Commiserating Souls

An NCIS oneshot

by mew-tsubaki

Note: The NCIS characters belong to Donald P. Bellasario, not to me. Because it's practically obligatory to write about the sunglasses scene. ;w; Read, review, and enjoy!

- ^-^3

They hadn't been inside her apartment long, but it felt like forever, given the ensuing silence. Bishop had to wonder if Torres were done talking, even, since he hadn't said as much as a peep since bursting on her front steps. At the very least, she'd gotten him inside to warm up.

Bishop bit her lip. Usually she had plenty of words whenever anyone needed them. But now? Right now? Nothing came to mind. All she could do was continue to glance at the lump of person on her couch while she busied herself trying to make them each a cup of chamomile tea since it turned out she was out of coffee.

For a brief minute, Bishop internally thanked Torres. Knowing she had him to pull out of a funk, she felt distracted from her own devastation over the loss of Reeves. …but the mere thought brought her right back to their reality and how empty every single room felt without Reeves.

The kettle whistled, causing her to jump out of skin and back to the present. She poured two mugs, one woefully under-filled, and went to the living room, passing Torres the fuller one.

He took it and, after an odd beat, mumbled, "…thanks."

A smile didn't feel right, so she nodded and sat on the arm of the couch. She sipped her tea and finished it long before Torres took his first swig.

Torres remained on the couch with his knees pulled up to his chest like a little kid. Stockinged feet Bishop didn't mind on her couch, but Torres seemed adamant about not making eye contact with her since pouring his heart out outside.

Dwelling a little longer on why that might be, Bishop arrived at a conclusion. "I'm sorry," she said into the quiet.

Finally he picked his head up, and he sipped his tea. "Thanks," he said again.

"No, Nick, I—" She sighed. "I shouldn't've brushed off the broken sunglasses."

"No, you shouldn't have." He frowned at her, but, though he looked her in the eye, his expression was rather listless. "McGee brushes things off; he's been around Gibbs too long. But you, Ellie…" And his eyes dropped once again, to his mug.

She clenched her jaw, wondering what the rest of his thought was. Maybe a reference to how accustomed and numbed to loss she'd become? Or maybe that she'd gone through so much and he thought she'd be more sensitive to the situation.

Or maybe it was how, after Qasim, he and Reeves had more than been there for her. The three of them, partners—inside and definitely outside the office.

But a part of her had felt that it was easier to ignore the immediate past now that their threesome was broken.

Same as Reeves' sunglasses gift to Torres.

"I really am sorry," she insisted softly, her gaze on her own empty mug.

Another beat of silence passed, and then Torres hissed a sigh and groaned. "I can't stay mad. I just—staying angry landed me in jail."

Bishop looked at him. "…I'm glad you and Jimmy are all right, though."

At last, he cracked a partial smile. "Yeah, I didn't mind having him at my back." Torres stared at her coffee table and jutted his chin towards it, where his sunglasses lay in pieces. "They won't be fixed, you know. I've tried. Like, an insane number of times. Probably did everything except the crazy stuff out of McGee's book."

She eyed the ruined sunglasses, too; the longer they watched, another chunk of lens fell off a different shattered fragment.

"…he's really gone."

"…yeah."

"Sometimes I feel as if I'm the only one who remembers him."

Hearing that, Bishop's heart sank. Instead of correcting him, though, she stood and went to her bedroom, pulling a jacket from the back of her closet. She held it gingerly, as if its previous owner stood inside it even now, ready to share one of his big bear hugs with them. But he wasn't, and it hurt to pull this out now when she'd finally done a good job of burying the past.

Torres paled when she saw Reeves' jacket in her arms. "Oh" was all he had to offer.

But that eased her annoyance with him, and she plopped down beside him on the couch this time. "I have this piece of Clayton, Nick. I have several pieces of him, of you. But Clay?" She shook her head. "I had to clean up my place a little, otherwise it would be too hard to come home."

He sank back into the cushions and let one of his legs down. "…I guess that was one way to handle…him being gone." Torres tried to smile, but he looked ready to cry, an expression that made her tear up. "I've got pieces of both of you all over my place, too. That camel-hair coat of his looks so out of place in my closet," he joked. This time, he managed to smile, though now his eyes were shiny likes hers.

Bishop managed to return his smile. Then she wrapped her arm around his shoulders and drew him close so his head rested against hers. Through contact, she could feel the tension his anxiety had caused him begin to melt away, and her wards ebbed, too. Perhaps it was time to feel everything they'd been bottling up since Reeves' death.

But, if they felt everything, then what did that mean for Bishop and Torres?

The circle—Bishop, Torres, and Reeves—was broken.

Did that mean the line connecting Bishop and Torres had to disappear, too?

…would Reeves be all right with her and Torres staying connected?

The thought made her go cold all over. She hugged Torres more tightly and backed off, feeling guilty for such thoughts, for such wishful thinking—

—but it was hard to chastise herself when she could read that same guilt in Torres' expression, too, from the unsure twist of his lips to the liveliness of realization in his eyes to the debating furrow of his brow.

Oh.

Despite being on the same page, Bishop didn't voice the elephant in the room. She and Torres…they were on the same page, but they weren't there yet, not really. And that was all right.

There was grieving to be done, and be done properly. There were happy memories to relive, and there were gifts and belongings perhaps better relocated to be treasured and not to cause endless heartache.

But first, there was sleep to be had, and Bishop pulled Torres back to her so they could fall asleep on the couch, him like a scared animal in her arms…until he eventually calmed down, at peace in an embrace they'd both forgotten had been so familiar until they'd lost that one piece of themselves in someone else.

- ^-^ 3

I was listening to Imagine Dragons' "Start Over" when typing up notes for this fic and WOW the feels rly hit me in the bloody heart. ;w; Looking back on that s16 2nd episode, I wanted him to be a little angrier with her because of how they tried to downplay the seriousness of the broken sunglasses; I'm deffo like him in that the smallest things tend to have the biggest meanings, so it's never just the straw that broke the camel's back—smthg serious had to have happened to cause such a mood swing in him. (Not to mention I totally called it, the sunglasses having belonged to Reeves, when I watched the ep with my parents, and it never hurt more to be so damn right about such a detail… Dx) I do have a few OT3s across my various fandoms, but this is the first time I've ever written one that has to continue after the loss of one of the three; I do think they'd continue, but…well, I have minor ideas for a sequel to this, so I think I'll keep mum for now. I also have to say this was difficult to write without having the episode right in front of me, but reviewing an episode summary helped, and I found I liked this story more coming back to edit it a few weeks after drafting it. Thank goodness!

Thanks for reading, and please review! Check out my other NCIS fics if you liked this.

-mew-tsubaki :')