A/N: Thanks for all the feedback. Don't worry, all questions will be answered at one point or another. Kursk, I'm not much of a J/D shipper, but you'll get a little bit.

If anyone can put me in touch with Elli, the manager of the 'Everything Sam' C2 community, I'd appreciate it. Now, on with the show!!

Kate woke up the next morning with a slight feeling of dread that only increased as she got ready for work. She packed her bag as they'd discussed on the phone and left the apartment with that and her lunch to walk to work.

She always walked fast in her neighborhood, which, incidentally, wasn't that far from Charlie's. She'd wanted to get a place in a better neighborhood, but this was the only thing she could afford. The few people that she was friends with at work kept bothering her to have a party, but she'd always refused. She was so scared and ashamed of where she lived; she wouldn't even give her street address to someone unless they absolutely needed to know. She wouldn't risk anyone coming to visit. It was bad enough that she had to live there; she refused to even toy with the fact that anyone who came to visit her risked getting mugged or worse.

When she got to her department at Treasury, she tried to get to her desk and start work as soon as possible. She didn't want her supervisor to take more than a passing notice of her today so she could try to leave a little bit earlier than usual to meet Sam. She still couldn't believe that he'd offered to take her to dinner. This didn't happen to her, not much anyway. If she went out to dinner, which was very rare, she'd go by herself to a diner and just watch. Her order was almost always to go, since she soon found that just watching people interact just made her upset.

Most of her morning passed quietly. She just kept her head down and worked. This wonderful, if not monotonous, time lasted until a bit after lunch. That's when the one thing Kate never wanted discovered or discussed was.

"Ms. Dillon, please sit," her supervisor said as Kate entered the office.

"Now then, I've been reviewing your personnel file lately and would like to ask you some questions."

"Yes, sir."

"It says here that you were born in Ireland."

"Yes, sir, that's correct."

He moved his chair closer to his desk and leaned forward. "What does your family do there, Ms. Dillon?"

"Well, sir, I haven't spoken to my parents in a while, but my father's a sheep farmer and my mother handles the sale of the wool to local woolleries."

"What about your relatives?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but I don't really know what they do, sir."

"I see." His tone could be described as clipped at best, angry at worst. Kate began to get worried. She sat silently, waiting for him to speak.

"Well, Ms. Dillon, I'm going to make some physical changes in your section. You are to move from your present station to the station in the far back corner once you leave this office. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good, now go move to your new station."

"Yes, sir."

Kate left his office stunned. Why did he want her to change stations? He wasn't clear about his reason, if he'd mentioned one at all. She got back to her desk and moved everything as fast as she could to her new one so there wouldn't be any problems if he decided to come over to her section.

Her new desk was exactly the same as the other one, but the local geography was very different. Before, she'd had someone on all sides, save for the fact she was directly on the aisle. Here, she was all the way in the corner next to the wall and there were at least 2 empty desks between her and the nearest occupied one. Why had she been isolated like this? Had she done something wrong? Once she was settled, she stopped thinking about those things and just started working again. She tried to think about meeting Sam for dinner. At least that would help her smile a little and focus on what she was doing.

She was finally able to leave around 4:30. The White House was a small distance from her building, so it would take her a while to walk over there. She also didn't know how long the security check would take, so she thought it would probably be better for her to be early.

The guard at the gate was very kind. He could see how nervous and lost she was, so he gave her the visitor's tag and even helped her with very careful directions to Sam's office. Kate followed his directions and soon found herself walking into the bullpen. What she didn't know was that she walking into a firestorm.