Title: First Christmas – McGee's POV

Author: Jay-Jay, Shorty, and Jenn

Rating: PG

Pairing: Gibbs/Kate

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters; they are all property of DPB.

Summary: After a long case that keeps the team at work for six days, Gibbs and Kate spend their first Christmas together.

I am standing in front of Abby's door, contemplating if I am overstepping some line that divides our friendship with something more. I don't know where I want our relationship to go. There are times when I want it to go to the next level, but then I stop to think "does she want the same thing?" and don't do anything. Then there are times like these where I am glad that I haven't acted on those feelings, cause I don't know what I would do if she was no longer in my life.

I decide to just go for it and hope she is home. I knock on the door. I here rustling from inside, as though she is getting up off the couch, waiting for me to come. She opens the door, takes one look at me, and without saying a word opens the door wider and ushers me in. When she closed the door, I just fell into her arms and started to cry. I just couldn't take it any more. After standing there for a while she leads me over to the couch where we sit down and she just holds me and comforts me as a mother would her child who has just suffered a heart break. That is what I have gone through these past few days while Kate was missing. My big sister was kidnapped and there was nothing I could do. I just had to find her. When we found her, my heart just broke at what that bastard did to her. I couldn't believe that something like that could happen to her.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Abby asks me.

I don't say anything for a while, and then I just spill my guts.

"He had her chained to a bed in the basement, he had raped her repeatedly." I paused as it was overwhelming me again. "I just couldn't believe he did that. Why would he do that?" Not really expecting Abby to answer me. "Maybe he felt he needed to in order to protect himself. Kate was getting to close to the truth and he needed to take her out before he could be discovered. But he made the mistake of taking Katie not thinking we would double our efforts and put all of our resources into finding her. She was clinging to Gibbs as though she thought he was going to leave her now that she had been violated in the worse way. I just can't see how she could think that. We all know how much Gibbs loves her. What did he say to her that would make her think that?" I wanted to know.

"I don't know. He may have been playing mind games with her hoping she would give up the fight to live until we found her. Maybe he was hoping to break her spirit." Abby suggested to me. I couldn't talk anymore, I was reliving it all over again. This time my brain was remembering after she left. After a while I started talking again. That is one of the things I love about Abby, she doesn't push me into talking.

"Tony and I took point on the arrest. We told the FBI agents to hide in the surrounding woods, and let us know when there was movement outside. Tony and I hid in the basement. The feds hid all the cars and covered all our tracks so it looked like no one was there. We stayed there talking about the case, what we saw, the condition we found Kate in. Sorry for not going into details but I don't want to go into all of that again."

"It's okay. I understand. I don't think I want to know all of the details anyway." Abby responds as she continues rubbing my back. I stay silent for a while.

"During the interrogation, Tony and I had to hold Gibbs back from killing him. We had to intervene in the questioning quite a few times. Once we got him to confess, Tony all but shoved Gibbs out of the interrogation room while the feds came in and escorted him down to lock up. Later, at the hospital, Tony confessed to me that he didn't want to stop Gibbs from killing him; he wanted to help Gibbs kill him. Then he thanked me for being there and making sure everything was done by the book, or else the guy would be dead. I was floored. I couldn't at that point tell Tony that I was working on autopilot, not really feeling anything about what was going on, how I just wanted to pull my gun and shoot him point blank between the eyes." I leaned up and looked into Abby's eyes. "I would have done it too." I looked away. "I can't believe I actually admitted it out loud." Abby leaned down and placed a kiss on the back of my neck. That one small gesture calmed me down so much, I hadn't felt this calm since before the case started.

"It's okay McGee." She tells me.

I turned over so that I was still laying down with my head in her lap, but I was looking at her now. I looked deep into her eyes, searching for something, but not sure what I was looking for. What I found there was exactly what I was feeling. I lifted my hand up to her face to caress it, to see how far she would let me go. She just closed her eyes and leaned into my palm. At that point I knew that she wanted exactly what I wanted. My love for her just broke through and was radiating from me. I brought her face down to mine, and kissed her, a soft kiss, a kiss that relayed to her my thanks and my love all at once. She pulled away and just stared into my eyes. Then she leaned down again and kissed me with a passion I didn't think existed.

I don't remember much after that. It was all a blur. My next coherent thought was of us laying naked on the couch, Abby spooned into me. I was so happy at that moment. Then reality came crashing in, the reality of what brought me to Abby's in the first place. Tears started streaming down my face, and I just pulled Abby closer. Abby turned over so that she was facing me. "What's wrong?" I couldn't say anything, all I could think was 'please don't think this was just about comfort sex because it wasn't.' "Please McGee, tell me what's wrong?"

"This wasn't about comfort sex for me Abby. This was for real for me." I wanted to make sure she realizes that I am in this for the long haul.

"That's good to know, cause so am I." I just smiled at her, kissed her again, held her tighter, and closed my eyes to go to sleep, hoping that with her in my arms the nightmares will stay at bay. I felt her move out of my arms. I opened my eyes to see where she was going. She just held her hand out to me and said "Come on, the bed is so much more comfortable than the couch." I just smiled, took her hand, got up and followed her to her bedroom, where we settled in for the night, me thankfully a dreamless one. I think I found the cure to all my ailments, and her name is Abby. I just hope Kate realizes that her cure is Gibbs.