Title: Mourner's Prayer
Genre: Tragedy/Angst
Pairing: Tony/Kate
Rating: K – T?
Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS or its characters. And the poem/prayer was written by David Kaufman
Summary: For everything there is a season/ a time to be born and a time to die…
AN: This is post Twilight but the story follows my plot. Let's pretend that Tony and Kate met a long time ago…
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For everything there is a season,
There are seasons for weddings. Every one loves summer, especially August or June. No one likes to get married in the cold and snow. But of course, we were married on December 31st. It was a perfect day too. It was just lightly snowing when we came out of the church. It may have been cold and she was shivering but she was gorgeous nonetheless.
A time to be born and a time to die,
Annabella was born about two years later. She's so beautiful like her mother. But she has my green eyes. That was the happiest day of our lives. And then there was the worst, when her dad passed. They were so close. She was inconsolable for a long time.
A time to laugh and a time to weep,
Then there was the time when Bella took her first steps. And when she first giggled. Her laugh makes me laugh. It made her mad when Bella would laugh at inappropriate times. Like at the memorial service for Special Agent Balboa, who was killed during a drug bust. But she couldn't stay mad for long, Bella was just too cute.
A time to criticize and a time to praise,
Everyday, I did something that pissed her off. And she never kept it to herself. She'd tell it as it was. But she still came home with me every night after we picked up Bella from daycare. And when Bella showed her what she drew that day, she always said "Ooh and Ah" at it and put it on the fridge, next to all of the other ones.
A time to strive for perfection and a time to enjoy imperfection,
She always wanted to be the best. She would try to one up me every time and there were times she did. I'm not gonna lie: she could kick my ass. But then there's the times when we were at home and she'd be just as juvenile as me. She'd be washing the dishes and I'd pick up the spray hose and squirt her. She'd start laughing and squealing. She'd take it from me and completely soak me. I'd chase her around the house until we woke Bella up.
A time to be content and a time to be ambitious,
You know, every woman has that time of the month when she's moody and…hormonal. She, Bella and I would sit on the couch and watch the classic movie marathons on TCM. She'd always have a cup of green tea and honey. But she'd always get mad when Bella and I started quoting the lines along with the movie. Bella was, and still is, a daddy's girl. She takes after me. We love movies. And when Bella started school, she was always the one who helped her. Never me. Although Bella was a daddy's girl, she knew who to turn to for help. And of course, she always got A's.
A time to rebel and a time to obey,
There were times when she'd get so involved in a case, she'd take over for Gibbs and she wouldn't care if he yelled at her for it. She was willing to solve the case by her self, even if it meant losing her job. She never did. Gibbs was too stubborn to let an agent like her go, even if Director Morrow wanted her fired. But there were times when she'd follow her orders. She'd get the job done and more. She could tell what Gibbs wanted next and it would be the evidence she found that could solve the case.
A time to seek peace and a time to fight,
All married couples had their fair share of problems. And we were no exception. There was a week a couple of my frat brothers were in town. She didn't want me to go out. She wanted me to stay home with her and Bella. But we could always come to a compromise: I could go out if I did laundry and dishes for a week. We had a case. A Navy officer's daughter was raped in front of her family and then kidnapped. She didn't sleep for three days until we found the girl. And when the guy was about to get off on a technicality, she tried to prevent it, working the case for days on end to keep the guy in jail. And when nothing worked, she didn't give up. She tried to get the judge to keep him in jail on a non-existent charge so he wouldn't flee the country. And when he got away, she took a week off and stayed home with Bella, just so she wouldn't forget just how important family is.
A time to push away and a time to draw near,
Not long after that case, she found out she was pregnant again. And things were great. Until she miscarried. She wouldn't talk to me. She had a hard time paying attention to Bella. She couldn't concentrate at work. Gibbs ordered her to see a therapist, but she refused. And then Bella got sick. She developed cancer. She cried for days on end. Bella lost her hair and both she and Bella hated it. No five-year-old should have to go though that. So I shaved my head. Both of my girls needed me. She never left Bella's side and I never left hers.
A time to be a child and a time to grow up,
I don't handle grief and stress well. I act inappropriately when the situation arises. My sense of humor doesn't translate well. And I still get called on it for being immature. I grew up some when Bella was born but even more when we had Luciana. Now, I had three girls to take care of. This baby got us out of the little funk we had been in when we lost the baby. We were never happier.
A time to learn and a time to teach,
She stayed home after that. Gibbs and the director agreed to let her work part time. She'd come in when Bella was at school and when she could actually stand to be away from Lucie for so long. She worked a couple of cases after Lucie's first birthday. But working and taking care of the girls was too hard. She eventually just stayed home to take care of them. She started teaching Lucie how to talk and to walk and play.
A time to be silent and a time to speak out,
You'd think that after all that we had been through, it would change a person. Not her. She was still the fierce, hard-headed gorgeous woman I married all those years ago. And she knew that when Lucie went into kindergarten that she wanted to come back to work. And come back to work, she did. No matter what anyone said. She'd bite their head off if anyone said anything about all the time she took off or even her age.
A time to dance and a time to grieve,
Abby loves surprises. And she loves surprising other people. So for our tenth anniversary, she threw us a big party at the ballroom down the road from the Navy Yard entrance. She even got Gibbs to help decorate. We had a great time. And an even better time when Abby told us that she would take care of the girls that night. Bella and Lucie love their Aunt Abby. And we love their Aunt Abby when she offers to take care of them. We went to work the next day. We had a new case: two sailors were found in their car. We got to the scene and found that the sailors were wearing civvies and a bomb wired to explode. When Gibbs was out for coffee, we found out that Ari was back. Looking for his terrorist cell, we traced it to a warehouse. Eventually making it up to the roof, we got all of the men in the cell except Ari. She had taken a bullet for Gibbs. I thought I had lost her. I thought she was gone. A wave of relief went through my body as we found that the bullet went into her vest. And as soon as she stood up, she was back down again. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth and I knew she wasn't down to cover. She was gone. I didn't speak for hours. I was void of any emotions. When Tim finally asked me if I was okay, I cried. And he has never said a thing about it.
A time to forget and a time to remember.
Bella is twelve now and Lucie is six. They are both perfect replicas of their mother. Lucie asked me the other day why her mommy wasn't around. I told her I'd tell her later and she dropped the subject. Bella remembers her mom but never says anything to me. She knows how hard I took it. Their mother is still a hard topic for me and my friends. So, right now, I'm lying on my bed looking at pictures from the past fifteen years. Pictures that I took of her at crime scenes, wedding pictures, baby pictures of Bella and Lucie and anniversary pictures.
"Dad?" Bella is standing in the doorway.
"Hey. Where have you been?" I ask.
"Dad." She says as if it was obvious. I look at her again and notice her cheerleading uniform.
"Sorry."
"Whatcha lookin' at?" she says as she sits next to me, flipping her long brown hair over her shoulder.
"Pictures." She leans against me and flips the pages. Every once in a while, she gets a smile on her face as she remembers. Bella is flipping through pictures of her and Lucie's birthday parties. When she gets to the page of Lucie's third birthday, the first one without her, she stops. She looks at a picture of me, Lucie and her, her mother no where in sight.
"Daddy, I miss her," Bella says as she begins to cry.
I feel the tears in my eyes as I hold my oldest daughter in my arms as she cries.
"I miss her, too." Bella's tears begin to subside and we go back to looking at pictures with her in them.
"Dad, can we go visit her?" she asks. The last time we went to her grave was on Bella's last birthday. She wanted to visit her. We didn't say anything about it. "I want to tell Lucie about her."
I give it some thought. It was time I told my youngest about her mother.
"Sure. Let's wait for Lucie to get off the bus and we'll go."
Bella smiles at me and goes to look for her sister outside. Minutes later, my two girls and I pile into my SUV and leave. Bella asks me if we can stop for some flowers. Without saying a word, I pull into her favorite flower shop. We get her favorite flower and head to the cemetery.
"Daddy," Lucie asks me, "where are we goin'?"
"To see mom," Bella says for me.
Lucie becomes confused, but says nothing.
We pull into the cemetery and drive to the back of the field. I get out first and help Lucie out. Bella leads the way through the maze of headstones. Some have visited recently; fresh flowers while some are empty. We reach her resting spot and Bella takes the dying flowers out of the brass cup from my daughter's birthday a month ago and replace them with the fresh ones. Bella looks at the head stone and says a prayer. She gives me a look that says 'tell Lucie'. I squat down and pull her closer to me.
"Lucie, do you remember the other day when you asked me about your mommy?"
Her eyes widen and she nods
"Well, this is where she is," I tell her.
"Daddy, there's no one else here," Lucie says matter-of-factly.
I put my head in my hands and smile, knowing all to well that she wasn't going to understand.
"Okay, a long time ago, when you were a baby, mommy got hurt. Really badly. So now…mommy's in heaven, you know, where the angels are," I say.
Lucie looks up and stares at the sky.
"Mommy's one of them!" she shouts. Bella and I grin as Lucie looks back up to the sky.
Bella follows suit and before long, the three of us are laying on the ground, Bella and I sharing stories about my Katie.