Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Gibbs stood by the front door of the Diner, looking out in to the dusty wasteland, the harsh sunlight reflecting off of the sand to almost burn an after image into his retinas, waiting for the inevitable attack. If Svetlana had gotten to Sasha, then chances are she told her where to find them, so he had to be on his guard. She would be on her way to kill them, probably with backup. He had secured the area, as much as it could be, which meant moving any objects in the road that could be used as cover for the enemy, including parking the cars around the back of the diner. Inside he had pulled the tables close to the doors to herd the assailants in to one place, the bottle neck ensuring they could be picked off one at a time. It left almost no cover for them though, so they would have to just spread out a little and hope they killed Svetlana and any people she brought with her before they could fire their weapons.

The work had helped to keep his mind off of Jenny, who had been looking at the pictures that were hung up in the diner with Mike, although they seemed to have gotten bored with that now. Jethro turned around to see what they were doing now, and saw Mike was pulling the pictures out of the frames and stacking them in the fire place, ready to burn. Annoyance spread through him as he watched them disrespect the property and the memory of one of his friends, prompting him to step away from the door and walk the short distance to them.

"What do you think you are doing, Jen? Is it not enough for you to get the guy and his girlfriend killed? Do you have to destroy his memory too?" Jenny flinched and avoided his eyes, instead she looked at a piece of paper that she held in her hand, which she apparently wasn't adding to the pile.

"No. I'm trying to destroy the insurance policy so Svetlana can't read it." her voice was carefully controlled and quiet, as if she didn't trust it to stay steady. Gibbs looked at the pile of photos in mild disbelief and a little bit of pride. It seemed that Will had never lost his sneaky side after all.

"This is the insurance policy?" Jenny nodded and held up the piece of paper for him to see.

"Yes, the dates were wrong. It was in the code we used back in Paris. I got the numbers down and now we are destroying the originals, so please stand back." he did as he was told and Mike lit a fire, the orange flames catching quickly, making the pictures curl and burn. Gibbs watched for a moment before trying to order his thoughts. This whole mess just didn't feel right to him. He was missing something, something big, and Jenny knew what it was. He folded his arms and stared at her, bringing the full weight of the Gibbs glare on her. She pretended not to notice his sudden avid attention, but he could tell his glare was working.

"You know, some things just aren't adding up for me. Why would Will have an insurance policy about Svetlana? She was your target, not his. Did he figure out that you lied about completing the hit? Is this all from stalking the woman you should have killed?" Jenny bristled, whatever control she had gained over her emotions snapped, and she turned her hurt and angry eyes on him.

"She wasn't my target!" Gibbs scoffed, he knew that she was! What game was she playing?

"The hell she wasn't! I was there when our targets were shared out, I know who got who!" Jenny shook her head, her hands trembling with rage. Why did he never listen?

"We swapped targets, I killed his but he didn't bother with mine." The audacity of the woman! Gibbs pulled a face, disgusted with what he was hearing. Jenny had never struck him as the type to speak ill of the dead, but this slander against Decker was just too much to bear.

"Oh that's rich Jenny, blaming Will while he isn't here to defend himself!" Jenny stood up and faced him, looking him in the eye. Her eye betrayed her lies, so she would show him that she had nothing to hide.

"It's the truth! Tom Morrow knows, call him! Better yet, just look at the case file, it's all there!" No twitch, she was telling the truth, he thought incredulously. What the hell was going on? What had happened right under his nose in Paris that he had missed?

"Why would he swap with you? It makes no sense!"

"He said he had been seen so he needed to swap with me, I don't know why he didn't kill her. Will reported his target dead, and then said I had failed to kill Svetlana. The only reason I still have a job in NCIS is that I could correctly say how I had killed the target and Will couldn't. He was kept behind in Paris as punishment and then reported her dead, yet she is still here. What does that tell you about dear William?" she continued to glare at him, hoping he would believe her but fortifying herself for the chance that he wouldn't. She couldn't help but feel crushed that it had taken so much for him to really listen to her; his stubborn streak just wouldn't accept that he was wrong. Will had been a good friend to him, but she had been his lover. Why would he choose to believe Will over her?

Gibbs ran a hand over his face to pull his thoughts together. Jenny was telling him that she had swapped targets with Decker and that she had completed the hit, but Will hadn't. It just didn't make sense! Will was a pro, why would he mess up a kill? What possible reason could there be for him to screw up so badly that it would come back to haunt them all, nine years later? Well he was dead now, so they would probably never know.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked quietly, noticing her demeanour soften instantly in response to his words.

"You were friends; I knew you wouldn't believe me. Better to think the probie couldn't pull the trigger than the pro decided not to." She shrugged as she spoke and then steadily looked at the fire, hoping to avoid seeing the disappointment in his eyes, and the possible resentment. Gibbs sighed, not sure what he should be doing. This mess wasn't as clear cut as it had first seemed. Jenny was as much a victim of this as he was; it was Will that had brought this on them. Jethro grimaced when he remembered some of the things he had said to Jenny in anger, wondering how he could have been so heartless. She had suffered his foul mood and accusations in silence, yet he knew that she would usually have shouted right back. Why the sudden submissiveness?

"It's not your fault Jen, you know that right?" Jenny closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath, before opening them again and sighing. She straightened up and looked him in the eye once more. He had to understand.

"It is though. If I hadn't swapped with Will, Svetlana would be dead and he and Sasha would be alive. There's no point denying it either, I know better." She cast a forlorn look at the embers of the photos. Gibbs took a step closer to her and reached out a hand to her shoulder, resting it there gently.

"Jen, no one could have predicted that she would come after us." He spoke softly in an effort to break her out of the depression he had put her in.

"I could." She whispered so softly he had to lean closer to catch what she said.

"How?"

"It's what I would do, if I lost… what she lost." She looked up into his eyes and the short distance between them seemed to charge with electricity.

"What did she lose?"

"The love of her life, Anatoly." The man he had killed, the one he had been assigned because Jen was assigned to kill his girlfriend Svetlana. Poetic justice, in very bad taste. The unspoken words were what struck Jethro the sharpest, the acknowledgement that Jenny thought of him like Svetlana had thought of Anatoly, as the love of her life. A small smirk began to play on his lips, the one that he knew drove her mad and he was gratified to see her Emerald orbs flicker down to his mouth, her tongue just darting partway out of her mouth to lick her lips. Gibbs felt the space between them get much hotter, their eyes roving over each other's faces, which were mere centimetres apart. Their bodies began to react to the atmosphere and they unconsciously drifted closer to one another, their heads aligning to what they already knew to be the perfect angle, for the perfect kiss.

"Jenny..." Gibbs whispered her name, their eyes closing before their mouths met, lips fusing together, and moans of pleasure at the simple contact becoming loud in the quiet diner. He felt her wrap her arms around his neck and shoulders, holding him fast to the kiss, which was becoming more passionate with each passing second. Jethro used both his hands to grasp her waist, pulling her tight to his body, while slowly moving her back into the wall. She groaned into his mouth when her back hit the solid surface and he took advantage of her expression of joy, by slipping his tongue past her lips. She returned the favour, the kiss escalating from chaste to intense as their tongues duelled and their moans grew louder and more frenzied, caution being well and truly cast to the wind. Jethro ground his groin into Jenny's, enjoying the weakening of her knees and the incredible urge he knew they both had, to pick her up and have her legs wrap around his waist.

--

Mike had turned his back for only a few minutes as Jenny and Jethro had argued over what was happening and whose fault it was, his plan to run off with one car and leave them to share the other suddenly not looking so great. What if they really didn't get on enough to actually care if the other was in the car when they drove home? He had decided that he would try to coerce them into sharing a car voluntarily instead, and had turned around to put his plan into motion when he realised that they were already well in to the process of making up. I guess they don't need my help after all, he thought, slightly dumbfounded. He watched as Gibbs pressed Jenny back into the wall and then lifted her up, her legs wrapping around him, their moans loud enough he could hear them over the other side of the diner. If he wasn't careful, he might get to see them share much more than a car and that was something he just did not want to witness. Mike shook his head at their antics and decided that he had best make himself useful, as far away from them as possible. He picked up one of the drinks that Jethro had bought back at that petrol station and went to stand by the front door, just in case the enemy appeared while the two love birds were getting reacquainted. There were a few things that Mike couldn't stand, and one of those things was being caught with his pants down. It was a valuable lesson that Gibbs seemed to need to learn, he just didn't want him to have to learn it in such dire circumstances. Taking a swig of the drink, Mike leaned against the door jamb and looked out into the sandy horizon, only to be brought back to the here and now by the approach of a car along the road towards the diner. Mike stood up straight and watched the car speed up the road, another two cars becoming visible behind it. The enemy was here.