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It’s too much, all at once. She is singing to you, and it's too much.
You’ve always been like this. You feel too much, and don’t know what to do, how to respond with all that emotions swirling in your chest, your stomach, the tips of your fingers. So you do the first thing you think of then.
You walk away.
(You will later regret it.)
That night, once you get home and wash the day off of you, you think about secrets and vulnerability and the way she looks at you in the lights and the smiles she reserves for you behind closed doors and…you want to talk to her.
But it’s 1am and you think after the day you both had you figure you can call her the next day. You fall asleep, knowing you will hear her voice tomorrow.
(You forgot to tell her she has a nice voice, when she bared her soul and sang to you. You will also regret that.)
You call her and for the first time ever, she doesn’t pick up right away. You fumble through a voicemail and go about your day with a nervous energy that reminds you of your first day at work.
Monday comes and still no response. You try not to let it get to you, but you can’t help but worry. It’s unlike her.
(You realize that even when you were butting heads with DIA Officer Whistler, she had never left you hanging like this.)
You come into the office and ignore the questioning look from Jesse and Kai. Tennant just raises one eyebrow, and you shrug. You don’t know what to say. You go down to Ernie’s lair to deliver his coffee. You don’t expect him to say-
“Hey, about what happened at the party, with the tall blonde FBI Special Agent, I didn’t think she would take it literally. Sorry. How are you feeling?”
“What do you mean you ‘didn’t think she would take it literally’?”
“I,” it’s rare when Ernie doesn’t seem to know what to say, “I may have…told her to? I told her to go big or go home and may have suggested serenading as a way. I didn’t think she would go for it!”
“What? Why would you do that?” you find anger rising in your chest, not because of Ernie’s meddling, but because you expect him to know you better, to know that you might not respond to that positively.
“Because!” he raises his voice, not angry, just trying to explain, “because you love her, Lucy. I know you. I know you do. And I don’t understand why you’re denying yourself of what you can have with Whistler. And because she loves you too.”
“You don’t know that.”
“That you love her? Or that she loves you?”
“You don’t know her as much as you know me. As I know her.”
“Are you sure about that? Because I can tell you with 100% certainty that she loves you.”
“How?” you hate how defeated you sound. You don’t know what you want anymore. You want to figure it out, to have an actual conversation with Kate, but here you are again, talking to everybody but Kate.
Then he shows you the video. You look at her and can’t help but be amazed at her determination, at her vulnerability, at her love. Her love for you.
(A week after the Pearl Harbor celebration, you were both under the cover at her place, and she told you, through tears that turned into sobs, how she was never lonely because of Noah, how it was them two against the world, how scared she was when he was deployed overseas, and how she was a shell of a person after he died. You thought this was the most fragile she was in front of you, and you thanked her, for trusting you enough with this part of her, for telling you a history you were sure she didn’t want reminded of, and you tried to comfort her with soft touch and kisses.)
(And now, now she shared that part, even just a glimpse of it, to a stranger - an enemy, to coworkers, all so she could help you. And yes secrets are bad and you two will still need to have that conversation, but in this moment you know more than ever that you’re in love with this woman.)
A text from Tennant telling you both to go up startles you, and you realize you are crying. You wipe your tears and fix your make-up, and dare Ernie to say anything. He stays quiet, but his eyes are understanding.
When you go up to the bullpen, you all meet a new FBI Special Agent, one who says things like “Special Agent Whistler is on a special assignment” and “I will be the FBI liaison for the time being” and “no I don’t know how long this assignment will take.”
You think about your unreturned call and voicemail, and how her face fell when you walked away, and the ground feels like it’s opening up under you. You run on autopilot for the rest of the day to the team’s worried looks, with quiet anxiety beneath your skin.
She’ll be fine, you think. You think about fractured ribs and minor head trauma and-
She’ll be fine.
You see her again three weeks later in the hospital. You don’t know what happened, can barely register the voices around you, just something about a bomb, and shrapnels. You think about that night under the cover, when she told you about Noah and how she would follow him anywhere. You pray she doesn’t, not now, not there.
You keep your eyes to the ground, ignoring Tennant and Curtis talking in a quiet voice, and the man sitting five feet away from you, who is apparently the freaking Director of the NSA , who “borrowed” Kate for a secret mission with one of his teams. Something snaps in you. You turn to him and your voice is low, containing nothing but anger and hurt and how he shouldn’t have taken an FBI agent, should just have used his people, should have looked after her better. Tennant tries to stop her, and Curtis looks uncomfortable, but the stupid Director just looks at her with quiet understanding, and says-
“I’m sorry.” and “You love her.” and when you don’t respond, has the audacity to reassure you. “She will be okay. She’s tough.” like he knows anything about her.
(Later on, when Kate is okay, and awake in a hospital bed with you right by her side, he will walk in to check in on her, a teddy bear in his hand, which he hands to her with a I love you, get well soon, Katie and Kate will explain to you how she used to hug a teddy bear when she was sick or hurt as a kid, and that he’s her father. You are still trying to process this.)
(She also tells you how she has called her father sobbing in an emotional breakdown about you, and he has suggested she comes to work on a case with him to take her mind off of you and take her away from the debacle she created that night. You shouldn’t have walked away.)
When the doctor comes out and says that she’s okay, and is expected to make a full recovery, you sag with relief. Kai hands you a water bottle and some food. You sit by her bedside all night long.
A few days later, when she wakes up, you talk to her. You kiss her, like how you should have done that night, and you apologize. She smiles the smile only for you, and says it’s okay, because you’re here now and that’s all that matters. It shouldn’t be, but at the end of the day, you love her and she loves you and oh, isn’t that all that matters?
(She will tell you how she hates being out of her comfort zone. You nod, you know this, because Kate tends to stick to things she knows, not one to venture into unfamiliar territory. She picks it and sticks with it - her favorite meal and coffee order and her set running path and the beach where she surfs. She will tell you how being with you makes her uncomfortable, because she is not used to an actual serious relationship, not used to being emotionally vulnerable, not used to sharing herself, but with you, oh with you she is willing to be uncomfortable, as long as you’re there. Because the reward is worth all the discomfort. You kiss her, and tell her how she lights a fire in you ever since that night at the bar.)
In another universe, that night you would walk away and Kate would be gone. In another universe, you would stop her and kiss her right there and then. In this universe, you walked away, but you still got her, forever and always.