[A/N: Thank you to those of you who are reviewing and fav'ing. Writers live for feedback. This is kind of a cliffhanger chapter and even I'm not sure what's next. I'm also not too happy with this chapter; it feels a bit rushed.]

Gibbs is gone for the day. Unlike some people, he still has a job. Which leaves Jenny home alone. Again. Except she has no intention of staying home. She waits until Gibbs is good and gone before she calls a cab. She's sitting on the front steps by the time it pulls up out front. Her stomach is in her throat and she's pretty sure her hands are shaking. This is such a bad idea. Gibbs would kill her if he knew. Jen slides into the backseat and gives the driver her old address.

He turns back to her, "You know that place burned down a couple weeks ago, right?" His confusion is all over his face.

"I know," she answers. She really just wants him to leave her alone.

"Okay. Just checkin'," he answers and starts the car down the street.

Half-way there and she feels like telling the driver to turn around. There's just no way she can do this. But it won't be real until she does. She's short of breath, she's lightheaded, and her heart is racing-she's sure it's going to rip itself free. It's impossible for her to tell if this is nerves or if it's something she should be worried about. Or if it's some combination of both. But she keeps her mouth closed and keeps her eyes closed. Somehow sitting in the dark makes things better. Except it does little to slow her heart.

The car stops and she's certain her heart skips a beat.

"Apparently the woman who owned the placed died in the fire," the cab driver says. Jen has yet to open her eyes. "City's gonna tear it down next week."

Tear it down.

She feels like she's going to throw up in the back of his car. She opens her eyes and without a word, shoves a wad of cash she borrowed from Gibbs at him. "Be back here in half an hour," is all she manages to say. She opens the car door and gets out as fast as she's able to, but as she stands, she's wondering if her legs will fall out from under her. Lightly, she closes the door and watches the cab drive off, leaving her on the sidewalk across the street. Jen takes a shaky breath and looks up at the building in front of her.

The whole block looks the same as it did before she went to California. Except there isn't much left of her townhouse. The first floor is all boarded up and the windows on the second floor are long gone. She can see the blue sky overhead through them. The roof was the first to fall. The bricks all around the windows are charred black and Jen remembers watching the flames shoot upward, licking at the bricks. As she stands in front of the building, her imagination overlays the CNN footage, making it almost like she was there that night.

Her life really is over.

Without even really knowing why, she crosses the street. She climbs the front steps slowly. All she can smell is the burnt wood from inside and it looks like teenagers already broke in, probably just to say they were in a building where someone died. Before she realizes it, her feet are moving again and she's ducking under the plywood that's barely attached to the front of the building. At this point, she's moving without thinking. Autopilot. And she's really hoping to not get arrested for trespassing. She's not nearly healthy enough to spend a night in jail. Not that she's healthy enough to roam around in a fire-gutted building. She makes a mental note to shower before Gibbs gets back, so she can wash the smoke from her hair. But now that she's gone down this path, she has very little hope of hiding her adventure from him.

She steps around a fallen floorboard, heading towards the study at the back of the townhouse. The whole room is black and she barely even recognizes it for what it used to be. She bites hard on her lower lip as she stands in what used to be a doorway. She bites harder as she feels the tears well up in her eyes and she turns away, hoping just putting it out of sight will keep her from crying. Her balance is shaky enough; she doesn't need to start crying here.

Her shoes-a pair of slip-on sneakers reminiscent of a pair she had in college-crunch on broken glass and burned wood as she walks back towards the door. She can remember exactly where all the furniture used to be. Left in their places are burned out husks of bookcases and piles of table legs. Her eyes scan the floor, watching where she steps, and then they catch on the only sliver of color left in the black foyer. She toes through the debris and uncovers a photo of her father. The frame is half gone, the glass is broken and the photo itself is partially burned. What didn't get damaged by fire got wrinkled by water. Slowly, she picks it up and it's all she needed to start crying. She swipes at her tears with the back of her hand, rubbing soot across her cheek as she does.

She folds the photo into quarters with a shaky hand and tucks it into the shirt pocket. Jen can handle anything. Anything except this. She's too exhausted and too emotionally battered. She feels so sick and she can't get out of the building fast enough. She makes a mad dash for the door with the dangling plywood and down the stone steps and gets as far as the sidewalk before she doubles over, dry heaving. A few minutes later, the cab pulls up. Funny how thirty minutes can seem like a lifetime. Briefly Jen debates having the cabbie take her to NCIS so she can find Gibbs, but that would be too much for everyone involved. So instead, she has him just take her home. A home that isn't really her home and probably never will be.

If she's going to give surviving a chance, she can't stay in Washington. There's too much that isn't here anymore.