One short moment
Disclaimer: I don´t own any characters or anything
Summary: Sequel to "Demons of the past", about a month after Gibbs tells the team about his son, Kate gets a call at work. When she disappears, her colleagues start to wonder…
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5- Blind Passengers
An hour later, they walked back into the hospital. Gibbs put protective clothing on again, but he didn´t plan to follow her into Emily´s room. Kate walked to the office of Dr. Garner to tell her about her decision. He watched the little girl through the window and tried to see her without all the cables and tubes, but failed. Steps echoed behind him and he saw Garner and Kate closing in. He put his hand on Kate´s shoulder as she passed him, but instead of following the doctor through the door, she stopped and looked at him. "I don´t belong there." He told her, but she just shook her head and he felt her hand on his arm.
"Please, don´t let me do this alone. I´m scared." Kate looked at him and there were tears in her eyes again. He had never seen her scared like this. She had been shot at, taken hostage, stabbed and almost killed in the line of duty, but never before had he seen her so terrified. With a simple nod, he put his arm around her and followed her into the room.
Garner had unhooked some of the machines and pulled them away from the bed. "It´s your decision, Miss Todd. I will wait until you are ready." She said and just remained next to the bed, one hand resting on the headrest.
Kate stepped closer and let her fingertips brush over Emily´s face. "It´s time to go now, baby girl." She whispered and placed a kiss on the girl´s forehead. Gibbs stood a few feet back and felt his heart breaking again. His hands tightened into fists as he fought back the tears. He closed his eyes for a moment and could have sworn that he heard the voice of his son, telling him that it was okay. When he looked up again, Kate was still standing next to her daughter. "Mommy will let you go now. I love you, Emily. Goodbye."
Thesewords caused a single tear to escape his eyes, no matter how hard he tried to hold it back. For a moment, he saw himself telling his boy these words, but he never had the chance. He took a step forward and wrapped his arms around Kate, who accepted the embrace willingly. He felt her shaking and put his chin on top of her head. "Leroy will take care of her, Katie. She´ll be fine." He said softlyand wondered where those words had suddenly come from.
The sound of the machines faded slowly and after two minutes, there was only complete silence. It took him a few moments to realize that Kate had almost gone limp in his embrace and he lowered her onto the floor, fearing that she had passed out. When he turned her around, he found her brown eyes looking at him. The pain in them seemed to be more than a single person could stand and he returned her gaze, trying to show her that she wasn´t alone. Words didn´t work for this. After what seemed like hours, Dr. Garner spoke up. "We will take her now. See me about further arrangements when you´re ready." She said and nodded at two nurses, who rolled the bed out of the room.
"Let´s get you a room at some motel. You need to sleep."Gibbs said after a while as he pulled Kate up to her feet again. He continued to hold her until he was sure that she could stand on her own.
"You never called me Katie before." She told him, completely ignoring his other statement. For a second there was a tiny smile playing on her lips. "I need to arrange for the funeral -and transport home..." She went on, but he took her shoulders and made her look at him.
"That wasn´t a question, Agent Todd. You´re not doing anyone a favor by collapsing from exhaustion." He said and lead her towards the elevator. She didn´t actually try to object, which was unlike Kate. There was a small motel just a block from the hospital and a mere hour later, Kate was sound asleep on the bed. Gibbs watched her for a few minutes before he walked out of the room and pulled his phone out.
"NCIS, Mallard." The voice at the other end of the line said and he felt that the following talk would be rather difficult, for both of them.
"Duck, it´s Jethro. Can we talk?" He asked and heard a door close somewhere near Ducky.
"Now we can, Jethro. Where are you? You really had us worried here." The doctor asked, clearly concerned. The picture of the older man pacing up and down in morgue, talking to some bodies sprang to Gibbs´ mind somehow.
"I need you to take the truck and come to the medical center in Winston-Salem, NC." Gibbs said and noted that his friend seemed clearly confused. "Don´t ask questions, Duck, just come over here."
"All right, I shall come immediately, but I am curious about your explanation for this, my friend." Mallard said and hung up again.
Gibbs continued to watch Kate for another three hours before heading back to the hospital. He sat on a bench out front, finishing his third cup of coffee as a very familiar truck pulled into the parking lot. Tossing the cup into a trashcan, he walked over. "Glad you made it so quickly." He greeted the doctor, who gave him a questioning look.
"Now, what did you make me drive 350 miles for, Jethro? It´s not about our Caitlin, is it?" Mallard inquired and looked concerned as he glanced up to the hospital building. He hadn´t told anyone where he was going and of course earned a lot of puzzled looks when he had suddenly announced that he would be gone for the rest of the day when it was barely noon. "Oh, and I believe that I have some blind passengers in the back of the truck." He added in a low voice as they walked away from the forensic´s truck.
Gibbs took a deep breath when he recognized the shadow a black pigtail in the small window that connected both parts of the truck. "I think I´ll need a lot of coffee after this...Duck, let´s go before they decide to jump out on us." He said and they disappeared into the building, heading straight for the morgue. "I need you to prepare a transport to Washington, Duck. Papers are signed and on file, ask for Dr. Garner when you´re ready." A lab technician lead them to the drawers that held the bodies of the decedents.
Ducky gave a startled sound when one of the drawers was opened and he could see the person on the table. The girl was a spitting image of Kate and even without having seen her eyes, both knew that they were a mirror image of Kate´s. "Now, are you going to tell me about this young lady, Jethro? It is obvious that there is a connection to our Caitlin."
Gibbs sighed. "Her name is Emily and she is Kate´s daughter. Now, don´t give me that look, Duck. I´ll explain it later, but we need to bring her home first. Kate´s in a motel nearby, so I´ll go get her while you prepare Emily for transport. I´m going to deal with the passengers in the back of your truck on the way. Call up Oak Hill, there´s a place next to Leroy that´s been reserved on my name...I think Kate will be okay with it." He told the older man and left again. This whole thing would cause a lot of emotional pain for the whole team. He knew that Kate and Tony were close, eventhough they still pretended to hate each other, but there were some subtle signs that they were more than just colleagues. Abby and Kate were best friends. Being the only women in a mainly male team, they had grown attached to each other. And McGee was like a younger brother for the rest of the team. They teased him a lot, but still everyone cared deeply about him.