A/N: So tired. Maybe I made a mess of this; if I did, I apologise in advance!

Thanks to everyone reading and reviewing!

Sarah x

"Gibbs!" Ziva David shouted from the balcony. She was currently stood outside the Multiple Threat Alert Center, dreading taking Gibbs in there. She had been called in about half an hour ago, quizzed by Director Leon Vance about the mission she was a part of in Cairo a number of years ago, and its aftermath.

When Leroy Jethro Gibbs looked up at her, it was with his infamous icy blue glare, but still she beckoned him up. She had been barely twenty years old back then, and she had underestimated the efficiency and secretive natures of people she had met. This was despite being the daughter of Eli David – perhaps she should have seen it, but she hadn't.

Gibbs appeared before her, and demanded, "What?"

"The Director would like us in MTAC. He is on a line with Fornell," she informed him. She watched surprise fleet quickly through his features before he stepped around her and scanned himself into the darkened room, Ziva hot on his heels. It was not long before they were stood next to Vance, staring at Tobias Fornell's enlarged face upon the gigantic screen.

It was Vance who spoke first, though. "Officer David," he addressed her. "December seventh, 2002. What happened that day?"

Confused and frustrated by having to repeat her account of that day, Ziva found herself frowning at the Director, but replied anyway. "I was part of an anti-terrorism operation. We had intelligence concerning an attack in central Cairo," she explained. She glanced at Gibbs, knowing that this second recalling was for his benefit. She could have sworn she saw a flash of anguish mixed with a strange fondness on his face, and wondered if he had already been told some of this story. "I was working with Jenny Shepard. She was an exemplary agent, but terrorists are more intelligent than we often credit them with. They came out of nowhere. We did not expect them so soon, or in the location we found them. There were three men. One took Jenny. One took me. The other was in charge."

She looked between the men, feeling compelled to continue. "In hindsight, we should have dyed Jenny's hair. It made her stick out like a sore toe."

"Thumb," Fornell corrected her with a small smile.

"Thank you," she answered him, resisting the overwhelming urge to glare at him. "Redheads are easily spotted in Egypt. I think it may be how they figured us out so fast. Anyway. They started on me first, probably thinking that if they tortured me enough, Jenny would be soft enough to cave in. She did not. She held off. So they held a knife to her throat and a gun to her back. I broke free of my captor and I disabled both him and their commander. When I turned, Jenny was bleeding. I shot her captor dead and hauled her out of there. At first I thought she had been shot, but there had been no sound. She had a knife in her thigh. I carried her a mile and a half to the nearest hospital."

Gibbs looked torn between confusion and pride, knowing that Jenny and Ziva had managed to escape with their lives. She knew why he was confused, though. Even Ziva did not yet know why she was being asked about this. "Did Jenny ever mention a woman named Jocelyn to either of you?" Fornell asked.

Ziva had never heard Jenny mention the name before, and she had a feeling Gibbs had never heard it, either. So they both shook their heads, only to be handed a file marked 'classified.' They glanced at one another; it was never a good sign when classified files started to be shared. But they looked. Ziva had to contain her shock when she stared down at the paper, a photograph of a woman identical to Jenny Shepard staring back at her. The file logged the whereabouts of a Jocelyn Sharpe from 17th December, 2002, until spring last year. A note recorded that, on April seventeenth, 2003, Jocelyn was granted British citizenship. There were no records at all after April thirtieth of last year. None at all. After quarterly loggings, it looked strange, suspicious, even, for all records to cease like that.

"She was placed in the UK by NCIS ten days after that attack," Vance explained.

"On whose authority?" Gibbs asked.

"Director Morrow authorised it, but the placement was requested by Special Agent Jennifer Shepard," Vance replied.

Ziva was stunned. How could Jenny have managed that from an Egyptian hospital? Ziva had barely left her side, and Jenny had managed to have someone she obviously cared about placed in the United Kingdom. "Jocelyn Sharpe has since gone missing," said Fornell. "She was last seen in London on May fourteenth last year, in London. I'm here in London, trying to assisted UCOS in their investigation; we're all keen to track Jocelyn down. She has multiple sclerosis."

Alarm bells rang within Ziva. Had Ducky not said that Jenny was ill before she got herself shot dead in that diner eight months ago?

This obviously had Jenny's name written all over it. The secrecy, the use of the system, the stubborn determination to get what she felt she needed...it was practically watermarked with Jenny's name. "What is UCOS?" asked Ziva, curious as to what exactly was searching with Jocelyn in England. It was just so bizarre.

"Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad. Run by the Metropolitan Police in London. Their leader in Detective Superintendent Sandra Pullman. The rest are retired ex-officers," Fornell elaborated. To Ziva, it sounded a stroke of genius and a recipe for chaos at the same time – after all, who knew old cases better and had worse working practice than retired police officers?

Vance turned to face Gibbs and Ziva with an intense stare; it was then that she knew what was coming. "Pack a bag. Tell DiNozzo and McGee to pack theirs, too. I'm sending you to London to assist with the investigation and the search for this woman. If Jenny Shepard has played her part, and I think she has, they'll need someone who knows how her mind worked."

Gibbs let out a surprising and derisive snigger, much to Ziva's surprise. He had been his normal stoic self until now. "I don't think anyone knew Jenny as well as they thought they did," was his comment. He sounded almost bitter about it, like he was annoyed the Jenny had been smart enough to do this. Ziva noticed that, every time Gibbs saw a slightly haywire side to his deceased ex-lover, he got more wound up, more frustrated and far angrier. The same had happened when Jenny was alive, only the crazy, mad woman was there to take the brunt of it herself.

Neither Ziva or Gibbs said anything. All they gave was a nod of acknowledgement of their ordered before they left in a stunned silence. It was Ziva who eventually broke that silence as they stood on the balcony, watched Tony DiNozzo and Timothy McGee for a few moments before they dragged up Jenny's past for them. "I wish I knew why she had done it," admitted Ziva. "I wish she had told me she had taken steps to protect someone. I could have helped."

"Jenny never did ask for help from her friends," Gibbs reasoned, but, again, he did not sound pleased about that. But who would be pleased to discover that the woman he had once loved had told him nothing of an almost identical woman's existence. If Ziva did not know Jenny's family history, and if her father's death had not sent his in a downward spiral fifteen years after the fact, Ziva's first reaction would have been that they were related. But they weren't. Though, it was Jenny herself who believed one should never take at face value the things they read on paper. Most of it was bent of broken truths, anyway.

Ziva watched Tony as he worked, wishing he did not have to be involved in this investigation. He struggled with Jenny's death as it was, blaming himself for taking her orders, for allowing his past experiences with her judgement cloud his own, for not being there at the moment he could have saved her. He did not fully grasp that Jenny went out to that desert looking for death. It was as close to suicide as one could get without holding a gun to their head. Ziva knew that. Ducky definitely knew that. So why could Tony not accept that?

She then looked at McGee. He had Jenny were never close. Jenny chose to push him into being the best he could be, becoming inaccessible to him in the process. Ziva did not want to be the one to explain anything more. She was leaving that to Gibbs.

But Tony was the person who worried her right now. She feared that if he heard Jenny's name brought up in this case before they reached London, he would refuse to help. Even in death, Tony seemed to struggle with trust issues with Jenny, after the whole Jeanne-Benoit-La-Grenouille saga – and who could really blame him?

Please feel free to drop me a review and tell me your thoughts!
Sarah x