A/N: You know what happens when you re-watch Season3 of NCIS? One-shots. Or, drabbles. Either one. This is quite short. Based on 'Model Behavior'; I suppose a sort of alternate ending.
Oh, hmm, let's see-this is for Liz and Alivia, because I like them.
He was already in the elevator when he changed his mind; he decided not to go home just yet.
He waited for the elevator to stop at the garage, and then he pressed the button for MTAC's level, leaning back against the wall and riding it all the way back up to the topmost floor. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw DiNozzo look up from his dead black roses and tilt his head curiously, surprised that the Boss had reappeared.
Gibbs knew the playboy agent was probably smirking to himself, already cooking up a story to tell McGee and Ziva tomorrow: Gibbs came back last night, and went into the Director's office. He'd already been on about his suspicions of what the boss and the boss's boss relationship had been in Paris, and he'd leap at the chance to gossip more about the fantasies of an illicit affair that were in his head based, if nothing else, solely on the red of the Director's hair.
Her hair.
Her new assistant was gone, and her office door was open, and Gibbs walked right in.
She was packing her things in a briefcase, her forehead furrowed in lines of exhaustion and frustration—dealing with the press was a bitch, and she'd had to do it all day because of his lack of finesse. Dead supermodels, Dear John Letters, and the Marine Corps didn't make for a pleasant mix.
He pushed her office door shut behind him gently, making it click loudly, and she looked up, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. She gave him a wary look and sighed, shaking her head.
"What do you want, Jethro?" she asked tiredly.
She packed up the last of her things and walked towards him stonily, her green eyes guarded and devoid of fight. He looked at her intently for a minute, his eyes lingering on the expression on the face he'd always found so beautiful, and then on her full lips—and then he tilted his head and looked at the dramatically short haircut she'd gone and got.
Gibbs reached out and put his hand on the back of her neck intimately; she flinched slightly, her brows lifting in surprise. He touched the edges of her crimson hair, like she had earlier in the week, when she'd tried to draw his attention to the change.
He had noticed, but he had hated it. There was no way he couldn't notice it; it was so different.
But he hated it.
He felt her pulse where his wrist rested against her neck and her skin was warm and smooth; he felt her swallow uncertainly.
'Some things never change…' she'd said slowly.
DiNozzo had asked if he'd liked the director's new haircut, and Gibbs had played it off. Gibbs had loved Jenny's hair; but he hated his director's pixie cut.
He swallowed down Paris.
"You changed, Jen," he said, breaking the charged silence. She parted her lips; it was a reaction to leap down his throat, to defend herself. No words came out. She lifted her hand and gripped his wrist tightly, as if she were trying to squeeze feeling from him. Her eyes burned and she grit her teeth to control the regret and the lingering passion.
His eyes darkened, the wall coming down, and he pulled his hand back, shaking his head at her.
"Liked it better long," he said gruffly.
She knew, and he knew, that it was his way of saying there was no going back; what they had in Paris was over, no matter who wanted it back or how badly.
Jenny smiled to hide how much it hurt, and she pushed his hand to his chest coolly, resting their hands against his heart for a moment.
He stood in her office long after she left, and shut the door loudly on a second chance.
I hated that horrid haircut, so in my headcanon, Gibbs does, too.
Not to mention I adore using it as tool of symbolism.
-Alexandra