"How's the pain, kiddo? Like the purple cast by the way. Abby will probably be sad you didn't get a black one." At that Lily laughed, then winced a little.
"Sorry, Lily. I'll try not to make you laugh. Pain is no fun. Don't try to ninja through it, like Ziva does."
"First of all, you aren't trained to, and second, it delays the healing process."
"Thanks, Tony. I'll remember that." Ziva handed her a package. "We got you a little something."
Chapter Thirteen: "A Dose of Reality"
"Wow, you didn't need to do that." She opened the package and found a purple and lavender lightweight fleece throw.
"I know when I need special care or not feeling well, I always feel better when I have my favorite throw with me."
"We call it her 'blankey,' though we usually don't spread that around." Lily worked hard to suppress her laugh.
"Is there anything we can do right now for you?" Ziva asked, stroking her hair. Lily hesitated.
"Can you fix my hair? I wanted to braid it but because of this stupid rib, I can't bring up both of my arms to do it."
Ziva smiled wide. "I would be happy to braid you hair. Where is your comb and something to hold it together?"
Lily told her where to get everything. "Ok, this looks like fun, but I'll pass on the female bonding." Tony said.
"I'll see if I can get Abby to release my daughter and send her and Tim up."
He kissed Lily on the cheek. "You look great. Don't do this again." With that, he left the room.
Ziva chuckled. "He was very worried about you, as we all were."
Ziva got started on Lily's hair. She ended up doing a French braid and held it in place with a purple sparkly stretch band.
When Lily looked in the mirror, her smile was wide. "Ziva, thank you! This looks awesome. I could never learn to French braid my hair."
"It is easy. I will teach you." Ziva answered.
"Hi!" Abby and Tim stood at the door, Abby holding her big bouquet of black roses. "Oh, Abby I love them! Thank you so much. Hi, Tim."
Ziva excused herself so they could visit Lily privately. Abby took Ziva's place on the edge of the bed.
"I was so worried about you. I can't tell you how relieved I am that you are ok."
"I know. And thank you for all of your prayers and good thoughts that I know you were sending my way."
"I think the only one who benefitted from my accident was Bailey, who got to spend the night with his girlfriend, didn't you?"
Bailey had remained at her side during the visits, though he greeted everyone.
"Can you guys do me a favor? I think I am feeling good enough to go downstairs."
"Can you send my Mom and Dad up so I can talk them into it?"
Tim and Abby grinned at Lily referring to Gibbs as "Dad."
"Sure thing, Lily. We'll send them right up." Abby gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.
They headed downstairs. They found Gibbs and Mimi with Karina on the swing set. "When did he build that?" McGee asked.
"I guess between now and the 4th of July." Abby answered, stating the obvious. They walked through the yard and up to the couple.
"Lily would like to talk to you. She says she feels well enough to come downstairs now." Gibbs and Mimi looked at each other.
"I think she has been in isolation long enough. We'll keep an eye on her. If she over does it, back to bed." Mimi nodded.
Tim and Abby stayed with Mimi at the play set. "This is so awesome!" Abby said. Tim looked it over.
"Look here; he can add things to it as the kids get older, and it looks like he can also make the baby swings into big kid swings, when the time comes."
"You are very observant, Tim. That's exactly his plan, plus adding monkey bars and a fort." She looked at him. "Would you like to push Karina for a while?"
He looked surprised, and then smiled. He came around and started pushing his niece. Her delighted laughs brought a huge smile to his face.
Abby watched him, seeing the joy on his face as he was pushing Karina. By this time, Tony and Ziva had joined them.
"I think we're going to have to get one of these for our backyard. Maybe I can get Gibbs to build one for us." Tony said.
Upstairs, Gibbs waited until Lily got out of bed. Fortunately, she was already dressed; she just had on jogging shorts and a pullover.
He tried to not help her unless she asked for it, knowing that pulling the wrong way would hurt far worse than her doing it herself.
He helped her to put on her shoes, then handed her the crutches. "I'm going to let you do the work, but you let me know if you get tired, or have pain and can't make it down on your own, Ok?' He rubbed her back.
"Ok, Daddy. I think I will be ok, though." She stepped into the hallway and headed for the stairs.
Slowly, one step at a time, she made her way down the stairs. When she reached the floor, Gibbs let out his breath. He had visions of her tumbling down the stairs.
"Ok, what's your pleasure: inside or outside?" Lily looked around. "It looks like everyone is outside, so that's where I want to be."
Gibbs smiled. "Ok, outside it is." He followed her as she maneuvered to the French doors and stepped out onto the deck.
Once she showed up, everyone cheered and clapped, startling her for a second, then she blushed.
"Lily, which chair do you think would be best for you?" Gibbs asked.
She looked at her options. "The chaise I think, with a pillow under my ankle. Sorry Jimmy."
Jimmy popped up. "Hey, no problem. I can sit on the floor for all I care. Can I help?"
Lily shook her head. "No, thanks, I got it." Lily hobbled to the chaise, turned and sat down. By this time, Gibbs had arrived with the pillows.
Lily turned and lowered herself onto the chaise, while Gibbs lifted both of her legs, then gently placed her casted ankle on the pillows.
"Lily, I don't think you have met our son: James Edward Donald Palmer."
Breena sat in a chair beside Lily so she could see the baby and let him grab her finger.
"Oh, he is just precious! And you call him Jamie. That is so cute!"
"And he has a Grandfather who is already trying to spoil him rotten." Jimmy looked fondly at Ducky, who was sitting on the slider with Mimi.
"That is what Grandparents do, Jimmy. It is out of my hands and beyond my control." Ducky winked at Lily.
Tony showed everyone the video he took at Ducky's showing Karina "walking" down his coffee table. He also showed some other video's he had taken of her "dancing."
Everyone lost it; her dancing was so cute and funny. "I guess she'll be taking ballet lessons as soon as she is old enough to be enrolled." Gibbs grinned.
The rest of the afternoon was spent eating delicious food, and catching up with Lily, since most of them hadn't seen her at all most of the summer.
"Will this affect you fall classes?" Abby asked.
Lily frowned. "I think I'm probably going to have to drop a class."
"Or two." Mimi cut in.
Lily sighed but didn't respond. "Daddy, I think I am getting tired. Can you help me back upstairs?"
Gibbs looked concerned and looked at Mimi, who was frowning. "Sure Sweetie. Come on, you know the drill."
They reversed how they got her into the chaise and got her standing upright and her crutches adjusted.
"Sorry to be such a party-pooper, but I guess I'm not as ready as I thought."
"Thank you so much for coming today to check on me. It…it really means a lot. I love you guys."
"We love you, too Lily!" Everyone shouted.
"Li-Li!" Karina laughed and clapped. Lily burst into tears. "Ok, enough excitement for one day." Gibbs said.
Gibbs picked her up like a little girl and carried her upstairs to her room, Mimi following closely behind.
Once they got her in bed, Mimi looked at Gibbs. He nodded and kissed Lily's head.
"Take some pain medicine and get some rest. Love you." Gibbs left the room.
Mimi waited until Lily obediently took her pain medicine before she spoke.
Mimi looked at your daughter. "I'm sorry if I upset you that you decided you had to go back to your room."
Lily looked at her Mom. "Oh, Mommy. You didn't upset me as much as I realized that you were right! I may have to drop more than one class and that…"
"I know, honey. But that's how life is sometimes; one step forward, two steps back."
"In your case, it's always been five steps forward, no looking back."
"Welcome to how the rest of us live. It's not pretty, and it's not always happy; but in the end, everything works out the way it is supposed to."
"You'll end up where you want to be, far faster than anyone should have any right to."
"But it just won't be as fast as you want it to be. Be patient, Lily. Good things come to those who wait."
Lily held out her arms, and Mimi held her daughter. "How did I get so lucky to have the best Mom in the world?"
Mimi blinked back the tears. "Ok, I have cried enough today."
Lily looked surprised. "When did you cry before?"
Mimi took a deep breath. "When Tony and Ziva first showed up and I took Karina. She said 'Momo momo momo.' I totally lost it."
Lily took her mom's hand. "Oh, Mommy. I wish I had known her."
"Oh, she was something. She drove us grandkids everywhere, and she put us to work cleaning her house when we spent the night with her."
"Mom would get so mad at us, because we didn't want to clean up at our house, but we did anything Momo asked us to."
"Another thing Momo used to do would be to come to our home after work when we were little and already in bed."
"She worked as a waitress in a restaurant downtown and would bring the homemade goodies."
"She had false teeth. I think everyone had false teeth by their fifties or sixties, things were so different back then." Mimi mused.
"Anyway, she would push her bottom set out so that they were hanging out of her mouth."
"She would then come into our dark room like Frankenstein or something, going "oohh, oooh," and then tickle us silly."
"As soon as she was done, she would make a quick exit. Mom would get so mad at her for waking us up and getting us all hyper and then leaving her to deal with the mess. It was great!"
Mimi laughed. "I remember spending the night one time with her and she and I shared a box of Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies."
Mimi chuckled. "I got so sick; I still can't eat them to this day."
Lily laughed. "I wondered what the story was behind that." She was starting to slur her words.
"Ok, enough talk. Get some healing rest. Your body will wake you up when you are hungry or need something."
"However, we will still be checking up on you frequently." She kissed her daughter. "Sweet dreams and no worries. Love you."
"Love you too, Mommy." Lily said drowsily, as she fell asleep.
She closed Lily's door only slightly and made Bailey come with her. "You have been ignoring your girlfriend all day and she is miffed. Go make it up to her."
Bailey sat looking at her, cocking his head side to side, his ears moving like radars as Mimi was speaking to him.
When she was done, he grinned and ran downstairs. Mimi shook her head.
Bailey reached the deck before Mimi did and immediately went to the unknown entity: Jamie Palmer.
Ziva was holding him at the time, so she wasn't as alarmed as Jimmy and Breena were.
"Do not worry." She tried to reassure them. "He is just introducing himself. He has plenty of other friends to keep him occupied."
Sure enough, Bailey looked at him with interest, sniffed his diaper area, grinned, and then ran out onto the yard, taking super-fast circles around the yard to work off his excess energy that had been dormant all day.
"Wow, he's fast!" Jimmy said. Mimi had joined them by then. "You have no idea. When he gets excited like that in the house, get out of his way."
"How's Lily?" Gibbs looked up from the chair he was sitting in.
Mimi took his hand. "Took her pain medicine without a fight and is sleeping as we speak."
Jimmy stood. "Well, we certainly hate to break up this party as well, but we do have a little one that needs to be back home I think."
"Of'course, Palmer. We're glad you could come." Everyone said their goodbyes; Gibbs and Mimi walked them all to the door. "See you tomorrow, Duck, Palmer. Nice seeing you again, Breena."
They returned to the deck and sat on the slider. Mimi looked out in the yard and saw that Abby and Tim had taken Karina back out to the swing. Gibbs followed her gaze and got a gleam in his eye.
Mimi caught it. "Leroy Jethro Gibbs! You've got that 'I've got a plan' look in your eyes. What are you thinking?"
Gibbs grinned. "Well, like all well executed plans, there must be willing participants." He turned to Tony and Ziva.
"What do you think about taking a weekend trip and letting Tim and Abby take care of Karina, in your home naturally."
Tony and Ziva looked at each other, surprised. "I'm intrigued, Boss. Why would you suggest this…adventure?"
"Well, they are getting married next month. Tim is worried that Abby is in love with the idea of having a baby, but really has no idea what having a baby involves."
"Well, that's clear when she saw all the stuff we brought." Tony laughed.
"You did bring a lot of stuff, Tony. I would be scared if I wasn't already a mother." Mimi scolded him. She turned to Gibbs. "What is the end-game here?"
"Do you want them to realize that they don't want kids after all? Because I know from talking to both of them that they do."
"What? Hell no. I can't wait to see a little Abby or little Tim. But I think they need a dose of reality." He turned to Tony and Ziva.
"You two make it look so easy. It helps that Karina is a very good baby. Maybe it will give them some confidence. At least, that's my hope."
Tony and Ziva again looked at each other. "What do you think? I have no problems leaving our little stinker with the McGeek and Goth Queen. That is as long as she doesn't end up with a tattoo when we get back."
Ziva chuckled. "Abby would not dare, although I would not put it past her to put a temporary tattoo on Karina, just to freak us out."
They all turned to watch Abby push Karina on the swing while Tim was catching her feet, saying "wee!" Karina was laughing hysterically, her eyes mere slits.
"We'll come up with something plausible." Tony decided. "Lily looked pretty good, considering what she had just been through." He changed the subject.
Gibbs sighed, as did Mimi. "It's been a rough week. But I think, especially after today, she's finally realized that she's going to have to slow down a little bit."
"How about the other kids in the car? Are they ok?" Ziva asked, worried.
Mimi answered. "The two boys on the passenger side were injured the worst. Both are still hospitalized."
"Multiple fractures, and internal injuries but they are both expected to recover. They have a long road ahead of them."
She looked at Gibbs and smiled. "What?" they both asked.
"Well, the other boy in the car was Sean. He was seated behind her. So his injuries weren't as bad as the other two."
"Concussion, broken arm. According to Lily, he was supposed to be discharged today."
"So what was the smile about?" Tony asked.
Gibbs squirmed. "Ah, hell. I almost punched his father out in the waiting room."
"What?" Both Tony and Ziva exclaimed.
"Well, we were the first parents there. I went out to see if any of the others had arrived, saw them sitting alone, took a chance and introduced myself. I mentioned Lily was the driver of the car."
Tony was getting excited. He knew the boy's father had to say something really offensive to piss Gibbs off and couldn't wait to find out what it was.
"He immediately accused Lily of driving drunk and almost killing his son."
"This is better than a movie." Tony said with excitement. "What happened next?" Gibbs and Ziva both rolled their eyes.
"Oh, I quietly yanked him into a corner and told him the truth: Lily was the designated driver of three young men who were so drunk they couldn't even get in the car without her help.
"Wow, Boss! What did he do then?"
"Well, I backed off and asked him if he had anything else he wanted to say."
"He did apologize and complained no one had told them anything about their son, Sean."
"So I took care of that, and talked to Dr. Pitt so they could go back and see him."
Mimi chuckled. "Sean's parents later asked permission to see Lily and thanked her for saving his life."
Ziva looked closely at Gibbs and Mimi. "But there is something else, yes?"
Thank you my wonderful readers for your kind review and to my new faves and followers. Momo was my grandmother, we called her that, and every memory Mimi told Lily really happened. And yes, to this day I cannot eat Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies. So what does my husband do when he returned from Lowes? "Look what I got you!" Beaming with pride at how thoughtful he was: a box of Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies. Bleech!