A/N: Thanks DoomPrincess for helping as beta again.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews. Here´s the next chapter which might tell you who has just asked Gibbs "If you had a chance to look inside, would you do it?" Find out if your guess was right...
-xxx-
Chapter Three
Gibbs's gut twisted, but he didn't even flinch. After the initial shock had passed, he slowly lifted his head to stare outside the window.
He had heard someone step in quietly and the person had come to a stop in the door-frame only seconds before voicing what she was wondering about. The sounds of the footsteps behind him had already told him the person was female.
And somehow he had known there was no danger. So he had not bothered to turn his attention from what he had been doing. If anything at all, he had been cursing Jenny for not having been thorough.
He had been calm inside until he had heard his watcher's voice.
And it left him incredibly confused. The scent of perfume, just to start with. Since when did she wear perfume? And most of all ... her ... being here at all. The very last person he had expected to meet had been her. This really wasn't making any sense.
Not to him. Not yet.
Gibbs's face was holding a bitter expression, which he wouldn't want her to see, so he decided not to turn around for as long as possible.
The silence stretched as he eventually narrowed his eyes and squinted. Taking one step backwards he suspiciously eyed the front side of the desk. There it was. A lockable drawer. The key was in the lock.
Driven by his rising suspicion, he opened it and glanced inside.
Lying inside were a couple of small cases. Cases in which medals usually were kept. Taking the top most in his hand and opening it, Gibbs wasn't surprised to find a medal placed inside.
"No," after countless minutes he finally answered the woman's question.
Waiting for him to give a further explanation, the woman didn't say anything. And Gibbs indeed continued after taking a deep breath.
"Because I am sure, I would not find any medals inside like I was told." He sounded sad. And exhausted.
"No. No, you won't," the woman confirmed his presumption.
A sad tone was lying in her voice as well. Awkwardness was the main reason for their taciturnity. All-consuming feelings of guilt were surging inside both of them.
Still not daring to turn and look at her, Gibbs grabbed hold of the wooden box.
"You ... did look inside?" he wanted to know.
After taking a deep breath, the woman scornfully went into detail, leaving no doubt about her attitude towards the deceased captain. "The bastard started cheating on his wife shortly after they had been married. Took her a good three years to find out but it eventually was deciding for her to leave him and file for divorce. He was so unapologetic about it. And now he was having no qualms about cheating on his terminally ill girlfriend either. Bet he cheated on a couple more women over the years."
Then she sighed heavily before revealing, "Yes. Yes, I did look inside. More than twenty years ago, I did."
Her answer made Gibbs freeze. His knuckles went white as his hand tensed up in anger and sorrow and his grip around the wooden chest tightened.
He had known that she once had been married. He had known that her husband at the time had gone mad when they had been told that she couldn't have children, and that he had been cheating on her. He however hadn't known that her ex-husband obviously had been cheating practically all through their three years of marriage. Gibbs also hadn't known about how she had found out. That, she had never talked about. And should she ever have mentioned a name, which Gibbs was pretty sure she hadn't, he doubted that he would have made the connection here.
Gibbs now wondered if Jenny had known about this part of the Captain's past. But most possibly she hadn't. She would not have handed that task to him.
Once again the silence stretched.
Although she couldn't see his face -- for Gibbs was still avoiding turning and looking at her -- she knew his face was holding an expression of torture. To learn about the 'how' must have struck him to the core. He practically relived the moment that she had described and he suffered. Suffered, like she had suffered twenty-two years ago when she had opened the box -- blissfully ignorant -- because she had believed it to be the correct place where her husband, a man ten years her senior, kept awards and her innocent intention had been to put inside the one that had been lying on the table. The least she had expected to find inside had been offensive photos and love letters.
It was an understatement to say what she had revealed made Gibbs feel sorry for her. It devastated him. Because many many years ago someone had deeply hurt the woman he had once been together with.
The woman he still was in love with.
The woman who had suddenly disappeared out of his life and since then he had spent nights pondering what had really made her go in the end without leaving a note.
Why hadn't she told him what she had been going through?
Why had she kept this from him?
And it was at that very instant that Gibbs understood that she hadn't told him out of the same reason that he had avoided to tell her about his wife and daughter. Neither one's silence had ever been a question of trust. Talking about the most bitter parts of their past would make the other one feel the pain as well and they both hadn't wanted the other one to suffer because of something that had happened a long time ago.
To be continued...
A/N: Hmmm... no name here. Baddy me. But a couple of hints should give away who the mysterious woman is ;-)