Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me. I also don't promise that it's any good because I never usually write fanfic and this is just something that happened in an hour's break from revision.
For the past 48 hours she's known she should be dead. It probably sounds crazy to those around her but this isn't just the shock of such a near-miss or the guilt of being the only one who walked away. It's just that somewhere inside her she knows that something went wrong and she was just a second too late, and now she feels trapped somewhere between life and death, breathing but not really there. It does sound crazy and she couldn't express it to anyone else. She thought she should've been dead, but now she understands that she was wrong. That one tiny second wasn't an accident.
That afternoon at the store wasn't just another near-miss, and she knows because she's had a few with this job. Top of the list is obviously being kidnapped by a serial killer. She won't pretend that she doesn't still have nightmares from time to time, but she knows it wasn't an accident that she survived. Definitely not an accident because she fought off an armed man with her hands bound behind her back and her life flashing before her eyes. When O'Neill's face haunts her dreams there's something reassuring about waking up and knowing she earned the right to survive.
And of course just mere days before that she'd been at the harbour when Ari Haswari nearly blew up a few ships full of marines and the families waiting to welcome them home. She had been completely unaware of the danger, happily planning her first few days back on dry land while her colleagues fought a battle high on the rooftops, buying her and the marines' happy ending with blood. She'd toyed with the idea of meeting up with Tony when she returned. Just a drink and a chat about old times, nothing more this time she'd promised herself. She'd never expected that her first assignment back on US soil would be TAD with a grief-stricken Anthony Dinozzo, a broken Jethro Gibbs and a fractured team.
For the first time she truly understands the pain she could see all around her then. Gibbs has tried to placate her but they both know that the empty words will do nothing to soothe her. She's seen him fighting with the anger, shock, numbness, guilt, grief that's threatening to overwhelm her now. She was thrilled with her promotion to team leader, underestimating the responsibility of having others' lives in your hands, even after what she'd seen. Gibbs has somehow found a way to live through it and make peace with Kate's memory. She doesn't think she's as strong as he is. In a strange way it's a relief to know she'll never have to find out.
She just hopes Gibbs and Tony will be strong enough this time as well. She can hear them shouting her name from the other side of the wall, which suddenly seems like a world away. Did they shout for Kate like that or did it happen too quickly? Perhaps there weren't these few agonising seconds that seem to be lasting a lifetime.
Mingling with the agents' screaming are shouts of confusion and fear from the clerics. She's only just met these men and yet she's about to give up everything to protect them. She was never trained as a secret service agent and never thought she'd go throwing herself in front of someone else but this job has taught her that things never happen as you expect. It's probably ironic somehow that it's happening this way but she knows it's right. These men are making a stand for peace and even though it won't be enough, it's a start and they'll live to try. This could be her contribution to world peace but this sacrifice is far more personal. This is her moment and, strange though it is, she's grateful for it.
She understands now. She should've died but she couldn't because she had to live to this moment. 48 hours grace to fix this fractured world as best she could. She had to walk away so that she could die now. The bomb is just out of her reach and that's alright. Her struggles are only a reflex anyway because they're quite obviously hopeless and that's alright. Gibbs and Tony and the clerics and the hope for tomorrow, they'll live on, but Paula knows her team are waiting for her.