A/N: Same title, different story. Another JIBBS oneshot, I hope you're having a good week, Angels. This is a short story where Jethro visits Jen's grave on her birthday. Enjoy, Angels.
It's days like these that he, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, finds it hard to go to work, it's days like these that he can't help the tears well up in his eyes when he looks up at the catwalk and doesn't see her staring at him, it's days like these that he misses their undercover operations, it's days like these that he misses Serbia, London, Positano and Paris, especially Paris, it's days like these that he misses waking up next to her, it's days like these that he misses Jen, his Jen, his probie, his partner, his lover, his his boss, his everything.
It's her birthday today, her first birthday since her death and not a day goes by that he doesn't think about her and what they could have had if he had told her he was still in love with her, maybe if he had, she'd be here with him instead of six feet underground. He sighs as he sits up in his boat, his blue eyes landing on a photo of Jen. It was taken in Paris. She was smiling at something behind him and hadn't realised that he had taken a photo of her. "Hi, Jen." He says to the photo. Getting from underneath his boat, he finishes his ice cold coffee and leaves the basement, getting ready to face the onslaught of memories of him and Jen.
After showering, changing his clothes and a quick stop at the flower shop to get her her favourite flowers, Gibbs parks outside the DC cemetery gates. He walks the familiar path, flowers in hand, to her spot. He smiles when he sees five bouquets of flowers at the foot of her gravestone. His team have been to visit her before they went to work. He places his own flowers at the foot of her grave and stares at the words written on the stone.
Jennifer Shepard
NCIS AGENT, PARTNER, DIRECTOR AND FRIEND.
He places his flowers beside a bouquet of black roses and just stares at her name. He doesn't say anything, why would he when she won't be able to talk back to him? It's been a year since her death and he still misses everything about her. He misses her voice, her smile, her sparkling green eyes, the way her clothes hugged her body, their petty fights, the way she made memories of them appear at the forefront of his mind after being buried so many years, he misses everything about her. He hears the distant rumbling of thunder and smiles to himself as memories of him and Jen running through the deserted streets of Paris, drenched with rain while thunder boomed above them and lightning lit up the black sky. Enter his mind. Finally he straightens up as the first drops of rain fall from the blackening sky.
"Joyeux anniversaire, Jen, je t'aime." He tells her in French, knowing that even in death, she'd hear him. He walks away from her grave.
As he reaches the cemetery gates, a pile of leaves swirl around him and something Jen said one night in Serbia when thy holed up in that farmhouse comes back to him "if I die before you, as you leave the cemetery, when a pile of leaves swirl at your feet, it means that I've heard whatever it is you've said."
Jen has heard him, knows that he's been here.
"Je t'aime, Jen, je t'aime." The Special Agent and former Marine Sniper whispers to the swirling piling of leaves.
Translation: Joyeux anniversaire, Jen, je t'aime: Happy birthday, Jen, I love you.
A\N: The last part of this story was written on my laptop which is actually working now, however slow it is, enjoy, Angels.
