It's one of those mornings when you drive to work through a blizzard. The snow is falling so hard on the windshield that the mechanics of the vehicle barely have the time to put it away before they have to return and do it again. The last thing you want, after having convinced yourself to drag yourself out of bed, dress and leave your cozy apartment, is to get out of the warm car even for the essential dark liquid that is running kind of more than your blood in your system now, after drinking it day after day after sleepless nights working on cases. Sometimes it even crosses your mind what had gotten into you that day when they offered you the job for you to take it.

Caitlin Todd is certainly not one of those people, who would say out loud thoughts of this kind, but she's only human, and sometimes it's a saving grace. No harm in thinking them, except hearing the tiny voice of doubt in your head, whispering the annoying "what if". She looks at her wrist watch and barely lets herself let out a sigh before stepping out of the car and in the chilly Washington air.

There are only five steps to the door of the coffee shop, but she takes them with extreme caution – she has an important meeting with the Director of Intelligence today and highly suspects the high heels are going to be a killer for her mood only after a couple of hours.

The small shop – her favorite stop in the mornings, is situated right next to an apartment building. Some steps lead up to the door. She's always in such a hurry she barely has time to register anything on her way to the shop and rush out, but today, balancing in her killer shoes, she sees a man on those steps. Kate frowns in disbelief as she watches him deliberately sit on the cold stone and pick a guitar out of what has once been black guitar case he's clearly left on the ground just before she's turned her attention to him.

As if he could have sensed her eyes on him, he turns around, meeting her gaze. For a second Kate is stunned by the look in those cold blue eyes and forgets she has to fight to keep her balance on the ice underneath the thin soft snow layer covering the sidewalk. By the time her stomach drops and her brain registers the fall, she's halfway down the way to the cold hard ground. Her lungs are just filling with the cold morning air, inhaling some snowflakes on the way, getting ready for a late cry for help. Or pain. Whatever comes first anyway? Until a hand catches her midflight.

"You should be more careful, lady" she hears the rough low voice of the man with the guitar as she's catching her breath "Maybe throw these boots away, going to kill yourself on this ice"

He lets her hand go as soon as she's stable enough to stand on her own feet. Her hair has fallen on her face and eyes, so she pushes it away with the hand that's not holding her purse. Now Kate can see him leaning down again, recovering his guitar from the ground where is had fallen when he'd reached for her, letting it go of his grip. The way he handles it, she notices certain softness in the touch of his rough hands, lingering over the light wood and strings, as if checking for the slightest possible damage, done by the drop.

"I… um… thank you" she finally manages to say, still a little confused from the adrenalin rush and the discrepancy betweеn his voice, eyes and hands in the last minute. Now she takes in the whole image of the man – worn black coat, black gloves without fingers, bleached blue jeans, dark boots. Not your typical beggar or street musician, she figures out quite quickly.

She only sees him shrug, his back turned to her. Okay, so now what?! Kate tries to think of something, anything else, that might be appropriate to say before she goes her way and lets him do his own thing. By now her hair is probably ruined by the heavy snow, her red coat will be soaking wet mere seconds after she gets into the warm coffee shop and she will be lucky if her legs haven't frozen in the stockings she's wearing. Bad day for a skirt, Kate, really bad day. After a few panicky seconds of struggle she just mumbles quickly:

"Do you want a coffee?"

The 'I think you can use some' never leaves her lips, but judging by his fast turn and cold look shot in her direction over his shoulder, he has definitely heard it in her voice. She has her answer before the words even leave his lips, accompanied by a low growl:

"No"

He turns his full attention to the guitar again, leaving Kate flushed and feeling guilty about not being a little more subtle about the matter. She thinks about trying to apologize, but she can't quite figure what to say so she won't hurt his pride – because she's dealt with a lot of men under her command to know when a man thinks his pride is stomped on.

There's nothing more she can do and besides, checking her wristwatch, she realizes with a gasp she's nearly late, so she just looks at him one last time and gets into the coffee shop.

Compared to the cold outside, inside is the Sahara dessert. Kate tries to remove as much of the snow as she can from her hair and coat, but it quickly becomes clear it is a lost cause. With a sigh, she takes a few bobby pins out of her bag and tries to do something, anything, really, with her messed damp hair while waiting for her order. The cashier, a smiling boy at the age of probably eighteen, smiles at her while she fishes for some change in her pockets. She's already holding the money for her latte to the boy when suddenly, she changes her mind.

"I'll order a large black coffee too" she says fast, handing a bigger banknote to him. She barely notices his frown and confusion – Kate's a regular and getting liquid life for someone else is definitely not something he has seen from her, when she inserts "No sugar"

The boy nods, shrugging at his stunned colleague at the coffee machine. Maybe the young stunnigly beautiful lady has finally gotten herself a boyfriend, or she's running late and trying to bribe the boss, who knows. None of their business anyway. Though they'd be a little dissapointed in the boyfriend case.

Taking the order from the counter a minute later, Kate hasn't quite figured what she's doing. Despite that, she confidently leaves the shop, her heels somehow louder than all the other noise around, and steps onto the sidewalk again. She's left her coat open inside and the cold is creeping up her body now, the wind stabbing her right through the not so thick suit and shirt. Okay so she definitely has a bad clothes choice day. Dinozzo would probably be extremely happy to remind her later, but for now, she's holding two steaming cups – a latte and a black as the blackest night coffee.

Ignoring the wishes of her body for the nice warm inside of her car, she deliberately turns and walks towards the next door building. As it turns out, stepping with confidence on the ice makes her feel more secure on it – probably because her heels dig in it.

She finds the man sitting on the stairs, the guitar and the melody, coming out of it being the center of his world. A lot of people are passing by and what strikes Kate the most is he doesn't even seem to care about the cold and all of those random strangers. He doesn't have a cap or anything for them to put change into in front of him too. As if he's there just to escape, to forget, to get lost.

Without a speaker and a mic connected to the guitar, it's impossible for the melody to be heard above the heavy traffic. All of a sudden, that makes Kate sad. She looks at the coffee in her hand and wonders if what she's doing isn't wrong on all possible levels. He's made it clear he doesn't want coffee, and he obviously doesn't want help. She's just another stranger in his day, another random person hurrying way too much to stop and hear the melody his fingers pull gently out of those strings. Hearing even few of the notes though, she can tell he's definitely a good musician.

Getting out of the trance she's fallen into, Kate walks the final steps towards him, stepping right into his line of sight. The man lifts his head, the melody stops abruptly and for a mere second she sees him frown in confusion before he can manage to mask it with the same indifference she's seen ten minutes earlier or so.

"Here" she hands him the paper cup, filled with black coffee.

When he doesn't move an inch to take is from her, even though his eyes flicker with something that may be annoyance as well as anger, she steps even closer.

"Take it, as a thank you for not letting me fall"- Kate's handing him the cup.

She sees his blue eyes getting even colder.

"I don't want your sympathy" he just says with a low voice, suddenly getting up and nearly making her stumble backwards and fall. He doesn't seem to care, though, he's trying to get his guitar in the case and walk away as quickly as he can.

"What?! No, it's not sympathy" she replies, raising her voice a little, just to catch his attention. He turns around to face her again, his blue eyes as if trying to reach her soul and read her real intentions behind that steaming cup. Kate takes a breath in, taking not a step back "If I wanted to offer you sympathy, I would have offered you money"

Probably involuntarily, his head tilts to one side. Now she has his attention. Kate takes another breath in.

"Come on, take the coffee, it's only a gratitude, I promise" her voice is steady and uncompromising – the voice she uses to boss Tony around.

Slowly, and with his eyes never leaving her face, the man with the guitar takes the cup from her hand. And even though she can see his distrust, he takes a sip of it. Kate can barely suppress a sigh and a roll of her eyes. There, that wasn't so hard, was it.

As if reading it somehow though, he scoffs:

"Good intensions lay the best path to hell" he turns and takes the guitar case from the stairs. With a final critical look at her, he turns around and leaves, taking the coffee with him and leaving her at the sidewalk "Take the advice, lady, throw those boots away"