The Never-Wife
(NCIS, Gibbs/Jenny)
Date: Thursday, November 12, 2009
Title: The Never-Wife
Fandom: NCIS
Summary: She was too good for that. She was too good to be an ex-wife. He cared too much, held her to close to let her become another of the casualties.
Rating: G
Pairings/Characters: Gibbs/Jenny
Length: 750 words
Genre: romance, angst
A/N: Tag to season 3, Hiatus, when Gibbs wakes up from the coma. I've been wanting to write this one for forever, since I saw the rerun probably the second time. The idea struck me then, this concept that Jenny is more than an ex-wife to Gibbs. But I never got around to it, but this week I just so happened to catch the rerun again, and this time I was poised and ready to write it. I was prepared, caught the dialogue I wanted, and out it poured. Ta-da! It's my first Jenny/Gibbs, but I'm happy I finally wrote something for them. I have loved the ship for forever. There's too much angst, too much past and history there for it not to be the best. As much as I love Tony and Ziva, I love Jenny and Gibbs in a different way. So now I'm finally gettin' to show them some love. :)
"I'm Jenny. We were partners."
He stared at her, at the unfamiliar short-cropped red hair framing that perfect and familiar face, felt the familiar hand gripped in his own, and somewhere, it started to make sense. "After Shannon died." The words slipped off of his tongue without a thought, not as a question, but as a solid fact involuntarily regurgitated from his brain to his lips.
She nodded.
The memories were flashing through his mind now, over and over again. In vivid enough detail for him to fight down a blush as he remembered the woman in front of him in very different circumstances. A marine, fighting a blush. It didn't fit. He almost had to smile at himself for it. But the thought of Shannon made him somber again.
"Did I marry again?" he asked.
A small smile quirked at her lips. She was amused at the question, for reasons that lingered on the tip of his brain but refused to make themselves known. She was somehow laughing at him on the inside – he could see it dancing in her eyes – but not in a patronizing way. Just in the way that Jenny would be amused from a lapse in his judgment. "Three times," she said.
"No way."
Her lip was quirking again in amusement. "'Fraid so."
He was slightly uncomfortable now as things began to work out in his mind. "Uhhh," he said. The sound was involuntary. "You're an ex-wife?"
This time, she was even more amused. Her eyes were beyond dancing, they were sparking and glowing with humor. She even laughed. "Oh, God no."
He was even more confused now, by the images that flashed across his mind, contradicted by every word she said. It played out across his face, he was sure. The confusion, the surprise… What he was seeing, what he was remembering, she couldn't be anything else. But here she was, contradicting the simple logic. The foundational truth that pulsed in his heart.
He grasped for some kind of sense…
Ex-wife. He'd said ex-wife. Assumed he was not married, no longer married, whatever the technicalities were. And she had said no, she wasn't an ex-wife.
A wife, then. She had to be his wife – his current wife.
Yes, that fit with the way she laughed, the way his heart reacted to that laugh, to her presence, to her appearance, to everything. She was his wife. He was sure of it now. She had to be.
But no, that didn't fit with the way she'd been talking either. She couldn't have been his wife. She was too… too… It didn't fit. It didn't feel right, the term wife. The concept of a partner, the feelings in his heart… They fit. But the word… wife… it didn't.
The only wives he'd had since Shannon were ex-wives. Even without remembering them, he knew that. From the start, they were never wives. They were always ex-wives.
But Jenny… She was no ex-wife.
Jenny could not be an ex-wife. Never.
No. She was too good for that. She was too good to be an ex-wife. He cared too much, held her to close to let her become another of the casualties. He couldn't let her be one of the ex-wives. He loved her too much for that.
No, she would never be his wife. He wouldn't degrade her by placing her in a position similar to the ones he'd put the other women in. He wouldn't let her have even a semblance of the same standing the three ex-wives had had. He would never place her that low.
They were talking again now, but he was only half paying attention to the words. His throat was tight, squeezed ruthlessly by memories.
Memories of Shannon, of little Kelly…
And memories of Jenny, the woman standing across from him.
And emotion, memory's ever-constant companion, swelled up behind all three of these women. Of his wife – his true wife, not one of the detached ex-wives – of his daughter, and of this woman, his never-wife.
He squeezed her hand tight, but it was all too much for him. Too much, all at once.
It crushed in on him. The words that left his lips were, "I want Shannon. I want Kelly. I miss them. I miss them so much."
The words that never made it out, the ones that the tears choked down before they could escape were, "I want you, Jenny. I want you."