Thanks to my wonderful beta Kristen! Only the epilogue to go after this... The next story will be entitled The Oncoming Storm, and I will mention it a bit more in my next post. I have finally got round to putting all the Lily stories on my profile page, in order, and with the current completion level so you can see where I am. I hope this helps.
Chapter 14: The Last Swap
Arbourne groaned as the redhead emerged, Jasper in her arms. Her shirt was still stained with blood as she had refused to remove it.
He liked his best agent, honestly he did. But sometimes she overstepped the line too much. He was not worried about covering her ass for the higher-ups, but concerned that she did not know when enough was enough. She was already going to be spending a week in Archives for this, and he had a feeling it was going to be longer.
She was the only agent left who dared to speak back to him. In secret, he loved having someone to keep him on his toes and stop him from becoming surrounded by 'yes men'. He also suspected she knew about this. She delighted in winding him up, knowing all the right buttons to push.
It did not mean he let her get away with things though. She could be a complete menace if she wasn't controlled, and he was determined to control her actions outside the CIA, even if he could not stop her from harassing Darlene and playing mind games on the Probies.
If she persuaded one more batch of Probies to run naked through the halls again…
The last time he had hauled her into his office over her actions, she had retorted that she needed to practice on someone, and he would be more upset if she played with civilians. He understood her point, but warned her if the Director became involved, he would not shield her.
Judging by her grin, she had already played the Director for a fool at some point. Or perhaps she just had good blackmail material.
Knowing Lily, it was probably an interesting combination of both.
Her reports always made for interesting reading. She tended to skim over things she should not have done, while letting the rest of the agency know the finer details. He had often wondered who really wrote her reports. He suspected Lily wrote them, before passing them to her sister to censor. Jenny was a lot more tactful sometimes, and this tact had a habit of appearing in reports.
Persuading her to take a partner had not been easy. Lily had gone through agents assigned to her like no tomorrow. After she managed to send one of her partners to his office begging to be reassigned within twenty minutes of him meeting her, he had called her in. Under strong pressure, she had agreed to pick her own partner, and taken six months to do so. The results were good though. Charles Ellis was a fine agent, and was flourishing under Lily's guidance. He also kept her in check.
Oh well, nothing for it. Time to chew her out again.
"Lilith Shepard, if you ever pull a stunt like that again I will have you reassigned to Archives for a whole year!" he screamed at her. "You do not risk your own life or your son's life without good cause! Get some control over your sister and stop her from wandering into any more hostage situations! I don't care if you have to put a bullet in her head to do so! Get your butt into Archives for the next week and stay out of trouble! Have I made myself clear?"
He felt a lot better. There was nothing like yelling at a junior agent to relieve stress. The squad room had fallen silent during his tirade. The redhead had not batted an eyelid.
"Yes sir," she replied, stoking the back of her son's head.
He stormed out. "Ellis! With me!"
Charlie made it into the elevator with a split second to spare.
Tony DiNozzo watched as another redhead came down the stairs. He had a funny feeling they might have swapped over again, so refrained from naming them for a moment. It would soon be clear…
It was good to have rescued everyone in one piece. Ziva and Fornell had dragged Gilman down to Interrogation, and Tony planned to dash over shortly to see what they would do to him. He suspected Observation would suffer a strange power cut so the tapes would not record.
He wondered how Gibbs was doing. Ducky had not updated them for a while. The last thing anyone knew, Gibbs was in surgery. Now seemed like a good time to call Bethesda.
The redhead with the stained shirt placed Jasper carefully on the floor. "Mom?" he asked.
"Over here," came the reply from the other redhead.
Interesting. Jenny had just been chewed out by Lily's boss. Tony guessed this might happen a lot.
"Ough," Lily groaned as Jasper ran into her arms. "Sweetheart, I've had a long day. Go attack someone else. Try Abby; I bet she'd love a hug."
Jasper grinned, let go of his mom and ran into Abby's outstretched arms. "Jasper! You're okay! I was so worried about you being stuck in MTAC but your mom wasn't worried at all and I guessed she might have a plan and we were watching you on the screen down here and you did such a good job and I'm so proud of you –"
"Breathe," Jenny advised, smiling.
"Arbourne's a softie," Lily noted. "I thought I was going to end up cleaning toilets for sure."
"He makes you clean toilets?" Tony questioned, stunned.
"Ex-SEAL," she shrugged. "He won't be too happy when he realizes I use his toothbrush to clean them."
Tony couldn't help the snort that escaped. "He doesn't notice?"
"Apparently not. Who am I to tell him?"
"You'll deal with SECNAV?" Jenny checked.
"Of course," Lily grinned. "He reminds me of Shirley Temple when he yells."
"Shirley Temple?"
"Child star," Tony prompted. "Big in the thirties, popularity waned as a teenager –"
A slap to the back of the head, delivered by Lily, cut him off.
"I know who she is," Jenny corrected. "I just fail to see the connection."
"Same here," Lily admitted. "I enjoy trying to tally his features with hers though. I never know what he's yelling at me because I'm too busy thinking."
Jasper finally wriggled free of Abby and attacked Tony next. "Hey little man. You were so brave in there," Tony told him.
"Can I hit him?" Jasper asked his mom.
"Like LJ? Sure," she smirked.
Tony bent down so Jasper could reach the back of his head. "Ouch! Jeez, you hit harder than Gibbs does!" he complained.
"Don't call me little," Jasper grinned back.
Tony shook his head as Jasper reached for McGee. "Mind the Probie," he ordered. "He's delicate. You might break him."
Timothy McGee groaned as Tony taunted him. Jasper snuggled closer.
It was nice to know that the boy was not suffering any ill effects of his time in MTAC. He couldn't believe Lily had risked her own son though. She might have given him a choice, but she should have stopped him.
She should have warned them earlier about Jenny going in to MTAC. Although her actions had removed Gibbs from the situation, they had put the Director in danger. There must have been a way to get Gibbs released without risking someone else's life.
He should have realized the swap much earlier. He had spent time with Lily! He should be capable of telling the sisters apart. If Gibbs could do it, and Jasper, surely it was possible for everyone else too. There had to be a noticeable difference between them somewhere.
He had been relying on their behavior to tell them apart, but it was hard to remember that Jenny was the same as Lily and would thus make the same decisions. Jenny had come up with crazy ideas before, but Lily tended to take them to a totally different level. Not many people would blow themselves up for a mission, or slip their sister sleeping pills to prevent them from going to work.
His cell phone rang, and he fished it from his pocket. It took one glance at the caller ID to make him alert the others.
"It's Ducky!" he announced.
He answered the phone as everyone gathered nearer.
"Hello Ducky."
"Timothy, my dear lad. How are things going over there?" came the voice.
"Great. We've got everyone out, Gilman's with Ziva, and it turns out Lily was Jenny."
"I take it my services might be required with Mr. Gilman?" Ducky joked. "I'm not going to tell Jethro about the sisters."
"I won't either. In fact, I'd like to be in the next state when he finds out."
"If you're talking about LJ finding out which way round we were, don't bother," Lily piped up. "He knew all along. Pity he couldn't tell you."
McGee rolled his eyes. "Did you get that, Ducky?"
"I did hear Lily's delightful tones, if that's what you are referring to," the doctor replied. "Tell everyone that Jethro is fine and should make a full recovery very swiftly. The only real problem was the loss of blood he suffered, but he should be back to work in no time."
McGee smiled. It was the best news he'd heard all day. "Thanks Ducky. I'll tell them now and we'll all come over later."
"I look forward to seeing you, Timothy," Ducky replied before he hung up.
McGee turned to the others. "Gibbs is fine," he grinned.