Kate studied her reflection in the hand mirror. Very gently, she prodded the various bruises that covered her face, wincing as her fingers brushed the darkest patch on her forehead.
"You know, they generally hurt less if you don't poke them," said a voice from the doorway.
Kate let the hand mirror fall onto the covers, and turned to face her visitor. It was Tony who had spoken, but McGee was also with him, a bunch of daffodils in his hand.
"Hey," she said, smiling as brightly as she could manage without painful tears springing to her eyes.
"Hey," they both replied in unison.
"I brought you some flowers," added McGee, holding the daffodils up in front of him.
"Thanks, Tim," said Kate, "Stick them over on that table, would you?"
He did so.
"So how do you feel?" asked McGee.
"Well, the painkillers are working pretty well, but it still hurts – especially in the mornings." She glanced at the clock on the wall. "Speaking of mornings, aren't you two going to be late for work?"
"Yeah," said McGee, "But we didn't want you to think we'd forgotten about you. Anyway, Gibbs is less scary if there are two of you for him to get angry at."
Kate looked incredulous.
"Okay, well, a little less scary…slightly."
"Why else do you think I'd go anywhere outside of work with Probie?" said Tony.
Kate frowned, but it was not because Tony was being rude to McGee (yet again). It was because though Tony said it in his normal voice, and with his normal smirk, everything seemed somewhat…diluted. He wasn't grinning as much as usual, his voice had a strange edge to it that she did not recognise, and that she did not like.
"Well, I don't want to be the reason Gibbs kills you both. Thanks for the flowers, but you'd best be off."
McGee nodded, and briefly touched her shoulder in an affectionate way, before leaving the room. Tony went to follow him, but Kate leaned over and grabbed his wrist.
"Do you mind being a little later than you were planning?"
"McGee, I'll make my own way to work. Tell Gibbs I might be a bit late!"
He waited to hear McGee's affirmative reply, and drew up a chair.
"So what's so urgent then, Katie?"
There it was again. The ghost-like approximation of what Tony should be. He was grinning, but there was no real jest behind it. Kate decided to act as though it was normal.
"Call me Katie again, and Gibbs won't be the one you're worried about."
This time the grin looked a little more natural.
"Okay, agent Todd, what is it you want to discuss?"
"Well, I want to know what happened in the basement. It might not have been very nice, but it's not very nice to wake up with a load of bruises you don't remember getting, either."
For a moment, Tony felt worried, but then he realised what she was asking. Kate wanted to know how she had received each blow. She wanted to know what the bomber had been asking. She wanted the "who", "where", "when", and "why" of it all. She wasn't interested in how it had felt. She didn't want to hear how she had looked so little and scared as the bomber rained punches on her. She didn't want to know how she had cried, and desperately tried to tell him that she didn't know anything he didn't want her to. She wasn't interested in how she and Tony had exchanged looks of dread, as they had been about to face being shot.
It would be far easier doing what she wanted. Almost like writing up a report.
"Well," he started, "We were looking around the guy's basement. You were saying how attractive I was…"
"No such luck, Tony. I remember that bit."
"Can't blame a guy for trying. Okay, well we were looking around, and you were telling me how stupid I was. Then you made a weird..."yelp"ing noise…" Okay, so maybe not exactly like writing a report.
"Yelp?"
"Yes, a "yelp". Are you going to keep interrupting me?"
"Sorry."
"Anyway. I turned round to see what had bothered you, and you were on the floor, out cold."
Kate nodded. "He hit me with something."
"His gun. So, I got mine out, and started looking around. He must have been hidden behind those old mattresses. He came up behind me, and put his gun to my head. He tied me to a chair, and put a gag to my mouth."
"What then?"
"We waited for you to wake up. When you did, he tied you up while you were still dizzy. He needed to find out whether we knew where the bomb was. We said that we didn't but he didn't believe us, so he…"
"Hit me again?"
Tony didn't say anything, but he nodded.
For a moment, neither of them said anything. Tony was silently reliving the incident. Kate knew that Tony was silently reliving the incident.
"You know I'm okay, don't you?" she said, eventually.
Tony looked at her, and she smiled at him.
"I'm okay," she repeated.
"I know."
He was lying.
NCIS NCIS NCIS
Tony didn't sleep at all that night. Just as he had not the previous night. Just as he was sure that he would not the next night.
As he stood in his dark kitchen, drinking from the first bottle he had grabbed from his fridge, which now turned out to be one of iced tea, he tried to figure out what was bothering him so much. After all, he had seen Kate hurt before. She was clearly okay, and didn't even remember what had happened. So, what was the problem?
Deep down, he knew. At heart, he was as old fashioned as Gibbs. He knew that Kate was a highly competent agent, but at times like this, she was first and foremost, in his mind at least, a woman. A woman he cared about. A woman who had, before his very eyes, been tied to a chair, and repeatedly hurt for information she didn't have. And he had been helpless to stop.
He grinned darkly at himself. Kate was lying in hospital recovering from torture, and he was worried about his masculinity. She'd go nuts if she knew what he was thinking.
"Women do not need to be protected, DiNozzo! I can look after myself!"
It was almost as if she were in the room.
"It's hard to keep remembering that," he whispered back.