A/N: We're drawing to a close.. maybe one more chapter.. maybe a sequel... votes are still being tallied ;) Well, not really.
But you can vote if you'd like to... which means... giving me feedback :D Such a sneaky sneak, I am...
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--- 6 ---
His elbow slipped off the arm of the chair, his head falling slightly from his palm, startled when he heard a soft, sharp cry resonate through the inclusive darkness of his room— it snapped him away from the shallow sleep he had accidentally fallen into. Gibbs swallowed several times, running a groggy hand over his face to jog his memory of why exactly he wasn't sleeping in the immense comfort of his bed— and then he remembered Kate.
His eyes quickly adjusted to the blackness that engulfed the bedroom, making out the outline of her form on the bed. By her movements he could tell she was still asleep, but not peacefully. Gibbs got up slowly and made his way over to the side of the bed, lightly sitting next to her restless body, nestled in his sheets. He wet his lips, debating whether or not to wake her when she let out a muffled whimper into his pillow.
"Oh, Katie.." he sighed to himself as he leaned over her a little, reaching his hand around to rub delicate circles on her back. To his grateful surprise, she began to steadily calm down with every slow stroke and movement of his hand.
Gibbs paused for a moment before making a quick decision— he carefully climbed over her, his hand never leaving her back, and got into bed behind her. He restrained himself from murmuring words of comfort into the back of her neck; he restrained himself from rubbing his hand up her back and squeezing her shoulder, her hip, or her side; he kept his actions to the focused, vital, fragile task of circle-rubbing.
The steady movement of his own hand began to lull him into his own fuzzy trance— right before drifting to sleep beside her, he felt her scoot back towards him; the smooth arch of her back warmly melting against his cotton-covered stomach and chest, effortlessly erasing the small space that he had respectfully left between them.
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Gibbs woke just before the sun began to rise, immediately reminded of his situation by the warm guest in his bed. He didn't move his head from her pillow as he peered down at her in hazy reflection. His conscience taunted both him and his lack of professionalism. But his conscience was drowned out with the hum vibrating through his body when she shifted against him, mumbling something inaudible and ducking her head into his chest— as Kate had turned in his arms at some point during the night. Gibbs carefully moved his hand down her back, resting his arm on her waist rather than her ribcage. Blinking in his own uncertainty, his eyes shifted over her head before he slowly looked back down to her sleeping form. He gently pressed his hand against the middle of her back, his fingers splayed casually across her spine— with this small act, he began to reconsider getting up before she woke; he reconsidered erasing the evidence of his unusual, intimate presence and his equally intimate gestures. Gibbs exhaled and relaxed once more against the mattress, allowing his eyes to slip shut for another small, welcome stretch of sleep, flexing his tired fingers against her back.
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Kate woke in a dim fog of thinning alcohol and unfamiliar surroundings. She warily kept her eyes shut when a rage of roaring thunder pulsed through her head; she slowly raised her hand to her creased brow in a whimper and a groan. She wet her chapped lips, running a lethargic hand down her face and slowly opened her puffy eyes, only to look into a sleeping, familiar face. And then she fully remembered Gibbs— and, almost, everything else that went along with him.
Her heart sank and rose all at once, another tidal wave hitting her waking consciousness. She remembered the kiss she had expertly planted on him, and she remembered being strangely proud of it— even if she probably should have wanted to leave it drunken and forgotten. Her breath caught in her throat. She remembered the tears and why she cried them— why she cried them all over Gibbs. Her heart hummed lightly in her chest with the blurry thoughts of how he looked after her. He let her cry it out, he let her drink it up, he let her sleep it off. Her heart was still heavy with an awful weight that began to send her into a silent, festering panic attack that surged up from the pit of her stomach; but when her thoughts came back around to his atypical, overt kindness.. she suddenly became overwhelmed in an entirely different way. One that she couldn't begin to express in any amount of tangible thought. So she only did what her gut told her to— and she would only, probably, blame it on the ebbing alcohol that was finishing its course through her veins.
Kate leaned into him and pressed her soft lips against his sleeping mouth as chastely as she could control. She smiled inwardly at a sleeping Gibbs who kissed her back. The encounter bordered on that fine line between platonic love and something more. She pulled back from him before he opened his eyes, his brow furrowed in drowsy confusion at her extreme closeness. He managed a slow, heavy-eyed, brief sweep of her tiny form before locking his gaze with hers. Their stares mixed and melted together as Kate gave his upper arm a squeeze, and flashed him a vague smile that was tinted with the faintest hint of anguish and sadness. She slipped out of bed before he even had the time to wonder whether the kiss had been just another fading blur of his frequent dreams of her.
"Hey…" he spoke hoarsely, his voice thick with sleep and calling for her to stop moving around. Gibbs slowly sat up in bed, rubbing his face and watching her nervous movements intently.
She was bent over at the foot of the bed, balancing on one foot as she slipped her black pumps back onto her tiny feet. She looked up to him through a slight veil of mussed, chocolate hair while she switched to her other foot. "Yeah, Gibbs?"
He said nothing as he sat in a mess of blankets and sheets, steadily holding her eyes. She straightened back up and rubbed her hands over her thighs in a sudden burst of nervousness.
"You know, it's kinda late, Gibbs… we should—"
"I called you in." he croaked before clearing the sleep from his throat and looking down to his hands, creasing his brow as if in deep thought.
Kate paused and titled her head, her mouth quirked and her eyebrows rose in a flourish of puzzled surprise, "You did what..?"
He turned down the corners of his mouth and raised his brow in wistful consideration, nodding faintly. "Called myself in, too," he confessed lightly.
"What—? Wait, when?" Kate asked; her tone was one of disbelief rather than the typical annoyance she would have easily felt at such an imposition on her control. Her incomprehension was spread broadly across her features as she held a somewhat defiant hand on her hip. He looked up to her with a warm, calm expression of 'so what?'
"Does it matter?" he spoke softly, waiting for and trying to diffuse her potential knee-jerk reaction. He raised his eyebrows in anticipation.
Kate opened her mouth a little to respond, but faltered— looking away from his eyes and off to his shoulder, and then down to her shoes. She blinked rapidly, a few wisps of bangs catching on her eyelashes as her hair hung in her face. She lifted her hands from her sides in a gesture of "whatever..."
"Guess not…" she said softly.
He continued to watch her; gently scrutinizing her hesitant body language, digesting the slightest change of her facial expressions, cataloging the beauty of every feature that he could safely get away with staring at openly.
"I kissed you." She blurted out and breaking their strain infused silence in spite of herself, loosely clasping her hands in front of her. Gibbs nodded slowly as she brought her eyes back up to his.
"I know." He rumbled lightly, his eyebrow only slightly lifting.
Kate kept faintly nodding her head. "Twice." She added after a short silence, her voice dripping with a strange sense of poise.
Confusion flickered across his face before realization dawned that he hadn't in fact been dreaming when he woke up moments before. Gibbs watched as she calmly rocked on the balls of her feet, noticing that she had already toed out of her shoes. Kate took a tentative step towards the bed, and then another. The bed dipped a little when she sat heavily on the edge of the mattress, staring blankly at his hands.
"Do you think I… that I could stay with you, Gibbs.." Her eyes flitted quickly back up to his face. "Today. Since we're both…" she shrugged slightly, "… off.."
Gibbs blinked slowly and bobbed his head. "You could do that. Sure.." In a gesture of doubt, he swiped his fingers across his bottom lip before catching her eye again, "Do you.. want to.. talk… or—?" He enigmatically held her gaze for as long as she could handle the intimate contact before she looked down.
She shook her head. "Not.. yet. Not now…" She looked back up to him, and her eyes simultaneously apologized and expressed a heartfelt gratitude. Kate noticed that the concern seemed to be permanently etched in the slight creases at the corners of his eyes. He nodded, simply communicating his understanding.
A steady silence surrounded them once more before she spoke again— she swallowed heavily before her lips quirked in uncertainty, speaking with a somewhat staged coolness, "I don't think I can be sorry, Gibbs.. for kissing you."
He tilted his head and looked off past her shoulder, carefully regarding her statement and rolling it around in his head. He paused and exhaled slowly as he brought his attentive stare back to her eyes.
"Who's asking you to..?"
Her mouth opened and closed several times without a sound before she resolved to leave the question unanswered. She looked down to her feet that dangled off the bed and flexed her toes thoughtfully before she began rubbing her hands determinedly from her waist and over her thighs. Gibbs furrowed his brow as he watched her, confusingly fascinated with whatever it was she was doing. When he saw the waist band of her stockings materialize below the hem of her skirt, the corners of his lips tugged upward of their own volition as he ducked his head. Kate slid the stockings down her thighs, past her calves, and plucked them from her feet. She looked over to him, seeing him smirk as she balled up her pantyhose and tossed it carelessly to the floor.
"What? You try wearing stockings for 24 hours.. sleeping in them.." her sentence ending in a hushed grumble.
Gibbs smiled and chuckled softly, looking down to his hands and bobbing his head in quiet acknowledgment. He looked back up again when he felt more of her weight on the bed. Kate crawled back underneath the covers and shimmied down the bed until her head hit the pillow. She turned onto her side to face him, her elbow propped up on the bed, her cheek in the palm of her hand.
"When was the last time you slept past 9am, Gibbs?" she lazily mumbled, her big, dark eyes looking up to his from the pillow.
His eyes flashed and smiled before he looked up to the ceiling in thought, nodding, "I slept 'til 10am once." Kate smiled sweetly.
"Wanna break a record?" she murmured.
Gibbs paused before lying back down next to her, putting his hands behind his head and teasingly mumbling under his breath, "It's your day off.. if that's whatcha wanna do with it..." His voice trailed off, conceding to her desire for more sleep.
She smiled lightly and rolled over, turning her back to him. His façade of indifference fell as he looked over to her with peaked eyebrows and a reflective gaze. Looking back up to the ceiling with a sigh that turned into a yawn, Gibbs felt her scoot back towards him again. He smiled as her back fit neatly against his side like his own little puzzle piece. He lifted his head slightly, removing the hand farthest from her and reached his arm across his body, delicately running an affectionate hand over the back of her head, his fingers smoothly raking through the dark, wavy locks that covered the back of her neck.
Her eyes remained open for a few minutes longer before she fell off to sleep again, the faint smile never once abandoning her lips.