A/N: Wow. This came out pretty fast. I guess I couldn't stop the inspirational wave. This could be considered a prologue for "Perks…" or a one-shot with a Criminal Minds cameo. "Perks…" is posted under the link found in the end. This is quite AU: Jenny has her long hair (I liked it better), Okinawa has nothing to do with Svetlana and all that La Grenouille matter didn't happen.
Disclaimer: None of this, sadly, belongs to me.

Jennifer Shepard was looking at herself in the mirror.
At her forty years, she knew she was still in a good shape. She ran (nearly) every morning, habit she had gained due to her years as Ziva's partner, and went to the gym whenever she could. She wasn't the one to talk about healthy eating habits, but she basically lived at coffee and bourbon's expenses, so she kept herself well. She still had her flaming long red hair and a pair of legs that, with a little help from her beloved heels, could make any man drool.
She usually had no problem with her body. However, today was the exception.
It was not as she didn't want to date anymore. It was her job that consumed most of her time. And whenever she met someone at it, they were disgusting men with sweaty hands that wandered in places that were far from appropriate or congressmen with fake smiles and money that, she knew, wasn't theirs in their pockets. Or journalists that wanted a little insight in the life of the director of a federal agency or broken businessmen that were after her family money. None of the above was enough for Jennifer Shepard, army brat, daughter of the late Colonel Jasper Shepard and a mother dead at a young age, only sister to Heather Shepard, the cold-hearted woman of the five-point plan to succeed in life.
Before her father accidental death, she and her sister were pretty close. In this moments, she would be here at her side, helping her out. Despite of Heather's assurance, she didn't consider her guilty at any extent for leaving for work when their father was sick and not being there when he fell down the stairs, Jenny wasn't so sure. Maybe that was the reason they had distanced themselves.
Back to the present, she had a situation to work out. Between her tons of party dresses, suits, skirts and even jeans and shirts, she could not find what to wear to her date. This was an emergency. She had less than three hours to be ready, and she couldn't put herself makeup or style her hair if she didn't know what to match it with.
The one and only Jennifer Shepard stood in her robe. She had to make a decision, it was a critical matter. She knew the team was going out and didn't want to tip them off on her date. Specially, because if the team found out, Jethro found out as well.
No, no, no! Not again! Keep your mind away from him!
Great. Now she was going nuts as well. She did the only thing she could think of.
"Heather? It's me. I know we haven't talked too much lately, but there is a problem round here. Yeah, I've got a date with Mr. Okinawa. You're coming? Great. See you!"
Okinawa had been established as their fashion distress word when they were young. No matter the circumstances, Okinawa was top priority.
And nothing scored higher than a date with David Rossi, writer and profiler extraordinaire.

A/N 2: link for the story is s/10676147/1/Perks-of-sitting-in-a-bar You must ask yourselves, why post this separately? The answer is quite simple: the story is posted under Criminal Minds because it starts with Emily and Derek, and is more from her POV. If I put this in the beginning, I would have to change it from category, and it would be rather confusing.