Chapter 11: The morning after

Jenny awoke early the next morning in a position similar to the one she woke up in mere days ago as she and Jethro had spent the night on the couch in her office. His arms were wrapped around her midsection, her head rested on his chest. She looked out of the window, it was still pitch black outside and she would have happily surrendered to sleep if Gibbs' damned alarm clock hadn't reminded her it was time to get up. She silenced the offending item before she began to press kisses all over his torso. When she brought her head up to kiss him on the lips, he opened his eyes and pulled her on top of him.

"You do know we have to get up, don't you? I wouldn't want to give your team yet another reason to gossip."

"We could call in sick."

"Oh, come on Jethro, you are never ill. Which bug would want to attack you anyway?"

"You would..."

"If that is your decent way to tell me something Jethro, you better say it straight away." She smiled down at him as he wrapped a strand of her hair around his finger.

"Okay, let's get up, but I want a rain check in the shower." He trailed his fingers down her spine and heard her breathing catching in her throat.

"That certainly can be arranged." She replied huskily and leant down to kiss him once more.

After a failed attempt to save water by sharing a shower and a pit stop at Starbuck's to buy coffee, Jenny and Gibbs entered the bull pen at quarter to seven. They made their way over to McGee, the only present member of the MCRT.

"McGee, where are Ziva and DiNozzo?"

"Getting breakfast boss. We were in at six o'clock sharp and Ziva figured it would be nice to actually have breakfast before we question Lewis." As if on clue, Ziva and Tony strolled back into the bull pen.

"See Tony, I told you it would be good to buy breakfast for Jenny and Gibbs too."

"I hope you didn't get me one of Agent DiNozzo's breakfast burritos Zee?"

"Wouldn't dream of it Jenny. I've got one of those pain au chocolate you liked so much when we were in Europe."

"Thanks a lot. You really have just made my day."

Gibbs couldn't help but smile at that. He remembered exactly how slowly she had always eaten them, savoured every bit of taste and moaned in appreciation after she had finished it.

"You still fancy those?" he whispered in her ear.

"Yeah, they are really good here, but they were great in Paris. Everything was great there. After I left I thought of you every time I bought one." She whispered back and it took everything for him to only brush his hand against her's instead of kissing her and giving away their secret relationship.

"Well, I better go up to my office. Tell me as soon as you get a lead on where Márisa and Manolo Sanchez are."

Lewis' head rested on top of his right hand on the table in the interrogation room, his eyes were tightly shut. He seemed to sleep, maybe a bit too sound, as he didn't even stirred when Gibbs banged the door against the wall first and then slammed her close. Did he really think pretending to be asleep would do him any good?

"Get up Lewis. This isn't a social visit. I want to know where they are, TODAY!" Gibbs threw the photos of Márisa and her son on the table.

"I won't tell you anything. I don't co-operate with the feds."

"The weapons you dealt with are killing out men in Iraq and Afghanistan. You will be accused of treason and spend the next thirty to thirty-five years of your live in prison if you don't co-operate with us. Do you fancy being locked up in Guantanamo?"

"I don't care. Why would I anyway? The core was my life, my unit my family, but your family cares for you when you need them. The corps just left me without help when I returned home. I started to take drugs, it was a cry for help, but they turned me down, discharged me dishonorably. I hate them for what they did to me and when I was offered a chance for revenge, i took it."

"So you tell me you sell weapons to al-Qaeda to get the people killed who would have given their lives for you?"

"They let me down! I had no money, no family anymore. I made a small fortune selling those weapons, I'm a respected man again!"

"Respected by traitors!"

"Respected by my friends. We don't let each other down, we help each other. When I was told to take the boy, I did it. That's what friends do!"

"WHERE IS HE? WHERE IS HIS MOTHER?" Gibbs grasped the lapels of his jacket in a vise like grip and shoved him against the wall. "WHERE ARE THEY?" He asked menacingly, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I don't know anything about the mother, I swear!"

"Where is the boy?" Gibbs pushed him farther into the wall, believing him that he didn't know where Márisa was. Just for good measure he extended the pressure on Lewis' collarbone a bit more. He heard his sharp intake of breath as the door flew open and Tony, Tim, and Ziva stormed in.

"I will ask you only one last time. Where - is - the - boy?" Gibbs voice was dangerous, he stressed each syllable of his question.

"In the basement in my house in DC." Gibbs let go of Lewis and turned to his team. "McGee -"

"Find the address and gas the truck, on it Boss."

"Ziva, DiNozzo -"

"Take him down to the holding cells while you tell the director, I know Boss. We'll meet you in the parking garage."

Gibbs smirked to himself on the way up to Jenny's office. He really loved it that his team had learned to anticipate.

Her office door was slammed against the spot on her wall where she was fairly certain was a dent by now from all the previous times the door had hit that particular spot.

"So Jethro, what is the reason for your visit?"

"Thought you wanted to be kept in the loop about Manolo Sanchez?"

"Have you found him?"

"We got an address."

"Anything on his mother?"

"Nothing yet. But we are working on it."

"Okay, let me change my shoes, I'll be down in five." She said grabbing her badge and her sidearm.

"Where do you think you're going Jen?"

"I'll come with you, what did you think?"

"Jen, you can't come with us. You are the director now, not a field agent, it is too dangerous."

"I was quite a good agent Jethro. And it hasn't been for ever since I've last been in the field!"

"Yeah, I know that Jen, but now is not the time to play agent!"

"Like you said, I am the director know. That means I have the right to come with you. Besides, you could need me. Think about it: a man took Manolo away from his mother,he may not be comfortable around you and the boys and Ziva doesn't get along with kids well, especially not when they are crying."

"Fine, but you wear a vest, got it?" Jenny nodded and sent a smile his way. She had gotten what she wanted after all.

"He brought the director along!" Tony braced his hands against the dashboard. Ziva was driving and he wondered about what he should worry more: that his boss had brought his boss along or that Ziva was driving 40 miles per hour faster than allowed.

"Gibbs always says she was a very good agent." McGee piped up from the backseat.

"Still is McGee. And according to my opinion she is an excellent one." Ziva answered as she pulled up in front of Lewis' house right in time for them to see Gibbs helping the director to put her vest on.

"Did he just touch her breast?!"

"No he didn't Tony and I would suggest you take your eyes away from her chest immediately if you want to make it out of here alive."

"DiNozzo, David, McGee, you ready?" Gibbs yelled, making no effort to keep their arrival quite. The director smiled and stood on her toes to whisper something in his ear.

"DiNozzo if you don't stop staring at her and come over here already, I'll..."

"Got it Boss, coming."

"Jen, you will come with me, we take the front door and look for the basement. The rest of you go in through the back door and arrest everyone you see. Got it?"

"Yes boss."

"Okay, come on."

Jenny and Gibbs searched systematically the ground floor of the house. A few minutes ago they had heard a struggle on the first floor when the others had arrested a friend of Gregory Lewis'. Since then it had been quiet. Finally in the laundry room, they found the door to the basement.

Twilight surrounded them as they opened the door. They could make out a small boy whimpering quietly on a bed below them. Jenny rushed down the stairs, her slightly flatter than usual heels echoing ghostly around the room. The boy hid his head under the thin blanket on the bed, by then he cried hysterically.

"Don't hurt me! I want my mommy, please. I didn't do anything." He choked out between sobs.

"Manolo" Jenny said as she sat down on the bed. "Look at me. We are here to help you, we are getting you out of here."

As he made no effort to look at her, she pulled the blanket slowly away from his head. Big brown eyes stared anxiously back at her.

"Promise?" He asked in a small voice " That I don't have to stay here?"

"I promise." She said solemnly . Jenny smiled down at him and reached her hand out for him to take. He took it hesitantly, but as she gave his hand a light squeeze, he almost flung himself at her. Hugging him to her, she kissed the top of his head while he put his face in the crook of her neck. She stood up, balanced Manolo on her him and went towards Gibbs.

"I'll take him out of here. Meet you at the car." He nodded, a small smile gracing his features. He bent down to her so that Manolo couldn't hear what he whispered to her. "You look sexy with a child."

"Jethro!" she hissed back and shot him and outraged look before she made her way up the stairs. He let his gaze linger on her retreating form.

She did indeed look sexy with a child.

When Gibbs exited the building a few minutes after Jenny, he found the redhead sitting on the trunk of his car with the little boy still on her lap. Her head was bent down as if she was talking to Manolo whose head rested against her shoulder.

It felt so right, watching her consoling a child. She was a natural. He knew people always said that he had a way with children (he had proofed them right when he'd looked after Zach Tanner) but she was just as good as he.

Images of Shannon and Kelly flooded his mind, his wife holding his daughter when she was about four. Then his mind strained away from them and he saw pictures of another child, one he'd never had the chance to meet. A little girl, the hair as red and curly as her mother's with her father's blue eyes. The child he had never had - his and Jenny's.

It wasn't too late, he knew that, but he had just stumbled back into the familiar pattern of their relationship, of secret kisses and shared beds. True, they had spent the last night together and he intended on spending the next with her too, but they had never talked about kids. Even when they had been in Europe, when they had been together for over two years, longer than his last two marriages counted together, they had never even mentioned children.

He had thought it had been better this way as he had tended to divorce his wives as fast as he had married them. But after she had been gone, he had wished for something that had tied her to him or at least something that had remembered him of her.

"Boss?" He stared in the concerned eyes of Jenny and his team when he was ripped out of his thoughts by DiNozzo. He almost felt the redhead searching her brain for a snotty remark.

"Never took you for the daydreaming kind of guy Jethro" it came mere seconds later.

"Never thought you were that predictable Jen." he answered, wiping a smug grin from her face.

*whack*

"Don't grin like a fool when adults are talking DiNozzo."

"Sorry Boss, couldn't help. Won't happen again."

"I sure hope so DiNozzo, but knowing you it will anyway. You ready to roll?"

"Yeah Boss."

"Then what are you waiting for? We'll meet you at the bull pen."

Jenny bent down to sit Manolo down on the backseat of the car. She wasn't happy about him being in the back without a booster seat, but it would have to do until they were at the Navy Yard again.

"No stay, don't go! Please, don't leave me alone!" With tears in his eyes he reached for her hand.

"Calm down honey, I am not going anywhere, I'll be right in front of you. You'll be able to see me throughout the entire ride." She cooed at him.

"Don't go. Stay." The little boy insisted so Jenny looked a bit nervous at Jethro.

"It's okay Jen. I guess since we don't have a booster seat with us anyway, he can sit on your lap."

"Did you hear that Manolo? You wanna come sit with me in the front?" The little boy nodded enthusiastically and reached with his arms out for her.

"Up!" he demanded and gave Jenny and Gibbs a toothy smile. Laughing Jenny bent down and picked the little boy up.

"Come here buddy. You're gonna sit with the grown-ups." It felt natural to her, having a little boy situated on her hip and she couldn't help but wonder what would have been if she hadn't left Jethro in Paris six years ago. She dismissed the thought, she could muse about that later, right know her top priority was Manolo.

She smiled gratefully at Gibbs as he opened the door for her and Manolo. He was hiding the face in the crook of her neck once again and she couldn't resist the urge to place a light kiss on the top of his head. He looked up at her and touched her neck and her cheeks with his small hands.

"What's your name?" He asked out of the blue.

"I didn't tell you my name? Well that was certainly impolite. It's Jenny."

"Jenn-y?"

"Kind of. You can say Jen though. He does that too." She pointed at Gibbs.

"And what is his name?" He lowered his voice to a whisper.

"His name is Gibbs." She replied in a voice just as low.

The boy looked up at her. "That is easy. Gibbs." He pointed out.

Suddenly he grinned. "Hey Gibbs." Manolo waved his hands in front of him.

"Hey little man." The ex-marine greeted back.

"Good job honey." Jenny whispered when the boy leaned back against her, his eyes tired. He smiled and put his head on her chest as exhaustion caught up with him and he closed his eyes.

I hope you like the chapter...