Sorry for the earlier formatting error!
The Baseball Bat
It was a cold day, dark and grey, suiting his mood. The emptiness that had resided in the pit of his stomach for the past year had crawled through his body and nestled in his bones, and he was wary. Wary of going home where his new wife was waiting for him, wary of staying at the Navy Yard where everything reminded him of her, and wary of letting this feeling overwhelm him, inviting her back in his life, even if it was just in the form of memories of moments long-passed and the dull ache behind his temples that came with remembering her.
Ducky had mentioned her earlier that day – of course not by name, he never mentioned her name when he was around – but he'd known who was meant anyway. It had ripped the slowly healing scar her letter had left in his heart wide open again, leaving it as angry and raw as it had been when she'd first disappeared in the hustle of a Parisian airport, abandoning everything they had had for one more step up the ladder. Sighing Gibbs buried his head in his hands.
"Bad day, boss?" his new probie piped up, grinning almost cheekily at him. "Your wife making you troubles?" DiNozzo giggled a little but fell silent again when Gibbs leveled an icy glare his way.
"Go home, DiNozzo," he ordered gruffly as he himself slowly got up from his desk chair. Staying at the office any longer would only postpone the inevitable, and he wasn't in the mood for an argument tonight. At least not for an argument with that particular redhead.
He was surprised when his house was dark when he pulled up the driveway and for a split second he entertained the thought she might have left. Stephanie wasn't the kind of woman that just left, though, especially not even a year after the wedding. He shrugged, tonight he wouldn't complain about being left alone. Behind his eyes the memories of another redhead were dancing, of one with emerald green eyes and a temper that rivaled her hair color, the opposite of the softer, more understanding, not as haunted Stephanie.
He made his way through the kitchen, down the steps to his basement and grabbed a sander, almost lovingly caressing the rips of his boat. Then his gaze caught a plain brown paper box, sitting innocently on the top of his shelf, and he knew he wouldn't get any work done tonight. Instead he grabbed an unopened bottle of bourbon and the small box and relived his memories from another lifetime.
It was late when she got back – almost midnight – but still, she was surprised when she saw her husband's car in the driveway in front of their house. She had gotten used to not seeing him for several days during the few short months of their marriage, and even if it had hurt in the beginning, she had learnt to cope with his absence.
"Leroy?" she called as she entered the house and kicked her heels of her feet. "Leroy, are you home?"
Her words echoed through the house in an almost foreboding manner, creating an atmosphere reminiscent of the Gothic novels she'd liked to read back at university. Hesitantly she walked through the kitchen as she saw the faint ray of light underneath the door to the basement. She opened it silently and carefully made her way down the stairs into her husband's sanctuary. The scene at the foot of stairs almost took her breath away.
Gibbs lay on the floor, in the dark shadows underneath the looming frame of his boat, a half-filled bottle of bourbon next to his head and a myriad photos scattered around him. Her first thought was Shannon and Kelly – they always were since she'd found one of Kelly's old tapes almost three month ago – but the redhead in the photos wasn't her husband's late wife. The picture looked younger, the red of her hair more vibrant, her features a little sharper and her eyes so much more alive.
She carefully picked it up as Leroy started to move next to her.
"Leroy?" He didn't react. "Jethro?" she asked again this time.
His large frame became rigid as he tried to sit up. His eyes went back and forth between her and the photos till he almost manically zoomed in on her hair. "Jen?" he asked, obviously confused. "Jen?" He lifted his arm and touched her hair, letting the strands slip through his fingers.
"Jen?" Stephanie repeated, her voice anguished, "Leroy, who is Jen?"
Tears blurred her vision as he turned away from her and shifted through the photos next to him. He picked up one of them and almost lovingly caressed the image of the woman in it. "Jen," he murmured again.
Stephanie dropped the photo she still had in her hands, rubbing her fingers as if it had physically burned her. Everything about him – his vulnerable expression, the hollow emptiness in his eyes – just confirmed what she'd subconsciously known for a long time: there had been someone before her, someone he'd loved, more than he could ever love her. In this moment of sudden clarity she wondered how she could have been so blind, what she had chosen to see when he'd woken up in the middle of the night and his gaze had been so disappointed as if she wasn't who he'd wanted to see, or when he had mumbled a name in his sleep that wasn't her own, but not his dead family's either.
She reached out with her hand to touch the side of his neck, let her fingertips dance of his skin to his temple. He looked at her – really looked at her – for a few moments, then he turned his head again and lay down on the cold floor to stare at the picture of another woman.
Gibbs had almost forgotten their encounter in the basement when he woke up underneath his boat the next morning, and Stephanie wasn't particularly keen on reminding him. Their arguments, however, got out of hand more and more often since she'd found out for sure that he didn't love her – that he'd never loved her and never would, as much because of Shannon and Kelly as the other woman – and she didn't try to fix them anymore, either.
Two weeks later, when she stood in the basement again and let out all her frustrations about her life and her relationship, he thought that in this moment, she was more like Jen than he'd ever thought possible. His responses to her accusations, on the other hand, were representative for her life with him, passive and monosyllabic, until she brought his former lover into the argument.
"Leave her out of it!" he ordered icily, not even then taking his eyes off the boat.
"So she hasn't been the third person in his this relationship from the very beginning?" she asked sarcastically. "Or more like the fifth? Haven't I been sharing my husband with two deceased and –"
"That's enough!" he bellowed. "Jen means more to me than –"
Her scream of raw fury cut him off and he knew that he had let this argument go too far. The seemingly fragile woman he'd married a few months ago had completely disappeared. Her gaze drifted over the things on his shelf until she focused on the small brown paper box on the top, filled with the photos that marked the beginning of the end of their relationship.
For a moment she stared at the box, her subconscious screaming at her to just destroy it, to destroy all traces of this woman long gone, when she saw the baseball bat leaning on the wall beneath it. She grabbed it, maybe out of reflex, she wouldn't be able to tell later on, and reached out, hitting him square across the forehead.
For a moment he just watched her, almost unbelievingly of what she had just done, then she turned around abruptly and dropped the bat. "I want a divorce," she said from the first landing of his basement stairs, when he was still looking at her dazedly.
One month later, during his alimony hearing, she seemed to be the same as always again – nice, understanding, smiling – and if he hadn't been there, he wouldn't have believed that it had been her who'd hit him with the baseball bat. He kissed her cheek but didn't apologize when he finally let her go at the end of their divorce negotiations – as if nothing had changed – but her gaze had become harder and her eyes cooler.
She turned away from him and went to her car, her heart still with him, knowing that his was somewhere else entirely.
Boy, it's been a long time since I last posted anything! It seems a week of spring break break gave me the inspiration I've been lacking though :). I hope you'll enjoy, please leave a review!