Chapter VI

"You said you di-… went away for us. I still don´t get why." Jethro asked outright and gave her a puzzled look, still having trouble to voice his thoughts, but at the same time he was hoping that she would know what he was trying to say. "We would have been able to get rid of Ari by ourselves, without this sacrifice."

Caitlin looked into his deep blue eyes and shook her head slowly. "No, one of us would have died because he wanted that and to take me out of my life was the only option we had to protect you and the rest of the team. Certainly it wasn´t the best option I know that better than anyone else, but obviously it worked. We decided that letting you die in a car-accident or something would have been too obvious. Ari would have known that it was too much of a coincidence."

"Who is this `we´?" The gray-haired man replied after a short pause to process what he just heard.

"Deputy director Morrow for Homeland Security, NCIS director Shepard and director David from Mossad, well and I of course. It was more like a split decision than a well-prepared plan." The brunette explained and the older man knew that she couldn´t tell him everything because huge parts of her mission were top secret and even for him off-limits. "The only thing that counted was that none of you got hurt or worse killed. We succeeded at that, but lost Ari afterwards. It took months to locate him again and to make sure that he didn´t turn into a traitor or started working for anyone else."

Kate deliberately left out the fact that Ziva had been Ari´s control officer at the time he was trying to hunt them down in case Gibbs didn´t know about this yet. It would probably only cause mistrust in the team which wasn´t necessary since Haswari was dead now. "So why did you show up here? At my house you had to know that I would see you sooner or later."

"When we found him I was placed as his control officer. I found out that he was after you again so the director send me here to make sure that you were safe since we couldn´t tell you that you were in danger. If he had known that you were aware of anything, he would have submerged again and we couldn´t risk that." The female agent pointed out and the NCIS investigator threw her a confused look, somehow sensing that she wasn´t telling him everything. "He never saw me. We communicated over a secured phone or via ciphered emails. Everything else would have been too dangerous since he was still trying to infiltrate sleeper cells, at the same time we could avoid that he discovered that it was me."

The gray-haired man nodded and looked straight into her eyes, seeing that she was honest with him. He knew there was no point to question what she told him since she wouldn´t reveal top secret information anyways. "And now? What happens now, I mean are you going back to work with Mossad?"

"I don´t think so. After all I´m the reason why one of their most useful double agents was shot." She stated and and Jethro nodded. He didn´t feel the need to know who killed Haswari or how he died, the only thing which counted for him was that the bastard was dead and wouldn´t come back ever again, unlike Kate. He had missed her the past months and he had a really hard time to recover from the loss. Truth to be told he still didn´t heal completely and her sudden appearance caused an emotional turmoil. Of course he was happy that she was back, but at the same time afraid that she would leave again, go back to Israel or wherever she spent the last months. "I don´t know what I´ll do now, but I´m pretty sure that I´ll find something."

"Yeah…" The silver-haired man said and trailed off. He was fine for the moment with the information he got, if he wanted to know more he would call in a few favors and get the personal file she had under her alias. There was just one other question burning on his tongue, but his mouth was still refusing to form the words. "I saw you being shot on that rooftop and your body in the morgue. There was… There was a hole in your forehead and the back of your head… How could this look so damn real?"

"I assume you won´t be surprised if I told you that it was a fake, everything." The brunette stated and he nodded, chuckling for a second, before his features turned serious again. "Ari was firing with blanks and didn´t even know it. I had little bits of explosive attached to my head along with these blood thingies they use on TV. At the same time I took a drug which made my vital signs almost untraceable. Ducky never performed an autopsy because my will said I didn´t want it, he respected my wish and after all the COD was obvious."

"But the bullets we collected on the roof were real ones. There weren´t any blanks Abby would have noticed it." The older man said and frowned while the female agent nodded.

"Ari tried the rifle before. It was me who took the bullets and the coats, other agents switched the blanks on the rooftop with the ones I had. Illegal for sure, but necessary for the success of the operation. As soon as I was out of the morgue they put a perfect wax-replica of me into the coffin and sent me to Israel to start working with Mossad as officer Sara Levi. By the time you attended my funeral I was already looking for Ari all over the world." Caitlin explained and sighed when she felt like she had told him everything he wanted and needed to know. She knew all the information at once must be overwhelming, she didn´t feel any different when she was introduced to her new mission which resulted in a life as a Mossad officer.

"Well, you definitely succeeded at every point. I never thought anyone could trick the team and me like that." Jethro stated and Kate could hear a strain in his voice. She knew it must have been hard for everyone, after all they thought she died but it hadn´t been easy for her either. The brunette snapped out of her dark thoughts when she felt Gibbs´ arm coming to rest around her shoulders. He pulled her into his side and for the first time since she left Washington D.C. over a year ago she felt at home again.

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