A/N: Sooo, this got a bit out of hand. It was supposed to be more fun in the beginning but kind of turned into a "why Jenny Shepard deserved better" - rant. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love and adore Jibbs together and I will make up for the fighting in the following chapters.
Just as you pointed out in the reviews, I usually also like the whole "Jenny is just as damaged" - trope but keep in mind that in this verse, she's had a sister by her side to support her and to help her pick up the pieces.
I'd love to maybe create a multi-chapter fic and explore that relationship further after this but I'll have to figure out a coherent story arch first, I guess.
Thank you again for the reviews! I really appreciate them so much!
Leroy Jethro Gibbs was alone in his basement and even thought he would never admit it, he was sulking. He had an opened bottle of bourbon he would rather share next to him on the counter and was currently blowing dust out of an old mason jar, when he heard his front door open. Light footsteps followed suit and he grunted in disappointment when he realized that the absence of a soft clicking noise meant that the person entering was definitely not wearing heels. He frowned and raised his glance to his basement stairs, curious about who, if not Jenny, would sneak into his house this late and unannounced.
A very redheaded woman appeared at the top of the stairs, a smile on her face and in the dim light of the basement, he almost had to look twice to make sure that it wasn't Jenny after all. Penelope Shepard leaned over the banister, a piece of paper dangling from her hand, her long hair falling messily over one shoulder.
Even with their difference in age, it was uncanny how much she looked like her sister, from the red hair and green eyes down to the mischievous grin that was playing around her lips. Unlike Jenny, however, it was only so rare that he would ever see Penny in high heeled shoes or ironed designer clothes. She was mostly dressed in practical and comfortable outfits that would not be restricting in the field. He noticed that even now, she was still wearing the same pair of grey jeans and the dark green hooded sweater that he had seen her in today at work.
"Got a present for you," she said, waving the folded piece of paper at him.
"Want me to guess?" he grunted, finally pouring some of the bourbon into his mason jar and putting it to his lips. Her grin didn't fade, and he simply resumed his glare up at her as he took a sip.
"Would you?" she asked.
"No," he answered, his eyes still fixed on her, as she started to push off the banister and take a few careful steps down the stairs.
"God, how does Jen not fall to her death on these stairs? I would break my neck in heels," she said under her breath, cautiously holding on to the handrail with one hand.
"Touchy subject?" she added when he didn't reply or even acknowledge the mentioning of her sister, "I figured. Guess that's exactly why I'm here instead of her"
Penny had finally reached the bottom of the stairs and walked up to him. He was still glaring, annoyed that she was seemingly already up to date with his and Jenny's latest quarrel.
"That a written apology?" he asked, nodding his head towards the piece of paper still clutched in Penny's hand. He then picked up his sander from the counter and turned his back to her, slowly starting to work on the wooden beams of his half-finished boat.
"Thought you didn't want to guess?" Penny mocked him and put the paper on the counter.
"Search warrant came through," she finally announced, "thought I drop it by now, so we're good to go in the morning"
"Uh-huh" he grumbled, his hands moving steadily on the wood.
"Aaaand," she drawled, relenting, "I thought I'd use this opportunity to find out why you and Jenny are ignoring each other yet again? Just when I was getting used to your breakfast-making skills."
If Gibbs thought he would get rid of her with his passive aggressive sanding, he was sadly mistaken. He could hear her hop onto the counter, nails clattering all over the floor when she knocked over the jar they'd been kept in.
"I'm not ignoring her. She refuses to speak to me," he caved in, humoring her.
"Also," he turned around now and pointed his sander at her, accusingly, "I thought, you wanted nothing to do with…. this … our … 'whatever this is'" he trailed off, searching for the right words to describe what exactly was going on between himself and Jenny.
"Re-la-tion-ship?" Penny helped, emphasizing each syllable of the word, one of her eyebrows raised suggestively, "Yeah, I said that. However, that was when I thought you guys would be mature enough to deal with this on your own; but seeing that you'd clearly rather behave like two hormonal teenagers, I've changed my mind."
He snorted and shook his head, turning back towards his boat. He licked his finger and then rubbed it over the wood carefully, checking for bumps and splinters.
"Hand me that chisel behind you," he said and then heard her grab the item from his toolbox.
She slid off the counter and walked up next to him, holding out the chisel. He took it from her hand and watched her slip through the beams of his boat, sitting down in between them and looking up admiringly at his handywork. He threw the sander at her. It bounced off her hip and landed next to her thigh. She reached for it, slipped it over her hand and examined it curiously.
"Least you can do is make yourself useful while you're interrogating me," he grunted and nodded towards the beams in front of her.
"I'm not interrogating, I am mediating," she clarified, stressing the last word, and then slowly started to sand the wood in front of her.
"Get to the point then," he said, impatiently tapping the chisel against his thigh, urging her on.
"Fine," she replied, stopping in her motions and fixing a very impressive glare of her own at him, "I'd like you to two to get your shit together. It's annoying. And exhausting. You obviously care for each other, is that so hard to admit?"
Jethro also stopped what he was doing and turned to face her, surprised by her bluntness. Usually, Penny would stay true to her word and not involve herself in their relationship. He was aware that Jenny talked to her about it, though, but that didn't bother him. It was an open secret that they were sleeping together, and he knew that it would only be ridiculous to try to sneak that past Penny, but it was a different thing to actually have her voice the thoughts she had been keeping to herself.
"She's the one that left. Not me," he answered, his tone defensive, accusing even.
"Oh, geez, really? I wonder why." Penelope shot back, the sarcasm heavy in her tone, "Have you ever considered how she was feeling? Or did you just decide to forever resent her for it?"
"You don't understand –," he started, unsure about what exactly he thought she didn't understand. He was, however, saved by her interruption,
"What? Heteronormative relationships? True, that's something I really don't understand. What I do understand however, is that you only ever see your own struggle. Yeah, she left you, but she came back, didn't she? She came back even though all you ever do is treat her with disrespect."
Gibbs did not want to have this conversation. Especially not with Penny but it seemed like she wouldn't give him a choice. She had raised her voice a little but unlike Jenny, she did not explode in his face. Nevertheless, he felt attacked and cornered and this entire topic felt too personal.
"I treat her with disrespect?!" he still answered, waving the sharp end of the chisel in her face, his voice louder that he had intended, "she chose her ambition over me! And now I'm the bad guy?!"
The redhead pushed herself from the sitting position she was in and stood in front of him, one hand clutching the beam, the other angled at her hip, her eyes now sparkling with anger,
"You make it sound like being ambitious is a bad thing! What was she supposed to do? Throw all her life goals out the window, bear your children and cook you dinner every night for the rest of her life? Hoping to god that you don't leave her, because otherwise everything would've been for nothing?! You wouldn't even commit! And you expected her to drop everything just because you asked?! Hell no! Do you have even one ounce of appreciation for what she achieved? Do you have any idea how fucking difficult it is for a woman to rise to a position of that much power? Because I don't think so! I don't think you understand the amount of discrimination and sexism she had to endure, how she was doubted a million times over just because she is a woman. She had to be twice as good as every man she ever worked with, had to put in twice as much work and she STILL did it. And for what? For you to constantly undermine her authority, question her professional decisions and remind her every chance you get that you've seen her naked? She tries so hard to get you to forgive her, because despite what you might think, she hurts, too, and you have the audacity to treat her like every chauvinistic asshole that ever threw rocks in her way!"
He felt like he'd been slapped. He stared at her, her chest rising and falling heavily with every breath she took, her cheeks flushed in rage and her emerald eyes still fixed at his, unintimidated. He had never seen her this angry, usually Penny tried to solve conflicts quietly, always empathetic to the other person's feelings. The way she was looking at him now, however, clearly showed that she wouldn't back down quietly at all. He drew a hand over his mouth, growling silently, indecisive about how to respond. He knew Penny was right and he also knew that he owed Jenny an apology, but it was hard for him to admit that, especially after he had been put in his place like that.
"She never said anything," he finally managed and then threw the chisel he'd still been clutching into the boat, frustrated, "how was I supposed to know?"
"I don't know, you could've maybe asked her?!" Penny started, still breathing heavily through her nose, her knuckles white around the wood. She was watching him, waiting for a reaction. That's when she saw the pain flash across his face for just a second and it dawned on her,
"But that's it, isn't it?" she concluded, letting go of the boat beam, her arm dropping to her side, "you don't want to hear the answer."
His eyes shot up at her and he set his jaw, unable to confirm or deny any of her accusations. Her words hit him harder than he expected and stirred up emotions he thought he'd buried deep down a long time ago. He didn't like it. He didn't like to hear that Jenny was hurting; didn't like to reopen those old wounds.
"Don't get me wrong, Jethro, I'm not saying that how she left you was fair; or that everything she did from that point on was always right, but neither is the way you're treating her now. I understand that she has hurt you, even if you're probably never gonna admit that to me. If you can't forgive her, fine, but all I'm asking is that you try to see her side of the story for just one second."
Penny sighed heavily, the energy to fight leaving her. She pulled her hair from her neck and threw it over one shoulder, before rubbing her palm against her temple in exhaustion. Gibbs could feel the air shift between them, she suddenly looked tired and maybe even sad. It irked him that whatever he did made Penny feel the need to defend her sister like that. However, that anger wasn't directed at her but rather at himself. Up until now, he hadn't really given their fights much of a second thought – they had always fought, it was just the way they worked, wasn't it? If he was completely honest with himself, though, he had to admit that he sometimes did feel some bitter satisfaction whenever his words or actions made Jenny feel guilty or even hurt. Most of the time that wasn't his intention, but he had caught himself thinking she deserved it; for the pain that she had caused him, too.
"Why exactly am I having this conversation with you instead of her?" Gibbs finally asked her and leaned against his boat.
"Because she's just as fucking stubborn as you are, and rather suffers in silence than to admit any of her feelings to you. But also, because I think that you're way past the question of forgiveness. I believe you just need a sane person to give you a little nudge in the right direction. And between the three of us, I am obviously the only one with a clear head."
"What do you want to me to do, then?" he demanded and sat down on the edge of his workbench, looking up at her.
"I don't wantyou to do anything, Gibbs. If you want this to work, you need to talk to her, you need to give a little. Come on," she rolled her eyes, sighing,
"you're both adults. Talk to each other, forgive each other, find some common ground. It's not that hard."
Penny shook off the sander that was still wrapped around one of her hands and placed it carefully inside the boat, before brushing some of the sawdust off her jumper. He watched her walk over to the counter and pour herself a small amount of his bourbon into another empty mason jar. She put the glass to her lips, looking at a spot on the wall right behind his head, caught in her own thoughts. She looked so similar to Jenny, it made his heart ache with guilt even more, when he thought about what she'd just said.
"Well," she finally spoke again, "I better go. We wouldn't want this to get uncomfortable, huh?" Penny downed the last liquid in the jar and winced as the alcohol burned down her throat.
A small smile reappeared on her lips and her face softened. She placed the jar back onto the counter and wiped her hands on her jeans nervously, obviously unsure about whether her outburst would change things between them. He rose from the workbench and approached her, touching his hands to her shoulders and looking down at her intensely, not able to voice the 'thank you' she deserved to hear. She opened her mouth to say something else, but before she could speak, they were interrupted by the familiar clicking sound of high heels against stone floors. Penny laughed softly and turned her head towards the basement stairs.
"Am I interrupting?" Jennifer Shepard asked, a frown on her face, obviously surprised to find her sister there.
"Nah," Gibbs said, squeezing Penny's shoulders, before letting her go. He watched Jenny gracefully descend the stairs, the hem of her long, elegant wool coat softly brushing off the sawdust that had collected on them. She walked up to them, her eyes questioning.
"I was about to leave, anyways," Penny explained and wrapped her arms around her sister's neck, pressing a gentle kiss to her cheek.
"See you at home," she added and let Jenny go again. She took two steps at a time towards the basement door and then vanished into the laundry room, but not without a last look at him over her shoulder.
When he looked back at Jenny, he saw that her expression was guarded, the anger still visible in her eyes. But she had shown up after all, despite the things he had said to her earlier, she had come. Maybe Penny was right, and it was time for both of them to stop hurting each other.
"Hey, Jen," he said softly and reached for her hand.
"What?" she snapped; her tone impatient. However, she still let him pull her closer to him and wrap his other hand into her hair, his thumb stroking her cheek, "I think, I owe you an apology."