"Almost 11 years ago, Gibbs and I were called in to investigate a death on Air Force One. The man had died of a stroke, but we suspected more. While we were investigating, we met the young and feisty Kate Todd, who was at the time working for the Secret Service. We of course wanted the body, but it wasn't that easy. The FBI, Secret Service, and us all wanted the body. So we only had one option. Highjack the plane."
"What? You highjacked Air Force One?"
"Yep. We worked with Kate and flew it right back to DC. But when we got there, the FBI wanted the body. So, Gibbs put me in a body bag, and hid the real one. We completely fooled them. They were already an hour away before they realized it was me. My phone went off, and then the FBI threw the body bag, with me inside, out on the side of the highway."
"Thats gotta hurt." I say.
"It wasn't very pleasant, I will admit. But in the end, we caught the dirtbag, and Gibbs offered Kate a job. That was when we really became a team. Before, it was just Gibbs and I, partners. But now we were a team, ready to take on the world. Kate didn't have any crime scene skills, but she was a fast learner and picked up tactics quickly. We were a great team, with very high success rates. Kate added a somewhat professional aspect to the team; she was not a big fan of me dating so many women, but we worked well together anyways. She is on the only agent on team Gibbs who was never headslapped too."
"Headslapped?" I ask, confused.
"Yep. Its this thing that Gibbs does when someone messes up, a slap to the back of the head. I get headslapped the most of course. But with Kate, Gibbs never went there. She didn't slip up a lot, and when she did, she always fixed it. So she managed to avoid the headslaps."
"How often do you get headslapped?" I ask. I hadn't seen one yet, so they must not be very common.
"Not very often now. Back then, a ton. I tended to mess up a lot, and my attitude didn't help very much either. I was a younger agent, and my mouth tended to get me in trouble. But I've changed since then. Matured, I guess you could say. But Kate was ten times more mature then me, even before she met Gibbs. And she was best friends with Abby. Abby liked having another girl, sorry, women, as Kate would say, to talk to. But unfortunately, Kate couldn't stay with us forever."
"What happened to her?" I ask cautiously.
"Killed in the line of duty. We had just busted some dirtbags who were trying to fire a drone, and Kate had just taken a bullet for Gibbs, luckily it hadn't punctured her vest. Gibbs and I helped her stand up, and all of the sudden a shot came out of nowhere." I can tell he is struggling through this, so I give him a minute and then ask,
"What happened?"
"Sniper." He forces out. He takes a minute to compose himself, then continues. "On the rooftop across from us. I should have seen him. I was standing less then three feet away from her when the bullet hit her. Her blood splattered on my face." While he says this, he just looks out the window, maybe thinking that if he looks hard enough Kate will appear in front of him.
"It was hard on all of us." he continues. "Having her gone. She was alive one minute, and dead the next. We had grown very close, and her loss hit us hard. For months we wouldn't let anybody sit at her desk. With her gone, the team was not complete…"