Author's Note: A couple of things I need to point out for this story. It takes place early/mid season 5 not long after we find out The Frog's dead. Jenny is not ill and Hollis is still hanging around. In this fic no one knows why Jenny was so obsessed with catching him and doesn't know about her dad, in turn although Hiatus happened no one knows about Shannon and Kelly.
Jennifer Sheppard stood at the catwalk observing her kingdom, keeping an eye on the events that took place within it. After all she had given everything up for this, so there was no way in hell she was going to let anything happen, not under her watch. Unfortunately watching over her Agents meant watching over him and watching over him meant seeing him with her. She saw them together all the time now and every time she did it was like a knife to her heart, like another small part of her died inside, as though her soul was withering, what was left of it anyway. After all she was well aware of how others saw her, especially after recent events. They saw her as the villain, the cold heartless bitch who would quite happily put her Agents in danger to get a result. The fact that it wasn't true was of little importance, after all people wanted to gossip and painting her this way was oh so much more interesting than the truth, or anything resembling it. Although if she was to be honest she wasn't even sure what the truth was anymore, somewhere along the line she had lost sight of who she was and had instead choosen to hide behind the ice cold façade of Madam Director.
She glanced down into the bullpen once more, watching as Tony mercilessly teased McGee while Ziva watched on. Gibbs for once wasn't paying any attention, instead focusing on the blonde in front of him, smiling at her over the rim of his coffee, pushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. Jenny's eyes fluttered closed for a second, trying to reign in her feelings, she couldn't watch this anymore, she closed over the case file she had been pretending to read and headed back to the sanctuary of her office.
Closing the heavy door behind her Jenny sunk into her chair, throwing the paperwork she had in her hand onto the desk, she stretched out her arms and rolled her neck trying to ease the tension in the muscles there. Rubbing at her temples she let out a long sigh, at least she had told Cynthia she wasn't to be disturbed for anything less than a national emergency and she knew that the younger woman would make sure she was left in peace.
Surveying her office she couldn't help but be proud of what she had achieved, she was the first female Director of an Armed Federal Agency and no one could take that away from her, it had come with a price though but then everything did. It was strange she had never thought this was where she would have ended up, loathed by the very agents who just months ago she had considered her family. Wiping the tears from her eyes she told herself it wasn't her fault and it wasn't, not really. Yes she had offered Tony the chance to go undercover in a classified mission but she hadn't expected him to fall in love with Jeanne. Just like she hadn't expected that car bomb, or La Grenouille's murder, she knew everyone thought she had pulled the trigger but she hadn't, however much she would have liked to she just couldn't kill him in cold blood.
It had been the day of the car bomb that everything had really begun to disintegrate between her and her once friends, she had given Tony the mission therefore it was her fault when he had 'died' , even though she would have let him pull out at any point. Hell she had even asked him if he was getting too involved, something the younger man had strenuously denied, she should have known better. Even Ziva had looked at her with pure hatred in her eyes on that day before finally severing her tie to her and truly becoming one of Gibbs's loyal team, answerable to him and him only. Jenny had felt Ziva's loyalty's switching to Gibbs before then but it had hurt her more than she had wanted to admit, her once close friend leaving her with no one else to turn to. She wasn't even sure what Ziva was more annoyed at, the fact she could have killed Tony or that she blamed her because she had put Tony with Jeanne and he had fallen head over heels for her. Jenny was pretty sure it was the latter, which was ridiculous, she had never thought Tony would get that close, would never have given him the job if she had for one second suspected he would fall for the enemy. Then again as Jenny knew to her cost you couldn't help who you fell in love with, if you could then she would have been able to save herself a lot of heartache. It wasn't fair but then life never was, all she had wanted was to clear her father's name but she couldn't tell anyone that, she didn't want their pity and now, now she had failed, she had let him down, again. The hope that she could make it up to him had died with La Grenouille and all she was left with was the aftermath.
Sometimes she wanted to go back, to make different decisions but since that wasn't an option she would just have to pick herself up and rebuild, something she was used to by now, after all she had been doing it for her entire life.
I know the plot isn't very clear at this point but if you would like me to continue then please leave a review. This story will be a slow burn, although I do know where I'm going with it. If you have any questions then feel free to ask :)
xxxx