"Welcome to my, er, office, ladies," Ducky greeted smoothly, smiling slightly. "Please, take a seat."
Kate guided Grace in front of her as they made their way to a vacant steel table. Hoisting themselves up, they tried not to look at the other, less lively, occupants of the room. Both were visibly nervous.
"Ducky," Kate began before he could say anything, "I really appreciate your doing this for me. I mean, I don't think I could talk about this with a total stranger."
"It's not a problem, Caitlin," Ducky soothed. "I'm simply relieved you're finally talking about it with someone."
"Not like I had much of a choice," Kate muttered.
"Gibbs has your best interests at heart," Ducky assured her.
"I'm sure," Kate replied sarcastically, "but ordering me to see a shrink doesn't exactly say, 'I care.' At least he let me come see you instead."
"Indeed." Ducky paused. "Well, shall we begin?"
Kate drew a deep breath before exhaling a "Yeah".
"Grace?" Ducky queried, waiting for the girl's nod before continuing. "Very well. Caitlin, if you would please recount the events of that night."
Kate closed her eyes and inhaled shakily. She wasn't sure she could do this.
"At your own pace," Ducky reassured her.
"I had just turned sixteen," Kate began hesitantly, "when Dominic Fleming asked me out…"
As Kate told her story, both Grace and Ducky were listening raptly. Ducky didn't know the details and wanted to help her; Grace needed desperately to learn about her father, however much a cad he had been.
"…and a month later, I found out I was pregnant," Kate finished, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. It was unimaginably difficult to talk about – to relive – the Incident, but with the telling came the tiniest relief. It wasn't huge or profound but some small part of her, deep inside, sighed and relaxed. One brick had worked itself loose from the walls she had built for herself.
"Do you," Ducky interrupted her reverie softly, "blame yourself?"
Kate's face contorted with the effort of not crying as she slowly nodded. "I should have known better," she choked out. "I should have realized…"
"You couldn't have," Grace spoke up, surprising both Kate and Ducky. "You couldn't have known."
"But I did. I knew when he ordered the wine," Kate stated, eyes squeezed shut with the pain of recalling her error in judgment. "I knew then that he was bad news. But I ignored the alarm bells. I thought it was rebellious. I thought it was cool."
"It was a mistake," Grace argued, becoming steadily more passionate, "one anyone could have made. That doesn't make it your fault."
Kate laughed – a hollow, humorless laugh that made Grace shiver. "I know all the arguments. You think I didn't replay that night, over and over, in my head? I know exactly what I did and didn't do. I know whose fault it was."
The bitterness in her voice surprised even Ducky. He had known she had issues; he just didn't realize how ingrained they actually were. It would be difficult to show her the truth in the lies she had been telling herself for fourteen years.
"Would you quit?" Grace burst out angrily. "It wasn't your fault! Some drunk, power-tripping, libidinous," she struggled for the word, "cretin decides he wants to rape you and you blame yourself? There is nothing you could have done."
Grace's words seemed to cut through the guilt and self-loathing that surrounded Kate like a cloud, making her blink several times in surprise. No one had ever put it so bluntly, or perhaps she had just never heard. She still blamed herself but she was beginning to realize, ever so slowly, that maybe there was more to it.
Ducky saw her eyes lighten slightly and smiled tightly. Progress, however small, was still progress.