"Gibbs?"
Her voice very rarely plied on his name with such a sound of... unabashed hurt. Not necessarily physical, but more stone still and emotionally raw. Generally the woman made more facial expressions than he could count, she had multiple little tells that loudly (extraordinarily loudly) called her out to him, despite her silence – most of them made with her eyes and her mouth. Squinting and tipping her head, letting her tongue and teeth worry at her lip, pressing those lips together and sucking against her cheek, chewing on it.
She wasn't making any of them. She was a paled blank to him as she stared wordlessly at her computer.
(She rarely wore her emotion in her voice and especially not often when it was his name on her lips. They both avoided tipping any particular tone onto the other person's name.
It was a silent agreement that had been made slowly, carefully, responsibly and all in the name of work-related decency. )
"Yeah?" He studied the suddenly exhausted-looking downfall of her features. "Kate?"
"Corporal Yost." The name rushed off her lips like it had legitimate weight to it, like something that needed to be held. "Ernie Yost."
"What's he done now?" Gibbs pressed up and around his desk, keeping a keen eye on how tranced she seemed as she stared blankly at her computer, at least until she bit onto her bottom lip.
"Kate?"
"He's dead." Her head lifted into the realization that he'd gotten much closer, his body leaned far enough over her desk that just angling up her jaw had their face near enough that he could see the near tears forcing her to wince and swallow.
Hell...
He'd expected this moment, at some point, sure.
He hadn't expected that she'd be the first to know, that she'd have to tell their admittedly small office world that a man they'd all sort of adored was dead.
"How?"
"Coleman emailed me." Kate's head was shaking minutely back and forth in confusion, her body finally slacking from its straightness as he came around the desk and leaned along the side of her, squinting over her screen. "Why is she telling me? Why... Gibbs..."
"I mean, Kate," he kept his voice intentionally soft, "how'd he die?"
"She didn't say." Her face scrunched toward annoyed as he turned into her snappish tone. She rarely had much patience for Faith and he damn well knew it. He wouldn't necessarily accuse her of jealousy but... she did tend to get a bit snipey about the other woman. "It's a pretty... perfunctory email actually."
"Leave it to Coleman to be perfunctory." He caught the angling of her head as she gave him a wry glance at his implication, his hand lifting to point at the monitor. "What's this?"
"A link to his obituary."
"Clicky." He leaned farther over her, patience thready as he waved toward the email, "Go."
"We should go. I mean..." she was distracting herself as she spoke, purposefully focusing on the email attachment as her shoulders lifted shrugging, "I'd like to... If we don't - "
"I'll go with you." Gibbs turned the murmur closer on a nod.
Her sharp glance and her nearness had her breathing out a smile, "Yeah?"
"Yeah," he agreed into the grateful half smile she lifted, just to keep her face from paling back to sadness again. "We'll go. Okay?"
"Okay."
He'd sent McGee off with Tony, knowing that somehow the younger man's unassuming innocence would counter-balance DiNozzo's reactionary anger. He knew Tony, knew what sort of reaction was coming, he knew that the younger man would let this fester and foul up in his head until he said something snappish and crude and (probably) cruel.
And while McGee was, indeed, both unassuming and innocent, he wouldn't take the hit as awfully hard as it seemed she would have. As often as she was fully prepared to verbally spar with DiNozzo's antics and attitudes, she just didn't seem up for it. Not when she couldn't seem to draw sad eyes off a draped flag and her lips had stayed tightly pressed together for most of the morning, mid-day, through the afternoon.
Because for some reason, Corporal Yost's death had made her seem sallow and lethargic and just... altogether too beaten down.
Ernie Yost had made her feel precious, he assumed. Made her feel worthy of honest charm and the appreciation of a gentleman – two things he wasn't sure she'd really felt all that often in recent years. Certainly not with the (Darwin-Award-Winning) men she seemed to draw when she decided she had to date, had to get out and find some semblance of a social life. If scuttlebutt was to be believed Yost had made her cry just by holding her close (because the dancing itself hadn't been the grist in the rumor-mill but, instead, the very fact that Very Special Badass Agent Caitlin Todd had actually cried – in public).
Maybe that was why he hadn't been shy about sending the other two off and keeping her slowed back as he aimed her toward his car. He'd pressed into her space and steered her without questioning the act – and the very fact she had just silently accepted the force of his guiding hand had stirred concern in him. Maybe he wanted to be the witness should she cry again. Maybe he couldn't handle the concept of her being alone, considering the last man he knew to have held her while she cried was being buried behind them.
He'd left his hand wedged up under her elbow, thumb unconsciously ribbing the softer inner spread of her sleeve as she'd drudged along beside him. And if, generally, he would have been surprised by the tip and trip to stumbling way she suddenly leaned along his arm... he wasn't necessarily all that surprised in that moment. His other hand guarded up fast into her stomach and pressed hard to sturdying her as he raised his head and watched her face fall instead of her body.
"What have I told you about workin' a field in heels?" He'd meant it to be teasing, something mischief warm to draw her ire – because, if anything, scrapping with him would usually lead her to smirking at the very least. "Huh?"
"I'm not working anything." Her head turned away from him as he steadied along her hips, letting his hands have their fill of her before realizing just how inviting it felt – and how rude it was considering he hadn't actually gotten an invitation to do anything of the sort. "And I wasn't coming here looking like a schlump, Gibbs. Jesus, could you just - "
"What?" He was half moved away. Regardless of the fact most of his body just wanted to -
"Stay." Her head turned back and he found those tears to be, in reality, far more glistening pretty than he'd expected them to be. Something so malignant shouldn't have been so distinctly pretty – but her eyes seemed all the lovelier when they were shined up.
"You okay?"
"I'm fine." She was a foul little liar when facing him – always had been, ever would be. And especially when she was wincing pain as she shifted all her weight to one foot and attempted rolling her ankle only to swallow a throttled noise down her throat. "I'm fine."
Mind over matter only worked when the mind was at full strength and the matter could be ignored.
Kate wasn't gonna cry just because she'd twisted her ankle, she wasn't that type of woman. Sure, she'd be damn embarrassed and, he had the idea, mortified that she'd done it in front of an audience. Especially when the audience was of one and he was that one. But she'd been hurt worse and stayed stalwart, solid. Hell, she'd been blown-up-betrayed and tears hadn't been an option to her, despite both considerable pain and embarrassment.
Tears, for Caitlin Todd, weren't spent on missteps.
They were reserved solely for unsolvable pain.
And that seemed so awfully familiar, too familiar.
"Hey." He wrapped her up faster than his brain could calculate gains or losses, drawing her into the way he put one arm to her back and looped the other along her shoulders.
He felt how stiffly sharp she was at first, felt her confusion at his movement before she relaxed into realizing that he'd obviously chosen to spend what empathy he had for the day on her. Then her upper body relaxed, hands curling up closed into his ribs as she dropped her head into his hugging and leaned most of her weight to her uninjured foot.
After a moment he nodded into the reality of cradling his subordinate so close in the middle of a cemetery and reached between them. "Gimme your hands."
He lifted her hands to his shoulders, bending weight to his knee as he reached for her ankle and realized that the position he'd put himself in didn't seem any less intimate or suggestive. Rather, fondling her ankle actually probably seemed about ten times worse. When she whimpered at the press of testing fingers he didn't give a damn, though. There was already a welting throb under his fingertips and he made a sound of growled frustration as he searched over her skin for reddening.
"He was a sweet man, Gibbs." her voice brushed as lightly as the the backs of her knuckles as she rubbed the tension from just above his left eyebrow and his head shot up in surprise at the undoubtedly intimate action. "He just missed his wife."
Some men were doomed to be consumed by missing wives (and daughters).
And that revelation was one thing he'd decided not to saddle her with for a very long time.
If never, if possible. Not if aching widowers were her proverbial Kryptonite.
Gibbs lifted her a forced smile as she blushed into realizing what she'd done. "You liked him a lot."
She nodded vigorously, biting down against her bottom lip as his fingertips rounded the bony ankle that already had a slight welling of pressure surrounding it. "He asked me to dance."
That bitter-sweetly-sad story had made its way far and damn wide before Yost had taken his next nap - and she obviously had no idea that he'd heard repetition of it by day's end. But hell, he still sorta hated that he'd missed it. He hated that he'd been vacant when she'd felt something so strongly.
"I heard." He felt her knee jerk and the hand at his shoulder clench when his thumb went sloping against a particularly sensitive swell of skin and he watched her pinch her face into silence in response. Propriety and anyone watching be damned – she wasn't walking anywhere else in heels. He slid the shoe off slowly and handed it up, staying still as she stepped tentatively back to slip the other off. "Kept his hands to himself, right?"
He was entirely surprised by the fact that she let him lift the other into her hand as well.
"A true gentleman." she told him with a bit of wistfulness, a bittersweet half smile that only lasted for a few moments.
The confused loss of that smile had him suddenly uncomfortably awkward, had him reaching up to catch her right hand as he stood and balanced her. "Can you walk on it?"
"I'm okay."
He nodded a patient and placating acceptance of her obvious lying. "Duck's gonna look at it."
She rolled her eyes in a way that was nearing normal to them. "Gibbs."
"Kate," he felt frustration and concern sink his tone harsher. "You don't have to be strong all the time."
"Thought strong's better." That flicked and stubborn contrary tone of voice was familiar enough and he nearly smiled into it, caught himself leaning closer to the compatibility of knowing her tones and knowing her reactions and insecurities and knowing exactly where she was emotionally. "Right?"
"Sometimes allowing yourself to be the weak one takes a hell of a lot of strength." And just having the comfort of that familiarity kept him soft, allowed him to tuck her closer as he steered her toward slowly walking again. "C'mere."
He'd been hoping for a tether back to her humor but her voice was still softly sad. "That a new rule?"
"Old truth." Gibbs corrected quietly, watching her bare feet carefully step through the precisely trimmed grass, wondering at how small they were considering he knew just how freakishly fast she could run.
"What would you have done in Yost's place?"
And just when he'd actually, finally, stopped being afraid of one of them asking him that question.
He realized that letting his guard down in that regard had been especially stupid.
Especially when it came to how inquisitive she really could be, how curious all of them could be.
"Kate - "
"I mean it." She was shrugging a little as she forced the conversation farther, her steps minced and stilted. "None of us can say for certain that we wouldn't have done the exact same thing."
"No," he admitted, letting her grip tighter into the sleeve of his coat as he turned a look aside and got temporarily tangled in how cherry auburn bright the highlights in her otherwise very dark hair seemed at high sun, "none of us can."
"So, if you needed to shut me up?"
She did need to shut up.
Because he certainly wasn't in the mood to contemplate where the discussion was headed.
The soured frown crowded his features before he realized it, before he could blank it. "I woulda found another way."
"C'mon, Gibbs." Her weight was leaning into his side as she snorted a sound of disbelief. "You can't tell me that were Tony and McGee in physical danger and forcing me quiet would save their lives that you wouldn't sacrifice - "
Jesus Christ. He had to shut her the hell up.
Smacking her in the head sure as shit wasn't an option (he never touched her that way, never).
So he closed his mouth roughly against hers and felt her argument stall and die against his lips as her body jammed up into his sudden stop on the grass.
A surprised sound melted against his tongue as her lips opened to the dive and drive of his, his hand cupping hard against the back of her head and her entire body slumping still into his chest as her hands gripped onto him. He closed his hands tighter on her, digging into her hair and letting the other hand press her closer by driving up her spine and clasping into the thick fabric of her coat. His tongue tasted against hers, a whimpering off her throat more pleasantly made that he'd honestly expected as she leaned closer in the kiss.
She was quieter, at least, as she sucked against his tongue.
And he supposed that was the point, even as he started to pull away from the kiss and her mouth followed before she realized.
Mind over matter was one thing.
Mind over heart was a doomed thing.
The stunned tracing of her tongue along her bottom lip had him unconsciously digging her up tighter by both hands, watching the movement as he exhaled roughly, "I woulda found another way."
She nodded slowly against the cupping of his hand, eyes wide and so brightly lit in the sun that they colored like hardened amber. "I believe you, Gunny."
He appreciated the fact that, despite the affectionately smarmy smile, Ducky kept his tongue tied tight and lips shut. Because he wasn't in the mood to explain why his hand hadn't left the bend of her knee since she'd hauled herself up on an autopsy table and stretched her ankle into the older man's hands. And he wasn't in the mood to stop touching her, either. Especially considering how welcoming she was being to each new reach of his hand. Especially when she surreptitiously slipped her hand heavily into the pocket of his jacket and let her head flop resting against the side of his arm.
"How was the service?" Ducky asked gently, obviously trying to tame away the brazen smile that had claimed his mouth, barely lifting a glance into their combined leaning.
"I think Yost would have appreciated it." She offered as her jaw pressed heavier against his arm. "Gibbs?"
"I think he'd be embarrassed as hell."
Maybe sorta like a retired Gunnery Sergeat holding a strappy pair of ridiculously small and probably over-priced high heels...
Maybe sorta like that. Possibly.
"Once a Marine always a Marine?" There was finally some return of playfulness to her voice, finally something safe and true and just... Kate.
"Damn straight," he smiled it over the crown of her head, refusing the urge to kiss her hair just to spite the fact that he'd caught the interested lift of Ducky's head.
"Well, I trust this Marine to get you home without putting unnecessary pressure on this ankle." the medical examiner gave her the words as though an order of magnitude, his eyebrows lifting into his seriousness as he nodded. "Elevation and ice. Stay off it tonight."
"Not carryin' you, Secret Service." He arched over her head quietly, smiling into the way she indulgently rubbed her face down the slope of his sleeve – not a care to the ramifications or the fact that Ducky was witness.
"Never expected you to."
Well, that he knew. That he appreciated.
That was her (back again), through and through.