I'd tease her, I'd annoy her, I'd brag about my exploits with her but I'd never admit that I loved her. That was most likely my greatest downfall; never admitting that I loved her and now it was too late. The first woman I ever loved was dead, and she had never known how I felt. Although I was quite certain that she never felt the same emotion for me, it wouldn't have hurt to try.
I was sure that she felt some emotion for me, other than professional concern. After all, she had stayed in Isolation with me, even though she could have been fatally infected by the disease that was ravishing my body. However, that emotion was different from that which she held for our boss.
The love and affection she held for our boss stemmed from something deep inside. I think everyone that knew her could see it, but what they didn't know was that our boss, the grumpy marine, felt the same for our agent.
He cared about her more than even he imagined and her death affected him more than anything that he ever thought would. I had found out about his previous marriages and his daughter by accident, and from this I had learned that even the love he felt for his first wife did not rival what he felt for Caitlin Todd.
And while they had loved each other in secret, both knowing the other's affection and both unable to act upon it, I had loved her from the side-lines. I had realised it a long time ago. There was no point in denying that her death had made an impact on my life. I'd suffered my first real heart-break and I didn't know how to survive.
I knew that Gibbs was not coping well, he was distracted, vague and most of all he had taken some of Kate's last words into consideration. The day that she had died she had told him that if he didn't start to slow down on the caffeine, he would become ill. The last thing she had said to him in the car was that he didn't always have to be so tough, and to only focus on the case. While he knew that we cared about him, it was sometimes tough to know if he cared about us more than just his team. It might have been nice if he showed some emotion for once.
He hadn't taken her words into account, he had dismissed her; told her that she was too sensitive and I knew that this more than anything else would eat at him. The fact that he had dismissed her, not told her and ignored her request would mark the rest of his life in guilt.
Our situations were similar yet so different. He had the knowledge that he could have had her, and not caused her such heart ache, and I had to content with the fact that I could never have had her because she was and always would be his.
Inspired by her death and the heart-ache that it had given me, I remembered one of the most important things that she had told me. 'Whatever you do with your life, always remember that your job can't be your life because if it takes over you'll never have someone to love you, someone to take care of you and someone to hold you. The most important thing is to let your heart out and if you get hurt, learn from the experience and love again.'
At the time I had scoffed at her insight, but now I knew that she wasn't joking. But she hadn't been able to take her own advice. She had loved, and although she had been hurt, she hadn't learnt and she hadn't loved again.
I now took her words to heart, and as my last gesture for her, I vowed to mature, to grow and to love once more. Knowing that I could never love anyone as much as I loved her, I still vowed that I would love again and make a family. A family that Caitlin Todd would never get to experience because that chance had been brutally ripped from her with the sharp bullet that had ended her life so abruptly and early.
So I loved, I matured and I lived, not because I desired it, but out of respect for one of the last requests of Caitlin Todd, who would never know how much I had loved her.
(Sorry if it's a little hard to follow and doesn't make sense, I wrote it at 3:30am.)