AN: I have no idea what to say about this story. I spent a lot of time thinking about a situation like this so it pretty much wrote itself. It might be terrible, it might be OOC, it might be inaccurate. Who knows? But here it is so I hope you enjoy it.

The Picture and the Thousand Words

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was annoyed. His day hadn't started as a particularly bad one, not that he often had good days anymore. Then he'd arrived home to find M. Allison Hart in his living room. Again. She never seemed to leave him alone. Didn't the woman understand that he did not want to talk to her? Gibbs had disliked her from the moment he met her, and it hadn't been a disguise. Hart, it seemed, considered his dislike to be as much of a veil as her own. The attorney was strangely fascinated with him, in a way that Gibbs could not comprehend. He tried to be hospitable at times, but that didn't mean he actually liked the woman. She only served to remind him exactly why he had written rule thirteen. If Abby were here she'd probably remind him that thirteen was supposed to be an unlucky number. Amusingly, he'd had more reasons to be grateful for that rule than any other in the past few years, except perhaps the infamous rule twelve, and that was really just one reason that invaded his thoughts constantly. So far, Gibbs had managed to keep his recurring, uninvited "visitor" out of his basement sanctuary and a few other rooms. His living room, it appeared, would never be safe again.

Tonight Ms. Hart had begun looking through his belongings. Dammit, he knew he should have put that box away. She was currently entertaining herself by thumbing through his photos. A slightly pitying, or maybe just sad, look crossed her face as she passed picture after picture of Shannon and Kelly. Allison apparently knew about them, she must have checked his file like Ziva and Jen did. Gibbs had discovered sometime during his recovery that the team now knew about his first wife and daughter, but he hadn't realized right away that it had been Jen who told them. Then the look on Hart's face changed from sadness to confusion as she picked up another photo. Due to the angle she was holding it at, Gibbs couldn't see what this one was. Allison, however, was so intrigued by the picture that she crossed the room to where Gibbs was standing.

"Special Agent Gibbs..." she began, showing him the picture, "Might I ask who the woman is in this photograph? Because I can tell you that she looks remarkably like a younger version of the late director of NCIS... Jenny Shepard." Gibbs glanced at the picture in question. It was a snapshot Jenny in Serbia, in front of that little farmhouse. This one was special, he had given it back to Jen on one of his brief returns from Mexico, as way of telling her he remembered. Gibbs had found it in her house the night she died and quietly pocketed it, his only keepsake after he burned the house down. Gibbs considered not responding, but decided that it would be for the best to say something.

"If you're so sure you know who it is, M. Allison Hart, why are asking me?"

"Well, because if I'm right, the question becomes, why do you have a picture of the former director of NCIS in...such a state? Or, really, why do you have a picture of your late director at all?"

"She wasn't director when that was taken."

"Obviously. You still have not answered my question." Gibbs hesitated. Should he tell her the truth, or was that too sacred? He settled on a non-committal response.

"She was my partner. In law enforcement, partners often have pictures of each other," Gibbs explained. M. Allison Hart raised her beautifully neat eyebrow.

"And keep it all these years?" Gibbs shrugged.

"Happens. Put it away, don't bother taking it out, easily gets forgotten." Technically, he was beginning to lie, but he was speaking of a hypothetical situation, not necessarily his own.

"And yet here it is, among pictures that logically mean a great deal to you. Pictures you've surely looked at sometime in the last ten years." Gibbs didn't reply, reverting back to his typical silence.

"Furthermore, Agent Gibbs, this is not the sort of picture I would expect you to keep, if it was indeed taken of someone who was just your partner." For a moment, Gibbs said nothing. Inside his head everything was chaos. It was getting too difficult, hiding it, not saying anything. He wasn't sure he could keep it up. Gibbs might have chosen a better confidant, but Hart was here and she was asking all the right questions. It became too much to conceal. In that moment, Leroy Jethro Gibbs snapped.

"You're right, she wasn't just my partner. I loved her. I really loved her. And when she was director, well, it didn't matter. She was still Jenny. And I still loved her just as much. I couldn't tell her, for some reason everything I said came out hurtful and only served to make everything worse. She thought I was angry, didn't understand! For a whole year I had to watch her start to destroy herself, with no idea how to help her. And that last year, well, I ruined everything. I couldn't say one nice word to her. I never meant to hurt her, I cared about her so much! But I couldn't find any answers and everything was just wrong. And then she was keeping secrets! I knew something was wrong, but I didn't do anything about it. I didn't try hard enough to find out, I just let it go... and I didn't ever tell her truth, I still don't know why. And then she was gone! She died alone, believing I couldn't care, because I was too much of an ass to just talk to her! I loved her, dammit!"

Gibbs couldn't go on, couldn't explain just how much he missed her. It was an impossible task, describing what the last two years had been like for him. Almost two years. It was so hard to believe that it had been that long. Two years without Jenny. At least the first time he'd known she was okay, known she was happy because she was living the life she chose. This time she was really gone, and nothing was left to comfort him.

M. Allison Hart looked stricken, almost horrified at what she had heard. Most people are lucky enough not to lose the love of their life at all. His had been taken twice, two different women. Allison had heard about Jenny's death on the news, but it hadn't listed any grieving family. He had mourned in silence and solitude. Without another word, M. Allison Hart quickly left his house, closing the door behind her. As she fled the premises, she wondered if she'd ever be able to face him the same way again, knowing what she did. As time wore on, it could not be said that Margaret Allison Hart ever returned unexpected to the residence of Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

After Hart left Gibbs sat down, holding the picture from Serbia. Hart had been so smug, so confident, and he had completely shattered her by spilling the truth. Gibbs wasn't sure he'd ever used so many words at one time. Staring at the photograph, Gibbs felt somehow detached from the world. Oh Jen, he thought. You had a right to know, Jenny. You deserved to. God, Jen, I really do miss you. More than you'd believe, if I could tell you. Alone in his house late on an early spring evening, it would not be inaccurate to say that the stoic Leroy Jethro Gibbs was crying.