GIBBS

"So, I was thinking..."

Gibbs looked up from his cup of coffee and saw Kate standing in the doorway of his kitchen. He grinned. It was a hell of a view. She had clearly raided his closet for clean clothing, and that was pleasantly domesticated in a way he didn't want to inspect too closely. Somehow the boxers and shirt managed to make her still more feminine and gorgeous, even as they swamped her frame.

Or maybe he was just finally allowing himself to notice what had always been true, no matter what she wore.

It was a lot easier to concentrate when she was more or less dressed, although he kinda preferred when she wasn't. Being able to concentrate? Seriously overrated.

"Yeah?"

She came to his side and poured herself a coffee, then hopped up onto the counter and crossed her legs at the ankles.

"They're looking for profilers at the FBI."

For a moment he was simply confused, and then what she'd said settled into his brain. He took in a sharp breath, as if he'd been socked in the gut. "What?"

She gave him an odd look. "Profilers? You know, my specialty?"

Something like panic had a hold of his throat, and he couldn't respond, just had to stand there and listen to her casually remove herself from his life.

"I thought it might make more sense to start thinking about it now so you can look for someone to replace me, and it won't give the Director or anyone a chance to give you grief over, you know, stuff. What d'you think?"

He forced himself to take a breath, to at least get some words out. "I- God, Kate, did I do something?"

She gave him a look that was the personification of 'wtf?' "What?"

He ran a hand up her arm, took hold of her shoulder. "Please, Kate. Don't do this." How had he messed up so soon?

Her hands came up to touch his face and brush through his hair, casually, almost automatically, as if they'd been a couple for years, not days. "Gibbs, I have no idea what you're thinking right now, but I'm pretty sure whatever it is has nothing to do with what I'm trying to say."

"Please, just..." He was pleading, and he wasn't even sure what for. Her touch was reassuring, but why did she want to leave him? Already? "Don't leave me." He sounded pathetic, completely pathetic, but he had to make her understand he'd do anything...

She frowned at him for a moment, before suddenly her expression cleared and she laughed, setting her cup down, then pulled him into her body, wrapping her arms around his neck and then her legs around his waist, as if for good measure. "You're an idiot," she murmured, and she was so close he felt the words against his lips. "Why would I leave you? I love you, you dunce."

He frowned, confused, but let himself embrace her. "But you want to go to the Feebs, I don't..."

"Gibbs, for an intelligent guy you can be amazingly slow." She shook her head. "Rule 12? 'Romance between agents never works'? Any of this ring a bell?"

"I-" His mind was racing and pennies were dropping. "I... okay, I am an idiot."

"You think?"

He laughed with relief. "I thought... I thought..." He shook his head, managed to drag some air into his lungs. "You're right. I'm stupid."

"I know."

"Thanks." He said it drily and she laughed at him. Again. He couldn't bring himself to mind so long as she was sticking around to continue laughing at him. "For a moment..."

She laid a hand on his cheek and leaned in till their foreheads touched, gave him a look that was mingled tenderness and exasperation. "You really are an idiot." He shrugged a shoulder. He couldn't exactly argue. "I love you, okay? I want this to work. I want us to have a future, not to crash and burn 'cause we're both too stubborn to change."

The way she was looking at him... he swallowed and reminded himself breathing was not optional. "But Katie... you love your job."

The corners of her mouth turned up. "I love you more."

He couldn't help grinning like a besotted teenager when she said stuff like that. "I should - I could retire, or something, you shouldn't have to..."

"I don't have to. I want to." She smiled wider. "Gibbs... I love my job, I do, I love working with you. But I can do what I do in any capacity. What you do... I can't make you give that up. It's too important. It's part of who you are. I won't let you give that up for me when I'd be happy doing my job somewhere else. I'll miss working with you, with all of you, sure, but I'll come visit so often you'll be sick of me, and I'll still get to work with you more than if you'd retired. I bet Fornell will be thrilled to have someone else he can draft in to liaise so he doesn't have to. And-" she shrugged a shoulder "-I'll know you'll be here when I come home at night, which is so much more important."

It still kind of stunned him she was thinking ahead like this, was including him in her life long term. He couldn't help thinking it was a stark contrast to Jenny, who had made it painfully clear he didn't fit in with her plans. Kate, unbelievable as it still seemed, could look at a burnt out old jarhead and see her future. "Okay," was all he managed out loud. "Okay."

"You must've seen this coming?" She shook her head. "I mean, you're the one with all the rules, Gibbs, not me. How else was it gonna work?"

"Guess I didn't realise... din't expect you'd change up your life just for me, I s'pose."

She shrugged again. "Given how often you've spouted those lines over the last two years, I figured... whether or not you were right, you sure believed it. It seemed like the next step to take."

It all sounded so logical and sensible when she put it that way. Insofar as the idea of Kate wanting to be with him made any kind of logic or sense, of course. "Okay."

"I was just trying to follow your orders."

He gave her a sceptical look. "Really?"

She laughed. "First time for everything. And you know, this rule seemed... kind of important to you."

"Yeah?"

"You were sort of... intense about it."

He coughed. All this time he'd thought he was so utterly and painfully transparent. It was a little embarrassing to admit just why he'd been so 'intense' about it. "You, uh, remember when that first came up?"

"Believe me, I remember. How could I forget?" She glanced to one side as she recalled it. "Late on a warm Cuban night, you looked at me with this inscrutably sad expression and basically told me it was never gonna work. I had no idea if you just meant Tony and Paula or if you'd realised I was... um, harbouring unprofessional thoughts about you or what, but either way it meant the same thing, that I didn't have a chance."

"Wasn't a coincidence."

"No?"

"Cuba was..." He shook his head. "It ever occur to you I might be harbourin' some 'unprofessional thoughts' of my own, Katie?"

She smiled slowly, her eyes flicking up to meet his then looking away again, a little shy. "Sometimes. I tried not to think about it, tried to convince myself I was... I don't know, imagining things. It was easier that way, easier to deal, because I was so sure even if I was right... well, you'd never do anything about it."

"Was doin' my best not to. Kept remindin' myself it was off the cards, warned you off best I could, just in case. Made sure you knew I wasn't lyin' when I told you I was a bastard. Tried to make sure nothin' could happen, made sure you wouldn't look at me that way, ever. So even if I broke it wouldn't matter, 'cause you wouldn't."

"Well that worked like a charm, huh?"

He laughed at her dry tone and the cheeky smirk she threw at him, shook his head in pleased disbelief.

"What?"

"Nothin'." He didn't have the words, so he grinned and leaned in to kiss her again, not holding back, making love to her mouth till she was moaning and her arms and legs were tight around his body.

When they surfaced, she was panting and her eyes were so dark they looked almost black. "Wow."

"Yeah. That's what they all tell me."

For a moment she stared at him and then burst out laughing, leaning against him. "I can't believe you just said that."

He shrugged. "Couldn't help myself."

She shook her head. "I should kick your ass."

"You probably could," he acknowledged.

"Probably?"

"Well, we'll make sure and test the theory at some point, Miss Secret Service. Right now-" He laughed suggestively "-I got a better idea." He slid his hands up her thighs, under the cotton of the boxer shorts she'd liberated from his underwear drawer, and gently squeezed her butt. Her head was resting against his shoulder, and he could feel as well as hear the happy noise she made, her laughter shifting into pleasure. He left one hand inside the boxers and smoothed the other up and under the shirt she'd pilfered from his wardrobe. He had to admit it looked great on her. "Gonna steal all my clothes, huh?"

She grinned against his neck. "Doesn't seem like you mind."

"At least they're easy to take off." He popped a button as his hand moved up over her stomach.

"We're still in the kitchen," she pointed out, although she made no attempt to stop him and he could feel her heartbeat thumping under his fingers.

"So?" He brushed the side of her breast, prompting a little grunt of want out of her, and her legs pulled him still closer.

When she spoke again her control over her voice was slipping, her words stuttering and shaky. "Do I need to remind you... you have a perfectly serviceable... bed?"

"Nope, I remember." He grinned. "Kinda gets in the way of my plan, though."

"What plan is that?"

He nuzzled the fabric of the shirt collar aside and laid a hot, open mouthed kiss on the top of her shoulder, following it with a slow, seductive line of similar kisses and nips up the side of her neck. By the time he reached her ear her hands were clutching at his arms and her breathing was deliciously uneven.

He let his voice drop into the low, smooth tone he'd already established made her knees melt. "To make love to you in every single room of this house."

She let out a high, quivery noise. "Oh."

"Got a problem with that, Agent Todd?"

Her laugh was breathless, and when she spoke again her voice sounded rough and needy. "Oh... you know what, Agent Gibbs? I really, really don't."

a/n big shout out to tervluv1 who helped me work out some of the kinks in this chapter. any and all errors are mine, but it ended up much stronger for her input. THANK YOU!