[A/N: Thank you for following along with this! I love the reviews. Hopefully this chapter won't kill too many of you. Gibbs' dialogue in this was written by a friend of mine.]
It was the pain that woke her up, strong enough to make her feel nauseous. Somehow, she'd ended up sleeping on her left side, putting pressure on her shoulder and on the still-healing bones in her chest. She sits on the edge of the bed, toes in the carpet, eyes closed, hoping just relieving the pressure will be enough to make the pain stop. She's been trying to avoid taking the Vicodin. It makes her feel out of control and stupid. But the pain might win.
She stands and decides to pace the bedroom before resorting to narcotics. She instinctively wants to put a hand on her chest as if that will make it stop. Everyone does it, grabbing bumps and scrapes, but it never actually helps. And in her case, it would make it worse. Under the skin, she can feel the top two wires holding her breastbone together. That thought by itself upsets her stomach. She'll have them for the rest of her life, however long or short it may be.
As she starts back toward the other side of the bedroom, she looks at Gibbs, still sleeping. Or doing a damn good job at pretending to be asleep. After what she said last night, she was certain he'd wake up every hour just to make sure she was still breathing.
"I don't know, Jethro. Maybe I needed closure. Maybe I needed to see for myself instead of through CNN three thousand damn miles away."
"Then you should have waited for me. You could have been hurt or worse. Is that what you want, Jen?"
"Would that really be so bad?"
He freezes. "Yes, it would, Jen. Do you want to die?"
"I've thought about it, Jethro."
"How seriously?"
"Somehow, I still have too much pride to hurt myself...but beyond that?"
Silence
"I need you to talk to me, Jethro."
"Why the hell didn't you talk to me, Jen?"
"Because I thought I could handle this." She closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them again. And when she continues, her voice is icy. "But clearly I can't. I can't do anything anymore. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
"Yes! If I was recovering from the injuries you got and told you I felt like that, you'd be riding my ass all over the Beltway."
"In case you've forgotten-" And she cuts herself off before she calls him "Agent Gibbs". The realization leaves her looking broken.
But she realizes that something he said, or something she said, or something they said together made everything change for her. If she wants to feel like herself again, she has to take control of her life in any way she can, however she can. She stops walking near the foot of the bed and watches Gibbs. She's in a strange place emotionally. As she plays through the conversation-or was it an argument?-she's able to pin down the moment when it clicked for her. And that's the best way to describe it, a click; everything fell into place. And it hurts her as much as the pain that woke her up.
"We're going to get through this, Jen. Together, we're stubborn enough to get through anything."
"Tell me why it matters."
He looked down at her, scraping up every bit of French he knew, "Je t'aime pour toujours."
He can't be part of her life.
She has to put her life back together, as close to how it used to be as possible, and she has to do it alone. She can't drag him down with her. She won't. She bites the inside of her lip as she's hit with a strange feeling of deja vu. It's sickly amusing how this is what she was trying to do in the diner, except for different reasons. Her motivations were simple then: save him from her mistakes; save herself from misery. It almost worked out. Until it didn't and left a bigger mess than when they started.
Now, if she leaves, she can fall apart quietly and he'll be spared the agony of having to watch. She'll be able to go about her days like nothing is wrong and she'll be the only one who sees when her expectations aren't met. He's resilient; he'll move on.
Jen starts walking her short path again, noticing that her physical pain has lessened. Now she can manage it with Tylenol. She disappears into the bathroom and closes the door quietly behind her before putting on the light. She throws back the few pills she thinks will do the trick, but lingers in the bathroom. A few weeks ago, she was standing here, stunned by what she saw in the mirror. At four in the morning, she can smile slightly. She still looks terrible, but she cuts herself some slack and chalks it up to having actually been asleep. Deep down, she feels the stirrings of her old self starting to come back. It helps that her incisions have all mostly healed and she's starting to feel human again. No longer the Bride of Frankenstein.
She's starting to feel like a human woman again.
She puts the light out and emerges into the bedroom with her chin a little higher than it's been in weeks. And she doesn't go back to pacing and she doesn't go back to bed. At least not to sleep. She crawls into bed and slides over to Gibbs. He is definitely asleep, which kind of amazes her, but it works in her devious favor.
She hasn't decided when she's going to leave, but she's made up her mind that she is. Sitting there for a moment, she watches him, laying on his back, and she's thinking about how perfect this moment is. Until she decides the time is right, she's going to make the most of the time that's left with him. Her lover. She's not even sure that's official. She smiles and pulls the immobilizer from her arm. She can almost hear Ducky throwing a fit, but she doesn't care. She wants her hand free for just a few minutes. This is too important.
She turns and straddles his hips and as she moves, she thinks she's even recovered some of the grace she thought she'd lost. The sudden pressure wakes Gibbs and for a moment, he looks up at her, confused as hell.
A slow smile spreads across her lips. "Did I wake you?" she asks, teasing. She puts both hands on his chest and spreads her fingers to cover as much of his skin as possible. She doesn't wait for an answer, and peels off her t-shirt, "I need you."