Paris…the city of passion, of lights, of art and music and of lovers, of hectic days spent working cases, and languorous nights wrapped in each others arms.
Paris…where they had fought like wild animals over facets of cases, then unwound their tensions grappling and thrashing in fiercely passionate abandon. Jethro had been an incredible lover, at times so tender as to cling to her in the throes of their ardour, and at other times showing his immense strength in his ability to reduce her to a dizzy and limp pile of nerve endings and muscles quivering in pleasure. When he turned those blue eyes on her, she knew what it was to be loved, cherished, adored even…but that wasn’t enough for a female agent with her eye on bigger things.
That final fight, she remembered ruefully. Jethro and she had quarreled over a suspect in a brutal domestic case. The man, a naval commander, claimed that his wife had been killed by home invaders while he was away in England at a military conference. Jen had believed him, believed the appearance of grief and the way he called regularly looking for updates. Jethro was having none of it, however, and the quarrels escalated over a period of days, to the point where he took up sleeping on the couch and only speaking to Jen about work matters.
The crisis came when he witnessed his partner having coffee with the husband at a café on the West Bank, one afternoon when she was supposed to be on stakeout. The suspect said something that led Jen to realize he was the man they were seeking, and her face had betrayed that realization. He had then grabbed Jen and tried to use her as a shield when Gibbs came charging out of the back room, but Jethro, coldly furious, had taken the murdering husband out with one shot to the forehead.
Jen was unharmed physically, but her pride and professionalism were wounded—and like a wounded animal, she turned on the one she trusted most. Back at their apartment, she had flown at him verbally, challenging his objectivity, his professionalism, his dedication to NCIS and the depth of his devotion to her.
“It’s no wonder you’ve been divorced three times!” she had told him scathingly.
What woman in her right mind would put up with his chauvinistic, overly protective, moody ways? He was jealous of her methods of getting a subject to let down his guard, he was secretive, he was trying to keep her under his thumb. He had stood silently while she raged and paced and stormed at him, and when her venom was spent, he had quietly gone into the bedroom and closed the door. He had packed his duffle bag with his effects—only the effects, she noted later, that she hadn’t given him—and went to stay at a hotel.
Within a week, he had transferred back to the States, but not before he had written a report on the case, praising up his partner’s handling of the case and recommending her for promotion.
When Jen read the report Jethro had written, she realized the huge mistake she had made, and went to the hotel where he was staying to make amends. But he had left that morning on a flip back to the US, with no word, no letter to her, nothing but his factual and solid report. She had moved on up the ladder in Europe, while he accepted a position as team leader at NCIS headquarters. Their paths had never crossed again until the day she stepped in front of him in MTAC as the new director of the agency.
And while he would lightly flirt with her when they were alone, there was a definite wall up between them now. The night they were on a stakeout together hunting Ari Haswari, he had started to bring up Paris, and Jen had put her hand over his mouth, hushing him.
“That was a lifetime ago,” she told him. She had watched him close his eyes for a long moment and when he opened them again and looked back at her, they were veiled and guarded. He never again mentioned Paris, and if she did, he would turn and give her the Gibbs stare—the one that quailed agents, suspects, and military brass alike. From then on, their conversations were professional, never personal, even when they exchanged lighthearted banter. A part of her still mourned what could have been, but never would be now.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Memories...of the way we were.