NCIS Director Jennifer 'Jenny, Jen' Shepard is alone in her bedroom looking in her drawer for a t-shirt to go with her blue jeans when her hand lands on something soft and black. She takes it out and stares at it, her green eyes welling up in her eyes as she recognises it as the t-shirt, the same t-shirt she wore that morning: the morning she left the hotel, Jethro, he heart and Paris in the winter of 1999.
Flashback, Paris 1999.
She's been lying awake for almost an hour and a half now, unable to bring herself to leave his warm arms, but she knows she has to at some point and it has to be before he wakes and tries to stop her, because he will stop her and that can't happen. With tears already in her eyes, she finally slips out of his warm arms and shivers once the cold, Parisian winter morning hits her skin, even though she's wearing his warm t-shirt, it barely reaches the tops of her thighs and leaves her arms and legs exposed to the chill. She walks soundlessly to the bathroom and washes her face in hopes the warm water will prevent the tears that have threatened to fall ever since last night when he fell asleep. She brushes her teeth and yanks her red hair into a ponytail before reentering the bedroom to get dressed in black leggings, the black t-shirt of his she's still wearing, brown ankle boots and a leather jacket she grabs her hand luggage and her suitcase, puts them near the door and walks back the bed with a envelope in her hand, the tears that she's been holding back since last night have finally started to fall a she walks to her side of the bed. She lays the envelope on her pillow, kisses his lips for the final time, glad he's still in a deep sleep and walks back to the door opening it as quietly as she can, turning around to look at him one last time before walking out of his life forever.
She knows in her head, she made the right decision, but what about her heart?
She's left her heart with him and she knows she's never getting it back.
Jen hasn't realised she fell back onto her bed with the shirt pressed up to her nose as she tries to get a little bit of his scent off it, but it's useless, his scent washed off it when he gave it to her the night before she left, six years ago.
Even though she sees him every day, her heart still hasn't come back to her and she doubts it ever will.
But by this point, she's sure she doesn't want it back, unless it comes with him giving it back to her.
