Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
A.N.: Thank you to everyone who alerted and favourite this story and helped me understand OJ-ing! Thanks to Karen19, cheether, MatteaAM, louise1717, HesMines, Huddly, Mrs. Elizabeth Gibbs, Lady Shelle Luv's Jibbs, black widow mistress, SiuanSedai and MissJayne for reviewing!
Waking up in a strange bed instantly put Jethro on alert, but the warm body curling up to him brought back the memories of the nights activities and put an easy smile on his face. Hollis was a lovely woman and she was a generous lover. He had anticipated a good night and he had, quite simply put, had a great night. An unexpected bonus though, was that her blonde hair meant she hadn't reminded him of any of his ex wives or lovers. He hadn't had a flash of memory to one of his other bed fellows, so there had been no danger of him calling for the wrong woman. Not that he was very vocal anyway, and she had more than made up for his silence. All in all, she was a completely new experience, and one he intended to enjoy for as long as it lasted.
He looked over to the clock on the nightstand and read the numbers glowing in the semidarkness. It was 0700 hours. He carefully moved Hollis away from his body and got out of the bed, looking around the floor for his clothes and dressing. He would stop off at his place and get a shower; he could change his clothes while he was there too. He didn't want to turn up at work in the same clothes he was wearing last night. He picked up his jacket and made sure he had everything in the pockets and then walked towards the door. He stopped once he got there and looked back to the bed.
He wasn't naïve, he could probably fancy himself in love with Hollis, but he wasn't. There had been only two times he had really put effort into a relationship, really allowed himself to love, and both women had left him, one by choice. So he didn't even try now. The woman he was still in love with, the one that had chosen to leave, was so close to him every day but unavailable to him too, and sooner or later Hollis would figure out that what he wanted wasn't her. She would move on and so would he. Hollis opened her eyes and watched him, not saying anything, just waiting for him to make his move. He took a deep breath and made it.
"I'll call you." He swiftly turned around, and walked straight out of her apartment. If Hollis wanted to pursue something with him, she would have to find him, because although he had said he would call her, he had no intention of actually doing so. He winced in guilt; the expression on her face as he had left had shown such trust in him, even though she had known what lines he was thinking along, and he knew she wouldn't call him either. He got in his car and drove home.
Hollis was going to give him the space he needed to get his head off of the 'other woman' in his life. Well that was an impossible task. You can't just get your mind off of Jenny Shepard when you had known her like he had. When he saw her, spoke with her, and was a hairsbreadth away from touching her every day, he felt his mind snap back to focussing solely on her like the sudden releasing of tension from an elastic band. It was particularly bad since his coma and amnesia. He had mistaken her for Shannon at first, and then found he couldn't identify her mentally, but emotionally his heart sped at the sight of her.
When she had turned her back to retrieve the picture for him he hadn't been able to resist the urge to look at her, really look at her, up and down. It was like being alone on a strange island and trying to find water; you know what you want, you just can't see it even though most of the time, its right under your nose. His emotions had been confused at the time, volatile, but now he understood the anger and the loss.
He quickly sorted himself out at home and then jumped back into his car and went to Starbucks for his coffee before driving to work. They had no case yet so he wasn't in any particular hurry to get to the navy yard. He looked around the car park and his eyebrows rose when he spotted Fornell's car. He racked his brain thinking of a reason the FBI would be required in NCIS, but he couldn't think of anything. Must be another team's fault. He shrugged and got out of his car, walking into the building and going straight up to the bullpen.
On his way up Gibbs thought about the last time he had seen Tobias was during the Paulson case, when he was worried about the guy finding and hurting Emily. It had been too long since his friend had dropped by for a game of 'whose case is it'. Tobias had come to him and asked him to help get Paulson back in jail, and so he had walked in to NCIS and asked Jenny for his badge back. He smirked and shook his head thinking about the fact she hadn't filed his retirement package when he had left for Mexico. It was like she had known he would want to come back once his memory was back. The first thing he had noticed about her was the strange highlights in her hair, blonde highlights. It looked better, longer, than it had when he had left, but if he was completely honest, he missed the long red locks that hung around her shoulders. The short hair was nice, but she suited it better long.
He growled low in his throat, annoyed at himself for letting his thoughts stray to her so easily. That was exactly why he couldn't keep a girlfriend around. They didn't like to be compared to the memories of other women. The lift reached his floor and he stepped out, walking purposefully into the nearly empty bullpen. Ziva appeared from another lift with her workout bag and Gibbs assumed McGee must be down with Abby, meaning Tony was the only one in his seat. Unusual. Tony immediately jumped up from his desk and walked over to him.
"Boss! Fornell just went up to Jen-" Gibbs glared at him. "-the Director's office." Gibbs nodded and walked away from DiNozzo, a little angry that Jenny had gotten so comfortable with his senior Agent that they were on a first name basis. He shouldn't be surprised, Tony was more easy going than him when it came to Jenny, he'd even let her join in on his campfire's, so maybe that was why she was friendly with him. Women like to be wanted. He took the stairs two at a time and then charged along the catwalk, throwing open both Cynthia's door and then Jenny's. Upon entering, he saw Tobias sitting opposite Jenny with an odd look on his face. Was that grief?
"Good morning Agent Gibbs. Sleep well?" Jenny greeted him, but her question struck him as bordering on unpleasant. He shot her a calculating look. Was she jealous? He fought the urge to grin at her and instead answered her in kind.
"I didn't get much sleeping done actually, Jen. Thanks for asking." He turned to Tobias, noting the strained look on his friends' face. "I haven't even started a new case yet, Tobias. Is this the FBI's idea of a pre-emptive strike?" he smirked at him, but felt his stomach drop when Fornell's face became very serious.
"Actually Jethro, I'm here on personal business. I need help and you are the only one I can trust to do it right." Fornell looked at Jenny and Gibbs turned to watch her nod to him. He was asking Jenny's permission for something. Why? Fornell looked back at him and then stood, gesturing to the seat, but Gibbs didn't want it. It must be serious if he wasn't jumping right in with the explanation and it more than likely something he didn't want to hear. "Diane was murdered last night and Emily has been abducted."
Gibbs' eyes widened in disbelief and he simply stared openly at Tobias for a few seconds, before the reality of his statement and his presence in NCIS penetrated his brain, and he averted his eyes. He couldn't be serious. Diane was dead? Emily was gone? There had been no love lost between himself and Diane, and he was surprised to feel deep sympathy for her. She had hit him where it hurt and that had created a loathing that he couldn't shake, but he still had fond memories of her.
Emily abducted though, that was just too awful for Fornell. He'd just had his only family taken from him in one night. Jethro's jaw set and he tried to ignore the empathy welling up inside him. He knew the look in Fornell's eyes only too well. It was a sense of loss and grief so profound it was paralysing. He didn't want Tobias to go through that. He had nearly not made it through himself. Losing family was something he could identify with, but he really didn't want to. He had to distance himself; he had to focus on helping Tobias and finding Emily.
"How? Why?" Fornell opened his mouth to answer but he didn't have the strength left within himself to do so. He closed it again without making a sound and Jenny obliged him instead, filled Gibbs in on the FBI's case and everything that had happened last night. By the time she had finished, Fornell had sat back down and buried his face in his hands, willing himself not to lose control. They had forty-eight hours to find her before her life expectancy went down dramatically. He needed to get his focus back; he needed to save his little girl.
"Jethro, I am going to need you and your team to find Emily and we have no more time to waste." Tobias ground out, standing up and reaching over the desk to take the folder back from Jenny. She handed it to him and he walked purposefully out of her office. Gibbs watched him go before rounding on Jenny.
"He's not in control of himself. Why are you letting him work the case?" he asked angrily. He didn't really want to deal with Fornell's temper for however long it took to find Emily, and the reality was that they were more than likely not going to find her alive. Jenny would be up here in her office most of the day so she wouldn't be affected by his foul mood. Was this her idea of punishing him for the way he had acted towards her during the Sharif case? He might have been showing off to Hollis and he might have bordered on insulting, ok he had been insulting her, but that was no reason to foist an emotional agent on him, even if he was his friend.
"He's the lead agent, if anyone can find this guy, he can. Emily doesn't have the time to wait for another Agent to study his methods. You need him, and most of all, he needs to be useful." Gibbs narrowed his eyes at her. She really believed that, he could tell, but he felt like there was something more, something she wasn't telling him. She stared back at him unblinking, refusing to be the one to back down. Fornell reappeared in the doorway impatiently.
"Are you two going to gaze at each other all day or help me to find my daughter?" they winced at his tone, knowing he was just terrified for his little girl so they couldn't blame him for his impatience, and Jethro followed him out, intentionally leaving the door wide open behind him to annoy Jenny. It worked, and she sighed before getting up and closing it herself.
The house was everything he could want. It had the basics; a toilet, shower and running hot and cold water. It was semi furnished which was perfect; he didn't need much in the way of furniture for his lifestyle. The most attractive features though, were that it was on a housing estate with a garden full of trees for privacy, and isolation was key for his routine. He had quite a number of extra houses waiting for him in different names so he wasn't left homeless after the FBI raided his others. He grinned to himself and turned around in the driver's seat of his van. The back compartment was dark, the only light getting in from the small space he was looking through, and highlighting a small leg, just covered by a princess nightgown. The little girl was whimpering softly, huddling as far from him as possible. She was terrified of him, and for good reason.
He could have killed her mother in one of the rooms, but the stairs had been much more of a statement to Agent Fornell, and the effect the sight had had on the little girl had been worth the time he'd spent on the presentation. He jumped out of the van and walked slowly around to the back of it, making sure his footsteps were loud on the gravel driveway. He looked around, making sure there was no way anyone could see between the trees, and then unlocked the back doors. He heard the girl try to shuffle away from the doors and chuckled to himself. This might be more fun than he had first thought.
He pulled the doors open and light spilled onto the figure that was curled up as far as she could get from him. The girl whimpered louder and hid her face, trying to protect the purple bruise on the side of her face, too afraid of being hit again to scream. He grabbed the chain she was attached to and unhooked it from the side of the van, then pulled it, dragging the girl to him. She uncurled and scrambled around, trying to grab hold of something to stop herself, but he was too strong. He pulled her into his strong grip and carried her into the house, depositing his squirming bundle into the smallest, darkest, most secluded room in the house.
"M-my daddy will find me." She said to him, trying to make her voice sound confident, but the lost look in her bloodshot eyes belied her uncertainty. She had seen her mother's dead body, how could she possibly know that he hadn't killed her dad already too? He smiled at her and turned to the door.
"I'm counting on it."