Title: Dreams
Rating: K+
Spoilers: Not any in particular
Disclaimer: I keep debating whether or not to call up Donald P. Bellisario and ask him if I can start legally borrowing his characters for fanfics if I promise to return them in time for the show. Until I get an answer from him, you can safely assume that they don't actually belong to me--I'm just playing with them on the weekends. :)
A/N: Okay...so this is going to be a massive word count, multi-chapter fanfic (sort of along the lines of Undercover). It occurred to me one day while I was sitting around at work with absolutely nothing to do. It's basically a collection of vignettes about Gibbs and Kate--but all of them either center around or happen during the night. And they are loosely based on the events in Season 2 (for right now, anyway). I may put them in chronological order...I may not. We'll just have to wait and see. But I am so excited to finally be writing another "big" story (by which I mean one with more than one chapter). I hope you'll be excited too. So please--read, review if you feel so inclined, and enjoy!!
(Sidebar: Some of you have asked if I'm going to finish "Undercover." Some of you thought I had. All I can say is that no, it's not finished; yes, I have one chapter left to write; and no, I have no earthly clue when I will finish that chapter. I have sort of a vague idea as to how it will go, but at the moment I just can't get it to gel. When I do, you will be the first to know. Thanks for all the support!!)
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He dreams of her.
He's lying under his boat, exhausted after hours of sanding by hand and numerous sips from a coffee mug of bourbon. It's been a long week—but then, for him the weeks are never short. It shows in the deep shadows carved under his eyes and the weariness in the sharp lines in his forehead and around his mouth. He's stretched out on his back, flush against the hard wooden platform where he's building his boat. The half-finished ribs rise above him like a primitive canopy, stretching up into the dimness of the ceiling until his tired eyes can no longer make them out. He turns a little, trying to block the faint light shining from the bare 40-watt bulb hanging overhead, and lets his eyes drift shut as sleep comes to claim its own.
She's sitting there beside his boat, her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them like a little girl. She's wearing jeans and a soft grey sweater, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. He can see the glint of silver in her ears and at her wrist where her sleeve is pushed back to show a slim, practical watch. As he looks up at her, her lips curve in a smile of mixed tenderness and amusement, and she reaches out with one hand to ruffle his hair playfully.
"You finally awake now?" she asks softly, a tinge of laughter in her voice. He grins and rubs a hand over his face, scrubbing away the lingering exhaustion with the rough swipe.
"Yep," he mutters, voice hoarse and husky. "Don't you have anything better to do than watch me sleep?"
She tilts her head and laughs at him, her dimples popping out irresistibly.
"I guess not," she admits cheerfully. "At least you don't snore."
He smirks a little and reaches over to capture her hand, playing with the small fingers, amazed at how his palm so completely engulfs hers.
"Aren't you the lucky one," he says sarcastically, thinking that she could be getting a much better deal than this. An old, grouchy, embittered former Marine is no great catch, at least not in his book. But she seems to have other ideas.
"Yeah," she says quietly, her eyes shining down at him in the dim light with an emotion he doesn't dare describe. "I think I am."
His chest is suddenly heavy and his throat clogged, his heart pounding with suppressed excitement and emotion. He needs to break the tension, cut the tenderness that's threatening to overflow in this unexpectedly intimate moment. So, tugging on the hand he's holding, he pulls her toward him, grinning when she loses her balance and topples over with a small squeak. Outraged, she swings at his chest, swearing good-naturedly.
"Dammit, Gibbs! What was that for?" she asks from her new position slung on top of him, her hands planted on the floor beside him for balance. He merely slides a hand up to the back of her neck and tugs her down to his mouth, smiling in the middle of the kiss at her huff of helpless exasperation. When they finally break apart, she's flushed and short of breath and trying very hard to still look angry.
"You think that'll get you off the hook?" she says threateningly. He cups a hand over her cheek and strokes the soft skin with his thumb, barely able to repress his smirk as her eyes flutter shut at the sensation.
"No, Katie," he says lowly, running his fingers through the dark silk of her hair. "It's too late for that. I've already taken the bait."
She's taking another swing at him when all of a sudden the feeling fades, the sound of her low chuckle switches off, and he wakes up with a start to the feel of hard wood against his back and the smell of sawdust in his nose. He's still alone in the dusty basement, and there's no trace of Kate in sight. Groaning, he hauls himself up, one hand pressed to his aching back, and looks around for his mug of bourbon. After about five minutes he finds it sitting on the shelf next to his can of spare nails, right where he left it before he fell asleep. He tosses down the small amount that's left in the bottom of the mug, hissing as it slides like fire down his throat to the pit of his stomach. Taking one last look at his boat, he shakes his head at the memory of his regrettably unfinished fantasy and heads upstairs to spend the rest of the night stretched out on his couch.
He has his head buried in a none-too-soft sofa cushion and an afghan pulled up around his neck to fend off the bitter chill of an early spring night in D.C. as he falls asleep. He's gotten used to sleeping under his boat or on his couch rather than in the bed upstairs. After three failed marriages, he's actually more accustomed to the feel of the sofa. And he's discovered that climbing into bed by himself seems to only reinforce the realization of how alone he really is. He'd rather dodge reality, he's decided. At least at nighttime.
Oddly enough, all of a sudden he realizes that he's not exactly alone anymore. Somehow or another, he missed the presence of someone else in the room, despite the fact that he's been trained to notice everything around him like a bloodhound on the hunt. Even so, he must have not noticed her curled up in his big leather armchair, the one he bought during his second marriage to appease the taste of his then-wife. (After she left he'd thrown out or sold most of the things she'd bought, but he had developed a fondness for the armchair.) And there is Kate, head resting against the high back, legs tucked up into the seat, her face quiet and serene in the faint moonlight that shines in through the crack in the drapes. Puzzled, he walks over to her and lays a hand lightly on her shoulder, trying to figure out what the hell she's doing in his living room at three o'clock on a Thursday morning.
At the brush of his hand, she jerks awake, eyes wide and startled in her pale face. He grips her shoulders firmly to keep her from jumping out of the chair, bending down so she can see his face. As she realizes who he is, she relaxes back into the soft leather, blowing out a long breath of relief.
"You scared the hell out of me, Gibbs," she whispers fuzzily, screwing her eyes shut in an effort to wake up a little. Sighing, she pushes the hair back out of her face and peers up at him owlishly.
"What are you doing here, Katie?" he whispers back, hardly noticing that he used the nickname he rarely ever calls her. It bespeaks intimacy and understanding, two qualities that he dares not even hint at in their relationship…at least, not during the day. But nighttime is different, he tells himself.
"I was waiting for you," she murmurs, jolting him out of his brief reverie. Startled by her simple statement, he stares down at her speechlessly. Slowly, she unfolds herself out of the chair and stands in front of him, close enough so that in one breathless moment he could easily reach out and take what he's wanted for so long. For a heart-pounding second, he nearly succumbs. But with gritted teeth he manages to keep his hands at his sides and his eyes on her face. He can't cross the line tonight.
"I've been waiting for you a long time, Gibbs," she observes quietly, and he's not sure whether or not she means that statement literally or metaphorically. But as she moves a little closer and slips her hands to his shoulders, he's beginning to get a feeling she's not talking about hours on a clock.
"I'm tired of waiting," she whispers heatedly, barely inches away from his mouth. She's igniting a slow-burning fire in his blood, a white-hot brush of flame throughout his body. He is just moments away from grabbing her up in his arms and carrying her over to that couch and showing her exactly what she's doing to him with soft words and slow seduction. But no matter how hard he tries, he can't make himself move out of the trance she's put him in.
It doesn't seem to matter, though. She's moving fast enough for the both of them. "You know something?" she whispers, brushing his lips lightly with her own. "I don't think I want to wait anymore. Let's make up for lost time, Gibbs." She moves her head just enough to brush another of those phantom kisses over his cheek, slides down a little to nip at his jaw. "Let's make up for it right now. Tonight."
He can't take it anymore. He's wanted this since the first time he saw her standing there on Air Force One, her eyes shooting daggers and her feet planted like a gunfighter ready to fire the first shot. He's worked with her for a little more than a year now; they've covered countless crime scenes and run countless investigations together, and he still wants her just as much—if not more—as he did that first evening. And now she's standing there, her arms around him and her small body pressed against his, offering him everything he's ever dreamed of doing with her and never could. He simply can't resist.
"All right, Katie," he murmurs against her busy mouth. "No more waiting. For either of us."
He can feel her smile against his mouth as she kisses him again, soft and sweet and agonizingly slow. Her arms wind around his neck, her hands slide into his hair, and this time he pulls her flush against him, hungrily devouring her mouth. She's perfect, he thinks through the haze that's rapidly overtaking his brain. Beautiful, sweet, smart, tough—she's what he's been waiting for nearly twenty years and never thought he'd find again. And for tonight, at least, she is his.
He lifts her effortlessly, smiling at her little gasp of surprise, and carries her over to the couch on the other side of the room. As he lays her down on it and sits beside her, the thought crosses his mind that she may be making the biggest mistake of her life. She's young, smart, ambitious—she has everything before her, an entire life she has yet to experience. Sleeping with her much older boss could destroy her, embitter her, at the very least break that shining optimism that so often gleams from her smile. If he were any kind of gentleman, any kind of lover, he'd get up and walk away right this moment, let her go and tell her it's for her own good—that she can find somebody much better than him somewhere out there.
But to his shame, he discovers that he has no scruples left where she's concerned, no ability to step away and nobly let her leave. He wants her too badly for conscience or kindness, too badly to deny himself even if he knows it will cost both of them somewhere down the line. And so he bends down to kiss her once again, sliding one hand beneath her back as she arches upwards into him, his eager fingers slipping under the edge of her shirt to stroke the smooth skin he's coveted for interminable months.
She moans low in her throat and holds him tighter, her eyes closed as his mouth travels lightly over her face, her throat, over the soft skin of her shoulders while his fingers make quick work of the buttons of her shirt and slip it silently away. He can feel her hands on his chest, and for a moment he freezes in fear that she's pushing him away, telling him to stop. He's not entirely sure he can let her go now, even if she no longer wants this terrible inferno that is building between them. But then he realizes that she's not pushing him away; she's tugging at his undershirt, trying to pull it off so she can run her hands over him with the same freedom he's taking with her. With a deep groan, he complies, his breath hissing out between his teeth as her small fingers run approvingly over his bare skin, skimming over muscle, curving over bone. He's never felt quite like this before, never had this strange blend of trepidation and overwhelming desire coiling in his gut. But then, Kate has always been able to defy his expectations. He fails to see why this time should be any different.
This time when he wakes up, he expects the cold, dark house to be the first thing he sees. He's hardly surprised that he's lying alone on the couch with only the afghan for comfort, that there's no evidence of those all-too-brief moments when he held Kate in his arms. He doesn't know why he's dreaming of her tonight—or rather, he won't let himself think of why he's dreaming of her tonight. He's having trouble deciding which is worse…holding Kate in his dreams and knowing that the feeling can't last forever, or waking up and realizing that he'll have to see her again today and remember all that happened in his sleep. Neither option is exactly appealing.
He can think of only one thing that will keep the dreams at bay, as it has so many times in the past. And so he pushes up from the couch with a grunt, throws the afghan on the floor bad-temperedly, and stumbles into the kitchen, hitting the lights as he goes. Blinking against the harsh glare, he pulls open a cabinet door and grabs a can of ground coffee. In an automatic motion he dumps the coffee into the machine, pours in water, and punches the on button, sighing in relief as the percolator begins to bubble cheerfully. He sinks down into one of his kitchen stairs, staring blankly at the wall opposite him as the scent of coffee begins to fill the room.
Finally the pot is full, the smell of the strong black brew hanging rich in the air, and he clumps over to the counter to pour himself a tall mug of the stuff, sighing in relief as he takes the first long swallow. It's hot enough to scald the roof of his mouth, stout enough to jump-start his system with a miniature explosion of caffeine. But tonight he welcomes the pain and the adrenaline, relishing the feel of the blood pumping faster, harder through his veins. He doesn't want to sleep anymore tonight, doesn't want to see her face in his dreams and feel her small body warm and pliant in his arms.
Glancing at the clock that hangs above the stovetop, he realizes that it's almost 4:30 AM, only a few hours until he has to go to work and see Kate again. He groans in the silent kitchen, the sound bouncing off the walls and the tiled floor, and scrubs a rough hand through his hair in an effort to clear his head. His aimless gaze lights on a folder sitting on top of the cabinet that sits in the far corner of the room, the heavy blue paper bearing the distinctive "NCIS" seal. For the first time that evening his eyes light up and his face takes on a little of its usual determination. Work is his salvation, he reminds himself as he gets slowly to his feet and grabs the forgotten file off the counter. He doesn't know what case it is, doesn't even think to care. All he wants is to lose himself in the work for the brief respite he has left.
But as he tops off his cup and sits down at the table, as he pulls the file towards him and opens it to reveal a cold case from two years back, as he squints at the small print and takes another slug of the scalding coffee, he cannot erase from his mind the thought of Kate tilting back her head in surrender as he made love to her…stronger than a shot of his best bourbon, more potent than the whisky he keeps in a bottle in his kitchen drawer. He can't drive her away, can't shake her off, can't push her aside, no matter how thoroughly he tries. And he knows with a sickening sense of inevitability that he is going to dream of her again.
It just may not be tonight.