AN: All Medical and psychological ideas/theories presented are not professional

"Jethro, I know you're angry about this but starving yourself and using this poor girl's stomach as a pillow every night is not helping you at all!"

"I hurt her, Duck," His voice sounded his age for the first time. "I'm supposed to be protecting her and I almost ripped her arm off."

"How were you supposed to know that she had an old breakage on her right shoulder that would literally crumple her shoulder to bits if fallen on? You did the right thing. You stopped the bleeding; there was nothing more you could do."

My eyes were too heavy to open but my ears were in perfect order. Using my other senses I concluded that I was in a hospital, naked underneath one of those eyesore paper dresses, lying down on a rigid bed with a needle or two in both arms. I still had the wig on (it was itchy) and someone was holding my hand.

"She's in witness protection and in a hospital!"

"Because she ran away, Jethro! You had good cause from hunting her down."

"She looked like Abby when she was lying there. First Abby then Kelly. And she was screaming for me not to touch her."

"She was reliving her childhood memories, traumatic things that she shoved into her subconscious. The pain brought them back to the surface; it was like time travel in her mind. Based on what you told me, she may have been five to ten when the abuse occurred. A child in an adult body with a man on top of her, Jethro the poor thing thought she was in for another beating of such."

I felt someone squish my hand and a soft pair of footsteps sounded near Ducky.

"Excuse me but visiting hours are over." A nurse's crisp voice chirped like a bluejay.

"Yes, yes, of course. Well I'd better get going. And Jethro, do eat your dinner; it's your favorite Chinese restaurant's chow mien with chopsticks."

"Ok, Dad." Gibbs let out a soft chuckle. The nurse left, not bothering to ask him to leave so I guessed he must have been a regular.

Come to think of it, I was hungry and if Gibbs wasn't going to eat those noodles, well no sense in wasting them.

Time to get up then.

I opened my eyes slowly and the first thing I saw was Gibbs/Snape. Yes I'm calling him Snape now though in reality he's more like a Dustfinger from Inkheart but Snape is just more fun and insulting to say. Anyways, I'm calling him Snape now because he had gotten skinnier and paler from the last time I had seen him. I'm happy to report that his nose was normal, if not a bit pink. I'm sensing a possible cold.

"Hi." He nodded and pulled his hand away from mine. It embarrassed me that I wanted him to grasp it again.

"How long was I out?"

"A few days." He was studying my facial expression.

Suddenly I remembered my grandfather's threat about two lawyers at his director's office and gasped. If he found out that I was injured he would be more than angry. Turning my attention back to Gibbs, I pretended my gasp had to do with my hair and asked him if he would mind taking off my wig for me seeing as my arms are filled with needles and all.

He remained mute as he got out of his chair and slipped one of his hands underneath the wig. It felt strangely nice considering the cold, no doubt bleached bed was freezing my skin off. There was a small rustle and all of my hair came loose. Without asking, he began to run his fingers through it to get all the tangles out. I closed my eyes.

"Thanks." I rasped out after he was done.

He nodded again (I wonder if he had temporarily lost his voice after seeing me awake) and sat back down in silence. I hesitated.

"Listen, I'm sorry about this whole thinking-you-were-going-to-rape-me thing I mean yes you do have those fundamental properties of a rapist like the walk and having no friends and staying home in your dark basement…"

His eyes narrowed.

"So I'm hoping that we can forget about all of those until the day we both get to the pearly gates of heaven or rather when I get there seeing as you clearly won't –" I paused, hoping to get him to talk.

Gibbs swatted the side of my arm lightly and I barked out a laugh. I felt weird not hating him anymore but he had saved my shoulder (haha made you think I was going to say life!) and judging from the conversation I had eavesdropped on, he was feeling guilty about landing me in the first place.

"Well?" He still hadn't answered my question.

"If I say yes, will you go to sleep?"

"No."

He shook his head and gave me a look.

"Well, I'll give you a maybe."

Gibbs remained somewhat stone – like. "Yes I'll forget it. Now go to sleep."

Just to see his reaction I replied, "What are you, my dad?"

He gave me that same odd look that he did back in the mall parking lot. "For now, yes, your name is Kelly Gibbs and you were in a motorcycle accident."

I tilted my head in thought and then covered up my wince of pain with a cough. "I've seen that name once somewhere…isn't you boat named Kelly?"

Once again, Gibbs nodded with the same weird look. I couldn't place the emotion.

There was a long pause of silence before I plucked up the courage to ask for some food. As predicted, he handed me the Chinese takeout the older man had brought him and then realizing I was completely immobile, started to feed me like a baby. My pride and self confidence were being hammered down like a nine inch nail into his stupid boat.

While I was chewing a particularly stubborn piece of chicken, Gibbs looked down into the container and was idly searching for the next piece to give me. "So, are you going to tell me about this abuse you've had?"

Crap. Not now.

I swallowed. "There's nothing much to say. Was abused. Grew up. Moved on."

"And you never bothered to tell anyone did you?" He was trying to make eye contact. I stared at my right hand.

"When it first happened I didn't even know what it was. I mean, I knew I didn't umm," I bite my lower lip to stop it from trembling too much. "I didn't like it. And as the years went on…there was beatings and things but they were only occasional, never too close together." I chewed on the next piece of food longer, expecting more questions. But Gibbs didn't press, just fed me. I murmured a soft thank you and reluctantly closed my eyes, drifting into sleep. I thought I felt some brief wetness on my cheek but I couldn't be sure.

AN – I am really sorry about you having to wait so long for this chapter but school was really busy and I have some camps coming up so I wanted to get a chapter out before then. Once again so sorry :(

Oh and the brief wetness is a possible kiss on the cheek….for some reason I didn't want to say kiss.

Feel free to review and yell at me about my updates…I feel so guilty.