My first NCIS fic, told in four parts and unbeta'd. Gibbs/Kate with spoilers for "Left For Dead".
Song credits:
1. "Wait", Death Cab for Cutie
2. "The Real Me", The Who
3. "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant", Billy Joel
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1. You will wait for me
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She feels like screaming. Like beating her fists on the stretcher and yelling and throwing a fit and reverting to the mentality of a three-year-old. Or maybe she just needs to sit and cry, because the last time she cried she was sixteen and she had received a phone call about an accident on Logan Street. But her face remains passive and blank, like some horrible plastic doll with dull, insipid eyes.
It's warm out, but she can't tell if it's from the flaming remains of the bomb or the warm breeze that carries those remains over to her. Mother Nature and Man have collided and it's left her confused and alone once again. In any case, the heat doesn't prevent her from wrapping the blanket around her tighter. Maybe the blanket will guard her feelings from prying eyes, or at least shield them from herself for a while. Like the face, her insides feel fake and uncontrollable.
Gibbs walks over, and for a moment false hope fills her. He's come to comfort me, and tell me it's all right and then he'll sit with me and maybe I can talk a little.
Cold, hard professionalism fills his features. Just a brief glance at him is enough to erase her dreams of him rescuing her from any kind of hell she might make for herself and then some. "Are you all right?"
Gruff, but comforting. She can't respond, but something inside of her speaks anyway. "Yes." She's a doll again. Pull its string and listen to it talk! Includes over twenty real, life-like phrases.
"Do you need a ride home?"
She sighs and imagines the empty black book on her desk at home, how she can flip through the pages and find only two names, her's and her mother's, inscribed in big block letters so she can't miss them. And then she remembers the crime scene technicians piecing together Jane Doe
(Her name is Suzanne, goddammit)
and suddenly her social life seems so unimportant. And then she remembers that it's just a ride home he's offering, not a marriage, and she almost wants to cry all over again.
"No . . . thank you. I'm fine."
He doesn't protest, doesn't pick her up and carry her into his car, just looks at her a moment longer and then walks away.
He's always walking away.
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2. Can you see the real me, doctor?
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"How did you feel after the explosion?"
She avoids eye contact, looking at anything but her as she speaks. "Warm." The design on the rug is elaborate, and she begins to trace it with her shoe before remembering she should try to control her impulses, because she couldn't with Suzanne and that didn't end well for either of them. "Um . . . hurt."
"Don't just describe what you felt on the outside."
I'm not.
"Can you tell me what you felt on the inside, too?"
She sighs. "Betrayal? I felt alone." There's a vase in the corner, something fragile and intricate, so she focuses on that. The flowers are nice, too, but the china design on the vase intrigues her.
The therapist notices. "You like them? Those are called Kumasaka flowers. They're a type of Camellia." Awkward silence prompts her to continue. "They do very well in the cold. They endure the winter better than almost any other flower."
She nods, and the doctor
continues. "Why did you feel
alone?"
Shaken
out of her reverie, Kate stammers, "I had spent so much time with her,
and she just . . . disappeared."
It sounds wrong to her ears.
"Not disappeared, but . . . I mean, she just went away so
quickly." She died, she
died, she died her mind chants tauntingly
at her.
"Have you found a way to cope with these feelings you're experiencing?"
The therapist is prying and Kate is tired. "Not yet."
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3. Scenes from an Italian Restaurant
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"I took my first wife here", he says. And then he regrets it, because that makes her sound like a replacement when he wants her to be much more than that to him.
"Oh. That sounds nice." Her eyes flicker up and down the menu, averting eye contact. Looking at anything but him -- marigolds in that corner, kitchen over there, and in between, another happy couple. She goes back to the menu.
"What are you getting?"
"Probably just some salad or something."
He smirks. "There's no substance in salad. You have to go for something filling. The steak here is good."
"Well, half of the stuff here won't agree with me. And I'm trying to be more careful about what I eat now. Can't I just get a salad?"
"I'm not stopping you." Holds his hands up in mock-surrender, admitting defeat.
So she goes right ahead.
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4. Standing at the doorstep
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There's a taxi waiting behind him and a woman in front, waiting by the door. And all that's in the way is her doorstep.
He wants to go through and wave the taxi off and join her upstairs but he just can't.
"I can't. I can't. I'm sorry, Kate." Maybe if we weren't co-workers but not this. Maybe later, much later.
She doesn't beg or plead but watches him as he drives away, again.