Regrets: Jenny’s

Summary: Jenny knows she did what was best, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t regret the way things turned out.

Jenny Sheppard had wanted to die. Well, that wasn’t quite correct. She hadn’t wanted to die, but since she was going to die anyway, she was going to do so on her terms. Six months tops, the doctors had told her. Six months of pure agony, having to depend on others for anything she would need.
She had been many things in life, and proud was one of them. It would have killed her soul and pride to have to accept she would have been helpless. Her soul trapped in the living shell that was in her body, until a God she was never truly sure she believed in took mercy on her.
When she learned she could die a heroic death, taking down people who would have killed the man she loved, she went for it full force. Recruiting Mike Franks to help her had been a risky move, considering his affection for Jethro, but he was the second best person for the job. The first was the one she was determined to protect.
All she could think of at the time of her death was the opportunities she missed and her regrets. The missed moments her Father had never spent with her. All the times she had alienated people who cared for her to get ahead. The lives that she’d had been forced to sacrifice for the “Greater Good.” She believed in the Greater Good, that didn’t mean she liked it.
She remembered the smell of the dirt in the dingy diner, where it would all end. She could hear the sound of the gravel, as their car pulled up, just as Mike Franks went to get water after her spilling her heart out to him. She heard the sounds of shoes on gravel. She smiled, her face grim, as she thought “Showtime,” the act before Judgment Day. As the men hired to kill her started to get into position, turning the doorknob, she fired. Two shots and the first two were down for the count. Each bullet fired into the men planning to kill her, and if allowed, her loved one, were symbols of one of her main regrets.
Shot one: Killing La Grenouille a.k.a. René Benoit, was in her mind one of the best things she had ever done. Receiving vengeance for her Father, for the shame and misery she had had to put up with, unjustly. Was she sorry for all the pain she had put Tony though? Of course she was, she had never wanted him to get hurt. She just never expected him to fall for Jeanne Benoit.
Shot Two: Her Father, Jasper Sheppard. All the moments he missed of her life. She may have killed La Grenouille to clear her Father’s name, but mainly to clear hers. To make all the shame and lies she experienced in her life because of him, disappear.
Shot Three: Her biggest regret was the life she had missed by leaving the man she loved; the one she had never stopped loving. She could have been happy, they could have been happy, with children, a home, and a life outside of their jobs, with each other. But she had messed it all up, and for that she would never forgive herself.
Shot Four: Herself, for while her fourth bullet landed in her killer’s heart, his bullet also landed in hers. She felt in those moments, the things she would remember forever. Her Father’s laugh, so rare to hear. The cold medals she worked so long and hard for. Last, the feel of her lover’s hands on her skin, setting it on fire. Those are the things burned in her memory, even in the afterlife.
To say that she was angry at Director Vance was the world’s biggest understatement. How dare he spilt her team up, when they would need each other the most! She hadn’t had any delusions that her death would be easy for them. It was just easier then watching the person you cared for fade away.
But, really, it wasn’t Tony’s or Ziva’s fault. They had followed orders, orders to leave her behind. There was no way they could have known what was going to happen, what she was counting on happening. Now Tony was drowning in guilt, stuck in the middle of the ocean. Ziva was back in her Father’s claws, also feeling guilty. Both Special Agents, missing the other for reasons they wouldn’t admit to.
McGee was trapped in cyber crimes, a land in which he no longer belonged. Abby was missing her friends, who were currently torn apart. Ducky was perhaps the most serene, since he understood what she would have faced in those tortuous months.
Jethro, she didn’t like thinking about what she had put him though. First there was their time in Paris, then her years as Director, and now this. To know he loved her still, and neither of them had ever acted on it, hurt her soul more then she could say. She was feeding him all the strength she could, strength to get his real team back, to face Vance, to stop feeling guilty and start living again.
Shannon and Kelly had been very pleased to meet her, and saddened it was so soon. Shannon especially, telling her that she could have been the one to heal Jethro. That’s all they had ever wanted for Jethro, was for him to be happy. That was one of the things she wanted too.
Jenny Sheppard had many regrets in her life. The main one now, was what she had done to those she had left behind.

Valerie Portolano
May 9, 2009

Regrets: Tony’s

Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS; it is the property of its respective creators.

Spoilers: For all seasons, including season six.

Thinking about regrets was something Tony DiNozzo avoided doing. In his experience, if he let himself think about them, he would never find a way out of the darkness. Darkness that tried to regularly consume him, and was coming closer and closer to succeeding.

The idea he was a failure had been drilled into his head by his Father since he could walk. No one in his family ever told him they were proud of him; expect his Mother and she had died young. They had no reason to tell him such a thing, for they weren’t proud of him. After Lillian Paddington DiNozzo died, Tony had no one to prevent him from taking this idea to heart. For even if Lillian had had quite a few screws loose, having drank his sea monkeys and made him dress up like a sailor, she was his Mother and she had loved him. None of the other women his Father had married had matched up to her. Everyone he had ever cared for, like his Mother, had ended up hurt or dead.

Dear sweet Kate, cunning, smart-aleck Kate, his dear friend. Katie, who had stayed by his side throughout him having the plague. The friend who could make him laugh after a long day with Gibbs. The one he had told on more then one occasion that he would jump in front of a bullet for. If only he had, Kate would be alive, he would be spared this misery, and everyone would be happy.

Paula Cassidy, the blonde haired, blue-eyed NCIS Agent had been beautiful, sassy, smart, and incredibly brave. He had been attracted to her from the moment they met at Guantanamo Bay. She had never been afraid to put him in his place. He remembered their last conversation. She had known something was different with him, different from the short time they were together. She was the one to tell him to go after the person he loved, you never know if it was your last chance. Minutes later, she had jumped in front of the bomb the terrorist was about to designate, the same terrorist who had killed her team. Sacrificing herself to save him and his teammates, and herself the guilt of living.

Jeanne Benoit, no matter what he had told her at the end, he had loved her. After that horrible day Paula was killed, he had told Jeanne he loved her. It may have started out as an assignment, but it evolved into much more. He had hated Jenny for a time, for making him choose between his family and this bright, loving woman. Though, she had turned on him fast when she found out he was really an NCIS Agent. She had told him to choose, but the day she accused him of her Father’s murder, he knew what choice he had to make. When she asked him if any of it had been real, he’d wanted so badly to tell her the truth of how he felt. He knew she would never move on if she knew he loved her, though. So, he broke her heart so it could heal, even if it had cost him his.

Director Jenny Sheppard had been a woman he at times both cared for and admired, and other times hated and had little respect for. She had been a good friend to him and an excellent director, and also someone who used him for her own personal agenda with no regard to how it would affect him. He knew she had been sorry about Jeanne, but he also knew she would have done it again if needed to settle whatever score she had with La Grenouille a.k.a. René Benoit. That didn’t make the fact that she was dead, and it was his fault, any easier to deal with. He should have listened to Ziva, should have gone after her. Then she would still be alive, the team wouldn’t have been split up, and he wouldn’t have spent the worst four months of his life on the U.S.S. Reagan. There was a tiny part of him, though, that understood why she did what she did, and was glad, even if things hadn’t gone so well afterwards, that she went the way she wanted to, in a blaze of Glory.

Ziva David, Mossad Liaison Officer. He admitted he had been less then happy when Ari’s Control Officer was Kate’s replacement, another brilliant idea of Jenny Sheppard’s. In time he had come to like Ziva, more then he should. He had only recently realized what he felt for her, the day he was forced away from her. It figures that he’d only figure it out then. But now just like all the other times, he was too late. Ziva may be alive and within his physical reach, but nothing more. She had a boyfriend, Michael Rifkin, scum though he may be; it wasn’t Tony’s choice to make. So, he would watch her from afar; try to make sure no harm came to her, for even if he couldn’t have her, at least she was alive. In someone else’s arms, but alive.

Tony DiNozzo hated thinking about his regrets, but that didn’t mean he could ignore them. They were always there, in front of him, taunting him, never stopping, unable to be pushed to the side. No matter how much he wanted them to go away. But, since when did he ever get what he wanted?