I don't own them and I'm sorry I whumped him.
How, wondered Special Agent Jethro Gibbs, did Tony get himself into these situations? Why was he, once again, sitting in a hospital room waiting for his senior field agent to wake up?
Everyone who worked for NCIS in Washington knew that Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo was something of a trouble magnet. Abby had once speculated that criminals focussed on getting rid of Tony in confrontations because he was so big and burly, 'all muscle' as she put it so bats, bullets and, on one occasion saucepans, were hurled in his direction. This was obviously unfortunate for Tony and, in the end, counterproductive for his assailants as it meant that they ignored his equally lethal co-workers who were usually able promptly to disarm the miscreants before turning to pick a battered Tony up from the floor.
Tony knew all this but somehow couldn't quite bring himself to let McGee or Ziva break the door down or take the lead on a potentially dangerous standoff; he was sure that it was in his job description somewhere to protect his team mates. If it wasn't in his contract it was probably programmed into his DNA. At least Gibbs and his team usually at least had the satisfaction of bringing Tony's attackers to book.
This time, however, the team had not had that satisfaction and some of them felt a share of blame for what had happened but who could have guessed that horticulture would turn out to be so hazardous? It had started with Abby who had been reading with growing distress about the plight of the American honeybee which had gone into steep decline. Abby had read that the government was encouraging city dwellers to provide bee friendly areas in their yards or even to install hives. All her co-workers except for Gibbs lived either in apartments or in places with tiny yards so clearly Gibbs was the best choice. She thought that Gibbs would rise to the wood working challenge of building a hive or two. Gibbs was between projects and had been relatively easy to persuade.
So, that morning, the team had gathered for what Abby had called a 'bar bee cue' to welcome the newest arrivals to Casa Gibbs. Gibbs had built a neat hive and painted it blue, a color supposed to be soothing to bees. Ducky had come, half hoping to replicate a happy childhood memory of bees humming in the heather of his native Scotland. Jimmy had come because Ducky was there. McGee had come because he thought it would be something interesting to share with his scout troop. Ziva came because this would be a new experience and Tony came because it was the sort of thing he did, almost like a camp fire. For all of them there was the added, and rare, lure of a Gibbs barbecue; an experience not to be missed.
Nobody was quite sure how it had happened. The bee man (apiarist as Ducky told them was the correct term) arrived with the swarm that was to find a home in Gibbs' yard. Abby was undoubtedly very excited and a little noisy and she had perhaps waved her parasol around a bit too much causing the others to move out of her way rather quickly. As they all tried to avoid one another they had somehow startled the bee man who shook the swarm so that the bees were aroused from their stupor and began to buzz angrily. Everyone hotly denied afterwards that they had panicked but angry bees were not within anyone's experience and Tony had regaled them in recent days with graphic descriptions of 'Killer Bees' a 1974 film starring Gloria Swanson. It was probably not surprising, therefore, that the elite Major Crimes Response Team did not act as coolly under pressure as might have been hoped. Perhaps it was Tony's own fault after all.
However it had happened, by the time the bee man had got the bees under control and safely in their new hive, most of the team had been stung at least once. Abby began to mourn the loss of the honey bees who had died as they inflicted their sting. Ducky and Gibbs looked around to see how the team were doing and looked first at Jimmy and McGee as they instinctively thought they would be most likely to be allergic to the stings. Jimmy and McGee had been stung once but seemed to be all right; Ziva and Abby had sheltered behind the parasol and seemed relatively unscathed. Which left Tony ... whose face was swelling up in reaction to multiple stings and who was beginning to gasp for breath. Ducky swung into action,
"Mr Palmer, get my bag from the car. Quickly – he's going into shock."
The bee man stepped up.
"It's OK, I've got an epi pen here. I always carry it."
Ducky took the pen and administered the medicine, "It's OK, Anthony, you'll be fine. Jethro, call 911, he needs to get to hospital as soon as possible."
Which was why Gibbs and his team were sitting in and around Tony's hospital room waiting for him to wake up. His reaction to the stings had been extreme so the epi pen had had to be administered more than once and then, being DiNozzo, he had had a slight reaction to the medicine itself. It had been alarming for a while but all was now under control ... and Tony's doctor assured them that all they had to do was wait for Tony to wake up. Something which, four hours later, he had stubbornly refused to do.
Although Tony had paid many visits to the hospital ER he had usually managed to avoid an overnight stay. He had stayed longer while recovering from the plague but had not been allowed many visitors for fear they would bring in unwelcome germs. The latest mishap looked set to be something different – a longer stay and no restrictions on visitors. Gibbs and the team settled down to wait, not knowing what was in store.
TBC
