Gibbs flew through time and space, landing heavily on the concrete floor of his basement. Taking a moment to regain his balance, he blinked several times and then peered at his watch to check the time. 12:00. Again. What the...? He turned to Kate. But she wasn't there. He glanced throughout his entire basement, even taking the time to holler up the stairs.
But she was definitely gone. It hit him suddenly; she had left his life a second time without a word. Gibbs swallowed, feeling again the dull feeling of regret that he always tried to ignore. He had been so caught up in his own personal struggle that he hadn't said anything to her that he had wanted to, nothing about how they missed her still, how she had been a wonderful agent, or any of the questions that still haunted him about her death.
"Regretting the past won't get you very far," spoke a low, accented voice to his left.
Ziva David stood only a few feet away from Gibbs, slouching against the frame of the boat.
"Ziva!" Gibbs' mouth had gone dry.
"Oh, I cannot read minds, as you would say," she explained, "but I know that that look on your face very well. All too often it shows on mine."
Gibbs did not appear relieved in the least, "Are you dead?" he asked stiffly.
"What?" she was amused by his rather unorthodox question, "Uh, no." She tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear. "Why would... Oh! You think that because Kate and Shannon are dead, that I am as well. No, this is the present, and so it is very appropriate to send one from the present, no? Although, specifically speaking, I am not Ziva, either."
Gibbs resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Must all of his agents, past and present, babble on constantly? "I know," he muttered, slouching over to the workbench and pouring himself a glass of bourbon. All things considered, he decided that he deserved it.
Ziva eyed him carefully. "Don't drink too much," she warned, "I don't want to have all of my time here wasted with you falling comatose and blacking out everything I'm about to tell you."
Gibbs glared, "More talking?"
"Oh, yes," she smirked wickedly, "but you deserve a lot more than just talk. I didn't want to have to do this, though. In fact, we all drew straws, Kate, myself, and the others, to see who would have to give you the dressing up-"
"Dressing down," he corrected absently as he picked up his sander and began to work on the boat again.
She glared at his back as she talked right over his interruption, "and I unfortunately drew the short straw. So basically, I was told to tell you this: you-"
"Told by who?"
"It's 'whom', Gibbs, 'told by whom'. I shouldn't be correcting your grammer. And for someone who wants me to stop talking, you are asking a lot of questions."
"Told by who?" he repeated.
Ziva raised an eyebrow, "None of your business. No one that you know. Now listen!" she smacked the sander out of his hands and stared him down, "This is why we have been sent. You are a great agent. You don't handle some situations the best way, but no one is perfect. No, why we're here is because you messed up badly a long time ago. That action set off a chain reaction that won't become clear for a long time. But if you don't fix this, it will end badly for a lot of people. It won't destroy the world, but it will ruin the lives of many of the people that you care most about."
He looked at her skeptically.
"'Take nothing for granted; always double check' is a good rule, Gibbs, but one of these days you are going to have to trust someone. But enough, I'm not here to lecture, I'm here to show you what you refuse to see."
She grabbed his hand, although again he could not feel it, and they vanished.
Gibbs landed face-first on the floor. Spitting out carpet fibers, he climbed to his feet and tried to ignore Ziva's snickering. He suspected that she had travelled more roughly just to provide cheap entertainment for herself. He remembered ruefully how much more subtle and gentle Kate was.
"See, that's the thing," Ziva said, "You never realize what you have until it is gone."
He shot her a suspicious glare, but she deflected it with a bland smile.
"I really can't read your mind," she promised.
Somehow he doubted that, but he let the matter slide as he looked around. This was Abby's house, he knew, and judging from the amount of decorations and spare coats draped around the entry way, she was probably throwing her annual Christmas party. Ziva and he followed smothered sounds of laughter down the hall and into the living room. To Gibbs' surprise, he located his entire team sitting on the floor and couch. Ducky and Palmet sat on the oversized sofa, with Abby perched on an armrest. McGee sat in the other chair, and Ziva and Tony sat side by side on the floor. The Ziva next to Gibbs gave a sarcastic little wave to the Ziva on the floor.
"If this is the present, then how are you there and here?" Gibbs demanded.
"I said that this was the present, as in Christmas time in the present. Not the precise, strict, exact, perfect, literal moment in time just so that Gibbs can argue semantics with an invisible spirit. I never thought I'd say this to you, but stop talking!" Ziva hissed.
The movie Miracle on 34th Street was coming to an end on Abby's television screen. The remains of dinner lay forgotten on the large oaken table in the back room. Pieces of crushed popcorn littered the carpet, tokens from the epic food fight that had taken place earlier. As the credits began to roll, Abby stood up and yawned hugely. She crossed the room and turned off the TV, flipping on the nearby lamp as well.
No one else in the room moved. Content, sleepy, warm, and well-fed, they remained in place until the silence was interrupted by a loud snore. Palmer had fallen asleep on the sofa, with his head propped up against the ledge where the back of the furniture met the wall.
"When's Gibbs coming?" asked Tony a moment later.
"He's not," said Abby.
Something in her tone alerted Ziva, who sat up straight and looked at the girl directly. "What's wrong, Abby?"
"I didn't even invite him," she whispered in a flat, unAbby-like voice. Everyone, with the sole exception of Palmer, stared at her. She sat cross-legged on the floor and began to pick at the carpet, choking out her further explanation. "He wouldn't care and he wouldn't come. He's been so angry lately. First it was at the Director, but then he snapped at me a bunch of times the next day. And yesterday, I told myself that when he came down to say goodbye for the holiday break, I would invite him. I waited and waited and waited in my lab, but he never showed up," she was fighting back tears by the time that she had finished.
McGee, who was closest, reached down and hugged her tightly. Ducky also hastened to comfort her. He took Abby's hand in his.
"Abigail, you know that he cares for you. I'm certain that he has just been having a stressful last week, and I bet that-"
"No," Abby cut him off, "he's been like this more and more often for the past eight months or more. It's like he's changing permanantly."
"No one ever stays the same, Abby," Ducky replied gently.
"I'm only crying because I'm exhausted. And of course I know nothing's the same. Entropy is a natural force that pulls everything apart at a subatomic level; everything changes eventually," talking about scientific theories seemed to pull Abby back into safer waters, "I'm talking about a bad change."
No one answered. No one really had to. They all knew what she was saying because they had all experienced Gibbs at one time or another recently. His head-slapping was getting harder, with less of an amusing intent and more of a painful one. He wasn't cutting anyone a break, no matter how hard that they were trying. His fights with Jenny had been getting worse, ever since she had told him off for embarassing her in front of the Secretary of the Navy two and a half days ago. He was there when they appeared in the morning, and ignored them as they said their good byes at the end of the day. They began to suspect that he was only going home for a change of clothes and a coffee fix. But what could they do?
In the long silence that had followed, several other members of the team had fallen asleep. Tony's head lolled back against the sofa, while Abby's face was smushed into McGee's shoulder as she snorred lightly. McGee himself was barely able to keep his eyes open. Ducky smiled at Ziva and shrugged his shoulders. Ziva stared at Tony's peaceful expression and couldn't resist. She dashed silently into the kitchen and returned with a container of Ready-Whip.
Gibbs stared without interest at the sight of the Mossad officer tormenting his senior agent's face and hair with the can of whipped cream, the end of a shoelace, and several pieces of popcorn that she had plucked from the floor. His team was being ridiculous, going on and on about him "changing", absolutely ridiculous. It was Jenny that was messed up right now, and with her all over him how was he supposed to act "normal"?
He glanced out of the corner of his eye to where Ziva was cheering on the Ziva on the floor. She was now inserting whipped cream into Tony's ears. The Ziva beside him caught his eye.
"Interesting, yes? That you never noticed their feelings?" He didn't respond, and so she plowed on, "Perhaps you could show that you actually care about them a bit? Maybe not take them for granted?"
He still didn't say a word, but only glared more fiercely at her. Sighing, Ziva grabbed Gibbs' hand and pulled him away from the scene.
Gibbs landed flat on his back in a huge pile of fluffy snow. Getting to his feet, he repressed a shiver as a good deal of it slipped down the back of his sweatshirt and ran freezingly down his skin. He felt a thunk on the back of his head. He whipped around to find the shadowy silhouette of Ziva brushing the water and snow off her hands as she grinned wickedly. The back of his head was caked in the remnants of her snowball.
It was then that he noted the house that stood behind Ziva. An immense, beautiful old house made mostly of brownstone, it was not at all difficult for him to identify his new location even in the dark. He began to suspect that Ziva enjoyed torturing him this way, but to avoid allowing her to see that she had won, he headed resolutely off in the direction of Jenny Shepard's front door.
Ziva watched in amusement as he struggled in vain to open the door. His hand slid right through the handle, though he tried multiple times to grab onto it. Finally he gave up, turning and glaring back at her. She raised an eyebrow before she trudged through the ankle-deep snow to help him. Her steps left no prints in the new-fallen drifts.
She touched the door knob and it glided smoothly open. Gibbs snorted in annoyance as he followed her through the door and up the stairs. The inside of the house was absolutely silent, without even a slight creaking or settling of the house to break up the heavy stillness that seemed to cover the rooms as thickly as the snow did the ground outside. No lights were lit, and the barely visible floor seemed almost forbidding. They reached the top of the stairs, and Gibbs turned to head towards Jenny's bedroom. Ziva tugged on his arm and pointed to the dimly lit study to the left.
Jenny Shepard sat in her desk, pen in hand, going through a thick stack of paperwork that was stacked half of a foot high next to her lamp. Her short red hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail and she wore the sweatpants and T-shirt that were her pajamas along with a worn-out, faded sweatshirt that cheered on some minor high school football team. Her darkly-ringed eyes peered out from a pair of slender glasses, but did not move along the page. She stared at the same sentence, trying to read it but unable to work up the concentration or determination to do so.
She wanted to go to bed so badly, but couldn't, wouldn't. Even in her present state, it would take at least several minutes for her to sleep, and those minutes would be filled with topics that she had been trying to block out for the past two days. Struggling on, she finally lost her patience. She threw her pen angrily at the far wall.
Gibbs flinched as the pen flew straight through his abdomen.
Kicking her chair backwards and rising to her feet, she went to the cupboard and poured herself a generous portion of bourbon. Jenny slipped out the door and began to pace down the hall.
Gibbs dodged backwards as she ploughed through him, almost losing his balance in the process.
She stalked towards the window, holding her already half-finished drink in her left hand. She paused at the window, staring blankly out at the thick night sky. Even the sharp lights of a car on the street below could not cut through and illuminate the inky blackness. Wiping the bits of condensation from the edges, she rested her forehead against its cold surface. She felt again the hot tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. Angry at her own perceived weakness, she forced them back. Why did she always seem this way, she wondered? Was it for the happiness of her past, so foolishly and willfully abandoned, or the lives she witnessed torn apart each day, the doubts that plagued her, or the fact that she was alone again, as she had been for years? Was it that she felt as though she could no longer tell wrong from right, that the few people whose opinions actually mattered to her seemed to despise and resent her entirely, or that for everything she had worked to gain, she seemed to have lost so much more?
"It doesn't hurt you at all, to see her this way?" asked Ziva softly, noting his stoic face.
Gibbs took his time to reply, "Whatever we had once, it's long gone," he said harshly and, he hoped, without emotion.
Ziva gave a snort as this, "It sounds as you are trying to convince yourself as much as me. But never mind that."
Jenny slowly wandered back down the hall. She reentered the study and set her empty glass down on the desk and sat back down in the seat. Opening the top drawer, she stared at the loaded weapon that she kept there. She didn't move for the next several minutes. Then she snapped the drawer shut angrily.
"Don't be absolutely stupid, Jenny," she muttered, "Oh, wonderful, that's what you're reduced to now, isn't it? Talking to yourself night and day. You're probably crazy by now. Or I am. Whoever we--or I--am talking about now." She gave a sort of hysterical breathy laugh, and only then did she drop her head into her hands and begin to cry.
"How are you not affected by any of this?" demanded Ziva.
"None of this is real," he explained flatly, "just another dream."
"Oh, of course," said Ziva icily, fury and sarcasm emanating from each syllable, "And if it were?"
He shrugged.
"You bitter, self-pitying, selfish man!" she spat, "You arrogant bastard! And no, that isn't something to take pride in, whatever you might think. You are not infallible. You screw up just as much as any of us, but are too proud to admit to it. You created one of your rules around that, so you would never have to admit your mistakes. And then for some strange reason, you consider that strength of character!"
Gibbs glared at her in mounting fury. How dare she? She didn't know any of his motives or reasons or anything of his past beyond what she heard from gossip. He turned to stalk away, but found that he suddenly was incapable of independent movement. He tried to speak, but couldn't open his mouth. Literally, he was forced to stand motionless and listen to Ziva.
Jenny made herself stop crying a minute later. It wouldn't solve anything. She set about blowing her nose and drying her eyes.
"And do you know what else? You should see Shannon, each and every time that you start off on another silly, half-hearted fling. I think she's ashamed of you! You're disgracing her memory, pretending that somehow you are proving that you love her by giving up on every other relationship."
His head was pounding again from the headache that he'd had earlier. He hadn't been this angry at a single person in a long time.
"But thank goodness," she hissed angrily, "that the great, omnipotent Gibbs won't have to put up with such indignation any longer! By this time next year, his entire team, lab tech, medical examiners, and a certain director will either be dead or gone, leaving him for good." There was a long pause, "But what do I know about that?" Ziva finished softly and slowly, "I'm just the spirit of the present."
She was lying, Gibbs decided, definitely lying.
"Oh, am I?" asked Ziva, still speaking in a voice barely above a whisper, "Remember, Gibbs, everything is a chain reaction. Fix it," she faded even as she finished speaking.
Jenny stood up and crossed the room deliberately, reaching into the bottom drawer of a filing cabinent. Pulling out a pile of folders and notebooks, she lifted a small, dark brown book from the bottom and opened it gently. Plastic photo covers protected dozens of pictures. There were several pictures of her as a young girl, bright smile and bouncing curls glowing. Her father stood with his arm around her in most of these. There were photos of several NCIS agents, both former and present, foreign cities, monuments, past boyfriends, college parties, even people that she had lost touch with years ago. She flipped slowly through each page. Throughout the entire book, photos of Gibbs were conspicuously absent.
She finally reached the last photo, a picture of the Pyramids of Giza rising high above the blowing sands. She tucked her fingers behind that photo and slid another out from underneath it. It was a shot of her and Gibbs in Europe. Taken by another member of their team, it showed a drenched Jenny chasing after Gibbs, determined to throw him into the swimming pool that he had just tossed her into. The photo captured perfectly the smile and light that hovered around their mouths and eyes. Jenny stared at the picture as if it held the answer to a question that she no longer understood. Then her hand seemed to contract of its own accord, and with a flick of her wrist she tossed the crumpled picture into the fireplace.
Reaching above the mantle, she pulled out a box of matches and proceded to light the few charred logs and twigs on fire. She watched carelessly as the picture shriveled into a blackened ball and rolled to the back of the fireplace. Then she sat back down in her desk and began again to sign off on paperwork.
Zivastill watched from the corner of the room. She was not at all angry, although she had portrayed absolute fury to Gibbs. She wasn't sure that she had agreed with what she had said--screamed-- at him. Though regretting the harshness of the words, they had been necessary. She had to get through to him in any way possible, if only to make him look around and simply seewhat he had, was, and could have and be. She had done all that she could. It was someone else's turn now.
I shamelessly stole a quote from "Bones" to add into Abby's speech. And I do apologize for any grammatical mistakes. The website seems to randomly delete some of my spaces sometimes. Does anyone know why? Also, I'm fairly certain that the rating is correct, even if it gets a little dramatic for me there near the end. I'm really trying to keep everyone in character, but sometimes their personalities are not conducive to fitting into the roles that I want them to play. It's a little difficult to get deep emotion out of Gibbs sometimes. If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading!
