Chapter Ten: Named
Thanks to my beta, Otrame, for all her work with this piece
Updates will now be bi-weekly: Sunday and Wednesday.
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If Tony is the master if avoidance, Kate is the mistress of 'not letting Tony avoid things'. It's impressive, if a little grating.
"Colour of the nursery?" she asks one day, and he changes the subject to the weather. She glares.
"What do you think of this day-care?" she asks another time, and he wonders when his life had suddenly become all about their soon to be oncoming spawn. Surely he has other stuff going on?
By the time he snaps out of his musing, she's made a noise of disgust and walked away.
She's not even subtle about the last thing.
He walks in to find her and Abby holding a book of baby names, and he starts wishing it's seven months ago and this is some kind of never-ending nightmare.
To escape, he bolts to Gibbs' and doesn't tell him why he's there.
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He spends hours on it, and when he isn't down there he throws a thick tarp over the framework to keep it away from prying eyes. Two sets of prying eyes in particular.
His boat stands forgotten for the time being, but there's something slightly more appealing about this work anyway. He'd thought about naming the boat Kelly when she's finished. Toyed with the idea.
Remembering a child long gone.
It's weirdly cathartic to instead think of the one with life still to live.
He smooths the sandpaper over the lines of his gift to them, and considers how fleeting their use of it will be. Almost smiles with the memory. It's alright. There'll be more time, more gifts. Hell, all he has is time. His house is empty.
He uses a pencil to lightly sketch a bird hovering on the side. Below it, a dog will bound. He's no artist, but he can do shapes. They'll be clear enough. Crude, but workable.
At least it's more useful than the boat he'll never sail, anyway. He can add it to the list of his regrets, if there's room.
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"What was your mom's name?" Kate follows Tony doggedly around the room as he tries to ignore her questions. There's paint on his shirt and his hands, and the shirt probably cost more than everything in their half-built nursery, but he doesn't seem to care.
"We're not naming her after someone," Tony replies, his mouth twisting. "Not her first name anyway. Let her be herself." It's not a helpful answer but it's an answer of some kind, and that's more than what she's gotten from him before now.
She's going to get him involved in this even if she has to drag him kicking and screaming.
"Fine. Okay. Catherine?"
He shudders. "You haven't seen Basic Instinct, have you? You know, 1992 erotic thriller. Features Sharon Stone as Catherine Tramell. We had it on VCR, broke the damn tape trying to pause it on the exact moment she spreads-"
Kate cuts him off. "Fine! Not Catherine. Susanna?"
"Girl, Interrupted. 1999, set in a mental institution…"
"Do you ever read books?" Kate lifts a hand to push hair out of her face, only pausing when she notes the yellow paint on her fingers. She wipes them on Fitz as the daemon strolls past, ignoring her whine of protest. "Seriously, Tony, are you going to nix everything I say because of movies?"
"No," he lies, leaning against the wall. She flinches and decides against reminding him that the paint is still wet. Rest in peace, expensive shirt, she thinks glumly.
"Amelia?" she tries, cautious.
"Coughserialkiller," he mutters. Then he sees her face and grins nervously. "Real life one, not a movie. That er… doesn't help does it? She killed babies, Kate, babies. We can't name our daughter after a baby-killer!"
"You could try suggesting something!" she says, throwing her arms in the air in frustration. "For fucks sake, Tony, you wanna try being a little less of a dead weight on this pregnancy?"
Fitz whines again and that's the only warning she gets that his temper has flared. "I don't care!" he yells back, peeling himself off of the wall with a rough unsticking noise. "I don't fucking care what you call her okay? I don't live here, I won't be here, how fucking involved am I anyway? You're keeping me at arm's length when it suits you, and then you decide you want me involved? Okay fine, I'm involved. I want a fucking nursery in my apartment. I want some sign that I have a kid, some sign that I'm not just the dick that knocked you up. I want to be a dad! But I don't give a flying fuck about the name because on the list of things I want to be involved in, it's ranked really goddamn low compared to things I actually want a part of like 'nappy changes' and 'being there when she walks'. Name her after the fucking queen for all I care!"
He's breathing heavily and his nostrils are flaring, and she couldn't be happier.
For once, she doesn't respond to his irritation with her own, building a disagreement into an argument that leaves them both furious and raw. "Okay," she says instead, settling back on her heels. The daemons watch them, both wary, waiting to see how this night is going to end. "Fine. We'll go with that."
His eyes narrowed. "Which part?" he asks suspiciously.
She just smiles.
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McGee brings books. So does Ducky. Kate will be pleased, their kid is going to be the most well-read toddler in DC. Abby brings clothes that both Kate and her sister make ridiculous noises over, and she also brings the goddamn blob.
"Look, Tony!" she exclaims, and Mort shows the cradled lump of blobbiness that is apparently the child Tony's created. He looks because he doesn't really have a choice, but he's not happy about it. "Hair! And eyebrows! I made them both nice because you know… it's you. I figured you wouldn't like a baby with bad hair."
"No baby of mine would ever have bad hair," Tony says gingerly, but he's also pretty sure that no baby of his would ever have bright blue hair or a Mohawk either. He wonders if Abby will let him burn the Tatelet when the real thing is born.
And oh god, he almost referred to his child as the Tatelet. Abby is in his fucking head.
Anything he's going to say is cut off by Gibbs sidling into the apartment with a bag of steaks in one hand, a six pack in the other, and a strangely intense expression. "Boss!" Tony cries thankfully, bolting from Abby right as Kate's mom spots the Tatelet and wanders over, looking curious and frightened, both emotions that Tony deeply sympathizes with.
"Come," Gibbs grunts, jerking his head towards the door. Tony takes the steak and the beer, leaving them in a drippy pile by the shoe rack which Kate is no doubt going to kill him for after, and pads obediently after him into the hallway. Fitz follows, a bright blue bow stuck firmly to her flank and ribbons wrapped around her neck. He'd left her to the mercies of the women, figuring Ducky would keep them from being too terrible. By the looks of it, he'd joined in. That bowtie could only have come from one person.
"Mort made me pretty," she says cheerily to Kali as they clomp down the stairs, and Kali just rolls her eyes. "I think the blue really sets off my eyes."
They walk out of the apartment building and there's Gibbs' car complete with trailer and on it… "Wow," Tony says, walking slowly over to it. "You've moved on from boats."
Gibbs shrugs. "Knew Kate already bought one," he says quietly. "Figured you'd want one for your place. Can drop it off for you after if you want."
Tony runs a hand over the silky smooth finish of the wooden crib. "This isn't lead based paint, is it?" he jokes weakly, because there's the suggestion of a kestrel gliding in the air and a dog made of rough dashes of tan and black paint under that, and he's getting stupidly fucking emotional over the both of them. "If she's anything like me, she'll put anything in her mouth. Oral fixations are in the DiNozzo genes."
Gibbs doesn't grace that with an answer because of course he's thought of that, he thinks of everything. "Didn't know her name," he says, tapping his finger on a bare nameplate near the kestrel's wingtip. "I can add it when it's decided. Or Kate can; she's better with a brush than I am."
Tony stares at the crib and then he stares at his boss, and the only thing he can do that's appropriate is clap him on the shoulder with a forced heartiness that doesn't say anywhere near enough. He wants to hug him, wants to drag the gruff man close and somehow express how fucking much this means to him, but he can't.
A low sigh from behind them, and they both turn to find Fitz wrapping herself around Kali with an almost painful amount of affection, their muzzles pressed together. Fitz' tail waves madly, Kali's twines around both their feet.
"Elizabeth," Tony says finally, when the emotion recedes enough to let him speak. "We're calling her Elizabeth."
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She's glaring at the back of Gibbs' head when the car bomb goes off.
Later she'd have no memory of what they'd been arguing about, but she could hazard a guess by the grouchy set of his shoulders that it was probably her going on maternity leave.
As she's thrown forward face first into the dirt, she thinks that it always sucks when he's right.
He's on the ground too and her ears are ringing, Baoth is shaking dirt from his feathers where he'd hit the ground, and she's not sure if the painful lurch of her gut is from the sudden, all-consuming fear of just landing on her fucking stomach, or if it's something worse.
Gibbs sits up, and he looks at her. Then he looks at her stomach, and his face tightens into an expression she can't even begin to unravel. "Protection detail's over, Kate," he says, and his voice is hollow through the echoes of the bomb going off. "Get in the car. Now."
"Are you okay?" Baoth says, gasping, his small frame shuddering as he tries to regain his wind. She picks him up as she carefully eases herself off the ground, one hand on the round shape of her belly and focusing intently on the baby. She moves. She's moving. She's fine. It's fine. Thank fuck.
"Yes," she says dusting herself off and leaving Gibbs to shout at someone on the phone about you said it was clear!
She's sitting in the passenger seat and dreading the visit to the ER Gibbs is no doubt going to insist on when the bomb techs get here, when she feels a wet rush of blood between her thighs.
"Oh shit," she says, laying a hand across her lap. For a single, haunting moment, she can't think. Luckily, he's always been faster on the uptake than she has.
"Gibbs!" shrieks Baoth, launching out the window as though fired from a rocket.
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Tony doesn't answer. He's probably in interrogation, with a suspect, he could be fucking anywhere, and he's not answering.
The names of those he's failed dance in his head. Shannon, Kelly, Shannon, Kelly, Elizabeth. Kelly, Elizabeth, and she wasn't even born yet, why weren't you behind her, why didn't you catch her, why was she even fucking there?
Gibbs paces the hallway outside where Kate's being seen and Kali watches him from her station next to the door. She's sitting motionless, white paws tucked in neatly, and tail curled around them. She could be a statue, except her eyes are moving.
"Calm down," she says as he paces past.
"I am calm," he snaps. "She shouldn't have been there. Should have benched her weeks ago. Should have benched her at the beginning!"
"She wouldn't have thanked you."
"Yeah, well neither will Tony for this," Gibbs says, and lets the sentence trail off into silence. He doesn't want to think about that phone-call. He gives up and calls Ducky. There's no point calling Abby unless they want her here breaking down, and he needs someone with some damn sense right now.
"Duck? Where's Tony."
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Gibbs sidles in and he looks sick. Guilty. It's a surprisingly DiNozzo-ish expression.
"They're tracking Tony down," is all he says, and then he sits next to her while she stares blankly at the muted display of the fetal monitor.
"They think it's probably okay," she says once, trying for cheerful and just sounding strained. "They said there was a tear at the edge of the placenta, but only small and the bleeding had stopped by the time they did the ultrasound. They said she looked fine." He grunts in reply, but takes her hand. Squeezes it. Her eyes water and she blames the tension of waiting in this white-walled room with no clocks. What feels like an age passes, and she can't think around the growing weight in her throat. "What if they are wrong?. What if she's hurt in there? What if I lose her?"
He jerks, his hand gripping almost painfully for a moment. One of their hands is sweaty. She thinks it might be hers, but he still doesn't let go. "You won't."
"Might," she chokes out, and she's fucking crying, sobbing, and the heart rate monitor they're making her wear is going mental. Baoth makes a noise, a cry, and she's clinging to Gibbs like he's not her boss, not here because she fucked up. Because she couldn't walk away from the job when it would have been sensible.
A sudden weight on her legs and she and Gibbs both hiss with surprise as she's suddenly faced with dark, gentle eyes over a narrow muzzle. Silver paws dent the blankets as she settles, leaning that careful snout up to lean on the swell of her belly. "Elizabeth's okay," Kali says quietly, and Kate's never heard her voice before, but it's beautiful. "I can hear her heartbeat. I can feel her. You think someone with your brains and Tony's stubbornness is going to let a little fall stop her?"
Christ, it's almost more than she's ever heard Gibbs say.
"I just realized how terrifying this is," Kate says, and she's not sure if she's talking to Gibbs or his daemon. Kali is a warm, reassuring weight, and the desire to touch her is perverse and tantalizing. She doesn't though, because that's not what's being offered here. "This child, this tiny little person, she's relying on me to keep her safe. What if I mess up? I'd lose her and I don't know her yet, but I don't know if I could survive that."
Kali looks at Gibbs and he makes a low noise like he's about to say something, but doesn't. Kali does, and now Kate is sure that it's Gibbs sweating because he's trembling, just a little, and it's terrifying. "You can," the fox says, and lays her ears flat with remembered pain. "You do survive and you do move on, but it never stops hurting. So you have to do everything you can to keep them safe, because it's unbearable to fail. Unbearable."
The moment hangs between them, a crossroads. Kate could step aside from her training in interrogation and in profiling, and she could ignore the history Kali has just bared to her. They could move on like nothing has happened.
Or she could acknowledge it like the gift it is. A quiet you will not be alone if this goes wrong. She has the sick feeling that even DiNozzo doesn't know this.
She makes her choice. "What was…?" She hesitates. Girl or boy? She remembers the pain that showed for a heartbeat when DiNozzo had announced their child's sex. "What was her name?" She could still be wrong. She fucking hopes she's wrong, because Christ it hurts to think about.
His voice is husky, and he draws his hand away like he's protecting himself. Maybe he is. "Kelly."
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Her brother rocks up three days before it happens, which is distressing because she's never seen two men instantly take against each other as quickly as James and Tony do. Every time the two of them are in the apartment at the same time, there's an undercurrent of low growls interspersed with her brother's large gyrfalcon's hisses. Baoth keeps well out of it, and suggests she does as well.
They're well into a blistering disagreement about the best Bond movie when she realizes that the discomforting sensations from her abdomen that she's been ignoring probably shouldn't be ignored anymore. "Hmm," she says, tugging her shirt up and narrowing her eyes at her grossly round stomach. Tony reassures her that it's fine, it's all fine, but for someone as fastidious with her physique as Kate, it's a painful reminder of what's changing.
She's gotten used to the sensations of the muscles moving without her telling them to over the past few weeks, tightening and relaxing around the big bubble of water and baby she's carrying, but this is different. There's a new, hard tension to her stomach, a different type of movement. Not terribly painful, but not the same as those other contractions, the ones that Abby excitedly referred to as Braxton-Hicks.
"Bit early isn't she?" Baoth asks, shuffling across her shoulder and peering down. "That feels strange. I can feel it, you know."
She should be both excited and terrified, and she is, but it's a strangely calm excitement and a bizarrely calm terror. She waits a while, like they suggested, and the next contraction is just over five minutes later and noticeably stronger. There's a sprained-muscle-feeling pain that has settled just behind her pubic bone and is sore enough to make her grimace. The back pain that's been her constant companion all day is even worse.
Time to go, if the kid gives her a damn chance. When the next one comes, she waits for it to end, because walking while her uterus is trying to both climb up out of her pelvis and fall out through the bottom of it at the same time is not something she's keen on trying.
She walks out into the living room and bang on time because James is standing and Tony is growling and the two of them need to grow the fuck up, honestly. "Hate to break up this lovely chat," she cuts in, reaching for her keys and lobbing them in the general direction of one of them. She doesn't really care who. "But we may possibly have a child on her way. Who's driving?"
Tony turns grey. She actually watches the blood drain from his face. It's almost disappointing that she doesn't have a camera.
James picks up the keys.
"Good lad," she says, following him to the door as Tony dives for her bags. "Come on. I don't think she's keen on waiting."