"Here," Gibbs handed his wife one of his sandpaper blocks and guided her over to a section of the half-built boat. He put his hand over hers and demonstrated the motion of sanding.

Jenny looked like she desperately wanted to say something or yell at him or something, but she didn't. She just looked down at the wood and began to move her hand.

"Sand with the grain, Jen," he reminded her.

For awhile they just sat in silence, both working on different areas of the boat that took up most of Gibbs basement. After awhile Gibbs looked over at Jenny and saw her moving the sanding block more rapidly. From the intense focus and concentration on her face, he could tell his plan was working. She was working some of her anger out and his boat was getting an extra sanding. It wouldn't hurt the wood and maybe it would help Jen.

The silence in the basement stretched on and on, but it wasn't tense, as it would've been if Jenny was truly angry at him and not just at everything in general. When he heard her steady back and forth strokes slow, he looked up. Jenny was crying. Silent tears dripping down her face and onto the boat. Gibbs immediately moved as if to go to her, but then he made himself sit back down. He wanted to comfort her, wanted to hold her, wanted to make everything alright again. But his Jenny was stubborn as all get out and used to being an independent woman. She'd lost a lot of her self-confidence these past few days and he wanted to give her a chance to get it back again, to trust herself and her instincts. Much as he tried to pretend otherwise, nobody could be right all the time.

Jenny dipped her head, hoping that Jethro was too absorbed in his boat and his tools to pay any attention to her. She knew he'd just been trying to help when he suggested she take the day off and when he brought her down here, it took her a minute but she figured out what was behind it. The sanding had helped, a little, and then the tears came out of nowhere and she couldn't make them stop. When she took one last, shuddering breath and wiped her face, she decided it was time to go get supper ready.

She laid the sanding block back on his workbench. "I'm going to start dinner."

Gibbs glanced at the clock. It was three-thirty, but he didn't get in the way of her escape route. "Want some help?"

"No," Jenny shook her head. A little space would probably be good for both of them.

Gibbs kept his focus on his work as Jenny made her way back upstairs. After several minutes he laid his tools down and sighed. He was trying so hard to be there, to be what Jenny needed, but inside his head there were a lot of thoughts he didn't like, a lot of feelings he didn't know where to put. He pounded in one of the wooden rivets extra hard with his mallet, releasing a little of the tension. But he couldn't go slamming things or breaking things down here, it would only worry Jenny and she would want to know why.

Why? Because it was his wife that had been violated. Because that sorry excuse for a man had done something inexcusable to someone Gibbs cared about. He had made this personal and Gibbs had given up his chance to seek his own vengeance for what had been done. He followed the rules, for once. Why? Why this time out of all of the times they'd caught the bad guys, did he let the man off so easy? It wouldn't be the first times they'd roughed up a guilty suspect, wouldn't even be the first time he'd let Ziva get the answer for him because her tactics were more persuasive. Gibbs swore under his breath. He should've taught that guy a lesson he'd never forget. He should've shot him at the scene, never mind that his gun was twenty feet away when the team burst in. The jerk deserved to die.

But telling Jenny what he was feeling wouldn't do any good. She was already hurt, already angry, she didn't need his emotions to deal with too. Maybe he'd go to the shooting range tonight, picture the man's face as the target, and get some revenge that way. Next time he wouldn't miss his chance.

Jenny felt incredibly weary as she climbed the stairs to the kitchen. She thought she'd gotten lots of sleep but bodies weren't very good at playing catch up. She'd probably still be tired tomorrow. Longingly she gazed up the stairs towards the bedroom but a nap right now would make it impossible to sleep tonight and she'd need all the strength she could get to face everyone in the morning.

She looked at the clock and sighed. Three-thirty really was too early to start dinner, even if she had a clue what they were having. Jenny perused the cupboards in Gibbs house. She'd made sure it was relatively well-stocked. Even if they were at her house more than here that didn't mean they wouldn't still need the necessities from time to time. Maybe she could make cookies. It had been awhile since she'd actually made a dessert, she and Jethro still relied on take-out more than actual food sometimes. When one got home after a thirteen hour day at the office, the last thing one wanted to do was go to the effort of putting together a meal.

Still, cookies did sound appealing, which was interesting because nothing had sounded good to eat for the last two days. The silence in the kitchen was very loud. Jenny turned on the radio in the hallway so there was at least something else to listen to. It didn't take very long to do her baking. She'd been making this particular recipe since she was about seventeen and had it fully memorized. She stirred the ingredients together, plopped spoonfuls of dough on the one tray her husband owned and slid them into the oven. The cookies didn't take long to bake but while they did Jenny washed and dried the dishes she had just dirtied.

When the cookies were baked, transferred to a cooling sheet and no longer hot enough to burn her tongue, Jenny helped herself to one. It tasted fine, good even, but Jenny's stomach turned after the first bite and she put the cookie down without finishing it. Maybe she should have supper first. Casting around for something to do, her eyes fell on the refrigerator. She smiled, one thing Jethro never remembered was to get rid of out-dated food. In fact, he probably wouldn't notice until he had a full blown science project growing on the bottom shelf that maybe he ought to go through the fridge once in awhile. Well, that was one thing she could take care of. She supposed wives were good for some things, even if they weren't always good for others.

She peeked inside. Nothing on the shelves looked bad but when she went through the drawers there were some fruits and vegetables that were getting very squishy and gross. And some cheese in the drawer whose colour promised it was way past the expiry date. While she was at it, she decided to clean the fridge. A cloth and some hot soapy water, there really wasn't that much to take out and cleaning was good for the soul, right? She was sure somebody had said that, somewhere.

If she could just keep busy, keep going, keep the silence away and the memories at bay then maybe she would make it through this. Because right now, her mind was a very dark and scary place and she was almost afraid to be alone with herself.