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The years went by slowly for her. She fluttered around checking on family and friends but it was to him that she returned. Both of them watched him. Kelly rarely left his side. Always watching out for him and adoring her daddy from afar. The distance didn’t hurt as much as it once had. Those early years still lingered in the back of her mind. She remembers crying invisible tears as she held her daughter close and they watched as Jethro self-destructed. And now watching the scene below she knew things in both their realms had changed once more.
It had taken all three of them years upon years to move on. Not that it mattered to the two watching from above. But the time and change certainly mattered to the man still breathing, still trying to live away from them. And it had been a hard road for him. Vengeance had proved to be a bitter fruit. He’d had to move on from there. There was no more war and no more sniper duty for him. He’d taken a job trying to save others from the harm that waited for them out their front doors.
And from there she was adrift. She’d begun to merely watch as the shadows moved in and about her lover. Checking in on him now and then had become her life or afterlife really. But still Kelly stayed, always watching, always loving him. Her daughter still let her thoughts wander about the heavens and was in and out of the realms. But Jethro, her father still trumped all. And as it should be for a little girl.
It was different for her and Jethro both. In two different realms, in two different lives they had moved on. She wandered, fluttered about, helping in the different worlds that called to her. And as she had Jethro had slowly moved on as well. Finding lust, making it out to be love, marrying many lookalikes, and finding no satisfaction, no love. That was the way her love lived day to day until he met his match on the slop docks of Baltimore. Baltimore, really who would have thought?
She remembered the sizzle he evoked in ones soul. And that day it seemed that one very male Tony DiNozzo felt the same as she once did. That was when she tuned into Jethro’s life more regularly. She laughed when he did and cried most certainly, when he did as well. And she had held onto her daughter’s hand as they watched both Jethro and his lover get into danger time and time again. But this time her unlife would be different in such a horrid way. Her realm, her world, their lives would be tearful and bittersweet all over again. They’d gotten used to the reality around them and now things would change. She couldn’t help but cry a bit harder as she heard the haggard voice of her lover. He was begging, something he rarely did. Listening to him, she let the world in once more. Not being there hurt but she knew she was needed in the present. Even Kelly knew the importance of this, such a somber event.
They sat, watched, and listened to the farewells and cries of the crowd. And as they finally moved about, she could see her love, again on the ground crying and begging. She listens to his heart breaking apart as he whispers to her “Take care of him for me Shan, please tell him that I’ll love the both of you forever.” She cries just a bit harder as she watches Tony experience his first bit of distance as his hand barely ruffles Jethro’s hair. She lets go of Kelly for a moment or two as she joins Tony. Looking at both men, she knows their love was truly a gift. Tony glances at her with tears in his eyes and as she grasps his hand in her own she can only say to them both “It’ll get better with time.”