Bound by Blood, Forged in Fire

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Gibbs' heart was about to burst from his chest, as far as he knew it was 1992, he had just returned from Kuwait and he had just lost Shannon and Kelly. While he didn't know the Scotsman, he knew in the core of his very being that the other man present was his son. While the last he saw Jace he was ten years old and had been hospitalized. Doctor Mallard had just tested the extent of his memory loss with the story about how he'd been left on a bus by his mother.

"I remember the shirt," responded Jethro, with whatever certainty he had left.

"But not me?"

"What do you remember about me?" asked Julian.

"You were still in the hospital, you kept asking about your mother and Kelly," responded the older Gibbs, images of his son lying in a coma only to wake up to the news that left him in worse conditions than the car crash.

Julian's mind was also only half focused on the present, he had thought that waking up was the scariest part of such situations, but now that he was on the other side he felt as if the world was on the verge of collapsing around him and the weight was falling onto his chest. When he woke up he had found himself in a world where two of the most important people in his life were gone and he had almost lost the third.

Jethro looked to his son and felt something resurface. "Y-you 're about to be Chief, a friend I served with in Kuwait told me. Your ceremony's this weekend."

"Yes, you heard before I did. We went to dinner to celebrate, I brought Kathleen, " Julian pulled out a picture of his fiancee. She was a brunette with olive-tone skin and warm brown eyes.

Gibbs became nostalgic, but this was only momentary as he began to think of his departed wife and daughter. Doctor Mallard and Captain Gelfand went outside into the hallway to further discuss his condition.

"Dad, where's your head at right now?" asked Jace, knowing that his father was burdening himself with his thoughts.

"I-I was just thinking of when you woke up from your coma." The younger man sat beside his father's bed.

"Yeah, you just woke up from your own around the same time. You had gotten the news before you were injured, your CO Colonel Ryan told me that he was worried that you had gone into enemy fire intentionally, said that someone had to keep an eye on you."

"That's a lot of weight to put on a kid." Responded the older man, thinking of how his son had coped.

"I turned out okay, every night I would take watch as you slept, I counted your pain meds to make sure you hadn't taken too much or to see if you switched them out with aspirin or something."

"I'm your father, I was supposed to be the one taking care of you." Gibbs was both angry and disappointed with himself as both a father and as a man in general.

"Family takes care of each other, Dad." Jace got up and looked out the window, thinking of all the times he made sure that his father hadn't died in his sleep from an overdose or that he was eating enough. "You were all I had left at the time, I had to make sure you didn't quit on me. I don't regret how I spent my childhood, if I had to do it all over again there isn't a thing I would change."

"From the way I see it you didn't have much of a childhood." The Marine looked his son in the eye and was met with equal relentlessness.

"Doesn't matter, despite losing Mom and Kelly we both survived." The younger man looked out the door to make sure it was clear, both doctors had left. "You think I don't know that somewhere after their funerals you were pointing a gun at yourself."

Gibbs went silent, blanching at the discovery that his son knew how far he had fallen.

"I saw that your Beretta was missing after the funeral along with your favorite bottle of bourbon. I called Agent Franks, told him what happened, next thing I know you're on your way to Mexico."

The older man looked down, contemplating the day he took justice into his own hands and did what was necessary. He could remember the feel of the trigger as his target came into view, afterward when he returned home he found his son passed out asleep on the couch. He was so relieved that it was over he hadn't thought much about what Julian had been up to. The only thing that got his attention was Mike Franks' business card, clutched in the boy's hand. He only took this as a sign for a possible calling outside of the Corps.

"You deserved better." It was all coming back.

"All I needed was for you to be okay, Dad. Now I need the same thing for you and not just for my sake." Julian sat back down. "Your team needs you to remember what you know about an ongoing terror investigation to stop an upcoming attack."

Jenny Sheperd stood outside the room, listening in to the father-son conversation. Neither man noticed her presence, she was surprised with how little she knew about her former partner. Julian was right, the Team needed Gibbs to remember what he knew before the explosion. She needed to start with everyone Jethro knew before he joined NCIS. This Mike Franks sounded like someone who helped him through a dark point in Jethro's life, maybe he could do it again.

. . .

"What was he like?" asked Ziva, curious to know more about her boss' only living kin. "Julian, Gibbs' son."

Ducky had just gotten back from the hospital and was currently working on the remains of Agent Galib. Palmer had gone to deliver samples to Abby. Ducky had been pondering Jethro's secrecy over his departed family and his son.

"He's very much like Jethro himself, quiet, reserved, and intense when the time calls for it."

"Why do you think Gibbs kept Julian a secret? We know about his three ex-wives, but he never mentioned his first wife or children."

Ducky had overheard Jethro and Julian's conversation over their departed loved ones and the aftermath the two had endured. He left when Jenny arrived. He had told Jethro almost everything about himself, he respected his friend's sense of privacy, but the situation was still hurtful to the medical examiner. Ultimately Ducky decided that he would let Jethro explain the matter.

"That's a question that only Jethro can answer."

. . .

It had been quite a week, Jace had met the faces that went with the names he had heard so much about. Mike Franks had arrived, told the other Marine about 9/11 and the trouble that was coming if he didn't remember. Jace had checked in with his platoon, NSWC was waiting for the go/no go from Naval Special Operations. SEAL teams were on standby for HALO insertions and VBSS operations to capture Pin Pin Pula. Everyone knew what was at stake, but the only thing that was in their way was the same thing that kept them from preventing 9/11, their bureaucracy.

Just then Jace was getting another call from an unknown number.

"Gibbs."

"Hello Petty Officer, this is Officer Ziva David. We need to talk about your father."