A/N- Firsts things first, I own nothing and that includes medical knowledge, so where this occurs in the story it will pretty much be what I've gathered from being a huge M*A*S*H fan or from making it up as I go along. Anyhow, read and review my lovlies.
His gut had led him here tonight.
To the small, neatly furnished living room, where two people stood in semi-darkness, with only the light of the full moon outside and a lone candle on the table to reveal their secrets.
The man had brought the lingering smell of the Sahara desert into the room, with traces of blood and gunpowder mixed up in the scent. A duffel bag lay abandoned by the doorway, dusty from travel and worn from long overuse. A tell-tale bulge in the fabric told him that there was a rifle packed amongst other travel items.
He had brought a gun into her home.
The woman smelled as she always did-a subtle mixture of vanilla and roses, warmth and coffee. Looking slightly frazzled from a long day of work, yet all the more beautiful for it, her handbag has been tossed carelessly onto the table, next to the candle, two glasses of chardonnay and a plate of Turkish delights. The decadent meal was untouched, the two obviously deciding to have it later, or perhaps having lacked the patience to wait.
They stood millimetres apart from one another, their arms linked to the elbows, his large frame leaning down toward her and her delicate face turned up toward his own. They were kissing chastely, their seeming innocence out of place in the situation with which they had created for themselves.
They were oblivious to the intruder whom had stumbled upon their secret and who was determined to turn it into their shame.
Gibbs stood at the threshold to the room, his eyes fixed on his agent as she broke her hold to lace her arms around the assassins neck, to push herself more firmly against the man's body, her feet almost leaving the floor as she propped herself onto her toes. The assassin snaked his arms about her waist and closed whatever distance remained between them, burying his face in her loose hair.
What hurt the most was the intimacy between the two of them. The relaxation that showed that this was not the first time of betrayal, that they had done this- possibly many times- before.
He knew he would have to put a stop to that before his thoughts became any more developed.
The rage was boiling his blood as it was.
He took a firm step into the room and slammed his hand against the wall beside him. The loud noise startling the couple and causing them to break apart. Haswari's eyes flew to his own as the younger man- almost instinctively- pushed Kate behind him, enabling him to cover her in case of an attack.
Though Gibbs had no intention of aiming for Kate- not yet anyway.
"Gibbs!" Kate gasped, looking at him stunned, "What are you doing here?"
He raised his eyebrows, "What am I doing here? What is that bastard doing in your living room Kate? More importantly, why are you necking with him?"
"Do not shout at her Agent Gibbs," Haswari requested, quietly yet forcefully "it is me you are angry with"
Gibbs glared at the man, wanting nothing more than to take out his gun and empty as many bullets into him as possible. But even in his current mood, a part of him- a very small, barely audible part of him- knew that shooting an operative from an ally country, who was also the one successful mole within Al-Qaeda and Hamas, would have severe ramifications.
So he settled for sending a look of extreme loathing towards the unshaken killer,
"Leave" he snarled threateningly, "Now!"
Haswari raised an eyebrow, the long acknowledged feud between them almost determining that he stay and insult or infuriate his nemesis as much as possible. Yet, he turned to Kate and rested a hand on her hip,
"Would you like me to stay?" he asked her so softly Gibbs barely heard the words, Kate chewed her lip looking from one man to the other, "Go" she requested, nodding when he bent to kiss her cheek, and whisper in her ear.
With one last look to Gibbs, Haswari left the room, walking backwards to keep his eye on the situation. After he went out through the back, Gibbs hearing the wire back door close, he turned to his agent.
Kate smoothed her skirt before facing him properly, "I know this looks bad..." she began and he stared at her in stunned disbelief,
"Looks bad, looks bad? I just found you making out with the terrorist in the middle of your living room Kate!"
"He's not a terrorist Gibbs," Kate pointed out "he's Mossad"
"Doesn't make him any less of a bastard" Gibbs fired back, "Or are you forgetting what he did to Gerald, what he did to me?"
Kate didn't answer immediately but crossed to her bookshelf, pulling out a book and flipping it open to remove a few sheets of paper. Crossing the room again, she handed it to Gibbs, who turned the paper over and in the moonlight was just able to make out the scrawl of a foreign language,
"What the hell is this?"
"It's a copy of a Mossad case file showing the written orders Ari received from Hamas in which they suggested he maim or kill Ducky," Kate tucked a strand of hair behind her ear,
"Apparently when Ducky was stationed in the Middle East he was ordered to perform autopsies on Muslim children- when Hamas made the link between him and the morgue Ari needed to break into...In his answering report, he lies and says that Gerald got in the way of the bullet and that he saved the rest of his bullets to ensure he could get out again" Kate moved her head to better see into his eyes,
"He didn't shoot Ducky because he was concerned that he wouldn't survive the wound and he didn't shoot me because as a woman I might have been pregnant, and the blood loss and shock could have caused me to miscarry. Actually," she ducked her head and a small smile flickered across her lips "he avoids shooting women when possible because he doesn't want to be responsible for the death of an unborn child; it's the same as an abortion to him"
Gibbs hurled the papers aside, unable to read them in the dim light and in Hebrew.
"Really Kate, do those lies make it that much easier for you to jump his bones without your conscience nagging you?"
She glared at him, clearly offended by his lack of trust and his assumption of her promiscuity,
"These aren't lies Gibbs, I had the file checked by some friends at the Secret Service, they're legit and how dare you come barging into my home to comment on my personal life!"
"Oh, your personal life" Gibbs shouted, "So what, servicing Al-Qaeda is how you spend your free time? Hell, should I come back tomorrow night and bring Fornell in case we have the chance to pick up some of his 'most wanted suspects'?"
"That is sick Gibbs, how can you speak to me like that?" Kate demanded, her cheeks becoming flushed and the candlelight dancing across the tears in her eyes.
"How can you forget everything that bastard has done and crawl into bed with him? Or have you been carrying around a case of Stockholm syndrome for the last year and a half?" he gestured angrily as he shouted at her and he saw her flinch before her face hardened,
"You and I both know you're not angry at me for being with Ari..." she began, her voice sharp with fury,
"Oh aren't I?" he interrupted but she continued,
"No you're angry at me because I'm with another man"
Speechless Gibbs reeled back and stared at her, shocked as she glared at him,
"You're angry because I'm with a man for longer than one night. My flings you could forgive me and I ignored that red head with the Porsche, but you can't stand the fact that we somehow missed our chance and I moved on, you're angry at me for not still flirting with you and you're angry at yourself because in Gitmo you warned me that relationships between team members don't work when all you wanted to do was kis-"
Later Gibbs wouldn't be able to recall what was going through his mind at that exact moment. All he remembered was the feeling of fury roaring through his veins as the truth of Kate's words punched him over and over again. His body was screaming with adrenaline and he did the first thing that came to his confused mind.
His hand flew out and slapped Kate across the face to silence the truth falling from her lips.
She hadn't been expecting the blow, she stumbled backward and slipped in her heels, falling against the table and gripping it for support to keep herself from going down, with her free hand she clutched her nose and looked to him with horror written across her face.
Gibbs knew his expression mirrored her own. Automatically he opened his mouth to apologise but she turned her face away and in his guilt he could think of nothing more than turning and fleeing from the house.
Though he didn't get far enough fast enough to block out the sound of her tears.
The moment Kate heard the front door slam; she sunk to the floor and dissolved into tears. Crying with shock, grief and emotional overload she found herself shaking as she searched her pockets for a handkerchief to wipe away the blood pouring down her face.
"Caitlin,"
She shivered as his warm voice called enquiringly from her back door, but she was too shaken to answer him, reaching out instead for Tony the dog as she pattered across the room, waken from her slumber to whimper at the sight of her owners face. Resting her front paws on Kate's knee she began licking her face in comfort, causing Kate to chuckle at her dog's behaviour.
Tony growled as she found herself being pulled to the side. Ari appeared in Kate's vision, bending over, his eyes widening when he saw the blood dripping from her chin. Straightening up again, she heard him walk into her kitchen and the sound of a tap running before he returned to the living room, turning the lights on as he went and crouched down before her,
"Let me see" he prompted, tilting her chin up and turning her head side to side,
"It does not appear to be broken, though we shall need to keep ice on it for at least twelve hours...are you in pain?"
Her breathing was shaky but she managed to wrest her quivering lips into a smile,
"Emotionally or physically?" she quipped but he didn't seem to share her sense of humour,
"Either way I shall kill him for this- and thanks to the CIA I have the diplomatic immunity to do it"
Kate's bitter smile fell from her face as he wiped the blood away with a wet tea towel,
"That's not funny"
"Possibly because I am not joking. I take harmful actions against the women in my life very seriously Caitlin"
"Killing Gibbs won't solve anything" she pointed out pushing his hand away, "And neither will you stamping around announcing you want to kill him all the time! You know half the reason you and Gibbs cause so much trouble for each other in the first place is because you're both so damn proud. Maybe if one of you had been able to show a little humility I wouldn't be sitting here bleeding right now"
Her adrenalin fuelled anger left as quickly as it had arrived and she found herself shaking again, slowly she moved forward and wrapped her arms around Ari's neck. Throwing the towel up onto the table, he returned her embrace, sliding his arm under her knees to lift her up.
"I am sorry you are hurting Caitlin and that I caused it" he whispered apologetically, kissing her forehead at the hairline, Kate nodded quickly and shifted to bury her face in his neck,
"Just, hold me, okay"
"Always," he promised "come"
He carried her into her bedroom and lay her down on the bed, releasing himself from her embrace so he could stand up and snap his fingers, summoning Tony to the room,
"Sleep" he commanded her quietly and with a happy bark, Tony curled up on the rug beside Kate's bed. Chuckling again at her pet's easy joy; Kate reached out and scratched her behind the ears. Ari continued to move about the house, locking the doors and checking the windows, cleaning up the living room and kitchen. Meanwhile Kate kicked off her shoes and the clothes she had worn that day, pulling her nightgown from underneath her pillow and slipping it on just as he returned to her bedroom. Without a word, he closed the door and eased off his leather jacket, stripping down to his boxers before resting one knee on the bed and smirking at her,
"With your permission?" he teased gently and managed to elicit a genuine smile from her,
"Hurry up, it's cold"
He slid between the sheets and shuffled over until he could wrap an arm about her with ease, unfortunately he was also able to press towel covered ice to her nose, she protested weakly,
"Caitlin it will stop the swelling and hopefully the bruising, I will hold it here while you sleep"
"Jerk" Kate mumbled even as she felt sleep begin to claim her, she snuggled into the pillows and felt him kiss her hair,
"You will thank me when your nose does not resemble a Lebanese eggplant"
A/N- For those who don't understand Gibbs explosive anger, it'll be explained a few chapters later