Children of the Heart

Losing family helps us to find our family. Not necessarily the family that is our blood, but the family that may become our blood.
—Finding Forrester

Despite the chill November air, the ground in the backyard was warm from the sun, the soil still loose from his earlier excavation. Gibbs refashioned the time capsule's nesting place with as much care as the little girls who had originally created it, channeling his love for his lost child into the formation of the perfect earthen sanctuary. When he had a hole that would have met with Kelly's satisfaction—and thus his own, in this matter—he gently placed the timeworn lunch box face up in the tenderly crafted niche.

There he stopped.

To bury the time capsule was to bury, finally and irrevocably, his daughter. Becoming reacquainted with Maddie Tyler over the last few days, Gibbs had imagined Kelly resurrected for a time, but in reality, she had never truly been dead to him. He had stubbornly kept her alive in his mind and heart, trapping both Kelly and himself in time—a time that no longer existed and could never exist again.

In one part of his mind, Gibbs knew that his clinging to Kelly's memory created an insurmountable obstacle for all the relationships that followed the child's death. So long as he willed himself to exist in the past, he could never live fully in the present. He could never wholly connect with other human beings in the same way he had with Shannon and Kelly. He could never be complete as a person until he allowed others into the empty place inside that he kept like a shrine for his lost wife and daughter.

Gibbs' existential musings were interrupted by a small but insistent vibration against his ass. With a low growl, he sat back on his haunches and fished the new cell phone out of his back pocket, checking the caller ID.

Abby-cadabra, Forensic Wizard! it read.

A smile forced its way onto Gibbs' face. Obviously, Abby had done some creative programming before giving her boss the phone which had replaced his waterlogged original. Still, he wasn't ready to talk to her yet. Although her unfettered love and concern soothed him, it also rubbed a small raw spot over the emotions he sought to stifle. He'd call her back later.

Gibbs stared blankly at the cell's face for a moment, wondering if maybe his desperate grip on the memory of Shannon and Kelly hadn't been as isolating as he had thought. Abby had certainly managed to slip past his walls, so loudly and abrasively that he must have been distracted, no doubt. He visualized himself busy turning down her deafening, brain-liquifying music and studiously ignoring her extroverted Goth fashions, while Abigail Sciuto had snuck around his perimeter and tromped through the back door of his heart in her big, black boots. Of course he'd only ever known her as an adult, but Abby was as much his daughter now as if he'd raised her himself. Gibbs' grudging smile stretched far enough to show teeth.

He was drawn out of his Abby-induced reverie as the phone vibrated again, making his hand itch slightly. This time the caller ID merely said Tony—apparently Abby had only waxed creative with her own digital identifier. Again Gibbs was not tempted to take the call. It might be work related, but more than likely DiNozzo, like Abby, was just calling to check up on him. Gibbs shut the phone decisively, putting it back in his pocket. He shook his head in wonder, feeling oddly unworthy of the younger man's loyalty and devotion.

But it made sense. Like Abby, Tony had wormed his way past Gibbs' defenses, weathering Marine-style harangues and head slaps, all the while wedging his goofy, immature, pizza-eating self into the Marine's heart so firmly that he could not be evicted with a pry bar. As much as Gibbs hated to admit it, even to himself, Tony was the son he never had. Choking back to life on the cannery pier, the first feeling to come to his mind was relief that Maddie was still alive, and apparently none the worse for wear. But simultaneously, he had experienced an overweening sense of pride that it had been DiNozzo who had figured it out, been at the right place at the right time, and rescued them both, at no small risk to himself. Even now, kneeling before this shallow hole in the earth, Gibbs felt a warm, satisfied glow in his chest.

Slowly, he refocused on the task at hand. Kelly had taught him how to be a father, and that knowledge had enabled him to create a new family, however unintentional. Actually, now that he thought about it, the only way he could have created a new family would have been by accident. All his conscious attempts to start anew had been doomed to failure, sabotaged by his own unwillingness to replace what he had lost, because that would have required an admission that it was lost—well and truly and forever.

A sigh escaped him. Gently he leaned forward and drew the loose soil over the lunch box. With one or two sweeps of his hand, Strawberry Shortcake disappeared from sight. With equal care, Gibbs replanted the shrub over the time capsule. When he was finished, he closed his eyes and said a silent prayer over the little grave. Then, knees popping, he levered himself back to his feet, collected his trowel, and walked back to the house.

He had some phone calls to make.