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//I'm jealous of the rain
That falls upon your skin
It's closer than my hands have been
I'm jealous of the rain//
She's shivering, he realises belatedly. Caitlin Todd is shivering and trying to hide it because she doesn't want him to think of her as any less independent or capable.
Gibbs has to hide a warm, fond smile as he watches her wrap her arms a little tighter around herself, coat forgotten in the van and sensible white shirt doing little to protect her against the fat drops of rain falling against her skin. She's tied her hair up hastily to stop it dripping over her back and he finds himself envying the droplets of water that get to glide down her neck until she brushes them away absent-mindedly.
He allows himself the brief luxury of imagining tucking himself up behind her and wrapping his arms around her middle, pressing a kiss to her cheek and feeling her lean back against him comfortably, the way the dampness of the back of her shirt would leach against his chest and still do nothing to put him off. He doesn't allow himself to note how badly he's fallen if just thinking about holding her is making his chest ache a little.
He sighs heavily as he steps closer and shrugs off his coat so he can smooth it over Kate's shoulders instead, rolling his eyes at the rueful smile she offers up to him. The Spring sunshine'll dry her off quick but not quick enough to stop her perfume catching on the heavy material of his coat.
//I wished you
The best of
All this world could give
And I told you
When you left me
There's nothing to forgive
But I always thought you'd come back
And tell me
All you found was heartbreak and misery
It's hard for me to say, I'm jealous of the way
You're happy without me//
"We wouldn't work" he mutters into the scant space between them. Her legs are tangled with his, naked torso pressing easily against his side before she angles a kiss against his shoulder.
It's hard to carry on when she looks up at him in the half-light of the bedroom. All lovebitten skin and swollen lips and mussed hair.
"I'm not what you need and you know it. 'M not a rock. Can't be a constant ditch for your emotions."
He pushes her over onto her back and slides cleanly on top of her to steal a kiss and swallow away her protests in case he gives in to any of them.
"Would have been nice to pretend, though. Nice to pretend that I could have kept you happy." She sounds so sorrowful that he wants to tell her that he'd have been happy as a pig in muck until she started to hate him.
He doesn't, though. Instead, he tells her she'll find someone younger and better who'll love her sweeter than an old man like him ever could.
He lets her edge out from underneath him and watches her dress. Lets himself wallow and imagine how good a ritual it would be to watch her gather her clothes from his bedroom floor and dress every morning. He stares his fill while he's still allowed, presses up more desperately into the parting kiss she presses to his lips before she leaves.
He watches her go and tries to hope she will find someone better an not the disappointment his spiteful mind gluttonously imagines.
//I'm jealous of the nights
That I don't spend with you
I'm wondering who you lay next to
Oh, I'm jealous of the nights//
His duvet seemed too heavy. Her absence too loud. He tossed and turned restlessly, one arm slung out into the abyss of the empty side of the bed.
How dare she stake her claim after only one night there? How dare his sheets cling so easily to her scent?
The fact that he can't sleep at all makes him think about the way she looks when she's sleeping. The innocent little smile curling at the corners of her lips, the half-voiced little sighs and moans and whines. The way she'd turned herself against him so trustingly. Just curled against his side and looked for all the world as if she could spend her life there.
He can't help but wonder if she sleeps like that with others. Like prodding at an open wound or peeling sunburn. It stings but he can't help himself.
Gibbs finds himself unerringly jealous of the fact she'd slipped so easily into his bed and life and not questioned his near clinical removal of her. Like his decisions were ones she could trust unfailingly and if he thought they wouldn't work then so be it. Part of him's a little insulted. So then he finds himself shoving his sheets into the washer and sending them on cycle after cycle until they don't smell like her but like cheap lemon scented detergent.
//I'm jealous of the love
Love that was in here
Gone for someone else to share//
She looks out-of-kilter tucked against some other man's side. That's what he tells himself anyway. Her leg doesn't stretch as comfortably along the length of this stranger's as it had his. Her head doesn't rest as easily against his chest.
She looks happy, though. Not even he can bring himself to deny that.
He doesn't know if whatever she felt for him truly is gone, but he knows it's still nestled there in his chest. Heavy as a rock at times like this.
He likes to hope it is. Likes to hope her laughter and smiles are real and god, that look in her eyes like she's just found the one person who can keep her safe from anything this universe can throw at her.
'Keep that safe, Katie. Keep that hope alive. I'd only have ruined it,' he dreams of telling her as he watches this new guy drop a kiss to her lips and tries not to think of how he'd have been just a bit gentler to leave her arching up for more, chasing his lips to remind him yes, she really does want a damaged old marine.