a/n: short little thing that directly follows the original Benjamin story "Deja Vu."
Paris, 1999
In the noisy French airport, Gibbs found a somewhat secluded corner, and gripped the duffle bag over his shoulder. It was hers, but he didn't want to give it to her yet; it was so heavy, and he wasn't quite ready to see her go. He'd asked her for a day, and she'd given him one; and in that day, he'd found the strength to tell her about Shannon and Kelly — to finally, for the first time in his life, voluntarily and painfully talk about the single most defining, horrifying thing that had ever happened to him — so she might give him a chance.
And somehow, miraculously, after the long, hard day they'd had — she had decided to give him one, to give them one.
It wasn't ideal — he was still seeing her off to an NCIS promotion posting in Italy, after all, but it was something, and it was something he was sure he wanted, and wanted not only to have, but to have without letting it fall apart.
An announcement rang out in French, and Jenny sighed, wincing a little.
"Twenty minutes to board," she said.
He nodded, and stepped closer. He slipped the bag off his shoulder and let it hit the floor by his feet. She looked at it, and then tilted her head up at him.
"This is madness," she said softly.
She licked her lips — two nights ago, she'd been laying away, panicked, desperate, in shock, trying to figure out how she was going to deal with an unexpected pregnancy, and here she stood, facing a year in Italy, and in the middle of that year —
"Jethro, the next time we see each other could be when my assignment's up," she said weakly.
He nodded.
"Yeah," he said gruffly. He shrugged. "We talked about it."
"But that's — this baby would be … five months old," she calculated quickly.
He nodded had talked about all of this. They had discussed, with as much realism as possible, what they were going to go through. And it was surreal, and it was madness.
"I can't do this," she said dully — not in that she was backing out, but … in a manner that spoke of no confidence in her abilities. She put her hand to her mouth and lowered her head, her eyes stinging.
She shook her head again.
"This can't work," she said, as if pleading with him. "I went from … never wanting children, to having one on my own in a foreign country? We're going to go from partners to .. to … — we skipped a thousand steps in between, we — "
"Jen," he said, reaching out and resting his palms on her shoulders. "Jen," he repeated calmly. "Look at me — just breathe," he paused, catching her eye, "okay?"
She took a deep breath. She compressed her lips, and folded her hands over her stomach apprehensively.
"You won't be there," she said softly. "You won't be there at all, for months," she said. "Doesn't that bother you?"
"Yeah," he said hoarsely, bending down to pick up the bag again and gently slip it onto her shoulder.
He kept his fingers under it to ease the weight on her — silently reminding her they'd had this conversation; he didn't want to miss her having the baby, he didn't want to miss the first few months — but they also needed some distance and time to form a relationship, and it was a hell of a way for them to work this out, but they both knew she could't stop everything for him without it hurting them in the long run, and he needed to adjust before he was living with someone again.
"We can do it, Jen," he comforted simply.
The call for her flight sounded again, and she lunged forward, hugging him tightly. She closed her eyes and buried her face in his shoulder, squeezing the strength out of him. He kissed her cheek and then her lips, and watched her walk away.
He put her on a plane in a French airport, knowing the next time he saw her would be a whole new world; a world with three of them in it.
Paris, 1999
-voila!
-alexandra
story #254