Bob gave her a peck on the cheek in the parking lot at the Diner.
"See you in two weeks?" He asked, part wistfully she thought. Maybe she imagined it.
"I'll be in London," she said regretfully. She put a little distance between them. "I'll ask Cynthia to call Mya."
He ducked into the back of his sedan, leaving the door open while the window wound down. She closed it gently, resting her fingers on the sill. "I appreciate your time," she said honestly, over the sound of his bodyguard starting the engine.
It was true. In amongst the mild flirting and gentle banter, she wheedled details of policy and budgets, more importantly, how the political landscape lay in terms of who was in bed with whom. Not for the first time, she wondered what he got out of it.
"I never mind spending time with a beautiful woman."
It was too close to the line Gibbs had drawn in the sand. She laughed lightly, pushing off the car. "See you in a few weeks, Bob." The walk back to the Yard never seemed so long.
…][…
There was no proof. Not a body. Not a shred of evidence linking her to the disappearance of the Frog, but he knew. He knew it.
It was the one degree fall in the angle she held her shoulders, the one degree rise in the warmth she used to greet his team on her return from breakfast, fresh from the worm on the Hill. The tilted eyebrow she gave him walking upstairs with that sway in her step that made every man look. The one that said 'I deny everything'.
He watched her grow from a probationary agent to a fully-fledged field agent through bloody minded determination. He had watched her in daylight, in the dark. How she moved around people she liked and stepped around people she didn't, that was, unless she chose to go right through them. Like a current that flows inexorably to the sea and on meeting a cross current, goes under, to surface as a riptide that smashes the unwary on the rocks.
He gave her a few minutes to retreat behind her desk. It was her high ground in their field of friendly fire. A reassertion of the distance between them, like the choker of pearls she wore at her throat he could never have afforded. Then he made a call to the FBI to buy himself a life jacket.
…][…
Dusk crept over the light from the window behind her. She stabbed at the button on the desk lamp and eyed the stack of paperwork to her left. She could take it home she supposed, it wouldn't be the first time. It would give her something to do since despite being bone weary, the possibility of sleep seemed as remote as ever.
The handle on the door to her office snapped down suddenly, followed by the door opening of its own accord. She glared over the top of her glasses at the unexpected intrusion.
"Your driver is here," Gibbs loitered just outside her office door, poking his head through, followed slowly by the rest of him.
"Since when do I have a driver?" She scoffed, watching him saunter into her office.
She had barely seen him all day, not since walking through the staff room on her return from breakfast with Bob. He hadn't looked up, not once until she was on the stairs and then she made a point of telling him she knew he was looking with a jerk of her chin. He had smiled a half smile and ducked his head, ostensibly staring at his computer screen instead of her legs.
Now he had his hands stuffed into the pockets of his long coat, obviously on his way to leaving the building for the night. She sat more upright in her chair checking the clock on the wall opposite. Most sane people would have left their desks an hour ago.
"Since the Director of NCIS got their tyre slashed outside their home. Security said you got a cab to Yard this morning. Car pool said you'd requisitioned a car, but hadn't reported the damage. Why is that exactly?"
She narrowed her eyes at him, trying to guess what he was going with this. As far as she knew, her car was fine, but she wouldn't put it past him to sabotage it, if it meant he got what he wanted, whatever that was. She spun the skeleton of a plan to get the tyre to Abby, to confirm if what he said was true. Games were one thing, but a credible threat was quite another, and she was no fool. Gibbs commanded Abby's loyalty, she hoped she commanded Abby's respect. And that one outweighed the other.
"This is ridiculous, I'm driving," she asserted.
"Nope. You have a driver as of now," Gibbs rebutted, oozing certainty, turning his shoulders on the spot so that his open coat swung out like a superhero's cape. 'Look what I did,' his face crowed. His lips flattened in on themselves.
"Jethro," she warned, cutting herself off when a new voice entered the fray.
"We take the personal safety of the heads of our government organisations very seriously."
"Fornell?" She accused Gibbs in disgust, as the short, balding FBI agent hove into view. "You're kidding me." She pushed herself out of her chair and stepped around her desk, keeping her eyes on the new entrant. He refused to meet her glare.
"Until we have isolated potential perpetrators, "Fornell tried to interject calmly. "You have a driver. On call. Day or night."
"I'll get my best agents right on it," she snarled coldly.
"I could drive you for tonight," Gibbs shrugged lightly. "You know, let you get used to the idea." She snapped her eyes to him, taking in the tilt in his eyebrows indicating the bastard was thoroughly enjoying himself. Briefly she toyed with the idea of letting him doing it, and shutting the door in his face when they got there. She chewed on the inside of her cheek, silently seething. There really was no stopping him if he wanted in. She was pretty sure he wouldn't be camping out on the front step for long if he had gone to this much trouble. He could have left the damage to the car for her to find in the morning, but he was forcing the matter into today. The errant thought that if might be related to her breakfast companion reared its head.
"This is not happening," she stated, watching Fornell glance rapidly between the pair of them. As much as she enjoyed the idea of Gibb's jealously, she also resented it. They had too much past for him to harbour the expectation he somehow owned her future.
Gibbs tilted his head quizzically, "which part?"
"Why does she call me by my surname and you by your first name?" Fornell asked Gibbs suddenly.
"All of it," Shepard snapped back at Gibbs.
Gibbs glanced at the smaller man, "because you haven't.." Gibbs was abruptly cut off by Shepard's raised and indignant voice.
"Special Agent Gibbs!" She reprimanded.
"Ever been invited to breakfast," Gibbs finished with one eyebrow virtually hooked in his hairline.
"I don't have a death wish," Fornell muttered, reversing the way he had come. To Shepard he said deferentially, "clearly, you're in capable hands. Director."
"I agree," she said with plenty of frost in her voice, "my own."
"Gibbs," Fornell indicated he had said his piece and was leaving with a small nod. The look on his face made Shepard think that some sort of debt had been settled between them. Or a bet.
Gibbs leant against the open door, tongue firmly in cheek. "So. Ready to go?"
"Step into my office," she ground out.
"You want me to close the door?"
"No, I don't care if the entire damn building hears what I have to say," she howled.
Gibbs closed it anyway and rested his shoulders against it. She watched his eyes scan her head to toe, lingering on her shoes.
"You have no boundaries," she accused.
"I have no boundaries?" he repeated incredulously, pushing away from the door and moving to meet her. "This agency depends on you. This job, the job you do in this office! Everything you do affects all of us," he roared. "What you did last night…"
"Going out?" She guessed, wide eyed. He had to have been inside her house last night, after she had left – there was no other explanation. "I didn't know I was supposed to stay in. The way our conversation ended, I didn't think you were coming back for a quickie."
His eyes flashed, daring her to walk close to the self-imposed boundary between them. Gibbs cut off her train of thought.
"How was Kort?"
"He let me finish first, if that's what you mean," she said nastily.
He bared his teeth at her in irritation, one hand balling into a tight fist.
"Does he do it for you?"
"If I was looking for a younger man." She watched his eyes narrow as the comment hit home. Good. He could do with a little competition, imaginary or otherwise to knock that chip off his shoulder. She didn't miss him getting closer, bracing herself for the impact having him nearer would have.
"What did you say, to sell it to him? To let you just walk in and take down the Frog," he said idly. He raised a hand to her face, but she moved back, back to behind her desk. It left him stranded in the role of supplicant, in spite of the fact that she had to look up to him.
She seated herself calmly. "Maybe he took down La Grenouille himself. He has designs on the franchise, it would appeal to his ego." She rested her hands out of sight in her lap, tucking each thumb into the rest of the fist and squeezing.
"You appeal to his ego," Gibbs accused.
"It's something you have in common," she said waspishly. She noted with a tight smile that he didn't bother denying it. She tried to relax her shoulders, watching while he took his time taking in her body language.
"He could have done that at any time. Why now?"
"You heard him, La Grenouille wanted out."
"And you wanted, what?"
"A little fresh air."
"Like this morning? With Bob?"
She paused. It seemed petty to ask him if he had a problem with it, when he so clearly did.
"I make deals, Jethro. Not enemies."
"So, Dear John was part of a deal."
Shepard tried to hide her surprise. Of all the subjects they had covered since her return, this was the first mention of it. "That wasn't a deal, it was a rule. One of yours actually," she replied stiffly. Turning her back on the forlorn white envelope on the bedside table had its own personal halo of pain in her memory. Gibbs spread his hands wide on the edge of the blotter and leant over.
"You're going to have to explain that one to me." His tone was as quiet as it was deadly.
"Eleven," she said evenly. "And you can drop the dumb Marine act." She tried hard not to get drawn into the ice in his blue gaze.
"When the job is done? All of it, was a job?"
"I walked away, because you wouldn't."
Gibbs shook his head slowly. "You walked away because of the Frog. He give you these?" Gibbs hooked a finger into the choker, his touch cool against the pulse in her throat.
"My Mother," she croaked. "They were my Mother's."
"You don't ever talk about her, but she's the reason you knew Paris so well."
"And your Mother?"
Gibbs pulled away abruptly. "Speak the language like a native. Parisian French isn't like any other dialect."
"Who made you such an expert?"
Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "You did." His head tipped to one side, "I'll make you a deal."
"And that is?"
"I drive you home tonight."
"And then?"
She watched a bleak smile get snuffed before it reached his eyes.
"And then we'll see."
Her eyes roved his face. It could just be a ride. A car was close quarters, but not exactly face to face. Maybe he thought he could get her to open up. If there was anything behind a steel door with no key, it was the circumstances of her Mother and Rene Benoit.
"I'm not ready to leave yet."
Gibbs took his time shrugging off his coat.
"What do you think you're doing?" Seeing him move towards the couch nestled in an alcove of her office wasn't what she expected.
"Waiting," he replied drily, drawing a newspaper from one inside pocket and his spectacles from another. He threw the coat in a heap ahead of him and settled himself, shaking the paper out in front of him. At least here, she could keep a wary eye on him, but then so could he, on her.
"Don't make so much noise," she groused, snatching up a pen and retreating into her work. The pearls chafed coolly against her skin as she slid her glasses into place.
She plucked a document from the pile on her left and tried to concentrate. Silence stretched between them. She was well aware how quiet Gibbs could be if he wanted to. It didn't feel like she had won. It didn't feel like he had won either, yet. She bent her head to read the precis about a lead on drugs trafficking being run out of a naval base and lost herself in her work. One hour turned into two. Two to three. The pile on her left morphed into a pile on her right.
"Hungry?" Gibbs soft growl cut across her attention.
"Yeah," she sighed, looking over, to find him coat on and standing in front of her desk. He narrowed his eyes and she held his gaze, irritated at the way her body warmed under his scrutiny. She knew he was really saying, 'ready to go?'
She let her face say, 'not with you.'
"I'll get something," he offered.
Shepard stared at him suspiciously, watching him closely as he leant in and braced himself against her desk, forcing her to look up to him. She followed his eyes down to her cleavage and back up again, followed too, the way his tongue flicked out to wet the corner of his mouth.
"Steak." He stated.
"Pepper sauce," she confirmed, pulling her spectacles from her nose.
"You're staying here," he said firmly. She cocked her head and didn't say a word, watching his eyes taking on a pinched look.
"I'll wait," she confirmed, 'for you to leave,' tonguing the inside of her lip and trying to suppress her stomach growling at the thought of food. She'd make a move in spite of her hunger, just to see if she still could. Or to see if he could catch her at it. In the moment, she wasn't sure which one she would prefer.
He scratched at the underside of his chin with the backs of his pointer and middle fingers. "I'll be fifteen minutes."
"Um hmm," she murmured, already thinking about getting to the garage level and adopting the nearest vehicle. She could almost feel Gibbs' stare rake her face for integrity. She did her level best to make sure that he found some. She wasn't sure if she had been successful or not when he spun on his heel and left without a word.
Shepard watched the seconds tick by on the clock on the wall. She gave it three minutes without moving. Five, by the time she had her jacket on and reaching for her purse, having shoved folders into a briefcase and adjusted the shoulder strap. It would take him at least ten minutes to get there and back, assuming where he was going. He wouldn't expect her to be at her desk after fifteen minutes if he hadn't returned by then.
She slunk out of her office, making for the elevator bank. She changed her mind, heading for the stairs instead. Anyone could track the floor numbers on a moving elevator, and whilst she was probably not the last person in the building, it was possible she was the last person on this floor given the lateness of the hour. She compromised, taking the stairs to the next level and calling the elevator from there.
When the car arrived, she checked the opening doors with trepidation. The car was empty. Sighing with relief and quelling a rising feeling of euphoria, she stepped inside, jabbing at the button for garage level. Obediently, the car picked up speed immediately and almost as quickly, began to slow. Someone else had called the elevator. A few floors below. She moved to the back of the car, letting her breath out in a huff and folding her arms protectively across her body. The elevator doors opened. Gibbs stepped in without a word. He eyed her from under his brows and made a point of checking his watch for the time.
Seven minutes, she estimated. "Well?" she opened, tired of waiting for him to say something.
"You know what this is?" he asked, reaching for the emergency stop almost as soon as the doors had closed. The elevator car jerked to a halt and the lights dimmed. He turned to face her. "This is my office."
"You don't have an office," she mocked.
"And you don't have an exit strategy," he murmured gently, closing the gap between them.
"I'm taking a pool car," she stated mutinously, flicking her eyes between his eyes and his mouth.
"We're all out. The van too." He stopped in front of her, took her briefcase strap off her shoulder and guided it to the floor.
"You were going for something to eat," she reminded him, feeling somehow more exposed with the less she had to carry.
"I still am," he said with a slight lift to one side of his lips, dropping his head closer to hers. "Noemi left a note on your fridge. Steak's at home."
…][…
"So all this, is what?"
He had to admire her cool. He didn't bother calling her on trying to side step him, he expected nothing less. That he had thwarted her made him wonder why he was still in pursuit at all.
"Not part of the job."
He stared into her half closed eyes, wondering what it was about her that was the same, but different, to just a handful of years ago. She was harder, colder. More distant somehow. Did leaving him do this to her? It was supposed to be what she wanted. He reached up to cup her cheek, brushing her face with the side of his thumb when she made no move to pull away.
"Where's the body Jen?"
"It's a little late to be playing guessing games isn't. I thought you didn't like them anyway."
Her eyes were darker and never left his.
"You weren't there. Gun wasn't either."
"You don't trust me."
"On this? No."
He lowered his face closer to her, but still holding himself apart. He had done it in Marseilles too. She started it. Started everything. Finished it too.
"Aw shit." Gibbs pinched the bridge of his nose hard and threw his napkin on the table. He recognised enough French to spot steak on the menu and right now, he really wanted to get his teeth into something. He downed his wine and what was left of hers, shoved his chair away from the table and stormed after her.
"Shepard? Shepard!" He slammed open the door to the restroom, half expecting to find an open window and an empty room.
She glanced at him, away from her reflection in the mirror. "What's the matter? Forgotten how to order steak au poivre?"
"No." He eyed her warily. She had let her hair down. He hadn't realised how long it was. "Are you coming back to the table?"
"You don't need me to order your dinner," she said with a disgusted sigh.
He stepped into the room, letting the door close behind him and moved closer, trying to read her face. She looked more weary than angry.
"Au poivre. I thought that was pear."
She turned back to the mirror, staring at herself and ignoring him.
"Come back to the table. Eat something, you need to sleep," he pressed.
"Do you have any idea. What it's like. Working with you?" She drawled. "You're like a machine. A smart, driven, hard, bastard of a machine."
He didn't feel much like a machine, far from it. This felt like one of those defining moments in a marriage where he knew he had put a step wrong and was unable to escape the landmine underneath. He was trying not to think about her stumbling into him at the bottom of the ladder. Neither of them had moved for what felt like an age, despite the fact that his hands must have been biting into her waist. He could feel the shallowness of her breathing, unable to tear himself away from the blatant hunger that seared away the tiredness in her eyes. He had told her to watch herself and then it started. She railed at him.
Her fury amused and irritated him in equal measure. Shannon, when she went off on one, he'd let run for a bit, come on over and kiss her senseless. He could have kissed Shepard at the bottom of the ladder and got it out of the way. What she was going through could just be curiosity. He frowned, angry at himself trying to project what was going through his mind into hers. His heart squeezed tight. He didn't remember feeling this way when he met Shannon. She never challenged him, not like this. Shepard, now, that's all she ever seemed to do.
He came to stand behind her, leaning forward against the sink unit and staring into the glass like she was.
"The job is done, rule eleven," he told her reflection, watching her turn her face towards his profile. She tucked her hair over one shoulder, like she was getting ready for something. "Walk away," came out low and harsh, he could feel his pulse starting to race. He stood up suddenly and made for the door.
"What are you afraid of?" she called after him.
He spun on his heel, stalking back to where she leant her hip so casually on the sink unit. He pushed his face close to hers, eyes tight at getting called on his actions. "What did you say?"
Her eyes lit. "What is it you're afraid of, that I won't be able to stop? Or you won't?"
"Stop what?"
"This."
He felt her lips brush his. He seized the tops of her arms, keeping her at arm's length.
"You don't know what you're doing," he reasoned. His lips buzzed from her contact.
"Don't be so naïve." He stared down at her tilting her face towards him. "You're hurting me," she whispered softly. He could feel the muscles in her upper arms changing shape, but was still taken by surprise when she cupped his face in her hands, pulling him closer.
He resisted for a scant second, enough to see the emotions play over her face. Disappointment. Determination. It might be easier for this to run its course. It was only going to be a kiss. He was stronger than she was. He could stop any time he liked. He let her tug once and moved to plant his lips over hers.
She tasted like the wine she had left on the table. His French was rudimentary at best, with the emphasis on rude, but he knew how to order a drink. He plucked at her lower lip and she opened against him, leaning into his body. He was aware of his fingers loosening, sliding off her arms and fumbling for a hold at her waist that pulled her closer, allowing him to angle himself over her so she had to lean back against the sink, off balance and dependent on him for stability. The low hum of approval coming from her body was driving his blood distinctly South.
His tongue teased her, drawing away when she chased after it. Her right hand crept up, behind his head to weave a fistful of his hair, thick near the crown. Her left scratched down against his chest, lifting and settling over the ridges hidden under his clothing. The rasp of their breathing was interrupted by his low hiss when she pushed her hand into his front pocket and grazed him. He grabbed at her wrist.
"I'm not doing this in a public restroom," he growled into her mouth, hugging her body close so the hollow at her hip could feel what she did to him.
He felt her pull herself away, keenly feeling the lack of friction and the void of her warmth. A short rummage in her purse and she was calmly reapplying lip gloss of some other such gloop to her mouth. She stared back at him implacably. "What kind of a girl do you think I am?"
"We have to be in Paris soon," he muttered, trying to read her face. It was flushed, but she kept her eyes away from his. There was no other sign they had been all over each other only moments ago. He felt like he had whiplash. There would be a hotel with adjoining rooms in the city, he had already had the local office make the bookings. He was already second guessing the arrangement.
"Tomorrow, if I drive through the night. You can sleep in the car," he said gruffly. "I have to eat. He turned his back to her and the mirror, touching his lips for evidence of her. There was nothing other than heightened sensitivity. He moved towards the door.
"Poire," she called after him.
He looked back at her reflection.
"Pear is poire," she said, rolling the 'r' throatily. "They poach them in wine here. They're better cold."
He squared his shoulders and dragged the door open, trying to ignore his body's response to her voice. Dinner was going to be hell.
A/N Writing time has been severely compromised. If I did it again, I'd probably put all of the italics in a different story.