Unexpected Longing
Summary: Jimmy Palmer x fe!Reader -> When you go missing on your wedding day, Jimmy is the one who finds you.
Disclaimer: Mention of crappy wedding days, secret yearning, fluffy moments, Jimmy takes care of reader, might do a part 2, friends to eventual lovers.
The last thing you expected was to be spending your wedding day hiding out in a medical examiner’s lab, but you didn’t really have much choice.
“Here,” Jimmy came to your side, laying down the tray of canteen food. “Ellie said you haven’t eaten anything this morning so I got you some hearty lunch and,” Jimmy shook the bottle. “Electrolytes.”
“Thanks.”
“I know it’s kinda stupid, but are you feeling okay?”
You let out an uneven sigh as you started tearing open the disposable package for utensils and started preparing your lunch bowl.
“I don’t know,” you admitted. “It’s not every day you spend fourteen months planning a wedding that, on the day of said wedding, you find out your fiancé has been in love with someone else.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Yes,” you said. “And no. I-I think it hurts more that the person I’d be talking to about this…is the one he’s run off with.”
“Do you…do you want a hug? Or I can find you a dart board? I’m sure Tony kept one somewhere. Maybe Mcgee can print out their photos and you can start throwing darts.”
For the first time in several hours, you laughed. “Thanks, Jimmy. That…that sounds like a good idea. But I’m not ready for that yet.”
You were still in the transition of your feelings. The minute you’d found out, you’d barely reacted. You simply…let him go. And then you left.
You left the wedding venue and headed to the one place that you knew nobody would come looking for you; The NCIS medical lab.
You did well in the field, but the whole cold lab, dissecting bodies thing didn’t exactly make you feel calm. You knew it would be the last place people looked for you. And you…needed time.
You needed time to think over everything. How you felt, how to feel, what to do, what to say; all of it.
You were angry, of course. Your best friend and your fiancé were in love and your boyfriend proposed to you in the hopes it would stop his feelings for her.
You were frustrated you hadn’t seen it. Were you selfish for not having noticed it? Or were they? Were you both?
You were upset that your best friend and fiancé didn’t think to come to you and just tell you. Instead, your fiancé proposed, helped you plan the wedding, and then only thought to admit the truth an hour before you were supposed to walk down the aisle.
A small part of you felt relief; but it was only small. At least he told you before you walked down the aisle, and in the privacy of the waiting room you were being held in.
You were, frankly, baffled at his audacity to cry to you about how sorry he was. That he does love you, but he simply loved her more.
From the shock, when he had told you, you’d paused for a long time. You had a thousand questions but you knew you weren’t emotionally ready to accept the answers. So, you asked him to wait.
Then you left.
“But I’ll take the hug, though.”
Jimmy nodded, stepping closer to wrap his arms around you. And, for a short while, you stayed like that.
“You know, it’s okay if you want to cry.”
“I know.”
Your voice was shaking, but you weren’t ready to cry yet. You felt like you needed to process something before you could cry.
You just didn’t know what that something was.
“Want me to call Ellie? Or Abby?”
You shook your head. “No. Not yet.”
Jimmy stepped back as you moved from his hug, but he kept a steady hand on your upper back.
“Can you stay?” You asked him. “I-I don’t want to see anyone right now, but I also don’t want to be alone.”
Jimmy nodded, his voice soft. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”
Pulling up a chair, he sat adjacent to you as you started picking at your lunch. Although, due to the time, it was more likely to be considered your dinner.
And whilst you ate, you asked Jimmy a few questions to distract your head for a while. You asked about his morning and the others.
And he told you. But he did leave a few details out.
When he’d arrived at the wedding venue, it was just as Ellie and Nick pulled up, too. They seemed excited and when Ellie went to find you, she soon came out with one of your bridesmaid’s who said she hadn’t seen you in over an hour.
The others heard from your mother about the wedding being called off. And also how she hadn’t seen you.
Gibbs and McGee started asking questions and apparently one of the florists had spotted you getting into an Uber around the back of the venue.
So, the bride-hunt started.
Abby and McGee headed to your apartment. Gibbs and Ducky headed to one of your lesser known spots; a place he’d found you a couple of times when a case became too much. Ellie and Nick went…everywhere else.
Your mother and other bridesmaid’s were handling the wedding venue and the guests, in the meantime.
“And you came here?”
Jimmy shrugged. “All I could think of was that you needed time. And space. You know all of us. You freakishly know where Gibbs is at all times. Abby thinks you might be a witch.”
You and Jimmy chuckled a little as he mentioned Abby. There had been more than one time where she had proudly accused you of being a Witch, and you took it as a massive compliment.
“So, I’d know you would go somewhere we wouldn’t look for you. Which was…here.”
You smiled a little at Jimmy. “Well, I’m glad you found me.”
Jimmy gave you a reassuring smile as he reached out and took your hand.
Then you cried.
You cried in pain, and in loss, and in hurt.
The man you’d loved, the man you wanted to marry, had been in love with someone else. He’d lied to you. He’d betrayed you. He didn’t even have the decency to tell you when it happened.
He waited until all your family and friends, on both sides, were waiting patiently for you to walk down the aisle. In the dress that took you five months to pick and eight months to alter.
To him, dressed in a tux that took him three months to pick.
“I just thought he wanted it to be perfect,” you sniffed.
You and Jimmy had been sitting in the lab for a couple hours. He’d texted the others that you were safe and would call them when you were ready.
“We planned it together,” you said. “He wanted…he said he wanted to be my husband. That it would be a partnership. And then he just…”
It was another hour before you started to feel the cold of the room through the tight fastenings of your wedding dress.
“Here,” Jimmy laid his suit jacket over your shoulders and you politely smiled.
“Thanks.”
Then an idea popped into your head. “Actually…do you have any spare scrubs?”
“Uhh,” Jimmy thought about it for a moment. “I think so. Do you want to change?”
You nodded. “I don’t feel right wearing this anymore. And, it’s kinda uncomfortable now.”
Jimmy stood quickly, heading to the storage closet. You called out your size to him to make it easier for him to find.
The train of your dress followed you as you padded across the room to join him.
“Here we go,” Jimmy handed you a neatly folded packet of green scrubs.
“Thanks.”
Jimmy left the storage room free for you to get changed, but it was only thirty seconds before you were opening the door again. “I need your help.”
“With what?”
“The dress,” you told him. “I can’t…round the back. Could you?”
“O-oh, yeah! Yeah, sorry.”
You smiled a little once more, before turning around and letting Jimmy’s fingers carefully unhook the buttons down the back of your dress before slowly pulling down the zipper.
The room was quiet, save for the faint buzzing of the overhead lights and your shared breath with Jimmy.
“There you go.”
“Thank you.”
Carefully turning, you felt a little nervous before looking at Jimmy. “I-I’ll just be a minute.”
“I’ll be…right out here. If you need me.”
You nodded, politely, before entering the storage closet once more and changing out of your wedding dress and into the spare pair of scrubs Jimmy gave you.
That evening, Jimmy drove you home. He offered to stay with you, or to even take you home with him, but you’d kindly rejected his offer.
If your newly ex fiancé was home, then you took it as the universe’s sign that you were meant to hash it out with him.
But he wasn’t.
It was another two days before he came back and answered your questions.
It was another two weeks before your ex best friend was brave enough to face you.
As much as you hated her for what she had done, you had to hand it to her; showing up at your place of work, in front of your team who were ready to chuck both her and your idiot ex fiancé out of the nearest window, was a brave move.
And it was two months before you decided to move out of your apartment, unable to properly sleep without thinking about all the moments you thought they’d been there for you and with you.
Instead, they’d just been there for each other.
Before you knew it, six months and a dozen cases had passed.
“Hey, wakey-wakey,” you felt a gentle hand on your back, shaking you a little.
It took you a few moments to come around, remembering where you were and why your back was sore. You’d been asleep across your desk since…
What time was it?
“Just after one in the morning,” Jimmy’s voice told you. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”
Carefully standing, Jimmy helped you put your jacket on before leading you out of the bullpen and towards the elevator.
“What are you still doing here?” Jimmy asked.
“Paperwork,” you yawned.
“Ah, jinx.” Jimmy took in your tired frame that started to sway as you stepped into the elevator. “Have you been sleeping?”
You yawned. “A little.”
“In bed?”
You shook your head. “I missed my delivery date. They’re sending it again in two days. I’ve been sleeping on my sofa.”
Jimmy tutted and shook his head. “I’m taking you home with me.”
“Jimmy-”
“I’ve got a spare bedroom with fresh sheets and a comfortable mattress. There’s nothing wrong with it. Use it. Stay with me until your bed arrives. You need a decent night’s sleep,” Jimmy told you. “We all do.”
You were about to tell him it was a kind offer, but then you thought about your sofa. Despite its comfort to sit on, it wasn’t exactly the best night's sleep you’d had.
Or been having.
Which was how you found yourself accepting his offer.
“I know it’s not your own, but they’re clean and warm from the dryer.”
You smiled, taking the medical conference t-shirt and shorts from Jimmy. “Thank you, Jimmy.”
“I guess…I’ll see you in the morning.”
And you did.
Though it wasn’t just quite how you expected.
Part Two
