WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS
Based on the TV Show "NCIS"

I am going to try and update as much as possible, but I have a job that does not always have the most regular hours and of course my muse on occasion likes to take a vacation, but I will update as much and a quickly as I can! Here is the next chapter; I had a little trouble at certain points but then something would jog things loose and it finally came out. I hope that it is ok. I am trying so hard to remain true to the characters; if you think that I totally butcher any of them please let me know!

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Chapter 2: Dinner

Jenny was nervous. The assignment had been thankfully short and they were able to get home only a week after Jenny and Jethro had their conversation; he had invited her over for a casual dinner at his house the following Sunday. Now she was slowly making her way up the front walkway to the porch steps. She had been surprised and honored that he wanted her to meet his daughter, and after talking with Ducky on Friday as they left work she had felt more so.

"Jennifer! I was hoping I would catch you before you left for the weekend."

Jenny smiled brightly at the older man as she entered the elevator next to him. He was the only one who called her by her full first name, and even though she was not particularly fond of people calling her that, somehow when he called her that it was just too endearing to disallow him to. "Hello, Ducky. Have any plans for the weekend?"

Ducky chuckled. "Unfortunately nothing all that interesting. Mother's bridge club is coming over tomorrow; so that more or less takes up that entire day with me attempting to keep them from playing strip poker."

Jenny laughed.

"What about you, my dear? Anything this weekend?"

Jenny bit her lip before answering, "Well, Jethro invited me over to his house for dinner on Sunday to meet his daughter."

Ducky had been pulling his keys out of his pocket but he dropped them when he heard that and he fumbled them a few times before he was able to pick them up, all the while looking at her with great surprise. "You're meeting Kelly?"

Jenny nodded.

Ducky's eyebrows seemed to be permanently stuck to his hairline. "Well, this is unusual. Jethro rarely ever has any of his significant others meet Kelly and his ex-wives did not meet her until almost six months after they were dating."

She and Jethro had only been dating a little over a month.

She took a deep steadying breath as she reached the front door and knocked.

Footsteps approached the door and Jenny could faintly hear a voice call, "I'll get it!"

Kelly was small for her age with long brown curls that fell over her shoulders and down her back. She had blue eyes, though not the same shade as her father's; Jenny wondered if they were her mother's.

Kelly bit her lip and shifted slightly. "Hi," she said stepping back, letting Jenny in.

Jenny smiled a little nervous herself. "Kelly I take it?" She injected humor into her tone.

Kelly nodded, her left hand pulling the cuff of her right sleeve down further on her arm; the movement drew Jenny's attention to that arm and for the first time she noticed that Kelly's right hand was a prosthetic. It gave her pause but she quickly got over it; reaching out her right hand to shake. "I am very happy to meet you."

Kelly hesitantly accepted her handshake with her own right hand; she looked up from their clasped hands to Jenny; in the young girl's eyes Jenny recognized the same watchful look her father wore so often. Jenny looked a little closer at Kelly's eyes and body language and found contradictions. She seemed to be holding back, restraining herself from what Jenny had a feeling was natural exuberance; she seemed genuinely curious and eager to talk to Jenny, but there was a guarded cautiousness to her. Jenny did not know what all that meant, but she intended to find out.

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"You too," Kelly murmured in response to the older woman's greeting; she turned once her hand had been released. Ms. Shepard had impressed her with the relative ease with which she had taken in Kelly's prosthetic, accepted it and, without a word, moved on past it. "Dad's in the kitchen."

Her father's new girlfriend paced her, raising an amused eyebrow. "From what I have seen your father can't cook." There was question and humor in her voice.

Kelly's own lips quirked into a smirk that she had been told was identical to her father's. "He can't. He gets takeout. Sometimes my best friend Maddie's mom will take pity on us and bring something over." She looked over at the older woman. "Can you cook Ms. Shepard?"

She smiled. "You can just call me Jenny if you want to, and unfortunately aside from some easy basics I can't cook either."

Kelly shrugged. "More than Dad can do."

"More than I can do what?" Her dad was setting out the food when they came in.

"Cook." She said sliding into her seat at the small round kitchen table. "Jenny can cook more than you."

He rolled his eyes as he leaned over and kissed his girlfriend, taking the ice cream that she had brought. "Hi."

"Hi," she returned.

Kelly rolled her eyes. "Young person present! One who is the child of one of the adults present."

Jenny looked at her, eyebrows raised in amused surprise while her dad rolled his eyes again and turned to put the ice cream away.

"And if you guys are gonna be making gooey eyes at each other all night I'm gonna go eat in the living room 'cause I really don't need to watch."

Jenny laughed, a real genuine laugh, as she took one of the other two seats at the table. "I promise to try to refrain from 'making gooey eyes' at your father."

Kelly raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"Kel…" her dad said in a low voice; she turned and looked at him. "Play nice."

"I always 'play nice', Dad." She gave him an innocent look.

He just gave her a look as he took his seat at the table.

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Dinner was full of humor and stories as Kelly and Jenny attempted to get to know each other. After dinner Jethro was chased out of the kitchen; both of the women in his life saying they could handle cleanup, but he could tell that they wanted to talk. He prayed that things between them would go well.

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"So…" Jenny began, as they washed dishes, "can I ask what you think of me?"

Kelly thoughtfully pursed her lips. "Truth?"

Jenny looked the teen in the eye. "I wouldn't ask if I didn't want the truth."

Kelly watched her for several moments before answering. "I like you…I want to like you. But experience makes me wary. I worry about Dad, you and/or I getting hurt." She shrugged. "As I'm sure you know, he doesn't have the best track record with women."

Jenny chuckled. "Yes, I have heard stories."

Kelly's lips twitched. "Ducky?"

"He might have mentioned something about a…nine iron I think it was."

"Seven iron actually, and I still haven't really forgiven her for that." Kelly took the dish that Jenny handed her and shoved it in the dishwasher a little harder than necessary. "I ended up having to help my dad staunch the blood while Ducky drove us to the ER."

Jenny frowned. "That must have been hard."

Kelly shrugged. "I've seen Dad looking worse," she said enigmatically.

Jenny could tell that Kelly did not really want to talk about what she meant at that moment so she decided to go back to what Kelly had said before.

"I don't want to hurt you or your dad, Kelly," she told her honestly. "And I certainly hope that I don't get hurt either."

Kelly chewed on her lip, looking down as she rubbed the dishcloth in her hands unnecessarily on the counter. "I know that I have probably not met even half of the women Dad has dated since my mom died. I may not have liked most of the women he has been involved with, but I have only ever wanted him to be happy. I know that he loves me more than anything and he always puts me first. All of this is why I have never felt threatened by the women he's been with and why I have been ok with him dating and even marrying these women." She looked up at Jenny. "After all of the short-lived relationships, two failed marriages and my mom dying…I am scared to hope." She took a deep breath. "But…ever since he started dating you…" She bit her lip again. "I haven't seen him this content…this…happy since Mommy died…and…I…I want so so bad to hope...to believe…"

Jenny pressed her lips together, her heart squeezing at the ache in her voice; she reached out and placed her hand over Kelly's. "Kelly," she looked at the girl in the eyes, hoping get across absolute resolution in what she was about to say, "your father makes me just as happy. And I want to believe…just like you." Kelly bit her lip. "But I promise, Kelly, that even if things end between your dad and I, that I will do everything I can to try to make it as amicable as possible, and to spare you and Jethro as much pain as I can."

She saw in Kelly's eyes the faintest of glimmers of real hope taking root. "Ok," Kelly quietly said.

As they went back to washing the dishes Jenny prayed that she would be able to keep her promise…

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So, here we are… Jenny and Kelly have met for the first time. And yes, I did give Kelly a prosthetic… How that came to be I am not really sure…but it was something that was there from the moment I first started coming up with this story. After all this time that I have spent imagining and writing this story it has become so very much a part of her in my mind; I cannot really imagine her without it… Anywho. Please let me know what you think!

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