A/N- I'm going to put a longer one at the end, but for now, let me just say, I know. I'm 15 years too late. LOL! Not sure how often I'll dip my toe into this fandom, but a number of planets aligning brought me to this pairing and I felt really compelled to write this story! Holidays might make the updates sporadic, but it won't get abandoned.
Disclaimer- Boy, if I were going to make any money from this pairing, I wouldn't have waited so long. NCIS characters, of course, belong to CBS.
x...x
The bullpen was silent, not an unusual thing at 3 in the morning, but odd considering there were 4 people present. The case and the hours had sucked the life out of them, and the only one who looked remotely alive was Gibbs who sat hunched over his keyboard, glaring at something on his monitor. It was clearly not giving him the answers he wanted, if his steely blue scowl was anything to go by. Kate looked up from her file, the one of more than 2 dozen that piled on her desk. It took her vision so long to return to normal that she momentarily wondered if it was reversible. A lean back in her chair brought more alarming signals from her body to her brain as joints and muscles cracked and cramped. The squeak of her chair reverberated around the office, though no one took notice. She glanced at her watch.
35 hours.
35 hours since they had discovered Lieutenant Bosman and her 5 year old son stuffed in the trunk of a car. 35 hours since the trail had gone cold. 35 hours since Kate could remember sleeping. She lost track of when she last ate, relying on a near-intravenous supply of coffee to keep her going. She shook her head.
Enough.
Standing, she drew no one's attention, and it wasn't until she began gathering her things that DiNozzo's head lifted from the file that was currently serving as an elbow rest. Gibbs' voice made McGee blink for the first time in hours.
"Goin' somewhere'?"
"Yeah, Gibbs, I'm going home."
In the three years she had been with NCIS, she had fought and surrendered under Gibbs' authority in equal measure. She'd like to think she had a good feel of when to press and when to retreat, though in this particular situation, she was surprised to find she didn't care, and that his cold tone did little to change her mind. Rather than repeat her words, he raised an eyebrow, and there was a part of her that wondered if he had a quota of words he used in a day.
"Tony's trying to read a file through his eyelids and McGee's so out of it, I bet he can't even remember his name."
"Tonithy!" he blurted out, only to realize his mistake. "I mean, 'Timothy'. It's 'Timothy'."
"Good one, Probie," DiNozzo tutted, throwing a pen at him.
"And you?" Gibbs asked, his question flat and direct.
"I'm going to get my prescription checked, because I'm pretty sure staring at the same words for 35 hours straight is making me go blind." When he didn't reply, she tried a softer tactic. "Gibbs, come on. We're not doing anyone any good working at 10 percent of our ability."
"I'm sure Kyle Bosman would be happy to know you're giving a whole 10 percent to find his killer."
His accusation cut through her softness, and like a switch, she turned herself off. Grabbing her purse and her keys, she reached for her jacket before he pierced her again.
"If you go, don't bother comin' back."
The air left the room. McGee's mouth was agape and Tony's eyes were more alert now than they'd been in the last 12 hours, moving back and forth between Gibbs and Kate. The standoff lasted an eternity, then Kate sat down. Tony let out a quiet sigh of relief. It was short-lived. Instead of sitting with the intent of getting back to work, she sat to reach under her desk for a box. Unceremoniously, she began tossing items into it, and it was when one of those items included a family photo with her siblings that Tony's eyes widened. Oblivious or uncaring of the eyes upon her, Kate stood once again and this time reached for her jacket without interruption. She flipped her hair out from the collar and slung her purse over her shoulder, and without a break in her movements, unclipped her badge from her belt and respectfully placed it on her desk. When she turned off her desk light, it was like a final punctuation on her unspoken decision. It was that last course of action that helped Tony find his voice.
"Kate! C'mon."
His plea reached her at the elevator, but she didn't turn around. He stood up quickly, and before Gibbs could say anything, he chirped, "Be right back, Boss!"
He just made the elevator before the door closed on him.
The first words out of his mouth were, "You know he didn't mean it."
She stared straight ahead, trying not to consider what she had just done. "No, Tony, actually I don't."
"It's just Gibbs," he said. "Case has got him all wound up."
"And it doesn't wind me up, too? Is that what you're saying? Mother and child stuffed into a trunk like… like garbage, and I'm going home because, what? I don't care as much as he does?"
"Whoa, whoa," Tony said, holding up his hands. "Not saying that at all. Just saying, we all have different ways of handling it. Gibbs' way is to find the limit, then bulldoze through it."
"Yeah, and we're caught in the wake." The elevator dinged and she stepped out. "Does he really think he's respecting Kyle Bosman by working so hard that mistakes get made? Does he think he's respecting Kyle Bosman by breaking us in the process? Look, Tony, I would run through a brick wall for you, for Tim. For him." She couldn't find the strength to say Gibbs' name. "But when that brick wall IS him? I'm done."
He stood in the elevator doorway, shellshocked. "You can't mean that, Kate." There was a long pause where the truth lingered between them. Trying to inject some humour into the moment, he weakly smiled, "You'll miss me too much."
It was her first smile in what felt like days. "I will," she agreed. Leaning up, she held his face between her hands and gently kissed his lips. "Tell anyone I did that, and they won't find your body."
His eyes dreamily opened. "Who would believe me?"
Slapping his chest with the back of her hand, she started walking backwards towards her car. "The husband has an aunt he was close to as a kid. Might be something worth checking out."
"Okay."
"Goodbye, Tony."
"'Bye, Kate."
x...x
His return to the bullpen was met with silence, though the stares he got from both Gibbs and McGee spoke volumes. Ignoring them both, he began tapping names into computer, following up on the information Kate had suggested. Working backwards from the husband's name, Tony had half a family plotted out before he found the one sister on his mother's side. With a name, he was able to put together a file on the woman that included everything from her first job to her last car. His thoroughness was a point of personal pride, and it helped to avoid Gibbs' bark by having all the ducks in a row. Thirty minutes had passed before he felt comfortable enough to give the information to Gibbs. He was halfway to Gibbs' desk when his phone rang.
"DiNozzo," he greeted. His grin instantly fell. "Slow down, Abs. What?" He listened for a moment, his brows meeting between his eyes. "She what? Abs, take a deep breath. I can't understand-"
The file dropped from his hand.
"How bad?" The expression on his face was a wordless answer to the two men who were watching. Tony swallowed as if choking down glass. "Okay. On my way." He snapped his phone shut and grabbed his keys.
"Tony?" McGee asked.
Tony's face was deathly white. "It's Kate. I gotta go." He turned on Gibbs. "Might as well fire me while you're at it. Boss." He didn't wait for a reply.
Gibbs watched him jog to the elevator, then looked at McGee who sat dumbfounded. With a jerk of his head, he said, "Go."
The young man didn't need to be told twice. Now alone, Gibbs' gaze went immediately to Kate's dark desk where her badge sat like an accusation and an ominous memento. He held the back of his hand to his mouth to keep the bile down.
x...x
He always hated hospitals. Too white. Too sterile. Often too, too final. The quietness only ever seemed to be breached by bad news and useless platitudes by those who would say the same things to the next broken family. He entered the waiting room, seeing many familiar faces, but seeking out one in particular.
"Ducky," he said, seeing the older man in the corner, his arm around Abby. McGee raised his eyes in greeting, but Tony refused to acknowledge his arrival.
"Jethro," Ducky replied, gently extracting himself from Abby's embrace. He stood and pulled Gibbs away from the small crowd.
He didn't waste time thanking him for being the one to call, or asking why no one else did. "Tell me."
"There's not much to tell," Ducky answered. "From the little the police have said, it was a single vehicle accident. A patch of black ice on the road. She spun off the road and hit a tree."
Gibbs willed himself not to wince. "Head on?"
He shook his head. "No, unfortunately." Seeing Gibbs' sharp eyes narrow, he explained, "Head on would have deployed the airbag. She hit it full force with the driver's side of the vehicle." He pretended not to notice Gibbs clench his jaw.
"And her?"
"That, my friend, is what they won't tell. I've even pulled rank, what little I have, to no avail."
Happy to have a target of his anger besides himself, Gibbs scoured the area. "Who? Who do I talk to?"
"A Doctor Simmons," Ducky replied. "But he's currently in surgery with her."
Gibbs tried to ignore what that might mean. Spotting a young man jovially chatting at the nurses' station, he stalked over, full of simmering intent. Regardless of his current feelings towards the man, Tony watched in admiration as Gibbs leaned into the startled intern whose smile instantly disappeared under a newfound pale expression. Tony wondered if Gibbs had quietly threatened the guy's job or his balls. As was his way, once he was given the information he wanted, he left the source quivering in his wake, discarded.
Returning to the closed in group, Gibbs got right to the point.
"Broken collarbone, broken shoulder. Doc is gonna have to put in some pins and screws once he stops the internal bleeding."
"'Once'?" Tony repeated. "She's been in there for almost an hour."
"It's not entirely unusual, Anthony," Ducky tried to assure him. "Side impact will have left her completely open to trauma. It's often a very routine surgical procedure."
Abby looked up from McGee shoulder. "Head trauma?" she sniffed.
Gibbs shook his head. "Minor concussion but nothing she can't get over."
"Great," Tony said. "So your works done."
"Excuse me?"
"You came, got some answers in your esteemed Gibbsian way. Intern over there's probably shit himself, but that's the price ya gotta pay to get results, am I right? Case closed. Everybody can go home now, because God forbid any of us make emotional attachments."
"Tony," McGee whispered.
Bolstered by adrenaline of the moment, Tony plowed ahead. "Go back to the office, pour over the Bosman case for the 400th time, pretending your obsessiveness is a drive for justice. Oh, check Greg Bosman's aunt. Kate was on to something before-" His voice broke and the heat in his words cooled at the reminder of why they were all there. Abby stood and threw her arms around him.
Gibbs stood ramrod straight, absorbing the verbal onslaught without comment. Ducky silently appeared at his side.
"Emotions are high," he whispered. "Go home, Jethro. She's going to need a lot of help when they release her."
Gibbs' laugh was empty. "I'll be the last person she'll ask."
Seeing Gibbs' downcast gaze, Ducky frowned. "What in the world happened, Jethro?" Just as the words left his mouth, he shook his head. "Doesn't matter. What's important is that you're there. But you'll do her no good in the state you're in. A reconstructive surgery will take at least 2 hours. That's assuming he's done everything else. Go home. Have one of your infamous Marine naps. And have a shower. Your fear is so palpable I can almost smell it."
Decades of friendship allowed Ducky the accusation, and prevented Gibbs from verbally retaliating in kind. He gritted his teeth but said nothing. No one acknowledged his exit.