A/N: So I am in love with 'The Biggest Loser' and was watching the latest episode and one of Jillian's talks with Bobby, team aqua, really stuck with me as it could be made to fit Jibbs and Jenny's leaving. She told him that "Fear will pass but Regret... lasts forever." And after reading the quote, ya'll know where I'm going, so enjoy.
Fear and Regret
She left him, she really did. She was stunned as she hid out in the woman's bathroom for the next couple hours, making sure that he and the plane had left before leaving. She was cautious, making sure he was in fact on the plane and not waiting for her to confront her or try to convince her not to leave.
She was glad not to see him, because if he just asked her to stay for an hour, she would have stayed forever. And she didn't know if they would work or if another opportunity would come along. She wasn't prepared to risk this chance on the variable of her and Jethro working back in the States.
She moved across the concourse, to a plane that would take her to England before New York instead of a direct flight to DC. She slept during the first flight, pills helping calm her racing mind and aching heart. Her dreams were two fold. They would start with her and Jethro back in the states, arguing and on the verge of breaking up. The feeling she had justified why she left.
But then the dream would change, they would no longer be fighting, they would be a hospital room, with her daughter or son in her arms with his arms around her. The new feeling in her heart made her want to return to his side and make the dream a reality.
But something held her back. What if the second dream was just that, a dream? What if she went back, didn't take the promotion to the Middle East, got back together with him and if all fell apart? That fear kept her on the plane to England and later New York where she quietly returned to her family's brownstone in Georgetown.
She took a few days to rest and recover, eating Naomi's food and ignoring the well-meaning maid's worried looks she shot over to her boss and friend. She did her laundry, preparing to pack everything and have some of it here, but the majority of her stuff would follow her to the Middle East and her new assignment.
As she folded some of her undergarments and packed them into suitcases she reflected on how she was doing the one thing she never wanted to do; not have a home and keep going from stopping point to stopping point. She stopped and looked around her room, the same room she had as a teenager when her father was assigned to the Pentagon and could stop moving from base to base every few years or leaving Jenny with her grandparents while he went into the hot spots around the world.
She thought about that for a few minutes when the door to her room opened and Naomi bustled in, a freshly dried load of laundry in her arms along with a shoe box. Jenny hurried forward taking some of the load from the older woman's arms and dumping it into the existing pile on her bed before moving to take the rest of the load and doing the same to it before raising her eyebrow at the shoe box.
"I was looking for the spare laundry detergent I had up there but found this instead." Naomi said, passing the box to her employer before telling her that she was running to the store to get laundry washing supplies.
She had a credit card that Jenny paid for, so her maid could buy whatever supplies/food she needed to do her job during work hours. She left and Jenny finished folding the pair of panties, a black lacy one, before packing it and sitting down on her bed. She brought the box closer to her, she was pretty sure it was one of the boxes containing stuff from when she was a child, but she didn't remember ever seeing this box before.
She opened it to find that it was her baby box. Inside the first thing she picked up was a photo book that held an image of her mother; red haired and brown eyed (her green eyes came from her father) throughout her pregnancy with Jenny. A new picture was taken every week. Her mother would stand sideways with her shirt pulled up under her breasts. As the images progressed the stomach expanded before dropping low as Jenny grew inside her mother's stomach. Images from the sonograms were placed inside the book after the image of her mother from that week. The last images where from the day she'd been born.
One was of her mother soon after getting to the hospital, her contractions weren't too far apart and she was close; her face was drawn with pain, but there was a sparkling light in her eyes. The next one was of baby Jenny as she was cradled in her mom's arms (the hospital gown could be seen). Then the shot moved out and Jenny was held in a smiling embrace from her mother. The next image was of Jasper Shepard, in Army day clothes, his hair short in the standard military crew cut. He held the tiny pink bundle in his arms, his face both happy and concerned.
Jenny felt tears start to sting her eyes as she looked at a younger picture of her father. The greatest man she ever knew and her entire world. The young man in the picture was probably concerned with how to raise a child and couldn't have known that 19 years from then that he'd be dead and almost buried, because she buried him the day after she turned 19, after his body had been autopsied and examined by Army CID, ruling his death a suicide.
Jenny didn't believe them, her mother died about ten minutes after the picture of her and Jenny had been taken, her womb and the rest of her 'female parts' hadn't stopped bleeding and she lost too much blood too quickly to be revived. And so her father became her only parent, and he was good at it. Back then the military was sympathetic with her father's plight; sending him from safe base to safe base. They lived all over the united states until she was ten years old, then he was stationed to bases in allied countries. They lived in France the longest, which is why she picked up the language. After four years in Paris they went to England for another two and Japan for one year. That last year she was sent to his parents as he went to the Middle East.
He carefully worked with his parents to plan an extravagant party for her 18th birthday where he surprised her. Both with his presence and news that he would be stateside at the Pentagon. And within the next year it all unraveled, ending with his death three weeks before she turned 19 years old. The tears stung her eyes as she carefully set the book aside and pulled the original sonograms of her as a child from the box next. All were carefully in order, marked both by hand and technology with the date and time. The delicate hand had also added anecdotes about what went on that day in the office, preserving the good memories to share with the baby they were focused on.
She set that to the side before pulling out a tiny pink hat, onesie and blanket; the outfit supplied by the hospital when Jenny was born. They were tiny and Jenny laughed through the stinging of her tears as she set them to the side. Other images and carefully preserved gifts to her as a newborn were also in the box, and the last thing was journal.
The first date of the journal was ten months before she was born. The handwriting was her mother's as she talked about her desire to conceive a child with Jasper, her husband and the man she loved. The next couple months her mother wrote at least a little every day, about simple things like that day's weather or what she did that day, and one entry a month mentioned something about her period starting, disappointment laced heavily in the written words. But finally she came upon a few months where her mother reported not having her period until finally seven months before her birth; her mother wrote in happy letters that her blood work had confirmed her home pregnancy test: she was with child.
The journal still talked about the mundane things but instead of mentions of her period, talked about the baby from then on. She sat and read every page and every entry, living the experience through her mother's detailed words. She didn't notice Naomi's return, nor did she notice the older lady enter the room and finish folding her employer's laundry and Jenny read from her mother's journal.
When she finished the last entry, her mother had been writing when her water broke, she finally noticed that the sun was no longer out, night a fallen and her laundry had been folded. She set the journal to the side and went to get up and see if Naomi was still around when her maid bustled through the door food on a tray in her hands.
Naomi handed the food tray over before leaving, returning with a large tumbler full of bourbon; something Jethro had managed to pass over to his Probie and latest lover. Jenny ate as the words her mother wrote spun around in her head, Jenny regretted now more than ever (including the time she first got her own period) not having a mother to advise her. She finished her food and sipped her bourbon as she poured through the box, coming to the end and finding an envelope so thin except in one corner that she almost missed it, busy taking a sip of bourbon to look into the box. She pulled the envelope out of the box and noticed her name written in her mother's handwriting.
With shaking hands she tore the envelope open, careful not to rip anything but the envelope. She pulled out a letter written in beautiful Ivory stock based paper. The item still making one corner different than the rest stayed in the box as she opened the ivory paper and saw her mother had written her a letter.
My Dearest Baby Girl,
I'm sorry this letter won't have your name on the letter, only the envelope, but we have just discovered that you should be a girl this afternoon. I have written this letter to help channel my thoughts and keep me from any restless pacing while waiting for your father to return home from work. I hope you get a chance to meet your dad and that he stays alive to see any important event in your life, but baby, your daddy works for the military and sometimes that means he has to make the ultimate sacrifice to keep us and the rest of our country safe.
We have plans to order food and discuss what to name you when he returns tonight. I'm pushing for Jennifer because I've always loved that name, and I want your grandmother to be a part of your life, though you will only meet when you join her in the afterlife.
Maybe your middle name could be Anne after Jasper's mother. I like that baby girl: Jennifer Anne Shepard. Yes that's a very good idea, now all I have to do is convince your stubborn father. Easier said than done.
Baby girl I know something's not right with me. I hear the nurses talking while I'm in for my exams, hushing a little as they pass the room I'm in. I see my doctors pitying gaze as she looks at me as I talk about meeting you and seeing you when you take your first step or speak your first word; which I hope is something about your father. I feel too weak and I hope it's only the pregnancy but incase it's not I need to say certain things to you.
I love you, enough to give you my own life; as does your father. There is nothing we wouldn't do for you. Nothing. My sweet precious baby, you mean the world to me and even if the worst should happen and I die after you are born, remember that I am always here for you, some part of me will never leave you for I am a part of you.
The second thing is: don't be afraid to make mistakes. Mistakes are lessons you have to learn just as speaking, and walking are. Sometimes the lessons are harder to learn, but they're just lessons. Also along the same lines, don't stop living to avoid making mistakes.
Baby girl one of the hardest lessons I have learned in my life so far is that Fear, fear of anything or any person, is passing. But regret lasts for a lifetime. So my darling don't hide out for fear of failure because there will always be a chance for things to work out. Even if they don't work out the way you planned them.
The last thing I have to say to you baby girl is that love is wonderful and to not give it up for anything unless you have no choice and even then consider all angles and every option. I tell this to you because if my mother hadn't told me, then I wouldn't have married your father and you wouldn't be kicking inside me.
Your father and I were high school sweethearts, but when he told me during senior year that he wanted to join the Army, I questioned whether the risk of losing him was greater than the love we did have. I told him that the risk was too great and that if wanted to join, he'd do it without me. For the rest of that semester until Christmas we didn't see each other at all.
I grew despondent missing him, but too afraid of his death to go back to him and he was hurt and stubborn to come to me. Finally at Christmas time that year, my mother told me that love was always worth the risk.
The next day I ran to him in the mall as we both were spending our gift cards and exchanging the clothes for others that fit. I ran into his arms and we both made up, with him offering to not go to the Army, he just wanted me. I was the one who told him that love was worth the risk and that I would be his reason to strive to survive.
Baby girl I love you and I hope I can give this when you graduate college and start your life outside of academics, even if you do so with a hoard of your own children and no father to help. For I love you baby girl and all I wish for you is Peace and Happiness.
Your loving mother.
Jenny had tears pouring down her face as she tipped the ripped envelope into her hand and a small circle fell out, the letters JAS engraved in beautiful script fell out. It was attached to a fine silver chain and Jenny clasped it around her neck and tucked it under her blouse, vowing to never take it off.
Jethro.
The name tore across her mind and in seconds she was standing and sprinting out of her room and down the stairs, grabbing her keys on the way out the door. The letter still in her hand. She drove, bare foot from her Georgetown home to Jethro's house.
His truck was in the doorway, but there were no lights on in the house. Jenny hoped it meant that he was in his basement and not asleep. Sure enough when she peered around the garage, that ne never used, a light shown from the only window in Jethro's basement. She then headed to the front door, tears still streaming down her face.
The door was unlocked, per usual and Jenny entered the house, her bare feet making no noise. In fact the only noise in the house was the faint sound of wood breaking and the shuttering breaths she was trying to make to keep the sobs away. At least until she was in Jethro's arms or back out the door, rejected.
She headed through the house on silent feet to the top of the basement stairs. Jethro looked wild as ripped apart the wooden boat frame they had both worked on together. The memories too intense to handle. His hair was sticking out all over the place, like it looked when she ran her hair through his wet hair as they made love after a shower and it dried. His face was unshaved, as if he hadn't shaved since the morning they left their little, cozy apartment in Paris. This was probably what happened.
His eyes were hooded, dark circles under his eyes said that what little sleep he had gotten the past few days was only the result of passing out from the amount of bourbon he'd drunken that night. Four bottles, empty bottles, littered the workbench, and a fifth half-full bottle resided on the moving stand that held his sanding blocks and sand paper that allowed him to have it with him, even on the opposite side the boat.
His shirt was on the floor, bloody and Jenny grew concerned, looking over his bare chest for wounds, seeing the fresh scar of the bullet he took in Positano only a few months ago. She didn't see anything but a few large splinters embedded in his shoulders like shrapnel. She looked at his face carefully and saw dried blood on his upper lip, it looked like it came from his nose and one of his eyes was swelling by the second.
Jethro probably hadn't started drinking here tonight. Chances are he was at a dive bar, away from both this house, hers and the Navy Yard and got into a fight at some point. He probably didn't start it, and the bar tender sent him home with a bottle of bourbon for his pains as he plopped into a taxi.
Jethro had then, most likely, returned home and begun to drink his new bottle only to get lost in the swirls of memory surrounding the boat and decided to take the anger and hurt he felt onto the boat instead of another person.
She watched for a few more minutes, the tears and aching heart stopping as she looked at the man she loved, who was also hurting. A few of the splinters embedded into him started to fall out, but a few started to bled and when Jenny saw the blood, her brain flashed to seeing him shot in Positano and the fear built up.
But this time, instead of running away like leaving him; she ran to him. No longer willing to risk losing him. She bolted down the stairs, stopping when he turned to her. He looked at her with blurry, drunk eyes. Not sure if she was real or some part of his drunken mind. He could have been thinking that he had either passed out or knocked himself out and this was only a dream.
She grabbed his hands and led him upstairs, sitting him down on the couch as she grabbed to antiseptic ointment and forceps. She carefully pulled out each splinter, even the tiny ones before making sure the bleeding ones were clean before pulling his now sleepy frame back up to stand. She pulled one arm across her shoulders and helped him up stairs and into his bed. She laid him down and then pulled off his jeans, leaving him in his tighty-whites. She tucked him and lulled him to sleep. She pulled off her own clothes and crawled into the other side of the bed.
She sat against the headboard and looked at the man she loved, and almost lost. He slept for a few hours as she stared at him, tracing the muscles on his torso along with the scars that dotted him. After a few hours he became restless.
He cried out and Jenny knew he was having a nightmare; he'd had them before and usually calmed down if Jenny talked to him.
"Jethro, baby it's Jenny. I'm here my love. I'm not leaving again." She moved her hand to his cheek and stroked his face, soothing him. His arms shot out and pulled her as tight as possible to him and he finally relaxed and slept.
His grip on her had loosened throughout the night so when she woke up in the morning, she was able to slid out of bed and into the bathroom. He was still asleep when she got out and decided to go downstairs and cook some breakfast and get the coffee going, but she wanted to undo the letter that started it and grabbed a pad of paper from the living room and headed back to the room and sat against the headboard and started to write.
He was still asleep when she finished ten minutes later. She laid the letter on his pillow and went downstairs to get started on breakfast. The coffee was, of course, the first thing to get started and soon the smell headed upstairs and reached his nose. He woke up and pulled on the jeans from the night before, noticing the bandages over a few places on his shoulder.
He relieved himself and reentered the bedroom to see the pad of paper on his bed. He picked it up with the intention of bringing back downstairs, not sure why it was up here in the first place. But then he noticed it had writing on it. Writing in a female hand, a familiar feminine hand. Jenny's hand. He collapsed onto the bed to read whatever she wrote this time, hoping it would erase the last letter he got from her.
Dear Jethro,
I am writing this from beside you as you sleep. Yes I'm here. I came back. Originally to simply take a few days and wash all my laundry before taking my own team in the Middle East. But Naomi found a box that my mother created during the period when she was pregnant with me.
She wrote me a letter saying that Fear passes but Regret is forever. And then I realized I ran because I loved you and feared us falling apart. I couldn't handle that, so instead of giving us the chance to succeed, I took the chance away from us.
Jethro I love you, I don't think I'll stop loving you.
My last letter said I had to do what's best for me. Well babe, hindsight is 20/20 for you are the best thing for me and to happen to me.
I'm downstairs making some breakfast and brewing coffee. Come downstairs and talk to me, and I mean really talk to me. But don't distract me; I don't want to burn down your kitchen.
Oh, by the way; you destroyed your boat last night and had splinters all over your torso. I got them all out and bandaged the ones that had started to bleed. This is also why you're in your room and not in the basement.
Jenny
Jethro took a deep breath as he remembered going to the bar and some idiot picked a fight with him. The bar tender gave Jethro a bottle of bourbon as he sent him home in a cab, having been a little roughed up. He got home and headed to the basement and began to drink the new bottle before looking at the boat and remembering teaching Jen how to sand, pressing up against her back as he kissed her neck before she spun around and leaned against a rib, kissing him.
The memories hurt and then he grew angry and took it out on the boat, trying to destroy it.
He headed downstairs to see Jenny, dressed in a pair of jeans and her bra cooking eggs in a pan on the stove as toast was in the toaster. She had a mug of black coffee at her elbow on the counter and he grabbed his own mug and poured coffee into it.
He hugged her briefly from behind before setting the mug down and running outside to grab the morning paper, opening it as he waited. He loved the scene in front of him and the feeling inside him. She came back.
When the eggs were scrambled complete with melted cheese and toast had been buttered and both had been plated, she brought them over before refilling their coffee mugs and sat down as they ate.
He cleaned up, his eyes following her as she moved, swaying her hips for his pleasure. When they finished they headed upstairs and Jenny pulled on one of his old USMC shirts as he pulled on a simple, tight black tee shirt.
When he finished he pulled her to him, hugging her for all he was worth.
"I'm glad your back, Jen," he whispered into her neck, feeling her arms wrap around his shoulders.
"Me too," she said, her voice muffled by his temple.
"Why were you afraid we would fail?" He asked.
"Because we fought like cats and dogs before finding we like sex better. I didn't know if we were really in love or it was just the cover. And I heard you scream another woman's name during your last nightmare." She answered and he could see why she would be afraid.
"Those first fights were because I didn't want a woman on my team. I spent most of my time at work and my relationship with my wife was suffering because of it. I knew if I had another good looking red head on the team she'd assume I was cheating on her; and she did. But the rest of the fights after the divorce was finalized were because I wanted to fight my attraction to you. The sex was amazing, because I had stopped fighting the feelings.
"Yes, we were really falling in love. I'm extremely careful about who I say the words to, which is why I made the John Wayne comment when you told me. And yeah I was scared about losing you if I loved you." He trailed off and she decided that the last issue, the name needed to be addressed.
"Who is Shannon, Jethro?" She questions her hands keeping his face at her level.
"Come with me." He said and she slid her feet into a pair of his slippers and followed him. The shoes were too big, but were better than her bare feet. Her car was blocking his truck so she silently passed her keys to him and climbed into the passenger seat.
He drove them for a while; she eventually fell asleep after not sleeping for most of the previous night. The rest of the drive was completed in silence.
Gibbs had decided when he first read her letter to let her in on everything. And that meant Shannon and Kelly, but he couldn't talk about because it hurt too much, so he was going to show her. She was going with him to visit their graves. He stopped at the flower shop about ten minutes away from the quiet little cemetery they were entered in. She woke up when he came back with three bouquets of flowers. He drove to the cemetery and she grew concerned but held his hand and let him lead her over to a pair of graves.
It sent the bouquet of daises with a single red rose over a grave with the name Shannon Gibbs on it, and the daises with the purple tulip went on the grave marked Kelly Gibbs. She read the dates Shannon must have been either his sister or his wife, and Kelly his daughter or niece.
If he had brought her here before Paris she would have assumed sister and niece. But after living with him in Paris and sleeping in the same bed as a nightmare tore Shannon's name from his lips in a pained voice, she thought it was wife and daughter.
She backed away a few steps and gave him some privacy. She knew this was his way of opening up to him and so three hours later when they returned to her townhouse after Jethro packed a bag with a couple changes of clothes, she opened up to him.
She talked about her father and mother, showed him the book of photos and some of the contents of the box, she talked about her father's death and how she never believed it was suicide. He understood that her search for enlightenment about her father's death was safer then loving him.
With the air cleared they went about life like normal, he didn't stop her from heading out to the Middle East, asking only that she do everything in her power to return to him.
The night before she left, he gave her a ring of woven white and yellow gold. It wasn't an engagement ring but he hoped that she liked the ring and would wear it on her wedding ring finger to keep any men off of her. She agreed and had him slide the ring onto her finger.
The next day he took her to the airport and kissed her goodbye before heading to headquarters and being giving an assignment in Moscow. He packed his own house, locking the door behind him and traveled to Russia; glad he already spoke the language and didn't have to rely on his partner.
He and Jenny wrote to each other weekly. Jenny at the beginning of the week and Jethro at the end. Whenever they could get away they meet up in Paris or England and spent a couple days before returning.
A year later, Jethro's mission in Russia was finished and he was given control over the MCRT in DC. Jenny was now overseeing the Middle Eastern Ops. Soon Jethro gained a former Baltimore PD detective as a field agent, one Tony Dinozzo. He was assigned Probies to fill out the free spot on his team running cases and his team ragged.
Jenny had been promoted to Assistant Director and was now stationed in London. They were able to call each other every day but kept up their weekly letters. Tom eventually started to call him into MTAC towards the end of any briefing or meeting on the video screen and told the techs to give them a few minutes.
Both relished the time to see each other's faces and would both smile more for the rest of the day.
One day, five years after Paris. Jenny had to go back into the field working with Mossad Officer Ziva David. She ended up being severely injured and the only reason she survived was because Ziva saved her. Jethro surprised her in the London hospital she was transferred to and stayed with her for a few weeks, using some of his back logged vacation days.
The following year they married in a quiet service during a trip she made to the states to surprise him, and ended up being surprised herself. Six months later she returned to the US as NCIS's new Director. Anytime she made any type of press announcement or held a press conference the stoic Agent Gibbs could be seen supporting his wife; Director Gibbs.
Fear passes and will pass, but Regrets last a lifetime.