"Ducky-"

Doctor Donald "Ducky" Mallard gave a slight shake of his head and raised one arthritic hand up in the air. The left edge of the metal on his glasses caught the sunlight as he inclined his head up to his taller companion, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and Gibbs squinted slightly at the unexpected stab of light aimed itself into his eyes.

"Jethro," Ducky interrupted softly, "she lived a full live. And her death was not unexpected…" His voice faltered and he lowered his hand, then half-turned away as he scanned the courtyard, his attention seemingly distracted by the late summer foliage. "At least, it was not a surprise for her. She never bothered to share her medical background with me, of course, and how severe her condition was. But then again, why should she, after so many years apart?"

Gibbs gave a slight shrug. "Because you cared about each other?"

"We did," he acknowledged, "and I'm grateful for the time we shared. The time that she allowed me to share with her," he corrected himself slightly. "But one cannot simply walk back into another's life and expect to learn everything about them in a matter of a few weeks, can they? Such is the case here."

Gibbs watched as Ducky slowly stuck the folded piece of paper in his other hand back into his pocket. That simple email, from the London funeral home which handled Maggie Clarke's remains, had put a grim line where Ducky's mouth had been, and while he'd let Gibbs glance at it, he refused to let his longtime friend touch it. As soon as Gibbs had seen the necessary information, and Ducky could tell as much, the older man withdrew a few steps.

Gibbs sighed. "And I can tell you're not going over for the funeral."

Ducky let out a painful chuckle and turned back towards him. "You read me so well, Jethro. No, I will not be visiting the shores of my birth. Perhaps never again. I have nothing there for me. Haven't for some time, really. Mother is dead, Angus is dead, Maggie is dead. The remaining acquaintances that I did have are all retired, winding down their days on country estates or in care homes." He let out a slight hum-sigh. "Perhaps my time for reclining in leisure is approaching as well. Though I loathe the idea."

"I know you do." Gibbs put his hands on his hips. "You're like any specialist in their field. You want to keep your hand in the game, keep your mind sharp, and-"

"And ward off the evils of the outside world," Ducky interjected. "Distraction is my bedside companion, after all. It chases away the shadows of life along with the light. Love, for example. And age." He gave a distracted shake to his head. "I can't lie, Jethro. I'm feeling tired these days, and incidents like this," he said as he patted his pocket, "don't help me to shut out what my body is telling me, more persistently, every day."

"We won't be losing you yet, at any rate," Gibbs replied with a slight smile. "I've seen your schedule for the next few weeks."

"Idle hands," Ducky said as he cocked his head to one side. "I've not been one for services on a regular basis, as that was always Mother's interest, but perhaps Proverbs is not far off from the truth." He sighed again. "Now, if you don't mind, I do have the rest of the day off and I would like some time alone."

Gibbs rested one hand on his shoulder for a moment, gave it a quick squeeze, then walked off without a glance back.

Ducky slipped his hands in his pockets and watched him go with a slightly crooked smile on his thin lips.

It's times like these, he thought, that I'm grateful for years of friendship, to where no words are necessary.

The smile evaporated from his face as his fingers brushed against the folded white paper in his pocket, the standard 8.5" x 11" size that came out of the printers in the NCIS office- and pretty much everywhere else in America. In England, such a missive would have been printed off on A4, a slightly different size of paper by a few millimeters in either direction.

Millimetres, his mind corrected. There had been much about the U.K. that he'd had to readjust to, with the spellings of certain words and pronunciations and meanings (he'd long ago abandoned the habit of calling cigarettes "fags"), but he'd done it and with a certain amount of joy. He'd re-learned another version of the English language, essentially, and took a certain amount of pride in that. While he held on to his accent pretty well, he had spent enough time in the States to be able to shift to a more general West Coast dialect at will. But to do so struck him as pretentious, so he'd often force himself to "keep it limey," as it were (though he'd never dare use the word "limey" in public, either).

Ducky blinked several times and stepped over to a nearby bench, then sat down with his hands in his lap. He stared at the general activity of the courtyard, with agents and visitors crossing from one area to another, smoking, laughing, talking… engaged in life. Engaged in their young lives. And what of Maggie and her body, wasted by age and disease, on a slab and destined to be buried in native soil? There would be no more warm summer afternoons for her, no more birds chirping in leafy trees to gaze at.

Do I miss her? Ducky asked himself. Or, rather, have I ever not? Our one kiss in our youth was the only physical affection we'd ever shared. Yet…

The meeting in London during the NCIS case had been brief, yet tender and satisfying. But further hope of time together had dissolved as she struggled to deal with her late husband's estate, then either found herself delayed by (or perhaps sought out) one reason after another as to why she could not move to the United States. Then the email came, and all hopes of resuming where they'd left off some fifty-five years earlier crumbled away to ash in Ducky's heart.

At least she had gone quickly, albeit after many years of battling the cancer that eventually took her life. Ducky found reassurance in that.

He turned his head and watched a woman in a suit as she took a long drag on her cigarette. His glance then flickered over to a man leaning against a wall, his fingers hooked under the collar of his jacket, smiling and laughing with several colleagues in the sun. He closed his eyes, then, and dropped his head.

Perhaps I should have stayed in England. Perhaps I was selfish not to give up my life here for her benefit. If she truly meant that much to me, then it's her that I should have focused on, and not NCIS.

But he knew as well as anyone that old habits were hard to break. He'd found not only acceptance and a joy in his work at NCIS, but he'd found family- family beyond the choking love of Mother and her incessant little corgis, and a family unlike any biological one that he could have ever cobbled together with a love interest or wife. Could Maggie have been his wife, after so many years? Ducky doubted it. Again, if so, he would not have left London and separated himself from her, if he'd thought that the love he could get from her would in any way match that of his American family.

Decisions have been made, he thought to himself as he forced his tired body up from the bench. I am here, perhaps until my dying day, alone and yet not alone. I suspect Maggie knew the feeling, as she had employees and friends and family of her own that made up for any holes in her own life.

He shuffled along the sidewalk and stuck his hands in his pockets, once again pressing his flesh against the paper. It would have been appropriate, he supposed, to visit and attend the funeral… and yet, he'd already envisioned the service several times over in his head, and the procession to the cemetery, and the visit to the grave. He'd seen it all so clearly that he even saw himself back at the hotel afterwards, tie off, collar open, black jacket lying on the bed and his stocking feet stuck out in front of him as he sipped a bottle of water and reminisced about that last night when he'd done two impossible things: he'd kissed Maggie, and he'd punched out Angus' two front teeth in a fight.

So why go back across the pond for such a dreary experience? Nothing would be gained from it. Gibbs knew that, too, even without asking as much.

My only regret, he realized, is that I didn't take her to Paris for a day. The city for lovers. Surely, we could have given it a try?

His steps grew more sure as his thoughts slipped into the fantasy of how such a trip might have been. As he envisioned them strolling along Paris streets, riding in cabs, enjoying meals in restaurants and, at last, dancing on a balcony overlooking the city at night, the last twinge of sadness slipped from his heart. By the time he reached the street, he heard himself whistling the tune of "La Vie en Rose," and wondering if, perhaps, love would still find him once again. He had the hope of it, anyway.