Title: My Heart Stumbles on Things I Don't Know

Genre: Angst, Romance

Rating: R

Pairing: Kate/Ziva

Summary: Kate has been told her whole life how completely wrong all of this is.

Notes: This is just a short, quickly-written character study. Title is from "Awake My Soul" by Mumford & Sons

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Kate has been told her whole life how completely wrong all of this is.

She shouldn't think about Ziva like she does. She shouldn't fill the pages of her sketchbook with hasty drawings of her. She shouldn't watch the way she walks. She shouldn't memorize their conversations.

And god, she definitely shouldn't find herself with her eyes closed, head thrown back, her mouth brokenly forming Ziva's name as her fingers move across the wetness between her thighs.

None of this should be happening. She remembers all of those sermons, the pastor's loud words hammering themselves into her brain. Even now, even so many years later, she can still feel them beating beneath her flesh, burrowing into her bones.

She still hears them and she knows. She's going to burninHell. She's drowning in her own sin. It's filling her lungs with acid and she's sinking.

Kate occasionally takes her rosary down from the wall. She clutches it to her chest and prays and prays and begs for forgiveness. But sometimes it feels like her God isn't even listening anymore.

It's just this terrible collection of emotion and pain, but then Ziva smiles at her across the Bullpen or calls her Caitlin (something she pretends to hate simply to fuel Ziva to do it more) or tells her something like you look very nice today. Then all of that falls away. It doesn't matter.

And maybe she'll burn. But somehow it seems like it's worth it.

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