Mike Franks / Jeanne Benoit / Chinese Food
I probably could have done something more complicated with this...but I wanted to keep it short.
You can connect yourself to anyone in the world in six easy steps.
Jeanne's favourite Chinese take-out is The Paper Lantern.
The Paper Lantern is within walking distance of the Navy Yard.
Tony works out of the Navy Yard.
Tony works under Gibbs.
Gibbs was trained by Mike Franks.
And it's Mike's turn to pick up dinner...
.
The world is a lot smaller than it looks. You can fool yourself into thinking it's bigger than it is, that there are places you can hide...that you can run off to the middle of the some poor African country and tell yourself that you're helping people...that you can shut yourself off from the rest of the world and pretend it ceases to exist...that if you just ignore it long enough...
You can't run forever. Sometimes...you need to come home.
And there's nothing that screams home like your favourite take out.
Mike's flight didn't leave until the next morning, so he was picking up dinner while Gibbs finished paperwork. It was so nauseatingly domestic and reminiscent of their working days that Mike was tempted to change his flight. Well, he thought about it. He'd never actually do it. Probie would skin him alive.
Jeanne had flown home to see a friend who'd just had a baby. Coming home had seemed like such a great idea in Africa. Stepping off that plane to no one...it stung. It was ten pm on a Tuesday. She was going straight to her hotel. Most of her friends here had jobs and lives and families to worry about. They'd pick her up if she asked, but she didn't want to impose.
She'd never felt more alone.
Before, she'd have arrived in the day and been met by a friend. Or her mother. Or her father. Or one of her father's employees. She doesn't think about Tony.
Her father's dead. That rules out two options. Her mother...things are frosty at the moment. She always wondered why things were so strained between her parents. That her papa was an arms dealer and her mother had found out would never cross her mind. The fact her mother had known and didn't tell her...that stung. Her mom should have told her. Should have prepared her. It would have saved some of the heartbreak.
Sometimes, reality really was stranger than fiction.
Jeanne flinched when the hostess called 'Gibbs'. Right now, that was too fresh. Despite the fact that the only other person in the room was an older man who was not Tony's boss. The other man noticed her reaction and looked over at her fleetingly. The once over he gave was so familiar – like he was seeing to her very soul – that she rethought her first assumption and decided that they were maybe related. That stare reminded her of the silver-haired agent too much for it to be a coincidence.
She should have stayed in Africa.
The older man nodded to her as he left, a move Jeanne tried to answer with a tight smile. She's not too sure how that worked out. She didn't have time to ponder her actions, though, as a moment later the woman called her name and she was occupied again. It made her brain shut up.
She had three priorities. Get back to her hotel, enjoy her crispy aromatic duck then go to bed. She could deal with the rest of the world in the morning.
And at least she could count on the duck to stay with her.