(NCIS and all of its characters, places, and etc. do not belong to me, and I intend to make no profit off of these writings, which are purely for amusement. Neither do I own the song or title of "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover", and I'm making no money off of that, either.)

Author's note: Welcome to my first NCIS story. Essentially it's a series of isolated events all within the same timeline that involve Abby and Gibbs getting to know and trust each other over a series of incidents involving the men in Abby's life. This is an Abby/Gibbs friendship piece, predominantly, but not exclusively. I've tried to capture the nuances of their early relationship before they, too, decided what it was. It starts some years before the show. This first chapter is not long after Abby and Gibbs meet through work. This is not a songfic. Enjoy, and let me know what you think! Reviews will be responded to at the beginning of the next chapter I post. There will be multiple chapters per section, but at least for the time being I will post entire –sections- at a time. So you may find multi-chapter updates in the future, please be aware! -heaeli

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1. Brendan answered the door, still definitely drunk and probably still a little high. The ripped shirt he wore over stained blue boxer shorts was a gray from years of infrequent, indiscriminate washing. Even after rubbing his tousled brown hair down into something vaguely more acceptable, he didn't look like anything compared to the man in the clean coat and pants and piercing blue eyes that stood in his doorway.

The guy was a total stranger, but in the eyes in the nearly-smooth face he saw a very personal kind of hate. He couldn't tell if the guy was older, or younger and just had been through hell.

"Uh, can I… uh, help you?" Bren wanted to go back to sleep, admittedly in his pile of boozed-out women, along with his buddies, all sprawled out on his floor.

"Are you Brendan Jenesson?" The man's voice was a definite bark, that stiffened the spine of even such a civilian as Brendan Jenesson.

"Y-yeah, that's me. Look, if you're selling something, I don't want any-," Bren tried in vain to think about who else had such righteous zealousness in their eyes and was reminded vaguely of a particularly fiery Mormon making the rounds about the neighborhood yesterday.

"This is for Miss Sciuto!" The guy barked again, and swung his fist as hard as he could.

A couple explosions of pain painted Brendan Jenesson, one in a now-broken nose, followed, once he was down, by a swift kick to the groin.

"I know where you live," the man was shouting at him, and Bren managed to open his eyes long enough to peek around the bloodied nose to see the man, red-faced and spitting anger. "You even fucking touch her again- come anywhere near her, and you will wish I'd killed you this time."

Bren wasn't sure about anything except for the pain his balls were in, covered gently by his hands as a meager protection. But he seemed to make out that the guy now had a gun pointed at him. The sweat intensified around his face.

"You're a piece of shit, and Miss Scuito doesn't deserve you even stuck on the foot of her shoe. Fucking remember that."

"Who- who are you?" Bren managed, looking up into the icy blue eyes of a trained killer who only barely gave a damn about his own life.

The man looked down at idiotic man gripping his crotch gingerly. "Leroy Jethro Gibbs, NCIS," he growled at last, "You remember that name, too."

Using his foot, Gibbs levered the poor sod back into his apartment, while he whimpered in fear and pain, and the gunnery sergeant-turned-investigator closed the door almost politely, holstering his gun once again. But his eyes haunted the man long after the door had closed.

-~-

"Hey, Special Agent Jethro Gibbs," the forensic scientist called as the man in question walked into her lab in the basement. An old bruise was finishing its blossoming on her cheek, marring the eccentric beauty that he'd grown accustomed to since she'd come to work there the past year. A little less than a year, actually, his mental calendar reminded him.

As usual, she called over the steady thumping of music she had constantly playing ever since she'd found out how loud it could exactly be without the rest of the building hearing it.

"Miss Sciuto," he greeted formally, "You called me."

Abby sighed. "Please, please, please, please stop calling me 'Miss Sciuto'?" She pleaded, knowing full well that this quirky, strange, angry man would do no such thing, just as he'd failed to do every single day since he'd met her, because she made him uncomfortable.

Blue eyes watched her levelly, holding a coffee in his hands, a little less like a crutch for consciousness and a little more like a liferaft in a strange, alien ocean of indecipherable music.

Green eyes watched back, at the indecipherable island of silence in the swirling sea of music. It was odd, how he made a silence around him. Eyes blank, or eyes angry, either way, he said nothing. It was so rare to see a man every day in her presence, but to have never once seen him smile.

Too much silence- Abby reached over and took his coffee from surprised, unresisting fingers, and took a big swig, followed by a big, toothy smile.

"Wha- hey!" He demanded, thinking about snatching it back angrily, but he was brought up short not by her sparkling eyes, but by the sharp bruise under them, in the vague shape of Brendan Jenesson's knuckles.

"It's nice of you to bring me something with caffeine in exchange for evidence, Special Agent Gibbs," she said happily, giving him back the coffee, which now had a bright red kiss around the edges of the lid. "We should make it a habit." Then, oblivious to the anger and confusion of the Special Agent, she sniffed. "Maybe something sweeter though. That's disgusting."

Gibbs watched her like she was a little dangerous, a little crazy, and a little vulnerable. She didn't disabuse him of the notion.

-~-

At the end of the day that same day, when her detection of some unexpected chemicals on the shirt of the victim had wrapped up a case very neatly, Gibbs encountered her again unexpectedly. She was in the car park, walking toward her hearse.

Unlike in the lab, her face was fallen and hung low, looking down at her feet. Concerned, Gibbs fell into step beside her. Abby was so deep in thought, she didn't notice for a few moments.

In fact, she didn't seem to notice she was about to walk into a car. Making a split-second decision, he put out his hand, and touched her shoulder.

Abby flinched.

Gibbs flinched inwardly at her flinch, and quickly removed his hand.

"Oh! Special Agent-."

"Gibbs."

Abby looked confused. "I know your name-."

"Gibbs. It's just Gibbs."

She nodded, confusion not completely fading. "Okay..."

A pause.

"I heard what you did… for me- to Bren."

She was twisting her fingers together in a sickeningly complex knot, only to untangle them to bang her knuckles together like she was worrying down an invisible sheet of paper. He watched, more than half-fascinated, as he did with mostly everything about this strange, strange creature. Gibbs hadn't been sure something like the Navy could accept someone like Abby Sciuto and keep her in her own, pure, if admittedly bizarre, form.

He wasn't sure he even wanted someone so bright and colorful in his own life again. It was a little painful to look at her smile for too long. He liked NCIS well enough because everyone was focused. And with their work, it meant they didn't smile too much.

Abby was waiting for an answer. Gibbs sighed and shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah."

Now she watched him closely, and then nodded, possibly liking what she saw- he didn't know.

"Does this mean you'll stop calling me 'Miss Sciuto' now?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Sure."

She seemed surprised. "You'll call me 'Abby'?"

"If that's what you want."

"Do you think, if I invited you to a thank-you dinner out, it would be less of an awkward evening if we both just agreed to not actually have a meal together and went home?" She briefly imagined a dinner that involved his awkward silence, half the angry man, half the awkward gunnery sergeant,and her incessant chatter to cover all the spaces.

Gibbs was blank-faced. "Why would you invite me out to dinner?"

Abby sighed impatiently. "For smacking around Brendan Jenesson. Even though it's a little weird that you figured out who he was and where he lives. Hinky, even."

"Hinky?"

She sighed again. "You want some dinner, or not?"

Gibbs looked at her for a minute, then ran his mind over his original plans- sitting at home, sanding the beams of his boat, drinking and thinking about his miseries. The old, comfortable, reliable routine.

"You don't have to look at me like I'm going to bite you, Gibbs. That's more my friend Andre's style."

Hearing that tidbit sent a low-level shock humming through his system.

"Okay," his mouth said. Run, said his brain.

Abby's unhappy face spread into a surprised, genuine smile. Then his brain agreed with his mouth.

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Please review! This is my first chapter, and the most unpolished (I have four sections written currently).
Next up is Chapter 2. During the biggest storm of the season, Abby calls Gibbs from a phone booth in the middle of the night.