She had opened a new bottle of bourbon the moment she got home that evening.
It had sleeted most of the day, the ground freezing with every hour that passed and she couldn't help but wonder if the universe knew she was having a bad day and decided to tack on unbearably cold weather to top it all off. It wouldn't surprise her at this point.
Four hours is how long she had been stuck in MTAC, most of that time spent being ripped a new one for not controlling her agents and allowing Gibbs and his team to interfere FBI investigations. She had tried to draw attention away from the means of how they solved the case to justify the end result, but it did little to lessen their frustrations.
"Damn it." She muttered to herself, all but slamming her half empty glass down on her desk.
She had resented a lot about their conversation, mostly his accusation that the argument they were having was about them and not about his recklessness as an agent.
It may not have started out about them, but he certainly made sure it ended that way.
Worst of all, everything he said had been true. She was a coward.
Getting off the plane all those years ago, leaving the other morning without a word, refusing to talk about it with him, even the stunt they pulled in the elevator by holding his hand. She was a coward when it came to all of it. She could barely let him touch her without completely loosing all control around him, and it scared her.
It seemed like she just couldn't stop hurting him.
The rest of that day had gone on without a sighting of him. Whether he had left all together after their encounter or had just been hiding elsewhere, she couldn't say, but the sympathetic look Tony had shot her when she had walked by that afternoon told her all she really needed to know. She should have suspected that half the building heard their shouting match; they never were really good at controlling themselves around each other.
She considers calling Abby to see if the younger woman had heard from him, but knows she's all to loyal to Gibbs to really reveal anything she actually wanted to know.
It takes her all about five minutes after she finished her drink to decide to call him.
"Pick up." She muttered, "pick up, pick up, pick up."
Her heart sank when she reached his voicemail.
It was a breech of Rule 3: Never be unreachable.
Which meant that he was ignoring her phone call all together. If there was one thing that she knew about Jethro Gibbs, it was that he would never break his own rules without reason. She just never thought she would be that reason.
Of course, rule 12 had been made because of her too.
It was early 1999 when she first told him she loved him. The two of them had been tangled up in a Parisian hotel together, their undercover work completely out of their minds as they soaked in one another.
"I love you." She had said, fingers absentmindedly fiddling with the hem of the sheets they all but knocked off the bed. She hadn't meant to say it, but it slipped out of her kiss swollen lips before she could stop herself.
"Hit your head when you tripped earlier?" He teased, running his hand along her bare spine.
"I'm serious."
He kissed her instead of answering, her confession all but forgotten as she fell back into him. They didn't talk about much else for the rest of the night.
She rings him again though, just to be sure, but when it to goes to voicemail she knew her suspicions were all too true. He was ignoring her, a brand new level of anger even for them and it makes her stomach churn.
As she grabs her coat and keys, it crosses her mind that this is a bad idea, that going to see him will jeopardize every dynamic between them and that her job as director will be made infinitely harder if she gives into her feelings.
But when she catches sight of her empty glass forgotten on her desk, she realizes that she doesn't really care about those things anymore.
It was time to find her Locus Amoenus.
A/n: This is more of a filler chapter than anything else, but I don't want to just rush them into anything without having the story develop in a way that relates to their journey as a couple. I have most of the chapters written out but I want this story to flow as nicely as possible.
Next chapter our two heroes will be reunited though, and you'll get a lot more interaction between them than in previous chapters. I wanted to create a conflict but not have it all resolved in a single chapter, because I think it rushes the story and stunts character development.
RR as usual, and Happy Holidays to you all.