a/n: This isn't my first attempt at writing for this fandom, but it's the first piece I've not only completed, but am actually pleased with. Constructive criticism welcomed, but please be kind! Enjoy(:
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Title taken from an Automatic Loveletter album.
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What are you afraid of?
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You're six years old, wrapped in a cocoon of blankets, huddled on your big girl bed. You yell for Daddy (daddy isn't afraid of anything), pointing to the monsters in the closet. Daddy is brave, not hesitating for a second to drive the mean, scary beasts away, armed only with a flashlight to proudly display the empty closet for you to see. Daddy is fearless, and so are you as you wrap your arms around him, squealing your thank you's for saving you from the dreadful nightmares living in the dark confines of your closet. To you, it's the scariest thing in the world (you don't realize yet that the monsters Daddy fights when he goes away are ten times worse than the ones in your closet or under your bed).
You don't understand why Mommy worries when Daddy goes away, why you sometimes find her crying in her bedroom all by herself. You think that the monsters must have moved to her closet, or maybe there was a whole family of monsters in the house, haunting all of you (maybe that's why Daddy's eyes are so sad when he comes home). You wish you could scare away their monsters, checking their closet and hugging them tight but it simple doesn't seem to work.
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What are you afraid of?
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You're thirteen when you start losing faith in the world. Thirteen years old when the light surrounding you starts to dim and you feel lost and scared all over again. Only thirteen when Mommy becomes just Mom, and then she's gone entirely (but Daddy will always be Daddy. He'd never leave you, right?). You swear to yourself that you'll never speak to her again as you curtly tell her goodbye and hang up the phone, your voice mimicking the clinical, cold tone she'd used with you not long before, when she dragged you, kicking and screaming, into the car, telling you all about how you were moving away, because she found someone better than Daddy (she must really be crazy in love with that man to think that you'd ever pick her over your father).
That night you want to scream for Daddy again, because the monsters are back, peeking out of the shadows and trailing their icy fingers along the outsides of your subconscious, leaving you jolted and wide awake, shivering against the cold sweat that has the sheets clinging to your body. You don't, though. You don't call for him. Because you're a big girl, and you're too old for that now (let's leave out the part about how you dug out the nightlight you had when you were nine and plugged it into the wall beside your bed).
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What are you afraid of?
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At fifteen, you finally realize that maybe the monsters weren't what you were ever afraid of. They were never there, in fact. None of them were. It's the unknown that scares you. The thought that maybe Daddy isn't coming home this time (he wasn't even supposed to be fighting the monsters tonight). The dark shadow of impending grief hanging over your head, looming and slowly etching cracks into the already shaky wall of numb hope you're trying to hide behind.
You never sleep that night. You tell yourself that he's probably just out late or got drunk and crashed with one of his buddies, but something doesn't feel right. There's that little voice whispering scary, unthinkable words into your ear.
The next weeks race by in a teary blur of flowers, condolences, and family members you try hard to remember but never can. You push back the pain and wait for the numbness to set in, but it never comes. After a while, the only thing you seem to be able to feel is anger. You throw yourself into asking questions, doing your best to find out all you can about your father's mysterious death. The police shrug it off and no one seems interested in knowing what happened (it hurts more than anything to think that you're the only one that cares enough).
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What are you afraid of?
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It's years later that you finally start to feel some hope for yourself again. When you begin to lose yourself, and for once it doesn't seem like such a bad idea. You've been in relationships before, but never one like this. You've never felt so intensely for someone as you do for Jack. Jack, Jack, Jack. It's not long before your entire world is wrapped around this one man (it never crosses your mind that he could leave, too).
You're happy. For the first time in a very long while. It's easy not to focus on yourself and all the things haunting you the only thing on your mind is this wonderful man that seems incapable of doing any wrong. You're just thinking that it can't be any more perfect, that your life couldn't possibly be any more blissful, and then it is. The one missing piece of the puzzle, the tiny, sparkling diamond adorning your left ring finger, shining almost as bright as the smile lighting up your whole face whenever you look at it.
It utterly breaks your heart when he's deported, flying back into the treacherous war zone that you've feared all your life. Call it naive, but he promised you he would be back, and you believed him. With every part of yourself, you believed he would always come back to you.
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What are you afraid of?
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You're twenty-one when you start to think that maybe the dark isn't so bad. In the dark, with the curtains closed and door shut tight, you can pretend. You can pretend that with just a flick of a switch on the wall reality won't come crashing back down on you. There in the dark, you can pretend you aren't alone. And if you try hard enough, sometimes you can still feel him there beside you. His steady warmth from under the sheets beside you (the only thing that hadn't changed), and you might even be able to reach out and make believe you found his hand, his fingers slipping around your's and holding on tight the way he hadn't in so long (since he came home, really).
You miss him. You miss the way his eyes used to sparkle when he looked at you (no one has ever looked at you like that before), the way he would smile and slip his arm around your shoulders like it was the most natural thing in the world (he never touched you anymore, and God, that hurt). You miss the pride that would so unabashedly coat his words when he introduced you to his friends (you'd give anything to hear something other than that hollow emptiness). You miss the way his voice sounded, so gentle and sincere, how he'd look in your eyes and say all those wonderful words that always sent shivers through your body (beautiful/amazing/gorgeous/youtakemybreathaway).
But really, he'd been gone for a long time now. As hard as it is to admit it, he'd left you the day he stepped on that plane that took him to places unknown. You'd held onto the hope that he would come back, that your Jack was still in there somewhere, but in the end, he was just like all the others (the monsters took him away, too). In the end, no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't save him. He left you broken, shattered beyond recognition, trying your damnedest to pick up the pieces. Dreading the morning, when the sun would cruelly seep into your rooms, mercilessly prodding you from sleep and sinking further and further into yourself as the memories-turned-fantasies around you crumble.
(Because this time, he never did come back to you.)
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What are you afraid of?
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As time passes, you learn how to deal again. You get a new apartment, with all new furniture and memories to be made (things to be forgotten). You find a sort of peace in boxing up the pieces of your old life and replacing them with new things that don't smell like him and it's almost like starting a new life (too bad you couldn't find a new Kensi. This one's still old and broken).
You train hard, becoming an agent at NCIS, your dedication and stubborn will allowing you to excel at everything they throw your way. You breeze through the courses, already skilled in many areas, and come out one of the best they've ever seen. You're assigned to a team, and it's not long before you're devoting all your time to finding your father's killer. You think that maybe, just maybe, if you can figure this out then life will be okay.
The light isn't your problem anymore. It isn't your problem because it doesn't seem to be there anymore. There isn't a switch to flip now, nothing that can shake the boundaries between what is real and what isn't. The darkness that you once so feared is everywhere now. Everywhere you look, there it is, threatening to pull you under and drown you in all the things you've tried so hard to forget and leave behind. It scares you. You don't want to be like him, numb to everything around you.
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What are you afraid of?
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You've constructed walls around yourself, your heart, made rules for yourself, set boundaries that must never be crossed. You'll be damned if you let yourself get hurt again (let another man in only to have them ripped away from you). You get used to the darkness surrounding you, become comfortable in the confines of your newfound home. Some days are worse than others. Some days the darkness is unbearable and threatens again to drown you, the emptiness filling your chest and making it hard to breathe.
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What are you afraid of?
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And then one day, suddenly, you see a ray of light. A ray of light that comes in the form of your utterly maddening blue-eyed partner. It surprises you that this man, this man that has drove you so insane over the past months, has somehow managed to worm his way into your life, becoming a facet of your day to day routine. Somehow, he brings the light in with him, illuminating parts of you that you forgot were even there (like that smile that he always seemed to be able to bring out, or that laugh that no one had heard in years). Your wall had been constructed so carefully, so much time had been put into protecting yourself from this, and yet all you could do was stand in awe as this man blew through every single brick, like it was the most natural thing in the world. You resisted, fighting it with all you had in you, but whatever you did, he countered it effortlessly. Pushing when he needed to, but never making you uncomfortable. He quickly became the most important person in your life, the person you ran to when things were hard, the only person you knew without a second's thought would be there no matter what.
This man, who brought you doughnuts in the mornings. This man, who never got your coffee wrong. This man, who recorded hour after hour of America's Next Top Model just because he knew it was your favorite show. This man, who you trusted with not only your life, but everything that made your life worth living. He knows your secrets, he'd seen you at your highest and lowest points, knows your smile and had even seen your tears.
You're letting him in too far (it's not like you could stop it). You're relying on him too much for your own good, but for some reason you just can't bring yourself to push him away. You try, you really do. You make a conscious effort to stop the growing partnership (relationship) between the two of you. Limiting how much of yourself you reveal to him, making excuses as to why your regular Friday night movie isn't going to work this week, gradually trying to pull yourself away from him.
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What are you afraid of?
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And that's when the darkness comes back. That's when you stop smiling and laughing, when the lingering scent of the ocean and his cologne fades from your couch and you start to notice that even he isn't trying so hard anymore. All of a sudden, you're six years old again, huddled on your bed, desperately trying to calm your racing heart. You want to call for help, scream that simple five-letter name that would bring those beautiful blue eyes running back to your side (to save you) in a heartbeat. You did what you wanted, pushed him away. And that's when you realize that maybe, you're too far in to pull out. This man already has a hold on you, and the further you pull yourself, the unhappier you find yourself. It's not long before the almost sad, forlorn look that flicks across his features every time you turn down his offer of a beer or a movie or even a marathon of your favorite reality television starts to chip away at your resolve (more like blows through it with a wrecking ball).
But the way his (beautiful/gorgeous/amazing) blue eyes lit up when you accepted his offer of a beer and a movie one random Tuesday night, laughing and grabbing his wrist, pulling him towards the door when he teased you about missing his company, that sent the butterflies into a flurry and brought a grin to your lips that you simply couldn't wipe off. You didn't even like the movie, but having him back by your side was worth it (and if you're honest, waking up with your head on his shoulder and his arm draped around you felt better than you'd ever admit).