Disclaimer NCIS is not mine

Pray For Me

'Tout le monde a des restes de rêves,
Et des coins de vie dévastés,
Tout le monde a cherché quelque chose un jour,
Mais tout le monde ne l'a pas trouvé.'
-Carla Bruni, Toute Le Monde

He didn't even say another word to Stephanie once they were inside of the small building that housed NCIS headquarters. It always felt strange when he visited a foreign headquarters, because it seemed as though DC was the only place where the building had NCIS written in large letters above it. Everywhere else he had ever visited seemed as though no one wanted anyone to know they were there. Los Angeles was a hidden headquarters, and they always moved every couple of years, Paris was a little less cloak and dagger, but there was no glaring lights telling everyone they were there, and now Moscow.

Yet with every headquarters though, when a foreign agent walked in, everyone instantly pulled up their service record so that they knew just who was walking amongst them. It was in the same way that there was a familiar buzz among agents, a buzz of caffeine fuel, of devotion to the victims, and fear of not catching the culprits. NCIS always had that sense of generations old loyalty to their armed forces. The fact that that loyalty was evident even in a foreign country was something that surprised Stephanie as she walked behind her husband. The redhead was amazed at the fact that most of the agents were speaking English, that everything almost had an American feel to it – like they'd just picked up the room and placed it down in a different continent.

The bull pen they were in was smaller than the one they were both accustomed to in DC. The walls were bare of the bright orange paint that someone in their infinite wisdom had decided to cover the American walls with. Instead here, they were stripped back to the bare brick work. The dividers were curved and grey, almost cocooning each of the four teams. The staircase was in the middle, and similar to the one that led up to MTAC and the Directors office back home. Except this one lead up to only one door, and there was no catwalk. On the staircase was a woman. Her hair was dark brown, yet Stephanie could tell it was died from the natural black roots which were only slightly visible with the naked eye. Her image obviously meant a lot to her, because even her eyebrows were died to keep the black at bay.

She wore a pair of baggy black trousers, with a tight red granddad styled top. Her shoes were black, only the toes peeped out from under the fabric of her trousers, but it was enough to tell Stephanie that they were expensive, and about as impractical for her job as the ones that Jennifer Shepard insisted on wearing. Shoes, that had been one of the first things she had noticed about her husband's partner, second only to her red hair that was brighter that her own. Stephanie remembered the smile that was on her husband's face whenever he spoke to her, she remembered how if she had not been holding Jethro's hand at the time she would have thought that it was the two work partners who were dating, and not her and Jethro. But the other woman had never crossed that invisible line, Jenny had stood far enough away to not impose, yet close enough to tell everyone that they were friends. To tell Stephanie, that if she wanted Jethro, then she'd have to accept his partner as well.

Those shoes that had made her envious of her man's partner, the heeled black shoes, which had in no way been anything extraordinary. But, that had been stunning, simply for the reason that they made her legs go on forever, and her curves seem even more enviable. Stephanie could not remember what Jenny and Jethro had spoken about that day, she'd not listened, instead she'd just realised that Jenny held an almightily piece of her now husbands heart. A piece that would never be her own to keep.

Gibbs walked towards the woman, who held out her hand and introduced herself as being Special Agent Alina Ishutin, the daughter of a Russian nurse, and an American marine, but a woman who had been raised solely by her mother and knew nothing of her father. She was bilingual in Russian and English, spoke enough French to get her by, and was relatively competent in Hebrew. None of which Gibbs knew, just like he did not know the fact that she was the best agent NCIS had this side of the Atlantic. Because all he saw was someone who would follow regulations and get in the way of finding his partner.

The American agent ignored the hand outstretched, and Alina managed to look not in the slightest bit bothered. She smiled politely, at Gibbs and at Stephanie, with her big brown eyes and thick lashes, through thin lips covered with the palest of pastel pink lipstick. "You found her?" He asked, not bothering to even state his name, or accept what hers was. Instead he ignored something called pleasantries, and instead, barged right in like a bull in a china shop-

-Something that once more reminded him of Jenny and just how she would describe him.

"Agent Gibbs, it is not that easy. We're working every angle." Alina replied, in English that was only subtly accented to the ear. "Director Marrow is on the screen for you." And with that she walked back up the stairs she had come down, before she and Gibbs disappeared through the door at the top of the stairs. A mysterious silver metal door, leading to a brothel as far as Stephanie knew.

She stood there in the middle of the staircase, looking around at the agents. She felt like such an outcast, and could hit Jethro for simply forgetting that she even existed. Sighing she walked down the stairs, and decided that she would go in search of the break room. However that would only happen if she could get someone's attention, which proved harder that one would believe.

"Jethro, glad you could finally make it." Tom Marrow, the director of NCIS, said over video call. The mysterious black room was surprisingly not a brothel, but instead their version of MTAC; Neskol'ko Tsentr Otsenki Ugroz. It was smaller than the surveillance room Gibbs was accustomed to, in fact it was probably only a quarter of the size, there were no rows of black leather seats at the back to sit on. Instead it was literally filled with a few computers, and a large screen.

The silver haired man gave a glare to the screen where he could see his smirking boss. He was by no means in the mood to joke; even if it was all in a good sense, in fact he was very close to grabbing something and throwing it just to relieve some of his anger which was about to boil over. Anger at the agency, because how could they have let this happen? Anger at Will, because she had been taken on his watch, but most of all the anger was directed at himself. In Gibbs' mind, none of it would have happened if he had been there, if he hadn't been sat in some plush hotel with his wife laughing and drinking coffee and bourbon.

"Stan is in the air Gibbs, there has been a delay, but he'll be there soon. We're pulling nearly everything that exists, I'm pulling in favours – we're doing everything we can." Tom said, looking at his best. "Agent Ishutin, do you have an update for me?"

"Yes sir, we have agents asking about sightings, and pulling all of the CCTV footage we can. Also, we are hoping to find a cover to allow us to interview the men she met with prior to the abduction, in particular the man she hugged, someone called-"

"-Yakov." Gibbs supplied, running a hand through his hair, wondering just who had done this. Wondering how and why they had taken her when she was so close to coming home. The thought of Jenny and Yakov hugging made him sick to the stomach, and although he hated himself for wondering, he wondered how close the pair had actually gotten over the last few months. Whether they had been more than just business acquaintances, or whether without him in the picture they'd become something more . . . intimate.

"Good, so we have anything else from forensics on the car?" The director propositioned, as he looked at the pair on the screen, he saw the frustration etched onto Gibbs' face. The same frustration he and Will were feeling, the frustration that Stan Burley was no doubt feeling as he sat there uselessly thousands of feet above them – the exact same frustration everyone involved felt.

"Nothing sir, they went over it with a fine toothed brush." She said, mucking up her idiom as she spoke, but no one commented as they would no doubt have done any other day. Instead both the silver haired ex-marine and the director let their minds wander to Jenny.

"Has anyone been over her apartment?" Asked Will, as he stepped further into the frame of the camera, and looked at his boss in another continent. Will felt like he had had his heart ripped out of his chest, after all he saw the red head as a little sister. He and Stan had been overjoyed at the thought of her return home, the fact that she would safe and things could get back to at least some sort of normal. But now, now he was beginning to think that normal would never wash over them again. "They might have gone there first boss, or she might have left something – anything's worth a try." There was no reply from the other side, and for a moment the Americans wondered if the connection had failed, but then Gibbs spoke.

"Well have they Agent Ishutin?!" The silver haired man demanded, but she just shook her head, before turning to the Director, ready to defend the actions of the Russian agents.

"We were about to check, we did not want to blow her cover though."

Tom Marrow was about to reply, when he saw Gibbs turn and walk away, heading out of the small room. The director wanted to groan, hit his head against a wall, because it seemed that even when Gibbs was a thousand miles away he was still a pain in the ass. He was still ignoring orders, ignoring rules and regulations. "Where are you going Gibbs?!" the director asked, raising the intonation in his voice and running a hand through his thinning hair – something he would forever blame Gibbs for.

"To search her damn apartment!"

It was exactly as she had left it, exactly. As he stood there, alone in the one place she had been able to call home for the last few months, he was overwhelmed by his emotions. The smell of her perfume was still in the air, the same perfume that greeted him every morning when they were in DC, the perfume he had worn in Paris, in the steaming hot room of Marseille. The perfume which carried with it a million memories. The perfume mixed with a lingering smell of coffee, the very Jamaican blend that he had got her hooked on, that she had at first frowned at.

And as he walked over to the window, he could almost picture her stood there with her coffee in hand, looking out over the view. She'd have loved it, just as she had loved the one they had had Paris. So many times he had awoken to find her stood at the window, looking out, like it was her peep hole to the world. His eyes lingered on the tidy kitchen, on the barely used sofa. Then he made his way into the bedroom, with the perfectly made bed, with her little knick knacks she hadn't taken. As he opened the wardrobe he smirked at the number of shoes and clothes she had accumulated over her stay. Things he knew she would have wanted to take given the chance. With gentle fingers he touched the material of a familiar pink shirt that he knew was her favourite, and ran his thumb over the soft material.

Gibbs closed his eyes for a moment before letting it slide through his fingers. He sighed softly, and opened his startling blue eyes once more before deciding that he had a job to do. So, without even leaving a stone unturned he set about searching the apartment, and fought to keep his emotions in the iron cell he had locked them away in. And yet all the time, all he could think about, was the fact that he had already lost one woman. Shannon had left him never to return, and now the thought of losing Jenny, the only other person who had managed to make him feel like his heart was repairable . . . he couldn't let himself think about not finding her.

As it turned out the apartment was clean, there was nothing there but traces of her life as Julietta, no evidence of anyone else having been there, and no evidence that she was in fact Jennifer Shepard. But before he left, he gave the apartment a final look, and silently prayed to god – any god. Prayed that someone up there would keep her safe until he found her, that he'd manage to get the best partner he had ever had back.

Will walked into the bull pen, it was late, or early, he wasn't sure anymore, the last day and a half and blurred together into a mass of fear and work. The agent sat down at the desk and ran a hand through his hair, grabbing his phone in the hope he had missed someone telling him she was okay. Yet he knew he hadn't. He was just giving himself false illusions of hope.

The Special agent cast his eyes to the red heads desk that she hadn't occupied in months. Standing up, he walked over, and sat in her chair. His fingers gently ran over the keys on her computer, brushing away the thin layer of dust that covered them. His eyes caught sight of the red patch on the side of the keyboard, and it made him smirk. It made him smirk because he remembered how it had gotten there. She'd been painting her nails because they had no case, and Gibbs was away on honeymoon. But Stan being Stan had tipped the varnish over, he could still hear the sound of the agent moaning as he was forced to scrub the entire desk with nail varnish remover to get rid of the red liquid. Something which had not gone well. That was the reason why the spare desk which sat behind the divider had a large patch which looked bleached – because he'd ended up ruining the desk.

Will closed his eyes and opened the top draw of her desk to find her service weapon and badge sat there peacefully. He picked up the golden badge and smirked, remembering how even after having been an agent for so long she still took pride in polishing it. Something he endlessly took the mick out of her for, but endlessly respected at the same time.

He too, prayed that she would return home safe and sound.

From the catwalk Tom Marrow watched the agent, and for the first time in a long time, he looked down on what people called his kingdom, and he didn't feel pride. Instead he felt what he could only call shame, because he was responsible for Jennifer Shepard not being behind that desk. Because he always said that he was responsible for anything that happened to or with his agents, and no he was responsible for one of his best agents not being in the chair she deserved to be in. So he too prayed. In that moment three men, in two continents, prayed for one woman to return to all of them.

She was dropped on the floor like nothing more than a sack; then again all she was was a sack of bones. The pain didn't register, all she could feel was a dull ache moving across her body. The red head had no idea how long she had been there, but she hadn't said a word. She was smart enough to know that none of this would end anytime soon.

Her face was grazed from the hard floor, a bruise was forming over her eye from a beating, and it felt like one of her ribs was broken. Yet she had no energy to resist, she hadn't had food or water, and her head hurt. Jenny didn't even open her eyes to look around the room; instead she just remained still, stopping her emotions.

The red head had made a promise to herself that she wouldn't cry, no matter what she wouldn't cry. And so fat she hadn't. But as she laid there she easily could, because he mouth tasted like blood, and her cuts spread all over her body. The clothes she had been taken in were ripped, and her body was dusty and dirty. Everything felt like a nightmare, a nightmare that was real. As she laid there, in the back of her mind, she remembered Gibbs, and the last time she had seen him. He knight in shining armour stood there in that alley way, as she walked away, telling him she didn't want to see him. Acting like such a bitch, pushing him away when all he wanted to do was help. The ironic thing was, she'd give anything to be back in that alleyway now.

One woman, in some hot far off country, prayed for someone to pick her up and carry her home. Prayed, and prayed, and prayed…

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