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“So-” Jess passes Jimmy his ‘world’s best dad’ mug and settles herself back against the cushions- “MDMA. For science,” raising an amused eyebrow, she takes a sip of her mint tea, “I assume it was when you were in college? Most college students are broke.”
“Aha,” Jimmy half laughs, “you’re right, I was. My final year pre-med,” he stares pensively down at the mug balanced on his knee, “but I was uh, even more broke than most.”
At her questioning look, he shrugs helplessly, “I was funding medical bills.”
A deep pit opens up in Jess’ stomach as she wonders what exactly he could have been ill with, “Medical bills?”
Swallowing, Jimmy nods, “And then funeral bills.”
The relief that it wasn’t Jimmy who had been ill (and the derision at herself for ever thinking that it could have been – some agent she is thinking that they’d let an ill person do a clinical trial) is quickly replaced by a dread that this story is going to be very different from the ‘funny tale he’s going to keep from his daughter until she’s old enough to make her own bad decisions’ that she’d been expecting.
Calmly, she sets her mug on the coffee table and manoeuvres so she’s sat, one leg tucked under herself, facing him on the couch, then she takes his free hand in hers, interlocking their fingers and resting them in (what she hopes is) a sort of comforting sandwich on his knee.
“Who?”
After staring seriously at her for just long enough to make her think that maybe he’s not going to answer, he reveals, “My mom. She needed a kidney transplant,” he pauses and his forehead wrinkles, “it was unsuccessful. Which, aha, was something I’ve never quite been able to forgive my father for…”
There’s a disconnect in the story, something she’s not quite understanding.
“Did your father donate the kidney?”
“Oh no, no,” Jimmy shakes his head, “he’d been dead for over ten years by then. But the effects, as they say, linger.”
He’s doing that thing again, the talking overly cheerfully about something that’s clearly painful.
Jess frowns, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand…”
Then even the cheerfulness slips away, leaving a weary man behind in the rubble.
“It’s… it’s long and it’s complicated and I’m sure you don’t want to get into this tonight, Jess,” he tries to protest, taking a gulp of his tea as if to try and close the subject.
Thinking that she can afford one last tiny push towards getting him to open up, she tells him honestly, “I’ll happily listen.”
“But I don’t think I want to talk,” he replies a little more sharply than usual then immediately looks abashed.
She accepts the apologetic squeeze of her hand by squeezing his back then quietly asks, “Will you ever talk about your dad, Jimmy?”
“One day.”
He doesn’t meet her eye as he says it.
“Have you ever talked to anyone about him?”
It sounds like this had all been so long ago. She doesn’t really know what kind of a person Jimmy had been in college, if he had the emotional maturity that he does now to be able to deal with whatever it was that had happened.
People who are as endlessly optimistic as him are like this by choice, she knows.
They have a steel core running through them that gives them the strength to keep going, forged in fire hotter than most could even imagine.
“Dr Mallard more than anyone.”
The ‘but still not much’ hangs unsaid between them in the way that his shoulders seem to hunch under the weight of it all and his eyebrows are scrunched behind his glasses.
“Maybe you just need to get it out,” she suggests gently, “we don’t have anything else on this evening… I get the sense you’ve been carrying this around for a while.”
A few long seconds pass where he simply stares at their joined hands but despite his stillness, Jess is sure his thoughts are racing.
Eventually, he nods, mostly to himself she thinks, leans forward to set his drink next to hers on the coffee table and takes a single deep breath.
“My father-“ even the word seems to make him stumble and he steels himself with a harsh swallow- “he was a good father in the sense that he encouraged me, no matter what. He was almost emotionally available too,” he lets out a sort of half laugh that never erases the serious line to his face, “but he wasn’t a good father in that he put me and my mother in danger.”
Jess doesn’t have the first idea of where this story could possibly be going and the confusion must read on her face (she’d thought that she’s good at hiding what she’s thinking but if anyone is able to read her, it would be him) because Jimmy takes another deep breath and begins at the beginning.
“A few weeks after I turned ten, I was sat around the fire with my parents. My dad was home for once – he used to take a lot of business trips – and we were playing board games. Operation was always my favourite, it’s what made me want to be a doctor.”
He gives a genuine smile that she mirrors, aware that it’s a favourite of Victoria’s too.
“It was my dad’s turn and my mom was in the kitchen, making hot chocolates. She’d always make them with a ‘special ingredient’ when dad was home – it was just cinnamon but they’d tell me it was a bean that Dad would go on different adventures to collect. My highlight of his times at home was when he’d tell me all about them.”
There’s a bittersweet shine to his eyes and Jess can almost feel the waves of nostalgia passing over them.
“My mom had just come in with the massive mugs we used to use when gunshots started going off.”
All the air seems to disappear from the room and Jess has to stop herself from gripping Jimmy’s hand much too tightly in the very real (and slightly terrifying) deep panic at the thought of anything happening to him – even if it had been years ago.
“My dad pushed me under the table and I stayed there until I heard tires screech away and everything was quiet,” he carries on, too lost in himself to notice her own internal struggle, “I could tell by my father’s face that he was gone. The first dead body I ever saw. I, aha, wasn’t quite so acclimatised back then.”
Despite his hollow laugh, she can see how it still haunts him. She wonders if, some days, he still sees his father’s lifeless face in the people that rest briefly on his autopsy table.
“My mom was unconscious but still breathing. Jess- “he finally glances back up at her, eyes drowning in anguish- “I’d never seen so much blood in my life,” swallowing, he takes a breath, “I called an ambulance and as I waited for it to arrive, I remember looking around the room – all destroyed by bullets and broken glass and debris – and seeing the Operation game on the floor next to my dad. The light from the nose was still flickering…”
Trailing off, he seems to lose himself in the memory, only shaking himself back to the present when Jess skims her thumb over the back of his hand and he offers her a shaky half smile in return.
“My mom was shot through the abdomen; it was operable and she survived but there was damage to her kidneys that never fully healed. She was in and out of hospital from then on, spent most of her final year in a hospital bed and eventually died from kidney failure when I was in my final year pre-med.”
He doesn’t falter over the words and she wonders if it’s because the pain has lessened with time or because he’s just so familiarised with the idea of death.
“We’d used all the savings that my father had to fund previous medications and treatments and checkups and she couldn’t work so…”
“It was all up to you,” she finishes softly and he confirms with a wordless nod.
“It’s why I have so much sympathy – empathy – for people who are the bottom of the chain and deal because they don’t have a choice-“ although Jess would argue strongly that Jimmy has empathy for anyone, no matter their situation- “that was so close to being me. But I swore to myself I would never do anything illegal to get by. That I would never become my father.”
Again, there’s an implication of something bigger, a reason to all of this that he hasn’t told her yet.
Carefully, Jess extracts one of her hands from the tangle on his knee and reaches up to smooth his hair, her fingers tracing slowly lower until they come to settle on his neck, thumb brushing at the fine hairs under his ear.
“Jimmy?” she asks quietly, “why was your father targeted?”
Dropping his gaze, Jimmy shakes his head and for a long moment, she thinks he isn’t going to tell her.
But just when she’s about to drop the matter for the day, worried that pushing any further will do more harm than good, he begins to speak, “I found out later, that he was in a similar position as me, when he was that age, and he did turn to dealing to get by. But once you’re in that world it’s hard to get out so he accepted it, embraced it almost. He grew his business… then he made a side-step, into being a hitman.”
His gaze raises to meet her suddenly as he repeats, voice harder than she’s ever heard it, “My father was a hitman.”
A hint of a shiver passes through Jess at the words but another part of her brain is wondering if this is perhaps more proof that opposites aren’t so opposite.
Both men had or have careers surrounded by death and yet while one had made a livelihood causing it, the other has dedicated his life to finding peace for those who’ve passed.
“I was so angry at him for years after because he knew it was dangerous, he knew it was putting me and my mother at risk, he had enough money to get out and yet, he didn’t. He angered the wrong people and it eventually cost me both of them.”
And yet, there doesn’t seem to be any actual anger left in Jimmy, only sadness and the tiniest hint of bitterness.
“When did you find out?” She curls her fingers through the finest of his hairs again reassuringly.
“Mom finally came clean a few months before she died, told me everything. She told me that she hadn’t known what he’d been doing for all those years but it’d all come out in the investigation.”
There’s a part of her that doesn’t believe anyone can be completely oblivious of their spouse living another life but she’s seen it enough times in cases over the years and her negotiation and de-escalation senses are tipped that if she continues to push in that direction, everything about this conversation will likely fall apart.
Instead, she asks, “You delt with all of that in college? How?”
And really, she is in awe that he’d managed it. From her experience, college is enough of a struggle juggling a job and classes, forgetting the extra weight of being pre-med, having to scrape together medical costs, dealing with the loss of a mother and having the blame placed at the foot of a father.
“College,” Jimmy laughs humourlessly, “was a lonely time for me. Not that I was disliked, in fact I was actually quite popular-“ she can well believe it- “and I think that at least some of those friendships were truly meaningful. People tend to be nice to you if you’re nice to them, trust goes both ways and all that. I was kind and I was genuine and so people reflected that back to me.”
It doesn’t surprise Jess to hear it, she knows that good people generally surround themselves with good people, often subconsciously. And she’s never met anyone who actively works at being a good person like Jimmy does.
So, why had college been such a lonely time for him?
The corners of her lips quirk upwards as she tries to lighten the mood a fraction, “I feel like there’s a massive ‘but’ coming.”
“But,” his smile matches hers for a moment then he sobers once more, “but I never quite let anyone help me like I helped others. I worked through a lot alone in those years, found out who I was as a person and thought about who I could become. It was those days that solidified how I think about the world, how I choose to be happy because otherwise-“ as he chokes a little on the word, she watches the tears make his eyes glassy- “otherwise, I would have been lost long ago.”
A single tear tracks down his face and Jess reaches out to catch it, smoothing her thumb carefully over the delicate skin under his eye.
He snuffles a little but smiles gratefully at her, “And then I would never have got where I am today, with my NCIS family, Breena, Victoria. You-” the deep care in his eyes shines out despite the tears lingering there and she feels a smile tugging ever so gently at the corners of her lips- “but even then, I didn’t work through everything.”
It’s hard, nearly impossible, to work through everything alone.
Jess had learnt that, with Jimmy’s help in fact, when he’d spent weeks gently persuading her to join his grief counselling group and it had helped more than she’d ever thought, just to talk about the people she’s lost, to not try and hide everything she was feeling from everyone, often including herself.
“I grieved my mother in private but I could never give up a quiet hatred of my father. Until Victoria was born and I put it all aside for her-” his voice is low and rough but the words are carefully formed- “my father may not have been a good man, but that didn’t mean I had to follow his example.”
Tears are falling down his cheeks in earnest by now and Jess doesn’t stop herself from leaning forwards and pulling her towards him, understanding the finality of his words as she feels him take shuddering breaths against her.
They stay like that for a while, Jess breathing them through it as she caresses the back of his neck comfortingly, fingers dancing in the fine hairs there.
“You’re incredible Jimmy,” she murmurs in his ear, “how did you work through all of this by yourself?”
With a chuckle that gets sort of wrapped up in a sniffle, Jimmy pulls back from her and scrubs at his eyes under his glasses. Her hands stay resting on his neck, her fingers barely touching as her thumbs sooth the skin beneath his ears, linking them together still.
Settling his glasses back on his nose, Jimmy’s hands slide down her arms until they’re resting just above her elbows, anchoring him to her.
Jess doesn’t think she’s sat like this with anyone before but it feels natural somehow, a way of grounding them against each other in a little bubble.
And it’s into that bubble that he speaks, just quiet enough to keep it intact and protective around them, “I’m not quite sure if I’m honest. College was a bit of a blur; I threw myself into it and tried to get by as normally as I could,” his shoulders raise into a casual shrug that doesn’t match the serious line to his eyebrows or the red under his eyes, “then I came to NCIS and, I think Dr Mallard saw something in me that screamed just how much I needed this place. More than it ever really needed me.”
“It needs you,” Jess assures him vehemently, shaking her head, “we need you. You’re the centre of our family.”
Jimmy smiles one of his true smiles, soft and genuine, “Now, yes. But back then? I was a bit like the weird cousin. The Autopsy Gremlin, awkward and not quite sure how I fit into it all. But I was always there and I suppose everyone came to realise it, that I would always be just there. And I’m a good listener.”
Smoothing the skin beneath her thumb, she nods, “You approach everything with empathy, not sympathy. You’re never condescending about it.”
“I just imagine what I’d want to hear,” he replies simply.
Jess wishes she could make Jimmy understand just how much he means, to all of them but to her specifically.
“The last people I let close to me; I lost them all,” she begins quietly, “Benny and Diana were like siblings to me. And Ed was like the dad of our little group-“ an involuntary smile pulls the corners of her lips at the memory- “but through all the struggle of losing them then beginning to open myself up again, to care about people and let people care about me, you’ve been there. And you’ve helped more than you could possibly know.”
A moment of silent understanding passes between them as Jimmy scans her eyes for something then leans forwards and places a feather-light kiss to her cheek.
It doesn’t take more than an encouraging tug on her hand for her to reposition herself against him, leaning her head against his shoulder as their legs press together and their fingers interlock between them.
“That reminds me of Gibbs,” Jimmy tells the comfortable silence of the room, “he was a father figure to everyone. A true papa bear you might say-“ she feels the breath of his chuckle ruffle her hair- “overprotective and loyal to a fault.”
“Part of me is sad I never got to work with him, not properly-“ not when he’d been the official team leader at least- “I always wondered what it was that inspired such loyalty. I get that you were – are – all family, but he always seemed so,” shrugging lightly, she searches for the word, “gruff.”
“Just like a bear?” he asks teasingly and Jess laughs, feeling the lingering heaviness in the air dissipate.
“Yes.”
“Well, he was there for us. Emotionally, physically, he gave advice or a listening ear or, very occasionally, a needed hug. He's rescued all of us from being abducted at some point-“ perhaps the matter-of-fact way he says that should be alarming- “he was held and tortured with Tim for months so that would bond them even if they hadn't already been working together for fifteen years at that point.”
This must be the Paraguay incident she’s only heard the odd bits about; everyone seems reluctant to talk about it and, from the little she’s gleaned, that’s more than understandable.
“Tim's much closer to Gibbs than he ever was to his own father. Hell, most of us are – you're the exception there!” he brushes his lips over the top of her head, “and even still, with your father being half way around the world, Gibbs would have filled in, if you'd needed. That's just the man he was for his team.”
His family, it sounds more like.
Skimming her thumb over the back of Jimmy’s knuckles, she quietly adds, “But now he's gone.”
“Now he's gone,” he agrees softly but not sadly, “and I suspect the happiest he's been, at least since I've known him.”
Curious, she asks, “Does it hurt that it took him leaving you all to find that?”
“At times, a little,” he admits after a moment, “but we also understand. I've always worried about him, you know, he's got more pain than anyone I know, and that's almost impressive in this line of work. He's lost so many, sacrificed so much. We all want him to find some peace.”
The even, serious tone is back in his voice, telling her that he’s most likely spent more time working through this than he’s really let on to anyone.
“And we also know that he would be here in a heartbeat if we needed him,” he finishes quietly and she turns her head to push a light kiss to his cheek, letting her nose linger against his before pulling away.
“What about Parker? He’s the team leader now, part of the family. But I get the sense it’s not the same as it was with Gibbs.”
She’d almost forgotten that she was joining the Major Crimes Response Team when she’d been offered the part, then full, time position with them. Other offices my refer to their MCRTs as that but in Washington DC?
Well, it had simply been known as Gibbs’ team. By everyone. In their office, in other NCIS offices, by other organisations in DC. Gibbs’ team was known by everyone.
So the idea that it’s no longer Gibbs’ team is strange even to her and she hadn’t been a part of it.
“It’s not,” Jimmy readily agrees, “none of us have history with Parker like we do with Gibbs. Myself, Tim, Nick, he was there for all of us in ways that Parker hasn’t been-“ Jess had watched first-hand as the denial had faded away and the reality had finally set in when Gibbs had not returned- “not that it’s a bad thing, he just hasn’t needed to be, not in the same way.”
Jimmy has a way of rationally analysing a situation that Jess hasn’t seen in many people before. He takes everyone for what they are and what they can be, not what they present to the world or what they think they should be.
“So, I would say that he’s perhaps more of a caring uncle than a father for now but… that could change. I could see him applying for joint custardy with Gibbs.”
The mischievous mirth in his voice startles an unexpected but genuine laugh out of her, so much so that he has to wait a moment for her to quieten before continuing, “He cares about his team, he really does, he just has a hard time understanding that it goes both ways.”
Humming in agreement, she comments, “I get the sense he doesn’t let himself expect anyone to help him, so he doesn’t really understand why anyone would, even though he would be the first person to stick his neck out for someone else if he thought it was warranted.”
In her mind, she flashes back to every time she can remember Parker standing up for her since taking over the team. One time in particular sticks with her.
“You didn't see his face when he saw me and Nick held in that ship last year. He just appeared in the vent like some comedic genius. Apologised he didn't come sooner, told us that no one was allowed to do this to us and took himself off on what was practically a suicide mission to make sure we were safe.”
Jimmy squeezes her hand gently, he’d been trapped on the ship same as her last year, he knows the state she and Nick had ended up in and he too had seen how easily Parker had thrown all personal safety aside for them.
“And I can confirm that Gibbs would have done the exact same,” he pauses then lets the humour infuse his voice as he adds, “only without the apology.”
“Did he really never apologise?”
“Not that I can think of,” Jimmy shrugs lightly, “he’s more about actions than words, Gibbs. His going off on a dangerous mission alone to save everyone would be the apology, he'd just add the fact that he wasn't quicker to the mountain of regrets and go back to building his boat alone in the evenings.”
“How do you know all this?” she wonders aloud, “did he ever tell you?”
“He didn't tell anyone. But he didn't have to. You got to know him… sort of… after a lot of years-“ he didn’t seem like the kind of man to let people in easily, she can relate, in a way- “you know I was once sat on the ledge of a building for a few hours with someone, trying to stop them from jumping and-“
“You did what?!” Jess sits up quickly, looking at him in shock but he just blinks calmly at her.
“I didn’t think you would find it that surprising, it did used to be your day job.”
“But it’s not yours! You’re a medical examiner, Jimmy,” she reminds him, a little frantically.
His eyebrows lift behind his glasses, amused, “I’m aware, I wasn’t doing my job then though, I just sort of panicked and went with it.”
Making a mental note to ask for more details in the future (although looking at where that’d got her this time, maybe she needs to be better prepared for what she asks), she nods and welcomes the arm looping around her shoulders as she settles back against his chest.
“Anyway, I didn't realise my team had given me a microphone so I kind of said some things about Gibbs and his past and how he looks out for the team and even though he’d never given me so much as a hug, I still felt protected. He called his to his basement that night, I thought he was going to blow up at me for talking to a stranger about him but, he just gave me a hug.”
She can hear the smile in his voice as he recounts the story. She doesn’t think a simple hug has ever held as much as that one seems to hold for Jimmy, although she’s not quite sure she could explain that feeling.
While there are some she clearly remembers – the one they’d shared in the woods after trekking for miles, the one she’d given her sister after the whole Thanksgiving incident, the time her and her dad had stood in their new apartment together after the divorce and he’d promised there would never be that much fighting again – they don’t seem to hold the same weight.
“And you know what? That one hug gave me more comfort than my dad did in, well, ever. Because it truly solidified for me that Gibbs would be there for me, for all of us, no matter what.”
There it is. To her, those hugs had been a comfort (very much needed but also very much in the moment) while to Jimmy and Gibbs, that hug had been a promise.
“That’s beautiful. In a painful sort of way.”
“Was it deep enough for you?” he chuckles.
“Plenty enough for now,” she pats his arm gently, “unless you’d like to keep going? I may not have quite your levels of wisdom but I can lend a listening ear.”
“I appreciate that, Jess,” he replies genuinely, giving her a tiny squeeze, “but maybe we’ve delved enough into my past for now.”
Nodding in understanding, she agrees, “Fair enough. I do have one final question though, if that’s alright?”
In her mind’s eye, she can see him narrowing his eyes, clearly able to detect the hint of mischievousness in her voice, “Go on…?”
“Did they really call you the Autopsy Gremlin?”