Not mine, but I own Charlotte, her family, Ari, the twins, and the medical staff…
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Okay, I'm sorry I cranked at you the past chapter. It's just that I have put a lot of thought into this story, and it's kind of annoying to have it seem like nobody notices.
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The lights were too bright.
At least, that's what he decided the problem was.
If he'd been honest with himself, he would have admitted he was worried about his other half.
She was close by, but he couldn't reach over and touch her like he'd been able to do every day of their lives before now. He missed their kickboxing duels.
There were people by her bed. Why were they there? She needed to rest, and they couldn't see each other with all the people in the way.
His hopes that they would soon leave were quashed when they began to do all kinds of weird things to the objects surrounding his sister. To his horror, they subsequently began to take her away, out of the room, out of his sight.
Anguished at being separated, he began to wail hysterically.
My sister!
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Once again they were in the waiting room.
They were starting to hate that room.
Passionately.
Ari didn't get what was going on. The doctors had sort of explained to him that his baby sister was in surgery again, something about making her lungs better. That was good, but he didn't understand what Charlotte's dead brother had to do with it.
The aforementioned girl and her parents were in the room, too. He didn't understand that, either. But other people never made much sense, really. They were strange.
The utter and complete silence of the room was broken by Gibbs' voice.
"You okay?"
Ari started, abruptly jolted out of his reverie. He wasn't sure whether he was surprised or not that an hour and a half had gone by while they had been sitting there.
"What?"
"I said, are you okay?"
Ari considered the question for a moment. He turned his head from ear to ear indecisively. "I don't know. I wish I'd been able to meet my mother while she was still alive, but I know that can't happen. I- I'm just glad I can take care of my siblings." He stole a glance at Charlotte, who clutched a baby doll like her life depended on it. She was sitting on her mother's lap; the woman looked like she was perilously close to strangling her one remaining offspring.
Gibbs nodded. "Siblings are special. That's-" he broke off in a laugh- "the one thing I've managed to learn watching from the outside." He handed Ari a blue and silver gift bag.
"What's this?"
"A present. Open it."
Ari, as directed, performed the incredibly complex series of maneuvers required to open the gift bag and remove the baseball cap inside. He grinned and plopped it on his head, then frowned, nonplussed, and poked a finger through each of the holes through the cloth, one in the head, the other in the bill.
"I am wondering why there are bullet holes in my hat."
Gibbs smiled nostalgically, remembering Ziva's first day on the team. "You remind me of your mother. That's almost exactly what she said when I made her wear that hat when she'd just joined my team for the first time."
"So why did you give her a hat that you'd used for target practice? For that matter, why were you using it for target practice in the first place?"
Gibbs was once again startled by the child's powers of perception. "Well, that was originally DiNozzo's hat, but then I taped it to his shooting range target- he was supposed to miss it."
"His aim needs help."
"Well, it has gotten better over the course of the years since then, but… Yeah, you're right. It does."
Tony glared at them from semi-across the room, but before he could say anything, the door flew open. The entire team sprang to its collective feet when a doctor walked through the doors. He looked like he wanted to tell them what was going on, but couldn't find the right words.
"Is she okay?" Abby's face bore a countenance which seemed to epitomize concern.
"Well, the transplant seems to have been successful, at least thus far, but…"
"Spill it out, will you? What happened to my sister?"
The doctor hesitated and exchanged a glance with Gibbs, who apparently gave his approval for the man to inform Ari of the situation, as he relented and continued.
"She had some slight brain hemorrhaging during the surgery. I say slight, and we managed to get it under control fairly quickly, but there's no way to know right now how well she'll recover."
More trouble. Gibbs sighed. Is this ever going to be over?
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The room was even quieter than usual. No more beeping, no more mechanical whirring.
No more Ziva.
The light from the door spilled into the room, landing on the toy chest which no one had the heart to move. For whatever reason , the hospital didn't seem to need Ziva's room back just yet.
Gibbs shut the door, plunging the room into darkness as it snapped shut. For a moment, he just stood there in the dark and quiet, calming himself.
Finally, he walked over to the window and pulled up the blinds to reveal a white full moon. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he noticed again the sun on the toy chest. In the eerie moonlight, it looked like it was bleached out.
Impulsively, he laid the still-blank nameplates on the chest. One on each side.
He sank to the floor and wrapped his arms around his legs.
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"They need names."
"They need parents, they need more medical attention…"
Abby rolled her eyes at Tony. "I was just thinking that maybe we can actually do something for these kids, instead of just standing around and waiting for them to get better."
"What- you have a suggestion for names? I wish we'd known what Ziva wanted to name them…"
"Maybe she had a baby names book somewhere."
"We'd have to check her apartment."
They looked at each other. None of them had gone back to Ziva's apartment after they'd collected what evidence they could. McGee had taken possession of the houseplants, and Aries and Scorpio had taken up residence in Gibbs' basement until further notice. Other than for those brief trips, the team hadn't had the heart to see the place where their friend had lived, and essentially died. It was as if they thought that, somehow, Ziva still lived in her apartment, and that if they went back, they would break the spell.
Well, fantasies must end. Time to go.
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On the second day of Christmas, the two turtle doves finally resolved their identity crises.