A/N: Well, I guess I'm on a roll as I whipped up this story after I published the last one. This takes place after "Extreme Prejudice" (10.1), and refers to "Twilight" (2.23). For those who have not seen these episodes, there are spoilers, so be forewarned. I hope you like this one.
Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS.
Remembrance
By GallaudetLurker
May 24, 2012
3:25am
Gibbs Residence
Washington, D.C.
Inside a dusty, dim-lit basement beneath a darkened house, a silver-haired solitary figure stood brooding over a large husk of an unfinished wooden boat. An assortment of hand tools – never power ones, never – was clustered around the husk on the work desk.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs reached out to a nearby bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey and took a long swig, barely registering the burn that lingered in his throat.
On any other day at this time, Gibbs would either drag his tired body up the basement stairs to his room upstairs, or be already passed out on either his bed or couch, whatever was nearer.
This time, he was wide awake, his mind far from a scene of tranquility that was usually brought out by a relaxing evening of working on his boat by hand and sipping whiskey (or coffee, whatever came first). Instead, it was a raging whirlwind that threatened to sweep other thoughts from his troubled mind.
Given the events that had recently transpired before, one could be forgiven for attributing the former Marine's somber mood to the tragic bombing of the Navy Yard orchestrated by Harper Dearing over a week earlier. Because of this particular CEO's grudge against the Navy for the death of his son, hundreds were killed or severely maimed on May 15, 2012, and the building seriously damaged.
It was a sheer miracle – not that he had believed in it by then and still doesn't – that his MCRT team was not among these casualties in what was the worst terrorist attack since 9/11, even although his old friend, Medical Examiner Donald "Ducky" Mallard suffered a heart attack upon hearing of the attack.
On behalf of those who had lost lives or livelihoods, and whose families, relatives, and friends who had been adversely affected by the tragedy, Gibbs had plunged his knife directly into Dearing's heart in Dearing's own house. The light fading out in the old man's shocked eyes was a memory that Gibbs would forever cherish.
No, it was not the Navy Yard bombings that particularly roiled the usually stoic Gibbs. It was another tragedy that had transpired earlier than that. Seven years, to be exact.
Seven long years.
Gibbs let out a weary sigh as he closed his eyes and bowed his head as if in remembrance. The memories of that particular day looped endlessly inside his mind like the malfunctioning 8mm vintage video recorder that he was sure he'd kept somewhere in the house.
It happened every year on this very day and Gibbs knew he would never get a respite. It was something that he and his team have had to live with over the preceding seven years, and would do so for the rest of their lives. It was the reason Gibbs gave his team the day off on this day every year.
Gibbs gritted his teeth, struggling in vain to smother the pain that tore at his heart when the metaphoric newsreel behind his closed eyelids slowed down, as if tauntingly, to the moment Caitlin "Kate" Todd was shot right through the forehead, right in front of him.
One second, she was exclaiming her bemused disbelief that Gibbs had actually agreed with Anthony "Tony" DiNozzo when he'd told her that she did a good job. The next, she was gone. Just like that.
"Wow. I thought I'd die before I ever heard a compl-"
These words, fateful words in a sentence that Kate, his beloved Katie, would never complete, was forever seared on his mind and tormented him for many days, weeks, and years afterwards.
Ever since that fateful day, Gibbs had more than once wished he had died, that Ari Haswari had turned the cross-hairs of his sniper rifle upon him instead of drawing out his pain and torment in a particularly sadistic cat-and-mouse game that stretched on for several months afterwards and which ended with a head-splitting bang in the very basement that he was standing in.
"Wow. I thought I'd die before I ever heard a compl-"
Gibbs' chest was heaving slightly, exhaling agonized breaths from his increasingly constrained lungs.
It was not only Kate's final, ironic words – she may not have died before she heard Gibbs agree with DiNozzo, but she died right after it – that caused Gibbs immense pain. It was the cold, hard fact that he had failed to protect her, completely and utterly failed in his duty to ensure that his Katie was safe and sound, especially after a harrowing firefight with terrorists on that warehouse roof. Hindsight is a cruel mistress, and Gibbs mentally beat himself up for foolishly exposing Kate to Ari's cross-hairs. To be fair, he never knew what was to come next – nobody ever did – but still.
He should have kept the sorely bruised Kate – who had intercepted a bullet that was heading right for him, and which would surely have hit the target had she not done so – on the concrete floor, safe and out of sight. But no, he let his common sense slip his mind for a moment and helped her to her feet, inadvertently exposing her to the waiting Ari Haswari and his sniper rifle.
In a way, he'd violated one of his own rules.
Rule 8. "Never take anything for granted." Along with another certain rule.
Given that he and his Kate, along with the rest of the team, had faced, braved, and survived so many threats in the two years that they worked together, Gibbs had begun to take Kate for granted, assuming that the talented, resourceful, beautiful, and feisty Kate would continue to work with him – and be by his side – for the foreseeable future. He'd assumed that like the earlier cases, once the bullets ceased to fly and the dust settled and the enemy eliminated, Kate would survive Norfolk.
What a complete and utter fool he was.
Gibbs gritted his teeth once again, and squeezed his eyelids harder, fervently wishing that Ari's bullet – ironically called a 'Kate' – had torn through his head instead of the beautiful agent that he had unwittingly fallen in love with since meeting her on Air Force One.
It should have been him, not Kate. Or Tony, Abby, Ducky, Tim and now Ziva, for that matter.
As he continued to watch the unending footage loop, Gibbs faintly surmised the bitter irony that, despite being shot in the head by his own half-sister Ziva David in this very basement, Ari Haswari had won in the end. He'd caused Gibbs immense pain, pain that he still experiences years later, and would continue to do so for the rest of his life.
Ari Haswari had won, and never before in his life had Gibbs hated him – and himself – so much in his life as he did in this moment.
Perhaps he should have heeded the ghostly Kate's resentful exclamations that he kill himself.
"If you did that, who will keep the criminals off the streets?"
Gibbs' eyes snapped open, his nose inhaling sharply, his body stiffening, disbelief coursing through him like a particularly powerful jolt.
It couldn't be...
Surely, he must've been so consumed with his grief and agony that not only had his mind looped a particularly cruel footage of one of the worst moments of his life behind his eyelids, but it also conjured her voice in his ears as to further torment him.
"I didn't know you could conjure me like that, Jethro."
His heart heavily thudding in his heaving chest, Gibbs remained immovable, disbelief whirling around his mind as her voice wafted to his ears...sounding amused. A certain scent wafted to his nose – surely one of his brain's malicious machinations – and he involuntarily inhaled it, savoring what he had sorely missed in the past seven years.
A scent of vanilla and strawberry...
Gibbs suddenly felt a presence behind him, a familiar one that he had gotten used to over the two years he'd known her. The scent got marginally stronger. The hair at the nape of his neck stood up, and his gut began churning and wrenching.
"Jethro."
His hands shaking slightly, his chest heaving, his back stiffening, his mind whirling, Gibbs forced himself to slowly turn around.
His bluish-gray eyes widened in disbelief as they met hazel ones.
"K-Katie..." His voice was thick with disbelief, grief, bewilderment, wonderment.
Kate is standing right in front of him, right there in his basement. Her hazel eyes glistened with amusement and her soft lips curled up in a warm smile. Her slightly wavy brown hair cascaded down to her shoulders. She was wearing a white tank top and blue jeans that accentuated her shapely figure.
His heart wrenched. She was as beautiful as he remembered her.
As he stared wide-eyed at the women that he'd loved and missed for so long, Gibbs is sure – no, positive – that he is hallucinating, that his diabolical brain had somehow pulled off an Ari Haswari and manifested an image of Kate Todd, right in front of him, to maliciously prolong his torment. Like it did in the immediate aftermath of Kate's death, when her ghostly form angrily berated him for getting her killed and maliciously suggested that he kill himself.
But this, somehow, felt different this time. She looks, sounds, even smells so real for a person who had long been dead and buried for seven years.
As if on its own accord, Gibbs's right hand moved and reached out toward her, and he is faintly sure that it would go right through her, like a hallucination.
Imagine his utter shock and disbelief when his fingertips actually made contact with her warm face.
How is this possible?
He knew for sure that he wasn't sleeping, given that he could never bring himself to do that on the anniversary of her death, and so he is not dreaming. He was now almost certain that it wasn't a hallucination, even although a part of his brain loudly protested otherwise.
If this is not a dream or a hallucination, then how was Kate Todd standing right there in the basement with him, and how is he able to sense, hear, smell, even touch her as if she was still alive? He'd saw her die right in front of him, before his very eyes, saw her pale and still body lying in Ducky's autopsy room, saw her body adorned with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the casket before it was lowered into the grave.
Perhaps he had finally snapped and gone insane, yet he somehow doubted it. He had grieved over his Katie on this particular day for the past seven years, dealt with the overwhelming grief after losing his first wife and daughter, endured three terrible divorces, worked a particularly demanding and dangerous job for decades, and even served in combat. A lesser man than Gibbs would have lost his mind a long time ago.
But then he doesn't really know.
His mind still reeling, a shell-shocked Gibbs watched as Kate's smile widened slightly as she put her hands on his right wrist and leaned her face into his hand.
As his hand and wrist tingled slightly from the warm sensation of Kate's gentle touch, Gibbs frantically tried to unravel his tongue and unscramble his mind.
"Katie..." He managed to say once again. Her response is to squeeze his hand gently as she kept it on her face, her eyes still connected with his.
"I'm here, Jethro," she said softly.
"H-how-how-you-I-you–" It is the first time in his life that Leroy Jethro Gibbs is unable to form coherent words. He trailed off and took several deep, shaky breaths to steady himself.
"I'm sorry, Kate," Gibbs said softly, speaking aloud what had been weighing heavily upon his mind like an albatross.
Kate's eyes twinkled. "Never apologize. Remember Rule 6?"
Despite himself, Gibbs chuckled for the first time that day, feeling some of his disbelief, grief, and bewilderment begin to slowly fade away. Before he realized what he was doing, Gibbs pulled Kate close to him, wrapping his arms around her, one around her waist and one cradling her head. He felt her wrap her arms around his waist in return. He marveled at how real she felt, and how...right it felt to be holding her.
"I miss you..." he whispered into her hair.
"Me too..." she whispered back.
After several endless moments, Kate turned her face up to lock eyes with him once again.
"I will always be with you, Jethro. Remember that," she said with a soft smile that he loved so much.
His heart still pounding in his ears, he was silent as he looked into her eyes, finding nothing but the complete honesty reflected in them. He was surprised to find love shining in her eyes, directed at him and him only. Had he been a lesser man, he would have crumpled into tears.
Before he realized it, he found himself leaning in toward Kate, and she leaned in closer as well.
His lips met hers.
A/N: It's an attempt at an open ending, I guess. Once again, hope you like it. Reviews are appreciated.