Kate has always had firm lines of how close she will let anyone under command get, it's safer that way. Get too close and things become murky on all sides. Mistakes get made and people could get killed, in her line of work it could very well end with the end of the human race and planet Earth.
The first time Ibrahim chipped away at that line a lot of good people had died, they won but the cost in bodies was so high. Blood dripped from a nasty gash on her forehead, Kate hadn't had time to get it checked out. He's a soldier, not a doctor; he had no reason to be patching her up, but in a brief pause in the chaos she let him.
“It wasn't your fault. You couldn't have stopped what happened today.” Her guilt seeped out of her more than her blood, on display for anyone to see. Ibrahim was trying to ease it.
“Then who's fault is it? I am in command. The buck stops with me. I should have worked out what was happening faster.” Kate loathed the way her voice cracked with emotion. She had wanted to cry, get down on the floor, sob and scream until her voice gave way. She didn't.
She couldn't remember when the gauze had been stuck down, wallowing in her guilt had distracted Kate from it. Ibrahim had no reason to still be cupping her chin, no right to look at her with such softness. “The Doctor themself couldn't have stopped it. Sweetheart, you did all you could. We all knew the risk the day we joined.” Ibrahim's cheeks burnt with embarrassment at the term of endearment that had rolled off his tongue so easily.
“Return to duty. We have a lot to do.” Kate had put her shield back up, swallowed any vulnerability like a bitter to keep hidden inside her and reaffirmed the line she had.
“Yes, Ma'am.”
The second chip away at that line happened when he shoved her out of the way and took a blaster to the stomach. No hesitation, the injuries were bad. She crouched on the ground trying to keep him talking until help came, the threat had been neutralised and the only thing she had to focus on was one of her people dying in front of her. “Colonel, talk to me, keep your eyes open. That's an order.”
“I have never been able to resist an order from a beautiful woman.” Ibrahim groaned in pain as she pressed against his wound. His hand reached for her wrist. Kate couldn't figure out if was to push her away because of the pain or simply because he wanted to touch someone or something at that moment. “I would turn to dust at the hands of the beast himself just to have the privilege to stand at your side. I need you to know that just in case.”
“You are going to be fine.” That's the nice thing to say to someone who could die. A beautiful lie to give them comfort. She didn't know whether he was going to survive or not, he had a twenty-two percent chance of survival by her own calculations. She ignored his words and what he meant by them because she had to, he was hurt and never would have said them normally.
“If we didn't do the jobs that we do, would you have dinner with me if I asked?” Kate didn't answer him because she didn't know. Playing around with what-ifs was a dangerous game, but the question rattled around her head for weeks afterwards while she tried to keep a distance between them.
It's after the chaos with the toymaker that the line wobbled, really wobbled. She's ashamed and embarrassed by the things she said to the Doctor and Shirley. The fact those thoughts existed on a level made her feel sick. No one blamed her, the entire planet had succumbed to its worst impulses and thoughts.
Kate hid herself, avoiding them all unless important. Ibrahim called her out on it the moment he got her alone.
“How long are you going to hide away and lick your wounds, Kate?” Her name rolled off his tongue too familiar and friendly, it got her under her skin and it made her angry. Because he shouldn't speak to her in that tone and she shouldn't want him to.
“This is close insubordination,” Kate wanted him to go away. She wanted to be alone. No, she needed to be alone, it was easier and safer for her.
“Hide behind your rank like you always do.” Ibrahim sounded angry and bitter, disappointed. “Tell me, does that rank protect your heart, Kate? Is that what it is? Because what's the point in being alive when you refuse to ever let yourself live.”
“And you just crossed the line. Return to your duties.” It's an order he ignored. Because they both knew he was right and what would she write up in a report? He called me out on a few home truths, even if it did cross the line she wouldn't want anyone else to know about the incident.
“I meant it, you know. That day when I said that I'd face the beast himself to be at your side.” Kate didn't know when he got to be standing so close for his fingers to graze against her wrist or when she allowed herself to be fenced in between him and the wall. If she had really wanted to move away she could have, she was trained in self-defence, and he'd let her anyway.
When he kissed her it was hard like he was trying to pour every emotion he ever felt into it, pour it into her soul so she could feel it too. How far it would have gone there and then if a call for her through comms hadn't come through she wouldn't like to guess.
The line shattered three weeks after the kiss. Kate had ensured they were never alone, stopped hiding away so he would have no reason to seek her out, and treated him like everyone else when in public. Then Ibrahim's brother died. He worked for UNIT, low down in rank, as a scientist, nothing sinister just an accident with alien tech in a lab.
Ibrahim was hit hard with grief. When he wasn't working, he was working out channelling his pain into something rather than dealing with it. When he came to her home in the middle of the night soaking wet from the rain, what he wanted was a distraction, Kate had known it. She should have sent him away to find it with someone else. But she was tired. Oh so tired of always being the one to do the right thing. Always following the rules.
Why couldn't Ibrahim be stronger? Why did it have to be her?
“I am too old to be having trysts in a hallway,” Kate whispered between kisses, tearing at his clothes. “Bedroom Christofer now.”