I got to thinking, what if Ari survived and Kate did not. What would happen if it turns out that Ari did not kill Kate? How would Gibbs react? How would he handle the change to his thinking, especially if it is Abby who offers him the proof?
This is loosely based upon the 1946 movie The Captive Heart.
My sixth year is approaching, bringing with it a new enemy. It is not the duration but the indefiniteness of duration. For if a man knew the length of his sentence, he could plan accordingly.
Deep down in my heart there is a lonely ache, a desperate need to turn back time. A fear of becoming forgotten. A fear of forgetting. I close my eyes, but I cannot picture her anymore. I know you may not believe me, but this loss gives me pain. Hope fades in my heart.
Write to me again soon, Abigail. You never know how great the comfort is that your letters bring. They are the thing that gives me strength, and hope, and happiness. You will never know how much they mean to me.
Abby turned the paper over in her hands.
She knew. His letters had come to mean a lot to her. More than she would have believed possible. She glanced at the calendar on her desk, today was never a good day. Filling this day with work, with thoughts other than the pain of Kate's death, the misery of Kate's funeral.
The first year was the worst. She had asked Director Sheppard for permission to write that first letter. It was supposed to bring some sort of closure. To tell him all her feelings, to pour out her rage onto the paper. Even if she could not be certain that he would read it. It wasn't really meant to be read.
Four months after she had sent it, Director Sheppard had called Abby to her office. There was a reply. It was entirely up to Abby if she wanted to read it, or Director Sheppard could drop it into the shredder and they could forget it ever it existed.
Abby was tempted. She wasn't certain she wanted to read the words of a murderer. The words, she had no doubt, would be some sort of declaration of innocence. Some justification. An attempt to shift blame on the victim. Perhaps even some self-indulgent whining.
A justification for Abby to put this behind her.
She picked up the letter.
It sat in her desk drawer for two hours after she got back to the lab. Finally, she sat down, and pried up the flap.
He was simple. Direct. Honest. No justification. No begging, whining or pleading.
She read his pain in every sentence, every punctuation mark, and it brought pain to her heart. She put the letter back in its envelope, and stuffed it into her bottom drawer.
It would be two months before she got it out again. Before she answered.