Genevieve

Chapter 13

Beep. Beep. Beep. I sigh as I am pulled out of sleep by the monitor beeping steadily. Well, that's good, at least that means my heart is in tact. I slowly open my eyes and look around through half closed eyes. I groan and take off the oxygen thing that is in my nose. "You know, you should probably leave that in. The bullet hit a rib, which in turn punctured your lung." Gibbs walks over to me and hooks the tube back behind my ears. He pulls the chair over and sits back down. "We wouldn't want you to stop breathing on us." 

I smile slightly. "Gibbs, I feel sleepy..." He nods. 

"Yep, I suppose you would. They had to surgically remove the bullet and repair the punctured lung. Even though you had passed out, they had to sedate you so that they could be sure you didn't wake up in the middle of the operation." I sigh and slowly lift up my shirt, revealing my bandaged up side. I let the shirt fall and look at Gibbs. 

"Did you get him?" 

"No, he got away. But we have him flagged. We will find him, Genevieve. But right now making sure you're okay is our number one priority." 

"I can heal the cut, then we can get out of here and you guys can work on finding him." He grabs my wrist and shakes his head. 

"No, Genevieve, you are not going to do that. You need to let this heal naturally, and then we need to work on slowly letting the things you have healed before out. We have to do this so that if something like this happens again, that we can be comfortable knowing that you don't have a ticking time bomb inside of you." 

"Okay, Gibbs." He smiles at me and pulls something off of his lap. He hands it to me. 

"I thought that you might want this." I narrow my eyes and open the book and stare at my own drawings. I smile and look at him. 

"My sketchbook. You found it. Thank you." I begin to flip through the book. "Do you want me to show them to you?" He nods and I open it so that he can see the designs. I open it a design of a house. "This was the first thing I designed by myself. I really wanted a doll house, so my dad told me to build one." He laughs and I continue to flip through and explain each design. 

After much explaining and laughing, Tony comes in. "Boss, Genevieve's social worker is here. He wants to know what happened." My smile drops and I close the sketch book. I know what that means. It's code for: he's coming to find her a new foster home. Gibbs notices my reaction but doesn't question me. 

"Okay, I will talk to him outside." He gets up and follows Tony out into the hallway. I watch as he starts to have a conversation with Larry, my social worker. After twenty minutes Larry walks into my room. 

"Hey, Genevieve, how are you doing? Glad to see you are recovering nicely." He sits where Gibbs had sat and he looks at me. "I want to ask you something. I saw you laughing and having a good time with Agent Gibbs. And I have been made aware that you stayed with him during this whole thing. Genevieve, would you like to stay with him?" 

"Is that even possible? Can I stay with him?" Larry nods. 

"Yes, but he will still have to go through interviews and a home inspection before it can be made absolutely official." I smile widely and he nods. "Okay, I will let Gibbs know and have him sign the paperwork." He gets up and is about to walk out when he turns back to me. "Have a good life, Genevieve, you've earned it." He walks out and a few minutes later Gibbs walks in. 

"Well, are you sure that you want to stay with me? I have been told that I can be quite and ass." I laugh and shake my head. 

"Gibbs, we can work on that. I have been told that I bring out the good in people." He smiles and resumes his post next to me. "I guess the question really is do you want me to stay with you?" He grabs my hand and squeezes it. 

"Genevieve, I wouldn't have it any other way."