Twelve Months

Author: Sidda D.

Summary: Sometimes it takes a circuitous path to get from friendship to relationship – a retrospective of what might have happened if Jenny and Gibbs got together and navigated being together.

Disclaimer: Standard disclaimer – I own nothing, the characters all belong to DPB et al. I make no money from this and no copyright infringement is intended.

Author's Notes: This is my first NCIS fic. The first episode that I ever watched was Judgement Day, and I've been hooked ever since, especially on the Jibbs relationship (rather ironic, I know). I've tried to watch as many episodes as possible, but please forgive me if the characters feel a little OOC, I'm still getting comfortable with them. Feedback/comments/constructive criticism/reviews are greatly appreciated.

It was a cold January morning when Leroy Jethro Gibbs realized that, director of an armed federal agency or not, Jennifer Shepard was still the same woman he'd known six years ago. They had been on the trail of a serial killer with a vendetta against military women, desperately grasping at clues to keep the body count from getting any higher. Now, there was one last victim still unaccounted for, and a suspect in custody who refused to bow to Gibbs' interrogation tactics. He had just stepped out, almost tempted to allow Ziva into the interrogation room to use her unique brand of questioning, when she marched up to him and stood toe-to-toe, silently demanding that he let her in for her turn at the scumbag, even though they both knew, as director, she had no need to demand anything. The questioning looks he received as he stepped into the observation room and stared at her from the other side of the glass were more than enough to make him wonder whether he was right to have faith in her. A part of him remembered when he had trusted her unfailingly, when he wouldn't have thought twice about her request, and wondered how exactly they could have come so far. Still, he let her in there – that said something. Exactly what, he didn't know, but it definitely said something. Half an hour later, he was calling Tony and Ziva with a location, and couldn't suppress the surge of pride he felt. She walked out of the room with a joyful grin that took years off her face and just for a moment, it was like time melted and they were young again, and then he was congratulating her on her excellent interrogation technique and telling her she should never have stopped being an agent. She shot back that she never had. He watched the sway of her hips as she sauntered off and admitted to himself that perhaps she was right. She was still his Jenny.

February was the unfortunate month of love, and no one knew what possessed him to take a woman out only days before Valentine's Day. He had had to ignore the reproachful looks from Ducky and the muttered comments from Abby that he was dating the wrong redhead. She had watched from above, along with every other agent in the office, as he kissed the sinewy twenty-something at the elevator and escorted her out with a hand placed only millimetres away from both indecency and her posterior. She admonished herself when the first adjective to enter her mind was "bimbo," and was rather taken aback when "hussy" quickly followed on its heels. She turned away quickly and walked back to her office to avoid the sympathetic glances many were throwing her way. Abby had already enveloped her in a big hug earlier in the day, as if to offer support for what was to come, and Ziva had surely caught the look of jealousy that flashed in her eyes before her director mask slipped into place. She knew what they thought. She knew about the rampant betting that took place about her and Gibbs' history and knew they only fuelled the fire with their constant war of words and actions. Sometimes she felt like a child on a playground, unable to articulate her feelings, and so resorted to the only other readily available emotion: anger. She assumed, rightly so, that her reaction today and quick escape would only serve to up the odds that they still had a thing. In a way, it gave her just a little spark that people still saw something there. Even if he didn't.

The jealousy of February hadn't gone away by the time March rolled around, and it resulted in an argument that echoed through almost every nook and cranny of the office and sent the team scuttling into the morgue for safety. She had intervened on a case, in theory for their benefit, politicking with various other agencies, securing necessary cooperation, and calling in IOUs to grease the wheels necessary to keep the investigation on track. Although thankful, he was incensed that the killer would see no time in exchange for his help in whatever the higher-ups considered a greater good. He could see no justice in allowing a murderer's freedom or preventing the victim's wife and children from getting the closure they needed. She had called him on his moral superiority and between the two of them, they had slammed enough doors around the office to make the whole building rattle. As the month wore on, the anger ebbed, but the frustration did not. There were petty fights, small issues that otherwise might have meant nothing, but meant the world within the context of their inability to say what they really needed to say. It was only after yet another heated discussion where they crowded into each other's personal space, chests heaving to inhale enough oxygen, blue eyes flashing to match fiery green that either would dare admit, only internally mind you, that perhaps there was something more worth facing.

Ducky had no choice but to intervene when by April, Jethro had taken to brooding and yelling at everyone, including Abby, and Jen had thrown herself into her work, barely leaving her office most days. (He strongly suspected she spent many a night in there as well, if the constant replacement of spare suits was any indication.) They spoke only when necessary, using Cynthia and his team to communicate whenever possible. In a way, it was no surprise that Ducky showed up on Gibbs' basement stairs on a Friday night, bottle of bourbon in hand, and his fierce tone when he said that he had sent Mother to a spa for the weekend so they could hash this problem out once and for all suggested he meant business. It took one glass of bourbon for Gibbs to stop sanding the boat and sit down, another glass before he started talking, and two more before he rambled in earnest about what really mattered. By the end of the evening, Ducky draped a blanket over Jethro's prostrate form and knew that even if he wasn't ready to admit it to her, he had at least admitted it to himself. It took significantly fewer glasses of bourbon to get Jenny to reach the same conclusion. He patted her on the arm as he left, calling her Jennifer and reminding her that the risk might be worth the reward, and wondered briefly whether he could write off two bottles of bourbon on his expense account. After all, they were for the good of the agency.

A week later, the darling buds of May bloomed, and a yellow rose found its way onto her desk. The next day, a fresh cup of coffee appeared on his. Apologies weren't permitted in their relationship, but peace offerings certainly were. Three days passed before Jenny walked into her office after a particularly infuriating round with SecNav and found Belgian chocolates awaiting her alongside a more than curious Cynthia. Not a day later, Ziva, Tony and McGee gathered around Gibbs' desk, staring at brand-new reading glasses, arguing over who had left them and wondering how she knew that Gibbs had broken his last pair recently. There was no argument whatsoever that the gift-giver was in fact a she and Tony immediately started taking bets on who the mystery woman was. Director Jenny Shepard had 3:1 odds. They didn't discuss the little gifts, neither capable of the level of honesty that a frank discussion would require, instead smiling secretly in quiet moments and reflecting individually that perhaps the intimacy they shared had never really gone away. The shaky peace between them was reflected in the office atmosphere, and Jenny thought McGee looked particularly happy when Gibbs slapped the back of his head one afternoon. It occurred to her that it had been nearly a month since she'd seen a head-slap and berated herself for allowing their personal issues to interfere with work. Soon after, she found page six of the New York Times on her desk, which upon further inspection, yielded a brief picture and article circled in red ink, discussing the recent nuptials of a Senator and a certain twenty-something red-headed bimbo she hadn't been altogether too fond of a few months ago.

By June, the gifts had progressed to takeout meals from restaurants they had frequented in what felt like a past lifetime, usually in the privacy of her office and late at night, when few agents were around to gossip. He knew they were skirting the thin line between friendship and more than friendship and couldn't decide whether it was a wise move to make the leap into the abyss that was a relationship with Jenny Shepard. Because he knew, with her, it would have to be a relationship. It would have to be something serious and for all the passion and chemistry they shared, there would still come a time when she would seriously have to consider whether he could fit into her career plan again. While dating a subordinate wasn't strictly forbidden, it would certainly guarantee an end to the fast track she was on and he wasn't sure that he could force her into having to make that choice. Though, the way she looked at him over her glasses and smiled when she saw dinner, the slight grimace on her face as she removed her impossibly high heels and stepped away from her desk, the look of bliss when she wrapped her lips around dessert and the small moan that hit him straight in the gut and made him shiver just a little – they all made him think it would be worth it, choice be damned.

Jethro Gibbs kissed Jenny Shepard in July. They were in Anacostia Park watching Fourth of July fireworks and the look of her, highlighted against a sky lit up with pinwheels, sparklers, rockets, and twirlers, made him pull her face down to his and press his lips against hers. She seemed caught off guard, but never one to show surprise, responded to his invitation, gently licking his lips and demanding entrance with her tongue. He drew back before the kiss could progress too far, growling softly as she protested the loss of contact by running her hands through his hair and traced absent patterns at the nape of his neck, proving that she too has vivid memories of their past. She blushed slightly as she realized their location, part of her thankful he had picked such a quiet spot, part of her suspicious as to his motives for the seclusion and the rest of her too preoccupied to care. She leaned in close and whispered in his ear that they could watch the fireworks later on ZNN and proceeded to explain, in detail, what she would rather they be doing, and that was the moment Gibbs lost his control and pulled her back to him. Soon, she was keeping clothing at his place and when he moved deep inside her one morning, she couldn't help but wonder how she'd stayed away for so long. Because the way he nipped at her neck, the way his hands moved down her spine to settle on her hips, and when he angled just right to hit just that spot, she knew it was absolutely criminal to deny herself this pleasure. And when he remembered how much she liked him sucking at the hollow of her throat, she knew she would be wearing turtlenecks for a week.

In August, a combination of heat and boredom created Operation Eiffel Tower, led by one rather resourceful Anthony DiNozzo in a valiant effort to prove that the Director and Gibbs were in fact, together again. Attempts to find hard evidence ranged from the obvious to the creative. They spent a particularly amusing afternoon locked in a storage closet while maintenance "looked for a key," but managed to have their own share of fun once a hairpin and a little MacGyver action disabled the carefully placed camera. Abby's reasoning that every month could use a little Christmas spirit, and subsequent peppering of every conceivable office corner in mistletoe resulted in a loss of her Caf-Pow privileges for a week. It was lucky that there were few active cases, although that was probably what had got them into this problem in the first place, mused Jenny as she went about removing the mistletoe hanging from her door, windows, and somehow above her couch. She made a mental note to take the long route to Jethro's for a while and have a discussion with her driver before he started leaking where she spent her evenings. She found it rather amusing, although Jethro thought it less than funny having to let agents into his house to do an emergency bug sweep at six in the morning. They had been lucky that she had left an hour before, needing to prep for an early meeting, though it was less luck and more speed that allowed Gibbs to hide the bra she'd forgotten in her hasty departure.

The leaves turned into the colours of a particularly brilliant sunset – reds, oranges, and yellows – and the temperature began to drop as September brought autumn with it, proving that the world outside would evolve, and invariably so would they. The honeymoon phase had faded, so they weren't having sex on every available surface anymore, much to the relief of her security detail, who were running out of excuses for why she wasn't sleeping at home as often, and Noemi, who found herself side-stepping trails of skirts and blouses and button-up shirts and boxers when she arrived in the mornings, and Cynthia, who had blushed furiously and used "office redecoration" to explain away the rhythmic thumping against the wall. At work, they were still Director and Special Agent – he still paid little heed to her, or anyone else's, authority, and she still ran covert operations without his knowledge. At home, they were Jenny and Jethro, still too devoted to their jobs to keep work from interfering with their personal lives, still stubborn and argumentative, still building boats, and still battling secrets from the past. The day the case of the murdered seven-year-old landed on his desk, Jethro stopped coming over to Jenny's house. There was no more letting himself in with his key, massaging her shoulders, working the knots as she sat in her office chair and claimed that his hands had no effect on how much longer she would be working, until his fingers would dip lower and his lips would brush feather light kisses against her neck, and she would finally give in and whisper to him to take her to bed. She stayed away, retreating to her place high above the bullpen, staring down at his salt and pepper hair, wondering all sorts of questions, the answers to which she was too afraid to know to ask. It took a late night visit to Ducky and one look at the auburn curls and face that looked far too much like it was just asleep to know it wasn't her, not this time. She stood in front of him that night, waving a bottle of expensive bourbon, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Gibbs wondered when exactly it had happened that everyone knew to get him drunk to face himself. She held him until the sun rose, letting him break down, and when he woke the next morning – searching for her warm body – he found painkillers, a fresh pot of coffee and a note saying that he knew where to find her when he was ready instead.

He found his way back to her in October, just in time for her 43rd birthday. Abby had insisted on a party, something small with just them and Ducky and Palmer and plenty of alcohol, and it took a level of steel that Jen lacked to say no when Abby looked at her like that and asked so sweetly. Jethro's eyes hadn't left her all evening, a fact that went unnoticed by no one except Palmer who was altogether distracted by his date, Michelle, and McGee, who was too busy channelling his inner bartender and keeping them plied with enough booze that everyone ended the night rather buzzed. The next day, Sec Nav's wife had got wind of her husband's still single and rapidly aging colleague and insisted on throwing Jen a proper fete herself, vowing that though she may arrive stag, Jenny Shepard certainly would not be leaving that way. In between her splitting headache and having to run ops while nursing a hangover, Jen wondered how she'd gotten into this mess and whether she was ready to possibly put her still fledgling relationship with her Senior Agent over her career. The question had been plaguing her since the minute he'd showed up at her door months ago, takeout in hand and that determined glint in his eye, the one against which she knew she stood no chance. She'd avoided it throughout, certain that their history and individual obsessions would break them apart before it ever got this far. Yet here they were, and in the few spare moments they'd shared since she'd heard about the matchmaking plans, Gibbs had made it clear it was up to her. She was back in Paris again, although this time, there was nowhere to run and fewer promotions left. He was stirring paint, getting ready to finish the curve of the letter 'J' when she showed up at his basement door in dark green silk. She whispered sweet nothings in his ear as he took her against the boat, her back pressed into the wood, almost bordering on painful if only it didn't feel so good. Days later, scuttlebutt reached him that Director Shepard was finally off the market with an unnamed, but not-so-unknown, beau, and three days after, a dry-cleaning bill landed on his desk for paint removal from a silk evening gown.

He asked her to be his date to the Marine Birthday Ball in November and she had grinned widely before promising to accept only on the condition that he wore his dress uniform. That Friday, she pulled dusty boxes out of her attic and took a trip down memory lane, staring at a picture of the last birthday ball they had attended together, his medals shining, and her hair aflame. Unbeknownst to her, he leaned against his boat and traced a similar picture, taken at the same event. She bought three dresses, not in the least bit certain which one would look best, dragging Ziva and Abby into her office in some strange version of female bonding and modeling for them in hopes of choosing one. It was his bad luck to walk in as she stood in front of her conference table, hands on hips, in clinging black with a plunging neckline and slit up her thigh, and her good luck that she could now cross one choice off her list. Any dress that made him instantly hard and so uncomfortable that he would be shifting at his desk and throwing lust-filled glances her way over an hour later was not meant to be worn in public, she had concluded. She went with cream instead, which made her alabaster skin glow and green eyes look like emeralds, and made him think that he rather liked her in white dresses, descending the stairs and coming to meet him at his desk. He shook the idea from his brain and slapped DiNozzo once for good measure, before escorting her away into the night. Much later, a cream gown pooled at the end of the bed, and she lay curled up against his chest, murmuring that he was as good a dancer as she remembered and he pulled her closer, hoping never to let go.

She went away in December, spending two weeks touring NCIS field offices, leaving the office not in the hands of Gibbs, but those of another senior agent, one better capable of dealing with the daily bureaucracy and paperwork that commanded her days. He was glad she hadn't chosen him to take over, partially to quell the occasional offhanded comment of favouritism, but mostly because once had been more than enough. She called every evening, reading scattered files in bed, wearing his old NIS t-shirt that she swiped specifically for this fortnight so that she could smell his blend of sawdust, coffee and bourbon as she slept. He, on the other hand, had found himself at her house more often than he'd cared to admit, much to the general amusement of Noemi, who took to leaving dinner in the oven for him. Neither would dare admit how much they missed the other, knowing that it would require also admitting how much this – they, them – had become a mainstay that they needed, and though they'd both grown and changed, there were still words they could not say. Instead, she teased him for being too conservative for phone sex and he retaliated by growling that if only they had a secure line he could tell her just how conservative he wasn't. She'd laughed delightedly as he told her of the latest betting ring, this time involving Tony and Ziva, as spearheaded by McGee. He'd smirked the next day when a letter arrived for him from her, containing a crisp 50 bill and a note requesting that he place a stealthy bet on her behalf. She came back on Christmas Eve and they were wrapped in blankets on his couch, lights dimmed, basking in the reflected glow of the twinkle lights and multicoloured strands adorning his Christmas tree. She whispered "I'm home, Jethro," and he pulled her closer, placing a kiss against her temple before responding, "I am too, Jen."