A/N: This one is going to be a little bit longer.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own NCIS.


The first time she'd failed to realized it, she'd been a simple Probie. Fighting against something that she knew she wouldn't win.

Didn't want to win, when giving in would taste so much sweeter.

But for propriety's sake...

Anyway, they'd been hunting an ex-military serial killer in DC. With seven vengeance murders under his belt, people on the 'Hill' had been getting tense. And therefore started breathing down their necks. Or more appropriately...his neck.

They hunted him for three weeks, and slowly but surely she watched as the stress got to Jethro. Slowly, she watched as he became more and more immersed-obsessed-with the chase.

One day during those dreadful three weeks, she'd looked into his eyes. And it was then that she knew that who she had originally thought had been the hunter, had become the prey.

Turns out it hadn't been Jethro who had ended up holding the gun.

Oh yea, on the last week of the case...Jethro had disappeared. Simply...vanished.

Or that's what Decker, Burley, Morrow, and freaking Ducky had believed-at first.

She on the other hand...

On the first day he hadn't shown up for work, everybody else had liked to believe that he was just sleeping in. After all, she had started worrying simply because she'd come in and he wasn't already at his desk.

With some more pestering and persisting, and subsequently more blow-offs. She'd finally had enough and gotten up, and left the director's office. With four shocked men looking at her back, and left the building-heading for his house.

When she'd found the scene of the fight-before she shut down completely-she'd had the presence of mind to call it in.

The boys had apologized to her, but she hadn't heard them.

Everything in her was focused on finding him.

Their serial killer was ex-military, was damn good if he managed to get the drop on Jethro, and apparently favored long drawn out tortures.

It was over one long, stressful week later that they found him. During that week she'd practically gone rogue using every resource she possessed to get him back alive, while the boys sat back on their asses in awe of her.

Though when they did find him he was beaten, bruised, and bloodied. He was alive. And that had been all that mattered.

It helped that that had been all she'd noticed, the boys had gotten into a fight with their perp. While she'd ran straight to his side. Waiting desperately with her heart in her stomach and feeling like she was about to throw up, for him to open his eyes.

And when he did, the first thing he did was croak out, "Jen."

The relief she'd felt, it was the sweetest feeling in the world.

She should've known then.


It happened again, in Naples.

They were still tracking that damned Russian arms ring, and they'd been getting pretty close.

Until that hit was placed on Jethro.

Grant it they weren't stupid enough to be using their real names. So the hit had been placed on his alias, but not on hers.

And their alias's were a married couple.

Still their supposed 'backup' at headquarters in the states, which they were told they wouldn't be able to contact, that they would call them. Yea, that backup, had made the asinine decision not to pull them out when they found out about the hit.

Claiming if they could trace it back to the operator's of the ring, then they would at least have something to charge them with.

Yep, their safety was real high on the list of priorities.

But they'd stayed in, and simply watched their backs a little closer. Yet one night, walking back to their safe house, the hired gunman had struck.

Two hired guns had struck.

At first her and Jethro had taken off running. Because at the time they'd been in a populated neighborhood, and even if it wasn't the greatest or safest neighborhood in the world...

They were still federal agents, and their first instinct was to protect the civilians.

Finally they had to stop, at a place by the river. And apparently Jethro's second instinct was to protect her, because he'd spent valuable seconds trying to convince her to leave him, and run and hide. While he himself would stay behind to distract the both of them.

There was no way in hell she was doing that, and that's what she'd said to him, word-for-word.

So they stayed together, and faced the men together. She took on one, and Jethro took on the other.

Her fight had started out pretty well, back when she was just a Probie and not his partner. Jethro had made sure she possessed the knowledge, capabilities, and strength she needed to defend herself.

But even though she was landing blows left and right on him, this man was three times her size, and just wouldn't go down.

Behind her she'd heard Gibbs take his down, and next thing she knew she was on the ground with blood obscuring her vision. Above her the hit man pulled a gun out of his waistband, ready to take out one obstacle between him and his goal.

Just as the muzzle was aligning between her eyes, Jethro had turned and charged.

They went down in a heap. Kicking, punching, and trading blows too fast for her to keep up with.

And damn did she want to get up and help. Two against one would be a fight in their favor, even if Gibbs was holding his own against a professional hit man. It didn't stop her from worrying and trying to get up to help.

But no matter how much she tried, her legs wouldn't move. A tingling sensation was spreading throughout her body, and keeping her paralyzed throughout the fight.

The Russian pulled a knife, Jethro had used his knife to take down the other man.

It was thrown at his neck, but Gibbs dodged.

The Russian launched himself towards his fallen gun, and Jethro having been thrown off balance was too slow.

Jenny heard a bang.

A sickening thud.

Jenny screamed.

Without thinking, only running on the horrible fear she felt coursing through her veins, and ignoring the pain from her own wounds. She threw herself to the side, where the fallen man that Jethro had taken down gun lay.

With hands that were trembling violently, she raised the weapon, and without aim shot off three shots. Shot off three very desperate shots at the man that was setting up to finish Gibbs off, if he hadn't already.

Apparently Jethro had trained her well because; the first hit his heart, along with her second, and the third...it made an unnecessary but pleasing impact straight between the eyes.

The Russian fell, and Jethro still didn't move.

She pulled herself up, and on shaky legs made her way over to the prone figure of her lover. Jethro was lying face down, blood pooling around him. Her heart was pounding so horribly she thought she was going to throw up with anticipation.

Sinking to her knees, as gently as possible she gripped his shoulder and rolled him over onto his back. Being careful not to hurt him further than he already was.

She swallowed down bile at the sight that greeted her.

Jethro's abdomen was soaked black with blood.

Immediately her scant training kicked in and she had taken off her coat and started pressing down on the wound. Trying to stop the bleeding with one hand, while the other went to his neck.

She wanted to sob when she felt his faint fluttering pulse.

"Jethro," she cried. "Wake up, Jethro. Please wake up."

She didn't have a phone to call an ambulance, and she couldn't carry him all the way back to the safe house. So if they had any hope of him not bleeding out on then sidewalk, then he had to wake up.

"Open your eyes Jethro," she begged.

Jethro's eyes opened, "Jen."

And that night sporting a head wound of her own she'd half carried him the three blocks to where they were staying. Where Ducky had been waiting to fix him up, and most likely slip a sedative into the shots of bourbon he'd given her.

A day later and they were being sent to Positano. Just herself and Jethro, no Ducky, and no mission. Which was something that had relieved her after the stress she wished to never experience again.

She should've realized it then.


Now she's sitting in a hospital room. With Jethro in the bed hooked up to far too many machines, and looking like death itself. It's a scene that's far too familiar for her taste.

Only this time, they aren't together. She isn't in his bed at night, and his arms during the day. No, she's up in her office controlling his every move.

So does she have a right to be here?

Either way, she is. It's nighttime outside the window to her left, and his team are conked out in the waiting room outside his door. No one knows she's here other than the on duty nurse at the front desk.

But could anyone blame her? Not after she got that heart-stopping call from Ducky this afternoon, saying that Jethro had been shot. When he'd just gotten out of the hospital for BZ gas poisoning a month or so ago. And a coma shortly before that.

Now it's a gunshot wound.

'Open your eyes,' she pleads to him silently. Let him open his eyes so she can know that he'll be okay. So that she can sneak back out like a thief in the night, and live for Ducky's updates.

He knows what she needs, always have always will. Maybe that's why his eyes flutter open with a world weary groan from him.

She should get a nurse, go and call the team. Tell everyone that he's awake, but she doesn't. Doesn't want to ruin this moment quite yet, where it's just the two of them.

"Hey," she says softly. He smiles at her weakly, she's probably the only one in the world who Jethro smiles for anymore.

"Hey," he rasps back to her.

A few cool sips of water later, and she's helping him relax back against the pillows. His tired and aching body unable to do it on his own. Once he's settled she see's the lines of exhaustion marring his features. That one simple act making him tired, but she knows he won't succumb to sleep yet.

So she tells him what he needs to hear, leans in real close and strokes his forehead. Vaguely she notes that he's burning up, "Go to sleep."

He turns his head into her soothing touch, his eyelids already at half-mast. "I'm gonna be alright, Jen." He mumbles, because of course. Three major hospital visits in roughly nine months means he's going to be just fine.

But she doesn't say that instead, "I know," she humors him.

She can tell that his eyes are getting harder and harder to keep open. And that sleep is so very appealing to him right now, but he was still resisting like the stubborn bastard he was. It might've been that which makes her promise so suddenly...

"I'll be here when you wake up," she croons low in his ear, and on instinct turns and presses a sweet closed-mouth kiss on his lips.

It still ignites a spark in them both, this time with promises for the future. But both are too tired to carry it any further at this moment in time.

Later that night, when Jethro sleeping soundly and she's still awake. Clutching his large palm in her own, and caressing his growing silky silvery locks. It hits her like a load of bricks.

The relief, sweet, sweet relief makes her acknowledge what she'd been denying for years.

She's absolutely terrified of losing him.


A/N: Just one more chapter for this little fic. But I won't be posting it today.

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