"And she's back!" Tony DiNozzo gave his partner, Kate Todd a dashing smirk as she strode into the bullpen at 10 PM. "I thought that you'd run off with that McAllister guy into the sunset!"

"Sorry to disappoint you Tony," Kate winked, dropping her bags and taking a seat at her desk, yawning silently as she did so.

While most NCIS special agents were heading home for the night, Caitlin Todd was just arriving. It had been a long day for her, travelling from New York back to Washington after having a 'date' with Thomas McAllister. It wasn't that she didn't like the guy; it was the fact that today was once a special day for her, and she couldn't bear to spend it with some random guy who she'd met through a case. She needed distraction, and not of a romantic sort- no, that wouldn't help one bit.

"Jet setting millionaire not quite your type?" Tony enquired curiously.

"It's not that: he's a perfectly great guy, I just can't be with someone today, my heart wouldn't be in it at all."

"Why?"

"Today would be my engagement anniversary," she started, shocked that she was telling this to Tony, "from the only real relationship that I've ever had. I couldn't possibly spend it with some guy when my heart would be with one from the past."

Intrigued, Tony grabbed his chair and pulled it over to the other side of his partner's desk. At first, he thought that she was taking the mick- it was also his engagement anniversary from a past relationship (and not the one with Wendy) today. He'd deliberately stayed at work to avoid being home alone during it. However- he could see pain in her eyes, a pain that was impossible to fake, and was instantly interested in hearing her story while she wanted to tell it.

In response he said, "I had this one relationship, which I truly thought was going to last forever. She was my one, and I knew that I had to be with her forever." He sighed, "But we were both so young, and it just didn't work out- it got so complicated in the end."

Kate raised an eyebrow as if to say, "please tell me", so he did.

"I met her at a baseball game, of all places. Some lads from Indiana came to Ohio to start off the competitive season with a few friendly matches, and she and a group of girlfriends had tagged along for a good laugh…"

Kate remembered meeting her one. Her best friend from high school, Ashleigh, had somehow persuaded her to go with a group of friends to watch her some guys from the local college play baseball in another state. She had felt so awkward on the trip, 19 years old and a year into college herself, until she'd been approached by one of the guys on the other team.

She was sat by herself in some of the seats surrounding the baseball grounds. Her friends had gone to mingle, but she wasn't feeling up to it and to be honest, didn't really see the point in it: they'd go home in two days time and never see any of these people again in their lifetimes. She couldn't be bothered to start a pointless two day friendship with any of these people.

"Um…Hi?"

Her thoughts were interrupted by an unfamiliar male voice greeting her and, surprised, she looked up.

Standing in front of her was a guy, probably 2 or 3 years older than her, with floppy brown hair and blue/green eyes that were more alive than any pair that she'd ever seen. He had a smile plastered across his face that was contagious as hell and caused her to smile back instantly.

"Hey," she breathed.

"What's your name?" He asked, his tone brightening at the sign of her smiling.

"Kate," she said, extending a hand for him to shake, "why, what's yours?"

He took her hand and shook it gently, "I'm…"

"Kate!" Tony called softly, "Are you listening?"

"Yeah, sorry," she flushed slightly, "Carry on."

"She was by herself, so I went over to her and she smiled at me and I just knew from then on that we'd go far." Tony continued. "Anyway, what was it like for you, with your one?"

"It was perfect," she replied, after hesitating for a moment. "We understood each other, and trusted each other with our lives. He was my rock through bad times and my best friend through the good. We travelled together- we went to Disneyland and Europe, but also camping when I had class the next day or when he started his training as a cop.

"We went rock climbing even though I hated heights, scuba diving even though he hated sea creatures and dancing even though we were both atrocious at it, just because we could and it meant that we could do fun stuff together.

"And after he'd helped me fight my fear of heights, he proposed to me at the top of the Eiffel Tower during sunset and it made me cry because it was the most beautiful thing in the world. I said yes instantly."

Tony hid a frown of confusion: this sounded exactly like his past- to the camping and the proposal in Paris to his fear of sea creatures. For a minute, he stared in disbelief at his partner. She and the girl from his past now appeared as extremely similar, maybe even identical. They both had chocolate brown hair accompanied with hazel eyes that could melt the stoniest of hearts, they were both short, but not extremely so, and they shared the same experiences. However A: his ex had been called Caitlin Rowe, and B: surely he would've recognised her straight away? Except, he was adamant that her mother's maiden name had been Todd, and he had definitely felt something wash over him (recognition), the second that he'd seen her on Air Force One. He remembered stopping dead at the sight of her.

"Anyway," Kate asked, "when did your relationship end?"

Tony sighed- this was the past of his past that he frequently refrained from talking about, the part that he'd always kept isolated in the back of his mind and had never said a word to anyone about. But, there was something about Kate that made him want to tell it all, so he did. "Her dad started to drink, and got increasingly violent with the both of us. One night, when we'd all been out for her brother's birthday, he started hitting and punching her, and he attempted to strangle me. After that, he began stalking us to various places, and continuously trying to harm us, so we had to go to the police, who put us into witness protection before he was tried."

Involuntarily, Kate raised her hand to her left eye, which her drunken father had nearly knocked the sight right out of. She could still hear her fiancée yelling, and see him fighting with the uncontrollable drunk, as she screamed helplessly under unforgiving fists.

Tony wiped his brow, and opened his mouth to continue, but, as if in a daze, Kate interrupted him.

"You were sent to a safe house to await her dad's trial, and you stayed there for slightly over a month before things started to go bad." She glanced up at Tony, now truly knowing exactly who he was. "After that month, you constantly argued about being isolated, not being able to go out and socialise, not being able to do simple things like go to the local store just in case you were followed."

Tony gaped at Kate before picking up where she'd left off, the story now complete. "One night, after one of these nights, while I was asleep, she packed her stuff and left, leaving her engagement ring on the kitchen counter. She left no note, and no sign of where she'd gone; she completely vanished. Then, she moved to Washington D.C, taking her mother's maiden name of Todd, and applying for the full time job as presidential detail at the Secret Service."

"There was only one thing that she didn't leave behind, besides you," Kate returned, now gazing directly into his stunning green eyes.

"The necklace that I gave her when we first started dating," Tony smirked, "a little silver chain, with a silver 'T' charm on it, which was encrusted with a single sapphire- her favourite stone."

"She promised you, that no matter what happened between the two of you, that she'd never take it off, and that she'd love you until the day that the Earth stopped spinning." Kate finished.

Tony reached out across the desk and touched Kate's cheek lightly, running his thumb gently over her cheekbone. "How can I know that she wasn't just lying to make me feel better?"

Kate reached around the back of her neck and unhooked the clasp of a silver chain. She took the necklace that she'd been wearing for years and pressed it into the palm of the man that had given it to her in the first place.

He stared down at the silver T charm that was warm in his palm. It was scratched in places, but the sapphire was still in place, and the tiny engravings at its sides were still as clear as the day that he'd bought it. As he held the tiny pendant in his fingers, tears sprung to his eyes and threatened to spill down his cheeks.

"Because she kept her promise, "his Kate whispered.

A/N: Hey, I hope that you enjoyed this fic! It's fairly short, and there will be no sequel or anything to it, so I'm allowing you to imagine what happens next! A new chapter of Aria will be coming tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Louise :)