“You are a romantic soul, Jethro,” Maggie said softly. She was sitting in his arms with her back against his chest. His arms were wrapped around her, as they both stared into the flames of the fireplace. They had made love several times, and were now simply enjoying one another’s company.
“I know,” he said, as if apologizing. “It has gotten me into trouble before,” he warned. Maggie chuckled.
“So I’ve heard,” she said.
“What have you heard?” he asked.
“Only that you’ve made quite a few trips down the aisle and lived to regret it,” she said.
“True,” he agreed. “No one has gone into detail about my past?” he asked, fishing for how much she knew.
“No one has said anything,” she said. “But I know about your first wife and child,” she admitted quietly. “It was in the initial reports NPID gave Noah and me when we first came to NCIS.” Jethro kissed her on the cheek.
“Thanks for your honesty,” he said. He was silent for a while before continuing. “I kept the truth about them secret from a lot of people for a long time. It wasn’t trying to cut them out, I just thought of my memories of Shannon and Kelly as mine. My memories were all I had left. I guess I felt that if I shared the story I would lose something. Keeping silent really hurt people I consider my friends.”
“You don’t have to talk about it now if you don’t want,” Maggie said. “I’ve loved and lost before, and I know it isn’t easy to recount those memories. Sometimes the grief is so raw, it is almost like living through it again.” He was silent for a few more moments before she continued. Besides, it’s spoiling the mood,” she said as she turned in his arms and initiated another kiss. She leaned into him, kissing him with all the longing she had been feeling for months. She straddled him, wrapping her legs around him. He groaned.
“Are you trying to kill me?” he asked good-naturedly. She laughed.
“I think you’ll survive,” she responded with a wicked look in her eye. He lifted her from his lap, rose and carried her to his bedroom. The weekend had only just begun.
“Anything?” Abby asked worriedly. Tim hadn’t been able to fall asleep the night before. He was clearly very worried about his sister. It was barely 0600 and he was already pacing, having attempted to contact her in every way he knew how.
“I’m going over there,” he said decidedly.
“And I’m going with you,” Abby said with an equal amount of determination, and leaving no room for argument.
“Sarah, if you’re in there, open the door?” McGee shouted, after knocking on the door for the seventh or eighth time.
“I don’t think she’s here, Tim,” Abby said.
“Pardon me, but you aren’t supposed to be here,” a lady said in protest.
“We’re federal agents,” McGee said showing his badge to the lady. “NCIS. We need to get in this room.”
“First of all, you should have come to the front desk and had someone escort you upstairs,” the lady began. “Second, I cannot let you in this room without a warrant.”
Ignoring the lady, McGee turned back to the door and pounded once again, “SARAH!”
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” she said while taking him by the arm. He shook her hand off. Abby turned to face the lady with a plaintive expression, her eyes begging for understanding.
“Ma’am, I appreciate the position you are in, but the girl in this room is his sister. She called last night very upset. The line disconnected, and we haven’t been able to reach her,” Abby explained.
“Well, why didn’t you just say so,” she said, her scowl turning to a smile. “Let me just head downstairs and grab the spare key.”
“Thank you,” Abby said sweetly. After the lady had left, Abby turned to Tim, “You catch more flies with honey, you know.”
The room had revealed little clues to Sarah’s whereabouts. It looked as if she had hurriedly packed and left. There was no note for her roommate, nothing in her calendar and no other obvious clues. McGee and Abby searched as thoroughly as possible. McGee slipped Sarah’s calendar into Abby’s bag since the lady wouldn’t allow them to take anything from the room. He only hoped they would find something when they had more time to examine it.
Sounds of the pounding Ziva was giving the punching bag echoed through the gym as she worked out all the frustration she was feeling. She knew she had made the right decision. Staying away from Noah was the only thing that made sense. But she didn’t want to. Not really. Her mind flashed back to memories of the many times they had been together before she pulled away. With each memory she only attacked the bag with that much more vigor.
“Whoa…” a voice interrupted her thoughts, “what did that bag ever do to you?”
“Busy right now,” Ziva ignored the interruption and continued, each blow landing solidly and with force.
“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” he continued speaking.
“I said…” Ziva began, and then stopped short as she recognized the voice. She spun around to make eye contact with the one person she least expected to see. “But how… what…?” Her eyes locked with his, which were shining blue and bright. “But I saw…” she continued in confusion.
“Umm... surprise?” Navy Lt. Roy Sanders replied with a grin. He caught her in his arms as she fainted.
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