If heaven was a tear, it'd be my last one
And you'd be in my arms again

-From "If Heaven" by Andy Griggs

- - -

"Where's Kate?"

Tony's head shot up from where it had been resting on his folded arms. A blonde woman stood in the middle of the bullpen, giving Tony an expectant gaze.

"What?"

"Is she out working a lead or something?"

The woman looked oddly familiar.

"Do I know you?" he asked, allowing his head to crash pathetically back onto his desk.

"I'm Rachel," she said. "Friend of Kate's, I'm with the local PD. My team worked on a case with yours once. Some sailor faked his own death while on the phone with a telemarketer."

His head jerked back up.

"Rachel!" he exclaimed. "I remember you now!"

Almost as quickly as he had perked up, his head drooped again.

"Kate's not here," he said quietly.

"Well, where is she? We scheduled lunch today two weeks ago, it's not like her to forget."

"She's dead," he said bluntly, burying his face in his arms again as he waited for the inevitable symptoms of denial. A gasp, maybe an accusation of joking around. There was nothing.

"Oh my God," Rachel finally said.

"Say it ain't so, huh?" Tony muttered morosely, without picking up his head again.

"Yeah, that about covers it," Rachel said, a hint of hysteria in her voice.

Naturally, she fainted.

- - -

It didn't really help matters that when she came to, she was lying on a cold autopsy table with a concerned-looking medical examiner hovering over her.

"How are you feeling, Rachel?"

She sat up a little ways and surveyed her surroundings.

Autopsy. Definitely autopsy.

Rachel slumped back onto the table with a dull thud.

"Tell me I'm not dead," she said, without opening her eyes.

The medical examiner chuckled.

"No, my dear, you're far from dead. You simply had a short fainting spell. It reminds me of when I was eight years old-"

Tony interrupted him.

"All right, all right, Ducky. I think she'd like to get out of autopsy now that she's conscious."

Rachel stood and followed Tony out the sliding glass doors and into the elevator.

"Listen," she said. "I need to talk to you."

"Talk."
"Kate- Kate and I had a lot in common, obviously. Same type of job, same personalities in the workplace, same attitudes towards just about everything. And we had the same... views of the people we knew."

Tony gave her a dubious look.

"No, I mean it. Like, the first time Kate and I went out for coffee, I remember we were talking about you. Yeah, I know," Rachel said, rolling her eyes at his sudden animation. "Don't get a big head about it. Anyways, I said that you were a jackass, and I remember what she said because it was really surprising to me. She said, 'But he's my jackass.' For all the crap you gave her, she still admitted that, in the end, you weren't that bad. Okay, so you were really pathetic. Part of your charm, she said."

Tony shook his head.

"But what difference does that make?" he asked.

The doors opened and they were back in the bullpen. Rachel gave him a look that unsurprisingly and rather painfully reminded him of Kate.

"Let me see," she said, walking behind Kate's desk. "If I'm right, it should be..."

Rachel opened the lowest file cabinet drawer and extracted a sketchpad while Tony watched, disbelieving.

"Ha," she said simply, flipping it to the first page and displaying it.

Tony stared at the image of himself, wearing sunglasses, hair a mess, laughing.

"That does not mean anything," he said finally, taking it from her.

"You can think whatever you want to," Rachel said. She scribbled a few numbers on a Post-It and stuck it to the front of the sketchpad.

"Call me once they've made... arrangements."

And as quickly as she had come, Rachel disappeared.

- - -

Once again that night, Tony found himself incapable of sleep. So he went for a drive. He left the dog at home. It was around five in the morning. Almost dawn. When he had reached his destination, he parked his car, locked it, and checked his pistol. Ready to go if he needed it.

Glancing quickly around the area, he began to scale the fire escape ladder.

The sun was breaking above the building in the distance when he reached the top. The concrete was white again, power-washed clean of the bloodstains. The thought that it must have taken a long time to get them off flitted through his mind.

Tony kneeled on the cold concrete, uncapped the Sharpie, and, in neat capital letters, he began to write.

KATE TODD WAS HERE.

He rocked back on his heels and stared at the strong black handwriting. He was unable to take his eyes off of it. As light began to spill into the grey atmosphere, Tony closed his eyes and brought up an image of that day, letting it form a movie of sorts. A slideshow of what might have been.

The first bullet hit too far south to have struck her heart, even if she hadn't worn a bulletproof vest, and he almost wished that it had been the one that did the damage. He wished that she had been allowed a few last words, wished that there had been more time. Wished that she could have died in his arms. It seemed like they should have at least been granted that.

Instead, Kate's life was clipped off before she could even finish her sentence. Instantaneous. There was no time for sweet goodbyes, for that last kiss. No time to for her to cough out her last words with her last remaining breath. No time for romantics, because this wasn't the movies. Just a cruel man, and a gun, and one little piece of metal.

Welcome to the real world.