Suicide by Cop
by Sammie
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. If they were, would Kate be dead? (bares fangs) Oh, and the spoilers coming out for the season premiere?
RATING: K+ (I'm so bad at this)
SPOILERS: "Heartbreak"
SUMMARY: Post-"Heartbreak". Kate begins to "get over it". Kate-Gibbs.

He stands on the threshold of the apartment building and sets the grocery bags down so he can ring the doorbell. He pauses a moment, then pushes the button. No one answers.

Yeah, that's complete hock. He'd made her go home early today, and he saw her car in the apartment parking lot.

There is a sneakier way to do this, and since she isn't going to cooperate, he'll use it.

He pulls out his cell phone and hits the speed dial number for her phone. "Todd," she answers. She sounds almost eager. He knows she is hoping for a case, any case, any kind of work to occupy her mind.

"Unlock your d-mn apartment door."

He is sure he heard her swear under her breath.

X X X X X

It's been almost a week since the shooting (Sunday evening, now), and Kate is not dealing well. She has become withdrawn at work - not her usual, calm and sometimes quiet self, but withdrawn. McGee keeps looking at her, all worried. He brought her coffee, once. He didn't know how she took it, but Kate gave him a small smile anyhow. After that, though, he just didn't know what else to do. Gibbs almost expected him to wring his hands.

Gibbs is grateful for that coffee, because it's all she had to eat that entire day. Pushing food around on a plate does not count as eating.

Tony's attempts at trying to pull her out of her shell were met with patient ignorance at first and then irritated snaps. Gibbs himself had even delivered a hard smack to the head and told him to leave her alone. Tony had retreated, wounded.

Well, retorts a little voice in his head, Tony tried, and Kate knows it. She might find it annoying, but she knows he is trying even if he keeps talking about the cereal that's not enough for another bowl but too much to throw away, or if he slurps his drink.

'You didn't even try.'

The accusation rings hard in his head, and he balks. He did. He did try to comfort her. He told her that it was suicide by cop, and she needed to get over it. OK, in slightly less nice terms, but what else was he supposed to do?

She has thrown herself into her work, and if Abby didn't come up there every lunch time to take her down to her lab for lunch and a chat....

He admits he asked Abby to help him on that one. If he'd tried it himself, it would be the two of them sitting in the cafeteria in complete silence. Abby is just so...lively. Alive. It's impossible to be around her and not be able to forget your own problems for awhile.

Of course, forgetting problems never solves them, and whenever Kate came back up, it took only an hour before she got all quiet and withdrawn again, and Tony would try his brand of...well, come to think of it, he tried the same thing Abby does - just, just being cheerful. Well, Tony tried to cheer Kate up...until he'd delivered that smack to the back of his junior agent's head.

While he knows cheeriness won't solve Kate's problem, it's all he could come up with at the time. He knows she needs some kind of reassurance or comfort, but he just doesn't know HOW.

X X X X X

So here he is, awkwardly standing at the door to her apartment building, trying to...show her that he isn't heartless. Not that it's much comfort. Let's see...he brought Chinese food and some healthy frozen meals for her freezer. He brought some of those gross healthy tofu wrap things Abby said that Kate likes to eat. It killed him to have to even look up the place, much less buy anything, and he hopes that Kate will NEVER buy lunch for the team from that place.

Kate won't want to eat his cooking. HE doesn't like to eat his own cooking.

He supposes he's latched on to this thing because he doesn't know how else to help her. She doesn't need help dressing herself; she comes to work pristine and ready for work. (He clamps down on that thought before it can go any farther.) She doesn't need help with her work; she's been overly productive these past couple days. She sure doesn't need any more coffee; that's all she's been ingesting.

What else can he do?

X X X X X

The intercom buzzes again, and he hears the front door to the building unlock. "Come in." Kate sounds as if she is about to get a root canal at the dentist's, and he knows how much she hates dentists.

It is not a comforting thought.

He juggles the bags in his arms and takes the elevator up to her floor. When he reaches her door, it's still closed, and he scowls a bit at having to ring the doorbell again.

The door opens just a crack, and Kate doesn't even bother to undo the chain. She appears in her USC jersey pajamas, and he is glad he had the foresight to bring food. She looks paler and thinner in that jersey than the last time he saw her in it - or maybe it's his paranoia. "What."

"Can I come in?"

She reluctantly closes the door, and he can hear the chain being removed before the door swings open. He strides in without a hello and puts the bags down on her kitchen counter. Without another word, he starts putting food into her refrigerator and freezer, leaving the Chinese food out on the table.

As he passes, he notices her blanket and pillow out on the living room couch.

He is thankful that she doesn't say anything, but her eyes are shooting daggers at his back. If they were real, he'd be dead by now.

The food put away, he pours a glass of milk and sticks it in the microwave to warm it a little. He goes searching for her cutlery, and it's a testament to how mad she is at him that she won't tell him where they are, even though she knows that's what he must be looking for.

The silence is weighing them both down, and for a brief - brief, mind you - second he wishes Tony were there, just to make noise.

He finds what he's looking for and with a bang sets down a spoon for the soup, then pulls the chopsticks out of the bag. He puts a box down before one of the chairs - shrimp, he knows she likes it - and turns to her. "Sit."

She glares at him.

He strides over, ready to make her obey, when she glares at him again and plunks herself down defiantly in the chair. She doesn't touch the food. He places the warm milk before her. "You want to get rid of me, you eat it. All." He can see her internal debate - he has no doubt she wants to be rid of him, now, but she doesn't want to give in and eat, either.

Hm. Maybe he needs to change tack.

He pulls out another carton of soup and grabs for himself a spoon, trying to make this a "communal" meal rather than force-feeding her. He sits down across from her, and his tone is softer now. "You haven't eaten properly in several days, Katie."

That nickname was not supposed to come out.

She realizes it; he knows by her quick look up at him, and he barely manages to keep the mask over his face. This change in tactics works, and her resolve crumbles.

The food disappears slowly, but it's more like she's inhaling it. "Chew, Kate." She makes a few token efforts at moving her jaw, her head bowed so low over the box. She chokes down the milk in erratic gulps.

She barely finishes before he takes her things from her, tossing out the carton and the chopsticks and washing out her glass. Her soup is untouched, the spoon just sitting on top, but he won't push the issue. She's got something of substance in her stomach already.

"Brush your teeth and go to bed."

She moves mechanically towards her bathroom, and he hears the water running. He puts everything else into the refrigerator and wipes the table. Although she didn't leave a spot of food, she looks like a neat freak and he's not about to leave a dirty kitchen for her to see in the morning.

The water stops running in the sink, and he can see the bathroom light go off. Through the narrow kitchen door, he sees her go into the living room and curl up on the couch, covered in a big comforter. "Kate."

She doesn't move.

He sits down on the coffee table across from her. "Kate, this has to stop."

"You tell that to Ensign Hayes."

"Kate, it was suicide by cop."

He has never heard Kate swear so loudly, and it's enough to make HIM blush. "...He was INNOCENT, Gibbs! People who shoot innocent people go to jail, and the reason I won't is because of your crappy 'suicide by cop' excuse."

A thought occurs to him. "What did the priest say when you went to confession?"

"Who says I went?" she replies snippily, but Gibbs knows her better than that. He looks at her, and she folds. "He said that I was justified, that I shot out of ignorance, and that I was forgiven."

"Then that's it. It's over, Kate." He is trying to be comforting, he really is. He is trying, and it is SO not coming out right. "You didn't know, and neither did I."

"Please," she retorts sarcastically, and although her anger is directed on him, he can feel she is about to break. "Like you wouldn't agonize over it if you were me. You'd obsess." She didn't have profile training for nothing.

He doesn't say anything for a long time. He just looks at her, and her expression slowly changes into one of realization. "Gibbs," she murmurs. "I didn't know. I'm sorry, I didn't - "

"I was a Marine, a MP, and then with NCIS for 19 years, Kate. It was bound to happen to me sometime. I got over it."

She swallows, and he can see the comforting, mothering side of Kate appear. He tells himself he doesn't want her sympathy, but there is a little boy-wounded part of him that wants her to do for him what she did for Sandy Watson, what she did for Ernie, and what he is sure she'd do for McGee or Tony if they were hurt like that. He wants her to wrap her arms around him and murmur her comfort into his ear. He knows that deep down, he isn't entirely over it, even if he's not reminding himself of it daily anymore.

"Do you...do you ever...?" she trails off.

"You don't forget," he says detachedly, quietly. "But soon it stops hurting, and then it stops invading every thought, and that's when you can count yourself as having gotten over it."

He has said far more than he meant to, and he hopes desperately she won't press the issue, or ask about it, or anything else. She is looking at him steadily, her eyes warm and alive again, temporarily forgetting her own pain and guilt as she worried for him.

He knows if he keeps looking at those eyes, which had been so worn and tired before, he will do something he will regret later. A stray lock of hair has come loose from her ponytail, and he gently tucks it behind her ear.

She seems unsure of herself at the gesture, and she reaches hesitantly out to touch his arm. He looks at her, and after a moment, she murmurs only, "Thank you for the food. I'll eat it. I promise."

He nods. "I can let myself out." He gets up and gathers his long brown coat from the kitchen chair where he tossed it. He sees her sitting on the couch, thinking, and then gathering up her things and heading back, most likely to her own bed.

He locks the door behind him, taking care to make sure the dead-bolt is in, too. It's cold as he heads out to his car, as it generally is in Washington at this time of year, and it's too cold to sleep under his boat, even accidentally falling asleep under it. Maybe he'll sleep in his own bed tonight.

The End