This is a re-upload of an old story, rewritten to be... well, better. Includes grief and character death.


"Tony, you can't bond with your captor in a couple of hours."

"I don't know, maybe it's like falling in love. It can happen (snaps fingers) like that"


Tony DiNozzo was falling apart.

He stumbled into his apartment, crumpling onto his couch, dropping his head into his hands. Normally immaculate in his attire, his expensive suit was uncharacteristically soiled with sweat and splattered with stains across the collar. The sleeves of his suit jacket bunched and crumpled at the end where he'd been scrunching them into damp palms all afternoon, trying to hold himself together.

He would had given every tailored outfit in his wardrobe, every expensive item in his pricey apartment, everything he owned for this day to have never happened. His home, filled with pretty, flashy things designed to wow and impress had never seemed like more a sham. If his home had any hope of reflecting the man he was at this moment, then everything in the room should be shattered, useless, cold.

Even with all his expensive trinkets, he still couldn't be a man capable of saving his partner.

His mind betrayed the blank expression on his face. Thoughts flickered to and fro, racing about with no mean or order. Memories long forgotten resurfaced. Such was his detachment from the present, he couldn't remember the drive home, the walk to his apartment, unlocking his door. His mind was a broken record, replaying endlessly the countless moments long since passed, the memories that were now his only solace.

If he could hold his mind together a little longer, stop it from shattering apart into madness, he would wake up from this nightmare. It couldn't be real, not after everything they'd been through together.

His breath hitched in his throat as the memories continued to assault him, bringing with his a sharp bubble of pain in his chest that swelled and pulsed, choking him and making his heart thump sporadically.

Memories. The first time they'd met her, and knowing straight away they'd found someone special.

("I heard you quit, Agent Todd."
"Happy news gets around fast. Yes, I resigned. It was the right thing to do."
"Yep. Pull that crap at NCIS, I won't give you a chance to resign."
"Is that a job offer?")

The way she smiled, especially when she thought no one was watching.

("I think she saw me. She gave me that look."

"What look?"

" The look she's always giving you.")

Her laugh, although it was usually mocking him.

Her constant teasing of him, the bickering, the fights.

("Y'know, you realize what would happen if I dropped this knife, Tony?")

The knowledge that no matter what, she was his partner and she'd always have his six.

Her eyes, filled with fear, thinking he was dying of the plague. How she stayed with him, lied to him, even though she could have been infected.

The relief when she knew he would be ok.

("Damnit, Tony. I should just take you home and get you into bed.")

The sound of her breathing when she slept.

He wondered what it would have been like to kiss her, just once. To hear her say, "I love you." To hold her in his arms, just once, listening to her heartbeat. The bubble swelled with that and he closed his eyes and opened his mouth in a wordless sob, the every thought too painful to comprehend.

("Me and Kate? Never happen."
"Why not?"
"She's too smart for that.")

She'd tease him about his womanising, but he'd gladly never touch a woman again for the possibility of holding her just once more in his arms.

("She didn't look so bad to me."
"It's not that. She's just not my type."
"Really? Female hard body who likes to take her clothes off is not your type?")

The way she

("Kate!")

looked as

("I just got shot at point blank range Dinozzo, what do you think.")

she died,

("Protection detail's over Kate.")

still smiling.

("Wow, I thought I'd die before I ever heard a comp-")

And all at once, he was wrenched back to the present: the feel of her blood on his face again, burning him. He leapt and raced for the bathroom, gagging on the bile that was trying to choke him. He staggered, still caught up in the past. He'd never feel her heart beat against his palm because her heart wasn't beating at all anymore. She'd never smile again, never laugh, never -

Ripped open the cupboard

("thought I'd die")

and grabbed at every soap and cleanser he could

("I just got shot")

knowing that it would take more

("point blank rage")

than just scrubbing to remove her blood

("over Kate")

from his skin.

But he tried, until his face was raw and bleeding, the sponge slipped from numb hands, and water dripped from his face. The blood was a part of him now, an indelible tattoo that glistened on his skin and spelt "FAILURE" in a burning red. He stared into the mirror trying to recognize the Tony he knew, in place of the empty, trembling shell that stared back.

He wondered if it was only water that ran down his cheeks, or if some of it was tears.

He wondered if the pain in his chest would kill him, and for a moment he felt glad of the idea.

("DiNozzo men don't cry.")

He decided that he didn't care either way, she was worth the tears. He closed his eyes and tried to picture her face. He couldn't concentrate, what colour were her eyes? It seemed suddenly important, more important than anything, that he remember this.

He couldn't let her slip away because if she was gone, there was nothing holding him there anymore.

He knew that it should have been him. He should have been the one who took the bullet, for Gibbs but ultimately for Kate. It should have been his blood staining that roof. Should be him lying on Ducky's autopsy table, cold and forever unmoving.

("We are NCIS agents; there is a chance one of us dies every time we walk out that door.")

The bubble burst in his chest, releasing a torrent of raw, furious anger that flooded into his hands, making them shake and his vision narrow. He drove his fist into the mirror with a snarl, shattering it. Anger, that he couldn't even recall one simple thing. Anger because Dinozzo's shouldn't feel this way, dammit! Anger, because she was dead. Because she shouldn't have died. Not then, not that way, not ever.

The anger was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving him dazed and numb, the blood on his hands no longer in his mind, but real and sticky, oozing from countless slices and cuts from the mirror.

His energy spent he folded his knees and fell onto them on the ground, back against the bath. He vowed, next time it would be him. He would never watch another partner die. Sitting there, head bowed, blood trickling from sliced hands, he desperately pleaded to a God he didn't believe in, not again. Never again.

He faced the truth.

Kate was gone. And she'd taken a part of him with her, a part of all of them. It felt as though she'd reached in and physically ripped a hole in his chest, exposing him for the entire world to see.

Those moments that once came every day and in such a way that he never noticed them until they were gone forever. He'd spent his life waiting for that moment when he was blissfully happy with the love of his life, thinking that would be the culmination of everything he'd ever worked for.

Now he knew the moments that had made his life were the everyday ones. The Kate ones.

She was gone, and she'd never smile at him again, never tease him. Never drink another coffee, or watch another movie. Never wait for Gibbs in the bull-pen anymore. Never laugh with Abby, or go to the basement to see Ducky. The future was ahead of him, but it was empty, devoid of Kate. He was hurt, shattered into a million pieces.

He curled onto the bathroom floor, numb and knowing that soon someone would come looking for him.

Maybe Abbey, most likely Gibbs, they would grieve and heal together. Eventually. And he would hold his family close because now he knew exactly what it felt like to lose one of them.

And when he finally slept

("Kate?")

, he dreamed

("You look like crap, Dinozzo.")

. And slowly,

("I missed you too.")

the healing begun.