A/N: This chapter is a tag to episodes "Enemies Foreign" (8x8) and "Enemies Domestic" (8x9). Some of the dialogue is taken from those episodes.
This one was hard to write for some reason. I rewrote it differently a couple of times because it just felt convoluted.
Jethro Gibbs got home and sat down on the couch. He covered his face with one of his hands and took a deep breath, feeling relieved that everything was finally over. The last few days had been almost extreme—too much had gone down in such a short time.
What started out with a pickpocket incident ended up spiraling into terrorism and assassination attempts. He had dealt with Ziva's father, Leon had nearly been killed, and now his old 'friend' Riley McCallister was dead.
He put his hand in his pocket and fished out the evidence bag, pulling his knife out of it and flicking it open. He stared at it, noticing that there were still a couple tiny flecks of blood where the base of the knife met the sheath.
He had to work hard the last few days to not get distracted by thoughts of her, because his full attention had been needed on everything else. It had been difficult, because she had actually been brought up a few times over the last few days. It had also been unexpected just how much of their past would end up being involved in this mess.
It felt like Jenny had barely been mentioned since her death—like her time and achievements with NCIS had no longer mattered. She had been gone for two and half years, and the emotions he had buried since then had been slowly rising to the surface at every mention and thought of her.
Leon was now doing well and on the mend in the hospital. The whole McCallister mess was being dealt with by the higher ups—being buried quietly. Eli David and the other Mossad operatives were probably almost back to Israel by now.
Jethro was finally home and able to be alone with his thoughts, able to process everything and try to get some rest.
He thought about when he had first run into Eli this week, when he had asked Eli why he was in DC.
"Loyalty. I was summoned. Vance's review of the international case files, and his request for contributions from every NCIS director," Eli had responded.
That was the first instance this week in which Jenny had surfaced to his mind.
"Not every director," Jethro had replied immediately, sticking up for her memory.
"No," Eli acknowledged, shaking his head sadly. "Not Jenny Shepard."
Her name being said out loud was enough to make the room feel suffocating in that moment. It felt like it had been so long since he had heard.
"She was truly responsible for bringing our organizations together, and for bringing my daughter into your life," Eli said.
It was true, Jenny was responsible for placing Ziva on his team—for giving him one of the best agents he had ever had. It would always be something he wished he had shown more gratitude to Jenny for while she was alive.
The next moment he had found Jenny in his mind was when they had reached the safe house after not being able to get in touch with Hadar. It was immediately apparent there had been an explosion, and the first thing he saw was Leon, who was obviously injured on the ground. He turned him over to find an injury to his abdomen which was slowly seeping with blood.
"Come on, Leon, stay with me," he had said, putting pressure on Leon's wound.
In that moment he had felt like his mind was almost screaming. The last time the Director was bleeding out on the ground was two and a half years ago—and that Director hadn't made it out alive.
Luckily, Leon's injuries were not as instantly life threatening as Jenny's had been. He was able to make it to the hospital and get surgery, whereas Jenny had been so severely injured she had bled out within a couple of minutes.
After Leon had been rushed into surgery, Jethro had struggled to put his mind back on focus with the case and come up with what to do next. He had lost many people in combat and in the line of duty, he had dealt with horrible injuries before—but the reminder of Jenny's death, her final brutal moments, what she had died for—it was nearly shell shocking.
Later on, when he went to visit Leon in the hospital, he had ended up giving him his knife—the knife he currently held in his hands. He had a few knives, but this one in particular was special to him.
It was the knife Jenny had given to him as a birthday present, back in '99.
"Here, I got you something," Jenny said, giving him a swift kiss on the cheek.
Jethro raised his eyebrows at her.
"Thought the way you woke me up this mornin' was my gift," he quipped.
"Consider it an added bonus," she replied smugly, handing him a leather box.
She snuggled up to his side on the couch, resting her head on his shoulder as he flipped the box open.
His eyes widened at the sight of a very impressive looking knife laying inside.
"I know how much 'Rule Nine' means to you," she said as he picked it up.
It seemed to be a good quality knife—sturdy, sleek, and balanced. Half of the handle was black, the other half brown. He flicked it open, admiring the mesmerizing black and silver striped blade.
"Is is okay? There were so many different kinds, I wasn't really sure...but the salesman assured me that this one was really—"
"It's perfect, Jen," he said gratefully, interrupting her nervous chatter.
"Are you sure?" She asked as he put the gift down. "I mean, if you want a different one I can—"
Jethro grabbed her face in his hands and pulled her lips to his, giving her a long and appreciative kiss.
"I'm sure," he murmured against her lips, pulling back and smiling at her.
"You're probably just saying that because of this morning," she teased, smirking at him.
"Guess I'll just have to show you how much it means to me," he growled playfully, pressing her back against the couch and laying on top of her, attacking her neck with his lips.
She giggled and began swatting his shoulder.
He pulled back from his attack and looked into her bright and cheerful green eyes, caressing her cheek with his hand as he admired her.
"Thank you, Jen," he said gently.
She smiled at him and pulled his face back down to hers, kissing him passionately.
Jethro smiled, the good memories making him feel nostalgic. He flipped the knife back into its sheath, glaring at the thought of McCallister.
When he had Whitney Sharp in interrogation and they discussed the Russian—it turned out that the Russian in question was Anatoly Zukov...the man Jethro had personally taken out in '99. The revelation had been almost mind blowing.
"You think, what, he came back to clean up after himself?" Sharp had asked him.
"No," Jethro responded, shaking his head."No, he's long gone."
He remembered feeling almost dizzy in that moment.
"You sure?" She questioned.
"Yes, I'm positive," he confirmed—flashes of Europe, Jenny, and Zukov flinging through his brain.
McCallister had been the one who had Morrow send Jethro, Jenny, and Decker on the undercover op to take out Zukov, Svetlana, and the other target.
After all this time, all these years later, it turned out it was just McCallister trying to cover his tracks.
Jethro grit his teeth.
In the end, McCallister was the bastard who was partially—if not entirely—responsible for Jenny's death in that godforsaken diner. If they hadn't have gone on that stupid op in the first place, Jenny wouldn't have died when she did.
Jethro felt a sense of satisfaction over the fact that his knife, the one Jenny had given him, had been the one to take McCallister out. Leon got his revenge, and in a way, Jenny did too.
He put the knife down on the coffee table and put his head in his hands, taking another deep breath.
Thoughts of Jenny always brought regret, because he wished he had tried so much harder with her. He wished he had taken advantage of all the opportunities he could have had with her during her last few years of life. There were just so many things he wished he had done differently, things he wished he could take back, things he should have said to her.
He stood up and wandered to the basement, where he eyed the boxes sitting on his shelf. He grabbed the unmarked one and took it back upstairs with him, placing it on the coffee table by the knife.
Inside were the photographs Ducky had given him, a few souvenirs from Europe, and another item that he gently picked up and looked at.
Her reading glasses.
He smirked at the ridiculous looking things, shaking his head a little.
He had always felt a little foolish when he had to borrow them, because they were so...girly. Small, red, and peppered with all the little sparkly things. They had always looked good on her—they matched her hair, and her lips.
He let out a sigh and slid the glasses on his face, picking up the stack of pictures and looking through them again.
He hadn't touched anything in this box for almost two years. Even though it was painful to go through, it felt good to be reminded. After all, he might as well when she was already on his mind—before he went back to ignoring it all.
He couldn't deny that it felt damn good to have her glasses on his face again, almost comforting.
Because he and Mike had burned down her house, the majority of her possessions had been incinerated. The only belongings of hers left were the ones in her office and the ones she had taken with her to California. She had no family left behind to care about those few belongings, though. The only people she left behind were friends and colleagues.
The framed photo of her father had been buried with her. He knew Ziva and Abby had each taken a pair of heels from her suitcase, something he knew Jenny would be pleased with.
When he had found her glasses case in her suitcase, it was something he couldn't just ignore. He didn't know why he had suddenly felt so attached to them, why he felt the need to take them, but he covertly pocketed them nonetheless. He had also taken a moment to go up to her office when Leon wasn't around and snatched the fancy decanter of bourbon she had up there.
He put the pictures down and looked in the box, looking over the souvenirs. Among the souvenirs was an absurd beret she had purchased for him as a joke in Marseilles. He could remember she put it on his head one night as a joke, laughing at how he looked, which just ended up leading to a rather playful turn of events in bed.
He was glad he still had some of this stuff, grateful for the photos Ducky had given him. It was after Ducky had left that day that he had gone through his house, looking through all sorts of boxes seeing if he had kept anything from Europe, worrying he had thrown everything out after Jenny had left him. Apparently, he had tossed some of the souvenirs and pictures in a random box that he found among the mass pile of boxes upstairs, where a lot of Shannon and Kelly's stuff were.
He plopped the beret on top of his head and picked up a large souvenir photo of him and Jenny. They were standing in front of some cheesy looking, fake Eiffel tower background. They both looked so young, carefree, and content.
It would never cease to amaze him how stupid and stubborn they both had been—why they had just let it all go when they were clearly so happy together.
He sighed and put the photo down, exhaustion pulling at him, and laid down on the couch. He left the glasses on, and tipped the beret down so it covered his face. He closed his eyes, drifting off as memories of Jen lulled him to sleep.
The part where I have him keeping Jenny's reading glasses was completely inspired/borrowed from Jibbs Gal 1's story "One Year Later". I remember that part of her story making me just sob, because literally the thought of him keeping those reading glasses was so touching and fitting all at the same time. Basically, him keeping her glasses is canon in my eyes now, so of course I had to include that somewhere in this.