He hears the door open, but he feels no sense of alarm, or panic. He sits at the kitchen table eating steak, and drinking a beer. A familiar figure enters the room, and joins him at the table. She takes a seat next to him. He barely looks up from his plate for two seconds. Being the strong silent type that he is, he chooses to say nothing, knowing that she will want to lead the conversation, anyway.
"You are probably wondering what I'm doing here. I know that you are tired of talking to me. I know that you are never going to understand what I have done, and why I had to leave. You feel as if I should wait, and let Bo have time, and space to make sense of all of this."
"You're impatient," he comments.
She shakes her head, "No, Jethro, that isn't what this is about. It's not why I am here, or why I came back."
"Jen if you have something to say, then just say it," he insists.
"I did spend part of the time that I was gone tracking dangerous predators."
"And the other part of the time?"
"Not everything was a lie, not everything was a game."
"Jenny," he looks her in the eye, "For the millionth time, I am not the one that you need to be explaining this to."
"Please just listen," she begs.
"I am listening."
"I am selfish, and I wanted more time. I needed more time. I wanted to get to see my son grow up."
"Then why the hell did you walk away?"
"Because my time was about to run out."
"You should have asked for help. I could have protected you."
"You couldn't, and you can't," she argues.
"I should have been there. You should have been honest with me from the beginning. Jen, you should have told me I had a son. You could have told me what your plan was all along."
"I couldn't."
"Why not?"
"Because I didn't even know what it was. I didn't know for certain that I was going to get a second chance."
"What do you mean?"
"One day I realized that I had spent so much time trying to buy more that I squandered too much of it."
"What do you mean buy more time?"
"Jethro, I'm sick."
"Jenny I don't want to hear an excuse about why you left our son."
"It isn't an excuse. It is the truth."
"The truth?" He cocks an eyebrow.
"Which I should have told you all along."
"So tell me now."
"I was desperate to change my fate. I wanted my son to get to have a mother. When I left I was really sick. I went in for treatment immediately after I left. I didn't think that I was going to survive, but I had to try. I thought that at least if I didn't make it Bo would have Ziva. They are kindred spirits, and at least he would have a happy childhood. I thought that maybe he would be too young to remember me."
"Why did you come back?"
"The treatment worked. Eventually I will succumb to this disease, but I have considerably more time now. I know that you may not have understood why I felt the need to be a part of Bo's life seemingly out of the blue. I know that you can never forgive me for what I did. I am not asking for forgiveness. I am just asking for your help to convince him to spend time with me. He is probably never going to call me mom, again, and I have to be okay with that. I just want to spend whatever time that I have left, with him," she blinks away tears.
"Jen, it's not up to me. I can try to convince him, but he is as stubborn as I am, and more determined than you are. It is going to take a lot to change his mind."
"If anyone can do it, you can."
"Why did you come back? Jen it seems selfish, and cruel."
"What do you mean?"
"You want him to spend time with you, and develop a relationship with you. You want him to get attached to him, just so you can leave him again? It's selfish. When you go he is going to be devastated."
"I am not going to walk away from him."
"How the hell is he supposed to know that," he raises his voice, "when you walked away from him before? How is he supposed to believe anything that you say? I honestly don't know if I even want you to be part of his life."
"I am dying."
"What if you have years left?"
"So what if I do?"
"Even if you don't, he is going to get attached to you. He had almost got over losing you once, and now you want him to lose you again?"
"I love him."
"If you loved him you wouldn't have left him. I don't care what the circumstance was, abandoning your son, our son was not the right thing to do."
Her face turns red, in anger, "I am not the only one who is good at leaving," she reminds him.
"I regret leaving my family every single day of my life. I left, and there was nothing to come home to. Do you have any idea how that feels? I lost my wife, and my daughter. It was my fault, and I can't change it. I have to live with that regret everyday. I want to have empathy for you, but I can't."
"I am not going to have this argument with you."
"Life is short. It is over in the blink of an eye. You have always known that, and you still chose to leave him. Excuse me if I don't feel sorry for you. Don't you know that you can't just pick up where you left off?"
"Why can't you understand that I am just trying to make this right?"
"For who?"
Before she can answer she hears the floorboard nearby squeak. She looks at Gibbs in horror.
"Bo is supposed to be with Ziva," she comments.
He says nothing as he vacates his seat at the table, and leaves the room. He finds Bo racing up the stairs. He stops at the bottom of the staircase as he hears the door slam. Jenny joins him.
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry isn't enough," he tells her, "You should go," he adds as he starts up the stairs.