Hotel Pupetto
Positano, Italy
Late morning on February 5th, 1999
"Sarge."
"Not happenin'," he growled.
But he had that look on his face which meant he was enjoying this as much as she was.
"How about … redhead?"
"It isn't red."
"It is sometimes," she argued.
"Is not."
"You've never seen him up close and personal when he is."
"It's not a girl."
"It's not an it, either."
When he made a dismissive sound, she slapped him on the forearm.
"And now he's offended."
Gibbs rolled his eyes and gave himself a few languid strokes.
"Happy now?"
The petulant silence was short lived.
"It's decided then. Red Scuttles," she said as she moved closer with renewed vigour.
His eyes widened in disbelief.
"He doesn't scuttle."
"Oh he scuttles, Jethro. Want a demonstration?"
The anticipation of what he would feel the moment her fingertips brushed him was enough to prove her point.
"See ... " she said animatedly. "He scuttles."
"Do you one better," he mumbled into her ear as he pinned her beneath him. "SF. Semper Fi."
Jenny smiled as she acquiesced - because only Jethro would think of using something that open to interpretation – but looked up sharply when the smile on his face turned into a wince.
"Jethro?"
"It's nothing .."
Jen pushed him gently onto his back and looked intently at the area over his left hip which was covered up.
"I'm fine, Jen."
She looked impassively at him for a few seconds and then angled her head to look at the bedside clock. Swallowing compulsively as she realized that it was time to medicate Jethro's wound. Fighting back against the prickle of fear clawing at the back of her throat, she swung her legs out of bed. She couldn't manage upbeat, but with great effort kept her voice level as she spoke.
"Get ready for poking and prodding."
Jethro mumbled something about being able to take care of himself, but she was already embracing the refuge the bathroom offered.
As she opened the medicine cabinet over the basin, the panicky feeling in her stomach flared up again.
No matter how hard she tried, every time she looked at the wound, paralyzing dread and fear rose up.
For the first few days, Jethro had been pretty out of it; no small thanks to the heavy duty drugs Ducky had stashed into the first aid kit he had given her. But overnight Jethro had started to wean himself off them. He'd been pretty alert all morning and she knew he was going to be able to see right through her.
She fumbled with the first aid kit, and the scissors tumbled out and clattered to a standstill on the tile floor.
Jen stared at them for a moment, and then clamped her hand over her mouth as a small mewl escaped.
Gibbs lay on his back .. enjoying the view of the water through the metal railing on the balcony outside. Severe stormy weather was predicted sometime in the next twenty-four hours, but there was no sign of it yet. Dust motes danced in the pale winter sun, and he was content to lie there with nothing greater on his mind than -
A small crash from the direction of the bathroom made him turn his head sharply towards the door.
"Jen?" he called. When there was no reply he tried again. "Jen? Everything okay?"
Something which sounded suspiciously like a suppressed sob floated through the air, and when he again got no answer from Jenny he raised himself from the bed and made his way slowly over to the door separating him from her.
"Jenny?" He knocked once before entering - and the sight of her stopped him in his tracks.
Leaning her head against the wall tiles, she was obviously trying hard not to make any sounds as she cried.
He knew without having to ask that this had everything to do with him and his wound. She could be reliving the nightmare in the Czech Republic every time she looked at the wound, his mind supplied. But perhaps, he thought with a sinking feeling in his stomach, looking after him this way way disgusted her and she was trying to conceal the fact from him.
"I can do it myself, Jen," he said gently as he reached out to touch her shoulder.
Jen looked up at him with a stricken expression, and swiped furiously at her eyes with the heel of her hand; clearly mortified at being caught crying.
"No, I've got it Jethro," she said as she scooped everything up in her arms and headed back to the bedroom.
"Jen .." he grabbed her arm just as she had lowered all the items onto the bed. "You don't have to do this if it makes you feel bad."
There was something about the way he said it that made her look into his eyes; something she had avoided in her exit from the bathroom. And in an instant she realized that he had this all wrong.
"Oh God, no. No." She took his face between her hands and kissed his mouth. And his forehead. And every other part of his face available to her. "I just .." Her eyes became glassy again, and she pressed a hard kiss to his mouth to stop herself from crying again. When she'd regained a reasonable amount of control, she gave him a tight little smile and said, "Don't laugh. Ever since we found Annie's body in Marseille, I keep having this waking dream. That one of us is going to get shot somewhere and the other one won't be there. Stupid, right? I know. I know it's stupid but when you got shot in Naples I wasn't there and you could have died Jethro, and .. "
"Have you been helping yourself to my meds?" he asked as he pulled her into a strong embrace.
"I know it's stu - hey! I asked you not to laugh .."
"Then stop sayin' funny stuff," he said as he pulled the gauze off his wound, "and help me check this thing. You're scarin' the scuttler with the crazy talk."
Jenny snorted before she could stop herself and, grateful that he had defused the situation, applied herself to the task.
A few minutes later she sat on the edge of the bed next to him.
"Want to sit outside for a while?" she asked.
"And freeze to death?"
"Baby!" She slapped him gently on the chest with the back of her hand.
"The scuttler could catch a cold .." Jethro sidled closer to her suggestively.
Jen smiled as she tugged on a few chest hairs. "Is that your way of saying you're done convalescing." she asked. Giving him a knowing look before tweaking one of his nipples a little roughly.
By way of answer he pulled her hand away from his chest and under the sheets.
"Ready to get back into the saddle, huh?" she said as she stood from the bed and slipped out of her clothes.
"Yes ma'am."
"Well then it's time to break out the surprise .." she said with a small smile.
"Bourbon?"
Jen reached into the wardrobe and pulled a bottle out of a bag.
"Avocado oil," she said with a brightness in her eyes that usually meant she was very pleased with herself.
It triggered a little flutter deep inside him – which amplified when Jen gave him an incandescent smile.
The bed dipped under her weight and his eyes rolled back appreciatively at first contact.
The touch was soft but not tentative; they knew each other far too intimately for that. But there was something different about the sensation – which he attributed to the oil. He was used to lubricant, but this was a completely different sensation. The need to be completely skin to skin with her was pretty strong – but impossible to achieve; so although he wanted desperately to be a part of her, he let her take the lead.
He strained against her hand - gasping at a friction he'd grown unaccustomed to over the past week – and suddenly he realized he was out of control. It was like every single nerve he owned was being stimulated at once.
Wrapped tightly in her soft lubricated palm, he didn't stand a chance.
When he had stopped pulsating, he groaned and pulled a pillow over his face.
Jen lifted the edge of the pillowcase and looked down at him.
Clearly waiting for his reaction.
He threw one look back and hoisted himself into sitting position slowly.
As he rested his back against the headboard he patted the space between his legs, and as Jen placed her back against his chest, he cleared his throat.
"I might have taken a bullet a week ago," he whispered conspiratorially into her ear, "but my fingers still work."
Author's note:
Contrary to popular belief, men love having their assets named.