Disclaimer: see first chapter

A/N: Ok, to my defense I did have this mostly written a while ago but I reread it and decided it was really crappy and so it took me a while on the whole rewriting thing… and the weird part was I knew how I was going to end this chapter before I knew how I was going to start it… and I'm thinking more towards the six chapters discussed previously, over the two… and let me just say, I've never been too good at all that medical jargon so hopefully you get the point… Read. Enjoy. Review.

***

Abby leaned back on the hatch of her hearse as she watched in silence as the ambulance sped through the parking lot away from her. Pulling her love away from her, and as she watched, though she could still hear the ambulance's sirens blaring, she could no longer see the vehicle as it turned the corner and disappeared. Abby was only vaguely aware that the remaining portion of team Gibbs started to move from there frozen positions on the pavement.

"Ziva!" Tony yelled in the all too familiar 'Gibbs is hurt so I'm in charge voice' as he walked over to conference with the other two agents, "Go run and tell the director what's happened and have her resign the case. McGee run and tell Ducky to get this guy down to the morgue, and then tell him what happened. All of you come to the hospital together, got it? We don't know that this guy was alone."

"And what will you be doing?" Ziva asked defiantly and Tony just glared at her.

"I'm going to drive Abbs over to the hospital," said Tony dropping the dictator voice, "There's no way we can even ask her to wait for everyone else."

The two younger agents looked around Tony to Abby, who was still in shock and hadn't moved from her place leaning against the hearse. She wasn't even blinking she was just standing there, and if they didn't know any better they would have thought she was a statue. It was oddly disturbing she had to be the most jittery person they knew, yet she was just standing there, more silent than a mouse, or a moose as Ziva would say.

"Ok," said McGee as he and Ziva turned and ran into the building as Tony wheeled around to see Abby, who didn't bother moving.

"C'mon, Abbs," said Tony as he reached her side and wrapped an arm around her and pulled her tight, "I'll bring you right over there ok?"

Abby said nothing, tried to move her legs, but she couldn't. Tony seemed to read her face well enough to throw her arm around his neck and he helped her carefully over to the passenger door and helped her inside. After shutting her car door so careful to not get any part of her caught in it, then ran around the front to the driver's side door and hopped in next to her, slamming the door behind him.

"Where are your keys?"

"Bag," was all she managed to get out and Tony reached his hand into the bag on the seat and came out with the keys.

"Ok, buckle up," He said as he stuck the key into the ignition and buckling himself up, "Please, Abbs? I want to get us there-fast-but you have to buckle up or Boss'll kill me."

Abby wiped a tear that seemed to leak out as she reached up with a shaky hand to reach for the seatbelt.

"Thanks," said Tony as the buckle clicked into place and he floored the gas pedal.

They were in at the hospital in what seemed like hours to Abby, yet were mere seconds as Tony screeched to a halt just outside the emergency room doors, where they hopped out.

"Hey!" called a security guard as Tony and Abby made a run for the door to the emergency room, Abby slipped through the door, but Tony turned to face the guard, "You can't park here, Sir."

"Move it then!" said Tony as he threw the keys and flashed his badge, "You take anything…"

"Gotcha," he said and he headed towards the car as Tony ducked through the door and into the E.R. waiting room were he walked up behind Abby as she walked up to the nurses' station.

"Leroy Jethro Gibbs," Abby said, "He just came through here on a gurney thing? Two gunshots to the right shoulder?"

"Yes?" said the nurse as she eyed Abby skeptically and that was exactly when Tony realized how odd this scene would be from outside eyes.

"Where is he? Is he ok? Well of course he's not ok, he's got two bullets in his back!" said Abby starting to outwardly panic for the first time, which set off the alarm for Tony.

"Are a relative of this man?"

"A relative?" Abby said holding up her left hand showing off the two rings that were gleaming in the light just as they had been a few hours ago when Gibbs had sat down beside her on the couch, "I'm guessing this counts!"

"Yes," said the nurse, still eyeing Abby's rings skeptically, as Tony tried to put an arm around Abby but she threw it off, "He's been taken into emergency surgery. Preliminaries showed one hit his right shoulder blade and the other very narrowly missed the bottom portion of his shoulder blade and is stuck in either muscle or his right lung. Sorry, we won't know more until they get further into the surgery and they'll be out to update you. And then you'll want this, sorry hospital policy no one wears jewelry into surgery.

"Ok, thanks," said Tony as the nurse handed Abby a little baggy with Gibbs's wedding ring and handed it to Abby and then he tried to assist Abby back to a seat in the waiting room.

Abby, on the other hand had other plans as she once again threw off Tony's arm and ran to the comfort and safety of one of the under stuffed chairs. She sat there for a few seconds in silence before Tony came and joined her.

"You ok, Abbs?" Tony asked as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"NO!" Abby just about screamed at him, "Tony, how could you even ask that? How would you feel if it was Ziva who just got shot in front of your face?"

"Ok, I get it," said Tony as Jenny, Ducky, Ziva, and McGee came through the door, "And could you keep it down? No one else knows, you didn't tell boss did you?"

"Of course not Tony, you said you wanted to be the one to tell everyone, when you were ready," Abby said as Tony realized Abby was clutching Gibbs's "leash" as he called it just that morning to her chest in a fist.

"Abbs, he'll be ok," said Tony as another tear managed to leek from Abby's eye, "C'mon? The boss? How many times has he been blown up or shot before?"

"Not helping, Tony," said Ziva as she sat down in the seat on the other side of Abby and Jenny sat on the coffee table right in front of Abby.

"I'm going to go see if I can get an update," said Ducky, giving Abby a weak smile, and Tony hopped up out of his seat and followed him over to the nurses' station.

"I'll come with you," muttered Tony as McGee sat down silently across the waiting room, figuring he'd let the girls try to comfort Abby.

"Why the hell does he have to be so noble? Why the hell did he have to jump in front of me?" Abby said as tears started to fall, "He'd be fine right now."

"Abby, from what Ziva informed me about the positioning of those bullets," started Jenny and then her voice faltered, "Abby, those bullets would have double tapped you in the chest. Gibbs saved both of you. Even if you could go back and change it, you can't ask him to lose the love of his life and his child again. He wouldn't be able to get over that, Abby."

As Abby started to sob, a new nurse arrived at the nurses' station to update Ducky. She had clearly just scrubbed out and was still rubbing her hands together as she approached Tony and Ducky in the hall leading to the waiting room where Abby and the girls were still in plain sight.

"How's he holding in?" said Ducky as he analyzed the frightened look on the woman's face.

"It's more serious than any of us thought," said the nurse as her eyes shifted from one man to the other, "It's not looking well. One of the bullets shattered his shoulder blade while the other manage to lodge itself in a very tricky place in the lung. At this point they're trying to make sure his heart isn't compromised while they try to repair his lung, plus it doesn't help that several of his ribs were broken near the injured part of the lung. And the right lung being the larger more important one…"

"Nurse… Lauren is it?" said Tony as his eyes flickered to her nametag, "I'm no doctor, but that really doesn't sound good, so I want you to look behind me at the pretty young pregnant gothic girl that's in the waiting room… that's his wife, she's due in three months. You had better get your cute little butt back in there and spread the message that if he's not there for that baby and Abby then you will all being answering to me."