The wave of nausea that had been continually radiating like a siren through her system finally passed and calmed with the retreating footsteps of the doctor in the starch white coat. Part of her couldn't understand how this person, who very well had been elbow-deep-in-Gibbs, could be so pristine, while the colossal stains on her clothes were already setting in all of their stubborn, gruesome glory. At some point she had managed to blindly tear herself away from the waiting room to wash her hands— at Tony's request. It had been "freaking him out."
Gibbs was out of surgery and resting comfortably. Kate remembered scoffing at the doctor's emphasis of ‘comfortable;' surely there was nothing comfortable about recovering from multiple gunshot wounds.
‘…Well, unless by ‘comfortable,' you actually mean ‘medicated beyond comprehension.' ' Tony and Ducky had bowed their heads in mild amusement at her snarky remark, but were largely relieved at their friend's improved prognosis.
It had been a long night, a long surgery, and a long tour of radical emotions. Ducky had finally convinced his fellow colleagues-in-waiting to go home: "…rest easy, knowing that Jethro will make a full recovery… and will be seeing to your grueling workload soon enough."
He had convinced everyone but Kate. She stood behind with the good doctor, watching the others sluggishly file from the waiting room. All she had to do was look over to Ducky without so much as a single word, and he nodded slowly.
"I thought as much," he had whispered before laying a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Do try to get some rest, my dear, if you absolutely insist upon staying."
She nodded, "I do." He nodded once more in return and patted her arm, following the others in suit. Before he had reached the outer most limits of the waiting room, he had turned back to her and spoke frankly, while the automatic glass doors began to swoosh closed: "It's not your fault, Caitlin."
"I know." She lied coolly.
It was this particular course of surreal events that had led her here. Sitting alone in Gibbs' private hospital room, one leg curled underneath her on a barely-there cushioned chair, biting softly at a single thumbnail, listening to the steady rhythm of the multiple monitors that haphazardly encompassed his bed.
When the night nurse finally realized that Kate had absolutely no intention of leaving, she took a compassionate amount of pity on the visibly shaken agent: leaving her to stay with Gibbs for the remainder of the early morning hours. Kate watched him. He slept. She felt better being able to see him in one solid piece rather than having to visualize him as she sat deserted in the waiting room; but no matter how much better she felt, it didn't erase the wounds she knew lay underneath the bed sheets. Against her own conscious wishes, she drifted into a brief fit of dreamless sleep.
---
Kate woke to the distinct feeling of watchful eyes. Her chin was propped gently in an open palm with her elbow supported uncomfortably on the wooden arm rest, she slowly opened her eyes. Finding Gibbs staring softly at her from the bed, Kate shifted self-consciously in her chair, slowly removing herself from her cramped, make-shift sleeping position as she placed both feet on the floor.
"How are you feeling?" she croaked groggily, brushing her fingers underneath her eyes with a lazy swipe. She pushed back her dark muss of hair away from her face, waking up little by little.
"Well," he murmured slowly, she could hear the slight remnants of the pain medication in his voice, "I got shot. Twice." He said matter-of-factly before mumbling crossly: "And they won't give me coffee."
Kate's mouth twitched and smirked with a mind of its very own. "Fascists…" she chimed in a whisper with an air of mild amusement. He smiled gently at her before dropping his eyes down to his hands with an exhale.
"You should go home, Kate. Get some real sleep." He gruffed lightly, his voice still thick and coated with a groggy, medicinal haze, but it was slowly returning to non-Morphine-Gibbs. She looked at him thoughtfully before her eyes, too, dropped to her hands. She opened her mouth to speak and he looked to her expectantly.
"Gibbs, I—"
But she was quickly interrupted by a hospital attendant and the doctor that followed.
"Good morning, Agent Gibbs. I see visiting hours are off to an early start," the doctor, an older man with a sharp nose, gray hair, and with a few years on Ducky, quipped while he perused through Gibbs' chart at the foot of the bed. He mumbled slowly into the papers, "Must've missed that memo."
Kate was prepared for a lecture regarding hospital rules and professional policy, but was somewhat relieved when it didn't come.
"You're going to be fine, Agent Gibbs. The first GSW to your abdomen wasn't very serious, relatively speaking… more of an annoyance to your system than anything else. It should prove to heal rather quickly." The doctor took off his reading glasses, hooking them carefully to the collar of his shirt as he set down his pen. "Your knee, on the other hand, is a different story."
Gibbs' hand reflexively hovered over his thigh, right above the offending knee which was already starting to break through with dull tinges of pain. "What about it." Gibbs asked shortly.
The doctor paused slightly before going on, as if choosing his words wisely, "The bullet lodged in a very precarious place within your knee.. While you're very lucky it didn't completely shatter your kneecap, the bullet did enough damage despite that luck of yours; it injured a great deal of cartilage—"
"What is it you're trying to say exactly," Gibbs irritably interrupted.
The doctor nodded slowly: "That it's going to take a while for your knee to completely heal."
Gibbs creased his forehead with growing irritation, looking to the doctor underneath heavy brows, "But it will heal... completely." Gibbs asked with a subtle caution.
"Eventually," the doctor nodded.
Gibbs huffed quietly, his brow slowly softening as his gaze wandered over to Kate, who was staring vacantly at his wounded knee. He squinted his eyes slightly, and was close enough to reach his hand over to her without any trouble. Gibbs gently touched her forearm, bringing her out of her estranged reverie— she looked up to him, and he gave her a single, soft nod. Kate swallowed, understanding his "it's-alright-take-a-breath" stare, and crossed her arms over her chest, leaning back in her chair.
"There's also the issue of your hospital stay, Agent Gibbs," the doctor continued; nodding with an explanation at the agent's confused expression, "If you remain here, my recommendation is a stay of 2 weeks."
"No," Gibbs shook his head adamantly, his mouth forming a firm line of stubborn resolution. "No, I don't need to stay here that long, I—"
"What if someone stayed with him?" Kate's voice cut through Gibbs' protest as she sat up in her seat, crossing her legs and steering her vision clear from the complex stare she felt radiating from Gibbs' general direction.
"That is.. a second option. If you were to be released into someone's custody… a relative, a friend… it would cut the hospital stay to about a week." The doctor looked from Kate and then to Gibbs' furrowed features. "There'd still be a good deal of rehabilitation, no matter where you stay, but I'm sure you'd be more comfortable elsewhere.. out of the hospital."
Kate rubbed her open palms against her thighs nervously before her confident professionalism again returned to her voice, "I'll stay with him."
The doctor nodded slowly, continuing to oscillate his gaze between the two agents: "Stairs will be a problem for you.. where ever you stay, it should preferably be single level. It would be easier for the both of you…"
Kate thought for a second and wet her lips, her eyes darting to Gibbs before they rested on the doctor, "Then he'll stay with me." Gibbs began to say something, no doubt in protest, when Kate fully turned to him:
"There's no stairs in my apartment, Gibbs. Your entire house is full of stairs... unless you were planning to sleep on the couch for a few weeks…" her eyes lingered, communicating the non-negotiable nature of the situation. It was stay in the hospital, or stay with her. She watched as the wheels turned gently in his head, almost pained that he had to think it over.
He finally gave her a slow, firm, and single nod. Kate exhaled her appreciation of him not causing a scene as she looked to the doctor, "When can he leave?"
"Four days." The doctor chimed as he hung Gibbs' chart back on the ledge of the foot of his bed. "I'll be back to check on you periodically, Agent Gibbs. Get some rest…"
As the doctor left, Kate wasn't facing Gibbs, but she slowly looked over to him from the corners of her eyes. He was watching her with a raised eyebrow, an expression that was somewhat skeptical of her actions. He would have no part of her pity, or her guilt.
"Don't start, Gibbs." She turned in her chair to face him, "Don't start."
Gibbs' creased brow vanished as both his eyebrows rose innocently, "I didn't say anything…"
She rose to her feet with one hand on her hip, "But you thought it.." He looked at her without a word, trying to silently gauge and break her hidden thoughts into pieces that he, himself, could see. Kate shifted uneasily under his unshakeable scrutiny as she snatched up her purse from the floor.
"I'm going to get some coffee." She stood by his bed and hesitantly reached over him to the other side of his bed, getting the nurse's call button for him. He grabbed her wrist softly, startling her. She looked down to his face with slightly widened, anxious eyes.
"Get me some." He whispered huskily, flexing his fingers over the soft skin of her wrist. At her raised eyebrow he added childishly with a subtle half-smile, lightening the air between them, "Please..?"
Kate removed herself from his grip and replaced her wrist with the call button, setting it gently into his open palm. She retreated from the bed and looked at him wistfully, her head tilted slightly to one side.
"I'll think about it…" she murmured as she smoothed her hands over her pants and strode leisurely out the door.
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