Based on The Farmer's Bride by Charlotte Mew
The Farmer's Bride
The powers that be put her in charge without really thinking. Jenny was a good enough agent and a better politician but she was not right for the task at hand.
Of course duty came first and they needed to get a new director quickly. Jenny was pretty enough and clever enough
As soon as she was appointed Director she changed. There was a clear panic in her eyes and she had no specific desire to be there. She wanted to go after her arms dealer and be done with it all.
She ran from them all, Gibbs and Ziva were the only ones who knew her well enough to notice. She stopped being herself and focused on becoming the bureaucratic bitch she was supposed to be.
La Grenouille was her obsession; he was her darkest nightmare and sweetest day dream. She sent DiNozzo after him, then the rest of Gibbs' team. She almost had Ziva shoot him, she should have.
The FBI discovered her little plot and warned her off, trapping her in miles of red tape and investigations. She held firm and kept her position but she lost her power, her fight.
Then she got sick. She wasn't as stupid as Gibbs or anyone else she had worked with, she knew she wasn't invincible. It didn't look as though she would be able to take down her target so why bother at all?
She became spiteful of the other women around her, Ziva and Abby always got attention from Gibbs and Colonel Mann, she wasn't even a red head. They were her enemies; if she couldn't have Gibbs then she was going to make their lives hell.
She kept to herself, none of them needed to know. It was the smallest bit of dignity she had left. None of them respected her, they would all follow Gibbs. Hell even the SecNav preferred the Marines authority to hers.
Jenny was just a showpiece, a pretty figure head to distract all the three letter agencies so that the real men could get on with the important work. She did what she was supposed to and people forgot about her.
The months did not pass without incident but none were important enough to warrant her involvement. Cases were solved, relationships grew and the team seemed to bond well.
She became part of the furniture, a symbol more than a person. As long as she didn't make too much noise she was left to her own devices, none of them could be bothered to find another replacement.
La Grenouille died eventually but she took no part in the celebrations. She had shot the man in the head but Kort had taken the blame. She should be thankful but she didn't care, it didn't bother her.
She continued to do her job; it was her personal life that suffered. She didn't try to enjoy herself, she was dead inside already. She just had to keep going long enough to leave on her own terms, to break free from her puppet like existence.
The powers that be became unruly one again. It had been too long since there had been change and Director Shepard was too involved with messy affairs. She would have to be replaced.
Jenny didn't know, she knew the possibility but she could never be sure. Decker's funeral proved to be the perfect catalyst. Maybe she could make it up to Gibbs, convince him that she was the best.
The gunfire hurt, she wasn't going to lie. What hurt most was knowing that it was all in vain. She was nothing remarkable; she would be replaced by the end of the day.
She had been used, she had been controlled and dirtied and then thrown away when she didn't wash clean. She had never shown her personality, never had a chance to.
Jenny was nobody, Director Shepard had belonged to the shadows in the government. She was a possession, freed only by the painful call of death.