Title: Take Care Of The Minutes

Author: Special Agent Meg

Rating: PG (Contains Child Death)

Classification: Tragedy/Angst

Disclaimers: No, no, no, I don't own them. Marriage isn't ownership, it's a partnership. I'm Gibbs' life-long partner. (Okay, I'm dreaming!) I've also done a version of this with song lyrics, please see: http/ncisspecialops. Kill Ari Part 2, Under Covers, Honor Code

Summary: Gibbs arrives at the hospital to spend the last few hours with his daughter. The title is based on a quotation.

When I dream about that night, it always starts the same way. I'm running. Running down an orange hallway. Running from a car across the pavement of the parking lot and hitting the ground when I misjudge the curb. Running through white walls on white floors into a white elevator. Running from the elevator through more white passages and up to a man in a white coat. White streaked with red. That's where I stop running.

The doctor starts into some muffled set of paragraphs that basically all say the same way in a variety of polite phrasings. They all have to do with time. Being in time. A matter of time. Running out of time.

I want to hold him against the wall and tell him how wrong he is going to be this time.

Instead I see her through the window.

I walk into the room, where she's lying in a small white bed. Her hair is loose on the pillow and all I can think is how mad she's going to be, because she hates sleeping with her hair down.

They've told me there's nothing they can do, nothing I can do that will make a difference here tonight. But they're wrong. There is one thing I can do.

I pull the railing down, and slip onto the bed next to her, with my arm around her shoulders. I know she knows I'm there, because she moves her head to rest against me.

Her eyes flutter open and almost immediately, her hand begin to form a sentence. Fingerspelling. "He had curly blonde hair."

They said that she's said that to everyone every time she regained consciousness. To the police who found her on the bed. To the paramedics in the ambulance. The doctors in the emergency room. And now to me.

I nod and she relaxes against me. Like I'm the one who she was waiting to tell all the way along.

I see the clock showing 7:30 in the evening and all I can do is shake my head.

Last night at 7:30 I was sitting in the sandbox with Kelly. We were reenacting a scene from a book her teacher read them at school. Treasures of the Snow.

She loves the story. Shannon and I bought Kelly a copy so she follow along with the class, and we had to make sure the teacher got it back from her after every session – otherwise she would have kept reading to see what happened. The teacher first read the story to the class a month ago and almost every evening since, she's reenacted one part of the story or another.

The navy, pale blue, and gold wallpaper catches my eye and suddenly I see myself with Kelly on my shoulder as an infant, walking around reading from a Mandie book. Her bedroom was painted in those colors.

One of the guys in my unit mentioned his daughter was reading those books the day after we got the ultrasound confirming Shannon was pregnant with a girl. On my way home that night, I'd stopped to pick up copies of all the books that were out in the series so far. Told the saleswoman they were a gift for my daughter. She asked how hold my daughter was, and kind of laughed when I explained she wasn't due until September.

Shannon laughed too when I brought them home – said according to the reading level it would be ten years before Kelly would be ready to read them. That was okay with me. But I did want the room ready for when she did read them, so Kelly could be excited that she and Mandie had the same color bedrooms. And I kept picking up the new books so that they'd be ready for her too.

It ended up being more like ten days for Kelly to start them. Well, to be precise, for me to start reading them to her. For her first six weeks, we could not get her to sleep at night no matter what we tried. It didn't matter how hard we tried to keep her awake during the day, she'd nod off at some point when our backs were turned and then be fully alert come midnight. And I mean, alert. The only thing that ever seemed to relax her was the sound of my voice.

So I started walking the floors with her every night, with her on my shoulder, and reading to her from one of the Mandie books. We probably got through everyone she had at least five times.

Tonight, I pray desperately that God will give me the opportunity to read them to her again.

Kelly's eyes are open and she's staring at me. I think God has already told her what the answer to my prayer is going to be, because her head nestles closer to my chest and she tries to smile.

She nestled her head into my chest like that the first time I ever held her as a baby. For a moment we're back again in that morning and it's like I'm being offered a choice. Knowing this moment is coming, will I still take the time with her I can have?

Yes. A wholehearted yes.

I'd asked that question of myself five years ago, when Kelly was just over two. Shannon and I had been standing by a crib in the pediatric Intensive Care Unit, watching Kelly silently fight the meningitis infection ravaging her body. The doctors told us it was a fight that she would probably lose. That entire dark night, Shannon and I had just sat together, holding Kelly's hands, and praying.

"God please," I gasped out. "Please let them be wrong again this time."

She is still looking at me and my hand shakes as I sign, "Do you know how much joy you have brought into our lives, Kelly?"

When Kelly did regain consciousness, it was to a world of silence. The meningitis profoundly damaged her hearing. Instead of watching preschool shows with her, we taught her sign language, made little plays with her stuffed animals and the two of us signing for her. A Marine in my command said he couldn't imagine going through a time like that.

I told him that 'a time like that' is a precious gift to be shared with your child.

"I love you so much."

I see her eyes close again and notice how still she is, under the thin white blanket. "You're not supposed to be this still," I whisper against her hair. I keep seeing her running while playing tag, dancing across the lawn, riding a horse with me. All of these things that will never happen again.

No, they will happen again. By this time tomorrow, Kelly will be running and laughing again. She knows it. I know it. And one day, I'll see her running again.

I see Kelly's eyes open again, this time with questions. She wants to know about her mother. I kiss her forehead and sign the words, "She's all right."

Her mother is all right. Just like she will be all right in a few hours according to the doctors. I'm the one who's not going to ever be all right again.

I can see snow falling through the window, a white contrast against the dark sky, and I remember that it's going to be Christmas in just over six weeks.

And that in six weeks, there won't be a little girl running down the hall and jumping onto the bed.

"Daddy?" Kelly's eyes have opened again. "What are you thinking about?"

I'm thinking about just about everything. Somehow, I manage to sign a reply.

"Easter. When you, Mommy and I walk around the block just before midnight." My family is Russian, and the tradition is based on an Orthodox Church tradition from a long time ago. "Last year was the first time you walked the whole way with us, instead of being carried, remember?"

"It's close to midnight now, isn't it?" I check the clock and nod. She smiles. "I'm not supposed to be up this late."

I can't find the strength to sign an answer, so I just kiss her forehead.

"It should be dark then, right?"

I struggle to nod. "Yes, it's dark."

"Not anymore." She signs the words slowly. "I can see light shining."

I draw in a deep breath. "Where?" I ask her.

She nods her head towards a corner of the room. I can't even make out the chair that I know is leaning against the wall. And I know that Kelly doesn't see that chair either, but for a very different reason. I hold her closer. "God, please."

"Daddy…I think I'm supposed…"

"I know." Tears streamed down my cheeks as I slowly formed the hardest sentence I have ever had to sign. "Go towards it."

She looks up at me and I kiss her cheek one more time. "Don't be afraid."

"Daddy…"

"I promise, I will see you there. I love you."

"We gather here today to celebrate the lives of Shannon Elisabeth and Kelly Amanda Gibbs."

Shannon and I had planned a funeral together several years earlier. We both wanted it to be a celebration of life.

At the time, we thought the plan was for me, in case I was killed in combat.

My mother is sitting next to me in the pew and I try as hard as I can to keep our shoulders from touching. All it takes is a comforting touch right now and I break down. I have the rest of my life to cry for Shannon and Kelly. Today, I need to smile as I say goodbye.

Kelly's school teacher comes up to talk about her. She shows the last picture Kelly drew in art, talks about the last thing they worked on together in class, the last game she saw Kelly playing at recess with her friends, the smile and wave as Kelly walked out of the classroom that last night.

I made the visit personally to talk with Kelly's classmates the next day. It was something I knew she'd want me to do, and was harder than anything I ever did as a Marine.

There was so much Kelly had wanted to make sure happened during those last few moments. She wanted to make sure we had the information to catch the person who had done this to her and her mother. She wanted me to know that she wasn't afraid as she saw the light shining through the dark of her hospital room. She wanted me to be all right.

That's why I'm going to make sure that I will be all right, eventually, even though I feel right now like that can never happen.

The organist is playing I Will Meet You In The Morning for the closing hymn. It was one of Shannon's favorite songs as well as Kelly's. I will meet them in the morning, I know that.

There's just a long night ahead of me to get through first.

That night starts at the cemetery. As the other mourners slowly get into their cars and prepare to drive back to the Church hall, I can't make myself walk away from the graveside. It's been ten minutes, and all I can do is crouch there, one hand on each of the caskets. There's a tap on my shoulder.

"Jethro?"

Pastor Andrew. It was him and his wife Kathleen who met me in the hallway outside Kelly's room that night, when I was finally able to bring myself to leave. I pretty much collapsed into their arms, and I'm about to do the same thing now.

"They're not there anymore."

"I know where they are," I gasp out, as Kathleen hugs me tightly. "I'm not having any trouble accepting that part of it. It's just where they're not that I can't accept."

That's when I wake up, on the sofa bed, where I've been sleeping for the last seven months, ever since coming home from the hospital. I wake up and I run to Kelly's room and to Shannon's and my room, hoping and praying I'll see them lying there asleep. And remember, again, that it wasn't just a nightmare

That's when I stop running.