A/N: Warning for character death and significant angst in this section
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Gibbs didn't know what to say, or how she knew, and he just stood there with a deer in the headlights look on his face.
Stephanie couldn't contain her mirth and she laughed, then took pity on him. “I met up with Ziva at the craft store, when she was buying the yarn to make that,” she gestured towards his sweater.
Gibbs had dropped his eyes, not quite sure how to explain this all away. “Steph...”
“Jethro, I know you too well. So don't try and give me some lame story. Ziva is the person you've been seeing, isn't she?”
He sighed and looked up, “Yeah, we started a few weeks before you came back to town.”
“Is it serious?” she asked, wanting a real answer.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Good.” she said with approval.
Approval which shocked him, “Good?”
Her face took on a gentle look and said, “Jethro, I have never seen you happier. Ever. And I know at least half of it is the baby, but I'd be willing to bet that Ziva is the other half.”
He tugged absently on his ear, “You don't seem surprised.”
“I haven't forgotten Eleni. Ziva reminds me of her.”
A bolt of pain went through Gibbs at the mention of the name, and he flashed back to Moscow.
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Eleni Bourikas was a beautiful spy of Greek descent, or a “broker of information” as she called herself, and one with a high set of morals. And she and Gibbs had worked well together during Gibbs' tenure in Moscow. The two of them had much in common, similar senses of honor and duty, same short tempers and same senses of humor, although Eleni was a little more lighthearted than Gibbs, and she would quip little jokes at the most inappropriate times, just to make Gibbs smile. There was an almost tangible attraction between the two, one that they never acknowledged or explored.
But big things were afoot in Moscow, and Eleni knew too much. And although he tried, Gibbs couldn't protect her. The night before she was killed Eleni visited Gibbs. They went out into the garage with a bottle of vodka and talked about nonsensical things, both knowing that the hit on Eleni was coming, they just didn't know when, and there was just no way of extracting her from Moscow. The vodka made them loose, and the walls of their self-imposed inhibitions were tumbling. And try as he might, Gibbs couldn't remember who made the first move, but he remembered vividly the passion in the kiss, and the feel of Eleni's lithe body against his. When the kiss ended, the tears had started, tears Gibbs had never felt ashamed of crying. They had simply clung to each other, wrapped each other's arms. They never knew that Stephanie had stuck her head in the garage to ask them if they wanted something to eat, and saw that tearful embrace. She had simply left them alone, and never mentioned it. And the next day Eleni was dead. And a piece of Jethro died with her. Stephanie never asked, and he certainly never told her, but she suspected that Jethro had something to do with the three Russians that ended up dead with sniper bullets in their brains in the days following Eleni's murder.
Those events had been the beginning of the end of their stay in Moscow, and sadly, the beginning of the end of their marriage as well.
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Gibbs and Stephanie did something that if they had done it years ago might have saved their marriage, they talked. Talked about Eleni and Moscow, and Ziva and how the three of them fit together in the baby's life. And at her insistence he flipped open his cell phone and called Ziva, and as Stephanie listened to the one sided conversation she wondered with a grin what Ziva's expression was on the other end, “Still picking up steaks for dinner?” “Better make it three, Stephanie's here,” “We all need to talk.” “Yeah, she knows.” Jethro laughed, “The sweater you made me gave it away.” “See you in a while.”
He turned to Stephanie with a smirk, “I think we just gave her her first gray hair.”
Dinner went well once Ziva realized that Stephanie really was okay with their relationship. And over the course of the next couple of weeks she and Stephanie got to know each other better. The beginnings of their own friendship starting when Ziva had shown up at her house with a bag full of yarn and knitting needles and a beginner's pattern book. She intended to teach Stephanie how to knit. Stephanie had made them both dinner and afterwards they sat and started the knitting lesson. And as they talked and laughed together she could see what attracted Jethro to Ziva, she was a warm and fun person, and she reminded Stephanie of Eleni, and in some ways of a younger Jethro. Ziva also popped in and took Stephanie out, just for ice cream or a movie, things to get her out of the house a little. She had picked up on the fact that Stephanie was a little lonely and tried in small ways to alleviate it. Their friendship also seemed to have a positive effect on Jethro, he was even more relaxed at home, and he was also somewhat relieved that there was someone else that Stephanie could call in an emergency. They were a family, not necessarily a run of the mill family, but a family none the less.
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As her due date grew closer both Gibbs and Ziva started almost obsessively checking their cell phones, making sure they had a signal and no missed calls from Stephanie. They were both waiting for that call in the middle of the night, the one that told them that their little one was ready to make his or her grand appearance. That was not the phone call they received.
Ziva and Gibbs had just fallen into bed after a shower, when Gibbs' cell phone on the nightstand rang, he took one look at the caller id and sat straight up, Stephanie. He flipped it open quickly, “Hey.”
All he heard her say before he heard the phone on the other end hit the floor was, “Jethro, something's wrong...”
“STEPHANIE,” he shouted into his cell, but all he could hear was her moaning in the background. He said quickly to Ziva, “Call an ambulance,” as he threw on his pants, his cell still in his ear, “Steph, I'm coming, I'm on my way, stay on the phone. I'm coming.”
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No matter how fast he tried to move, or get the paramedics to move, everything seemed to be going in slow motion. He and Ziva had found her lying on the kitchen floor, deep in shock and unresponsive. The paramedics arrived right behind them. And then they were somehow all at the emergency room, and the doctors were cutting off her t-shirt and slapping monitor leads all over her, the words “possible placental abruption” thrown around repeatedly.
One of the monitors started blaring, showing a flat line on her heart rate, and the doctor shouted, “We're losing her, we need to do a c-section now.”
It had taken two nurses and Ziva's firm hand around him to get Gibbs out of the room. He was in his own kind shock, this just couldn't be happening, he couldn't loose another child, another family.
Jethro was not a religious man, his faith something private, just between him and his maker. But he never prayed harder in his life than he did in those horrifying, long minutes out in the hallway.
As the minutes ticked by, Ziva's hand on his shoulder the only thing keeping him from losing it altogether. And then they heard it, the strong cry of a baby, and relief washed over both of them and he sent up a silent prayer of thanks. Their relief was short lived, however, as the doctor came out into the hallway, his scrubs splattered with blood, Stephanie's blood, his expression grave.
“It was a placental abruption, basically the placenta detached from the wall of the uterus. We did a cesarean section and delivered the baby. He's doing well and you can see him soon. But I am sorry, we lost his mother. She had lost too much blood too quickly and there was just nothing we could do. I am so sorry, we did everything we could.”
Ziva saw the tears in Gibbs eyes through her own blurry vision, and the sad, little smile as Gibbs whispered, “It's a boy?”
The doctor nodded and as if to affirm his presence in the world, they heard the baby let out another good howl in the other room. The doctor told them that given that the baby was near full term that there shouldn't be any issues that normally plague premature births. He had also been monitored carefully before the delivery and that he had not shown any significant signs of stress, all of which were good signs.
Gibbs nodded through it all, and as the doctor turned to go check on the baby he heard Gibbs ask quietly, “Can I see Stephanie?”
The doctor escorted him to her bedside and had the nurses in the room excuse them, and then he left Gibbs alone with her. Jethro reached down and smoothed her hair, hair that he had spent many nights playing with as she laid on his chest. His thumb ran over her lips, and he remembered their first kiss, and their last. He cupped her cheek and and the tears flowed down his face he whispered to her, “It's a boy, Steph. We have a son. That's him hollering in the other room. Wonder which one of us he gets that from, huh?” The tightness in his chest was making it hard for him to breath, and he felt the sobs threatening to start, “I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. It wasn't supposed to be like this.” He leaned down and kissed her lightly, “I love you, Stephanie.” He could have made her promises to love and raise their son, but those were promises that never had to be verbalized.
Jethro walked back out into the hallway a broken man, his pain and grief evident in his every move. His eyes met Ziva's and he let Ziva's arms wrap around him and hold him tight as he fought his emotions. He didn't care who saw them, he needed to feel Ziva's heart beating against his, needed the security he found in her embrace.
He croaked out against Ziva's neck, “She's gone, Ziva.”
Ziva's hand found its way to cradle Gibbs' head and she whispered through her own tears, “I know.”
“What are we going to do?”
Ziva pulled back a bit and took Jethro's face in her hands and meeting his eyes said very seriously, “Raise your son, and make sure he knows what a beautiful and amazing woman his mother was.”
Gibbs nodded numbly. And a nurse waving caught Ziva's attention, they could see the baby.
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tbc...
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