A/N: Just a little paragraph in my notebook that took on a mind of its own. Tell me what you think. You all are the best; I feel blessed everyday to have such beautiful fans. If you have any prompts to spare or ideas you would like to see in a story, please let me know.
Pairing: Kibbs
Rating: k+
Timeline: a year after twilight
Disclaimer: if I owned them, remembering Kate would've been on the show.
On The Roof Top Where She Died
By: Katie Todd
The built Italian took a deep breath before he braved the latter. His tan hands took hold of the rusty, metal sides and he pulled himself up onto it. The latter wasn't the scary part, the latter meant nothing to him, lacked the symbolic meaning of the roof top above it. It was the roof top and the memories it had captured that he didn't want to face.
He juggled the bouquet of carnations in his hands, trying not to squish them as he climbed higher. He had bought them this morning from Martha's Garden, it had been her favorite florist, and she deserved the best even if she wasn't actually here to receive the gift. The Italian had made himself late to work as he puzzled over which flowers to buy, over which ones she would want. He had finally, after much deliberation, gotten the carnations. He still thought they were too simple for her, for Kate Todd, she was much more complex than carnations. But roses had hinted at a love they never shared, the bright daises had been too happy for an occasion like this, and tulips just seemed out of place. Like there tall stocks and petit flowers were mismatched in proportion, like their beauty was marred. He had never seen Kate's beauty as marred. Thus, the carnations had been bought.
Tony pulled himself up onto the last step, took a deep breath, and brought his head up over the latter. Just enough so that he could see the demon roof top, the roof top that had taken her, and scarred their team. A sob broke the tender silence and Tony jumped slightly at the sound before realizing who had made it. His boss.
The older man stood limp and broken in the middle of the roof top. His knees gave out and he dropped onto them in the center of the flowers he had just laid out for her. Roses. Tony took a silent breath as he looked at the crimson petals that covered the grimy, ancient rooftop tiles. He had seen roses as a horrid reminder of a love he never got to share with the fiery brunette, a brunette he had said time and time again was too smart to fall for him, he hadn't realized that someone else had captured her heart, hadn't ever considered outside of joking that it had been his boss. He knew he could be overreacting, that just because the roses spoke to him as love didn't mean they spoke to Gibbs that way. He could've just seen the flowers, thought they were pretty and bought them. But he couldn't. He knew deep down, before he even saw the gold band that dangled from a chain on his bosses neck, that they had been a couple, that they had been married, the flashes of memory that pointed out the obviousness of this hit him in a flash.
His boss putting up with her quiet antics and putting a vest on before they left for Danboard Avionics that day, her screaming his name in her sleep, the terror that had painted her face as she said it, him running to her before Tony had even had time to blink, they way he held her as he undid her vest, and the smile on her pained face at being in his arms. Then earlier moments and memories, the shock and terror on his bosses face as he proclaimed to Tony that Ari had her, the terror on his face when months earlier she had been stuck with the terrorist in autopsy, the smirk he wore as he corrected the theory about her tattoo. They had been together since they met and he had never known it. Never gotten to tease her about it, or interpret what the subtle light in her eyes, he only now remembered, meant. And as the realization set it, he too cried, on the roof top where she died.
A/N: Well….