What troubles Jethro Gibbs

There is nothing more infuriating than a cold, rainy day in the middle of summer. Last few days have been untypical for summer in Washington D.C., it had been cold and windy. But, young Alyssa didn't concern herself with the weather, she was too occupied being upset that the mailman had put her neighbor's post into her mailbox once again.

'He had one job to do!', she mumbled into her chin as she was approaching neighbor's apartment to hand him his mail. She rose her chin up as she found herself in front of his door, only to find the doors slightly opened. She knocked on the frame and instinctively pushed the doors open, thus discovering her neighbor's dead body in the middle of the apartment.

While some people don't concern themselves with climate change and weird weather, others can't recover from the very upsetting fact. Special agent Eleanor Bishop had been sharing her concerns with her teammates this rainy morning. And all while pretending to listen, the boys being boys, made faces behind her back, occasionally smirking at each other. It was all in good spirit; the truth is they couldn't be more grateful that her lecture had provided a decent distraction from the mountain of paperwork.

"...as I said, it is unbelievable.", she had expressed her disbelief as she was standing in front of the plasma, following latest weather report.

"What is unbelievable is that paperwork that never gets finished!", barking voice of special agent Gibbs had provoked attention from distracted agents, and as he approached his desk, they scattered back to theirs, turning off the weather report, and focusing their attention back to yellow case folders that needed to be dealt with.

Gibbs himself had a quite a few of case reports to finish, so he perched his glasses on the tip of his nose and dragged the first folder from the pile in front of him. He opened the file and grabbed his pen, only to be interrupted by the phone.

"Yeah, Gibbs.", he had answered the phone in his usual manner. After a few moments, he hung up the phone.

"Dead body. Arlington.", Gibbs informs his team and issues an order to grab their gear in yet another one of his usual manners-stare.

The traffic wasn't that bad, so it took them about twenty minutes to arrive at N Oak Street, where a young girl Alyssa had found her neighbor, petty officer Nathaniel Jackson dead.

Ducky and Palmer were already there, they have arrived only a few minutes before the rest of the team Gibbs.

"What ya got, Duck?" Gibbs' usual impatient voice echoed from the entrance.

"Ah, Jethro!" Ducky exhaled his greeting. After all these years, he still can't get over how impatient his friend could be.

"As you know, we arrived only a few moments ago.", the good doctor had lifted his head to look at his friend while holding the tip of the liver probe and waiting for its signature beep.

"Ah...", he exhaled as he pulls out the probe to see the core temperature so he can determine the time of death.

"It would seem our petty officer had died about six hours ago, which would place the time of death around 5 am this morning.", the doctor delivered the first piece of information he gathered.

"And, obviously, the cause is gunshot through the head.", Palmer had informed confidently.

"As you know, Doctor Palmer, nothing is obvious when it comes to violent death.", Ducky cut him off.

As he was to retort to his mentor's words of wisdom, he noticed a tiny piece of paper in petty officer's hand.

"It seems you have a lead, agent Gibbs.", he bent over to extract the paper and handed it over to Gibbs.

Gibbs unfolded the bloody paper which had only one word written on it 'REBECCA'.

Bishop approached Gibbs from behind and read the name written on block letters over his shoulder.

"What you thinking, Gibbs?" She asked.

"Girlfriend?" She asked again, but this time it sounded like she was just talking to herself.

"Don't know, but we gonna find out.", he replied as he was putting the paper into the evidence bag.

"Finish up the crime scene. Question the witnesses." Gibbs issued his orders and stormed out of the apartment.

"Where is he going?" McGee asked curiously.

Bishop just shrugged her shoulders and grabbed the camera.

It wasn't unusual for Gibbs to be spaced out, but it was highly uncharacteristic for him to abandon a crime scene. And while others didn't think much of it, Ducky found it extremely curious. Now, that he took the time to think about it while performing an autopsy, he recalled that Gibbs' behavior was quite uncharacteristic for the past few days.

"You are unusually quiet, Dr. Mallard.", Jimmy noticed the untypical silence in the autopsy.

"I do not always have a story to tell.", Ducky had frustratingly explained his lack of chattiness.

In the psychedelically orange room, above the autopsy, three agents have been working at their maximum speed to gather as much information as it was possible. Gibbs hadn't come back from wherever he had gone when he abandoned the crime scene.

"What you got?", McGee asked Bishop.

She popped on her feet from her desk and clicked the remote to turn the plasma on. The official ID photo of the petty officer had appeared on the screen. He was a handsome, young marine. His brown eyes were peeking from the screen as Bishop summarized his bio.

"Petty officer Nathaniel Jackson. Born in Virginia, joined the Navy after high school, recently posted to the USS Hamilton. His CO says he had no problems with anyone from the crew and was loved by everyone. He has one sister, not married and no children.", she had lined up the info from his bio to her teammates.

"The building manager told me he had a girlfriend, came over few times. The front desk has her written as one Caroline Whitfield.", Torres had added information that he had gathered at the crime scene, talking to witnesses. He turned to Bishop and grabbed the remote from her hand. After a few clicks, the photograph of beautiful, black-haired woman appeared on the screen.

"Meet Caroline Whitfield.", he said.

"And?", Bishop turned to Torres, expecting him to lay out what he had found out about her.

"And...", he repeated.

"That's all I got on her. Her records are sealed.", Nick turned to McGee, knowing very well that McGee will find a 'magical', nerdy way to unseal those records.

After a few minutes of typing on the computer keyboard, McGee lifted his head and looked to his colleagues.

"She was CIA.", he said while curiosity spread across his face.

Few floors beneath the orange room, in the basement of the NCIS headquarters, Jethro Gibbs had found his solitude. There was something about cold, dark places that suited him. It made him calm, and it definitely helped clear his mind. Last few days he felt troubled more than usual. And although he very well knew what was it that troubled his soul, he wasn't really sure how to deal with it. He sat on the cold concrete floor of the basement, methodically turning his flip phone in his hand. He had a lunch with Rebecca, his ex-wife number two. They had a few of those since Diane died. Rebecca was in the AA, recovering, and he didn't seem to mind to be her friend. But, something she had said on their last lunch didn't leave his mind, and reading that piece of paper this morning, just made her words echoed at higher tone through his mind.

Diane told me that there was one person, besides Shannon that managed to take over your heart. She didn't know who it was, but Jethro, it's never too late. Go for her!

Rebecca's words stabbed the daggers right through him, every time he would recall them. If she only knew—too late were the words that exactly defined what he and Jenny have been. Not lovers, not partners, not teammates or soulmates, but always too lates.

He felt his heart would tighten the more he thought about her, so he did what he always does while at work, pushed her to the darkest corner of his mind. He got up and brushed the dust off himself before joining the team in the bullpen.

As soon as he was updated on the case from the team, he made his way upstairs to director's office, to inform him that they might be dealing with the CIA.

He swung the doors open and smiled upon seeing Jack Sloane at the conference desk, having what seemed casual chit-chat with the director. He didn't know her for a long time, but he trusted her, he even thought of her as a friend. She obviously was a smart woman, independent, fierce and good. He had remembered that a long time ago, a similar woman had sat at that same table when dealing with annoying politicians. The only difference was the color of their hair.

'Damn', he whispered into his mouth on the fact that Jenny would never stay there—in the deep, dark corner of his mind. No, she would always find a way to be in the front row.

After he updated director Vance and Jack Sloane, he noticed the wondering look on Sloan's face.

''What?'', he had monosyllabically asked her.

''Well, I did hear about REBECCA op, back in the day when I was working on psyops.'', she hummed to herself, her eyes focused on the photo frame on the director's desk for no reason whatsoever.

''But that can't be it, that was a decade ago. Can it?''

''Well, we'll have to see.'', Gibbs retorted.

''I'll call CIA, see what they have to say.'', Leon jumped in, very intrigued himself.

''And I'll talk to my contacts.'', Jack smiled and made her way to her own office.

The darkness had taken over the city, and in the little, darker orange room agents were still holding phones in their hands or working their fingers over the keyboards, all while looking for answers.

Ducky had confirmed earlier that the cause of death, indeed was the single gunshot to the head. Other than that, there was nothing unusual or suspicious about the petty officer, from the medical point of view.

Abby didn't find much either, just his own fingerprints and only his DNA on the scene. The laptop agents have found was clean, there was nothing on it that could give a clue as to who might have done such a terrible act.

In the petty officer's life, everything seemed to be clean. Loving friends and family, no grudges of fights. Nothing. It seemed like there really wasn't any reason or logical explanation as to why he had been killed.

There only was Caroline, CIA agent/girlfriend, and all they had on her was that she works for the CIA. And of course, there was REBECCA. It was a very frustrating case. The more they dug, the fewer answers they got.

''Gibbs.'', director Vance called from the top of the stairs, his deep voice awakening the ghosts.

''MTAC. Everyone.'', he issued an order and turned towards the doors of the most secured room at NCIS.

The agents entered the room quietly, one after one like they were entering a theater in the middle of the play. Agent Sloane was already there, scanning the agents as they were coming in.

The briefing was long and in parts confusing. All Gibbs understood was that the President himself was briefed and wants only the best on this case. The SecNav has announced her arrival in the early morning. Apparently, REBECCA is a joint covert op run by Homeland, Secret Service, CIA, and NCIS. The op was launched shortly after 9/11, and it already had cost several agents their lives.

It was about some kind of software, that was developed by the best of the best, and it has the capability to remotely launch all the missiles and other precision-guided munitions. It is activated with four codes, that were given to four agents from each agency involved with the op.

Apparently, two agents carrying the codes were killed a decade ago, and the codes were stolen. The third agent is Caroline Whitfield, who is in protective custody of the CIA, and the fourth one is missing. Their names were supposed to be top secret. Not even the directors knew which agents were in the op-that's how secretive it was.

After the briefing, they all felt more confused than they were only half an hour ago. But, all of that didn't matter much at this precise moment, what mattered is that they still had a killer to catch. Gibbs was about to issue new orders, form a new plan for the case, but his thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of the phone. It was Abby, with an update!

''Gibbs...'', Abby's voice flew in single tone as he came into her lab, with others behind him.

''What ya got Abs?'', he asked.

''Something...umm, Gibbs...'', it seemed like Abby was unable to find the words, which wasn't like her at all, and that gave the clue that what she was about to say wasn't good.

''Abs... come on. Speak!'', Gibbs encouraged her.

''I found a bunch of photos on petty officer's email account.''

''And?'', he asked, still not sure why she was so weird out.

After a few strokes of a keyboard, the photos appeared on the screen.

He just stared at them, not making a sound. It seemed like he wasn't breathing, and to him, it felt like no one was there, only him, buried in his own disbelief. He wasn't sure was it pain he felt, or bewilderment or sorrow. Maybe it was all together. All of that didn't matter.

Others studied him, called him, but he didn't hear them, his eyes were focused on those photos, his mind pulled out all the memories he thought he successfully had buried. After what seemed forever, he managed to gulp out one word. One word only.

''Jenny''