the Sixth

by madame.alexandra

1996. She's a probie; he's married. They cross the line. Back-in-the-day. Jenny Shepard/Leroy Jethro Gibbs. An alternate take on the beginnings of their partnership. Take the rating seriously. Contains moral grey areas, the usual rampant Jibbs angst, and the infamous second ex-wife: Diane.

11. the Thorn in his Paw

A/N: The moral conflict this is causing in all of you DELIGHTS me. /wicked laughter/

-Spot the literary device: I foreshadow like it's nobody's business in this chapter

Guest appearance from our favorite FBI Supervisory Agent Tobias T. Fornell !

"I don't want to need you, 'cause I can't have you." -Robert Kincaid; The Bridges of Madison County

---

Chapter Ten: the Thorn in His Paw

Gibbs didn't miss the look Noemi Cruz shot his left ring finger as she let him into Jenny's brownstone, but when he scrutinized her expression, he found himself looking at an unreadable mask, free of judgment or disapproval. She simply afforded him her usual polite nod of greeting and bustled off; she didn't even express surprise to see him at such an early hour.

He shut the door behind him and strolled up the carpeted stairs with a devil-may-care attitude, casually walking into Jenny's room as if he owned the place. His probationary agent was hidden under all of her covers—no wonder; it was freezing in her room—save for a slender arm that was just in the process of silencing her alarm clock.

Gibbs grinned and pushed off his shoes at the foot of her bed. He crawled over the footboard and crept over her half-awake form like some sort of predatory animal, and it was when he reached for a bunch of tangled red hair that she really woke up and let out a shriek of pure surprise.

Jenny scrambled away and shot up into a sitting position, wincing as she unwittingly wrenched her hair from his grip. She raised her arm in an aggressive movement, but relaxed instantly when she heard his deep laughter and realized quickly that it was Gibbs who'd so rudely interrupted her fifteen-minute snooze button time.

"Jethro!" she shouted hoarsely, curling her hand into a fist and sinking it into his left bicep. She shook her head, lifting her eyes to the ceiling in annoyance, a smile touching the corners of her lips. "Jesus, I thought—"

"You thought, what?"

"I thought Noemi had taken a leave of her senses," gasped Jenny, falling back lazily and laughing breathlessly.

He smirked, proud of himself, and used the distraction of her laughing among the sheets to quickly remove his ring and toss it over on her bedside table. Wasting no more time, he ripped off his shirt and grabbed for her, pulling her towards him by her shoulders, sheets, throw pillow, and all.

She kicked her legs at him, and a muffled protest escaped her as he pressed his lips to hers for a long, intimate good-morning kiss.

"Not that I'm opposed," she murmured, breaking away, a little caught up in the way his hand was moving down her back and bunching up the material of her loose cotton t-shirt in his fingers, "but maybe you want to shut the door?"

She cocked her eyebrow.

"My poor housekeeper is already scandalized enough," she said, pushing him away and shaking her finger. "No need to further offend her good Catholic sensibilities."

He got up obligingly, scowling at her, and shut the door loudly; turning the lock just as dramatically, and Jenny rolled her eyes.

"The way you talk, Jen," he growled.

"What about it?"

"Hurts my head."

"Hmm," she said, eyeing his chest appreciatively as he sat down on the bed next to her. She drew her knees up to her chest and leaned forward, knotted red hair tumbling over her shoulders. "Damn good thing we don't do much talkin'," she said huskily.

She leaned forward and touched his neck with both of her hands and kissed him, and his hands tangled in her hair and pulled her forward in a tangled, uncomfortable, but close embrace. She could feel his skin through her thin t-shirt; she wanted to feel it against her skin.

Ah, to be woken up like this.

It was just a damn shame he had to drive from his wife's house to do it.

She caught her breath, sharply reminded for a moment, and broke the kiss momentarily.

"Actions speak louder," he said wryly, hands going for her t-shirt again. She let him inch it up, exposing her naked skin, and she looked at the line of his jaw and the swoop of his collarbone and then at his eyes, and she looked at him intently. If that was true, then what did his actions say?

"What are you doing here, Jethro?" she asked curiously, her brows knitting together.

He never came over in the mornings; only at night, after work. They'd hooked up on a lunch break once; another time in his car in the parking garage. But he'd never come over in the morning.

He didn't really seem to know how to answer that question. He touched her knee and then moved her leg, so her thighs were spread around his middle, and he leaned forward, his body pressing against hers. She took a deep breath, intoxicated, and smiled—because he wanted to be here, that's why.

Because he wanted her.

She smirked, and yanked him back on top of her, pursing her lips.

Actions, indeed.

---

Jenny frowned as she squinted into her tin of coffee grinds—or rather, the empty tin where coffee grinds were usually found. She shrugged and shoved it back in its little cubbyhole above the coffee maker.

"I'm out of coffee," she said, turning to the stove to inspect what Noemi had cooking. "You'll have to pick some up before work."

He made a skeptical scoffing noise.

"You're out of coffee?" he retorted, as if it were the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard.

"My coffee intake has upped itself since you barged into my life," she snapped back playfully, "and my house." She plucked a piece of bacon out of a frying pan and munched on it. "Noemi's used to stocking for one."

"You didn't notice you were out?" he sounded as if that were totally unbelievable.

Jenny shrugged, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Noemi notices," she said, well aware that she sounded spoiled and bratty, and doing it just to bug him.

"Notice for her," Gibbs insisted. "Re-stock."

"Today isn't grocery day. Thursday is."

He stared at her.

"What? Noemi has a system. I'm not going to screw with her system," Jenny responded seriously.

He snorted.

"She's your housekeeper, Jen," he reminded the redhead.

"Wrong," she said, popping the last bit of bacon into her mouth and snapping at him matter-of-factly. "She was my father's housekeeper. She's my nanny," she informed him, waltzing to the fridge. "Can I interest you in some orange juice?" she offered breezily.

He shook his head.

"That's why she does everything for you," he drawled, poking fun at her.

Jenny slammed her fridge shut, bored with its contents, and cocked an eyebrow at him. She didn't respond, other than to just give him that sort of unreadable look. She flicked her wrist at the breakfast brewing on the stove and perched on the edge of the kitchen table, looking at him with a hand on her hip.

"You want breakfast?" she asked.

"Coffee is breakfast."

She clicked her tongue in mock sympathy for him and then stood up.

"I'm going to shower," she said. "Help yourself to the kitchen."

His arm snaked around her waist and he pulled her down onto his lap; he pressed his lips to her neck suggestively and smirked, breathing her in and letting his hands roam over her pajamas and get tangled in the robe she'd thrown on.

"Want company?" he asked.

She laughed, tilting her head back, and slapped him lightly on the shoulder.

"Mmm," she murmured, turning her face to his and kissing his lips lingeringly. "The point is to get clean, Jethro," she said huskily. "Not dirty." She extricated herself and gave his thigh a little smack with her open palm. "Go, get your coffee," she said, laughing again. "I don't want you in my kitchen when I get back."

She started to leave the room, and then whipped back in, giving him a wry look and pointing with a warning.

"Don't go get in my bed, either," she threatened, arching a brow. He grinned roguishly at her and made a motion as if to tip his hat in understanding. She stalked off up the stairs, and a few minutes later, heard an engine starting in her front drive.

---

"Senora," Noemi knocked lightly and earnestly on the bathroom door, holding an object delicately in her hand.

Jenny opened the door a bit wider—it had been cracked—and peered out, half-undressed and getting ready to hop into the shower. Noemi held out her hand, and Jenny faced hers palm up, her brow furrowing as she waited to see what the housekeeper had found so urgent to give to her.

Noemi dropped Jethro's wedding ring into Jenny's palm.

"Oh," Jenny said mildly, her brows going up. She cocked her head and frowned. "Where'd you find this?" she asked.

"Just near the alarm clock, Senora," Noemi answered. "I dusting. I no want it to fall in the cracks," she explained.

"Thank you," Jenny responded, nonchalant. She turned and set it carefully on her sink, making sure she plugged the drain just in case. "I appreciate it, Noemi, I'll return it," she assured the other woman. She started to push the door to a close again, but Noemi raised her hand.

Jenny paused and raised her brow again, waiting.

Noemi frowned uncertainly, nervously, and pursed her lips, struggling to find words.

"Yes, Noemi?" Jenny prompted gently.

"It no good," Noemi said bravely, looking Jenny in the eye. "Senora, it no good, sleeping with your boss," she said carefully.

Jenny gave a small, vague laugh that was intended to inform Noemi she should back off.

"I can take care of myself, Noemi," she demurred.

"Senora," Noemi said sharply, drawing herself up. "It no good sleeping with married man."

Jenny's expression froze. Her eyes flashed dangerously. Immediately, she lashed out at her faithful nanny-turned-housekeeper—lashed out because Noemi was right, and because Jenny didn't like to be reminded that Gibbs had a wife.

"Noemi," she said curtly. "I believe I pay you to cook, clean, and garden—not to concern yourself with my choice in men."

Noemi looked chastised and abashed, and flushed red, turning her eyes downward. Jenny felt a rush of guilt and shame the moment she saw the hurt and embarrassment on Noemi's face. The Colonel would have given her a harsh smack on the knuckles for snapping at Noemi in such a way; Jasper Shepard had always been adamant that Jenny treat those who were in her service better than she treated herself. He'd be appalled to learn she'd barked at Noemi.

Noemi turned to leave, murmuring a sincere apology, and Jenny opened the door, calling her back.

She frowned, standing there in her half-tied robe and panties, looking at the other woman. She swallowed her pride.

"I'm sorry I was rude," she said calmly. "Noemi, I know you're just looking out for me."

Noemi nodded, her eyes big and genuine. She smiled a little, sadly, the lines around her mouth stretching and reminding Jenny of how Noemi used to look when Jenny behaved badly as a child.

"It all right," she said quietly. "I just no want you get murdered, Senora," she added sincerely, turning and bustling quickly out of the room.

Startled, Jenny looked after her, one eyebrow raised, interested. She thought it an odd reason to warn her off an affair—but then again, Noemi was from a country that languished in an unfortunate state of poverty and drug lord rule. Perhaps where she was from, men had killed for less.

A smile crept across Jenny's lips, and she turned to attend to her shower—ignoring the wedding ring that lay on her sink, and reminding herself that she had to get her ass to work on time.

---

She ended up taking the stairs from her parking space two at a time, swearing in a constant, silent stream as she counted her way to the main floor. She left the staircase and darted into the hall towards the bullpen, nearly mowing down Burley as she came around the corner. He was just getting off the elevator, and looked a bit sheepish about it.

"You're late, too," he hissed automatically, greeting her with a sort of accusation.

"I got in the shower late," she retorted, taking quick strides to the squad room with him. She gave him a disdainful look up and down, noting his mussed hair and wrinkled clothing. She sniffed. "What's your excuse?"

She strolled to her desk, giving him a short look over her shoulder. She was willing to bet, based solely on the way Burley smelled, that Miller was rushing into her lab as belatedly as they were entering the bullpen.

Burley shot her a look and dropped his things in front of his desk.

"Late," Gibbs snapped at both of them.

"Jesus, we're five minutes off," Jenny snapped back reflexively.

He looked up at her mildly, remaining silent, and then just returned to his work.

"Late," he repeated obnoxiously, and she rolled her eyes, storming to her desk. She dropped her bag next to her rolling office chair and let her purse slide off her shoulder—and she let the shadow of a smile skate across her mouth when she saw the hot cup of coffee that was sitting on her desk.

Since Maryland, once or twice a week, she came in to a cup of coffee sitting on her desk, courtesy of Gibbs. It was the closest to confirmation anyone was ever going to get that Jenny Shepard was sleeping with Leroy Jethro Gibbs, even though Burley had been heard muttering that the cup of coffee was equivalent to Gibbs engaging in PDA.

Jenny knew there were subtle whispers, and she had the inkling that they were the result of Burley's offhand, caustic remarks. However, she couldn't prove that there was any difference in the way people talked now than there had been before Maryland, because Gibbs' penchant for redheads was apparently notorious, and she'd dealt with it before.

"What are we on?" Jenny asked briskly, planting her hands on her desk and looking around at the team.

"McIntyre," Decker answered helpfully. "You and Burley are cross referencing phone numbers with the different women he's said to be in contact with."

Jenny rolled her eyes and glanced at Burley dismally. Figures they'd get the short end of the stick, what with coming in late. She sat down and then stood back up, her hand falling to her back pocket. She picked up her cup of coffee and sought Gibbs' eyes, waiting until he noticed and quirked an eyebrow.

She put her left hand over the top of her coffee and wryly tapped the base of her ring finger. He blinked, his jaw tensing slightly, and glanced at his hand. She saw that he realized he'd left the ring, and he nodded curtly, indicating silently that he'd deal with it later.

Jenny sat down, leaning back lazily, and opened her drawer to pick out the file she needed. She had just settled in to tedious silence, her eyes scanning over phone numbers, a thick yellow highlighter in her hand, when Gibbs' phone went off—hopefully indicating they'd soon have something much less insipid to do.

After a few moments of Gibbs just sort of grunting answers into the phone, he hung up, and stood.

"Grab your gear," he said predictably.

He took the truck keys off his desk and chucked them at Decker. He pointed at Jenny.

"Shepard, with me," he said.

Burley rolled his eyes and rose up to follow Decker, while Decker waited for instructions.

"Anacostia," Gibbs said, and Jenny wasn't paying attention as he gave the address—she was too busy thinking that somebody had to do something about Anacostia. There was always someone dead in Anacostia.

Decker and Burley were gone in the next minute, and Gibbs chugged the rest of his coffee, tossing it in the trash as he started off. Jenny looked uncertainly at hers, longing for the rest of it, but unable to finish the whole, hot thing like he had.

"Take it with you," Gibbs said gruffly, beckoning. "C'mon, Shepard," he ordered.

She made a face, grabbing her backpack and heading after him, coffee in hand. She hated it when he called her by her surname now, but it was almost second nature to him, though it seemed the entire team switched it up—they never failed to call male colleagues by their last names, but for some reason, with the women, they just called them by their Christian names half the time.

She tried to be offended by it, but her heart wasn't in the indignation. Being called 'Shepard' by a bunch of aggressive law enforcement men made her think of her father, and she just preferred it be 'Jenny'.

The elevator door slid closed and the redhead turned to Gibbs, slipping her free hand into her back pocket. She stepped closer and reached for his jacket, finding the little pocket just on the inside, his wedding ring clutched in her palm.

"Noemi found it," she murmured, dropping the gold band into the little pocket. She pressed her hand to his chest lightly and tilted her head, cocking her eyebrow to give him a stern look. "Don't be careless, Jethro."

"Too late for that," he scoffed bluntly, and for some reason, the comment bothered her.

She stepped back, looking at him intently for a moment. She didn't get the impression that what they were doing was careless or reckless in any sense. Lack of finesse in hiding it was careless, but the choice to sleep together—to continue to sleep together, that is, in the face of obstacles like marriage—was not. It was…she didn't know what it was, because she stalwartly refused to dwell on it.

The elevator jolted to a stop, and she took a pensive sip of her coffee. He gallantly gestured for her to exit first and she smirked, doing so in full awareness that he just enjoyed walking behind her.

He gave her a sly smack on the ass, eliciting a sharp, surprised squeal, and she laughed, shooting a wicked look at him over her shoulder.

Well, now, playing grab ass in the wide-open NCIS garage—that could be classified as careless.

---

"Gross," Jenny said bluntly, crinkling her nose in disgust and turning on her heel. She faced away from the mangled body as she popped her gloves on, and she regretted eating so much of Noemi's delicious bacon this morning. No matter how hardened an investigator a person was—and face it, Jenny wasn't that hardened—certain things that happened to bodies were just, for lack of a more mature word, gross.

Disembowelment was one of them.

This body, though disemboweled and unappealing, was distinctly—

"What did they do, go at him with a spoon?" Burley asked callously, chucking an evidence kit down and scowling at the grass.

"Ah, it does seem this man was rather," Ducky paused as he approached, tilting his head in morbid curiosity. He clicked his tongue, and picked up another train of thought. "Well, it seems his killer was quite the amateur." The doctor crouched down, shaking his head in dismay at the grisly sight, and reached for his medical bag.

"What do we know about this poor soldier?" he asked.

"His name is Dick Sutherland," Jenny answered, roaming the area around the body, treading lightly and keeping an eye out for evidence. She crouched down near a blunt butter knife by the fireplace. "He's a Petty Officer first class," she murmured, picking up the knife and examining it closely. Bloody finger prints. She frowned.

"Can I have an evidence bag?" Jenny requested, turning to look at Decker. Her ponytail bounced against her neck. Decker hopped about getting her one.

"That the murder weapon?" Gibbs asked.

"Well, I don't want to make any assumptions," Jenny said seriously, "because the only ass on this team is Stan, so that's his job…" she trailed off, shooting Burley a wicked look. He scowled at her good-naturedly and she looked back at Gibbs. "It's a good bet," she finished. "Got bloody fingerprints on it."

Gibbs approached and took the bag from her, holding it up to the light and eyeballing it. He looked down at the body and gave a sort of grimace.

"Can't be," he muttered. "A butter knife, do all this damage?"

"It's possible, Jethro," Ducky said mildly. "If the assailant was relying on brute strength, he could have used muscle. Perhaps in some odd part of his mind, he was too non-violent to use something as B-grade horror movie as a butcher's knife."

None of them could tell if Ducky was being funny, and Jenny just made a face and looked again at the grotesque body, its intestines spilling out from deep, irreparable (obviously fatal) stomach wounds.

"You know, I was gonna take this foxy lady I met out to Italian tonight," Decker mused loudly, tilting his head at the body. "Don't know how I feel about spaghetti now," he added distastefully.

Burley laughed, and Jenny clicked her tongue.

"I think you better settle for Chinese, Deck," the redhead offered, standing up from her crouched position and taking the butter knife evidence bag away from Gibbs so she could appropriately label it.

Burley was mid-sarcastic comment when Gibbs suddenly narrowed his eyes at Shepard's hands and then looked at the floor curtly.

"You get a photo?" he asked abruptly.

"What?" she asked, taken aback.

"Did you photograph where that knife was?" he asked icily, enunciating each word in a patronizing manner.

"I," she began, her heart sinking as she realized that she hadn't. "No," she admitted roughly, shaking her head. She looked around. She hadn't even remembered to grab a camera. He put a hand to his forehead, looking pretty damn annoyed with her.

"Dammit, Shepard," he growled sincerely, his eyes flashing. "That screws up the chain of evidence."

She blew air through her lips tensely, treading dangerous waters. He hadn't been genuinely pissed at her since they'd started sleeping together on the side, and she was unsure how this was going to play out.

"Gibbs, I bagged and tagged properly, I'll just record where the knife was."

"It doesn't work like that."

"If it becomes a problem, I'll swear under oath," Jenny said tersely. She rolled her eyes a little. "It's not a huge mistake."

"It's a stupid screw up," he fired back. "You've been here too long for crap like that."

Burley whistled under his breath. Shepard shot him a searing glare and snapped her head back to Gibbs, her ponytail swinging angrily.

"People make mistakes, Gibbs," she snapped at him poisonously.

"You don't get to make mistakes at crime scenes," he fired back harshly, snatching the evidence away from her. "If where the knife was factors in and we can't prove we found it here? Defense has an easy case."

"I think you forget that I almost graduated law school," she said coolly. "I know how the courts work."

"Then you don't have an excuse in hell for screwing the pooch, Shepard," he said coldly.

She took the evidence bag away from him and shoved his hand out of her face as she moved past. She bit her lip and went over the crime scene kit, tucking the evidence into a pocket. She was struck by the appalling urge to burst into tears, and so she hid her face for a moment, tightening the elastic in her hair with schooled features.

"Jenny?" Decker asked mildly.

"What?" she barked. She looked up, and he was looking back, concerned. "I'm fine," she said, waving him off abruptly. She caught Burley's smug eye over her other colleague's shoulder and drew her lips back, almost baring her teeth. Gibbs was out of earshot so, her feelings hurt, she targeted Stan:

"Satisfied I'm not getting special treatment?" she hissed, the bitterness evident in her tone.

His smile faded a little sheepishly; a tense silence fell over them momentarily, they focused back on the gory scene at hand, and Jenny let herself calm down in the silence, determined to remain collected and professional, and pushing this frustration away to work it out at a more appropriate time.

---

She muffled a frustrated moan against his neck, her teeth scratching gently and desperately against the agitated pulse of his blood. She gasped and dug her nails into his back, clutching his skin, and pulled away from him, shifting her hips away so that it was difficult for him to keep up his erratic movements.

Gibbs stumbled, or at least, that's the only world she could come up with for what happened when he thrust against her again and sort of…came up short.

A surprised look crossed his face and she laughed breathlessly.

"What?" he panted, stopping, the muscles in his abdomen almost visibly jumping tightly under his skin. His jaw tightened and he braced his palm on the sheets beside her head. He breathed in slowly, evenly, and lowered his lips to hers.

Jenny shifted her hips and he groaned, his arm shaking.

"Jen, I can't," he muttered bluntly.

"It's not working for me," she said.

"I can't hold out," he said gruffly, shaking his head. "Don't move."

She was careful not to, and after a few uncertain seconds, he let out a breath and nodded his head, shifting back and siting back on his knees a little. He made a motion with his hand. Jenny turned over, stretching out on her stomach, and hugged a pillow to her, holding it to her breasts, resting her cheek against the cool side.

His body covered hers like a blanket and he slid back inside her, his hand running over her spine and then slipping under her hips, splaying over her navel between her stomach and the bed. She opened her mouth and closed her eyes, nodding.

"Good?" he asked huskily.

"Yeah," she answered, and he didn't waste anytime driving into her hard. She tangled her fingers into her hair, digging her nails into her scalp, and moaned, finally getting what she needed. She felt his lips on her shoulder briefly; warm and almost bruising, and he grasped her hip firmly, pulling her into him.

He traced her spine with his tongue.

"Jethro," she cried. She drew her bottom lip between her teeth. He immediately lost interest in kissing her and his palm replaced his lips—she curled her toes, trying to find some way to move that would snap her control—she wasn't too fond of him using her lower back as leverage; he was too strong, but that thought was short lived; she arched her back and at the slight angle, he grabbed her thighs and buried himself so deep she lost her breath.

"Fuck," she gasped, she buried her face in her arms and the pillow and shuddered, her heart slamming against her ribcage with the same intensity that her blood pounded in her ears. She let his name tumble from her lips huskily. He groaned, his lips against her throat, and she felt her name as his deep voice rumbled through her skin. He was still for a minute, breathing heavily, a catch in his breath, and then he relaxed, his mouth more gently touching the back of her neck, his body resting on hers but in a controlled way that wouldn't crush her.

Gibbs rolled over and collapsed next to her on his back. He rubbed his jaw, wincing at the tightness that had set in from his teeth being clenched. Christ, it took a lot of control to last that long with a woman like Jen. He'd doubted she was going to get there tonight; he'd almost given up on her. There was something about the way her hips fit against his and about how toned and lithe her body was that made it so hot.

She shifted next to him. He closed his eyes heavily and took a deep breath, still feeling a desire for her that he couldn't begin to live up to for half an hour. She mumbled something in a whiskey voice that washed over his body deliciously and she rolled onto her back, her side rubbing into his; she lifted her leg and he reached out to wrap his arm around her thigh and hug. He squeezed her knee gently and massaged her smooth skin.

"What?" he asked lazily, his hand running over her leg.

She laughed, and he felt her breath against his biceps.

"I asked if you had a hard day at work, Boss," she repeated.

He laughed, his hand still moving slowly on her. He turned his head to her and glanced.

"Yeah, one of my agents won't quit runnin' her mouth," he drawled.

"Well," Jenny sighed, managing to sound mockingly outraged. "Well, fuck her." She raised her eyebrows and smirked; he stroked her thigh, appreciative of the jest. He leaned over and pressed his lips to hers roughly, trailing the kiss down her jaw to her cheek.

"Just did," he growled, nipping her ear.

She laughed again, muffling the sound in her fingers, and squeezed his shoulder. After a moment, her hand slid off of him and she closed her eyes, letting her breathing even out, and blithely enjoying the motion of his hand on her leg. She was impressed that, after her unfortunate gaffe at the crime scene today and the annoying total lack of sense the disemboweled body crime seemed to involve, they'd even had it in them to get it on after work.

Then again, lately, Jenny couldn't think of a moment when she hadn't wanted to be rolling around in bed with Gibbs.

The appalling lack of reason or even leads that had come out of today's mutilated body had been mind numbing, and Gibbs had ordered everyone to go home and show up with damn good ideas tomorrow.

It seemed that after the drama of Maryland—what with its lions, tigers, bears (and sex), the team was doomed to mundane paperwork and every less-than-interesting, slowly cooling case.

Though she outwardly complained with the rest of them, it was a small relief to have a low stress work environment for the moment; she was busy trying to navigate the minefield that had suddenly become her personal life.

Gibbs' hand slid off of her leg and rested between them, and she shifted from her back to her side, her head falling lazily to his shoulder. She closed her eyes sleepily. This whole affair was really fucking—no pun intended—with her sleep schedule. It put her daily routine out of whack. She liked to focus on that being the problem with this, rather than the painstakingly more glaring issue here.

A beeper on the bedside table went off, and Jenny lifted her head, glaring at the noise balefully. Gibbs rolled over and grabbed it, pulling his leg up so his knee pointed at the ceiling as he squinted and read the number.

"Work?" Jenny asked, propping her head on her elbow and resting a palm on his chest.

He shook his head, grunting in the negative.

"Where's your phone?" he asked vaguely.

Jenny frowned and thought about it. Her cordless phone was always off its stand and laying somewhere random in her bedroom. She sat up and glanced around until she spotted it facedown next to his pants. She retrieved it, doing a lot of stretching in the process, and dropped it on his stomach.

"You're really going to call her from my home phone?" she asked dubiously, pulling her knees to her chest and looking down at him guardedly.

He chucked his beeper to the floor with his jeans and sat up, kicking the covers off. He didn't answer, but he began to dial the number as he swung his legs off the bed and sat with his back facing her. She stared at the muscles of his broad, naked shoulders, thinking briefly about how they looked when they were flexing, and then shook her head and narrowed her eyes.

"Hey," he said gruffly, starting up a phone conversation that she wasn't a part of and didn't want to hear.

He fell quiet for a moment.

"Still at work," he answered.

It was a bold-faced lie, and it had the unexpected, immediate effect of making her furious with jealousy. Jealousy she didn't think she had a right to feel, but had no ability to fight off; she was helpless against it suddenly and she nearly lunged for him—in a comical, dramatic, yet very subtle way.

Jenny cuddled up to his back and hung over his shoulders, her hands roaming over his chest idly while he carried on a monosyllabic conversation in with his wife.

"Yeah, I'm about to leave," he said.

Jenny pressed her lips to his neck and nibbled gently, smirking when she felt his pulse jump. He twitched his head away from her, and she felt a curious mix of hurt, anger, and shame. She heard Diane raise her voice on the telephone and squashed the urge to hurl the electronic device across the room.

Jethro's entire body tensed up suddenly.

"I've got time, Diane," he snapped.

He flexed his wrist subconsciously. Jenny slid her legs around his waist and hugged him from behind, breathing in his scent. She sat that way possessively for a moment and then moved gracefully; she knelt next to him on the bed and tucked her loose hair behind her ears.

"It's at eight!" he growled, obviously caught up in an argument.

Jenny leaned forward, her breasts pressing into his arm, and then his thigh, and she ran her palm from his heart to his groin, dragging her nails lightly over his lower abdomen. He said something sharp to Diane. Gripped by that unbearable flash of jealousy again and possessed of something reckless and awful, she went down on him.

It startled him enough to draw a low curse from his lips. To his credit, though, his voice remained composed, though if she listened just hard enough, she could hear the husky undertone in his words.

"…tryin' to finish up these files," he said in a controlled voice. "Diane, I promise," he snapped. "Be ready to go at quarter 'til eight," he ordered. There seemed to be a bit more chattering going on from Diane's end of the line; Gibbs slid his hand into Jenny's hair and tugged, though she couldn't quite tell if it was a 'deeper, yes, that's it' tug or a 'stop this right now' tug.

"Yeah," Gibbs said. Then, "What?" he asked hoarsely, cupping Jenny's jaw awkwardly. He held her and forced her to stop moving. "Yeah, Diane, fine," he said roughly. "Faster I'm off the phone, quicker I'm home," he snapped at her.

Jenny squeezed his thigh.

Gibbs grunted something in answer to Diane, and then he hung up, and dropped her phone to the floor in a magnificent fumble.

"Goddammit," he swore at her, lifting her head up and glaring at her with something halfway between respect and foreboding. She just pursed her lips wantonly and lifted an eyebrow. He took a deep breath and let go of her, though one hand still rested lightly in her hair. "I've got to go," he muttered.

"Late for dinner?" she asked dryly.

"Banquet," he grunted with distaste. "Hospital banquet, for Diane's practice," he said vaguely. Jenny's expression didn't change as she silently processed the information and bitterly conceded that she'd, of course, have to let him go.

"What time?" she asked, glancing at the clock.

"Starts at eight."

"Hm."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. It was six-thirty. Diane was throwing a fit because she didn't think he'd have time to shower and spruce up for this black-tie thing. He shifted and made to move, but Jenny gripped his thigh and tilted her head seductively.

"Ah," she said, biting her bottom lip enticingly. "Wouldn't you rather I finish?" she asked innocently.

He needed to go.

He looked into her spellbinding green eyes, and she licked her bottom lip. He twisted his fingers in her hair, and slipped his other hand into her tangled mane of red curls, guiding her head back down to his lap in surrender.

He answered her question with an appreciative groan.

---

Of all the times Jenny was relieved to be alone, this was not one of them. Still in bed, with the sheets pulled around her so she was halfway decent and not too cold, she flipped her beeper around in her hands, almost willing it to go off so she could go back to work.

That was her arena. NCIS headquarters was where she was the only woman in Gibbs' life.

A vague, familiar sort of panic gripped her and she closed her eyes tightly. She needed to be occupied. She disliked spending much time pensive or quiet and alone anymore; it led to her thinking too much, analyzing her actions, and very nearly stumbling into a mire of self-loathing that she couldn't disentangle from. It wasn't that she hated herself—Jenny Shepard was too practical, confident, and ambitious to have ever hated herself—it was that she almost despised her choices lately, but along with that was the weak sort of justification that she just couldn't help it.

What was that Margaret had said, when Jenny had ragged on her for sleeping with Stan Burley? You can't help whom you're attracted to? It had to be something like that. Margaret. Margaret was the closest thing to a friend Jenny had at this point in her life.

And she needed to get out of her house right now.

She flipped over on her stomach and picked up the cordless phone from the floor, punching in the scientist's number. After a few curt rings, Margaret picked up.

"Miller," Jenny greeted coolly. "Let's grab a drink."

---

There was a subtle, infuriating smugness in Leroy's demeanor as he spruced up and readied himself for her banquet, and even though he was civil and said or did nothing offensive, he successfully pissed her off. She had known he was perfectly capable of getting ready to go in under an hour, but she had called him to bitch at him because what bothered her was the fact that he didn't seem to care.

It was maddening, that he could openly give off such a cavalier vibe about things that were important to her, yet when he had paperwork to do, it was all business and 'Diane, I have a job to do'.

Like he's the goddamn president of the United States, she thought sarcastically, as she touched up her hairspray. She frowned, checked to make sure there was no lipstick on her teeth, and then gave herself a critical look over. Satisfied with her appearance, she turned her back to the mirror.

She flipped off the bathroom light, and mustered enough civility and self-control to walk into the living room where Leroy was waiting. He'd naturally finished getting ready fifteen minutes before her, and was quietly basking in the glory of having proved her wrong.

"You ready?" he drawled, the minute she walked in.

She had the peculiar urge to slap him.

"When you are," she answered, a bit sarcastically, and he stood up. She swore under her breath—because instantly she was undermined. She forgot how damn good he looked in a suit.

"Want me to drive?" he offered.

"Are you kidding? We're not going to this in your busted up truck," she scoffed, shaking her head. She stalked to the kitchen and grabbed her clutch and her BMW keys off the counter, swirling them around on her finger and tapping her foot.

"I can drive the beamer," he said curtly.

"No," she retorted peevishly. "You can't."

He wasn't really a "car" guy, but it still pissed him off when she was possessive of her car, and so she did it just to piss him off. Small victories were a big thing in their marriage, even if he had no clue she was trying to get them every chance she could.

She brushed past him and paused, making an annoyed sort of face.

He didn't respond to her goading, just narrowed his eyes and checked his pockets before following her out the door. As usual, he left the door unlocked—a habit that drove her insane, but that she had long since given up trying to break him of.

He balefully got into the passenger seat, picking up and moving her golf clubs as he did so.

"You play today?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Emma and I had a noon tee time," she answered coolly, revving the engine. "We were supposed to play with her girlfriend, but she got tied up at work."

"Ah," Gibbs said, mildly keeping up with her small talk. "What'd you shoot?"

"Seventy-two," she answered.

The ghost of a proud smile flashed across her lips as she turned to back out of the drive, and he gave a low whistle.

"Impressive," he complimented.

"Can't complain," she demurred. She cocked an eyebrow, glancing at him. "Scored a hole in one on the fourteenth," she said.

He grinned at her.

"How'd you manage that?" he asked.

She turned her eyes on the road and cocked an eyebrow.

"Pretended the golf ball was your head," she answered smoothly, and hit the gas surprisingly aggressively.

Gibbs raised his eyebrows at her. Her anger surprised him, but he laughed—because he knew as well as anyone that nothing felt as good as accomplishing something when you did it at the expense of someone you were pissed at.

---

"Feeling feminine tonight?"

Margaret Miller, having finally navigated the crowd at one of DC's new swanky lesbian lounges, settled herself on a plush purple stool next to Jenny and placed her keys and purse on the bar before her.

Jenny looked at her with lips pursed in question, and Miller nodded to the distinctly girly drink in front of the redhead.

"This?" Jenny lifted the candy pink cosmopolitan and downed it in a gulp. "Child's play," she scoffed, and pushed the empty martini glass away. "And it was weak to boot," she noted distastefully, licking her bottom lip.

Margaret laughed and tapped the counter. The bartender turned to her.

"Guinness," she ordered bluntly. "And a shot of Jim Beam."

"That's absurd," Jenny remarked, before abandoning her disappointing Cosmo and, on a whim, ordering a Long Island iced tea.

The bartender whirled away to comply, and Miller gave Jenny a slightly wide-eyed look.

"I'm absurd?" she asked in disbelief. "You know we have to work tomorrow?" she reminded Jenny, cocking a brow at the alcoholic content of an LIT. Jenny leaned back on her barstool and shrugged.

"Haven't you ever thought Gibbs would be oodles more fun if you were drunk?" Jenny retorted, deadpan.

"You plan on getting drunk, Jenny?" Margaret asked slyly.

"It's an inevitability more than a plan," the redhead answered.

---

Gibbs took his time trudging back towards the table where he and Diane were seated. He had been sent—well, he had eagerly offered—to fetch drinks, and though he was eager to nurse his second bourbon, he was not eager to sit back down with the sharply dressed snobby men and women she called her friends.

He held his tumbler of Jack in one hand and her glass of White Zinfandel in the other and kept his eyes on her back as he approached. The delicate chair she was seated in had cut outs and allowed him to admire the back of her dress.

He took the time to acknowledge that she looked fantastic. She wore a light blue dress that was modestly cut in the front and plunged down in a daring V-shape in the back. Her fiery hair was pinned back so that it fell in wavy bunches over the nape of her neck. A pair of sapphire stud earrings (courtesy of him, on their wedding day) set off the outfit, and they glinted in her ear every time she tossed her head with a laugh.

A smug sort of pride gripped him—

-and then he wondered if it was morally reprehensible to be gloating over a wife he was cheating on.

"Here," he said gently, handing her the glass and sitting down next to her.

She nodded her thanks and he took a drink of his whiskey, leaning over towards her and casually slipping his arm onto the back of her chair. He let his fingers wander over her bare shoulder while she chatted with a goon-ish looking neurosurgeon, tracing little circles and designs with the pad of his fingers. Consciously or unconsciously, he didn't know, she leaned into his touch, angling her body towards him.

So he leaned forward, and he said:

"You look stunning," and he pressed a swift kiss to her cheek and leaned back, as if nothing had happened.

It was like that miniscule action lifted the stress and tense awkwardness between them for the night; she smiled, the smile finally reaching her eyes, and she reached over and let her hand lay on his thigh. Relieved, he went back to drinking, and checked the time.

She did look gorgeous, and now that she was happy, he'd have less of a problem when he told her he was going back to…work after this black tie torture.

---

A very strong LIT and a couple of shots of patron later, Jenny was laughing rather loudly as Miller sucked the juice out of a lime, the corners of her eyes squinting comically at the sharp sour taste. Margaret rolled her eyes at Jenny's laughter and then ate the entire lime slice, holding her hands up triumphantly.

"Oh, yuck," Jenny commented, crinkling her nose. She picked up an empty shot glass, looked at it curiously, and then tossed her hair back, starting to lift her finger for another. Miller grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

"Ah, ah," she warned, flashing the face of her watch. "It's after eleven. Work tomorrow," she reminded Jenny. "I promise you will thank me for stopping you."

Jenny cocked an eyebrow.

"Margaret," she said seriously. "I am really drunk."

"I know."

"I don't think I'm capable of taking the metro back home."

"You're not, Jenny, I'm driving you."

"How are you not drunk?!"

Margaret grinned and clicked her nail against an empty shot glass.

"You snagged all my shots, Red," she snapped playfully, jingling her keys. "C'mon, pay your tab. You'll hate yourself for this when you have to face Gibbs with a hangover tomorrow," Miller added with a smug grin.

Jenny folded cash and a generous tip into her receipt and slipped it into the clean and dry tumbler reserved for payment sitting before her. She hopped off the stool with admirable grace for her inebriated state and smirked, pushing her hair back and letting it fall in tangles over her shoulders.

"Tomorrow?" she scoffed. "He'll be over tonight. Mark my words, that bitch wife of his can't keep him if she tries."

"I am going to pretend I didn't hear that," Miller said diplomatically, a cool calm present in her tone. She smiled and steered Jenny towards her car—Shepard was fun when she loosened up out of her tight-laced, rule-savvy work mode. Fun like Stan was fun all the time—wickedly, Margaret thought it would be a riot to get Stan Burley and Jenny Shepard drunk off their asses—together—one weekend.

"Mags," Jenny drawled seriously as she approached the scientist's sleek black Lexus and leaned against the passenger door. "You ever think Gibbs is such a dick because," she paused, furrowing her brows. "Because there's a nail stuck in his paw?"

"Gibbs doesn't have paws. He's a man."

Jenny looked confused; she shook her head and waved her hand.

"You know what I mean," she insisted. "He's a dick," she opened her car door and sat down instead, fumbling with the seatbelt. "There's a fable with a mouse and a lion and the mouse pulls a thorn out of the lion's paw and the lion isn't sore," she explained, her tongue tripping over her words a little. "Gibbs is a dick because something is hurting him."

Margaret Miller looked over at her wasted redhead friend, and smirked.

"Write that wholesome insight down and read it tomorrow morning."

---

"It's almost midnight."

Gibbs looked back at his wife neutrally as she glared at him. He stood by the driver's side door of his truck, still in his suit, holding his keys. Regardless of how warm she'd felt towards him after his compliment at the banquet, his confession that he was going back to the office had pushed her right back into an angry mood.

"It's a 'round the clock job, Diane," he answered. "And I left early."

She rolled her eyes.

"Yes, I forget how inconvenient it is for you to do something for me," she remarked coolly. She shifted her weight, rubbing her arms in the humid night air. She frowned, the corners of her lips wrinkling in an unpleasant way.

"What can you possibly do at midnight that can't wait until tomorrow morning?" she asked shortly.

He shrugged.

"It's easier to work after hours," he lied gruffly. "Less distractions."

She made a skeptical scoffing-snorting noise.

"I don't know why I give a damn," she admitted roughly. "If you're here, you'll just be in the basement avoiding me."

He didn't answer, and she lifted her hand in a mocking sort of salute.

"Thanks for escorting me," she said dully. She pushed her hair back and turned on her heel; her earrings glinted a little in the porch light. He opened the truck door, and just as he was about to climb in, Diane called his name.

"Leroy," she said mildly. He peered at her in the dark. "I hope you're not doing anything stupid," she remarked cryptically.

He watched her walk into the house, and then rubbed his forehead tensely and got in the truck—and he, stupidly, left.

---

He was a little surprised to get a sexy welcome in the middle of the night on a Wednesday, but when he rang her bell there she was, clad only in a loose cotton button up that was distinctly not buttoned—and underneath it, she was only wearing bright yellow lace panties.

Which was a little indecent, considering it put her on her porch half-naked.

She leaned seductively against the doorframe and invited him in.

She touched his lapel, her fingers brushing against his neck, and she puckered her lips as she looked him up and down, blowing air out playfully between her lips.

"You clean up nice," she drawled, winking at him impishly. She slipped past him to shut the door, stumbled a little, and giggled as the lock clicked—and that's when he realized she was soused.

"Jen?" he asked, somewhat amused.

She lifted her brows at him mockingly.

"You know you gotta be at work tomorrow," he reminded her.

She clicked her tongue and pretended to check her watch.

"So do you, Boss," she said silkily. "Looks like you're out past your curfew."

He felt the need to tread carefully, but she roped him in.

"Gonna book me for it, Shepard?" he asked huskily, leaning closer to her.

She smiled and arched her back, letting him press a lingering kiss to her lips, and then she gracefully escaped his attempt to pin her to the door. She sauntered down her hallway to her study and he took the hint to follow. She collapsed down on the leather couch he'd once slept on and drew her leg up, strategically arranging her button-down so he could no longer see her breasts. She ran her hand up and down her shin lightly, pushing her hair back.

The background music drifting somewhere on her desk was unmistakably Michael Jackson. He was still trying to figure out what this thing Jenny had for Michael Jackson was.

She was looking at him as if she were some sort of predator about to attack. He glanced at the cup of coffee she had sitting on a mahogany table. Next to it was a frayed paperback book, titled The Bridges of Madison County.

"Good book?" he asked, shrugging off his jacket. When he threw it over the arm of the couch, her eyes flickered slightly, like she was offended by his familiarity with her home.

"Mmm, ask me when I'm sober," she answered, shifting her legs. She straightened one out, and leaned her thigh against the back of the couch, flashing him her yellow panties again. That unexpected, wild colour was really throwing him off—did she wear those at work, under her professional slacks and skirts? It was such a racy option…

He bit back a groan, and she drew her nail from her knee to her inner thigh, beckoning to him with her left pointer finger. He sat down on the couch and pulled her leg over his lap, his eyes falling to the yellow splash of colour.

"Got a fetish for bananas, Jen?" he asked.

She pursed her lips, bat her lashes at him, and wriggled her toes along his inseam teasingly.

"Only yours, Jethro."

---

It wasn't difficult to figure out what she'd been drinking; she tasted like tequila and salt. She was just as good a kisser drunk as she was sober, but she was much less aggressive; she had been on his lap for half an hour before her hand had lazily slipped between them to unbutton and unzip his slacks.

Jenny ran her hands up his abdomen and chest to his neck and tilted his head back, pulling away from the kiss slowly. She blinked a few times to focus and arched an eyebrow.

"Why did you come back?" she asked, her lips turning up at the corners.

He tangled his fingers in the ends of her hair. He shrugged.

"There a wrong answer to this?" he asked.

She tilted her head intently, and then shook it back and forth.

"No," she answered—and there wasn't. If he was at her place, it was because he wanted to be. It was because he had chosen it out of desire. If she had been his wife asking such a question, there was a wrong answer, and the wrong answer was 'because I had to'.

Well nothing required him to be at Jenny's house. The gold wedding band and the marriage was what technically required him not to be here, and he came anyway. So she tallied: Diane: 0, Jenny: 1, and then she tried to convince herself that she was only doing such a cruel thing as keeping score because she was drunk.

He pulled her mouth down to his again and kissed her, his tongue sliding past her teeth, silencing her. She pressed closer to him, her thighs squeezing his, and she locked her fingers together behind his neck, tugging at his short hair. It occurred to her that they never really kissed like this; it was always urgent, fast, and a little bit wild. There was calm after the storm, but never a languid lead-in.

His hands moved to her shoulders and he pulled the button up shirt down her arms, exposing her back. Chilled, she snuggled against him, her hips settling more heavily against his groin, and he groaned, looking down distractedly and breaking the kiss. She moved to his neck, scraping her teeth teasingly at the sensitive skin there.

"Jethro," she murmured, as her lips moved closer to his ear. "Do you like it when she calls you Leroy?" she asked in a soft voice, biting on his earlobe, her nose pressing lightly into his jaw. He muscles tensed against her and he paused, turning his head away from her a little.

"Don't, Jenny," he warned coolly. He didn't care if she was drunk, he didn't want to hear her talk about his wife in a situation like this. Or ever, come to think of it. He did a damn good job of pushing her to some far, blocked part of his mind. He didn't need Jenny bringing that up.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize," he quipped.

"Right," she answered, and rolled her eyes. She began unbuttoning his dress shirt, her fingertips slipping eagerly past the material to feel his chest. "I can't get anything right with you," she murmured.

His hands were on her thighs suddenly, brushing against her lace panties a little insistently, and she sighed, pressing her palms to his chest and leaning back so he could touch her. She played with the waistband of his pants and he pulled at the edge of her panties.

"Take them off," he insisted gruffly.

She considered his request for a moment, unwilling to put any space between them, trying to figure out how to accomplish the removal of her panties without too much rearranging. It was too logistical a question for her muddled mind, though; she rose up on her knees, her hair falling over her shoulders and getting in his face. He grinned and slid the panties down her legs, coming up short when he tried to get them around her knees and felt resistance.

"If you rip them I'll kill you," she threatened.

Gibbs gripped her knee and attempted to stretch her leg out and maneuver the lace off of her; she winced and twisted away from him.

"I'm not a gymnast!" she cried in protest. She tumbled off of his lap and laughed, losing her breath a little as her back hit the armrest of the sofa. He smirked and was able to whip the panties off her. He turned and crawled over her, sliding his arm around her waist and pressing her knee into the leather couch with his body.

"Mmm," she whimpered, biting her lower lip and wrapping her other leg around his waist. She used her heel to push his pants and briefs down; he pulled her hips up to him firmly and thrust inside her.

Jenny tilted her head back and gasped, blood rushing to her head. She pursed her lips and hissed out a breath through her teeth. He groaned, his forehead pressed into her collarbone, and she brushed her fingers across her lips, wincing.

"That angle was—"

"Bad?" he interrupted her hoarse confession apologetically and loosened his grip on her waist. Gibbs lifted his head up and kissed her jaw gently. She nodded and breathed out, shifting her leg and arching her back a little.

"Better?" he asked.

He shifted his hips and she nodded, biting down on her pointer finger.

"Ooh, better," she agreed huskily.

He reached up and took her hand from her mouth. He interlaced his fingers into hers and held on tightly; his lips brushed her neck and he started to move. She felt his forehead crinkle against her skin and smirked. She held his hand tightly, her breath catching in her throat every time he thrust into her. She relaxed; she was kidding herself if she let herself think she was getting an orgasm out of this—she was too drunk for that—but he was so close, for once, and he was holding her hand so tightly, that it felt good anyway.

---

He was reluctant to wake her from the alcohol-induced sleep she was so deeply entrenched in, but something prevented him from just leaving her alone in her bed. She was usually awake when he left; if not, he woke her. Tonight had possessed a different atmosphere, an odd feel, which left him wanting to sleep next to her all night.

But that, he couldn't do, so he woke her.

She opened her eyes the moment he said her name; evidently she was easy to startle awake when she'd been drinking. Immediately, confusion clouded her green eyes and she looked around her, pushing the covers away.

It registered in Jenny's mind that, since she had fallen asleep on her couch downstairs, the only explanation for her having ended up in bed was that Jethro had carried her. And that realization struck her with a weird kind of vulnerability that she did not like, so she gave him a baleful look.

He turned her lamp on, and she groaned, blinking and shielding her eyes.

"I'm leavin'," he said.

"You had to turn the light on to tell me that?" she whined, falling to the pillows and burying her face. She whimpered and peeked at him from strands of hair and sheets, her green eyes glinting in the eerie glow of the lamp.

"Couldn't find my keys," he placated.

"They're down in the hall," she answered, gesturing vaguely behind her towards the door. She sounded congested and tired; her voice was thick. She moaned a short of pitiful moan and rubbed her forehead, curling up. "What time is it?"

"Three," he answered.

This time, her moan was more whiny and childish, probably provoked by the thought that she had to get up for work in about three hours. He smirked, and for the first—and probably last time—he caved in to giving her special treatment just because he wanted to make her happy.

"Jen, don't come in tomorrow," he said gruffly. "I'll page you if we have a crime scene," he added, making it less obvious that he was letting her get away with getting drunk on a work night and having no consequences.

"'Kay," she muttered without arguing, her voice muffled in the pillows. Her words were still a little slurred. "Turn my heat on when you leave," she grumbled, wrapping up in the covers clumsily. "It's cold without you," she said absently.

He laughed.

"Yeah, Jen," he agreed. On instinct, he leaned over and pressed a light goodbye kiss to her shoulder, and ran his hand possessively from her shoulder to her hip.

"Rule number ten," she chastised sleepily.

He pulled away from her, brow furrowed slightly, and got up to leave. He flicked her lamp off and shut her door—because she hated sleeping with it open—and it was when he was turning her heat on for her that it hit him what she was talking about.

His rule number ten—never get personally involved in a case.

Immediately after, it struck him that he was much more personally involved in this just sex than he had originally thought himself to be.

---

At nine o'clock the next morning, Jenny Shepard was brushing her teeth a second time to wash the sour taste of vomit out of her mouth. It had been a long, long time since she'd drank to the point of making herself sick, and she was less than proud of herself—to put it lightly. Her head was pounding, and her beeper going off shrilly right as she was spitting fresh mint toothpaste did nothing to assuage the aching.

"Shit," she swore, as she wiped her mouth and then fumbled her beeper off the sink and onto the floor. The battery cover busted off and she rolled her eyes, turning it over in her hands to look at the number.

She squinted to read it better and then turned on her shower and stormed into her bedroom to find her cordless telephone. She tossed her beeper onto the unmade bed, and while her water heated up, she called the Navy Yard.

"Decker," the phone was answered almost instantly.

"Hey, it's Shepard," she said, clearing her throat. "You paged?"

"Yeah, your highness, we've got a case," he answered good-naturedly. "Gibbs said you're sick or somethin'."

"Somethin'," she repeated vaguely. "Where?" she asked.

"West Virginia."

"What?!" she groaned. She rolled her eyes and held the phone between her ear and her shoulder, shrugging off her shirt and walking into the bathroom.

"Something's up," Decker said. "Gibbs wanted Stan and I to go check out this house, and its connected to some case, and someone is dead—"

"What are you talking about?!" Jenny demanded.

"Just come in," he said. "It's complicated. Meet us at—wait," Decker paused, Jenny heard murmuring, a shout, and then Decker swore. "Never mind, Jenny, Burley's gonna pick you up."

"I'm being punished," she said dully.

Decker just laughed.

"He'll be over in twenty minutes."

She confirmed that she'd be ready and barely said her goodbyes before she'd hung up the phone and sprinted into her bathroom to take what was going to be the quickest shower of her professional career.

---

To say she was perturbed by Burley's immediately bursting into laughter when she got in the car was to make an understatement.

"You're not sick, you're hung-over," he pointed out smugly, gloating.

Jenny scowled at him. It wasn't that obvious she was hung-over; the shower had done wonders for sprucing her up. Her cheeks were still paler than usual and her eyes were a little dark and bloodshot, but she had much less of a headache and the coffee in her travel cup was really perking her up.

She put her mug in the cup holder of Burley's surprisingly clean car and pulled her seatbelt on.

"Shut up," she grumbled mildly.

He whistled, and backed out of her drive.

"So," he began seriously. "What'd you do for Gibbs to convince him you could sleep in?" he asked suggestively, and when Jenny realized what he was insinuating, she turned towards him sharply, completely stunned by the audacity of his comment.

He mistook her staring at him for amusement, because he didn't look over at her right away.

"You dress up or somethin'?"

"Are you completely oblivious to how inappropriate that was?" she asked through clenched teeth, her eyes flashing. "Do you have any idea how offensive that is?" she demanding, raising her voice.

His cocky look faded and his face took on a defensive expression.

"Cool it, Shepard, I'm kidding around," he said.

"You are not, Burley," she snapped at him. "You and I both know you're not."

"Shep—"

"No, Stan, that's the problem. You have never been kidding around when you make your ignorant little sexist comments."

"Jesus Christ," he muttered, and rolled his eyes, and looked out the front window—and that sort of attitude infuriated her, because she knew he was trying to blow her off. He was thinking crazy and feminazi and he was probably twenty seconds away from asking her if it was her time of the month and she was going to lose it.

"You're a son of a bitch, you know that?"

"Yeah, well, if you want to play with the boys, learn to take a little flak," he shot back nastily.

"'Take a little flak'?" she repeated, her eyes widening. "'Take a little flak'?" Her hands were shaking. "Is that what you think you're doing, Stan, giving me flak?" He opened his mouth but she cut him off sharply, banging her hand on the dash in front of her.

"Hey," he snapped, sensitive about her maltreatment of his car.

"Hey," she shouted back at him, catching his attention beautifully. Her volume startled him and he shut his mouth stiffly. "Treating me like one of the guys is teasing me about my shot and kicking my ass in the gym—it's not demeaning my sexuality and it is definitely not insinuating that I'm a whore every other sentence!"

"No one's demeaning you, Shepard!"

"Suggesting I'm fucking Gibbs to make my job easier? Making comments about my clothing, my body, how I have accomplished things, making yourself feel powerful by trying to trivialize me? What the hell do you think that is?"

And from all of that, all Stan came back with was:

"But you are fucking Gibbs!"

Her breath caught angrily in her throat for a moment and she shook her head, pushing her hair back. Her hand was still shaking, she was so mad.

"I didn't get my job because I slept with him! I don't use it to—You can't even prove I'm...You don't know if I'm-goddamnit, Stan! I'm not sleeping with him to get ahead—"

"Then why not save yourself the gossip and get off his dick?" Burley interrupted viciously. "Why sleep with him?" he goaded. "Or are you just one of those women who gets off on taking what isn't yours? If you're gonna act like a whore, Shepard—!"

The violence and vitriol coming from him surprised her, even if it was Stan Burley and they'd never gotten along—she was still startled that he could be so utterly uncaring and so completely and wholly horrible. He was driving, so she couldn't let him have it without endangering her life.

"I fuck Gibbs because I want to fuck Gibbs," she snarled at him, glaring at him viciously, her eyes so hard and stony that she was almost certain she'd never blink again. The language made her uncomfortable—admitting this situation out loud at all made her writhe in discomfort, and that she was alone with Burley…that made it all the worse.

She knew Burley and Decker were probably aware of what was going on-how could they not be? But that he didn't have the decency to pretend-and really, he couldn't prove-!

"Then you've got the reasoning of a petulant kindergartner, Shepard, and don't expect anyone to respect you for it," his eyes snapped to the road, and under his breath, she heard him mumble it: "Homewrecker."

She bit her tongue and sat on her fist—it was all she could do to restrain herself for the moment; she forced herself to hold out until he parked the car at the crime scene and killed the engine—

—and then she was out of the car too fast for him to keep up with her, and just as he was shutting the door and stepping away from the federal sedan she grabbed his shoulder, jerked him around to face her, and punched him square in the mouth.

His bones thunked against her knuckles and it stung like hell, but the blood that gushed from his lip and onto her fingers satisfied her, and she shook her hand out with subtle pride as he burst into cursing and stumbled away from her.

"Goddammit, you crazy bitch," he swore.

Jenny lifted her fist to her lips and sucked on her knuckle to soothe it; Burley bent over, holding one wrist to his face, and braced himself on his knee with the other, spitting blood onto the ground.

"Whoa, folks," a male voice shouted, and Jenny turned in time to see a stocky, balding man in a windbreaker that looked as if it were NCIS issue. "This is a crime scene," he started sternly. "You're gonna have to take your lovers' spat elsewhere."

Jenny turned on him aggressively, whipping her badge out of her pocket and chucking it at the man's chest.

"I'm NCIS," she barked. "This is my crime scene." She jerked her thumb at Burley's pitiful form behind her, giving the older man a challenging glare. "He likes to call himself a Fed, too," she bit out roughly.

The guy just stared at her for a minute, and then glanced down at her ID, narrowed his eyes, and handed it back to her.

"You've got to be one of Gibbs'," he said seriously, his brow crinkling. "As to this being your crime scene, that's debatable," he added, and then narrowed his eyes as he looked at her bloody knuckle and Burley's bloody lip, silently reprimanding them for the spectacle.

He extended his hand.

"Tobias Fornell, FBI," he said.

Jenny straightened her shoulders and took his hand, shaking it firmly and with all of her strength—using the bloodied one, and not giving a damn.

"Jennifer Shepard," she retorted. "You got a problem working with women?" she snapped at him.

He held up his hands.

"No ma'am," he said, and grinned at her.

"Don't call me ma'am," she growled, her shoulder slamming roughly into his as she stormed past him. "Where the hell is Jethro?"

---

Gibbs was already pissed that Fornell and his FBI goons were fighting for this crime scene; it didn't help his mood to discover that Fornell had run into Jenny apparently beating the shit out of Burley out on the street.

He rubbed his jaw tensely as he watched Burley mop up his cut lip. There was already an ugly bruise blooming over his nostril and jaw, a bruise that—in other circumstances—Gibbs might be proud of Jenny for.

The woman in question was not looking at him; she was pointedly looking at the yellow crime scene tape surrounding the front door of the Maryland house.

Gibbs had left Decker to hold their ground inside, and was currently glaring stoically at each of his agents. Burley wadded up his gauze and spit out a last mouthful of coppery tasting blood before he straightened up and gave Gibbs a sour look.

"What happened?" Gibbs demanded curtly.

Burley nodded at Shepard.

"Ask her," he said meanly.

Gibbs looked at Shepard, but she did not look back at him even then. She squinted her eyes and shifted her feet, but other than that, he had no luck. Her nose crinkled slightly and her lips turned down at the corners.

"Doesn't look like she's talkin'," Gibbs observed.

"She doesn't have to, does she?" fired off Burley. "All she's gotta do is bat her eyelashes, and you're on her side."

Gibbs rubbed his jaw again, irritated, and this time his attention was totally on Burley.

"I'd say it sounds like you're jealous, Stan," Jenny spoke up coolly.

Gibbs put his hand up.

"Shut up," he said to her. "Both of you," he added, turning a sharp look on Stan. "Burley, go back up Deck," he ordered. Burley scuffed his boot angrily on the concrete and then stormed off, disappearing into the house after roughly shoving aside some yellow tape.

Jenny was still refusing to look at him.

He eyed her intently for a minute, and then moved closer.

"Shepard," he started in a low voice. "What. Happened?"

She moved her head slightly and then shrugged her shoulders.

"He was just being himself, Gibbs," she answered finally, her words clipped and leaden.

"Burley's rough around the edges," Gibbs agreed mildly. "That's not why you hit him," he pointed out knowingly. "What did he say?"

Stubbornly, she shook her head.

"Jen," he warned.

"What?" she snapped, turning her head and looking him in the eye. "What, Jethro?" She swallowed and gave him a cold look. "I am in an impossible position," she said tightly. "It isn't Burley's fault, and it isn't your fault, it's mine, but you two are the only people I want to blame right now."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Gibbs asked, exasperated.

"It is your job to prevent me from being harassed, but if I whine to you about Burley being a misogynistic prick and you take up for me, he's going to bitch that you're playing favorites because we're screwing," she articulated bitterly. "You can't do your job because you're doing me."

Gibbs narrowed his eyes and set his jaw.

"Bull," he retorted gruffly. "If Burley needs his ass kicked, I'll kick his ass."

"Took care of that," she groused.

"What did he say?"

Jenny turned her head away and then turned her back to Gibbs, her body angled towards the car she stood in front of. She put a hand on the hood, then reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. Her hand lingered on her face, touched her cheek, and she tilted her head up to the sky.

"He called me a homewrecker," she answered finally, and he detected just the tiniest of shakes in her voice at the end. She touched her face again, and he realized with a sinking feeling that she was urgently preventing herself from crying.

Gibbs swore under his breath.

She took a deep breath and swiped at her eyes again; he reached out with both hands as if to take her by the shoulders and she threw her arms up, showing him her palms, a fearful uncertain expression crossing her eyes.

"Don't," she hissed. His wedding band glinted at her in the sun and she blinked away her tears with resolve.

"Jen, stop," he growled. His hand landed on her hip, away from the view of the house, and he leaned a little closer, his eyes hard and frustrated. She reached down and squeezed his hand, her fingers brushing against his intimately.

"We cannot do this here."

He released her hip, and in the nick of time, because the FBI agent was approaching, and Decker was with him, look perturbed and displeased all at once. Jenny moved away from Gibbs quickly; she composed herself and put a stony expression on her face, and she ignored Decker's look of concern.

"You want to wait on your ME?" Fornell asked, glancing at Jenny curiously as he walked up.

"Duck's on his way," Gibbs retorted brusquely. He gestured to the house vaguely and caught Jenny's eye. "Shepard, go help secure the scene," he ordered gruffly. "Just don't talk to Burley," he added as an afterthought, rolling his eyes for Decker and Fornell's benefit.

She turned on her heel and was off without argument; he sensed she was relieved to get away from him, and he felt that sense of relief, too. It was disarming to see Jenny upset because her feelings had been hurt; he didn't like it, and he knew the urge he had to cold-cock Burley himself was inappropriate and had to be ignored. Jenny wasn't the woman whose honor he was supposed to defend.

Fornell turned and watched her go, shaking his head.

---

"You gonna put 'em both in time out back at the Navy Yard?" Fornell asked, watching Gibbs' probie and Burley tiptoe around each other tensely as they assisted both the FBI and NCIS' medical examiners.

Gibbs shot Tobias a glare and grit his teeth, annoyed at the both of them for putting on such a display in front of the damn FBI.

"So that's what it's like, having a woman on the team," Fornell went on smugly. "Tears and hitting. Kind of like havin' kids."

"How would you know, Fornell?" Gibbs asked.

Fornell shrugged.

"Got a couple siblings," he answered.

Jenny approached and handed Gibbs a zip-locked bag that contained carpet fibers.

"This is what we're after," she said.

"That what led you here?" Fornell asked, reaching for the bag. Jenny yanked it out of his reach and made a point of handing it directly to Gibbs. She nodded and folded her arms in front of her once Gibbs had taken it. "What, carpet fibers?"

"We found a badly mutilated body 'bout a week ago," Jenny informed Fornell. "Lab analysis of things found on his body turned up a carpet fiber that our forensic lab connected to a ritzy carpeting company that caters to this neighborhood," she explained. "We've been interviewing people and narrowing down houses."

"And you turned up here this morning and found our crime scene," Fornell supplied.

"I'll take your word for that," Jenny answered dryly, turning back to the parking lot.

Fornell turned back to Gibbs.

"Coincidence?" he asked.

"No such thing as coincidences," Jenny remarked mildly.

Fornell arched an eyebrow at Gibbs.

"She's been with you, what, four months? You've already brainwashed her," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. He smirked. "Why do they keep letting you train the new ones?"

"Charisma," Gibbs answered, deadpan, in the most uncharismatic voice he could muster.

Fornell snorted.

"Same character trait that got you a stone cold fox for a wife," he drawled. "How is Diane?"

"Pain in the ass," Gibbs answered in his usual way, falling easily into male banter with Fornell.

"She ever mention me?" Fornell asked slyly. "We had some pretty profound moments during the hunt for Boone, me 'n her," he quipped.

"Yeah, when she threw that mason jar at your head. Real romantic," Gibbs retorted.

"She was aimin' at you, pal," Fornell chuckled, shaking his head. "She still hate you?"

Jenny cleared her throat, whether it was purposefully or just coincidental. Fornell looked at her and then jerked his head at her back.

"Diane met her?" he asked in a low voice.

Jenny straightened up, snapping off her latex gloves.

"There's no conceivable connection between our poverty-ridden dead marine and this trust fund bleached blonde brat," she said coolly, her eyes hitting Fornell's' threateningly.

He gave her a surprised look, taken aback by her—for lack of a better word—balls. He was unsure what he'd said to offend her. She was a fantastic-looking woman, and he glanced at Gibbs, a scandalous thought crossing his mind—no, Gibbs was too uptight and traditional—

"That's what we're here to figure out, Agent Shepard," Fornell said cordially.

She furrowed her brow and pursed her lips, flicking her eyes behind her. She looked thoughtful, and then put a hand on her hip as if suddenly taken by a farfetched idea. Throwing caution to the winds, she asked:

"You boys ever seen Strangers on a Train?"

---

Margaret Miller was livid: livid because she hated getting involved in the petty squabbling of the agents upstairs, and livid because she couldn't stop herself this time. She didn't feel responsible for Stan—she wasn't silly enough of a woman to think she was personally guilty for everything the man she was sleeping with did—but she did consider Jenny her friend. When she'd heard what had happened—and from Decker's mouth, not Shepard's, she knew nothing had been embellished, and she knew Stan needed his ass kicked.

"It isn't cute, Burley," Miller snapped at him, half-focused on the samples she was transferring from microscope to tray.

"Oh, we're back to last names now?" he retorted, though his heart didn't seem to be in the fight. He was sitting on her stool with an ice pack pressed against his lip and the left side of his nose, sort of pouting at her.

She'd called Gibbs and specifically asked for him to come get the evidence she had.

"Stan," Miller sighed unhappily, turning to him. "What's wrong with you?"

"Shepard gets on my nerves," he snapped. "Isn't that enough?"

"No," Miller snapped back. "No, because Gibbs gets on your nerves, too, but you're scared of him, so you don't attack him. And you see yourself as having power over Jenny, so you attack her."

"She attacked me!"

"You attacked her verbally!"

Miller turned to him and propped a hand on her hip, narrowing her eyes.

"I know you're a bit of a natural dick, Stan, but you're not a misogynist. You're a little old fashioned and chauvinistic maybe, but so's Gibbs, and so's Decker, though he's more so in a chivalrous gentleman sort of way—"

"Hey, I can be a gentleman," Stan drawled.

"I'm aware of that," Margaret said. "So why isn't Jenny aware of that? Why do you put off such a negative attitude towards her? Is it because it makes you nervous that she can hold her own and doesn't need your protection?" Margaret paused. "Or is it because you're attracted to her?"

Burley stared at her, his eyes widening behind the ice pack.

"W-What?!" he spluttered, caught off guard. "Attracted to her?" he repeated. "Why would I be mean to her if I was attracted to her?"

"What reason do you have to be mean to her at all?"

"She's unprofessional, Mags!"

"How?" demanded Miller calmly.

"She's-! You know how! Sure must be the high life, you know, sleepin' with the boss!"

"You have no empirical proof that Shepard is sleeping with Gibbs."

"Who gives a damn about empirical whatever? They're sleeping together."

"And how exactly has that alleged fact presented itself in the bullpen?" Margaret probed. "Has Shepard been promoted? Been allowed to sit out dangerous situations? Been given a pass on slip ups or shoddy police work?"

Burley opened his mouth, and then clamped it shut. Other than the coffee Gibbs very occasionally brought her, Burley realized he couldn't pick out a moment when Shepard had received preferential treatment. He remembered Gibbs giving her hell for that evidence-photo slip up the other day—the same hell he gave all of them. Aggressive, blunt, no-nonsense Gibbs.

"He let her stay home because of a hangover," Burley tried, his passion fizzling somewhat.

"I came in late this morning as well," Miller said mildly. "I spoke to Director Morrow about a similar situation. Would you then assume Morrow and I are having an affair?"

"Of course not," Burley answered sheepishly. "But the Director isn't Gibbs. Gibbs doesn't brake for hangovers."

"Do you know she had a hangover, or did you assume so?"

Burley lowered the ice pack from his face and blinked at her.

"Who's side are you on, Maggie?" he asked after a moment.

"I am not taking sides," she responded, holding up her palms. "I'm personally involved with you, Stan, and because of that, I want to defend you. I know a different person than Shepard does and I can't for the life of me figure out why the hell you're acting like such an asshole," she paused, and shook her head curtly. "But as a female it infuriates me that you'd treat a colleague this way. What right do you have to bitch at her for who she sleeps with?"

Margaret moved her pointer finger back and forth between them.

"Gibbs told you to knock it off with me months ago!"

"He's a hypocrite!" hissed Burley, and Miller snapped triumphantly.

"That's it," she pinpointed. "That's it; you're jealous because Shepard impressed him more quickly than you did, and you're mad because Gibbs broke his own rules."

Burley grumbled under his breath, and placed the ice pack back on his face gently.

"What's so special about her, Mags?" he asked unhappily. "Her pus—"

"Don't you dare," Margaret cut him off. "She and Gibbs are cut from the same cloth. He respects you, Stan, he does. But he understands her."

Burley bowed his head, and then rubbed his forehead.

"Just something about her rubs me wrong," he muttered.

"You're jealous. Get over it," Miller said gently, shrugging.

"She still didn't have to hit me," he groused.

"You called her a whore."

Burley made a face.

"Fine, I deserved to get hit," he said. "But she packs a punch, Mags!"

Miller smiled wryly.

"I think she might like to hear that compliment when you apologize to her."

---

She still had a headache menacing her at seven o'clock when everyone was packing up to go home. They had no leads on this case—which was now a joint FBI/NCIS investigation—and the only one who seemed to think her Strangers on a Train theory plausible was Fornell's gangly, freckled college intern. Working with Burley had been unbearable all day, Gibbs was in a horrible mood because Fornell was so weirdly cheery all the time (in a bastard-ish way), and Decker seemed to be off his game; he'd told her to look past her education in English lit and wake up to the idea that violence was random and inexplicable.

"…think I might pop over for dinner with you and that lovely wife."

"Go home, Tobias," Gibbs growled.

Jenny looked up through her lashes at them, compressing her lips. Those two had a weird relationship. She stumbled around trying to define it and came up with a mix of frat brothers and sports rivals. With guns. It was interesting, but also borderline creepy.

Because sometimes it literally sounded like Fornell was flirting with Gibbs.

Decker and Burley seemed to be at least somewhat accustomed to it, whereas Jenny was utterly baffled.

Fornell turned to her out of the blue.

"You know we've got a much sweeter setup at the Hoover building, Shepard," he said wryly. "Friendly work environment, too. What makes you want to work with the Federal government's redheaded stepchild?" he goaded.

Jenny lifted her eyebrow at him, and then lifted her pencil and tapped her hair pointedly.

"We're soul-less mates," she answered, deadpan.

Fornell grinned.

"I guess you'd have to be soulless to put up with this old bastard," he said, jutting his thumb back at Gibbs.

"Soulless isn't the word I would use," Jenny answered, standing up and gathering some of her things together.

"Naw?" Fornell asked curiously. "What would you use?"

She pursed her lips and tilted her head back and forth, pretending to think about it.

"Redheaded," she answered smartly, turning the conversation right around on him, shooting Tobias Fornell a wry look. The older man's eyes lit up with mirth and he laughed loudly. He extended his hand and she shook it firmly.

"I look forward to working with you more, Shepard," Fornell said good-naturedly.

"You will be," she responded confidently. "Hey, Agent Fornell," she called as he was leaving. He turned around and quirked an eyebrow at her. "You know, there's merit to my theatrical idea," she said.

"Jesus, Shepard," Gibbs muttered, and she turned a glare on him. "Drop it," he ordered.

"No," she responded. "You haven't gotten anywhere with anything else."

"What do you suggest?" Fornell asked, though he sounded suspiciously like he was patronizing her.

"Have your team re-interview everyone close to our victim," she explained slowly, "and NCIS will re-interview everyone close to your victim after you do your interviews. Then we monitor their phone calls, and see what happens."

Fornell backtracked a few steps. He looked at Gibbs.

"Couldn't hurt," he said.

Gibbs looked at Jenny, unreadable for a moment. He rubbed his jaw uncertainly and then snapped his head over to Fornell.

"Do your interviews on your case," he said. "We'll go over everything again, look for leads. Then we put Jen's plan into action," Gibbs decided.

Fornell nodded.

"I can deal with that," he agreed. He gave a small wave and said his farewells again, that grin back on his face. In a weird way, he reminded Jenny of the rat Templeton from Charlotte's Web. He retreated to the elevator, and left Gibbs and Jenny alone in the bullpen; Decker had left early after finishing some reports, and Burley had been down in evidence cataloguing for over two hours now.

Jenny cleared her throat and kicked her bag and purse further back behind her desk, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Burley apologize to you?"

Jenny snorted and raised her eyebrow at him.

"Why would he, Gibbs?" she asked. "You teach your soldiers not to apologize."

"It's different," he growled.

"Because I'm a woman?" Jenny asked dully. She wrinkled her nose slightly, her brows quirking up mockingly. "Or because you're territorial," she lowered her voice, "and you're pissed he insulted your woman?"

"You're not my woman, Jen," he hissed back, annoyed by the term.

"I'm well aware of that, Jethro," she shot back. She cut her eyes to his left hand pointedly and then pushed her chair in. "Go home, Jethro," she said, repeating the words he'd so briskly said to Fornell.

"You workin' late?" he asked, as she started out of the bullpen.

She swallowed hard, and she nodded.

"I made a friend in the Cyber unit," she said. "He's going to teach me some things, get me ahead of the technical game," she added.

Gibbs looked skeptical.

"We have a Cyber unit?" he asked. He checked his pockets for all of his things and locked his desk; he followed her out of the bullpen and they went to the elevator in step.

Jenny rolled her eyes.

"It's going to be our most important unit come the millennium," she remarked.

He scoffed, holding the elevator door and gesturing for her to go in first.

"Nothin' beats good old fashioned police work," he drawled.

She shook her head at his stubborn need to hold on to the old ways, and stepped on the elevator, watching it slide closed in front of them. She shifted her feet and pressed the button for the basement—which was where the fledgling unit was going to be located.

Right near Margaret's lab.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jenny saw him rub his jaw tensely. After sleeping with him for a while now, she knew that particular gesture meant he was feeling stress of some sort; she wondered if it had to do with the all-around bad taste this day had left in the whole team's mouth.

He lunged forward and shut off the elevator.

She took a deep breath, though she didn't know what was worrying her. It wasn't as if they were back in the early days, dancing a line they couldn't cross. They were past the line and past out of bounds. There wasn't anything they could do to make their sins worse.

"Jen," he said gruffly.

She looked over at him, her eyes meeting his.

"You're not a home-wrecker," he said, and his words startled her. Had he been thinking about that all day, like she had? She hadn't expected him to be. She had hardly stopped thinking about Burley's accusations, but that was because she was the party who would inevitably be completely faulted and vilified if they were ever caught—

She tried to cut the thought off. They were capable of getting this…lust out of their systems without getting caught, right? And then they'd never speak of it again.

In the split second that her mind ran through all of these thoughts, she just lifted her shoulder slightly and nodded.

"I know," she said.

He gave her a steely look and then casually leaned back against the elevator wall, his hands in his pockets.

"Wrecked my own home," he muttered unexpectedly.

This time, she was so startled, she actually stared at him with her lips parted. She turned a little more, her back half facing the elevator doors, and she studied him. She felt a tug in her chest that made her stomach flip and sink all at once. She bit down on her lip until it hurt and then she cleared her throat.

"Then go home, Jethro," she said hoarsely, though it physically hurt her throat to force the words out, and encourage him to stay away from her bed tonight.

The elevator doors opened to the basement, and she turned to step off; he grabbed her arm and stepped up to her, towering over her and looking down. She couldn't read his expression; she couldn't even see past the iron blue curtain of his eyes, but when he kissed her quickly—even though it was fast and his mouth was gone in a blink—she could interpret his lips.

He didn't want to go home.

---

Alone with his boat, in the basement with a mason jar of bourbon, Gibbs listened to Diane walking around upstairs. He didn't know what she was doing; her movements were white noise. She'd only made small talk with him when he'd come home. She curtly told him there was dinner in the fridge. The phone had rang about thirty minutes ago; maybe she was still on it.

He ran his hand back and forth over his workbench while he stood next to it, disregarding the risk of splinters, his eyes narrowed as he looked at the shell of his (second) masterpiece. It was nearing completion, this part of it. But the closer he got to finishing, the more he wanted to burn it. It was as if he just couldn't finish it.

His first boat had been near finished when Kelly and Shannon had been killed.

That was something he never got to finish, either. A life cut short too early, which forced him into a new world he didn't know how to navigate. And now he was in a mess—to put it lightly. He didn't know what he was doing; he didn't know where he was going or what the endgame to this was.

He had never intended to sleep with Jenny, but he had slept with her because he didn't have the self-control required to say no to that moment when his instincts and his body were screaming yes with ever nerve and fiber. He had assumed it would happen once and they'd be done, but now he couldn't stay away.

He liked Jen. He wanted her. Sometimes, he felt the nagging desire to just be with her. She was easy to be around; she didn't probe into his life, she didn't ramble on about what her hopes and dreams were and how they meshed. To be fair, that could be because she was at a disadvantage here as the other woman—she wasn't allowed to do any of that. He sensed it was more than that, though. He got the feeling that she didn't care if he talked because she didn't want to talk.

He knew innately that he should not be involved with Jenny, but realistically, he was. He warily acknowledged that it hadn't crossed his mind to end that relationship. It hadn't crossed his mind to end his marriage, either. He was stuck between a rock in a hard place, and he still didn't feel guilty.

With Jenny, though, he felt less empty.

"Leroy."

"What?" he called back to his wife.

"I'm going out with Emma."

He grunted in response, and he didn't know if she heard him.

Footsteps and footsteps later, she left and the house was empty again, save for him, staring at the boat, and refusing to take responsibility.

---

"Senora, you home very late tonight," Noemi remarked sweetly.

She bustled out of the kitchen as Jenny was laying her keys, badge, and sig on the hall table and beamed at the redhead; Jenny returned the smile half-heartedly and glanced at her watch.

"Ten isn't too bad," she said. "You didn't have to wait around, Noemi," she added.

"I make sure nothing catch on fire," Noemi said breezily, waving her off. "I make dinner for you, see," she added.

"Thank you," Jenny answered sincerely.

"You alright, Senora?" Noemi asked.

Jenny bit the inside of her cheek and turned, looking at Noemi gently for a moment. She nodded slowly and gave her a small smile.

"I'm fine, Noemi," she assured her housekeeper. "No one has tried to murder me," she added wryly. Noemi blushed and smiled at Jenny. She hesitated and then returned to the kitchen and grabbed her things, readying to say her goodbyes. Jenny waved at her good-naturedly and then waited for Noemi to shut the door behind her before she let the frown settle over her features.

Spending three hours in Cyber crimes had done nothing for her headache, but it had done a hell of a lot in the taking her mind off things department. In the past day—no, more than a day; she needed to figure the reason behind her getting drunk in the first place into this—she had felt more hollow and demeaned than she had since, well, possibly high school.

The fact that Stan Burley rather than actual moral decency had provoked such a feeling was appalling to her, and it had unexpectedly brought thoughts of her father to the front of her mind.

Proud, honorable Colonel Shepard, who always did unto others and kept his promises on pain of death.

What would he think of his only little girl now, when she was making her bed in the sheets of someone else's husband?

"I don't know why I care," she said aloud, bitterly, to the Ghost of Jasper. "You didn't give a damn what I thought while that horror show was going on," she muttered.

She shoved her things away and went into her kitchen, where she turned off the stove and put Noemi's generous dinner in the refrigerator. She hadn't had the heart to tell the woman she wasn't hungry, but she wasn't. She wanted only to shower and to crawl into bed.

So she retreated up her stairs and turned on the water, made sure it was heating up to scalding, and stripped off her clothes while she waited for the temperature to get just right. She stood looking at her reflection in the mirror as it slowly fogged up and made her face look soft and unfocused.

She had been so careful to refrain from even grazing the tip of the iceberg that was looming in her life. She was very conscious about ignoring the elephant in the room—the one with the title Mrs. in her name—and focusing solely on herself; on what was happening at work and in her own personal life.

Burley had goaded her, and she'd succumbed to immature tussling, to fighting in the streets, and she attributed that petty weakness to the fact that she was insecure and ashamed of her own actions.

And then Gibbs, Gibbs had rocked her perception of things with his raw, off-the-cuff comment. Wrecked my own home. She couldn't grasp the sentiment; didn't understand how to interpret it. Did he mean he was leaving his wife? The thought starkly terrified her; she suddenly realized she didn't want that.

Jenny shook her head and licked her lips. She was overthinking things; that's why she didn't let herself think about this. She slept with Gibbs because it felt good—he made her feel good.

They could end it later. They could.

It was like Margaret had said, when she was justifying her relationship with Burley of all men, you can't help who you're attracted to—you can't help who you fall for.

You haven't fallen for anyone, Jenny Shepard.

Jenny met her own eyes in the mirror.

"It's just sex," she said curtly, aloud again.

She turned her back on herself, and got in the scalding hot shower, and she thought if this was how hot Hell was, it wasn't going to be that bad.

---

References: The Bridges of Madison County (novel/film that focuses on an affair), Strangers on a Train (novel/film about two seemingly unconnected crimes), Michael Jackson again, Aesop's Fables (lion/mouse/thorn in paw), NCIS Season 7 Episode "Obsession" (rule 10), NCIS Season 3 Episode "Deception" ("don't calle me sir", although here it's "Ma'am", and it's Jen's line)

Ya'll's feedback, on the last two chapters especially, has been amazing; I'm thriving on your outlooks!
-Alexandra