked. "Hey, Fornell."
"I need to talk to Jethro."
"Sure. Hang on." She held out the cordless phone to Gibbs, who took it and held it between his ear and his shoulder, his hands busy working spices into a pound of ground beef that would be meatballs in about twenty more minutes. "Gibbs."
"He’s in town," Fornell said simply, and Gibbs stopped moving.
"Where?"
"I’m not sure. He’s supposed to be infiltrating a cell somewhere around here, but we don’t have a lot of information."
"Has anything been said?"
"Not to my knowledge." Fornell paused. "How do you want to proceed?"
Gibbs glanced over at Kate, who was busy assembling ingredients for the sauce. "Don’t know yet. I’ll call you back." He hung up and put the phone in the windowsill.
"He’s back."
It wasn’t a question, but Gibbs turned toward Kate and answered her anyway. "Yes."
She turned to face him, one hand resting protectively on her swollen belly. "What’s the plan?"
"I don’t know." He went back to the meatballs. "Need some way to draw him out, but I haven’t thought of it yet."
"Yes, you have." His head snapped up to look at her, taking in her piercing look and wincing inwardly when she continued. "You don’t like it, because it involves using me for bait, but you’ve thought of it."
"Obviously you have too," he commented mildly. He went back to shaping the meatballs. "Not going to put you in danger."
"It’ll work, though, won’t it?"
He wiped his hands on the towel and turned to face her completely. "Will it work? Telling him you’re pregnant with a son in the hopes that he’ll come after you? Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’ll work. It’s the part afterwards that I’m worried about. The part where he takes you and you end up giving birth in some filthy room in Afghanistan or Bahrain or some even more godforsaken place and if you’re lucky he just takes your son and kills you, and if you’re not he keeps you and does it to you again. If you don’t die in childbirth. That’s the part that makes me just a little bit nervous, Kate!"
"Try not to discount me," she said softly. "If I know he’s coming, he won’t take me by surprise again."
"I won’t do it, Kate!"
"Then you won’t get him." Her voice was firm and just a little bit cold. "You’re not going to draw him out without bait, and I’m the best bait available. Or, I should say, the Punkin is the best bait available."
"No, Kate!"
She continued, inexorable, as though he had not spoken. "He did it on purpose. He wanted me to get pregnant. When he finds out he’s made a son, he’ll want that son more than anything. If it was a daughter, maybe not so much, but Ari Haswari wants a son he can raise up in his own image. He wants my son. He’s been fixated on me since he held me hostage in Autopsy. It’s the perfect bait."
"She’s right."
Kate and Gibbs both turned to find Fornell standing in the kitchen doorway. He inclined his head in greeting. "Ari Haswari wants a son. Our contacts say he’s been talking about it since just before he attacked you, Kate. His mission was to get a son by you, and hearing that he’s succeeded should flush him out."
"No!" Gibbs thundered, but Fornell, too, spoke over his objections.
Fornell flipped his PDA open and turned it so that Gibbs could see a photograph on the screen. "This was the scene in Kate’s apartment this morning, after Ari went off the grid for about five hours last night."
The apartment was destroyed. Her furniture was in ruins, the clothing she’d left strewn around and mostly torn. Her knickknack shelf had been overturned, and everything on it smashed. The television screen had been kicked in, and the frames of all the pictures on the wall had been broken. Kate gasped at the destruction. "Oh, my God."
"We were able to retrieve a DNA sample," Fornell continued calmly. "He cut himself on your vanity mirror." He pulled a small evidence jar out of his pocket. It held a shard of mirrored glass, stained with blood. "I took the liberty of having it checked against the samples we already have; they’re a match."
Kate and Fornell studied one another for a moment, then she turned to Gibbs. "Let’s talk about this downstairs," she said softly.
He shut the door behind them as they went down the stairs into the basement, leaving Fornell in the kitchen. As had become their habit, he helped her up onto the worktable so she could sit comfortably and look him in the eyes. She reached out and rested her hands on his shoulders. "I know why you hate this," she said softly. "I’d hate it just as much if it was you."
He pulled her close. "I won’t let him hurt you again. I won’t give him a chance."
She held him tightly. "It’s the only way."
"Has to be another way." His hands stroked her back. "I won’t let him."
She sat back, her eyes searching his. She studied him for the space of several long breaths, and smiled at what she saw there. "Jethro," she said softly, speaking his given name for the first time, "I do love you." With those soft words, she leaned up and pressed a first soft kiss to his lips.
Time stopped for Jethro Gibbs as he clutched her to him, returning her kiss with interest. There was passion and desperation in their embrace, and tenderness. His mouth made love to hers, his tongue seeking and finding and filling his senses with the smell and taste of her. She was wonder, she was love, she was pain and she was joy, and she was his.
And she was right.
When they finally broke for air, he looked down into her face, studying her face as she had studied his. Her eyes were so dark as to be almost black, her pupils dilated to twice their normal size. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips swollen from his kiss. He stroked her hair back from her face, then leaned his forehead against hers with a soft sigh. "All right," he said. "We’ll do it your way."
She smiled dreamily. "If that’s all it takes to win an argument with you, I’m definitely gonna kiss you more often."
"It’ll eventually stop working," he warned her with a return smile.
"Then I’ll just have to think of something else."
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.