Title: Erroneous
Fandom: NCIS
Author: Alidiabin
Words: 800
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Warnings/Spoilers/Rating: killing || none pre-series || PG
Parings: Jenny/Gibbs
Summary: Jenny copes with killing the wrong man.
Erroneous
Jenny opened the rickety window and let the cold and bitter Marseilles air into the small damp room. The influx of frozen sea air made the already drafty safe house feel like an icebox. Gibbs did not complain even though he wanted to. He wanted to curse, curse the failed mission which had destroyed Jenny's fragile psyche. Instead he studied Jenny from across the room, from the cold bed. She was standing quivering next to the open window, Gibbs was not sure what was causing the shivering, the cold or the fear. The usual pink that punctuated her cheeks had drained from her.
"Jen," Gibbs called from the other end of the dark room. He could not recall if the darkness was because Jenny had not turned on the lights or because the lights were out again. It was probably the former. Jenny was in a state and the last think she needed was evil of artifical light illuminating her sins.
"Don't talk to me Jethro," Jenny whispered as she looked out the window. Her pale skin was illuminated by the streams of moonlight. Gibbs could see the goosebumps that littered her bare arms and bare legs. She was going to catch a cold if she insisted on standing in front of the open window in just underwear and a tank top. He moved toward her and placed his hands on the cold-induced ridges of her skin. "Don't touch me," she begged. "Jethro, please do not touch me."
He let go of her icy body but did not move away. So, mere millimetres separated the pair physically but they were on different hemispheres emotionally. If this were stateside, he told himself, they would not be having this conversation, she would be sitting in front of a shrink in a well-lit office, confessing just enough to get cleared for duty, and nothing more. But Marseilles was not stateside. It was not DC, LA or even San Diego, it was Europe, the Wild West for operatives who made deals with the devil and danced with death. Controllers were seldom-present figures in the productions that took place in the dark alleys of beautiful cities. This was black ops and there was no shrink to hold ones hand as they engaged in the worst atrocities for the sake of the greater good. A greater good that Jenny appeared to be losing faith in.
"I killed a man," Jenny whispered as she pulled Jethro in closer. His hands reclaimed their place on her slender hips. Her cheeks became warm as she held back tears. "I killed the wrong man,"
"Could have been either of us," Gibbs reported trying to soothe her, even though he knew such words would be no use.
She was supposed to have taken a shot at the courier for the Russian mafia. It had been dark and the wind was violent, so her amateur shot had ended up in his teenage son who had come to see what Daddy did for a living. The boy had slumped to the ground, his father screaming and begging for god to spare his only child. Then the gravity of what had happened, she had taken a life. Not the life of a bad guy, but the life of an innocent. A child.
"Some of us weren't Marines, Jethro," she spat angrily as she ripped his hands from her hips. "Some of us weren't trained for this. Some of us weren't trained to kill at random,"
Gibbs recoiled. Anger boiled in his caffeinated-blood, she had no write to say such a thing. Nobody is trained to take a life; nobody is trained to deal with the fall out especially if they take the wrong one. He too had punished himself for every life had had taken. They had haunted his dreams even when he had known they had been the scum of the earth. Hell, there were still times when he wondered if he had not killed so many men, if that would have saved Shannon and Kelly. There were agency strategies but those were about as good as giving foreign-language instructions to a monolingualist.
They stood millimetres apart but with their heads on different planets. He felt her reach for his hand, her soft hands rubbed his rough hands, neither of them spoke as speaking would ruin whatever understanding they had reached.
He reined her in close. She could feel his heartbeat under her skin. She finally let the glass in her eyes break, she cried. She sobbed and she screamed. Gibbs held her tight. He let her fight him and curse.
Eventually, the fell into the bed and into a nightmare plagued slumber. Then the sun would rise, it would be a new day and evils of the days past would, be forgotten.