Disclaimer: See chapter one.
Author's Note: I'm updating with two chapters this time cause I got such good reviews last time.
Author's Note II: Okay, this story is Way out of character for Kate, and Gibbs too, but it was necessary to take the "Federal Agent" part out of them to make them seem real for this story. I apologize in advance if this offends anyone, but it just had to be...Okay enough rambling, on with chapter three...
Chapter Three:
Two weeks had passed since that terrible day. The funeral for Daniel had come and gone. She hadn't the strength, emotional nor physical, to go. Regret had set in, not quite surpassing the anger she still felt. Everything was secondary now, getting out of bed and getting dressed took an effort she wasn't willing to give. Eating wasn't her top priority, neither was sleeping. Mourning took over her entire being, it had encroched her soul and wasn't about to let it's powerful hand give up so easily. She was slipping away, and it scared him. It scared him more than anything. He had already lost his son, and now he was facing the real possiblility of losing the one person who knew him better than he knew himself. He couldn't lose Kate, not now, not when he was so emotionally stripped of the walls of pride and strength that he once held so dear. He needed her, and she, him, but neither of them spoke to one another. When he wasn't at the hospital holding court by his daughter's bedside, he was working on his boat, down in the dark catacombs that was his basement.
The forensics on the car had come back three days after the accident. The Jeep was broadsided by another vehicle, a truck that had been going too fast. His team had gotten the punk that killed his son and critically injured his daughter. The guy was no more than seventeen, a year older than his daughter, and now he was going to spend the rest of his life in a federal prison for driving under the influnce of drugs and alcohol, speeding and for manslaughter. The facts, however, still didn't change Kate's mind about how her son died. She rested the blame solely on Alison's young shoulders. Maybe it was unfair, but it was still the way she felt. She had lost a part of herself that could never in a million years be replaced, a part of herself that she had carried under her heart for nine grueling months, the part of herself that she labored two long days for, the part of herself that looked so much like his father, the part of herself that she loved more than her life.
He was her son, a baby that before he arrived, she was sure she would never have. She knew when she married Jethro, that the idea of having children was foreign to both of them, after all he was quite a bit older than her twenty nine years and she really didn't want to be "tied" down by children. That all changed however, when she found out she was pregnant. It was two weeks before their first anniversary, she had been under the weather for some time and decided that she'd pay a visit to her doctor. The doctor smiled when she delivered the news that Kate was going to be a mother. Kate wanted to throw up, and nearly did all over the doctors shoes. That night she told her husband the news, they were going to be parents. He was suprised, shocked, happy, and nervous all in one instant. He told her he couldn't wait to have a child. To which she replied, "Well you're gonna have to wait nine months." So he waited, as patiently as any expectant father could wait.
After nine very long, grueling months of ever present morning sickness, swollen ankles that led to pre-eclampsia, and the stress that he felt just making Kate comfortable, their son was born. He weighed in at a hefty nine pounds four ounces and had all ten fingers and ten toes. They called him Daniel Todd, after her bother who had died six years before. They brought their son home on a sunny April afternoon and quickly settled into a routien. Kate had resigned from NCIS and devoted herself to being a mother to their son.
The family of three soon became four, when Jethro's daughter Alison showed up on their doorstep one very cold December night. Instantly, Alison formed a bond with Daniel, she showered him with attention and loved him as unconditionally as he loved her. It wasn't easy for Kate to have the girl around at first. She admitted she was jealous of the attention her son, and especially her husband were giving Alison, but she managed to forge her own type of bond with Alison. For a while they seemed as close as "real" mother and daughter, now that bond was shattered like the glass that had been strewn across the road the day of the accident. Kate couldn't even bring herself to call Alison in the hospital. She had asked Tony, a co-worker and friend, if he would mind taking Alison back to his place after she was released from the hospital. He agreed, not knowing that the girl's father, his boss, didn't know about the arrangements. Crap hit the fan the moment Jethro found out what Kate had done, and now the two devestated parents weren't speaking to one another. Their marrige was beginning to come apart at the seams. They both knew that they were headed down a dangerous path as far as their relationship was concerned. They didn't even sleep in the same house sometimes, let alone the same room. Life was rapidly spiraling out of control for both of them. Could they even patch up their relationship? Did they want to? So many questions were being left without the answers they so desperatly needed.