This is my first NCIS fic. Please be nice. :)

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Immediately after Kate's "death"

They didn't bother checking for a pulse. What would be the point? In her mind's eye, Kate saw what they saw. She was lying on a rooftop, with a bullet in her head. The thought brought a sudden sick feeling to the pit of her stomach.

She tried to tell herself that this was just another rehearsal. In her mind, she replaced Tony and Gibbs with the actors that had so often taken their place. She imagined Ducky stood a few feet off, trying to smile for her sake, to let her know that it was all going to be all right.

It didn't work. The sick feeling got worse. She felt clammy.

She tried being methodical, rational. She remembered the face of the fake shooter. She remembered the blood pack hidden in her hair. She remembered how she had stood in exactly the right place, so carefully positioning herself between her colleagues so that they would not see when she swiftly made the necessary changes to her appearance. She remembered how Ducky would soon arrive, and turn her into a "corpse".

That didn't work either. All she could concentrate on were the voices of Gibbs and Tony. She could hear Gibbs calling Ducky. His voice was calm, but she had worked with him long enough to know that he was deeply shaken. She could hear Tony heaving slightly. He would not let himself throw up, but she knew that her sudden "death" had affected him deeper than she had previously let herself imagine it would.

She knew how they felt. Fighting back the urge to forget that they were agents and just collapse with the enormity of it all. The first time she had practised this, she had cried and cried. She wanted to yell at them, tell them that she had her reasons and that this was the very last resort, but that would defeat the point of all the months of work and planning.

Instead, she stayed stationary, as she had practised, and tried desperately to forget that she had just faked her own death.

Ducky arrives

Being zipped into a body bag was the weirdest sensation Kate had ever experienced. Even now, when she had practised with Ducky over and over again, it still felt horrible. However, she hardly noticed that. She was too busy concentrating on the fact that it was only a few minutes before she could open her eyes, and stretch, and speak again. It sounded silly, but she needed to remind herself that she wasn't actually dead.

She felt herself being lifted into the van by Jimmy and Ducky. She heard the doors slam, and she heard the body bag being unzipped. She wanted to spring up, but she waited to hear Ducky's confirmation, as she had been instructed.

"You can open your eyes, Caitlin."

It made a strange sight, an apparent corpse suddenly sitting up and flinging her arms around the doctor stood over her.

"I'm…dead, Ducky." Her voice shook as she said it.

At her words, Ducky pulled away from her, held her at arm's length, looked her directly in the eye, and said very firmly, "No you are not. You are quite definitely alive."

Kate tried to take comfort from the words, but she couldn't.

"I might as well be, though. I'm never going to see any of you again. All my friends, my family, as far as they're concerned, that's it. Kate Todd, deceased."

"Now, you listen to me. The others will catch Ari, and in no time at all, you'll be able to come back."

"I appreciate you trying, Ducky, but you know that's not true. Even if they do catch Ari, it's not just him, is it? If it was, we wouldn't have been reduced to this. Ari's too powerful, too well connected. He has made up his mind that I'm going to die, and nothing will stop that, unless everyone thinks I'm already dead. No, as from now on, my life as Caitlin Todd is over."

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