PART ONE
Bad News

When the call came in, Gibbs was on a coffee run.

Kate, Tony and McGee were standing around the plasma screen and discussing their current case - they were about to crack it, and they knew it - when Kate’s phone rang. She ran for her desk. "That must be his CO returning my call," she predicted. It would be the confirmation they needed to give them the search warrant that should net them their evidence and their arrest.

Leaning over her desk, she activated the speaker phone. "Special Agent Todd," she greeted, her voice rich with anticipation.

"Caitlin Todd?" the woman’s voice on the other end asked, and Kate’s shoulders slumped with disappointment - the CO was a man. "This is Janet at Dr. Wheeler’s office."

McGee and Tony could not fail to notice the way Kate’s face went completely pale at those words, and she snatched up the telephone receiver, stretching the cord out almost straight as she moved as far away from them as possible to take her call. She turned her back to them, hunching her shoulders slightly in an obvious demand for privacy. "Yes," she said softly, "this is Caitlin Todd."

Tony and McGee exchanged glances at this unusual behavior. Tony was about to start sneaking forward behind Kate to try and eavesdrop when they saw her shaking hand come up to press against her mouth. "Are… are you sure?" they heard her say, and her voice was no longer rich - it was thin and desperate. "There’s no way it could…?"

There was another moment’s pause, and Kate’s back seemed to fold in on itself, no longer belonging to the strong special agent who worked with them, but somehow becoming a fragile and hopeless thing. "I… I understand," she said softly. "No, I can’t right now. I’m in the middle of something at work and I don’t know when it will be done. I’ll call you back in a couple of days, I guess. Yes. Thank you, Janet." She lowered the receiver from her ear and stood there for a few seconds, staring at it, before consciously forcing herself to straighten her back and her shoulders.

Tony watched with sharp eyes as she walked with deliberate, measured steps around her desk to replace the receiver and then stood there for a moment, staring at it blankly. She was startled out of her reverie when it rang again. She looked at it for a moment as though it might be a snake, and then lifted the receiver with a trembling hand. "Agent Todd," she announced.

She nodded, glancing at Tony and McGee briefly, and then said, "Thank you, Captain Williams. You’ve been a huge help." She hung up the phone and turned to her colleagues. "That was the CO. Get the search warrant." She paused, swallowed hard, and added, "I’ll be… I… Excuse me." She turned and headed for the ladies’ room at a trot, leaving her co-workers staring after her in consternation.

By the time Gibbs returned, Kate was back at her desk, pale and red-eyed but tight-lipped and refusing to answer any questions. She buried herself in files until the search authorization came through, and was the first one in the elevator when Gibbs shouted for McGee to get the car. Tony and McGee shared a glance as they parted, and Tony nodded once. "I’ll talk to Gibbs," he told the probie, hurrying to jump into the elevator before the doors closed.

The ride down in the elevator was silent and slightly tense as Tony watched Kate out of the corner of his eye, trying to figure out what might be wrong with her without being too obvious about it. Aside from her pale complexion, slightly worried expression, and a faint green tinge around her gills, there appeared to be nothing physically wrong with her. He filed her woes in the back of his mind and turned the bulk of his attention to Gibbs, answering his boss’s questions about their case.

They loaded into the car when McGee arrived in the front of the building, and they headed out to question (and hopefully arrest) their suspect. After confronting him with the lie of his false alibi, arresting him and charging him with murder, they returned to the office to fill out paperwork. Kate declined to participate in the usual bullpen banter, a change that Tony knew was noticed even by Gibbs. Over the last couple hours of the workday, he caught their boss giving Kate odd looks several times. Clearly Gibbs wasn’t as oblivious to his team’s moods as most people thought.

When 1700 rolled around, Kate was out of the office as though she’d been shot from a cannon, leaving her coat behind in her haste to be gone. All three men watched her go. As soon as the elevator closed behind her, Gibbs rounded on Tony. "What did you do?"

Tony gaped at Gibbs. "Nothing!" he exclaimed.

"It’s true, Boss," McGee stepped in immediately. "Tony didn’t do anything. She got a phone call from her doctor while you were getting coffee, and she’s been like that ever since."

"Her doctor?" Gibbs repeated. "What doctor?"

McGee and Tony looked at one another. "Uh…" Tony tried to recall.

"Wheeler!" McGee said, snapping his fingers. He accessed Google and looked up the doctor. He blinked. "Dr. Leanne Wheeler is an OB/GYN."

The three men looked at one another. "Well," Gibbs finally said, "I’m sure she’ll tell us when she’s ready." He stood, grabbing his coat. "Go home, you two."

Needing no further encouragement, Tony and McGee grabbed their things and barreled out the door. Gibbs waited until they were gone, then sat back down and pulled up Kate’s personnel file. He jotted down her address, stuck the note in his pocket, and collected Kate’s coat on his way out the door.

Forty-five minutes later, he parked in front of her apartment complex and entered the building, her coat over his arm. He took the elevator up to her floor and found her door with no trouble. He knocked firmly and listened as she shuffled toward the door. When she opened it, he was almost appalled at what he saw.

She was dressed in loose cotton pajama pants and an oversized tee shirt. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup, her skin pale, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, and her eyes were rimmed with bright red where she’d obviously been crying. She blinked up at him. "Gibbs?"

He held out her coat. "Left this at the office."

Her eyes narrowed as she took the garment. "You live in metro, Gibbs. You didn’t drive all the way out to Alexandria just to bring me my coat."

"That’s very true," he agreed. He held up a plastic grocery bag. "I also brought you Chinese."

She blinked, and then stepped back from the door. "Well since you made the trip, you might as well come in."

"Thought you’d never ask." He entered her apartment, moving to set the food out on the table as she shut the door and moved into the kitchen to put up some coffee. He busied himself with the paper cartons and plastic utensils until she came back with plates, a cup of strong coffee and a glass of water, settling herself into a chair and pulling her legs up underneath her.

She smiled wanly at him. "You might as well spit it out," she said softly.

Sitting across from her, he raised an eyebrow. "What’s that?"

"Whatever it is you came here to find out, ask me about it." She studied him. "I am a trained profiler."

He focused instead on dishing the food out onto the plates, handing one to her and keeping one for himself. "Eat something," he said quietly. "You look like hell."

"You sure know how to charm a girl," Kate replied sarcastically before digging into her food.

Gibbs shrugged. "Wasn’t trying to charm you."

She finished the sweet and sour chicken on her plate and he pushed the box of lo mein toward her. She’d barely gotten the first paper flap opened before the smell assaulted her. She swallowed hard, trying to keep her gorge from rising: lo mein was her favorite, and he knew it, and if she declined it, he’d know something was very, very wrong. So she steeled her stomach and popped the box the rest of the way open. But she squeezed the box too hard, and the wet noodles within seemed to rise up inside the container for a moment before her grip relaxed and they settled back down again.

Like they were breathing.

Like they were alive.

She bolted for the bathroom and wasted a quarter of a box of particularly good sweet and sour chicken.

He followed behind her, held her hair back, and brought her a cold washcloth when the retching was done and she was sitting back on the bathroom floor, leaning hard against the wall. He closed the toilet lid, flushed, and sat on the lid, leaning over to wipe her face with the cloth, more gentleness in his hands than she could ever have imagined.

She looked up at him with miserable eyes, tears welling in them again, and he brushed the backs of his fingers against her forehead, pushing an errant tendril of hair back from her face. His voice was even gentler than his touch when he finally spoke again. "How far along are you?"

The tears spilled over, rolling down her face. "Four months," she whispered.

He helped her up, using the cloth to dry her tears, and led her back out to the living room. Once she was settled on the couch, he busied himself putting the uneaten food away in the refrigerator before carrying over her untouched glass of water and setting it on the coffee table. His own newly-refilled coffee mug in hand, he sat down across from her on the edge of her favorite chair. "You were sick four months ago," he said conversationally. "Missed three days of work."

She nodded, looking down at her own knees, which she was clutching like a lifeline. Her face burned.

"Were you on vacation?" he inquired in a deceptively soft voice.

She could hear the underlying dangerous question. Were you off somewhere with some man? Did you go on a long weekend to some cabin in the mountains and get careless? You said you were sick, and I believed you. Did you lie to me? Did you betray my trust in you? "No," she said flatly. "If you don’t believe me, you can check the records at Georgetown. I checked in under my own name."

He nodded. "I believe you." And he did, but he was watching her with investigator’s eyes. He took in her slumped posture, the tense grip on her knees, her rounded shoulders, and most importantly, the eyes that wouldn’t look at him. He thought back to her return to work four months ago, and he remembered how skittish she seemed around them for the first few days, how she tended to edge away from them in the elevator, and how she jumped every time he touched her until she suddenly seemed to get a grip on herself and settle back down. He had dismissed all these signs at the time, focused on catching a serial killer, but his mind was doing the math right now and the sum he was coming up with was not one that he liked.

He clamped down hard on his own emotions before speaking again. The answer to this question was going to determine whether someone lived or died, and she would know it. If what he now suspected was true, she would be extremely vulnerable right now, as well as emotionally unstable. He needed to make sure that he spoke carefully, or this could go very badly… and Gibbs wasn’t famous for being sensitive. He swallowed hard, took a sip of his coffee, and studied the mug in his hands when he spoke again in the gentlest tone Kate had ever heard him use. "Kate… were you raped?"

The air in the apartment grew thick when he asked, and Kate wondered for a moment if she was going to stop breathing. His voice ran wild in her head, that horrible question running around and around, echoing and mocking her in her mind. She couldn’t speak, but the tears that began to run down her face again were answer enough for him.

He approached her cautiously, leaving his mug on the table, unsure if she would allow him to touch her. He knew that many women could not bear even the most casual touch of a man after being raped, and he did not know if she would be able to accept comfort from him. He sat down gingerly on the edge of the couch next to her, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder.

She turned to him almost instinctively and he took a deep breath of relief that she was still able to trust him. He wrapped his arms around her as he had done once before in the bathroom on Air Force One, and held her close as she cried into his shirt, murmuring soothing nonsense into the top of her head. Once her storm of tears had passed, she sat up again and swiped at her face with her hands. "Sorry," she mumbled.

He reached out and put one finger under her chin, gently bringing her face up to his. "Do not apologize to me," he said softly but firmly. "Not for this. You have nothing to apologize for. Do you understand me? You. Have. Done. Nothing. Wrong."

She gave him a watery smile. "I know," she told him. "I meant for getting your shirt all wet."

He shook his head, pulling her into another hug. "Don’t apologize for that, either," he admonished her. "I’m not that much of a bastard." He was rewarded with a wet giggle, and he smiled as he rested his chin on the top of her head, one hand rubbing her back soothingly. "Decided what you’re going to do yet?"

"Not really," she said. "I’ve suspected for a couple of months, but I only just found out for sure today. I haven’t really thought about it yet." She paused. "I can’t have an abortion."

"I know."

"It’s a mortal sin."

"I know."

She put her head in her hands. "I don’t know what to do."

He took a deep breath. "Kate," he began, but she cut him off.

"No, Gibbs," she said softly, "I don’t know who he was."

He looked down at her. "How’d you know I was going to ask you that?"

"I haven’t worked with you for three years for nothing," she replied, looking up at him with a weak grin for having anticipated him. "I know how you think now."

He grinned back, hugging her tightly. "Guess so." Without letting her go, he fished in his pocket and pulled out his cell phone, dialing a number from memory.

Kate heard Abby’s voice answer. "Hey, Gibbs, what’s up?"

"I need you to come over to Kate’s apartment," he instructed her. "How soon can you be here?"

"As soon as I get my boots back on," she replied. "What’s going on?"

"Pack an overnight bag. I’ll explain when you get here," he answered, then hung up.

Kate looked up at him. "You didn’t need to -"

"I know," he interrupted her. "And yes, I do." He touched her nose gently with a finger. "Let me handle this my way, all right?"

She studied him. She knew what he was asking. Let me take care of this for you. Let me make up for my failure to protect you. I wasn’t there when you needed me; I couldn’t prevent this. Allow me the honor and privilege of seeking your vengeance. She nodded. "All right," she said softly.

Abby arrived fifteen minutes later, and Gibbs met her in the hallway. "She wants me to let her tell you what happened," he explained. "I need you to stay with her tonight."

"I’ve seen that look on your face before, Gibbs," Abby said softly.

He looked down at her, saw the fear in her eyes, and nodded once. "Yeah," he said hoarsely. "You have."

"Oh, no." Abby swallowed hard. "Just tonight? God, we haven’t even been out of work four hours."

"Four months ago," Gibbs replied.

Abby gasped. "Why didn’t she tell us?"

He laughed without humor. "She didn’t say. And I didn’t ask." He didn’t need to: he knew. Female law enforcement agents rarely reported sexual assault to their colleagues. Most of them, if questioned, would say that they were afraid the knowledge would make them look weak in the eyes of their fellows. He didn’t tell this to Abby; Kate might be able to articulate her own feelings to the forensics expert. He simply squeezed Abby’s shoulder. "Take care of her," he whispered and kissed her cheek before vanishing down the hall and into the elevator.

Abby squared her shoulders and entered Kate’s apartment.

Gibbs called Tony as soon as he got in his car. "DiNozzo," Tony answered promptly.

"Meet me at the office," Gibbs snapped. "We’ve got a case."

"Already? Jesus. Okay, let me get changed; I’ll be there in half an hour."

"Don’t bother to change," Gibbs told him. "Just show up."

"Fifteen minutes, then," Tony replied, hanging up.

Gibbs dialed McGee next, and the exchange went about the same way. He arrived back at NCIS Headquarters at about the same time as his team, and they went into the elevator together.

"What’s the case, boss?" Tony asked as the doors closed and the elevator started to rise.

"Rape case," Gibbs answered. His fingers clenched reflexively as he spoke the words. "McGee, the first thing I need from you is a search authorization. The two of you are going to Georgetown Hospital and D.C. Metro to pick up all the physical evidence."

"Metro’s got it already?" McGee inquired as they exited into their darkened bullpen. "When did the attack occur?"

"Four months ago," Gibbs replied. "Hang on and I’ll get you the exact date." He moved around his desk, re-opening Kate’s personnel file and pulling up the first date she’d missed - a Wednesday. He rattled off the date, and out of the corner of his eye, saw Tony look up from his own computer, an expression of consternation on the younger man’s face.

"Who’s our vic, Boss? Navy or Marine?"

Gibbs’s fists clenched on the armrests of his chair. He hadn’t expected Tony to put the pieces together quite so quickly. He should have known better; he certainly hadn’t hired DiNozzo away from Baltimore for his good looks. "Federal agent," Gibbs ground out, his voice sounding harsh even to his own ears.

McGee looked up from his computer screen. His hands stopped working at the keyboard as he looked from Gibbs to Tony, who was now looking decidedly ill, to Kate’s empty desk. He swallowed hard. "There’s a reason Kate isn’t here, isn’t there, Boss?" the probie asked quietly. "Other than she just hasn’t gotten here yet, I mean."

"Yeah, McGee," Gibbs replied just as quietly, "there is."

There was a very long silence in the bullpen, and then McGee looked back down at his computer screen. "When we find the son of a bitch," the young man announced in a cold voice his co-workers had never heard him use before, "I’m pretty sure he’ll be resisting arrest."

"I’m pretty sure you’re right, Probie," DiNozzo replied, and his voice was as cold as McGee’s. "In fact, I bet he’ll resist pretty hard."

There was silence again, broken only by the sound of McGee clicking at his keyboard. Then the printer sounded, and Tony jumped up to grab the papers it spit out. "Let’s go, Probie," he snapped. "We’ll be back pretty soon, Boss."

They left, and Gibbs sat back in his chair, his eyes glued to the empty chair at Kate’s desk. "I’ll get the bastard, Kate," he swore into the silence. "I’ll get him, and I’ll make him pay."

McGee and DiNozzo arrived back at the office two hours later, carrying all the physical evidence taken at the hospital as well as the statement Kate had given Metro P.D. Both of them were boiling mad when they got back to their desks, falling over one another to report to Gibbs that not only had Metro only done a cursory investigation before allowing the case to go cold, but that upon learning that the victim was a federal officer, the detective in charge of the case had made several sarcastic remarks about federal cops, female cops, and female federal cops. McGee had stopped Tony from attacking the man, but had given the detective a very strongly-worded piece of his mind before they left.

They split up the files between the three of them and began to work. Around 2200, Tony called out for dinner. At 2245, Gibbs called Abby to check on Kate.

"She’s asleep," Abby reported. "I think she’s gonna be okay. Leave everything you have for me down in the lab in a box; make sure there’s a lid on it and no labels. I think this is gonna have to be an after-hours investigation."

"Figured that, Abs," Gibbs replied. "Thanks for taking care of her."

"You don’t have to thank me," Abby replied softly. "This is what family’s for."

When Kate and Abby arrived at work the next morning, there were no signs of the nascent investigation. The three men had discussed the matter in detail and felt that the best thing to do for the situation would be to behave normally toward Kate. "If she’d wanted special treatment," McGee had reasoned, "she’d have told us about it when it happened." Gibbs and Tony had agreed, and spent the day focused on paperwork since the only active case they had was Kate’s.

Abby was a different story. Alone in her lab, with Marilyn Manson screaming fury from her speakers, she put her machines through their paces, analyzing every fluid, every hair, and every fiber taken in the rape kit Georgetown had done. She could not believe that Metro P.D. had done absolutely nothing with any of it - to the point that they had not even done a DNA profile on the semen. She had half a mind to call up their forensic lab and curse out their technician, but she did not; she focused instead on doing everything she could do to help Kate.

Kate was surprised and gratified by how normal her co-workers were behaving toward her. She knew that Tony and McGee knew - there had been a few awkward moments throughout the day, but they had been easily navigated, and things had been mostly ordinary. She’d spent the day working on the paperwork for the case they’d closed the previous day, pleased to be able to simply bury herself in the minutiae for once and not have to worry about anything else.

At 1530, though, a call came through to Gibbs, and after he took it, he stood and spoke Kate’s name. "With me," he said quietly.

Confused, she stood and followed him up the stairs, past MTAC and into the director’s office. She stared at Gibbs as they waited outside the door. "What’s going on, Gibbs?" she asked him sotto voce.

He did not answer, staring instead at the big silver doors and waiting until the director’s assistant came out to fetch them. They entered the room, Kate nervous and Gibbs stoic. The director - the new one, who had replaced Director Morrow - was standing behind her desk, waiting for them.

"You wanted to see us." Gibbs’s flat tone caused Kate to glance in his direction, surprised. Whatever was going on, Gibbs didn’t like it, and that meant Kate wasn’t going to like it, either.

"Special Agent Todd," Director Shepard began, "I received notification today of the change in your status."

Kate raised an eyebrow, and when she spoke, her voice was cold. "Status, Director?"

"I’m sure you are aware of the regulations concerning fitness requirements for field agents," the director said, her tone slightly condescending.

"Why, no, Director," Kate replied innocently. "Please enlighten me."

Shepard’s eyes narrowed. Gibbs couldn’t help but smirk. Kate knew damn good and well what was coming, and he knew it. She wasn’t happy about it - in point of fact, neither was he - but regs were regs and safety was safety.

"A pregnant field agent is a liability to the team," Shepard snapped.

"Oh!" Kate exclaimed in a little-girl voice Gibbs had only heard her use before when sparring with Tony. "Is that what this is about? Gosh, Director, I thought with you talking about statuses that maybe I’d been promoted and nobody told me about it."

Gibbs’s lips twitched.

The Director sat down, her face a thundercloud. "You are restricted to desk duty until further notice," she said sharply. "That is all."

With a slight flourish, Kate turned and left the room, feeling victorious. Gibbs followed, waiting until they were back on the loft in front of MTAC to squeeze Kate’s shoulder. "Did good in there," he said softly.

"Did I?"

"Yeah." Gibbs gave her his trademark half-smile. "She was expecting you to stomp around and make a scene about coming out of the field. It would have given her an excuse to flex her muscles."

Kate looked up at him speculatively. "You seem to know her well."

Gibbs stared out at the bullpen for a long moment, and Kate could practically see the wheels turning behind his eyes as he debated whether or not to respond and, if he did, how much to say. "We were partners in Paris," he finally explained, "back in the late nineties. She hasn’t changed much."

"Ah." That one syllable carried a wealth of meaning that Gibbs wasn’t sure he wanted an explanation of. "How did she find out, anyway?"

Gibbs sighed. "I told her."

Kate nodded. "I figured you did. Why?"

"She needed to know." Gibbs’s jaw clenched. "She’s right about you going on desk duty. Not safe for you in the field. Can’t stop to be morning sick if you’re getting shot at."

He was grateful when Kate changed the subject. "So, what’s a girl do on desk duty?"

He grinned. "Thought you’d never ask. You still get to do truck inventory, and you still get to do a lot of the slog work on cases. Only instead of getting to do the fun part, you have to stay here while we go out and play."

"Phooey." Kate stuck her lip out in a mock pout. "Do I get to go down and play with Abby in the lab?"

"Oh, yeah," Gibbs replied. "Ducky’ll probably let you come down and help him, too. Probably be constantly giving you checkups and suggesting baby names, too."

Kate went quiet at that, stepping away from Gibbs to go and lean against the railing. She looked down into the bullpen at Tony and McGee, industriously working away at something, and did not look at Gibbs when he came to stand beside her. "Does it make me a horrible person that I’m not sure I want it?" she asked him quietly. "With all the people in the world who wish they had kids, what does it say about me that I wish I didn’t?"

"It does not make you a bad person." His tone, though low, was definite. "The way you feel right now is completely understandable. Especially under the circumstances."

She put her head in her hands. "I wish I understood it. I wish I understood any of this."

He patted her shoulder. "Come on," he said quietly. "Let’s get this case off our desks so we can try to get out of here at a decent hour."

Abby came upstairs around 1730 to lean against Kate’s desk. "Wanna go get Italian?" she asked.

"I don’t know, Abby," Kate began, but was quickly overridden by her friend.

"We’ll have fun. Tony, McGee, Gibbs, you guys come, too."

"Sure thing, Abs," Tony replied, grabbing his coat. "Boss? Probie?"

McGee glanced across at Gibbs, who nodded and collected his own coat, then stood. "Sure."

Kate sighed, standing up and grabbing her coat and purse. "Looks like I’m outnumbered," she muttered with a mutinous expression.

"Yep," Abby said cheerfully. "Ducky’s gonna meet us there."

They trooped down to the car park together, and Tony grabbed Kate’s hand. "Come ride with me," he offered, pulling her toward his new Mustang. Like his previous cars, this one was a classic - a black 1966 Fastback. He ushered her into the passenger seat with infinite care. She rolled her eyes at him as he rounded the car and climbed in behind the wheel.

"I don’t need babysitting, Tony," Kate said as he started the car.

Tony did not reply, concentrating on slipping between McGee’s car and Gibbs’s truck as they pulled out of the parking area. He remained silent as they left the Navy Yard, seeming to concentrate on his driving. They were heading for Georgetown, to a little Italian café they all knew well, where they had eaten before. It wasn’t until they were a few streets away that he finally spoke. "We know you don’t need babysitting, Kate," he said softly, and there was no humor or teasing in his voice. He was deadly serious. "We know, intellectually, that you’ve survived the last four months with no help from us. Hell, we didn’t even know anything had happened to you."

He closed his mouth for a moment, turning into the parking lot of the café and putting the car in park. He did not move to shut off the engine, and Kate waited, knowing he had more to say. In a moment, having collected his thoughts, he spoke again. "Here’s the thing, Kate. We’re family. We may not be related by blood, but we’re family just the same, and family sticks by each other and helps each other no matter what. We trust each other with our lives in the field, and when something happens…" He trailed off for a second, clearing his throat, and then continued. "When something happens outside of the job that affects one of us this much… we expect you to trust us with that, too. And I’ll admit, it hurts a little bit to think that you couldn’t. To know that if you hadn’t turned up pregnant, none of us would have ever known that this had happened to you, and we never would have had the chance to get the fucker that hurt you."

Kate stared at him, her mouth slightly agape. "Tony, I didn’t realize -"

"I know you didn’t!" he exclaimed. "But damnit, Kate, that’s what we’re here for. That’s why we’re teammates, partners. Because we have each other’s backs. You wouldn’t let us have your back four months ago, and I don’t know about everyone else, but I’ll be damned if you’re gonna shut me out now."

They were both silent for a moment, and then Kate leaned across the seat and wrapped her arms around Tony’s shoulders. He responded immediately, clutching her to him fiercely. "Don’t shut me out any more, Kate," he whispered. "You have to let us help you now."

"I will, Tony," she whispered back. "I’m sorry."

He pulled back, grinning at her now. "Don’t apologize. Sign -"

"Sign of weakness," she finished in unison with him. They laughed together as a tap came on the back window of the car.

It was Gibbs. "If you two are done playing grab-ass, we’d like to eat."

They broke apart, still grinning, and exited Tony’s car.

D.C. Metro Crime Report
Victim’s Statement
Victim’s Name: Caitlin Todd
Victim’s Address: [the writing is smudged but readable]
Victim’s Telephone Number: [Kate’s home telephone]
Crime: Felony Sexual Assault, Breaking & Entering, Unlawful Restraint, Kidnapping, Assault & Battery, Petty Larceny.

Victim states she was awakened around 2:00 a.m. with an unknown male in the process of physically restraining her wrists by tying them to the headboard of her bed. Victim states that the assailant retrieved her service weapon from under her pillow when she attempted to scream and cocked it, pressing the muzzle of the weapon against her jaw under her ear. Victim states that the assailant used a large knife, possibly a hunting knife, to remove her clothing, blindfolded her with her shirt, and then sexually assaulted her.

Victim states that the assailant remained in her apartment for approximately two hours and raped and sodomized her several times before rendering her unconscious with a blow to the head, possibly using the butt of her service weapon to do so. Victim regained consciousness around 6:30 a.m. and found herself unbound. Upon cursory inspection, victim states several personal items were missing from her home when she awoke, the value of which does not exceed $300.

Victim transported herself to Georgetown University Hospital for treatment, whereupon D.C. Metro P.D. was called to take this report.

Victim is unable to make visual I.D. of any suspect. At no time was she able to view the face of her assailant. The assailant did not speak at any time during the assault. Victim is a law enforcement officer and states that there are any number of people who might have a grudge against her due to the functions of her employment. Victim is unable to make an educated guess as to the identity of her assailant.

Victim believes assailant may have been wearing latex gloves; lack of fingerprints lifted from the crime scene seems to substantiate this suspicion. Unknown why the assailant might wear latex gloves but not use a condom.

The report was barely a page and a half long, giving the dry particulars of the assault on Kate and the bleak, unfeeling report of what had been done to her. Gibbs had read it over enough times that the words felt branded into his head, and he felt his gorge rise every time. Rape was a disgusting act, second only to child molestation on his list of most heinous crimes. That it should be done to a member of his team, someone he cared about, made it even worse. That it should be done to Kate had him ready to kill.

Gibbs had not felt this driving demand for justice, for vengeance, since the murder of his own wife and child. He had gotten his revenge then, and he would have it now. She may not be his wife, but she was his all the same, a woman under his protection, and he would not allow her to be used in such a fashion without payback. He would bring her the head of the man who had violated her and lay it at her feet, his own penance for being unable to prevent what had been done to her.

It was about two in the morning when the phone on his desk rang. He’d been reading over the report again, wondering what if anything there was in it that might give him some kind of clue, without having to ask Kate to relive the experience, and the sound of the ring startled him. Who would be calling him here at this hour? He picked up the phone. "Yeah. Gibbs."

"I got a match," Abby’s voice came to him through the line, sounding strangled. "You’d better get down here."

"Abs, what are you doing here at this hour?" he asked as he strode into her lab. "You oughtta be at home getting some rest."

"I knew my results should be coming in soon," Abby replied, staring at the computer screen. "I’ve been napping here." She gestured to her desk, where her futon was spread out in the floor, Bert laying on it where she had been using him for a pillow.

He came up to her side. "What did you find out?"

She swallowed hard. "I ran the DNA from the rape kit against all the national databases - organ donors, bone marrow donors, crime databases, everything - and didn’t get any matches. But I decided for the sake of being thorough to run it against the internal NCIS database, just in case this was somebody we’d dealt with before that might not be in one of the national databases for some reason. And I got a match. One I put into the database myself."

"Well, who is the son of a bitch, Abby?" Gibbs demanded.

She looked at him, her eyes huge and full of tears. Then she pressed a button on her keyboard and pointed up at the plasma, where she had displayed a photograph of the man who had raped Kate and fathered her child.

It was Ari Haswari.

Gibbs stood silently for a full two minutes, fighting not to lose control. He didn’t want to frighten Abby, which he would most assuredly do if he unleashed his fury and his grief. He fought to keep himself under wraps and ultimately succeeded, except for the dangerous reddening of his face. When at last he was sure he could speak without screaming, he turned to her and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Lock these results up tight," he said in a deadly quiet voice, "and do not tell Kate anything. Don’t tell anyone. I’ll take care of that. All right?"

She nodded. He started to turn away, but her voice stopped him. "Gibbs?"

He turned back, and his voice was hoarse when he responded. "Yeah, Abs?"

"Are we… Is he… after us? All of us?"

Gibbs sighed. "Not exactly," he said quietly. "I think he’s after me. But he’s going after all of you to hurt me." He paused, then pointed a finger at her. "Until this is over, you don’t go home alone. When Tony comes in tomorrow, have him take you home. Pack a bag. If he’s going after my girls, he’s gonna come after you next. I’m not leaving you where he can find you."

Abby nodded. "Where am I going to stay?"

His mouth firmed. "You and Kate are coming to stay with me."

The lights in Kate’s apartment were all blazing, and he knew she was up. He rapped on the door and called out, "It’s me, Kate."

She opened the door and let him in, dressed as she had been two nights ago, in her pajamas. Her feet were bare, her toenails unpainted. She went into the kitchen, leaving him to shut the door, and poured a cup of coffee. "I had a feeling you were going to be coming by," she said by way of explanation as she offered him the cup.

"Yeah," he said simply, sitting down on the couch and studying the drink.

She sat down in her chair, curling her legs up under her and studying him. "You found something." It wasn’t a question, but he answered her anyway.

"Yeah, we did."

The silence stretched out for a long few minutes before she spoke again. "I’m not gonna like this, am I?"

"Nope," he said softly. He searched for the words. "Before I tell you this… I need you to understand that I am gonna find this bastard, and I am gonna kill him with my bare hands if I have to."

She nodded. "I kinda knew that already," she agreed. "Just tell me, Gibbs. Who is he?"

Gibbs swallowed against the bitterness of his own failure and spoke the word. "Ari."

The world opened up and swallowed Caitlin Todd. Her hands clenched on the arms of her chair as, behind her eyes, she saw again the darkness of her bedroom, felt the silk of her nightshirt being tied around her head. She felt the press of her own gun against her carotid artery, warning her not to scream, and heard his harsh, heavy breathing as he pushed her legs apart and violated her. Only this time, she could hear his voice overlaid on his breathing and her whimpers of pain: that cultured, mocking voice, saying her name as he had said it in Autopsy and over that picnic table at that farm. "Caitlin," he had called her, holding her name in his mouth as if he owned it. "Caitlin."

She would never be safe as long as he lived. That was what he was telling her when he violated her home and her body. He could get her anywhere, and there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn’t stop him, wouldn’t hear him, would never know he was there until it was too late.

He had worn latex gloves, but not a condom. He didn’t want his fingerprints on file with law enforcement - wouldn’t want a search of them to tip off the spooks he was supposedly working with - but he didn’t care about his DNA. Had possibly been deliberately attempting to impregnate her.

She blinked and focused on Gibbs. "I want his head," she said clearly.

"I’ll bring it to you on a pike," he promised.

"I believe you."

She packed a bag without protest, understanding as he did - perhaps better than he did - that she was no longer safe in her own home. She wasn’t sure she was any safer at Gibbs’s home, but she would feel safer, and that meant a lot. Gibbs would also feel safer, and that meant a lot, too. She dressed in the bedroom with him in the kitchen, turning off the coffee pot and washing it out. When she came out, carrying a bulging duffle bag, she was wearing a sour expression. "My favorite jeans are starting to not fit," she complained.

Gibbs laughed. "Gonna get worse before it gets better."

"Don’t remind me," she grumbled. They left the apartment together, and he handed her up into his truck like a gentleman before moving around to the driver’s side. She studied him as they drove and felt the question fall out of her mouth before she even realized she was going to ask. "How come you never had kids, Gibbs?"

He blinked, glancing over at her. "What?"

She shrugged. "I just mean… you’re so good with kids. Every time we have a case involving kids, I see it. I think you’d make a great dad. So I was curious why you never had any kids."

His hands clenched on the steering wheel for a moment as he considered her question. It was a valid question, brought on by her current situation. She wasn’t trying to be nosy or prying, and she had no idea how the question would affect him. There was no way she could know.

She had just about decided that she wasn’t going to get an answer when he spoke, and his voice was softer than she’d ever heard it before. "I had a daughter once."

She blinked, stared, and swallowed hard. "Once?" she whispered.

He nodded, cleared his throat, and began to speak. "There aren’t many people who know about this," he began, and she understood it for what it was: a plea for her silence. She nodded in acknowledgement and he went on. "When I was in the Marines, I was married to my first wife, and we had a daughter. While I was on my second tour in Desert Storm, they…" He paused, cleared his throat again, and forced the words out. "They were murdered."

She gasped. "Oh, no." Her hand came up to rest over her mouth. "I’m so sorry."

He sighed. "It was a long time ago."

The conversation was clearly over, but she reached out and squeezed his shoulder softly anyway. They finished the drive back to his house in silence, and he installed her in his second bedroom before retreating to his basement and his boat.

He thought she would have gone to bed, but she didn’t, coming instead to sit on the basement steps, wrapped in a quilt, and watch him. They did not speak, but when he looked up at her once, he saw that the rhythmic sound of his sandpaper on the wood had lulled her to sleep.

The next morning, he called Fornell from his desk phone. "Meet me at the Lincoln Memorial," he demanded. "Forty-five minutes. Come alone."

He turned to DiNozzo, who was just returning from taking Abby to her apartment. "Anything?"

"She said nothing looked disturbed, Boss," Tony replied.

"Good. I’m gonna be gone for a little while. You and McGee are on protection detail. They’re down in the lab. We catch a case, you call me. Otherwise I’ll be back soon." He grabbed his coat and was gone.

The two men headed down to Abby’s lab, where they found Abby holding a weeping Kate tightly. The two women looked up as the men entered, and Kate tried to dry her eyes. Abby handed her a box of tissue as Tony and McGee approached to find out what was wrong. She waited for Kate, who nodded once. "Go ahead and tell them."

"We found out who the guy was," Abby said softly.

"Is that where Gibbs went?" McGee inquired.

Abby shrugged. "Maybe. It’s not gonna be easy to get this guy."

"Well, who is he, Abby?" Tony asked.

Abby swallowed. "Ari."

A shocked silence fell over the room. "Are you sure?" Tony finally asked, his voice low and dangerous.

"I’m sure," Abby replied. "After he took Kate hostage that time, Gibbs arranged a meeting with him down in Autopsy, and he shot him. I took a sample of the blood after he left, and I made a DNA profile in our internal database. When I ran the sample…" she trailed off, waving an eloquent hand toward Kate.

"He won’t get away this time," McGee said softly.

"Probie’s right, Kate," Tony agreed. "It doesn’t matter who’s protecting him; Gibbs is gonna kill him."

Fornell met Gibbs as directed, and Gibbs got straight to the point. "I want Haswari," Gibbs said, "and if you don’t give him to me, I’ll leak him and let Al Qaeda kill him."

"That’s not gonna happen, Jethro, and you know it," Fornell replied, shaking his head. "The CIA -"

"I don’t give a fuck about the CIA!" Gibbs snarled, getting right up in Fornell’s face. "That son of a bitch got Kate, and I’m gonna rip his fucking head off!"

Fornell stared at him. "Kate? Kate’s dead? When did this happen?"

"No, she’s not dead," Gibbs replied softly, his voice deadly. "He broke into her apartment about four months ago and threw himself a little party, and left her something to remember him by for the rest of her life."

Fornell stared at him. "Oh, no."

"Yeah, Tobias," Gibbs said sarcastically. "She’s due in about five months. I bet if you asked her, she might even think about naming the baby after you."

Fornell studied him, looking sick. "Are you a hundred percent sure about this?" he asked quietly.

"Abby took a DNA sample when I shot him," Gibbs replied. "It matches the sample the hospital took in the rape kit."

"I’ll get him for you." Fornell held up a cautionary hand. "It’s not gonna be today, Jethro. In fact, it may take a while. But I’ll do it."

"Let me know," Gibbs replied. "I’ve got Kate and Abby both under protective custody and I need to be able to tell them when they’re gonna be able to go home."

Fornell raised an eyebrow. "Staying with you, I assume? Never took you for the sorority mom type."

He snarled. "Not like I have many alternatives, Tobias. He could come back for Kate; he might go after Abby next. I have to keep them safe. If I could move them both onto the Navy Yard permanently, I’d do it."

Fornell nodded. "Do you need any help?"

"No," Gibbs replied. "The less people know where they are, the happier I’ll be."

"I’ll be in touch, Jethro," Fornell said before slipping away into the crowd.

It became a running joke over the next two months that Gibbs was running a home for wayward women. Abby had installed herself in a bedroom on the third floor; Kate stayed on the second floor, across the hall from Gibbs’s own bedroom. And Gibbs found himself in the unusual position of actually enjoying the atmosphere in his home for the first time in a long time.

They tiptoed around each other for the first couple of weeks, tempers short in the honeymoon stage of their new situation, with the added stress of feeling somewhat under siege. However, Abby and Kate were best of friends, and when they both began to feel more comfortable dealing with Gibbs in an extracurricular capacity, they both began to settle down.

Gibbs, for his part, found the new arrangement to be… surprising. The first time he came home to find dinner on the table, he was startled. The first time he came out of his bedroom at 0500 to catch sight of a shower-wet Kate in just a towel disappearing into her bedroom, he was astonished. The first time he realized that he actually liked hearing feminine laughter drifting down his basement stairs while he was working on his boat, he was floored. And he slowly began to realize that he might be more than just floored; he might be falling for his very lovely co-worker.

Kate’s pregnancy began to show. At first it was a slight thickening around her waist, just enough to make her complain that her pants no longer fit properly (and then no longer fit at all). Then it seemed that overnight she was walking around with a basketball under her shirt. It was Gibbs who coined the affectionate nickname for her baby bump when, at three in the morning on a Saturday, after an evening with his boat and his bourbon, he teasingly accused her of smuggling pumpkins out of the neighbor’s garden.

Abby had stared in shock after he made his statement, wondering if Kate was going to explode. She’d spent most of the day crying in her room - the stress, her hormones, and the boredom of desk duty were getting to her; Abby feared that Gibbs’s joke might send her up the stairs in tears again. But Kate had surprised Abby and herself when she stared at Gibbs for a long moment and then burst out laughing. "You caught me, Gibbs," she replied, smiling for the first time in a few days. "Busted." From that moment, Kate’s baby bump became known as The Punkin.

One Friday night late in her sixth month, Kate came down into the basement while Gibbs was working on the boat. Abby was asleep upstairs, but Kate couldn’t sleep, and she found the sound of his tools on wood inexplicably soothing. Gibbs paused in his work to help her hoist herself up onto the workbench where she could lean back against the wall, then returned to his planer, waiting to see if she would talk to him or simply sit in companionable silence.
Tonight she wanted to talk. She sat quietly for about fifteen minutes, her left hand almost idly rubbing at The Punkin, before taking a breath and saying, "The doctor says it’s a boy."

Gibbs’s hands stopped moving for a brief moment as he absorbed that information. Without replying, he moved around the boat so that he was facing her, and began working again. He waited to see what else she would say.

He heard a soft rattle; glancing around the rib in front of him, he could see that she was holding a small piece of paper, staring at it or possibly staring through it. An ultrasound photograph. "I don’t think I realized how real this actually is before today," she said softly, gesturing with the picture. "I mean, I knew it was real, but this…" She shrugged.

He switched to sandpaper, waiting.

She leaned her head back against the wall. "This is my son," she whispered.

He swallowed hard, watching her as he rubbed with the heavy-grain sandpaper.

She closed her eyes, and he could see the tears sliding down her cheeks. "I can’t hate him." She pushed her hands into her hair, frustrated. "He’s a baby. He can’t help how he got here. But he is here, and he’s mine."

Gibbs switched to a finer grain of sandpaper.

"I’m going to keep him," Kate finally said. Her voice was thick with the tears that were sliding down her face. "I think I can do this by myself."

He spoke for the first time. "Won’t be by yourself."

She looked up at him. "What?"

He leaned on the boat and pinned her with his eyes. "Woulda thought the last couple of months would have convinced you that you’re not alone."

She smiled slightly. "I know, Gibbs, but I’m not gonna be living with you forever. Eventually you’ll get him, and I’ll go home."

He looked down for a moment, then looked back up at her, wondering whether he was completely crazy. "You don’t have to."

She blinked at him. "Sorry?"

"You don’t have to go." He put down the sandpaper and came back around the boat to stand in front of her. He started to speak, paused, and went over to get his mug and take a sip before returning, visibly searching for words the whole time.

She watched him with unreadable eyes. He was clearly nervous, which was something she’d never seen from Gibbs before. She wasn’t sure what was up with him saying she didn’t have to go - was he inviting her to move in with him? And if so, why? Gibbs was too much of a lone wolf for Kate to ever believe that he simply liked the company - especially hormonal, mood-swingish company that would be accompanied in approximately three months by two a.m. feedings and the enticing aroma of diapers. There had to be something else here. But what?

He put his mug down and reached out, carefully taking her hand. He didn’t know how she was going to react - which made what he was about to do either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. He laced his fingers with hers and looked up into her eyes. "I… want you to stay," he whispered.

She stared at him, her eyes wide as the full import of what he was asking slammed into her. Her hand clenched almost convulsively around his, and she swallowed hard. But he wasn’t done speaking.

"I know this is a bad time," he continued. "Possibly the worst time I could ever have chosen. But it’s something I want you to think about, because… I like having you here, and…" He trailed off, searching for words. Finally, he shrugged. "I like you," he finished, lamely.

She blinked staring at him, and felt her lips trying to twitch. She fought the urge - now was definitely not the time to start laughing. She squeezed his hand again instead, allowing just the slightest smile to show through on her face. "Gibbs," she said softly, sitting forward, "are you asking me to break Rule Twelve with you?"

He ran his free hand through his hair. "Well… yeah." He paused. "I know you’re not ready for… a lot of things. And I know it might make things complicated at work. But I was hoping maybe… we could try?"

She swallowed, studying his face and choosing her words carefully. "You’re right," she said softly. "I’m not ready for a lot of things. And it could get complicated. But yeah. We can try." She smiled, scooting forward and pulling him into a hug. "After all, my son’s going to need a father, right?"

He wrapped his arms around her, closing his eyes and resting his chin on her head. The scent of her apple shampoo surrounded him and he held her tightly. "Kate," he whispered, "this might be a bad idea."

"I know," she said into his shirt. "There are hundreds of reasons why we shouldn’t do this."

He didn’t let go. Neither did she. Neither of them saw the figure at the top of the stairs quietly back away from the basement door and vanish into the darkened house.

Once back in her own room, Abby tossed herself into her bed and snuggled into her pillows, grinning broadly. She’d been hoping for something like this, and felt privileged to have watched it begin. She thought of the look that would grace Tony’s face when he found out, and giggled madly before falling back to sleep.

As Kate’s sixth month rolled into her seventh, Abby found herself delighted to have a front row seat for the development of Kate and Gibbs’s newborn romance. She watched as they grew even more comfortable around one another, trading casual touches in a way that they never had before, tentatively sharing one another’s personal space, and making occasional sweet gestures that made even Abby’s commitment-phobic heart melt.

Gibbs brought home flowers some nights; Kate exclaimed over them and put them in a vase in the center of the dining table. Kate cooked, occasionally with Abby’s help; Gibbs always raved about the food, even when it was a nothing-special meal like pork chops and eggs. Abby sat back and watched it all with a huge grin that never left her face.

One night near the middle of Kate’s seventh month, Abby snuck halfway down the stairs to simply watch them, lying together on the living room couch, Gibbs idly rubbing Kate’s swollen feet and ankles while they watched a movie together. She leaned back against the banister for a long time and just watched them, finding an inexplicable comfort in their obvious and silent affection. Something about the two of them together almost restored her faith in humanity. Almost.

The call came a few days after that, on a Saturday evening while Gibbs and Kate were working on dinner and Abby was closeted upstairs with her laptop, working on a paper for a forensic journal. Kate was closer to the phone, so she answered it. "Gibbs residence."

"Kate?"

Kate blinked. "Hey, Fornell."

"I need to talk to Jethro."

"Sure. Hang on." She held out the cordless phone to Gibbs, who took it and held it between his ear and his shoulder, his hands busy working spices into a pound of ground beef that would be meatballs in about twenty more minutes. "Gibbs."

"He’s in town," Fornell said simply, and Gibbs stopped moving.

"Where?"

"I’m not sure. He’s supposed to be infiltrating a cell somewhere around here, but we don’t have a lot of information."

"Has anything been said?"

"Not to my knowledge." Fornell paused. "How do you want to proceed?"

Gibbs glanced over at Kate, who was busy assembling ingredients for the sauce. "Don’t know yet. I’ll call you back." He hung up and put the phone in the windowsill.

"He’s back."

It wasn’t a question, but Gibbs turned toward Kate and answered her anyway. "Yes."

She turned to face him, one hand resting protectively on her swollen belly. "What’s the plan?"

"I don’t know." He went back to the meatballs. "Need some way to draw him out, but I haven’t thought of it yet."

"Yes, you have." His head snapped up to look at her, taking in her piercing look and wincing inwardly when she continued. "You don’t like it, because it involves using me for bait, but you’ve thought of it."

"Obviously you have too," he commented mildly. He went back to shaping the meatballs. "Not going to put you in danger."

"It’ll work, though, won’t it?"

He wiped his hands on the towel and turned to face her completely. "Will it work? Telling him you’re pregnant with a son in the hopes that he’ll come after you? Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’ll work. It’s the part afterwards that I’m worried about. The part where he takes you and you end up giving birth in some filthy room in Afghanistan or Bahrain or some even more godforsaken place and if you’re lucky he just takes your son and kills you, and if you’re not he keeps you and does it to you again. If you don’t die in childbirth. That’s the part that makes me just a little bit nervous, Kate!"

"Try not to discount me," she said softly. "If I know he’s coming, he won’t take me by surprise again."

"I won’t do it, Kate!"

"Then you won’t get him." Her voice was firm and just a little bit cold. "You’re not going to draw him out without bait, and I’m the best bait available. Or, I should say, the Punkin is the best bait available."

"No, Kate!"

She continued, inexorable, as though he had not spoken. "He did it on purpose. He wanted me to get pregnant. When he finds out he’s made a son, he’ll want that son more than anything. If it was a daughter, maybe not so much, but Ari Haswari wants a son he can raise up in his own image. He wants my son. He’s been fixated on me since he held me hostage in Autopsy. It’s the perfect bait."

"She’s right."

Kate and Gibbs both turned to find Fornell standing in the kitchen doorway. He inclined his head in greeting. "Ari Haswari wants a son. Our contacts say he’s been talking about it since just before he attacked you, Kate. His mission was to get a son by you, and hearing that he’s succeeded should flush him out."

"No!" Gibbs thundered, but Fornell, too, spoke over his objections.

Fornell flipped his PDA open and turned it so that Gibbs could see a photograph on the screen. "This was the scene in Kate’s apartment this morning, after Ari went off the grid for about five hours last night."

The apartment was destroyed. Her furniture was in ruins, the clothing she’d left strewn around and mostly torn. Her knickknack shelf had been overturned, and everything on it smashed. The television screen had been kicked in, and the frames of all the pictures on the wall had been broken. Kate gasped at the destruction. "Oh, my God."

"We were able to retrieve a DNA sample," Fornell continued calmly. "He cut himself on your vanity mirror." He pulled a small evidence jar out of his pocket. It held a shard of mirrored glass, stained with blood. "I took the liberty of having it checked against the samples we already have; they’re a match."

Kate and Fornell studied one another for a moment, then she turned to Gibbs. "Let’s talk about this downstairs," she said softly.

He shut the door behind them as they went down the stairs into the basement, leaving Fornell in the kitchen. As had become their habit, he helped her up onto the worktable so she could sit comfortably and look him in the eyes. She reached out and rested her hands on his shoulders. "I know why you hate this," she said softly. "I’d hate it just as much if it was you."

He pulled her close. "I won’t let him hurt you again. I won’t give him a chance."

She held him tightly. "It’s the only way."

"Has to be another way." His hands stroked her back. "I won’t let him."

She sat back, her eyes searching his. She studied him for the space of several long breaths, and smiled at what she saw there. "Jethro," she said softly, speaking his given name for the first time, "I do love you." With those soft words, she leaned up and pressed a first soft kiss to his lips.

Time stopped for Jethro Gibbs as he clutched her to him, returning her kiss with interest. There was passion and desperation in their embrace, and tenderness. His mouth made love to hers, his tongue seeking and finding and filling his senses with the smell and taste of her. She was wonder, she was love, she was pain and she was joy, and she was his.

And she was right.

When they finally broke for air, he looked down into her face, studying her face as she had studied his. Her eyes were so dark as to be almost black, her pupils dilated to twice their normal size. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips swollen from his kiss. He stroked her hair back from her face, then leaned his forehead against hers with a soft sigh. "All right," he said. "We’ll do it your way."

She smiled dreamily. "If that’s all it takes to win an argument with you, I’m definitely gonna kiss you more often."

"It’ll eventually stop working," he warned her with a return smile.

"Then I’ll just have to think of something else."

"Good evening, Caitlin."

Kate’s hands tightened on the dish in her hands. "Ari." She wasn’t surprised; they’d been expecting him for over half an hour. It was still a shock to hear his voice, though, and the sound still turned her stomach.

"I’ve missed you."

"Forgive my skepticism."

The low laugh she remembered so well reached out across Gibbs’s kitchen to wrap her in its noxious caress. "But I have. Why, it’s been nearly eight months since I saw you last. And here you stand before me again, looking… quite radiant."

"No thanks to you." She finished rinsing the bowl, shut off the water, and placed it in the drain board. "What do you want, Ari? Here to gloat?"

"Not at all." His voice was coming from closer behind her now. "I’ve come for you, and for my son."

"You’re never going to take him." Her voice was firm and ice cold. "I’ll kill you before I give him to you."

His finger touched her between her shoulder blades and trailed down her back, following the same path that his knife had taken eight months earlier when he slit her nightshirt off before blindfolding her with it. "You cannot stop me."

"Wanna bet?"

He chucked again and she fought to keep from vomiting. "You could not stop me from creating him. You will not stop me from taking him. And you will not stop me from making another. And another." His hand reached her waist and flattened, sliding around her body to lie gently on top of her swollen belly. "You will give me many fine sons, Caitlin. And many beautiful daughters."

"I would strangle him myself and cut my own throat before I allowed that to happen." She turned, pulling away from his touch, backing up against the stove. "And if you ever touch me again, I swear to God I will tear your face off with my bare hands and eat it raw."

He was smiling. "I rather suspected you might feel that way," he commented casually. "So I took the liberty of some insurance. I wonder how your friend Abby would enjoy life in a Saudi harem. It should be interesting to see what she looks like under her veil once the black dye grows out of her hair and she no longer wears the death mask makeup."

Kate smirked. "You don’t have Abby."

"Are you quite certain?" he raised an eyebrow. "I could have her. Or I could have someone poised to take her."

Kate shrugged. "You could. But you don’t."

"And how exactly do you know that?" He stepped toward her. "She is not here. Neither is Gibbs. In fact, they left together, did they not? Foolish of them, leaving you here alone when you are supposed to be in protective custody."

There was a soft click. "For a guy who’s been a sleeper all his life, you sure are stupid."

Ari’s eyes never left Kate’s. "Agent Gibbs. What a surprise. I was almost certain you would be too busy with Faisal to come back so soon."

"Well, Faisal made a little bit of a miscalculation," Gibbs replied easily. "Never expected a lab rat to be carrying a six-inch shank up her sleeve. He didn’t get very far with her."

"Ah. Poor Faisal." Ari shook his head. "He was good at what he did."

"Still is, I imagine," Gibbs said, tossing Kate a slight grin. "Only now he sings soprano when he does it."

Ari winced slightly in sympathy. Kate would have done the same, if she hadn’t been contemplating performing the same action on Ari. Instead, she reached up and pulled the concealed nine millimeter out of the ventilation hood over the stove, training it on Ari. "Get on your knees," she said flatly. "Hands behind your head."

He obeyed slowly, his eyes glued to hers the entire time. "Do you honestly think arresting me will do any good?" he said softly. "Your CIA will not care. I will be released and hustled quietly out of the country. And then, as soon as I can slip free, I will return, and I will take you then."

Kate smirked. "Did you really think I didn’t take that into account?" She walked toward him, reversed her grip on her gun, and whacked him hard across the face with it. The momentum sent him to the floor, and he spat out a tooth. "You’re never taking my son, and you’re never taking me."

"You won’t be able to stop me," he hissed. "I will have you!"

"Oh," Gibbs said softly, coming to stand beside her, "I can think of one way to stop you."

Kate pulled her foot back and kicked the prone man hard in the groin. "So can I."

"You won’t kill me in cold blood, Caitlin," Ari wheezed, still smirking despite the pain he was in. "It’s against your Catholic religion, is it not? Murder is a mortal sin."

"Except that this isn’t cold blood, Ari," Kate replied softly. "Killing is permitted by the church in defense of one’s self, one’s family or one’s country. Do you think I’ve never killed in self-defense or in the line of duty?"

Gibbs knelt down, looking the other man directly in the eyes. "And I don’t mind killing in cold blood. I’ve done it before." He gave a slight, cold smile. "As a matter of fact, the man who killed my first wife and my daughter is probably gonna meet you when you get to Hell."

Ari sprang on Gibbs, snarling, his hands reaching for Gibbs’s neck and squeezing hard on his windpipe. "I’ll take you there with me," he snarled, squeezing as hard as he could, trying to crush the older man’s throat.

A shot rang out.

Ari’s body collapsed on top of Gibbs, who pushed it off himself and stood, rubbing at his throat. He glanced over at Kate, who laid her weapon on the kitchen counter and came to check on him. "Took you long enough," he griped.

"You’d have preferred I shot you, too?" she asked gently, moving to the freezer to get him an ice pack. "You’re fine."

He sat down at the kitchen table, looking down at the body currently leaking blood and brain matter onto his previously clean linoleum. "I am," he said, pulling her into his lap when she got close enough to him. "And so are you."

They wrapped their arms around one another and waited for Tony and McGee, who had been monitoring the house remotely and would be on their way. She didn’t start to shake until she was firmly held in his arms. He stroked her hair back, murmuring soothing nonsense into her ear, until he realized that she was staring at the body on the floor.

With a soft grunt, he stood, holding her in his arms, and carried her out of the kitchen, into the living room where she could no longer see the corpse of the man who had violated her.

The front door opened then, Tony leading the way, followed immediately by McGee and Fornell. "You got him?" Fornell asked.

Gibbs gestured to the kitchen door, and the three men trooped over to assess the damage.
Gibbs sat down on the couch, still cradling Kate to him, still speaking softly, and stroked her back with his palm until she finally began to calm down again.

When she was still but for a few random tremors, he stroked her hair back from her face. "You gonna be okay?"

She nodded. "I think so." She laid a hand on her stomach, pressing down gently, and smiled when the occupant kicked back indignantly. "Punkin’s okay, too."

He laid his hand over hers. "Good." He pulled her back down to rest her head on his shoulder. "It’s over," he whispered into her hair. "It’s over now."

"Nice shot," Fornell complimented Gibbs on returned to the living room.

Kate stood up, turning to face Fornell. Her face was hard. "Thanks, Fornell," she replied acidly. "Now if you don’t mind getting that thing out of here." With that, she turned and headed upstairs.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at Fornell, who stared at Kate’s back until she vanished into her room, slamming the door behind her.

"She gonna be okay?" Tony asked from the doorway.

Gibbs nodded. "I think so. It’ll be awhile, but she’ll be all right. Eventually."

Tony nodded, then turned back to where McGee still stood, staring at the corpse on the kitchen floor. "Come on, Probie. We’ve got some cleaning to do."

A few minutes after the body had been carted out, while Tony and McGee were still cleaning up the stains on the floor and Gibbs was talking to Fornell and an agent from the CIA, Abby came flying through the door, trailed closely by Ducky. "Where is she?" Abby demanded, after hugging Gibbs tightly. "Is she okay?"

"She’s upstairs in her room," Gibbs replied. He glanced over at Ducky. "Can you check on her?"

"Of course, Jethro." The older man headed up the stairs immediately, Abby dogging his heels. He tapped on Kate’s door and entered when she called out a welcome, and Abby closed the door behind them.

The CIA agent sighed and closed his PDA, clipping it to his belt. "Well, Agent Gibbs, I can’t say we’re pleased by this turn of events, but it’s clear that you were right all along and we owe you an apology. Obviously this can’t become public knowledge, but…" He trailed off, shrugging slightly. "For what it’s worth, we know you did the right thing. And… please convey my personal apologies to Agent Todd." With a nod to Gibbs and another to Fornell, he took himself out and away.

Fornell watched the man go, then turned to Gibbs and shrugged slightly. "That’s the CIA for you. God, I hate dealing with spooks." He ran a hand across his head, then sighed. "I’m done here."

Half an hour later, Abby and Ducky came back down. "She’s just fine, Jethro," Ducky assured Gibbs. "A bit in shock, of course. You’ll want to keep an eye on her for the next couple of days. But otherwise she’s fine."

Abby looked up at him. "I don’t want to seem like I haven’t enjoyed your hospitality," she said hesitantly, "but can I got home now?"

Gibbs hugged her. "Yes. Get DiNozzo to take you."

She hugged him back tightly, then hurried upstairs to gather her things.

Gibbs shook Ducky’s hand. "Thanks, Duck."

"Not a problem, Jethro." He patted Gibbs’s shoulder. "Take care of her."

"I will."

Ducky left, followed shortly by McGee and then Abby and Tony. Once everyone was gone, Gibbs took a look at the kitchen to make sure there were no traces left of the events of the evening. Satisfied, he went upstairs and tapped on Kate’s door.

"C’mon in," she said softly.

He entered and found her curled up in her bed, at least as much as possible considering the obstruction that was the Punkin. He sat down next to her and she snuggled up against him. "I’m glad it’s over," she said softly.

"Me, too." He took a deep breath. "I will always keep you safe, Kate," he whispered. "No matter what."

"I know you will," she replied. A moment later, she was asleep.

He wrapped an arm around her and did not sleep much that night.

Lamaze was bullshit, Kate decided about four hours in, but drugs were good.

She was finally able to relax after the epidural, and was less inclined to say foul things to Gibbs, who was being incredibly kind and patient with her. Of course, he’d been in the presence of childbirth at least once before - he’d told her he was present for Kelly’s birth - so he kind of knew what to expect. She squeezed his hand gently and smiled at him. "I’m glad you’re here," she said softly.

"Where else would I be?" he asked reasonably. "I didn’t sit through all those Lamaze classes with you just to watch football with DiNozzo in the waiting room."

She laughed. "Good point."

They fell silent when the doctor came to check on her, pronouncing her "almost ready" and promising to be back in half an hour. She rolled her eyes when Dr. Wheeler left. "Wouldn’t she be surprised if I popped now instead of waiting for her to come back like a good little patient?"

"Wouldn’t we both be surprised," Gibbs replied, stroking Kate’s hair back from her face, "considering I’ve never delivered a baby before and I’d probably drop him in shock."

She smiled up at him. "You won’t drop him."

"I might." He affected a worried expression, aping what had been affectionately named McGee’s Uncle Anxiety. "What if I hold him wrong? Or what if… what if I accidentally hurt him?"

She whacked his arm. "Stop being so mean to McGee. Don’t you know he’s terrified of you and what you’d do if he hurt your son?"

Gibbs’s free hand slid down and rested on Kate’s stomach, feeling the ripples of contractions that the drugs were masking from her. "Kate," he whispered, "are you absolutely sure?"

She laid her own free hand on his cheek. "I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life," she said softly. "If anything were to happen to me, I can’t think of anyone who would be a better father to my son. And even if nothing happens to me and I live to be a hundred and three, I still can’t think of anyone I’d rather entrust him to." She tugged him down for a gentle kiss. "You’ve been there for me through every step of this, and I want this. I also know that you want it."

He raised an eyebrow at her, though the tug of a smile in the corners of his mouth belied his teasing. "And how exactly are you so sure I want this?"

She smiled gently. "Because I was awake last night when you were talking to him, and I heard what you said."

She never thought she’d see the day Jethro Gibbs blushed bright red, but there it was. She’d awakened in the middle of the night to find him snuggled against her abdomen, his fingers stroking the taut flesh gently, speaking to the baby in hushed tones. He had made a number of promises to the baby - promising to keep him safe, to keep his mother safe, to make sure that he grew up healthy and happy - that she intended to be sure he kept. He mumbled something, embarrassed, and looked away.

She started to say something but gasped when she felt a new contraction hit, one that was stronger and somehow more serious than all the ones that had come before. "Uh-oh."

He turned back to her, eyes wide and worried. "What?"

She gripped his hand hard. "You might want to get the doctor back in here."

Dr. Wheeler chose that moment to make her re-entry. She glanced at the monitors and at Kate’s face and smiled. "Aha. Finally decided to get down to business, have you?"

Kate snarled something unintelligible and bore down against the inexorable pressure in her nether regions. Gibbs gripped her hand hard.

Thirty grueling minutes later - minutes that felt like hours - the tense atmosphere in the birthing room was split by the sound of a very healthy set of lungs screaming its fury to the world. After a quick clean-up, cursory examination and check of his Apgar signs, the little boy was wrapped in a blanket and laid in his mother’s arms. Kate, sweaty and exhausted, looked up at Gibbs and smiled. "Here he is," she said softly

Gibbs didn’t know if she was speaking to him or to the baby, but he reached out and ran a gentle finger down the angry, scrunched-up face. "He’s beautiful, Kate." He paused, then added, "I think he’s got your nose."

Her smile got even wider. "Let’s hope he didn’t get your coffee addiction."

He made a face at her. "Very funny."

Some time later, once mother and baby were installed in a room and had both been cleaned up and made presentable, the team crowded into the room to be introduced to "their" nephew. Kate smiled proudly as they carefully passed the baby from hand to hand, everyone taking a few minutes to hold him and introduce themselves softly. Once he arrived back around to Gibbs, who was sitting on the side of the bed, Abby asked, "So what’s his name?"

Kate smiled. "Logan," she said. "Logan James."

"Logan James Todd," Tony tested the name out. "I like it. Very manly."

Kate gave Gibbs a slightly quizzical look. He, looking happily resigned, simply nodded. Kate turned back to Tony. "You’re only mostly right," she corrected him. "It’s actually Logan James Gibbs."

The momentary silence in the room was so thick it could have been carved with a butter knife, until Abby squealed in delight. "When are you getting married?"

"Hopefully sometime before the next one comes along," Gibbs said blithely, his face a picture of innocence.

Kate whacked his arm. "Very funny."

"I thought so."

Logan chose that moment to begin whimpering and rooting at the chest he was cradled against. Gibbs immediately held him out to his mother. "Think he wants you."

"Well, of course he does," Kate replied tartly, taking him and pulling the sheet up over him and up to her shoulder before unbuttoning the front of her shirt under the cotton and guiding the tiny head to the curve of her breast. "It’s not like anyone else in this room is equipped for the job."

Several days later, Kate and Abby were sitting on the sofa in Gibbs’s living room, watching Logan sleep in his bassinet and listening to the comforting sound of tools on wood echoing up from the basement. "So Gibbs is gonna play daddy?" Abby asked over a cup of hot tea. "Hinky."

Kate smiled softly. "He’s doing a great job so far," she said softly. "He’s great with Logan, and Logan already adores him."

"Oh, that’s not what I meant," Abby hastened to clarify. "I always figured Gibbs would be a great dad. He’s always so good with kids whenever we have a case that deals with them. It’s just hinky that it turned out this way, is all I mean."

"Yeah," Kate said softly. "I never thought I’d say this, but I really feel like I ought to thank Ari. If he hadn’t given me Logan, I might have never gotten Gibbs. I’d still be out there, lonely, doing that very unsatisfying serial-monogamy thing that the priests always warned us about."

Abby giggled. "Just between you and me," she said in a low and secretive voice, "I think you and Gibbs were just a matter of time. And also just between you and me, I’m glad you didn’t name him Leroy."

Kate laughed. "He said he’d strangle me if I even considered it."

Abby raised an eyebrow, leaning over to whisper in Kate’s ear. "So have you moved into his room yet?"

Kate grinned, whispering back. "The night I came home from the hospital."

Abby’s eyebrows went up. "Really? I thought you had to wait awhile after birth to, you know."

Kate laughed again. "You do. The doctor says three to six weeks, or whenever I don’t exhibit any of the laundry list of symptoms she told me to watch out for."

Abby counted on her fingers. "So we should expect the next one in…"

"Oh, ha-ha." Kate made a face. "I’d like to get this one at least weaned, if not potty trained, first."

"I’ll have you know I’ve been successfully potty trained for a very long time now," Gibbs’s voice spoke from the doorway. He was leaned against the doorjamb, smiling at them.

Kate made a face at him. "Abby’s repopulating my womb already."

He raised an eyebrow. "Thought that was going to be my job."

Kate put her face in her hands. "Oh, forget it."

Abby laughed, pulling her friend into a hug. "I gotta get out of here. Got a date."

"Have fun," Kate waved as Abby showed herself out, and Gibbs came to sit next to her on the sofa, smelling of sawdust and clean sweat and his soap. She snuggled up to him, her eyes attached to the tiny sleeping form before her. "I never imagined this," she said softly.

"Neither did I," he admitted quietly, wrapping his arms around her. "Not even in my wildest dreams."

"How did I get so lucky?" Kate asked rhetorically.

He laid a gentle kiss on the top of her head. "I think that’s a question I’m supposed to be asking." He put a finger under her chin, raising her face to his. "You’ve given me something to care about again," he said softly. "You’ve given me a son. He may not be biologically mine, but I swear that I’ll love him like he was. You’ve given me something to worry about, and something to look forward to. You’ve given me a life again, Kate. And I don’t know if I can ever thank you for that."

Her eyes filled with tears. "You don’t have to thank me," Kate told him. "Just love us."

"I do, Kate," he said softly into the shell of her ear. "Believe me. I do."