OOF. Okay, so I didn't update last week as I was busy having anxiety attacks and trying to plan out what ended up being 3 separate TV series concepts (the assignment was for one, but they kept on not working), and Kate really didn't want to do what I'd planned for her this chapter, but we're back to normal now! I hope you all are looking after yourselves in your various states of lockdown and treating the people you encounter with kindness and lenience.

Thanks as always for reading!

This chapter comes with a warning for mild gore and suicide.

why cry for a soul set free?

Michelle Lee.

She looks tiny now, shrinking into herself under DiNozzo's glare, eyes wide and watering. Kate's heart goes out to her, despite everything. She lays a pacifying hand on Tony's arm.

"Sit down," she says, "and tell us about it."

Lee obeys, slipping into a seat at the desk. Kate sits opposite her, and Tony paces behind her. With a shaking hand, Lee writes down an address - the resemblance to an interrogation doesn't escape anyone.

"What do you know that I don't?" Kate asks.

"They'll come after me," Lee protests. Tony glares at her and she shrinks even more.

"They haven't come after me," Kate offers.

Lee smiles at her sadly. "You aren't important to them. You were a failed experiment. You couldn't remember anything, so they fixed their mistakes and tried again. They would have killed you, but when you escaped it suited them just as well."

I can still be killed. I can still die, Kate thinks, cataloguing the information away for further thought later. "Why did it suit them? What did they want with me?"

"They wanted Agent Gibbs back in DC," she says. "You couldn't remember, so you couldn't get him to come back. But when you escaped, they decided you would find someone who knew you eventually, and word would get back to Gibbs."

"Only I didn't escape," Kate says, a little steel in her voice. "You let me go."

"They were distracted. They were going to kill you, but there was a window of time when you had a chance. They were busy putting their other piece into play."

"Ari," Tony observes.

"They learned from what they did reviving you. He would have woken up with all his memories intact, and no knowledge of the cells. They left him in an alley to find his own way. He would be trying to complete his mission."

"To kill Gibbs," Kate realises. "But Gibbs was in Mexico."

"There are two people in this world who could bring Gibbs back from Mexico," Lee says, "and both of them are dead."

But Gibbs isn't back for Kate. He didn't want to come until Ziva mentioned Ari.

"And where do you fit in all this?" Tony asks.

"They needed someone inside NCIS," Lee explains. "I was already part of your team when they came for me."

"Who are they, Michelle?" Kate presses, her tone gentle. At least she's not forgotten this part of who she is.

"I don't know," Michelle lets out, "they're just killers."

She opens her shirt, and Kate recoils. There's a bullet hole over Michelle Lee's heart.

"They said," Michelle stammers, "see, I have a little sister, Amanda, she's seven, and she's more like a daughter to me, and she's dead. They promised to bring her back to me, you have to understand. But I've failed them now. It's too late. I'm never getting her back."

There's one thing Kate and Tony both failed to realise. This is not a secure interrogation room.

Michelle draws a knife from her pocket and slits her own throat.

Michelle is dead.

That's one thing, Jimmy thinks, sitting by himself beside a cold autopsy table and an even colder body. But she's dead twice.

"I don't understand," he says out loud.

"Neither do I, my dear boy," Doctor Mallard's voice announces from behind him. A gentle hand lands on his shoulder. "So you and Special Agent Lee here had an intimate relationship?"

"I – um – yes. Sort of," Jimmy admits. There's no use hiding anything now. "That is, we – we never – uh – I never saw this," and he gestures vaguely at the hole in her chest.

"Yes," the Doctor says, taking a seat beside him. "It is quite a shock."

"I guess looking back, there were things out of place. I never gave it much thought, but… well, she was always cold. And when we… well… I don't like to be indelicate…" he looked down into Michelle's serene face once again. He had thought his affair with her was special and passionate and sexy, but had she ever actually… wanted him?

"I gather her bodily functions were limited," Doctor Mallard suggests, "much like Caitlin's."

"Yes, I believe so, sir," Jimmy agrees gratefully, "but she – I never realised anything was off. She always said we had to – oh, God, we had to find places in the office to, to spend time together, and I used my pass to get us in – do you think it's my fault?"

"Certainly not," Doctor Mallard says, and his tone dismisses the idea as total nonsense. Jimmy exhales a sigh of grateful relief. "She wanted to save her sister. She would have found a way if she could."

"And she couldn't." Jimmy almost lets his hand drift to stroke Michelle's hair, but stops himself. He might have enjoyed her company, he might feel sorry for her now, but she was a traitor.

"So she's really dead this time," he says instead. "No coming back."

Doctor Mallard shakes his head. "We only have a working theory. But, yes, it would appear that her second life came to an end when she severed her trachea."

Jimmy suddenly feels very lightheaded. He scrambles away, landing in front of a sink just in time to prevent any unsightly messes.

When he's gathered himself enough to turn around, Doctor Mallard looks a little embarrassed. "Sorry," he says.

Jimmy shrugs. "I have to admit, Doctor," he says, "I feel pretty stupid right now."

Doctor Mallard gives him a smile. "Then we had better remind you how intelligent you can be," he says. "This is going to be an extraordinary autopsy. Do you suppose you can handle assisting me?"

Jimmy grabs his gloves.

Hands wrapped tightly around the steaming mug, Kate sips her tea and tries to clear her mind.

A familiar presence drops into the seat beside her. "You okay?" Gibbs asks, his voice gruff but gentle.

Gone are the days of trying to impress Gibbs with every scrap of energy in her body; Kate shakes her head, silent, and stares into the cup.

"DiNozzo and Ziva are going to check out the address Lee gave you," he offers. "Might get some answers."

Kate looks up at him then, and realises that this is it, more than this morning, this is her big reunion with Gibbs, and right now he is all but hers to command. He would do anything for her, just now.

"You're not going with?" she says instead. She doesn't know this Gibbs.

He chuckles, which really just proves her right. "Nah. Not on active duty anymore. Tony can handle it."

She smiles. "He's grown up a lot in a year."

"It changed us all, losing you," Gibbs admits freely. "Other things have happened, but you've been missed."

"That's nice," Kate murmurs. Gibbs makes a movement, and she watches in amazement as he shifts as if to put his arm around her, then thinks better of it.

Suddenly a boldness runs through her that she never felt before – at least not with him. The words spill out in a small, certain voice, almost before she can consider them. "How could you leave them, Gibbs?"

He looks at her, a long and appraising look that once would have made her squirm. "They didn't need me anymore."

Kate scoffs. "They never needed you. They were better with you."

Suddenly he's on his feet, and Kate mirrors him on autopilot.

"We were better with you!"

"I didn't ask to be shot!"

"You jumped in front of a bullet!"

"With a vest on!"

"I never gave you permission to die, Agent Todd!"

The wild outrage drops out of her, leaving a quieter, simmering fury. "You really are an utter bastard sometimes," she says, "you know that?"

And just like that, Gibbs is laughing. Kate glares at him for a second, but she can't hold it, and she's giggling too, a little hysterical, a little manic.

Maybe everything will be okay.

What the hell do they even charge these people with, Tony wonders, watching Ziva question the three men who seem to be running this whole crazy scheme. Isn't it kind of the opposite of murder? They held Kate prisoner, they set Ari loose on DC, they killed Amanda Lee, they turned innocent Probie into a spy – but none of that is the worst thing. Is necromancy a chargeable offence?

Right. Focus.

"What did you want with Ari Haswari?" Ziva is demanding of the apparent ringleader. "It was not just to kill Agent Gibbs. You have the resources to do that without violating the dead."

The man says nothing. Ziva gets close to him, tracing the line of his jaw with her gun. Tony does his best to look equally intimidating.

"My partner and I," Ziva murmurs, "we have loved ones who were harmed by your little experiments. Will they ever be allowed to rest?"

Silence.

Ziva smiles toothily. "Agent DiNozzo," she says, "perhaps you find yourself in urgent need of a coffee."

Tony knows better than to let Ziva do these things. There are ways to extract information without… but these people violated Kate. "Perhaps I do," he agrees, numb, and fumbles his way to the door.

"You're in your head."

He sighs and fixes his eyes straight ahead of him. "Not you again."

"Always the charmer, right, Tony?"

"Hey, you're the one renting a room in my head and my apartment."

"You could let me go. You've got her back now."

"Ah, but then I'd be alone with my thoughts."

"We both know better than that. You're never going to get absolution, Tony. You didn't see the gun. She died. Now she's back. Isn't that the second chance you've been wanting all this time?"

"She's still dead," Tony hisses, and turns to glare at her. She smiles at him, waves, and disappears.

God, Tony wants the real Kate back.

Thankfully, Kate thinks, this time she was alone when the panic attack struck. She lets it all out and then counts carefully, breathing in and out, in and out, until she has it all back to normal.

She'd better not make a habit of this. But that is him, the man who did this to her. With a few strings pulled, Director Shepard has made the interrogation rooms available, even found a way to get Kate up there, and now she watches, alone, as Gibbs and McGee question Peter Watson.

It was Watson who set her off. He talked about her so coldly – an experiment to run. "The specimen," he called her – her and Agent Lee and even Ari, everybody he hurt.

A gentle knock on the door interrupts her thoughts, and Director Shepard slips into the room. "How are things going?" she asks, her voice soft, her smile gentle. Kate still isn't sure how to believe that this woman was once Gibbs's lover.

"He hasn't said so, but I'm sure this is about Ari," Kate says. "Letting him loose on the city seems so random that it has to be deliberate. Did Tony and Ziva check in?"

"They had eyes on Ari for a while, but they lost him," Shepard tells her. "Ziva has some ideas, they're going to keep looking. Tony wants to see what Ari's going to do before bringing him in."

Kate nods absently. Then turns – "Ma'am, can I ask you a question?"

"Provided that you never call me ma'am again, you can," Shepard smiles.

"When all this is over, what are you going to do with me?"

Shepard sits down and indicates for Kate to follow. "Who says that's going to be my decision?"

"I don't know if this body's going to last," Kate says, "maybe I'll rot where I stand or maybe I can keep going, I don't know. But my purpose is here, with NCIS. With this family."

"Well," Jenny Shepard says, "it sounds like you've already made up your mind."