Hey Jen,
Passersby must have thought him strange — a silver haired man sitting stonily on a park bench, talking wistfully to the air.
He glanced down at his weathered hands, imagining her dainty yet deceptively lethal hands in his.
The ice blue gaze of his piercing eyes caressed the contours of the air as if it were her face.
He sought out her viridian irises in the flurry of falling leaves that would soon give way to a bitterly cold snow.
It would be the third winter without her here.
"Hey Jen," he spoke hoarsely, "How are you?"
Running a calloused hand over his face, he wrapped his fingers around the extra coffee cup sitting next to him.
Black. Jamaican blend.
"Ziver is going to propose soon." He twisted the ring on his finger pensively, running a crooked finger over the inscription — 'We'll always have Paris' — as he spoke to her like she was there.
"She dragged me to help her pick out a ring, said something about Abby being my favorite and that I would know best."
He chuckled, almost happily, as he thought of the girls who had essentially become their daughters.
"In the end she picked out the perfect ring. All on her own." Yanking the chain that held his dog tags around his neck out from under his white t-shirt, he cast longing eyes over the small ring that hung there with its emerald and rubies.
"It reminded me so much of what I had done when I went to get your ring."
He drew the wallet out of his pocket and slid out a new Polaroid, holding it out as if proffering it to someone.
"DiNozzo managed to get Jeanne Benoit back. They've been married a year and three months now." He cracked half a smile, "She forgave him. She understood that it was his job."
Flipping through the new book that sat next to him, beside the extra coffee cup, he read through that dedication one more time.
For Director Jennifer Shepard
Jenny, you've been there for all of us, all the way. We hope you are happy, wherever it is you may be. Semper fi, Mom.
"I don't think you ever realized how much you helped every single one of them."
Pulling out a far more worn photograph from between the pages, he ran his finger over her familiar face again.
"Ziva was cold when she came, shaped by the cruelty of Eli David. You were the only one she truly, implicitly trusted and you helped her become one of us."
He sighed as he thought of the girl who had come to the States, only to have to shoot her own brother between the eyes to save a total stranger.
She had changed so much, grown into a woman.
"What she wouldn't give to have you here to be her maid of honor. What she wouldn't give to have her mom here."
"You calmed Abby. You put solid ground that held its place under her ridiculously impractical shoes. You gave her a mother she could count on."
The baby of the team. She had needed someone like Jenny so much; strong, confident, firm and motherly, so many things that she desperately craved.
Jenny had kept her rooted. After all, it had been Abby who had first dubbed them 'Mommy and Daddy'.
"She needs you here so much right now, especially with what Ziva is going to do. Abs is going to be so overwhelmed; she will need her mom around."
The boys, goodness. Those children had grown under her so much.
"DiNozzo is actually trying to start a family with Jeanne. I think you made him realize that a family was much more than what Senior had failed to give him after his mother died. You filled that void and made him mature."
A deep laugh rumbled in his throat as he remembered the days of the overgrown man-child.
"He isn't such an ass anymore."
"McGee worshipped you, y'know? He looked up to you so much because in you he saw how much he could become. He could learn to be a great field agent while still being able to deal with the bigwigs without shooting them."
How would they make it through without her?
Even if she had changed them all that much for the better.
"Charlotte misses you. So much. I hear her sobbing every night and it is like a stab to my heart each time I know I cannot console her." His voice broke as he though of their two and a half year old.
"She needs her Mama around and I can't explain it away with a simple 'je'taime'."
The young girl was almost a carbon copy of Jenny, with the alabaster skin and scarlet hair as well as her mother's bone structure.
She was going to be tall, and about seventy percent of her height would be legs.
The only striking thing she had gotten from her Papa was his eyes.
Well, half his eyes.
Her eyes were the perfect shocking mix between his ice blue and her viridian evergreen.
Looking into her eyes was like looking into the combined, unhaunted pasts of her parents.
He could only hope they would remain that way.
Gathering all his things together, he rose to excuse himself from their customary weekly date and a figure slid onto the seat beside him.
A lithe hand slipped past him and clutched the still-warm cup of coffee and drank deeply.
"Thank you for waiting, Jethro."
His eyes paled even more with shock, then darkened to a deeper cerulean with the joy that she was beside him.
"What are you doing here, Jen? You go up to Russia every winter to get answers out of your father's old friend."
"This year, I realized that I have more important things to be at. After all, our family is still not whole."
She guided his hand slowly to her midriff, grasping it gently and pleading with him with her eyes to understand.
He grinned a bright, full smile and led her out of the cold autumn air, his hand on the small of her back and her tucked into his side.
They were going to celebrate the one thing they had left - family.