A/N: Hi, new story that has been in the works since Berlin. I hope everyone likes it. I want to make a shout out to Pancho1993 who has gladly proof read this, so they shouldn't be any mistakes and helped me come up with a summary for an idea since I am not so good at them. Also if you read Tears of Destruction please look to my profile on a update of that.
Have a nice summer and I will hopefully update fairly soon
-MissMushy
He grasped at her hand weakly, trying to get some contact with his wife and unborn child after the horrific crash that they were just in. He knew that his hand was covered in both his and his wife's blood but that didn't stop him from trying to maintain a miniscule amount of contact. He coughed softly and red flecks of blood adjourned his dry lips. He licked them slowly to try to get some moisture into them but only tasted the copper of the blood. His head felt heavy compared to the weightlessness that he felt from everywhere else in his body.
"Ziva…" He choked out as more flecks of blood splattered onto his crimson tinged lips. His eyes drooped shut as he couldn't stop the wariness that coursed his veins anymore. "Love…you…" He coughed and finally gave into the unconsciousness and thought up of a place where they were happily welcoming their unborn child into a world that was too vast for them to understand yet.
The next time he woke he could tell that blue and red lights flashed in the distance without having to crack open his eyes. His bloodied hand groped for his wife's hand only to be met by empty air. He managed to slowly crack open a heavy eye and stared at the blood that seeped into the leather of the passenger seat. He felt like he couldn't breathe at the missing space beside him.
"Zee…" He whispered softly into the empty space. He coughed once more. "Ziva!" he shouted at the top of his lungs which in his state was less than half of his usual capacity as his chest constricted and slowed his breathing. He tried to get out of the car only to be stopped by sharp stabbing pains jolting up and down his left leg and side. He screamed out in pain as his leg felt like it was within a vice that was being tautened up to its maximum capacity.
Suddenly he felt cool hands slowly wrap around his neck, stopping him from making any movement that could damage him more than he already was. Those hands were swiftly replaced by unforgiving plastic that hindered any miniscule movement that he could make.
"Who…Who are you?" Tony whispered softly as he felt his chest constricting even more.
"I'm Mike. I'm one of the paramedics that are working on getting you out of here okay?" The voice sounded as though the person had been smoking thirty cigarettes a day for his life, a typical wheeze at the end of each word and a sound that made him sound like he ate gravel for breakfast. "I think it's going to take some time to get you out of here so I think it's going to be best that we're on first name basis with each other okay? So what's your name?"
"Tony. I'm an NCIS agent." Tony choked out before giving way to a coughing fit which allowed some more blood to dribble out of his mouth. "Where's Ziva? The woman…who was next…to me…"
"Okay Tony. She's been taken to Bethesda where she's going to receive the best medical care as possible okay? While we were trying to get her out we lost her once but we managed to get her back quickly. Unfortunately she didn't wake up while she was here, I don't know if she has on the way to Bethesda." Mike spoke softly and calmly and took a deep breath before carrying on. He hated to give such depressing information in this situation to a spouse or friend who was still waiting to be freed. "Tony, she's lost a lot of blood before someone called us here. I'm sorry but I don't think she's going to survive long. With any luck the firefighters will work quickly so we can get you to her as soon as possible."
Tony squirmed in his seat which set off the sharp pains in his leg again that had just recently dulled down. He groaned softly at the pain before getting his breathing back under control and started to talk. "She's pregnant Mike." A tear slipped down his face. "Tell them…Tell them she's pregnant. They're going to need to know."
"Okay Tony. Can you tell me how far along she is? It might help if they decide to deliver her early so the baby can have the best chance of survival." Mike quickly replied and got on the radio to dispatch to rely the information about the young woman.
"Twenty three weeks." Tony wheezed harshly and tried to catch his breath, this time the process was aided by an oxygen mask being slipped on around his face and turned on to full oxygen output.
"Okay, take deep breaths Tony. You've got plenty of oxygen around you, deep slow breaths… that's it Tony." Mike coaxed softly. "Can you tell me out of ten, ten being unbearable and zero being none at all, how much pain are you in at the moment Tony?"
Tony thought for a moment and kept taking deep breaths through the oxygen mask before replying, "Nine."
"Where is most of that pain coming from Tony?" Mike asked quickly and jotted down notes on the back of his latex glove that covered his left hand.
"Left leg…Chest…" Tony wheezed softly. So softly that mike had to listen more intently to catch the reply.
"Alex I need an IV, a bag of saline and 2mg of morphine STAT." Mike shouted over the sound of the firefighters working. "Tony, what I'm going to set an IV in your hand and use that to give you the morphine and the saline. I'm going to give you saline because you're starting to get dehydrated and I don't want that to be a huge problem." He received a small curt nod back from Tony and a minute later Alex was passing the equipment through the back window to him. It took less than a minute to situate the IV in Tony's right hand and hooked the saline bag onto a piece of metal that jutted out of the roof.
"Can…Can I… call…someone…?" Tony asked softly to Mike as he slowly moved his left hand to grasp the headrest behind him.
"If you keep the mask on, you can." Mike answered back and fished out his cell phone; he placed it gently into Tony's hand and let him begin his call.
It rang three times before the other person picked up and curtly answered, "Yeah, Gibbs."
"Boss…"Tony replied breathlessly. "Me and…Ziva have been…in a crash…She's at hos…hospital…Get Duck there…"
"Where are you Tony? You're at hospital too right? What happened?" The older man rapid fired like artillery fire.
"Still stuck…in car…legs trapped…Come here…" Tony wheezed harshly and handed the cell shakily back to Mike.
"Hello? I know your Tony's boss but I need to know who his next of kin is in case he losses consciousness." Mike spoke quickly into the cell.
"I am and call me Gibbs instead of 'Tony's boss.' How is he?"
"At the moment he's enjoying a nice dose of morphine that's easing the pain in his chest and leg, unfortunately I'm guessing that he's still in pain but it's more bearable than having nothing cursing through those veins of his."
"Okay. Can you tell me where the accident is? It might be best for me to be on scene if things get hairy with him."
"I think that's best Gibbs. Corner of Sheridan and 42nd."
"I'll be there in ten and tell him not to do anything stupid." Gibbs quickly replied before abruptly hanging up on the paramedic.
"Okay Tony, Gibbs is on his way, he'll be here in ten minutes. Is there anything you need?" Mike asked softly as he pocketed his cell again.
Tony mumbled a soft "No." in pain as he breathed in the much needed oxygen. "How long?" He asked as a second thought a millisecond after he replied negative.
"To get you out?" Mike clarified on the vague answer. Tony nodded softly and heard instant whispering going on behind him. "Tony, you have to remember that they're doing their best as quickly as they can. It's going to be at least another half hour maybe an hour, their worried about a gas leak at the moment but I'm going to stay with you no matter what. After all I wouldn't be a good medic if I left my patient would I?" He asked rhetorically to the back of the agent's head.
"I'm screwed." The muttered sentence lost underneath the muffling of the mask that was securely around his face.
"I think you need to get your mind off being stuck here at the moment so if you don't mind can you tell me about your wife? It'll help in making you not think about the firefighters working around you." Mike coaxed.
"Zee…She's…She's perfect, the…best wife I could have…We've been married four years…tomorrow…" Tony smiled softly at the memory of him proposing to her in the pouring rain on an aircraft carrier while they were investigating it.
"Congrats on the marriage. The longest I've lasted is eleven months." Mike praised. "Just one question though Tony. You've been married four years but this is your first time having a baby, why wait till now?"
"Work." Tony huffed softly. "It got in the way… then personal stuff….more work…Just had the chance…this year…"
"I hear ya on the work situation. My ex divorced me because I was working double shifts so we could pay for this ridiculously expensive house that she wanted to live in. She liked the house just didn't like that I pretty much didn't live in it."
"Let me guess…She got the house in…the divorce…" Tony replied and forced himself to breathe deeper into the mask.
"Yep, thank god. Last I heard was she was being repossessed because she hadn't paid the bills on the house since I moved out. So, twenty three weeks along. Do you know what gender the baby is yet or do you want that to be a surprise?"
"It's a boy…Gonna have a boy that I…can teach football to…and keep him away from…being a cop…" Tony beamed.
"Well Tony, I think you're going to be a great dad when the little kid arrives." Mike boasted lightly.
"It's going to be…great…" Tony shakily raised his left hand and corded his fingers through his hair. "Is my boss here?" He asked.
Mike looked around, through the expanse of emergency workers and spotted a charger slowly pulling up just in front of the cordoned off area, the man inside quickly shut off the engine and started to jog lightly towards them. "Um, does your boss have grey military cut hair?"
"Yeah…That's him." Tony replied softly.
"He's here." Mike stated as Gibbs quickly came to a halt next to the car and knelt down beside the driver side door. He grabbed hold of Tony's arm lightly through the broken window.
"Hey DiNozzo." Gibbs greeted softly and squeezed the arm in his hold lightly. "How ya holding up?"
"Just peachy boss." Tony replied. "Ziva?"
"I don't know yet. I dropped Duck off at the hospital to check for us then came straight here. I don't know how you do it, I give you a day off and expect you to not get into trouble but you manage to go injure yourself more than you do when you're on duty." Gibbs shook his head lightly.
"Not my fault..." Tony replied and made eye contact with Gibbs. "a car T-boned us..."
"Okay. Don't worry about it right now just focus on staying calm." Gibbs interrupted his tirade of what happened before he could make himself even more out of breath.
It had been two hours since Gibbs had arrived at the scene and the emergency workers didn't seem as though they were getting anywhere fast, numerous attempts at trying to pull Tony out of the wreckage had failed, daylight was soon fading but thankfully spotlights from NCIS and the fire department was soon being set up. Tony had faded in and out of consciousness throughout the time period from a couple of fast acting doses of morphine to ease the pain that flared up again in his leg and chest.
"Boss..." Tony whispered. The older man hadn't once moved away from where he initially crouched. "'m tired."
"Come on DiNozzo. Stay with me, it won't be much longer. Just think that Ziva and the baby are waiting for you at the hospital. You're going to get out of here fine, just trust me." Gibbs coaxed lightly. He could hear whispers going on between Mike and the firefighters in the backseat but couldn't make out what they were speaking.
"Ziva?" Tony asked for the millionth time.
"I don't know. Duck will ring me as soon as he can with information okay. You know that he will." Gibbs comforted.
"Gibbs, we'd like to speak to you privately." Mike spoke as he started to climb out of the backseat which was quickly replaced by Alex. Together the two men walked away from the wreck, making sure that they were out of hearing range for Tony.
"You want to try a different method?" Gibbs asked curtly.
"There's no easy way of saying this Gibbs but we've exhausted all the other options and the light is fading fast. For the amount of time that he's been trapped there we are going to have to amputate if we get him out because of the dead muscles in the lower leg, so we're going to look at amputating his leg roughly 5 inches above his knee. However we can't do that unless we have permission from him or the next of kin."
Gibbs looked at Mike before replying, "It's his decision Mike. If he doesn't want an amputation to happen I won't force him, but if the time comes when I need to step in I will." He turned and took a few steps towards the wreck before his cell started to ring, he quickly grabbed it off its belt hook and glanced at the caller ID. It was Ducky. He picked it up and spoke softly. "Any news Duck?"
"Okay." He said, his voice losing a little hope.
"That's great. I'll tell him, no. He's still in the wreck; they're looking at an amputation now to get him out."
"No, he doesn't know yet."
"It's not my decision Duck. Yeah, I'm telling him. No I can't not tell him, he's like a human lie detector when it comes to Ziva."
"Okay I'll see you later." He spoke before he closed his cell and returned it to its former place. He swiftly walked back to the wreck in silence with Mike and returned to crouching down next to Tony.
"What was that about?" Tony breathed softly as he made minimal eye contact with Gibbs.
"Mike wanted to discuss different ways of getting you out." Gibbs took a deep breath before carrying on. "Tony, they want us to think about an amputation as one option…"
"No." Tony shouted. "You're not going to cut off my damn leg."
"It's looking like its going to be the only option soon DiNozzo. The lights fading fast and it's getting colder by the second, we're not going to have time to get you out before you get hypothermia from just sitting there. Mike also says that with the amount of time that you've been stuck here, it's likely that because of the lack of blood to your foot, the muscles are dead and even if they get you out of here without amputation they are going to have to amputate in Bethesda because of sepsis." Gibbs ranted.
"No. You're not going to do anything to my leg. I'll kill you if you override my wishes." Tony spoke adamantly.
"Tony, Think about your family, they would rather want you alive and missing a limb rather than you being dead because you were too bull headed to think about what's best for yourself." Gibbs spoke, his voice rising in tempo with every word he pronounced.
"My family should respect my damn wishes. If I don't want an amputation to happen then they should respect that." Tony retorted back harshly.
"Okay, okay. I won't push you any further on the subject." Gibbs soothed and grasped Tony's left hand lightly again.
"You heard anything about Ziva?" Tony asked softly.
Gibbs sighed softly, "Yeah. Yeah I did, but I think we should wait until we've got you free okay?"
"No." Tony groaned out in pain as the latest dose of morphine started to wear out. "Tell me. Stop treating me like a damn five year old Gibbs and treat me like your second in command like I am."
"Ziva...I'm sorry Tony. She...hasn't made it. She died in surgery to attempt to stop the bleeding." Gibbs spoke softly and felt tears come prick at his eyes. He saw the young Israeli woman more as a daughter than a co-worker and felt her death almost coming to par with the deaths of Shannon and Kelly.
Tony sobbed loudly, feeling tears run freely down his face; he made no attempt at wiping them away instead they slowly clung to his face and started to dry out. It felt like the beating piece of his heart had been ripped out left a dark, devoured mess behind for someone to fix. Someone to try and fix something that was broken beyond repair after that final breath that his wife took.
'My wife and child are dead, they're dead and they're not coming back. What else do I have left to lose?" Tony asked himself as he heard the garbled words of condolences from the emergency services that scattered the site. 'I have nothing.' He answered back within his head and closed his eyes. He willed himself into unconsciousness, where he wasn't the grieving widower that was left behind from a horrible car wreck.
His breathing slowed down to almost nothing behind the mask, the perspiration created from his harsh breathes quickly faded to nothing and he felt his whole body fall lax underneath various hands that gripped the upper part of his body. The last thing that he heard and felt was the tightening of Gibbs' strong, calloused hands around his and the man's gruff voice barking at Mike to do everything he could to save his agent.
Unaware of the world around him and the decisions going on without him, his mind thought back to a cold, rainy winters day almost five years ago.
For the week before hand they had been working almost around the clock to solve the latest case. He and Ziva were lagging behind McGee and Gibbs who were dragging their screaming suspect off the aircraft carrier that they were on.
"Zee, hold on." Tony shouted over the pounding rain and the hustle and bustle of the carrier as well as the city in the background. He came to a stop in the middle of the carrier, getting even more drenched by the second.
"Tony, can it wait until we're in somewhere dry, like the car? You're soaked through to the bone!" Ziva replied as she grasped Tony by his forearm and tried to pull him along but Tony dug his heels into the tarmac and refused to move a single step.
"No. I want to do this now." Tony explained and quickly made a move so that he and Ziva were holding hands.
"Well, hurry up then." Ziva exclaimed.
"Ziva." Tony breathed. "The last eight months has been the best that I ever wanted. When I've been upset or angry you've always been there for me, calming me down, cheering me up. Understanding me the best when I've sounded like I'm crazy, giving me space when I've needed it and helping me and letting me get past my childhood by listening to me." He looked searchingly into Ziva's eyes and saw tears threatening to spill over and roll gently down her face.
"Tony..." Ziva whispered as she watched Tony slowly get down onto his left knee and reach into his jacket pocket for a small velvet box. He twirled it around in his fingers, smiling softly at himself and Ziva.
"I never thought that after Wendy broke up with me that I would meet someone else that means so much more to me. I love you with all my heart and more." He choked out, trying to hold back tears of his own. He spun the box around so it was facing Ziva and he slowly opened it to reveal a small delicate ring with diamonds within it. "I want to grow old with you, spend the rest of my days with you; I never want to waste a minute without you. Ziva, Will you marry me?"
She stood astounded at the question for a few long minutes; she couldn't form any words in a response, it was like someone had just reached inside her and removed the ability to speak and form words in her muddled brain.
"Well?" Tony asked hopefully as he noted in his peripheral vision that Gibbs and McGee had quickly secured their suspect in the car and returned to the carrier. He saw McGee covertly take pictures with one of the crime scene cameras and made a mental note to thank the younger man later.
Ziva never got a chance to reply before a gunshot penetrated the continual thrum of the rain. A millisecond after Tony cried out in pain and dropped the box to clamp his hand over his bleeding shoulder.
She dropped to her knees in front of Tony and softly kissed Tony on the lips. "Yes." She whispered softly and placed the ring on her finger. "I was going to say yes anyway, you didn't have to get shot to trip me into it. Sometimes I don't know what flows through your dumb head Tony."
"Hey! I didn't plan this!" Tony retorted back through clenched teeth. Unexpectedly the pain that radiated from his shoulder shifted towards his left leg and intensified in pain.
His eyelids slowly flickered open and registered that he was still stuck in the wreck. His body caught up with his mind a minute later and he screamed out in agony from his leg. He peered down as much as he could and saw that a saw was hacking its way through his leg.
"You bastard!" Tony shouted at the top of his lungs as he made eye contact with Gibbs who was still kneeling where he was before. "You could have respected my wishes but no! You have to go and do what the great almighty Gibbs wants and goes back on his word because he thinks he knows what's right!"
"Tony...DiNozzo!" Gibbs shouted back to stop Tony from ranting on more. "I didn't authorize this because of my greed or it's what I think is right. I did it because a little boy shouldn't have to live without his mother or father within his life." Gibbs carried on speaking and at the same time lowering the volume of his voice so it was almost too quiet to hear.
"I don't have a son Gibbs. He died! He didn't survive just like my wife! Why should I be forced to carry on living when I have nothing to live for?" Tony ranted, only to be stopped by a groan of pain forcing its way out.
"You do Tony. I promise you, you do have a son. Before Ziva died the surgeons that were working on her decided to deliver the baby now to give both of them the best chance of survival. He's apparently very healthy for being so premature but he's still very ill. So they're going to keep him in until he's fit enough to handle being in a non-sterilized environment." Gibbs informed. "Duck's already been to see baby DiNozzo, apparently the little might already has that infectious smile of yours."
"I have a son?" Tony asked, completely baffled at the twist in events.
"Yeah, you do DiNozzo. That's why I authorized this." Gibbs replied and nodded down to Tony's leg which was now almost completely separate from the lower half of the leg.
Tony whimpered in pain as they slowly got through the last stages of the amputation. "Sorry." He curtly apologized to Gibbs.
"It's okay, I understand." Gibbs replied and squeezed the younger man's hand gently.
Silence remained between the two as Tony was lifted out of the car in the space that should have been the roof and placed into the back of the waiting ambulance. Gibbs went with Tony, constantly keeping a gentle hold on the agent's hand to make his presence and support continually known.
Even as they pulled up to the emergency doors of Bethesda, Gibbs never let go. It was only when the surrounding doctors and nurses stopped the gurney outside the double doors that would inevitably lead to the surgery wing.
"I know your scared right now, and in a world of hurt but don't think that just because your wife has died in the crash doesn't mean that you have to go to. You can't leave your son without any parents just yet. He needs to know that he's loved and cared for." Gibbs spoke softly to Tony's ear and ruffled his hair that was mussed and had the occasional streak of blood in. "You make me proud in there."
"Yes Boss." Tony whispered back and let Gibbs' hand gently slide out of the grip and the doctors pushed him through the double doors.
Please, please don't hurt me. I want to live I swear I do. I would gladly accept any reviews that you have for me and please stay tuned for more