Alice Story part 2

Hiatus (2)

"You don't know Doctor Mallard?" Gelfand asks Gibbs as we stand around his bed where he is laying, looking so lost and alone that I have to fight myself to stop myself from hugging him. Holding him, because I know it would make it worse for him and I don't want to hurt him. I can hurt but not, neither Gibbs.

"Ducky," Ducky corrects him as I stand frozen, not even breathing.

"Ducky. Do you know Ducky?" Gelfand corrects himself but Gibbs still looks so confused.

"I'm disappointed, Jethro. The last time someone forgot me I was a baby. My mother left me on the ferry from Orkney to John O'Groats. She was on the bus halfway to Thurso before she missed me. I've often wondered if I inspired the Liechtenstein t-shirt."

"'Oh, god! I left the baby on the bus,'" Gelfand laughs about the shirt.

"Quite. Remember me tell you that, Jethro?"

"I remember the T-shirt," Gibbs informs him.

"But not me."

"No."

"No worries. It'll come," Ducky dismisses his worry.

"Jethro," I gasp out as I hover my hand over his before I stuff them in my pocket to remove the threat of pushing him too far.

"Absolutely. Temporary memory loss is to be expected. Don't let it worry you. Are you breathing comfortably? Good. Let's switch to the nasal cannula, Maria," Gelfand orders his nurse before leading Duck and I away from the bed that holds a broken man, my broken man. Is he still mine? Or do I have to let him go and try to rebuild my life without him or Kate?

"Okay," Baliad says as she sets up to do that and remove the face breathing mask.

"You're doing fine."

"Okay, I'm just going to take this off."

"Most traumatized brain injuries produce short-term retrograde amnesia. But to erase years of memory, his medial temporal lobes or hippocampus should be damaged be damaged," Gelfand whispers to us softly.

"No, his CAT scans and EEG are normal," Gibbs corrects him.

"And he remembers the explosion. And I've never had a retrograde amnesia patient remember the trauma. Never."

"Okay, there you go," Baliad says to Gibbs.

"I don't think it's retrograde amnesia. I think it's dissociative."

"An emotional repression of memory?" Ducky asks him in surprise making my heart freeze, I something that would cause that in his past.

"With no physical damage to the brain, it must be psychological."

"No..."

"But doctor, you said Gibbs hasn't spoken of his past."

"Hardly ever," Ducky answers him as he pulls me into a hug.

"Perhaps it's too painful. It could explain the prolonged coma in Ninety-one."

"But the present coma is the result of an explosion. How could it be psychological?"

"What if the latest coma caused a relapse?" Gelfand informs us his threat before returning to Gibbs and asking, "So how are we doing?"

"Confused," Gibbs answers him making me feel bad for him as I leave my father's side and walking over to the side of Gibbs bed making him watch my every move.

"Let's see if we can clear up some of those cobwebs. You remember the explosion?"

"Yes."

"Where were you when it happened?"