A/N: And here goes the next one, quicker and longer, as promised ;)

Reni-Maniac, Meg and pryrmtns: I'm afraid I'll most likely have to disappoint you: I have no idea whatsoever as to what exactly happened to Gibbs.

I'm writing this story because I wanted to examine the others' reactions and behaviour, and the case doesn't have that much to do with that.

I'm horribly bad at making up cases anyway, so it's probably better this way ;)

I do hope you'll keep reading all the same! I really appreciate your reviews!!

Now enjoy!

Doubts

For half an hour now, Tony has been sitting at his desk, staring at something that only he can see. It's late, so maybe he's just tired, but Kate doubts it.

She can see he's mulling over something, and he's really caught up in it. She says his name just to see if he'll even react, but he doesn't.

Finally, Kate rises and walks up to his desk. "Tony," she tries again, and this time she brings him out of his trance.

He blinks at her a few times, as though his head needs those moments to work out the meaning of her standing there. "Hm?"

"Anything wrong?"

Quicker than she would have believed, he's almost back to his usual self. He gives a shrug and answers: "No, why?"

He's good schooling his face into being perfectly unreadable, but it's only Kate and it's 8 p.m. after a long day, so he can't quite keep the flatness out of his voice.

Kate only cocks her head to one side, knowing he'll get the message. 'Cause I know it.

He searches for the words that'll wind him his way out of it, but eventually he realizes he probably won't get away with excuses.

Tony sighs and rubs his forehead. "Don't know," he mutters, "just this whole … situation."He falls quiet again, not making any impression of intending to say anything else soon, but Kate is pretty sure he will. Tony's unusually … well, solemn right now, and she thinks they're friends enough for her to know that he maybe needs to talk to someone tonight.

Not that he does anything of the sort often. Actually, Kate can't remember any occasion on which he would have really talked to her, but that's the special kind of relationship they have: they never exchanged opinions on serious topics of world politics, or on the meaning of luck, life, love – all the things you usually talk about when you get to know someone well.

They have something else standing in for that, something that just goes on underneath the surface. They joke and banter and argue, but beneath that she gets the message and learns to read him a bit, and she thinks it's the same the other way round.

That's just the way they are, and it's fine.

But tonight is different, just like a lot has been different since Gibbs has been gone.

So Kate just takes the few steps back to her desk and leans against it, waiting. She knows Tony needs his time to open up, but she can give him that.

He takes a minute, maybe two, then he clears his throat and says: "I don't know how to handle this, Kate. I can't figure out what's the right thing to do."

Again, the other agent tilts her head and frowns at him. "Do about what, Tony?"

He bites his lip, subconsciously, and looks away. He looks like a boy when he does that, chewing at his bottom lip with those creases of doubt or thoughtfulness or whatever else on his forehead and something very intense in his clear green eyes.

"The team," he finally replies. "Everything. I mean, look at us, Kate. We're working our asses off, but not on the cases the Director assigns us to. We're not putting half our hearts into those, if at all. And with that bastard who –", he breaks off, making an irritable gesture saying you know what. "It's not like we're making that much progress there. We spend almost all our time trying to track him down, but we don't have that much up till now, do we?"

Kate purses her lips, watching her colleague intently. "We're doing our best, however, aren't we?"

"Yeah," Tony replies with a deep sigh. "Yeah, but you know what?" He stares at her questioningly, but Kate slowly shakes her head. "What?"

"It's up to me to make our best good enough, and quite obviously I can't get that right."

Kate shifts her weight from one foot to the other, thinking Wow, I didn't quite see that one coming. Right now, she also has to admit that she's having problems following Tony's train of thought. "What do you mean, Tony?"

He studies her for a few moments, searching for something in her expression, or maybe even her posture, as if he's trying to make sure she won't be making fun of the whole conversation in a minute. Kate returns his gaze steadily, and waits.

She knows they're always treading on thin ice when they begin a serious talk, both of them. Mostly, the ice cracks and one of them starts teasing. After all, that's how they are. But she can see he couldn't use that now, and just like she's fine with their usual ways, she's fine with being different now if it helps him.

"I'm team leader, Kate", he eventually explains. "Technically. You and McGee and Abby and Ducky, you can do your work as well as you want, if I don't make the right decisions, then you're working for nothing. And I don't know if I'm not wasting our time with-"

"You think we should stop chasing that guy?" Kate interrupts for the first time, a tinge of disbelief in her voice.

"No," Tony says, "but I think it'd maybe be better if we did." He's well aware she didn't expect that, and that she definitely didn't want to hear it. He sighs and looks at her. "We're not spending enough time on Sheppard's cases. And if we fuck up, it'll have been my decision and my orders, but that'll all fall back on you." For a moment, he's silent, then he adds: "Gibbs would've found a way to fit it all in. I feel like I'm failing, Kate. The team, and Gibbs as well."

"Wow. I never thought I'd hear you saying that." Kate pushes herself away from her desk and walks up to Tony. "Don't be too hard on yourself, Tony", she tells him after a few moments. "No one ever said leading a team was easy."

He smiles and shakes his head. "Wasn't expecting it to be." He pauses and frowns at the pens he's been playing with for those past five minutes. "But I didn't expect having to actually do the job so soon, either. I thought that if I got my own team, whenever, I'd be … prepared."

"Yeah, I think you'd want to be prepared", Kate agrees. "But this is Gibbs, Tony." She leans in, trying to catch the other's gaze. "You weren't thinking it would not be a leap in the dark, were you?"

Tony chuckles and complies to her tugging eyes, looking at her. "Nah, probably not." A moment later, however, he sobers. "Don't think he planned it this way, though."

No, Kate thinks, probably not. He probably didn't plan for someone to shoot him.

She tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear and shakes her head. "You're not his senior field agent for nothing, Tony. He certainly considered a scenario like this one when he made you."

"Might have just done it 'cause I was the first on the team."

Kate nods. "Yeah, might have." There's something mocking in her voice, though gently mocking if that's possible, making him glance at her. "But it's Gibbs, Tony. He wouldn't have left you in your position just because of the paperwork it spared him."

Kate sighs heavily when Tony still doesn't look quite convinced. What is it with him? After all she's said, he should be shining like a polished star with all the ego-boosts she's given him.

She's running out of arguments.

"Tony," she finally says, "don't doubt yourself. You've got no reason. I think you're handling this really, really well. And McGee and me – we're right behind you, okay?"

He smiles at her, an honest smile. It's very different from how he usually smiles, not teasing, not one of those triumphant smiles she gets whenever he thinks Gibbs deemed his work better than hers, or one of the acid ones when it's the other way round.

It's just a genuine smile, and she likes it. "Thanks, Kate."

She nods. "You're welcome. I meant it."

As if on cue, the elevator door opens and the pizza boy comes up to deliver the order they made half an hour ago.

Tony pays him while Kate gets her chair from behind her desk, and they settle at Tony's to eat their dinner.

"You know," he says after a few bites, busily rearranging the mushrooms on his slice, "we're gonna so regret this conversation when this is over."

"Yeah", Kate confirms, "we definitely will."

Tony throws her a sideways glance. "Shall we say we'll just forget we ever had it? And agree we'll never hold up what we've just said in front of each other?"

Kate doesn't even look up from her food, nor does she seem to have to give Tony's suggestion too much thought. "No."

Tony grins. "Good."

They eat in silence for a while, Kate watching first with incredulity, then with growing disgust, as Tony keeps pushing round the topping of his pizza slices, and eventually ends up building a mushroom-and-anchovy-tower on his last piece.

When he catches her disdainful gaze, he declares: "The Leaning Tower of Pisa."

Kate purses her lips reproachfully. "Did no one teach you not to play with your food?"

"Oh come on, Kate. That's culture! Italy! I just felt homesick."

The ring of Tony's telephone cuts off Kate's retort.

Tony lets go of his edible work of architecture and wipes his fingers on a tissue.

"DiNozzo?"

Kate turns back to her own veggie pizza, not paying much attention to the conversation Tony's having with whoever still calls at an office at this time. That changes abruptly, however, when she hears the other agent say "What do you mean?" in a strangely wavering, low voice.

She drops her pizza and looks at Tony, with a sudden churning feeling in her stomach.

Tony stares straight ahead, his brow in deep creases. "What are you saying, Duck?" His words sound impatient and tense.

Kate reaches for his arm and squeezes it, trying to make him look at her. Tony obeys, but aside from the worry she already recognized in his voice, she can't read anything in his face.

"Okay," Tony says into the phone, "and what does that mean?" Then he's silent for a long time, obviously listening to some explanation from Ducky. At length, he nods, and Kate vaguely thinks how strange she's always found the fact that people use body language when talking on the phone.

"Yeah, Kate's here. McGee went up to Norfolk 'couple of hours ago, but we'll be there right away. Twenty minutes, okay?"

With that, he hangs up, and Kate immediately tugs at his arm again. "What's wrong, Tony?"

Tony takes a deep breath and rubs the bridge of his nose. "Don't know if I got it all right", he mumbles, sounding rather as though he were talking to himself. "Ducky said something about an embolism. Sounded like it was pretty bad. He said Gibbs was stable again, but …"

"But?", Kate prompts, desperately trying to get rid of that panicky feeling inside of her.

"Don't know", Tony replies. "Ducky didn't say but. But I feel like there is one." He gets up and unceremoniously dumps the pizza box in his bin. "Come on, I'll drive."

"No," Kate says distractedly, getting up as well and walking to her desk to grab her coat and handbag, "you drove last time." She wraps her scarf around her neck and fumbles for her car key.

They leave their office and head towards the elevators.

"God, Tony", she whispers, "I think we're losing him."

Tony stops so unexpectedly that Kate almost bumps into him. He turns to her and looks her straight in the eyes. "No, Kate, we're not." She tilts her head and bites her lip, tears glittering in her pretty eyes. It's late and she wasn't expecting this, she's too tired to be a tough woman now.

"We're not," Tony repeats, "because this is the point where the audience thinks everything is really going to hell and they're about to leave the cinema for their killer buzz. You remember what comes next, right?"

She actually has to laugh at that, and at the way Tony keeps poking her shoulder with one finger for emphasis. Eventually, she nods. "Yeah, I do."

"Okay." Tony gently takes her by her upper arms and gives her a soft kiss on the forehead. "It'll be alright, you'll see."

To her surprise, he seizes her hand and they step through the slide doors.

They wait quietly for the elevator to descend, until Kate realizes Tony's eyeing her warily from the side. She looks at him with an amused frown. "What?"

"Not punching me?"

"Why should I?" Okay, she thinks, that didn't sound like me. Normally, there's always something to punch Anthony DiNozzo for.

"For taking your hand."

Kate rolls her eyes. "We're not kids anymore, are we?"

Tony seems to think about it. Then: "For kissing you."

"That wasn't a kiss, it was a peck", Kate shoots back immediately. "On the forehead." Because if he'd kissed her in earnest – on the mouth, that is – she definitely would have had to punch him. Or shoot him.

"Peck is just a minimizing word for kiss."

"Tony," Kate says warningly, "what are you getting at? You're not intending to tell everyone you kissed me, are you?"

All she gets as a reply is a perfectly DiNozzo-ish grin, and does punch his arm after all. "Ow." Kate only laughs.

"See, that's what I mean." She says after a while, as they exit the elevator on the ground level.

"I don't see. What do you mean?"

Kate catches the sleeve of his coat and makes him stop and look at her. "You're not Gibbs.", she states. He isn't, after all. "But you're Tony, and you've just made me laugh and you're keeping the team together all the same. Your way."

TBC

Oh, I almost forgot: No, I'm not gonna tell you what will happen to Gibbs. You do realize I couldn't possibly do that, right? ;)