“He looked peaceful, Jack. And I think that’s about the only comfort at the moment. Any pain was temporary. Jimmy said that he probably didn’t know what had happened.”
That was Laura’s takeaway from seeing her dad for the last time. There was no hint of pain or suffering. He just looked like he was having a sleep. Albeit a permanent one.
Ducky sat her down before the viewing and went through what to expect. He stood resolutely by her side during the viewing and even afterwards, he sat with her as Jimmy had explained the post-mortem results.
“How are you feeling now?” the psychologist asked.
“Tired. It helps knowing that he wouldn’t have suffered and that but…he’s still gone. If anything, it seems a bit more real now.”
Laura sat with Jack, talking about everything until she couldn’t speak anymore. She liked talking to her, she’d not really had any women to talk to back some, save for her teachers. And Jack was easy to talk to and joked that Laura was a lot more forthcoming with her feelings than NCIS agents. The truth was, she felt she needed to talk, like everything that was happening needed to be told to someone. She’d no idea if it was helping, but she felt that it was easier than not talking
Once the tiredness meant she was struggling to speak, Jack suggested Laura go to bed. Laura agreed, she could barely keep her eyes open. She usually managed a couple of hours before waking again and then fall back to sleep around 5am. It wasn’t ideal but it was all she could manage.
When Laura opened her eyes the next morning, she felt oddly refreshed. She couldn’t remember waking up in the night and she was shocked when she looked at her phone and realised it was 11am. Once she got herself up and dressed, she was surprised that she could still smell coffee as she walked down the stairs and even more so when she discovered Jack working at the table.
“Hey, there you are!” she smiled. “Have you been asleep all this time?” she asked.
“Umm, yeah. Sorry,” she muttered.
“Absolutely nothing to be sorry about, you must have needed that, huh?”
While there was still a bit of tiredness, she felt better and less emotional than she had yesterday.
“How come you’re not at work, Laura asked, confused as to why she was sat in Gibbs’ lounge practically in the middle of the day.
“Working from home, It’s a little perk of not being a field agent. You gotta be hungry, right?”
Laura nodded, for the first time in days, she actually felt like eating.
“Grab your coat, let’s go get some food.”
So that was how they ended up at the diner, eating sandwiches and apple pie while drinking coffee (in Jack’s case) and hot chocolate. Laura had felt uneasy about ordering at first, not wanting to cost anyone any money, but Jack talked her round. Once they’d finished, the Special Agent took the girl to the grocery store and made her buy the food she liked because if she had her appetite back, she needed food that she wanted to eat to be available.
When they got back to the house, they put away the food. Laura went to her room for a bit of a rest, one good night of sleep wasn’t going to make up for the endless lost hours over the last few days. She still found herself getting upset suddenly, bought on by the smallest of thoughts. With a full belly, she was able to grab another 2 hours of rest. She got herself up and went back downstairs where Jack was swearing at her laptop.
“Are you ok?” she asked tentatively.
“Oh, you know, just trying to run my laptop on my cell data because Gibbs lives in the stone age and has not heard of Wi-Fi,” she mused before looking up at the young woman. “Did you manage more sleep?”
“Yeah a bit. And I’ve burnt through a ton of data since I got here. I’m not used to not having wifi either. My dad got me a contract phone ages ago, I’m not sure how that’s all going to work out now.”
“Don’t worry about that. It will all get sorted. Gibbs is just gonna have to get with the times. He can’t expect a teenager to live here without more mod cons. We’ll not even start on about that antique TV set he has,” she chucked and hook her head, her attention snapped back to the laptop.
Laura sat down. It was so strange being in someone else house and she didn’t feel at home enough yet. She needed to do something. She hit upon and idea.
“Would it be ok if I cooked dinner for everyone?” she asked, looking up at Jack who was furiously tapping her laptop keys, trying to make something work.
“Oh sure, that would be great. We’ll eat anything as long as we don’t have to cook it ourselves.”
Once in the kitchen, Laura spent a bit of time familiarising herself with everything and got to work. She enjoyed cooking and with it being just her and her dad, she did it quite regularly. It was a good distraction and she barely noticed the time ticking by when her godfather appeared in the kitchen, having returned from work.
“That smells good. When do we get to eat it?” he smiled.
“Now, actually,” she replied as she served the dish on to the waiting three plates. Gibbs helped her take them through to the table and Jack joined them, having cleared away her laptop some time ago.
“This is amazing!” she raved, as she finished her first mouthful.
“Thanks, I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out. Some of the spices had a sell-by date that was before I was born.”
Jack laughed loudly and Gibbs just shrugged. “Didn’t seem to be anything wrong with them.”
“Well, if you can create something this good with 15 year out of date spices, imagine what it will be like when you have fresher stuff.”
Laura blushed; she’d never cooked for anyone other than her dad before, so she was really taken aback that anyone thought her cooking was any good.
“Yeah, you can cook whenever you like. Not really my thing.” Gibbs admitted.
“And by that he means, I hope you like meat and potato if you don’t fancy cooking. Or takeout.”
The teenager shook her head and smiled as Gibbs and Jack bickered over his cooking skills. She was finding it hard to believe that they were just friends.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
