Author's Note: So I watched Season 12's "Check," and while it was certainly exciting, it was also concerning. I feel like we've gone down this road before. Still, I wanted to write a small tag. I changed the very end a smidge and then added on from there.
If you want to read another good "Check" tag, please visit hazelmom's story "New Rule."
WARNING. SEASON 12 SPOILERS.
"He's Had Enough"
by K9Lasko
"Hey, you okay, Boss?" McGee asked softly from somewhere up above.
Gibbs stared up at him, eyesight still bleary from the violent blow to the head. He blinked hard and looked around. His phone rang, and his hands grabbed at it.
Fornell was calling.
Diane was dead. Shot in the head just like Kate.
"Check," Mishnev's voice rattled around in Gibbs' scrambled head.
What was the checkmate? What would be the checkmate? Who would be the checkmate?
The phone stopped ringing, and Fornell did not bother leaving a voicemail. McGee from up above was saying, "I think you should go to the hospital, Boss." And for once Gibbs did not immediately refuse. The room still seemed to be tilting to one side. His hands ached from strain, as if he'd used them to strangle the life out of a man. He had, or tried to at least. Dead bodies lay draped around the room. It smelled like blood in here. Blood and gunpowder and piss and old Chinese takeout.
"Is he dead?" Gibbs asked, voice hoarse. "Is Mishnev dead?"
McGee knit his eyebrows and shook his head. "No. He got away."
The phone started ringing again.
"Fuck." Gibbs hid his face in a hand, and for once, completely disconnected with the situation.
"You really should have waited," McGee said before looking abashed for having scolded his boss. But it was true. They all knew it. Instead of saying anything more about it, McGee reached for the phone. "Fornell?" he answered. "It's McGee... Yes... Go to NCIS. Tony will meet you there." He hit end and tucked the phone back into Gibbs' hand.
"He's out there, Tim. He's out there and none of you are safe. He knows everything about me." Gibbs' voice grew more agitated.
"I'm sure that's not the truth, Boss," McGee soothed, slipping so easily into a gentle caretaking role, "C'mon. Your head's all bloody."
Fornell was waiting in a conference room. He wore jeans and a sweatshirt and a vacant expression. A styrofoam cup of coffee steamed by his right hand. His thumb played with the gold band around his finger.
McGee poked his head through the doorway. "Oh good, you're here."
"I already know, McGee," Fornell said. His eyes looked wet, and McGee seemed taken aback by that. But then he remembered that Fornell was nothing like Gibbs. These emotions were as legitimate and necessary as anger and rage- even more so, maybe.
"I'm sorry," McGee said, swallowing back the lump in his throat. He already knew this was the worst part of the job, watching families get ripped apart. He sat at the table, not across from Fornell but next to him. "Did Tony tell you?" McGee had no idea why Tony would have taken that responsibility.
Fornell looked at McGee in confusion. "No. I was told before I even got here. I didn't see DiNozzo."
"Not at all?"
"No. This is a mess. They said Mishnev was recreating murders from Gibbs' past? Who is this guy?" Fornell's question may have been innocent, but it made McGee freeze in his chair. Fornell noticed. "What's wrong?" he asked.
But McGee was already out the door.
"Ducky!" McGee shouted into his cell phone. Abby and Ellie stood next to him in the bullpen, both of them in front of Tony's empty desk. The computer was off and his backpack wasn't there.
"Is everything all right?" Dr. Mallard asked with preternatural calm in the face of McGee's apparent hysteria.
"Is Tony with Gibbs at the hospital?"
"No, Tony isn't here," Dr. Mallard said. "He's not with you?"
"No, he's not here. I called his cell three times. No answer. I haven't heard from him since he called about the sniper's nest. I thought he was here, but he isn't," McGee paused because he heard Gibbs' voice clearly over the line, groggy but insistent.
"This is it," he was saying. "This is his checkmate."
"Now, Jethro, there could be a simple explanation," Ducky reasoned.
"Where's Abby?" Gibbs was now yelling. "Where's Abby, Tim?"
"-Jethro, you need to calm down-"
"She's with me!" McGee yelled back into the phone. Abby squeezed his arm with sweaty hands. "Boss, she's fine. She's with me. Ellie, too."
If Dr. Mallard seemed haunted by McGee's phone call, he didn't let on. Instead, he comforted his old friend, who - adled by a nasty concussion and an acute case of shock - seemed to be losing what little grasp he had on himself.
"I had blood all over my face," Gibbs rambled. "Just like DiNozzo. After Kate."
"Please. Lie down, Jethro."
"This is his checkmate," Gibbs repeated in triplicate from where he sat on the ER bed. "He couldn't get Abby. Couldn't get Emily."
"Surely going after Tony is a bit of a stretch," Ducky said, trying to appeal to Gibbs' sense of reason. "I mean, if this is to be an attempt at the most personal attack on you..." He trailed off.
Gibbs stared at Ducky, eyes concussion-glazed. "Don't tell me if he's dead. I've had enough, okay?"
Ducky said nothing. He simply reached out a hand to rest on his friend's shoulder.
"Enough," Gibbs said again.
Tony's name and that stupid picture of his flashed on the display of McGee's cell. He answered it before the first trill was even halfway finished. "Tony!" he cried into the piece of plastic and glass that had suddenly become the most precious thing on earth.
"Tim?" Tony said, voice stupidly nonplussed. "Are you okay? Is everybody okay?"
"Where the hell are you? Where have you been? I've been calling and calling."
"I'm just picking up food and bringing it for the boss. I'm at the hospital right now. Balboa told me he got hit pretty hard. Do you know if he's got a room or-?"
"God damnit, Tony!" McGee couldn't help but yell. "We didn't know where you were! Why didn't you answer your phone?"
"I just saw the missed calls. Sometimes the reception on this thing goes to zero. I don't know what-"
"God, I'm so relieved," McGee's voice cracked. "Damn you."
Tony stayed quiet for a bit before saying, "I'm sorry, Tim. It must have been a miscommunication."
"It's fine. Just go see Gibbs, okay?"
Tony didn't even pause to smile at the nurses as he rushed down the hallway, bag of deli bagels in hand.
Damn bagels. How long had everybody been left wondering? He should have called in instead of relying on Balboa to relay his whereabouts. In the midst of everybody's confusion and grief over the entire fiasco, the mix-up of who was where-when-and-with-whom was understandable. But Tony should have known that all of them were potential targets now. Anybody Gibbs gave a single shit about was fair game.
He'd been stupid about this, just like Gibbs had been stupid going hell-bent for leather after this Mishlev-Mishnev-whoever asshole. And Diane. Poor Diane. Poor Fornell. Poor Emily. Things just got better and better, and the blood just kept spilling. Families kept crumbling. At the end of the day, DiNozzo was almost glad he was alone. The thought of losing the mother of your child seemed insurmountably cruel. What was worse? Losing them or never having them in the first place?
Dr. Mallard met him at the door of the semi-private room. "He's just here for observation," he was saying. "Although knowing Gibbs, we'll probably be out of here by this evening."
"That sounds like the Boss," Tony said as he squeezed Ducky's shoulder.
"And we are much relieved to see you," Dr. Mallard then said with a small smile.
Tony approached Gibbs who sat on the bed, face set in a look of troubled bemusement. He looked so much unlike himself that it made Tony pause. Some of his hair had been shaved away to facilitate the application of a large piece of gauze to the back of his head. Gibbs seemed as if he was one breeze away from crumbling. "Hey, Boss," Tony said. He then held out the bag of food. "I brought food."
Gibbs stared at Tony with a funny look on his face, something Tony couldn't really place.
"Uh, you okay?" Tony asked, again stupidly. It seemed as though he wasn't catching onto a lot of things today.
Then he got it. That was relief on Gibbs' face. Not happy relief, just relief. Intense relief. And before Tony could wonder more on why, Gibbs stood up and gave him a hug. An actual hug, warm and friendly yet brief. It was so odd and out-of-character that Tony just stood there, awkward and stiff, with the bag of food crushed and forgotten between them. When Gibbs pulled away, the bag dropped to the floor.
Gibbs stayed quiet, and for once, Tony stayed quiet, too.
There really wasn't much else to be said.