The USS Saipan

Seventy-two hours later

"Any word on when the hearing is?"

"Someone said August. Maybe."

Ducky looked up from the papers he was reading; a small smile creeping across his tired features when he realised what the nurses were talking about.

"Think it's really true?"

"She spilled her guts, didn't she?"

"What's going on?" a third orderly asked as he joined them.

"Just talking about the Cuban missile crisis," one of the others said.

The men guffawed, and then fell into silence when Ducky's voice came at them from the corner.

"Sometimes a cigar is more than just a cigar," he said with an arched eyebrow and a definite air of amusement to his voice.

"Not when it belongs to the Potus," someone chuckled.

Ducky looked up again and saw James Calhoun walking through the door.

"Good evening, Captain."

"Evenin' Doc. How's the patient? Any change?"

Ducky shook his head as they glanced over to a sealed area at the far end of the room.

"He's taking quite the hammering."

"Is he out of danger?" Calhoun asked. "It's been over twenty-four hours now, right?"

"Yes. Yes it has."

"Where's Dr. Gruber?"

"With Agent Callen."

"Has she figured out what the hell it is yet?" Calhoun asked, his temper flaring a little as wet gurgling sounds drifted through a set of speakers next to them.

"If by she you mean me, the answer is no," a tired voice said from the doorway.

Callen trailed into the room behind her; his eyes lingering on the isolation chamber.

"Dr. Gruber," Ducky acknowledged gently as he rose from his seat and pushed it towards her. "Can I have them bring you some tea?"

Queenie Gruber smiled.

"No. But thank -"

"Is Gibbs going to be okay?" Callen blurted out.

His voice sounded foreign to him.

Possibly because he hadn't used it much since they'd been airlifted out of Serbia.

The three of them had been quarantined together until Gibbs had started manifesting symptoms. Strict isolation had followed. He'd spent the past twenty-four hours confined in little more than a bubble. Constantly under surveillance. Without a clue about what was happening to the other two. Nobody had asked him any questions yet. Or answered any of his. Nobody had been allowed anywhere near him at all, in fact. Unless they were medical personnel.

He sensed that was about to change.

"From the top, son," Calhoun said as he pulled up a chair.

Callen's eyes cut to Dr. Gruber for a moment.

"I've been read in," she said simply, "and Dr. Mallard -"

"Holds everyone's medical proxy and needs to know what's going on," Calhoun supplied without missing a beat. "That's why he was flown over."

Callen nodded briefly before launching into his narrative.

Intel had led them to Novi Pazar. Narcotics and prostitution rackets were rife in this southern Serbian city, but it was its weapons storage facilities that had placed it firmly on the map. The warehouse had been eerily silent as they'd made their way inside, but they'd known better than to assume it was empty. He'd been the one to flush out one of the guerillas. Starting a chase that had culminated in him being trapped at the top of a stairwell.

One floor above Gibbs.

He closed his eyes against the memory; hearing the crunch of heavy boots on the metal plating underfoot as the men advanced on him. The next thing he knew the man coming up the stairs dropped, and the one closest to him stumbled forward, reached for the railing, and plummeted down over it.

Another shot rang out somewhere on the bottom level. Presumably someone Jenny had taken out.

"Dead," Gibbs said as he checked the body at his feet for a pulse.

"Callen, are you okay?" Jenny called. Her weapon still trained on the dark recesses of the warehouse as though she expected someone else to jump out of the shadows.

"Yeah. Coming down," he called back as he started to take the steps two at a time.

"Stay!" Gibbs' voice was harsh. "Just move. Up. As far away as you can get."

As he started moving back up Callen saw Gibbs close up the man's backpack and look over at Jenny.

"Now!" he barked at her as he pulled a satellite phone from his pocket.

Ducky patted Callen on he arm as he fell silent.

"Jethro won't go down without a fi-" he'd just started to say when an orderly popped his head round the door.

"Dr. Gruber ..."

"Yes?" she said, standing in response to the anxiety in his voice.

"We're having problems with Agent Shepard."

"Is she showing symptoms?"

"No. She's refusing to stay in isolation."

Ducky smiled in spite of himself.

"I'll go with you," he said as Dr. Gruber sighed.

"I'd appreciate it. She's been a terrible patient."

"You won't appreciate the definition of terrible patient until you've had the pleasure of dealing with Jethro in recovery."

Queenie Gruber shuddered.

"That bad?"

"Oh infinitely worse."

"You'll have to suit up if you're coming in."

"Of course."

They heard Jenny before they saw her, and when they stood in her presence the look of relief on the orderlies' faces almost made Ducky want to laugh.

"Agent Shepard …"

"You said twenty-four hours. They're up."

"Your cough -"

"Is gone." She breathed in and out dramatically a few times. "See, nothing. I was standing several feet away."

"The powder was airborne. You inhaled some, or you wouldn't have had the cough," Dr. Gruber pointed out.

"It was a slight cough and I'm fine now. You can't keep me in here."

"I want to check you over one last time."

Jenny's eyes narrowed, but she sat on the edge of the bed and allowed herself to be checked out.

"You seem to be okay," the NBC specialist conceded reluctantly.

"Where are Gibbs and Callen?" Jen wanted to know.

She observed as Dr. Gruber's eyes shifted to the side.

"Agent Callen is fine."

"And Gibbs?"

When the atmosphere in the room became tense she bit her lower lip in determination.

"I want to see him."