I do not own this. Why must I keep repeating myself?

This chapter is dedicated to Angelhaggis, my most faithful reviewer, although admittedly the competition is pretty mild, and also the author of one of my favorite fics of all time (this one is tough competition), The Star of David.

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Kate hated just sitting around waiting for Ari to show up and take her away. Every five seconds she thought she had forgotten something vital, or that her phone, now buried in the communal Dumpster, was ringing, or that those footsteps in the hallway, doubtless belonging to one of her neighbors, were actually Gibbs, or McGee, or Tony, coming to check up on her.

At least it was Saturday, so she wasn't supposed to be at work anyway. With any luck, she would be long gone before Monday.

Closing her eyes, she tried to picture the scene. They would show up at work, Tony and McGee happily bickering, Gibbs sipping his coffee, Ducky recalling some Wikipedically relevant tale of days gone by, Abby on her newest crusade…

How long would it take them to miss her? An hour? Two? Until they got a call? Call her, get no answer, trace her phone, with no success, show up at her apartment, find her note…

Would they ask Director Morrow what had happened? Would he lie to them, or twist the truth? Would they put it together that she was pregnant?

Or would they just not care?

A knock on her door startled Kate out of her masochistic, self-pitying guilt trip. Thank you. She rubbed her hand over her stomach as she answered the door, praying that it was Ari, not one of her teammates, and she could stop second-guessing her decision.

God must have been in a good mood, because there on her doorstep stood a momentarily overly friendly now-ex-Mossad double agent.

Ari.

Much shorter way to refer to him.

Out of the blue, she wondered if that were intentional. Life planned from day zero. Whether or not that was indeed the case, Kate had no doubt that what they were currently doing wasn't a part of anyone's plan but theirs.

And perhaps God's.

"Coming?"

Something of Kate's thoughts must have registered on her face because he quickly added, "It's okay if you've changed your mind. I'm not going to force you."

Kate quickly shook her head. "No, I'm coming. It's just a bit confusing, you know, one minute I'm happily working at NCIS, the next-" Ari nodded. "Know the feeling."

Kate reminded herself that she wasn't the only one leaving her entire life behind. Quit being selfish, Katie.

Before the other side of her could point out that she was sacrificing life as she knew it for her child, which made her about as unselfish as she could get, she blurted out, "Let's go."

Ari insisted on carrying Kate's duffel bag and backpack, despite her protests. "I'm not an invalid. I am perfectly capable of carrying my own luggage."

"Okay, fine. As long as I get to carry the baby."

Kate squinted with one eye, quizzical. "Huh?"

Ari laughed and handed her the handle to her suitcase.

Glancing around her apartment one last time, Kate followed Ari out of the door. For reason or reasons unknown, she even bothered to lock the door and slip the key into a crack in the baseboard.

Move on, Kate. Don't look back.

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Kate could hardly believe that she was actually doing this. Any second now, she was going to wake up, and the trip, or the "incident" with Director Morrow, or the baby, or even Ari himself would all disappear. The thought was surprisingly upsetting. No, I wouldn't go back, even if I could.

She was jarred out of her reverie again rather abruptly, this time by the car parking and shutting off.

"There's our flight," said Ari, pointing across a chain-link fence to the loading area, where a cargo plane had been parked, looking very unassuming. At Kate's skeptical glance, he added, "It's a lot nicer on the inside."

"If you say so."

Not even bothering with a repeat of their earlier argument, Kate grabbed her suitcase and followed Ari through a back entrance. "Why is there no securi-" Ari cut her off with a look. "Gotcha."

"Wait here," he directed her as they reached the bottom of the plane. "I'll make sure she's awake. She startles easily."

Kate nodded, set her bag down and nervously ran her fingers through her hair. She barely remembered what Ari's sister looked like. Brief glimpses hardly sufficed to form a memory of an entire person.

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"Ziva."

She barely reacted.

"Ziva, I know you're tired, and I know I said you could sleep, but Caitlin's here and if you want to meet her, you need to wake up."

She shook her head, but Ari didn't think she'd actually woken. "Okay, I'll take that as a 'later'."

After tucking her blanket more closely around her, Ari walked back down the ramp. I guess we'll have introductions mid-flight. "Come on in, Caitlin. She's not in the mood."

Actually, Ziva was indeed awake. She wanted to see this strange woman Ari had found and why on earth he wanted to bring her along, figure out what she was like before having to actually interact with her. Unlike Kate, she had a perfect memory of what the other woman looked like, but knew nothing of her personality, as the only times she'd seen her, she'd been unconscious. Lucky for her.

The baby stirred inside her, eliciting a wave of protectiveness from her that was so strong, it almost hurt. Don't worry, little one, don't worry. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you.

Kate didn't feel particularly lucky. What she did feel was that she'd been sucked into Star Wars, about to board the Millennium Falcon for a completely different planet.

It was, perhaps, a reasonable feeling.

Well, the ship -excuse me, plane- didn't have light speed, or (as far as Kate knew) hidden compartments, or R2-D2, or Chewie, or holographic chess, but it did look infinitely more comfortable than Han Solo's pride and joy. Blankets and pillows strewn across the floor gave the impression of a slumber party, which was further enhanced by the boxes of snacks. The plane's built-in lights had been switched off, leaving the illumination duties to soft, warm, incandescent light bulbs stuck to the walls.

Ari came up the ramp behind her, exaggeratedly huffing and puffing, dragging her duffel bag and backpack like they were filled with gold.

"So, when I said 'bare necessities', you think I meant this? I can't believe you pack this much stuff and then make me carry it all!"

Kate walked over to him and punched him in the ribs.