'If the gun had been loaded, if I hadn't turned up, would you have pulled the trigger?'

Gibbs shut Shepard's front door behind him and flicked open his cell in one economical movement. He took in everything and nothing in front of him, knowing without looking that there would be no sight of Rene Benoit, an arms dealer financed by the FBI. Ziva picked up the call after one ring of the speed dial. Inserted into his team by Jennifer Shepard herself, ostensibly as a Mossad liaison officer, Gibbs had come to trust the Israeli woman with his life.

"Gibbs?"

"Get a warrant for Rene Benoit," he bit out.

"I thought.."

"Don't think, do it," he urged angrily.

"The Director…" Ziva pressed.

"I'll take care of the Director, just tell me when you have it," Gibbs barked and snapped the cell shut, ending the call. The cell was stuffed unceremoniously back into the pocket of his long coat. He let his attention drift back to the street, landing on Shepard's car parked snugly against the kerb.

"You ought to be more careful, Director," he mocked softly.

He stalked down the front steps of Shepard's home and sidled coolly to the front fender, casually glancing up and down the street. He bent to cup the side of his hand against the front passenger window and peeked into the interior, feeling the familiar press of the knife that he carried clipped to his belt against his back. Virtually nothing was visible through the tinted window, not that he expected any less. He straightened, turning his back to the car and nonchalantly withdrew the knife. The blade flicked out just as it came free of his coat. He glanced at the serrated edge for a moment and smiled grimly.

"You weren't going out tonight now, were you Director?" He muttered to himself.

With one smooth movement he crouched and stabbed the blade into the sidewall of the nearest tyre. The air released in a muted hiss and Gibbs watched as the weight of the car caused the corner of the vehicle to begin to sink. Swiftly he retracted the knife, rising and stowing it back where it belonged. He moved back to the passenger door and leaned back against the frame, feeling the gradual movement as the car settled over the now very flat, flat tyre. Cautiously, he swept the street for witnesses. There were none, and if Shepard happened to have a change of heart and chase after Benoit on her own, all she had to do was look out of her window, and she would find him standing by her car. It should be enough to put her off. He tipped his head back against the cool metal, curving his lips into a snide smile.

"That should slow you down," he growled cheerily.

He didn't know exactly what it was about Benoit and Shepard that felt 'off,' but something most definitely was and he was determined to find out.

He changed his stance, raised his head and glared at Shepard's front door. Briefly, he scanned the windows. The lights, on and off, were the same as when he had left, but if he knew anything, he knew Shepard. He blamed his gut when his instincts told him that something was up, in the face of absolutely no evidence. There was no way she would simply let this drop. He knew she has been following Benoit for the best part of her career to date. He admired her tenacity, he loathed her pig-headedness. He hated that she still jerked him around like some puppet on a string, only this time she had a desk with a name on it that meant she was entitled to. Or felt she was entitled to. It was her fault, in so many ways, that he was back doing the job he loved. He smiled wryly to himself, well, he could jerk her around too.

He reached for his cell for the second time, jabbing at a different button when it came open.

"McGee, I need you to do something for me," he said in his most pleasant tone.

"Sure Boss, what's up?" The young agent's voice was nervously attentive.

"I want you to track the Director's cell," he turned at the sound of a car, but the vehicle glided past without slowing, or the driver so much as turning their head. Dusk was falling, but Gibbs made a point of memorising the number plate in the encroaching gloom anyway.

There was a stunned silence.

"Err, Boss. I really like my job and.." McGee's doubtful tone stumbled over the words.

"I'm glad to hear it," Gibbs said reasonably.

"Right. Well. Err." There was the clatter of keys over the line before McGee's voice came on again. "It's showing at her home address right now, Boss. She took a call about fifteen minutes ago.."

The call Benoit would have made, Gibbs confirmed to himself. Probably got the number from DiNozzo.

"If it moves, I want you to call me." Gibbs didn't wait for a reply, he closed the call and the handset, returning it to his coat pocket. He narrowed his eyes at the silent property in front of him.

"What are you up to?" He said out loud. She was smart. Too smart for her own good. If she was going out, there was no saying she would take her cell with her. It had been his job to train her as a probationary agent. He knew exactly how headstrong she could be if something got under her skin. Their relationship, or lack of it was a case in point, if ever there was one. He had underestimated her in Marseilles and again in Paris, he wasn't about to do the same thing now. He wracked his brain to try and put himself in her place, smacking the side of the car in frustration when he realised he didn't have enough information to go on, to do it well.

He sighed heavily, raking over the memories of their time in France. It had started in Marseilles. Innocently enough, he had thought at the time. It had been hot as Hell in an attic room overlooking a Lebanese trawler. They had been stuck in there together for 56 hours straight. She'd held herself cool and collected all the way through it, right to the very end where she slipped up and nearly aced herself getting down the ladder. It was only then he realised she hadn't slept while he had the binoculars trained on their quarry. She had been watching his back, in spite of the number of times he had told her to do otherwise.

They had argued. Strike that. He had made a comment and she had torn it apart over the silence he left in his side of the conversation. He had said his piece. It wasn't personal. From the warehouse to the street, from the street to the car. She wouldn't leave it alone. When they stopped at a small restaurant, he could see clearly she was still simmering. She had excused herself to the restroom rather than look at him across the table while they waited for food.

After thirty seconds of swearing in his head, he had followed her. It was the best and worst thing he could have done. It was the first time she had kissed him. She challenged him at every turn and then she made him forget how angry he was. She made him forget. Period. He swore it wouldn't go any further. He thought he was in control. She showed him exactly how wrong he was in Paris and every time he pulled back, in every European city after that, until he stopped trying. He blinked his eyes tight shut and open again, snarling at himself getting distracted.

"She's not in there, not any more." He hurled himself at the front steps of the house, crashing against the front door. He rang the bell futilely, knowing she wouldn't answer, looking right and left to the corners of the property, to an alleyway that ran alongside the house.

He leapt down the steps and ducked into the alley, making his way to a gate in the fence of her back yard. It opened easily, without so much as a squeak. He smiled grimly, fingering a piece of foliage nearby that had broken away from its stem. The sap was still wet, leaving a glistening smear in his fingertips in the half light. He glanced up at the back of the house and the dimness of the lights in the windows.

"You don't mind if I wait inside, do you?" He asked the empty garden, certain now that he had missed her, less certain by exactly how much. He didn't fear for her safety. There was nothing in Benoit's profile that suggested he killed personally. Plus, there was that strangeness in the way the conversation had gone. Benoit had pleaded, not as a person with so much to lose, but as a person trying to kindle, or rekindle a personal connection with the other party. It made Gibbs strangely uncomfortable to be a witness to it. It was reminiscent of how he had felt when Shepard had admitted she wasn't leaving with him at the end of their European tour.

Confidently he made his way to the back door and tried the handle. It was locked. He glanced around once, before reaching for a small wallet of lock pick tools in his inside jacket pocket and setting to work.

A/N: I don't normally hit the same ball twice - does it still count if I write his character instead of hers? He's starting to keep me up nights.