FIC: Who Knew? (NCIS, Kate/Tony. 1/?)
Title: Who Knew?
Fandom: NCIS
Genre: Romance/Friendship/Adventure
Rating: PG-13, T
Pairing: Kate/Tony, Abby/McGee, Jenny/Gibbs, Ziva/OC
Spoilers: Seasons 1 & 2 in particular. Season 3 sparingly.
Warnings: AUness, Babyfic
Summery: Kate has alot of adjusting to do. This includes a loss of a friend, a new relationship, a new team member, and a few other life changing events
Disclaimer: Clearly I do not own NCIS. Otherwise I would be doing something more productive of my time then rewriting the episodes of season 3 to include Kate. I do however own Becca, Ken and Jessica (who sadly is me making a cameo...but don't worry. She's not important to the story ergo she may not appear in this story very much at all. )
Author's Notes:
This story originally was supposed to start with Twilight and go AU from there, but a background research made some of the plot impossible if it started from there, so I went back and am now going AU from SWAK. However, there are mentions of and references to various episodes from the first 2 seasons for sure. Season 3 may make an appearance but since I'm not sure how much of that I have seen, I am not sure which cases I will bring into this story.
This story was inspired by a couple of things, one of them being a few fics I have found where Tony and Kate got together during thier trip to Paragauy in "Eye for an Eye".
This story is Kate/Tony. It will have Ziva and it will have Kate. It will not have Ziva bashing. *huggles Ziva* I may prefer Tony with Kate, but I love Ziva too and I have seen one too many Ziva bashing fics lately (my fault for clicking on fics that sounded like they would be that way anyway).
Other pairings include: Gibbs/Jenn, McGee/Abby and possibly Ziva/OC.
This chapter is not yet beta'd. So it may change in the future. If there are any big changes, I will alert you in the next chapter. I'm just too much a feedback addict to wait for the beta reader to get back to me. Its one of my flaws.
Dedicated to Maria whose been a big help and supported me as I started to venture into NCIS fanfic.
It had been the week of hell, and it was not looking to get much better. Well, it was better in the fact that Tony was leaning more towards ‘recovered’ rather then being put down as a statistic of Pneumonic Plague. Currently he was still in the blue room, but they were thinking of moving him into a private care room now that he wasn’t contagious.
She on the other hand had been called into Dr. Pitt’s office to discuss some anomalies that had shown up in her blood work when they had tests done to confirm Y. Pestis. This has her scared that perhaps she has it and it just took a day longer to show up. After all she stayed in the quarantine room when she didn’t need to be.
Then again, if she had the disease, surely he wouldn’t have asked her to walk up to his office, but would have come down to her and kept her in quarantine.
“Dr. Pitt?” She asked as she reached the office. He was sitting at his desk, paperwork all over the desk. He looked up and smiled and motioned for her to enter.
“How are you feeling, Agent Todd?” He asked.
“Good. Still got a stuffed up nose, but other then that I’m fine. Emma said you found some anomalies in my blood.”
“Yes, although it sounds worse then it is. I should have noticed it before. It effects your antibiotic treatment. I’ve had Emma stop your dose of Streptomycin.”
“Why?”
“Streptomycin is a category D drug and I rather not risk you having a miscarriage or hurting the baby when taking the antibiotics is more precautionary then treatment. I’m going to be prescribing a higher level of an antibiotic called cephalaxin. It’s type B, and still has its risks, but considerably less then that of Streptomycin.” He paused as he watched her look at him confused. “You did know you were pregnant?”
“No…I would have told someone if I was.” Kate thought back to figure out when this could have happened. She hadn’t been sleeping with anyone, not since before Paraguay…
Oh. Paraguay.
“Well, then I’m pleased to let you know that you are indeed pregnant. About two months from the levels of folic acid in your system. We can do a more through check-up if you wish. Our OB/GYN is here today.” She felt herself nodding. But the information was still sinking in.
Wasn’t she supposed to be ecstatic right now? She had been thinking about kids more and more lately. Wondering when she would have some. She hadn’t intended on actually having them now and not with Tony due to a wild weekend while on assignment in Paraguay.
It had been two months since Paraguay. There were symptoms she had always pushed off to other things - stress, bad days, and lack of Cherry Garcia at the local supermarket in her area of town. No morning sickness, or any of the tradditonal warning signs she would have
Oddly enough, her first thought was not what would happen or what Tony would say about it, but what would Gibbs say. She had endangered her life, and now the life of a child, even if it was barely there. All because of a series of mistakes.
No, it wasn't a mistake. They needed that weekend, and she had no regrets ... not yet anyway. But Gibbs was still going to be pissed and would probably kill Tony before congratulating her and acting overprotective.
And she had almost gotten herself sick with the Plague to stay with Tony, who would be no more happy then Gibbs. What if she had gotten it? Would the baby have caught it?
Dr. Pitt seemed to understand and simply told her to wait in his office while he called the on-call OB/GYN, a Doctor Jessica Francis. A few moments later, a lively red-head walked into the room and smiled at her.
“Hello, Agent Todd. I’m Doctor Francis, but call me Jess.” She stuck her hand out and shook Kate’s. “Dr. Pitt tells me you just found out you were pregnant and want a preliminary exam.”
“I…I would just like to make sure everything’s alright.”
“She was recently exposed to the pneumonic variant of the Plague. We’ve had her on a heavy antibiotic for the last twenty four hours, but I have it changed to a safer one.” Jessica seemed concerned at that, and simply told Kate to follow her to her office where the exam would be held.
“So is this your first child?” the Doctor asked as they walked down the hall.
“Yes.” She started to think of everyone’s reactions as she told them the news. There was no doubt in her mind that she was having this baby, so at least that was one question she didn’t need to focus on.
Abby would be ecstatic, already planning a baby shower within seconds of knowing and figuring out how to decorate the spare bedroom in Kate’s apartment for the baby. McGee would probably have a shocked look on his face, but in general be happy for her. If not, Abby would set him straight. The guy was a pushover for the Goth technician and she wondered if Abby realized how much.
The Director would be a wild card, since she wasn't familiar with Jenny Sheppard yet. Gibbs would growl for awhile, but eventually be happy for her. She could imagine him a few years later sitting with her son and daughter explaining the rules. He was good with children.
As for Tony, she wasn't going to speculate. It just made her start to go into panic mode, and frankly she had enough of that this week.
“It was unexpected,” she continued after a second. Jessica smiled
“Aren’t most? How old are you?”
“35.”
“Ah, good age, and I can tell you are in good health, although I’ll double check during the exam. That should help the pregnancy be easier for you. Of course, the exposure for the plague is going to make things interesting these first couple of weeks. You’ll probably need to come in as often as your partner to check to make sure the medication isn’t having any bad effects on either you or your child.”
They had arrived at the OB/GYN section of the hospital and to a suite of offices off to the right of the delivery rooms. Kate sits down on a exam table as Jessica gathers the equipment and paperwork she needs for the exam, handing her a sheet for ‘personal medical history’ before leaving to get something that’s outside the room
Its going to be a long day.
~*~
It had all started a few weeks before the case in Paraguay. Whenever one of them crossed the line they had set up for themselves, they tended to jump back and try and push the other away as much as possible. It had happened before, during their first year as partners. She couldn’t remember what case it was on, but there had been a moment of possibly more, she had run scared and would tease him about the Voss case even though she knew it hurt him more than amused. He had responded by picking on things. He was definitely more subtle about his jabs then she was.
But they had gotten over that, and things had gone back to normal. They had transitioned into becoming best friends and partners. When McGee joined the group they took turns teasing him. They ignored the signals that they were playing with that line again.
Then of course, there was the case of the wife who cheated on her husband with his best friend. She had finally come out and asked Tony if he liked her, found her attractive. It had bothered her at first when he replied that he hadn’t asked her out because he knew her. Did that mean that he didn’t ask her because he knew she would say no? Because he preferred their friendship? What?
After that they started to fight again, and although they often fought in general, it was more serious fighting. Not the fun fighting they did on a regular basis. They finally went to Ducky who uttered the words that would stick with her even more then the ‘I know’. Unresolved sexual tension.
She forgot how they stopped fighting, but it wasn’t resolving that particular issue. That continued to build up till finally they were half a world away from Gibbs with 12 hours to spare while they waited for the flight that McGee managed to get them. And they decided to ‘resolve’.
At first it looked like it worked. One wild weekend away from work and they got rid of that pesky underlying issue. They dated other people, didn’t feel the need to continue. Till she started to date Steve, Tony’s former frat brother.
That was two weeks of fighting over her picture, blackmailing each other and a fight after they managed to get away from Gibbs before he opened the email. Which was followed by another weekend together.
After that they faced facts and decided to actually try a relationship, but keep it quiet at work. This was tested right away. They had managed to keep it secret from everyone at work for two weeks, but then Tony got sick. Abby had told her it had been obvious, and that McGee and she were placing bets on when they would actually admit to each other that they like each other.
Apparently McGee won.
~*~
She doesn’t tell anyone at first. The only ones who know are Dr. Pitt and Dr. Frances. They both assure her that the baby is growing healthy and seems to be the right size for that stage of development.
A week later, Tony is allowed to go home and she goes with him, taking him to her apartment. She thinks about telling him but can’t ever seem to. Tony doesn’t seem to notice her being quieter then usual, but then he’s more quiet himself. A near-death experience and limited use of your lungs will do that to you.
She starts getting morning sickness, but everyone assumes it’s her cold developing into flu and she gets pulled off field duty for awhile. Tony goes back to work despite probably needing another week or two to recuperate.
Then all hell breaks loose again. This time Ari’s to blame (once again).
~*~
It had been a horrible day. Kate leaned back against the Autopsy coolers and slid down the floor, closing her eyes as she waited for Gibbs and the rest of the team to arrive with the body. The body that could have been hers.
She had been pulled off active duty that morning with the excuse that they couldn't let an agent with the flu, no matter how controlled it appeared to be, to be involved with an active field case this serious. She needed her full concentration on this case, especially while in protection detail. And having the flu was not something that aided one’s concentration. And no arguing got her out of it.
Personally, she had a feeling that they did it not so much because of her concentration as much as it involved Ari and she had been a target twice already.
She had gone home but had turned her police radio. She had been in the kitchen when she had heard the words "Agent down" come over the speaker she had connected to the frequency NCIS used. Her heart had plummeted into her shoes and various thoughts of who the agent was flashed through her mind, with Tony at the forefront and then Gibbs. McGee was featured a few times in her nanosecond nightmare, but not as much as the others.
She had come back into work after that and went to autopsy once she learned that the agent filling in for her had died. Rebecca Stanson. She remembered Tony teasing her about Becca looking just like her. Not enough to really be called twins or anything of the sort. But from a distance you probably couldn't tell the difference, and certainly not from behind. They had the same basic features, just slightly different enough that up close they could definitely be told apart. Becca's face was rounder, her eyes a little more towards the Hazel side of the spectrum. Kate had a more liner nose and her hair was a shade redder depending on the light.
When she had learned the shooter was Ari, she had known what had happened. Part of her felt it should of her. A greater part of her felt guilty for being exceedingly glad it wasn't. And that it wasn't anyone from the team.
She opened her eyes as something popped up in her mind. She wondered if anyone had told Ken Speedle. Becca's fiancée was on a business trip in Hong Kong, expected back the day after tomorrow. Who knew what time it was there? More guilt ate at her. If anyone was having a bad day, it was Becca and Ken.
Ari was out of chances. The team was going to be after him now, and they weren’t going to give him any reprieve. Especially not her, not after today.
She heard the sound of the doors opening from outside to allow the gurney with the body on it to pass through into the morgue. She turned to face it as Ducky and Palmer entered first on either side of the gurney, rolling it to a nearby table for preparation. Behind them walked Gibbs, Tony and McGee, almost in a perfect triangle. All five men wore expressions that clearly showed their sadness over the loss of one of their own.
Tony was the first to look her way, as if he had some kind of extra sense just for her. They just looked at each other, not saying anything for a few minutes, Gibbs and Ducky conversing in the background, Palmer and McGee still struggling to handle this. He walked over and sat next to her and took hold of her hand.
This was the second one in less than a year and a half that they had lost. But with Chris at least none of them had to witness it. She could still see the streaks of blood on Gibbs and Tony's clothes, and a few places on their face that whoever cleaned them up had missed.
She didn't say anything. There wasn't much she could say that would help.
She weaved her hand though his, trying to say without words that she was there, and she got a responding squeeze.
"Kate, I thought I told you to go home. We don't need you to give the rest of us your flu." Gibbs stated as he finally spotted his two agents at the other end of the cold storage. He walked towards them, followed by McGee.
“I feel better. And I felt I needed to be here.” She decided it wasn’t the time to announce her pregnancy. Especially when Tony didn’t even know yet. It wouldn’t be fair to him to announce it in front of everyone.
Gibbs seemed to see the point in that statement and just nodded. He looked briefly over his shoulder to where Ducky and Palmer stood vigil over Becca’s body, still within the body bag. He turned back to his team.
"DiNozzo, take Kate home. There's nothing we can do at the office today. McGee, you too. Go home. I don't want to see any of you till tomorrow." He walked out of Autopsy without another word, followed by McGee who gave a small smile that was both hello and goodbye.
Neither of them was going to go home. McGee was almost certainly going to Abby, his anchor in this storm. Gibbs would either be talking to the new director or sitting at his desk thinking up ways to capture Ari.
She turned to look at Tony, who was still staring straight ahead. She stood up, pulling him up with her and started out of Autopsy. Ducky and Palmer gave quick waves as Kate said goodbye, starting the arduous task of preparing a friend for an autopsy.
~*~
Home this time was her apartment. It usually was. Her apartment was bigger, closer to work and had better maintenance people. She figured Tony was going to have to find another place if yet another thing fell apart at that place. The most important part was that there was food (she had finally been able to hold something down so she went shopping for groceries the day before).
As soon as they got there, she sent Tony towards the shower to get cleaned up while she put together something for them to eat. She wasn’t very hungry, but she knew they both needed to eat. Tony, because she was pretty sure he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and she knew she hadn’t.
She got out the ingredients for the meal and put them on the counter. She heard the shower down the hall start as she got a pan out to cook.
Kate was in the middle of slicing a pepper when it finally hit her.
She remembered just last month when Becca and her had played a joke on the office. With Abby’s help, the two of them had dressed the same and used a little cosmetic magic to hide the differences. Becca went to work and sat at Kate’s desk vice versa. Gibbs actually seemed suspicious, but Terry Marks, Becca’s partner, didn’t have a clue. Neither did McGee, Ducky or Palmer. It was quite funny.
Tony actually figured it out. At first he had the same suspicious look that Gibbs had, but instead of asking questions, he just observed the two of them. It was a paperwork day, with both teams in the office, so he had amble time to do so.
He approached her after about two hours and told her he knew. When she asked why, he had simply shrugged and said Becca moved different. Which was kind of creepy to say, yet sweet that he noticed something like that. Apparently he talked to Becca first, but she never told Kate what he had said about it.
Gibbs never said anything, but she figured he knew about it before lunch.
It had been a fun day. And now Becca was gone.
She hadn’t released that she had stopped chopping, or that she had been standing there for awhile till Tony’s arms went around her and tugged her back in a hug. She sat the knife on the counter and turned around, hugging him close to her. His body was still warm from the hot shower. She can still feel a few drops that the towel missed on his bare back, and she knows she’s adding some to his chest. She didn’t realize she had started to cry.
He’s crying too, something he doesn’t do too often. She’s only seen him do it once or twice. The first time was after the undercover case, where he befriended a criminal and was forced to kill him in the end. The second time was right after he got out of the hospital and that was more frustration then sadness. The only reason why she had seen either one of those times was because she forced herself into his house. The first time she had come over, the worry not quite gone. The second time she brought him home, and stayed till she realized she was sick and could possibly give him something.
He had a pair of track pants on, and his feet were bare. So were hers, if she thought about it. But she didn’t, as both were trying too hard to bring the other closer as they finally let themselves go in their grief for a loss of a friend.
He slowly led her out of the kitchen into the attached living room and they sat on the couch. The peppers would be fine. None of the food left out were that quick to perish. They could stand it for awhile.
They don’t turn on the TV, just sit there in each other’s company. The crying has stopped, but they don’t let go. It’s the way they have always been. During the day, they have a lot of words, usually in jest or in argument. They never run out of words then (and there have been times she had gone home wishing they had). But when it came down to this, the words were short, but they stuck together.
It was odd, really. The Kate Todd that had agreed to work with NCIS close to two years ago would have never would have seen herself as she was now. Never saw herself as Tony’s partner more than a technicality on paper. After all, in the past year she had been paired up with McGee often. They really didn’t have the strict partner thing within their group. Gibbs just assigned you with whomever, and took whomever when he needed someone to come with him. They were a team.
But in the back of her mind, she was Tony’s partner. They had their own language sometimes. Little hand gestures and looks that conveyed common messages. They knew each other’s idiosyncrasies. They knew the boundaries, even if they did cross them sometimes. She probably knew more about Tony than anyone else…although she might be tied with Gibbs as Gibbs knew everything. She knew he knew more about her then even her family did.
Their friendship had been an odd one. Oddly enough, she couldn’t remember a time she actually hated him. He had annoyed her a lot, but she never disliked him. After a few months they had the occasional dinner together, usually Chinese (her favorite) or Italian (his favorite). They commiserated over Gibbs. They told stories about their lives pre-Gibbs and in Tony’s case the two years before she came into the picture.
When McGee joined the team, they joined forces in teasing him. They really did see him as the baby brother. Maybe not at first, but she really liked McGee, and she knew Tony did, even if he pretended otherwise. Both of them felt badly when watching McGee love Abby and Abby either pretend not to notice or be completely oblivious.
She remembered the first moment she considered something more with Tony then friend. It had been after her first encounter with Ari. She had been upset with herself for not doing anything when she had the chance (and if she had she wouldn’t be dealing with Becca’s death). He had said something about it being like falling in love, with a snap of his fingers. She had looked him in the eye right then and watched as he walked back to his desk, never really loosing eye contact.
It made her wonder if he thought that way about her. This led to her wondering about what it would be like. Would he ever actually have a relationship instead a pleasant passing by? She was not the one-night kind of girl or the friends with benefits type. She had tried that before and it had failed so spectacularly that she still wasn’t talking to Derek. Or he wasn’t talking to her. It all depended on who you asked.
This of course was one of the forerunners of the great Kate-and-Tony war of 2004.
~*~
They ended up falling asleep on the couch, the food forgotten for a few hours. It was starting to get dark when Kate opened her eyes again. Beneath her she could feel Tony’s chest raise and fall, with a slight wheeze that was all that was left from his fight with the plague. She got up slowly so not to wake him up. He was still recovering and needed the sleep.
She walked back into the kitchen and put the food away, deciding to make pancakes when he woke up. They needed good old fashioned comfort food. And hers was pancakes.
She went and took a shower. As she stopped to get dressed in a pair of her favorite pajamas, she tried to see if there were any physical signs of her pregnancy yet. Her stomach didn’t give as much, but it was still flat. She imagined that within the next couple of weeks she’d begin to show. She wasn’t going to be able to hide this for too much longer.
“Kate.” She finished putting her top on and responded that she was in the bedroom.
Tony walked into the room holding a folded piece of paper. Apparently while she was in the shower he had awoken and gone through the mail. She noticed it was something from the hospital. Probably the bill letting her know her insurance covered it. She turned to the mirror to start working on her hair.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”
She paused in the middle of combing her wet hair and looked back at him. His face was calm, which oddly enough surprised her. She had expected at least a irritated look at her keeping it from him, maybe even angry. But he was very calm.
Which actually might have been worse. Tony was not one for calm.
“I hadn’t figured out how to tell you,” she said, confirming what the paper said. She took it off of him and looked at it. It was the insurance bill, like she had thought, but instead of just including the note saying her medication was paid for, it also included the prenatal exam and visits. “I just found out myself.”
“Does he know?”
She blinks. “Who?”
“The father.” She raises an eyebrow. Apparently he hadn’t figured it out completely. She'd hand it up to stress. Then again, considering that in all the time they had actually been seeing each other, they hadn't actually had sex. Not since Paraguay. During his recuperation he had been in no physical condition to do anything and before that they were in no emotional condition to even go in that direction. So perhaps he had a reason for asking that.
“Well, I believe so, considering he’s talking to me about it right now.” He turns at that. There is a little bit of surprise in his eyes, before he seems to accept it and a big grin comes out on his face.
Then it leaves as it settles in just how long she had been pregnant. And what had happened during that time. She could practically see it passing through his mind.
Oh, boy, she thought.
Continue
Fandom: NCIS
Genre: Romance/Friendship/Adventure
Rating: PG-13, T
Pairing: Kate/Tony, Abby/McGee, Jenny/Gibbs, Ziva/OC
Spoilers: Seasons 1 & 2 in particular. Season 3 sparingly.
Warnings: AUness, Babyfic
Summery: Kate has alot of adjusting to do. This includes a loss of a friend, a new relationship, a new team member, and a few other life changing events
Disclaimer: Clearly I do not own NCIS. Otherwise I would be doing something more productive of my time then rewriting the episodes of season 3 to include Kate. I do however own Becca, Ken and Jessica (who sadly is me making a cameo...but don't worry. She's not important to the story ergo she may not appear in this story very much at all. )
Author's Notes:
This story originally was supposed to start with Twilight and go AU from there, but a background research made some of the plot impossible if it started from there, so I went back and am now going AU from SWAK. However, there are mentions of and references to various episodes from the first 2 seasons for sure. Season 3 may make an appearance but since I'm not sure how much of that I have seen, I am not sure which cases I will bring into this story.
This story was inspired by a couple of things, one of them being a few fics I have found where Tony and Kate got together during thier trip to Paragauy in "Eye for an Eye".
This story is Kate/Tony. It will have Ziva and it will have Kate. It will not have Ziva bashing. *huggles Ziva* I may prefer Tony with Kate, but I love Ziva too and I have seen one too many Ziva bashing fics lately (my fault for clicking on fics that sounded like they would be that way anyway).
Other pairings include: Gibbs/Jenn, McGee/Abby and possibly Ziva/OC.
This chapter is not yet beta'd. So it may change in the future. If there are any big changes, I will alert you in the next chapter. I'm just too much a feedback addict to wait for the beta reader to get back to me. Its one of my flaws.
Dedicated to Maria whose been a big help and supported me as I started to venture into NCIS fanfic.
It had been the week of hell, and it was not looking to get much better. Well, it was better in the fact that Tony was leaning more towards ‘recovered’ rather then being put down as a statistic of Pneumonic Plague. Currently he was still in the blue room, but they were thinking of moving him into a private care room now that he wasn’t contagious.
She on the other hand had been called into Dr. Pitt’s office to discuss some anomalies that had shown up in her blood work when they had tests done to confirm Y. Pestis. This has her scared that perhaps she has it and it just took a day longer to show up. After all she stayed in the quarantine room when she didn’t need to be.
Then again, if she had the disease, surely he wouldn’t have asked her to walk up to his office, but would have come down to her and kept her in quarantine.
“Dr. Pitt?” She asked as she reached the office. He was sitting at his desk, paperwork all over the desk. He looked up and smiled and motioned for her to enter.
“How are you feeling, Agent Todd?” He asked.
“Good. Still got a stuffed up nose, but other then that I’m fine. Emma said you found some anomalies in my blood.”
“Yes, although it sounds worse then it is. I should have noticed it before. It effects your antibiotic treatment. I’ve had Emma stop your dose of Streptomycin.”
“Why?”
“Streptomycin is a category D drug and I rather not risk you having a miscarriage or hurting the baby when taking the antibiotics is more precautionary then treatment. I’m going to be prescribing a higher level of an antibiotic called cephalaxin. It’s type B, and still has its risks, but considerably less then that of Streptomycin.” He paused as he watched her look at him confused. “You did know you were pregnant?”
“No…I would have told someone if I was.” Kate thought back to figure out when this could have happened. She hadn’t been sleeping with anyone, not since before Paraguay…
Oh. Paraguay.
“Well, then I’m pleased to let you know that you are indeed pregnant. About two months from the levels of folic acid in your system. We can do a more through check-up if you wish. Our OB/GYN is here today.” She felt herself nodding. But the information was still sinking in.
Wasn’t she supposed to be ecstatic right now? She had been thinking about kids more and more lately. Wondering when she would have some. She hadn’t intended on actually having them now and not with Tony due to a wild weekend while on assignment in Paraguay.
It had been two months since Paraguay. There were symptoms she had always pushed off to other things - stress, bad days, and lack of Cherry Garcia at the local supermarket in her area of town. No morning sickness, or any of the tradditonal warning signs she would have
Oddly enough, her first thought was not what would happen or what Tony would say about it, but what would Gibbs say. She had endangered her life, and now the life of a child, even if it was barely there. All because of a series of mistakes.
No, it wasn't a mistake. They needed that weekend, and she had no regrets ... not yet anyway. But Gibbs was still going to be pissed and would probably kill Tony before congratulating her and acting overprotective.
And she had almost gotten herself sick with the Plague to stay with Tony, who would be no more happy then Gibbs. What if she had gotten it? Would the baby have caught it?
Dr. Pitt seemed to understand and simply told her to wait in his office while he called the on-call OB/GYN, a Doctor Jessica Francis. A few moments later, a lively red-head walked into the room and smiled at her.
“Hello, Agent Todd. I’m Doctor Francis, but call me Jess.” She stuck her hand out and shook Kate’s. “Dr. Pitt tells me you just found out you were pregnant and want a preliminary exam.”
“I…I would just like to make sure everything’s alright.”
“She was recently exposed to the pneumonic variant of the Plague. We’ve had her on a heavy antibiotic for the last twenty four hours, but I have it changed to a safer one.” Jessica seemed concerned at that, and simply told Kate to follow her to her office where the exam would be held.
“So is this your first child?” the Doctor asked as they walked down the hall.
“Yes.” She started to think of everyone’s reactions as she told them the news. There was no doubt in her mind that she was having this baby, so at least that was one question she didn’t need to focus on.
Abby would be ecstatic, already planning a baby shower within seconds of knowing and figuring out how to decorate the spare bedroom in Kate’s apartment for the baby. McGee would probably have a shocked look on his face, but in general be happy for her. If not, Abby would set him straight. The guy was a pushover for the Goth technician and she wondered if Abby realized how much.
The Director would be a wild card, since she wasn't familiar with Jenny Sheppard yet. Gibbs would growl for awhile, but eventually be happy for her. She could imagine him a few years later sitting with her son and daughter explaining the rules. He was good with children.
As for Tony, she wasn't going to speculate. It just made her start to go into panic mode, and frankly she had enough of that this week.
“It was unexpected,” she continued after a second. Jessica smiled
“Aren’t most? How old are you?”
“35.”
“Ah, good age, and I can tell you are in good health, although I’ll double check during the exam. That should help the pregnancy be easier for you. Of course, the exposure for the plague is going to make things interesting these first couple of weeks. You’ll probably need to come in as often as your partner to check to make sure the medication isn’t having any bad effects on either you or your child.”
They had arrived at the OB/GYN section of the hospital and to a suite of offices off to the right of the delivery rooms. Kate sits down on a exam table as Jessica gathers the equipment and paperwork she needs for the exam, handing her a sheet for ‘personal medical history’ before leaving to get something that’s outside the room
Its going to be a long day.
~*~
It had all started a few weeks before the case in Paraguay. Whenever one of them crossed the line they had set up for themselves, they tended to jump back and try and push the other away as much as possible. It had happened before, during their first year as partners. She couldn’t remember what case it was on, but there had been a moment of possibly more, she had run scared and would tease him about the Voss case even though she knew it hurt him more than amused. He had responded by picking on things. He was definitely more subtle about his jabs then she was.
But they had gotten over that, and things had gone back to normal. They had transitioned into becoming best friends and partners. When McGee joined the group they took turns teasing him. They ignored the signals that they were playing with that line again.
Then of course, there was the case of the wife who cheated on her husband with his best friend. She had finally come out and asked Tony if he liked her, found her attractive. It had bothered her at first when he replied that he hadn’t asked her out because he knew her. Did that mean that he didn’t ask her because he knew she would say no? Because he preferred their friendship? What?
After that they started to fight again, and although they often fought in general, it was more serious fighting. Not the fun fighting they did on a regular basis. They finally went to Ducky who uttered the words that would stick with her even more then the ‘I know’. Unresolved sexual tension.
She forgot how they stopped fighting, but it wasn’t resolving that particular issue. That continued to build up till finally they were half a world away from Gibbs with 12 hours to spare while they waited for the flight that McGee managed to get them. And they decided to ‘resolve’.
At first it looked like it worked. One wild weekend away from work and they got rid of that pesky underlying issue. They dated other people, didn’t feel the need to continue. Till she started to date Steve, Tony’s former frat brother.
That was two weeks of fighting over her picture, blackmailing each other and a fight after they managed to get away from Gibbs before he opened the email. Which was followed by another weekend together.
After that they faced facts and decided to actually try a relationship, but keep it quiet at work. This was tested right away. They had managed to keep it secret from everyone at work for two weeks, but then Tony got sick. Abby had told her it had been obvious, and that McGee and she were placing bets on when they would actually admit to each other that they like each other.
Apparently McGee won.
~*~
She doesn’t tell anyone at first. The only ones who know are Dr. Pitt and Dr. Frances. They both assure her that the baby is growing healthy and seems to be the right size for that stage of development.
A week later, Tony is allowed to go home and she goes with him, taking him to her apartment. She thinks about telling him but can’t ever seem to. Tony doesn’t seem to notice her being quieter then usual, but then he’s more quiet himself. A near-death experience and limited use of your lungs will do that to you.
She starts getting morning sickness, but everyone assumes it’s her cold developing into flu and she gets pulled off field duty for awhile. Tony goes back to work despite probably needing another week or two to recuperate.
Then all hell breaks loose again. This time Ari’s to blame (once again).
~*~
It had been a horrible day. Kate leaned back against the Autopsy coolers and slid down the floor, closing her eyes as she waited for Gibbs and the rest of the team to arrive with the body. The body that could have been hers.
She had been pulled off active duty that morning with the excuse that they couldn't let an agent with the flu, no matter how controlled it appeared to be, to be involved with an active field case this serious. She needed her full concentration on this case, especially while in protection detail. And having the flu was not something that aided one’s concentration. And no arguing got her out of it.
Personally, she had a feeling that they did it not so much because of her concentration as much as it involved Ari and she had been a target twice already.
She had gone home but had turned her police radio. She had been in the kitchen when she had heard the words "Agent down" come over the speaker she had connected to the frequency NCIS used. Her heart had plummeted into her shoes and various thoughts of who the agent was flashed through her mind, with Tony at the forefront and then Gibbs. McGee was featured a few times in her nanosecond nightmare, but not as much as the others.
She had come back into work after that and went to autopsy once she learned that the agent filling in for her had died. Rebecca Stanson. She remembered Tony teasing her about Becca looking just like her. Not enough to really be called twins or anything of the sort. But from a distance you probably couldn't tell the difference, and certainly not from behind. They had the same basic features, just slightly different enough that up close they could definitely be told apart. Becca's face was rounder, her eyes a little more towards the Hazel side of the spectrum. Kate had a more liner nose and her hair was a shade redder depending on the light.
When she had learned the shooter was Ari, she had known what had happened. Part of her felt it should of her. A greater part of her felt guilty for being exceedingly glad it wasn't. And that it wasn't anyone from the team.
She opened her eyes as something popped up in her mind. She wondered if anyone had told Ken Speedle. Becca's fiancée was on a business trip in Hong Kong, expected back the day after tomorrow. Who knew what time it was there? More guilt ate at her. If anyone was having a bad day, it was Becca and Ken.
Ari was out of chances. The team was going to be after him now, and they weren’t going to give him any reprieve. Especially not her, not after today.
She heard the sound of the doors opening from outside to allow the gurney with the body on it to pass through into the morgue. She turned to face it as Ducky and Palmer entered first on either side of the gurney, rolling it to a nearby table for preparation. Behind them walked Gibbs, Tony and McGee, almost in a perfect triangle. All five men wore expressions that clearly showed their sadness over the loss of one of their own.
Tony was the first to look her way, as if he had some kind of extra sense just for her. They just looked at each other, not saying anything for a few minutes, Gibbs and Ducky conversing in the background, Palmer and McGee still struggling to handle this. He walked over and sat next to her and took hold of her hand.
This was the second one in less than a year and a half that they had lost. But with Chris at least none of them had to witness it. She could still see the streaks of blood on Gibbs and Tony's clothes, and a few places on their face that whoever cleaned them up had missed.
She didn't say anything. There wasn't much she could say that would help.
She weaved her hand though his, trying to say without words that she was there, and she got a responding squeeze.
"Kate, I thought I told you to go home. We don't need you to give the rest of us your flu." Gibbs stated as he finally spotted his two agents at the other end of the cold storage. He walked towards them, followed by McGee.
“I feel better. And I felt I needed to be here.” She decided it wasn’t the time to announce her pregnancy. Especially when Tony didn’t even know yet. It wouldn’t be fair to him to announce it in front of everyone.
Gibbs seemed to see the point in that statement and just nodded. He looked briefly over his shoulder to where Ducky and Palmer stood vigil over Becca’s body, still within the body bag. He turned back to his team.
"DiNozzo, take Kate home. There's nothing we can do at the office today. McGee, you too. Go home. I don't want to see any of you till tomorrow." He walked out of Autopsy without another word, followed by McGee who gave a small smile that was both hello and goodbye.
Neither of them was going to go home. McGee was almost certainly going to Abby, his anchor in this storm. Gibbs would either be talking to the new director or sitting at his desk thinking up ways to capture Ari.
She turned to look at Tony, who was still staring straight ahead. She stood up, pulling him up with her and started out of Autopsy. Ducky and Palmer gave quick waves as Kate said goodbye, starting the arduous task of preparing a friend for an autopsy.
~*~
Home this time was her apartment. It usually was. Her apartment was bigger, closer to work and had better maintenance people. She figured Tony was going to have to find another place if yet another thing fell apart at that place. The most important part was that there was food (she had finally been able to hold something down so she went shopping for groceries the day before).
As soon as they got there, she sent Tony towards the shower to get cleaned up while she put together something for them to eat. She wasn’t very hungry, but she knew they both needed to eat. Tony, because she was pretty sure he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and she knew she hadn’t.
She got out the ingredients for the meal and put them on the counter. She heard the shower down the hall start as she got a pan out to cook.
Kate was in the middle of slicing a pepper when it finally hit her.
She remembered just last month when Becca and her had played a joke on the office. With Abby’s help, the two of them had dressed the same and used a little cosmetic magic to hide the differences. Becca went to work and sat at Kate’s desk vice versa. Gibbs actually seemed suspicious, but Terry Marks, Becca’s partner, didn’t have a clue. Neither did McGee, Ducky or Palmer. It was quite funny.
Tony actually figured it out. At first he had the same suspicious look that Gibbs had, but instead of asking questions, he just observed the two of them. It was a paperwork day, with both teams in the office, so he had amble time to do so.
He approached her after about two hours and told her he knew. When she asked why, he had simply shrugged and said Becca moved different. Which was kind of creepy to say, yet sweet that he noticed something like that. Apparently he talked to Becca first, but she never told Kate what he had said about it.
Gibbs never said anything, but she figured he knew about it before lunch.
It had been a fun day. And now Becca was gone.
She hadn’t released that she had stopped chopping, or that she had been standing there for awhile till Tony’s arms went around her and tugged her back in a hug. She sat the knife on the counter and turned around, hugging him close to her. His body was still warm from the hot shower. She can still feel a few drops that the towel missed on his bare back, and she knows she’s adding some to his chest. She didn’t realize she had started to cry.
He’s crying too, something he doesn’t do too often. She’s only seen him do it once or twice. The first time was after the undercover case, where he befriended a criminal and was forced to kill him in the end. The second time was right after he got out of the hospital and that was more frustration then sadness. The only reason why she had seen either one of those times was because she forced herself into his house. The first time she had come over, the worry not quite gone. The second time she brought him home, and stayed till she realized she was sick and could possibly give him something.
He had a pair of track pants on, and his feet were bare. So were hers, if she thought about it. But she didn’t, as both were trying too hard to bring the other closer as they finally let themselves go in their grief for a loss of a friend.
He slowly led her out of the kitchen into the attached living room and they sat on the couch. The peppers would be fine. None of the food left out were that quick to perish. They could stand it for awhile.
They don’t turn on the TV, just sit there in each other’s company. The crying has stopped, but they don’t let go. It’s the way they have always been. During the day, they have a lot of words, usually in jest or in argument. They never run out of words then (and there have been times she had gone home wishing they had). But when it came down to this, the words were short, but they stuck together.
It was odd, really. The Kate Todd that had agreed to work with NCIS close to two years ago would have never would have seen herself as she was now. Never saw herself as Tony’s partner more than a technicality on paper. After all, in the past year she had been paired up with McGee often. They really didn’t have the strict partner thing within their group. Gibbs just assigned you with whomever, and took whomever when he needed someone to come with him. They were a team.
But in the back of her mind, she was Tony’s partner. They had their own language sometimes. Little hand gestures and looks that conveyed common messages. They knew each other’s idiosyncrasies. They knew the boundaries, even if they did cross them sometimes. She probably knew more about Tony than anyone else…although she might be tied with Gibbs as Gibbs knew everything. She knew he knew more about her then even her family did.
Their friendship had been an odd one. Oddly enough, she couldn’t remember a time she actually hated him. He had annoyed her a lot, but she never disliked him. After a few months they had the occasional dinner together, usually Chinese (her favorite) or Italian (his favorite). They commiserated over Gibbs. They told stories about their lives pre-Gibbs and in Tony’s case the two years before she came into the picture.
When McGee joined the team, they joined forces in teasing him. They really did see him as the baby brother. Maybe not at first, but she really liked McGee, and she knew Tony did, even if he pretended otherwise. Both of them felt badly when watching McGee love Abby and Abby either pretend not to notice or be completely oblivious.
She remembered the first moment she considered something more with Tony then friend. It had been after her first encounter with Ari. She had been upset with herself for not doing anything when she had the chance (and if she had she wouldn’t be dealing with Becca’s death). He had said something about it being like falling in love, with a snap of his fingers. She had looked him in the eye right then and watched as he walked back to his desk, never really loosing eye contact.
It made her wonder if he thought that way about her. This led to her wondering about what it would be like. Would he ever actually have a relationship instead a pleasant passing by? She was not the one-night kind of girl or the friends with benefits type. She had tried that before and it had failed so spectacularly that she still wasn’t talking to Derek. Or he wasn’t talking to her. It all depended on who you asked.
This of course was one of the forerunners of the great Kate-and-Tony war of 2004.
~*~
They ended up falling asleep on the couch, the food forgotten for a few hours. It was starting to get dark when Kate opened her eyes again. Beneath her she could feel Tony’s chest raise and fall, with a slight wheeze that was all that was left from his fight with the plague. She got up slowly so not to wake him up. He was still recovering and needed the sleep.
She walked back into the kitchen and put the food away, deciding to make pancakes when he woke up. They needed good old fashioned comfort food. And hers was pancakes.
She went and took a shower. As she stopped to get dressed in a pair of her favorite pajamas, she tried to see if there were any physical signs of her pregnancy yet. Her stomach didn’t give as much, but it was still flat. She imagined that within the next couple of weeks she’d begin to show. She wasn’t going to be able to hide this for too much longer.
“Kate.” She finished putting her top on and responded that she was in the bedroom.
Tony walked into the room holding a folded piece of paper. Apparently while she was in the shower he had awoken and gone through the mail. She noticed it was something from the hospital. Probably the bill letting her know her insurance covered it. She turned to the mirror to start working on her hair.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”
She paused in the middle of combing her wet hair and looked back at him. His face was calm, which oddly enough surprised her. She had expected at least a irritated look at her keeping it from him, maybe even angry. But he was very calm.
Which actually might have been worse. Tony was not one for calm.
“I hadn’t figured out how to tell you,” she said, confirming what the paper said. She took it off of him and looked at it. It was the insurance bill, like she had thought, but instead of just including the note saying her medication was paid for, it also included the prenatal exam and visits. “I just found out myself.”
“Does he know?”
She blinks. “Who?”
“The father.” She raises an eyebrow. Apparently he hadn’t figured it out completely. She'd hand it up to stress. Then again, considering that in all the time they had actually been seeing each other, they hadn't actually had sex. Not since Paraguay. During his recuperation he had been in no physical condition to do anything and before that they were in no emotional condition to even go in that direction. So perhaps he had a reason for asking that.
“Well, I believe so, considering he’s talking to me about it right now.” He turns at that. There is a little bit of surprise in his eyes, before he seems to accept it and a big grin comes out on his face.
Then it leaves as it settles in just how long she had been pregnant. And what had happened during that time. She could practically see it passing through his mind.
Oh, boy, she thought.
Continue