A/N: This chapter's time line will jump around a bit. Renegading major parts of Sadie's adult life. All based on the main story. Flashbacks will be in italics and present tense will be in regular text.
Thirty-five year old Sadie Gibbs-Cooper stripped off her lab coat and hung it up in her locker. She had been working with PharaHope for the past ten years. Her labor of love was a cure for paralysis. She was currently working on an artificial spinal cord that promised to cure most cases of paralysis. Some cases were to severe or simply could not be helped by the artificial cord but for people like that she was working on an electronic sensor that would offer bowl and bladder control by sending a signal that went to the arm or shoulder. Quadriplegia patients were out of luck in both cases but as her co-workers said. If anybody could help them it was Sadie. Her husband Landon Cooper had been lucky enough to be included in the trial of Fielding-Sadie Cord. When the cord was first approved by the FDA for a clinical trial. She had hoped to get Delilah in the trial as well but she was battling Stage IV breast cancer at the time and the Company could not afford to take the risk of one of the trial participants dying in the middle of the course. Sadly Delilah did end up losing her battle just three weeks after Sadie announced that her project had been approved. McGee had died just hours after his wife Jimmy and the two McGee sons said that he had his arms wrapped around his wife's body. Even though Delilah did not live to see a possible cure for her disability. Her name would live on in the name of the first artificial spinal cord. Landon had almost missed out on the opportunity to be in the trial to but lucky for him. He got a well deserved knock on the head and outgrew his cocky jock attitude...
It was the day of the spring sports pep-rally. Spring sports being softball, baseball, and track. Sadie had started training with the track team the previous summer to keep in shape for soccer the following winter. She ended up qualifying to tryout for the varsity track team. A privilege typically only reserved for students who had run JV track Freshman and Sophomore year. She put on her dress uniform and walked out of the girl's locker room and towards the gym. As she rounded the corner she heard crying. She followed the sound until she found Landon Cooper. Her elementary school best-friend. Sitting at the handicap accessible picnic table in the outdoor eating area.
"What's wrong, Landon did a girl break your heart for once?" Sadie asked.
"Oh shut-up Sadie I really am hurting here!" Landon cried.
"Like I was hurting when you stood me up in seventh grade?!" Sadie snapped.
"Come on Sadie I thought you were the nicest girl in the world. Why are you being so mean to me? Is it because I am a cripple?" Landon demanded.
"Oh please! I never cared about that! I stopped liking you when you became the big hero of the baseball team and started treating girls like your wheelchair wheel covers. Riding them around for a while and then tossing them out for a shinier set." Sadie snapped.
"Well if it makes you feel better I got kicked off the baseball team and everybody just sees me as the wheelchair boy again!" Landon cried.
"You got kicked off the baseball team? Why? You were the star." Sadie asked.
"Like you said I became a jerk. Well I wasn't just a jerk to you and the other girls. I was a jerk to my coaches and teammates. I acted cocky and blew off practices and games to party and sleep off hangovers. My coaches in middle school and then the JV and my first year of varsity. Well they let me get away with it... Because of the chair." Landon explained.
"What happened this year?" Sadie asked.
"We got a new varsity coach. Who just happened to only have one leg and thought that it was idiotic to coddle disabled people and that it was ignorant to think that we couldn't be jerks. He didn't like my attitude and told me so. Well I didn't care. I kept partying and bullying. When I broke the coaches daughter's heart. That was the straw that broke the camels back and now I am just the crippled boy again. Which must make you happy." Landon explained.
"So let me get this straight you don't want to just be the crippled boy but you want to be able to use your disability to do what you want?" Sadie questioned.
"Yeah so?" Landon asked.
"You can't have it both ways Landon." Sadie replied.
"Why not?" Landon asked.
"Because you cannot use your disability to get your way but then not want people to know you by your disability." Sadie explained.
"So what do I do? How do I just be Landon Cooper?" Landon asked.
"You be the boy I knew in elementary school. The boy who gave poured paint water on me when I wet my pants in first grade and gave Emma his cupcake all the times her diabetic father forgot to pack a snack. The boy who would set my brother Jack on his lap and roll him up and down the street as fast as he could. Jack couldn't express much but I swear he always laughed when you gave him rides. The boy who wrote that I was beautiful and funny in my yearbook and kissed me on the cheek at the fifth grade graduation party." Sadie explained.
"You really never saw me as crippled?" Landon asked.
"Of course I did! I mean you are obviously in a wheelchair! But you are so much more than that. If you remember that and work hard to prove yourself just maybe you can get back on the baseball team even if it is just an alternate." Sadie explained.
"You think?" Landon asked.
"I make no promises but give it a chance." Sadie replied.
As it turned out Landon did get back on the baseball team. He was second string but he was back on the team and that Friday night he asked Sadie out to the movies. It was Sadie's first date since the incident with Josh but Tony and Ziva just happened to go to the same movie and eat at the same restaurant. Landon was very respectful and they officially became a couple Saturday morning. They dated for nine weeks until graduation night. Sadie would be going off to Harvard to study premed and Landon would be attending a Community College until he could get his GPA up and fulfill his dream of attending UCLA in hopes of becoming a lawyer.
It was finally here. Sadie, Emma, and Landon were graduating high school. Among the crowd were Gibbs and Amira, The McGee's, The Scuito's, Tony, Ziva, and Madison who was now three, and Jimmy, Alison, and four year old Samantha. Landon's parents and three brothers were there too as well as John Higgins, Emma's boyfriend since tenth grade. Sadie stood in the cafeteria of her high-school for what would be the final time. Everybody was meeting in the cafeteria to sign yearbooks and say one final goodbye before heading to their homerooms to wait to walk out to the football field. Landon her boyfriend of two and a half months rolled up to her.
"Sadie we need to talk." Landon said.
"About what?" Sadie asked.
"I think we should break-up." Landon replied.
"Please tell me you aren't going back to your old ways." Sadie pleaded.
"No but you are going to Harvard and I am staying here until I can get into UCLA or some other law school." Landon explained.
"If that's what you want." Sadie replied.
"Look we all know you can do better than me. Don't cling to a long distance paralyzed, recovering jackass when you can have an engineer who can keep up with you." Landon explained.
"Landon I love you." Sadie argued.
"No Sadie be free, trust boys I know about Josh, and you deserve to have a little fun." Landon replied.
"OK" Sadie sniffed.
Sadie met a guy at Harvard Medical, Brett Wilson. He wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon and Sadie dreamed of treating and hopefully curing paralysis. They dated all four years of med school and into their internships and residencies. Bret was at Georgetown and Sadie was at Monroe. In Sadie's last year of her residency something happened...
Sadie cupped her hand over her mouth and made a beeline for the nearest woman's room. She had been feeling sick all through rounds and now she could not hold back any longer. She made as far as the door before her breakfast came up all over the door, floor, and her clothes.
"Sadie? Are you OK?" Nurse Peters asked.
"I have felt sick all morning." Sadie admitted.
"And you came in to work?" Nurse Peters asked.
"I don't have a fever and this is the only time I threw-up." Sadie explained.
"Did you eat something that doesn't agree with you?" Nurse Peters asked.
"No" Sadie replied.
"Could you be pregnant?" Nurse Peters asked.
"Maybe" Sadie admitted.
Sadie sat on the exam table and waited. At nurse Peters insistence she had agreed to a blood test just in case.
"Congratulations Sadie! You are pregnant!" Nurse Peters cried.
"Oh that's great" Sadie replied.
That night Sadie was pacing around her kitchen wondering how Brett would take the news. They wanted kids but not now. Not this soon. They weren't even engaged yet. She was three and a half weeks along. They were always so careful or so she thought. That night she had forgotten to take her birth-control pill. She had planned to take the morning after but she was running late.
"Sadie! I'm home!" Brett called.
"Oh that's great." Sadie replied.
"What's up? You said you had news for me." Brett replied.
"Brett I am pregnant." Sadie admitted.
"What? You slut! How could you!" Brett snapped.
"Brett it is our baby." Sadie argued.
"But you swore to me you were on the pill and we always used condoms." Brett explained.
"I forgot my pill a few weeks ago and I didn't have time to pick up any morning afters. I am so sorry Brett. I didn't mean to." Sadie sniffed.
"No Sadie it is over!" Brett yelled storming out of the room.
The day Sadie gave birth was a blur of pain and exhaustion. Her water broke just after four in the morning three weeks early. Leaving her vising ten year old sister to frantically call her parents who were visiting friends in California and Emma Palmer to rush her to the hospital. Emma's six month old son James in tow. Sadie arrived at the hospital dilated to six centimeters. After that her labor greatly slowed and it was eleven thirty the following evening before she was finally ready to push. She pushed for twenty minutes before finally delivering her son. Anthony Jackson Gibbs.
"Welcome to the world Anthony." Sadie cooed.
Sadie's happiness was short lived however. Her son was six hours old when Brett showed up to the hospital. Demanding that he get custody of his son. Sadie had made the mistake of listing him as the father and due to Brett being better off financially and going into a more lucrative field. The judge ruled in his favor and at three months old. She lost custody of her son.
After losing custody of her son Sadie moved to New York and finished up her residency there. She got her job at PharmaHope two weeks after becoming an attending. Still Sadie missed her son and wept for him every day. Work wasn't what she thought it would be. Nobody took her ideas seriously since she was so young and a girl. She was completely miserable and about to end it all. She had borrowed the gun and everything...
Sadie held the glock she had borrowed from her neighbor in her hands. Her life was not even close to what she thought it would be. Her parents and Madison could never visit her and she had no friends to speak of. Sure there was Emma and Ivy but Emma had just taken over for her dad at the funeral home and Ivy was off on some crazy European adventure. Brett had disappeared off the face of the Earth after getting custody of their son. The way she saw it there was nothing left to live for. She raised the gun to her head but realized she had forgotten to leave a note. She searched the house but was out of paper. She set the gun on the counter and headed to the store down the road. She was standing in line when she heard a familiar voice.
"Sadie Gibbs?" Landon called.
"Landon?" Sadie asked.
"Yeah I just got a job out here. I'm a lawyer." Landon explained.
"Oh that's great." Sadie replied.
"You must be some big hero, doctor by now." Landon commented.
"I am a doctor but I am no hero. Nobody takes me seriously." Sadie sighed.
"Well then you make them. You are not exactly a shrieking violet." Landon replied.
"That won't work." Sadie sighed.
"Try for me." Landon begged.
"It's not just work. Landon I have a son." Sadie replied.
"That's great! You always loved kids!" Landon cried.
"No it's not. His dad got full custody when he was three months old. I haven't seen him since." Sadie explained.
"Oh Sadie I am so sorry." Landon apologized.
"It's so hard! I loved him so much but Brett's lawyer was a bloodhound and I could only afford a Public Defender." Sadie explained.
"Well you are in luck." Landon replied.
"How am I in luck?!" Sadie demanded.
"Because I am a partner at the best family firm in New York City." Landon replied.
"I could never afford that firm." Sadie sighed.
"Family gets represented for free." Landon replied.
Sadie reluctantly took Landon up on his offer and one year later she got custody of her son. Three months later they were married. Landon legally adopted Anthony and six months after that Sadie gave birth to her daughter Ziva Hope Gibbs-Cooper. Two years later she had her second daughter Emma Bree and she was currently six months pregnant with her second son Landon Jethro. Her life was perfect and it was all because her father Tony Gibbs stepped up and spared her from a cold and uncaring mother. Giving her the perfect family. Not all of them were related by blood but they were closer than most all natural families.
Gibbs died in his sleep during Sadie's sophomore year of college.
Tony died from pneumonia two months after Sadie married Landon.
She had no idea what happened to Sherry but it didn't matter. Sherry was nothing more than a carrier. Ziva was her mother.
Sadie walked down the road to Central Park and found the memorial forest. She found the tree Ziva, Madison, and her had planted in memory of Tony and Gibbs. Landon rolled up to the tree Anthony and Ziva following close behind and Ivy riding on her father's lap. Ziva and Madison who was studying music at Julliard joined the group, Emma, John, James, and John Junior came next. The last to join the group were Ivy, her husband Taylor and there daughter Clover. Sadie felt the presence of her father and Gibbs come up and embrace her.
"Thank you for giving me an amazing life in doing so giving hope to thousands, a storybook romance, and life to four amazing children." Sadie said tracing the inscription on the plaque.
FIN
A/N: Well that's it. What do you think? Was it worth it to read? Was the ending what you expected? Thanks to all who read, followed, favorited, and reviewed it means a lot. One last time please review.