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Gibbs reeled in his fishing line and frowned as the end broke the water: no fish and—worse yet—no lure. He shifted his assessing gaze to the sky, where the pitch of the sun over the autumn Alaskan horizon promised another solid hour on the water. There was time enough for his luck to turn. But he felt a tug on his heart that had him converting the sun’s position to +04:30 UTC; it was a stronger pull than even the bite of a state record salmon on the end of his fishing line.
The river water sloshed around his Xtra-Tufs as he waded toward the shore, the gentle sound joining a chorus of birdsongs from the brush. A group of swallows chortled in his general direction and the barking call of a cormorant critiqued his modest haul for the day, but the pleasure he found casting the line over and over knee-deep in the river wasn’t measured in inches and ounces.
So he didn’t have a catch worthy enough to mount—he’d hooked a silver that would fry up for a decent supper and the next day he’d know better than to toss back the smaller ones. The judgmental cormorant could have at the remaining fish—Gibbs was willing to sacrifice a twilight hour fishing the river to add Jack’s voice to the soundtrack.
Up in Alaska, he was geographically closer to Jack than he’d been sitting at home in Virginia, and yet the international dateline separated them to greater extremes. Simultaneously closer together and further apart… their last shared months in DC hadn’t felt a too dissimilar phenomenon.
But it was neither time nor miles that mattered, it was silence that was the real division of distance. It could make the person in the same house, the same office, feel thousands of miles away, and a conversation aided by orbiting outer space satellites could place Jack right beside him.
Setting his gear aside, he reached into his pack and powered up his sat phone. If he’d accounted for the time change right, she’d’ve just finished running morning perimeter checks and would be fuelling up for the day with a cup equal parts sugar and caffeine.
He’d been accused throughout his life of picking up the phone only when he wanted—needed—something. And even though he’d been calling Jack an awful lot recently, there was still truth in the accusation. Leaving her with a duffel in the desert, her physical absence had left no question how much he wanted her, and the ache in his chest revealed the depth of her necessity.
Dialling a long string of numbers from memory, he waited for the connection to be made across a series of satellites, scrambling her exact location. The corners of his mouth tugged upward, anticipating.
“Jack.” His greeting was simple and always the same. He packed its space efficiently; like the lone bag he’d brought for his trip, her name was bursting at the seams with longing.
“Hey you.”
Likewise, the simplicity of her greeting did more to warm him than the expensive cold weather gear he was layered in.
“I wasn’t sure I’d hear from you this week. How’s the Last Frontier?” Even cracked and tinny and making small talk, the ache in his chest from her absence eased.
“Cold,” he laughed.
“Come on, I know you’re not paying twenty dollars a minute to tell me that. I’ve been looking at the same flat sand for months now and I hear your view is breathtaking. Have some pity, describe it for me, please.”
Even as she pleaded, how could he describe the sense of peace he was embedded in? She’d heard right. The impending sunset over the distant mountains, the low sun sparkling off the river… the words caught in his throat along with his breath. He hadn’t much considered the timing of his trip, so he was closer to endless nighttime than midnight fishing. But tourists were scant and the only plane coming and going was the floatplane that dropped him off and wouldn’t return until its milk run the following week. There was an overwhelming calmness from the solitude. Maybe having the phone call was blasphemous, to disturb the peace, but no way was he missing this.
“I’ve seen better.”
“Is that so? Well, where’s that, Cowboy? The Grand Canyon?”
“You back at camp?”
“Where else am I going to be?”
“Then I’d say about 200 clicks west of Kandahar.”
Her laugh, self-conscious at his flattering, tumbled into his ear. The image he held in his mind made more beautiful by her blushing.
“You say that now, but after all these months in the dry desert air… let me tell you, the sun and wind are unforgiving. A shemagh can only do so much, you know? And moisturizers are a luxury I don’t have out here—my skin care has taken a direct hit!”
Her joking softened the reality of her situation. The threat of things far worse than wrinkles had existed on the periphery of her daily life since she dug her ACBs deep into the sand. And since March the threat had only increased.
He was helpless to keep her safe. But the determination that kept her there was half of what made her Jack. Even if he could’ve, she didn’t want her cowboy riding to her rescue.
She could come back wrinkled and raw, as long as she came back to him. Her beauty transcended body, more heart and tenacity than could fit inside five feet and change. Her commitment to those girls, and Darya’s memory, could only make her beauty more radiant, no matter the conditions.
God, he loved her. Had loved her as long as he’d known her, truthfully.
Love at first sight—really, to love and be loved by a woman at all—had become a distant, juvenile notion after a profound loss and the run of rapid and regrettable romances; it existed only in the memory of an awkward boy, at a pitstop on a train platform as he rushed to become a man. It wasn’t meant for the white-haired and widowed, the thrice an ex-husband bastard holed away alone with nothing but work to keep him company on a stormy night.
But his heart had flipped in sync with a mess of rain soaked blonde hair, and flopped with the flash of a bi-fold wallet. From the moment Jacqueline Sloane announced herself into his life on the back of a bold-faced lie all expectations went out the window. His hard-earned hardened heart faced a new frontier where it beat with renewed vigour, emboldened by and in time with hers, even worlds away, even if he hadn’t grasped the gravity of her hold on him until he was reaching for her fingertips and sitting on a return flight without her.
“You still thinking Christmas, probably?” He tried to sound casual, but her return was constantly on his mind. A couple more months and she’d be back; just ten more phone calls and he could hold his world in his arms again.
“A bit earlier, I hope.”
He smiled to himself. Maybe less than 10 calls away.
He dug around in his pack while she explained how before Christmas was possible, that the full time replacement Moroor Amen had recruited was coming on earlier than expected, and how her training of some eager locals had built her a reliable team committed to securing the girls’ access to education and other human rights.
“Yesterday, Batoor and Zaram called me out when I suggested we take a route we’d used last month.”
“You gettin’ sloppy El-Tee?” he teased to cover his fear,
“No.” A half-yawn interrupted her denial. “Just, I’m getting tired.”
All the better she was getting out of there soon. Sloppy, tired, whatever she was willing to admit to spelled the same danger.
He thumped his fist against his knee. He oughta be watching her six. Not relying on a bunch of faceless green names.
“Keep alert Army.”
When she’d stayed to fill the void left by Darya’s death and the betrayals in the organization’s leadership, her one woman security force could only be temporary solution. Jack was capable and adaptable, but even she was out of her depths, in a place that packed a wallop of personal trauma.
“I am. But I’m ready to come home, and even if I wasn’t, I’m not sure it’s my place to stay any longer—an American woman attracts more trouble than I’m worth now. And I feel okay with that, I did what I could when it was needed and I know I’ll be leaving it in capable hands so Darya’s work can continue.”
“Mmhm,” he agreed.
That was a feeling he understood, having to leave his own team behind, though it had taken him a long time and a few roster changes to have the confidence she exhibited. At the end of it all, he had a lot of faith in the team he built, took pride in their growth—from Tim to Jimmy Palmer. Of course it had taken him years not months to develop his people, but Jack was a different breed.
“You did good, Jack.”
A deep breath came over the line.
“I’ve made my peace with this place, anyway.”
That might never be completely true, but it was more convincing than the same claim had been seven months prior.
“And it’s time for the next chapter in my story. I promised Faith I’d be back in time for the baby’s christening. And I accepted for you too, Cowboy. So make sure to take your good suit out of the mothballs when you get home so we can properly welcome Alexander Quinton Tolliver-Thompson.”
“Big name for a little squirt.”
“It is a mouthful, but he’s a big boy. You need to figure out your Gmail—I must’ve forwarded you a dozen pictures by now. He’s barely a month and I swear he weighs a pound for every letter in that name.”
“Sounding like a proud godmother already.”
“It’s crazy right? I mean who’d want me responsible for their child’s spiritual well-being?”
“Yer family,” he barked at her. It was gruffer than she deserved, but she was getting foolish. He softened the tone of his voice, the only tool he had to comfort her thousands of miles away, “Faith very religious?”
There was a pause on the line. He could’ve chalked it up to the slow relay of their voices across globe-spanning satellites, but he knew she was hesitating because she didn’t actually know. Her relationship with Faith had a lot of holes she might never fill… Of course, running off to Afghanistan just as they were getting closer hadn’t helped matters.
Sharing the news of her pregnancy over email hadn’t been Faith’s intention when she’d showed up at HQ not a week after Jack had left. He wanted to be on Jack’s side and defend her absence, but facilitating that conversation hadn’t been easy, not when he was raw, feeling his own brand of broken up from her sudden departure.
He filled in the pause for her.
“You’ll be fine. She just wants ya involved.”
“Yeah, God knows I can’t be a grandmother, not when I was never even a mother.”
“Give it time, Jack. See how it is when you’re not 7,000 miles away.”
“You’re right. As usual. But enough about that, catch me up with you before we run out of minutes.”
“Nah. Keep talkin’. The director’s footin’ the bill.”
She paused again, when her voice returned it had a dangerous edge: “Tell me you’re not on the job.”
He heard the gears grinding in her head to match the grit of her teeth. It was probably his fault for using fishing trip cover stories in the past, even if salmon fishing in Alaska didn’t have the same ring to it as sturgeon season.
“If he’s called you back in… God, I could kill Leon!”
He let her stew, enjoying a moment before setting her straight: he’d be lying if he said the Sloanesian threat wasn’t a turn-on, and she’d surely move her return date up even more if she wanted to lay a beating on her oldest friend.
“No. Nope, not this time.” There wasn’t a sniff of Navy crimes happening in the placid community off Naktok Bay; if there was, he’d’ve made an excuse to ‘investigate’ with his fishing gear years ago. But no, the only crime was how blue the water was.
“Just catchin’ fish. Signed those papers last week.”
Signed a lot of paperwork, but at least the lawyers stayed out of his sight. Who knew retiring while suspended would be so damned complicated? The settlement shaved off a chunk of his pension earnings and left his reputation somewhere less than legendary, but well above disgraced. So they wouldn’t be naming any scholarship programs after him, fine, but they hadn’t banned him from the Navy Yard either.
That was all that mattered: other people’s perception of him was other people’s problems. But his people still there? His family? Those relationships weren’t worth losing.
When it became clear that his exit, more or less through the back door, would be without the fanfare of a retirement party, Bishop had showed up at his door, armed with a side-eye and accusations that it had been his plan all along (it wasn’t, but he shrugged and smirked and let her believe what she wanted to before inviting her in for a beer and the ballgame).
The eventual Hail and Farewell was fitting and little more than a handshake (and a hug) between him and Tim in the basement over bourbon.
“Told Leon where to shove the gold watch…”
“And he presented you with the phone instead. Good old Leon,” she finished with a chuckle. He was a good friend to them both. “Good, it’s good you’re starting with a trip, get away for a bit.”
He grunted. It went unspoken that Jack’s company would’ve been the ideal distraction as he made the inevitable transition to official retirement. But he’d slammed the door on that possibility, screwing up and speeding up the timeline on the process. That’s the kind of thing that happened when he lost his mind and unapologetically drove his fist through a piece of shit dog abuser.
Cleaning up that mess hadn’t been easy. He dragged his feet when it came to the task of telling Jack about the suspension, mostly ‘cause they hadn’t been talking at all at that point.
She had enough to worry about getting settled in Afghanistan running her one woman army, with the constant threat of insurgents and the paranoia of more betrayals from within the organization.
Being concerned by his behaviour had once been like catnip for her caring concern; amidst all the stuff she had going on she didn’t need his ‘mental state’ distracting her. And maybe the distance and time and frequent radio silence had changed things; maybe she didn’t care to know; maybe his boneheaded actions wouldn’t rate more than an eye roll. So what was there really to say, anyway?
He held onto that perspective too long, making himself believe it more with each day, until Grace had eventually shown up at his doorstep. She was as concerned as Jack would’ve been at one time, but used two dollar words like ‘dissociation’ and ‘regressive isolation’ that the other woman would’ve translated for him first.
Bearing a bottle as an icebreaker, Grace walked a thin line between friend and professional, but it was what had always made her the only therapist for him, and soon enough she had him badgered into something that passed for a conversation. As he grunted his responses, she minced no words pointing out the obvious correlation she saw between his erratic behaviour and Jack’s departure.
She wasn’t wrong, though. Out of sight, out of mind didn’t really work when he was blindly in love with the woman. The unresolved feelings had a way of manifesting in other, not particularly helpful ways. So with Lucy’s head resting on his leg, one word at a time he started to form complete sentences with Grace in his living room, about what he’d done, what might come next and—God help him—how he felt. It was a special kind of torture, but he realized that talking, and having a friend did a lot of good.
And God love Grace but if talking was the cure there was another woman he’d rather talk with, and she didn’t bill him by the hour. The person he really needed to talk to was the one he’d convinced himself didn’t need to hear from him at all.
Easy or not, he had to man up and re-open the lines of communication with Jack. And once it started there was no turning back. Since then, he hadn’t gone a week without hearing her voice.
The long distance charges they racked up rivalled Grace’s rates, but the value of the call-time far exceeded his therapy sessions, and he begrudgingly admitted those had been worth an awful lot.
So yeah, he wanted Jack back more than he wanted a fishing trip. Hell, he might’ve argued for the retirement party if she was back stateside just so he could have her all fancy-like on his arm. But she hadn’t been ready to come back and Gibbs had too much respect for NCIS and the servicemen and women they protected to keep dragging out the indefinite suspension, to keep the team undermanned and in limbo.
“Next time you’re coming with.”
“Next time? You’re picking somewhere warmer, Cowboy.”
“Dunno Jack. Think you’d like it. It’s quiet, peaceful. Makes ya forget the cold.”
“Quiet huh? I’m not sure I’d fit in. Might scare the few fish away.”
“Plenty of fish, Sloane.”
“Ah huh. How many did you catch again? Was it one or none?”
“Threw a dozen more back.”
“I’m sure you did,” she laughed in disbelief.
He did kind of regret being too prideful to get help from a local guide. He came an awfully long way not to make a better haul.
“Costa Rica got better fishin’?” he teased back.
“I’ll look into it for you,” she laughed before taking a serious turn. “Well, wherever else is on your retirement travel list, can we delay that for a while? I think I’d rather stay close to home for bit.”
Home, she had to mean his place, after letting the lease on her apartment lapse. Yeah, he’d like that too. The agreement that whatever happened next, they were doing together brought a smile to his face.
“I miss a certain suburban house.”
“Just the house?” he spoke with a smirk.
“And its comforts. So soft and warm and cozy.”
Hold on, was she taking about him or his hoodies?
“The red one or the black one?”
“Either. The guy in them’s pretty nice too, though.” She groaned, “What I really need is a real bed.”
He pictured her, phone to her ear, stretching out the unavoidable stiffness of joints that came from too many too short nights sleeping on a cot. Her shoulders would always be a flattering width, and her arms could’ve only gained muscle tone as she toted her weapon and hauled her gear around all day long in the desert. Maybe some men found that much strength intimidating, but not him—at least not in any negative sort of way—and definitely not on that woman. He couldn’t wait to get her into a real bed either.
“Think I got that covered.”
“Mm, please. My back’s not going to easily forgive this sabbatical.”
“I got a massage for ya if you promise to leave my hoodies alone.”
A little pout interrupted the image of her stretching out her neck and shoulders. “Can’t we negotiate? I’ll keep my hands off of your red hoodie, but the black one’s fair game?”
He didn’t exactly want her to keep her hands off his favourite hoodie. The way she tucked in at the collar and stuffed her hands in the kangaroo pouch…
“Nope. Not the black one either. Maybe the OD green.” He was quick to tease her, but there was little he enjoyed more than Jack wearing his clothes. Maybe Jack out of them and his hands on her body. So there was nothing really to negotiate: massage or hoodie, it was win-win for him either way.
“An olive Marine Corps hoodie? That’s new.”
“Not really. Been gone a long time, Jack.”
“Not that long,” she pushed back.
Fair, he hadn’t meant to dig into her for leaving. He got her need to stay in Afghanistan, really, and he knew now his poor definition of their relationship was partly to blame for her wanting out in the first place. Sometimes it still hurt though.
“You never once bought a new sweatershirt in the years I’ve known you. What happened, you get so bored you started shopping—and at the museum gift shop no less. Guess I can’t leave you alone much longer, might come back and find you’ve gone full mall rat.”
“Yep,” he agreed, not caring what the hell a mall rat was if it meant she’d be coming back and not leaving.
He looked out over the water, its soft rippling surface and the sounds of wildlife in the bush had lulled him into a calm state. And with Jack teasing him on the phone, it was nearest to whole he’d felt in a long time.
He liked it here.
But he couldn’t stay in Alaska, no matter how serene the scene. There’d be long dark days of endless night with no Jack to brighten them. His California woman who dreamed of beach bars in Costa Rica didn’t belong here. And he belonged with her.
This place would never have all he needed. There were endless open skies and uninhabited land; the two-storey back in Alexandria was already too big for him to occupy by himself.
The answers to his troubles, a peace if such a thing was possible, didn’t lie in any one place. It was the sum of people who mattered to him and experiences they shared. The stories they had and the ones they were still making. No fish or quiet or sunset could compare.
And in the short-term, he needed to get off the riverbank, into the flat-bottom and navigate the waterways back to his rented cabin before darkness fell. If they kept up much longer he was going to get his dumbass lost in the wilderness with no charge on his sat phone.
“Hey Jack. I gotta go.”
“Me too,” she sighed over the line.
“Finish yer coffee and have a good morning.”
“And you finish yours,” her tone a gentle jibe at his—and their shared—absurd caffeine intake.
“Drained the thermos hours ago.”
“Okay, then— Have sweet dreams of all the fish you didn’t catch.”
He growled in protest and she laughed one last time. The sound tugged at his heart, threatening to undo him, making him feel a softness that didn’t match the image of the hardened survivalist he was playing out in the isolated tundra. How could he go a full week without hearing it again, especially in the quiet Alaskan landscape where now that he’d heard it, its absence would carry across the silent water?
“I miss ya, Jack. Talk real soon.”