"Does she look like anyone on your side?" Jasper asked as he and Ducky stood side by side watching the baby through the nursery window.
"Can't say that she does."
The medical examiner had no doubt what the real question was, but he waited until the other man was ready to verbalise it.
It didn't take very long.
"Jethro isn't really your son, is he?"
"No," Ducky said after careful consideration.
"Then wha -"
He trailed off as a phone started to ring.
"Excuse me .." Ducky said as he walked out of the maternity ward to take the call. When he returned he had a sombre look on his face.
"Trouble?"
"Work, I'm afraid."
"It was good to meet you, Ducky." Jasper held out his hand.
"Likewise."
Three hours later …
"You didn't think I'd figure it out?"
Jen was instantly grateful that she'd had the nurse take the baby to the nursery because she knew this tone of voice too well.
"I didn't go out of my way to deceive you, dad," she replied. Knowing exactly what he was referring to.
"So am I going to have to guess who he is or are you going to keep his identity a secret too?"
"I don't know who he is."
Jasper's eyes widened. "You don't know who he is? What did you do? Pick him off the street?"
"All I know is that his name is Jethro Gibbs. He was stuck in the elevator with me when my waters broke. He came through for me."
"You could have called me."
A small hiss of air bypassed Jenny's teeth.
"You trusted a stranger before you trusted family."
The accusation annoyed her. She'd heard it far too many times throughout her life, and she wasn't ready to keep hearing it now that her life status had changed.
"He was there, dad. You weren't. End of story."
"He made decisions on your behalf, Jenny. Important decisions. Decisions he had no right to make."
Her eyes filled with tears for a moment as she remembered what those decisions were going to mean. But she knew they had been the only decisions that could have been made, she didn't have the energy to argue, and she wasn't about to show any kind of weakness in front of her father either.
"I trust Jethro."
"You trust a man you don't know anythin - ..."
"Dad … either stop or leave."
"I only want -"
"What's best for me. I know. And at the moment what's best for me is not to have you angry at me for something that was beyond my control. Jethro was in the right place at the right time. He helped me when I needed help, and that's all there is to it."
Jasper looked as though he wasn't quite ready to let it go, but the sound of a door being flung open made his head snap round.
"Mrs. Shepard ..." The orderly looked somewhat harried and Jen's senses kicked into high alert.
"Is something wrong with Imogen?"
Six hours after that …
Jethro rotated his neck, and realised that he hadn't had a cup of coffee in far too long. Things were at an impasse, the Director had been called out for a phone call of a personal nature, and he needed to stretch his legs. Signalling to one of the techs that he'd be back, he slipped out of MTAC.
He was more than a little surprised to find everyone in the bullpen standing around the plasma tv instead of working, but it wasn't till he got to the bottom of the stairs and saw Abby and Ducky present that the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
"Duck?"
His voice was terse, and the good doctor realised he had no idea what had happened in the few hours he'd been holed up in the threat assessment centre.
"Bomb scare at Sibley Memorial a few hours ago," he started to explain as Gibbs rummaged in his drawer and pulled out his gun and his credentials. "ZNN thinks the target may have been a Supreme Court Judge visiti – Jethro ..."
But Gibbs had simply pushed past him and was heading for the elevators.
He'd barely been gone a few minutes when the Director leaned over the upstairs railing.
"Where's Agent Gibbs?"
"Coffee run," Tony lied swiftly.
"Tell him we're expecting Fallujah on the line in twenty."
"Yes Sir."
Tony waited till the Director had disappeared into MTAC and then looked pointedly at McGee.
"Call him."
Sibley Memorial Hospital
Whatever the real story was, the hospital staff were being allowed to return and things were slowly getting back to normal. He'd had no trouble getting into the building, but he knew the moment he set eyes on the woman at the ICU nursing station that he was going to get nowhere with her.
"I'm sorry, Sir," she said resolutely as she compared the name on his badge to the records on her computer screen. "You are not on Ms. Shepard's contact list. Federal agent or not, I cannot tell you which hospital she's been taken to."
Gibbs felt anger rise, but before he could reply his phone rang. He'd ignored half a dozen calls from every member of his team in the past half an hour, but one look at the display told him it wasn't a caller he could ignore. Not with all that was going on.
"Gibbs. On my way back, Director."
He snapped the phone back shut and wheeled round to continue the conversation. Only to discover that the nurse had left the station and he was standing alone in a deserted corridor.
Not quite sure what to do with himself, he took a few steps to the room Jenny had previously occupied - and stepped inside.
All the signs that the room had been evacuated in hurry were there, but it was the sight of blankets trailing the ground which made his chest constrict. He knew she was fine; that she and the baby were being looked after somewhere. But it wasn't enough to stop him from feeling bereft – and that took him as much by surprise as the connection he'd felt to the child. And her mother, if wanted to be completely honest with himself.
His cell phone rang again, and this time he answered without looking at it.
"On my way, Abs."
He tried not to focus on the emptiness as he walked out of the hospital.
Author's note:
Admittedly, this is a short chapter after such a long delay. But the good news is that I'm already working on the next part The only reason I'm stopping here is because all the action in this chapter happens within the space of a few hours. The next part opens a few days later. It just didn't go well together. I also apologise if you had to go back and read the entire story before reading today's installment. I promise I'll get the story wrapped up soon.