Chapter Text
Tuesday morning...
Kate woke up to a steady beep of a machine. At first she didn’t know where she was. Her eyes were still shut but her other senses are coming back to her slowly as she regain consciousness. She could feel a dull pain all over her body and some sharper ones on her sides and neck. She whimpered weakly when she felt something pressing against her face and she realized that she still couldn’t move freely; something cold was circling one of her wrists. Adrenaline rushed to her head as Kate thought that she was still imprisoned. Kate forced herself to open her eyes, breathing heavily.
“Kate?” a familiar voice called out to her softly. Kate’s brown eyes scanned the room and settled at the owner of the voice’s face. A pair of blue eyes was staring back at her with concern. Kate let out an audible sigh as her half-awake mind recalled whom they eyes belong to. “Kate?” Gibbs reiterated with so much gentleness that brought Kate to tears.
She blinked the tears away and she tried to smile at Gibbs, who was standing across the room. The man returned her effort with a lopsided smirk; he approached the side of the bed and leaned so that his face was mere inches from Kate’s. Gibbs took away the oxygen mask covering Kate’s face and waited a moment to see if Kate was able to breathe without it before putting it next to the pillow. “Can’t move,” she complained; she frowned upon hearing her own voice and winced at the pain it caused when the voice vibrated inside her throat. Her voice was hoarse as if Kate hadn’t used it for years.
Gibbs smiled even wider, almost grinning now. He lifted his hand and showed Kate something small – a key. Kate followed his motion and she finally saw something that made her raised her eyebrows in surprise. She was cuffed to the bed. Gibbs unlocked the cuffs and tenderly removed Kate’s hand from the metal bind. “You were being uncooperative when the doctor tried to treat your injuries,” he justified. He looked at Kate and read the silence disapproval in the brown eyes. He shrugged. “Hey, it was either this or strait-jacket. And I’m not going to let some doctors put a strait-jacket on my agent.”
“Thanks for the concern, Gibbs,” she said mockingly, “But they don’t use strait-jackets in hospitals.” She managed another small smile before she started coughing. Kate tried to push away Gibbs’ hands as the man attempted to put back the oxygen mask but he was persistent.
“Breathe easy, Katie, breathe easy,” he instructed, wiping a drop of tear off of Kate’s face as he spoke. “Go back to sleep, okay? I will come back later,” he whispered.
Kate grabbed the sleeve of Gibbs’ shirt when she saw the man was leaving. She shook her head, pleading him not to leave.
Gibbs sighed inside as he saw the unspoken fear in Kate’s dark orbs. He dragged a chair and sat next to the bed. “I’ll stay here another couple of minutes, okay? The team, plus Ducky and Abby, is waiting outside. They also want to see you,” he told his subordinate. “They are worried about you, Kate.”
The brunette shifted her position so she could see Gibbs better. Their eyes met and she hoped she hadn’t thought what she thought because she knew Gibbs knew what she was thinking by the look he gave her.
There was a moment of silence.
“I’m worried about you, Kate,” Gibbs finally admitted, “I messed up a bit in the process.”
“Gibbs,” Kate spoke up, reaching out to touch his hand. “I’m still alive. And I’m quite sure I wouldn’t be if it weren’t for you.” He still refused to look at her, but he took her small hand into his. “Gibbs,” Kate called again, more persistently now. “Gibbs, the girls were already dead when we got the case.” He whipped his head upwards. Kate swallowed hard. She was tired and sore, and all she wanted to do was to go back to sleep, but she couldn’t leave Gibbs like this. “It wasn’t your fault,” she tried to assure him.
“You weren’t breathing when I got there,” Gibbs said so softly that Kate could barely hear him. Images of Kate in the tool shed, bound and gagged, flashes in his eyes. “If I was half a minute late, Kate, you wouldn’t be alive. And even if you survived, you’d have a brain damage.”
It was Gibbs’ admitting his fear that finally brought Kate into tears. She wanted to tell Gibbs that it hadn’t been the case, he hadn’t been late and she was okay, but nothing came out as she opened her mouth to speak.
Gibbs ran his hand to his hair dismally and he wiped Kate’s tears away. “Don’t cry on me now, Agent Todd,” he teased, but his voice cracked as if he himself was about to cry. “And my couple of minutes was up a while ago.”
“So you were saying that I have brain damage now?” Kate teased, making Gibbs chortle a laugh. Then her face grew serious. “Where did he bury the girls?” Kate couldn’t stop herself from asking. She had to know. “Tell me everything.”
The senior agent looked at the woman astoundingly. She was still in pain and she wanted to know the gruesome details about the case. He told her to put the oxygen mask back on. “We found Charlotte Weston inside one of the barrels. No tar, just hundreds of pebbles,” he stated grimly. “As for Lindsey Burke, she was still in the shed where he kept you. She was mutilated, Kate. He cut her up and stuffed her inside a TV box wrapped with Cling Wrap.”
Kate was revolted. Her stomach turned and cold sweat began to form on her forehead. Gibbs must have seen how pale she became because he stopped talking immediately. “That’s enough, okay? You can read the report later, when you’re better,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to go now.”
“Why?” she asked weakly.
Gibbs looked at her, slightly confounded. “Why what?”
Why did you have to go now? “Why did he do that?”
The silver-haired agent sighed. He leaned down and stroke Kate’s damp hair. “You know that sometimes there is no ‘why’, Katie. You’ll go crazy thinking about it,” he said, half whispering. Gibbs resisted the urge to kiss the woman’s forehead and he stepped back. “Get some rest, Katie.”
Kate didn’t ask him to stay this time. She watched Gibbs retreating to the door. His hand was on the door handle when Kate called his name. “Everything is going to be okay between you and Tony,” she promised. “You two are worse than my brothers,” she added.
Gibbs chuckled and left the room without saying anything. He didn’t know how the woman could have known about his fall out with Tony, but somehow he believed her. Everything was going to be okay, Kate was safe. Nothing could go wrong if Kate was around to control the universe – his universe. For the first time in the last few days, the huge weight inside Gibbs’ heart seemed to have been lifted up. He felt at ease. Gibbs smiled as he left for his coffee fix.
-Fin-