<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#99ff99">Tim cuddled his baby sister close to him, kissing her forehead once he knew she was asleep and wouldn't protest the gesture of affection.  She wasn't wrong about the Admiral's likely reaction -- their father was not a poster child for fatherly affection.  Their mom would probably be more comforting, at least when not around the Admiral... and it might not be a bad idea for him to get in touch with Penny, their grandmother.  Penny had a way of making even the most insurmountable obstacles seem commonplace, something that had served her well as an Admiral's wife and a college professor.<br/>
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He knew sleep wasn't going to come easily, despite how tired he was.  The little footage he'd seen on the TV before Kate had shut it off was the stuff of nightmares, even for Tim.  Maybe if it hadn't been Sarah he'd have been able to watch it with the same detachment he handled NCIS cases... but that objectivity failed him.  It wasn't some stranger that had been hurt or that had lost her fiance... it was his baby sister.<br/>
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And knowing that they'd caught the guy wasn't as comforting as he'd thought it would be -- not the kind of closure he thought he was giving family members, when they closed a case.  It made him wonder why they even bothered, why they worked so hard to arrest perpetrators.  The damage wasn't undone just because the "former" drug dealer was in jail -- in some ways, it just prolonged it.  They now had a trial to look forward to (or dread.)  Not just the trial of the drug dealer -- but of all those reporters... Sarah would likely spend the next year constantly being asked to relive the worst day of her life.<br/>
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* ~ *<br/>
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"If I'm very, very good, will you tie me to the bed anyway?" Tony asked, with a decidedly wicked glint in his eyes.  Gibbs growled.  "Sorry, boss."  And because Gibbs was out of reach, Tony delivered his own head slap.<br/>
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He took the inhaler from Ziva and tucked it into his pocket, then fanned through the sheaf of prescriptions Dr. Pitt had written.  "Can I get these filled here at the hospital pharmacy?"  He was going to obey Brad, really.  Brad -- and Gibbs -- had kept him from dying of the damned plague... he wasn't about to start bucking their orders now.  (Well, he'd complain about them -- but he'd still do it.)<br/>
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"You can fill them downstairs," Dr. Pitt assured him.  "And then your partner is right -- home, and bed."  He squeezed Tony's shoulder.  "I'm glad you came in, even reluctantly, before it got worse.  You may be my favorite patient, but I don't want to see you very often."<br/>
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Tony gave him a wan smile.  "You got it, doc."  He slid of the bed and reached for Kate's notebook, reading it swiftly.  Then he turned the page, grabbed the pen out of Kate's hand, and scrawled a barely legible reply.  <i>Sorry, Kate -- I wasn't thinking about you not being able to hear what was going on.  I guess I'm not used to it yet.  I promise I'll follow orders just this one time.  </i>He paused, debating adding the rest of his thoughts, and decided that being sick should earn him some leeway.  <i>Watch Gibbs's six for me while I'm out, okay?  Not professionally, Tim and Ziva have got that covered -- but he needs you, and I'll rest better if I know somebody else is watching him.  Please don't tell him that.  And Katiebella?  I love you like a sister.  Never got to say it for your ears, but I can say it for your eyes.  Don't tell anybody that part either, okay?</i>  He handed the notebook back to her.  "C'mon, Ziva.  Let's go pick up my drugs, and then we can get the flock out of here."  He used the idiom purely for the confusion he knew it would cause... because he thought she was adorable when confused.  (Bad DiNozzo!  Partners are not adorable!)<br/>
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* ~ *<br/>
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Gibbs pretended that the arm he had around Kate's waist was to steady her physically... not to steady him emotionally... but it was a lie.  He needed her right now, with Tim's heart wounded and Tony's lungs not well.  He signed to her *Let's go home, Kitten* before he remembered that she hadn't learned to sign yet, and rubbed his forehead.  Releasing her reluctantly, he took the notebook from Tony (without reading his message -- he did have <i>some</i> sense of privacy) and wrote her a quick note.  <i>Let's go back to your apartment.  I need to hold you.</i>  For most of his life, he'd have resisted vociferously the idea that he needed anybody -- but he had promised himself to be honest with Kate, and he did need her.</span></span>