It was three weeks before Valentine's Day and Ducky was shopping for cards - four to be precise.

Ever since joining NCIS, Ducky had taken it upon himself to buy a card for each of the ladies in the team. This year that meant: Abigail, Ziva and Jennifer.

The fourth card, the most important card, was for his beloved long-term lover Jethro. That was the card that really meant something; that was the card that he had to get right. This year was somewhat different from previous years, as Jethro was now sharing Ducky's Reston home.

It took him a mere fifteen minutes to find the perfect cards for the ladies; each one, naturally, chosen to suit the individual personality, both in terms of picture and wording. Of the three, Ziva was the most difficult to suit, but nonetheless Ducky found what he considered to be the perfect card.

He then turned his attention to the card he would choose for his beloved.

Half an hour later, he was almost ready to admit defeat. For the first time in over thirty years, he could not find 'the' card. The one which said everything, without being overly fussy, romantic, mushy, or any of the other things that simply weren't Jethro â€" or at least not the Jethro to which his lover liked to confess.

And then he found it â€" at least from the outside. With slight trepidation and mentally crossed fingers he opened it up, convinced that the words would not match the picture.

He read them. 'Be careful with your heart. If you give it away, you may never get it back', and he smiled.

As he went to pay for the four cards he even knew what he would write in Jethro's card: 'I never want it back. It's yours forever'.