AN: This was supposed to be for the anniversary of Jenny's death, although it's a little after midnight now. Oops. It might also suck because once again I threw it together in a couple hours but hey, it exists. This is in the same universe as the story I wrote for May 20th last year, Feels Like Yesterday. It sorta references that one in one scene. You don't have to have read FLY but I prefer that you have, or you read that one afterward, just because they go together. And to anyone reading Damage Control, sorry about the unannounced hiatus, but I'm dumb enough to start a story during the busiest time of year, not to mention unexpected things coming up. Chapter four is a killer but the updates should be more frequent when I get back. Sorry for the long AN.

Taken for Granted

They weren't a normal family. Biologically they weren't a family at all, but some things were more important than blood. Still, a normal family didn't gravitate to a morgue for comfort. But normal was highly overrated to begin with.

Abby was trying not to cry onto Bert as she sat huddled on the floor. Tony was pouring another glass of scotch from his perch on the desk where Ziva sat next to him. Ducky sat on his desk chair and observed the others; the empty spot not going unnoticed. McGee and Palmer stood awkwardly; neither had known Jenny overly well but they'd come anyway to support their friends. Gibbs was nowhere to be found. In fact, no one had seen him all day.

"Tony, block it off!" Ziva complained, snatching the bottle from his hands.

"It's knock, Ziva, not block! Will you ever learn?"

"Tony, there are more important things to think about than my difficulty with American idioms."

"Really, like what, Jenny? She's dead, Ziva, it's not like we can do anything about that. At least I can do something about your poor excuse for slang."

"That's mean, Tony," Abby complained. "We're here to remember her." Tony turned to face the scientist.

"Remember, Abs? Did you look at her body? At the damage those bullets did when they tore through her? Did you forget that I'm the one who found her body?" His voice began to rise. "Did you forget that I saw her lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood? Do you remember seeing that?" Abby started crying.

"Tony…" she begged, but he cut her off.

"Didn't think so. Can a single one of you even imagine what that looked like? Do any of you still see it in your nightmares?"

"Yes," Ziva hissed ferociously, glaring at her partner. "I can do much more than imagine it, Tony, because, in case you forgot, I also found her body. Just because what you went through was particularly difficult does not mean nobody else experienced her loss."

"I touched her," Tony growled, still on the offensive.

"Abby had to process the evidence that was covered in Jenny's blood. I was there when she did it, and where were you exactly?" McGee shot back, speaking up for the first time.

"I processed the crimescene."

"As did I," Ziva retorted. "Jimmy assisted with her autopsy, for God's sake!"

"Oh… I… Uh…" Palmer stammered, unsure what to say.

"All of you! Stop this this instant!" Ducky's voice thundered above the rest of them. The elderly Scotsman was not often angered but his fury was indeed a sight to behold. "Now, I understand that Gibbs has a rule against apologies, but as he has decided not to grace us with his presence this evening, his opinions are not important. Thus I expect each of you to apologize to the group at large." No one spoke. "I'm waiting!"

A chorus of "I'm sorry's" echoed through the room. "Now then," Ducky continued, much calmer than before, "We gathered today to celebrate the life of our dear friend Jennifer. I understand that this is a particularly difficult time of year for all of you, but we must not allow our grief to drive us apart."

Abby smiled. "Jenny'd probably be really pissed if she knew we were fighting like this."

"Yeah, she'd give us all that glare that could almost rival Gibbs," Tony added, looking to Abby.

"And then threaten to keel-haul us. Although I still do not know what that is," Ziva contributed hastily, hoping no one would linger on the reference to their absent teammate.

"It's, uh," McGee began to explain but Tony stopped him.

"Unpleasant will suffice," he said, smiling at Ziva.

"That is what Jenny told me it was many years ago," Ziva explained. "Unpleasant. Tony was there."

"Kinda funny that we're meeting in Autopsy," Tony continued, "when the first time Jenny watched one she puked."

"Really, I never heard that story!" Abby exclaimed.

"Yes, it was quite the ordeal, although Jethro tells the story better-" Ducky stopped. Everyone fell silent, the mood suddenly more somber.

"Well, he's the one missing out. I'm not going to waste my time crying about it. Today is supposed to be about Jenny," Abby declared.

"Did I ever tell you about the first time we met?" Ziva asked, smiling at her friend.

"Is it top secret?" McGee queried warily.

"Not most of it," Ziva answered in such a way that no one could tell if she was joking. "It was in Cairo in 2001…"

""We missed you today Jethro," Ducky commented as he descended the staircase into the infamous basement. There was no reply. "Jethro?" he repeated, concerned.

"Over here, Jen," Jethro slurred.

"Oh dear," Ducky murmured as his friend came into view, seated on the floor with a piece of uncarved wood in one hand. As he drew closer Ducky noticed that in his other hand Jethro clutched two rather crumpled pieces of paper. Ducky took the papers and frowned. Jethro really shouldn't be torturing himself by reading them over and over again. Beside him was a nearly empty bottle of bourbon.

"Why'd you show, Jen? Decide you miss me all of a sudden? Or is it just about work? Cuz for someone who said no off the job you do have a habit of showing up at my house," Jethro also had been more talkative when he was drunk. Judging by the fact that he was hallucinating Jenny the man had to be pretty far gone. Ducky paused to consider how to proceed when is mind was made up for him. Jethro fell to the floor, unconscious.

Gently, the doctor moved his friend into a more comfortable position and wadded up a blanket beneath his head. He went upstairs and returned with a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin and settled in to wait.

Jethro woke up an hour later. He groaned in discomfort. It felt like his skull was being split open.

"Nice to see you've returned to the world of the living," Ducky commented. "Although I believe you had a rather unpleasant visit with our dear Jennifer while you were out." Jethro grimaced.

"I was hallucinating… Jen?"

"You were highly inebriated. Terrible for your health, by the way. You've been unconscious an hour. We missed you today. It was a celebration of Jennifer's life, you know, the least you could do was attend."

"I told you I wasn't going, Duck, and I meant it."

"Shutting yourself up in here alone is not going to help you move on, Jethro. We've been through this before!" Jethro sighed.

"I didn't want to talk about her, okay?"

"Well it's certainly not helping to keep reading those damn letters either. In my opinion you should have thrown them out by now but I suppose we all have our mementos, however morbid yours may be."

"I was planning to forgive her, Duck," Jethro said softly. "I mean, I already had, but I was going to tell her. I guess I just thought she needed to suffer a little bit first. I don't know. But I always took for granted that she'd still be there."

"None of us saw this coming, Jethro," Ducky replied gently.

"You did. Not the shooting, but you knew she was sick. You knew she didn't have much time left," Jethro contradicted.

"I told her to tell Jethro, but there was nothing more I could do. She made me promise I'd keep her secret and I'm not the sort of person who breaks a confidence. Especially to a friend. Although that still doesn't explain why you kept the letters." Both began with the words 'Dear Jethro,' but one, dated 1999, followed with a rambling message whereas the other, dated 2008, was otherwise blank.

"It's all I have left of her, Ducky," the elder man sighed. He was angry with Jethro for hurting himself like this, and we wished he could stay angry so that Jethro would understand that, but he couldn't. Jethro needed a friend and he didn't have many.

"What's the wood for?" Ducky asked, gesturing to the pretty board Jethro was still holding.

"I bought it four years ago. I wanted to make her something but I didn't know what. Last year I thought maybe I'd just leave it this way, but now I'm not so sure."

"You'll think of something. I'm going to go make you some coffee." As Ducky left, Jethro considered his friend's words. For once, he was fairly certain Ducky was wrong. Jethro didn't think there was a way to represent Jenny in a piece of wood. She would always be the beautiful, complicated woman who had never given back his heart. She would always be the woman he loved. Maybe by next year he'd have come up with something fit to immortalize her, but on the fourth anniversary of her death he would have to concede defeat.

Maybe he should stop taking the rest of his NCIS family for granted. Maybe on the anniversary of Kate's death, four days from now, he'd see them. But he wasn't ready to tell them about Jenny, and he probably never would be.