Dyed
Special Agent Caitlin Todd smiled a little as she clicked through the pictures. She missed Tony. She missed their bickering, the shared laughs at Probie's latest quirk – hell, she even missed his blatant sexism. Then again, she missed all of them, really. Abby's crazy ideas, the goth parties she, Kate, had been dragged to on – God knew – way too many occasions. McGee and his naïve, his inexhaustible kindness, which got kicked down time after time and yet he persisted.
Most of all, she missed Gibbs, but then that was a given.
With an unconscious and yet deliberate gesture, Kate stroked a lock of red hair back behind her ear. The colour she had chosen to dye her hair had made Jenny laugh, she remembered, but then again she had never truly believed she would have been able to pick any other one. She liked to think of it as a small symbol of the moments they'd never had – he would, most likely, never find out, but even so.
Shutting down the laptop, she rested her head on her hands and found herself staring at the empty screen for a moment.
When Ari had shot her, she had not died, but it had been a goddamn – Kate, don't curse – close run. The first face she had seen after she had opened her eyes had been Jenny's, the only one she had seen on a nearly daily basis since then. She'd explained it all, and while Kate understood very well exactly why it was necessary for her to live this goddamn – Kate, you'll regret it if you keep this up – hidden life, it was, after all these months, still hard to be able to follow her former colleagues from a distance, and yet never to be able to participate in their lives, as she once had.
It was almost as if she was dead, as if she had really died, but her spirit was not able to pass on to heaven.
Yeah, Kate, see what those goddamns lead to?
She smiled.
Sometimes, she thought Jen understood. Oh, she'd never told the other woman about it, of course – they mostly talked business anyway, and even when they talked about their lives – something Kate generally enjoyed, as she had few other people to do it with – it altogether seemed too pointless a subject to mull over.
But Jen had loved him too, she knew, perhaps she still did, and that was why she understood. That was, possibly, why she had not been as angry as she should technically have been when Kate had broken her instructions for the first and, as of yet, only time.
When she had heard of Gibbs' coma, she hadn't thought like an agent – something that was rare for her, ever since she had started living undercover. She had, however, restrained herself for a few days – she was still proud of that – but then she had gone. Sunglasses were good, she knew, and those and her red hair would probably protect adequately, but they still did not make her action forgivable.
Still, she had not thought of that. It was pure, rotten bad luck that she had come across Jen in the hospital corridor. The Director had not spoken a word, but her eyebrows had gone up, up, up – and Kate had, rather brusquely, walked on. To her great surprise, she had not felt an iron grip on her should right away; hell, she had not even been shot.
Must've been my lucky day.
The visit had been pointless, really. It had certainly not magically woken him, and Lord knew it hadn't made her feel any better either, but she had seen him and at that moment, that was all that had mattered.
Coming home that night had been a slightly less pleasant experience, but Jen had, in retrospect, only exploded minorly, which had certainly been a surprise.
A few days later, the older woman had been able to tell Kate that Gibbs was, at last, on his way to recovery.
A few weeks later, she had been able to tell Kate that he had started growing a moustache.
When she had heard of Gibbs' moustache, Kate had laughed.