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Entry tags:
FIC: Guarded Secrets - Willow/NCIS - tth100
Title: Guarded Secrets (Willow/NCIS)
Author: Lyl (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lyl_devil)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't claim any rights to either show. I just like to play in their sandboxes occasionally.
Prompt table -> HERE
Prompt – 043: Castle
Words: 519
Summary: If anyone deserved the truth, it was Ducky.
Thanks to my lovely betas – steph0202 and idontlikegravy.
~!~
“Jethro, you never mentioned you had any family!”
Gibbs turned his back on his friend, using the excuse of getting some glasses down to collect his thoughts. He wasn't actively trying to keep Willow's relationship to him a secret, but he also wasn't going to go around shouting about his past to everyone who asked.
Ducky didn't know about Shannon and Kelly. It wasn't a conscious decision on his part to keep them a secret, but even after all this time, it still hurt to think about them. Willow's presence had helped him more than his three ex-wives had, but maybe that was because she didn't need to be told. Willow had lived through their lives - and their deaths. She knew it was still difficult for him to remember them, and didn't push him to talk about it. It was a trait Shannon had had, which he didn't appreciate fully until after she was gone.
But his life now, with the people he had surrounded himself with, they had no clue about his first wife and daughter. He didn't talk about his life before NCIS as anything other than vague references and Marine anecdotes, and no one but Willow had known him then, either.
He'd come to accept that by allowing Willow into his professional life, that there would come a time when he would have to actually talk about his past, but this wasn't it. After the past few days of bioattacks and plague at NCIS, along with the all-to-real possibility of losing his best agent, Gibbs wasn't ready to open up the still-raw wound that was Shannon and Kelly's deaths. He'd become pretty good at training everyone he came into contact with, to not delve into his personal life, but Ducky was different. The man had been his first real friend at NCIS, and had seen him through all three of his marriages. And divorces.
If anyone deserved the truth, it was Ducky.
Just not tonight.
“Nope,” he said, turning back to Ducky and handing him one of the glasses.
“Are you going to tell me?” asked Ducky, pouring a generous splash of alcohol into each glass.
Gibbs looked at Ducky for a long moment, before saying, “Nope.”
"We've been friends for almost fifteen years, Jethro," he chided. Gibbs could hear the curiosity and wheedling underlying the words, urging him to open up.
"She's been family longer."
Ducky looked back at him, in that considering way he had. Gibbs could see the questions racing through his head, and wondered if he would give in to his curiosity, or let it be.
Finally, Ducky looked away, taking a sip of the scotch.
“This always reminds me of my third year in medical school.” he began. “My classmates and I would sneak up on the roof with a bottle of stolen alcohol. Michael O'Donnell would bring a different bottle every week – we never asked where he got it...”
As Ducky regaled him with a tale from his youth, Gibbs just took a drink from his own glass and smiled.
END
Author: Lyl (
lyl_devil)Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't claim any rights to either show. I just like to play in their sandboxes occasionally.
Prompt table -> HERE
Prompt – 043: Castle
Words: 519
Summary: If anyone deserved the truth, it was Ducky.
Thanks to my lovely betas – steph0202 and idontlikegravy.
~!~
“Jethro, you never mentioned you had any family!”
Gibbs turned his back on his friend, using the excuse of getting some glasses down to collect his thoughts. He wasn't actively trying to keep Willow's relationship to him a secret, but he also wasn't going to go around shouting about his past to everyone who asked.
Ducky didn't know about Shannon and Kelly. It wasn't a conscious decision on his part to keep them a secret, but even after all this time, it still hurt to think about them. Willow's presence had helped him more than his three ex-wives had, but maybe that was because she didn't need to be told. Willow had lived through their lives - and their deaths. She knew it was still difficult for him to remember them, and didn't push him to talk about it. It was a trait Shannon had had, which he didn't appreciate fully until after she was gone.
But his life now, with the people he had surrounded himself with, they had no clue about his first wife and daughter. He didn't talk about his life before NCIS as anything other than vague references and Marine anecdotes, and no one but Willow had known him then, either.
He'd come to accept that by allowing Willow into his professional life, that there would come a time when he would have to actually talk about his past, but this wasn't it. After the past few days of bioattacks and plague at NCIS, along with the all-to-real possibility of losing his best agent, Gibbs wasn't ready to open up the still-raw wound that was Shannon and Kelly's deaths. He'd become pretty good at training everyone he came into contact with, to not delve into his personal life, but Ducky was different. The man had been his first real friend at NCIS, and had seen him through all three of his marriages. And divorces.
If anyone deserved the truth, it was Ducky.
Just not tonight.
“Nope,” he said, turning back to Ducky and handing him one of the glasses.
“Are you going to tell me?” asked Ducky, pouring a generous splash of alcohol into each glass.
Gibbs looked at Ducky for a long moment, before saying, “Nope.”
"We've been friends for almost fifteen years, Jethro," he chided. Gibbs could hear the curiosity and wheedling underlying the words, urging him to open up.
"She's been family longer."
Ducky looked back at him, in that considering way he had. Gibbs could see the questions racing through his head, and wondered if he would give in to his curiosity, or let it be.
Finally, Ducky looked away, taking a sip of the scotch.
“This always reminds me of my third year in medical school.” he began. “My classmates and I would sneak up on the roof with a bottle of stolen alcohol. Michael O'Donnell would bring a different bottle every week – we never asked where he got it...”
As Ducky regaled him with a tale from his youth, Gibbs just took a drink from his own glass and smiled.
END