Title: Misconceptions - Epilogue - 1/2
Author: Ceindreadh
Email: Ceindreadh@eircom.net
Website: n/a
Permission to archive: Yes to WWOMB, anybody else, please ask first.
Fandom(s): NCIS
Genre (general, hetero or slash) : Slash/MPREG
Pairing/Characters: Gibbs/Tony, Jimmy/McGee
Rating: NC-15
Summary: Just a little fic to finish off the Misconceptions saga
Warnings: Slash/MPREG
Disclaimer. I don't own the NCIS characters, I'm only borrowing them, and I promise to return them in minty fresh condition when I'm finished.
Notes: Thanks to FatCat for her Beta'ing
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Tony smoothed down the jacket of his tuxedo and nodded approvingly at his reflection in the full-length mirror. "Not bad," he thought to himself. "How many men can still fit into their wedding tuxes twenty-five years later?" Of course, Tony had to admit that since he'd been heavily pregnant the first time he'd worn the tux, that might not be such as big an accomplishment as it sounded. He'd had the suit altered of course, having needed it again when he'd acted as McGee's best man the following summer. And okay, maybe it wasn't quite as roomy as it had been back then, but Tony defied any man to stay the same size for twenty-five years. Okay, maybe Gibbs, but he was an exception to every rule, and besides, he didn't have a post pregnancy belly to content with. But all in all, Tony had to admit that for a guy who was pushing sixty, he wasn't doing too badly.
A noise from the doorway made him turn around and Tony smiled as he saw Gibbs standing there.
"If you don't stop admiring yourself, we'll be late." Gibbs moved across the room towards Tony. He wasn't quite as steady on his feet as he used to be. Two knee surgeries in the past twenty years, the surgeons had done their best, but old muscles didn't heal quite as well as they used to. Gibbs was still ambulatory, but his running days were over.
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A lot had changed in the past quarter century, for all the team.
Jimmy had taken to parenthood like a duck to water. He enjoyed it so much, that he repeated the experience four more times. Betty was born a year after he and McGee got married, with Kendra following eighteen months later. Their second son, David, was intended to be the youngest of the family, arriving when Donald was seven, but he was followed two years later by twins, Sean and Brian.
The twins were a surprise in more ways than one. Both McGee and Jimmy had agreed that with two boys and two girls, their family was more than complete, but Jimmy had fallen pregnant again unexpectedly. He'd gone into labor prematurely, and for a while it had been touch and go as to whether any of the three would survive. But Jimmy had proven himself to be a lot tougher than most people gave him credit for, and he had pulled through, as had his babies.
McGee's hair had turned white overnight with the stress and shock, and he'd vowed that this was definitely going to be the last time he put Jimmy through a pregnancy. He'd booked himself in for a Vasectomy the very next day, and unlike Gibbs, made absolutely certain that it had taken.
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Tony and Gibbs's relationship had had its ups and downs during the years. Much as he tried, Gibbs's past failed relationships had left their scars, and more than once he'd lived up to the second B in his name. The lowest point had come about nine years after their wedding, and while they had never actually separated, Gibbs did end up moving into the spare bedroom for a short period.
It was actually Jimmy's close brush with death while having the twins that made both Gibbs and Tony realize how foolish they'd been.
A truce had been called while they rallied round McGee, and once matters were stabilized and Jimmy on the road to recovery, Gibbs and Tony had finally taken a long overdue 'proper' honeymoon. They'd left Todd in the capable hands of the McGee-Palmer-Mallard household and spent their time together reminding each other of why they'd fallen in love in the first place.
The vacation had worked. So much so, that their daughter Nicola, arrived nine months later, almost to the day. While this pregnancy was almost as big a surprise as his first - Tony having believed that at the age of forty-five, he was unlikely to conceive again - it was certainly a lot less eventful and nerve-wracking.
No blown up buildings, paternity disputes, bereavements or life threatening injuries were there to mar *this* pregnancy for Tony and Gibbs. The most eventful occurrence was when David had managed to get a saucepan stuck on his head while pretending to be an astronaut. Gibbs was sure that those partners in crime, Todd and Donald had had something to do with it, but after a quick trip to the ER, saucepan and toddler were separated safely. Of course then there was a second trip to the ER when McGee had tried to demonstrate how easy it was for such a thing to happen, and managed to get his *own* head stuck in a slightly larger pan.
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The years passed.
Jimmy had taken a career break after his third pregnancy, wanting to spend more time with his young family. He didn't return to work full time until the twins had reached school age, and even then, his priority was always his family. However it didn't stop him being appointed as Chief Medical Examiner when Doctor Holliday retired.
Director Shepherd was promoted to another agency, and to everybody's surprise, eighteen years after he had first become a field agent, Tim McGee was appointed as her replacement.
There were many who felt that Tony would have been a more likely candidate, but he and Gibbs were the only two people who knew that he had actually been offered the post but turned it down. "I'm not a director type of guy," he had told the board when they had made the offer. "I'm a agent, plain and simple and I don't need the hassle of being Boss over everybody." The board had tried to persuade him otherwise, but he'd stuck to his guns, and recommended McGee for the post instead.
"Are you sure you don't want the job?" Gibbs had asked him that night when they were in bed. "You're certainly qualified for it, and if anybody deserves it then you do. Not that McGee isn't capable, but you've got years of experience on him."
Tony shrugged easily, "I'm an agent, not a Director, Jethro. Putting me behind a desk like that, not my idea of fun." He kissed Gibbs on the cheek before adding; "I know you just want me out of the line of fire until I hit mandatory retirement age, hmm? But I promise you I'll keep out of trouble!"
It wasn't exactly a promise that Tony could keep very well, but he'd managed to serve out his time without adding *too* much to his collection of scars. A few scrapes and cuts here and there, the worst he had to show for the next few years was a burn on the hand from lighting the candles to celebrate Ducky's eighty-fifth birthday a few years later.
"Well you've only yourself to blame, Anthony," Ducky had told him as he applied aloe vera juice to the burn. "Eighty-five candles, good grief, you're just lucky you didn't set off the smoke alarm!"
"Eighty-six candles," Tony pointed out, "Eighty five plus one to grow on."
Ducky was still living with McGee and Jimmy and their brood. His fears of succumbing to the same advancing senility as his mother had suffered from had proved groundless. While he did have the occasional lapse of memory, for the most part he was still as mentally acute as he had been when he was the Chief Medical Examiner. Although still in reasonably good physical health, he now needed a walking stick to get around, and had indeed amassed a large selection of them.
Abby had been partially responsible for some of his collection. Some years earlier, she'd announced that she was bored, and had promptly taken off on a trip around the world, planning to take in as many haunted castles and alleged U.F.O. landing sites as she could find along the way. She'd sent Ducky various sticks from every spot she visited. Abby made it as far as Australia before meeting and falling for a fellow U.F.O. enthusiast, whom she'd married six months later. Although she didn't get back to the States all that often, she kept in touch through email and web-conferences.
Ziva too had kept in touch, although not quite as prolifically as Abby. She had been recalled to Mossad after a few years and had used the experience gained with N.C.I.S. to propel herself through the ranks. Her exact job position wasn't known. As she had said in one of her conversations with Tony, "I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you and bury your body in the desert." Tony was sure she had been joking...pretty sure...well maybe not *that* sure...but he hadn't wanted to take the chance.
On the job front, Gibbs had as planned, taken early retirement from N.C.I.S. after Todd was born. For the first few years, until Todd reached school age, Gibbs was pretty much a full time stay at home parent.
Between Gibbs and Jimmy and Ducky and the new daycare facility at N.C.I.S., there was seldom any need for outside assistance with minding the children. Gibbs was so reluctant to let Todd out of his sight, that he even considered home schooling him once he'd turned five, but even at that age, Todd and Donald were close friends, and Gibbs knew that it would have been unfair to separate them. So he and Tony, and McGee and Jimmy had brought their little boys to school on that first day, and Gibbs wasn't the only one who claimed to 'have something in his eye' as they watched their sons run happily in to their new classroom.
"Little brats," Tony had said, "They'll be having the time of their lives, a whole new bunch of kids to terrorize!" But he'd been leaning against Gibbs as he said it, and Gibbs had heard the catch in his voice. They'd ended up spending the whole morning in bed together, just to take each other's mind of missing Todd.
Unfortunately they couldn't do that *every* school day. Tony had cases to solve, and Gibbs used some of his new found free time while Todd was at school to continue working on his boat. His original estimate of having it ready for his and Tony's first wedding anniversary had been revised, but if he was being honest, it was all about the building and not the boat. Tony worked on it with him occasionally, and as soon as Todd and later Nicola were big enough to work the tools, they too took part in the process.
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To be continued
Author's Chapter Notes:
Time has passed for our happy couples, but what has been happening to them in the intervening years.