Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
A.N.: Thanks to black widow mistress, Mrs. Elizabeth Gibbs, alix33, itzcheeseball, Twilight Trekky, jstapny and MissJayne for reviewing!
Gibbs walked out of Jenny's house, a smile still playing on his lips. She had been more honest with him today then she had ever been in all of the years he had known her, and not just with what she said to him, but how she responded to him. She hadn't tried to hide the flush in her cheeks when he had touched her, or shouted at him to leave when tears had threatened, she had just accepted that he was there and allowed him in to her confidence, letting him see all of the emotions that she would usually bury.
One thing was for sure; she really hated that frog guy, and if she got the chance, he knew she would kill him. This guy had killed her daughter, their daughter he corrected himself, and that deserved punishment, maybe not murder, but then who was he to judge? He had killed the man who had taken the lives of his first wife and daughter; could he begrudge Jenny her revenge? No, he couldn't, and he found himself wanting to help her however he could. He may never have met Rosie, but she deserved just as much love and justice for her memory as Kelly had.
He wiped the smile off of his face and pushed his thoughts of Rosie, Jenny and the frog to the back of his mind, preparing himself mentally for the crime scene he was about to visit, 'putting his game face on' as certain other Agents would call it. He placed a call to his senior Agent, knowing that Tony would pass the word to the rest of the team as soon as he put the phone down and then he called Ducky, who agreed to meet him at the abandoned restaurant with Jimmy in tow. The drive to the restaurant passed quickly and Gibbs parked his car near the flashing patrol cars and then walked straight up to the man in charge and identified himself.
The man told him all about how a man had decided to surprise his girlfriend by proposing to her in the same restaurant they'd had first date in, and then they had discovered the body. Gibbs nodded and then looked around at the sound of approaching cars. His and the medical examiners vans parked up and the team all filed over the tarmac towards him, with Ducky and Palmer bringing up the rear.
"Traffic was a nightmare boss." Tony said by way of greeting, and McGee rolled his eyes and stood waiting for orders to be issued.
"It would not have been if you had let me drive." Ziva groused to him and he turned to her, glaring slightly, but she stood her ground and stared back.
"I prefer to be the one investigating a crime scene, not being investigated." He said hotly, and Ziva nudged him sharply in the side in response to his less than flattering review of her driving skills. Gibbs divided them up and set them to work, before Tony could make some sort of response and then walked away, noting that Ducky was giving him sideward glances. He took it to mean that Ducky wanted to talk with him so he walked over, carefully keeping an eye on his Agents, hoping DiNozzo wouldn't try anything stupid just because McGee looked ill as he watched the maggots crawling over the corpse.
"You want to talk to me Duck?" he said when he caught up to the elderly ME. Ducky nodded and gestured for him to come a little closer, so he could whisper his news. He did so, a patient kind of annoyance running through him. Ducky would have a good reason for all of this cloak and dagger stuff.
"Yes, Jennifer has admitted to me that she believes she has a drinking problem. Whatever you said to her worked, Jethro." Ducky praised him, a wide smile on his face, but Jethro frowned.
"I didn't say anything about her drinking habits Duck, just talked to her about Rosie." He said, a little confused as to how that had come about. How could talking about their daughter bring her drinking problem to light in her mind? She hadn't felt the need to drink when they had spoken about her, not once in the entire time he was there, what else could…? La Grenouille. He was the only other topic they had discussed that could possibly account for her alcoholism.
"Oh, I assumed… oh dear." Ducky muttered, a crestfallen expression taking the place of the happy one he had worn only moments ago.
"What is it Duck?" Gibbs asked slightly worriedly and Ducky looked away, unable to meet his eyes for a moment.
"Well I assumed that talking to you had helped her to open up so I told her to… talk to you more often about what was bothering her. If it is about Rosie than I may have volunteered you for a painful evening." He said regretfully, his happiness completely disappearing almost immediately. Jethro smiled and laid a hand on Ducky's shoulder comfortingly.
"If it is about Rosie, I'll be delighted to hear anything she wants to tell me about my daughter." He said, and Ducky nodded in response to the genuine contentment.
"Well you may wish to start tonight, job willing of course. I'd hate for her to decide she has made a mistake by talking to me while she waits for you to help her confront her problem." Ducky said, his voice and words nudging him in the direction of Jenny's house tonight.
"We'll see, Ducky." Jethro said, shaking his head fondly at his friend and then he turned around, and walked back to his team. It was going to be a long one tonight, but luckily they had nowhere else to be, yet.
It was night and Tony was finally done with his work, or at least he had managed to get out of work early by sneaking off to pick up his girlfriend. He watched from the bar as his 'girlfriend' Jeanne spoke to someone on the phone, someone who was obviously not getting the message that she didn't want to see him again, and he sighed internally. She was beautiful, smart, funny and sexy, who would want to just give up on her? Certainly not the person who was pestering her and ordinarily DiNozzo would have done the same, until he got her in to bed, but for once he wished that the other guy would take a hike. It could be a serious problem if he didn't, especially if she decided to give the other guy another chance. He had to nip this in the bud or everything he had worked for would unravel.
He winced at his own thoughts, wondering when he had become so unfeeling, so immoral. What he was doing to Jeanne was wrong, he knew that, but what her father was doing was wrong too. His mother had always said that two wrongs don't make a right, so what was he doing here, really? Yes she was a lovely woman and that made it easier for him to become intimate with her, but what damage was he doing to her trust? To her faith in love? To her faith in men in general? He asked the bartender for a drink and knocked it back, hoping the burn would help him to order his thoughts.
He was exhausted, from both the hunt for Emily Fornell and the façade he had to put up for Jeanne, and he was just now realising that he could definitely do the job Jenny had given him, and that scared him. He had always been a good liar, he had used it to his advantage many times, mostly with women, but also to get himself out of trouble and he knew how potent a good lie could be. Jenny had chosen him to do this because she trusted him and his ability to weave fiction with enough truth so that what he said was totally believable.
It was his gift, and it was invaluable in an undercover mission, but he could feel himself losing sight of his job more and more each day as the lies began to build up. He found himself wanting to believe them, to be the man Jeanne thought he was, but then he would get to work and he knew that every moment with her was an act, a perversion of a real relationship and he felt sick at his own actions.
He shook his head and ordered another drink, watching her as she gestured animatedly while she spoke to the man on the phone and he decided that he couldn't o this anymore, he would talk to Jenny tonight and pull out of the mission. What he was doing wasn't that essential, she would bring La Grenouille out of hiding some other way, she didn't need him. He nodded to himself; it was for the best, for everyone involved. He looked up just as Jeanne closed her phone and walked back to him, an apologetic smile on her face and his stomach fluttered in anticipation of her touch. He was in too deep already, he was really falling for her, but even now he knew he wouldn't talk to Jenny. Jeanne loves him, and he loves her. His phone buzzed, not his work phone, the cover phone, and he pulled it out, his brow furrowing at the message written there.
"Boss is read in on an undercover operation. What film is this? Reply ASAP." Tony stared at it for a few moments and then realised that it was from Jenny. She was reading Gibbs in on the operation? Tony sighed and he could almost feel a weight being lifted from his shoulders as he realised he wouldn't have to lie to Gibbs anymore. Then another thought left him cold. Would he have to give up Jeanne?
Jenny sat on the edge of Emily's bed and tucked her in, placing the book that had been in one of her bags on the bedside table. She had just finished reading 'Beauty and the Beast' and Emily had fallen asleep nearly halfway through. She was out of practice when it came to reading to a child and her voice hadn't been as soothing as she had liked, but it seemed to have done the trick. She had been tired after playing with Noemi and her in the park not far from here after dinner, so the story had really just been the last in the long line of activities that had lulled her to sleep.
Jenny smiled and stood up, making her way quietly out of the room and then closing the door as gently as she could. She pulled out her phone and sent a text message to Tony, in preparation for Jethro's visit later today. Ducky had told her to talk to him, so she planned to, about La Grenouille, Rosie, everything. She closed her eyes as her heart constricted, she missed Rosie, her soul had felt empty when she had looked at the happy families in the park and realised that Emily wasn't going to be here for long. She had no children and she didn't deserve to have any. She was a terrible parent; she had proven that to everyone when Rosie had been taken from her, when she had been killed because she couldn't protect her.
Jenny walked down the stairs and into her study, heading over to the drinks cabinet before she realised what she was doing. She stopped herself from reaching for the bottle, but then grabbed it anyway. Yes, she had a problem, but one drink wasn't going to end the world, and she really needed a drink right now. She picked up a glass and poured a generous amount into it, deciding that the fuller she made it, the less likely she was to have to get up and refill it. It was only one glass after all.
She carried the glass to her desk and sat behind it, taking a good long sip from it and then placing it on the polished wooden surface of her father's desk. She chuckled to herself, thinking of how bad his parenting had been, guessing she got it from him. He had left her with the housekeeper for a long time after her mother had died, was leaving Rosie at the day-care the equivalent of Jenny losing Jethro? Or was she just over thinking in an attempt to blame someone else for her problems?
She downed the last of her Bourbon and stared at the empty glass for a moment before standing up and going to refill it. She poured more into it this time and then sat back down, telling herself that this was the last glass she was having tonight, she did have to go to work in the morning. Why bother though? It wasn't as if she was getting any closer to La Grenouille, just the opposite in fact, he was getting further away. She wasn't doing her father or Rosie any justice by letting him slip through her fingers time and time again. She drank her way through that glass, thinking of all of the times she had been close to getting him, and then failed. It ate away at her on the inside, the constant failures, how he always seemed to escape at the last moment. Maybe she should just give up, it wasn't like he she was any closer to him now than she had been a decade ago.
The next time she got up to refill her glass; she didn't bother to move away, to pretend she wasn't going to end up drinking half the bottle. She just poured some more into the cup, drank it and then refilled it. She was trying to get to her special place, and two glasses later, she was there. Her vision had gone wonky and she was quite certain she was hearing things, but everything else was pleasantly numb. No barriers to keep everything inside, no walls to maintain her emotions and in some cases no emotions. In this state she could feel all of the pain leaking away, all of the anger dispersing and a nice relaxed contentment settled over her. It was a pleasant feeling, and at least now she knew that what she was feeling was real.
"What are you doing, Jen?" a voice asked her and she turned to look for the one who had said it, but lost her balance and fell. Strong arms caught her but not fast enough and they both hit the floor, her head rebounding off of the wood hard, and everything went black.