AN1: I've decided that this is going to be a series of conversations between Jenny and Kate. And by series, I mean more than one. So here's a second.
AN2: Related to AN1 - I removed the ending of the last chapter that made it seem so final. If/when I decide there is an end, I will add it appropriately. Also, in case you didn't notice, I changed the name of the story. Blue Eyes is now the name of the first chapter. I don't like my new title (too boring) so I'm up for suggestions.
AN3: I seemed to have forgotten a disclaimer. So I now disclaim ownership of anything below except for the words in the order they've been typed.
AN4: It's only 1am this time, but it's still unbeta'd so forgive me.
199? - A few months later
Kate wandered around Georgetown on the way home from some event or another. Each one seemed the same – women in fancy dresses schmoozing with men in tuxedos. Some were more elaborate than others; at this event, the women were wearing dresses she estimated cost in the thousands and diamonds that cost more than that. Unfortunately for Kate, more elaborate meant she had to dress up too. This evening found her in a knee length black Armani dress that had cost half a paycheck.
Kate wasn't sure how long she could take working security at these events. She longed for a challenge. Maybe an investigative role. But really, she longed for the Presidential detail. She was still too junior an agent for either.
Kate found herself outside the bar her colleagues had dragged her to a few months before. She smirked as she thought about the rather one-sided conversation she'd had with that red headed NCIS agent. What was her name? Oh, right, Jenny Shepard. Kate had been around long enough now to have heard stories about NCIS. There was one time some agent tried to take a counterfeiting case from her friend Marcy. The agent turned over about $50,000 in counterfeit bills. It seemed the agent saw it fit to withhold about $100,000 worth of counterfeit hundreds while they were working on taking down an artifacts smuggling ring.
Now she needed a drink. She went into the establishment and, alone this time, walked straight to the bar. As she called the bartender over, she heard a familiar voice to her left.
"Agent Todd. What a pleasure to see you again."
There was Jenny Shepard, sitting on the same stool as a few months before, in a pinstripe skirt suit and impossibly high heels, legs crossed, martini in hand. Not her first drink again either, Kate observed.
Remembering the motive for Jenny's drinking Kate asked cautiously, "So what has your boss done this time, Agent Shepard?"
"Aside from thinking I need protecting from the world because I'm a woman?"
"And here I was thinking it was just me." Kate laughed. "They tell me I need to wear a dress to events. Then they assume I can't carry my service weapon while wearing a dress and partner me with the burliest agent on our team, who happens to have wandering hands."
Kate picked up the gin and tonic the bartender had put down for her and took a healthy sip.
"Did you take my comment to heart?" Jenny asked. "I seem to remember telling you that probies don't know how to carry. You've learned quite well, I almost can't tell that you have it strapped... well... somewhere you'd rather the whole bar not know about. It's a nice dress by the way. It goes well with is Sig, no? I find everything goes well with a Sig. A suit, a fancy dress, the little black dress, jeans. It doesn't matter where you holster it, it's always nice." Jenny looked down and then back up. "Do you sleep with it too?"
Kate sputtered and coughed on her drink. "Sleep with it?"
"Yup, that way when you're on a case in the boondocks and your boss sees it fit to pick the lock to your hotel room to wake you up, he learns not to." Jenny smiled a triumphant grin. "I nearly shot him, too. Scared the bejesus out of him. Didn't think that was possible. He seemed to think that because I didn't answer my phone or his knock at the door at 6am when we'd finally gone to sleep around 4am, he needed to make sure I was still alive. Never did find out what he wanted to talk to me about. He just mumbled something about never being unreachable."
"Did you ever drink his bourbon and burn his boat?"
"Nope. Still can't stomach the stuff, not for lack of trying. And the boat, I didn't have the heart. I just added cream and sugar to his coffee."
"And that's bad?"
"Never mess with a marine's coffee if you want to live." Jenny said solemnly, then broke into giggles as she remembered the head slaps her teammates had received that day.
"So back to my original question, what has he done now? Aside from breaking into your hotel room, since you seem to have exacted revenge for that already."
"He has a thing for red-heads."
Kate just laughed.
2003
Kate saw Gibbs with the red head in the convertible. And she saw Gibbs flirt with almost every red head that crossed their path. Jenny had been right - he definitely had a thing for red heads.