"Tony, I can't do this," Kate said, tears in her eyes.
Tony held her hand tight and kissed her fingertips. She'd been pushing for a few minutes now and her energy was already spent. "Of course you can," Tony said. He could only imagine the pain Kate was going through and at seeing the anguish on her face, he wished that he could take her place.
"No... I can't." A tear rolled down her cheek and Tony could literally feel his heart break.
The doctors had asked him to talk to her, make her believe she could do this. He absolutely knew Kate could deliver this baby and she had to know that too. "Listen to me Kate... You are the strongest person I know. Honestly. You've survived everything honey. You protected the President of the United States for crying out loud. You've been kidnapped, held hostage and almost blown up... multiple times. You're still here. And you're telling me that you want to give up now? You can do this." He kissed her forehead.
"Okay Kate, you think you can give this one more try?" the doctor asked.
Kate nodded her head and everyone around her was telling her over and over to push. Tony counted to ten as Kate began to push and after ten seconds she relaxed.
"Okay Kate, one more big push and this baby will be almost here. Another DiNozzo will be welcomed into the world," the doctor coaxed.
Kate squeezed Tony's hand and pushed as hard as she could. "Agh... please... make it stop!" she cried and whimpered. Every sigh of exhaustion and scream made Tony wish once again that he could be in her position. The amount of pain he could see in her eyes was enough to cause tears to roll down his cheeks.
"Just one more push baby... One more push and we will have a daughter," Tony whispered in her ear.
So once again, Kate pushed with everything she had in her, trying not to scream the entire time. She'd heard that giving birth was one of the most difficult things a woman could do. Whoever'd said that had been right. It was painful and she felt as if she were being torn in half.
"You have a girl!" the doctor yelled, holding a squirming, crying baby.
"Did you hear that Kate?" Tony asked looking from his new baby girl to his wife. "A gir..." But something was wrong. He could see her heart monitors racing, her blood pressure dropping. "Something... Kate!" was all he could yell.
Before he knew it, Kate was being surrounded by doctors and he was being pushed out of the way. "Get him out of here!" Someone yelled frantically. "Now!"
"No!" he cried, but he was being drug out of the room, watching his wife lie still and doctors trying to figure out just what had gone wrong.
Tony walked out into the waiting room, drenched in sweat. It was two o'clock in the morning, but everyone was there. Gibbs, Abby, Ducky, McGee, Kate and Tony's parents, all of their brothers and sisters. It was as if they were holding a family reunion in the hospital. Everyone wanted to see this baby.
"Tony?" Robert said, looking at the tired expression on te face of his son-in-law. "So..."
"What's going on?" Tonya questioned. She could tell that something was wrong and she was immediately on the verge of tears.
"I don't know," Tony replied, taking an empty seat next to Abby and putting his head in his hands. "She was fine, the baby was here and then..." Tears started to flow down Tony's face and he couldn't stop crying.
"Then what? Tony, what is wrong with my daughter?" Robert practically yelled.
"When they took her out of the room... she wasn't breathing."
Chapter Title- I titled this chapter "Jeopardy" because Kate's life is in, well... jeopardy. Pretty to the point.