Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS.
This story happened before the show. It's meant to be ambiguous because is a pre-story to another story I am currently working on.
I was inspired to start the story after my siblings told me about the song, "Say Something" by A Great Big World. I had to listen to it a few times to understand the meaning of it but then the story sort of came to me. I am still working on the ending which always gets to me in every story I write so it might not be publish for a while. If you are interested in being a beta for me, please message me and we can communicate. Please leave a message and any thoughts you might have. I will greatly appreciate it.
P.S. My siblings said they thought the song was sad but I think it is sad but also shows strength. Tell me what you think and go listen to it, is very good.
To Say Something
The red head watched him work on his boat from the top of the stairs where she was seating in the doorway. They had been together for almost two years but as time went slowly by she didn't think she could do this anymore. Two years together and she still felt that he wasn't telling her the whole truth, he was hiding things.
Gibbs felt her eyes on him but he ignored her. He couldn't deal with her emotional self and wanting answers that he truly didn't want to give. She had been better than Diane but her constant presence irked him, she didn't have to say a word but he knew everything she wanted to say but wouldn't. He wondered how long this would last, her silently asking him to talk and he refusing to. He was impress that she had lasted this long if he was honest with himself. She wasn't a yeller like Diane but she also wasn't confronting like- no he wasn't going to go there.
He continued to sand his boat and drink some bourbon as he tried to let go of the case that he had been trying to solve for the past several weeks. Boone had been a son of b- that should have been caught sooner but hadn't been. He had killed two more women and it had almost killed him but he had finally gotten Boone. It didn't matter if Boone refused to speak, they had his fingerprints on the knife and his skin under one of his victim's fingernails, and he was caught. This morning Director Morrow had even informed him that Boone had received death sentence and was now waiting on it but Gibbs didn't care. Boone's death wouldn't bring back the victims but would bring justice to all the families of the women.
Gibbs was taken out of his thoughts when he smelled dinner. He contemplated in going up and eating with his girlfriend of almost two years but decided not to. He didn't want to hear her concerns or feel her stares on him, or hear her silent communication asking him to talk. No, Gibbs preferred to stay in his basement sanding his boat and ignoring the issue that was his personal life.
In the kitchen sat a young woman with red long hair, her plate and her boyfriends served with food she had prepared just for him. She wanted to congratulate him on the case close and give a minute of their time to the victims that had been killed because of a psycho. But as she waited for her boyfriend to come up, she slowly realized that he wouldn't be joining her. She played with her fork and waited but after half an hour she simply stood up, sliding the chair into the kitchen table and making her way to the hallway. She put on her coat, the coat Jethro had bought her and slowly took off the necklace he had given to her a few months ago. She slowly opened the door and closed it behind her. She didn't have to worry about being scared of the night anymore. Her boyfriend had made sure to catch the bastard that had terrorist all of D.C. and so she walked the street at night alone.
She didn't know how long she walked only that the night had become cooler and the moon had risen higher into the sky. She decided to turn around and slowly made her way back to the house. As she walked she wondered if Jethro had even notice her gone. As she walked she wondered if her walking away would hurt Jethro as all. As she walked she wondered if Jethro would ever care. As she walked she wondered if her heart would ever be whole again. As she was ready to turn the corner that would lead back to Jethro's she decided to stop wondering. It must have been a sigh or faith but at that very moment a taxi came by and stopped in front of her.
"Need a taxi?" The man behind the wheel asked. She looked at the street that would lead back to silence and then at the man who could take her back to reality.
"Yes," she finally said, opening the door and getting in.
As the taxi took her further and further away from the man she though was the one and back in the house Jethro stood sanding the boat. It wasn't until around 0300 that his stomach finally told him he needed food and he reluctantly put away his tools and made his way slowly up the stairs. He was surprise to feel the air so still and a goose bump suddenly ran up his spine. He shook the feeling away and went to the kitchen ignoring it. He turned on the light and was surprise to find two serve plates and a burned out candle between them. He ran his hand down his face and knew he would get it tomorrow for missing such a nice dinner, it was always the same with Diane how would it be different now. He grabbed one of the plates and threw it into the microwave. He rubbed his chin and wondered if he should go up to his room and apologized now or wait till the morning to make it up to her. As he sat on the table and ate he decided to wait till the morning. She wasn't like Diane in that aspect, she didn't always need to fix everything in that instance.
She would be up at the crack of dawn anyway, Jethro thought. If she made him breakfast, he knew she wasn't totally mad at him but if she only made him coffee, he knew he would have to go out and buy her flowers. As he finished his plate, he decided to have seconds, putting the plate in front of him in the microwave and washing the one he had just use, anything to get on her good side tomorrow morning, he thought again.
When he finished his second plate and washed it as well, he quickly went searching for what he knew had been cooked; he opened the fridge and then the oven door and was happy to find it, dessert. He slapped the back of his own head when he realized that she only wanted to celebrate the end of a hard case. She had done this on many occasions and Jethro now hated himself for thinking she would want anything more. As he ate his favorite pie, he wondered how he could make it up to her. He never understood why she would cook him such dinners made out of scratch but she did it and he enjoyed them. As he washed his pie plate as well and put the pie in the oven he still wondered what he could get her to make up for him being an ass. He made his way down to the basement and brainstormed ideas, what could he get her or make her to make it up to her.
He didn't know when he fell asleep but he did and he didn't wake till after the sun had risen. He slowly sat up, noticing sun light entering the basement. He rubbed his head and wondered why hadn't he heard any noise upstairs? He shook his head and quickly climbed the stairs, still not having figured out what to get too asked for forgiveness. He entered the kitchen words of apology in his lips but they never made it out as he noticed the kitchen the same way he had left it the night before. He slowly made his way to the living room and noticed the still air. He ran up the stairs calling out for her but no response came back. He finally got to his room prepare to start saying he was sorry, something he never did but those words were never heard either. The room was completely still and everything was just like it was when he had come up after coming for work and having changed before heading down to the basement last night. He opened the bathroom door and noticed her toothbrush, he opened the closet door and noticed her clothes, he looked around the room and she was still there but then she wasn't. He made his way down the stairs and towards the hallway, trying to figure out what had happen when he notice three things.
The first was that her jacket was gone; the jacket he had given her.
The second was that her keys were still on the small table she had put there without him having realized it. She had been living with him for a few weeks when he had noticed it out of the blue, he was going to say something but it made sense to have it there so he said nothing. Later a mason jar was set on it for any spare change he ended up with in his pockets at the end of the day.
The third thing he noticed though let him know everything he needed to know. He grabbed the necklace that was bright against the dark wood of the table and opened the unlocked door. This surprise him because she hated having an unlock door but at the same time it shouldn't have because her keys were in the table. Locking the door was something he grew to do as she spent a few nights a week and later when she moved in for good. He always made sure to lock the door when he first entered the house at the end of the day. He would also double checked it before heading to bed, never forgetting to do so because his subconscious told him he now had something precious to protect. Of course he would push this thought away only telling himself that he only locked to door to please her but he even tried not to use that excuse as the reason why he did things was for someone else not himself.
He sat on the front steps, his hands in front of him and the necklace being held by one of his hands as he sat and waited for her to return. He forgot about breakfast and forgot about coffee that morning; his only concern was for her to come home. It was three in the afternoon when a van pulled up and out came her friend and her friend's husband. Slowly realization of everything started to hit him a little at a time.
"She sends this to you," the husband said, putting a cup of coffee beside Jethro. "We're only packing her things and leaving," he said as he and his wife pass Jethro and made their way inside the house with folded boxes. Jethro knew he knew their names but right now it didn't matter, they were taking her things away.
It took five loads of boxes for each of the friends before all her things had been packed. The friend moved to the passenger seat, saying nothing to Jethro in the whole process but her husband did as he stood in front of him.
"All she ever wanted you to say was something Jethro," the husband told him as he stepped away from him, "Just something to prove to her that you cared." Jethro said nothing as he watched them go and watched everything that was her go as well.
Jethro didn't know how long he stayed seating in his front steps only that one second it was light and the next it was dark. As the moon rose once more and the stars appeared in the cool silent night, the word something, was heard but it was too late… because no one was there to hear it.
I hope you have enjoyed and review a quick review. Please go and listen to the song, you won't regret it. I think I prefer the original version with only A Great Big World but the second version is okay with Cristina Aguilera. Go and listen, "Say Something."