It had been a busy week. After Ducky had told her about her sickness. She has Fatal Familial Insomnia. It's very rare, only about 40 families worldwide have it. And she happens to be one of them. She has about 1,5 years to live, at this point the less the better, because the disease will tear her down. It will ruin everything.

Jennifer Shepard knew she has to quit NCIS. The job she has worked so hard – she has to give it all up. The truth is she doesn't have much left here anyway. Everybody thinks she is an ice queen with no emotions left to show. She has lost Ziva as her friend – at some point the Mossad agent was closest to her. Not to mention, that Jethro is now dating Hollis Mann. Tony is still mad at her because of Rene Benoit aka La Grenouille or the Frog as Jethro called him.

She chuckled.

Abby was as chipper as usual, but they hadn't been such good friends. They started off at the wrong foot, because Jenny managed to give her an assistant, who tried to kill Abby and framed Tony in murder. Then there were also multiple incidents, when Jenny managed to yell at the younger women with not much reason. She was just angry. Angry at everybody. Angry at herself. Mostly she was angry at herself.

Then there was agent McGee. They never really had close relationship, a professional one, but closer than she had with multiple other agents. All of it was thanks to Jethro. But she was positive that McGee hated her too because of Tony and Jeanne.

She had Ducky, but their relationship wasn't that good either. Director doesn't have much time to spent with medical examiner. They still remained friends and that's the reason Ducky knows about her... condition.

But to sum up. She doesn't have much left in NCIS anyway so she could resign, quietly, without any explanation and hopefully people won't notice until she is... gone. Like gone gone. She just has to make sure the next person continues her work and also she has to make sure Ziva gets to stay in the states if she wants of course. She has to make sure it happens.

Decided.

She will start resigning. Today. SecNav has to know.

She pressed the button for Cynthia.

"Yes, director," the happy assistant said.

"Can you get me SecNav ?" Jenny asked.

"Right away, Director," Cynthia said and the call ended.

Few minutes later Cynthia let Jenny knew, that SecNav was on the phone.

"Good afternoon Jenny," current SecNav Philip Davenport greeted cheerfully.

"Hello Philip," Jenny said in not so cheerful voice.

"I'm always glad to hear your voice Jenny, but I have a feeling it's not a social call," Philip said.

Despite the fact that Philip Davenport wasn't always the nicest person around, he and Jenny got along well. Their relationship grew stronger as Jenny accepted the job of NCIS director, before that their paths hadn't crossed much, but when they did then always in positive way. SecNaw had kept his eye on Jenny for years before there was an opening as the director and then he had no doubts, who would be the best man or in this case woman for the job.

"No. It's not," Jenny said and took a deep breath.

"What is it then ? Agent Gibbs managed to do something again ?" Philip asked and joked. If only he knew what was next to come.

"I'm resigning, Philip," Jenny forced the words out of her lips.

"What's wrong Jenny ?" Philip asked in concern.

"It's not a phone conversation," Jenny said.

"Are you available tomorrow at 2 pm ?" Philip asked after looking his schedule.

"Yes," Jenny said after checking hers.

"See you then," he said and hang up.

Jenny put the phone on her table for a moment, then called Cyntha to cancel her meeting at 2 pm tomorrow. Then she went back to her work – paperwork was killing her.