***Disclaimer: see previous

He stepped into the cool night air and took a deep breath. He started to walk, not entirely sure where he was going or where he'd eventually end up. He just knew he had to walk. Away from the hotel. Away from her. Away from what she had told him. She had admitted love. To him, for him. His mind was playing ping pong with his thoughts. She couldn't love him. They had only been together for three months. That was less than he and Hollis had been together and he had never figured out what it was he had felt for her. Something had tugged at his heartstrings when she was around but it never got much further after she retired. He had let her go and she had stopped pushing. She had stopped altogether. So Lizzy couldn't love him. Because he didn't love her. He didn't. He couldn't. But why not? What was holding him back? He hadn't felt this way since Shannon. It had been years. More than years. It had been a lifetime ago. The ex-wives had just been distractions, the ex girlfriends a way to pass the time. But Lizzy was different. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, he could see being with her for a very long time. And that scared him. It scared him that she had been able to penetrate the place where only one other woman had. And he had been fighting it. Fighting it with all the strength he could muster ever since that first day. And he had wanted her then just as much as he did now. But she was leaving. No, not leaving. Running. Running hard and fast away from him. Away from what they had.

He kicked a rock in front of him and without looking up, he heard it hit against metal. He looked up to see a large iron gate off to his right. He walked up to it and put his hands on the cool metal bars in front of him. Through the darkness he saw a cemetery. He shook his head at the irony. She had accused him of only keeping company with ghosts and here he was, staring into a graveyard. He stared hard into the night, his mind wandering. Thinking about all those he had lost. And the one he was about to lose. Why couldn't he get past the pain? Why couldn't he shake the demons that constantly whispered in his ear? Lizzy had said something about her son. What had she said? That she grieved once a year and thought about him the other 364. He wondered how she had gotten to that point. The point where the pain is dissipated but not forgotten. Where thoughts are good memories to get you through a bad day. He needed that. She could give him that. He needed to let go of the guilt because the guilt was what held him back. Shannon, Jenny, Kate. He had been unable to keep them from dying. He had been powerless. He shook the gate in frustration. Then he kicked it. Now he had pain in his heart and in his foot. He had to find a way to make all the pain disappear. Or at least find a way to store it so that it stopped interfering with what made him truly happy. Her. He turned on his heel, coffee long forgotten, and made his way back to the hotel.

***

It was all consuming. She consumed his thoughts. His actions. His words-or lack thereof. He was living off of caffeine and whiskey. And why not? He'd done it time after time in the past. Why break the pattern now. The thoughts-the all consuming thoughts- were getting dangerous, though. They were keeping him from living. They were keeping him from breathing. From going after her. So many nights he had started for the stairs with the full intention of going straight to her. Straight to the arms that always brought him comfort. To the warmth that reminded him that it was possible to be happy-if only for brief instances in time. Sometimes he made it to the car. Sometimes to her road.

Sometimes no further than one foot in front of the other.

He had sat at home night after night and stared at his boat. He had not done any actual work to it in over three months. He just sat at his workbench and stared. And when his eyes had gotten heavy enough, he had dragged himself to the couch, not usually making it to the bedroom. He was miserable. He tried to make himself feel better. He tried drinking the pain away. He tried running it out of his system. He even tried living at work for a few days but it all came back to the same thing. The same memories, the same feelings of self loathing.

Gibbs tried not to pay attention to the days. How many had gone by already and how many were yet to come. Abby was crossing the days off on a calendar in her lab and he now dreaded the daily trek down there. It only reminded him of what little time he actually did have left before Lizzy left. She had slowly, over a period of days, been packing up her desk. With each passing day he saw himself coming closer and closer to staring at another empty desk. Daily he fought the urge to be sick. It was Thursday. Tomorrow was the day. The last day. Her last day. He watched her at her desk out of the corner of his eye. He watched her as she got up and passed in front of his desk on her way to the bathroom. His eyes followed her. He had watched her a lot these past couple of weeks. Watched a lot and said little. His words were not what she needed. She needed him. All of him. He wondered if he would ever be able to give that to her. He had overheard Tony and McGee talking about the guy she had had dinner with. Sgt. Rivers. He wondered how serious it was.

Everytime he looked at his watch, a calendar, the sun… they all seemed to be going in a reverse direction. Never forward. His life never moved forward. It always moved backward to a shattering moment and then forward from there to the present when the process started again. Never forward completely. He knew that she had been his chance of stepping out of the revolving doors. And he had pushed her away. Ok, tossed away. She had fought him until she realized she wouldn't win and he knew Lizzy hated to lose. Almost as much as he did. Her actions the past few weeks had been almost without movement. He saw her arrive, punch the proverbial time card, and leave. All this without a wink, without a brush against him in the elevator, without a shared cup of coffee. And yet here he sat, staring at her empty desk. Again. For what had to be the fifth time in two hours. His mind suddenly went into working mode. All of a sudden he realized the oddity of her vacant seat. That woman had a bladder of steel. No matter how many stakeouts, undercover ops…this woman could hold it for days and yet she was again gone. And for greater lengths of time with each visit. He checked his watch. Ten minutes so far this time. He was almost concerned enough to check on her when the elevator doors opened and a man stepped out carrying a large arrangement of flowers. Gladiolas and lilies. Lizzy's favorite, Gibbs noticed as the flowers walked by him. The man holding them looked at the card and looked around. "Lizzy?" he said, to no one in particular. Gibbs motioned to her desk and the flowers deposited right in the very center of her workspace. Now Gibbs was curious. They weren't from him. Gibbs never sent flowers. Maybe that was the problem, he thought. Maybe if I'd done a little more romancing and a little less… His thoughts were interrupted by Tony, who had approached Lizzy's desk, looking around to make sure the coast was clear before reaching for the card.

"DiNozzo," Gibbs said in a warning tone, without looking up.

"Yea, Boss?"

"Are they yours?"

"Well, no, Boss, but I—"

Gibbs looked up now and simply stared at his senior field agent.

"Going back to my seat now, Boss," he said as he slunk back to his desk, Ziva giving him and I-told-you-so look across the bullpen.

Gibbs checked his watch again. Twenty minutes now. She had thirty more seconds and he was sending Ziva to check it out.

Lizzy had felt his eyes following her as she made her way down the hall. It would almost be embarrassing if she wasn't in so damn much pain. Her fourth-no fifth trip, her mind told her, in less than two hours. People were going to start thinking she was pregnant. And if that wasn't the farthest thing from the truth… Not that her pain wasn't indirectly being caused by a pregnancy, though. A month ago, she thought she was just starting her monthly cycle early. But when it didn't stop completely she became a little concerned. She hadn't made it for her doctor visit yet. She had put it off till tomorrow. Tomorrow. Her last day as a Gibbs girl, so to speak. And now, today, she was bleeding. Heavily. She made it to the bathroom but felt dizzy as she pushed the door open. She grabbed for the

counter and felt the coolness of it under her hands. Come to think of it, she was feeling a little warm. Maybe more than a little. She steadied herself at the sink and looked into the mirror. She almost couldn't bear to look at the reflection she saw. She was miserable. Not just physically but she was emotionally whipped. Exhausted. Her days consisted of trying to focus on her job while thoughts of Gibbs kept trying to spearhead her brain. Then, at night, alone, she would think of him. She would wake in the middle of the night to emptiness beside her and spend the rest of the night watching the dots on the alarm clock blinking. She was sure there was a way to stop the blinking but at this point it could almost be considered comforting. Unlike her present state, which was anything but. She leaned her elbows down to rest on the counter and reached to turn the water on. She let the cool water trickle over her fingers. Then the pain reached her again. She grabbed her side to keep from losing complete control. She wondered if Gibbs had noticed how long she had been gone. Gibbs noticed everything. And that was her last thought before she slumped to the floor.

Gibbs checked his watch again. Finally his concern outvoted his pride.

"Ziva," he said looking across his desk at the dark haired Israeli.

"Yes, Gibbs?"

"Check on Lizzy, will ya?"

Ziva nodded and was glad for the opportunity. She too had been concerned with Lizzy's frequent trips down the hall. She had noticed the other woman's intake of aspirin had increased since the shooting without slacking off even a little. She had noticed Lizzy's walk had slowed lately also. Ziva knew what happened after the shooting. She was the only one that knew. Ziva had understood the other woman's need to keep it private but that was before the very public lover's spat that had occurred in the middle of the bullpen. She knew Lizzy still hadn't told him. Gibbs would not be this calm or docile if he knew. Life at NCIS would be beyond miserable if he had known what Lizzy had kept from him.

Ziva pushed the bathroom door open and saw Lizzy's limp figure splayed on the cold tile floor. She quickly knelt beside her and checked for a pulse. Blood covered the floor beneath Lizzy's lifeless form and once Ziva had found a pulse, faint but there, she ran to the door and called out for Gibbs.

Gibbs was in the middle of a phone call when he heard Ziva's cry from the bathroom. The phone clattered to his desk as he ran to the hallway with Tony and McGee close on his heels. He opened the door and found Lizzy laying in another pool of blood. Ziva trying desperately, unsuccessfully, to find the source of all the blood, looked up at Gibbs as he stepped over Lizzy's body to kneel down on her other side.

"What happened," Gibbs said in a gruff voice, choked with emotion.

"I do not know. When I opened the door, she was already on the floor. I am not sure how long she has been laying here."

Gibbs could hear voices near him. He heard Tony calling for an ambulance. He could hear McGee calling for Ducky. He could hear Ziva whispering softly to Lizzy. But what he did not hear, what he could not hear, was her. He could not hear Lizzy. She wouldn't wake up. She wouldn't open her eyes. He wanted her to speak, make a sound, something that told him that she would be ok. He had no idea where the blood was coming from. He could see no external wound. He couldn't stop it if he didn't know where it was coming from. And he wanted to stop it. He wanted to make it all go away. He looked up as Ducky entered the room with Abby close on his heels.

"Oh, my, my. That is quite a bit of blood, isn't it, now?" Ducky set his black bag next to Jethro and began examining Lizzy's unconscious body.

"I can't find a wound, Ducky. I don't know where it's all coming from," Gibbs said, running his fingers through his silver hair in frustration.

"Do not fret, Jethro. The ambulance will arrive any minute and get her to the proper facility."

As if by magic, the EMT's walked through the door as Ziva, Tony, Abby, and McGee headed back to the bullpen. Jethro helped lift her to the gurney, praying that her eyes would flutter open just for a second. But her eyes never so much as twitched. He watched her chest rise up and down with her labored breathing. Gibbs was not man that believed in fate, or coincidences, or déjà vu but today, standing next to Lizzy's lifeless body on a gurney for the second time in three months was too much for him. He followed the EMT's to the elevator. This time he was going with her. He had made the mistake last time of not being there to hold her hand or brush the hair back from her eyes or to tie her gown closed so the male nurses couldn't get a glimpse of what was his. And she had been his, for a brief moment. But as he stepped into the elevator, he felt a hand at his back, grabbing his shirt, pulling him back. He fought it, as he did not want the ambulance to leave without him but the hand pulled harder and he turned to face his would be assailant.

"You cannot go with her."

He stared hard into the beautiful brown eyes of his other female agent. When he was sure that he had stared hard enough to get his point across, he turned around and pushed the down arrow button, praying that the ambulance would still be there. The hand reached out again and spun him around.

"This will be your only warning, Agent David."

"And this will be yours." The elevator doors opened and Gibbs stepped in, Ziva close behind. As the doors shut, Ziva reached over to flip the kill switch.

"Ziva." Gibbs said in a tone that she had rarely heard him use.

"Gibbs, I am not trying to detain you from following Agent Edwards but there is…" she paused for a moment, weighing her options. She knew Lizzy would be mad but Gibbs could not just go barging into the hospital completely unaware of the situation. "There is something I should tell you before you go to the hospital."

Gibbs checked his watch, barely hearing the words Ziva was speaking. He watched the seconds tick by. Seconds that he was losing by being stuck in this damn elevator with her instead of on his way to the hospital with Lizzy.

"Whatever it is can wait, Ziva," Gibbs said as he flipped the switch to on.

"It cannot wait, Gibbs," she said hitting the kill switch one more time. Gibbs was getting aggravated. Ziva looked at his face. Ok, way more than aggravated. Pissed off might be a better term. But she knew he needed to know.

"Gibbs, you didn't see any wounds on her body, did you?"

He looked at her strangely then, wondering where this conversation was headed. He shook his head.

"And yet there was a large pool of blood…"

He nodded again, this time in agreement.

"Gibbs, when Lizzy shot herself in the shoulder, she was three months pregnant. "

Gibbs heard what she said and then he HEARD what she said. Pregnant? No. Not Lizzy. When she shot herself? That would mean that… that…

"It was yours," Ziva said quietly.

Mine? No, not mine. Lizzy? Pregnant? And then she shot herself. And… she didn't look pregnant. Gibbs looked up with a question that Ziva read in his eyes.

"After she was shot, she went into surgery. By then she had lost a lot of blood."

Ziva watched his face. She watched a dark cloud pass over it.

"She lost the baby, Gibbs. I'm sorry. The blood today was probably a complication of losing the baby."

Gibbs leaned his back against the wall of the elevator and sunk to the floor. The darkness surrounded him. He was no longer aware of Ziva. He was only aware of his thoughts. His brain. His heart that had begun to bleed from the inside out. So many questions. So many questions pounded through his mind. Why hadn't she told him? He knew the answer to that one. Or thought he knew. She hadn't dropped so much as a hint. A baby. His baby. Their baby. He hadn't even thought about having kids since Kate died. He just figured himself for too old, too mean. But he loved kids. She knew he loved kids. She also knew that he lived in the past, surrounded by memories that haunted him. And he had run from her when she had needed him the most. He had run from her, leaving her to deal with the loss of another child. He dropped his head into his hands and took a long shuddering breath. What would he say to her now? How would he be able to stand in front of her and have a normal conversation? He didn't know whether to be angry or miserable or both at the same time. He stood up slowly. He flipped the on switch and let the elevator take him to the garage. He nodded at Ziva, took a deep breath and stepped out. He unlocked his car and slid behind the wheel. The engine roared to life. But the car never left the lot. He kept seeing Lizzy's lifeless form, blood covering her. The image would switch and she would be lying next to him in bed, whispering all the naughty things she was going to do to him. Then his mind flashed to the photograph of her and her son, in the hospital bed. Gibbs pulled slowly out of the Navy yard with tears once again threatening those baby blues.

A/N: Don't know if anyone saw that coming but I did hint at it a few chapters back. I think one more chapter should wrap it up and then… a sequel perhaps? I already have it outlined and a working title. Hope you have enjoyed it to this point…