Chapter 142
| "Molly Palmer" |
At a week shy of eleven months old, Molly Palmer is an
adorable little ball of curly brown hair, a big, drooly eight toothed grin,
and, with the exception of when she's teething, a possessor of a generally
sunny disposition.
They spend enough time with the Palmers that she knows Uncle
Tim, and lights right up when she sees him. Sure this isn't the usual routine,
but time with one of her favorite people, a guy who dotes on her and is
insanely good at blowing raspberries on her tummy, is always a good thing.
Tim has no idea of how much she can read/understand of the
vibe of the place around her. And explaining why he was picking her up as he
showed his ID and was checked off on the list of approved people to pick Molly
up, sent the generally perky mood of her caregivers into a tailspin.
Still, he doesn't want her getting worried or agitated, so
he slaps a painfully fake smile on his face, says, "Hey, Molly-girl,"
and sweeps her up into a hug and tickles.
"You and I are going to hang out tonight. Get some
quality time together. Go easy on me, I haven't done this on my own since you
were a month old, and we both mostly slept that time. Your Aunt Abby took pictures
of it."
He just kept talking at her, letting her coo and babble back
at him. She's not walking or talking, yet, but she's certainly interested in
being part of the conversation, and she'll readily scoot toward whatever might
be going on as fast as her little self can go.
Tim got her in her car seat, and then they headed back to
Jimmy and Breena's.
He didn't really know what to do once he got there. It was
barely 4:30, so probably not dinnertime for Molly, yet.
Tim went to the kitchen and found a sippy-cup. He poured
some juice in it for Molly, and handed it to her. She seemed to approve,
slurping it down.
"Probably a good idea." He got himself a glass of
water. Then a thought hit. They'd been getting ready to paint the room that was
going to be Sammy's.
"Let's go upstairs." Molly didn't have any
comments on that, so up they went. One door down from Jimmy and Breena's room
was Sammy's and yes, the door was open. Breena had painted some large swatches
of the potential main colors along with different trim colors on the wall. The
box with the new crib was leaning against the wall, Molly's old bassinette was
in the middle of the room, next to the boxes with the baby clothing labeled nb,
0-3, 3-6, and 6-9. "Let's just close this door. They'll open it again when
they're ready for it."
Being a cop, let alone a cop who deals mainly with murders
and kidnappings means Tim routinely sees people on the worst days of their
lives.
But the fact that you do it often, that it's your job, just
makes you numb to it when it's a stranger's pain. When your two best friends
walk into their home looking like they've been tortured, you can't shut down
the way your own heart breaks for them.
Breena's crying. The kind of deep, distressed crying that's
gone through sobbing to exhausted and beyond. He's fairly sure the only reason
she's on her feet is because Jimmy's holding her up. And the only thing keeping
Jimmy up right now is the fact that he can't, won't let Breena fall.
The last time he saw someone that wounded who mattered that much
to him was when they were bringing Ziva back from Somalia. Once they were back
on the plane, free and safe, he finally relaxed enough to really see how she
was. And what she was was broken. Huddled in her seat, curled in on herself.
Gibbs sat next to her, his hand on her shoulder, looking like he wanted to hold
her, and sure that she couldn't take it.
Breena looks like Ziva did that day. Just utterly broken.
He was feeding Molly when they came in, mostly a job of
fetching the cheerios she was tossing off her tray. He jumped up and was next
to them in maybe three steps and then stopped, not sure if Breena wants to be
touched or not.
Jimmy catches the hesitation and nods, and he wraps both of
them into his arms. "I'm so sorry."
He holds both of them, crying with them, half aware of the
sound of Ducky talking to Molly in the background. Eventually he pulled back a
little to ask, "What do you need?"
"Just… keep watching her," Jimmy gets out.
"No problem. We're wrapping up dinner."
Jimmy nods, and they head upstairs to be alone with each
other.
He sits next to Ducky at the kitchen table. "Do you
know…?"
"No. I didn't press for details, and neither of them
wanted to talk on the ride home." Ducky holds onto Molly, snuggling her,
keeping her close to him, wrapped in his arms. Then, with a very deep sigh and
an even deeper look of weariness on his face, he hands her back to Tim and
says, "I have to go back. The autopsy isn't finished."
"Okay."
"Tony and Ziva are going to make sure Breena's car gets
here. But they're not going to come in."
That made a certain amount of sense. Right now Jimmy and
Breena are too raw for other people.
"Abby, Tony, and Ziva made the calls. They tell me
Breena's parents will be coming over."
"I'll handle it."
"Good." Ducky kisses Molly one last time, lips
lingering on her forehead in a way that makes Molly look puzzled, squeezes
Tim's shoulder, and then puts his coat and hat back on before heading back to
work.
As he's wrapping up Molly's leftovers, it occurs to Tim that
it's been at least six hours since Jimmy ate last. And while he's sure neither
of them wants to eat, Jimmy has to.
He roots around in the fridge, sure nothing he's going to
come up with will taste good tonight, but he hopes to find something that'll
stay down. At least, he knows he hasn't eaten because he's upset enough he
feels like he wants to throw up, so he doesn't imaging Breena or Jimmy are
doing any better.
Tim puts together a collection of cold cuts, cheeses, some
veggies and fruits. Jimmy and Breena don't have anything he'd call comfort
food, but comfort foods in his world are carbs, preferably sweet, baked ones,
and Jimmy doesn't/shouldn't eat that.
Tim walks into their room, and finds Jimmy and Breena
sitting on their bed, Jimmy holding her, both of them crying quietly.
He put the plate of food next to them, and wraps his arm
around Breena. Jimmy pushes the food aside.
"Look, I know you don't want to eat. But you have
to." Jimmy takes a half-hearted bite of a cucumber slice.
Tim nods. "Abby's called everyone and started to spread
the word." He's rubbing Breena's back, looking her in the face. "She
called your parents, and they're on their way. If you want to be alone, I'll
keep them downstairs, but they want to see you."
Breena looks at Jimmy, and Tim can see her imagining Jimmy
and her dad, and the wave of exhaustion at the idea of dealing with that slumps
her shoulders even further. "Just Mom for now."
"Okay. I'll keep Ed busy. Molly's fed, and we'll do
bath time soon, and then bed time."
"She nurses before going to sleep," Breena says.
"Okay. You want me to bring her up?"
"Not yet. She…" Breena's voice broke, but Tim
thinks he gets the idea. Molly'll start crying if she's being held by someone
else who's crying, and Breena can't take any more than is already on her plate.
"Okay, let me get back down to her. She's in the
playpen but…" he doesn't need to say that keeping an eye on a ten month
old who's getting this crawling thing down is a very good plan.
About half an hour later Ed and Jeannie were standing in the
foyer at Jimmy and Breena's, also looking like the walking wounded.
"Where are they?" Jeannie asked.
"Upstairs, in their bedroom."
Jeannie nodded and started up, Ed a step behind her.
"Ed." He put his hand on Ed's wrist, and Ed
stopped, turned toward him.
"What?"
"You aren't going up there."
"She's my daughter, and she's just lost her baby."
"I know. But he was Jimmy's baby, too, and if you go up
there, you'll say something that hurts him worse than he's already hurting. And
Breena can't take you two squabbling. So you don't get to go up there. He'll
come down eventually, and you can go up then. So for right now, you and I are
on putting Molly to bed duty. I've been telling her that Grandpa is coming
over, and he'll read her stories, and as best as she seems to understand, she's
looking forward to it, so plaster a smile on your face and grab Goodnight
Moon."
Ed closed his eyes, took a deep breath, steadied himself,
and slowly opened them. "He… Did they find out…"
Tim shook his head. "I don't know. Breena thought he
was a boy, so I'm just in the habit of calling Sammy he."
"Okay."
Tim realized that Ed was hurting, and that in his own
efforts to be protective of Jimmy, he's been a jerk to Ed.
"I'm sorry, Ed. I'm being a jerk. But they're both
really fragile right now…"
Ed nodded, forced a fairly sad grin onto his face, and
headed into the living room, scooping Molly up, hugging her very close for a
long time, and then tickling her.
About an hour later, when tubby and stories were done, and
Molly had nursed, cuddled with both her parents, and been put to bed, Jimmy
came downstairs. He let Ed know he could go see Breena and then just stood
there in the middle of his living room.
He looked around, blankly, "Where's Abby?"
"Our place."
His shoulders slumped further. "Oh."
"She wanted to come, but we weren't sure how Breena'd
feel…"
That clicked for Jimmy, and he seemed to think that might be
a valid point. He's standing in the middle of the living room, looking so
wounded, and Tim suddenly gets why Jimmy would want Abby right now.
Tim stood up. "Come on."
"Where are we going?"
"Outside." He grabbed both of their jackets and
held Jimmy's open. Jimmy put it on. Tim had the feeling Jimmy would do pretty
much anything he was told to right this moment.
"Why?"
"Because it's private." Tim took Jimmy by the
hand, and led him to the picnic table at the back of their property. Once they
got there, he cleared a patch of snow from the table, took Jimmy's glasses off,
carefully set them down, and wrapped his arms around him, half shielding him
from the cold air, half trying to be Abby for him. He felt Jimmy standing there
stiffly. "I know you'd rather do this with Abby, but she's not here, and
you still need it. We're far enough out Ed's not going to walk in and call us
fags, you won't wake Molly if you're loud, and I'm not Breena, so you don't
have to comfort me. I've got you, Jimmy."
And Jimmy crumpled into him, shaking and sobbing while Tim
held him and rubbed his back. Eventually gasping sobs slowed down, and
eventually Jimmy pulled back and sat down on the top of the picnic table. Tim
sat next to him, keeping his arm around his shoulder, hoping his touch is
comforting.
"They think it was trisomy 13, but they won't know
until they do the tests. Something like ninety percent of the babies with it
die in utero, and almost eighty percent of the ones who are born die within a
year of birth, mostly within a month, and at this point, none of them have made
it past six years." His voice was raw and hollow. Shell-shocked, that was
the term that comes to Tim's mind.
"We've got to go back tomorrow so they can induce
labor."
Those words felt like a punch to the gut and made Tim want
to vomit at this new, extra layer of flaying pain on top of a bonfire of agony.
Labor meant hours of pain, hours of waiting, meant this isn't just over and
done with.
"They gave us a choice. We could do a D&E, which is
fast, but…" Tim knows enough about this that he's got an idea of how a
D&E works, so he's fairly sure what 'but' means. "Or induce, which is
slow… but he'll be whole, and we'll get to hold him…" That set off another
round of ragged crying, which slowed after a few minutes.
"Sammy was a boy." Tim squeezed Jimmy's shoulders
a little tighter. "They didn't want me to see the scans, but I did the
whole, I'm-a-doctor thing. Now I wish I hadn't, 'cause I can't unsee them. No
eyes, cleft palate, no kidneys, a hole in his heart, less than a third the size
brain he should have had. And she had to sit there, alone, seeing him on the
ultrasound, because they were doing the 4d-look-here's-your-baby thing before
they shut it down, and I wasn't there."
Tim doesn't say anything, because there's nothing to say.
Just hearing about it makes his knees feel week and his stomach clench. He
doesn't even want to try to imagine living it. He just sits there next to
Jimmy, holding onto him.
"You know what's terrible?"
Tim shook his head, all of this is terrible, but obviously
there's somewhere Jimmy wants to go with this.
"I'm relieved his heart wasn't beating. Because if it
had been, then we would have had to decide to terminate or not."
"I don't think that's terrible. Having to make that
choice is the only thing I can think of that would make this worse."
Jimmy stared at the sky. It's overcast, looks and feels like
it'll start snowing any minute. He's working up to saying something, and Tim's
fairly sure what it is, fairly sure that Jimmy needs to say the words, to make
it real.
"My son's dead." Jimmy started sobbing again, and
Tim held him, rubbing his back, crying with him, as the snow began to fall.
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