Worst Case Scenario (13/23)
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water4willowsCharacters: Tony, Gibbs, McGee, Ziva, Ducky, Palmer, Vance, Various OCs
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Muti-Chapter Case Fic
Pairings: Slight TIVA, but blink and you might miss it, other than that None
Rating: PG-13 for Violence & Language
Words: Chapter 13 - 701
Summary: The death of a child draws the team into web of lies, cover-ups and murder. Will the emotional case claim the life of one of their own?
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with NCIS. The character's contained in this work of fiction are the property of CBS.
He uses both hands to push through the door and a desperate pair of eyes meets his. He has no answers for the questioning gaze and mercifully it falls away when it realizes this is so.
The air in the room is frigid as if the hospital has done it on purpose to accent the icy grip of fear already present in the space around them. He finishes his entry into the room and feels Ziva enter behind him. Her force a physical push at his back. He finds his way to the duty nurse who asks him to kindly see to the agent pacing the waiting room floor and make sure that he does not disrupt the quiet hospital atmosphere again. He doesn't understand the nurse's request , nods anyway, but doesn't dare approach the pacing agent either. There are special gloves used to handle Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs and he's not privy to where they are kept.
That lot falls to Dr. Mallard, and he's not here yet. The good doctor is still on his way back from NCIS and has left him alone with two wounded federal agents and he doesn't quite know how to care for such creatures.
Ziva, he sees, has taken a faraway seat as Gibbs continues his aimless circuit 'r ound the room. Perhaps the whispers he heard on the way up about the man who put his fist through a wall were about the pacing agent? His eyes fall to a hastily wrapped right hand, the whiteness of the bandage already spotting with blood, and he curses his boss in his head.
This is no place for Jimmy Palmer. His place is in the morgue, not dealing with the living as evidenced by his innate ability to take words of comfort and of sentiment and turn them into bumbling, baffling speeches that wouldn't calm a child. There's no manual he can read for dealing with a team who's just lost one of their own.
No, not lost. Just misplaced for the time being.
Dr. Mallard would know what to do. He has the play book on putting them back together and anchoring them to earth memorized by now.
He contemplates where to sit after the nurse explains that she has no new information to give him on the agent he's inquiring about and doesn't miss the fact that she does not bother to ask if he's family or not. He bets it's because Gibbs has given her a new definition of the word .
He knows that if he catches Gibbs' attention again, the questions that passed between them in silence when he first arrived might then be voiced this time and he can't trust himself to say the right thing. If he sits next to Ziva he's taking his life in his hands, unsure of how the volatile Israeli will react to his own home grown form of comfort. He decides instead on a chair that gives him both a good view of the room where he can remain detached yet still act as buffer between Gibbs and the nurse if needed and he's proud of himself for thinking of it.
When the waiting room door opens again he's looking into the face of his savior. When Ducky arrives his presence brings with it an instant calm and it's an effect Jimmy Palmer knows he'll never come to master. He's too unsure, too bumbling, too undisciplined to command such a thing but it doesn't matter because he know's h e's saved now. They're all of them saved and he tries not to be jealous when Ducky makes a beeline for Gibbs without sending a second glance his way. He lets this jealousy melt away from his thoughts when he reminds himself of where he is and of what has just transpired.
Gibbs is a slowly crumbling wall and Jimmy's been watching the deconstruction process ever since the scene in the trees when... No, Gibbs needs Ducky more.
Tragedy, he's been told, is supposed to bring people together, but in the hushed cold of the waiting room, he feels more like an outsider than ever and he tries to ignore the revelation.