Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
A.N.: I can't seem to access my reviews at the moment so I'll have to thank those that reviewed without naming them. Thank you ever so much guys, you know who you are!
Jenny groaned as the pressure in her head became more intense, her concussion and subsequent headache making it difficult to keep track of what was being said around her. She blinked hard, a wave of dizziness making her head spin and her stomach tighten, leaving her only a few seconds to roll over and throw up into the bin that she was now able to hold for herself. She closed her eyes again once she had finished, hoping to pacify the headache, but it persisted.
She groaned in annoyance and pain before she could stop herself and then fell silent, knowing that both Ducky and Jethro were probably looking at her in a less than sympathetic way. She had brought this upon herself after all, but she really hadn't meant to let it go this far. She wasn't self destructive, she was just angry at her inability to save her loved ones, afraid that their murderer would get away and maybe a little depressed. She opened her eyes hesitantly to prove to herself that she was right about their feelings towards her, but the room spun and she lurched towards the bin again, avoiding their gazes.
"I know I have a problem, you don't need to glare at me like I'm six." She groused once she had caught her breath. Ducky frowned at her words.
"We aren't Jennifer; we just want to make sure you are ok." He said soothingly, but that just made her angrier. Didn't he listen to her?
"I've already told you I'm not." She snapped, her headache taking away the last vestige of patience that she possessed. She glared up at the elderly ME, then switched to glaring at Jethro, which was much more satisfying for some reason.
"Why aren't you though? Why do you feel the need to drink?" Ducky asked, almost innocently, but Jenny smiled at him knowingly. He was trying to psychoanalyse her with his new psychology skills, and to make her discover why she drank, but that was something she already knew. She had identified why she felt the need to drink long before she had even suspected that she was getting addicted to the alcohol.
"That's exactly it." she replied, somewhat ambiguously. She didn't mean to sound so vague, but he had already answered his own question.
"I beg your pardon?" Ducky asked, confused by her answer. He looked to Jethro to see if he understood better or if he had missed something. Jenny watched Jethro nod slowly, understanding in his eyes. He thought he knew how she felt, but he couldn't possibly. He hadn't been there through the years, suffering set back after set back, getting so close to revenge only to have it snatched away again. He had never had to live with the knowledge that he was the reason his child was dead.
She bit her tongue, stemming her thoughts. He knew very well what she was going through, though to a lesser extent, and she should be more mindful of that. Rosie was his daughter too, and he had lost both of his children. She softened her gaze as her anger deflated, and she felt the embarrassment she had hoped she wouldn't feel come rushing in. she looked up at Jethro as he took a breath to answer Ducky's question, hoping that he would actually understand what she had said, he must do.
"To feel, Duck." Jethro supplied, watching Jenny carefully as she looked at him, her eyes connecting with his, pleading for him to understand, and he did. After Shannon and Kelly's deaths he had turned to alcohol as a way to feel things, the shock and pain of losing both of the most important people in his life leaving him numb and cold inside. The difference between him and Jenny was that the gun he had held in his other hand had been pointed at himself.
He hadn't had to wait to get revenge, he had followed the murderer practically to his doorstep and killed him; but the agony of his loss had been so raw that the alcohol had seemed like the only way out, until he had glimpsed his gun hanging demurely from its holster. Sitting on the beach with bottles at his feet and his gun in his hands he had felt that his life had never been so black and white. Die and be with them, or live in agony without them.
He had been more than prepared to pull that trigger, but the thing that stopped him, the one thing that should have destroyed him but didn't, was the innocent laughter of a little girl as she rode a horse along the beach. He had turned away from his gun to shield her innocent eyes from the horror of the real world. He had gotten unsteadily to his feet and walked away from the beach, walking for hours until he wound up at NIS, stumbling into the Agent that had given him the strength to avenge his family. Mike had taken him home, removed the ammo from his gun and asked no questions.
Since that day he had rebuilt his sorry excuse for a life, several times, without slipping into the grip of alcoholism. Admittedly it was partly because he had begun to seek pleasure from women more often than the bottle, an easy weaning for something that felt so good and only cost him takeaway, but he had done it, and so could Jenny.
"I have to get back home Jethro. Mother was still up watching reruns of WWE when I left, but I fear she may have gotten to the end of them by now. I must put her to bed soon or she won't be up in time for the care worker tomorrow." He said apologetically, and Gibbs nodded. "Jennifer should be fine, just make sure she stays in bed, drinks some water and gets a bite to eat. Don't keep her up all night either, Jethro." he ordered quietly, making Jethro smother a grin.
"Alright Duck. 'Night." he said, waving him out.
"Goodnight Jethro, Jennifer." Ducky said waving to them and quickly setting off for home. Jethro waited where he was, staying silent until he heard the front door open and then close, and then he looked back up at Jenny, who was watching him carefully. For a few minutes the silence stretched out between them, neither willing to say the first word, but both having something to say, then Jethro opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by the sharp sound of Jenny's message alert on her cell phone.
Jenny reached around and pulled her phone out of her pocket, looking at the screen curiously. She wasn't expecting a message was she? Her eyes widened momentarily when she read the ID and she flicked her phone open to read it. It was from Tony.
Want me to be there? It read, and Jenny pursed her lips, considering. She didn't particularly need moral support, Jethro had wanted in on catching La Grenouille, but waiting for Tony to join them would give her time to get her headache under control, and it would put off telling Jethro just how obsessed she was with catching this man.
"What is it?" Gibbs asked, and Jenny looked up from the message a little too sharply, making the room spin for a moment, ready to tell him it was nothing, but then she realised why bother? In for a penny, in for a pound, as the saying goes, it was all going to come out now so why wait?
"It's from Tony." She said carefully, watching Jethro for a reaction. His eyes narrowed slightly and she nearly laughed at herself. Of course he had realised that DiNozzo's sudden interest in a long-term domestic relationship wasn't his own idea, did she really think he couldn't figure that out? "In my study on my desk is a folder, could you bring it up here please?" she asked him gently, and he swiftly got to his feet, swept down the stairs and was back up in a matter of seconds. Jenny smiled at him; he could still impress her with his speed and stealth, even at his age. Such things must be so deeply ingrained it's become part of his genetic makeup.
"Here. Now what is this about?" he asked, somewhat impatiently. Jenny took deep, steadying breath and opened the file, pushing it towards him so he could read it.
"This is the folder that details all of my dealings with La Grenouille and his organisation. The most recent operation in that folder involves Tony." She said as matter-of-factly as she could. Gibbs eyes snapped to hers as he realised what exactly she was telling him.
"You mean that girl he's seeing is part of La Grenouille's organisation?" he asked, barely containing his shock as he realised that she had put a member of his team in the firing line. Jenny swallowed nervously and then quashed the quivering in her stomach. She had done what she had to do; he would understand when he knew how close Tony was getting them to La Grenouille. He would understand.
"Not quite. She's his daughter." She answered. "He is posing as her boyfriend in the hopes that La Grenouille will want to check him out, try and scare him away from her. He-" Gibbs cut her off suddenly, his voice confused and yet calm, like he was working through his own confusion by saying what he didn't understand out loud.
"Wait. Scare him away? Check him out? You make it sound like this daughter won't check him out herself and report her findings to… she doesn't know." he concluded, a strange look in his eyes.
"No she doesn't." Jenny admitted, averting her eyes for a moment.
"You are using an innocent girl to get to her father?" Jethro asked, shocked deeply by how far she was going to get this guy. Jenny looked back at him, her jaw set angrily.
"Don't do that. Don't make out that I'm the only person who uses innocents to get to the guilty, it happens all the time and you've used the same trick yourself. Sleeping with someone to get information out of them is just as bad as what I'm having Tony do." She seethed at him, hating how the angrier she got, the calmer he became.
"No it's not. You are making that girl fall in love with him." he retorted and Jenny felt herself snap.
"I can't make her fall in love with him, any more than I could make you love me!" she shouted furiously, throwing her phone at him sharply. He caught the phone and let out a long sigh. He looked at the cell and reached out, placing it back in her hands. He gently wrapped his fingers around hers, holding the phone with her and curling her arm up so their hands rested against her heart. She bit her lip hard to stop herself from asking him to say it, but she wouldn't have been able to force any words past the lump in her throat anyway.
"You've made your point, but do you see mine?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. Jenny nodded and blinked back tears. She felt so confused; her missions were justified, using no irregular methods that haven't been tried before but with just a few words Jethro could make her see the things she was doing from a less than flattering light. Was she doing the right thing, or the wrong thing? Were her methods too extreme or not extreme enough? Was the only way for her to catch La Grenouille so awful that it was going to cause her to lose herself in the process?