A/N: I never really wanted to write the letter Jen could have written Jethro in JD, but I got a line in my head and it wouldn't leave, so I wrote this fic. The title is from the song "Please Read the Letter", by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Hope you like it, and please review! Thanks!

Please Read the Letter

Dear Jethro,

I've been trying for days to come up with the best way to tell you this. There is no good way, but I need to do what is best for me, so I'm writing you this letter. I know you already understand something is wrong with me, you could always read me as good as I can read you. I lied to you before when you asked me is something was wrong with my health; I just couldn't stand telling you that I'm dying. By now you already know that, you just came from my funeral and you sit in your basement drinking bourbon and wondering what you could have done to save me. You couldn't have saved me, Jethro. No one could. This disease would be my death and to be honest I'd hoped for a more heroic way of dying. But I've leaned that sometimes you can't control your life. I'd wanted nothing more than to spend my final moments with you, but I couldn't let you watch me die. Remember on my first day as director, you told me you missed me. You probably also remember me struggling not to say it back. I wanted to, but I was director now, it wasn't like before and I knew we could never have what we had back in Europe. Too much had changed, I had changed, the situation had changed. But the only thing that never changed was my feelings for you. I don't know if you ever suspected, or knew, that I was still in love with you. But we both knew it would never be like it was. I'm sorry, Jethro, for so many things. I'm sorry for the secrets I kept from you, do not think I didn't trust you, I trusted you with my life, but my secret was a dangerous one and I didn't want you to get in trouble because of me. I knew you wouldn't stay out of it even if I asked you to; you wouldn't let me go after him by myself. I'm sorry that I had to leave you, but it was a choice I had to make, and it was neither easy nor fair. It's been wonderful to work with you, spend time with you, and love you. There's no easy way for me to say goodbye to you, but I have no other choice and I take this chance to be honest with you. Goodbye, Jethro.

Promise me one thing; that you won't forget the good times we spent together. I never did.

And remember, we'll always have Paris.

Forever yours,

Jenny

Her hand shook as she put the pen down. It shook more violently as she picked up the piece of paper and skimmed through what she'd written. It was definitely her best try yet. Her gaze traveled to the trashcan that was filled with balls of paper, evidence of just how hard it had been to find the right words to tell him what needed to be said. Her eyes were filled with tears and her cheeks were streaked with wet lines.

A tear fell, landing on the paper and almost smudged out the word Paris. She stared at the dark blotch just below the word that meant so much to her. This was it. These were her final words to Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

Blinking away more tears, she folded the paper and placed it neatly in an envelope. On it she wrote To Jethro.

She knew what she was going to do with it; she would give it to Ducky and ask him to give it to Jethro after her funeral. He would argue, of course, he had tried many times to convince her to tell Jethro she was sick. But she had stubbornly refused and Ducky had no choice but to accept her decision. She could still change her mind and talk to him, there was still time before the disease would claim her life. Not much time, but enough. But she could not stand looking into those stunningly blue eyes that always made her knees go weak and tell him she was dying. She simply couldn't.

She reached for the bottle of pills on her desk and swallowed one, lifting her glass of water to help wash it down.

She cast one last glance at the letter before grabbing it, heading toward the hallway to put on her coat and go give it to Ducky right away, before she'd change her mind and re-write it again. When she got home, she needed to pack her suitcase, find something appropriate to wear to Decker's funeral that she would be attending in California the next day.

A/N2: There will be a second part, from Gibbs' POV. Btw, the secret she writes about in the letter is the La Grenouille thing.