Returning (Chapter 9)
Title: Returning (Chapter 9)
Author: Purerose
Fandom: NCIS
Prompt: 023 Tower Block
Character/Pairing: Kate/Gibbs
Rating: PG
Word Count: 931
Summary: Kate looks at an apartment.
Authors Notes/Disclaimer: Still don't own NCIS... one day perhaps. The apartment they visit here is actually one that I was shown around in Glasgow when I was looking for a place a couple of years ago. I'm not kidding. I wish I had photos. I just moved it to America for the purposes of the story. Thanks for the comments again.
[ Chapter 1] [ Chapter 2] [ Chapter 3] [ Chapter 4] [ Chapter 5] [ Chapter 6] [ Chapter 7] [ Chapter 8]
Gibbs begins to bristle the moment that you pull up outside the building containing the apartment you are supposed to be viewing. It’s taken almost an hour and a half to get here. The weather is hot and sticky; a storm is brewing. The girls are cranky with the heat. You feel hormonal. Seeing your old friends and workplace and trying to find a place to live all in one day is a little overwhelming. The frown on Gibbs’ face as he takes in his surroundings does little to ease your mood.
The apartment block in question is mostly red brick, the only spot of colour in an otherwise cement-gray landscape. A far cry from the lush green suburbs that you’ve spent the past two years enjoying. A woman wearing jeans and a baggy woollen jumper leans against the door to the building, cigarette hanging lazily from her mouth. As you watch she raises it to her lips, takes a long drag and then exhales the smoke. She repeats this action three times completely ignoring you.
You make your way up the steps towards her, wondering if she is the one who is going to show you around, on the third step a man steps out of the doorway. He has graying hair and a pinstripe suit, you estimate his age at approximately forty. He looks as bored as the woman standing beside him.
“You here to see the apartment?” He sounds totally bored, as though he’d give anything to be somewhere else.
“Yeah. Kate Todd. We spoke on the phone.” You adjust Bridget on your hip and walk towards him holding out a hand. The woman exhales smoke in your direction in your direction and you turn and glare at her, an expression which has almost fallen into disuse without Tony around. She rolls her eyes then stubs out her cigarette on the metal stair-rail and turns into the building.
The man ignores your hand and turns into the corridor. “This way.”
Inside the hallway it is dim and stifflingly hot. There is no elevator and the apartment is on the fifth floor. The walls are brown and green, the paint is peeling. When you reach the fifth floor your guide leads you to the end of the corridor where a strange brown stain is working it’s way down from the ceiling. He fishes a key out of his pocket and opens the door. The door appears to have a large scuff mark on it, as though at some point someone has tried to kick it open.
You’re sure that the apartment could be worse, although you’d be hard pressed to give examples of how.
“This is the lounge.” Your guide tells you, giving the word ‘lounge’ extra emphasis. Then his cell phone rings and he excuses himself with a curt. “I gotta take this.” Leaving you and Gibbs to explore the place by yourselves.
The room identified as the lounge has no furniture, neither does the smallest bedroom. The large bedroom is almost completely filled with a double bed. It is covered by a suspiciously stained sheet which may have been white at some point in the past. You actually find yourself wondering if Gibbs would mind you taking his single bed from the spare room so that you might actually have room for a wardrobe.
Gibbs says nothing until you come to look at the kitchen. It’s a dark room with no windows and the light switch doesn’t seem to work. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his pen light, then surveys the room they way he would assess a crime scene. “You’re not living here.”
“It’s all I can afford.” You say by way of protest, but even you know it’s not a convincing argument.
“We’re going.”
“What?”
Gibbs gave his light another flick around the room, past the refridgerator with the dubious brown stain on the front, highlighting what was probably mould on the ceiling. “My daughters are not living here. You can do better than this.”
The day and the heat are getting to you. Shifting Bridget on your hip you lean back against the wall. “I can’t do better than this. I’ve looked. Even with you helping out there’s nothing.” You feel tears spring to your eyes and you hate that you’d about to cry in front of him. “This will do.”
You don’t realise that he’s standing in front of you until he speaks. “Then you stay with me until something better shows up.” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“Jethro.” You say, and surprise yourself. He’s always been ‘Gibbs’ to you. The only other time you’ve ever called him Jethro was that night, the one just a few short weeks before you left. Now your voice is sharp, warning, not breathy as it was then.
“Caitlin.” He replies with a smile. Then he becomes serious. “I don’t want to lose my daughters. I don’t want them living in some dump miles across town from me. I will do everything in my power to help you find a place that you like, a place which we can afford, where you will be happy. But until then, let’s go home because Bridget is hungry and Elizabeth needs a nap, and if we stay here much longer I think we’ll catch something.”
You smile and wipe your eyes then lead the way back out of the apartment, past the man in the pinstripe suit who is still talking on his phone, and out into the harsh sun.
Author: Purerose
Fandom: NCIS
Prompt: 023 Tower Block
Character/Pairing: Kate/Gibbs
Rating: PG
Word Count: 931
Summary: Kate looks at an apartment.
Authors Notes/Disclaimer: Still don't own NCIS... one day perhaps. The apartment they visit here is actually one that I was shown around in Glasgow when I was looking for a place a couple of years ago. I'm not kidding. I wish I had photos. I just moved it to America for the purposes of the story. Thanks for the comments again.
[ Chapter 1] [ Chapter 2] [ Chapter 3] [ Chapter 4] [ Chapter 5] [ Chapter 6] [ Chapter 7] [ Chapter 8]
Gibbs begins to bristle the moment that you pull up outside the building containing the apartment you are supposed to be viewing. It’s taken almost an hour and a half to get here. The weather is hot and sticky; a storm is brewing. The girls are cranky with the heat. You feel hormonal. Seeing your old friends and workplace and trying to find a place to live all in one day is a little overwhelming. The frown on Gibbs’ face as he takes in his surroundings does little to ease your mood.
The apartment block in question is mostly red brick, the only spot of colour in an otherwise cement-gray landscape. A far cry from the lush green suburbs that you’ve spent the past two years enjoying. A woman wearing jeans and a baggy woollen jumper leans against the door to the building, cigarette hanging lazily from her mouth. As you watch she raises it to her lips, takes a long drag and then exhales the smoke. She repeats this action three times completely ignoring you.
You make your way up the steps towards her, wondering if she is the one who is going to show you around, on the third step a man steps out of the doorway. He has graying hair and a pinstripe suit, you estimate his age at approximately forty. He looks as bored as the woman standing beside him.
“You here to see the apartment?” He sounds totally bored, as though he’d give anything to be somewhere else.
“Yeah. Kate Todd. We spoke on the phone.” You adjust Bridget on your hip and walk towards him holding out a hand. The woman exhales smoke in your direction in your direction and you turn and glare at her, an expression which has almost fallen into disuse without Tony around. She rolls her eyes then stubs out her cigarette on the metal stair-rail and turns into the building.
The man ignores your hand and turns into the corridor. “This way.”
Inside the hallway it is dim and stifflingly hot. There is no elevator and the apartment is on the fifth floor. The walls are brown and green, the paint is peeling. When you reach the fifth floor your guide leads you to the end of the corridor where a strange brown stain is working it’s way down from the ceiling. He fishes a key out of his pocket and opens the door. The door appears to have a large scuff mark on it, as though at some point someone has tried to kick it open.
You’re sure that the apartment could be worse, although you’d be hard pressed to give examples of how.
“This is the lounge.” Your guide tells you, giving the word ‘lounge’ extra emphasis. Then his cell phone rings and he excuses himself with a curt. “I gotta take this.” Leaving you and Gibbs to explore the place by yourselves.
The room identified as the lounge has no furniture, neither does the smallest bedroom. The large bedroom is almost completely filled with a double bed. It is covered by a suspiciously stained sheet which may have been white at some point in the past. You actually find yourself wondering if Gibbs would mind you taking his single bed from the spare room so that you might actually have room for a wardrobe.
Gibbs says nothing until you come to look at the kitchen. It’s a dark room with no windows and the light switch doesn’t seem to work. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his pen light, then surveys the room they way he would assess a crime scene. “You’re not living here.”
“It’s all I can afford.” You say by way of protest, but even you know it’s not a convincing argument.
“We’re going.”
“What?”
Gibbs gave his light another flick around the room, past the refridgerator with the dubious brown stain on the front, highlighting what was probably mould on the ceiling. “My daughters are not living here. You can do better than this.”
The day and the heat are getting to you. Shifting Bridget on your hip you lean back against the wall. “I can’t do better than this. I’ve looked. Even with you helping out there’s nothing.” You feel tears spring to your eyes and you hate that you’d about to cry in front of him. “This will do.”
You don’t realise that he’s standing in front of you until he speaks. “Then you stay with me until something better shows up.” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“Jethro.” You say, and surprise yourself. He’s always been ‘Gibbs’ to you. The only other time you’ve ever called him Jethro was that night, the one just a few short weeks before you left. Now your voice is sharp, warning, not breathy as it was then.
“Caitlin.” He replies with a smile. Then he becomes serious. “I don’t want to lose my daughters. I don’t want them living in some dump miles across town from me. I will do everything in my power to help you find a place that you like, a place which we can afford, where you will be happy. But until then, let’s go home because Bridget is hungry and Elizabeth needs a nap, and if we stay here much longer I think we’ll catch something.”
You smile and wipe your eyes then lead the way back out of the apartment, past the man in the pinstripe suit who is still talking on his phone, and out into the harsh sun.