Will You Take Care of Me?

Lies

After five minutes of silence in the car, Ellie finally spoke. "Why do you think Doctor Grace was coming to see Sloane?"

"Bishop, you're over thinking this." Nick reassured her. "The Doctor sees agents all the time. Why shouldn't she see Sloane?"

"But right after she was having some kind of nervous breakdown? You can't tell me that's a coincidence. Something's wrong."

"It's probably nothing. Besides, it's none of our business." She looked at him, surprised.

"Since when does that stop you Nick?"  She shot him a sarcastic glance.

"Okay, fair point. But what can we do about it?" He countered.

"I'm not sure, but let's just try not to put any extra stress on Jack."

"Okay, don't stress Sloane, got it. But can someone tell that to Gibbs? He's the one always sending me to talk with her."

"Sure, you tell him." Ellie laughed as she hopped out of the car to go get McGee, just as he was walking out of his apartment building.

"Morning Bishop."

"Hey McGee, you look like you had a rough night."

"Delilah is out of town and the twins both have fevers so I was up all night with them."

"Who's with them now?"  She wondered.

"Delilah's mom."  She nodded in acknowledgment. They got in the car and drove the rest of the way to the crime scene.

"Petty Officer Ernest Malone, 36. I'm unsure of the cause of death yet, but the time was roughly 12 hours ago." Jimmy informed the team.

"So this happened last night..." Ellie observed.

"Yep." Jimmy replied.

"McGee, Torres, find out where the guy was last night and who he was with."  Gibbs ordered.  "Bishop, you're with me."  They got in the car and she could tell Gibbs was on edge.

"You okay, Gibbs?"

"Fine, Bishop."  He brushed her off. 

She tried again. "Do you know what's going on with Sloane?"  No answer.  "She acted really weird this morning."

"Jack can take care of herself, Bishop."  She decided not to press the matter any further.  The rest of the ride was extremely tense.  When they got to the bullpen, Nick had found out who Malone was with the previous night, and McGee had a location.

"Bishop, Torres, go talk to the guy." Gibbs headed up the stairs and Ellie wondered if he was going to see Sloane. If anyone could get her to talk, he could.

Someone knocked on Jack's partially open door and she hopped up from her desk, startled. "Come in."

"Jack, what's wrong?" She looked up to see her husband.

"Wrong...?" She feigned cluelessness.

"I've never seen you this jumpy and tense. What's going on?" His eyes drifted down to her hand. "Where's your ring?" She didn't want to tell him Grace had been there.

"I took it off, so the team wouldn't find out until we're ready."

"You haven't worried about that for the past couple months, what happened? One of 'em ask you about it?" She shook her head. "What happened, Jack?" She stood there silently. "Jack?" He put his hand on his wife's shoulder worriedly. "You okay?"

"It's nothing. Dr. Grace was here and..."

"She told you how she doesn't wear her ring?" He cut her off.

"Oh, oh yes. Yep, she told me. Well, Jethro, I've got a lot of work to do, so can we talk about this later?" As Jack said this, she guided him out of her office and towards the stairs.

"Nothing to talk about, Jack." She nodded and forced a smile. He leaned in to kiss her and she dodged it. "What was that?"

"Nothing, nothing. I'm sorry." Jack kissed his cheek. She went back into her office and plopped back on the couch. She thought to herself, oh my gosh, I just lied to him. And he knew I was lying. How could I lie to him?