Hiatus - 2
It was after Abby and Jenny had left Gibbs' room together to grab a coffee and for Jenny to run to the car to grab a change of clothes when anyone first thought about Kaye. Abby had been mid-sip when she almost dropped her cup.
"Kaye!"
Jenny's eyebrows shot up. What the hell were they going to do about Kaye? Jenny knew that Gibbs had arranged for Jimmy to call Tobias to come and take over in case of an emergency, as everyone else was either involved in the mission or had other plans for the evening. She quickly dialed Tobias to find out what was going on, and filled him in on Jethro's current status. For once, the man was silent.
He asked if he should keep Kaye home from school, or tell her what was happening, but Jenny made the executive decision that Kaye should be kept in the dark for as long as possible. Tobias was to take Kaye to school in the morning and not say a word about anything. They would have to make a plan for after the school day in the coming hours, but for now, that was the safest place for her.
After hanging up the phone, Jenny turned back to Abby. The young goth was in tears.
"He-he can't die, Director! What's going to happen to Kaye? What will happen to us? I-I can't lose him, Jenny!"
Jenny felt tears well up in her own eyes as she reached over and hugged the woman. In a barely audible whisper she said, "Neither can I."
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Kaye was distracted. It was one of the work on your own stuff days at school, but she hadn't been able to accomplish much of anything. She had woken that morning to Fornell. Apparently Jimmy had been called in really early, so Tobias had come over to wake her and get her ready and to school on time. She had asked him once if he knew how the mission had gone, but he seemed to be avoiding the question and told her to eat her breakfast, instead.
She was in the car when she first felt a twinge. Abby told her once that even though Gibbs wasn't her biological father, Kaye had somehow developed his famous gut. At the time, she thought Abby was a little nuts and it was just all the ice cream she had eaten that day. But when she thought back to that time that Tony had been framed and got put in jail, she realized that she had felt the twinges then, too.
Now it was just after lunch. Her stomach had been in knots all day. She hadn't eaten anything because of it, and it just seemed to be getting worse. She didn't know why, or what was going on, but she had a feeling that something had gone wrong.
When she would think back on it later, she knew there was never a time that she wished she could have been more wrong.
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Abby had fallen fast asleep on Jenny's shoulder. Jenny had only left Gibbs' side long enough to change into her suit and grab coffee and snacks. Abby had barely left at all. She didn't mind the fact that Abby was leaning on her. It was moments like these, more than any other, that Jenny could see how much Gibbs and Abby really meant to each other. Sometime after they had parted, he had accidentally built himself a family, Abby being the one that seemed to hold them all in place.
She nudged the younger woman awake. She had finally formulated a plan to deal with Kaye while the rest of the team dealt with this horror. "Abby, it's already 10am. Why don't you head home and grab a couple hours of sleep? Then you can go and get Kaye from school and drop her off at her after school care and head into the lab. The bulk of the evidence will have arrived by then, and at least we can buy ourselves a few extra hours before we have to talk to Kaye about all of this."
Abby went to fight her, but the Director just rested her hand gently on Abby's shoulder. "I promise you I won't leave. And if there is any change, I will call you immediately."
She watched a small tear escape Abby's eye before the girl nodded and walked over to Gibbs' side. Jenny watched as the tall, intimidating, almost scary-looking goth whispered something in the man's ear before squeezing his hand gently, and placing a kiss on his cheek. She waved back at Jenny as she exited the room.
Jenny looked at Jethro.
You had better wake up, Jethro. You have an entire family of friends counting on you.
She placed her hand over her chest as she pushed down a sob. It wouldn't do to get emotional now.
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Kaye's fears were being confirmed, and she didn't even know what was happening. Abby had picked her up without even a hint of a smile. When Kaye tried to question her on the way home, Abby evaded each one. That car ride was the first time that Abby had ever yelled at Kaye.
"But-Abby, my gut is telling me something's wrong and you're not happy and smiling and you won't talk to me and I'm getting scared! Just tell me what's going on!"
"Kaye!" The goth had shouted. "Just stop! There's a lot going on and I need you to just back off! I'm taking you to daycare and someone will be there after to pick you up but until then, you need to just be quiet and stop asking questions!"
Kaye had gasped loudly and when Abby turned to look at her, she immediately regretted unleashing her fear and anger on the girl. She looked like she had been physically slapped. And GOD, did she look like Kate in that moment, which hurt Abby even more.
Luckily they were on a side street with a lot of empty street parking, so Abby pulled the car over and turned it off. She heard Kaye begin to sniffle and looked over just in time to see her first tear escape her eye. And that was all it took. She unbuckled her own seatbelt and Kaye's, quickly adjusting her seat so that it was all the way back before she pulled the girl into her lap. Kaye was hesitant at first, but Abby had never done anything so mean to her before, so she decided to trust her. Within seconds, both of them were clinging to each other, crying.
Kaye knew that something was seriously wrong, but she also knew that Abby obviously would have told her if she could have. So she sat there, clinging to her second-most favorite person in the world, hoping that whatever was happening would just go away.
Eventually, they both stopped crying, and Abby pulled back and looked Kaye in the eye.
"Look, Hon. I can't talk about it right now. But-all of that, back there – the yelling…it had nothing to do with you. I love you so much and I shouldn't have done that. There's…a lot going on right now, and more than ever, I need you to be strong. Okay? I need you to channel your mom and be that awesome kid that I first met back in November who was so brave and smart and strong. I know you're confused and that's not fair, but I think that everything is going to be okay. I just need you to be brave for me and trust me. Can you do that for me?"
Kaye scanned the goth's face. Abby had never steered her wrong, and she did know that she loved her very much. She was terrified of the fallout of whatever had happened last night or this morning at NCIS, but she knew that Abby wouldn't lie to her. So she nodded.
Abby forced the smallest of smiles before hugging Kaye tightly. Moments later, they were back on their way to the daycare center.
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After daycare, it had been Tony who showed up to take Kaye home. He had a glimmering DiNozzo smile in place, but Kaye had spent nearly every weekend as well as many afternoons and evenings with him and she could see past his façade almost as well as Abby or Gibbs could. Something was still very wrong.
"Hey Bella!" He greeted warmly. After the debacle that was Abby's drive from the school to the daycare, Jenny had decided that she needed to send someone who was better at deflecting to pick Kaye up. They still had no real news about Jethro, and none of them could come up with a good way to tell the almost nine-year-old. So, after speaking with Tobias, she decided that Tony would pick her up after daycare and he could do some damage control before taking her home to grab some things so that he could drop her at Fornell's for the night. She would stay in Emily's room and then would go to school again the next day barring any major changes with Jethro.
Kaye walked slowly over to the Agent. "Hi."
"Hi? That's all I get? Where's my hug?"
Tony crouched down to her level, and immediately she was felt comfort. She launched herself at him and he swung her up to his height. He wasn't afraid to admit that he was getting just as much out of the hug as she was.
It had been a hell of a day. His boss, his father figure, the man that he most admired in the world had been blown up. He had somehow survived so far, but he was still fighting for his life. The team was falling apart. Everyone was on edge, he'd already had to just stand there hugging Abby for a good ten minutes this afternoon, he had been NICE to McGee, and he was actually getting along with the Director. It was a madhouse without their fearless leader.
But there was a light. And her name was Kaye. As he thought about her on the way over, his mind turned to Kate. She would have held the team together just fine today. Sure, she probably would have had a little breakdown at some point, but she would have pulled it together and rallied the troops. She would have believed that Gibbs was fine and she would have made them all believe with her. She would have been the strong one so he wouldn't have had to. That was just who she was.
Most days he missed her. Some days he knew he still needed her.
That wasn't possible. Not now. But she had given them a beautiful gift. She had given them a little piece of herself to hold on to during hard times like these. She had given them Kaye.
And as he held the girl to him, he knew that even if everything went to an even worse hell than they were already facing, there was a little girl that would pull them in and ground them, just like Kate would have.
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She couldn't believe that she had done that. Ziva already had a difficult enough time fitting into the team as anything more than a verbal sparring partner for Tony or a secret weapon for Gibbs. She knew that Abby was sensitive and she knew that she was still on thin ice with the woman. She just had to make the remark about coffee. She just had to pretend that she didn't care.
It was her defence mechanism.
In fact, she cared very much.
She felt the cool water drip down her face. It allowed her to pretend that she didn't feel the single hot tear that mixed itself in.
Her own father hadn't been much of a father since she was a child. He had raised her to be a killer. And though she had a long way to go with this team, she had begun to look to Leroy Jethro Gibbs to fill that void in her life, though she would die before she would admit it to anyone.
To think that she didn't care.
Everything was falling apart.
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Kaye was familiar with Emily's room. She had spent more than enough time there over the past few months. She should have been comfortable enough to sleep, but she hadn't. She looked out the window at the pink sky. She thought that she had maybe nodded off a few times, but she wasn't entirely sure. She knew that she was still completely exhausted, if that meant anything.
She hadn't gotten any answers last night. Tony had attempted to reassure her, telling her that he was working on fixing everything. When she asked about Gibbs, he had simply said that he was really busy at the moment and was working hard. It sounded like Gibbs, so she wanted to believe him, but a part of her knew something was still off.
Tobias had tucked her in and even read her a bedtime story, but nothing had worked. Her stomach was too knotted to sleep properly.
So now she sat on the bed, watching the sun rise through the small window. She glanced at the Cinderella digital clock on the side of the bed. 5:58am. Too late to try for more sleep, too early to be up. She had had far too much time to think about things through the night. She was trying to put the few pieces that she had of the puzzle together. She realized at about 3:00 that she knew almost nothing. She knew that Gibbs had gone on a mission with the team the night before. She knew that Jimmy had gotten called away sometime during the night or early morning, and that Tobias had come to Gibbs' house. She knew that something terrible had happened because Abby couldn't even make herself smile. She knew that Tony was okay and that there was something that needed to be fixed. She knew that Gibbs was "busy", but she also knew that he had never been too busy to call her before. At the end of it, she was certain that something had happened with Gibbs, but she didn't know what, and she didn't like being in the dark.
Off in the distance, she heard another alarm clock go off. 6:00. Tobias would be in any minute to wake her for school.
It was going to be another day of distraction.
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McGee watched the scene unfold before him. Tony had been acting more and more like Gibbs as the hours had passed. Part of him knew that it was the man's way of coping, but part of him also hated it. Gibbs couldn't be replaced, not really.
He had been the quietest of the team throughout the day, choosing to observe his teammates. Everyone was starting to lose it. Ziva had been acting extra cold. Abby had broken down multiple times while also trying to run tests. Tony was channeling the Boss, Ducky was rambling more than usual, Jimmy was compensating for his fears by being extra peppy, and the Director hadn't left Gibbs' side until late the night before. Basically, things were going to shit. How the hell were they supposed to function without their boss?
"Abby! Front and center. You, too, Ziva. Let's GO!" The senior field agent commanded. McGee stayed planted firmly behind his desk, hoping it would offer some protection. The girls quickly stood before Tony.
"I know what happened." He said, a look of mild annoyance mixed with the slightest bit of amusement on his face.
Abby and Ziva immediately started talking over one another.
"HEY!" He shouted. "If there's going to be any bitch-slapping on this team, I'll do it. Clear?"
McGee held back a smirk as he looked at the girls' faces. Had they not been so angry at each other, he may have brought up the fact that they had matching looks of defiance.
"Now shake hands." He said quietly. When the girls continued to glare at him, he added. "Shake."
Abby and Ziva shook hands silently. McGee could sense the DiNozzo slipping out from behind the fake Gibbs façade for a second when Tony added, "There we go! That wasn't so tough, was it? Now how 'bout a little hug?"
If looks could kill, Tony would have been dead from both sides. Abby, always the suck up, dove right in for the hug, Ziva clearly pissed at the whole interaction.
"There we go. Come on…" Tony stated, a look on his face that McGee knew all too well. He was about to go full obnoxious DiNozzo, and for once he wasn't the subject. "Now a deep tongue kiss."
He was instantly punched by both of the women.
McGee had to hand it to him. He may have had to pull out the jerk card, but at least the girls were back on a united front.
It would take Tim years to forgive himself for what he said to Tony not a minute later.
They were all on edge, and Tony was pushing, but there was no excuse. He hated himself before the sentence was even fully out of his mouth.
"STOP PLAYING GIBBS! There! You're doing it right now! Ziva, would you help me out?"
As he watched Ziva and Abby gang up on him as well, he felt a pang of guilt. He was frustrated, that was all. And he knew that Tony was trying to do his best. It all just sucked.
"You're right. Acting like Gibbs doesn't make me the boss. Being Senior Agent does! So if drinking coffee, staring, or whacking the back of your head helps me lead this team, live with it."
McGee's head fell to his chest as Tony walked away. Damn it.
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A/N: So this leaves off just a few minutes before the end of the first episode, Hiatus: Part 1. In the next chapter, we will see Gibbs wake up and the ramifications of that. There is at least two more chapters just for the Hiatus episodes, and there will be probably another two or three after that dealing with the aftermath. Thank you for reading.