Title: The Strength Within

Author: Alamo Girl (aka Mel)

Disclaimer: They're not mine, no suing the poor ex-college girl please!

Author Note* Sorry it took so long! The creative juices kick in around 12:30-1:00am! Then I can't type, well… anything readable that is.

~Chapter 3~

"Asshole does not EVEN begin to describe him!"

The tears flowed freely down Caitlin Todd's face as she drove down the icy Washington D.C. streets. She steered her car into her apartment parking lot. As she sat in her freezing car, Gibbs' words thundered in her head and her heart.

"When you come to work distracted, it affects the NCIS team. And I DO care about that."

Kate just couldn't believe that the man that nearly everyone at NCIS looked up to and admired had absolutely no heart! Didn't he know how important this job was to her? Didn't he understand that she would never allow her personal life to distract her while on the job? At leased not enough to make some kind of fatal mistake. As she moved into her dark apartment, Kate felt like curling up into a ball on the floor and sobbing until the last ounce of salt water was out of her system.

She trudged into her bedroom and got undressed. She started the shower, turning it to its hottest setting.

"I can't believe I let Gibbs get to me like that too. No other man, let alone a boss, has been able to aggravate and piss me off like Jethro Gibbs," she thought to herself as she entered the shower.

"Then again, no other man can intrigue me the way he can. I've never known a man whose eyes could see into my soul like his, and make me feel so many… different feelings. One look, and Jethro Gibbs can make my heart jump into my throat with sheer exhilaration. And at the same time, I'm so afraid."

Kate reached up under her left arm, and found the lump. How could something, no bigger than a dime, cause so much heartache, and fear? She gingerly ran her fingers over the lump and chuckled, " It just doesn't seem so dangerous." She dried off and got into bed. Her doctor's appointment was in a few hours, and she would find everything out then. Weather or not this thing was something minor, or if it was something just as dangerous as a perp with a gun to her head. 

~Meanwhile….~

Leroy Jethro Gibbs let out a frustrated sigh.  He stood in his dark basement, a sanding plane in his hand. The single light bulb overhead offered little light, but that's how Gibbs liked it. Besides, darkness was befitting his mood tonight.

"I can handle Al Quaida terrorists, rogue CIA agents shooting at me, explosions on subs, and three ex-wives. Why can't I seem to handle one Caitlin Todd?" he thought to himself.

Gibbs began shaving on a section of the boat he'd been working on for hours now. He'd probably shave the whole damn rib of the boat off if he didn't work these feelings out soon! He knew something bad must be going on with Kate. He'd never seen her so withdrawn and vulnerable. Gibbs had a streak of chivalry running down him a mile wide and twice as deep. A woman in trouble, especially one he cared about, was someone he couldn't resist helping. Being very protective was also one of Gibbs' stronger traits. When it came teammates or especially a certain brunette female agent, Gibbs would give his life to keep them safe.

"Why doesn't she understand I just want to help? Why do women have to be so damn stubborn!" He realized he was pushing on the sander so hard his knuckles were white. He stopped and sat down on the table, wiping the sweat from his brow.

"What could have happened to Kate in one night that has changed her so much," he wondered. The feelings Gibbs was having about Kate made him uncomfortable. He was her supervisor; she was one of his agents. He had told her that romance between agents never worked, but that didn't mean that he didn't want it. Gibbs didn't seem to know how to act around her anymore. In the beginning, he had been a pretty hard-nosed prick to her, making smart-ass comments about her ideas and almost ridiculing her for having a trusting nature. But her nature is what he'd come to love about her. Now, good-natured teasing and play flirting replaced the curt remarks. He found himself trying to make her blush, and getting an unusually warm feeling inside when he made her smile.

Gibbs did not know what to do with these feelings, and not being able to act on them frustrated him. The last thing he wanted was to loose Kate. She'd already changed jobs once for fraternizing with fellow co-workers, and he didn't want that to happen again. Well, at leased he didn't want her to change jobs again.

"The "fraternizing" thing could be fun," Gibbs thought, his trademark smirk playing across his lips. He allowed himself some very indulgent thoughts of he and Kate, in various "extracurricular" activities. Then his smirk faded. He had to find out what was going on with Kate, because he couldn't stand to see her in pain anymore.

~*~

"Why do doctor's offices always have to be freezing? Its cold enough outside!"

Kate sat in her chair in the office, pretending to read a magazine. In truth, she was way too wired to read anything. She had spent another sleepless night worrying, and now that she thought about it, she couldn't remember the last time she ate anything substantial. It didn't really matter though she had no apatite anyhow. A nurse stuck her head out of a door.

"Ms. Todd?"

Kate shivered as she stood and followed the nurse to the imaging room. Mammograms are not usually painful, but they are not very comfortable. Kate had told the doctor about her discovery and family history. He believed the sooner they could get a look at the lump, the better. After she finished with the mammogram machine, she was lead back to a waiting room. Kate's stomach seemed to tie itself into even more knots as she waited for the doctor to return.

 The doctor finally did return with the images of Kate's lump. He explained that the lump was fairly round and seemed to be encapsulated, which is usually a good thing. Kate could feel a huge 'but..' coming.

"But," Doctor Burns continued, "the lump does have some suspicious characteristics to it. Given your family history of breast cancer, I would like to go ahead and perform a fine needle biopsy. This will allow us to use a very fine needle to extract some cells from the middle of the lump. We can then find out if the cells are cancerous or not. The procedure will not take long, we can do it right now if you like. You will be very sore, and may have some minimal bleeding."

Kate listened as if in a trance. She could not believe this was really happening to her. The term "suspicious characteristics" kept floating around in her head. She finally found her voice and decided to go ahead with the fine needle biopsy.

The biopsy did not take long. A local anesthetic was used, but Kate knew once they wore off, she was going to be in some real pain. "I have to make it look like there is no pain though," she thought, " Or Gibbs will see me favoring my arm, and then there will be hell to pay."

She drove straight back to NCIS Headquarters. It was nearing 12:30pm, but paperwork and conferring with Ducky and Abby were the only things left on the stabbing murder case. Kate had called Tony to tell him she was on her way back to the office. She fielded his inane questions about where she had been all morning very well, basically telling him to mind his own damn business. She hoped Gibbs wouldn't be at his desk when she got there. On the elevator, her shoulder began to throb, the pain wrapping around her back and into her shoulder blades.

"Suck it up Kate," she said to herself.

She walked out of the elevator with her best 'stone face' look. Tony was at his desk, his face lit up into that light-up-the-room smile of his.

"Kate, glad you could finally join us! Did the eye doctor find a reason why you're such a lousy shot?"

"Yea DiNozzo, whatever, the appointment went fine," Kate muttered. She looked to Gibbs' desk, but he wasn't there. Thank God for small miracles. She started to sit down in her chair when she noticed a fresh cup of Starbucks coffee sitting on her desk. Kate stared at it, wondering how it got there when Gibbs strode up to his desk.

"I had an extra cup, I figured you might need some when ya got in." Gibbs' voice was smooth and deep. Kate looked to him a little startled, and then back at the coffee. Gibbs, … badass, hard nose Gibbs…bringing someone coffee?? She decided to chance looking into his eyes. She had to know what he meant by this. Kate looked back into Gibb's eyes. There was a softness to them, although his facial expressions revealed nothing. He stood there, watching her intently for her reaction.

After a second, Kate drew in a breath. "I think he's actually trying to apologize," she thought. A big step, for Agent Gibbs, although she knew it would take a lot more than coffee to make amends for the way he treated her. However, it was a step in the right direction.

"Thanks, I appreciate it Gibbs," she replied as she sat down. She gave him a half smile. Gibbs watched her for a while longer, and gave her a slight nod before getting back to his paperwork. Gibbs' instincts were screaming at him that something very big and obviously traumatic had happened with Kate this morning. And it was no eye appointment.

Later that day, the team was wrapping up the lieutenant's murder case. They had been in Abby's lab gathering final reports and lab tests form the murder weapon, DNA and so on. Abby was her usual irreverent self, talking about some new photo's she'd acquired showing various affects poisons can have on the human body. Abby had the ability to bring a smile to almost anyone's face, even Gibbs. Kate always enjoyed that about her.

Then they moved on to Ducky's morgue. Dr. Ducky Mallard was an intriguing blend of scientific brilliance, and an archive of completely random information. He had known Gibbs the longest, and seemed to have all the juiciest tid-bits of information about Gibbs' past. Kate often wished she could have a talk with Ducky about Gibbs, get the low-down on his personal life. But she did not want to have to wade through his never-ending monologs about something that had nothing to do with what she'd asked. Gibbs, Tony and Kate stood in the morgue while Ducky went through his post-mortem reports.

Kate's arm and shoulder were screaming at her know. The pain seemed to pulse though her with every heart beat. She stood off to the side of Tony, reading through the reports. She knew Gibbs had been keeping an eye on her all day again, but he hadn't bought anything up yet. She knew he eventually would though, but she would deal with that when it came. Ducky had also been eyeing Kate.

"Thanks Duck, that should be plenty for the lawyers. You two can finish up any paperwork and head on out if you want," said Gibbs. He waited, watching Kate. He desperately hoped she would stay late, alone with him. It was killing him inside, not knowing what was wrong. She kept her head down in the folder; a nod was her only reply. Gibbs sighed through his nose, his lips formed a thin line of worry. He turned and strode out of the morgue.

"YES! I am SO outta' here," Tony exclaimed. He made a "cha-ching" arm jab movement, and in his excitement accidentally brought his elbow back into Kate. Right into her left arm and shoulder! "Oh, sorry Kate, I didn't know you liked being that close to me!" Tony said good-naturedly. Then, without even checking to see if she was OK, he flew out of the morgue making a beeline for his stuff.

Kate had turned her face away from Tony. Immediately, she became ashen, and slumped against a table. The pain seared through her like a red-hot iron. She felt her stomach roll, and she thought she might get sick right there! Kate gasped a few times, and blinked at the tears forming in her eyes. It took a minute before she realized that Ducky was holding her up.

"Oh my word, Caitlin," Ducky said in his Scots-English accent. "Are you alright dear?"

"Y-yea, Ducky I'm OK. Really, I just... uh… pulled a muscle and Tony hit a sore spot. Its OK, really," Kate stuttered.

Ducky watched her. " I don't believe a pulled muscle would elicit such a display of pain."

Before she could protest, Ducky gently pulled the collar of her button down blouse away from her shoulder. The white bandage under her bra strap was tinged with red; the biopsy site was beginning to bleed. Ducky drew in a sharp breath, as he immediately recognized what kind of medical procedure had taken place. Kate pulled her blouse back over the bandage, and tried to collect herself.

She looked up at Ducky, reading the worry etched in his face. Ducky sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose, and removed his glasses.

"Caitlin, why haven't you told anyone?" Kate closed her eyes, dropping her head to her chest.

Ducky knew. And there was nothing she could do about it now.

~Chap 4 Coming soon! It might take a little while, so stay tuned!~