AN1: I'm really getting fuzzy on the time-line here. I apologize if there is a time warp, but I don't plan on doing much research into making it work perfectly.

AN2: Credit to Pandora of Ithilien for the topic - I appreciate the reminder about the stuff in SWAK.

AN3: If anyone recognizes little pieces surrounding Jenny's story, it's because they're from Harry Chapin's "A Better Place to Be." You don't need to know anything about the song and this is most definitely not a song-fic but for the sake of it, I'll disclaim ownership of the song along with everything else.

AN4: Ok, I'm brain cramping here. Any further suggestions or ideas?

199? or 200?

Another celebration, Kate planned. Surely Jenny had heard about her promotion to the Presidential detail and would show up at the bar to congratulate her.

When Kate arrived at the bar, she found she was only right about half of that. Jenny was at the bar alright, but she was knee deep in... something other than bourbon. There was something clearly very wrong.

"You look awfully much like shit for someone who just spent some time in Paris," Kate started. "It is the city of lights, the city of romance... "

"Undercover work is not all glamorous, you know. There's actual work involved and not all of it is pretty. Before you ask what, it's 'need to know.'" Jenny's tone was short.

"But still Jenny, there had to be some time where you and your boss could spend some "quality" time together."

"He wasn't my boss by then." Jenny sounded bitter. "He was my partner."

Kate was concerned now, "Was? Past tense? He's not dead, is he?" Kate's eyes went wide.

"No. I left him."

Kate was confused as hell now. "Wait, you spent all of this time pining over him and now you left him. What could he have possibly done?"

"He didn't do anything. I fell in love with him."

"Afraid you'll be ex-wife number three?" Kate joked.

Kate expected a glare and a death threat, but all she got was a pained look.

Jenny took a couple of sips of whatever form of clear hard liquor that had filled her glass and told Kate her story:

"We were in Paris going over the plan for... the need to know stuff... and all of a sudden, I realized I was in far too deep. I knew I never wanted to just "play with him," as I've called it before, of that, I am sure. But I never planned on falling in love with him. I am career driven. I'm not your friend Marcie, of course. But I have my five point plan to get to the top. I've risen through the ranks pretty quickly. And mind you, not a bit of it came because I was sleeping with him."

"I never thought it did," Kate interrupted. Jenny didn't seem to notice and continued:

"No woman has gotten so far as I have so quickly. I have plans. Big plans. And they don't include falling in love with my boss. My plans don't include a relationship at all. A boyfriend, a husband, a family, that was supposed to happen once I got to the top. I was only supposed to want it when I got to the top. This is way too much; I never wanted this. But I'm in love with him. I couldn't just break up with him. Instead, I took another promotion. I still haven't told him. Given how I left him, I suppose I never will. But he will hear about it through the NCIS grapevine, of course. All he has from me now is a letter. I left it for him, made excuses, and secretly took a flight back to the US. An "it's not you, it's me" letter. A "Dear John" letter. God, is there a worse way to break up with someone?"

Kate took that question as rhetorical and let Jenny continue.

"That makes me a horrible person, putting a promotion ahead of what was a wonderful relationship. It seems like a once in a lifetime opportunity, but I know it wasn't. Not the way I'm rising through the ranks. I'd get another offer in a few years. Instead, I'm plowing ahead at full speed through my career. I don't even know when I'll stop. My plan doesn't include a top. It's really just a plan to keep going. And I'm sacrificing so much to get there."

Kate knew this was the closest Jenny would ever get to crying.

Jenny slowed down. "Well, I guess I'm out of gin. And I know you've been moving up as much as I have. Congratulations. Though I imagine now we're both lonely."

Kate didn't have the heart to tell her that she had found, if nothing else, someone to fool around with. Nor did Kate know how to respond to Jenny's ramblings. It was clear from Jenny's glazed look that the story hadn't been told to Kate in particular and that Jenny was quite intoxicated. It was amazing that a woman who could hold more bourbon down than anyone Kate knew could get so drunk on so little gin. Then again, Jenny could have been there for a while before Kate had arrived.

2005

It took Kate a while to put it together (they were in a plague scare, after all) but she soon realized that the Dear John letter Jenny had written and the Dear John letter Gibbs had received were one and the same.