Title: Thirty Candles
Author: Mindy
Rating: K.
Disclaimer: Still not mine. Lyrics are by Sarah MacLachlan.
Spoilers: nope.
Summary: KIBBS. All Kate wants for her birthday is Gibbs.
"…the world around us disappears,
just you and me on this island of hope,
a breath between us could be miles,
let me surround you, my sea to your shore,
let me be the calm you seek.
And every time I'm close to you,
there's too much I can't say,
and you just walk away.
And I forgot to tell you I love you.
And the night's too long and cold here without you.
I grieve in my condition
for I cannot find the words to say
I need you so bad…."
-x-x-x-
Part I
She feels sick. Adjusting the crepe paper crown Abby put on her earlier in the evening, she grabs another handful of M and M's. Her head spins slightly as she washes them down with the cheap bubbly, to join the combination of sugar and alcohol already swirling in her gut.
Usually, Kate likes birthdays. She likes getting together with family and friends. She likes presents and cake and champagne. And she's never been one to let pass a chance to dress up and party.
But on the night before her thirtieth birthday, she's not feeling quite so festive.
Ever since she hit twenty-five, this date has been looming large in the back of her mind. All her friends, who have long since passed the milestone have been teasing her ruthlessly in the buildup to the inescapable day. Her mother has been at her more than ever about settling down, getting married, getting a real job and having children. And once Tony found out, by snooping around her PDA again, she knew word would be all over the office.
It was him and Abby that had the idea of throwing her this little post-work, pre-birthday bash. Frankly, she thinks Tony's motives were far more concerned with the beautiful, new Agent White who he'd been hitting on unsuccessfully for over two weeks.
She yanks the crown off her head as a fresh round of hiccups shake her tipsy frame. Ripping idly at the edges of the purple crepe paper, she casts her eye about the noisy, dim joint swarming with inebriated NCIS agents.
Tony is doing his best to entertain the impassive Ms White over by the bar, while Abby dances with at least three men at once on the packed dance floor. McGee is dancing not far from her and not very well, with a woman twice his age as he casts jealous looks at the smiling Goth every few minutes. She's lost track of Ducky, who always drinks far too much at these things and Gibbs hasn't even shown.
Kate turns back to her glass, reaching for the nearly empty champagne bottle. Her boss has been on her mind more than usual recently. Perhaps it's her impending birthday or the unsurprising breakup with Charlie last week. Perhaps it was the accumulated effect of working with the man known as the Silver-Haired Fox for nearly three years now. It seemed like much longer.
He's still the most fascinating man she's ever encountered. She's had more than a few sleepless nights of late, running through their history in her head. It still confuses her, frustrates her.
She knows herself well enough to recognize that she has entertained feelings for her enigmatic boss beyond the professional. For the first year she worked for him, the smallest smile from him, the quickest look, the most insignificant hint could make her heart skip for days on end. She would check her hair and her lipstick constantly throughout the day, watch him obsessively from the corner of her eye.
Everything she did, wore, said, and even drank, she wondered about his opinion. His approval became her highest achievement, his regard her most prized possession.
But the excitement and the expectation soon wore off. He was a workhorse, she soon discovered; his personality a top-secret mystery -- and he liked it that way. There was not room in his life for anything more. He was too tough a nut to crack and she wearied of trying.
As her boss, he seemed perfectly satisfied with her work and put great faith in her as an agent. So eventually, she stopped hoping for more from him than that. Ruefully, she put her hidden feelings down to infatuation, dismissed her fragile hopes as wishful thinking, and ordered herself to get over it.
Yet, even now, whenever her mother or her friends needle her about her single status or the pathetic state of her love life, it's always Jethro Gibbs who instantly pops into her head, unmeditated and unbidden.
She's had her share of infatuations, and knows that what she feels for him is much deeper, more profound. She has tried to dissuade herself of her own feelings. She has tried countless times to convince her heart that if Gibbs were allowed into her personal life he would make a total mess of it – and, no doubt, of her.
Each attractive, new face asking her to dinner or a movie used to give her fresh hope. But despite the countless men she has dated since meeting Jethro Gibbs, none of them have been able to banish from her mind the man who she wants most of all.
None of them have ever compared. None even came close to comparing.
The other night, lying alone in her bed, she decided to take action. She decided to seduce Gibbs.
In the safe duskiness of her room at three o'clock in the morning, it really hadn't seemed like such a daunting task. And it had certainly been a pleasant diversion from obsessing about her advancing age.
But when contemplating the actual logistics of carrying out her objective, it appeared close to impossible.
She immediately ruled out seducing him at work. That would just be unprofessional. Not to mention risky with DiNozzo lurking around every corner, gathering blackmail material on her. And she couldn't imagine that Gibbs would actually go for it, in his sacred den of drudgery.
Any kind of vehicle was also dismissed as a possible location for her inveiglement. With the way he drove, that was possibly life threatening.
She fell asleep still trying to figure out how she could get close enough to her boss to work some magic on him, knowing fully that even if she did, embarrassment, anticipation and temptation would sabotage her every effort completely.
The next day at work, she'd met his oblivious gaze with hesitation and heartache. And for the hundredth time that month, she'd pacified her wounded heart with disconsolate truths and halfhearted rationale.
She needed to get over him, she told herself, she needed to take the hint. Gibbs didn't see her that way. If something were meant to happen, surely it would've happened by now.
And for the hundredth time that month, she swore off her obsession with Leroy Jethro Gibbs.
She raises her head listlessly and sees Abby beckoning her to the dance floor. She bobs about eagerly and gestures to all the good-looking men surrounding her, begging for her attention. Kate's not in the mood to flirt though or be in the limelight. She smiles at her friend then sighs and resumes her contemplation.
She feels a strange and urgent need to be absolutely honest with herself tonight. This is not the life she always envisaged for herself.
Not that she's desperately unhappy.
After all, she loves her job, she loves her friends and colleagues, she gets asked out fairly regularly by decent guys, she eats right, drinks very little, works out as much as possible and just bought herself a new Prada purse.
There is nothing really for her to be upset or disappointed about. When she looks at herself in the mirror, she sees a healthy, attractive, successful, energetic, satisfied woman starring back at her. But satisfied isn't the same as fulfilled. Successful isn't the same as happy.
Something is missing and it's about time she 'fessed up about it – if only to herself.
Looking back over her life, she realizes with shock and dismay, that she has never really been in love. She has never actually been in a relationship with a man, where she could honestly say she loved him and he loved her back. That simple, blissful experience has eluded her for her entire life.
The persistent outward prompting of her friends and family only serves to fuel the inward prompting of her own secret fears and desires, intensifying the growing question mark that hangs silently over her head.
She wonders whether the ultimate fault is with her -- if something is wrong with her choices, how she functions. Maybe, as her mother tells her, she simply does not put in the proper amount of effort in order to make her dreams come true.
However, despite her sound practicality, Kate is a woman of a more sensitive sensibility. Though she would probably never admit it aloud, she still believes in the myth of love at first sight. She still believes in one man for one woman. She believes in magic, in fate, in serendipity, in soul mates, in miracles that come out of the blue and in once in a lifetime opportunities.
She still believes her special someone is out there somewhere -- looking and hoping and waiting for her just as vigilantly as she does for him. And that it would only take the tiniest gesture for her to recognize that he was The One for her, for the rest of her life.
TBC…