spoiler alert: this tag contains small sort of spoilers ish to the season 6 episode Broken Bird

Heart Break

"Caitlin."

Kate looked up, startled. 'Get over it' Gibbs had told her, and she probably should, but she wasn't even sure she could bring herself to try. Did she want to become the kind of person who could shrug off taking the life of an innocent man? Really?

Still, she had turned this over in her mind too many times already, and she was grateful for the interruption. "Hi Ducky." She managed a smile.

Ducky's eyes flicked over to the now closed autopsy drawer and then back to her face. His expression suggested that her smile wasn't very convincing, but at least she was trying.

He laid a hand on her shoulder. "Caitlin, it wasn't your fault."

Kate nodded. She was sure her nod was about as convincing as her smile had been. "I know."

She did know. Somehow that made no difference at all.

"Oh, my dear." Ducky squeezed gently. "You mustn't take the weight of the world on your shoulders. That isn't your job. You were protecting your partner from an armed man."

"He was just a kid, Ducky. A kid who was made miserable by his father then his superior officer, and he had done nothing wrong..." She looked down at her feet. It felt wrong to accept the sympathy in Ducky's eyes.

He sighed deeply. At least he wasn't telling her to get over it. He let go of her shoulder and shuffled over to his desk. Slowly, gathering his belongings, he began to speak, and Kate had the strangest impression that he was talking to her almost as if she were a body lying on one of those cold metal tables - a listener who would take a secret to her grave.

"... I was with the Royal Army Medical Corps, stationed in Afghanistan. In a refugee camp that was rife with pain and despair, fear..."

As she listened, Kate wondered why he was telling her this.

"Terrible things happened in that camp, and for quite some time I was not privy to the worst of it. There was a man..."

She really couldn't figure out how this was supposed to make her feel better. Or even if it was meant to help - had Ducky forgotten she was there?

"Javid. I will never forget his face. He had done nothing wrong, and yet..."

She had to admit that there was something oddly comforting about listening to Ducky ramble, even if she couldn't figure out what the point was-

"... and so I took the morphine and I killed him."

Kate's head snapped up, and she could feel herself gaping with surprise. "Ducky- you- you did what?"

"I killed him, Caitlin, because I saw no alternative. I could see him fading, see the wounds in his hands suppurating, the infection that had resulted from the torture, and I could see no other way out. But I still took an innocent life." His eyes were shiny with unshed tears. "So, you see, I do understand. More than you realised."

Kate stared at him a few moments longer, wondering how long he had kept this secret, whether he had told anyone else. She felt strangely touched that he had relived it, relived his own pain, just to try and comfort her.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about this, Caitlin. I trust you can keep an old man's secret. It's a painful memory and not one I'm proud of, or that I speak about, even to Jethro."

She nodded mutely. He hadn't even told Gibbs? Even if she had wanted to, she had missed too much to be able to tell the story to anyone, but this was Ducky. Of course she wouldn't... "Of course, Ducky. I won't tell."

Ducky nodded, smiled a little wanly, then picked up his hat. "Now, my dear. I don't suppose you like the ballet?"

Kate blinked, and he smiled a little more widely at her evident confusion.

"No matter, no matter. I shall ask Anthony, maybe it will help him find a date for the evening."

Kate was getting more confused by the second. "I'm sorry?"

"Caitlin, would you allow me the honour of buying you dinner?"

His courtly manner was so old fashioned, so gentlemanly, the offer so unexpected but so very Ducky, that she couldn't help but smile back at him. She hadn't wanted company, but then she really didn't want to go home on her own either, so...

"Actually Ducky, that would be lovely... and thank you."

He smiled one of those impish grins that made her forget his age for a moment. "It will be my pleasure." He offered her his arm and led her towards the elevator. "We must first make a stop in the bullpen, and then I shall introduce you to a charming bistro I discovered in Georgetown. They make the most delicious borscht I've eaten outside the former USSR. Tell me, Caitlin, did you ever hear about the time I ate borscht at the Kremlin with Gorbachev...?"