A/N: Actually, this first chapter was intended to be a one-shot. It seems, however, it didn't like the idea of being out there all on its own too much…
As I mentioned in my summary, the story is slightly AU: Kate and Jenny appear together. No Ziva, though. Would you believe me if I told you it wasn't on purpose and I didn't even realize that little mistake at first? Anyway, I decided to just leave it as it is, because Jenny's way cooler than Morrow ;)
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story, they sadly all belong to CBS.
Now enjoy, and please tell me what you think!! Any comment is very much appreciated!
Waiting
When Tony arrives, he doesn't walk into the room right away, but stops in the doorframe for a few moments. The door is heavy, and it's pushing against his foot as though it wants to nudge him inside. Tony ignores it. Since when does he listen to doors? "The Doors" perhaps…well, not just perhaps. He's got the entire CD collection at home, and even a few original records. Coming to think of it, he's not listened to them for years. He should dig them out again sometime soon, because actually they're quite good…the question is whether his record player still works or already died of dust and old age.
Tony blinks and frowns. Wow, he thinks, what a couple of sleepless nights can do to the way your brain works.
He shoves the thoughts away, somehow it doesn't feel quite right to wonder about his record player while he's standing on this threshold.
He's not even sure what's keeping him there for so long, actually. Driving here from NCIS Headquarters, it hasn't been his intention to just hang around on the doorstep, watching.
Perhaps he just wasn't expecting this. The intensity of the scene that unfolded in front of him when he pulled the handle. And it is intense, however quiet and still it might be.
The silence isn't much of a surprise, though. Somehow, Tony thinks no one would talk loudly in there. Certainly not Gibbs.
Not Kate, either.
She's sitting in a chair besides the bed, her legs folded underneath her, small feet shoeless. She must have taken off her boots sometime earlier. They are lying on the floor next to her chair, as though she's just kicked them off carelessly.
One leg of her pants has slid upwards, revealing a glimpse of bare skin, but she obviously doesn't care much about that. Or maybe she rather hasn't noticed, because she's fast asleep there in her seat.
She must have been for a while, too, because all of her clothes are in a bit of a disarray, and her dark ponytail is half-undone, strands of hair falling like a fan over her right shoulder and upper arm, which she's using as a pillow. One hand has disappeared somewhere between her cheek and the white covers of the bed, but the other one is resting ever so lightly on Gibbs'. The touch looks so tentative, uncertain almost, as if her fingers had secretly sneaked up to cover his, of their own accord, while she slept.
Unconsciously, Tony bites his lip. That's untypical of him, but then again this image is untypical. It's wrong. Not because of those touching hands. That would, under normal circumstances, just be … well, not very typical. But this is the strangest image, the wrongest.
The frightening pallor of Gibb's face makes it all wrong, and the surreal shade of white of those sheets, the monitors and the beeping, the IV, the tubes and the scary sound of the respirator.
Finally, Tony pushes himself away from the cold frame, letting the door have its way, but just then someone pulls it open from outside anyway. It's Abby, he can tell by the smell of her perfume. Of course he can.
Right now, he doesn't even turn to look at her or to say hello, though.
He walks over to the bed until he's standing next to Kate, then puts a hand on her shoulder. He's careful to touch her gently, but she jerks awake with a start all the same.
Her first, somewhat sleepy and disoriented glance is for Gibbs, then she looks up at Tony.
"Hey", he says with a small smile, and quietly. No one talks loudly in here. And why on earth is that? Tony suddenly wonders. So we won't wake him? Fuck, but that's all we want, for him to wake up.
All at once, he wants to start shouting. He doesn't, naturally. Four sleepless nights, he reminds himself, that's all your brain currently is. And anyway it's Kate he's concentrating on now.
She returned his smile vaguely, then she's been staring at Gibbs for a while, whatever it was that's been going through her head then, but now she's looking at Tony again. And out of the blue, there are tears in her pretty eyes.
He's never seen her like this before, and he can tell she's fighting not to cry with all her considerable strength, but her defences are wearing thin. How could they not, after four days of this?
And really, no one would blame her. Everyone's defences are wearing thin at the moment, like someone's been scrubbing them with sand paper ever since all this worrying began.
Tony's about to say something, something DiNozzo-ish, or at least something along the lines of It's going to be fine, but, from time to time, he knows even he cannot get the words across convincingly when he doesn't believe them a tad bit himself.
So, it's for once not the time to be DiNozzo-ish, and he just moves closer to Kate and bends down to hug her. He's somewhat surprised at the force with which she reciprocates the gesture.
After all, he's tried to hug her before and it usually didn't turn out too well.
Today, however, she wraps her slender arms around his neck really tightly. It is amazing, in a way, because she feels very small in his embrace, as though the tension of the past 96 or so hours has been eating away at her very substance. For that, she has a pretty firm grip on him, and because the days have been eating away at everyone's substance, they eventually end up slipping to the cold, sterile floor, hypocritically blue-mottled linoleum, as if colour was doing any good in here.
Against the skin of his arms, through the smooth fabric of his designer shirt, Tony can feel the soft trembles that quiet sobs are sending through his colleague's body now. Part of him can hardly believe she's really crying, and doing it in front of him out of all people.
Part of him can hardly believe the whole situation is real. They're the two strongest people he knows in the world (and that's got to mean something, because who would call Abby weak? …well, yeah, or even McGee…), and he can't pretend anymore that seeing his boss like this, having to actually really worry about him, and seeing the strain of their job finally break down on tough little Kate, doesn't scare him. It really does.
He blinks again, for a moment the room swims in front of his eyes. Amazing, the times at which your body decides to go really tired. Ducky would probably lecture him on how there was nothing amazing about feeling you could fall asleep on the spot when you haven't had a moment's rest in days, but he most likely would also agree that right now the timing would truly be pretty bad.
Their surroundings slip out of reality for a brief second or two, and Tony thinks that, maybe, it's all just some bad dream and that's why he can hardly believe all of it.
The tiredness passes as unsuspectedly as it came, everything snaps back into place, and there's still the IV he's been staring at all this time, and the linoleum floor and Kate sobbing in his arms.
Tony just sits there and holds her, for such a long while that his legs start to go numb. He doesn't say anything, nothing to soothe her, certainly nothing to cheer her up. He's not very good at that, and anyway Kate is no one to find consolation in the senseless babble people usually are served in situations like this. Too realistic, too experienced, too professional.
Truth be told, he finds her professionalism sexy as hell (most of the time, at least…sometimes it can be unnerving as well), but right now that is the thing farthest from his mind, and he'd only wish her to be a little less desperate.
He's got no idea how long they've been huddling there, the beeps of the ECG dripping down around them like raindrops, then Abby finally comes in.
She walks over to them, softly chewing her dark-violet bottom lip. She looks perfectly out of place in this bright, quiet room, with her clothes and her piercings and tattoos, like this was some weird movie.
Her lab's bright and full of machines too, of course, but it's hardly the same without the music and her impish cheerfulness. Tony's grateful she's there, anyway.
They exchange a glance, her eyes telling Tony that she'll take care of Kate for a while now. She puts her hands, blood-red fingernails and all her Goth-jewellery, on her friend's shoulders and gently, but decidedly drags her to her feet. Then she slips an arm round Kate's waist and starts to guide her out of the room.
While she does, her glittering eyes (why are they always glittering? maybe it's just the black eye shadow and kohl) wander to Gibbs' face and she looks as though she's about to say something.
But then she just makes a few flying gestures and smiles a blackberry-coloured smile.
I'll be back to talk to you later.
Tony can't read the movements, though, it even takes him a few moments to realize it was the sign language they sometimes use between the two of them.
It's stupid to communicate through gestures with someone who can't presently see you, isn't it?
But Tony says nothing of the sort, just watches the girls leave. He doesn't think it is stupid.
McGee is at the door right now, holding it open for his two colleagues all gentleman-like. Then he comes in, and he and Tony find themselves places to sit, Tony in the chair Kate's been occupying before, and McGee in another one by the wall.
They're silent for a while, then Tony starts to relate the progress of their investigation to his boss, McGee confirming and complementing the report.
This may well be the first time that Tony's not interrupting the other agent or teasing him every two minutes, and consequently McGee doesn't end up all flustered and lost for words after two minutes. They actually sound like a team right now.
Tony wonders what Gibbs would say to that.
TBC
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