CHAPTER ELEVEN

When Tony and Jess left the bank scene on Monday night, they had left Tony's car in the NCIS lot and taken Jess' car back to Tony's place. Which explained why it was Jess' car, and not Tony's, that was side-swiped by a maniac in a mud-spattered SUV as she'd pulled into the NCIS garage to drop Tony at work Wednesday morning.

As luck would have it, the maniac behind the wheel of the SUV was Leroy Jethro Gibbs, who had taken the turn just a little too wide. Tony was both amused and alarmed to realize that Gibbs drove his own car the exact same way that he drove the government-issue cars. ('Note to self: Do not ride with Gibbs – ever'.) The second the SUV made impact with Jess' Saturn, she'd sworn and swerved, Tony had slammed against the window, and they'd looked at each other in disbelief when they saw who the other driver was.

"This is not going to be pretty," Jess and Tony said, in nearly perfect unison.

Gibbs stormed over to Jess' car and was about to let go with a tirade regarding learning how to drive and what it meant to hit the car of a government employee when he saw the passenger side door open to reveal his senior field agent.

"What the …?" Gibbs said, clearly surprised.

"'Morning Boss," Tony said, as non-confrontationally as possible. He had kind of a 'sorry, dude' look on his face as he pointed to the parking lot, where his car still sat from the night before. "Left my car here Monday night … after the, um, bank thing … Jess … drove me in …" His voice faded out as Jess slowly opened the driver's side door, which was badly scratched and dented but not structurally damaged. She looked at Gibbs somewhat awkwardly, not entirely sure how to approach the situation. Not only was there the "second date" scenario hanging over them, there was now also the "you just hit my car" thing. She willed the ground to open up and transport her to the safety of her office at the Pentagon. But then again, she had to admit that this would make a very funny story to tell one day when she was having beers with her friends and they were asking her how her love life was going.

Tony cleared his throat and walked over to Jess. "You okay?" he asked, as he tried to read the expression on her face.

"Yeah," she said, with a defeated sigh, looking down at her car door. "I'll talk to you later."

"Okay," Tony said quickly, as he grabbed his bag from her car and shut the door. "Thanks for the ride," he said as he nearly sprinted to the elevator. He'd never been happier to get out of a situation in his life, and that included the day before yesterday when he had three guns pointed at him.

Gibbs, meanwhile, was cursing his luck. He had been preoccupied all the way to work, trying to figure out how best to avoid dealing with Jess, and here he was, standing in the parking lot with the very person he'd been trying to steer clear of.

"Karma, my dear Jethro," he could hear Ducky saying. "Never try to avoid someone to whom you owe an explanation."

Gibbs looked up as Tony sprinted away. Jess was watching him.

"You hit my car," she said, with a kind of subdued disbelief.

"Well, I didn't do it on purpose," he said, probably more defensively than he needed to.

Her eyebrows went up in surprise. "I didn't say you did," she said, defending herself. There was a beat of silence. "But you hit my car," she repeated, looking back down at the damage. "No one has ever hit my car."

"Look," he said, finding himself annoyed at her apparent lack of ability to just deal with this. "I'll file the paperwork and you can call your insurance company and just … do whatever you have to do. It's my fault, I'll pay for it. It's only a car." He turned back to his SUV and started to get back in.

"That's it?" Jess said, as he turned to go. "No, 'I'm sorry I hit your car Jess'? No, 'are you okay'? Maybe even a, 'do you need a ride to work'?"

"It's drivable," Gibbs said crossly, pointing to the damage. "You don't need a ride to work." He knew he was being more bad-tempered than he needed to be, but he didn't want to do this here, now. He wanted to e-mail her or leave her a message or maybe tell Tony to tell her that he didn't want to go out with her again, and now there was this stupid car thing that had to be dealt with and he didn't want to deal with that either.

She laughed. "I know it's drivable, Jethro," she said. "But that was a little on the brusque side, even for you."

Gibbs looked at her and sighed. She was right. She didn't deserve that. "Look," he said, his voice calmer and friendlier. "Can we just agree that this is an incredibly uncomfortable moment and both walk away?" he said, with a desperation in his voice that kind of amused her.

"Of course," she said with a reserved smile, getting back into her car. "You know how to reach me with … insurance information … or … whatever."

He, once again, started to get into his car. But Jess got back out of hers and called after him. "Jethro," she called.

"I was so close," he whispered to himself. He got back out of his car and looked at her.

"I had a nice time the other night," Jess said. He opened his mouth to answer, but she cut him off. "It was fun," she said, "and I hope you enjoyed it too, but I don't really think there's a future there, do you? I mean, with us. The whole dating thing." She could feel herself rambling but she kept going anyway. "It's just that you're Tony's boss, and it's not like I didn't know that when you asked me out in the first place and you're certainly not the first one of Tony's bosses that I've dated …" His eyebrows went up and his mouth turned into a small smile. "… and that's probably way too much information," she continued, shaking her head, "but seriously, you're a wonderful man, I just don't think that …"

"Jess!" Gibbs said, stopping the stream of words falling out her mouth. "It's okay. I feel the same way."

She looked at him with a relieved smile. "Good," she said, relaxing for the first time since she'd seen him today. "Good." She smiled at him, turned and got into her car.

He walked over to the damaged door and looked at it more closely. He'd really scraped the side up badly. "I am sorry about your car," he said, sincerely. "I'll take of it," he reassured her.

"Damn right you will," she said with a grin. "I've got a witness."

"Yeah?" Gibbs said, grinning back at her. "I'd almost go to court, just to see whose side he'd take."

"That, Special Agent Gibbs, would be evil."

They both laughed at the thought, and Gibbs closed the door for her as she settled in her car. He waved goodbye as Jess turned and drove back out the driveway, honking the horn once in response. That had been much easier than he'd expected. He couldn't recall any other woman he'd ever gone out with who didn't want to physically harm him after he'd broken it off. Maybe there was something to this whole 'being an adult' thing after all. Go figure.

Upstairs in the bullpen, Tony was a ball of nervous energy, waiting for Gibbs to come back upstairs.

"Oh for heaven's sake, Tony, just sit down!" Ziva exclaimed. His nervousness was making HER nervous.

"I can't, Ziva," Tony said, anxiously eyeing the elevator. "I have no idea what's happening down there."

"Well I haven't heard sirens yet," she said, turning back to her computer.

"Tony!" McGee said, as he came around the corner. "You looked good on the news last night."

Tony stopped pacing and grinned at McGee. "Really?" he said. "How good?"

Ziva snorted a laugh. McGee opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off as Gibbs came off the elevator.

"I'm sure we can have some tapes delivered if you'd like to add it to your personal collection, DiNozzo," Gibbs said.

Tony looked quickly back-and-forth from Gibbs to the elevator to the window (to see if, maybe, Jess' car was on fire or something) and then to McGee and Ziva. "Everything okay, Boss?" he asked, confused and relieved and, above all, curious.

Gibbs looked up with a straight face. "Fine, DiNozzo," he said. "Why wouldn't it be?" Tony opened his mouth to ask another question, but Gibbs beat him to it. "Don't you have a report to write for the FBI?" he said.

"On it, Boss," Tony said, with a little less enthusiasm than usual. He would just have to wait until he got the e-mail from Jess.