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Gibbs watched Tony's retreating back impassively as the younger man stalked towards the stairs, all sympathy for him having drained from him moments ago when he had brought up her, and used her as a shield against his grief. That was a line that should never be crossed, it was so obviously off limits, but Tony had crossed it, and he'd done it with groundless accusations. Jethro had felt very strongly for Jenny, he had loved her, but his mind automatically deflected his real feelings as a result of his training; he couldn't afford to let his feelings get in the way of his duty, but that didn't change the fact she had meant a lot to him.

He had almost successfully suppressed every memory about Jenny, though it put a familiar knot in his stomach to think that it had taken the destruction of everything that could bring her to mind, including her house and all of her possessions, to put her to the back of his mind. It had helped that no one mentioned her, afraid of angering him, but the very act of coming into to work every day reminded him of her. Tony's comments about setting fire to her house and needing to see Ziva's body had brought back a lot of painful memories from Jenny's death, and he wasn't quite sure what he had done to warrant Tony's attack.

He told himself that burning down her house was the only way to keep her failure a secret, but he knew that he and Mike could have taken Svetlana's body somewhere else to dump it, or brought it to NCIS as some crazy woman who had started shooting at him. Leon wouldn't have been able to disprove it. Hell, he could have lured her to his own house, or a park or something, but he had needed to be near Jenny, and her study, the room she spent most of her time in while she was at home, had held the most memories for him.

He shook his head minutely to himself and sighed, before turning to the stairs that would take him up to MTAC and Leon's office. The team all averted their eyes before he could meet any of theirs, and Gibbs felt his stomach drop. They were thinking that Tony was right, that he had felt nothing for Jenny, and that annoyed him. Ducky looked back at him and scrutinised his expression carefully, looking for confirmation of Tony's words. Jethro internally cursed Tony, he had made his oldest friend question his feelings for Jenny, and that was not an easy thing to do. Gibbs glared at him irately and strode past his team, up the stairs and towards the Director's office.

Tony meant a lot to him too, his entire team did; they were his family, but his feelings for Jenny superseded those he had for everyone else. Ducky knew it, Tobias knew it, everyone probably knew it, except Jenny. He snorted indelicately at himself. The one that should have known his feelings was the only one he could successfully hide them from. From when she had walked back into his life four years ago, until the end of her life, she'd had no idea he had loved her, was in love with her, and now she never would.

He couldn't hate Tony for striking out at him in his grief, he had felt like doing the same when he heard about Jenny's death and then faced Tony and Ziva outside the Diner she had died in. He had wanted to lay all of the blame on them, to let them know that they had killed Jenny with their negligence, that she would still be alive if they had merely done their job and followed her wherever she went, but he couldn't. He had been numb, the reality just hadn't penetrated his mind at that point, even after seeing her name card and the pool of blood; it was just blood. It wasn't really connected to her; her body wasn't there to confirm it for him.

He had soothed Tony and Ziva, not really feeling any of the sincerity he was trying to convey, not really feeling anything. Denial was how he survived that day, until that moment in autopsy, when he had the black body bag right in front of him, Ducky looking on remorsefully, as he reached for the zip. His eyes had conveyed what he had felt in that moment, he knew they had been full of pain and resigned desolation; he hadn't been able to hold it in any longer. That was why Ducky never questioned him, his actions or his feelings, because he and the body bag were the only witnesses to his true feelings.

But he didn't open it. He couldn't, it would be too real. Seeing Jenny, her pale, cold, bloodless body on Ducky's steel slab was a sight he had promised himself he would never see, back when she had been his probie, his partner, when her life had been his responsibility. So he had removed his hand from the zip and walked away without a backwards glance. Jenny was dead, that knowledge was unavoidable now, but he would forever hold her in his memory as the perfect vision of the woman he had fallen in love with, rather than the corpse that Tony, Ziva and Ducky had seen.

He strode along the balcony and through Cynthia's office, barrelling into the Directors office without stopping, just like old times. Cynthia looked up briefly as he passed, but she didn't have the same working relationship with Leon as she'd had with Jenny. Leon was professional at all times, and his attitude grated on her nerves. She resumed typing on her computer before Gibbs even touched Leon's door, she really couldn't muster up enough energy to care that Leon might be disturbed, and knowing Gibbs meant that it would be a wasted effort if she tried.

Leon looked up, startled as the door swung open and Gibbs strode through, slamming the door shut behind him. Gibbs wasn't usually this disrespectful to him, though he knew this was how he acted towards the former Director on a regular basis. Gibbs approached Leon and leaned on the desk towards him, a quiet anger building inside him.

"Leon. Why was I not informed of Ziva David's death?" he asked in a deceptively calm voice. Leon's eyes narrowed at him, but not quickly enough to hide the flicker of his eyes away from his face, which said this wasn't the first he had heard of this. Gibbs knew that he was barking up the right tree.

"I hadn't thought you were on speaking terms." Leon answered, attempting to evade the question, but Gibbs wasn't going to be sidetracked that easily. He leaned closer to him, his anger boiling up from his stomach, ready to fuel his argument.

"That doesn't matter; she was a member of my team. I always want to know everything about my team members, Leon, you know that." He said significantly, staring into the other man's eyes, waiting for the fracture in his defences that would signal his surrender. Leon looked away from him and Gibbs smirked slightly. Gotcha.

"What makes you think I knew?" he asked, the question leaving his lips before he took the time to evaluate the position he had been manoeuvred into, but then Gibbs told him what, exactly, that position was.

"Don't play dumb Leon, MTAC is one door down with a direct satellite link to anywhere in the world. Are you really telling me that Director David didn't say anything, not even enough to excuse actions taken by his operatives?" he prodded irately, watching the other man break and finally look down.

"He did say she had died, he thoroughly described the operation and what went wrong when one of our Agents was caught in the crossfire in the desert. Two weeks ago." He said, surrendering his information. Gibbs frowned at that. David had told him the day she had been killed? Since when did Mossad give up information that easily?

"He told you the moment it happened?" he asked in clear disbelief, and Leon shrugged.

"Not exactly, he told us three or four hours after the incident." Gibbs stared at him incredulously. Mossad had told them about their operation in such a short time, which never happened, not for any reason.

"I want to speak to that Agent, I assume he or she is still alive?" he said, straightening his pose and moving towards the door. Leon nodded.

"Yes he is. I could get him on in MTAC in a few hours." He offered, watching Gibbs reach for the door handle and leave without waiting for dismissal, his parting words floating back to him.

"Good."

Ziva was awoken by the desperate need for oxygen. She panicked and struggled to breathe in until her faculties were returned to her and she realised her throat was relaxed to allow the contents of her stomach to pass out of her body. That didn't erase her need to breathe though. Jenny was holding her hair away from her sweaty face and away from her mouth as she retched again and again, her body shaking with the effort to force her last meal out. She felt a sharp pressure on her stomach and suddenly, she could breathe. Her next breath was such a relief she slumped back against Jenny and sucked in a few more, glad to feel the sir moving in and out.

She closed her eyes and tried to settle her stomach, but the smell was difficult to ignore and impossible to escape. Jenny shuffled away from the soiled spot on the floor, dragging Ziva with her, making soothing noises and rubbing her back rhythmically. Ziva opened her eyes and found that Jenny had turned her away from her purging, probably to stop her from seeing it, but she need not have bothered. She could taste the blood in her mouth; she knew she was in a bad way and apparently her time was getting more and more limited.

"You're ok Ziva." She cooed to her softly, stroking her hair back and wiping the sweat from her friend's brow. Ziva smiled and gave a short humourless laugh.

"No I am not, but then none of are, are we?" she asked quietly. Jenny's hand stilled and she sighed before pulling her closer. It was then that Ziva realised she wasn't the only one shaking. Jenny had been scared for her life, enough to squeeze her stomach in an attempt to help her purge. She had probably saved her life with that manoeuvre.

"No, but we won't get any better, you might." She explained hopefully, but Ziva knew it was false hope born of desperation.

"We cannot stay here, we need to escape." She said, her voice stronger than she felt at that moment, but she could see the other women turn to look at her, like she had called their names. They needed to get out of here.

"Some have tried, they always catch them." Jenny cautioned, but it sounded just like a precaution, so she could say she had told her about it later.

"They did not have our training Jenny. We can get out of here!" she said firmly, grasping her friends arms and looking deep into her eyes, trying to convey that in a few days, she would be gone, one way or another. Jenny looked away, unable to face the message Ziva was projecting to her, but reality was harsh.

She looked at Ziva then, her face with an open longing that made the other woman slightly uneasy. "You are the only one with the strength to break out of here, the only one whose muscles aren't wasted to the point of finding it difficult to walk, the only one that could fight her way out and bring help. The women have been talking about this opportunity for some time, and they are all willing to do whatever is necessary to help you escape." Jenny spoke softly, but her words were said with an energy that almost made Ziva smile.

"Jenny, any avenue of escape must be tried." She said, agreeing to the plan that she didn't know anything about, but one thing was for certain; she was not going to waste this opportunity, perhaps the only one they had for freedom. She would do whatever she had to in order to help these women, herself and Jenny, escape.

"We will get only one chance, Ziva. If they catch you, they will not show you any mercy." Jenny said gravely, and Ziva nodded.

"I will be ready when you are."