Chapter 8

Kate froze a foot away from the doorway. Was Gibbs really going to take Tony away? He couldn't do that, and not just because she didn't know what she'd do without him. As long as Tony was at the safe house with her then Greg couldn't hurt him. Even if he was out there working the case he would still be vulnerable. Kate would rather die than see Tony hurt. She'd always felt that was as his partner and his friend, but now that feeling was even more intense. He'd been so amazing to her, letting her see the sensitive guy that he usually hid under layers of sarcasm and sexual innuendo. He was exactly who she needed.

Sure, she'd always had strong feelings for him, but she'd told herself they were nothing more than the strong bond that came from being partners who always had to rely on each other. When she'd started dreaming about him she'd racked it up to the fact that he was an incredibly sexy and sometimes charming guy that she spent a lot of time with. He was a womanizing cad who could drive her crazy with his juvenile ways so that had to be it. She couldn't actually have been falling for him.

After today, she couldn't deny or explain away her feelings anymore. She knew she was in no shape for a relationship. Even if they caught Greg it wasn't like all the damage he'd done would just disappear. But that didn't mean she couldn't finally admit the truth, if only to herself. She'd been falling for him ever since that first night on Air Force One, and her feelings weren't about to go away. It would never go anywhere, but that didn't mean she could let go of him. As the silence in the kitchen dragged on, she took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway.

She found Gibbs and Tony in identical stances, glaring at each other with their arms crossed over their chests. Tony looked up the second she crossed into the kitchen and the scowl immediately slid off his face. Gibbs face also softened when he turned his attention to her, but it did nothing to alleviate the tension hanging thick in the air. Tony immediately skirted around Gibbs and stopped a foot in front of her.

"Hey," he whispered, automatically reaching up to let his fingers trace her cheek. "You okay?" She nodded, but he didn't look convinced. "Are you done with the list already?" She shrugged, confounding him. He was starting to really worry since she hadn't said a single word yet. He should have stayed with her. Damn Gibbs! Didn't he care about Kate at all? Didn't he see what he was doing?

Tony started to pull Kate into his arms but she placed a soft hand to his chest to stop him. He stared questioningly into her eyes, wondering if he'd done something wrong that she didn't want him to hold her anymore. That thought was like a searing knife through his heart. He was about to ask when she finally spoke, although it was barely above a whisper.

"I can't make it all make sense. I can't figure out who he's going to go after. I love pictures so I have a lot of them, and there's just too many different people. Is he going to hurt every guy just because they're in a picture? There's too many and I don't even know most of them anymore. Everything he did was always so methodical. This just doesn't make sense." She closed the space between her and Tony and immediately felt his strong, safe arms surround her.

"What about the list Kate? At least it's somewhere to start." Gibbs' rough voice intruded and Kate felt Tony tense. She didn't need to look to know he was glaring at Gibbs over his shoulder. She shook her head, which was still tucked under Tony's chin. She knew that Gibbs couldn't see her since Tony seemed to be shielding her with his body, but she didn't care.

Gibbs raised his voice, saying her name to get her attention and hopefully an answer to his question. Tony turned his head to glare at him, fully prepared to tell him to get the hell out but Kate's hand on his cheek stopped him. She guided his head back around until he was staring down at her. "It's ok," she whispered. "I don't want him to make you leave." She closed her eyes, knowing that Gibbs wanted to make him leave no matter what. She didn't know what she could do to change Gibbs' mind and she hated being so week, but there wasn't a single doubt in her mind how much she needed Tony right now.

"I'm not going anywhere." Tony whispered back, softly kissing her forehead. He glanced over his shoulder and said, loud enough for Gibbs to hear, "Let's go back to the living room and figure this out."

Once they'd resumed their previous places in the living room, with Kate once again wrapped in Tony's arms, it was time for the heavy talking to begin. Kate had been trying to get inside Greg's head while she'd made the list of guys, trying to figure out who he'd go after first and how he'd find them. She'd come up with more questions than answers but maybe Tony and Gibbs could help make sense of it all.

"I started thinking while I was working on the list. There are probably a bunch of guys in those pictures who weren't a big part of my life, like acquaintances from work or friends of friends. I haven't seen some of those guys in a long time so I probably wouldn't even know if something had happened to them. Greg wants to hurt me and that wouldn't hurt me enough. He'll want to go after the guy that I'm closest to now, but how is he going to figure that out? Even if he narrows it down to all the guys who are in my life now, he'll still need to figure out the single most important one so he can push me over the edge."

"Don't you think he'll just go after all the guys that are in your life now? He sounds like he wants to punish every guy who's ever been near you. Would he care about taking out the one that's the most important to you first?" Gibbs gently questioned. Kate was sounding more like her usual self, like the agent he knew and loved. Her mind was working almost like it would on any other case, which Gibbs hoped meant that she was going to be ok.

"Trust me, he'll want the man he views as his biggest competition gone first. It'll hurt me the most, prove that he can still control and ruin my life, and take away the guy that I rely on the most. It'll leave me more vulnerable to him so it's definitely what he'll do. He's too controlled to be going off half-cocked and without a concrete plan. He'll know who he's going after, but how?"

"Did you have an address book? We didn't find one when we searched your apartment. If he had that he'd know where to find every guy you know." Gibbs immediately wished he could take the last sentence back when he saw Kate flinch slightly, but at least she didn't fall apart.

Tony squeezed her a little tighter and she pushed the thought from her head, pushing on. "My only address book is at the office. Everything is on my PDA and I never leave home without it, so he couldn't have got to it." She paused for a second, trying to think of anything she had in her apartment besides the pictures that could have been used by Greg. Her eyes widened and she whispered, "My journal." Why hadn't she thought of that sooner. "No!" She jumped from the couch and ran to the bedroom, leaving her stunned teammates staring after her.

Tony rushed after her a second later, leaving Gibbs to wonder if he should follow or let Tony handle it. He needed to know what was in the journal that could help Greg, especially since Kate had reacted so bad, but he also needed to make sure she was ok. He decided to give Tony five minutes, and then he was going in.

AN: please review and let me know what you think : )