A/N: Ok, so when I first logged it was to write a fanfic for a complete different category. But, what made me decide to write this was ironically a Jibbs video on Youtube. It was one of those angsty ones about the Judgement Day episodes, and at the end it showed Ducky watching Gibbs look at Jen's body bag in autopsy. I started to wonder, "what would Ducky be thinking?"
He still couldn't believe it.
She was gone, dead. She was the body in this black bag lying on his table.
It was a scene straight out of his worse nightmare.
The nightmare, it's always the same, he comes into work; hangs his coat and hat just like every other day, then turns to the body on his table.
Or should he say bodies?
Like always there is a to long row of black bags, and like always, against his will, he is dragged to the first steel slab.
Abigail...
Ziva...
Timothy...
Anthony...
Caitlin...
It's endless, the sea of faces. And even though some of the people that make an appearance, are people he hasn't seen in years. They still appear.
Stanley...
William...
Ah, the dynamic duo. He remembers a time where it wasn't, Ziva, Timothy, and Tony, filling the desks surrounding Gibbs in the bullpen. When it wasn't Abigail down in the lab. But, a time with a four man team, paired off into partners. One goofball, skirt chasing, Stanley Burley, with the mature, and levelheaded William Decker. Counteracting the effects of the silver haired fox and his femme fatale.
Jennifer...Jethro
They appear in his night-terror's, more frequently so in the past three years. And even though Jennifer was absent from their scene for six long years, she still appeared quite often.
Always right beside Jethro.
Even in death.
Most of the agents today know Jennifer as the big bad 'Ice Queen of the Beltway', not as simply Jethro's Probie.
Yes, that's right Jethro's Probie. Though Timothy would most likely never know, there was a reason why his boss rarely ever called him Probie.
Because Timothy is Anthony's Probie. Just like Jethro is Mike's, and Jennifer is Jethro's.
That's why the scene in front of him makes his stomach churn.
Call it his 'gut', but he knew. He just knew that Jethro was going to do something stupid.
Because he was standing over the black bag that housed the dead body of his redheaded Probie.
It made him sick.
There are a few. A certain few that would find this a phenomenon. Those that saw Jennifer and Jethro work together, back in the day.
The fact that Jennifer is heading towards a grave in Arlington.
And that Jethro isn't.
The fact that they didn't go out together in a blaze of bullets.
Pulling some stupid, impossible, suicidal stunt.
All while delivering their own unique brand of vigilante justice.
Instead Jennifer pulled the stunt, alone.
Leaving Jethro behind because she was dying anyway.
And she couldn't bare to tell him.
He watched them, fall in love.
Contrary to what they thought, he knew that it didn't start in Europe.
Unlike them, he knew that they were fooling themselves into believing it was just sex.
That they could stop anytime they wanted.
And that it wouldn't break them to do so.
He watched again, as she came back into his life.
The tension, the sparks, the love was still there.
Only this time better fought.
He saw the pain it inflicted on them both to deny themselves that comfort.
As the secrets started flying.
The day she found out that he had a past. One that she wasn't in.
He saw the sadness on her face.
When he came back from self-imposed exile. To find a woman he didn't know waiting for him.
He saw the disappointment in his eyes.
He watched, waited, and prayed.
As for a few good months things started to look up.
He no longer saw the anger in his eyes.
Or the desolation in hers.
Instead there was teasing, flirting, lingering touches, and lustful glances.
The dam was about to break.
And it wasn't only himself that could tell. The air was vibrating with anticipation.
Then he saw the look in her eyes, that day she walked into autopsy.
Requesting a blood test.
He was the first one to see it.
The results printed on a snow white sheet, that would bring their little family into chaos.
And he was the one that had to tell her.
He was the one that saw the hopefulness die.
And the despair take residence.
He was the one that first suggested she tell Jethro. And for a moment he watched as panic replaced the despair.
Because for him, the results on the hateful white sheet were enough to make it real.
But for Jennifer, it didn't become real if he didn't know.
He knew why she did it.
Because if she was going to die, she wasn't going to do it shriveled up in a wheelchair.
Behind a desk.
She was going to do it in the field. For a worthy cause.
Jethro.
He knew that she knew that it would be her last stand.
She wanted it to be.
She didn't want to go out behind a desk, representing everything he hated.
She wanted her last stand to make him proud.
She wanted to show one last time, that she was still on his side.
She wanted, more than anything, to show one last time that she still loved him.
Now he's just standing here, frozen in the moment.
Watching as the man he see's as son, does something that in the years they've known each other he's never seen.
Jethro hesitates.
Though his face is emotionless. His eyes tell another story.
There in those cobalt eyes, held an emotion so devastating, so tragic, so heartbreaking.
That he had to close his eyes just to keep himself together.
When he opened them, he wasn't remotely surprised to find Jethro sweeping out the glass doors.
Body bag still unzipped. And he knew that his gut was right.
Jethro was going to finish this.
He just hoped, no matter how wrong it was, that nobody was foolish enough to go with him.
Because if Jethro had the chance, no matter who it was with him, there would be two body bags in autopsy by morning.
And no matter how much it'd hurt himself and the others, he didn't begrudge the man that right.
Not one little bit.
Don't be mad about Ducky! And I know I need to stop writing angst oneshots and update OPERATION: Break the Tension. And I was almost done with a chapter for it but something happened with my laptop and erased about a fourth of it. So bear with me and you ought to have another chapter by Wednesday.
P.S Don't be mean. If you didn't like it just don't review!