A\N: This is my second JIBBS oneshot in two days. I watched 'Bait' the other day and I've already done one episode tag to 'Bait.' And I've got another JIBBS Bait oneshot! I'm currently working on two other JIBBS oneshots at the time of this Authors Note. I'm back to writing JIBBS oneshots, and I don't know why I ever took a break. This story has a twist. I hope you Angels enjoy this short JIBBS oneshot.
NCIS Director and former Special Agent, Jennifer 'Jenny, Jen' Shepard walks into Autopsy, a look of false calm painted on her face as she zeros in on the man who has had her heart in the palm of his calloused hands for the past 6 years.
He's speaking with Ducky in a low voice, his back is turned to her, and Ducky looks at her, a small smile on his face. "Ah, Jennifer." The Scottish doctor says, alerting Jethro to her presence. Jethro turns around and their eyes meet.
"Hi, Jen."
Slap!
Her open palm connects with his cheek, his head snaps back with the force of the slap.
"What the hell, Shepard?!" He growls, using her last name.
"Remember that slap the next time you go into a classroom full of kids, one of whom has a bomb strapped to his chest, without thinking about your wife!" She snarls at him angrily before turning on her heel and leaving Autopsy without another word.
She steps into the elevator and leans against the wall, feeling for the two rings she keeps on a chain around her neck while at the office. Today has been hard but she's buried the hurt, like she usually does. She's the director, she can't be seen having a breakdown, so she waits until she's at home to break, in the arms of her strong husband.
Jethro Gibbs rubs his cheek with his hand, trying to repress the grin that wants to break out on his face. His wife slapped him. Hard. He didn't know she had it in her, well he did, he just didn't think she'd actually do it.
"You really hurt Jennifer today, Jethro." Ducky says. Gibbs looks at his old friend for more of a clarification of what he means by how he hurt his wife. The elderly doctor sighs.
"Jethro, I entered Jennifer's office earlier today and she was wearing her sidearm. She was ready to go down there, and she would have too if I hadn't stopped her. I was with her most of the day because I knew if no one stopped her, she would have gone down there, and I could see how badly you following your gut hurt her this time. She had no idea whether you were alive or dead until Tony called. You are married now, Jethro. You need to think about your wife when you pull these stunts." Ducky admonishes. Gibbs sighs: truthfully he didn't think of Jen. He didn't think what she would be like if something happened to him. All he thought about was getting those kids out of that classroom alive.
"I didn't think about Jen today, Duck. Thank you for stopping her from going down there." He thanks his old friend, the only one who knows of his marriage to Jen. Ducky puts a hand on his arm. "You know I'd do anything for you and Jennifer, Jethro." Gibbs nods. "Go home, Jethro and calm your wife." Gibbs groans internally: Jen would still be pissed at him and probably won't want to talk to him.
He leaves Autopsy and grabs his things from the empty squad room and runs up the catwalk steps towards his wife's office. Her assistant is gone but his wife's light is still on. He opens the door and barges in, seeing his wife working at her desk, a tumbler of bourbon next to her elbow.
"Jethro, go home. I'm in no mood to speak to you tonight." His wife says without looking up from her computer. He smirks. "Yeah, your slap to my face made that clear, Jen." He says, Jen lets out what he can describe as a growl as she picks up her glass and drains the rest of the amber liquid in one swallow.
"Jethro, I told you to go home." Jen says, her eyes meet his and her emerald green eyes flash with anger. "I will, if you come with me." He says, Jen shakes her head. "I won't be home tonight because thanks to you, I have to read and sign reports all night." His wife snaps at him. "Bring it home with you." He says simply, reaching over her desk and plucking the empty tumbler away from her.
Jen scoffs before relenting. "Fine, but we're not talking about today tonight. I'm still so pissed at you, Jethro." Jen says as she switches off her computer, gathers up her files, puts them into her briefcase, stands up, puts her weapon in it's holster, puts her badge in her purse before grabbing her coat and walking out of the office. He follows her until he's walking beside her and grabs her hand. To his surprise, his wife doesn't pull her hand out of his, she only squeezes it gently as they walk down the catwalk steps and towards the elevator.
Jenny dismisses her security detail and driver for the night and lets her husband drive them home. Their hands are still locked together as he drives them home, the car is silent, neither of them speaking: she doesn't want to speak to him because she's still so pissed and hurt at her husband. She's afraid she'll fall apart in the car.
Soon enough, their driveway is in view and Jenny is out of the car before her husband has cut the engine and is unlocking their front door, entering their home before Jethro is out of the car.
Kicking off her heels and placing her coat and purse and briefcase on the armchair in the living room, Jenny walks up the stairs to her bedroom which she shares with her husband and sheds out of her work attire and slips on sweat pants and one of her husband's USMC t-shirts before she goes downstairs where her husband is waiting for her on the couch. She ignores him and grabs her briefcase and gets out her files, and her favourite red pen.
She walks into the kitchen, sitting at the table and starts to read and sign the reports, all the while ignoring her husband, five minutes later she hears the basement door open and hears his footsteps go down the stairs to work on his boat.
He rubs the sandpaper over the wooden rib and tries to ignore the fact that his wife hasn't spoken to him since she agreed to come home with him, which was nearly 50 minutes ago. he supposes she's not as pissed at him as she was in Autopsy seeing as she put on his t-shirt. He remembers the day he lost that certain t-shirt to her.
Flashback:
He wakes up to a kiss being pressed to his lips. It's a Sunday and surprisingly, he's not gotten a call from dispatch yet. His blue eyes open and they land on the redheaded woman who has been sharing his bed with for the last 5 months, wearing one of his USMC t-shirts, the black one, thew one she wore in Paris and around Europe.
"That's my shirt." He mumbles sleepily. Jen laughs and shakes her head. "Not anymore." She says, Gibbs groans, he forgot of how much of a morning person she was. He sits up and snakes his arms around her waist, pulling her down on top of him. He kisses her.
"It looks better on me." Jen says against his lips. He has to agree with that. He sighs and nods his head, pulling away from her lips.
"It's yours." He says. Jen laughs before he pulls her in for another kiss.
From that morning onwards, the black t-shirt belonged to Jen, and he only wore it when his scent had faded. The basement door opens and hears his wife's quiet footsteps coming down the stairs. He looks at the watch on his wrist, a present he got in Paris from Jen on Valentines Day. They've been home for an hour now and haven't spoken in nearly two hours.
"We need to talk." His wife says firmly. He drops the sandpaper and turns to face his angry wife and gets another slap. His cheek pulsates with the force of the slap. This one had hurt more than the one she had given him in Autopsy and he's sure to have a bruise, or at the very least a red hand print of his wife's hand, on his cheek tomorrow.
"We do." He affirms with a sigh. All he's wanted to do is talk to his wife for the past two hours but now he's actually about to talk to him, he wishes she saved it until tomorrow until she was less pissed off and more calm.
"What the hell were you thinking?" Jen spits out angrily. He sighs.
"I was thinking that I needed to get that inhaler to Nadia and keep Kody from blowing those kids up, Jen. It's my job." He answers, Jen rolls her eyes, and even in the darkened basement he can see the tears that have welled up in his wife's green eyes.
"And what of your team, Abby, Ducky? Or how about your wife? Did you think about what we'd all feel if you had died if Kody had pressed the detonator?" His wife asks, her questions laced with venom as they leave her lips.
"He wasn't going to, Jen." He tries to calm her down, but it's futile. If anything it gets her even more angry.
"You don't know that, Jethro. You don't know what that boy was thinking, much as you claim to." Jen snaps, Gibbs leans back against the boat rib he was sanding.
"Jen." He sighs tiredly. He's exhausted, he wants to go up to bed and sleep, preferably with his wife wrapped in his arms.
"Don't you dare 'Jen' me, Special Agent Gibbs." His head snaps up to meet her eyes when she uses his NCIS title. They had a rule while arguing at home: no pulling rank over each other, no matter how angry the other one is.
"Hey!" He thunders, narrowing his sapphire blue eyes at his wife. "We're not in the office, Jen, so don't start pulling rank with me. We never do that so don't start doing that now just because you're pissed that I didn't tell you what I was doing, that I didn't ask for your permission." He snaps at her.
His wife scoffs. "Oh my god, Jethro." She says with frustration before she leaves the basement and slams the door behind her.
Gibbs is left in the basement alone with his boat and an angry wife upstairs.
If Jenny could shoot her husband, she would've run out of ammo a long time ago. She leaves the basement even more pissed off than she was two hours ago. Looking at the files she has on the kitchen table, she decides to get some more work done before she goes to bed, but five minutes of reading the same sentence and not taking any of the words in, she groans and stands up from the table abruptly. Flipping off the kitchen lights and leaving her work out on the table until tomorrow, she walks upstairs to her bedroom and crawls into her side of the bed, pulling the covers over herself and closing her eyes, allowing herself to fall into a light slumber as rain begins to fall outside.
She's transported back to the night she and Jethro got back together.
Flashback:
She knocks on his front door loudly, wondering if she'd be allowed to walk right in like everyone else, like she would have been allowed 6 years ago. It's been 6 years since she left him on the plane that had been set to go back to Washington with nothing but her coat and a Dear John letter in its pocket for explanation. She's been back less than a week and already she feels her feelings, feelings that had locked behind a vault in her heart for the last 6 years, coming back out. She saw the hurt in his eyes when she said that they'd be no off the job and she was sure he saw the tears in her eyes when she pleaded with him not to make this difficult for her. She was close to kissing him on the steps of his basement after he had asked her if she had ever doubted him. She wanted to kiss him in MTAC or on the steps of the mezzanine and said she missed him too, but she didn't.
The front door opens to reveal a shocked Jethro on the other side. He's wearing jeans with his white NIS t-shirt, his sapphire blue eyes wide wide shock and surprise.
"Jen. What are you doing here?" He asks, opening the door wider and stepping aside to let her enter. She does, her heels clacking loudly on the floor.
"I'm here to talk." She says simply, following him to the kitchen. She watches as Jethro leans against the counter and looks at her. "So talk." He says, she sighs. The speech she had in her head had been written in her head the second she stepped off the plane, she had it memorised in case she ever saw him again. But now she was in his kitchen, the speech had gone, her mind was blank.
"I made a mistake in leaving you in Paris, I never should have left you. I realised that a second after I watched your plane leave," she starts, looking at him: he looks tired. She thinks to herself
"You coulda called." Is all he says in response, she nods. "I did, but all I got was your voicemail and Ducky told me that you were engaged to Stephanie." She says with a curl of her lips.
Hearing that he was engaged not even four months after she had left him had broken her already broken heart. After hearing that he had moved on, she had spent days in bed, mourning the loss of the man she had loved before she got a call from Burley that had snapped her out of her 'rotting away over a man' as he had put it, and started building her career, burying her feelings for her former boss behind her heart.
"Jen," Jethro starts, but she holds up her hand to prevent him from talking.
"No, Jethro, I'm talking right now, you'll have your turn to speak once I'm done, and not before. Do you have any idea what hearing about your engagement did to me? Not even four months after I left, you were engaged. I spent days in bed and would have stayed there if Burely hadn't called me and gotten me out of bed! I knew you didn't love me, I knew that but I didn't know you were so eager to forget about what we had so quickly." She snaps with tears falling down her face. It's been years since she's spoken about any of this to anyone not even Ducky or Ziva know this.
"I loved you, Jethro, so much. I've spent years trying to forget that I loved you but I've failed. I can't stop loving you, I won't stop loving you." She finishes and stares at him, Jethro is looking at her like he wants to say something but can't find the words. Then, after two minutes of tense silence, he finally speaks.
"I meant what I said on the steps, Jen. I've missed you." He says, Jenny swallows and walks towards him until they're nose to nose. She loops her arms around his neck, staring into his eyes.
"I've missed you too, Jethro." She says softly before she kisses him deeply. He kisses her back and wraps his arms around her waist, drawing her closer to him.
"Jethro." Jenny says into his lips. They pull away and lean their foreheads against each other, gazing into each others eyes.
"Jen." He replies just as softly before kissing her. He picks her up in his arms and she wraps her legs around him.
She kisses him until she needs to breathe and pulls away.
"I'm so sorry, Jethro." She whispers to him, Jethro removes an arm from her waist and uses a hand to brush a lock of hair out of her green eyes, he know what she's apologising for. "It's okay." he returns the whisper before he carries her out of the kitchen and to the couch. He sits down on it with her in his lap.
"Je t'aime beaucoup, tu le sais, n'est-ce pas?" Jenny asks in French, resting her head on his beating heart.
Jethro kisses her hair. "Oui, je sais que c'est le cas. Je t'aime beaucoup aussi." He replies.
Jenny smiles. "Bien." She says with a smile. A yawn overtakes her and Jethro chuckles.
"Come on, time for bed, Director." Her agent says, standing up with her in his arms.
He carries her upstairs to his bedroom, places her gently on the bed and rummages around in his drawers for something before handing it to her with a peck to her lips. "You can wear this tonight." He tells her before he leaves the bedroom while she changes out of her clothes and into his t-shirt. As she's folding her clothes, Jethro comes back into the room and walks over to the bed, pulling the covers back and giving Jenny a smile.
"I know you don't want sex yet, Jen. That being said, I'm willing to wait however long you need to, I've waited 6 years, I can wait a bit more. I just wanna sleep with you in my arms." He says, pulling her down in bed beside him. She squeals before resting her head on his chest as his arms wrap around her waist, pulling her closer to him.
"Bonne nuit, Jen, fais de beaux rêves, je t'aime beaucoup." Jethro whispers to her in the darkness of his bedroom, Jenny smiles.
"Bonne nuit, Jethro, fais de beaux rêves, je t'aime beaucoup aussi." Jenny replies as sleep washes over her.
Jenny stirs when her husband's arms wrap around her waist and his lips graze her hair.
"Je t'adore, je t'aime beaucoup, Jen." Her husband whispers into her hair.
"Je t'adore aussi, je t'aime beaucoup aussi, Jethro." She says sleepily.
Even when she's pissed off at her husband, when he speaks in French, their language, she can't stay pissed at him forever. She settles back down, this time her head on his chest, and her fingers interwoven with her husbands, their rings knocked together.
The rings that no one knows about.
A\N: This has taken me days to write but I'm not sorry that it took so long to do. I love JIBBS soooooo much, I've got 3 more to write and a lot more in my head, which I'm going to make a start on tomorrow seeing as it's a Monday and my siblings are in school.
I hope you Angels have a good weekend and enjoy my second JIBBS oneshot!
Translations:
Je t'aime beaucoup, tu le sais, n'est-ce pas?: I love you a lot, you know that right?
Oui, je sais que c'est le cas. Je t'aime beaucoup aussi: Yes, I know that you do. I love you a lot too
Bien: Good
Bonne nuit, Jen, fais de beaux rêves, je t'aime beaucoup: Goodnight, Jen, sweet dreams, I love you a lot
Bonne nuit, Jethro, fais de beaux rêves, je t'aime beaucoup aussi: Goodnight, Jethro, sweet dreams, I love you a lot too
Je t'adore, je t'aime beaucoup, Jen: I adore you, I love you a lot, Jen
Je t'adore aussi, je t'aime beaucoup aussi, Jethro: I adore you too, I love you a lot too, Jethro
