"Ziva?" The nurse lightly touched Ziva's arm, "Ziva, your friends are here to see you." She took Ziva's arm gently and led her out of the room. Outside the room, in the recreation area, various people solemnly met with their friends and family. No one was laughing or smiling, no one really wanted to be there.
At the far end of the room, Gibbs, Tony and Tim stood there, waiting. They were trying to smile, but the heavy air of sadness hung over the small group. It was Gibbs that spoke first.
"How are you Ziver?"
They waited patiently as she stared at them, obviously trying to figure out who they were and work out how to respond. After a time she said slowly,
"Good. I am good. Who is Ziver?"
The nurse had stayed for a minute to make sure that everything was okay. "You are sweetie, you're Ziver."
Ziva's brow furrowed as she tried to make the connection. Her face brightened, "Gibbs? Is he here? He calls me Ziver."
Gibbs smiled slightly, "I'm here Ziver."
She frowned as she looked at him. She reached forward, touching his face lightly, then her face lit up.
"It is you! Gibbs!" She threw her arms around him and hugged him. She seemed to then notice the rest of the team. "What's happened? Did we catch a case? Is that why you're all here?" She looked around.
"Where are we?"
"Doesn't matter." Gibbs sat at the table and motioned for her to sit down as well.
She sat across from him, beaming as the others sat down. "Did we catch a case?"
"No case Ziva, we just wanted to hang out with you." Tim smiled at her, glad to see their Ziva once again.
She laughed, "I'm so happy to see you all. We haven't seen each other in months."
The reality was that they'd been there just last week, on the last visitor's day.
"Why haven't you come to see me lately?" Ziva was frowning now.
"We've been helping Gibbs work on his boat." Tim smiled at Ziva, "That way we could get it done so he could come with us."
It was a moral dilemma, one they'd talked about often. Did they lie to Ziva and keep her happy or tell her the truth and upset her? They'd settled on telling her the truth when they could, and telling half-lies if they had to.
Looking around at them, she seem to realize that Ducky wasn't there.
"Where is Ducky?"
Tony glanced at the others before replying lightly, "He's trying to finish his car."
As time wore on, they kept the topics light and moving. Near the end of the time, Gibbs excused himself to go to the bathroom, and everyone except Ziva understood what that meant. He was going to talk to Ziva's doctor, and see what progress she was making, if any.
When he came back, Ziva was asking where they were going to go out to eat. Tony was trying to explain that they weren't going anywhere, but Ziva was not listening.
"I want to go with you! Please! Don't leave me here! They torture me."
Tony tried to stay calm. "They don't torture you."
"You aren't listening!" As Ziva began to get more agitated, she began to forget who they were.
"Leave me alone! Help! They're hurting me!" Nurses came out to try to calm her down and the team quietly left. Gibbs' face was tense, and when they were out of the building they stopped and looked at him, waiting.
"She's not getting better. She's regressing, getting worse everyday. Even the medication isn't helping anymore."
Tony let out a long sigh and Tim touched his shoulder, pain etched on his face.
Gibbs continued, "They want to move her to a more secure facility and take her off all of the medicine."
Tim spoke quietly, "How long would she have?"
Gibbs stared at the ground, "Two or three months. They're still not sure what's wrong with her, and no other medicines help. It's either sedate her until the end, or let her go with what little free will she has left. As we're her family, it's our decision."
With those words spoken, he turned and started to walk away.
"Boss." Tony wasn't ready to give up. "What if we find a cure?"
Gibbs turned halfway around, "It's been three months, DiNozzo. Enough people have tried."
But Tony wasn't going to give up, "Somalia. We did the impossible. We can do it again."
He caught sight of Gibbs' face and started to get angry, "You don't want to help her! Why are you giving up?"
Gibbs' shoulders sank, and he turned around completely to look at Tony, "Do you think it's going to make a difference? Ducky has tried, he's had every doctor he knows try. We don't know what was used. I'm tired of losing the people I care about."
Tony squared his shoulders, looking at Tim. "Then we'll go back and find out. I'm not giving her up. Help us this one last time."
Gibbs nodded slowly, anguish on written on his face. "After this, I'm resigning."
"Me too." Tony wiped a hand across his face and wondered what options they hadn't tried yet.
Three months earlier.
"She's gone Jethro. They did everything they could to save her."
"DON'T tell me that they did everything they could, because if they did, they would have saved her damnit!" Gibbs turned and slammed his fist against the wall, leaving a fist sized hole behind.
Director Vance said nothing, just stood there, watching.
"Boss-"
"I don't want to hear it DiNozzo! It's our fault that this happened!" Gibbs flung the papers and files off of his desk and strode to the elevators.
No one made a move to stop him, and when the elevator came, he stepped in and didn't turn back around as the doors closed.
He made his way in a blur, barely conscious of the fact that he was driving. He pulled into his driveway and shut off the car.
He sat there for a moment, letting the overwhelming sadness flood over him. Gibbs got out of the car and made his way inside, not bothering to turn on a light, choosing instead to make his way directly down into the basement.
He turned on the light and looked over the boat, The Abigail. He tried to push away the sadness, unsurprised when it didn't work.
He pulled the bottle of bourbon off the bench and didn't bother grabbing the glass next to it.
He took a large drink, swallowing it down.
For a long time he sat on the floor, splayed out in an undignified manner, taking large drinks from the glass bottle.
The bottle, which had started out nearly three-quarters full, was almost empty when he finally saw her.
She was walking down the stairs, hair in two pigtails as always. She smiled when she saw him,
"Gibbs, I knew I'd find you down here!"
Her voice was excited, "What are you doing down here, what's wrong?"
He smiled, "Thought I lost you Abbs."
For the first time, she frowned slightly, "Lost me? Gibbs, that's silly, I'm right here."
"I know." He smiled, "They said you were gone Abbs."
She frowned more this time, "Who said I was gone? That's not very nice of them."
She moved across the room and stood next to him, looking down at him.
"I'm glad you're here."
She smiled, "You know something Gibbs? I think if we weren't coworkers, I might fall in love with you."
Gibbs stared at up her, surprised but happy. "I could bend rule 12 for you, Abby."
She smiled at him, "What will people say? They'll accuse you of getting soft in your old age. But I don't mi-"
Gibbs realized with a start that she was fading.
"Gibbs?"
Her voice was confused, almost sad.
"Abbs! Hold on! Abby! Don't leave me!"
"I'm not leaving Gibbs. You're the one who is leaving. Gibbs, I need you. Why didn't you save me? Gibbs! Don't leave me here all alone! Please!"
She was almost invisible now, and he couldn't see her anymore.
"Abby!" The world went black as he slumped to the floor.
Part Two
9 hours earlier
"We've got a case, let's go." Agent Jethro Gibbs tossed a set of keys to Agent Tony DiNozzo.
"Where are we going?" Agent Ziva David questioned as she stood, slinging her bag over her shoulder.
"Westside, Marine sergeant down. Call Ducky."
"On it." Agent Timothy McGee picked up the phone and uttered a few words to the autopsy specialist before hurrying to catch up to the others.
The drive to the Westside was quick, as traffic was light and the team made it in minimal time.
They parked and got out of the car, going around to look at the downed Marine.
"Shot in the forehead, looks like it was from far away, possibly a sniper situation?" Tony was kneeling over the body, looking up to see where a possible sniper could have shot from.
"That rooftop." Gibbs pointed towards a flat roof that wasn't very far away.
"It'd be a perfect angle to hit anyone passing by. I don't think this was random. Where is Ducky?"
Not long after that, Ducky and Palmer pulled up, Ducky grumbling about Palmer's getting lost again.
"Good afternoon Jethro, what do we have here?"
"Sniper shot him from that rooftop, we need a time of death Duck."
"Impatient as always." Ducky grumbled with a good natured smile. He knelt down and inserted the liver probe.
"Approximately three to four hours ago."
Gibbs looked at his watch, "Around eight? Alright, let's get samples back to Abby."
"Boss, Abby isn't answering her phone." McGee looked worried, and Gibbs sighed, pulling out his phone.
He hit the number that would speed dial Abby and waited for her to pick up. There was no answer.
"Try the lab."
McGee frowned slightly, "I already did Boss. No answer there, and security says she went out for lunch."
"Damnit Abby." Gibbs muttered under his breath, "Stay out of trouble for once. Tony, you and Ziva finish up here. McGee, can you track her phone?"
McGee nodded, pulling out his phone and typing something into it.
"It's moving boss, down Crescent street, going towards the hospital."
Gibbs was already pulling out his keys. "If she calls you, tell her to stay where she is and call me and tell me where she is."
As Gibbs opened the car door, his phone rang. It was an unrecognized number, and he wondered for a minute if Abby had lost her phone and was using a pay phone.
"Hello?"
"Is this Jethro Gibbs?"
"Yes."
"You're listed as the emergency contact for a miss Abby Sciuto?"
He felt his knees go weak, and he stopped moving.
"What happened?"
"She was shot, sir. She's going in for surgery now."
The person on the phone proceeded to tell Gibbs where to go. He hung up, shaking.
The team was staring at him, even Ducky and Palmer were looking at him.
"It's Abby.. She's been.. Shot." Visions of being told that Kelly and Shannon were dead swam before his eyes, and he wondered if God was going to take Abby away too. He had waited too long to tell her that he loved her, waited too long to ask her to live with him.
Ducky seemed to sense what was going on and stood, "Anthony, Ziva, Timothy, finish processing the crime scene. The sooner we're done, the sooner we can find out what happened to Abigail. Jethro, sit down before you pass out. Not in the driver's seat, mind you."
Gibbs sank down next to the car, letting the pain wash over him for a moment before standing up, pushing it away. There were things to do. He pulled out his phone and called Director Vance.
By the time he was done explaining what happened to the director, everyone was ready to go, evidence securely bagged and put away, and the body ready for transportation.
"Straight back to the office, we need to drop off the evidence. She'll be in surgery anyway."
A pained look crossed Ziva's face. "Gibbs? I. I was supposed to go with Abby, but we got this case so she said she would go alone and we'd go a different day."
Gibbs turned to look at her, "Get in the car Ziva. We'll talk about it later." He reached out and touched her shoulder, knowing she felt responsible. "Not your fault Ziver."
She nodded and followed Tony.
When the evidence was temporarily stored in the locker, the team met up outside, driving to the hospital to wait for news about Abby.
They were issued to a waiting room, and for the next six hours all they did was wait. Finally, Ducky came in, and told them all to leave, and he would do his best to find out what was happening. Gibbs wanted to argue and refuse to leave, but he also wanted to know what was going on, so he followed the others.
The team sat at their respective desk, Palmer sitting on a chair next to Tim. Director Vance stood on the stairs, toothpick in his mouth, watching.
When Ducky showed, he looked haggard and old, and Gibbs knew instantly what he was going to say.
Here's the first chapter of my latest story. I don't have this one finished, but I'm close- so I'm not sure when the next chapter will be posted. With this story, I am taking certain liberties, some things in this story I have completely made up and for that reason, this story isn't completely factual. As always, let me know what you think!