Chapter 2.

It had all happened so fast. He hadn't had time to actually reflect on what happened until now. They were all in the waiting room. Waiting on news on Tony.

Gibbs had no idea what just took place right in front of him. He had thought that things had been normal. For Tony apparently it hadn't been, because he had collapsed. He had just fallen, and he wouldn't get up. He had thought it was a joke from Tony's part. At first that was.

The irritation and frustration over the slow case had been building up inside him during the last few days. It was unusual that they went this long without a solid lead or something useful to go on. And Tony didn't make thing better by doing practically nothing. The younger agent tried to cover it up, but he had pretty much been useless during this whole case, if Gibbs were to be honest. He had known something was up with the other man, but Tony hadn't said anything.

Gibbs had decided to not act on Tony's behavior from yesterday, and decided to let his agent come to him and tell him what was bothering him, but all Tony had said was that he had had a headache. He didn't care about a damn headache, and had just dismissed him.

Gibbs had decided that they needed a new approach on the case and had gathered his agents to go through the case. Tony however ignored him at first. But then he came over, but wasn't paying any attention, he just started to mess with Ziva, getting her annoyed as well. They didn't have time for that kind of crap. He had called Tony's name to get him to stop, but was ignored. It was like Tony didn't even listen. A head slap was his normal tactic to solve that problem, however it didn't work this time.

He delivered a pretty hard slap on the back of Tony's head, and wasn't prepared at all for the reaction it got. Tony just fell straight forward down on the floor. Gibbs watched in shook as he fell face first. What the hell? Tony was just lying there and he got scared. What was wrong? What had he done? He was actually so shocked that he just stood there staring down at his agent.

Ziva immediately knelt down next to Tony and tried to get him to respond, but he didn't. At least not at first. It took what felt like minutes before he gave a sign that he had heard them, but then he did and Gibbs concerned turned to anger. He was joking? He had been so worried, seeing Tony fall like that by his hand. He told him to get up and turned away before he would do something he was going to regret. He would have to speak to Tony later though, when things had cooled down. That was not acceptable, what Tony did.

But after a moment he started to reconsider again, was it a joke or wasn't it? Tony wouldn't get up from the floor. Partly because McGee and Ziva wouldn't let him, but if everything was fine Tony wouldn't let that stop him. And Gibbs knew that he would think that it was embarrassing, showing himself weak like that.

Then Tony tried to get up, and couldn't! It had looked quite horrifying, the way lifted his head only to have his whole appearance change, pain was at once visible in his face, and he let out a scream before he fell down on the floor again.

Gibbs had rushed forward and had crashed on his knees next to his agent. Something was really wrong. He ordered McGee to get help, and was vaguely aware that he did, however most of his attention was directed towards Tony.

It had been scary to watch. At first Tony's whole body had tensed up and then he started to shake. He didn't react to any of them even though Gibbs tried his best to get his attention. He wasn't talking or in any way indicating that he could hear them. What was happening? What was this?

He had grabbed Tony's hand and after a while Tony actually seemed to notice because he clutched his hand in his hard, it was almost painful for Gibbs. But he held on, and tried to reassure him.

Gibbs' heart started to beat harder in his chest at the sight of tears in the corner of Tony's eyes. He was really in pain.

"What's happening here?" Ducky was there and pushed Ziva away to get closer to Tony.

"He just collapsed."

"Alright, Anthony my dear boy. Alright, let's have a look at you."

Ducky methodically checked Tony over, he lifted Tony's eyelid and looked at his eyes, and he also tried to get Tony's attention, but failed.

"I trust the paramedics has been called?" he asked.

"Yeah, they are here soon. I had someone go meet them." McGee breathed. "How is he Ducky?"

"He needs professional help. I don't know what's wrong Timothy." He turned back to DiNozzo. "It's okay my dear boy. You will be okay." He removed his tissue and wiped his face with it, repeating his calming words until the paramedics got there. They wasted no time with getting Tony up on a gurney and down to the waiting ambulance. Before that happened Tony had passed out. At first it really scared all of them when he just went limp in front of him.

"He is unconscious. Let's go." One of the paramedics said and they moved to the elevator. The whole team followed, however Tim and Ziva didn't fit in the elevator and took the stairs.

"All of you are not coming with us in here," the other paramedic said as they were all gathered outside the ambulance. "I will allow one of you on board."

"You go Ducky." Gibbs said, and it was decided. He had wanted to go himself, of course, but felt that it was better if Ducky went and got so much information he could about Tony's condition.

So now here they were, waiting. Ducky had meet them in the waiting room but didn't really have that much news. Tony had been unconscious the entire ride, and remained so until Ducky wasn't allowed to go with him any longer.

Gibbs hated waiting.

They were all there. McGee had gotten Abby as well, and they were sitting next to each other, Abby was holding on to Tim's arm for support, her eyes bloodshot. She was of course extremely worried. They all were. Tony had just collapsed at the office.

"What may have caused this?" Ducky asked out in the room. "Did any of you notice anything?"

"He was acting weird yesterday. Snapped at me and Ziva."

"He refused to come into the field. We should have known something was seriously wrong by then." She glanced at Gibbs.

"What?" He asked her.

"Did he say anything to you?" She asked.

"He said he had a headache." Gibbs grunted.

"That's on hell of a headache." McGee said, and they went silent again.

That was true though what he had said, it must have been on hell of a headache. Was that the reason DiNozzo collapsed? He had a headache? And what had he done? Gibbs had hit him on the head. He had caused Tony to collapse like that. What if he was seriously hurt? It had been terrible to see Tony like that on the floor. He had never seen him like that before. It wasn't Tony. Tony would never had let anyone see him like that if he had been able to prevent it, which meant that he hadn't been able to do so today.

How long were they supposed to wait really? His team didn't talk much. Ziva looked lost in thoughts and McGee had an arm around Abby. Ducky went up to the nurse's station now and then and asked for updates. He was just coming back from one of those trips.

"What did they say?" Gibbs asked him.

"To not come back again, and that they will come and talk to us when they have news." Ducky shrugged. "I'm sure it won't be much longer Jethro."

Two more hours they waited before a female doctor approached them. They were all lead in a separate room and offered to take seats on a couch that was standing in the middle of the room. They all remained standing, until the doctor sat down herself and they soon followed suit. She introduced herself as Dr. Westerberg and that she had been working with Tony.

"So what's wrong with him? What happened?" interrupted asking what was on all of their minds.

"Tony was brought in with a severe headache and we have done some test on him, among that a CT scan and a MRI through which it was discovered that Tony suffers from an intracranial hematoma which is a bleeding to the brain." She paused to let them all take it in. Gibbs felt it as a giant whole had just opened up underneath him and he was being sucked down into it. A brain bleed? He heard the shocked reactions from the rest of his team, and Abby quietly started to sob.

"I know this is hard to hear." The doctor continued, the comment mostly directed in Abby's direction. "Hematomas can be very serious and even life threatening, but Tony's is not that severe what we are able to see. At this point we are going to try and threat this with medication, which we already have put him, however we are going to monitor him carefully from now on and later surgery might become an option if the bleeding don't go down." She paused again and looked around at them.

"I would like to discuss this further with you later, however is there any questions you have at the moment?"

"How is he doing now? Is he awake and conscious?" Ducky asked.

"No, he is not awake at the moment since we have him sedated. He is doing as well as he can at the moment."

"Can we see him?" Ziva asked.

"I'm afraid you can't just yet. But I will let you know as soon as you can. I need to go back to him now, please let me know if you have any other questions."

They nodded and thanked her and she was gone again.

"Oh god, Tony." Abby sniffed. "How could this happen?"

Gibbs wouldn't look at his team, at the moment he just couldn't. He was busy with thinking of the moment of Tony's collapse. Tony he had a bleeding in his brain. Was he the cause of it? Did that head slap cause Tony's brain to start bleeding?

He desperately wanted to know the answer to that question, but he couldn't bring himself to ask it out loud. What if the answer was yes? What would he do then? What would that do to his and Tony's relationship?

He didn't get an answer to any of the questions. It felt like he could feel Ziva and McGee's eyes on him now and again. Were they thinking the same thing as him? Did Gibbs do this to his agent? They had seen it too, Gibbs hitting Tony and the collapse, it was easy to draw those conclusions. After all he didn't believe in coincidences.

They had to wait a few more hours before they were told that they were allowed in to see Tony that had been moved to a private room. He was hooked up on multiple machines and was still not awake. It was not right to see him like this. Tony was always doing something to keep himself busy. Now he was lying there propped up on the hospital bed, pale and still. It looked like he was sleeping, but at the same time he looked tense. Was he still in pain, or was it just Gibbs' imagination? Hopefully he was resting peacefully.

- NCIS -

Someone was talking. He wasn't sure they were talking to him or not. He wasn't even sure if he was awake. Maybe he was dreaming? No, he was pretty sure he was awake, except it was still dark around him. Wait, he hadn't opened his eyes yet, that's why. Stupid. He should just to that. Then he would found out who it was that was talking as well.

He tried. He was surprised when it didn't work. Why didn't it work? He was pretty sure that he was trying with all he had to open his eyes, but it was so hard. It felt as if they were glued shut, they were so heavy.

"Tony…" the voice reached his mind again. Calling his name. "You can do it." They were saying. He didn't really know what it was that he could do. Or if he actually could.

"Please." The voice sounded upset now. He tried again to open his eyes and this time for a short amount of time he thought that he could see blurry bright shapes. It was too bright for his sensitive eyes. However now he knew for sure that he was awake. But where was he? What was going on?

He did a mental stock of himself. He was laying down on something soft and comfortable. He was pretty warm too. Almost a bit too warm. His head was the only thing bothering him. It was not as bad as before, not piercing and stabbing but more of a dull ache in the back of his head.

"I think he is awake, he opened his eyes!" A voice said.

"Tony? Are you with us?"

He was going to say that he was but all he got out was something that sounded like a moan. He really needed to wake up for real to find out what's going on. He tried hard again and managed to open his eyes again, this time succeeding in keeping them opened. It was not as bright now, someone had obviously done something about it.

Abby was sitting on the bed next to him, and she was holding his hand. Ziva was on his other side, and by his feet he could spot both Ducky and McGee. Over by the wall, close to the door was Gibbs.

"How are you feeling?" Abby stroke his cheek, she had tears in her eyes, and he had no idea why. He tried to lift his hand towards her and stroke them away, but noticed to his surprise that he couldn't really coordinate his hands all that well, it didn't matter because Abby took his hand in both of hers and squeezed it.

"Tony, my boy. How are you?" Ducky said and came closer to him.

"I'm okay…" he said hoarsely. "What happened?" he understood now that he was in a hospital. The last thing he remembered was his head hurting and being at the office. He noticed that Ziva and McGee both looked over at Gibbs direction.

"You passed out." Abby said hesitantly.

"I knew that." He said.

"How is your head?" Ducky asked.

"It hurts." He confessed. Not bothering hiding it.

"I will go and get your doctor." He left. The other just looked at him.

"What's going on? Why are you looking at me like that?" He asked, looking up at Ziva.

"Your doctor will explain." She said.

"But you know?" he questioned. He knew she did, but for some reason she didn't want to tell him. She looked over at Gibbs again.

"Boss?" He asked.

"Wait for the doctor DiNozzo." Gibbs said, and wouldn't look at him all of a sudden.

"No! What's going on? Tell me." He demanded the people in the room, he could feel a strange fear in the pit of his stomach. Why didn't they want to tell him? No one answered him.

"Calm down Tony." Abby said. "You need to be calm." She looked so upset, like she was going to start crying for real. For her sake he did his best to act calm, but inside his heart was racing. What happened?

- NCIS -