She didn't have to think about it much, really. Her apartment was nice, comfortable, homey-but it wasn't quite home. Still, she decided to wait a few days, stay by herself at night, to see if she got used to living alone again.
She didn't, and, truth be told, she didn't really want to.
So it wasn't hard at all, when she dragged him out of his basement to low-key celebrate closing her first case on her own, to swallow a bite of her pizza and mention, "I brought some extra clothes with me."
He glanced away from the Scrabble board at that, arching his eyebrows before gracing her with one of his quiet, understated smiles. "You planning on staying the night again?"
"Does your offer still stand?" She took a sip of her beer to wet her throat, watching him carefully. "I'd like to take you up on it."
For a moment, he seemed practically insulted, eyebrows together, lips tight, before his expression smoothed again. "Of course I still want you to stay with me."
"I still have another six months on the lease for my apartment." She laid down an F,I,R, and Y around the A in his "adult." "Fairy. Double word score."
"Gives us some time to figure out furniture and whatever else needs changing." He hovered a finger over the letters as he counted up the points, scribbling them down. Kate was in the lead, so far.
"Yes, it makes sense." She picked the piece of ppizza that looked to have the most pepperoni on it out of the ones remaining, and slid it onto her her plate.
Gibbs held his own empty plate out towards her with one hand, as he spelled out "highway" with the other.
He had left "her" space in his dresser and closet and bathroom empty, and that was that.
It was nice to have company at home, though as the weeks passed she found that more often than not she was the first one there in the evenings, if he left the office at night at all. It wasn't as if she had forgotten how he was, but maybe he had been a little more attentive while she was on crutches, and maybe "how he usually was" wasn't quite as present in her consciousness, now that she no longer witnessed his asshole behavior quite as vividly at work.
Still, it wasn't as if she would have seen more of him living on her own—most likely—and she did get it. She pulled her own all-nighters more frequently than she would have liked, but the knowledge that someone's life could hinge on how quickly she put a man behind bars would hardly let her act any differently—and she couldn't say Gibbs hadn't prepared her for it.
But there were moments it irked her, chief among them being the fact that, when they were in the house at the same time, he more often than not either had his nose buried in a file or his hands on his boat.
"If you don't want to watch this, just say so." She tried to keep any annoyance out of her tone as she glanced away from one Captain Jack Sparrow enacting a harebrained escape plan.
Gibbs barely lifted an eyebrow and just spared her the briefest of glances before he focused on the file in his hand, a file that was now almost as familiar to her as it had to be to him. "Thought you wanted to watch it. 'S not bad, so far."
"I've already seen it." She reached for her water glass on the end table. "But if you want to just focus on—on that... feel free." Some of her irritation refused to be held at bay.
He looked at her now, longer. "Is there a problem?"
Closing her eyes, she took a sip of her water. "Look, I'm trying to be patient, but you being here without fully being here—mentally—it's starting to get old. Just because we live in the same place doesn't actually mean we're spending time together."
"What do you want me to do?" He didn't close the folder, his tone hard. "We just got a new lead on this."
"There is no 'we,' because the last I remembered that was not your case. You told Fornell about the guy matching Bassam's description purchasing guns from that rogue ATF agent?"
"Of course I did. What kind of agent do you take me for, Kate?"
She eyed him, frankly. "Someone who has to be in control. Who hates trusting other people and has become borderline obsessed with this guy."
He swallowed, heavily, narrowing his eyes slightly at her, and said nothing.
"Like I said, I'm trying to be patient, but I don't like seeing this side of you take over. You know, if anyone has a right to be obsessed with catching Haswari, it's me. I'm the one who took a bullet to the leg."
"Then you should understand."
"No, that's exactly it: I still don't. He's taking over your life, and I bet he couldn't be happier, wherever the hell he is, if he knew he was costing you sleep and peace of mind and time with the people you love."
It hit her, in that moment, that he'd never actually said anything about loving her.
She hadn't raised her voice, but her tone held steel all the same, and it did nothing to crack the ice in his eyes.
Draining her glass, she rose and turned towards the hall. "Let me know when you're ready to pretend I'm a priority for you again."
It was a dirty blow, she knew—she hoped—but she couldn't find it in her to take it back.
He didn't follow her, but the ruckus from the TV screen fell silent.
Later, she wasn't sure if the half-remembered kiss on her forehead, the murmured "You are important to me," were just the products of her wishful imagination, but she woke to his arms around her, and contented herself with that.