Author's Note:

I remember writing this after hearing Wyclef Jean's Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill) in early April of 2008 – and since it is one of the stories that didn't perish, here it is.

Again, this is the kind of story which would might have worked in Season Three.

Jen addressed Tony when her visit to the bullpen proved fruitless.

"Where's Agent Gibbs?"

"Interrogation, Director," he replied, hoping she would go back to her office.

"New case?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Why was I not informed?" she asked, his lack of eye contact irking her.

Tony looked at her for a moment, trying to decide how much to say.

But she didn't wait. Turning instead towards the elevators that would take her downstairs.

"I'm sure there'll be a report on your desk before the day is out," Tony called, saying the first thing that came to his head.

Jen turned on her heel and returned to her position in front of his desk.

"Are you getting fresh with me, Agent Di Nozzo?"

"Uh .. no ma'am," he replied, silently cursing Gibbs for putting him in this position in the first place.

He could feel Jen scrutinizing him, and was almost sure he could hear the gears turning in her head. Just as he was scrambling to come up with something mollifying to say, she pressed her lips together in a hard line.

"Tell Agent Gibbs I want to see him when he's done," she said as she started up the stairs.

Tony leaned back in his seat and and cursed Gibbs one more time. He rubbed a hand over his face and looked over at Ziva.

"Have you any idea why he doesn't want her to know about this one?"

The Israeli shook her head, her eyes on Jen walking along the upper level to her office.

"No. But whatever it is, it's personal."

Downstairs, McGee watched silently.

As he had for the past half an hour.

He pulled out his cell phone, grateful he was alone, and dialled a familiar number.

Taking a deep breath when the person at the other end picked up.

"Sarah?"

"Tim? What's wrong?"

" I just … wanted to hear your voice," he said, a little emotion creeping into his voice. "Is everything okay at Waverly?"

"Yes" she said warily. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Tough case," he admitted. Having given up on the pretense that this hadn't gotten to him. "I just wanted to check in and see if ... maybe ... you wanted to meet for dinner tomorrow night and ... catch up? If you're not busy?"

"Tomorrow would be great" she said.

McGee smiled. Feeling good about having placed the call to his sister when he heard the affection in her voice.

"Pick you up at eight" he said as he closed up his phone and turned his attention back to the scene in interrogation room. Where a different set of emotions were on display.

He watched as Gibbs did something he had never seen him do.

He stood from his seat and gripped the hand of the marine sitting at the table. Lending the man silent support as he bowed his head onto his arms and wept.

Gibbs looked down at the young man who had just thrown his life away.

"She was only a baby," he sobbed. "She had her whole life ahead of her. I should have been here to protect her."

Private First Class Carly Morris had been on tour in Iraq when the news had come through that his only sister had been brutally assaulted. He'd flown home and been devastated to learn that she had dropped out of college and been sucked into an underground ring of vice. His sister, battered beyond redemption, had died, and he'd unleashed his own private war at the person he'd deemed responsible for her fall from grace.

But he had got it wrong.

Gibbs brought a bit more pressure to bear on the young man's shoulder as Ziva slipped into the room.

"I will find who did this," he promised as she led the young man out with more gentleness than he had ever seen her display.

Gibbs sat back down and pulled the folders back towards him.

Looked at the contents, and did his best not to let the past suck him in. But he was fighting a losing battle and he knew it; because the visuals of the woman lying limp and broken in his arms were beyond his control to keep at bay.

Tony slipped into the observation room a while later, and found McGee still watching Gibbs.

"How long has he been sitting there?"

"A while."

"Crime scene photos?"

"The girl," Tim corrected. "Whatever this is he's pretty haunted by it."

Tony's head came up sharply as the door to interrogation opened and the Director swept in.

"Something you wanted, Jen?" they heard him ask gruffly; the tone of his voice belying what he was feeling.

"We can start with why you haven't answered your phone in five hours."

"Busy," he said, pulling the folders closed and folding his hands over them.

"What's the new case?" she asked, making a grab for the top folder. Which he didn't relinquish.

"You'll have my report before I leave, Director" he said, obviously intent on not budging.

"So I've been told" she said sarkily. "What's so sensitive that I can't know about it, Jethro? I would have thought that ... as Director ... I shouldn't have to ask what is going on in my own agency."

His eyes met hers as he walked around her, but he didn't answer.

She stared at his retreating form and then her eyes flicked to the glass; the look in them angry. And frustrated.

Behind it Tony and McGee cringed.

After she had stewed awhile, Jen walked into the one place she knew she would get a straight answer if she played her cards right.

"Who's this?" she asked Ducky as he worked on a cadaver.

He looked at her in confusion for a moment.

"The victim in the Morris case. Didn't you know?"

Her tone was acerbic when she spoke again.

"Jethro doesn't think keeping me in the loop is worth his time."

"Oh dear," the medical examiner said, putting the needle down.

"What's going on here, Ducky?"

Ducky exhaled, making a spur of the moment decision.

He made short work of filling her in. Choosing to open up the freezer and show her the Marine's sister.

Jen took in the lividity and the bruising in silence, and suddenly understood what all of this was about.

"Where is he, Ducky?" she asked.

"I think he went home," he said.

She was sure she wasn't imagining the pain in his eyes.

"I don't think he's ever forgiven himself for what happened," he said softly.

"I was hoping he had," she replied softly, looking away.

"He shouldn't have to go through this alone, Jennifer."

"No, he shouldn't" was all she said.

She found him where she knew she would.

Working on his boat.

He flinched slightly under her touch, and she pulled her hand from his shoulder quickly. But he turned to look at her, and the look in his eyes told her all she needed to know.

That here was a man crumbling under the weight of a past experience he hadn't learned to shed.

"You should have told me," she said gently.

"Too raw, Jen," he said, making to turn back to the boat.

She placed a hand on his arm.

"I was there too, Jethro."

"Because I put you there," he said. Still trying to turn away from her.

"Because that's what the op called for," she corrected him. "And I could have turned it down."

"And I could have protected you better."

"No, you couldn't have. You got me out of there as soon as you could. We were dependent on others for the intel. It wasn't your fault."

"I should never have taken anything for granted," he replied straining against her grip on his arm.

"We saved a lot of women," she said.

"How'd you find out?" he asked instead.

"I stopped by autopsy. It wasn't too hard to connect the dots when I saw the red hair. Jethro ..."

He shrugged her off, his mind still replaying the moment when he'd broken into the apartment and found her lying there.

Her face reduced to pulp, her bones broken.

Her voice breaking as she whimpered his name.

They'd been deep undercover in Knjaževac; on the tail of an errant Marine operating a prostitution ring. Jen had been a welcome addition with her colouring and spirit, but trouble had brewed one dark night when he wasn't paying as much attention as he should have been. Because he'd been angry about something Decker had done, and hadn't doublechecked the intel.

She'd killed the man who assualted her, but not before he'd beaten her within an inch of her life. He still wasn't sure where she'd found the energy to stab him, but she'd insisted later that she still had things to do and she hadn't been ready to die on Serbian soil.

The days spent bringing her back to the land of the living had been some of the most painful in his life. Making him dwell on how deeply under his skin she had burrowed. And she'd clung to him as though her life depended on it when rough moments closed in.

Drawing on his strength.

And his love for her.

"Jethro ... it's time to let it go," he heard her say.

Without thinking he lifted fingers to her face.

Tracing the jawline that had been indistinguishable from her neck for several days.

"Let me hold you," she said gently.

Knowing that she needed to break the cycle of self-recrimination, and that this was the best and only way.

She kissed the side of his head as she wrapped her arms around him; feeling his head drop to her shoulder, and the slight tremor that rippled through him.

"You will find the people who did this, Jethro," she whispered.

Her eyes fluttered closed as she felt him nip at her neck and then hesitate.

He raised his eyes to hers, evidently seeking permission.

"Remember the week we spent in the cabin when I was feeling better?" she asked with a small chuckle as she smiled her acquiescence at him. "With nothing to do but ..."

But he'd stopped listening.