Jimmy doesn't let himself stop and question his motivations too hard when he shows up at Ducky's house at eleven in the morning on a Saturday, having promised to "help" Ducky pack up his mother's belongings and place them into storage until when Doctor Mallard is ready to put them up for sale or donate them. Days before, Ducky had almost casually told him that the thought of her belongings sitting there in disuse disturbed him greatly; it was as though the death on their table followed him home in the evening. Jimmy had offered to help clear everything out immediately.
There's many other things he could be doing on a Saturday, but Ducky is... if not his friend, at least someone who he respects and wishes were a friend. So he backs the truck up into Ducky's driveway, parking, opening up the back, rolling down the ramp, and hopping down with a stack of boxes and a roll of tape to knock on Ducky's door.
Ducky is there before Jimmy can raise his fist, smiling at Jimmy. "Lets get started, shall we?" Ducky says.
Jimmy frowns for a second. "You know what Doctor Mallard? I'd rather work on my own for a bit, if you don't mind. You don't have to help me."
Ducky stares at Jimmy like a body on their table- and Jimmy realizes it is the first time he's thought of the autopsy as belonging to the both of them- but shrugs his shoulders and turns to face the living room. "I'll show you to her room."
The room is a perfect shrine of a life no longer lived, the bed made just as it was when Ducky's mother first left to her nursing home. A brush with hairs still in it remains on her nightstand, and her slippers are still at the foot of the bed. Most of her clothing and some off her odd belongings went with her to the nursing home, and Ducky had told them to just donate all of those things which he had no use for- but everything else remains.
The nursing home had sent back the sole photo of them that had hung in her room in the end, and Ducky had thrown it away either in anger of the fact that never while his mother was in care had she ever looked up at it and recognized a face, or simply in anger of the fact that her fate awaited him only a decade or two down the road.
Ducky leaves Jimmy to the room, finding a book and situating himself such that he will hear Jimmy's work and hear him if he needs assistance. Jimmy sets to work assembling the first box, taping one side of it shut. He packs away her array of perfumes and makeups into one box, covering each with newspaper as though they are simply being moved to another home for their owner- and not moved to a temporary death until Ducky can find it in himself to permanently kill them. He tops the box off with everything he finds of hers in the bathroom, a feminine bottle of body wash still hanging in the shower and a box of diapers in the cabinet.
When he's through with that box, he sets to work packing the remains of her clothing from the closet, sorting and labeling everything on the side of the box- though the owner will never consult the label to figure out where her dresses are. Again, he maintains the facade that a living being's belongings are being packed up, because some part of him knows that Doctor Mallard will break if he treats Ducky's Mother's belongings as anything but deeply tied to a precious life.
After that, he strips the bed and places the bedding all in one oversized box, leaving the pillows on the side for his disposal pile. He walks past Ducky when he decides to walk his three boxes out, one by one, but refuses Ducky's offer to help. His "no!" comes from the same place that he suspects many of the things he doesn't want to accept about how he feels about Ducky come from- the place that knows that what he's doing is exactly what's right, and that Ducky helping him would feel wrong.
When he returns from depositing the third box in the truck and bringing in his small toolkit, he finds a glass of water and half a sandwich sitting on top of the now cleared dresser. Jimmy smiles, drinking from the glass before setting it down for later, temporarily ignoring the food. He sets to work determining which of the furniture he can carry whole- the lamp, maybe the nightstand, and which he can't- the bed and the dresser. He begins with the bed, prying the mattress off the bed and setting to work disassembling the base.
He writes down every step he takes tearing it apart, so that he doesn't forget how to put it back together. The small pieces and screws go into a box, and then he carries each of the bigger boards out in individual trips.
The same formula is followed for the dresser, and then he hunts through Ducky's kitchen for trash bags for the pillows and various other disposables he's encountered clearing out the dresser. Ducky follows him into the kitchen, pointing out where the trash bags are stored.
"You said you'd help me, Mr. Palmer, but I appear to be forbidden from doing any of the work in this, ah, collaborative effort."
Jimmy fists the trash bag in his hand. "It isn't that hard for me to do, Doctor Mallard. I enjoy doing it."
Ducky smiles at Jimmy then, gesturing for him to go back to work, and Jimmy doesn't understand it.
It takes him half an hour to negotiate the mattress right to the edge of the door, finally conceding that he has to accept Ducky's help to lift the thing from the door into the truck without dragging it across the floor.
When Jimmy finishes clearing out the room, he locks the truck and hunts down a vacuum to clean out the room. He scrubs the windows, cleans each blind, fusses over every scratch he might've left on the walls, and eventually declares his work done when it is nearly six in the evening and he's pretty sure nobody would realize anyone had ever occupied this room were it not for the fact that there's still some marks on the wall he needs to get paint to cover over.
Ducky has been stopping in to stare at him working or order him to eat throughout the day, and now that he's finished, Ducky is out of his chair and standing in the doorway again. He stares at the nearly perfect empty room. "Thank you, Jimmy." Ducky simply says.
"You're welcome. I have to drive the truck over to storage now." Jimmy says.
"Nonsense, Jimmy. I'm going to drive you home and you'll come back tomorrow and take it over then once you've had a good night's sleep in you." Ducky insists, and Jimmy listens, following Doctor Mallard out to his car and getting in without complaint.
Ducky makes conversation as they drive back to Jimmy's apartment. "You didn't have to do all of that your own, Mr. Palmer. You certainly didn't need to do it all in a day."
Jimmy shrugs even though Ducky can't see it. "Once I got started, I knew what I was doing. I didn't want you to have to help."
"I didn't have to. I offered." Ducky insists.
Jimmy sighs. "I liked doing it, Doctor Mallard. I liked you sitting in the other room knowing I was working in your home, and I liked you stopping in to watch over me every now and then. You helping more than you already did would have ruined that in ways that I really do not want to think about."
"Alright, Jimmy. We'll think about it another day."
–
And they do. Jimmy returns the following week to paint over the walls of Mrs. Mallard's room, creating perfection itself yet again. Ducky insists that Jimmy stay over for a proper lunch once he's done, and corners him during the meal- a move Jimmy suspects he should have seen coming in hindsight. They sit at the table to eat properly, like Jimmy isn't covered in paint and ravenous from the work. Ducky has a communal bowl of salad out, and serves them both burgers.
"Did you enjoy painting, Jimmy?" Ducky asks, using the same false conversational tone he'd use with Gibbs when trying to lead Gibbs to conclude his own guilt in a matter.
"Yes."
"Do you enjoy painting your own home?" Ducky continues, and Jimmy can't help but answer.
"No, not really."
"So, are you going to tell me why you enjoy painting my home but not your home?" Ducky finishes, and Jimmy stares down at his salad in guilt.
"I like helping." Jimmy says, wishing the conversation would die as much as he's wishing that the scrutiny wont stop.
"I surmised you "like helping" sometime during your first week chasing me around autopsy, Mr. Palmer. I asked why you like helping me, here outside of work."
Jimmy shrugs. "I don't have the words for that yet, Ducky, even though I think you already know them. Can't we just... have this as it is, and it doesn't have to be anything or mean anything."
"It means something." Ducky replies. "But no, there is no need for words until you're ready to negotiate them. I wont ask you to do anything until you're ready to speak your terms, but I find absolutely nothing objectionable with you asking to come here whenever you wish and being of use in whatever way you desire."
Jimmy looks up to answer. "Those are good words."
They finish eating, and know that later they'll have to say more, but right now acknowledgment is enough.