His movements were silting tiredly off him as he entered Autopsy, lagging as though he were running on a slower frame speed than the rest of the world. The very visual evidence of his exhaustion made her spine straighten a bit as he paused beside the medical examiner and leaned over the older man as he worked. Kate watched the silent conversation between the two of them, the situation so oddly amusing, but bittered sweet somehow. Ducky just nodded an understanding agreement to some unspoken question and she frowned, annoyed that their silent communication was so easily untangled by the two of them, but ridiculously foreign to any outward observer.

She had no idea what they were (not) talking about.

But it seemed Gibbs got the exact answer he wanted - because he squeezed against the other man's scrubs before wearily spinning his body toward the rest of the autopsy tables.

Obvious surprise slacked his already loosely laxed jaw, the blue of his eyes dulled as he blinked over her a few times. "Hey."

Kate shifted her shoulders higher under his searching glance, her paperwork pressed under a still palm as she cocked him a half smile. "Hi."

He'd taken a few slow steps closer, hovering stalled beside the empty table that was spaced between where she was perched atop one and where Ducky was finishing his work on another. "Seein' somebody else behind my back?"

She refused the urge to smile into his teasing and graveling tone of voice, her jaw lifting in a cocky swing of a response. "He makes me tea and calls me 'dear'."

Ducky's gently responding chuckle reverberated through the room and had her unconsciously grinning into the slightly predatory but interested way was Gibbs was advancing on her.

He leaned his shoulders forward as he groaned and passed a palm against her shin, the movement of him still so seemingly slow. "I make you coffee and tell you that you're beautiful."

"That is true." She curled her legs up tighter under the way he was crowding over her, both her hands catching over the movement reports she'd been skimming as he simply lagged his upper body forward and dropped his forehead heavily into her shoulder. "What's a girl to do? So many gentlemen, so little time."

He'd grunted semi amusement into her murmured teasing, turning his face into the side of her neck as his breathing had slowly and rhythmically gone sluggish. She was surprised by the huddling movement, her body tightened still by its appearance in a place he wouldn't usually allow himself to be so freely affectionate. It was the middle of the night, though. And Ducky and a dead man were really the only audience to his obvious tenderness.

It suddenly seemed as though he'd remembered his placement, though. Because his palms pressed against her knees as he pushed himself mostly straight again, a swallow lumping down his throat as he searched her curled up body and the paperwork and the tea cup at her side. A half smile flit over his lips but dropped away as he noted that she'd pinned her hair up out of her face.

"What'd I tell you about using your office?" His voice had gone gruff, mildly accusatory but still mostly playful.

"And I usually do." Kate murmured in reply, watching as he leaned over her side and cast a glance to where she'd spread files to her right and on down the table. "What'd I tell you about minding your own business?"

She realized that the earlier eavesdropping on their inaudible conversation made her a bit of a hypocrite in saying it, but he looked so starkly weary as he wanly smiled acceptance of her snarking answer. Not soft or slurring in his sleepiness. Sharded and sharp instead. It tugged at something between her lungs, made her not care a bit about being hypocritical. Made her worry.

And the fact that his demeanor caused her concern in any way made her worry twice as much.

"Caitlin needs the light and she was here first." Mallard's voice arched over his shoulder perfunctorily, as though he were circumventing an expected argument before it could take place.

"The hell she was." Gibbs snorted after he'd said it, his body pressing away from hers and hands already stacking her files on top of each other, completely out of the order she actually wanted them in. "Doesn't matter anyhow."

His hands were faster than she'd expected, moving her papers into her with jerked and jolted movements as she glared up at him, "What - "

"Didn't your mother teach you to share?" His words were rumbling low and impatient as he watched her shunt the papers to her opposite side, his hand lifting the teacup as well. "Stow this."

"Gibbs, I'm working."

"My rack." He snapped the other hand on a wave over the cleared table. "Stow it."

Kate gave him a mildly derogatory look, drawing the cup away from him and leaning it to the table between her legs carefully. Her shoulders slanted back slightly as he leaned into the table, the annoyance fading off her as she watched him drag long legs up, shoes knocking the table loudly as he scrabbled onto his side and flopped his head against her updrawn leg. Her eyes bemusedly followed his movements, her right hand lifted away in patient waiting as he grunted and jerked his holster from his belt. His body shunted through sleepy annoyance as he tried to get comfortable, his head heavily banked onto her leg and the firearm cuddled up into his chest as though he was a child snuggling his favorite stuffed toy.

Kate couldn't help grinning at the mental image as she wiped a fingertip against the back of his hand and the way it was curled possessively around the weapon. "This your Teddy Sig?"

"I'm sleeping." His eyes were closed and his face was mostly lax, save for the grin that tweaked the side of his mouth that she could see. "Shush it."

"You have a bed."

His grunt of perturbation made her smirk instantly. "And I'm on it."

She wasn't entirely sure if he meant the autopsy table or her. At least, she wasn't sure of it until he rubbed his face tiredly into her pant leg and laid a groan along the fabric that stretched her thigh. His empty right hand wedged up under her curled leg, wrapped against the back of her thigh like he would clutch at a pillow as he nuzzled his face into her stomach.

She let the sigh hush off her slowly, turning her wrist enough that she could catch a glance over her watch as she silked against his hair with the same hand. "What time?"

"Zero four hundred."

"Got it." She assured softly, rubbing the pads of her fingers harder down the side of his neck, listening for the deep groaning sound as his head angled more space for her fingers to work against tightened up muscle. "Sleep."

"Thanks." His voice had lost anything but a certain quality of muzzed breathiness, the air passing off his lips hot against the fabric on her leg. "Thought you were in MTAC."

Kate ignored the questioning, digging her thumb below his ear as the other fingers rubbed his scalp with lighter touches. "Shhh."

He made a sound that was meeker and more appreciative than expected, something more moaning than the usual chest deep growl or grit. "Yates was s'posed t'check in."

"Not yet. She will." Her hand shifted, lifted so that she could wipe full palm against his forehead as she reached the other hand for her papers. "Get some rest."

Ducky had paused to turn a look over them that was so charmed affectionate that it painted an instantaneous flush over her cheeks, her teeth ribbing into her bottom lip.

The examiner's body straightened slightly away from the table he was at, his voice stern but still warmed through with an endearingly fatherly quality. "I swear there are times that you could positively wake the dead, Jethro. Just go to sleep."

"I am." The senior agent grumbled back, fingers flexing into her leg as he dug closer.

"Hush." She admonished, amusement softening the sound of her voice. "I'm trying to work."

A rush of rumbled laughter sank whisperingly into her lap as the holster clutched closer into his chest and he nudged tighter around her leg, "Teddy Sig?"

"Goodnight, Gunny." Kate murmured curtly.

"G'night, baby."

Baby? Really? That's a new one.

Somebody is way beyond sleepy.

So close. He'd made it so near the deep breathing mark of actual sleep.

Then he'd suddenly shunted his head hard into her leg as he'd swallowed, voice rasping in a barely audible whisper, "Katya?"

"Hmmm?"

His fingers flexed on her again, force against her thigh to make a point, "Zero four. I mean it."

She just blinked a patient nod over him. "I know you do."

"Ducky di'n't make you a shoe rack."

"No," she admitted softly over him, settling the report she'd been skimming to her left leg so that she could lift and sip her tea, her other hand still curled along the back of his head, "but he is taking me to 'La Traviata'."

"Drafting table's in the basement. S'almost done. S'got your name on it."

The mumbling murmurs were buried against her but they were still loud enough for her to hear, for even Ducky to hear, and he turned from his table as her head shot up. She met the other man's widened eyes, looking for assurance that she'd heard the words correctly, that she hadn't made them up in her own hazed sleepiness. Kate felt her throat constrict down hard, her free hand reflexively lowering the cup to her knee as the medical examiner just swung her such an achingly sweetened glance that she couldn't help but blush into a full watt smile.

Oh, good God. Caitlin? It's official.

You're completely screwed.

"Can leave it down there. You can draw while I'm, ya know... just thought... I mean, we could - "

"Shhh. You win, Jethro." She felt Ducky's inevitable grin on them as she dipped her head over him and rubbed against his ear to stifle his half unaware mumbling. "Sleep."

"Uhkay."