Watch Over

"I answer no," Doctor Donald Mallard announced stubbornly, crossing his arms across his chest defiantly. Dressed in blue scrubs, he did appear an imposing figure.

For clarification he added, "An emphatic no-"

"No?" Jethro Gibbs responded, taken aback at his friend's insistence that he go nowhere. Rarely did his buddy contradict him or stand in his way.

"No," Ducky repeated. "No most assuredly means no, and I refuse to discuss this with you further. Really, Jethro, I am actually extending help your way. You are in dire need of it."

Annoyed and not certain how to proceed, Gibbs raked his hand through his hair and gave the good doctor his most incredulous look. "Ducky, you will sabotage this whole case by not clearing me!"

The physician in question squared his shoulders and adjusted his glasses. "Save the glare for your team, Jethro. I refuse to change my mind. Now, once again, you may not leave this agency for at least six hours, until the painkiller I administered leaves your system. Consider that final. Find something to keep you occupied until morning and do not visit me again in the next few hours. I mean it."

With that, the good doctor pointed decisively towards the automatic doors.

Gibbs opened his mouth to speak, then spun around and headed to the elevator.

Ducky had trumped him.

Inside the lift chamber he massaged the knee he had managed to twist once again during a chase earlier in the evening, a pull rough enough to elicit a painkiller from Dr. Mallard.

Stepping off at his floor he regarded the vacant desks of his team with surprise. He had left them half an hour before to go downstairs to Ducky, and had cautioned that no one was to leave NCIS. He planned a surprise visit to their current bad guy suspect's place of work as soon as the plant opened in the morning.

From experience he knew better than to let them go home with promises to return.

No, they would spend the night, or what was left of it, at NCIS.

Jethro headed to Abby's lab next, intending to thank her for coming back to work a little after midnight. However, with the exception of the refrigeration unit's light, the forensics area was dark.

Abby did not materialize.

Carefully softening his footsteps, he crept into the scientist's inner office to investigate. As he neared her desk he discovered his missing team members- all of them- sprawled sound asleep on the floor of her lab. Abby and Tony slept side by side, while Kate and Tim slept on either side of the two, but at a distance of six feet or so.

They looked peaceful, and he shook his head at how deeply they slept. He did not begrudge them the rest. They had outdone themselves during the day, and upon his orders, had buckled in for additional night hours.

They could do nothing further until morning.

Gibbs sank down gratefully in Abby's desk chair, and with a grimace, lifted his leg and wounded knee to prop on top of the desk.

His knee throbbed.

Ducky's painkiller would kick in soon, though.

Assessing the current state of his team once again, he decided he needed to take care of them first by letting them get some rest. Tilting back in the chair, he closed his eyes and assured himself they would deal with the dirtbag suspect in the morning.

With two, three, four, and five echoing in his thinking, Gunny Jethro Gibbs paused at the top of the landing to take a deep breath. To say exhaustion gripped him clearly understated the current condition of his life.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, straightened his shoulders, and approached the bedroom shared by his boys, the three and five of his two, three, four, and five year old progeny.

Tim, his three year old, lay perfectly in place where his father had tucked him earlier in the evening. A tow head, he sported the lightest hair of any of the kids.

Timid and self conscious by nature, he played well by himself and tended to let his siblings overshadow him.

Gibbs leaned over the bedrail- which the little boy tearfully begged his father not to remove any time it arose in discussion- and smoothed the boy's silky bangs.

Tim would always join the fringes of the crowd as a late bloomer.

Straightening, he crossed to his oldest's bed. As opposed to his brother's perfectly- in- place position, Tony lay sprawled across the mattress, covers bunched over, around, and beneath him. His brown hair, liberally sprinkled with blond, stood up where the little boy rested his arm across his forehead.

At five, Tony took his role as the oldest, and as big brother, very seriously, and he protected the others.

A daredevil and natural athlete, he craved action and excitement, and displayed a sharp wit and a sense of humour.

Gibbs took the time to reposition the child and marveled at the little boy's striking looks. Jethro had already experienced five years of admirers complimenting the boy on his long lashed green eyes and natural attractiveness, yet still found himself taken aback at times.

Moving softly so as not to awaken the two, he crossed the hall to the bedroom where his girls, Abby and Kate, slept.

At four, his Katie already displayed a natural poise which highlighted her innate grace. Jethro leaned against the doorway and regarded her, asleep on her side and curled into an S shape. Her dark hair fanned out over the pillow, and he noted her slender hands clasped underneath one cheek.

He privately thought she would grow up and choose the law as a profession, an obvious supposition because of her penchant for analyzing situations, emotions, and behaviors. She loved any opportunity to show off responsible conduct, and tended to boss her brothers and sister, sometimes successfully.

Moving to the bedside he smiled at the contents on her bedside table- pretend make up and a brush, a mirror and some plastic jewelry.

Pulling the spread over her shoulder, he smoothed it before kissing her softly on the cheek.

Turning, he trained his gaze in a panoramic view of the room, eventually pinpointing the whereabouts of his baby, two year old Abby. The family crib, a bit battered from four Gibblet offspring and with Tony's tiny teethmarks embedded into several of the rails, served as Baby Abby's bed now.

He discovered her under the crib, however, the third time in the past week.

Stooping down, he marveled at her fortitude and determination. She had evidently managed to crawl over the crib's bed rail and scale her way to the floor, plushad hauled selected belongings with her.

It amazed him that she could have managed all of this without alerting him. Then again, though just two, his tiny girl possessed a ready smile, a loving and generous personality, and a stubborn streak which surfaced when she felt wronged.

She was a girlie girl, very much into pretty adornments, dresses, and hair ornaments, and considered everyone a potential friend. Like Tony, she loved cuddling and was very affectionate.

Tonight she had on her favorite nightgown, a long white one with yellow flowers adorning the sleeve cuffs and the hem, and her dark hair- just long enough now to pass her chin, fell softly on her pillow.

Abby not only had centered herself under the crib, but had lined the entire area of the rectangular space with her baby blankets. Further, she had dragged her stuffed animals into the space, too, reminding Gibbs of the scene in ET where the alien hides amidst the stuffed toys.

Why she wanted to stay in such a confined space eluded him.

She had the whole bedroom in which to relocate.

Why find the most confining area?

On the plus side, perhaps as an adult she would not suffer from claustrophobia.

He started to pull her out and settle her back in the crib but worried that he would wake her if he did. It concerned him that she would hit her head on the crib's frame if she sat up all the way.

Resigned, he left her where she lay, thumb dangling from her little rosebud mouth.