Katya Chapter 6: A different world
Disclaimer: I don´t own any characters or anything
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Almost three months had passed since Kate had found out about her past. Her father had recovered and was at a private clinic for further treatment now. He had told her about her adoption and what the situation had been like in those times. She had come to terms with what had happened, at least with most of it. Her colleagues had learned about what had happened, though they neither knew how she found out, nor did they know about the bond between her and Gibbs. When they were at work, he treated Kate no different than any other, but when they got off duty, they seemed like two different people. It was a special friendship that had developed, but both knew it would never be more than just a friendship.
In late November, Kate took two weeks off from work. She had been planning this for some time now. Together with her three colleagues, she had collected a lot of information about the village she had been found in. Now she sat in a plane headed for Croatia to finish dealing with her past once and for all time. Ducky had advised her to take this trip because she was still absentmindetly at times, which was dangerous in a job like hers.
The air was very humid and hot when the car door opened, eventhough it was only barely after sunrise. Kate had spent the first night at a hotel near the airport and had set out early to visit the village she had been found in.She paid the taxi driver and looked around. There was no real road, just a sandy trail, barely wide enough for a mid-size car to drive on. She coughed as the dust got into her lungs and continued to look around. The village was very small and some of the buildings were just ruins, probably never rebuilt after they had been destroyed. It was unbelievable that there were people living here. A young man walked up to her. "Can I help you?" He asked in broken English and she was amazed that there was someone who spoke English at all.
"Uhm...yes. I´m looking for someone who can help me find someone. You see, I lived here when I was a child, but then left. I would like to know if there´s still someone here, who is related to me." Kate told him and he seemed a bit puzzled.
"Wow...that´s difficult. Tivatira was destroyed about 20 years ago and almost everyone died. My dad told me -he used to be around here almost all of his life. Do you have a name or something?" He asked and led her towards a low wooden building.
"I´m not sure...I don´t think so." She said and walked into the house. There were some books with names and dates, but she found nothing at first. In the second book, she came across some announcements -some for weddings, others for deaths. Her finger stopped over a name. "Who is this?" She asked and pointed the name out to him.
He read the line and frowned slightly. "Katya Srdic...She´s one of the children who died in that attack 20 years back. Her mother was gone to visit a relative in a neighboring town. She came back the next day, but everyone was dead. They never found a body, but they assume that it was burnt. Why do you ask?"
"I just thought, I might know her...Is her mother still here?" Kate asked and felt tears rising in her eyes. She looked at the birthday and realized it was way different from hers. They had just taken some day as they had no idea of when her real birthday was. May 23rd, 1978. She made a mental note to change that after returning to the US.
"Sorry, she died five years back. She was the last one of the family, if I remember correctly. I need to go, if you need something else, just ask for Gregorio." The young man said and left.
Kate looked at the book and ran her finger across the words. "Katya Srdic..." She whispered and smiled a bit when she heard the sound of that name. It sounded strange in her ears as did the whole language she heard the people speak around her. She closed the book and put it back. There was a cemetery near the old church. Kate walked through the lines of stones and then stopped at a flat one. "EkatarinaSrdic, born June 1st, 1959-died October 6th, 1998." She read and just stood there for a moment.
The world here was so different from everything she knew. Everything she had ever known in her life. This was a foreign country for her and Kate knew that even if she still had relatives here, she would never stay. She didn´t belong here. Realizing this, she felt stupid for taking two whole weeks off for this vacation. Before she had learnt about her family, she had thought it would make a difference in her life, but now she knew it didn´t matter. She was just a line insome old book here, but in Washington, she had a life, a job and her friends.