He was driving the nurses crazy, he knew, but he didn't care. Nothing mattered.
She had been in surgery for too long - too damn long. It couldn't be good, could it?
"Jethro, take a seat. Anthony has gone to get us all coffee," Ducky's soft tone barely penetrated his frenzied mind.
He didn't bother to answer Ducky, but instead kept on pacing the length of the waiting room.
30 steps to the end of the room, another 30 steps back to the other side.
A steaming cup of Starbuck coffee materialized in front of him. He paused, stared blankly at it, and stepped around Tony.
33 steps this time, damn Dinozzo.
"Boss, even if you won't eat anything, at least take the coffee," Tony said behind him. He could hear the helplessness in his voice, and the subtle hint that the normally jovial agent was in need of assurance. Unfortunately for the younger agent, he didn't have the strength to give it to him.
He remained mute to Tony's request.
"Gibbs, you are making me dizzy," Abby this time, and her voice was hoarse. He could hear the sniffling.
He was beyond caring, however.
He saw McGee walked into the waiting room as he turned around to begin another 30 steps across the room. The newest addition to the team looked dishevel, lost.
Finally, a surgeon graced them with his presence with a clip board.
"Who's here for Ms. Todd?" the doctor asked with a dispassionate voice.
"Special Agent Todd," Gibbs corrected automatically as he marched up to the surgeon. "How is she doing?"
"Are you family?"
"Special Agent Gibbs, NCIS. We are Katie's family," he answered with barely veiled impatience.
The doctor shifted nervously as Tony, McGee, Ducky, and Abby surrounded the doctor, who, apparently, decided it was best not to contradict the group, "She's in recovery."
"How is she doing?" Gibbs repeated his earlier question.
"We've done all that we could," the doctor answered, and Gibbs felt his heartbeat slowed to a more normal rate at the news. "She'll be moved to ICU soon. Still, the first 48 hours are critical."
"When can we see her?" Abby's demurred voice asked.
"Not until she's settled, and even then, no more than two people for ten minutes every hour," the doctor quickly made some notations.
"I would like to see Caitlin's medical chart, please, doctor," Ducky stepped in before the doctor could get away.
"That's against - " the surgeon started to protest.
"Her injury is part of an on-going investigation with the NCIS, and as part of the investigation on terrorist activities, Dr. Mallard need access to that file. Special Agent Todd is with NCIS."
Swallowing visibly, the surgeon handed over the charts without further protest.
He watched intently as Ducky pursued the document with a furrow. He held his breath until Ducky gave him a slight nod, letting him know that Kate, his Katie, was indeed fine as the surgeon said.
He began another 30 steps across the room.
________________________________________
"Agent Gibbs?" a nurse walked into the waiting room that had been occupied by the NCIS agents for the past five hours.
Gibbs stopped his pacing momentarily to look up at the nurse.
"Dr. Bryers said to let you know when you may visit Special Agent Todd," she explained under his intense gaze, and he nodded his approval. "Please follow me."
He started following her, and he could sense the gang following into place behind him.
"Only two at a time, please," the nurse stopped them at the door to the room, and he finally turned to look at his charge.
"You and Anthony should go," Ducky made the decision on behalf of the group, and he simply turned to go into the room.
Once inside, it took all he had to bite back the gasp he was about to let loose. Machines were lined against one side of her bed. The room was quiet, the only sound from the soft beeping from the heart monitor, letting out reassuring beeps at regular intervals, as if to let them know that she was still living.
"Hey Kate," Tony mumbled from the door way, and his voice much more subdued than Gibbs had ever heard. Then, moving into the room and around Gibbs, went to hold her hands in his. "How ya feeling?"
The continued silence chilled Gibbs to the core. The lack of response was simply yet another testament to how his agent was hanging onto life by a very thin thread.
Gibbs stared at the back of Tony's head, watching as the younger man bent down and kissed Kate on her forehead, telling her to wake up soon and to come back, please. Telling her that he cared too much about her for her to slip away from them.
No, he wasn't jealous of Tony, wasn't jealous of the closeness the younger agent easily let out when confronted with an unconscious Katie. No, he wasn't jealous of Tony for touching her and holding her hand and brushing her hair and kissing her on her forehead.
No, he wasn't jealous. He simply was ready to castrate Anthony Dinozzo at the first chance he got.
He continued to stare, not saying a word. Words were over-rated anyway. Never before had he felt such panic. He had served in the Marines, for goodness' sake; he didn't scare easy. Yet, here he was, in the hospital, worried sick and actually afraid that he would loose Kate. His Katie.
He hadn't bothered to figure out when exactly did Kate become "his." It came so naturally one day, and felt so normal has he thought it in his minds, that he took it as is. Others knew and could recognize his claim on the female agent, knew that touching her, pinning after her, upsetting her, or, God forbid, hurting her, would incur the wrath of Leroy Jethro Gibbs.
No words were needed. It was all made known through his intense gazes and his protective stances.
And that was why Ari would have to pay.
He was no fool. He knew Ari to be behind this whole thing, knew the man was finding way to get at him. He knew he would come after Ari with everything he had.
He also knew that he wouldn't have to go far to look for him. A sniper and special trained agent like Ari didn't miss. No, he was too experienced and too apt in his job to make mistakes. Nothing was by chance, either. It was all calculated. He would come to them.
Ari hadn't taken a kill shot when he could very well do; he didn't finish off the rest of the team while they were had been easy preys on the rooftop.
Everything that man did, he did for vengeance. Kate, because she slipped through him twice, and Gibbs, because, well, simply because they were made to be archenemy.
And that it made him happy to see Gibbs suffer.
A soft touch on his arm interrupted his thoughts, and his over-worked mind moved to attack whoever just touched him, stopping just in time before he had Dinozzo in a head lock.
"Boss, you alright?"
"What do you think, Dinozzo?" he swallowed the lump in his throat and retorted.
What kind of a question was that? How could he be alright?
"I'm going to send Ducky or Abby or McGee in," the younger man stammered, and Gibbs barely lifted his eyes from the pale form on the bed.
He heard Tony's footstep out of the room, heard the door closed and the murmured discussion outside the room. He heard the door open again and felt the presence of his oldest friend.
"She is going to make it, Jethro," the medical examiner stated softly soon as he closed the door behind him. "Our Caitlin, she is a tough girl."
"She has to make it," he simply responded.
"Then you tell her that," the doctor turned his attention to Kate, his voice softened and his British accent seeping through much stronger, "You got to wake up, Kate. This man there won't make it if you don't."
Gibbs looked on as the doctor chatted quietly with Kate, telling her a story of how a woman he once knew woke up from years-long coma and was able to resume a normal life.
Maybe one day, Ducky would replace that tale with this one, with how Kate bravely fought to stay alive, how she bounced back and stole everyone's heart once again.
How she became such an intricate part of his life that he didn't know how to function without her anymore.
Abby and McGee came in and left, leaving only the silver-haired man keeping vigil by her bedside. He could still hear them from outside the door, and knew that Ducky had ordered the three of them to go home and rest ("You have to rest, because it will be up to you to hold up the fort until when she comes back to us," were Ducky's actual words. "God knows Jethro won't leave her side.")
Damn right he wasn't going to leave her.
________________________________________
One week after "it" happened, Gibbs was forced to return to work.
Jen – Director Shepherd – had proved to be much more limiting than her predecessor. She hadn't ordered him back to work per se, but she had refused his request to nail Ari also. For reasons Gibbs couldn't fathom, she has chosen to listen to one Ziva David over him, that she had placed her trust in a Mossad agent instead of one of his own.
To add salt to the open wound, she had attached said Mossad officer to his team (temporarily) as he was hunting down Ari (to stop him from killing the man Gibbs despised with a passion).
He hadn't offered much resistance. The director knew him well, and he her. He knew she wouldn't budge, and he would much rather spend the time to hunt down the bastard.
Actually finding and hunting down Ari was anti-climatic. All that had transpired in Gibbs' basement, that Ziva had actually put a bullet through her half-brother's head, was buried beneath the pile of paperwork that a supposedly double agent was shot dead in an NCIS agent's
Ziva had become a semi-permanent member of his team. "You are short one agent, Gibbs. You need her," was Jen Shepherd's reasons. He was too tired to point out that before McGee had come along, he was just fine with Tony & Kate, that he didn't need help from anyone.
He just needed Katie back.
Kate's desk is still vacated. Nobody was allowed to use it; nobody was allowed to touch it. He kept it tidy and clean, and put a vase of fresh blooms on it every Monday morning, and coffee (the hazelnut cappuccino that she liked so much) every Thursday.
The team knew where he spent the night; the nurses treated him as a permanent fixture at Kate's bedside.
The routine kept on. Cases, other than ones involving hints of Ari, were getting closed. Only, he solved the cases with none of the tenacity from before. The team, other than their solve rate, simply wasn't the same.
Tony didn't spar with his partner anymore, and McGee grew in maturity and flustered less since he became the right-hand man to Gibbs just as Tony was his left.
The routine broke exactly two months after it had started. Gibbs simply failed to show up at work one morning. Some frantic calls to his cell phone and home phone later, McGee finally thought to call Bethesda. The call promptly set him off, leaving only a "Come now, Tony" after him as he made a dash to the elevators.
When they arrived at Bethesda and reached Kate's floor, their fearless leader was already in sight, pacing the room just as he had two months ago.
"Boss?" Tony approached the grouchy bear of a man.
"Complications. Code Blue," Gibbs relay succinctly. He didn't feel like talking. Not at all.
The two younger agents nodded their understanding and sat down.
The scene was all too familiar. Ducky and Abby arrived soon as they heard the news and cleared it with the Director. Ziva had volunteered to drive them, and she had joined the group outside Kate's room, keeping vigil for a woman she had never met.
The wait, this time, was as grueling as the last one had been.
"Agent Gibbs," Kate's doctor materialized in front of the team, a smile on his face.
Gibbs could hear the collective sigh of relief that went around the room at the surgeon's light expression.
"Good news. Agent Todd had awoken from her coma. She's now sleeping because of the heavy sedative we gave her, but she would wake up on her own after the medication wear off."
Gibbs, too, felt his release of a held breath.
________________________________________
The room has returned to its previous state of quietness. Only, there were less machines hooked up to his pale companion.
She still looked the same. Regardless if she was only sleeping or in a coma, she still looked too pale, too fragile.
Gibbs wanted to just kiss her and chase away all the worries in the world. He was startled by the depth of emotions running through him, his protective streak showing itself at the sight of Caitlin Todd.
"I'm glad you're awake, Katie," he murmured softly, his bigger hands grasping her smaller ones in a firm grip. "I don't think I will make it if you don't ever wake up."
He needed to stop, since the tears were choking him up.
Gibbs had never been a man of words, but this time, sitting beside Kate's sleeping form, he felt the urge to pour out his heart, to let her know his feelings, even though she most likely wouldn't be able to hear him in her sleep.
"I had never been so scared, Katie, never before you were shot by that bastard. You'll be glad to know that he's taken care of," Sucking in as much air as possible, he tried to calm himself down. "I … I care about you, Katie. You need to wake up soon, you know, so we can have a proper talk. Maybe I'll take an early retirement. Maybe I'll transfer to the academy and train NCIS agents. I don't know, but I sure as hell will have this worked out."
He raised her hand to his lips, and gently grazed his over her soft, smooth skin.
Just when he was about to release her hands, she squeezed.
And he smiled, genuinely, for the first time in two months.
Author's Chapter Notes:
"The team knew where he spent the night; the nurses treated him as a permanent fixture at Kate’s bedside"