I know...I said I wouldn't do another one, but I had to. I had this idea in my head and I had to put it into words. Hope you like.

Tony sighed. This wasn’t how it was meant to go. He rolled his eyes as the new director stood there with a fake look of grief, pretending to care about the death of an agent she’d never even met. He looked down and scuffed his Armani shoe against the pristine grass of the cemetery, ignoring the scathing looks from McGee and Abby. The whole thing was wrong. There wasn’t meant to be a hundred agents that Kate barely even knew. The new director wasn’t meant to be up there speaking at Kate’s funeral. Hell, there wasn’t even meant to be a funeral. Kate Todd definitely wasn’t meant to be dead.

“…and I’m sure that Agent Todd’s partner, Anthony DiNozzo, would like to say a few words.”

Tony stopped digging up the grass, looked up and began to walk towards where the Director was standing. Everyone was staring at him. Every single person Kate ever came in contact with was standing there staring at him, waiting for him to make some meaningless speech about what a brilliant agent she was, what a joy she was to work with. It was pathetic. Half of them didn’t even know her. He could safely say that ninety percent of them hadn’t spent half the amount of time with her that he did. Yet somehow, they all pretended to mourn her death when there were free drinks afterwards. Like he said…pathetic. Still, there was a job to be done, a mission to accomplish, so he held back his anger and resentment as he reached the front of the coffin and cleared his throat.

“I, ah…I’ve never actually done this before. I always hoped I’d never have to.” Tony looked down at the professional, heartless speech he had prepared and began to read.

“As you all know, I was Kate’s partner. I got to see first hand what a great agent she was…” Tony paused and looked around. Everyone suddenly looked disappointed and bored as well as depressed, and he realised that his speech was exactly the same as every other speech his co-workers had made. It was meaningless. Scrunching it up in anger, he looked down at his partner’s coffin and began the real speech. The one he hadn’t prepared.

The one he knew she’d love.

“I always used to complain about going anywhere with her. Well, that was until I got partnered with McGee. Then suddenly I didn’t mind getting elbowed every few minutes by a woman that caused half the bruises on my body.” He heard the faint sound of the crowd chuckling. “Kate was…” He couldn’t think of adequate words. “She was just Kate.” He shrugged.

“There’s no other way to describe her. She was the master of elbowing people, she was stubborn as hell, yet somehow, she had this sensitive side that showed itself with victims and even more so with her friends. Somehow I only saw it a couple of times.” He smiled sadly. “Kate didn’t exactly think of me as anything more of an egotistical playboy.” The people laughed again. At least he’d made them laugh. That was something. As much as laughing at his partner’s funeral seemed wrong, Tony knew Kate wouldn’t have minded. She would have smiled right along with him.

If she wasn’t dead.

“A lot of people would know that I’m never really serious about anything. Kate probably knew that more than anyone. She probably never would have guessed I’d be up here making a serious speech about how much I miss her already.” The crowd seemed to sober as his speech took on a darker tone. Tony’s face became blank. Anyone but Kate would have said it was emotionless but she always knew what he was thinking.

“Last month, I got sick. Really sick.” When the crowd’s faces still remained blank, Tony got impatient. “As in Pneumonic Plague kind of sick.” No more blank expressions. Tony swore he saw Abby smirk at the people’s ignorance.

“They put Kate and me in isolation together in case we were infected. Kate was only there because she had a cold and Gibbs had told her to ‘play it safe’.” He vaguely smiled in remembrance of the sarcastic quip she’d made. “I was infected. She wasn’t. I only found that out after we got to go home.” Tony smiled sadly at the crowd’s confused expressions.

“Kate stayed. She even told me she was infected so I wouldn’t tell her to get out. She actually stayed.” Tony made a wild gesture with his hand in an effort to get the message across to the idiotic people. It suddenly occurred to him that they’d never even talked about it. In all the time that he’d had to approach her, he’d never even asked her why she risked her life to be with him in that stupid glass, negative-pressure room.

“I never got to ask her why.” He looked up into the faces of all the agents, friends, and somewhere, he spotted her family. He’d never even met them. He’d never even met his own partner’s family. And suddenly he felt a tear slip down his cheek. Not because he was at a funeral. Not even really because she was dead - that bit hadn’t sunk in yet – but because of how much he hadn’t told her. How much they were going to miss. How much of her life he had missed.

So he ran.

He ran away. Away from the coffin, away from the flowers, away from the black, away from the shocked faces of every single, meaningless person there. Away to wherever his legs would take him.

All in a desperate effort to be wherever Kate was. To talk to her again. To feel her body heat as she stood inches from his own. To feel her hitting the crap out of him.

To make up for all he’d missed.