<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 15px"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#99ff99"><i>We all have baggage, Gibbs. I'm not trying to belittle your pain or anything. But.. we're all also a little damaged. We have to be, to do the job we do. To work the long hours that we work, to see the horrible things we see. I'm sorry about your first wife, and your daughter. And I'm sorry that your three other marriages didn't work out... </i>She paused for a moment as she considered her next words, and whether or not he had read her full file when she had come to work at NCIS. And after a moment, figured it didn't matter, and resumed typing. <br/>
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<i>From '91 to '93, I was in law school. I met someone while I was there.. Dan was a cop. We were together those few years, and we were going to get married. But the day of the wedding.. </i>She paused again, but this time it was to push back the emotions that wanted to surface. <i>The day of the wedding, I spent hours getting my hair and dress ready, and waited for him at the altar... He never showed up. We had agreed that he should go in for a few hours that day, since we had planned to be out of the country for a week on our Honeymoon. </i><br/>
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<i>Anyway, he had answered a domestic violence call, and was shot by the husband. He was announced DOA.  I've spent years trying to block it out. I was standing there in my wedding dress, and waiting as Rachel returned to the church, after she had volunteered to step out and call him to see what the problem was. I'll never forget the look on her </i><br/>
<i>face when she walked back into the church and made her way over to me. But it was the look in her eyes that gave it away. And when she said the words.. 'I'm sorry, Kate..'</i><br/>
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<i>'Dan's gone..'  At first I had just thought he'd gotten cold feet. But then I looked into her eyes again and I knew. I knew that he was dead... I left the church in a daze. </i></span></span></span><i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(153, 255, 153)"><span style="font-size: 15px">It had started to rain, but I didn't notice it at the time. I walked for blocks, to a place that Dan and I used to go to when we wanted to be alone. And I sat there, in the rain, in my wedding dress, and I just screamed and cried and cursed God for hours. I passed out at one point, and when I came to, I went back to my place, showered and acted like I was fine. I never told anyone where I went that day.<br/>
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Though my brothers and Rachel all tried to get it out of me. They spent hours looking for me after I split, but it was too much for me. So, I might not understand everything you think or feel, or why you do the things you do.. But I do know what it's like to lose someone you love in a horrible way. A week after Dan died, I left and never looked back. A few months later I joined the Secret Service, and tried like hell to move on. I figured that the best way to honor Dan, was to do something useful with my life. And so I have, and I am. <br/>
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I would never ask you for more than you can give, Gibbs. Hell, I don't even know if I'm capable of loving anyone else, either. But I do know that I care about you, and I'm willing to try. I can't say that I won't fuck it up. I probably will. But hell, I think that I'm finally ready to try loving again...</span></span></span></i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#99ff99"><span style="font-size: 15px"> Kate finished typing and turned the laptop to face Gibbs so that he could read what she had typed. And while he did so, she fidgeted with her hands under the blankets, and reached out for the team photo, needing something to help calm her once more. <br/>
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She also used it as an excuse to hide how emotional she was feeling. </span></span><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(153, 255, 153)"><span style="font-size: 15px">She hadn't dated, slept with, or allowed herself to care about anyone in a romantic capacity since Dan had died. She had first found that it was too hard, and then after a while, simply figured she was incapable of loving anyone else. So, she had focused on her career, and ignored her brothers and sister, and even her friends that had urged her to get another job, or to quit her job, get married and have a family. They just didn't understand how much losing Dan had fucked her up.</span></span></span>