Hey guys! Back from the long and unexpected hiatus. Or expected, I should say, since I haven't written since school started again. Based off the song Why by Jason Aldean. No happy ending :/ Thanks to my awesome beta, fashiongirl97! This story wouldn't be half as good if you hadn't beta'd it :) I don't own NCIS or the song Why. I took out the lyrics (although I've had them in my other stories) but anyways...

xxxxx

Jennifer Shepard sat down on the old faded green chair beside the couch on which he slept. A back faced her, his back, as he lay there silent. Moonlight filtered in through the gaps in the curtains, casting a silvery glow on the furniture and decorations of the room. It was dark now; everywhere was dark. The moonlight didn't reach all of the room; shadows dominated the areas where the light did not touch, where a person's demons hid from sight. She glanced at the glowing digits on her kitchen clock: 0327. She was tired, tired of sleeping alone, of the cold and emptiness of the bed without him. Deciding not to wake him up, to not feel the embarrassment of confessing and apologizing, she just whispered to his back. "I-I'm sorry." She forced the words out, hating herself for the stutter, for the sound of weakness her voice let escape. "If you were awake you'd tell me saying sorry was a sign of weakness." She paused, looking for a reaction, looking for something. "But you're wrong. If you mean it, saying sorry is something that takes a lot of guts to do. And…I am sorry. For acting the way I did. I shouldn't have said all those things, shouldn't have brought up Paris, shouldn't have brought up-" Her throat constricted, the words almost choking her, and in a low voice, she finished the sentence. "Shannon and Kelly." She looked away momentarily, reliving the horrible fight. Words flew like daggers and bullets, shredding everything that they had rebuilt together in that one fight. There were no tears in her eyes, but that was because they were all in her heart, where no one could see them or hear them. Where they hurt more than they ever could if she let them fall. "Why do I do this to you?" She said this last part to herself; regret clearly woven in her voice. His back did not move; no indication was made that her words had been heard. Getting up, she breathed out one last sigh of frustration, before she walked quietly back to the lonely and cold bed. She curled up, and drifted off into restless sleep that she knew she would wake from no more refreshed.

An hour later, a shadowed figure walked up to the empty side of the bed, and slipped under the untidy thick covers. He pulled her close to him, to feel her heart beat and to just reminisce, and shamefully, pretended that she was her, the irreplaceable one, the one that was already gone... Without a single word or conscious thought, Jenny pulled him closer, her breathing slowly evening out and her frown gently softening a little in his warm embrace. Comfort and pain; that was what they brought to each other, why they needed each other. Yet they both had secrets that would just keep pushing them further apart. Jethro sighed, and closed his eyes. Maybe tomorrow would be different, he wondered as he did after every fight they had, yet then again, maybe it would be exactly the same.

xxxxx

She was leaving. She'd finally bitten the bullet and now stood on the front porch, her eyes glittering with anger and yet more so with sadness and tears that she demanded not to fall. Jethro was standing in a close proximity to her, their breathing hard and short from all the anger they had poured out at each other through words knife sharp and fierce. "How could you, Jethro," She whispered, her voice quiet but cracking with raw emotion that threatened to break through.

"You didn't need to bring that up. I know how you feel. I've always known. Paris…" She turned her head away from him, avoiding his cold harsh gaze, and she took a rattled breath.

"Yet I had no idea how you felt then. You left me on that airplane and you didn't look back. I know that you thought it was the right thing," he said, his voice quiet, a tone that portrayed more anger than shouting ever could. Jenny just snorted, as though she knew all of this already, as though she'd heard it all too many times before.

"But," he said, his voice getting rougher, coarser, yet at the same time softer too, "I don't know how you feel now." He said it like it was a confession of his darkest sin, like it shouldn't be said.

She laughed bitterly; the laugh was short and derisive. "I think it's obvious, isn't it?" She spat, turning defensive and putting her impenetrable walls up. "You hurt me just like you deserved to do. Exactly like how I hurt you all those years ago, right? I cut you, I hurt you deeply so now you're doing exactly the same thing to me," she finished, her voice hushed and full of things she didn't want to show. She couldn't take anymore; couldn't look in those blue eyes she's once loved so much and still did. Slowly she turned around and was about to walk away when Jethro grabbed her by the arm.

"Jen," in an undertone, he spoke her name as though it were a prayer. She paused, never meeting his eyes. Not being able to find anything appropriate to say, he let her go of her own free will - not once did she turn back, as she slowly walked away. Jethro watched her until she disappeared into the blackness of the night, the silence, the emptiness spread around him, cocooning him in its suffocating blanket, as he stood alone. Then he finally whispered, "I love you." Only it was too late; he never got to say it to her face. The one thing that he should of said, and now she was long gone. He sighed, ran a calloused hand through his hair, and walked back into the empty house. Why did they always do this to each other?

xxxxx

It was a test of their wills. One would push the other, the other would push back until one or both reached their breaking point. They'd wait and push to see who broke first. Neither of them would let the other just walk away, but they'd keep pushing the boundaries, crossing the unspoken boundary lines. Neither of them would show the other how they felt, nor say until it was too late, until the damage had been caused, done and irreversible.

xxxxx

At the door, she was about to leave. She'd already walked down the street but came back again. Like a magnet, something drew her back. She turned around slowly, and said in a bitter, biting tone, "I loved you. I really loved you." Turning around, she slowly inhaled. It smelled like ice and warmth and sawdust and bourbon.

"Did you?" he asked, blunt, insensitive.

Those two words cut Jenny deeper than he had anticipated; she turned around, sharp and demanding. "You have no idea what so ever!" She spat out, and before he had chance to even reply, the door had been slammed in his face. It was then that he realized just how badly he had screwed up - royally screwed up. Sighing, he whispered into the silence, "Why do I do that to you, Jen?" He took another sip of bourbon, and headed downstairs to work on the boat for another lonely night.

xxxxx

"We would've never worked," Jenny said, her eyes sadly searching his for anything, anything at all. His blue eyes were like stones though, hard and unyielding. They stood in her office, a week after she'd walked out. The words they spoke even now, although true, stung sharply just as they always did.

"You're the one who kept all the secrets, Jen," He snapped back scathingly in retaliation. Both fired up, both annoyed, both wanting to still be able to love each other but knowing too much water had passed under the bridge for that to happen.

"Quit playing the blame game, Jethro." her voice turned harsh, her eyes now turned jaded and angry. "As I recall, you were keeping a big secret too."

He snorted, exasperated, giving up with all of the arguments and hatred. "What did you want me to say? Bring it up while we were on the mission? How would you have suggested I did that? 'Hey the target is dead; by the way, my wife and only daughter are dead too'?" He was angry, eyes narrowed, eyes dark.

They were purposefully hurting each other with their words. Like a boxing match, one threw a punch then the other did. They kept going in circles; around and around, kept making the same mistakes, again and again, always expecting, hoping, for a different outcome when in reality they weren't doing anything different.

"Why do we do this to each other?" Jenny asked, taking a step back. "All we do is fight and hurt each other. And I'm sorry Jethro, and don't tell me saying sorry is a weakness. But I've got to go, I can't keep doing this anymore." And that was it, she was permanently gone. She left her office to do her job, leaving him all alone.

Jethro just stood there silently; all they had was gone.

Gone.