I know, I suck for not updating. Life changes and shit got in the way.

So, the epilogue is split in two, because I felt the need to stop it where I did.

Review!

xoxElle

Epilogue ~ Part 1

In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife
In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do measure a year in the life?

Kate was surprised at how the things in her life had not changed dramatically in the first past of the last year, since Ari left. Sure, she spent her nights alone in her apartment or visiting Abby and McGee in their new apartment, with their five month old son, Justin.

She was healthy, she went to work, she dealt with DiNozzo moping about missing Ziva and she didn't think about Ari.

Except for just then.

That doesn't count, she thought, turning her attention back to her book sitting in her lap, flicking through a few random pages.

After she and Ari had come to their decision, and after Abby had left the hospital Kate had returned to Indiana to spend the rest of her time off from NCIS with her family, who had quizzed her endlessly on Ari until she finally retreated back to Washington two weeks later.

Ziva had been called back to Mossad the day that Kate returned to help Ari with a mission somewhere in eastern Europe. Kate didn't ask anything about it, instead pretending she hadn't heard the conversation the Israeli had with Director Sheppard.

Granted, she still worried about him, whenever they got word that something had happened to a male Mossad Officer over MTAC she knew it could be Ari. But true to her word, Ziva would always call if anything happened.

Although, her life changed two months ago.

The Team was investigating the death of a Gunnery Sergeant, who had died under suspicious circumstances; the suspect list had led them to the higher ranks of the Mob. Tony and Kate had been the ones to interrogate Marco Rossi, Jr., the son of one of the rumoured heads.

That night whilst the Team had been bouncing theories off each other, Fornell had stormed in with two of his own Agents and a man with a jacket with WP on the pocket.

'They've put a hit on you, Agent Todd' She remembers him saying. 'We have to put you into Witness Protection until this crap's sorted out'

Abby hadn't been formally informed, she knows that, but McGee had tried his best at convincing his girlfriend that Kate had just gone back to visit her parents. Abby knew he was lying, but she didn't let him know that. Gibbs had told off Fornell at first, saying that he was more than capable of protecting his own Team, but when one of Fornell's Agents had spoken up and given all the details Gibbs had just given Kate a side-glance.

So, here Kate was, sitting on a bench in the freezing cold, a book in her glove-covered hands as she watched the people of Rome rush into café's and coffee shops before work and the tourists with cameras taking photos of everything in their sight. She was slowly becoming used to the city she had once visited with Ari, although she kept far away from the small chapel that would bring up memories she would rather forget.

So she concentrated on watching people go about their lives, their biggest concerns being if they would have to wait in line at the coffee shop longer that morning then the morning before. She envied them. She missed her friends and family. She hadn't even been contacted by anyone in either the FBI nor the WPP in over six weeks, with their last contact telling her that the hit was still on her head and an undercover FBI Agent had given the mob a lead that lead them to New York for some time.

Kate sighed while putting her book into her light gray bag, putting it over her shoulder as she stood up and began to walk back to her apartment. Minutes later she was walking down the street her temporary apartment resided; it was quiet and full of rental townhouses and tiny two room apartments for people staying in the city for work or those on long-term holidays.

Her three-story apartment building sat in the middle of the street, between a modern townhouse and another set of identical apartments. With her left hand she pushed open the short gate that divided the small path to the front door from the street as she searched for her keys with her right. She lived on the second floor, in the apartment furthest to the back of the building, but closest to the staircase and back exit, which lead out to a back alleyway with a small road.

Kate yawned as she pushed the key into the lock of her door, wishing she had slept more the night before. Ever since she moved in she hadn't had a full night's sleep. A cross between being paranoid and not having a gun beside her bed like she had done for years, even when she was with Ari.

Dammit Kate, she thought bitterly.

Kate froze as soon as she stood inside her apartment.

Something was wrong. A pillow from her couch now laid under the coffee table, a cup sitting atop that. Kate always kept her apartment pristine, cleaning kept her mind off things and help relive her boredom. Someone was there.

She internally thanked Gibbs for making her paranoid enough to hide weapons as she pulled a knife from its hidden spot on the underside of a table beside the door. She took slow, deliberate steps, like she had done hundreds of times before as she approached the large archway that divided the living room/kitchen from the bedroom.

She stepped around the corner, knife gripped in her hand raised and ready to attack the person standing in front of her bed. Her hand dropped at a single word.

"Caitlin"

Back in Washington D.C, inside the NCIS headquarters, the Bullpen was swarming with FBI Agents, Witness Protection Agents and NCIS Agents. Thirty minutes beforehand it had been like any normal day; Tony had come in late, McGee had been sitting at his desk tapping away at his keyboard while on the phone to Abby, who was down in her lab with baby Justin and Gibbs had been downstairs getting coffee.

That had all changed when Fornell, accompanied by another FBI Agent and the WP Agent who had accompanied Kate to wherever they had taken her. Gibbs had entered from the opposite side of the Bullpen at the same time, Fornell giving him a look that made him sent his Agents into immediate action, calling the Director and pulling up case information.

Both Marco Rossi Sr. and his son had landed in Rome, the undercover Agent Fornell had undercover had informed his senior Agent that the mobsters had found out where Kate was and were on their way to finish what they had started.

Since the minute Gibbs had ordered it, Tony and McGee had been trying to contact the small NCIS headquarters in Rome, while Fornell's Agents had been trying to contact their own Agents in the foreign city.

"Boss!" Tony shouted over the loud voices around him as he took the steps two at a time to where Gibbs was standing outside MTAC with Director Sheppard, the two arguing with the Director of Witness Protection. "Agent's just got to Kate's place. They found some of her stuff missing. Her door was still open"

"Was there any signs of a struggle?" Director Sheppard asked.

Tony looked down at the paper in his hands where he had scribbled random points of information when he was on the phone. "Door wasn't busted, no blood…but her draws where ransacked"

"What the hell are you doing here Ari?" Kate snapped, staring at the man before her, who was now beside the chest of draws that held her clothes, pulling a draw open to pull out piles of clothes and throwing them down on the bed.

"Now, that is not a very nice way to greet me, is it?" Ari commented, turning his gaze to her and giving her a smirk.

This is clearly a dream, Kate thought as she gave Ari a cold glare. He looked different then the man she once knew. He was clean shaven and his hair had grown out slightly from the buzz cut he had sported when they said their goodbyes a year beforehand. He looked younger, albeit wearing his normal black t-shirt and jeans ensemble.

"You have ten seconds to tell me how the hell you knew where I was" Kate said, stepping up to him and snatching her empty duffle bag he had just picked up out of his hands.

Ari straightened his back and crossed his arms. "You are still quite the infuriating woman, aren't you?" He said, not unkindly before turning serious. "The men who put the hit on you, they are in Rome. They know where you are"

Kate paled, but nodded as she handed the bag back to Ari, who began to stuff random articles of clothing into it as Kate regained some part of her still-processing brain.

"How did you even know, Ari?" She asked, taking the bag from his outstretched hand and throwing it over her shoulder.

"Your friend Abby called Ziva forty-five minutes ago informing her what was happening. I have been on a mission outside the city for just over a week"

Kate had walked away from him mid-sentence, making her way into the living room/kitchen area to pull out the weapons she had hidden. She reached for the first one, which was hidden under a couch cushion but she came out empty handed.

Ari stepped up behind her, his front barely an inch away from her back as he reached around to hold the knife in front of her.

"You do not hide weapons very well" He commented as she looked over her shoulder at him. "I found them all quite quickly"

Kate rolled her eyes and stepped out of the enclosed space that Ari had created, the feeling of dread filling the pit of her stomach as more time passed. It was less than sixty seconds before the two were out of the apartment, leaving most of Kate's things behind in their wake.

Abby didn't know what to do with herself as she paced angrily around her lab, glancing over every few seconds to check that Justin was still happily sleeping in his baby carrier that sat on top of the steel table behind her.

Her iPhone rang loudly from its place beside her office phone and she grabbed it quickly, not because it would wake her finally asleep son (He could sleep through anything), but more the fact she hoped McGee was giving her good news.

She looked at the number that came up across the top of her screen; it wasn't an American number, it was Italian.

Ohmygod.

"Hello?" Abby said quickly.

"Abby...It's me"

"Oh my god Kate, are you okay? NCIS has gone crazy, there are Agent's everywhere trying to locate you!"

There was a pause, and Abby swore she heard another voice in the background.

"I'm fine Abby, but I need you not to tell the others where I am and to not trace this number"

Abby bit her lip. Something in her friend's tone suggested otherwise. "You're not coming back...are you?"

"Ari's with me Abs, please give Justin a kiss from me. I promise I'll come back as soon as I can"

"Ka-"

The phone line went dead before she could say anything else, making the Forensic Scientist hold her breath to try and compose herself before picking Justin up and making her way as quickly as possible upstairs.

He had left a black motorcycle in the alleyway behind her apartment building, hidden behind a dumpster so it was out of site from the main street. Ari went to mount the bike, but Kate's hand on his arm stopped him.

"This is crazy" She stated.

Ari nodded once. "I suppose, but we must leave now and I will take you to the American Embassy"

Kate shook her head with her eyebrows knitting together. "You don't know these guys Ari, they'll make sure to have someone at all the places an American Agent would go if compromised. You can't risk that"

Ari gave her a sceptical look. "I am a Mossad Officer, Caitlin. Contrary to what you assume, I do know what I am doing"

Kate resisted the urge to punch him in the arm. "Listen to m-"

She was cut off by the sound of a gunshot, and in the haze of her confusing she vaguely remembered getting on the bike behind Ari and him tearing out of the alleyway. They weren't wearing helmets, and that was a fact that seemed to bother her more than the firing of the gun behind her.

She gripped Ari's torso and leaned up slightly so her mouth was near his ear. "My bad guys or yours?" she asked with a smile. She felt his torso shake as he laughed.

"I believe they are yours" He yelled back to her so she would hear him over the noise of wind and street.

This is insane, Kate thought as she gripped Ari tighter, pressing her forehead against his shoulder so she wasn't getting assaulted by the wind.

She wasn't sure what was going to happen; but she was sure it was not going to end well.

"She said she wasn't coming back?" Tony asked again. "Are you sure that she wasn't, you know, forced to say all that?"

Abby crossed her arms, looking at the plasma in the Bullpen as the number from her cell phone flashed on the screen as it began to try and locate where the call had come from.

"I don't know, Tony" She frowned. "I heard a voice in the background"

"Could you be more specific?" Constant-angry-FBI Agent, as Abby had named him, called over to her from his computer set up at the far end of the Bullpen.

Abby glared at him before looking at McGee, who sat at his desk with Justin bouncing on his lap. "I think it was Ari" She said unsurely. "I called Ziva an hour ago. She could've told Ari what was going on..."

"Ziva?" Tony perked up, dropping the pen that he had been twisting through his fingers onto his desk. "How is she?"

"Not the time to be thinking about your penis, DiNozzo" Gibbs said gruffly from his desk, Fornell smirking slightly from where he was leaning against the filing cabinets behind his friend's desk.

"Sorry, Boss"

Abby and McGee glanced at each other with a roll of their eyes before Abby turned back to face Fornell and Gibbs.

"Ziva said that Ari was in the middle of a mission outside Rome. So if she got in contact with him there's a chance he's with her"

"Wait" Fornell said with a raise of his hand. "Ari Haswari? The Mossad Officer?"

"Ari's probably behind it" Gibbs snapped.

Justin let out a screaming sob from McGee's lap, which was the result of one of the Witness Protection agents trying to play him with his keys. Abby sent the Agent a glare, at which time he scurried away to the cluster of WP Agents were laughing at him.

There was a loud ding that rang through the Bullpen, when the group of Agents looked at the flat screen a map of Rome popped up with a large red circle that began to move down backstreets heading out of the main city area.

As Agents scattered, reaching for their phones and typing furiously on their laptops Gibbs made his way up to the catwalk outside MTAC to Director Sheppard. Fornell went to McGee's desk and looked down at the Probationary Agent.

"What does Officer Haswari have to do with all this?" He asked. McGee looked a little shocked at the fact Fornell was asking him.

"He's Kate's husband" He said, shifting Justin so that he could use both hands to type on his keyboard. "Abby said they've been married for a few years"

"Boss, they've stopped!" Tony called up to Gibbs.

On the screen the red dot had in fact stopped in a residential area outside the city.

Ari pulled into a small driveway beside a cottage, pulling the motorcycle into a stop around the back and stepping off with Kate. She brushed her windswept hair out of her face as she surveyed the area.

"This is your safe house?" She asked, looking up at him. Ari crossed his arms and nodded.

"Ziva set it up when she informed me you were in trouble" He said. "We lost the man who was following us in the city, so I believe we are safe for now"

"Is there any way we can get back to Washington?" She asked as he lead her inside with a hand on her lower back.

"Ziva will call when she has arranged transport" He said, shrugging off his jacket and folding it before hanging it over the back of one of the two chairs at a small wooden dining table.

Kate sat on an old couch that was pushed against the side wall and studied Ari as he turned to look at her. He smirked and raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest.

Oh, crap.

Ari sat beside her on the couch, so close that their thighs were pressed together. He glanced at her left hand and leaned back against the back of the couch, feet up on the coffee table prompting a roll of her eyes from Kate.

"You are still wearing your ring" He commented.

She raised an eyebrow. "So are you"

Ari glanced down at his left hand and hummed in agreement, watching Kate as she looked at his feet and a funny look wash over her face.

"Would you like me to remove my feet from the coffee table?" He asked, humor laced in his voice.

Kate shook her head and laughed, excusing herself to go to the bathroom in hopes to get away from Ari and his smirk, and his eyes.

Fifteen minutes later Kate emerged from the bathroom to find Ari moving around the small kitchen and pouring hot water into two cream coloured cups. She sat herself down on one of the stools that were pressed against the bench that divided the kitchen from the living area and waiting for Ari to finish.

He picked up both cups and turned, placing them both in front of Kate, pushing one more towards her and keeping the other in his hand.

"Thank you" She said taking it, wrapping her hands around it to warm them up. She didn't pick it up to drink it straight away, she just looked down at it for a moment before glancing up at the man still standing behind the bench with a questioning look in his face. She sighed. "Yesterday I spent the whole day reading. Today, I'm on the run. With you."

Ari lifted his mug to his lips, shrugging lightly before taking a sip. "Well" He said, hiding his smirk behind his cup. "I cannot imagine seeing me as a bad thing"

Kate felt some of the tension surrounding her leave as she began to laugh. Ari moved around the counter with his cup to sit on the stool beside her, setting the now half-empty cup on the counter beside him.

The noise of a car slamming its breaks filled the tiny cottage, making Ari move from the stool to the opposite side of the room. He stood beside the curtain covered widows and moved the side of the fabric slowly to look out at the suburban street.

Two large men jumped out of a dark red car, guns drawn as they came towards the cottage.

"Caitlin, get to the motorcycle" He said as he noticed his estranged wife already grabbing her backpack and halfway out the back door while shoving a gun into the top of her pants in case she needed it.

Ari sat on the bike first, the noises of a door being kicked down and bullets being fired , and started the engine. He looked at Kate, who was still standing beside the bike with her eyebrows furrowed.

Before Ari got a chance to ask her what she was doing, she grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him into a kiss, letting go quickly and getting on the back of the bike.

Ari turned and raised his eyebrow.

"Shut up" She snapped, and with that he kicked the bike into action and tore out of the backyard and down the road, the faint sounds of two men yelling angrily after them in Italian.

Kate tightened her hold on Ari, tucking her head into his neck and praying they would make it out safe.

Abby sat in the ballistics section of her lab, holding Justin against her as she read him a story from the book that laid on the floor in front of them. She didn't read him very many baby books, McGee had insisted that their child be read books such as Harry Potter and The Lord Of The Rings trilogy.

Just as Abby reached the scene in the Chamber, she heard someone clear their throat from the doorway.

"Hiding?" Tony asked as he lowered himself to sit leaning against the wall opposite her. She lifted Justin up, letting him go into Tony's outstretched arms to settle in his 'Uncle Tony's' lap, finding great interest in his tie.

"Just tired" She shrugged. "And if I spent one more second with those first grade minded FBI Agents, I might have stolen McGee's gun to end them all"

Tony grinned down at Justin, making a funny face at the baby and earning a giggle.

"That's it?" He asked without looking up.

Abby teared up and shuffled to be next to Tony, laying her head on his shoulder while his arm wrapped around hers.

"She'll be alright" Tony said. "I mean, Kate'll kick anyone's ass that tries to get in her way"

Abby laughed, wiping a stray tear off her cheek while Justin crawled himself onto her legs.

Suddenly, McGee appeared in the doorway, looking down at the two and letting out an awkward. "Am I interrupting something?"

When everything was over, she was going to kill Ari.

Sure, Kate had been on a motorcycle with him many times before, but this was just insane. Ari was going well above any speed limit she had ever experienced, and he was turning corners so sharply that they were getting uncomfortably close to being horizontal to the pavement.

She could hear the car speeding up behind them, the sudden noise of guns firing once again reaching their ears. Ari yelled something to her, but the combined wind noise and concentrating of leaning on the bike when Ari leant meant that she didn't hear him.

There was a woosh noise that past Kate's ear and then the world began to move in slow motion.

She felt pain. A sudden jolt.

And then everything went black.

Epilogue Part 2 coming soon.