Disclaimer: I own nothing of NCIS. I'm just playing with wonderful characters, nothing more.
Minutes later and he was still sitting at the table, phone closed in his hand. She was gone. The sting from his black eye was the only thing that told him just how long he'd been sitting here. She wasn't coming back. It hurt. God it hurt for her to tell him. It had hurt almost as much as the hurt that had driven him to Mexico. But there was no Mike Franks to make things better, and she wouldn't be asking him for help to get him back. She was gone.
A light step in the hallway barely sounded, but he stayed where he was. She was gone.
"Boss?"
He resisted the temptation to smirk at his agent's tentativeness. She was gone.
"Boss?"
The sheer begging tone finally made him look away from the phone. She was gone. But Timothy McGee was standing right in front of him, a phone clutched tightly in his grasp, a look of heartbroken wretchedness on his face. One look at Tim told him that he was repeating the same mantra. She was gone.
"She called you, didn't she?"
A nod. A wrenching breath. A swiped face with a sleeve.
"She's gone."
"I know, son. I know."
"Why?"
"I think she wanted something different. But we'll see her again."
"How do you know?"
A knowing look. A rising eyebrow. An infectious grin.
"Right."
Gibbs slowly stood and put a hand on Tim's shoulder.
"Come on."
He slowly led him to the basement. It was time that his youngest agent got some things off his mind, and he might as well be comfortably sanding on his latest project rather than sitting at the table staring at that damned phone.