Fic: After Life, Jenny/Gibbs, (1/1)
Title: After Life
Fandom: NCIS (TV Show)
Character/Pairing: Jenny Shepard/Jethro Gibbs
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance, General
Summary: Post Judgement Day AU. Jenny and Gibbs and a few moments in their life together.
Length: 3,701 words
Status: Complete
After Life
Now.
“This is nice.” Jenny says, twirling her wine glass by its stem. The red liquid swells up to the rim in swirling waves.
He grunts, which usually means he agrees with her, and doesn’t take his eyes away from the sander in his hand.
She bites the corner of her lip, pulling it down before it can curl up in a smile. It’s taken them a long time to get to where they are now.
Tilting her head back she catches the warm rays from the slowly setting sun and opens her mouth, tongue poking out to taste the salt in the air.
Gibbs snorts and she peers down her nose at him without moving her head. He bends across her for his beer, laughing at her shriek as drops of condensation splash against her skin when he straightens up.
“Jethro!” She shivers, reaching over to the other chair for her towel. She rubs the moisture away and leaves the towel draped across her stomach in deference to the cooling air.
He laughs again, swinging the bottle closer and closer to her body, teasing her with every drip that falls onto the sand. She scowls at him behind her sunglasses, swatting him with her hand and eventually he lifts the bottle high over her head with exaggerated care.
“Better?” He asks, eyes narrowed against the light.
“Much.” She slides the glasses off her face as he bends down and presses a cold kiss against her forehead. She blinks up at him, smiling. His eyes shine the colour of the sea behind him and his hair is more salt than pepper. “I love you.” She whispers.
“Every day.” He says, moving his lips to her cheek. “You ready to head in?” He turns back to the boat, slipping the blue plastic cover up and over the shaped wood, tying it into place on the small trailer. “Franks said he’d meet us in town.” He says, looking at her over his shoulder.
She nods, wrapping the towel around her shoulders and folding up the chairs. “There’s some left over chicken in the fridge.” She loads the chairs onto the trailer and picks up her book from the grey rock acting as a coffee table.
He hums, one hand pulling the trailer up to the patch of grass running alongside the beach, the other reaching out for her own. “It’s been a while since we’ve had your garlic chicken salad.”
She squeezes his hand, leaning her head against his arm as they walk home.
+ + +
+ + +
Six Months Earlier.
“DiNozzo, there’s no need for you to come out here. DiNozzo I’m- DiN- Probie!”
Jenny jumps at the shout, peering over the back of the couch.
Gibbs has his back to her, facing the wall, letting her know that whatever Agent DiNozzo had been telling him, Gibbs had been giving it his full attention.
He turns at the creak in the couch beneath her and rolls his eyes heavenward. She stifles a laugh, turning back to her book.
“I’m fine DiNozzo. No, don’t put...Hello Abs.” His voice softens and Jenny re-reads the same line twice, waiting for him to speak again. “I’m sorry.” She smirks at the real apology.
“No, really Abby, I’m fine. I just forgot.”
They both flinch at his choice of words and the sound of the Goth’s voice raised through the phone. Gibbs looks at her pleadingly and she fights the urge to shrug and let him deal with his own messes. But she catches sight of the new picture on their windowsill and this mess is partly her fault.
The present. She mouths to him and his brows crease in confusion for a moment before he smiles at her.
“Did you like your birthday present Abs?”
Jenny slides back down until she sits curled up in the corner of the couch, her reading glasses perched on her nose. She lets his voice drift to the back of her awareness, hearing but not giving enough attention to his words to understand what’s being said behind her. These moments are Gibbs’s and not hers. She’s happy to have reached a place where she’s okay with that.
She finishes a chapter and catches the soft goodbye he says before hanging up the phone.
“They want to welcome you into the family.” He says, taking a seat on the coffee table and resting his elbows on his knees. “DiNozzo did his Mafia voice.”
Jenny laughs despite the lump in her throat, because she can just imagine that. She imagines Ziva head-slapping him into silence, Tim watching a little in awe and a little confused, Abby bouncing in her boots trying to get the phone back.
“I think Ziva hit him.”
“Probably.” She agrees, looking around him at the far wall. “I’m sorry.” She says, her eyes flicking from the wall to his and back again.
“Jen-” He starts, but she cuts him off.
“They’re your family Gibbs and they couldn’t even be at your wedding.”
“It was your wedding too.” He reminds her, but she brushes that aside with a wave of her hand.
She sits up straighter, her body curving towards him, tendrils of hair falling loose around her face.
“We married in an empty church.” She says, shouts almost, even though that cheapens it so much it hurts. Because it had been nearly perfect and much more than she ever seriously thought they would get.
Gibbs reaches out to her, cupping her chin with his hand, his thumb running softly over her bottom lip.
“I made my choice.” He says, looking straight at her.
“You shouldn’t have had to.” She whispers at him, his thumb slipping between her lips as she speaks.
He dips his head slightly in agreement, before tilting her face and placing a kiss on each of the eyelids she closes for him.
“But it was still my choice.” He pauses, rising from the table and sliding onto the couch beside her. He nudges her shoulder until she turns and settles into him, her head against his chest. One arm wraps around her shoulders, his hand resting against her hip. With his other he takes her hand and runs his thumb and forefinger over her ring.
“I thought I’d lost you Jen.” His voice is rough and she presses her cheek against his shirt, pretending she doesn’t notice how his hand slips further around her waist to settle on her side, covering the scar through her t-shirt.
“You didn’t.” She says, because even though it’s obvious, sometimes they both need the reminder.
She feels him press his lips to the top of her head.
“I only needed you there, Jen. And a priest. Besides,” He tugs her even closer, their joined hands curled together over his heart. “Franks was there.”
She laughs, her eyes crinkling and a few stray tears leaking out. She pulls away from him a little, just enough that she can see the sincerity on his face. “You’re still not starting a new boat.” She says, leaning over to kiss his falling face.
+ + +
+ + +
Nine Months Earlier.
Unclasping her watch Jenny places it beside her rings on the sideboard. Outside, the sky glitters with stars, a sight she’s still not quite used to, even after the length of time she’s been here.
In the living room behind her Gibbs laughs, the sound low and throaty, joined a second later by Mike’s chuckle. She smiles, running the taps and squeezes the cleaning liquid in green swirls around the rising water.
A feeling settles in her chest as she lifts the first pile of dishes into the sink. She’s happy, she realises. No, not just happy; content. It’s not a feeling she’s felt too often before.
She’s spent a long time lately, thinking back over her life and the choices she’s made and the ones that seemed to be made for her. But in the end, everything that’s happened to her, the good and the bad, have brought her here. She scrubs at a particularly stubborn spot of sauce on a plate, still smiling. Familiar footsteps creep up behind her; here is a good place to be.
After a moment of hesitation, she feels his arms slip around her waist, his hands linking together on her stomach.
“Am I being a bad host?” She asks, rinsing off the foam from the plate beneath the running tap. His chin settles on the top of her head.
“You don’t have to do this now.” He says, every word pressed into her scull. She pushes back against him, her body molding into his as she reaches to place the plate on the draining board.
“I know.” She looks out of the window at the black sky.
“Beautiful night.” He murmurs and she bites her lip. It’s like the old days sometimes; they’re back in tune with each other. “Come back in with me?”
She looks at the stack of dishes and cutlery and at the steaming water and he presses a soft kiss to her hair and squeezes his arms around her waist. “Fine.” She says. The washing can wait.
“Hey Probie!” Mike calls from the front of the house. “What happened to that beer?”
Gibbs growls, the sound vibrating down her. “Coming Franks.” And squeezes her again before stepping back and over to the fridge.
Jenny laughs, pulling the plug out beneath the water. As the water gurgles down the drain Gibbs holds out a tea-cloth and she wipes her hands dry, unsurprised to find they haven’t even had time to wrinkle up in the water.
She looks down at the sideboard, reaching for her watch and...that isn’t her ring. Eyes widening, her gaze shoots to his. He stands between the fridge and the door, looking past her. His face is frozen into a look of disinterest, but she can see the hesitation in his eyes.
Probably, something should be said now. She should ask him if he’s sure. He should actually ask and they should talk about what he’s going to tell his family.
Instead, she fastens her watch onto her wrist with shaking fingers before letting herself pick up the ring. It’s beautiful, of course and there’s no way it isn’t what she thinks it is, so when she slides it onto her ring finger, she knows exactly what that means.
He takes her hand, his thumb hooking around to rub against the new metal. He looks happy, she thinks and no matter how much she looks for it, she can’t find a hint of regret in his smile.
“Probie!” Mike calls again, and Gibbs drags her across the kitchen and back towards their guests.
Tomorrow they’ll have that talk, but tonight she’s content to laugh with their friends and play host.
+ + +
+ + +
Twelve Months Earlier.
“When’s the rest being shipped over?” Gibbs asks, dropping another box onto the floor of his hallway.
Jenny pauses, turning her head to the side and catching sight of him out of the corner of her eye. She keeps her hands buried in the box of books, crouched down by the living room door. “This is everything, Jethro.” She says, nodding towards the four boxes and the one suitcase leaning against the wall.
“Everything.” It’s not really a question, more a noise of disbelief. She can understand his confusion; weekend business trips as the Director would include at least two suitcases. “But what about-”
She cuts him off, standing up and turning to him.
“I didn’t exactly have a lot of notice, you’ll remember.” She puts the books in her hands onto the arm of the couch just inside the doorway. “Besides,” she adds with her back to him, “someone burnt down my house.”
They unpack in silence for a while, only breaking it to ask where she should put her clothes, and if she wants to keep her toothbrush in the en-suite or the guest bathroom.
Jenny’s stomach grumbles as she hangs up a jumper in her side of the closet. Her side. Of everything that’s changed in her life lately, she thinks that might take the longest to believe.
“Hungry?” Gibbs asks and because neither of them have spoken for ten minutes the sound makes her jump.
“Yeah, I-” She pauses, just looking at him. “What I said earlier,” she starts again, taking a step towards him. “I shouldn’t have, I mean. I know why you burnt the house and I understand Jethro.” She does, even though it still hurts to think about everything she lost there. The history and the memories of her parents.
“Jen.” He doesn’t say anything more, just her name. She smiles at him, her eyes glassy.
“It’s not like I could have taken any of it with me anyway.” Gibbs would have noticed if things had been there one day and disappeared the next, even modesty won’t let her pretend he wouldn’t have gone to her house after her death. He went to Paris.
She tracks his hand as it rises to her face, gently wiping away the stray tears. She leans into him, sighing into his chest, her fingers hooking into his belt.
Her stomach grumbles and she snorts against his shirt, doing it again when he shivers at the action.
“Food?” He asks, and she nods. She pulls away from him and his smile is soft as he smooths down her hair. “Should have some decent bread around here.” He leads her through to the kitchen with his arm around her waist. “Sandwiches?”
“That’d be perfect.” She says, kicking at one of her shoes left in the hallway. “So long as you don’t cook, I’m not losing another home to your latent arsonist tendencies.”
Gibbs stops, looking at her in disbelief.
“What?” She says. “Too soon?”
+ + +
+ + +
Thirteen Months Earlier.
There’s a long moment of silence when she sees him. Joy and panic and a certain kind of resignation because somehow, some part of her had known this could happen.
And then he sees her and she has to fight down the urge to run. She doesn’t even seriously contemplate him not recognising her. She has changed, there’s no doubt about that, but even across the market she knows he is seeing her. The way he pulls off his glasses and squints against the distance between them tells her he probably doesn’t believe it.
His mouth falls open and snaps closed and she runs.
---
“You’re dead.” He says as they lean, panting, against the side of an old tin wall. He was a Sniper and a Marine and she hasn’t been out of hospital long, hasn’t built up enough of her strength to stand a chance at losing him.
“I am.” She grips the side of her that feels like its splitting open, even though she had the stitches removed two-weeks ago and the skin has sealed itself shut.
“Jen.” He growls, regaining his breath a lot quicker than she is.
“Elizabeth.” She responds, the word breaking into two halves while she waits for her lungs to stop sucking in so much air. It really had been too early to try running.
Gibbs blinks, eyes narrowing at her as understanding passes behind them.
“Jen.” He says again, and she nods, resigned, dropping her eyes. After all, he’s seen her now, it isn’t like she’s ever going to convince him he hasn’t.
This isn’t the way she’s imagined this going. And as impossible as this little reunion was supposed to be, she has imagined it a lot. All those months recovering, receiving coded and vague messages about him and his team. And every day she wondered if she would ever see him again, and if she did, what she would do.
Strangely, running away hadn’t come close to any of those fantasies.
“I thought you were dead.” He says and her body tenses with how close he’s gotten to her now.
“You were supposed to.” She ignores his flinch, fighting the urge to take a deep breath just to smell him. “You’re still supposed to. Gibbs-” He slams a hand hard against the metal beside her head cutting her off.
He presses a shoulder into the wall on the other side of her, fencing her in with his body. The shadows of the alleyway make his eyes look darker than the blue she knows they are. She reaches up a hand between them, resting it against his forearm, her fingers curling around the tensed muscle.
“You’re scaring me, Jethro.” Her voice is weak even to her own ears and because it’s coming from inside her, she knows it isn’t just fear that’s put the tremble there.
The hand by her head circles her wrist, pulling it away from him and holding it up above her. He pushes off the wall and takes her other hand, mirroring the action.
“I’m scaring you.” He says, leaning in closer. “I’m scaring you? Dammit, Jen! I thought you were dead!” And then he kisses her; all bared teeth and hard lips, but he’s kissing her and she folds into him, reluctantly glad for his tight hold on her.
He only pulls away enough to let them both take a breath. “I’m sorry.” She says while he kisses and bites his way down her neck. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
---
“DiNozzo doesn’t know.” She says apropos to nothing, when they’ve both calmed down a little and moved to the tiny café around the corner.
“Then how?” He asks. He hasn’t taken his eyes off of her since they stepped back out into the busy Paris street. She doesn’t say anything about it, she hasn’t looked away from him much herself.
“The bullets were real, Jethro. When Ziva and DiNozzo found me I- the Doctor’s said my pulse rate was so low when they got there that even they almost missed it.” She takes a sip from her cup, the fragrant coffee burning her throat as she swallows it down. He waits for her to continue, his eyes flicking between the places where the bullets hit and her face. “There were people, in place.” She tells him, hesitating over how much or how little he should know.
He frowns at her, reading her reluctance and he knows too much already so she thinks, to hell with it.
“Your team weren’t the only protection out there. There had been some intel, a few months earlier, the SecNav was concerned after they pulled some transcripts.” She stops again. “Only, Svetlana got there first.”
“So they followed you and after the shoot-out, when everyone else thought you were dead, they covered it up.” He isn’t asking her. “You should have told me Jen.”
His voice rises and Jenny forces a smile at the few people who turn to look at the noisy Americans. “Top level.” Is all she says, her voice tight.
He doesn’t shout again, but for all that he must understand, he doesn’t appear ready to accept it.
“They healed me up, gave me a new name, a new life and sent me out of the country.” She looks at him, really looks, her heart thumping in her chest because she really, really, shouldn’t have ever seen him again. Leaning forward, she lays her hand over his on the table. “I can’t ever go back to America, Jethro. To keep my life, I have to stay dead.” She laughs a little, the sound just this side of bitter and removes her hand.
“But you’re not.” He says, relaxing back into his chair, taking his first gulps of his own drink.
A fiddler pauses between the tables, the tune he plays an old favourite of hers and when he finishes she digs around in her purse for some spare change. The pill bottle rattles as her hand knocks it and Gibbs’s head shoots up. She pays the musician and waits until he has moved off down to the next restaurant before meeting Gibbs’s eyes.
“I thought...” He trails off and she smiles sadly at him. He had hoped.
“That wasn’t a lie.” She says. But he’s still waiting for something so she adds; “but I have a few good years left in me yet, Agent Gibbs.” and enjoys the small smile she receives.
---
“I’m not staying here.” She says, noting the irony of the words as they approach her apartment.
“Come back with me.” He responds, as though they haven’t spent the last three hours together tearing apart and putting back together all the events that lead to her death.
“You know I can’t.” He opens his mouth but she continues over him. “The Agency needs you Jethro and” that’s not my world anymore “I’m dead.” She presses a kiss against his lips, force of will alone allowing her to pull back and start up the front steps of her building. They never say goodbye.
“I bought a house.” He says and she pauses mid-step. “In Mexico.” He clarifies.
“Jethro...” She turns back to him instinctively. He holds up a hand.
“I quit three weeks ago.” He rises up a step.
“But, your team.” She protests, almost reflexively because he quit.
“DiNozzo can handle it. After.” He looks at her pointedly and she drops her eyes. “They’re closer than they’ve ever been. Besides, Abby made me promise to go back at least once every two months. I have to speak to them every week.” He grumbles, full of affection.
“They can’t know I’m there.” She says and Gibbs smiles, taking the last step up to her. It takes her a moment of looking at that smile to realise what she’s agreed to with those words.
“This is going to be a nightmare, Jethro. We’ll kill each other, just the two of us.” He ignores her, leaning in to kiss her.
She lets him. All of her plans, all of her neat little timetables that they never seemed to fit into mean nothing anymore.
“You’re dead.” He says, though it doesn’t come out quite as light as she’s sure he meant it and she knows they still have a lot of talking still to come. “Live a little.”
End.
Author's Note: I had two versions of this fic, I promised myself I would never write a fix-it fic...and then I did, but as you can see, I couldn't quite bring myself to make it a complete fix-it...except I did that too, so if you want to see that then I've posted just the last section (which is the only part that changes) here.
Fandom: NCIS (TV Show)
Character/Pairing: Jenny Shepard/Jethro Gibbs
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance, General
Summary: Post Judgement Day AU. Jenny and Gibbs and a few moments in their life together.
Length: 3,701 words
Status: Complete
After Life
Now.
“This is nice.” Jenny says, twirling her wine glass by its stem. The red liquid swells up to the rim in swirling waves.
He grunts, which usually means he agrees with her, and doesn’t take his eyes away from the sander in his hand.
She bites the corner of her lip, pulling it down before it can curl up in a smile. It’s taken them a long time to get to where they are now.
Tilting her head back she catches the warm rays from the slowly setting sun and opens her mouth, tongue poking out to taste the salt in the air.
Gibbs snorts and she peers down her nose at him without moving her head. He bends across her for his beer, laughing at her shriek as drops of condensation splash against her skin when he straightens up.
“Jethro!” She shivers, reaching over to the other chair for her towel. She rubs the moisture away and leaves the towel draped across her stomach in deference to the cooling air.
He laughs again, swinging the bottle closer and closer to her body, teasing her with every drip that falls onto the sand. She scowls at him behind her sunglasses, swatting him with her hand and eventually he lifts the bottle high over her head with exaggerated care.
“Better?” He asks, eyes narrowed against the light.
“Much.” She slides the glasses off her face as he bends down and presses a cold kiss against her forehead. She blinks up at him, smiling. His eyes shine the colour of the sea behind him and his hair is more salt than pepper. “I love you.” She whispers.
“Every day.” He says, moving his lips to her cheek. “You ready to head in?” He turns back to the boat, slipping the blue plastic cover up and over the shaped wood, tying it into place on the small trailer. “Franks said he’d meet us in town.” He says, looking at her over his shoulder.
She nods, wrapping the towel around her shoulders and folding up the chairs. “There’s some left over chicken in the fridge.” She loads the chairs onto the trailer and picks up her book from the grey rock acting as a coffee table.
He hums, one hand pulling the trailer up to the patch of grass running alongside the beach, the other reaching out for her own. “It’s been a while since we’ve had your garlic chicken salad.”
She squeezes his hand, leaning her head against his arm as they walk home.
+ + +
+ + +
Six Months Earlier.
“DiNozzo, there’s no need for you to come out here. DiNozzo I’m- DiN- Probie!”
Jenny jumps at the shout, peering over the back of the couch.
Gibbs has his back to her, facing the wall, letting her know that whatever Agent DiNozzo had been telling him, Gibbs had been giving it his full attention.
He turns at the creak in the couch beneath her and rolls his eyes heavenward. She stifles a laugh, turning back to her book.
“I’m fine DiNozzo. No, don’t put...Hello Abs.” His voice softens and Jenny re-reads the same line twice, waiting for him to speak again. “I’m sorry.” She smirks at the real apology.
“No, really Abby, I’m fine. I just forgot.”
They both flinch at his choice of words and the sound of the Goth’s voice raised through the phone. Gibbs looks at her pleadingly and she fights the urge to shrug and let him deal with his own messes. But she catches sight of the new picture on their windowsill and this mess is partly her fault.
The present. She mouths to him and his brows crease in confusion for a moment before he smiles at her.
“Did you like your birthday present Abs?”
Jenny slides back down until she sits curled up in the corner of the couch, her reading glasses perched on her nose. She lets his voice drift to the back of her awareness, hearing but not giving enough attention to his words to understand what’s being said behind her. These moments are Gibbs’s and not hers. She’s happy to have reached a place where she’s okay with that.
She finishes a chapter and catches the soft goodbye he says before hanging up the phone.
“They want to welcome you into the family.” He says, taking a seat on the coffee table and resting his elbows on his knees. “DiNozzo did his Mafia voice.”
Jenny laughs despite the lump in her throat, because she can just imagine that. She imagines Ziva head-slapping him into silence, Tim watching a little in awe and a little confused, Abby bouncing in her boots trying to get the phone back.
“I think Ziva hit him.”
“Probably.” She agrees, looking around him at the far wall. “I’m sorry.” She says, her eyes flicking from the wall to his and back again.
“Jen-” He starts, but she cuts him off.
“They’re your family Gibbs and they couldn’t even be at your wedding.”
“It was your wedding too.” He reminds her, but she brushes that aside with a wave of her hand.
She sits up straighter, her body curving towards him, tendrils of hair falling loose around her face.
“We married in an empty church.” She says, shouts almost, even though that cheapens it so much it hurts. Because it had been nearly perfect and much more than she ever seriously thought they would get.
Gibbs reaches out to her, cupping her chin with his hand, his thumb running softly over her bottom lip.
“I made my choice.” He says, looking straight at her.
“You shouldn’t have had to.” She whispers at him, his thumb slipping between her lips as she speaks.
He dips his head slightly in agreement, before tilting her face and placing a kiss on each of the eyelids she closes for him.
“But it was still my choice.” He pauses, rising from the table and sliding onto the couch beside her. He nudges her shoulder until she turns and settles into him, her head against his chest. One arm wraps around her shoulders, his hand resting against her hip. With his other he takes her hand and runs his thumb and forefinger over her ring.
“I thought I’d lost you Jen.” His voice is rough and she presses her cheek against his shirt, pretending she doesn’t notice how his hand slips further around her waist to settle on her side, covering the scar through her t-shirt.
“You didn’t.” She says, because even though it’s obvious, sometimes they both need the reminder.
She feels him press his lips to the top of her head.
“I only needed you there, Jen. And a priest. Besides,” He tugs her even closer, their joined hands curled together over his heart. “Franks was there.”
She laughs, her eyes crinkling and a few stray tears leaking out. She pulls away from him a little, just enough that she can see the sincerity on his face. “You’re still not starting a new boat.” She says, leaning over to kiss his falling face.
+ + +
+ + +
Nine Months Earlier.
Unclasping her watch Jenny places it beside her rings on the sideboard. Outside, the sky glitters with stars, a sight she’s still not quite used to, even after the length of time she’s been here.
In the living room behind her Gibbs laughs, the sound low and throaty, joined a second later by Mike’s chuckle. She smiles, running the taps and squeezes the cleaning liquid in green swirls around the rising water.
A feeling settles in her chest as she lifts the first pile of dishes into the sink. She’s happy, she realises. No, not just happy; content. It’s not a feeling she’s felt too often before.
She’s spent a long time lately, thinking back over her life and the choices she’s made and the ones that seemed to be made for her. But in the end, everything that’s happened to her, the good and the bad, have brought her here. She scrubs at a particularly stubborn spot of sauce on a plate, still smiling. Familiar footsteps creep up behind her; here is a good place to be.
After a moment of hesitation, she feels his arms slip around her waist, his hands linking together on her stomach.
“Am I being a bad host?” She asks, rinsing off the foam from the plate beneath the running tap. His chin settles on the top of her head.
“You don’t have to do this now.” He says, every word pressed into her scull. She pushes back against him, her body molding into his as she reaches to place the plate on the draining board.
“I know.” She looks out of the window at the black sky.
“Beautiful night.” He murmurs and she bites her lip. It’s like the old days sometimes; they’re back in tune with each other. “Come back in with me?”
She looks at the stack of dishes and cutlery and at the steaming water and he presses a soft kiss to her hair and squeezes his arms around her waist. “Fine.” She says. The washing can wait.
“Hey Probie!” Mike calls from the front of the house. “What happened to that beer?”
Gibbs growls, the sound vibrating down her. “Coming Franks.” And squeezes her again before stepping back and over to the fridge.
Jenny laughs, pulling the plug out beneath the water. As the water gurgles down the drain Gibbs holds out a tea-cloth and she wipes her hands dry, unsurprised to find they haven’t even had time to wrinkle up in the water.
She looks down at the sideboard, reaching for her watch and...that isn’t her ring. Eyes widening, her gaze shoots to his. He stands between the fridge and the door, looking past her. His face is frozen into a look of disinterest, but she can see the hesitation in his eyes.
Probably, something should be said now. She should ask him if he’s sure. He should actually ask and they should talk about what he’s going to tell his family.
Instead, she fastens her watch onto her wrist with shaking fingers before letting herself pick up the ring. It’s beautiful, of course and there’s no way it isn’t what she thinks it is, so when she slides it onto her ring finger, she knows exactly what that means.
He takes her hand, his thumb hooking around to rub against the new metal. He looks happy, she thinks and no matter how much she looks for it, she can’t find a hint of regret in his smile.
“Probie!” Mike calls again, and Gibbs drags her across the kitchen and back towards their guests.
Tomorrow they’ll have that talk, but tonight she’s content to laugh with their friends and play host.
+ + +
+ + +
Twelve Months Earlier.
“When’s the rest being shipped over?” Gibbs asks, dropping another box onto the floor of his hallway.
Jenny pauses, turning her head to the side and catching sight of him out of the corner of her eye. She keeps her hands buried in the box of books, crouched down by the living room door. “This is everything, Jethro.” She says, nodding towards the four boxes and the one suitcase leaning against the wall.
“Everything.” It’s not really a question, more a noise of disbelief. She can understand his confusion; weekend business trips as the Director would include at least two suitcases. “But what about-”
She cuts him off, standing up and turning to him.
“I didn’t exactly have a lot of notice, you’ll remember.” She puts the books in her hands onto the arm of the couch just inside the doorway. “Besides,” she adds with her back to him, “someone burnt down my house.”
They unpack in silence for a while, only breaking it to ask where she should put her clothes, and if she wants to keep her toothbrush in the en-suite or the guest bathroom.
Jenny’s stomach grumbles as she hangs up a jumper in her side of the closet. Her side. Of everything that’s changed in her life lately, she thinks that might take the longest to believe.
“Hungry?” Gibbs asks and because neither of them have spoken for ten minutes the sound makes her jump.
“Yeah, I-” She pauses, just looking at him. “What I said earlier,” she starts again, taking a step towards him. “I shouldn’t have, I mean. I know why you burnt the house and I understand Jethro.” She does, even though it still hurts to think about everything she lost there. The history and the memories of her parents.
“Jen.” He doesn’t say anything more, just her name. She smiles at him, her eyes glassy.
“It’s not like I could have taken any of it with me anyway.” Gibbs would have noticed if things had been there one day and disappeared the next, even modesty won’t let her pretend he wouldn’t have gone to her house after her death. He went to Paris.
She tracks his hand as it rises to her face, gently wiping away the stray tears. She leans into him, sighing into his chest, her fingers hooking into his belt.
Her stomach grumbles and she snorts against his shirt, doing it again when he shivers at the action.
“Food?” He asks, and she nods. She pulls away from him and his smile is soft as he smooths down her hair. “Should have some decent bread around here.” He leads her through to the kitchen with his arm around her waist. “Sandwiches?”
“That’d be perfect.” She says, kicking at one of her shoes left in the hallway. “So long as you don’t cook, I’m not losing another home to your latent arsonist tendencies.”
Gibbs stops, looking at her in disbelief.
“What?” She says. “Too soon?”
+ + +
+ + +
Thirteen Months Earlier.
There’s a long moment of silence when she sees him. Joy and panic and a certain kind of resignation because somehow, some part of her had known this could happen.
And then he sees her and she has to fight down the urge to run. She doesn’t even seriously contemplate him not recognising her. She has changed, there’s no doubt about that, but even across the market she knows he is seeing her. The way he pulls off his glasses and squints against the distance between them tells her he probably doesn’t believe it.
His mouth falls open and snaps closed and she runs.
---
“You’re dead.” He says as they lean, panting, against the side of an old tin wall. He was a Sniper and a Marine and she hasn’t been out of hospital long, hasn’t built up enough of her strength to stand a chance at losing him.
“I am.” She grips the side of her that feels like its splitting open, even though she had the stitches removed two-weeks ago and the skin has sealed itself shut.
“Jen.” He growls, regaining his breath a lot quicker than she is.
“Elizabeth.” She responds, the word breaking into two halves while she waits for her lungs to stop sucking in so much air. It really had been too early to try running.
Gibbs blinks, eyes narrowing at her as understanding passes behind them.
“Jen.” He says again, and she nods, resigned, dropping her eyes. After all, he’s seen her now, it isn’t like she’s ever going to convince him he hasn’t.
This isn’t the way she’s imagined this going. And as impossible as this little reunion was supposed to be, she has imagined it a lot. All those months recovering, receiving coded and vague messages about him and his team. And every day she wondered if she would ever see him again, and if she did, what she would do.
Strangely, running away hadn’t come close to any of those fantasies.
“I thought you were dead.” He says and her body tenses with how close he’s gotten to her now.
“You were supposed to.” She ignores his flinch, fighting the urge to take a deep breath just to smell him. “You’re still supposed to. Gibbs-” He slams a hand hard against the metal beside her head cutting her off.
He presses a shoulder into the wall on the other side of her, fencing her in with his body. The shadows of the alleyway make his eyes look darker than the blue she knows they are. She reaches up a hand between them, resting it against his forearm, her fingers curling around the tensed muscle.
“You’re scaring me, Jethro.” Her voice is weak even to her own ears and because it’s coming from inside her, she knows it isn’t just fear that’s put the tremble there.
The hand by her head circles her wrist, pulling it away from him and holding it up above her. He pushes off the wall and takes her other hand, mirroring the action.
“I’m scaring you.” He says, leaning in closer. “I’m scaring you? Dammit, Jen! I thought you were dead!” And then he kisses her; all bared teeth and hard lips, but he’s kissing her and she folds into him, reluctantly glad for his tight hold on her.
He only pulls away enough to let them both take a breath. “I’m sorry.” She says while he kisses and bites his way down her neck. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
---
“DiNozzo doesn’t know.” She says apropos to nothing, when they’ve both calmed down a little and moved to the tiny café around the corner.
“Then how?” He asks. He hasn’t taken his eyes off of her since they stepped back out into the busy Paris street. She doesn’t say anything about it, she hasn’t looked away from him much herself.
“The bullets were real, Jethro. When Ziva and DiNozzo found me I- the Doctor’s said my pulse rate was so low when they got there that even they almost missed it.” She takes a sip from her cup, the fragrant coffee burning her throat as she swallows it down. He waits for her to continue, his eyes flicking between the places where the bullets hit and her face. “There were people, in place.” She tells him, hesitating over how much or how little he should know.
He frowns at her, reading her reluctance and he knows too much already so she thinks, to hell with it.
“Your team weren’t the only protection out there. There had been some intel, a few months earlier, the SecNav was concerned after they pulled some transcripts.” She stops again. “Only, Svetlana got there first.”
“So they followed you and after the shoot-out, when everyone else thought you were dead, they covered it up.” He isn’t asking her. “You should have told me Jen.”
His voice rises and Jenny forces a smile at the few people who turn to look at the noisy Americans. “Top level.” Is all she says, her voice tight.
He doesn’t shout again, but for all that he must understand, he doesn’t appear ready to accept it.
“They healed me up, gave me a new name, a new life and sent me out of the country.” She looks at him, really looks, her heart thumping in her chest because she really, really, shouldn’t have ever seen him again. Leaning forward, she lays her hand over his on the table. “I can’t ever go back to America, Jethro. To keep my life, I have to stay dead.” She laughs a little, the sound just this side of bitter and removes her hand.
“But you’re not.” He says, relaxing back into his chair, taking his first gulps of his own drink.
A fiddler pauses between the tables, the tune he plays an old favourite of hers and when he finishes she digs around in her purse for some spare change. The pill bottle rattles as her hand knocks it and Gibbs’s head shoots up. She pays the musician and waits until he has moved off down to the next restaurant before meeting Gibbs’s eyes.
“I thought...” He trails off and she smiles sadly at him. He had hoped.
“That wasn’t a lie.” She says. But he’s still waiting for something so she adds; “but I have a few good years left in me yet, Agent Gibbs.” and enjoys the small smile she receives.
---
“I’m not staying here.” She says, noting the irony of the words as they approach her apartment.
“Come back with me.” He responds, as though they haven’t spent the last three hours together tearing apart and putting back together all the events that lead to her death.
“You know I can’t.” He opens his mouth but she continues over him. “The Agency needs you Jethro and” that’s not my world anymore “I’m dead.” She presses a kiss against his lips, force of will alone allowing her to pull back and start up the front steps of her building. They never say goodbye.
“I bought a house.” He says and she pauses mid-step. “In Mexico.” He clarifies.
“Jethro...” She turns back to him instinctively. He holds up a hand.
“I quit three weeks ago.” He rises up a step.
“But, your team.” She protests, almost reflexively because he quit.
“DiNozzo can handle it. After.” He looks at her pointedly and she drops her eyes. “They’re closer than they’ve ever been. Besides, Abby made me promise to go back at least once every two months. I have to speak to them every week.” He grumbles, full of affection.
“They can’t know I’m there.” She says and Gibbs smiles, taking the last step up to her. It takes her a moment of looking at that smile to realise what she’s agreed to with those words.
“This is going to be a nightmare, Jethro. We’ll kill each other, just the two of us.” He ignores her, leaning in to kiss her.
She lets him. All of her plans, all of her neat little timetables that they never seemed to fit into mean nothing anymore.
“You’re dead.” He says, though it doesn’t come out quite as light as she’s sure he meant it and she knows they still have a lot of talking still to come. “Live a little.”
End.
Author's Note: I had two versions of this fic, I promised myself I would never write a fix-it fic...and then I did, but as you can see, I couldn't quite bring myself to make it a complete fix-it...except I did that too, so if you want to see that then I've posted just the last section (which is the only part that changes) here.