After the last incident of when he had stuck his foot in his mouth; Jethro knew that he had a lot to do just to smooth things over with Jenny even though they had kind of made up in her office. It had been a week since the incident at the agency. Jenny had gotten over her cold completely and she still wasn’t happy with Jethro. Over the intervening days and nights; Jenny was giving Jethro the cold shoulder. During the day she was strictly business both at home and at the agency. Come nightfall she’d turn down each of Jethro’s advances choosing to lie in bed in her lingerie with the case files surrounding her on the bed which only forced Jethro to take a cold shower every night.
So before he came home from work that night, Jethro made a pit stop at the local DC mall where he stopped at Kay Jewelry store to buy Jenny an Open Hearts necklace. Jethro had of course stopped by the diner he got his and Jenny’s coffee at before he drove home. When he arrived home the girls; all five of them were in the living room watching Certain Prey. He then made his way up to the bedroom. When he opened the door with one hand while he held the necklace in the other; Jethro saw a view before him that he absolutely loved seeing with a bit of a twist.
Jenny had fallen asleep. She had the bedding covering her from the waist down leaving her upper body exposed. Jenny was sleeping on her stomach but part of her was obstructed by her laptop. As Jethro drew closer to the bed he saw that there was a video up on the screen that Jenny had made. There was also a post it note that was on the camera covering the computer’s camera. The note read; Hit Play in Jenny’s handwriting, she had written the note large enough so that Jethro could read without using his glasses. Jethro pressed play on the video.
In the video before him on their bed.
“Since you’re watching this, Jethro; I must have fallen asleep waiting for you to come home. I am only going to say this once and I am not saying this as the Director or as your boss; but as your wife. You were wrong the other day and I was right. Deal with it and go to bed. But make sure my computer is shut down and out of the way. And if you need help with shutting it down, then go ask one of your daughters. If you wake me up to shut it down, I will castrate you.”
“I can shut your computer down Jen without the girls’ help or yours.”
A second later he wasn’t so sure of what the hell he was doing. Jethro headed back downstairs carrying Jenny’s laptop with him to the living room where his girls were.
“Do you need help with mom’s laptop again, Dad?” Emiliana asked.
“I think he does.”
“He’s one of the most technology inept people on the planet.”
“Okay will you all stop ganging up on me here and shut down the computer for me.”
“Guess Jenny said that if you woke her up that she’d castrate you?” Kelly inquired.
Jethro didn’t answer. Which only confirmed what the girls already knew, even Kelly knew that Jenny meant business when she threatened to castrate someone and Kelly was the last one to join the fold. Madison took her mother’s computer and shut it down for her dad. Jethro returned to his and Jenny’s bedroom once the computer was shut down. Back up in their bedroom Jethro had undressed before joining his wife in bed. As he undressed he noticed that Jenny had pulled her hair back into a low half bun. He had been quite happy that Jenny had let her hair grow back to the length she had it at when she first started out at the agency as the Director all those years ago.
Once Jethro had gotten into bed he saw that Jenny’s tattoo was exposed so he started to lightly trace it with his rough, calloused index finger. Jethro was desperately trying to not wake Jenny up.
“Stop tracing my tattoo, Jethro. Go to sleep, you’re not getting anything from me to tonight in case you didn’t gather that from the video message I left you.” Jenny said as she pulled the covers up to cover her completely and turn to sleep on her side.
The next morning as Jenny got ready for work, Jethro had gone to the diner to get coffee for them. When he had gotten back home he took a red sharpie and wrote I’m sorry on Jenny’s coffee cup. He then set the necklace that he had gotten her the night before on her nightstand with the coffee sitting inside the necklace on the nightstand with his apology facing forward. After that he went downstairs to see what his daughters were up to for the day.
“You shouldn’t have.” Jenny said as she joined her husband, daughters and step-daughter downstairs.
“He shouldn’t have done what?” Kelly inquired.
“Your dad gave me this.”
“Seriously, you bought her a two hundred and thirty dollar necklace just to apologize for sticking your foot in your mouth the other day? You never dropped that sort of money on mom.” Kelly said a bit disgusted.
“Here we go again.” Arabella said.
“I am getting tired of this freaking comparison thing you insist on doing every freaking time, Kelly.” Delilah said.
“Yeah, get over it; big freaking deal dad dropped a lot of money to buy mom a necklace. Your mom and ours are two different people. Just get over it.” Madison said.
At this point Jenny and Jethro were tuning out their squabbling children. They were completely mesmerized by each other as if they had first met each other. On some level they had both gone back to the day they had first met at the agency back in 1999. Jethro had a smile on his face that was a country mile wide. Jenny smiled in that way that she always did with her head slightly tilted to the right with her emerald green eyes emitting every possible thought she had.
February 13th, 1999; Director Morrow is sitting the back row of seats in MTAC waiting for Jethro to arrive. There is another agent sitting a few rows in front of Morrow. Jethro completely missed the agent as he walked past her to join Morrow.
“You called for me; sir?”
“Yes I did Jethro.”
“What did you want sir?”
“I am giving you a junior agent, Jethro; in light of Agent Franks retiring, SECNAV has decided that after three years it’s time for you to have another partner.”
“Who is it?”
“Special Agent Jennifer Shepard. She has just recently graduated from FLETC, top of her class.”
With that Jenny stood up from her seat to face Jethro and Morrow.
“Jethro, I’d like you to meet Agent Jennifer Shepard; your new partner.” Morrow said introducing the duo.
“Agent Gibbs; it’s nice to meet you.” Jenny said respectively.
“Agent Shepard.”
A few months and a divorce later over in one of the world’s most romantic cities; Jethro and Jethro were more than just partners that Morrow assumed they would be. There was some sort of magic between the two of them that was sparked that second night in the attic when they were in Marseilles.
Jenny and Jethro snapped back to reality from their little world. Jenny handed the necklace Jethro had given her for him to put it on her for her. Once Jethro had done that Jenny extended her hand to Jethro. He took her hand and she led him upstairs for a bit of one on one time.
“Oh god, we’re gonna have to blow our ear drums out now.” Kelly said once her father and step-mother had gone.
“Nah we don’t have to.” Emiliana said.
“How do you figure?”
“The way they were looking at each other just now said that they weren’t going up there for that.”
Kelly was puzzled.
“They both remembered when they first met eighteen years ago and their time in Marseilles.” Delilah said.
“Marseilles. Wasn’t that where they…”
“Where they conceived us.” Arabella interjected.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah that’s where we had our start.” Madison said.
“Oh.”
“Six months after dad had divorced Stephanie; he and mom became him and mom.” Emiliana said.
With that the girls went back to their movie. Jenny and Jethro spent the rest of the day with each other. They only left their room when one of them had to use the head.
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