Title: Mornin' Katie
Rating: K+
Paring: Kate/Gibbs
Summary: " She looks back up to me. Her eyes catch mine for only a split second, and in that moment those bottomless brown spheres show such sincere affection and hold full power over my entire being. "
Disclaimer: NCIS doesn't belong to me, and it never will.
Spoilers: No spoilers.
A/N: This is the sequel to Sway and Tonight, I'm calling it the Sway My Way series, so when I post the fourth one it won't say sequel to blah blah blah it'll say Sway My Way series. For those of you who wanted to know what Kate said, I gave it to you in this chapter (but I'm not telling you where, but you should be able to find it pretty easily) There will be another story in the series, I can't promise when I'll have it all written but I can promise you that I'm working on it very hard and I won't forget about it. And of course, if you leave me lots of reviews it'll give me more reason to write the next one. Thanks to Dreamer20715 for being the best beta ever.
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The brakes squeaked a bit as I brought my old red ford pick up truck to a slow stop, guiding the wheels between the two painted white lines on either side of the weathered frame. I'd had the truck since 96' and it wasn't in the best condition, but it still ran pretty well and it hadn't given out on me yet. I'd have to take it in for some repairs soon, but the squeaky brake would be fine for now.
I shut down the truck, pull out the keys and shove them into my coat pocket. I take my two coffee cups out of the center console between the front seats and open the door, carefully maneuvering the coffee cup in my left hand as not to spill it.
It's cold this morning and there's no doubt it will rain later in the day. I pull the warm brown cloth of my coat tighter around my body, trying to lock in the heat and block out the cold fall air. My shoes click against the cream-colored sidewalk creating a pattern as I walked along the path, heel-click-heel-click-heel-click. 20-dollar dress shoes against the hard concrete running beside the parking lot.
I take a small sip of the coffee in my right hand, indulging in the quick taste of heaven. I get my coffee from a little shop in a slightly quieter area of DC, only a couple of blocks from the Navy Yard. I know it would have been easier to go somewhere else for coffee today, but this stuff is the best. It's real coffee, not poorly made and weak, the stuff that was all right at best. This was strong coffee that was wonderfully made at its worst, and it was rare that you ever tasted the worst. No matter what, it was worth going out of my way for good coffee.
I get to the concrete stairs leading to the second floor of the apartment complex and slowly make my way up the inclining stairs with cold metal railing on either side. Fall was just starting to set in, the leaves were changing colors, the days were getting colder and colder, and just about every store had a box full of pumpkins. I hate it when it's cold, my knee that I injured when I was in the marines loved to act up when it was cold. My knee didn't seem to favor walking up stairs when it's cold either.
The second floor comes all too quickly, I was planning on a longer flight of stairs than this; more time to think about this, more time to realize I should turn back. But the poorly built piece of garbage set of stairs was too short of a walk. I could tell myself later that I had thought it over and decided not to go through with it; I had to finish what I started now.
Why on earth does she have this kind of effect on me? I shouldn't have doubts about what I'm doing, I shouldn't be thinking about walking right back down those stairs and giving up. But then, I shouldn't really be here in the first place. I'm her boss; I'm her friend and nothing else, nothing more. At least I shouldn't be.
She started the whole thing; it wasn't my decision to start staring at her when I knew she wasn't looking. She chose to leave lingering glances, she chose to make it impossible for me stand anywhere away from her petite frame when she showed me case reports, she chose to strike up conversation while finishing files and bring up suspects from our recent case, she chose to say my wives were making the biggest mistakes of their lives when they left me, she chose to kiss me in a Georgetown bar; not the other way around.
The door to her apartment squeaks as it opens and she fumbles with her keys as she pushes the hair that's falling out of her ponytail and into her face. She doesn't notice me as she turns the other way and walks briskly to the back stairway.
I match her pace and come up beside her. Kate is observant, she wouldn't let the smallest piece of grass escape her vision, and as she turns and I see her face I realize she was avoiding me. She looks down to the ground, pulling the strap of her purse higher over her shoulder.
"Gibbs, if this is about Friday night..."
She looks back up to me. Her eyes catch mine for only a split second, and in that moment those bottomless brown spheres show such sincere affection and hold full power over my entire being.
"I'm..." The rest of her sentence is mumbled into my mouth. I'm pretty sure it was sorry, but the last thing on my mind is what she was about to say.
Warm lips that taste like peach ruled me. Vanilla perfume filled lungs. Brown hair rubbed against my forehead. The soft cotton fabric of her suit coat scratches against the brick wall of the apartment building and glides along the coarser material of mine as I rest my knuckles on the wall. I'm trying to keep the coffee from spilling and bring her body closer to mine.
I pull away just enough to break the kiss that feels like paradise. Her eyes display shock, and her lips seem to beg me for more. Her eyes meet mine again and she questions me with just the look on her face. It was her chance to be shocked, her turn to look questioningly at me with one eyebrow raised over a stunning brown ball of observation. It was the sweet bliss of not knowing what she'd do next. The unknown is usually frightening, but this was different, it was the heaven of Caitlin Todd's undying attention purely on me.
I slip one of the warm coffee cups into her free hand, slowly curling her fingers around the cup, never taking my eyes off of hers. She matches the eye contact with dazzling splendor, her shock moving to desire and the yearning of additional mouth-to-mouth experience. I take my hand off of hers as she clutches the coffee cup tighter into her hand. I pull away from her body reluctantly, not fully wanting to depart from the magnificence of my exquisite Katie.
I step back and turn away from her, taking a sip of coffee to keep my thinking rational. I can hear her moving from the wall as her heels click against the concrete flooring, hear her smoothing out her skirt and can almost see her brush her hair out of her face and look towards me. Words are unavoidable, and I'd rather be the one to talk this time, leave her wondering and in surprise like I could do so easily.
"Mornin', Katie."
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A/N: So what did Kate say to Gibbs in Sway? "Your wives were making the biggest mistakes of their lives when they left you" That's the original text from the first version of Sway that I wrote, word for word what would have been in Sway.
