It was the slowly ebbing fog and dull pain in her neck from how they had her nearly sitting up in bed that jogged her consciousness. Kate roused an hour or so after the oral surgeon arrived; waking up with a dry mouth, an exceedingly itchy throat, and both cheeks full of cotton. Squeezing her eyes shut in an attempt to clear her head, she sighed and shifted in bed. Kate remembered where she was and dared to open her eyes, against the stern advice of her sedative-laced, foggy mind.

The picture was fuzzy at first, but she knew who was standing across from her with his back against the wall, his legs crossed at the ankles, his eyes downcast towards his shoes. Her sight cleared, but her head still felt disconnected from her body—she blinked slowly, trying to gather together all of her faculties before she tried to speak.


"Gibbss?" her voice cooperated in a scratchy, muffled manner with a slight lisp. Damn cotton, she mumbled in her head.

He picked his head up and looked her over curiously, his eyebrows lifted in a mix of surprise and concern.

"You're awake…" he murmured.

"Stheems that way.." she struggled to speak coherently beneath the cotton, but was humorously unsuccessful. Gibbs just smiled gently and ducked his head as he made his way over to the bed. She gave a little groan when she realized she couldn't feel her tongue or the bottom half of her jaw.

"Fweekin' Novocain.." she explained when he gave her a funny look of confusion; she raised her fingers to her mouth, gingerly touching and exploring the incredible numbness of her lower lip. The corners of his mouth pulled upwards as he looked down to the bed, gently scratching his temple with his index finger.


"Does it hurt?" Gibbs decided to try to have a normal conversation with her, disregarding her temporary speech impediment or the ice pack that was carefully wrapped vertically around her jaw. He supposed she didn't notice it— yet.

Kate gave him a pointed look and gently raised an eyebrow.

"Gibbs. I can't fweekin' feel my face."

He gave a deep, low chuckle, rubbing his hand against the back of his neck. He smirked at her gently with a little tilt of his head, "You really.. shouldn't talk." He sat next to the bed and clasped his hands between his knees. "Don't strain your mouth.." he warned firmly.


She looked over at him pitifully, then dropping her eyes to her lap and sighing before frowning and sneering faintly, "Fweeking dentist..." Gibbs chuckled.


After the doctor had approved her release, Gibbs had convinced — ordered.. — Kate to let him take her home. He carried her post-op instructions, her purse, her prescriptions, and when she had fallen asleep in his car, he carried her, too, into her apartment.

He dropped her bag and everything else he had in his hands onto her coffee table as he shifted her carefully in his arms. She stirred and murmured something unintelligible into his shoulder, and he tightened his hold on her. He slowly walked with her down the hall, easily locating her bedroom and placing her gently on top of the comforter. With his hand still supporting her back, he gathered all the pillows on the bed, piling them behind her and softly leaning her against the small mountain of cotton and down feathers. She sighed and groaned and stretched against the bed. Gibbs smiled slightly before looking down and retreating from the bed, quietly leaving the room.


Returning a few minutes later with a cold compress and a glass of water, Gibbs made his way across the floor, smoothly sitting on the edge of the bed. He quietly set the glass along with her pills on the bedside table before leaning over and holding the cold, ice-filled compress to her cheek.

Kate stirred, sighing and slightly shifting her body towards him on the bed; her eyes slowly opened, looking around and recognizing her room before she moved her eyes up to his. She smiled, sweet and somewhat self-conscious, but immediately regretted the action as a dull pain radiated through her jaw. Her hand flew to her cheek as she winced and groaned.

"Novocain's wearing off.." he mumbled hoarsely, removing the ice pack from one side of her face and pressing it gently to her opposite, ailing cheek. Kate nodded slowly in agreement and acknowledgement, sliding her hand over the compress to replace his as he turned his attention to the night table. She watched him sleepily as he folded a few tissues into a tight wad and grabbed a pair of tweezers from beside the tissue box. She looked up to him with a raised and wary eyebrow.

"What'er you doing..." she mumbled amidst the little bundles of cotton still in her mouth.

"Relaaax…" he drawled slowly, motioning for her to lower the ice pack from her cheek. "The gauze that's destroying your communication skills..? Needs to be changed. And I don't think either of our fingers should be digging in or around your mouth right now." His warm eyes hovered and coolly danced with hers, silently challenging an argument from her. When no dispute came, he gave her a nod: "Open up."


Kate huffed, gently puffing out her cheeks as she dropped the ice pack to her lap, slowly and carefully opening her mouth with a wince.

"Good girl..." he cooed huskily, his voice thick and syrupy with mirth and teasing; his eyes snuck quickly to hers, catching sight of her squinting at him irritably, he smirked and snapped his focus back to her mouth.

He gently grabbed the gauze that lay towards the crux of her jaw, easing the bleeding over the offending phantom wisdom teeth. She winced at the sight of her blood on the medical cotton as he carefully took the tweezers away from her, placing it neatly in the wad of tissues and tossing it into the waste basket.

"Take these.." he placed two pills in her hand and put the glass of water in her other. "Two every four hours," Gibbs mumbled, looking back to the bedside table.


He turned back to her as he opened a small pack of gauze squares, folding one in half and placing it between the tweezers. He gently took her chin in his hand, rubbing his thumb smoothly over her jaw line, prompting her to open her mouth again. Carefully, he maneuvered the small bundle of gauze into the left corner of her mouth, and slowly repeated his actions on the right side.

Gibbs took her hand and brought it back up to her cheek, pressing the ice pack against her jaw. He nodded as she held it there, and he rose from the bed.


"Twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off." He gruffed lightly.

She smiled very gently, "You have a vewy unusual bedside manner.." she mumbled between the cotton. He huffed at her quietly. She smiled as she switched the compress to her other cheek, "Yer good."

He smirked softly, remembering the circumstance where her thick and druggy voice muttered those words just hours earlier.

"That's what they all say.." he murmured beneath the hush of his own breath.

Her eyes darkened and sparked at his words, earning him a vague tilt of her head. He back-tracked through his own mind when he saw her wheels trying desperately to turn.

"Yeah…" she whispered hoarsely, tentatively. Her lip curled gently as she leaned back against the pillows, examining him openly. She racked her brain, feeling a strange need to remember something, but her eyelids grew heavy with the events of the morning and the undulating effects of the pain killers. "Yeah…" she whispered sleepily, curling up and pressing the ice pack against her jaw as she began to drift.

Gibbs exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding as he gradually backed out of the bedroom.