Title: Undercover, Ch. 7

Rating: K+ with a possibility for T

A/N: And here's the second chapter I promised you. I had a lot of fun writing this one (especially the bit from Gibbs' point of view). Although I must admit that I borrowed the inspiration for the setting from the beginning of "The Bone Yard," where Kate catches McGee looking at her while she's stretching. I happen to think that Gibbs' reaction is almost as much fun. So, as always, let me know what you think and I sincerely hope you enjoy. :)

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He's pretty sure the woman's deliberately trying to drive him crazy.

First there was her little stunt at the pool yesterday, which he knows full well was carefully designed to get all over his last nerve. He doesn't particularly mind that she was so quiet during the conversation they had with the other two couples. She's been trained as a profiler, and he knows she was silently noting every move they made, every word they spoke. But why the hell she felt she had to draw attention to herself by parading around the pool in that tiny little bikini is completely beyond him. She might as well have tacked a sign to her back asking everyone with a Y-chromosome to look his fill.

The image of Kate in that black bikini didn't much help him get to sleep last night either. If the previous night had been awkward, last night was infinitely worse. After they got back from dinner with their newfound friends, she took a long shower, put on those mind-boggling pajamas, and climbed into bed with a book. They didn't speak to each other unless it was something about the case, and when he finally switched off the light, they clung religiously to their separate sides of the bed for the entirety of the night. In the morning she videoconferenced with the rest of the team while he was in the shower, then they headed down to breakfast in the same icy silence that had enveloped them the night before.

And now he has a new mental image to add to the gallery he's forming in his head. He's got quite a lot of them by now—her flushed cheeks as she edged out of the bathroom in those damned pajamas, the sparkle in her eyes as she smiled at him over her wine at dinner, her lips pursed adorably as she blew on her coffee at breakfast this morning, the wind whipping through her hair as they drove with the windows down through a busy D.C. thoroughfare—but he's fairly certain that this one tops all the rest. They're in the hotel gym, which is completely empty at 9:00 in the morning, and she's currently engaged in some sort of stretching routine that involves, among other things, full-out splits on the mats on the floor. He's seriously considering putting down the fifty-pound weights he's holding before he drops one on his toes.

She's turning her head and saying something to him; he's not quite sure what because of the buzzing noise that is a direct result of all the blood rushing out of his head. After all, the woman is currently on her hands and knees arching her back like a cat, the movement agonizingly slow and sinuous, and she seems completely unaware of the fact that he's standing not five feet away from her with absolutely nothing to impede his view. Blinking, he swallows hard and tries to focus on whatever it is she's trying to tell him.

"Gibbs?" she says, a slight edge of annoyance in her voice. "Were you listening to anything I just said?"

He resists the overwhelming desire to tell her exactly why he wasn't paying any attention to what she was just saying, deciding to go with a bad-tempered grunt instead. Hopefully she'll get the message.

She gets up off her hands and knees and bends over at the waist, touching her fingers to the toes of her sensible running shoes. He can see her dark eyes staring at him suspiciously from her upside-down face.

"I was telling you that Ducky found something in the third female victim's hair," she says, huffing a little as she shifts positions to stretch her left leg. "He missed it the first time around because it was so tiny."

He figures it's about time he contributed something to this conversation, so he tries to ignore the truly excellent fit of her cotton workout pants and asks, "So what was it?"

"That's what Abby's trying to figure out," she says, sitting on the mat and extending one leg in front of her. "She said that it's definitely a fragment of some kind of fabric—she thinks it's wool. And it's red—like a deep scarlet color, she said."

He grunts again and sets the weights back in the rack with a clang. "Anything else?"

She's bent backwards, stretching the muscles in her thigh as she stares up at the ceiling.

"Uh-huh. Tony and McGee did a little fieldwork and figured out that the cord the killer used to tie the male victims' hands is just basic clothesline—you can get it at pretty much any supermarket or grocery store."

She sits up straight and crosses her legs, bending over again and stretching her arms out in front of her.

"Just our luck—he could have gotten it anywhere," she says, her words slightly muffled by the mat. Taking advantage of the fact that she can't see him at the moment, he rolls his eyes briefly at her prone figure.

Just his luck, all right.

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She doesn't know what's wrong with him, but she wishes he'd get it out of his system already.

He's never been much of a talker, but this deafening silence is uncharacteristic even for him. She misses his occasional sarcastic comments, his probing questions, even the knowing gleam in his eye that often takes the place of words. For a man who spends a great deal of his time not talking, she's discovering that he nevertheless manages to communicate quite well. Until he decides to completely shut down, that is.

And the worst of it is that she has no idea what his problem is. Of course she realizes that the kiss they shared yesterday morning probably has something to do with it. She knows perfectly well that it was a mistake—a huge mistake—and that life would be much easier at the moment if they hadn't realized simultaneously just how much they wanted each other. She knows that it was an aberration, a stolen moment that has nothing to do with the demands and duties of real life. She knows that the reason she's here is to do her job, and that job does not include morning make-out sessions with her boss…no matter how much she may wish otherwise. But she's willing—reluctant but willing—to try to forget about it, to put the awkwardness and tension behind them and focus on the case.

It isn't helping that he doesn't seem to be paying the least bit of attention to the information she's trying to tell him. She has to admit that she's a bit distracted herself. She's seen Gibbs work out before—the team has semi-regular training sessions in the NCIS gym, and she's watched him before, even fought with him before. But now she somehow can't seem to keep from sneaking glances at him out of the corner of her eye, noting the play of muscle in his arms, the solid strength of his broad shoulders. Against her will, she keeps remembering those arms wrapped around her as she drifted slowly out of sleep, the firm muscles of his back flexing under her hands as his mouth tormented hers. But as she uses the handles of the treadmill as an impromptu barre, she tries to temporarily block out the images that keep stealthily assaulting her brain.

"Gibbs…" she pants, trying to capture his wandering attention again. "There's something else I got from headquarters. McGee…" she winces as she stretches a little more than she meant to, "…McGee finally got their cell phones from the FBI, and he and Abby are tracing the last calls made before they died. They haven't gotten anything yet, but he said they'll call when they have something good. And Tony..." she switches to the other leg and wonders briefly how sore she's going to be the next morning, "…is compiling a list of all the places they went while they were in D.C. He says it's probably going to take him a while, but he'll do his best to hurry."

She hears him mutter something under his breath, but doesn't bother to ask. He doesn't seem to want to talk to her lately anyway. Done with her stretching routine, she heads over to the rack of weights and chooses two that are slightly heavier than her usual. This morning she wants to feel the burn of her muscles working harder than normal.

After a moment, she hears herself speaking without conscious volition, her mouth briefly taking over from her brain. "Do you really think he'll hit the same hotel again?"

She looks over her shoulder at him where he's doing sit-ups on the mat. He pauses for a moment and meets her eyes for the first time that morning.

"We don't know," he finally says, his gaze steady on her face. "But if I were a demented killer, I think an officers' gala would be pretty hard to pass up."

She lets herself smile a little, thinking of Gibbs as a crazed psychopath with butcher knife in hand. "Let's hope he thinks like you, then," she says lightly. "Because if he doesn't, we're going to have to start all over again."

He huffs out a breath as he resumes his sit-ups, and she thinks she hears him say something before she turns back to lifting weights. She's not sure exactly what it was, but it sounded remarkably like "God forbid."

She hadn't expected him to sound so bitter. No wonder his three marriages didn't work out, she thinks nastily to herself. The man is stubborn, domineering, difficult, and just plain bull-headed. A woman would have to be insane to want to spend the rest of her life with him.

And she ignores the sudden ache in her heart as she starts lifting again, concentrating on the burn in her muscles so that she can forget about the stab of hurt she felt at his careless words. She's just an agent, she reminds herself. A federal agent who's doing her job and nothing more.

But she can't help wondering if he's ever going to talk to her normally again.