A/N: Just like I promised I managed to get this up during the weekend. Hope everyone likes: let me know.

For everyone who keeps hoping for a happy resolution: I'm not telling whether or not you are going to get one :P Gotta keep the suspense going. For the moment I am really enjoying writing my first successful angsty piece.

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Chapter Two: Complex Insanity – Tuesday

"So much for back to normal." The words were a heavy sigh as he sagged onto his couch Tuesday evening. His body was tired after the previous night's lack of real sleep. He had tried to clear his mind - to drift off into the bliss of unconsciousness - but all he could see each time he closed his eyes was Kate and sleep hadn't come. His mind was as tired, if not more so. Every minute of the day had been spent attempting to keep up the appearance that nothing was wrong, but little things had gotten under his skin all day.

He was pretty sure that he was offering up the perfect façade of normality. Years of shoving his emotions under a mask of gruffness and distance had paid off through the day. Externally he had made it back to the man he had been before all of the weekend's activities occurred.

But the external was a complete lie. In his own mind every task had taken an immense effort of concentration and focus. Even simple things like pulling up files on his computer or pouring a cup of coffee, both of which he normally would do automatically, had required secondary thought.

He considered briefly, as he relaxed against the sofa's back, that all of this might actually be easier if he wasn't so regularly distant from people while still being intensely involved in the events surrounding him. He couldn't lose concentration for a moment without them noticing, but also couldn't fall on any of them for help; not even Ducky. He knew that eventually the pressure of playing both sides of the board would eventually break him, but he had no idea how to stop it.

As he closed his eyes against the sudden headache and increased wave of exhaustion, his mind forced him back to a number of moments from the day.

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Tony had watched cautiously as he entered the bullpen that morning. No doubt his mind was still on the oddities of Monday's routine and wondered if Gibbs' bizarre behavior would continue. His fears seemed to be relieved when Gibbs immediately began barking out orders for the day's work. Even without specific cases to work there was still plenty that could be done.

Placing his coffee cup on the desk in front of him, he had immediately dropped his attention to his own paperwork all the while hoping beyond hope that a case would come their way quickly and give them something 'real' to do.

Despite the appearance of complete concentration on the file in front of him and the steady motion of his pen across the document, most of his attention was focused on the light banter that occasionally drifted between Kate and Tony. Even with the slight slow down their talking usually resulted in, he had never before told them to stop, well aware that the camaraderie now would help them trust each other in the field. That day he had to fight the desperate desire to tell them to cut it out; every comment of Kate's drifting into his subconscious and pulling out other memories: 'I want you, and have for a long time.'

He shook himself out of the memory as the phone on his desk rang, pulling him out of that night and back to the present. His team waited silently as he took the call and were already out of their chairs as his familiar words filled the bullpen.

"Gear up!"

It took only seconds for them to be ready to go and into the elevator, but Gibbs' mind wasn't on the case, but rather on the fact that Kate had chosen to stand at a diagonal behind him in the box instead of at his side as normal.

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The case appeared to be pretty simple; the NCIS team needing to do little but collect witness statements. A petty officer had tried to rob a convenience store and been shot in the process. There was no real investigation necessary and on any other day Gibbs might have complained about his advanced team being given such a low assignment. However, any distraction was welcome at that point and he gave Tony a rough slap across the head when the younger agent voiced those exact thoughts.

Moving to the back of the store with McGee to collect witness statement, he once again was drawn into the changes that that night had wrought. At any other crime scene Kate would have accompanied him to interviews, but he knew that her presence would do little more than to continue to distract him from the work before him.

Sweeping his gaze over the crime scene and his agents hard at work, he sighed internally before turning back to the job. 'Normal' seemed to be working for everyone but him.

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He had tried all day to avoid being alone in Kate's company, despite the fact that if things had been truly normal it would have been all too routine to have the team split: him and Kate on one task with Tony and McGee on another. For the most part he'd been successful at keeping the distance, working with Tony and McGee instead, but the last requirement of the day had allowed no such luxury.

While his usual disposition ran towards gruff and abrupt, he was well aware of the fact that confronting a mother, especially one with known emotional issues, with the news of her son's death required tact; something he knew from previous experience that Tony lacked and that McGee hadn't been on the job long enough to have acquired. So he had had no other choice than to take the thirty minute car trip with Kate. The trip might have been significantly less uncomfortable had his mind not so utterly revolted against the forced and faked pleasantness of small talk. But it had and the ride passed in complete silence.

Keeping his focus on the road had taken all his mental capacity and by the time they had delivered their bad news and made it back to headquarters he had been completely mentally and physically exhausted. Forcing himself back behind his desk and keeping himself there until he was the last one out - like normal - had been one of the most difficult things he'd ever had to do, and that included the entirety of his service in the Corps.

As the last agent had straggled out of the office, he had turned off his desk light and headed home himself.

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He had tried to work on his boat after he'd arrived home; to lose himself in the wood and the activity. But, as with everything else since Sunday, the basement was now tinged with memories of Kate. The feel of her willing body as he'd pushed her back against the wood frame, the mix of her perfume with the scent of sawdust which dominated the room, and the look of desire in her eyes just before he'd kissed her that first time. He'd quickly given up all hope of using his boat as a distraction and trudged up the stairs to the living room.

Finally giving up any hope of his thoughts and dreams being Kate free, he stretched out on the couch and closed his eyes. Running through the events of the day had helped neither his headache nor his overall mental state and he resigned himself to yet another night of tossing and turning. His last thought before slipping into a restless sleep, and the only positive one he'd had all day, was that maybe it would get easier to pretend as time went by. He could only hope that the next day would be better.

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TBC