One Easy Payment
Who: Everybody, gen.
Rating: PG
Random: Twilight AU. I know, I know. Trust me.




"Delays have dangerous ends."
- King Henry VI. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 2.

---

Kate just smiles and tries to shake off their praise.




Several hundred yards away a man takes a breath and pulls a trigger.

He is not a good shot.



One Easy Payment:


This is a story about survival.




Gibbs' eyes are frantic as they scan nearby rooftops. His weapon is still drawn and that means something to him. That he has some power over this. He feels the wind ruffle his hair, hears Tony's voice faintly, far away, radioing for help. He keeps searching, careful to keep his eyes anywhere except on Kate, or on Tony, whose tone is near pleading.




Tony inhales and looks down at Kate. Above her right eyebrow and an inch from her hairline is a dime-sized hole. He bends down and checks her pulse. It's there. Weak against his cold fingers. If he wasn't scared before he is now. He is now.

"Boss!"

Tony feels the blood start to dry on his face. He doesn't think to call for Gibbs a third time.




When the ambulance is two miles from the hospital, and he's tired of counting Kate's missing heartbeats, McGee asked, "Do you believe in God, Tony?"

"It doesn't matter." He stares past McGee's shoulder for a few seconds and then motions toward Kate, who lies between them on a stretcher. "She believes in God."

"So?"

"And just look where it got her, Probie."

McGee lets their silence stretch. This is the cactus land, he thinks. As the hospital slides into sight, he's reminded of golden calves, and that the faith Gibbs commands isn't always enough.




This is a story about -


Abby looks around from her seat in the waiting room. Ducky is talking to a doctor who has what she presumes to be Kate's blood on his scrubs. McGee is sitting in the corner and staring at a situation he'll never quite be able to bring into focus. Gibbs is nowhere to be found. Tony is pacing, trying to get a hold of Kate's family, furious because he doesn't want to leave a message that includes: I'm sorry, I work with your daughter and—

She excuses herself from her seat and from the room. The sun is bright and nearly pins her to the ground as she steps outside into the parking lot. A breeze blows around her ankles and she quickly shakes off the sentiment as she slides on her sunglasses. She has work to do.




This is a story -


Nothing can be done for her. Ducky agrees and Gibbs hates him a little for that.




The nurse changes the bandage wrapped around Kate's head so her family can visit. They shuffle into the room a solemn parade. Her mother doesn't make it past the doorframe. With one hand full of tissues and the other clutching a rosary, nobody really expected much.

Her brothers are in turns angry with her and with each other. With a god that's everywhere, but suddenly nowhere to be found.

Her father only stares out of the darkening window as he makes his own decent into the situation. He will stand for hours as everyone leaves the room and the hospital fades into quiet.

Finally, he walks over and squeezes her hand, says he loves her. Even if it's only to the empty room. He doesn't need to be a doctor to know his daughter isn't coming back from this.




This is a -


It has been three hours Kate was shot.




First Jen takes over as director and then Ziva appears, adamant of her brother's innocence. Gibbs is wired with revenge. He ignores Jen completely and gives Ziva looks that split fingernails.

Tony and McGee have been attached at the hip, speaking only in loud whispers and tracking down leads. They've also been taking occasional glances at Gibbs, who keeps checking his weapon, ensuring that it has a full clip and a round in the chamber.




This is -


Abby manages to somehow pinpoint Ari's location to an abandoned warehouse.

"Get this," she said to Gibbs. "It's about five blocks from where Kate was—"

He's already moving away from her because he doesn't want to hear it. He doesn't hate Ari, not yet, but when he leaves the room, his eyes are hard and his mouth is hungry.




Tony grinds his knee into the small of Ari's back, pulls his chin to the side and whispers, "Gotcha." Ari just stared back at him. "You've got a lot to answer for," he said, almost mockingly and turned to Gibbs.

Gibbs, who had the muzzle of Ziva's gun pressed against his temple, said nothing.

Then Ari began to struggle against his handcuffs. Tony presses his knee down harder, until Ziva shouts in Hebrew, already visualizing Gibbs on the ground with a halo of blood, and McGee had to do something.

First, McGee just stood, watching small horrors and potential future regrets unfold slowly, like maybe for the first time, a secret whose pieces are always sliding. A trickle of sweat forms on the back of his neck and traces a line to his suddenly tight collar.

He turns his gun and his attention towards Ziva.

The rest is routine.




Later, those siblings end up together in the coroner's van, and it is done. This upsets McGee, that he killed someone but isn't a murderer. Gibbs knew this, took him off to the side, and said to him: it's fine, don't second-guess yourself, etc. Gibbs doesn't hug McGee, not quite, but gently places his hand on the back of McGee's head, and after a moment, McGee's uncertainty curls itself away with the wind.




Gibbs returns in the early hours of the morning. Tony and McGee are with him, but Ziva is not. There is blood on the cuff of McGee's shirt and Tony has a slight limp. Gibbs appears to be fine. He always is.

And Abby, who waited very patiently and very still at his desk, knows any attempt at a conversation would begin with a lie.




This -


Later that morning, Gibbs is politely disagreeing with Kate's mother in a room that holds more machines than people. The constant beeping of a heart monitor begs him to pay attention to Kate, who, unbeknownst to her mother, had signed a DNR. He hates these types of places. The rooms, the furniture, everything, everything is so bland. With a sizable portion of her brain now in shreds, Kate fits in perfectly.

"It's what she wants," he told her mother

"Do you have any children, Agent Gibbs?" she asked. When he offered no reply, she interpreted his reluctance to answer as a no. Most people did. "Then don't presume to know what I'm going through."

He gave her a quiet, "Ma'am," abruptly stood, and left the room.




His fingers curled and uncurled at his sides as he walked to his car. He drives home, goes straight to his basement, and promptly takes an axe to his boat until his bad shoulder aches with the fury of it.

He then took a seat at his workbench and pitied the boat, which had suddenly become unholy.




That day, the evening came on real slow, and Tony took dinner over to Gibbs. He found Gibbs in the basement, having run out of things to give himself over to, and still seated at the workbench. Tony let his eyes ask what he was too proud to say. Gibbs answered when he took the food and went upstairs.

Abby stops by later when Tony leaves and forces Gibbs to shower. They argue for fifteen minutes, mostly about Gibbs refusing to take care of himself when in pursuit of something, or about Abby, who hadn't slept in twenty hours. She assured him it was nothing new. He agreed to the shower, intending to return to work afterwards.




She waits for him in the kitchen and when he joins her, barefoot and dripping on the floor, she has black tears. He sits down.

Abby leans against the doorjamb as she tells him Kate was taken off life support. Her sobs punctuate the spaces between her words and he knows there's nothing else to be done.




Dedicated to where we stopped:


The trees and plants were desperate for spring. After being dormant for so long they were frantic for life and oxygen, the solitary moment when everything blossoms and breathes again. The yellow sun, blue sky, and red roses left their surroundings dripping in primary colors.

At seventy-three degrees with a light wind, it was a beautiful day for a funeral.




Gibbs looks down at Kate's casket. There is a line on his face for every year he's lived and a few for those he hasn't. He stands at attention one more time and turns to follow the worn path that leads away from her.

The rest of them follow in similar fashion: a glance down at Kate, who cannot be dead, and then a small thing is considered.

Abby's tattoo is heavy on her back and she can't help but to think He was born for this. He was destined for that cross. Her eyes drop one last time with her thoughts sliding to Kate and why it takes so little to create a martyr these days.

Tony is tired from the flight and from many things. He stares at Kate, with her rosary and her frills. Every victim was once like her, just another face in the crowd, and to him, she'll always be defined by death.

McGee thinks she looks peaceful, nice. There are circles, routines to living, and this is just another way to achieve balance. He understands numbers and patterns, explicit answers, but when he gets home, he will write Kate's family a letter, apologizing for all the things he isn't.

Kate reminds Ducky of everything he wasn't taught in medical school. How the human body breaks down and it's just a matter of an audience. Life is incapable of sustaining what it creates. He hears his mother calling for him, though she isn't there, and is very much aware that each person will be his or her own conclusion.




(There are things he misses, sunrises and sunsets, beginnings or endings that are actually definite.

His dreams are of this: McGee more concerned with what's right than what's regulation, Abby not cheerfully destroying herself by inches, Tony comfortable with who he is, Ducky just taking a moment to breathe, and Kate, wearing a badge on her hip, as she outlives them all.)