A huge thank you to finlaure for taking the time to beta!
Seriously I'm hugging you all in my mind right now ;) You are amazing! Thank you so much!
A/N: It's 2:45 in the morning , my bed lovingly screams my name, and I will listen to it in about a minute or so, but I wanted to make sure you all get something new to read! You all deserve a treat after the enormous response to the previous chapter! I don't want to sound to greedy, but keep the encouragements coming, it might forces me into writing more, well, and updating faster of course. I might add, since it is that early in the morning, or late at night, (depends on how you look at it) I will not respond to your kind words right now, but with a fresh cup of coffee in the morning!
Well, honestly Thank you all! It means a lot to me.
ENJOY!
-16-
On the floor at the threshold between kitchen and living room he found himself confronted with the image of his most common nightmare.
Abby's lifeless form.
Time stopped. He didn't hear a thing, besides the humming of blood in his ears. No clock ticking. No music. Nothing could penetrate his senses but the image he faced right at that moment.
The picture in front his eyes was something he always had dreaded to see and often he had seen a variation of this image in the always present nightmares. Usually the first thing he had done then was bringing her a Caf!Pow first thing in the morning.
The last two weeks he just had pulled her warm body closer to his, inhaling her smell, tasting her skin. Now he was certain no matter what happened next, every single nightmare he would have in the future would end with this image of Abby on the floor.
Face forward, cheek pressed against the cold floor laid Abby. Her one arm was pinned beneath her body and the other was outstretched, pointing away from her body.
The skin he could see, from where he stood, was ghostly white. What made him hold his breath was the fact that Abby didn't seem to breathe at all.
Gibbs' hand automatically reached for his SIG, being on autopilot he checked the striking distance around the floor before he was next to her, not caring that his knees screamed in protest and probably wouldn't appreciate the upcoming day.
On the other hand it was a moot point; if Abby wouldn't make it he could as well follow her.
Losing the one thing that kept him going, would break him for good.
Banning the thoughts for the moment he turned her lifeless body so far around that her back was pressed against his thighs.
There was no obvious reason for her state, no entrance wound, blunt force trauma, nothing.
"Don't you dare!" He almost yelled at the lifeless form in his arms.
"Don't you dare die on me Abs." You are all I've left. He added silently while checking for a pulse.
To his relief he found her breathing. Barely visible to the naked eye but indeed breathing. Slow breathing but breathing nonetheless.
"Abby, please." Turning her around till her back rested on the wooden surface of the floor he bent forward and carefully started to pat her cheeks, in order to wake her up.
The fact that she didn't show a sign of regaining consciousness scared him more with every passing minute.
Making a decision he lifted her up, swallowing hard as her body reacted so differently to his carrying from the week before.
Usually her arms would find their way around his neck, holding on to him nuzzling his neck; she did that even when she was asleep.
This time her upper body was bent backwards over his arm, dangling lifeless toward the ground, her right arm did the same while the other one ended up on her stomach.
His voice sounded strange in his own ears as he kept calling her name all the time, still hoping for a reaction.
Adrenaline was such a wonderful invention. It keeps you going where you normally wouldn't be in any condition to do so.
Not daring to wait for an ambulance he carried her to his car. Only god knew how he managed to grab his belongings, how he opened the entrance door or the car door but somehow he did.
Carefully Jethro lowered her onto the seat, buckled her up and drove as fast as he dared towards the closest hospital.
Once or twice it almost came to an accident as he speeded through the familiar streets of the town.
Gibbs didn't know how he had made it to the hospital in less the fifteen minutes but he wasn't going to complain. Instead he parked his car, got out and hurried to the other side.
He carefully lifted her even paler form out of his vehicle, kicked the door close with a foot, thereby leaving a dent in the metal and carried her through the emergency entrance into the hospital, calling for a doctor.
Moments later a nurse hurried to his side with a doctor right behind her.
Both women pointed toward the door on his right-hand side. The nurse opened the entry for him and let him get ahead of her in the white tiled room, following him as soon as he passed the threshold to assist the doctor.
Once the grey-haired, blue-eyed agent had placed Abby onto the treating bed he stepped back to make room for the doctor. Jethro never let his eyes move away, they stayed focused on the woman he allowed himself to fall in love with, the woman who had brought the sense of living back.
When something bad would happen to her, he was sure he couldn't go back, this time he would lose it. Going through the kind of loss where you get it taken from you was bad, it let the best man struggle, going through it again would probably be the end for any person on earth, no matter who he or she was.
Not even the second nurse who desperately tried to get his attention could make him look away from the pale figure on the bed.
"Mister." Jethro didn't acknowledge the young nurse in front of him.
Instead he stared at the doctor cutting Abby's shirt in half, her favorite one, the one with the winking skull.
Silently he promised her a new one as long as she made it.
His eyes followed the gloved hands connect the patched electrodes to the wire of the cardiac-monitor.
"Mister." Finally he reacted without looking away from Abby.
"What?" A tone all of his agents didn't like to hear.
The kind of tone, all knew, a head-slap soon was about to follow.
"You have to follow me, sir."
"No!" His voice was full of authority.
The nurse let her eye drop to his gun and badge and came to the very wrong conclusion.
"I assure you Sir; whatever she did she won't leave this room in any other way than a hospital bed or by the looks of it a body bag."
Oh no! *evil me* leaving you guys again with a cliffhanger...
So what do you think?