Disclaimer: If NCIS were mine, there'd be lots more sex and a lot less crime.

A/N: This was requested by lealea sometime over the summer and I've finally finished it. Sorry it took so long, hun!

Kate was waiting.

For what, you ask?

She almost laughed at the answer. Their fearless leader was up to something. She could feel it.

It was almost too easy. They all knew that Ari Haswarri was a conniving bastard. They knew that he was a force to be reckoned with. Hell, he'd tried to blow one, if not all, of them up earlier that day. So when Gibbs refused her protection and then conveniently offered to stay at NCIS so they wouldn't "waste valuable resources", she knew it was a load of bullshit. Tony and McGee might have bought it, but something hinky was afoot and Kate was going to find out what it was.

So, there she was. Standing in the elevator at the back of the building. Waiting.

She prayed that she was wrong, that Gibbs wasn't stupid enough to try and leave again without telling anyone. But if Kate knew anything, it was that all men had a one track mind. It was all about food, sex, money, power or the insane notion that they were always right. Her boss, as far as she knew anyways, was only guilty of the latter.

Kate yawned and looked at her watch for the tenth time in as many minutes. 0115. Why wasn't she at home in her nice, warm, inviting bed again? Oh yeah, right... Hinky. Gibbs. Terrorist hellbent on killing him.

Shuffling into a corner, she resigned herself to the fact that it was going to be a very long night and slid down the wall, resting her head against the cool metal. It was soothing. Loosening the tension that had been gathering behind her eyes throughout the day.

That stubborn, pigheaded man was going to get himself killed one of these days and it was going to be his own damn fault. She refused to let that happen. Not on her watch anyway.

Nearly two hours later, she was startled awake when the car jolted to life and began ascending to the third floor.

Kate used the railing to pull herself up, wincing as her neck creaked and her ass started to tingle from sitting for such a long period. But then the elevator dinged and the doors slid open.

Her eyes widened.

"Gibbs?"

He nodded, apparently not surprised to see her in the least, "Kate."

She gaped at him, watching as he pressed the ground floor button and stepped in next to her. Was he seriously going to just stand there and pretend like he wasn't trying sneak out the back door?

"Gibbs!" she hissed, "What do you think you're doing?"

He didn't even bat an eye.

"Going home."

Kate saw red.

"'Going home?'" she floundered, searching for and not quite grasping the few choice expletives that described exactly how enraged she was, "Gibbs!"

Only then did he glance in her direction, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly, "What?"

"Don't, 'what' me! You made a deal... NCIS instead of a protection detail!"

His brow rose, a challenging gaze piercing right through her, "You gonna stop me?"

The bastard was taunting her. She was going to punch him so hard if he kept this up. Right in the face.

But before she could reply with a witty response three things happened: the doors opened, Gibbs tried to escape and Kate grabbed his wrist, tugging as hard as she could, sending him stumbling backwards into her.

Her pulse doubled, all of her training flying right out the window as her sleepy, sluggish body tried to comprehend what was happening. With a flurry of limbs, in less than four seconds she found herself pinned roughly against the wall, one arm bent precariously behind her.

She should've known better.

His breath puffed heavily past her shoulder, pressing his weight harder into her the more she struggled against his hold.

Time seemed to drag on. The doors chimed, shutting once more. Hiding them from the outside world. And all she could feel was the steady rhythm of his chest against her back and adrenaline rushing through her veins.

"You done yet?"

Kate bucked halfheartedly against him, grunting in frustration, "Let me go!"

His fingers tightened around her wrist, "Gee, I don't know if I should..."

"Dammit, Gibbs!"

He leaned forward, his lips brushing against the shell of her ear, the smell of his aftershave surrounding her with a slow, curling insistence. Everything seemed to stop. Her eyes slipped shut, breath caught in the back of her throat, just barely able to repress the shiver that ran through her body.

Where in the hell did that come from?

"You gonna slug me?"

Her body warmed.

"Maybe."

"Same old Katie," he chuckled.

His grip loosened, moving just enough for her to turn around in the cage of his arms. Their eyes met. Ice-blue boring into her as an unusual, yet strangely familiar tension crackled between them. What happened next though, she certainly hadn't been expecting...

She kissed him.

Square on the lips. Pushing and needy, with enough insistence for him to gape in surprise just long enough for her to slip inside. The look on his face had been priceless. And if she hadn't been so appalled with herself- thrown by the overwhelming feeling of a man's body pressed intimately against hers, mouth and tongue slipping along hers, or the fact that the man was her boss- she would've realized that he was kissing her back.

After that, everything was a blur.

Hands and torn buttons and skin. It was rough and frantic. Neither taking the time to say what they were both trying not to think, "What if we get caught?" and "We shouldn't be doing this," and "Please don't stop!" Because at the end of the day, after all that they've seen together, crocheted rules on pillows and slaps to the back of the head didn't seem to matter all that much. It was more than that. It was family and need and human touch. Something that they'd both gone long enough without and deserved just as much, if not more, than anyone else she knew.

So it might not have been the best idea she'd ever had or even the smartest ('cause, really? In an elevator? Without the emergency break on? Definitely stupid...), but Kate just couldn't bring herself to put a stop to it. She'd never felt such a desperate need to connect with someone. All day she'd battled an urge to keep the team close, keep him close, so strong that it had actually started to terrify her. And now that she had him in her arms, had her legs wrapped around his hips as he slid inside of her for the first time, that feeling was finally starting to abate.

She welcomed it.

Asking for more. Pleading to an empty audience somewhere in her mind to make this last forever, to keep him safe. Arching and bowing, groaning as he pressed into her over and over again. Her nails digging into his shoulders, head lolling back against the wall and the burn of teeth biting into her neck just as release swept over her. Surprising her. Blinding her. Mouth open in a silent scream of pleasure, every part of her body exploding around him. Surrounded in darkness and the roar of her own heart beating rapidly in her ears.

When she came to his weathered hands were skimming tenderly across her stomach. Touching, savoring, holding onto her until the silence broke around them and his lips were only a ghost of a memory against her skin.

The elevator dinged and with straightened clothes and Gibbs reassuring palm resting against the small of her back, they reentered the bullpen.

They had a job to do.

Ari was living on borrowed time.

So later that day when she found herself somewhere in Virginia, standing on a warehouse rooftop bickering with Tony while secretly watching Gibbs smile at her out of the corner of her eye, she silently thanked God that she'd been able to jump in front of him in time. Because maybe, just maybe- in that elevator, on Air Force One two years ago- she'd finally found who she'd been looking for all her life...

And in a blink of an eye, she was gone.

End.