diclaimer: I don't own NCIS or its characters...
Author's Note: I was going to combine the next few chapters into one, but they work better seperately. That's my excuse for how long it took me to post this. I have no exucse nor guarantee as to the quality of this entry...
Having found what she was looking for amongst the various instrument-filled drawers, Abby ran excitedly back to where her stricken friend sat. Kate gave her a curious look. She couldn't imagine what kind of magical item Abby had pulled from one of those drawers that would relieve her concern. Abby revealed the item to her friend, a grin spreading across her face.
"A Stethoscope?" Kate asked, consternation overwhelming her pained expression. Abby may have been smart and science adept, but she was no doctor. "Why do you have one of those lying around?"
"Didn't you ever play doctor, Kate?" Abby responded as perky as ever. She put the two ends of the stethoscope in her ears and held up the drum. "Lift up your shirt, please," she ordered in what Kate assumed to be her pseudo-doctor's voice.
Kate fulfilled the request and exposed her large belly to the stethoscope-wielding pretend doctor. Abby's light and perky manner had almost caused Kate to forget her troubles. The cold steel of the stethoscope against her skin, however, brought them sharply back to her attention. "Do you hear anything?" she asked urgently.
"Shh!" Abby silenced her as she concentrated on listening to the inner-workings of Kate's body. She moved the cold steel around Kate's belly. She paused. "I can hear your heartbeat-"
"What about the baby?" Kate asked, her voice cracking with distress.
"Shh!" Abby demanded again. She paused straining to hear something she wasn't sure that she'd recognize. A few moments passed, agonizingly long for Kate. "I hear something…the heartbeat! I hear it! Wow!"
"Really!" Kate asked, excited as well as relieved. "Can I listen?"
"Sure," Abby responded, handing over the stethoscope to her friend, still the mother-to-be, she hoped. She watched as Kate excitedly moved the device over her stomach, a look of concentration upon her glowing face. "Did you find it?"
"I don't know," Kate replied, still moving it slowly across her skin and listening hard. "Wait! There it is! I hear it. I hear my baby!"
Abby smiled at her friend's delight.
"My baby's okay," she told her happily. She took the stethoscope off and tenderly caressed her belly. It didn't explain the bleeding, though. Kate informed Abby of her confusion.
"What I really want to know is why you're so large," Abby responded, deciding that it was better not to dwell on the worrisome point since they had verified that the unborn child's heart was still beating. Maybe Kate was farther along than she had thought, and was actually going in to labor. "How far along are you?"
"Twenty-seven weeks," Kate answered her friend's question with scrutiny. Everyone always assumed that she was much farther along. When she told them she wasn't, they then assumed that she was carrying twins. "Why?"
"Uh--no reason," Abby replied to the glare she was receiving. She knew that she shouldn't go there, and Kate knew that she was headed there, but Abby took the jump to the next conclusion anyway. "Are you sure you're not having twins?"
"Yes!" Kate snapped. The truth was that she often questioned it herself, but never dreamed of voicing it aloud to anybody.
"Are you positive?" Abby reiterated, unable to get around Kate's size. Kate hesitated on that one. She may have been sure that she wasn't having twins, but she was nowhere near positive. The doubt kept growing in her mind.
"No," she admitted. But she quickly added, "Don't you dare suggest it to Tony. He doesn't need that kind of ego boost at all!"
She knew the results it'd have on him. Not only did he manage to get her pregnant with one try, but twins. She really wouldn't be able to live with him then. She'd have to kill him. Besides, the thought of chasing after two little Dinozzos made her want to cry. "No. Can't happen. Not twins," Kate decided. "The doctor would have said something last time anyway."
"Of course," Abby said patronizingly. She still had her suspicions. Doctors were often wrong about this sort of thing. Sonograms aren't always the easiest graphics to decipher. But Kate was the one who was actually pregnant. She'd probably have the best idea of what was going on within her own body.
"Oh!" Kate said, slightly startled. Her hand went to her belly and she smiled as Abby gave her a curious look. "The baby's kicking."
Abby's eyes lit up to match Kate's own excitement. "Can I-"
"Sure. Go ahead," Kate gave her permission. Abby laid her hand gently upon the smooth exposed skin of Kate's pregnant belly. She felt movement from within Kate's womb. Excitedly, Abby crouched down and put her head next to the protruding stomach of the pregnant woman so that her ear was pressed against the warm flesh. Kate giggled as Abby's pigtail tickled her skin.
"Abby, have you seen…" McGee asked as he entered the lab, and then trailed off as he encountered the bizarre situation in front of him. He stopped in his tracks and gave the two women a puzzled look that revealed his curiosity over the situation, but also his uncertainty over wanting an explanation.
Abby and Kate looked at him and then each other before bursting out laughing. It was a rather odd picture when you thought about it. Abby with her head against Kate's bare stomach, the stethoscope still hanging around her neck, while Kate giggled from being tickled by Abby's pigtail.
"What are you doing?" McGee asked, not really wanting to know, nor expecting any answer. He shook his head as Abby took the stethoscope from Kate and returned it to its place. Kate reclaiming her modesty pulled her shirt back down to cover her large mid-riff.
"You know what? I don't want to know," He said, excepting that they weren't about to explain it to him anyway. "Are you ready to go, Kate?"
"Yeah," she replied. If Gibbs had released Tim to bring her to her docotor's appointment, it could only mean one of two things. Either they had caught the suspect and Gibbs was in an incredibly good mood, or they had failed to track down the man that had tried to kill Tony and Gibbs was too angry to demand that they all work harder. Kate prayed that it was the former. "I take it that you caught the bastard?"
"Yes," McGee confirmed. "In fact, Gibbs has him in interrogation right now."
"Without any back-up?" Kate asked. He usually had at least one of them present to observe and to confirm information or follow up any leads that he produced.
"He said that I should take you to your appointment," McGee supplied.
"That was nice of Gibbs," Abby said admiringly of their boss. Both Kate and McGee shifted uneasily. They felt uncomfortable when Gibbs made kind gestures towards them. It was much easier to think of him as their tough ex-marine boss than an understanding, generous man; not that they thought of him as unfair. In fact, he was quite skilled at dispensing justice, just not favors. But it wasn't like Kate wouldn't take what she could get.
"Let's go before it's too late," she told McGee, unsure of whether she meant that she would be late for her appointment or that she feared Gibbs would revoke the favor. McGee helped her out of Abby's swivel chair by offering his arm to her. She thanked him for his assistance, with everything.
Kate couldn't help but feel guilty as they left the building. She felt like she wasn't doing her job. A large part of her wanted to be there for Gibbs' interrogation of the suspect. She tried to pawn it off as a sense of duty, but she really wanted to be witness to the event for personal reasons. She wanted to see the man who so callously was able to shoot another man. A man who could, and had, killed another human being without a second thought to who that person was and how many lives he'd ruin by pulling the trigger. She wanted to know if you could see the pure evil on his face, or whether it was deeply buried, or the even more frightening thought that he looked perfectly normal, that he was like everybody else. But she didn't have the time nor the right to satisfy her own personal desires anymore. She was going to be a mother. Her baby was her primary concern now.
So Kate left the building where achieving justice for Tony was imminent, and focused instead on tending to her unborn child's needs.