A million memories of us

A million memories of us: A broken heart and a letter

A/N: As I have said in previous chapters, I'm not sure how many memories I will have, I might mark it as completed but add more memories. I'm torn whether or not to add the letter Gibbs found in the coat pocket. You'll just have to read and find out whether I write in the letter or make it its own memory.

Enjoy, Angels.

Oneshot 22 title: A broken heart and a letter

Oneshot 22 summary: Gibbs is hurting after Jen left him in Paris 2 weeks ago.

POV: Third person

Chapter count: 1

He doesn't know why he didn't burn the damn letter when he had the chance to. He doesn't know why he brought the thing with him when he retired but he did and now he can't stop thinking about it, in his duffel bag underneath his clothes, still in the envelope it was in when he first found it.

When he first woke up from the coma, he didn't recognise her, he mistook her for Shannon but it was her eyes that made him realise that it wasn't Shannon. Shannon's eyes were blue whereas Jen's eyes are green, emerald green. It was only after he was looking for his wedding ring he wore while he was married to Shannon that he found the letter in his tool box that housed their wedding ring he wore with Shannon and a new engagement ring. He growls as a new memory, a memory even amnesia couldn't take away, overtakes him.  

He sits in his dark basement, holding the letter in his hands she left him two weeks ago, ending their relationship. It's been 2 weeks since he and Jen had that fight that led her to storming out of their Paris apartment. He didn't follow her, he couldn't even if he wanted to, his feet were rooted to the spot, his feet like cement blocks, his blue eyes fixated on her even after she was long out of his eyesight. Against his will, his eyes fill up with tears as the words Jen spat at him echo in his head. He hadn't thought she was capable of speaking with venom but he thought wrong.

Bastard, loner, heartless, cold, narcissist. He shakes his head as he tries to get the image of her beautiful face twisted into a snarl from the front of his mind as his eyes close. 

He wakes up with a groan. His head pounding. He must have drank more than he realised. That's all he's been doing since he found the letter in her coat pocket 2 weeks ago. Even though drinking can't heal the betrayal he's been feeling, it helps to numb the pain he has in his heart a little bit of her leaving him. According to his watch, which he can't see in the darkened basement, the one she got him for his birthday, it's 0530. Only 2 hours of sleep he thinks to himself as he sits up. Ever since Jen left, he's been unable to sleep, missing her warm body to hold close to him, protecting her even as she sleeps. He'd always slept on the side closest to the door. He grabs the letter again and rereads it for the 100th time since he found it protruding out of her pocket.

 Even though he doesn't need to look at the words written in her loopy, cursive handwriting on the page: he's had them all memorized in his mind, but he looks at them anyway, noting the tear drops on the page, like she was crying while writing it. Tears of guilt he thinks to himself as he rereads her words.

After rereading the letter again, he drops the piece of paper to the sawdust covered floor, hearing it land in the small piles of sawdust, Gibbs lies back down underneath the unfinished boat, his eyes closing again. He's glad that he still has enough alcohol in his system to fall back into a dreamless sleep, with one though on his mind:

Tomorrow, I will burn that damn letter.

Gibbs comes out of that memory with a shudder: he doesn't know why he didn't burn the letter when he woke again, he just picked it up, folded it up, placed it back into the envelope and put it in his toolbox, never to be seen again for six years.

He wants to burn the letter or throw it in the sea, but it wouldn't do anything: he's had the entire thing ingrained in his head from the first time he read it on the plane home to DC where he thought he'd have Jen but he didn't. He didn't have her then and he doesn't have her now, and he doubts he ever will again. 

A\N: I've decided that the letter deserves to have its own memory, in whose memories, I haven't decided yet but it will be a tearjerker either way. (I might do it both memories, maybe) but I am currently working on an unrelated JIBBS oneshot, two White Collar oneshots and two Designated Survivor oneshots, all will be out before Christmas or on Christmas Day *fingers crossed*, I hope you Angels will enjoy this memory.