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It was late morning on a grey, chilly Thursday. Gibbs and his team were driving to the home of NCIS employee Ben Swanson, who worked in accounting. Swanson had been killed early that morning in a hit-and-run while out jogging.
They suspected that it was an accidental death and that the driver had sped off in a panic. Abby was in her lab checking for surveillance footage of the accident while the agents headed over for a routine search of Swanson's house.
Gibbs parked the car across the street from the house. Just as they stepped out of the car, a man walked out the front door of the house wearing a coat zipped up past his chin, with a low hood covering most of his face. The only detail Gibbs could make out at that distance was that the man was wearing glasses.
Tim shut his car door. The man heard the noise and looked around. When he noticed the team, he froze, then started backing away.
"Federal agents!" Gibbs shouted. And then the man took off running in the opposite direction.
Ziva whipped out her firearm and shouted "Freeze!", but he didn't listen. He darted around the corner of Swanson's house and out of sight.
Gibbs made a hand signal to indicate that he would go around the neighbouring house to the left and try to cut the man off. Tony and Ziva chased him in the direction he had run, and Tim ran toward the front door of Swanson’s house in case the man decided to double back through the back door and escape out the front.
Gibbs ran toward the backyard of the house to the left and rounded the corner, just in time to see the man running toward him while looking back over his shoulder for pursuers. With all his force, Gibbs used his body to stop him in his tracks and knock him to the ground. He landed face down with a grunt. Gibbs jumped on top of him and rolled him over roughly, pointed his gun in the man's face, and ripped down his hood.
But then a shocked expression crossed Gibbs's face and he immediately lowered his firearm.
It was Jimmy Palmer.
"Don't shoot!" Jimmy yelled, covering his face with his arms. The others arrived at that moment and exchanged stunned looks.
“What the hell?” said Gibbs. He grabbed Jimmy’s hand to pull him to his feet, and Jimmy stood surrounded by the four agents.
"It's not what it looks like!" he said frantically.
"What is it, then?" Ziva asked, panting.
Jimmy appeared to be thinking desperately about what to say, but he didn't speak. He wouldn't meet any of their eyes.
Gibbs was in no mood.
"Palmer, you got five seconds to tell us what the hell you were doing in Swanson's house, and why the hell you ran from us."
Jimmy didn't answer for a moment. He just looked around futilely at each of the agents. Finally, he turned back to Gibbs and pleaded. "Please, sir. It's not related to his death, I swear. It's not related."
When he didn't elaborate, Gibbs was merciless.
"McGee, take him in for questioning. Get his prints. Don't let him go until you have answers. You two, we're going into Swanson's house to find out what Palmer was doing in there. Get a forensic team over here for fingerprints and DNA."
Gibbs stared so hard at Jimmy that the latter seemed to completely wither under his gaze.
Gibbs, Tony and Ziva walked away. Jimmy looked terrified, but he held his tongue. He followed Tim wordlessly to the car.
While Gibbs and the others were searching Ben Swanson's house, Ducky called.
"You're not going to like this, Jethro," he began.
"What is it, Duck?"
"Our dear deceased colleague Mr. Swanson has several injuries that occurred between two and three days ago. Definitely not caused by the hit-and-run this morning."
"What kind of injuries?"
"Bruising around the neck, as if someone had choked him. Signs of restraint on his wrists. Burns on his back. All of them occurred at the same time, at least two days ago based on the degree of healing."
"Torture?" Gibbs asked.
"No; the injuries aren't severe enough for that. The burns, for example, are quite mild. But the injuries aren't random; there’s a pattern to them. Someone did deliberately hurt him. His being an NCIS employee with access to classified information leads me to suspect that perhaps someone was pressing him for information. But someone who either didn't want to hurt him, or just wasn't very good at it." He paused for a second before adding flatly, "or didn't get very far before breaking Mr. Swanson."
"Thanks, Duck." Gibbs hung up, even more confused than before.
Tim sat in interrogation across the table from Jimmy.
Jimmy seemed in slight shock at finding himself sitting in the same room where so many murderers had been brought for the team to break. But he also looked resolved not to let himself be broken.
Tim didn't quite know how to interrogate him. He considered him to be a friend. But why was he holding back?
"Jimmy, come on," he began. "You're making yourself look really bad here. Whatever you're keeping from us, it can't be worse than having all your coworkers think you're involved in the death of an employee, can it?"
Jimmy just looked down at the table.
"You'll lose your job," Tim said.
"I know," Jimmy answered sadly. "Why can't you just believe me that I had nothing to do with his death?"
Tim's phone rang before he could reply. It was Gibbs, updating him on Ducky's findings from Ben Swanson's autopsy. Tim thanked Gibbs and hung up. This was getting more confusing by the minute.
"Ducky found injuries on Ben," he told Jimmy. "Bruises. Burns. Signs that he had been tied up."
Jimmy looked more flustered than ever. His eyes teared up slightly. He looked at the ceiling. With no confidence whatsoever, he replied, "Uh. I don't know anything about that."
Tim didn't know where to go from here.
"Jimmy, please. Put yourself in my place. I can't just let you go without answers. An NCIS employee has mysterious injuries, dies days later, and you're caught fleeing from his house shortly after?"
"Could I maybe get a glass of water?" Jimmy asked, his voice a little choked up.
Tim softened. Maybe a pause would be good for both of them, he thought.
"Sure," he said kindly, standing up. "Be back in a minute. You sit tight." And he patted Jimmy on the back on his way to the door.
Jimmy winced in pain and sucked in a sharp breath.
"What's wrong?" Tim asked with a concerned frown.
"It-it's nothing," Jimmy answered, voice shaking a bit. Tim touched his back again and he gritted his teeth.
"You're hurt," he said.
"Must just be from agent Gibbs knocking me down."
"Still, I think we should get you checked out. Come with me, we're going to see Ducky."
Gibbs walked into autopsy just as Ducky had finished his examination of Jimmy, who was still sitting on an exam table.
"What's going on?"
"Timothy here noticed that Mr. Palmer appeared to be in some pain, most likely from the violent force with which you tackled him to the ground earlier." He gave Gibbs a withering look.
Gibbs looked accusingly at Tim.
"Yes, Timothy filled me in on the day's developments, I'm afraid," Ducky continued. "But we were wrong. I'm sure Mr. Palmer will be sore from today's pursuits, but there's more to it."
Gibbs looked at Ducky with eyebrows raised, waiting for him to elaborate.
Ducky turned to Jimmy. "I'm sorry, dear boy, but if it's relevant to the case, I must share my findings with the agent in charge". He turned back to Gibbs. "Jethro, Mr. Palmer here has the exact same injuries as the deceased, Mr. Swanson. Signs of choking, burns on his back…"
Gibbs was now more irritated than ever. He wanted answers, not more questions. He rounded on Jimmy.
"Damnit, Palmer, what is your involvement here?" he demanded.
Jimmy opened his mouth and started to repeat what he had by now said many times. "I'm not invol—"
"Jethro, if you will," Ducky interrupted. "Would you and Timothy give me a moment alone with Mr. Palmer? I might be able to talk some sense into him."
"I have to brief David and DiNozzo. McGee, wait outside the door. If Palmer doesn't talk," and he turned and gave Jimmy a lethal look, locking eyes with him as he continued, "you bring him back to interrogation to wait for me."
Jimmy blanched and seemed to visibly shrink at the news that he'd soon be facing Gibbs in interrogation.
Back in the bullpen, Gibbs filled Tony and Ziva in on the information about Jimmy's injuries. They both seemed stumped. No one could posit a theory. They went back to their desks and pondered in silence.
"Wait a minute!" Tony spoke up from his desk five minutes later. "Boss, I've got a theory." While still sitting down, he used his legs to shuffle his chair out into the aisle between his and Ziva's desks. "Campfire?" he suggested with a hopeful grin.
Gibbs's expression told him the answer to that question.
"Fine." He stood up and walked over to Gibbs's desk. Ziva joined him.
"Alright. Best guess: both Jimmy and Ben were abducted by someone who wanted inside information about NCIS. They were interrogated for information. Maybe Jimmy agreed to provide it, and Ben didn't. So they killed Ben and made it look like an accident. And maybe Jimmy's now afraid that if he speaks about what happened, they'll kill him too."
Ziva and Gibbs considered that for a moment.
"That is…definitely plausible," Ziva said. "They both work here, and neither one of them has field training. It would be easier to break targets like that than to force information out of an agent."
"They're also friends," added Tony. "Or at least on friendly terms. I've seen them eating together in the break room before. Maybe their abductors thought they'd be more willing to talk if they hurt each of them in front of the other."
Gibbs pondered Tony's theory.
"Suppose that's true," he said. "What was Palmer doing in Swanson's house today?"
Tony deflated slightly. "You got me," he said. "Nothing was missing. At least nothing obvious. Swanson didn't have a safe or anything."
He paused. Suddenly his face lit up. "Got it! Okay, consider this: maybe it was Swanson who agreed to give up information about NCIS. Maybe he already smuggled some top secret information from the building, but got cold feet at the last second, so they killed him."
Ziva continued. "And then Jimmy went to get the information back before their abductors could get their hands on it."
"Plausible," Gibbs said. "But why not tell us? Why run away?"
"Maybe one of them already passed on some classified information, and Jimmy does not want us to find out," Ziva suggested.
Finally, a theory that they could investigate. Gibbs stood up.
"Pull surveillance footage of this building. See if it shows Palmer or Swanson entering or leaving at odd times in the past week. When McGee comes back, get him to check both of their work computers and find out which files they've accessed in the past month."
"On it," Tony and Ziva said simultaneously.
Gibbs returned to Ducky in autopsy.
"He talk?" he asked abruptly.
"I'm afraid not, Jethro," Ducky answered sadly. "I just don't understand it! Who could the boy be protecting? Someone hurt him, and he won't turn the bastard in?"
Gibbs filled him in on Tony's theory of an abduction.
Ducky thought for a moment. "I don't think that's likely," he said. "The injuries were sustained less than three days ago. Most likely Monday night. But Mr. Palmer sent me an email at 2 a.m. that night, from home." He smiled. "It was a YouTube video of the most adorable ginger kitten climbing a set of goblet pleated draperies—"
"But it's possible," Gibbs interrupted. "Isn't it? The time of the injuries is approximate. He could have been abducted right after sending the email. Maybe even before. Email could be a deliberate alibi."
"Possibly," Ducky said, concentrating hard. "But I remember he arrived at work the following morning in exceptionally bright spirits. If he had been abducted and interrogated to reveal information that would compromise NCIS, I highly doubt he would have been in such a good mood."
"Yeah. Seems unlikely," Gibbs said, more to himself than to Ducky. He seemed disappointed that Tony's theory might have hit a dead end.
"I also refuse to believe that he would agree to compromise our agency, and then not report it," Ducky added. "That's just not like him."
"This whole situation is unlike him," countered Gibbs.
Ducky sighed and shrugged noncommittally, seeming reluctant to admit that the case looked very bad for Jimmy.
Gibbs turned to leave.
"Jethro," Ducky began. Gibbs turned around.
Ducky's eyes pleaded with Gibbs before he spoke. "Go easy on him in interrogation. Whatever Mr. Palmer might have done, I'm very fond of the lad."
Gibbs didn't answer. Ducky watched sadly as Gibbs walked out the door.
Gibbs had one more stop before interrogation.
"What do you got, Abbs?"
"Not a whole lot. Jimmy's prints were found in a few places in Ben's house. Nothing surprising. The living room coffee table, doorknobs, things like that. If they were friends, that would be perfectly normal. Then again, he was also snooping around there today, for who knows how long, so all these prints could be from this one visit—"
"Do you have a list of all the surfaces he touched?" Gibbs asked.
"Right here," Abby answered, handing Gibbs the list.
Everything looked normal on the list. Kitchen wall by the light switch. Bathroom counter. TV remote. A stack of CD cases in the living room.
Gibbs paused. He had suddenly remembered something from his search of the house. "You got photos from the house, Abbs?" he asked.
"Yep. Which ones do you want to see?"
"The CD cases in the living room."
Abby brought the photos up on the screen.
"They were all home-burnt DVDs. I'm checking them now to see what's on them, but so far it's just pirated movies that Ben downloaded. Can't say I'm a fan of his tastes."
"What about that one?" Gibbs asked, pointing to an empty case.
"That's just an empty case. It was sitting with the rest, but didn't have anything in it."
"And Palmer's prints were on it?"
"Yes, but they were on the others too. Seems to me like Jimmy and Ben just liked to watch movies together." She paused and looked at her notes. "Although, the empty case did have more prints on it. As if Jimmy had opened it more often, or more recently, than the others."
"Was the missing disc in the DVD player or computer?"
"Let's see." She consulted the notes Ziva and Tony had given her. "No, it wasn't. But maybe he loaned the DVD to Jimmy or something."
"Loaned it to him without the case?" Gibbs asked.
"Huh. Yeah. That is a little strange." She pondered a second, but then caught sight of Gibbs's expression and her eyes widened. "You know something!"
Gibbs had froze. He was staring at Abby’s computer screen. He had just thought of a theory that fit. It had popped into his head without warning. Palmer and Swanson's relatively mild injuries. His lack of mental trauma—the good mood in fact—the morning after the supposed abduction. A missing, home-burnt CD. Palmer's absolute refusal to discuss any of it. Everything fit.
The only thing that didn't fit was that Gibbs never would have suspected Jimmy of something quite like this.
He decided it was finally time to confront Jimmy. He handed the Caf Pow to Abby, then turned on his heel and strode out of the room.
"No peck on the cheek?" Abby called after him. He didn't turn around.
Jimmy sat alone in the interrogation room, dreading the moment when Gibbs would enter. He silently berated himself for his foolishness that morning.
If only he hadn't run. When Gibbs and the others had seen him leaving Ben's house, he could have just made up some story, any story. He could have said that he had gone over to take back something Ben had borrowed. Or that he had mistakenly thought that Ben had a cat, which would need a new home now that Ben was gone. Hell, he could have said that he and Ben had had a pact to go and destroy each other's porn collection in the event that one of them should die, so that their mothers wouldn't find it. He'd heard of some close friends doing such a thing.
But no, he had panicked and run, thinking he could escape a team of four armed federal agents. Instead, it had turned into one of Gibbs's shortest foot chases ever. And now there was no plausible story he could think of that would explain both why he had been at Ben Swanson's house, and why he had run.
He tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. The interrogation would begin any minute. He'd be stuck in here alone with Gibbs for hours while Gibbs tried to break him. Jimmy knew that Gibbs didn't take defeat lightly, so he could probably expect to witness some of the special agent’s best interrogation work.
All Jimmy had to do was make it through the next couple of hours without breaking, and then he could leave. Just repeat, "I can't answer that," as many times as necessary. Don't elaborate, or Gibbs would trip him up somehow.
He knew that after it was over, he'd have to resign, certainly, if Vance hadn't already signed his pink slip. But he'd do it if he had to. There was no way he was about to tell everyone what had really happened. No one would ever understand. Least of all Gibbs.
Gibbs. Jimmy almost laughed out loud at the idea of telling him the truth. He knew that he would lose whatever respect he had earned from his colleagues. No one would ever be able to look at him the same way again. They wouldn't want to work with someone like him. He'd have to resign. Well, he told himself, if he had to resign anyway, it might as well be with some shred of dignity.
The door to the interrogation room opened. Jimmy stiffened, but he didn't turn his head. He didn't even dare look at Gibbs's reflection in the one-way mirror. He had never really seen the senior agent at work in an interrogation, but it was common knowledge that his skill was legendary.
Gibbs hadn't sat down yet. He was still standing by the open door. After a few seconds, Jimmy's curiosity got the better of him and he turned to look.
Gibbs's expression was different from what Jimmy was used to. His expression was soft. Sympathetic. Almost empathetic , Jimmy thought.
"Let's talk," Gibbs said softly. Something in his voice made Jimmy tense. There was some kind of finality to his tone that made Jimmy suspect that he had figured it all out. But he couldn't have. There was no way. Jimmy had destroyed the evidence at Ben's house. No, this must be one of Gibbs's infamous interrogation tactics. Making the suspect think he had figured it all out, so that the suspect would give something away.
Jimmy started to reply, "Sir, I can't answer—"
"Not here," Gibbs interrupted quietly. He motioned for Jimmy to get up. "C'mon. Conference room."
Confused, Jimmy stood up and followed him out.
Gibbs didn't say a word during the walk up to the conference room.
He motioned for Jimmy to sit in the chair at the far end of the conference table. Gibbs sat in the chair on Jimmy's left and leaned back, regarding him thoughtfully for a long moment.
Somehow, Gibbs's silence compelled Jimmy to say something.
"I'm not going to talk." he began automatically. “I-I already told you and the others that—”
"Enough," said Gibbs calmly.
Jimmy closed his mouth and braced himself for the interrogation to begin.
Gibbs regarded Jimmy intently. Jimmy tried to return his gaze, but couldn't meet his eyes. There was another long silence.
Finally Gibbs broke it. He spoke calmly and quietly, eyes never leaving Jimmy's face.
"Have you and Swanson done these masochistic role-playing scenes before?" he asked. "Or was Monday night the first time?"
There was no need for Gibbs to push any further. He had clearly hit the nail straight on the head.
All colour drained from Jimmy's face. His lips parted in surprise and he looked down at his hands. Very slowly, with a trembling voice, he simply said, "Uh. Uhh. I… Ohhh, god."
He started to panic. He stood up and backed away from the table into the corner of the room. He felt like a frightened animal.
This is not happening, this is not happening , was all he could think.
"Sit down, Palmer," Gibbs said.
But Jimmy wasn't listening. He turned around to face the corner, as if that would somehow make this all go away. He took off his glasses and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes.
"Oh, god. It's not what you think, I swear, it's not what you think," he said repeatedly, shaking his head. He could hardly breathe. He was sure he was about to faint.
A hand grasped his shoulder firmly, but not harshly.
“Palmer!”
Jimmy gave a little gasp, ceasing his panicked rambling, but unable to move. He stood facing the corner, trembling, as his heart scrambled madly to escape his chest.
“Look at me, Palmer.”
Jimmy knew that tone; it was not to be disobeyed. His feet miraculously found the will to shift, and he managed to turn so he was mostly facing Gibbs.
Warm hands pulled at his wrists, and only then did he realize he still had his hands pressed over his eyes. He let Gibbs lower them, but there was no way in hell he could look the special agent in the eye. He held his breath and lifted his eyes until he was looking Gibbs in the chin, but could go no further.
Luckily, Gibbs didn’t press him to. Instead, he said, in that same firm tone, “Take a breath.”
Jimmy involuntarily complied, hardly even realizing that he’d barely been breathing. As he did so, his heart’s frantic escape attempt slowed a tiny bit.
“Good.” Gibbs pointed to the chair Jimmy had vacated. “Now sit .”
Jimmy’s feet again managed to somehow start moving. He slowly walked back and collapsed into the chair. Now that he was breathing again, his panic was gradually being replaced with total, utter defeat.
It was over. He was finished. He had been prepared to resign, prepared to be fired, even prepared to lose all of his friends. But he had not been prepared for this. There was no way out now. The whole building would soon know. He started vaguely thinking about places he could move to and never be found. Maybe Svalbard would be nice this time of year.
Gibbs rounded the table to sit back down in his own chair.
"Listen to me, Palmer," he said. His voice was calm, but firm enough to command attention. "I don't need all the details. It's none of my business. All I want is to be satisfied that you're not involved in Swanson's death. After that, I'll leave you alone and we can get out there and find the bastard who hit him."
He paused, then leaned forward and looked at Jimmy intently. “Hey.”
The gentle tone compelled Jimmy to look at him, finally meeting his eyes for the first time since they’d entered the conference room.
Gibbs continued: "You tell me the truth, right now, and this ends here. No one else needs to know."
His expression was dead-serious, leaving no doubt in Jimmy’s mind that he was telling the truth.
But that didn’t exactly put Jimmy’s mind at ease. Sure, part of him felt relieved. Only Gibbs would have to know. Everyone else would be left out of it, and Jimmy would even be able to keep his job. But another part of him would rather resign, would rather die , than confess this secret to him , of all people. Jimmy had never told anyone, but he valued Gibbs's opinion of him more than anyone else's, even Ducky's. But Gibbs clearly already knew everything anyway, and was just looking for confirmation.
He nodded defeatedly. There was really nothing else for it. He dropped his eyes to his hands and began to speak.
"Monday night was the"—he cleared his throat—"fourth time. It started six months ago. Swanson— Ben , and I had been friends for a while. Over drinks one night, we learned that we each liked the same sort of, um… stuff . We realized we could trust each other. That we could tell each other anything. Literally. Anything ."
He took a deep breath before continuing. "It started small. These…games, we called them. But the more we started to trust each other, the further we pushed. We could always be confident that the other one would stop, no matter what, before it went too far." He cast a brief glance at Gibbs, who was listening intently. He gave a nervous laugh. "This sounds…so ridiculous to say out loud. But it's the truth."
"What about the CD at his house?" Gibbs asked.
Damn, he's good , thought Jimmy. He hadn't wanted to reveal this part. He hesitated.
"That's what you went to get rid of," Gibbs pressed.
Jimmy had no choice but to elaborate. “That was our, uh… contract. The rules we would agree to abide by. Our boundaries, our safewords. That’s the word we would use when we wanted to put a stop to—”
Gibbs nodded, holding up a hand slightly to stop him. “I got it. Contract.” He motioned for Jimmy to continue.
“Yeah. We burnt the document onto two CD-ROMs, one for each of us, encrypted with our digital signatures so we could prove they were the originals. Even though we knew we could trust each other, we wanted to do this all the right way. Anyway, when I heard Ben had been killed, I knew there’d be a search of his house at some point. So I went over there, broke the DVD into pieces, and flushed them down the toilet. I didn't want to risk being caught with it if I was seen leaving the house." He looked away from Gibbs, embarrassed at the memory of their brief chase that morning.
Gibbs was silent for a moment, pondering what he’d just heard. Jimmy was surprised to see no disgust or disdain on his face. He’d thought that by the end of his story, he’d feel sub-human, two inches tall, a tiny little ball of pure shame and humiliation. Instead, he kind of just felt relieved to be free of the burden of this secret he’d been forcing himself to keep all day.
"Well," Gibbs said finally. "I don't think I need anything else. I'm satisfied that you've told me the truth. There's no need for it to leave this room. It's nobody else's business. I'll make up something to tell the team. I'll tell them it was a classified exercise that you were forbidden to talk about, even to me. They’ll drop it."
Jimmy’s heart fluttered at hearing that. He could hardly believe it. It truly was over, and it wouldn’t leave this room. And the others would think he was involved in a classified exercise! Far from having less respect for him after this ordeal, they might even have more!
Gibbs started to stand up.
"Agent Gibbs?" Jimmy said suddenly.
Gibbs sat back down.
Jimmy closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He couldn't believe he was about to do this. Maybe it was just because he was delirious with relief, but… he suddenly wanted Gibbs— needed him—to understand. To really understand everything.
"I feel like—I haven't explained it well enough. I want you to understand—"
"It’s alright, Jim. You don't have to explain anything else."
"Yes, I do," Jimmy answered, a little more forcefully than he’d intended. "It's just—Ben was literally the only other person in the world who understood why I wanted this. He wanted it too. But now he's dead." It pained him to say that sentence out loud. He took another deep breath. "I just want one other living person to understand this."
Gibbs regarded him for a moment, then nodded once. "Okay. I'm listening."
Even though Jimmy was the one who’d initiated this part of the conversation, he suddenly felt a little intimidated by the look Gibbs was giving him. He looked back at his hands as he started to explain.
"It wasn't—it wasn't sexual. At all ," he said. His face grew slightly red at saying this out loud to Gibbs, but he continued. "We didn't take our clothes off or anything like that. Well, we took our shirts off, for the—the—"
"The burns," Gibbs completed. Jimmy's face grew redder. But Gibbs's face showed no judgement whatsoever. It gave Jimmy the courage to keep talking.
"Yeah. But I— couldn't tell you guys. If this got out, I wouldn't be able to live with the—the rumours. The mocking behind my back, people wondering about what other fetishes I have. Losing whatever respect people might have had for me. Jokes about being gay. I'm not gay. And even if I was, this wasn't about sex, or romance, or any of that stuff at all. It wasn't even about the pain. It was about—it was just—" He was at a loss to find the right words.
To Jimmy's shock, Gibbs finished the thought perfectly.
"It's about giving up control," he said simply. "Surrendering it completely. Putting yourself at the absolute mercy of another person."
Jimmy looked at Gibbs in wonder. Did…did he actually understand?
Gibbs continued. "No one likes to lose control in a situation. No one likes to have complete dependence on another person. We're desperate to have choice all the time. To have options." He regarded Jimmy with a peculiar expression. Jimmy was surprised to see that it was almost akin to… admiration . "It takes a special kind of strength to willingly give that up. That level of trust between two people is…rare."
Jimmy could only nod. He was speechless. He had no idea that anyone else in the world, much less the one person he respected above all others, could understand the way he felt. The reality of the situation hit him at that moment. Ben was really gone. His most trusting, supportive friend. He doubted he'd ever have such a friendship again. Gibbs was right. What they had was rare.
Jimmy's eyes started to well up. He swallowed hard and blinked a few times to make it go away. He took a deep breath.
"Don't worry, Jim," Gibbs said gently. "We'll find the bastard who hit him." He placed a hand on Jimmy's arm. "And, I'm sorry for your loss. Ben was a good guy."
He stood up to leave.
Jimmy had a sudden thought. He blurted it out before he had a chance to think twice.
"Sir? How did you figure it out? How did you recognize the…the signs?" He frowned slightly, confused. "And h-how is it that you, you… understand this so well?"
Jimmy could have sworn he saw a hint of colour tint Gibbs's cheeks. He thought it must be his imagination. But a second later, Gibbs just tilted his head, gave a slight smile, and turned on his heel to walk toward the door. Without looking back, he just said cryptically, "Wouldn't you like to know."
He left the room and closed the door, leaving Jimmy staring after him, completely stunned.