Part 02 of Reactions

Disclaimers: The characters are NOT mine – so please don't sue me… however… I DO COUNT the storyline MY own creation… (can I copyright that?) *grin*

Thank you to Shannon who beta'd this for me.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Good morning, Kate," Tony cheerfully greeted the agent walking into the bullpen. She ignored him. "Someone's grumpy today. Didn't get enough beauty sleep last night?"

"Thanks, Tony. You sure know how to make a girl feel good," she returned dryly. She turned her attention to Gibbs, placing a white envelope on his desk.)

"What is it, Agent Todd?" he asked, looking up from the report he was reading. He already had an idea what that was, and it sent his heart racing.

"It's my resignation as we discussed," she said casually, making her way back to her desk and started to move things around to be packed away. "Effective immediately."

"You're LEAVING?" Tony jumped up and quickly made his way over to Kate. "Why,

Kate? I thought you liked it here? Is that something I did? Or something you're not happy with? I'm sure it's not so bad that you have to resign yet!"

"Tony, it's not anything that you've done," Kate assured the agent. "It's something I have to do."

"Gibbs, say something!" Tony wasn't willing to give up. "Wait, you discussed it with her! Why would you let her go? I thought you said…"

"Enough, Tony," Gibbs ordered before Tony could go on any further.

Kate could see that Gibbs was thinking hard. She had chosen this moment to hand in her resignation specifically because she knew she could very easily be persuaded if she were alone with Gibbs. There wasn't much he could do to change her mind – short of revealing their relationship – with Tony in the room.

"I accept your resignation, Kate," Gibbs said, his voice hoarse. He knew there wasn't anything he could do to change Kate's mind, not after what she said the night before in his house. "But it cannot be effective immediately."

"What?"

"Two weeks, Agent Todd," he responded. "You need to give your notification two weeks in advanced, agent, and since you do not have any vacation time left, your resignation will be effective two weeks later."

"You can't do that," Kate complained, walking up to stand in front of him.

"I'm just following the regulations, Agent Todd," he hissed. "Is it so bad that you can't stand two more weeks here?"

Kate looked into Gibbs' eyes, making sure to send daggers his way, before she said, "Of course not, Agent Gibbs."

She turned back to her desk without another word. The tension in the bullpen was thick. Tony shifted nervously in front of Kate's desk, wanting to try once more to change Kate's mind about leaving or Gibbs' mind about letting her resign, but decided it would be futile. Dejectedly, he moved back to his seat.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Tony, get the sketches. Kate, the photos," Gibbs ordered when the team arrived at the scene where a dead naval officer's body had been found.

Kate was not too happy to find that she would be on one more case before she could escape to the sanctuary of somewhere without Gibbs. Instead of the clean break she was hoping for, she might have to witness one more time Gibbs risking his life unnecessarily.

"I heard you handed in your resignation, Caitlin," Ducky said softly when he approached the weary agent from behind.

"Well, as I said before, this kind of news always travel fast," she commented.

"May I know what the reasons behind this decision are?"

"I'm sorry, Ducky," she shook her head sadly, knowing Gibbs would not appreciate her revealing their past relationship. "It's a pretty personal reason."

"Has to do with Jethro, doesn't it?" he said, and then sighed loudly before Kate could respond, "I knew it. I warned him to watch what he's doing. Does that man ever listen to me? No!"

"Ducky, are you going to chat over there or are you going to help find out what killed Commander Kelley?" Gibbs yelled from his spot on the other end of the crime scene.

"I'm coming, Jethro," he yelled back and turned to Kate once again. "You hang in there, Caitlin. Things will get better."

Kate worked alongside the team quietly. The tension from the office earlier followed them to the crime scene. Neither of them was speaking on the way back to headquarters.

"Dinozzo, get these to Abby." Gibbs handed the younger man the evidence they collected from the site.

Kate watched as Tony moved away from the group and headed toward the forensic labs, knowing full well that Gibbs wanted to take the opportunity to corner her.

"I'm gonna go grab a shower. I'm all sweaty and stuff from working under the sun," she muttered and hoped to get away before Gibbs could stop her. She couldn't.

"We need to talk, Kate, and we can't when Tony's less than 50 feet away from us."

"There's nothing to talk about, sir," she said testily, knowing how much Gibbs hated being called "sir" and wanting to irritate him as much as possible, "since you've already accepted my resignation."

~*~*~*~*~*~*

"What have you got?" Gibbs asked when he and the team moved into Abby's lab.

"It can be good or bad, depending on how you look at it," the technician turned off the blasting music she had on.

"Tell me about it."

"It appears that our suspect is either stupid, ignorant, or arrogant." Abby hit a series of strokes before explaining. "I managed to pick up a print from the cover of our commander that does not belong to our commander."

"Maybe this is an amateur?" Tony voiced his thought. "Then he was already too freaked and just took off."

"Kate, what do you think?"

"It was too well-calculated to be an amateur," she said professionally. "The commander was killed in a naval base, and it's a well-planned execution. I'd place my bet on our guy as an arrogant guy who believes he's too good to be caught."

"Okay," Gibbs nodded his agreement. "Abby, run the print through our database and see if we'll get lucky. Kate and Tony, we have some investigating to do."

Gibbs watched as Kate walked out of the lab with Tony and sighed. He had planned to have a long talk with Kate about their relationship, but catching the killer had taken priority - everything else, including his future with Kate, would have to wait.

~*~*~*~*~*~*