a/n: I think this is probably my favorite chapter of this part - I was very satisfied with it, and on several levels, I think you get more insight - though obviously, Jenny can still be pretty unconvincing...

Los Angeles, California: 1994

When You Were Young

The wintery sun was pleasant and slightly toasty, exactly the way Jenny liked it. She never tired of being outside and comfortable in January, and today was no exception. She sat on the rusty bleachers at the community soccer fields, a nice sweater wrapped around her, and cradled a Styrofoam cup of coffee.

She was used to getting up early by now; she didn't think she'd slept past eight a.m. since Natalie had been born, but since Natalie had started school Saturdays had been –when Jenny wasn't taking a voluntary shift at NCIS to make herself look good – a day when they at least got until nine-thirty, until Natalie had started soccer.

Jenny thought eight a.m. games for nine-year-olds was a little bit excessive, since she had to get up at seven to see to breakfast and getting ready and allow for travel time – and that was if she was moving fast – but once she was here and awake, she didn't mind.

Early morning games meant she and Natalie were up and at 'em for half the day, so Jenny didn't feel guilty about going in to NCIS for the afternoon. Before, when she'd been doing work on Saturdays and leaving Natalie with friends or family, she'd felt a slight twinge of guilt. This rectified that, and Natalie liked the game.

Today's bonus was that Kate had decided to tag along – Kate came to a few games when they were at a decent hour, but this was out of the ordinary. As it were, the past two weeks after the holidays had been hectic, and Kate was about to deploy to a carrier for twelve weeks. She had to fly to Norfolk, Virginia on Sunday morning, and board an aircraft carrier, and since Jenny was at NCIS from noon onward, Kate was maximizing time with her and Natalie before she left for a while.

"I changed my mind," Kate said with a yawn. "Where's the coffee stand?"

Jenny laughed, and gestured to the right.

"You get up at four a.m. for PT every morning!"

"Yeah, and then I go right back to bed until my shift starts at nine," Kate retorted. She folded her arms. "I hate mornings."

"This was an optional social event, Kate."

She sighed.

"I love you guys, though," she relented. "I don't want to get up, just give me some of yours."

Jenny laughed again, and handed over the coffee. As Kate sipped, Jenny watched to see what happened as the whistle blew; nothing, it was just a time-out, and it was still Natalie's sideline quarter.

"So, what are you doing on this carrier?" she asked Kate mildly.

"They honestly won't tell me until I get there," Kate muttered, handing back the coffee. "It'll be related to my linguistics MOS, but, who knows." She shrugged. "They're sending me because I'm cleared, so I can't say anything, anyway."

"Carriers aren't dangerous, though?"

Kate blinked.

"Not unless a Soviet nuclear sub attacks," she snorted. She wiggled her brows. "And the Cold War is over, remember?"

"Mr. Gorbachev did indeed tear down that wall," Jenny agreed seriously. She and Kate shared a look, and Jenny offered her coffee again with a grin.

"Don't worry about me, Jenny," Kate said. "I'm coming back to marry Jackson."

Jenny squealed softly and clapped her hands, glancing at the small but gorgeous ring Kate work on her left hand. Kate smiled primly, and admired it for a moment, too. She used it to point at Natalie's neat ponytail.

"I think she's more excited than I am," she remarked good-naturedly.

"She loves weddings," Jenny said emphatically. "She didn't stop talking about Mom's for months."

"Why is she on the sidelines again?"

"Everyone sits out one quarter," Jenny said. "She'll go back in in a few minutes – and then you'll really get to see what she can't do," Jenny joked lightly.

Kate snorted. It was candidly known that Natalie was notoriously…not the best soccer player.

"Why do you make her play if she's bad at it?" Kate asked, pushing her hair back.

"I don't make her play," Jenny said. "I won't let her quit; there's a difference."

"Okay, Jen, my parents forced me to play violin for ten years, and they used that excuse – "

"No, Kate, if she was genuinely miserable, I would let her stop. There's also a difference between quitting, and stopping something because it's damaging your emotional well-being," she said.

"Mm-hmm," Kate muttered. "I'm not following."

"Look, she said she wanted to play a sport. I can't afford tennis lessons – which are what she wanted – so I asked her to compromise and pick a recreational sport at the Parks Department; she chose soccer," Jenny explained. "She started realizing she's not the best of the best a couple games in, and she wanted to quit."

She looked at Kate, patiently. Kate narrowed her eyes.

"So…?"

"So!" Jenny said earnestly. "I told her quitting on a team sport is very disrespectful, and I wanted her to think long and hard about whether she was quitting because she's used to being the best, or quitting because she genuinely hates it."

"Huh," Kate said, raising her brows.

"She came downstairs later, and she told me she loved her friends, and she liked her coach, and she has fun at practice, and I told her that's my point – she was bound to find something eventually that doesn't come magically to her, that she's perfect at, and challenges can be fun. She likes the game, Kate. She just isn't Mia Hamm."

"Who is Mia Hamm?"

"She's a soccer hero – you know Natalie, she researches everything about everything. She can tell you all kinds of stats about the women's world cup soccer team, but she can't score a goal or hustle."

Kate snorted, looking over as the whistle blew and the team huddled up.

"You're sure she likes it?" she asked.

Jenny appreciated Kate's concern, but she was venturing dangerously close to unwanted parenting advice territory – and it was twice as nettling, because Kate didn't have a child. She wasn't necessarily well-informed on the topic, but that was an issue Jenny had noticed in California, and Kate seemed to be falling prey to it: everyone seemed to think the village knew better than the mother how to raise the child.

"She's fine, Kate," Jenny warned. "Natalie's not afraid of me. She's always honest. And she needs this," she added, gesturing with her coffee cup. "I'm proud of her, but she needs to experience something that reminds her she's not better than anyone else because she's smart. She still needs to be humble, and decent, and well-rounded."

Kate nodded, pushing her hair back again. She clasped her hands and pressed them in between her knees.

"It sounds like you're speaking from experience," she said thoughtfully.

"Well," Jenny said dryly, "when I was a teenager, I thought I was smarter than everyone in my small town, destined for greater things, above it all – ad nauseam. My father was so busy being proud of me he never told me smart girls make big mistakes, too."

"What snapped you out of it?"

Jenny gave her an incredulous look and pointed firmly at the soccer field.

"I got knocked up out of it!" she quipped loudly, unable to keep a straight face.

Kate burst out laughing.

"Oh," she said, snickering.

"Oh is right," Jenny retorted. "If Natalie gets pregnant before she's got a college degree and her own two feet under her, I will have failed completely."

Kate thought about that for a moment, and pursed her lips.

"Well, I bet your father thinks that about you. And you spend a lot of time trying to prove you're not a failure. You're not, Jenny," Kate said quickly. "But, there's that perspective."

Jenny hesitated.

"It's not like I'd stop loving her. I see what you're saying," she amended. "But – that doesn't mean I want – I just don't want this to happen to her." Jenny sighed, shrugging.

Kate nodded, taking the coffee swiftly.

"I get it," she said.

Jenny nodded firmly. She felt an eerie sense of understanding for her father for a moment, and that felt surreal; all the years she'd said he suffocated her, made her feel like she was ruined, nothing more than a disappointment, and she just up and declared she'd feel the same way if Natalie ever made this mistake.

It was hard to balance understanding her father, and not wanting to react like that, with also firmly impressing upon Natalie that having a baby as a teenager was a very, very stupid thing, even if you loved that baby with your entire being.

"You intimidate me, Jenny," Kate said abruptly.

"I what?"

"I was just thinking about when I have kids, the other day, Jackson and I were talking," Kate went on, "and I thought, God, I could never do as good as Jenny, though. I'd do it the proverbial 'right' way with the husband first and all that and I'd still never be as smart or formidable as Jenny."

Jenny blinked at her, taken aback, and startled. She shook her head, her hands resting limply on her thighs, and she laughed a little.

"Good?" she repeated, in disbelief.

"You're hard on yourself a lot," Kate said quietly, picking at her nail, "but all that stuff you just said about teaching Natalie humility, and keeping her aware of her possible faults, I don't know, I'd never have thought like that."

Jenny sighed, pushing her hair back.

"Kate," she began, shaking her head a little. "It's...I spend every waking moment, every day of Natalie's life, trying to be perfect – trying to never make a mistake, to make sure she's always seen as a good kid, because if I make a mistake, it's just … so when you get married and have kids with Jackson, if something happens, no one will call you a bad mother; they'll laugh and bond with you over how motherhood is full of crazy surprises, and things happen and boom," Jenny snapped to reiterate her point, "it's not an issue. If slip up? If I'm late to pick Natalie up? Or Natalie talks back, or acts up? It's because I'm young, lazy, irresponsible – it's because I'm a dumb slut who had a baby too young and can't do it right. That's why I look like I'm always on my toes. I'm not. It's hard."

Jenny bit down on the tip of her coffee lid, and sighed.

"I've never been drunk," she said tiredly. "Because I've got her, and I chose her over what I should have been doing when I was 21. I've never gambled, stayed out all night, gone wild…" she trailed off, and her brow furrowed. "It makes me so mad, seeing some of these girls – there's a kid in Brent's class this year whose mother is twenty-five or something, I don't know, she had her boy when she was seventeen? And she shows up hungover; she goes out drinking, she parties – it's disgusting. I had my baby, and I grew the hell up. I had to. And I still get judged the same as these stereotypical teen parents who didn't acknowledge that having a baby is not like having a sibling you let your parents raise."

Kate let out a low whistle.

"I didn't mean to bring all this up, Jenny," she apologized after a long moment. "I just – admire you. Natalie's wonderful."

Jenny swallowed hard.

"It's nice to talk about it," she said hoarsely. She hesitated. "My whole life is about Natalie, and I would never resent that; I love her and I am dead set on providing for her and loving her, but I'm afraid that when she's out of the house, I won't know how to live. I'll be thirty-something when she's eighteen, and that's so young, but I won't know how to live. I never had an adolescence. And I want her to have one so, so badly."

"She will, Jenny," Kate said fiercely. "Natalie isn't going to take everything you've given her, and sacrificed for her, and throw it in your face." She looked over at the field, and grinned. "Too bad she's so cute," she joked. "It would be easier to keep boys away if she was ugly."

Jenny laughed huskily.

"You know, her father said that once. We wanted ugly and smart," she remembered – some day in the old Crenshaw barn, a thousand lifetimes ago.

Teenagers with a baby. Teenagers who didn't exist anymore.

Kate tilted her head.

"So, you look like you're always on your toes, eh?" she said lightly. "What's the worst slip-up you ever had with Natalie?"

Immediately, Jenny laughed.

"I was seventeen, and still in Stillwater – she'd just started crawling. It was spring, so I had the screen door open to our porch at home, and I was doing my hair and listening to a boom box, because Gibbs was going to take us out for dinner. So she's playing on the floor next to me, and then I got up to pick out an outfit – feeling like a normal teenager, because it was a Saturday night, and I was going out! With my boyfriend! And I turn around, singing into a hairbrush, and Gibbs is standing there. Holding Natalie. He was livid."

Kate arched her brows.

"What happened?"

"Natalie had crawled outside, exploring. When Gibbs drove up to pick me up, she was sitting outside the cages for one of Dad's police dogs. They're retired – he only keeps the retired ones, and they're always locked up. It was licking her face through the bars."

Kate covered her mouth, unsure whether to laugh or be horrified. Jenny nodded matter-of-factly; that's exactly how she felt now, seven or so years later – it was a little bit funny, because nothing had happened.

"Jethro and I had a huge fight about it," she said airily. "But, he didn't tell my Dad."

She fell silent for a moment, and then took the last sip of coffee, setting it aside. Gibbs hadn't told Jasper because he'd been acting just like Jasper, in the moment; he'd really freaked out. She'd been defensive and hurt at the time, but now she didn't blame him at all; looking back, Gibbs' fierce panic over what could have happened was not only endearing, but comforting.

"You know, there was never a teenage boy who was that good with a baby," she muttered, half to herself.

Kate knew better than to say anything about Gibbs, these days. Jenny used to mention him more, used to be cautiously okay with answering questions, but now she played it close to the vest.

"While we're on deep subjects," Kate said, clearing her throat. "What's going on with you and Brent?"

"Nothing," Jenny said promptly, carefully. She cupped her hands around her mouth. "Natalie, hustle," She yelled, encouraging. "Good job, baby!" she cried, when Natalie passed the ball to a friend – the friend scored!

Jenny grabbed Kate's arm.

"Look, she's improving," she drawled, shaking Kate. "I'm totally sticking with my mantra about humility, but wouldn't it be cool if she was an Olympian and a Nobel Prize winner?" she snorted.

"Mm-hmm, yeah, cool distraction – Brent, Jenny. What's up?"

"Noth. Ing." Jenny repeated stiffly.

"The both of you seemed tense during our last double date," Kate retorted.

Jenny rubbed her jaw, and gave Kate a wary look.

"He's talking marriage," she said dully.

Kate grinned, and flashed her own finger.

"Double wedding?" she asked happily.

Jenny shook her head. She looked back out to Natalie.

"I'm not reacting the right way to the idea," Jenny admitted dejectedly. "I can feel how wrong my reaction is. I can't explain it." She paused carefully. "The last time he mentioned it, he started talking about adopting Natalie."

Kate nodded, brow furrowed.

"He loves her," she said softly. "What's so odd about that?"

"Brent is not Natalie's father."

"Jenny – "

"Natalie's father is alive, he's never done anything that would allow me to revoke his rights without consulting him, his name is on her birth certificate, and I absolutely will not contact him and ask him to surrender her to someone else," Jenny listed sharply. "That isn't going to happen."

Kate gave her a frustrated look.

"He's not involved, Jenny," she said. "You can't blame Brent for stuff he's not even a part of. He's not trying to co-opt Natalie, for God's sake, he's a good man – "

"Yes, and he doesn't know what he's asking when he talks about that – "

"Then tell him!" Kate snapped. "You won't tell him anything about Natalie's father beyond half-truths and unclear clichés."

"Because it's none of his business," Jenny snapped back.

Kate arched her eyebrows.

"And if you don't foster contact between Natalie and her father, why does it matter if someone else takes that role?"

"Because someday – " Jenny broke off, her eyes suddenly wide with apprehension.

She hadn't meant to say that; she hadn't meant to suddenly reveal that occasionally, in the back of her mind, she nursed the fanciful idea that someday, she and Jethro would end up back together.

Kate nodded and snapped her fingers knowingly.

"This 'someday', this 'it's none of his business'," she quoted sagely. "Don't you think that's part of your problem?"

Jenny turned away, looking at the soccer field pointedly – things were serious with Brent, they had been for a long time now, and she was clearly stuck in one place, refusing to move forward. It was getting increasingly frustrating to him, she knew, and she hadn't yet decided if she could break down some of her barriers and move forward.

"Yes," she relented tightly, admitting it. "It's a problem."

What she said wasn't necessarily a promise to try and resolve it, to do better; it was an acknowledgment, but nothing really more, because each time she had an argument with Brent about this kind of thing, she realized more and more that while Natalie was young and under eighteen, she might never be ready to figure herself out romantically.

Jenny sat in front of a computer at the Los Angeles NCIS field office, chewing on the eroded eraser of the pencil she'd been using. She frowned and leaned back, turning her head as one of the agents burst in, looking harassed.

"Hey, Sharpe," Jenny said coolly.

"Has McLane called you?" Special Agent Whitney Sharpe asked tossing back her long blonde hair.

"No," Jenny drawled. "But Dan is scared of me."

"Well, I wish he was scared of me," Whitney retorted. She folded her arms. "He wants some kind of program to filter something about phone calls and cross-references, and he says you can do that. He says if you can't do that, I need to resign myself to spending my entire weekend doing it by hand."

Jenny arched her brows.

"That sounds incredibly time consuming."

"McLane is going insane or something, Jenny," Whitney said, collapsing into a chair. "He gets increasingly outraged that computers and electronics are so helpful, and tries to find ways to make me – us, any new agent – do things the 'old fashioned way'."

Jenny laughed.

"Well, I can write the kind of program he wants, but with short notice, it's going to take me a few days – and I might have to consult with a professor on the specifics."

"No, they'll want to classify the program – "

"Then I need to get some sort of authority to bring in a consultant in case I'm stuck. There's got to be some academic somewhere who's contracted with a clearance – I bet the FBI has a guy."

Whitney groaned, but she'd clearly prefer tracking down someone to assist Jenny's cyber efforts than grab a highlighter and ten pounds of coffee for the weekend. The young agent leaned forward, her shoulders slumping.

"They told me and the three other women they hired that we were definitely part of an affirmative action program, but we were more than qualified and wouldn't be treated differently –for God's sake, Jenny, I was in the Marines and I wasn't doubted and questioned this much."

"That's the military," Jenny said dryly. "You're all broken down and built up the same exact way; same exact training experience – you see each other as carbon-copy brothers, not rivals. The office is different."

"I'm hiding from McLane because I told him that if he wanted things back to traditional, I had to go find a way to grow a penis so he'd treat me like an equal."

"Oh my god," Jenny laughed, tilting her head back. "He's going to beat you to death with a baseball bat!" she snorted.

"As soon as he stops blustering in outrage, probably," Whitney laughed. She sighed and shook her head, folding her arms. "Where are the other geeks?"

"Uh, Agent Spano is at lunch, and Agent Carroll is fixing some wires somewhere. He has a firearms eval later."

Whitney nodded.

"I fucked up my last firearms eval," she said flippantly. She groaned. "I wish they'd just put me in special projects recruitment; I want to run ops from a management position."

"You just started!"

"They know what I'm good at," Whitney said shortly, and pointed at Jenny. "Just like they know what you're good at. Are they going to offer you an agent position when you graduate?"

Jenny shook her head.

"No, I'm a tech person," she said firmly. "I can't be an agent. I have a child."

"So do all these chauvinists!" Whitney retorted.

"Yes," agreed Jenny, "but their kids have two parents. If something happens to me, Natalie…well, Jesus, I don't know what would happen to her." She paused. "Damn, I should get on that. What if my Mom didn't take her and they sent her to Dad?"

Or Jethro, a voice murmured, and Jenny shook her head. She flushed slightly at Whitney's bewildered look, and cleared her throat. She smiled sheepishly, and tapped her lips with her pencil.

"I can look into working on that now if you want," she said. She shrugged. "I was just sketching out some theories for cyber-attack for Hetty. I'm going to submit some as part of my undergraduate thesis requirement."

Whitney nodded.

"I'll go placate the roaring beast," she said sarcastically. "Hey, when do you graduate again?"

Jenny held up her fingers smugly.

"Two months," she sang. "Right on time, babe."

Whitney gave her a thumbs-up.

"And yet, they don't pay you," she griped. "Equal pay for equal work my ass."

"Well to be fair, they don't pay the male interns, either," Jenny said solemnly.

Whitney laughed, and started to head out. Jenny turned back to the theories she was making notes on – it was a complex iteration of how warfare and intelligence might become solely digital in the future, and it was making her head hurt – but she took all of her free moments to flesh it out since, as she'd mentioned to Whitney, she was using it as part of her final project.

Instead of taking a full load of classes her last semester, she opted to take six credits as her internship, so she wouldn't struggle so hard to keep up with both – since she'd done that, she'd had to sacrifice the opportunity to get paid by NCIS and designated a student trainee instead of an intern, as government stipulations required for-credit internships be uncompensated.

Her previous semester doing NCIS full time, school full time, and parenting – along with keeping up her social relationships – had been exhausting, and expensive, since she'd taken out a loan so she could sacrifice work for NCIS. This last semester, she needed to go back to work, so she'd organized her university schedule so that a lot of was off site work. She was doing a six credit capstone thesis in lieu of two classes, a six credit internship in lieu of two classes, and the only time she had to be on campus was for her final required class, a senior seminar in intelligence and advanced hacking defense.

In high school, when she'd loved books and current events so much, and fancied herself a future glamorous lawyer or commanding political queen, she'd never imagined she'd one day learn to be so adept in the emerging field of information systems and technology.

But then, she'd never thought she'd be twenty-five and have a nine-year-old who would recite the entire periodic table, with correct assignment of atomic numbers, either.

"Jennifer?"

Hetty came around the corner, spectacles pursed seriously on her nose. She beckoned, and Jenny got up, following her into her office.

"I've got a few things to discuss with you about your future," Hetty said, getting right to the point. "Sit – yes, I've just got a call from Agent McLane; start working on that when I'm finished here. Sharpe will focus on getting you a cleared contractor if you need help, but I do think Agent Spano is capable of helping."

"Spano thinks Python is a snake," jenny laughed. "He's a mathematician, Hetty, that doesn't make him good with computers."

"Pythons are snakes," Hetty said smartly.

"They're also innovative computer codes."

Hetty nodded, and gestured again for Jenny to sit. Jenny obliged, leaning back casually; she liked Hetty, and always felt comfortable around her. She always felt comfortable around McLane, too, but that was probably because McLane was, in fact, starkly terrified of her and her computer witchcraft. With Hetty, it was more of a shared sisterhood of understanding – considering even the men who didn't know shit around here still thought they knew more than the women.

"When is it you graduate again?"

"Third week in May," Jenny replied promptly.

The closer the date got, the more on edge she felt; it had always seemed such an impossible and daunting goal, all those years ago, when she'd been a seamstress in Stillwater. She almost couldn't believe it was going to happen.

"As you were expecting – at least, I hope you had intentions to continue with us," Hetty said, looking at Jenny wryly over her glasses. Jenny nodded, and Hetty grinned knowingly. "I do have authority to hire you on once you provide us with Registrar's confirmation of degree conferral. What's your current GPA?"

Hetty never did shirk from possible awkward questions.

"Oh, it's, uh," jenny felt flustered; a twinge of her old high school pride flared up. It wasn't as good as she wanted, as she could have done, but again it wasn't because she wasn't smart – she just didn't have the time other students did. "It's a three-point-two."

"Mostly A's and B's?"

"I've only had a C in one course," Jenny said earnestly. "I got it in Russian? And I dropped it after that semester – I couldn't catch up, and Natalie had her tonsils out, and then she got pneumonia – "

"Poor dear," Hetty said, clicking her tongue. "I hope she was able to sample every ice cream flavor they have. Did you know there's pumpkin?"

"I…didn't," Jenny confessed, bemused.

"To give you an idea of what you're looking at," Hetty continued. She handed Jenny a piece of paper. "That's the salary we usually hire entry level employees with. You'd have to negotiate with HR, but you might bully your way up a step or two with your experiential training. Don't tell anyone I suggested that."

Hetty winked.

Jenny smiled, and folded up the paper – she kept that in mind, but looking at that salary, she didn't know if she wanted to push it. It wasn't anything spectacular, and she'd have to go home and figure all her payments and taxes and see what income she'd be dealing with, but she had a feeling it would at least ease what she'd been dealing with since she left Stillwater. It would be a real job; a steady income.

"Your title would be Cyber Specialist. Not fancy, but that's what we've got right now. With a few years under your belt, you'd then be eligible for our in-house Master's program – paid for," Hetty said, "or you might choose to go the Agent route."

Jenny nodded politely, and Hetty leaned forward.

"The important thing I have to ask you is, are you willing to move?"

Jenny looked at her cautiously.

"What, immediately?" she asked. "McLane did warn me that coming on at NCIS means implicit agreement to possible transfers – "

"Implicit isn't the right word, but yes, we shuffle around often," Hetty said logically. "I ask specifically because there's a high probability the main office in San Diego will want you to come to them."

"Oh," Jenny said, blinking. "Well that's not far. That's just up near Pendleton."

If that happened, she could even commute there from her current place. It would take an hour or so, but it wouldn't be too bad. If she couldn't finance a move, or if Natalie really hated the idea.

"That's what's most likely. We won't be sending anyone with dependents overseas," Hetty said, and Jenny felt a flash of disappointment; travel was something she'd always wanted, longed to get back to since her father had left the Army. "I doubt they'll send you out to the Navy Yard in D.C., because the east coast is taking computer people from MIT and New York universities. They're set."

Jenny nodded – God, that was all the way across the country. That was – last she heard, from the man himself—that was the area where Gibbs was. Quantico.

"I'm surprised the west coast isn't taking computer people from Berkeley and Cal Tech," she said dryly.

"Well, we are," Hetty said shortly. "But we took you from Cal State, and you're more than qualified, and you don't have the attitude," she added loftily. "I think Kate Todd putting your name in the intern coordinator's ear was the best thing that happened to this office."

Jenny looked at her curiously.

"Kate Todd? You know Kate?"

"Not socially," Hetty said. "You did say a friend in the Navy told you about us, didn't you?" she asked.

"Yeah," Jenny agreed cautiously. "But how did you know - ?"

"Petty Officer Todd is our military counterintelligence liaison," Hetty said simply. "She assists in linguistics. She knew we were looking for techies."

Jenny felt a little wary for a moment.

"She got me this position?"

"Not at all," Hetty countered. "She simply told Agent McLane – who was part of the selection committee, that it was important not to focus on big flashy names and, and men."

Jenny smiled a little, thinking of Kate. She'd just had a postcard from her, from the carrier. She seemed content with her position; she was hanging out in tropical areas on port liberty, whenever she could.

"She's on a carrier, you know," Jenny said, a little proud. "She'll be back for my graduation."

"Yes," Hetty said. "She's assisting one of our agents afloat on an investigation. It's a special project, though. I can't say anymore. I don't know anymore."

Jenny shrugged; she took national security very seriously, and she didn't need to know any more. She just needed to know that Kate was safe; and now, she needed to find a way to subtly thank her. She'd helped without making it a big, dramatic boon, and Jenny's life was better for it.

"You'll have plenty of time to consider these things," Hetty said smoothly. "We won't make an official offer until you've graduated. By then, the FBI or the NSA may have swept in."

"Or some private investor who would pay me gobs of money to encrypt his illegal stock trading," Jenny joked dramatically.

"Or that," Hetty agreed, quite seriously. She sat back, and lifted her shoulders. "I suggest you take some time off after school, a week or two, or three. Whatever you do, negotiate a duty start date so you can relax some."

"Well, I need to start making a paycheck," Jenny said lightly. "So that won't happen. But – I am taking Natalie to Disneyland. She doesn't know – she'll be thrilled. She wants to go to Tomorrowland. Hasn't stopped talking about it since her friend London went last year."

"You treat your daughter for your graduation?"

"I wouldn't have survived it if it weren't for her!" Jenny laughed. "Besides – who doesn't want to go to Disneyland? After Tomorrowland, I'm dragging her tiny butt around New Orleans Square for the rest of the day!"

Hetty smiled. She folded her arms.

"How is Natalie?" she asked, with genuine interest. No one else ever asked Jenny about Natalie, and that was fine; Jenny felt no need to extoll her virtues to her coworkers. But she did like talking about her.

"She's well," Jenny sighed. "She's halfway through third grade. She's neglecting science for the moment," Jenny revealed. "She's still very good at it, and loves it, but I think she noticed it's more boys that like that stuff, and girls were making fun of her a little. She's reading more fiction now, and she's joined girl scouts."

Jenny shrugged.

"It's a good program, so I'm fine with it. I won't step in unless she starts telling me science is only for boys. And she's not acting stupid to fit in, she's just expanding her horizons. I still make sure she hangs out with her Berkeley camp friends, though," Jenny laughed.

It was often just a relief for Natalie to have a higher caliber of intelligence a couple of times a month – Logan Mariano, still a little twerp with a clownish attitude, understood her science fascination, and London Ross, despite her lackluster – compared to everyone else – performance at the camp back in the summer, was basically a little walking dictionary. She taught Natalie new words all the time.

Jenny liked the kids, though she didn't particularly like the mothers. They were occasionally condescending to Natalie, and seemed to be of the opinion – the eerily Stillwater opinion – that Jenny was not a good role model, regardless of her current accomplishments. Jenny put up with it, though; it wasn't the kids' fault that their mothers were Orange county granola matrons.

"I'd love to see her again," Hetty said warmly – Hetty had come to the small celebration Jenny had for Natalie's ninth birthday. "She's a fascinating young woman."

Jenny grinned; she thought it odd to hear Natalie called a young woman – but Hetty had an odd, and very flattering, most times, way of defining people. Hetty nodded at the door, dismissing Jenny easily, and Jenny got up to get on that project for Sharpe and McLane. She stopped at the door, and turned.

"Hetty," she said. "There's this thing called cookie season coming up – can I interest you?"

Hetty laughed good-naturedly, and Jenny rested her hand on the wall, ready to start her little pitch; she'd told Natalie, that when the time came, she'd take the order forms to work as a courtesy, to help Natalie get a cookie badge – all because the troop leader's daughter was a bully behind her mom's back, and she kept insisting she'd sell the most cookies because her Daddy did it all for her, so Natalie was determined to beat her at her own game.

Logan Mariano was glaring daggers at the two girls in his treehouse, fed up with their girlish nonsense.

"London!" he whined.

He swatted at the Gameboy in Natalie's hands, and frowned when she easily avoided him. He never liked that Natalie had such quick reflexes – and for a girl, too.

"You be quiet, Logan, or I'll braid your hair next!" London Ross threatened primly.

"It's too short to braid, dummy," Logan sneered.

"Then I'll shave it all off and you'll look just like Lex Luthor," London said smoothly.

"Stop nagging each other," Natalie piped up, blithely allowing London to play with her long hair – London always wanted to play with Natalie's silky, pretty long hair. "You sound married."

"Ew," spat Logan, glaring at her.

"As if," London countered. "I'm going to marry the English prince. That's why my mommy named me after their capitol."

"Which Prince?"

"Harry. We're the same age."

"He's not even the good one, dummy," Logan said.

"He is so!"

"Harry is only king if William dies," Natalie said seriously.

London puckered her lips in a gorgeous little pout, and rolled her eyes.

"I want to be a princess so I can do whatever I want."

"Princesses are useless," Logan goaded. "They get stuck in towers and need people to get them."

Natalie shaped her fingers like a gun and pointed them at Logan, sizing him up with one eye squinted.

"Not Princess Leia," she said coolly.

"Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope!" mocked Logan. "She had to be saved, too!"

"Oh, please," scoffed Natalie. "Not in the other movies, nuh-uh," she reminded him. "First she had to go get Han, then she had to go get Luke – those silly boys were really draggin' her down."

Logan stuck out his tongue out at Natalie, and she handed him back his Gameboy.

"I told you I could beat it. My mom told me how the codes work."

"Cracking the codes to the game is cheating, Captain Kirk!" Logan cried.

"It's Mario, not the Kobyashi Maru," Natalie retorted.

London stomped her foot.

"Why do you guys always have to talk about that stuff?" she whined. "I hate space movies. Let's talk about a different movie. Like The Princess Bride!"

"Don't be such a girl, London."

"I am a girl!"

"I'm a girl, too!" Natalie protested. She stood up, gently shaking London off of her.

She touched the swirly braids London had done in her hair and smiled, turning to her.

"I bet they're so pretty," she gushed. "You should be a hairstylist when you grow up. One for the movie stars."

"My mom says that's too plebeian," London said, rolling her eyes and sitting down. "I'm supposed to be something respectable."

"Like what?" Logan asked.

"I don't know, someone's dime piece?" London said, bewildered. "I heard my Dad say my mom was raising me to be nothing more than that. But maybe he was just mad. They fight all the time."

"Mine do, too," Logan said seriously.

"Yeah, well, mine are getting divorced," London hissed.

Natalie furrowed her brow.

"How come?" she asked.

"Because," London says dramatically. "Daddy has AIDS. And Mommy says there's only one way he got it, but no one will tell me."

"He's gonna die," Logan said flatly.

Natalie poked him.

"He is," London said, looking at Natalie with large, innocent eyes. "Everyone dies of it. It's a plague of monumental proportions," she said astutely.

Natalie's lips puckered with sadness. She'd never known anyone who died before – and she wondered why London's parents would get divorced because her Dad was sick. She'd have to ask Mom about it later; Mom probably knew what the reason was. Mom pretty much knew everything about people's motives and actions.

"It would be okay to just be with your mom," Natalie piped up encouragingly. "I like it."

"How would you know?" Logan said suddenly, staring at her. He gave her a funny look.

Natalie blinked.

"I'm only with my Mom, duh," she answered, putting her hand to his forehead in a small smack. "Wake up, Einstein."

"Brent isn't your Dad?"

"No," Natalie giggled. "He's my second-grade teacher," she revealed. "He's Mom's boyfriend."

"I thought they were married," London said, gasping. Her eyes widened. "Is that why her last name is different?"

Natalie shrugged.

"They're not married," she said. "I think they're going to be. I like him."

"But then they might have a new baby, and they'd like it better because it would be Brent's real baby," Logan said seriously.

"Why is your last name different from your Mom's?" London asked curiously – while Natalie was still processing what Logan had said.

Natalie pursed her lips.

"Mine is the same as my Dad's," she said.

"Oh, your parents are divorced," London said.

"No," Natalie said, brow furrowed. "I don't think so. I don't think they got married. I don't know, they were only together when I lived in Stillwater."

"What's that?" asked Logan.

Natalie shrugged lightly.

"I don't know," she said honestly.

That was all Mommy ever said – Stillwater. Grandpa Ghost was in Stillwater, and so was Grandpa Jack, and Natalie barely remembered it there, unless she concentrated really hard. She knew she didn't miss it. California was home.

She reached into her shirt, and pulled out the dog tags, showing London and Logan the worn and beaten up pieces of metal. There were bite marks on them; she still chewed on them absently when she concentrated. Mommy was always yanking them gently out of her mouth.

"These are my Dad's," she said. "His name's Leroy Jethro Gibbs."

London giggled. Logan smirked, and Natalie looked between them, smiling. She guessed it sounded silly to them – but it was familiar to her, so she didn't laugh. Logan took the tag and pulled it closer, leaning in.

"U-S-M-C," he read. "Marine Corps," he told London.

"I know what it is!"

"I'm just saying!"

Natalie pulled the necklace back, and looked at it.

"Where is he?" London asked curiously.

"I don't know," Natalie said again. "He's in the military. My Grandpa Max is, too, and he's in Germany right now with my grandma. Maybe Gibbs is in Germany."

"Why are you calling him Gibbs?" London giggled.

"I don't know him," Natalie said politely. "Also on his cards, he signs them Gibbs. Or – well, the handwriting is girly. So I started saying that. Except I never talk about him. I never think about it."

Logan looked incredulous.

"How come? Isn't it weird that you don't have a daddy?"

"I have one!" Natalie insisted, jingling the tags. "Everybody has one. Haven't you had The Talk yet?"

Logan blinked.

"No," he said blankly. "What talk?"

Natalie sighed primly.

"You have to ask your Mom," she said. "My mom said other kids have to ask their moms."

She didn't elaborate; she didn't want to. The last time she'd asked about her Dad, Mommy had turned it into a little conversation on where babies come from, and Natalie never wanted to talk about that again. Also, it had ended with Mom poking her repeatedly in the knee and forcefully telling her that you had to be twenty-six to have babies.

Natalie was well aware that was a lie, but she understood the sentiment. Mom wasn't even twenty-six yet.

"Why doesn't he live with you, though?" Logan pressed. "Don't you ask? Have you met him?"

Natalie faltered. She looked at her friends – she'd been over here all Saturday, playing games and running around and making up stories. It was always like this towards the end of the playdates – not this, specifically, them asking about her dad, but this as in, they all sat around, kind of bored, waiting to be picked up.

Natalie tilted her head, thinking hard.

"I think I used to live with him," she said earnestly. She chewed on her lip thoughtfully a moment. She nodded. "Hey, you know what? There used to be pictures, but after we moved from Melly's, Mom never took them back out of boxes."

"Maybe your Dad's a murderer," London whispered. "And your Mom is on the run."

"Or maybe he abandoned her," Logan said, more logically.

Natalie looked at them both silently – she didn't quite know what to think, because she never took the time to dwell on this. She was happy with her mom; she was happy with her life, and she couldn't ever remember Gibbs being a constant fixture in it. She had always assumed it had something to do with the military, though she'd gotten a little more curious when Max married Melly, and he was military, and he didn't go away.

Natalie shook her head.

"He came to see me once," she remembered. "It was before kindergarten," she said solemnly. "I don't think Mommy would have taken me to see him if he was bad," she added. "She's very protective. She stopped taking me to the dentist who called me pretty too many times."

"What do you remember about him?" London asked, fascinated.

For two children from relatively nuclear, and definitely well off, upper class families, the sordid tales of Natalie's non-traditional background were juicy gossip.

Natalie thought about it for a moment, trying to wrack her brains – she really didn't have clear cut memories of him, she just had snapshots, images, maybe emotions; the last time she'd spoken to him, he had sounded scared; she remembered that clearly. And she'd told him about Jethro the Gecko.

She wondered what happened to that Gecko. Emma had taken it home, and Emma had moved to Texas last year.

"He was nice," she said.

"Nice?" snorted Logan. "That's all you got? Nice?"

Natalie didn't say anything else. That's all she had; that's the feeling she got. She remembered a beach, and she remembered he'd been nice. He hugged her, he kissed her forehead, he took her in the water and didn't mind if he got wet, and then she'd left with Mom. She remembered more about that night than about the day at the beach, because that had been when she and Mom shared the room at Melly's, and Mom had cried, a lot, when she thought Natalie was asleep.

Natalie didn't think much about him because she was content, and she never – until other people asked – felt like she needed to; but when she did feel curious, or a little sad about it, she still didn't go ask, or bring it up, because she was sensitive and intuitive, and she very clearly felt that mentioning him made Mom upset. She didn't know why, but Natalie did not like when she was upset, so she just forgot about it, mostly.

Logan lunged forward, his eyes glinting with a scheme, but he was cut short; his mother called up to them from the ground, staring up at the treehouse.

"Logan Michael! Natalie's Mommy is here," she announced. "You three come out of that tree – London, I'm taking you home on my way to the Farmer's Market," she added.

They scrambled down, and Natalie beamed, slightly relieved to be done with the Spanish Inquisition. She skipped over to her mother, always happy to see the slightly messy, lovely ponytail Jenny always wore. Mom had sunglasses on today, old scuffed sunglasses that she'd had forever, and an NCIS t-shirt. She popped some gum, and hugged Natalie to her side, waving at Logan's mom swiftly – polite, but quick; Natalie knew Jenny didn't like Mrs. Mariano.

"Have fun?" Mom asked, opening a car door for Natalie once they got outside.

Natalie nodded.

"We built a volcano," she said eagerly. "Then we played – London braided my hair."

"Fabulous," Mom said, nodding approvingly. "I'm glad someone knows how to tame it."

It wasn't hard to deal with, there was just so much of it! Mom had told her she was old enough to do whatever she wanted – within reason – with it now, but Natalie liked it long and wild. Except when she was doing something science-y or sporty.

"Hey, Mom?" Natalie asked, looking up at Jenny in the sun.

Jenny ruffled her hair.

"Hmm?"

"Is my Dad dead?"

Her mother stared at her, her hand frozen on the car door. She pushed up her sunglasses suddenly, and looked at Natalie, her green eyes lost for a moment. She pursed her lips.

"No, Natalie," she answered, tilting her head. "No, he's not," she reiterated firmly. She looked at her a moment, and then gestured tensely at the car.

Natalie climbed in, and when Jenny walked around and got in the front seat, she turned around.

"I would never keep something like that from you," she told her seriously. "Daddy's alive. He lives somewhere else."

Natalie nodded, putting her seatbelt on neatly. She pushed her hair back, patting it down from where Mom had tousled it. She knew that was true. She hesitated to ask anything more – and besides, why should it matter?

"Where does he live?" she blurted.

Mom met her eyes in the rearview mirror.

"Wherever the last postmark was," she said.

She handed the cards straight to Natalie; she hadn't even looked last time, because Melly had brought it over. They still went to Melly's house. Natalie thought about it, and then she arched her brows.

"Germany," she said.

Jenny turned her head around curiously.

"Germany?" she repeated.

"Frankfurt," Natalie remembered clearly. "The card said 'Tannenbaum," she said.

Mom looked a little lost, a little confused. She shrugged, though, and nodded; she didn't have any information, so that must be true. She'd have to keep a sharp eye for the next card – they came on all holidays now, which was why Jenny herself suspected Gibbs did have a wife stubbornly continuing with the charade.

Mom turned back around, and started the car.

"Mom," Natalie said softly, her eyes soft. "Why don't I ever see him?"

Mom sighed quietly, shaking her head a little. Natalie had no idea what was going on in her mind, so she watched her quietly, scrutinizing intently. She had no idea that when Jenny glanced at her in the mirror, the look of impenetrable concentration on her little face was the spitting image of her father's probing glare.

"It's not your fault," she said finally.

Natalie tilted her head. She thought it was an odd thing to say, but maybe it made sense. Mom probably didn't want her to think her father had ditched her because she was ugly or bad or something. She was sure there was more, but then again – maybe not. Mom didn't make a habit of making up stories, and as Natalie looked at her, she sensed inherently that this was a hard conversation, so – remembering that the last time Jenny had seen Gibbs, she'd cried herself to sleep – Natalie folded her arms, and started to talk about thin mints.

In the back of her mind, though, she wondered if Grandpa Jack or Grandpa Jasper knew anything about it.

She sat cross-legged in the middle of an unmade bed, absently drawing her nails over her kneecap while she glared pointedly at a Chinese food menu. She kept pushing her tangled hair out of her face and shaking it down her back, and she was trying to ignore a certain man's irritating restlessness. She bit the inside of her lip.

"You can't just retreat every time I bring this up, Jenny," he began.

She looked up, slapping her hand down on the menu and wrinkling it aggressively.

"I thought we were done," she said coolly.

"Done?" he snapped. "Done? We're not done because you pull out a menu and ask me if I'm hungry – we're not done because you just say I don't have a right to know – "

"You don't have a right to know!" she shrieked, interrupting him. She gave him an incredulous look. "I don't have a right to go around spilling the secrets of someone else's life because you're insecure."

"Don't give me that bullshit," Brent said, storming forward. He stood at the edge of the bed. "It's not gonna cut it anymore, Jenny. I'm through with it."

"Through with what?"

"I took this slow, I respected your position as a mother, your desire to put Natalie first – I still respect that. I would never ask you to do anything but put your daughter first, but we've been together for two years Jenny – two years!" He held up two fingers emphatically. "You don't want her to get attached to me, or confused, but you also won't let me step up to be a father and prove I'm a stable, dependable person, so I'm stuck in limbo – and telling me about her father is not spilling the secrets of his life," he quoted angrily. "You had a baby with this man, at some point. It's your life, too. You have every right to tell me what I'm dealing with."

"You are dealing with me," Jenny said fiercely. "Me. Not Jethro, not anyone who used to be in my life. Me."

"But you keep using him as an excuse!"

"Nothing we've discussed is about Natalie's father!"

"Everything we have ever fought about involves Natalie's father!" Brent shouted, his face flushing. "And you damn well know it – you're just so good at circumlocution, you make it sound like it's all about Natalie's well-being, Natalie not getting hurt – "

"I care about my daughter's emotional – "

"I'm not saying you don't! I'm saying I understand that you needed to be cautious and careful, and that I was a strange man you might bring near a very young child, but that was before she started calling me Brent, that's before she stayed at my house one weekend because you were in Nevada with NCIS – that was back then, Jenny, when things hadn't gone so far that I started to think you two were going to be my family one day!"

Jenny rubbed her face with one hand, and pushed her hair back again. She looked at him desperately, her eyes red.

"It's not that I don't trust you with Natalie!" she pleaded. "I do. I know you'd never hurt her; I know you care about her – "

"Jen, I'd call her my daughter in a heartbeat. I'd adopt her and never think of her as anything but my own – "

"She's not yours!" Jenny snapped, raising her voice. "That's the thing, Brent, you can't just come in and erase her father – "

"What goddamn father?" Brent yelled. He thrust his arm out wildly. "I haven't seen head or hide of this bastard in the entire time I've known you. I've heard Natalie mention him twice, maybe, and Kate seems to have the gist of him – you mention him, maybe, but as far as I know, he's a piece of shit! What kind of man doesn't give a damn about his own flesh and blood?"

Jenny shook her head, holding up her hands.

"Brent – Brent, stop, shut up," she barked. "You don't know what you're talking about. Don't – you don't have any authority to speak on him – "

"Then tell me, Jenny," he said, slamming his hands together and sitting down heavily on the bed. "You won't open up about this. You won't tell me what the issue is. If he's not around, if he's not involved, then why is anything going to confuse Natalie? She obviously has no relationship with this guy. I've been around long enough for you to know this is real, I'm not going to bail, and I'm not opposed to the responsibility of being a father – but this guy? This guy is!"

Jenny turned her head away, looking at the wall stiffly – this had all started with another question on the topic of marriage; it always turned in to this. Lately, she felt so wary around him, like this might happen, that they were just – trying to get through it.

Every time he mentioned this stuff – marrying her, adopting Natalie; it triggered two different issues: one, that she didn't know how much she loved Brent, and two – that she felt so guilty about destroying her relationship with Gibbs, she almost couldn't allow herself to let someone else be Natalie's father figure – because she didn't need it; her father hadn't hurt her – it wasn't really his fault that he wasn't there.

"I don't talk to him, Brent," she said finally, her voice desperate. "I have no contact – and she's under eighteen; you can't adopt her if she has a living parent who has rights – and if I contacted him, he'd never allow that; he'd sue for his part of custody immediately."

"So this is about you not wanting to risk provoking him?" Brent asked. "If that's the case, then I won't adopt her – I'll just be there. I love you," he said simply. "Doesn't that count for anything?"

"Yes," she said immediately; it was true, it did.

"Are you scared of this guy? Did he hurt you?"

"No," she gasped huskily, her voice almost breaking. "God, no, he never – he would never. He never hurt her, either. I don't want to talk about this, Brent. I don't want to talk about him."

Brent's fist clenched, whitened in frustration. He grit his teeth, and put a hand to his forehead. He stood up, and spun around, paced a moment, and then put his hands on his hips, glaring at her silently, trying to find something to say.

"I am doing my best," he said in a low voice, controlling his temper. "I am bending over backwards to try to understand, to accommodate, and you won't give an inch," he accused. "You can't have a relationship like this, Jenny, you can't expect me to be with you when this whole part of your life is off-limits! It's like being in a relationship with three goddamn people!"

She drew her knee up, and pushed her hair back, hiding her face behind her arm. Her foot crushed the Chinese food menu, and she tensed up. She had nothing to say, because he wasn't wrong. She liked Brent; she was comfortable with him, he made her happy, and he did like Natalie – Natalie liked him. She didn't know how Natalie would feel if she and Brent broke up – she didn't know what would do more damage, marrying Brent and it not working out, or ending things with Brent now.

She swallowed hard, and she looked at him steadily.

"Brent," she said clearly. "I can't talk about him. I don't want to talk about him. Natalie doesn't need a father. She's fine. We're fine."

Brent swallowed tensely, and nodded.

"Okay," he said stubbornly, clearly not buying it. "Fine, you're independent women. You don't need a man around. Fine. But what's that mean about us?" he asked, gesturing between them. "Can't we just be together? You don't have to call me Natalie's father," he said sarcastically, "but she's not a little idiot. If we get married, she's going to associate us with the nuclear family. You can't say 'this is mom's boyfriend, but he's just your friend.'"

Jenny nodded.

"I know," she said, looking down at her hands.

He rubbed his jaw.

"I thought we were working towards something. I thought we were taking all the right steps, to get to a point where I could be a part of your life, and it wasn't a threat to Natalie, and we're all happy. I thought that's what we were doing. And here – am I finding out that I never had you? You're saving this … this space," he said, picking up speed. "It's like you're saving this space for Natalie's father to come back. To let him just pick back up, being Daddy, being your man," he ticked off things on his fingers. "Is that it, Jenny? You don't seem like the type of woman who'd wait around for twenty years moping – I don't go for the Miss Havisham type –

"He didn't leave me!" she interrupted finally, raising her voice. "He didn't leave me, he didn't leave her – Natalie's father is a Marine, and I left him while he was at training! I wrote him a Dear John letter and I took off and the last time I spoke to him, I told him the same thing I'm telling you – everything is about Natalie. Everything is about me not confusing or troubling Natalie!"

She caught her breath after her confession, and Brent stared at her - -she had no idea what he was thinking for a moment, and then his brow furrowed, and he put his fingers near his head as if he couldn't grasp what she was saying.

"This is the real world, Jenny. This is life. Natalie isn't going to exist in an impenetrable, homeostatic bubble – things change, people change, and she's an incredibly smart, adaptable girl – it sounds like what you're trying to do is make sure she never blames you for any of your mistakes!"

"It wasn't a mistake for me to leave Stillwater," she snapped curtly. "Natalie never would have had things like science camp there. I never would have gotten this degree, or this job –"

"Stillwater."

"Yes, Stillwater."

"You said it wasn't a mistake to leave Stillwater," Brent said coldly. "You didn't say anything about it not being a mistake to leave him."

She suddenly felt like snarling at him; but only because he may have caught her – she didn't like mirrors held up to her; she especially didn't like him poking her sore spot, that she was afraid Natalie was going to go wild in these upcoming tumultuous years, and decide everything was Jenny's fault.

She grabbed the menu and got up, tucking her hair back. She swept her robe off of the side of the bed and slipped it on over her tank top and panties, tying it. She felt too vulnerable, suddenly; she felt penetrable and weak. She put her hand to her jaw, and then let it fall to her hip.

"She's so smart, she makes you think she's so mature, and such a little adult," she said pleadingly. "But Brent, we talked about this – book smarts do not equal emotional intelligence. She's more perceptive and astute than most kids, yes, but she's also just a little girl, and I don't want this to become a thing – where if it doesn't work out, she has a complex, because that's another man out of her life – and I don't want to bring him back into it – I don't even know what he's doing, maybe he has his own family he doesn't want to disrupt – in case that doesn't work out, and she feels like this is all somehow her fault – I am just trying to do what is best for my child, until she is old enough to make her own decisions – "

"Jenny," Brent said, frustrated, hoarse, "you're so desperate to protect the perfect equilibrium of the status quo you've constructed, you won't give her enough credit. You won't give her a chance to understand, you won't give me a chance. It's not like she's been tormented by a string of men who have warped her. It even sounds like – her father didn't disappoint her, he's just not around – "

"It's complicated," Jenny said quietly.

She put a hand on her hip. She opened her mouth, took a deep breath, and shook her head.

"You know what my father told me, the other day? Natalie called him. She called him, and she asked about her Dad. She asked," Jenny faltered. "She asked where he was. She even called his father, her Grandpa Jackson."

Brent looked at her warily.

"And they told her – I'm grateful, infinitely – they both told her that it was best if she ask me, because – well I don't know what my father would have said, he liked Gibbs better, after I left, but Jackson told her the only person who would make it make sense would be me, which was a little underhanded, but – "

"What did you tell her?"

"That's the thing!" Jenny smacked her one hand into her palm. "She never mentioned this to me. She called them behind my back, and then she never asked. I don't know what's going on in her head. And that makes me so, so uncomfortable. If she's struggling with something, I need her to know my attention will be one hundred percent for her, not for a wedding, not for – maybe I've been working too much, I don't know," Jenny said, pushing her hair back.

"But what the hell would you tell her, Jenny?" Brent asked, exasperated. "You refused to take her to see him the day of Melanie's wedding. You're saying that if she started asking, you'd suddenly be okay with disrupting her life?"

The way he said it sounded sarcastic, and Jenny didn't know how to explain it to him. It wasn't all his fault that he couldn't get it; there were certain parts, just by virtue of being a man and not a parent, that he wouldn't get, but other parts, she just wasn't going to let him see.

She licked her lips nervously.

"If Natalie – if she came to me, and she was serious, she wanted to see him, or find him, I'd take her seriously. But it has to come from her, don't you see? I wasn't going to just thrust Gibbs at her out of nowhere – and he dropped the ball on establishing a definitive, ongoing relationship, long-distance or no, so where I am right now is, is…" she faltered for a moment. She put her hands up, as if presenting a physical object. "I'm in a position where it has to be Natalie's choice. I put myself in that position, but that's how it's going to be."

"It's all about Natalie."

"Why are you saying that suddenly like it's a bad thing?" she hissed viciously. "You just said – "

"But Natalie's well-being is not on the line with me! I won't leave – if you'll agree to let me in – and if and when she wants to address her father, I won't stand in the way of that, either! What part of me being in love with you is so maddeningly hard for you to understand? That means it's for better or for worse, in sickness and in health – and you have got to do one single thing in your life for your own emotional health, Jenny! You're in a good place. You have established irrevocably that Natalie comes first – "

"We haven't even talked about what we want in the future!" she said, trying to deflect. "Our goals, our – "

"You mean like if I want kids? If you want more?" he asked, shaking his head. "Don't change the subject."

"Those are necessary subjects for marriage," she snapped.

"Okay," he snarled. "Do you want another baby?"

"I – no!" she blurted. "I'd have to start all over again just when I get a chance to live my life – "

"Why do you think you'd have to wait to have another baby until Natalie was out of the house?" he asked, throwing his hands up.

"Because raising Natalie right is everything to me! It means the world! I had her when I was sixteen, Brent; she deserves every second of my ambition and drive. I don't want that divided by some kid who had the privilege to come into the world in a stable, quintessential home."

"From the sound of it, it's going to be you and Natalie, impenetrable, until the day she goes to college," Brent barked.

Jenny's mouth snapped shut stubbornly.

That was it, wasn't it? He hit the nail on the head – she didn't feel like she had a right to anything like this until Natalie was set to go; until Natalie was squared away and taken care of and raised.

"You keep saying you love me," Jenny said. "Do you love me, or are you getting angry you've wasted two years on me?"

"Wasted?" he quoted. "I don't think I've been wasting these years, Jenny!" he cried. "I thought we both were working towards something here!" He came forward, taking her elbows in his hands. "I love you. I've never been shy about that. You don't have to be afraid that I'm going to disappoint you, or walk out on Natalie – "

She ripped her arm away.

"Love is not the cure-all!" she shouted. "Love does not endure every single hardship; love does not overcome all adversity!" She sounded like a crazed poet, but she didn't care; her trauma bubbled over, because now, years and years later, she still didn't quite understand how her desire to run far away from Stillwater and get out from her bubble-world relationship hadn't quenched the mind-numbing, consuming way she'd felt about Gibbs when she was a teenager. "I've been in love – I've loved someone so much that it defied all logic and I still left! It still wasn't enough to withstand hardship – you cannot promise me that you'll never leave, because love is hard."

She punctuated her last remark by slamming her fists together, and Brent took a step back. His shoulders slumped, and he put his hand on his jaw, gripping tensely. He looked like he might say more, but he fell silent for a long time. She swallowed hard, a few times, feeling a little sick – she was clearly blaming him for her own mistakes, projecting her own faults onto what might happen with them – and she wasn't taking into account that she'd been barely nineteen back then, when she couldn't make love work.

"You've been in love," he said finally. "But you're not in love now."

She opened her mouth, realizing how he'd interpreted; what she'd said. No words came to her lips to correct him.

"I am in love," she forced herself to say.

He shrugged.

"Not with me."

He bent down and picked up the menu, looking through it.

"Bottom line, Jenny," he said tiredly. "You need to figure out if you want me in your life. And if you don't – well, figure out how you're going to disrupt Natalie with that one." He flicked his thumb at the menu, and smoothed it out. "I'm going to pick up dinner."

He put on clothes, and was gone so quickly she barely blinked. She sat down heavily, her shoulders sagging, exhausted from the fight. She rubbed her face, and for a moment, though wildly of running, of just being gone when he was back – but she couldn't do that again; she couldn't let that become her modus operandus. She owed him better than that.

She got up, trying not to succumb to tears, and she wiped at her nose, walking over to his bureau to find a t-shirt, and some boxers to put on - she hadn't brought pajamas with her, because this had been a last minute thing. Natalie was only supposed to be at London's for the day, but it turned into a sleepover, so Jenny had gone straight to Brent's from NCIS.

She rummaged through his drawer, and paused, gripping the edge of the oak. She drew her hand back as if she'd been burned, and then shoved aside a pair of socks, and pulled out the hard, smooth little box. She felt sick again; she felt awful, for how badly this had fallen apart – because she had an inkling that Brent couldn't take this much longer. She popped open the jewelry box, and when she saw the ring – she knew it was over.

On the day she graduated from California State University in Long Beach, Jenny couldn't help but think of how different it was from her faux high school graduation back in Stillwater. Then, she'd had a diploma holder in her hands that she never put a diploma in; she'd barely made the cut off to walk, and hours after carrying Natalie across the stage in an act of defiance, she'd been at the hospital for hours with Ann Gibbs.

Today, Natalie was much too big to be carried across the stage – though she was small enough to stand on a chair in the arena and wave. She was seated relatively high up – tickets were assigned and distributed by last name – and Jenny had seen vaguely that someone had an arm around Natalie's waist to make sure she didn't fall off the seat.

She'd stopped, after being handed her pseudo-diploma, and taken a moment to wave back – the importance of this moment was indescribable, and throughout the ceremony she'd sat in her chair, restless, toying with her tassel, waiting for the moment when she could switch its position, yank her hat off her head and into the air, and prove everyone wrong.

Even if none of them were here to see it, and most of them would probably never know.

She wondered if they ever whispered about her in Stillwater; she wondered if she was some kind of cautionary legend mothers told their daughters.

She grinned to herself as they stood, the ceremony ending with lots of fanfare – the world was changing, and even Stillwater's finest wouldn't be able to stop it one of these days.

Her hands shook as she bent to find her cap, tucking it under her arm and trying to be patient as her classmates filed out – here in the mass of people, she realized she wasn't the only nontraditional student, but since she'd worked nights and taken her classes during the day, while Natalie was in school, she'd mostly only been involved with the average college students.

Except Kate; but Kate, unfortunately, wasn't here today. She should have been back in April, but her tenure on the carrier had been extended.

Jenny slipped through the crowd and made her way to a place on the grassy green, separating herself from people and looking around. She knew her family was probably caught in a huge crowd trying to get out of the place, but she still expected –

"Mom!"

She whipped around; Natalie had darted away from them, and used her smallness to battle the people quickly but politely.

Jenny opened her arms, letting the cap fall to her feet, and Natalie flew into them, laughing. Jenny pushed her hair back and kissed her forehead, crouching down to hug her tightly on her level.

"I did it, Bug!" she cried softly, kissing Natalie's forehead again.

She cupped her cheek in her hand, and Natalie beamed, nodding.

"I'm next!" she said proudly.

Jenny nodded.

"You got that right," she agreed fiercely. "Where is it this week, hmm?"

"Oh," Natalie sighed, fluttering her lashes. "Harvard."

"All the way in Massachusetts?" Jenny feigned a tortured sigh. "I'll just have to move in with you, in your dorm."

"Mom," giggled Natalie.

"It'll be like a sleepover – pizza, movies – "

"Mom!" Natalie gasped, poking her. She wrinkled her nose. "You can't come to college with me!" She laughed, as if Jenny were seriously deluded. Jenny grinned, and pinched her ribs affectionately, tickling her.

"We'll see about that," she threatened.

She hugged her again, closing her eyes a moment. She took a second to take it in, the victory; the ability to say she had a college degree, she was going to have a stable job, and there was nothing wrong with her daughter – Natalie wasn't a delinquent, she was a wonder – although Jenny tried not to bank on that too much; nine wasn't fourteen, and they had years to go.

"I love you, Natalie Winter," Jenny murmured sincerely. She leaned back, holding Natalie's cheek lightly. "You inspire me."

Natalie tilted her head, blue eyes bright.

"Me?" she asked, brows going up. "But I have it easy!"

Jenny swallowed hard; it meant so much to hear her say that – she hoped she really felt that way, like it had always been easy, and together, and figured out.

"I'm glad you feel that way," she whispered, a catch in her voice.

Natalie grinned, and nodded.

"Where's Max and Melly?"

Natalie took a deep breath.

"Well, Max is just getting here," Natalie said conversationally. "He got reservations at a very nice place, with food like lobster," she said seriously.

Jenny's face fell a little.

"He wasn't here?" she asked.

There had been empty seats, of course; Brent was no longer involved in her life – beyond still being a friendly adult to Natalie – and Jenny hadn't been able to get tickets for Jackson and Kate, which didn't matter since Kate was still at sea – but three tickets had been easy; she couldn't believe it had just been her mother and Natalie.

She furrowed her brow.

"No, Nat, I saw him – I saw him holding you, when you stood up," she said, confused. "You mean he went to get the car."

Natalie shook her head.

"No, you didn't," she corrected.

She turned, searching, and then spotted something. She darted off, and Jenny straightened, watching her warily. Melanie approached and took her face in her hands.

"Brava, darling," she said, kissing both cheeks. "Jennifer Morgan Shepard, B.S.," she reflected. "You know, you're the first woman on both my side and your father's to have a college degree," she told her.

Jenny clasped her hand.

"I bet the old fashioned Shepards and Singers would have had no qualms about my reproductive adventures," she quipped.

"About the baby? My, my, no – babies and marriage young, that's how they did it," she laughed. "Now, the illegitimacy – "

"Illegitimate? Mom, what is this, the sixteenth century?" Jenny snorted. She let go of her hand, and folded her arms. "What's this about Max?" she asked. "I wanted him to be here."

"He's meeting us for lunch; he was taking care of that," Melanie said breezily. "Don't worry about him, he's perfectly content. We only had three tickets and it was pulling teeth to get a fourth, so he kindly bowed out."

Jenny pursed her lips.

"What are you talking about?"

She had a quick flash of fear that her mother had invited Brent in a wild attempt to repair the damage. Then she thought it might be Hetty. But before she could ask, or Melanie could answer, Natalie reappeared, veritably dragging someone with her.

"Natalie!" Jenny barked, glaring straight at her daughter instead of sizing up the man. "You can't go around picking up strange men – who -?"

"It's been a few years, Jennifer, but I wouldn't call myself a stranger."

Jenny fell silent, her mouth hanging open in shock.

Natalie came to a stop, bounding over to Jenny and standing at her side smugly. She held Jenny's robe loosely, shaking it a little, and Jenny stared at the man in front of her – at the lines on his face, lines she herself had put there, with her childhood and teenage escapades – and at the proud stiffness in his shoulders, and the clean, familiar shape of his jaw.

Jasper Shepard's green eyes considered her intently; solemnly, and he gave her a genuine, approving little smile. His eyebrows went up slowly, archly, and he cleared his throat.

Still staring at him in disbelief – she'd never expected – it hadn't even occurred to her to invite him – all she could manage to say was:

"Daddy?"

He laughed gruffly.

"In the flesh."

She lunged forward, startling Natalie, and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly – as if he'd risen from the dead. She hadn't known, until he was standing in front of her, looking pleased with her, looking less hostile and austere than she remembered, how badly she missed him; how much it meant to her to have him here today.

"Dad," she sobbed into his shoulder, unable to hold back tears. "Dad," she repeated gratefully.

He ran his hand over her back soothingly, and pressed a paternal kiss to the top of her head, giving her shoulders a squeeze.

"'M proud of you, Jennifer," he said gruffly.

She looked up at him, and she knew that he really meant it – he really meant it. She compressed her lips, and he nodded at her once, affirmatively, reinforcing his statement.

"Natalie has one hell of a role model in you," he said.

Jenny stepped back and wiped at her eyes, rubbing black mascara so it faded, hopefully not too smudged. She swallowed, laughing a little huskily, and tried to compose herself. She folded her arms tightly, and tilted her head.

"I – what are you doing here?" she asked shakily.

He turned, and nodded.

"Your mother called me," he said simply. "She thought you'd be too timid to send me an invite."

Jenny licked her lips.

"It's not timidity, Dad, it's," she broke off, shrugging her shoulders. "Intimidation, I don't know."

Her father clapped her shoulder gently, and gave her a serious look.

"I got over it, Jennifer," he said bluntly, lifting his shoulders. He glanced at Natalie, as if to gauge how much she could understand and to be careful what he said. He cleared his throat. "Losing you put a lot into perspective."

Jenny smiled at him, her eyes welling up.

"Don't do that again," Jasper said hastily, cracking a smile He nodded at Natalie. "She's beautiful," he complimented. "She looks like," he broke off immediately, and gave Jenny an apologetic glance, before swiftly changing gears. "She looks like the first female president of the United States."

Natalie beamed at him, preening. She hopped up and stood close to Jenny, looking up.

"Grandpa Jasper said he's staying for a visit," she said earnestly. "He's going to spend some time with me," she told Jenny.

Jenny put her arm around her. She looked between her parents.

"Really?" she asked. "How long?"

"Through the next week. Your birthday," he answered. "You're turning twenty-six," he said wryly.

Jenny rubbed Natalie's arm.

"Ah, yes, as Bugsy here is going to be ten," she agreed dryly. She looked down at Natalie. "Did you know about this? Did you keep this secret?" she asked.

Natalie grinned smugly. She motioned zipping her lips, and throwing away the key – then she opened her mouth and started talking again.

"I got to call him and ask," she bragged. "Melly asked if I wanted to – but she wouldn't let me call Grandpa Jack, and ask him, too," Natalie added solemnly.

Jenny looked up at Melanie quickly; Melanie nodded, a little bemused.

"That's nice that you thought of him," Jenny said, "but Grandpa Jack doesn't really leave Stillwater."

Natalie shrugged.

"Well, Grandpa this one," she said, pointing at Jasper, "said he'll come seem me more often, now."

"You can do that?" Jenny asked Jasper.

He nodded.

"I'm nearing retirement," he said gruffly.

"I thought you'd work forever," Jenny laughed.

"It's not optional retirement," he said, rolling his eyes. The police force forced it at a certain age. "Year, maybe two left," he said.

Natalie rose on her tiptoes.

"Maybe we can come see you, sometime," she said. "Then I can see my other Grandpa, and he won't have to leave Stillwater. Stillwater is an eerie name," Natalie decided. "It sounds like a swamp from a horror movie."

"It is," Jenny said, deadpan.

"Jennifer," her father admonished, glaring. He arched a brow. "You had plenty of fun in Stillwater."

"What kind of fun?" Natalie asked.

"Really, Dad?" Jenny griped. "Nothing, Nat, I just – oats, and sowing, and whatnot," she said, trying not to laugh at herself.

Melanie gave her a wild grin, and stepped forward.

"Moment of truth, Jas," she said, her voice soft and songlike. She turned, holding out her arm. "Jenny, would you do the honors?"

"Oh," Jenny said, as Max walked up. "Dad, this is – "

"Maxwell Danes, Major, U.S. Air Force," Jasper finished smoothly, shaking Max's hand firmly – Max had been promoted since he married Melanie, and it seemed Jasper still had his old ways of knowing everything about everyone.

Max smiled a little, an ever good-natured smile.

"You must be Jasper Shepard, Colonel, U.S. Army, retired," he returned smoothly.

Well played, Step-Dad, Jenny thought smugly.

Jasper looked at Melanie, a serious mien on his face.

"Melanie, the Chair Force?" he asked, a smile twitching in his temple. "Did I teach you anything?"

"Only that she had nowhere to go but up from some gun-toting Jawa," Max retorted easily.

Melanie laughed, delighted.

"Inter-service rivalry; how adorable," she mused.

Max grinned, and Jasper folded his arms with a good-natured smirk. Jenny, too, knew the jabs were friendly; Melanie and Jasper had an amicable divorce, despite Jasper being unable to move on. From the way he looked at Melanie, Jenny could tell he still hadn't; she'd asked him once, when she was younger, why he'd never married anyone else, since Mom always had a boyfriend when Jenny visited, and he'd sighed quietly and said:

"I'm a Shepard, Jennifer. We're loyal for life and we don't move on."

She thought now that she should have taken those prophetic words a little more seriously.

"Jawas are from Star Wars," Natalie said suspiciously. She looked Jasper up and down. "You're too big to be a Jawa."

"It's a slang term for a desert soldier," Jenny said. "Grandpa's been to Saudi Arabia and Libya."

"Oh," Natalie murmured, still suspicious.

"If that bothers you, sweetheart, just call him a Jarhead," Melanie told her.

"No," Jenny said automatically. "Jarheads are Marines."

"Christ, Melanie."

"Jesus, Mel."

Melanie held up her hands, laughing.

"The real point is, the girls in this family have a penchant, clearly definable," she snorted. She pointed to herself: "Army, Air Force," she pointed to Jenny, "Marines," she turned to Natalie seriously. "Your options are Coast Guard or Navy. Or National Guard."

"NO."

Max and Jasper both rejected that notion immediately, and Jenny grabbed Natalie to her, pretending to protect her.

"Natalie, you can marry whoever you want."

"What if I don't want to get married?"

"Natalie, you can not marry whoever you want."

Natalie laughed. She grasped at the dog tags at her throat, and tangled them in her hands, shrugging.

"Does NASA count as the military?" she asked. "I'm going to join NASA," she whispered.

"Turn it into the Space Force," Max said eagerly.

"The Space Army," Jasper said, glaring. "U.S. Galactic supremacy."

"You're both such men," Jenny griped. "No one needs to militarize space. Don't militarize space, Natalie. I'm warning you."

Natalie laughed, and Melanie stepped forward, holding out her hands.

"Mini darling, why don't you and Captain and I go ahead to the restaurant, and let your Mom and her Dad catch up?" she suggested. Natalie still called Max Captain, even though he'd been promoted. It was better than having yet another "Grandpa" Insert-Name-Here.

Natalie looked up at Jenny for permission, and Jenny nodded. She shrugged off her robe and took her cap, and handed them to Melanie.

"Can you put these in your car? I'm roasting," she said. Then, she quickly took the cap back. "Wait – do you have a camera?" She knelt down next to Natalie, and placed the cap on her head, feeling nostalgic – she looked so smart and cute with that little black cap, and the last time she'd worn one, no one had taken a picture.

Natalie beamed, stroking the tassel, as Melanie found her camera and obligingly took a photo. Jenny kissed Natalie and was about to pass her off, when Natalie turned, keeping her hand on the hat, and looked at Jenny curiously.

"The last time you wore this kind of outfit, who was sick?" she asked, startling Jenny.

Jenny stared at her.

"Natalie…what?"

Natalie tapped the cap.

"It was purple," she remembered slowly. "You had the matching dress, the matriculation gown," she said – and Jenny thought she was just showing off, with that vocabulary, for her grandfather, "but we went to the hospital. Who was sick?"

Jenny was so…taken aback that Natalie suddenly remembered the Stillwater graduation, that she had no real time to think about what her answer should be. Maybe Jasper had triggered some latent Stillwater memories, or maybe Natalie was just old enough to think back hard on what was in her head now, but Jenny knew what she was talking about, and she had to answer honestly.

"Your grandmother," she said softly.

Ann, dying slowly; Gibbs fighting with his father, and then taking Natalie and storming down the hall, Jenny following in her graduation regalia. Things were so different now.

You remember that?" Jenny asked warily.

Natalie hesitated.

"No, no really," she said, fingering the tassel. "But – someone put a cap on my head then, too."

It had been Jethro. While they spent time with Ann, and Gibbs calmed down, he'd picked up the hat from a chair and put it on Natalie, just like she'd put his on Natalie the year before. He'd told his mother she couldn't go anywhere until she saw Natalie graduate college. He was going to make it happen.

Jenny nodded.

"Yes, he did," she said, without thinking.

Melanie reached forward and took Natalie's hand.

"Come on, love," she said astutely. "While we wait for Mom and Grandpa, I'll introduce you to a shrimp cocktail – Captain's treat," she bribed fancily.

Jenny let her take Natalie off with her, waving, and giving a thankful nod to her mother and stepfather. She stood up, touched her jaw lightly, and then looked at her father heavily, lifting her shoulders up and down as if to work out her muscles.

"Kids," she murmured. "They're astonishing creatures."

"Good memory," Jasper said neutrally. "You never remembered anything before you were seven."

He said it like he was grateful, and almost as a joke, and Jenny gave him a sharp, baleful glare.

"Yes, I did," she told him, shattering his illusion – she was twenty-six; it was time he knew she had not been some blissful innocent until seven.

"No, you didn't," he blustered. "You'd have mentioned – "

"Dad, I know exactly what you're talking about," she interrupted pointedly.

He glared at her sheepishly.

"I just didn't know what I was seeing until I learned what sex was. Then I decided to pretend I had no memory of being five and walking in on you guys during a thunderstorm."

Jasper Shepard gave her long glare.

"But occasionally I've wondered why the door wasn't locked. During those long, sleepless nights when I'm dealing with my trauma."

"Cut it out, Jennifer."

"I probably got pregnant because I was scarred in some Freudian manner."

"You're cruisin' for a bruisin'," he threatened.

She laughed, high-pitched, startled. She hadn't heard him say that since she was little.

"Well, don't worry, Dad, no one would accuse me of traumatizing Natalie!"

She said it smugly, and he smiled, but she suddenly felt self-conscious; that wasn't true, was it? Her father had always had a harsh opinion of her decision to uproot Natalie, and Brent seemed to think that no matter what, she'd set up a situation where Natalie would feel some sort of loss or abandonment.

She cleared her throat, and smiled warily.

"So…how is Jackson, these days?"

Jasper shrugged heavily.

"We don't interact much," he said gruffly. "You'd never know we share a grandkid, except everyone in Stillwater knows," he said dryly. "He still runs the shop. He dates."

Jenny arched her brows tensely.

"I bet that goes over well," she said flippantly, thinking of Gibbs.

"I'm not sure Leroy is aware," Jasper said bluntly. "He's never set foot back in Stillwater since he found you gone."

Jenny smiled lightly.

"Well, neither have I."

Jasper nodded. He tucked his hands into his pockets, and said nothing else for a moment. He cleared his throat.

"Where's this – Brent you've mentioned?" he asked finally.

Jenny shook her head with a small wince. She smiled sadly.

"FUBAR," she answered quietly. She lifted her shoulders. "It ended, oh, about a month ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Jasper said generically, his eyes curious. "Natalie seemed to like him."

Jenny nodded – it was still a little bit of a sore subject. They were weaning Natalie gently; she saw less and less of Brent, and she'd been told he and Mommy were simply friends now, so there was no abrupt absence, but Jenny had overheard Natalie asking Melanie if Brent did something bad.

"He wanted to get married," Jenny revealed heavily.

Her father cracked a small smile.

"You and marriage, Jennifer," he drawled, a knowing lament; because he was one of the few who knew how the constant talk of marriage had been a significant impetus in catapulting her out of Stillwater.

"Well," she said delicately. "You can't marry someone when you see the ring he bought you, and you immediately picture someone else giving it to you."

She laughed, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. Her father seemed to want to say something, but he didn't put anything into words; he stood there stoically, the same perfect posture she remembered, looking distinguished even in casual clothing. She took a deep breath.

"We've got time to catch up," he said, straightening a bit. "Best catch up to the others at the restaurant," he added, holding out his arm to her gallantly.

Jenny brushed out some wrinkles on the skirt of her dress, and took his arm, clutching it tightly before she let him start moving. She held him in one spot, looking up at him and searching his eyes for a moment, looking for the old disappointment, the resentment, and heavy distaste she used to see flickering there. It was gone.

"Dad?" she began softly, her voice cracking. "It means a lot – I'm really glad you came," she said, swallowing hard.

He squeezed her fingers and leaned over, pulling her head towards him and kissing her temple gently. He just nodded, and she sensed he had more to say – but he was right; they had time to catch up later. If he was staying at a hotel, she was going to insist he stay with her instead – she had never thought she missed her father this much, missed how their relationship used to be, and while relief flooded her at having him here, having him seem so reconciled to what her life was, there was a nagging feeling if distress in the back of her mind, because Natalie didn't have this – and Jenny was at fault.

Jasper Shepard accepted a cold beer from his daughter, and set aside the pamphlet she'd given him as she sat down on the couch opposite him and curled her feet under her. She lifted her glass of wine in a toast, and he nodded, accepting it.

"You pay that much for her to go to school in the summer?" He asked, gesturing at the pamphlet.

"That's the one she wanted to go to," Jenny said, pushing her hair back. "It's ten days, but its sleepaway the whole time – and it's not as science oriented as the one she went to at Berkeley, but it did have a Physics component, and she wants to learn Physics. She wants to learn a language, that's why she wants to go."

"But she's not at that one," Jasper noted.

"Well, she qualified, she passed the entrance exam, – but the ages are ten to thirteen, and to me that's a worrisome range…thirteen is such a vastly different age, and she's nine, so even though they were going to make an exception, it gave me pause," Jenny murmured. "Besides, the expense would have been a bitch, and it's in Palo Alto – that's four hours away, she'd be gone for over a week – no, I told her no on that one, she's doing Girl Scout camp and playing soccer again instead." Jenny shrugged. "I just wanted you to see what she's interested in."

Jasper arched his brows.

"She take it okay?"

"I don't mention expenses to her, but she knows that I'm not denying her to be spiteful. She's enjoying camp. She likes soccer," Jenny said.

He hesitated, and leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

"Jennifer," he started. "If you ever need the money to send her to one of these things – "

"Dad, stop," she interrupted, holding up her hand.

"I wouldn't be opposed to furthering her education," he continued anyway.

"Dad," she said again. She shook her head in a warning. "You and me and money are never going to be entangled," she said simply. She paused wryly. "I'm surprised you don't think extravagances like this are frivolous," she said.

A little tightly, she quoted his favorite word from back in the day, and she saw his face cloud a bit. His brow furrowed, and he leaned back. He tapped his fingers roughly on the side of his beer bottle.

"This isn't frivolous," he said gruffly. "I would have sent you to this stuff, if Stillwater had it," he told her.

"Well, Stillwater didn't," she said curtly. "Dad, I was smart, but I was not Natalie smart. Natalie is a natural abnormality and I keep waiting for whatever fairy spell was cast on her at birth to end and allow her to morph into the half-criminal, rebellious nightmare from a broken home she should statistically be."

She said it with some amusement, some frank seriousness.

Jasper considered her intently.

"You're from a broken home," he pointed out.

Jenny arched her brows. She was surprised to hear him say it, and what surprised her even more was – she'd never thought about it that way. She'd never considered her home – broken. Then again, she'd been the only kid in Stillwater with divorced parents.

She shook her head.

"I – no, it's not the same," she said, countering him. "Nothing I ever did had anything to do with finding myself, or proving something to you, or getting Mom's attention – I knew where both of you were, I knew the status quo – well," she switched gears, "I went off to find myself when I left Stillwater, but again, nothing to do with you and mom splitting up."

Jasper hesitated, and then leaned forward again.

"It occurred to me," he said, very seriously, very simply, "that you ran off because the only example you had was Melanie and I."

Jenny blinked at him. She pursed her lips. Her father cleared his throat, a heavy look in his eyes, like he was regretting something; like he'd been thinking a lot about this.

"When Melanie and I couldn't agree on what to do after I retired, we got divorced," he said roughly. "I took you to Stillwater, and she saw you in the summers. That was our solution. We didn't try it, Los Angeles or Stillwater. We quit."

Jenny shook her head, suddenly realizing where he was going.

"No," she said firmly. "No. I was – eleven, twelve? – when you got divorced. They let me have input on custody. And you – you guys were fighting a lot; I was glad the fighting would be over. Dad," she said, parting her lips and pursing them curiously. "I don't know what you're trying to talk to me about – this is ancient history – and you know, I did have examples in Stillwater," she added, edgily. "I had Jackson and Ann. Ann was a saint of a woman, but she was not blissfully happy. You and Mom were happy."

"I wasn't happy without your mother, Jenny," he said quietly. "I wasn't happy that I took you away. She was content with just summers, but I thought we needed more – "

"Dad, even at that age, I said I'd live with you because we both knew mom would – well, she wouldn't neglect me, but she wouldn't take care of me!" she laughed. "I saw that with Natalie – she's not harmful, but she's carefree, and she's always up for a good time! I didn't know how I was going to grow up, and start thinking, I didn't know I'd end up hating Stillwater. I met Jethro there. I wouldn't change that for the world."

She took a long drink of wine, confused about this conversation, unsure of where it was going. He looked at her, and then he set his drink aside and clasped his hands, pressing them hard under his chin. He studied her reluctantly for a moment.

"What's going on with you and Leroy, Jennifer?"

She tensed immediately, a thousand walls going up. Her eyes narrowed defensively.

"Is that where all this philosophy was going?" she hissed. "Spare me the pleasantries, Daddy, you should have just – " she broke off, and sat forward, pushing her hair back. "What do you mean?" she asked, exasperated. "He's not – I don't even know where he is."

Jasper looked frustrated, but calm.

"I know that," he said shortly. "I know. I want to know why Leroy's not – involved, he's not doing a damn thing," Jasper said, unexpectedly. "When you left – when you left, you remember, I told you I'd help him sue for custody if he wanted – you predicted he wouldn't," he recounted. "That's not the kid I remember, Jennifer. I know I didn't give a damn about him back then, I couldn't see past the mess you got yourselves into, but he paid child support like clockwork, he worked his ass off, he was a real father to Natalie." Jasper spread out his hands, his brow darkening. "What the hell happened?"

Jenny put her wine aside, and folded her arms protectively over herself. She looked away; she glanced behind her, down the hall at Natalie's closed bedroom door. Her daughter was fast asleep; it was an hour past her bedtime.

She took a slow, deep breath, and closed her eyes.

"It just didn't work out," she said vaguely.

"That's not good enough."

She looked at him sharply.

"This is so far out of the realm of your business," she warned icily. She swallowed, and leaned forward. "The way people are, when they're nineteen, and there are grudges, and hormones, and dramatics involved, are incomprehensible. Unfortunately, both of our actions when we were younger set a framework for how things are today."

"That's a lot of fancy talk for little clarity," Jasper said.

She grit her teeth.

"He used to call. He'd send packages. He'd call. He came to see her, once, when he was sent to sniper school at Pendleton. But I," she paused, remembering that day on the beach. "She didn't know him. She was timid. Sweet, and polite, Natalie always is, but I could tell it startled her. I was worried he'd just confuse or scare her, showing up out of the blue. He didn't try to see her again." She related the bones of the history, her voice clipped. "He called before he deployed to Kuwait," she said, "After that – nada."

Jasper looked at her intently, and she nodded.

"He stopped calling, he stopped sending packages – I didn't know if he was dead or alive, until I finally broke down and begged Jackson to tell me. It was total radio silence. Until last summer."

She watched her father's reaction; he just listened, his jaw tight.

"He showed up –tells me he's going to Quantico. I didn't take Natalie to see him. He wanted to – to establish some sort of defined relationship and I just – I told him no."

"You told him no," repeated Jasper neutrally.

"What the fuck was I supposed to do?" she snapped, harsh and defense. She flexed her hand. "He came out of nowhere, like he was in some twelve-step program! And right before he flits off to – to fucking Quantico, which is on the east coast."

She stood up, shaking her head.

"I have made mistakes, Dad, I have made plenty of mistakes, but he made mistakes, too. And Natalie is not going to pay for them."

"Don't you think she's paying for them already?" Jasper asked.

"Why are you bringing this up?" snapped Jenny, exasperated. She tried to keep her voice down. "Don't tell me the reason you really came here is to hound me again for what I did seven years ago! I thought you got over it," she quoted, sarcastically wiggling her fingers in the air. "After all these years, you're still Team Leroy, Camp Leroy, pleading his case to Jenny the Hag, Jennifer, the Bitch of Small Towns Past – "

"Jennifer," Her father barked sternly, calm but commanding. "You sound ridiculous."

"So do you!" she retorted. "So do you, unburying things that I've been trying to move past – "

"Calm down," he stood up, reaching for her gently. "Calm down, Jenny." He looked at her until she relaxed a little, and then he sat back down, gesturing for her to do the same. "This isn't about sides," he said quietly. "It's just about me trying to understand why Leroy is a complete myth to his daughter."

Jasper paused. He looked down, and swallowed hard. He lifted his shoulders, and when he looked up at her, he looked dejected; regretful.

"I know what it's like to miss your daughter, Jennifer," he said hoarsely. His jaw tightened. "I had more faith in that young man than this. He was inconsolable, when he found out you were gone."

Jenny's eyes welled up.

"I know he was, Dad," she said softly. "I had this – senseless delusion that it would all work out – but I told you, we were nineteen, and he was so angry. Nothing was going to overcome anger like that, at that age – and nothing was going to overcome my selfishness, and my fears. I'm not unhappy with my life here; I'm not miserable. I'm afraid of what would have been if I'd stayed."

Jasper nodded. He studied her a moment.

"Yet you stood right in front of me, and told me that you couldn't marry this Brent of yours because you still love Leroy."

She sighed, putting her head in her hands for a moment.

"I didn't leave because I didn't love him. It doesn't matter how many times I say that, no one gets it – him most of all. There's a fundamental disconnect plaguing my entire life when it comes to that – I wanted everything. I wanted college, and travel, and freedom, and a good life for Natalie, and Gibbs, and I got everything but Gibbs. I don't regret leaving Stillwater, but I – "

She stopped talking, and she looked at her father. She shook her head slowly.

"No," She said, with abrupt finality. "I'm sorry Dad; I'm not going to talk about this anymore. I spend my life trying not to dwell on this." She licked her lips, and ran her hands over her knees rapidly, focusing on the friction for a moment. "If there's anything you need to get off your chest, please say it now."

Jasper braced his elbows on his knees. He looked down for a long time, and then looked back at her, his face unreadable; suddenly he looked old, older than she remembered. His face was lined with worry and wrinkles; his hands were stiff, as if tired of the same thing, day in and day out. He sighed thoughtfully.

"I think you needed to be here," he said gruffly. It wasn't at all what she expected; her lips parted. "I think Natalie needed to be here," he went on firmly. He gestured curtly around him. "This life you've built for yourself – her accomplishments, your degree, your job," he nodded swiftly. "When you left, and you fed me all that crap about needing to be out here to make it all work, I blew it off. I thought you were nineteen, and you ran to the parent who'd let you have it easy. I was wrong. You needed to be here."

She compressed her lips. This couldn't be real; there had to be a but – there had to be something. But as the silent dragged on, she could see that there wasn't – he just looked sad; slightly empathetic. Something in her chest throbbed when she thought of his words – it was empathy he was feeling for Gibbs; his own absence from his daughter's life had been partially self-imposed, once she left and he refused to see her or speak with her, but he was worried Gibbs' was involuntary.

She suddenly put her hand over her mouth and started to cry, squeezing her eye shut.

"It keeps me up at night sometimes," she confessed painfully. "I miss him so much, and I don't even know who I'm missing anymore. I don't know him, who he is today. I miss sneaking out to the old bridge with him and I miss the days when it was us, and Natalie, against the world, and I am – this foolish fantasy I had of him leaving the Marines to come get me shattered, and sometimes I'm bitter that he didn't try harder – "

Jasper leaned forward and put his arms around her solemnly, pressing his palm to the back of her head. He took a deep breath, squeezing her arm.

"You don't leave people if you expect them to come after you, Jennifer."

"I know," she sobbed.

"You don't test them like that."

"I know."

But nineteen hadn't thought that way.

"I'm proud of what I've given Natalie here, and I'm proud of my life, but this one thing is always going to hang over my head, and one day, she's going to go find him, and God – who knows what he'll tell her."

Jasper pulled back, shaking his head grimly.

"You can count on it not making a difference," he promised. "Jennifer, she's been with you her whole life. She loves you, respects you, needs you. And I have a feeling – Leroy's the type who would die from the poison inside him before he'd spill it into her ears."

Jenny wiped her eyes, and laughed a little.

"That's poetic," she choked. "How – how do you know?"

"Because that boy hated how I treated you. And he hates his father," Jasper said seriously. "But Natalie never heard a nasty word about either of us."

Jenny nodded – that was true. Gibbs used to be amused when Natalie bit Jackson, or pulled some stunt on Jasper, but to her, he never said a negative word; he let them see her, let them love her, kept his animosity to himself.

She wiped her eyes again, and steadied herself.

"I might not have been so harsh, so quick to cut him out for good, this last time," she said warily. "but I just – I didn't understand his motives. I don't think they were sinister. But I don't think they came from him."

She could see a questioning look in her father's eyes, but she didn't elaborate. She just had the feeling someone had pushed Gibbs to reach out that day, and she didn't like that – she didn't know what that would have gotten them into.

"She never asks about him," Jenny said quietly. "We never go there."

Jasper nodded. He set his shoulders back, and gave her shoulder another squeeze, and then he got up.

"You up for that leftover cheesecake?" he asked, clearly exhausted from the night's emotional turn.

She laughed hoarsely and got up, following him.

"Yeah, I'll get the whipped cream," she agreed, reaching past him to the cabinet.

She wiped her face a few more times, and took some deep breaths, trying to organize and lock away all that had been said and discussed tonight – lock it away with all the other times she'd cried about Gibbs, and her past, and her guilt, and her fear of the future.

She'd love to go one year without beating herself up about it; without some reminder or accusation that threatened the foundation of the life she'd constructed without Gibbs. She had the sudden wild urge to find out where he was now, to call him, and say she'd changed her mind, he could see Natalie, she was sorry –

But she grit her teeth, and steeled herself against that impulse. Somewhere deep down, she knew her reluctance was frightfully self-centered; she was afraid of her feelings for him, afraid of his feelings for her, and she didn't ever want to face that – one day, she'd really admit to herself that it wasn't Natalie she was protecting, it was herself – Natalie was probably strong and smart enough to handle this; Jenny wasn't.

She didn't admit that to herself today. She just ignored the nasty thought.

The doorbell buzzed, and Jenny looked incredulously at the clock.

"Hmm," Jasper murmured, glaring at the time – it was nearing midnight.

Jenny went to the door, with her father on her heels.

"Dad, it's not a murderer," she said, waving him off.

"How do you know?"

"Uh, 'cause he rang the doorbell," she retorted smartly.

Her father still followed close on her heels, protective. She looked through the peephole, and quickly opened the door, before Jasper knew what had happened.

"Jackson!" she exclaimed. Her heart skipped a few beats; he stood there looking lost, distraught, and red-eyed. He swallowed, and leaned one hand on the door.

"Jenny, can I come in? I'm sorry it's so late – can I come in?"

She stared a moment, and then nodded, grabbing him gently.

"Jackson, what's wrong?" she demanded, shutting the door behind him. She looked at his pale face, and she clutched him tighter. "Is Kate okay?"

She didn't want to hear the answer, though; she assumed Kate's fiancé standing in her living room near midnight, in this kind of distress, was not a good sign. He swallowed, and shook his head, turning to her desperately.

"Kate. Kate, she went missing on port liberty, in Egypt," he managed, his voice constricted.

"What do you mean, she went missing?"

"They can't find her! She – she's been gone a month, and NCIS – they just told me, they showed up, knocking on my door…she's gone, Jen, she disappeared."

Jenny stared at him, her mouth hanging open. Jasper looked between them, and cleared his throat.

"Here – Son, let's go in the living room, let's take a seat," he said firmly, taking Jackson's other arm.

Jenny let him take Jackson away from her, and he started to usher Jackson into the living room. She turned, about to follow, and stopped short – because of course, Natalie was standing in the doorway; some commotion must have woken her up – either the knocking, or Jenny and Jasper fighting.

"Bug," she said, smiling brightly – it was fake, but she hoped it looked comforting.

"What's going on?" Natalie asked, her voice thick with sleep.

Jenny strode over and took her gently.

"Dad," she said. "I'm putting her back to bed," she told him firmly. "Come on, Bug, someone's just upset – we'll talk about it in the morning, okay?"

Natalie allowed herself to be pushed, rubbing her eyes. She let Jenny coax her back into her bed, and she rolled onto her side, blinking tiredly. She looked at jenny, her eyes wide, and she scrunched herself up, snuggling under the covers.

"Is it about my – Daddy?" she asked warily; concerned and confused.

Jenny shook her head, too distracted to deal with it. She needed to hear what Jackson had to say.

"No, honey," she soothed truthfully, kissing Natalie's forehead. "It's not about Daddy," she assured her. "Go back to sleep." She kissed her again, and slipped out, shutting the door firmly.

Her father met her in the hall, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

"This guy's drunk," he warned her bluntly. "I think he drove here."

"Shit," Jenny swore under her breath. "Did he say anything else?"

"He keeps repeating that he knew something was wrong. Jen, was this Kate a friend of yours?"

Jenny looked at her father with worried eyes, biting her lip until it hurt too much to bear. She nodded shakily, her throat constricted.

"She's my best friend," she said.

Present tense, present tense, she made herself use present tense – missing for a month wasn't good, but it was missing; missing wasn't dead.

She took a moment to lean against the wall, putting her forehead in her palm for a moment – she wasn't prepared to lose anyone, but she was paralyzed with fear over talking to Natalie about this – she spent her whole life stressing about abstract trauma that might come to her daughter over Gibbs, over Brent, over things that she probably worried too much about, and here was something real, something tangible and immediate, that might be the first truly tragic thing in Natalie's life.

"And sometimes you close your eyes
and see the place where you used to live
When you were young."
-When you Were Young; The Killers

-alexandra