It wasn't raining. It was her mother's funeral and the sun had the nerve to be shining while her world continued to fall apart around her. Kate shifted Jay-Jay to her other hip and leaned against Tony as the grave side services began.

The priest, Father Tom, was the pastor from Saint Barbara's, the family parish, and Kate was refusing to look at anybody outside of her family today. Tony blamed himself. Kate blamed the Russians. Dad hadn't commented on any of this since it happened. And the Brownstone, Grandpa Jasper's beautiful Brownstone was gone.

Suddenly that house didn't matter as much as it used too.

Because Mom was dead. Dead. Gone. Never coming back. Not now, not ever.

Dead.

Kate couldn't tell you what Father Tom was saying, all she could hear was her heart pounding in her ears, her breath hitching as she silently sobbed. Jay-Jay's quiet sniffles as her burrowed his face into his sister's shoulders. Her father trying to stay strong and not cry. Tony's silence and Callen's sullen look. Grampy Jackson's loud crying.

And over all of this, and the white noise that was the sermon, Kate heard mourning doves singing off in the distance. A fresh bout of sobs burst from her chest as she remembered that Jenny loved the sounds of a Mourning Dove's song.

Jay-Jay stilled in her arms and Kate was brought back to the service abruptly. Jay-Jay was reaching for the coffin. Her blood ran cold. The coffin. The mahogany monstrosity that contained the body of her mother. The body she hadn't been allowed to see prior to the wake to say good bye. Daddy had insisted on a closed casket wake.

Tony plucked Jay-Jay from Kate's deadened arms and stiffly carried the toddler to the coffin so he could kiss his mother goodbye. Jay-Jay grabbed the side of the coffin and wailed for his Mommy.

Kate felt dead inside.

She couldn't handle this anymore. There were too many people that hadn't known what her mother was really like; they'd only known her as Director Shepard.

She scanned the crowd to see who was here.

Uncle Toby and Emily.

The Directors of the FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security.

Senators from all over the country.

Hetty Lange and her team from the OSP in Los Angeles.

Former Director Tom Morrow. Secretly Kate used to refer to him as 'Tomorrow' when she talked about him with Becky.

Becky and her family were here as well.

The President of the United States.

SecNav.

The Secretaries of the Army, Air Force and the Commandant of the Marine Corps.

Each one of them looked the right levels of upset and expressed the proper amount of grief that was expected from them. Mr. SecNav and Uncle Toby's faces showing the most genuine grief out of the assembled crowd.

These men would continue on with their lives tomorrow like nothing had changed, sure one of the federal agencies had lost their director. Life would go on.

'No it won't.' Kate thought darkly as Tony placed Jay-Jay back into her arms. She had to squeeze him tight to reassure herself he too wouldn't disappear if she let him go for longer than five minutes. Jay-Jay didn't mind. He clung to her tighter than she clung to him.

Except for Dad. Jay-Jay clung to that man like a vice when he had his hands on Jethro. Not that he minded. Jethro needed all the reassurance that he still had his babies by his side.

~o0o0o0o0o0o~

That night, after the funeral was over, after the final condolences had been said, after all of the high security personal had returned home to their own families and lives, the broken Gibbs family was left to slowly begin the process of piecing themselves back together.

Personally Kate felt like she wouldn't blame her father for up and abandoning the house in Anacostia and moving back to their little home in Arlington. But her father was Leroy Jethro Gibbs and he was going to stay in the home he and Jenny had established, even if it killed him to see little reminders of his wife everywhere.

Tony sat on one of the couches in the living room, tie half loosened, jacket somewhere around the house and a vacant expression on his face. He was trapped in his own mind with a bad case of self loathing, guilt, and the "Coulda, shoulda, woulda"s.

Abby was trying to put an extra clingy Jay-Jay to bed, trying being the key word; he refused to be parted from his father's lap.

Timmy sat next to Tony with a lost look on his face, and Ziva, Ziva was staring off in the distance, not really seeing anything or anyone from her chair in the corner.

Ziva understood. Ziva got it. Ziva felt Kate's pain.

Kate sat on the couch unmoving. Silent. Tears streamed down her face. Impassive, face of stone.

Her world shattered and shattered hard.

The clock ticks, second by second.

Time passes slowly.

The hour hand moves slowly, slowly, slowly until, it's now 8 pm.

It should be midnight.

Midnight where Kate can sob into her pillow in the dark. Sob into the pillow her mother had bought for her last week.

And then.

The phone rings.

The jarring, startling shrill ring of… Jenny's secure cell phone.

Forgotten on the end table in the formal living room.

A harbinger of doom.

They stared.

It rang.

Jay-Jay stopped crying.

The jarring ringing continued.

Finally Dad got up to answer the phone. His voice is more gravely than normal. "Hello," he croaks out and sounds completely un-Dad-like.

Jay-Jay sniffles.

No one moves.

Abby's dress makes some kind of ruffling sound.

Dad smiles.

Dad smiles.

Error, error. Does not compute. Dad smiles?

"You're sure? Can we speak to her?" he asks, the smile grows.

Kate frowns.

Abby frowns.

Ziva stays stone like.

Callen curses in Hungarian.

Tony freezes.

Timmy has a deer in the head lights look.

Jay-Jay sniffles.

And Dad smiles.

"Jen? Babe, are you sure this line is secure?"

The phone is thrust to Kate's ear.

"I'm sorry I had to do this to you Baby Girl, I'm so, so sorry."

It's Mom's voice.

Dead Mom's voice on the phone.

Mom is dead. But she's on the phone.

Kate screams and drops the phone.

And all is black.

~o0o0o0o0o0o~

When she awakes, it's dark, it's late and she's alone.

The bed is soft, the pillows dry.

Her face has no tear tracks.

There's someone at the end of the her bed.

Mom.

But Mom is dead.

Mom is with Kelly and Mommy.

Mom can't be here.

She can't.

But she is.

Kate cries and clings.

Mom apologizes.

Mom stays for breakfast.

Mom's undercover. She's not dead. She's coming back.

One day, but she's coming back.

Mom will call. She swears she will.

And Mom is gone again.

But not for good.

And the sun still shines.

Today isn't going to be as bad as she thought after all.

~o0o0o0o0o0o~

And y'all thought I'd abandoned you, didn't you?

Unbetad cause Megan's looking at schools in the deep South on vacation.

Two weeks until I'm done with school for the year :)