WARNING!!! Major Angst Ahead…
Chapter 5: No Good News
Gibbs eyed the clock. 45 minutes since Tony was taken into surgery.
He ran his hands over his thighs and let out a long breath. Too early for them to be finished. He picked up a magazine and half-heartedly thumbed through it. He tried to watch the headlines on ZNN news on the waiting area’s television. He tried to listen to the conversations of those around him, hoping to hear something that would distract him. He wished Ducky would arrive; he was always good for a distracting story.
Gibbs looked at the offending time piece again. 1 hour 10 minutes since Tony had gone into surgery.
Gibbs let out a tight breath. Now he could start to be concerned. But hadn’t Brad said the surgery would take ‘about an hour?’ Didn’t that mean it could take a little longer? ‘Settle down Gunny,’ Gibbs thought to himself. He thought back to the day that Kelly was born. He’d been nervous that day too and suddenly remembered why. Shannon had been having complications for some time with her pregnancy and had preeclampsia. Kelly had been delivered under duress"in an emergency c-section.
Gibbs rested his elbows on his knees and ran his hands through his hair. “Christ,” he muttered.
Ducky arrived a few minutes later and listened to the story of what had taken place in great detail as Gibbs began to pace around his small section of the waiting area.
Finally at 1 hour 35 minutes since Tony was taken into surgery, Gibbs couldn’t wait any longer.
“Where the hell are they Duck? He said it would take an hour and if it was going to take longer then he would come tell me! What the hell is going on here?”
“Mr. Gibbs?”
Gibbs whipped around at the sound of his name.
“Yes? How’s Tony?”
He saw a young nurse standing in the doorway to the waiting area.
“Come with me please,” was all she said.
Gibbs shot a confused look at Ducky and took off after the nurse. She led him to a smaller private room with a couch and a chair inside.
“Dr. Pitt will join you shortly,” she said and closed the door behind her.
Gibbs resumed pacing. A minute later there was a quiet knock and the door opened and Brad stuck his head in.
“Jesus Brad what the hell!?! Is Tony alright? Can I see him? What about the baby?!”
Pitt blinked in the face of so many questions.
“Have a seat Jethro,” he said quietly.
Something in Gibbs’ gut felt ice cold.
“What happened,” he whispered, taking a seat on the small couch.
Brad ran a hand over his face. “There was damage to the placenta that we couldn’t see from an external examination…There was actually…too much damage, Jethro. Your daughter…she didn’t make it. She was stillborn. I’m so sorry.”
Gibbs closed his eyes for a moment. Then his icy blue gaze rested on Pitt again. “There’s more,” he concluded.
Pitt nodded. “There was also significant damage to some of Tony’s reproductive organs. I need to remove the organs that give him the ability to become pregnant. There is a lot of internal bruising and internal hemorrhaging that we couldn’t see from the outside.”
Gibbs ran a trembling hand over his mouth. “Is he going to be alright,” he asked quietly. He wished the nurse would have let him bring Ducky with him back here to hear all of this. He’d only felt this helpless one other time…no he wasn’t going there right now.
“We need to act quickly. Like I said, he’s hemorrhaging. I…I need your permission to remove those organs,” he said quietly, regretfully.
Gibbs closed his eyes. His baby was dead. His lover was dying.
“Will he be alright if we do that?”
“It will be a long recovery process. He’ll need some hormone replacement therapy until his body adjusts. The recovery will be more emotional than physical though, I’d wager.”
Gibbs closed his eyes and let out a long breath. “What if we don’t do it?”
Pitt’s mouth set into a thin line. He knew Gibbs was just trying to gather information, but they needed to act quickly. “If we don’t do the surgery…you’ll be planning two funerals Jethro. Tony won’t survive without the surgery. He’ll bleed to death.”
“Do it,” Gibbs said without a moment’s hesitation. “Go! Do it now! Please don’t let him die,” Gibbs begged, his voice little more than a whisper.
Pitt was already on his feet. “If he didn’t die under my care when he had the pneumonic plague, he certainly will not die under my care when he’s having a baby.”
Gibbs sank to his knees and tried to get his breathing under control. A moment later he noticed that Ducky had joined him. “What happened, Jethro?”
Gibbs looked up at Ducky and Ducky saw everything that had happened reflected in Gibbs’ haunted gaze. “The baby didn’t make it,” Gibbs said quietly. “Pitt’s doing a hysterectomy…if he doesn’t…if he can’t get the bleeding stopped…then I lose both of them.”
He looked up at Ducky, forcing himself into a calm he didn’t feel. “I can’t lose my family twice Duck. Can’t do it. I won’t survive if Tony doesn’t make it.”
TBC
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