Thanks for all the wonderful reviews! All will be explained later... Apologies for any mistakes; this is unbeta'd at the moment. I am triple checking it, but I do miss the most obvious things.

This chapter is for Mary, who requested that Agent Wofford got to 'kick ass'.

Chapter 2: Bad Day at the Office

Six months previously.

Jennifer Shepard closed her eyes and leant back in her chair. She felt awful; her head felt like it was splitting open, her entire body felt drained of energy, and she was nauseous.

She had a mammoth pile of paperwork on her desk to be getting on with, a meeting with the SecNav later, and dinner with a Senator who flirted with her constantly. All she wanted to do was to curl up on the couch in her office and go to sleep for a few hours.

To top it off, it was only 0900.

She reminded herself that she couldn't be ill as she had far too much work to do. Maybe she'd caught the flu from her nephew Jasper. He had visited her for the weekend while he was recovering from it. Although the school had assured her that he wasn't infectious any more, they had presumably got it wrong.

Damn Lily for arranging for her son to come home for the weekend while she herself was away! The sisters were sharing an apartment until Jenny could summon up the strength to go house hunting, something that had been complicated when she had started seeing Jethro again. She wasn't sure whether to accept his offer and move in, or stay with her sister for a bit longer.

Lily had managed to make herself unreachable since their excursion in Kos. Jenny guessed she was undercover somewhere, doing whatever she did for the CIA. This seemed to involve guns, explosions and mind games; none of which Jenny cared about at that moment.

If Lily had been reachable, Jenny would have begged her sister to swap over. They were identical, although they hated the term, and had no problem swapping jobs for a week. Jethro was one of the few people who could tell them apart.

Jenny sighed inwardly. There was nothing for it; she was going to have to pay a visit to Ducky. Maybe he could give her something so she could get back to work.

The doors to Autopsy swished open, and Jenny lingered in the doorway. She still wasn't fond of the morgue; dead bodies being cut open weren't her thing and she couldn't understand how Jethro could be so nonchalant about it. She was feeling nauseous again.

Peering round the door, she could only see Palmer. No bodies were in sight, so she entered.

Palmer looked up from his x-ray and stared at her.

"Is Ducky around?" She didn't waste any time; she had too much work to do.

"He had to take his mother to the hospital this morning, something about another shaving accident." He shuddered.

She looked at him.

"Ah, is there anything I can help you with, Director?" He seemed to remember his manners after a moment.

She considered. Ducky was teaching his assistant to look after the living as well as the dead. Palmer might be of some use, if he could keep his mouth shut. She didn't want the entire agency to know that she was feeling under the weather within five minutes of her walking out.

"Director?" he asked again.

"I'm not feeling too good," she told him, moving towards Ducky's desk.

"What… what kind of symptoms have you had?" He switched to 'Doctor mode'.

"Fatigue, a bad headache and nausea."

He thought about it. "Could be a few things. I'll take a blood sample to narrow it down."

She watched as Palmer rooted through Ducky's desk to find the things he needed. "I spent the weekend with someone who was recovering from the flu," she offered.

"You've probably caught it then," he conceded.

She rolled up her sleeve and let him draw the required blood. He labeled it carefully.

"I'll send this up to Abby later," he informed her.

"I'll take it," she blurted out before she could stop herself. "I need to talk to her about the Raymond case anyway."

Palmer shrugged. "If you want." He handed her the vial.

As she reached the door, she turned back. "If I hear this being discussed…"

He gulped. "I won't say a word."

"Doctor patient confidentiality?"

"Oh, yes, that. I'll keep it."

She smiled at him. "Thank you."

The elevator doors opened again and she found herself outside Abby's lab. She could hear the music clearly from outside, and had no desire to enter. Glancing at the vial of her own blood in her hand, she forced herself to walk through the doors.

A wall of sound hit her. A gravelly voice was singing something about a chainsaw buffet, which just turned her stomach. Fighting down the nausea and the return of her headache, she stalked towards the CD player and switched it off.

"Hey!" Abby complained, whirled round to see who it was. "Oh, hey Director! How are things?"

"I'm not feeling too good." She was becoming fed up of repeating herself, so she offered the vial to the bubbly Goth. "Palmer said I might have the flu."

Abby's whole face lit up at the 'evidence' she was being given. "I can run lots of tests on this, Director." She ran over to a machine and started work immediately.

Jenny looked around. What should she do? Should she go back to her office and attempt some work? Or was it better to stay downstairs for the moment and take some time to talk to Abby?

Abby made the choice for her. "Sit down Director," she ordered, almost pushing her into the chair. "Rest for a minute. It's not good to be on your feet if you're ill. Gibbs would go mad at me. He might even stop my Caf-Pows!" She looked horrified at the thought.

Jenny wasn't surprised. Abby was extremely perceptive and would have picked up on the changes in her relationship with Jethro quickly. She found it amusing that Jethro might stop Abby's Caf-Pows, and wondered if she could persuade Lily to fund a Caf-Pow machine.

"Heard any good gossip lately?" Abby asked, perching on the edge of the table and staring intently at her.

"Not really," she confessed. "I've been pretty busy."

"Not to worry, I'll fill you in! Agent Wofford wrestled with a tiger yesterday."

Jenny was startled. "I didn't hear that."

"Oh, it was a guy in a tiger suit. Sorry, I thought you knew. This Lieutenant was moonlighting at the local mall, dressed in a tiger costume. He was doing drug deals and no one suspected the tiger. But Wofford spotted something and chased the guy for eleven blocks before tackling him. I managed to get the whole thing on CCTV. Wanna see?"

"Err, not right now."

"What else?" The Goth was unperturbed. "Agent Richards got engaged to some rich businessman. Not sure how that happened. Ducky went on a date with Doctor Hampton, although he's trying to keep it quiet for now. And you and Gibbs have been messing around in your office." Abby smiled sweetly.

Jenny groaned.

"Don't worry, Director." Abby realized that the best time to tell her was probably not when she was unwell. "I was the only one lurking around that night, and I'm not going to tell anyone. Who would believe me?"

"Tony, for starters." Jenny smiled at Abby. "Sorry, I'm not the best company right now."

"Okay, we could talk cases. Or I could talk cases, and you could listen and ask me if I missed anything?"

"If you want." Jenny wondered if falling asleep in a subordinate's workplace was a bad thing. She was having problems keeping her eyes open. "How's the Raymond case going?"

Abby jumped up and keyed a command into her keyboard. The screen changed to show a fingerprint match. "I found Captain Mewburn's fingerprint at the crime scene. Agent Lee is trying to get a warrant to search his house, and Cassie Yates is ready to break the door down."

"Good work."

"It wasn't my work. Cassie found the print and I just ran it."

Something dinged in the background.

"My baby," yelled Abby as she ran over to it.

Jenny hid a smirk.

"I got your blood test results! Oh…"

"Oh, what, Abby?"

The Goth shifted nervously on her feet.

"What is it?"

Abby printed off the results and handed them to Jenny silently. All of her previous energy had vanished.

"Ah."

"Exactly," Abby agreed.

"But I can't… I mean I can't. How…"

"The results don't lie, Director."

Jenny considered. How was this possible? She was… or maybe she wasn't. Lily. This screamed of Lily. She was a conniving little pain in the backside at the best of times.

"Director?"

"If I give you a pill, can you tell me what it is?"

"Of course."

"How long would it take?"

"A few hours, perhaps."

"It isn't a rush job, Abby."

"I could get round to it in a few days, if you'd like."

Jenny rubbed her forehead. "Thank you."

"I'll keep quiet," Abby offered.

Jenny found herself in a bone-crushing hug a second later. "Thanks," she muttered.

Abby let go and smiled, happy again. "Everything's going to be fine," she announced.

Jenny smiled at the younger woman and left the lab. Standing in the elevator, she decided that she was going to kill her sister.