Chapter 6: Mistakes Il m'a vue nue, Edith Piaf – Il m'a vue nue
Toute nue,
Il était parti comme un dard,
Mais je n'ai pas eu de retard
Il m'a vue nue,
Toute nue.
Un peu dans l'genre de Miss Helyett.
Car je me dis, depuis cette fatale nuit,
Je n'peux pas épouser un autre homme que lui
Il m'a vue nue,
Tell'ment nue,
Super-nue.
Probably that was the turning point for Jethro and Jenny. Ducky's warning haunted Gibbs conscious and unconscious thoughts, whenever he looked at Jenny.
Still, the simmering attraction had to find an outlet somehow. All that spilled out of control during the dinner that he prepared for her to pay his bet. Their target retired for the night, and seemed to enjoy the curves and lines of his lover, leaving both agents hot and bothered observing their target doing what they both were extremely anxious to do.
"Do you even wonder?"
Her soft voice brakes Gibbs's concentration on their target, so he turns his eyes to look at Jenny, who seems to be gazing at something on the wall, with a lost expression on her eyes.
"About what?"
"Do you ever wonder that they maybe are living a much more interesting existence than us? Loving, being loved, stealing, fighting for an ideal, a wrong and deranged ideal, but they are convicted that this is the right thing. They are so sure they are doing the right thing that they are willing to die for it."
"I'm willing to die for my country."
"So are they. What makes us so different from them? What makes us better than them?"
Gibbs sighs deeply, uncomfortable with the thought that Jenny might be having second thoughts about their mission.
"They kill innocent people just because they don't share their belief system and—"
"Don't we do the same thing?"
"It's different."
"Why? Is it really so?"
"If you are having any doubts, you really –"
"I'm not having doubts. I know what we have to do and why we have to do it. But don't you ever think about it?"
"What exactly is your problem?" he asks exasperated, tired of her round about talking.
Jenny shakes her head, showing Gibbs that she is indeed for a moment confused about her true motivations for being there.
"What if we're wrong? What if there is no black and white, just shades of grey. What if we're on the wrong side?"
NCIS NCIS NCIS
Later that night, Jenny laid down to sleep on the bed, while Jethro took the night shift to watch their target. Her restless moving showed how disturbed her mind was, even in slumber. Gibbs looks again at their target's house, no movement in there.
If he follows the pattern, he won't be going anywhere until first daylight.
Gibbs stands from his position by the windows that, even though are open, only bring an oppressive hot breeze inside the room. He takes some steps towards the bed, despite the siren bells screaming in his ears and the constant buzzing of Ducky's warning on his mind.
He stands beside the bed, looking down at Jenny and notices that, despite her efforts, she is still awake. She opens huge blue eyes and stares into his. For a moment both just allow themselves to express without words what they are feeling through their intense gaze into each other.
"What do you want from me, Jenny?" he whispers softly, but she still hears him, as she answers in an equally soft voice.
"I want to call you Jethro."
They didn't sleep that night.
NCIS NCIS NCIS
Three days later, they followed their target to the arranged meeting point, and witnessed the exchange of information. They took them down, but in a last desperate action, the French woman jumped in front of her lover, being taken down by one of Jenny's shots. And thanks to Jenny's mistake, he was arrested.
The end.