A Choice 9
The next morning Jenny got out of bed with Jethro's help and used the bathroom. She was able to walk back to the bed on her own, but she didn't lie back down immediately. She pulled out her cellphone form her bag of belongings on the table at the foot of the bed. She found the number she was looking for and dialed. She bit her lip as she waited for someone to answer.
"Secretary of the Navy's office, how may I assist you?"
"Beth, it's me Jenny Shepard. Can you patch me through?"
"Of course Director Shepard, He's been waiting for you to call. Hang on one second."
There was a pause as Beth place her on hold.
"Jenny, how are you?" Her boss asked in a solicitous voice.
"I'm a little sore, but nothing I can't handle, sir."
"To what do I owe this call?"
"I wanted to speak with you sir, in person. And I wanted to do that before I returned to DC in 5 days."
"I can be out there tomorrow, will that work?"
"Yes sir. Bring Vance with you, please. All three of us need to talk, immediately."
"Very well Jenny, I'll see you tomorrow." And with that her boss hung up on her. She turned her attention to her lover who was sitting on the bed.
"We need to talk. Can we go outside?" She asked him and he nodded and grabbed the wheelchair the nurse brought into the room that morning, telling the room's 2 occupants that they should go outside and get some fresh air at some point.
Jethro wheeled Jen past the nurses' station and out into the courtyard. He stopped and let Jen get out of the wheelchair and moved to walk beside her as she used the handles on the back of the chair to support her weight as they made their way to a bench near a fountain. He sat down on the bench resting he back against the edge of the fountain. Jen sat down on the chair in front of him.
"Jethro, I know that you don't want me to give up the Director's position for you, but I want you to know that I will. Tomorrow, I plan on telling SecNav and Vance everything about the last few years. I will tell them that I am in a relationship with you, and if both of them don't like that then I will tell them that I won't be Director. I will tell them of my idea to lead the other MCR team that we created and that Vance can have the Director's chair. However even if they are fine with my relationship, I don't see me staying Director for long, I no longer want the job. You were right, I miss being a field agent."
"Jen, I love you. No matter what you do for a living. Just make sure that this is what you want, and I'll support you 100%. I only want you to be happy Jen." He leaned forward and cupped her cheeks in both of his hands.
"This will make me happier, I do love being Director, but I just want to be with you without having to hide our relationship. I too want the world to know that I am happy and I have the man I love beside me." Jethro picked her up and held her in his lap as he kissed every piece of skin he could reach. She laughed and held onto his head with her good arm. They sat in silence, stealing kisses from each other, for another hour. Then they headed back inside, maintaining some form of contact with the other.
When they got back to the room they saw that there was a bigger bed in the room, big enough for the two of them to sleep comfortably.
"Jethro when we get back, where will we stay?" She asked as they lay down in the bed.
"I was thinking about that. I don't want to force you to live in a house where someone died, but I don't want to force you to live in my house if you don't want to."
"Do you want to finish your current boat or start fresh? Because if you want we can sell our houses and buy a new one together." Jen was nervous about asking him to live together, but she knew that she couldn't sleep without him in the same bed as her anymore.
"Jen you sure you want to jump from no relationship to living together?"
"Yes Jethro, I'm sure. I don't ever want to sleep in a bed alone again. I want to live with you."
"Good, because I want to fall asleep next to you and wake up next to you every morning too. We can stay at your place until we find a place of our own."
Jen smiled at him and kissed him swiftly. "God I love you." She told him before kissing him again. They spent the rest of the day switching between napping and talking about what kind of house they wanted. Jen made a list on her Blackberry and saved it. She started to nap again and Jethro stepped out to get coffee and picked up a few magazines for Jen to read. He grabbed his suitcase out from his car and showered in Jen's room. They fell asleep that night in the bigger bed, more comfortable than the previous nights.
The next morning Jen walked to the bathroom by herself and walked around the room. The doctor came in and checked her and told her that she would be discharged if her blood work came back clean, later that afternoon. He took her blood again and left. A few minutes later a nurse came into the room with a sling, her shoulder needed to be immobilized for a few more days until she could get to a PT's office for an appointment. She put the sling on without a protest, she may hate hospitals but she would follow the doctor's instructions to avoid having to return because of preventable complications. She continued to pace until Jethro walked back into the room with two cups of coffee from Starbucks. He handed one to her. She took it with a grateful smile and gave him a kiss before taking a sip of the magic brew. They spent the morning lounging in the bed, drinking their coffee and stealing kisses. Jethro stepped out to buy them lunch and came back with some soup for her and a sandwich for him.
The soup was light and easy on her stomach and it tasted semi-decent. About an hour after lunch Jen was about to take a short nap, when the two people she needed to see walked through the door. Philip Davenport, Secretary of the United States Navy and Marine Corps looked dashing in his uniform and Leon Vance looked good in his plain black shirt, though he could take the toothpick out of his mouth.
"Jenny, you are looking well." Her boss greeted her. Jen nodded and gave a slight smile and shook his hand. He then turned his attention to Jethro, who was standing by the head of her bed holding her hand. Which SecNav ignored or did not notice.
"Special Agent Gibbs, I thought your team went home?" SecNav inquired politely.
"They did, I didn't." Jethro's tone was crisp, like a Marine reporting to his CO.
"Very dedicated Agent Gibbs."
"Sir?"
"You are very dedicated to your job to stay with your boss."
"Not my boss." Jethro's voice was becoming smug. Jen tugged at his hand and silently told him to shut up and behave. She turned her attention to her boss.
"Jethro was trying to tell you that he's not here because I'm his boss."
"Then why is he here and not with his team in DC?" Vance finally opened his mouth. He attempted to answer his own question. "He's here because he used to be your boss and partner. Very chivalrous of you Agent Gibbs." He sounded so sure of himself.
"No, Leon, he is here because he is my partner, present tense, not past tense." Jen told him, barely keeping the contempt out of her voice. Sometimes the man infuriated her.
"Jen, the director doesn't have a partner, unless it's the Assistant Director or you're Assistant." This time it was SecNav who spoke up. He sounded confused.
"Not a professional partner, a personal partner, sir." Jen told her boss, trying to hold in her laughter; sometimes men were dim. However the confusion lifted from their faces. A slight frown now graced her boss' face and a scowl was on Vance's face.
"Why couldn't you have used the terms boyfriend or lover? Partner is too confusing, given our line of work."
"Sir we didn't use the term boyfriend because A- it's a very high school term, and B- because it would lower the truth of the relationship in our eyes. As to why we didn't use the term lover; we didn't want to use a term that might offend you or Vance, that and we haven't had sex, this time."
Only one phrase seemed to register with Vance. "What do you mean 'this time"?" Both Jen and Jethro shared a look and went to answer the question, but SecNav beat them to it.
"During the Paris Op 9 or so years or so, both of them were undercover as a married couple. Towards the end they were a couple and the only thing they were pretending was the fact that they were married. Jenny left when she got the opportunity to lead her own team and Agent Gibbs returned to lead the MCRT." Jen and Jethro had no idea that their boss knew about their affair in Paris and shared a look. SecNav saw the look and a small grin crossed his face. "Yes I knew about the affair in Paris. And I also know that you did not renew the affair when she returned as Director. So I am assuming that this near death experience triggered the renewal of your relationship?"
"Yes sir. Will that be a problem?" Jen asked.
"Well, while I am glad that you told me . . . I cannot condone a relationship between you and Agent Gibbs, Director." The frown was back. He almost seemed sorry to tell them this though.
"Are you of the same opinion, Vance?" Jenny asked.
"You know that is my opinion as well, Director." Vance's face deepened further in a scowl and his voice had a thinly veiled sneer.
"Very well. What is your course of action, sir?" Jenny addressed her boss once more.
"Well I could order you to disband the relationship, but you won't do that, and if I found out about your relationship, then I would be forced to fire you. But I don't want to fire you."
"Well sir I can tell you right now that I will not choose my job over the love of my life, I made that mistake once, sir, and I won't repeat it. But maybe I have an alternative. . ." She trailed off slightly uncertain that the two men in the room would go for it.
"What is it?" Vance asked, cutting off his boss, who looked annoyed at Vance.
"We recently have received funding for another MCRT in the building, which you already know. I have been trying to find someone to lead this team, but have been unsuccessful so far. What if I step down from the Director's chair and take the lead on that team and Vance becomes the Director of NCIS. I get to move to a job I want to actually do, I'm a little tired of paperwork and ops in MTAC at all hours of the day and night, and Vance moves up in the world and you don't cause as big a media frenzy then you would have if you fired me. You'll still have to deal with the media, but it won't be as bad." Both men considered the situation carefully and from all foreseeable angles.
"I like the idea, but how does that change the relationship aspect?" Vance asked.
"We have no rule, agency wide, about dating someone who is your equal. And if I take control of the new Team, I will be the same rank as Jethro. Not higher than him or lower than him. Therefor I can have a relationship with him." Jen sneered at Vance, sometimes he was so dim.
"Very well. As of next week Vance is Director of NCIS. The announcement will be made in house when you return, then to the media. I want you to brief Vance on anything he needs to know about any on-going ops."
"There are none sir. I didn't think that I would live, so I shifted all ops. The files are on their way to Vance here at the LA office, sir. I wanted him to know everything he needed to if I died, which is what I thought was going to happen when I saw Svetlana after Decker's funeral. So I had Cynthia shift everything and send all the pertinent files out here to Vance, they should be here soon if not now."
"Very well then, this will help make the transition as smooth as possible. Vance check your office for the files."
"Yes it will sir." Jenny told him. at the same time Vance answered with a "Yes Sir."
"See you both in DC next week." SecNav told them and left the room. Vance just nodded before following, until he reached the door.
"Leon, wait." Jen asked him, before turning to Jethro. "Jethro can you get me some more coffee please?"
"Sure Jen, I'll be back in 10." He left the room. But he knew that she wanted to talk to Vance about something that he didn't need to know about.
"I know we discussed the mole in NCIS and you want to have Jethro investigate, but that's not going to happen, the way you suggested it. I've placed the three suspected agents on my team. I will handle the investigation with Jethro's full knowledge from the beginning. I will not have you split up his team."
"But you even said that Jethro's the best at what he does?" Vance asked confused by her statement.
"He's the best at training Probie Agents. But the whole reason why he has the highest solve rate is because of his team, which he treats like a family, as well as his infamous gut. That and that family will never believe that I spilt up the team, they will blame you no matter what I say about the matter. I don't want you to have to deal with a distraught Abby if the team is split up. She is one of the few people in the world who can kill you and leave no evidence."
"Very well Jenny. We will go on like this instead of as planned. Goodbye. See you in DC." And Vance once again left the room.
Now she just needed to plan the next step.
