"Gibbs .." Abby whined into his ear.

"I'm on it Abs" he replied a little wearily as he moved down the steps into the basement.

"You said that an hour ago."

"Still looking," he replied, before he snapped his cell phone shut and placed it on the workbench.

Gibbs bent down and pulled a few boxes out onto the floor. Stepping back as dust flew everywhere. There really wasn't anywhere else he could look after this, and he found himself wishing he'd kept his mouth shut earlier. But he'd come into her lab when she was running a internet search in an effort to track down unusual stamps as a birthday gift for McGee; and he'd made the mistake of saying that he thought he owned a Ceres stamp issued in France at the time of the Third Republic. And now here he was - rummaging through still more boxes that contained memories of a life he'd long since left behind.

He was halfway through the third box when he stumbled across them. Attached to a letter housed in an envelope that had yellowed slightly around the edges over the years. The rubber band that held everything together snapped as he pulled it off. He didn't need to read the letter to know what it was, and who it had been from, but as the photos fluttered to the ground her face looked up at him. And instead of doing the sensible thing – which would have been to bundle everything up, put them back into the box, and keep looking for the stamp - he picked them up.

Wrapped in nothing more than a sheet, Jennifer Shepard looked back at him from the middle of a bed. Her green eyes seductive. Intense. Expressive. Speaking volumes to him as he leafed through the photographs; each one sparking more and more memory recall of a balmy afternoon spent in bed when there had been nothing more pressing to do than make each other feel good. When it had been all about them.

Or perhaps it had been all about her. He only remembered how she'd made him feel. There'd always been something about the way she looked at him from bed that made him squirm. Certainly it was a testament to the hold she'd had on him. And on his body. He smiled a little at the thought because if he was reading his body right, some things hadn't been diminished by time. Even now there was something about that sultry look that drew him in and made him want her. He pushed the photos aside, knowing that continuing to look at them would lead him down a path he wasn't sure he'd be comfortable taking at the moment. Not because it wouldn't be pleasurable, but because he wasn't sure he'd be able to look her in the face come morning.

Not without smirking anyway. And besides, it was only a matter of time before Abby rang for yet another a progress report, and he didn't particularly want to be caught breathless with his pants down.

He'd just finished going through the last box when his phone went off.

"Nothing Abs."

"It's okay Gibbs" she said a trifle sadly. "At least you tried."

"Yeah."

"Find any blast from your past while you were looking?"

"Nope."

But his fingers lingered over the top photo. Itching to run over the skin of the woman in it as they had on the day the photo was taken.

She had been his partner in more ways than he cared to admit. He couldn't count the times he'd rested his head in her lap and felt peace when the world and all the evil in it had weighed heavily on his shoulders. And when she'd gone it had been hard to accept that she would never look at him again with desire burning in her eyes, that the arms that had lent him strength and security in moments of darkness wouldn't be there to hold him close, and that he'd never see her come apart in his arms again. All of that came flooding back to him now as he sat looking at her picture in the quiet of his basement.

"Gibbs?"

His head jerked up and he realised he'd forgotten all about Abby at the other end of the line.

"I'm here .."

"Night ..."

"Night ... Abs" he said as picked up the photo again and lost himself in it for a while longer.

Remembered her shifting around on the bed following his prompts - until the gradual exposure of skin and the small sounds she'd made for him had been too enticing to resist and he'd pulled the sheet away from her. He could still remember how her hand had reached out to touch him. Gentle fingers had moved along his side and pulled him close enough so that she could reach down and tease him. Arousing him further. Making him moan in appreciation pretty much the same way he found himself moaning now. He remembered slow, deep kisses that had escalated into urgency; into a need for release that was manifesting itself again now – even if he was merely reliving the moment.

And that's when he knew that he couldn't keep the photos.

He couldn't keep them, but God – he wanted to. He wanted the reminder of that time, of the way she had made him feel. He wanted to recapture the heady mix of danger, sex and laughter that had swirled around them and hold onto it tightly – not let it get away.

He'd never worked with anyone who read him so easily, who'd anticipated his every move effortlessly – in the field and in the bedroom. Her thirst to learn had been unquenchable. She'd absorbed every piece of information, every lesson. And even now he could remember her taste, the way she'd moved, how quick she'd been to rouse to anger and to passion.

She intrigued him – even now. No one could make him angrier and she was one of the few people who could surprise him – a fact she was well aware of. This wouldn't be the first time he'd found himself questioning what she had lost and gained in the last nine years. If all that passion was gone for good – or just locked away somewhere waiting to be reignited.

But she was the Director of an Armed Federal Agency and the photographs would be dynamite if they fell into the wrong hands. Idly he wondered what had happened to the rest. They'd split them between them, and he hadn't found them when she'd left.

Which didn't mean anything. He wouldn't be surprised to learn that she'd burnt them.