Kate's eyes snapped open from the tickling feeling in her stomach that amde her feel as if she was falling and resulted from the slight turbulence the plane was obviously flying through. She moaned and sat up, realizing that she had fallen asleep, while working on her report, her notebook lying on her knees.
"Seems, somebody had an exhausting night," Dinozzo, who was seated next to her, commented with a sly grin on his face. She gave another weak moan and although it was meant as a protest, it sounded more like a tortured sigh.
"Shut up, Dinozzo," she muttered and reached for her purse which she started to search for her small mirror. "How long did I sleep?"
"Almost four hours. I could have sworn you would only wake up after we land!" The young man teased, while Kate was busy putting her disheveled hair back to order and refreshing her face. Her eyeliner had repositioned itself to the place under her eyes, which made her resemble to a zombie or a very sick person, in her opinion. Grumbling, she fumbled for the cosmetic tissues that she alwas carried for situations like this.
"You could have woken me. We were supposed to finish our reports until we get back to DC," Kate murmured accusingly, while she removed the dark shadow under her eyes, and Tony leaned slightly towards her.
"I was thinking, after last night, you could possibly need every minute of sleep you could get." He bent closer until he was only inches away from her ear. "Seriously, just between you and me, who is he? I want to know who the man is that makes this perfect and controlled agent fall asleep during work."
"Dinozzo!"
The young man flinched at the sound of his boss' voice right next to him and ducked slightly in await of a head-slap. But instead, Gibbs' signaled him to get up.
"Get yourself a cup of coffee from the stewardess – and a big one for me!" he ordered slightly grumpily and Tony jumped up, part of him glad that he had escaped the slap, the other part of him confused.
"Yes boss..."
When the young man had left, Gibbs sat down next to the young woman, who, slightly embarrassed, dropped the tiny mirror back to her purse. Luckily she was almost finished. Interestingly, she suddenly cared enough for Gibbs to not want him to see her outer appearance completely ruined.
"Sorry I fell asleep," she murmured, her voice still a little sleepy, "I assure you the report will be..."
"Forget the damned report," he interrupted her in his usual dominant voice and she shut up, waiting for him to reveal the reason for why he had sent Tony away.
"Tired?" he asked, a hint of amusement present in his voice and if she didn't know better, she would have said that a flirty smile played around the corners of his mouth. His question had of course been more a rhetorical one, and he didn't wait for her to answer but leaned back in the seat. "What are you doing on Friday?"
"Um-" she started, and shook her head in confusion, trying to remember her schedule for Friday. "I'm not sure yet, I don't have..."
"Good," he interrupted her with a nod. "My place, 8pm." He leaned in closer when she stared at him, her face reflecting total bewilderment. "That's 20.00 Zulu."
"I know what time eight is..." she clarified, not sure whether her mind was still too dazed from his sleep to interpret his words correctly.
"Alright," Gibbs nodded and got up to return to his own seat. Just like that.
"Hey," Kate looked up at him, her eyes gleaming with curiosity. "Does that mean you are asking me for a date?"
He returned her look and then, all of a sudden chuckled mysteriously in this way that he always did when he wasn't willing to give any more information. Kate watched him in disbelief as, still smiling, he turned to go back to his seat, which was two rows behind them right next to Timothy McGee's.
Kate followed him with her eyes, then a soft smile formed on her face. Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs had just asked her out on a date. Well, he hadn't actually been asking, but more ordering, but hey, who was she to complain?
She liked that bossy side on him. It challenged her. She had been going out with enough considerate, soft men to know that they triggered no other feelings than annoyance and boredom in her after a certain point. A date with Gibbs would definitely be a very welcome and nice distraction and, she was sure of that, prove very interesting.
"Um, boss! Your coffee!" Anthony Dinozzo interrupted her thoughts loudly and crossed the last meters to their seats, holding a large cup of coffee in front of him.
"It's for Kate, Dinozzo. She looks like she needs one to finish that report in time!" Gibbs replied and when Tony looked at him with wide eyes, feeling slightly abused by having been tricked into fetching a cup of coffee for his female co-worker, the elder man shrugged his shoulders. "What, you think I would even take a mouthful of that weak stuff they offer here?"
Tony looked down at Kate, anger displayed on his face, when he handed her the cup.
The smile hadn't left her face and his anger immediately turned into interest in why she was smiling all of a sudden. He sat down next to her again.
"What?"
"Nothing!" she replied, taking a sip of her hot coffee. Just what she needed now.
"Nothing? The last time I fell asleep during work I had to search a huge pond of mud for a murder weapon, and you get a cup of coffee and are smiling after a talk with the big boss!" He looked back at his boss who was sitting in his seat and reading in a file. "I wonder what's the matter with him. He looks different from usual."
"Really?" Kate asked, her mind too distracted to really listen to him. The only thoughts that were going through her consciousness were 'I-have-a-date-with-the-most-sexy-special-agent-in-the-world'-related and the familiar tickle in her belly did no longer originate from flight turbulence. She knew that she was well on the way to falling in love with her boss – and there was nothing that disturbed her about it anymore, now that he had indicated that he was at the same place where she was.
"Yeah... he didn't slap me! He always slaps me!!" Tony hissed back, still spying on his boss.
Kate forced her attention back on the report she still had to finish. She was sure that, although Gibbs had asked her out on a date, he would still not accept it if she didn't hand in her reports in time. She was more and more convinced that he was capable of perfectly separate personal and professional life – and she was also certain that she would learn how to do so.
When Tony poked her slightly, she looked up, about to snap at him to leave her alone, but the puzzlement on his face shut her up. Tony was shaking his head in disbelief. "I have never seen him that way."
"Seen him how, Tony?" Kate asked, a certain annoyance displayed in her voice, and the young man sat back in his chair, looking at her as if he had just made the most revealing discovery in earth's history.
"Happy."
- The End (May 08, 2007)