A/N: Just a little something I cooked up. Tell me what you think?

Pairing: Kibbs

Disclaimer: I own them all!! Just joking they are so not mine. Please don't sue.

Rating: K

Lemon Tea

TPOV

By: Katie Todd

I guess I had known, we all had in some way. But I had never had something concrete to go on. And now that I do, I don't want it. Because it made her death come back and hit me full in the face. I fight the hot tears that storm in the corners of my eyes; I'd gotten over this, or at least said I had. But the truth is that Kate pops up all over the place, the most recent, before now, being a couple days ago, when the team, well most of us, went out to celebrate the end of a case. Gibbs hadn't come and I kept thinking about how he would've if Kate had been there. I so wanted to see her bright smile, hear her cute giggle as she sipped at a Sarsaparilla or water with lime and lemon. I gently turn over the tea bag in my hand, I had never known Gibbs to drink tea or own dainty white tea cups and saucers. As I look at the dainty tea bags that take place of his coffee and the white ceramic tea pot that had sent his old coffee pot running the flashback hits.

The leaves were being tossed around in the wind, it was late autumn. My hand had snatched Kate's coffee cup, i put it to my lips, and took a big gulp. I spit it out in a rush and made a face at her smile.

"Lemon tea" she explained in that matter of fact voice of hers, "it's healthier for you than coffee. Some people say it tastes even stronger. Stronger is better. Right?!" she had joked with a wistful laugh.

As I look back on that moment I know that the smile I thought I had hallucinated onto Gibbs's face was real. They were married, and they had snowed us all. I'm tempted to fix a cup and take it back to McGee to see his face, but it's not worth the pain I know will be on my boss's face. As I walk out the door to jot next door to our crime scene, without the coffee I had come for, I try to ignore the other changes in his house. The framed sketches on the wall that are drawn in a deep charcoal pencil, the cushions on the sofa, the homemade videos stuffed on top of the TV in a wooden hutch that's new, the paperback novels packed neatly onto a set of shelves beside the TV, a note covered case report sitting on a coffee table that I know headquarters is missing, and the most obvious a red jacket folded over a chair arm. All little touches from her, it was obvious now, they'd been married and accurately hid it from all us. I could see her being sneaky and doing something like that. I grieved in a new way because I grieved for them both, Kate, who had died on a roof top, and the real Gibbs who had died her.

A/N: What do you think?