A/N: I don't own NCIS or its characters, if I did Jenny would have come back in the season finale to confort Gibbs.
As always thank you for reading, here is the ninth chapter, all Jibbs ;-)
Chapter 9: Getting to know you
January 18th, 2011 5:15 pm
Lyon Village, Arlington, Virginia
While the team was making some startling discoveries in D.C, Gibbs and Jenny were still locked in their embrace.
Gibbs had felt her tense up when he first put his arms around her but he hadn't let go and she had gradually relaxed, tentatively placing her hands around his shoulders and her head under his chin. He had been relieved that his prediction she would disappear at first contact proved itself wrong, and he planned to enjoy it as long as he could.
Well, he had planned to enjoy it as long as he could until the sound of someone clearing their throat called them back to reality. They turned towards the intruder, Nathaniel, standing a few feet away from them - arms akimbo, frowning, his lips forming a thin line. Gibbs almost expected steam to escape from his ears.
"Care to tell me why you're embracing the man who was accusing me of murder three hours ago?"
"Nathan," Jenny sighed. "You can't blame him for doing his job; it wasn't personal."
"Sure, you're the only one who has the right to be angry at him for accusing the wrong person of murder, aren't you?" Nathan snapped.
Gibbs flinched and Jenny straightened, glaring at Nathan.
"You stop it right now," she said, her tone low and dangerous. Any NCIS employee would have already cowered and fled but Nathan was braver … or suicidal.
"Why should I? We don't owe him anything!" Nathan yelled this time.
"But you owe me, Nathan; you owe me that much. Don't ever forget that!" Jenny replied in the same low and dangerous tone.
Gibbs was becoming more and more interested by their conversation and Nathan seemed to notice it because he swallowed his next reply and walked away from them after sending a last glare at Gibbs. He seemed to get that a lot from Jenny's friends.
"Sorry about that. He is a little overprotective. They all are actually," Jenny said, rolling her eyes.
"Don't be, I can understand," Gibbs replied, watching her intently.
She observed him for a while, nodded and beckoned him in, leading him to the kitchen - a bright space with wooden furniture. From there you could see the living room where Gracie was seated on the couch with her grandfather, both of them eating cookies while watching TV, so completely engrossed in some cartoon that they didn't pay them any attention.
Jenny started a pot of coffee, not needing to ask him if he wanted some. It would have been like asking a kid if he wanted gifts for his birthday.
Gibbs sat at the table, watching her every move. The shock of seeing her again was beginning to wear off and his mind was full with a thousand questions.
He was slowly realizing he hadn't known her as well as he thought. He had completely missed the existence of this strange family, missed the existence of a child and had completely misjudged Jenny's role in La Grenouille's murder.
He was finding it pretty ironic that he had tried so hard to protect her in every way he could from being accused of this murder when in the end she hadn't done anything.
The problem was that she had led him to believe she had done it. It meant only one thing: she was protecting the real murderer and he was starting to have an idea about who it might really be.
Jenny could feel the weight of Gibbs's stare on her and it was making her hands shake; she had almost forgotten how much Gibbs could affect her. She knew she had some explanations to give but she really didn't know where to start. She also wasn't sure of what his reaction would be.
She poured two cups of coffee, put them down on the table and she settled in front of him, taking a deep breath.
"I got the weird impression that your friends know a lot about me." Gibbs was a bit hostile and Jenny sighed.
"I told you they're overprotective; they try to get to know everything about anyone I could come across. It's the way they are. Don't forget they were Mossad, that's what they were trained to do."
"So they gathered information about me?" It came out more as a statement than a question but Jenny answered anyway.
"Yes but they never shared what they found with me. I told them not to."
Gibbs was slightly taken aback by that. He would have thought that after she discovered he had hidden the existence of his first wife and daughter, she wouldn't have missed the occasion to get to know all his secrets.
"Everyone has secrets, Jethro. If you had wanted to share them with me, I would have been happy to listen to you, but I wouldn't have betrayed your trust by using the information they gathered, at least what was left of it." Again, Jenny seemed to know exactly what he was thinking.
Gibbs wasn't sure he would have been as noble if he had found a file about her but it wasn't a good idea to say it. It took him a moment for her whole answer to sink in.
"You think I don't trust you?" Again, it came out more as a statement.
"Not as you once did, no. But I don't blame you for that. I put Tony's life in danger, I implicated the whole agency in my mess. I lied to you and disappeared, making you believe I was dead. I can understand why I lost your trust along the way."
Gibbs didn't confirm or deny what she said about losing his trust. It would be too difficult to convince her that, even if he had been disappointed by her actions and hurt that she had hidden so much from him, he could never judge her. He knew a bit about wanting to avenge family.
"You did what you had to in order to protect your family."
"I never wanted it to go that far. Believe me, if I had had a say in all this …" She stopped suddenly, her eyes widening; she apparently had revealed much more than she intended to.
Gibbs was starting to understand: former highly trained Mossad officers who had had to go into hiding to protect themselves from an arms dealer and who had still been discovered and attacked. Jenny had wanted to stop Benoit, arrest him; her friends had wanted to kill him.
"How is the team?" Jenny asked, diverting the conversation to a safer subject. She wanted a break so Gibbs decided not to push, for now.
"There were tough moments but we survived." He stayed vague on purpose; it was difficult to sum up two and a half years like this, especially given the events that took place during this time.
"I'm not asking you what happened, I heard about most of it: Agent Lee and Langer's deaths, what happened to Ziva, the Reynosa cartel revenge. I'm asking you how they are."
Gibbs raised his eyebrows. "How do you know about all that?"
His question made Jenny smile. "Just because I wasn't there anymore didn't mean that I no longer gave a damn about what was happening to all of you! Bob kept me informed."
That explained some things a little better, like what she said to SECNAV about not wanting to be a liability. She probably heard about what was being said about her time as Director. He wasn't particularly proud of this.
Before he could say anything else, they heard a knock. Someone descended the stairs and went to answer. A moment later, Nathan called 'Julie' and she joined him at the door, Gibbs not far behind her.
There at the doorstep stood the whole team, not looking too happy.
Tell me what you thought, good or bad, just tell me.
