Chapter Text
Psych Evals Days were always special. Jack could feel the frisson of nervous energy when she passed through the squad room this morning. As she made the short walk from the elevator to her office, she could feel the rows of agents trying fruitlessly to gauge her mood. It made her feel so deliciously powerful.
Jack smirked as she lounged in her comfortable desk chair, she rifled through the stack of employee files, in truth she had all the information on her computer, observations on her colleagues as well as the notes from previous evaluations, all very interesting but she trusted her own keen instincts implicitly. She had enjoyed working her way through the various lower level teams first, an appetiser that fully whetted her appetite now that she only had field agent assessments left. She purposefully organised her day so she could tackle the MCRT team this afternoon, she couldn’t help but smile her plans were moving along nicely, the combination of Friday evening and Director Vance’s absence meant the office was particularly quiet.
She flitted her eyes down to the papers in her hands, reading some salient facts and her own rough assessments:
Tim McGee - Not an acceptable candidate. A Military brat, but otherwise had a fairly stable background. Too many family ties with his wife and kids to warrant serious consideration as an option for her schemes. She had seen from his employee file he had previously been hypnotised, so indications are that he’d be susceptible to implanted suggestion again, but she wasn’t interested in having sloppy seconds.
Nick Torres - Good candidate. No dependents , plenty of emotional baggage from his time undercover, a couple of really dark cases that could be an easy chink through his tough-guy facade. Daddy issues could be leveraged too. Although there were some cons, with no history of any long lasting stable relationships, that was a mark against him. The biggest red flag was his widowed sister and teenaged niece, their requirement for constant contact and support meant Jack could not discount a family emergency arising that would interrupt the required early course of training sessions. She’d place Nick in the maybe category.
Ellie Bishop - Ideal candidate, multiple insecurities to leverage. Dead Fiancé and a failed marriage are ready-made emotional scars ripe for manipulation and pointed to a predisposition for long-term relationships. Stable family in Oklahoma, unlikely to require anything other than cursory attention around the holidays and a phone-calls every so often would surely pacify the Bishop Clan.
Jethro Gibbs - The ultimate challenge but too damaged to be a workable candidate. Too much baggage and a general distrust of psychologists to warrant consideration, he probably wasn’t going to attend his psych eval, he was far too wilful to expend her talents on initially. She would have to plan carefully before tackling an agent of Gibb’s calibre.
She allowed herself to daydream, about having the entire elite team completely under her control, but she knew that this would not be practical. She knew her limited resources were better suited to a targeted approach. Jack sighed as she feed the candidate assessments into her shredder, the paper pulverised into smithereens. She was going to proceed with maximum caution from now on. Her decision had been made, her target was identified, it was time to put her plan into action.