A/N - thanks for the reviews. I hope people understand that I am not being critical of any particular type of sexual relationship - just using some uncomfortableness as part of the story. Also, as well as stealing the clotheshorse comment from a West Wing episode - I am also stealing it from the story Elflordsmistress as I just wrote called Photograhic Memories. The two fics aren't connected - I just had the line in my head and wanted to use it again!

Part 5

He watched Jen in the days after Deb's funeral. His observation discrete, careful but ultimately reassuring. She was quiet, a little more withdrawn than normal – but there was nothing in her behaviour to concern him. However she felt about losing a friend it was something that she was dealing with in private.

He thought she knew that he was watching her – though she didn't mention it. But then at times he got the sense that she was watching him, so discretely he never quite caught her, even when he sensed her looking down on them from the catwalk. In those moments he deliberately didn't look up; unwilling to either meet her gaze or send her back into the shadows.

But he'd been the one to change the mood – so easily that at the time he didn't understand what he'd done.

He could still remember the way she'd looked two nights before – in a pale blue gown that shimmered amidst the dark suits of the other agency Directors and assorted dignitaries.

ZNN had named the designer and the fashion correspondent had waxed lyrical about her style – obviously it was a slow news day. He'd paid very little attention to the nonsense, far too interested in watching Jen. Her expression was polite but all business as she'd interacted with several male colleagues – their interest as transparent as her rebuffs.

"Shepard," he'd hesitated when she answered her cell phone – thinking about the way she looked on camera in the dress, trying to decide if that was a good enough reason for calling her.

"You better hope no one else watching knows how to lip-read, unless 'get your hand off my ass' is how you're negotiating with other agencies these days?"

"Jethro – your eyesight is worse than I thought – my exact words were, 'get your hand off my ass before I knock you to the ground and impale you with my heels.'"

"Must have been a bad camera angle. ZNN like your dress by the way – though they're making sure not to call you a clotheshorse. I heard somewhere the last reporter who did that lost her credentials."

"That's not true, she still has her credentials – it's just that these days she's using them to cover labor disputes – and the only clothing she is getting close to is industrial." He knew better than to ask what she'd done to make that happen - it was definitely need to know.

"You finished?"

"On my way home now – did you call me just to tell me what ZNN are saying about what I'm wearing?"

"No."

The silence between them had stretched, loaded with tension until she said, "so – it's one of those phone calls?" Her voice had dropped a notch, but he could hear her amusement and something else, something he wasn't prepared to put a name to, but that he thought might also be in his voice.

"Maybe,"

"Where are you?" He'd got out of his car as the car she was travelling in rounded the corner and pulled into the drive of her house. "Never mind." He'd smirked a little as he snapped his phone shut and stepped forward to open the car door for her, chasing away her detail with a single look. "Something I can do for you Agent Gibbs?" she'd asked, accepting his hand and sliding elegantly out of the car.

"Thought you might need a drink after being surrounded by your peers for the evening." She'd regarded him levelly for a moment, before turning and heading towards the house. He'd followed – eyes glued to the low back of the dress, no longer surprised that one of the other guests had been keen to touch a certain part of her anatomy, wondering how he was supposed to resist the temptation himself. Although in truth, he wasn't interested in resisting temptation – and neither it turned out was she.

They hadn't got as far as the drink. He'd reached for her as soon as the door was safely shut – and she'd come fluidly into his arms, her hunger matching his in its intensity. He could still remember the cool feel of the silk against his heated skin – the way she'd moved against him, still wearing the dress – until he'd pulled it off her.

It really wasn't a memory he should be reliving during work hours. As the elevator doors opened he forced his mind to return to the task at hand. Which made it unfortunate that as he stepped into Abby's lab she announced loudly, "this has all the makings of a booty call gone badly wrong!"

"Abby?"

"Gibbs!" Her eyes went wide as she realised that she'd been overheard. "I wasn't talking about you, I mean you wouldn't… or maybe you would, I don't know." He kept looking at her, struggling to follow her train of thought. "It's none of my business – and I wasn't talking about you now, here – with me."

"Good," he set the Caff Pow down in front of her. "Are the tests results back yet?" She shook her head vigorously,

"Going to be a while yet oh great one. My babies are working flat out – but they have got a lot on." She gestured to the evidence on the table before her, which he could tell had nothing to do with his current case. "Very nasty murder, civilian contractor found yesterday morning – killed by a frenzied knife attack." She took a huge sip of the Caff Pow, "turns out that he and a 'friend' had an arrangement."

"An arrangement?" he asked, not liking the direction this conversation was taking.

"You know – sex without strings, whenever they needed it? Well, judging by their phone records and trace from the victims' apartment, they needed it a lot. Rivers' and his team think they may have had a falling out – one of them wanting more. Sex makes things very messy Gibbs, literally!"

It wasn't what he needed to hear and the case his team was in the midst of wasn't sufficiently absorbing to stop him thinking about it. He was glad they weren't dealing with that case. He really didn't want to have to unravel the details of something that might come a little too close to what he and Jen were doing. Abby was right – sex was messy.

He could try to elevate it, pretend there was something more going on – but just two nights before he'd turned up at her door; they hadn't shared a meal, or attempted to discuss how they'd spent their day, he'd been there for sex.

The thought worried him all day – eating away at his preferred vision of himself. He knew he was capable of having a one-night stand, had proven it on and off over the years, but always with someone he never expected to have to see again. Beyond that lay the difficult terrain of his failed marriages and all that he had lost when he had lost Shannon.

Abby had described it as a 'booty call', there were he knew other descriptions for what he and Jen had stumbled into – all of them unsavoury. Sex was messy and he wasn't a man who coped well with mess. He wasn't comfortable with blurred lines and moral ambiguity. There was a reason he taught using rules and discipline after all.

Later – long after he'd sent the team home, he made his way up to her office – words and rules rattling around in his head. She was still there, of course; glasses on, papers spread out in front of her. He paused in the doorway to look at her and when she raised an eyebrow to silently enquire what he wanted he said, "what are we doing Jen?"

"What are we doing Jen?"

Well, she'd been expecting that question, sooner or later. She was marginally grateful he hadn't asked it when they were in bed together, when there was nothing between them but flesh and heat. Which didn't mean she watched to discuss her personal life in her office. But he'd chosen this location for a reason, or maybe he just couldn't wait to ask her the question.

She took her glasses off as he stepped further into the room and shut the door. She risked a look up at his face and then wished she hadn't. His eyes were hard, like diamonds, and she wondered if he really needed an answer to his question.

Since she had been expecting this, she really should have been prepared. But the last few weeks had been far from easy and the two nights she'd spent with him had helped, although they'd also made her forget that she had known from the beginning that this would end with her being hurt.

But what could she do where there was a huge difference between the type of relationship he was capable of and the type of relationship he thought he should have? His three divorces were evidence that his instinct was to try to recreate what he'd had with Shannon, even though every time he'd failed – because that part of him had died with her.

If he couldn't see that for himself, then she didn't have the time or energy to spell it out for him. And if he wasn't comfortable with what they could have, then there was nothing she could do to change his mind. So, go down fighting or make a graceful exit? Somehow it didn't seem like much of a choice.

"You know what we're doing," she replied, trying to keep her voice level, "we both needed the comfort."

"Is that what we're calling it now?" His voice was laced with scorn and she almost flinched, but then refused to let him goad her into anger.

"I don't know what you call it Jethro – you were the one who said you didn't want to be turned inside out."

"That hasn't changed."

"So, you want something that is guaranteed not to cause you pain – but you don't want something that is just about sex? Well I'm sorry, but life doesn't work out that way!" She shook her head, "I'm not interested in being added to your list of failed relationships – again. And I'm not going to apologise for knowing myself well enough to realise that I'd make a mess of a relationship – and not just with you."

She knew what that said about her; that it was a failure of hope or faith, a sign that she had sacrificed too much, for too long, to get to where she had. Maybe he did need someone who believed he was capable of more, worth more. But that wasn't her; hell – she needed someone like that herself.

"I can't use you for sex Jen." She didn't think anyone had ever said anything to her that hurt more. But she nodded, casting her eyes across the papers on her desk; anything rather than look up and risk him seeing just how difficult it had been to hear him describe what had passed between them in those terms.

"Then don't." He nodded once.

"We all right?"

"As much as we ever are." He was silent, watching her for a moment longer, as though as he was trying to decide whether to say something else – but clearly he changed his mind. As he turned to go she found herself whispering, "and it wasn't just sex."

But the only answer was the sound of her office door closing behind him.

TBC