Working with Gibbs (a NCIS story)

Chapter 5: aftermath #1 of probably many

After a thorough search coming up empty, the team left for the day. Gibbs took Grace home, but was hesitant to leave her alone.
"Gibbs, I'll be fine. I've got my phone at my bedside along with my gun."
"Not worried about that. It's been a hard day, it's damaging to the psyche" he counter argued.
"What, you mean like nightmares?" At his nod, she shook her head slightly. He found a pen and paper and wrote something on it before handing it to her.
"My address. You need anything, come. My door's unlocked." He said, leaving no room for argument. She nodded and thanked him for the ride and went inside. He waited until she was in before he left.
"Good grief...my head hurts" she said to herself as she got ready for bed, taking some pain relievers. She fell asleep rather quickly, but it didn't last...
She jumped awake about 2 hours later, drenched in sweat. She tried to calm herself down, but to no avail. She put on a jacket and her tennis shoes and went out the door, the small piece of paper in hand. A little bit later, she arrived, but was hesitant to knock on the door-if he was asleep, she didn't want to disturb him. She simply sat on the front step for a while, but the door opened behind her after just a few minutes.
"What part of 'my door is unlocked' didn't you get?" A tired voice said behind her. He put a blanket around her shoulders and helped her up and into his house.
"I didn't want to disturb you this late at night, Gibbs." She replied quietly.
"It's more of a disturbance to see one of my agents, with a right arm in a sling, sitting on my front step after I told her explicitly to come if she needed to."
"Okay, I get the message" she finally said after a second. "And you were right, about the nightmares I mean..." she trailed off, unsure of what to say.
"The one thing I hate being right about" he said, and she turned slightly to look at him. "What happened?" He asked.
"Well, two different nightmares happened...the second worse than the first...they both involved what happened today" she replied, looking away again. She felt a hand on her shoulder.
"Talk to me."
"The first was that when I was shot, it was somewhere more dangerous, but not deadly. The second one..." she took a deep breath. "The second one was that...that you had been killed" she finally said. She wiped away a stray tear from her face and turned back to face Gibbs. "That's part of the reason why I'm here-it seemed so real, that...I had to make sure it wasn't true." She finally said, trying to keep composed and not doing well at it.
"You don't have to be strong for me. You're human, you have emotions"
"That'll be a pretty sight, me becoming a puddle in front of my boss..." she said with a sarcastic edge to her voice.
"For what it's worth, you did well today. You stood your ground when you needed to and the way you took down that guy was impressive. How did you even learn how to do that?" He asked, trying to take her mind off of her nightmares.
"Partly from being a cop/detective for years-where I'm from, cops don't get much respect." she replied. After a while, she started to stand. "Well, thanks for letting me stay, but I think I need to head on home." She said, checking her watch.
"Why not just stay here? Look outside. It's started raining." She looked outside and sure enough, it was pouring down rain. She turned back around.
"Okay, I'll stay. Thanks, Gibbs"
"Not a problem. I'm right upstairs if you have another nightmare. Same rules apply-and don't be afraid next time." He said as he stood and started up the stairs. She smiled for the first time that night as she got stretched out on the small couch. Thankfully, she didn't have anymore nightmares. In fact, it was the best sleep she'd had in a while.