Viva Mexico
Disclaimer: I don´t own any characters or anything!
Summary: Post-Hiatus. Gibbs moves to Mexico after resigning from duty. The team is ambushed and soon news are out that an old enemy is back. Will Gibbs come back to save them or does it need a little more to convince him that the team needs him?
5- Cookies
"It´s Jenny. I´m sorry to disturb you again, Mike...I suppose Jethro turned up at your place. Did he settle down yet?" She asked and heard how the man walked into some other room, closing a door behind him.
"You were right, as always, Jen." He simply replied and sighed. "I don´t remember him being that grumpy though. How come you´re calling?"
She bit her lip and tried to find the right words. "His team has been ambushed. Two of them were taken hostage, one was shot and is at the Bethesda now." She said and waited for some reaction, but of course there was none. "Did he tell you about what happened a year ago?"
He thought for a moment. "He told me that some nutter of a double agent shot one of his agents in the head. And that a new girl on the team shot that guy when he was ambushed in his basement. That what you mean?" Franks asked and sensed that this call was not just out of courtesy.
Jenny took a deep breath. "The man he´s talking about was Ari Haswari, a double agent of FBI and El Kaida. Dr. Mallard talked to Ziva at the hospital and she´s certain that she´s seen exactly that man there. I know it sounds impossible, but I believe her, Mike. If there´s someone who can track him down, it´s Jethro." She said and heard him laugh.
"You know that won´t happen, Jen. Gibbs is the most stubborn man I´ve ever met. I never thought it could get worse after Shannon and Kelly died, but the death of his agent seems to have hurt him too. He won´t come back." He said and sighed. "I wish I could tell you something else, but I trained him. I know how he feels."
Shepard nodded to herself. "All right, sorry for disturbing you then. I just thought you should know. Bye, Mike." She hung up and looked out of the window. She had half-expected something like this, but a part of herself had hoped to get a chance to talk to Gibbs. She returned her attention to the preliminary report Balboa had brought in.
Mexico
Gibbs had bought a small house right next to Mike´s place. A little more than a month had passed now since he had turned up at his house, but still there was no sign that he missed his work at NCIS. Franks hadn´t seen his other neighbor for a few days and decided to go over to her house. She opened the door and smiled. "Hi, come on in. I got fresh coffee." She said and closed the door behind him.
He sat down on the couch and waited for her to return with two cups of coffee. "What´s the matter with you lately? I haven´t seen you around for a while." He asked and saw a hint of nervousness in her eyes, which was uncommon.
"I´ve been busy. School will be out soon and we´re so behind with our finals -I really shouldn´t have taken the kids out to that baseball game, you know. Didn´t mean to insult you, Mike." She replied and took a sip from her cup. After setting it down on the table again, she rearranged her glasses to keep them from sliding off her nose and leaned back, obviously relaxing a bit.
He looked at her for a moment. "Does it have anything to do with the man who moved in next door to me? Since he turned up, you´ve been hiding." He said and wondered what was going on. She didn´t make a move to answer and he sighed. "Remember the man I told you about last month? The one I flew to Washington for?" She gave him a nod. "He turned up at my door the same day I came back from DC. Said that he needed to get away. He liked the area and bought the old Sanchez home."
"Oh, okay. I...well, I just thought I shouldn´t disturb you while you got company." Linda replied and got up to get some cookies from the kitchen. "You look a bit disturbed. Anything wrong?"
He smiled a bit. "I always wonder why you can tell so easily. I got a call from Jenny this afternoon. She wanted me to convince him to come back to DC, but if there´s someone who is stubborn as nothing else, it´s Jethro." He added and jumped when something broke with a loud crack in the kitchen. He got up and found Linda kneeling over the pieces of her cookie jar.
"The handle broke off, so it´s no cookies today." She said and started to pick up the scattered pieces. "What did you say last? I think I missed that." She asked as she carried a load of cookies to the trashcan. Afterwards she brushed a strand of hair out of her face and straightened her glasses again.
Franks started to pick up some pieces himself. "I said that Jethro is the most stubborn man alive. He would never take back his decision. He´s really bitter at the moment. I think losing one of his colleagues really got to him and getting hurt in the field isn´t helping much either. I heard that she was a brilliant agent, the agent who died last year." He said and threw the cookies and pieces into the trashcan.