Chapter 4
Jenny felt worse than she had ever felt before, or at least she couldn't remember having felt worse than this and that was to say something after all the trips to the ER during her time as an active field agent – several of those together with Jethro, which was why she thought she was imagining his voice at first.
"Jen?"
For a wonderful little moment, she thought she might be back in Paris and pictured herself leaving the hospital to return to their hotel room, where Jethro would take better care of her than any of those damn doctors ever could.
But then Jenny blinked several times to clear her vision and realized that Jethro's concerned face hovering above her own was quite real and that they weren't back in Paris because Ziva was in the room, too.
"Good to have you back, Director," the Israeli woman said and smiled when she saw that Jenny was looking at her.
But Jenny wasn't sure whether Ziva's enthusiasm was quite warranted because she felt so awful and weak that she couldn't imagine getting out of his hospital bed any time soon. Nevertheless, she tried to at least sit up. "Jethro?"
"Easy there, Jen," Gibbs said and gently pushed her down into the pillows again, his hand resting on her chest a little longer than strictly necessary.
She didn't resist because lying on her back seemed about the only thing she could actually do right now without blacking out again. And she certainly didn't mind Jethro's touch. It felt reassuring somehow. It helped to anchor her in the here and now and prevented her from slipping back into the darkness that lurked at the edges of her fuzzy vision.
"What… happened… Jethro?" she managed to ask him.
Instead of answering right away, Gibbs gave Ziva a look which she seemed to understand immediately.
"I will be right outside," she told them, and although Jenny didn't quite know why, she felt reassured by that. If Ziva was outside guarding the door, no one would get past her who wasn't supposed to. That much was for certain.
After Ziva had left the room, Gibbs focused on Jenny again. "You don't remember?" he asked in response to her earlier question.
Jenny was about to open her mouth to say no when between Ziva's protectiveness and Gibbs' barely contained anger everything suddenly came back to her. How she had opened the door to that masked guy, saw the gun pointed at herself, and then… nothing but pain. Jenny winced and one of those damn monitors that surrounded her warned them that her heart rate was accelerating considerably.
Gibbs noticed and took her hand in his to give it a gentle squeeze. "It's okay, Jenny. You're safe now."
She sighed and allowed his touch to calm her down again. The last thing she wanted right now was a bunch of anxious doctors to make a fuss over her. "And I would have been all along if I had listened to you," she finally said, thinking of Gibbs' warning concerning her missing security staff.
Gibbs wasn't the type for an 'I told you so", so he just looked at her. "Why did you open the door like that, Jen?"
She pondered her answer for a few seconds because she knew how the truth would make him feel, but Jethro had an uncanny knack of noticing when he was being lied to. "I thought it was you," she finally admitted.
Judging from the look on his face, Gibbs had already guessed as much. "I'm sorry, Jen. I shouldn't have left you alone."
That really caught her by surprise. "You're sorry? What about 'don't apologize, it's a sign of weakness'?"
Gibbs shrugged. "Well, that's exactly what this is."
"No, it's not. It's not your fault, Jethro." Jenny knew he wouldn't believe her, but she at least had to give it a try. "I just seem to repel everything that's good in my life. After all, you practically ran from my house."
Gibbs looked uncomfortable, as much as that was even possible for him. But Jenny took pride in knowing him pretty well. The look on his face told her that he wasn't prepared to talk about them right now. But he had always found it difficult to tell her no after she had gotten hurt during an op. He had always found a way to blame himself.
Back then perhaps it had made sense since he had been her superior. But now it was the other way around, and he was still feeling guilty. That was just the way he was – always so protective of the people he… what? Loved?
"Jen…"
"No, it's alright, Jethro," Jenny interrupted him because she didn't want him to feel guilty… about anything. Jethro had been hurting because of her once before. She certainly didn't want to hurt him again – which meant she should better stop wondering whether he still loved her or not.
"I made a decision once which forced you to make yours. It's only fair," she told him.
Still, lying here on the verge of death because some guy she probably didn't even know had shot her for no other reason than her being the leader of an US agency made her wonder whether she really hadn't made the wrong choice.
Maybe Gibbs could guess what she was thinking, but either way he decided to change the topic to something he felt more comfortable with or rather something that was the most prominent thing on his mind right now. "We will get that guy, Jenny."
She nodded, but she couldn't help feeling that it didn't really matter because there would always be another one.
A/N: Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed ;)
