Chapter two.

They went to a small, quiet diner, and he ordered a bowl of chips to share and a coffee for himself. She pulled a bottle of water out of her backpack and took a swig before placing it on the table. She played with a ring on her finger; a silver heart with a crown on top, held by two hands, which joined at the back to make a band. They both sat silently, waiting for the chips to arrive, and when they did, she swept her hair back off her face and sat back in her chair. Tim smiled at her, and offered her the bowl. She shook her head no.

McGee sat forward, lacing his fingers together on the table. "How old were you when your friend…died?" he asked quietly. "Fifteen" she answered quietly. "We grew up together, from pre-playgroup. We went to different High schools though, and I never saw her at school. I only saw the person she let me see." She sighed and leant forward, playing with the ring again. "Sometimes I wonder how much I actually knew her, how much she lied to me about. Sometimes I think she's a coward, she was selfish for doing what she did, and getting away with it without the consequences. She left everyone else to deal with the consequences. And I get angry at her. But then I feel selfish. I think about how much she must have been hurting to, to think that death was the best option. And I think, yeah she left me with the pain, but she doesn't have that pain anymore, and if I was a real friend I wouldn't care that I hurt, because she doesn't anymore." She looked up, looked McGee in the eye, and hers were shining with tears. "And then I get so angry at her for making me feel like this, for twisting everything up inside my head, for leaving me. And then I feel guilty again, then angry again, then guilty, and it's just this big, vicious circle."

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to calm herself. She opened her eyes again. "I've tried to talk to some of my friends about this sort of thing, but… a lot of them haven't had friends commit suicide, a lot of them are catholic and don't approve, I…" she paused. "I even heard one of my closest friends say to someone else that I should hurry up and get over it, that I'm now just using it to get attention. A lot of them are no longer willing to listen." She smiled ruefully at McGee. "And my parents are worried about me enough as is, how do I go to them and say, I'm still struggling? That you screwed up and I'm not over it yet? Especially when they're still mad at her." McGee frowned. "Mad at her for what?" She shrugged. "Everything. Putting me through it, putting her parents through it, making them have to worry about me… who knows? Sometimes I think they'd rather just forget about the whole business."

She nibbled at a chip as McGee sat and thought about everything that she had just told him. He thought about losing Kate. They had all lost Kate, the whole team, all felt the same way, that they all should have done more to try to save her, they all felt empty without her there. And they had slowly healed. He had had support when Kate had died. He hadn't been alone. He had never thought about it like that, and he felt even better about the team than he had after their first talk. But she felt as if she had no one; her friends had turned against her when they needed her, and she was trying to protect her parents so much that she was suffering. Evidently, she needed someone.

Finally, he spoke. "My friend, Kate… she was shot, on a mission." He cleared his throat, trying to dislodge the lump that had grown there. "That was a few years ago now, but… I know that I still miss her, and my other partner, Tony, and my boss… sometimes I look at them, and I can just tell, the look on their faces, that they're thinking about her and they miss her, too." He smiled at her, her face blurry through the tears that had welled in his eyes. "I wouldn't worry about 'getting over it.' You never do." His voice broke at the end of his sentence, and he wiped his eyes on a paper napkin. She looked at him dolefully. "I think I knew that already," she said quietly. "You learn to cope with it, but you never get over it." She picked up another chip, and started nibbling again.

"So," she started. "That's my life's major problem. Not the only one, of course, but the biggest. And the thing is it's not even like it's something I need to work through in order to go forward. It's not like it's a brick wall I have to scale before I can go forward, it's more like a knee I scraped trying to scale it. It's in the past, and I'm still caught on it." "Well that's a good thing, right?" Tim asked. "That it's not a major hurdle you have to get over before your life can continue. You've learnt to function with that scrape on your knee, and it might still hurt, but it's not stopping you from continuing down the path. Metaphorically, at least. You can take as much time as you need to work through this, because it is in your past. It's not inhibiting your progress forward." She looked up at him and smiled. "I get it. It's not like, like I don't have the money to get an education or something. I can work around it. I've never thought of it like that before."

Tim smiled. "And if it ever does get too much," he said quietly, "feel free to give me a call. Day or night." He smiled ruefully. "I have to be contactable at all times anyway. Bosses rule." He shrugged. "But I have to get back to work now. I meant what I said about phoning if you need me. For anything." She smiled back at him, a huge, radiant smile that hid every bit of pain behind it. "Thanks Tim."