Title: Insistence
Rating: T to be safe.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, and this has none of my own creation.
Summary: Jimmy could be just as stubborn as Dr. Mallard. Immediately post-Twilight. What I would have liked to have seen had Palmer actually been around for the Kill Ari eps. Oneshot.
Jimmy Palmer pulled the truck in and parked it. He looked sadly over at his passenger, and wondered if he should speak or not. Finally, he broke the silence.
"Dr. Mallard, we should get her in to the… get her inside."
Ducky seemed faraway, lost in thought. Jimmy knew that his mentor had a broken heart, and seeing him turn to him with blue eyes pooled with as yet unshed tears only confirmed it.
"Mr. Palmer, you should go home."
Jimmy smiled, without humour, but rather, with sympathy and gentle determination.
"I don't think so, Doctor."
"Jimmy, please… I'm not in any mood to argue with you right now," Ducky pleaded. He sounded more tired than Jimmy had ever heard him sound, in all his time at the NCIS morgue.
"I'm not arguing, Dr. Mallard. I am, however, telling you that I'm not going anywhere." Ducky turned to him, his face full of pain and loss. Jimmy closed his green eyes briefly and reached out to lay a hand on Ducky's arm. "We need to get Kate inside, and then we need to do what we need to do. But I'm not letting you do it alone," he said gently.
Ducky sighed, closing his eyes, shutting back the tears that were coming perilously close to falling. "Mr. Palmer, I really must insist."
"At the risk of getting myself fired… Ducky… I'm not going anywhere."
Ducky started slightly. Jimmy had never called him that in all his time there. It seemed odd somehow, out of place. But he realized that the gravity of the situation had probably prompted his softspoken assistant to pull out the big guns.
"I know how close you were to Kate. I didn't know her that well, but you did. I will not let you go through this alone. If you need time alone, fine, I can do that. But the… formalities," he said, trailing off, and hesitant to use the word "autopsy," "I have no intention of leaving you to that by yourself."
Jimmy sensed that in spite of his insistence that he remain to help Dr. Mallard get through the most difficult post-mortem he'd probably ever had to perform, his boss and mentor really needed a few minutes by himself.
"I'll take her inside," he finally said, moving to get out of the truck. "Take whatever time you need, Sir. I can handle her myself... she isn't heavy," he said, smiling sadly.
Ducky nodded, finally grateful for the gesture of stubborn loyalty and concern. He watched Jimmy get out, and move towards the back of the truck. He heard the doors open, and the gurney pulled out, and the slight squeak of the wheels as he escorted her inside.
When Ducky was sure that he was alone, he took off his glasses, put his face in his hands, and finally allowed the torrent of grief to cascade, unimpeded, down his face.