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It happened so fast— too fast. The swift string of events that mounted to this singular, hanging moment in time was so quick, the years of her training instantaneously, momentarily, turned to fuzz on her brain. The house was clear, her mind screamed; they cleared this house. She cleared this house. She knows she did, because she distinctly remembers shouting her go-ahead down the hall; her voice echoing off the barren walls; her consent reaching and drawing in her partners as their weapons slid down in a fluid motion, held lax at their sides.
"Clear!" Kate's mind echoed and spitefully taunted her memory as she stood for the briefest of seconds, wondering who this man in black was; but more importantly, curiously wondering why a gun was being pointed in her general direction as she stared across the room, down the barrel of a dark Smith and Wesson.
It happened so fast. "Kate DOWN!!" She recovered her professionally conscious momentum a split second too late as she felt a massive weight knock her down from the side, sending her barreling to the floor in a heap of limbs and blind confusion. She heard three succinct rounds of gunfire before her body made solid contact with the hard and unyielding wood floor.
As the shock steadily dissipated from her blurry awareness, Kate's sense of smell was the first perception to return: the thick and heavy scent of sawdust and black coffee overwhelmed and surrounded her, pinning her to the ground with an oppressive strength. The wind that was hastily knocked from her lungs began to slowly return as she recognized the scattering of feet about her.
"Gibbs.." she exhaled, waiting for him to answer: telling her to be still or to wait another minute, or to roll himself off of her with a distinct clearing of his throat. No movement, and no answer. "..Gibbs.." she spoke to him with more emphasis and a tinge of concern outlining her colored tone. She huffed and exhaled underneath his heavy weight, wriggling and turning over onto her back beneath him as to give her enough leverage to roll him off of her. Great, she internally mumbled, he went and got himself knocked out.
It was then that Kate felt a strange warmth seeping into her clothing and pooling gently around them. She swiftly scrambled out from under him.
"Gibbs??" Her breathing escalated as did the beats of her throttled heart; but she was determined to keep her mind clear. She wouldn't panic. not again. She turned him over slowly and saw his unconscious grimace of pain, along with the darkening wound that marred and pooled about his lower abdomen. Her breath hitched sharply in her chest, unable to gasp but capable enough to mutter a single whispered expletive of disbelief. In all the commotion, no one noticed. It happened so fast.. her head echoed patiently. No one even noticed.
"DINOZZO." Was that her strangled voice, choking, cracking and pleading.. she could hear the other agent in the next room, working over one of the local officers. Kate kept her hands firm and solid against Gibbs' stomach, as if she alone was holding in and keeping together the very life that sought to spill and soak through her tiny hands. It was her sole purpose in life right then.
Kate harshly cried out for her partner: "TONY, NOW!"
Tony poked his head around the corner of the doorframe, his eyes going wide with a guilty, disbelieving, and mutually felt feeling of "Oh sh*t." Satisfied that Tony got the message, very loud and very clear, she turned her focus down to the unmoving form that she knelt beside.
She looked him over and noticed more blood vandalizing his right pant leg, soaking through and wrapping around his knee. Her mind was saturated in the brusque, stark redness as she swallowed hard and looked to his face. Continually pressing her white-knuckled, shaky hands against the wound of his stomach, Kate leaned down, her chocolate hair brushing lightly against his face. She whispered forcefully by his ear as she noticed his breathing becoming more and more labored: "Don't do this, Gibbs... don't you do this..."
She allowed herself a fleeting second to close her eyes and regain her focus and self-control with a silent, earnest prayer. She nervously wet her lips before she was about to pull away from his face.
"You okay…?" She barely even heard his voice, low and hoarse; as if it took everything within him to form those three concerned syllables. His eyes were still closed, but she noticed him swallow visibly, swallow down the pain and the unbearable lump that harbored in his throat.
She kept her tone strong, not wanting to alarm him any further than she imagined he already was, but no amount of confidence, no amount of training or poise in the world could have kept the slight shake from her voice. "I'm- I'm okay…" He grunted softly as she subconsciously pressed a little harder on his stomach as she replied. She saw the lines in his face become less distinct as she realized he was drifting.
"Gibbs… Gibbs.." her voice rang and echoed through the room, but was unable to rouse him.
The short words traveled and ricocheted through her mind, reverberating and bouncing off her walls with cutting malice as she sat numbly in the dark, hard plastic chair of the hospital waiting room. She didn't get the chance to wash the blood from her hands or the stains from her clothes. She didn't notice, and if she did, she wouldn't have cared. She wouldn't have gave a damn. Kate looked down to her hands and put together the regrettable and unfortunate pun of blood on her hands. Her eyes picked up and gently focused on the swinging white doors that would eventually produce the answer to all their questions. It was a dice toss on whether they'd be sighing breaths of relief, or mourning in a huddled collective that was their little family.
Kate had her head bowed, glancing down and over at each of her colleagues' shoes, unable to interact much more than that. She felt the edgy vibrations from Abby's nervously bouncing leg; she heard the quiet murmuring of Ducky reassuring Tony and McGee with a somehow-related story from the distant past.
She sat simply, letting the quiet echoes of her conscience taunt, murder, and drown her with seething guilt as her heart constricted rapidly with choking and overwhelming concern.
tbc...
Author's Chapter Notes:
"It happened so fast..." A crime-scene mishap threatens the lives and emotions of the team.