The next morning was beautiful. THe sun was shining, and the birds were singing. The birds woke Kate up, and slowly she opened her eyes to a sleeping Gibbs. She sighed to herself and thought, *I don’t wanna get up, but I really gotta pee.* Finally she decided to get up and she did, after slowly and carefully removing Gibbs’ arm from around her waist. After all of about three seconds after Kate left, Gibbs woke up and paniked. *Where’s Kate?* he thought to himself. Kate returned soon and scared the crap out of Gibbs.
“God, Kate, where’d you go?” He asked, after getting over the enitail shock of her scaring the crap out of him.
“I had to ‘unhydrate’ as you call it, Jethro.” She said with a small smirk. Gibbs smiled a bit at the comment, and soon they were joking over another backberry meal.
“Hey, what happened to Tony, Mcgee, and Ducky?” Kate asked.
“I...um...” Gibbs thought for a moment, this was the first time he acctually thought about them since he took off after Kate. “I don’t know.” He finally admitted.
“Gibbs!” Kate shouted standing up and starting to pace around. “We’ve got to find them, they might be hurt, or hungary, or lost, or worse...”
Kate trailed on and on before Gibbs finally stopped her.
“Kate, it’s okay.” he reassured her, “they’re okay, and will find them. I mean, how hard is it to find a crashed helicopter in the woods?”
“True.” Kate admitted, “But which way did we come from?”
“Yet another good question.” Gibbs said as he walked over to stand by the river. “Now when I found you, you were laying in thew river at...” He continued to trail on, but Kate didn’t hear any of what he was saying. She had walked over to a tree, a particularly tall tree at that, and began to climb it. She climed higher, and higher only stopping when she heard Gibbs calling her name.
“Kate! Kate! Damn Kate where are you!”
“Relax, Jethro, I’m up here!” She shouted down from where she was sitting in the tree.
“Where?” He asked.
“Um... here, I’ll drop my shoes.” She told him, they were making it harder for her to climb anyway. So she dropped her shoes, and Gibbs found them in front of a tree, He looked up, and Kate waved down at him.
“Kate, get down from there!” He ordered.
“Why, I’m trying to find the helicopter.”
“Because, it’s dangerous.”
“So, I’m getting shot at once or twice a week Jethro, I think this is safer than that. Besides, did you figure out where the helicopter is.”
Gibbs hieitated for a moment. “Well, no but...”
“Then this is the only way to find the others.” Kate informed him, and she continued to climb. Gibbs kept yelling at her, telling her to be careful, but she didn’t pay attention. THe bark of the tree scraped her feet, but she didn’t pay attention to that either. She was so happy, she was climbing again. SHe hadn’t climbed a tree in years, and even when she did climb them, she never climb one this high. She reached the top in about Ten minutes.
“I found it!” Kate shouted down to Gibbs. “It’s west of here.”
“Great work Kate.” Gibbs replyed. “Now get down!” THis time, Kate followed orders. She made it almost all the way down, when the worst thing imanginable happened. She slipped. She lost her footing, and fell to the ground, hitting with great force. She could hear her arm and leg break, and she hit her head pretty hard, she thought she heard it crack too.
“Kate!” Gibbs shouted running twards her. “Kate, c’mon Kate, say something!”
“Jethro.” She was able to say, but it was barely a whisper.
“I’m right her Kate.” He told her, lifting her into his arms.
“Jethro... head...” was all she was able to say.
“You hit your head, but it’s not fractured, thank God! Your arm protected it.” Kate’s eyes began to slide close. “No Kate!” Gibbs shouted. “You’ve gotta stay awake.”
“Can’t...”
“Kate, hang on!” Gibbs shouted. But Kate’s eyes had already closed. “Kate! Kate!” he shouted, but didn’t recieve an answer.“Please Kate, wake up!” he begged, and he saw her slowly open her eyes. “Kate, you’ve gotta stay with me.” He begged.
“Can’t...” she said again.
“I know it’s hard, but you’ve gotta try.” Gibbs told her. Slowly, she nodded her agreement. He lifted her, and switched her position so she was on his back. He took off running as fast as his legs would carry him (which was considerably fast) to the west. He continued to make Kate talk to him, making sure she was still awake. Soon THey were in the clearing where they had crashed landed the day before and were cheerfully greeted by their friends.
“Ah, Jethro, so good to see you.” Ducky gladly greeted, Gibbs didn’t responed, but slowly lowered Kate off of his back and onto the ground.
“Boss, what’s wrong with Kate?” Mcgee asked, concerned.
Kates eyes had closed again. “Kate, Kate you’ve gotta stay awake.” Gibbs begged again.
“I can’t...”
“Try Kate, you’ve gotta try.”
“No I don’t... and I don’t want to. Jethro... I want to... want to...”
“Want to what Kate?”
“I want to... see him... again.” Kate’s eyes fluttered closed, and then opened again. “I need... to see... him... Jethro. Let me... see... my Dad.” Kate’s eyes slid closed and no amount of begging from Gibbs could wake her.
“Jethro, what happened?” Ducky asked.
“She fell out of a tree. She was trying to find you guys. On her way back down, she fell. God, I should never have let her climb that thing.” Gibbs continued on, blaming himself.
“Hm... well then, I guess I could help as best as I could. Timothy, I need you to get me two long and two medium sized sticks.” Mcgee nodded and set off to find them. “And I’ll need cloth to...” before Ducky coulod finish his sentence, Tony had his shirt off and was ripping it into strips. Soon, Mcgee was back wih the sticks and Ducky had started to splint Kate’s left arm and leg, for they had broken in the fall.
Tony hadn’t said anything since Gibbs had arrived with Kate, but something was bugging him and he need to know. “Her Dad, Gibbs?”
“Yeah.” Gibbs replied. He didn’t look up at his agent, his eyes were fixed on Kate. Her eyes were moving, REM, she was dreaming. But was it a good dream, or bad...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kate woke up on the ground, or rather what she persumed to be the ground. She slowly sat up, awating to pain that he knew was going to surge through her body from the fall, but it never came.She looked around, and saw a tall figure standing in front of her, she knew who it was.
“Dad?” She asked as she stood up, the figure nodded. “Dad!” she shouted and ran twards him to give him a hug, he hugged her back.
“Caitlin, how are you?” He asked.
“Dead.” she answered.
“No your not.”
“Then how can I see you?”
“Because, your on the verge of death, but your not dead yet, and I won’t let you die.”
“But, I don’t want to leave you.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“You won’t be.” He replyed. Off in the distance, Kate saw the one and only Leroy Jethro Gibbs. He was sitting by a boat, a bottle of burbon in one hand, gun in his other. There was a picture attached to the boat. The picture was of her. Setting down the burbon, he unattached the picture, and moved it so it was right in front of his face. Raising the gun to his head he whispered, “See you soon, Kate.” and fired. He layed dead on the floor.
“No!” Kate shouted, but as she ran twards the image, it dissappeared.
“You see, you can’t die now. If you do that is what’ll happen, and you don’t want that.” Kate shook her head, agreeing with her Dad. “He’s a fine man, he’ll do right by you.” Kate again nodded in agrement. “Now, wake up Kate.”
Just as she was aout to wake up, she stopped. “I’m sorry Dad.”
“I know, I love you.” and with those final words Kate slowly faded into darkness...
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