Disclaimer: These are not my characters. Not that DPB deserves them either.
A/N: I haven't seen the episode yet, but I had to write something.
Ari
He remembers, now that it is too late to turn back the clock, the first time he saw her. He knew then that she would be important to him, but he didn't want it to end this way.
He remembers, later, how angry he'd been when she'd been slapped. The sight of her blood had chilled him even then.
Too late for regrets. This time he is to blame.
"I'm sorry," he says, but she'll never hear him.
He packs up his rifle. Gibbs will come for him, and he needs the head start.
He's not ready to die yet.
Tony
Her blood is on his face. Numb with shock, he touches it with his fingertips, surprised at how red it is on his skin.
He looks at her, at the hole so neatly in the centre of her forehead. Her eyes are open, unseeing, the sparkle forever gone.
This isn't real, he thinks. Come on, Kate, blink.
Breathe.
Please.
He'd give anything to hear her tease him one more time, to flirt they way they used to. He wants to tell her how much he cares.
Cared.
He knows he's going to hate thinking of her in the past tense.
Ducky
This is his worst nightmare: one of his own lying on the autopsy table. He knows this is the hardest post-mortem he'll ever have to do.
He stares at her for a long time, remembering the way her face lit up when she'd smiled. He thinks they are – were – all a little bit in love with her.
He wonders what her plans for the future were; if she wanted marriage and children, if she wanted a career change.
No one will ever know.
Every death is a tragedy, but only a few bring him to tears. He cries for Kate.
Abby
She throws another mascara-stained tissue in the trashcan, adding to the almost-overflowing pile. There will never be enough tissues, she thinks.
She feels guilty – rarely leaving the safe cocoon of her lab, she is never in the line of fire.
She reaches for another tissue. Everything is different now; everything feels wrong. She keeps expecting Kate to walk in and tell everyone to stop being so miserable.
She dries her eyes and washes her face. Life goes on; those left behind have to go along with it.
But she's not done mourning her friend yet, and thinks, one more day.
Gibbs
He does not cry for her when the bullet fells her.
He does not cry when he visits her body in the morgue.
He does not cry when her coffin is lowered into the ground.
It is only months later, when he finds one of her sketches in his drawer, that he feels tears pricking at his eyes. In that moment he can smell her beside him and the sense of loss is acute. He regrets all they could have been, but never were, and now will never be.
Ari stole his future; all he has left is past tense.