Notes: The lyrics belong to Jimmy Buffett, Dashboard Confessional, Jewel, Simon and Garfunkel, Barenaked Ladies, Guns and Roses, Counting Crows, John Mayer, Starting Line, Guster, Three Dog Night, and Eve 6, respectively. Written for NCIS Flashfiction's interrogation / confession challenge.
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on a cloudless night in june
It started as comfort between them, that night when he showed up at her door with hollow eyes, smelling like sawdust and liquor.
It hurt her to see him like this, so broken. He had been her strength for so long that she had forgotten what it was to be strong on her own, and now she had no way to comfort him, no way but to take him in her arms and kiss his dry cheeks, his closed eyelids that had felt no tears for Kate yet.
When they came together there was more sorrow than joy in it.
it�s warmer where you�re waiting, it feels more like july
He never finished the boat, because somehow it reminded him too much of her. Then came a stifling summer night when he called Abby, and together they took the unfinished monstrosity to an abandoned field and burned it.
In his mind, he�d named it Kate, and in this impromptu pyre he found more resolution than he had at her actual funeral. They stood there together, the two of them, watching the ashes float into the sky, and he heard her whisper �goodbye� by his side.
That night, drifting to sleep in her arms, he realized that he still hadn�t cried.
there have been days so dark that i felt like august
She woke to the feeling of his fingers sliding along her skin, his lips moving against the back of her neck. There was an urgency to his movements, a desperation he wouldn�t let himself show when he was awake, and she knew from his unconscious roughness that he was still sleeping, caught up in a dream.
When he sagged back down, exhausted, pillowing his head beside her breasts, she felt his eyelashes flutter against her as he sighed and whispered �Kate� across her skin.
She lay awake, feeling the tears slowly roll down her face and fall into the darkness.
september i�ll remember, a love once new has now grown old
�Don�t come,� she had said tonight, and it had become an all too frequent occurrence.
So he lay alone in his basement, stretched out across the cool floor under the beginnings of the latest in his seemingly endless repertoire of unfinished boats, and he watched the moonlight play across the rough beams overhead.
�It�s not that I don�t want you here,� she had said, and something in her voice made him believe her. When he looked into her eyes before he left work, there had been something there, something she couldn�t quite hide from him.
It almost looked like fear.
curse at the windstorms that october brings
The windows rattled under the force of the wind, but the heater had broken again and she was down to a tank top, because it was Saturday, and who would really care?
Then Tony came in, and with a glance at his eyes she realized she had forgotten. Her sweatshirt was back on before he could open his mouth, but she knew the damage was done. She was barely surprised when �Don�t tell Gibbs,� were the first words from her lips.
�Who did that?� he asked, and she saw the concern in his eyes as she turned away without answering.
nothing lasts forever in the cold november rain
�Is Abby seeing anyone?� Tony asked him, and there was a moment of panic before he realized that Tony would never be that subtle if he suspected.
�Dunno,� he replied, and almost believed it himself.
�Because she has all these bruises on her arms, and I was just wondering if you knew��
But Gibbs had stopped listening, because suddenly all those nights alone were explained, all those expressions of barely suppressed emotion. It wasn�t that she didn�t want him, just that there was someone keeping her from him. Someone who hurt her.
Tony was still talking as he walked away.
a long december and there�s reason to believe
His eyes had burned with anger and worry, and there had been that hardened expression she had seen directed at Ari and few others. It hurt her to imagine telling him the truth, so she didn�t.
Accidents, she told him, and he didn�t believe her. But it didn�t matter, because as long as she didn�t say a name, he was safe.
He still came some nights, because being alone was too hard for both of them, but it was different now, because there was always suspicion between them.
It hurt worse than the bruises, which were just beginning to heal.
come january we�re frozen inside
Months passed before he asked again, and he saw her flinch at the question, but he wouldn�t back down, because this thing with her was beginning to mean too much.
A part of him needed answers to soothe his own guilt. He hadn�t stopped it, but he could prevent it from happening again, so he got her angry, so angry she was yelling, beating against him with ineffectual fists, pigtails flying into her eyes. He knew her too well, knew it was the only way she would talk.
Then the words came, and he drew back, swallowing convulsively.
He fled.
precious remembrance saved for rainy days in february
What do you want to hear, that you hit me, Gibbs? That your dreams were sometimes so bad, so frightening, that you�d lash out at anything?
Her words haunted her. She woke on snowy mornings to a cold and empty room, and she knew he thought it was for her own good.
Those were the only times he was vulnerable with her, when his eyes would flutter open to find his hands bruising her skin. She�d hold him until he fell back asleep, and in the morning he wouldn�t remember.
But now he knew, and it had driven him away.
5 am, march 16th
Personal leave had been the excuse, and no one had questioned it, because they all thought he had just never gotten over Kate.
Maybe, in a way, he hadn�t.
He left work because he couldn�t look in Abby�s eyes every day, and see the pain he had caused. He couldn�t trust himself anymore, not with her, not with anyone.
He considered naming the latest boat after her and burning it too, in mourning of what they had been, but it seemed too maudlin.
Instead, he tore it to pieces, as he had done with so much else in his life.
feeling as i did in april, not really knowing what it means
He smelled like sawdust when he showed up on her doorstep, and it was comforting and familiar.
She asked how the boat was coming, because it was something to say, and he laughed bitterly. �The new one?� he asked, and she knew somehow that she had been the death of the last one. She didn�t ask why he had come, and he didn�t say anything until they were settled into the couch, pressed up against opposite armrests.
�I miss you, Abs.�
The words took something out of him, and finally, nearly a year after they should have, his tears fell.
waiting for the month of come what may
He didn�t dream anymore.
She told him, but he didn�t quite believe her, and sometimes when he was running his fingers across her skin in the dim light, he was checking for bruises. He never found any.
The laughter had returned to her eyes, and it almost made the guilt go away.
They lay together under the sheltering beams of the new boat, and as he drifted off to sleep to the comforting rhythm of her heartbeat against his skin, he started to believe for the first time that it might get finished.
And he wouldn�t be sailing it alone.