Tony hated hospitals, not that he thought someone liked them. He didn't know one person who voluntarily went to one. Not counting the people that worked there that is, and visitors. He was there voluntarily right now, but he didn't like the reason. Seeing a new born baby, that was a good reason to go to the hospital, he'd done that a few times with frat brothers and some good friends from work. Unfortunately his current reason for being here was that Gibbs was unconscious.

Tony knew that McGee had driven the sedan out to the crime scene because Gibbs' head was probably about to explode. He knew about the headaches and the medicine that Gibbs occasionally took for them. Since his return from Mexico, he and Ducky had kept a worried eye on Gibbs. They were both aware that Gibbs had not quite remembered everything, and wasn't as 'fine' as he said he was. Tony had gone to Gibbs' house one morning when the boss had not shown up at work and found Gibbs on his couch, face shoved into the back cushion in an attempt to block out as much light as possible.

He wouldn't describe Gibbs as a fidgety person, but he was rarely completely still. It was eery to see him so still, and Tony's stomach clenched as he remembered the last time Gibbs was this still—after the explosion on the Bakir Kamir. It was too soon and Tony was afraid that Gibbs had run out of luck. Gibbs had joked that he had been blown up twice, and that he didn't think he had a third one in him. But was being beaten with a tree branch equal to getting blown up? Tony hoped it didn't, he couldn't handle it if Gibbs woke up with no memory again, or with something else wrong, and he knew that Abby wouldn't handle it either.

He carefully pried himself out of the chair and stretched out. The muscles in his back and legs protested the awkward position they had been forced into. If only they made the chairs more comfortable, then again, how else would the staff convince people to leave when visiting hours were over. Tony had used his badge and considerable charm to persuade the staff to let him stay in the room with Gibbs and not in the waiting room at the end of the hall.

The door slid open and Tony looked over to see the nurse slipping in. She smiled at him and he smiled back, watching as she checked the monitors, adjusted the pillows under Gibbs' right arm, then fiddled with the IV line for a moment before flashing Tony a smile and quietly leaving. Sighing, he raked his hands through his hair and looked over at his boss, willing him to wake up.

Tony felt bad for not keeping better tabs on Gibbs at the crime scene. Of course he knew that the Boss was capable of taking care of himself, but it didn't stop him from worrying just a little. It wasn't until after Ducky had finished examining the bodies and readied them for transport that he realized that he had not seen their fearless leader since Gibbs dropped off the evidence markers and picking up a camera. Tony made a quick check of the house and checked in with Stan Burley before he pulled out his cell phone and called Gibbs.

He didn't answer and Tony didn't hear the phone ringing anywhere in the house. It was easy to pick out Gibbs' phone, it was the only one with the carrier standard ring tone. Gibbs didn't know how to change it and not even Abby was brave enough to mess with his cell. Tony had walked outside calling his boss's cell phone again as he looked around the vehicles and other law enforcement officers that were on site. Making a loop around the house, Tony spotted the trail of evidence markers from the cellar doors leading off towards the crop of trees on the west side of the property.

Cell phone in hand, Tony tried Gibbs one more time as he followed the trail of markers towards the woods. When he still didn't have an answer from Gibbs, he called Stan, filling him in on the evidence markers, trail, and that he was pretty sure he'd found where Gibbs had gone. He was still on the phone with Stan when he found Gibbs, about ten steps into the woods, unmoving curled up on his left side. He screamed at Stan to get Ducky before dropping next to his boss.

Gibbs' jacket had several tears, his new ball cap was several feet away, there was blood, most of it covering his face and the dirt around his head. Tony knew that head wounds bled a lot, but it offered little comfort when he saw the bloodied end of the tree branch nearby. He had made a quick sweep of the immediate area, he was torn between searching farther for whomever was responsible or staying with Gibbs. Ducky arrived with Stan and his team, and Tony ended up staying to help Ducky, while Stan and company searched the woods.

Tony shook himself, trying to get the image out of his head of his seemingly invincible hard ass Marine boss laying crumpled and bleeding. He looked over at Gibbs again, wishing he could do some type of Yoda-Jedi trick and make him to wake up. If that didn't work, perhaps he just needed to call in Mike Franks to order Gibbs to do so. Tony was sure it was some Boss-Probie magic and figured if it worked for him —Gibbs ordering Tony not to die — surely it would work with Franks and Gibbs.

The door creaked and Tony turned to see Abby entering as quietly as she could. Tony walked the short distance from the windows to meet her at the foot of the bed. She threw her arms around him, and Tony returned the hug.

"Hey Abbs."

"Oh Tony! Ducky told me and I was so worried. I mean Gibbs, actually having to go to the hospital is never good. The last time that happened was when he was in the coma, and then he forgot everyone, and I don't care what he says he's still not okay. He still gets headaches, did you know that? They can be really bad at times." She paused long enough to draw in a deep breath. "I hope this isn't like that. I don't know what I would do if Gibbs woke up and didn't remember anything again. That was horrible Tony. Please tell me this isn't going to be like that."

'Or perhaps Abby could guilt Gibbs into waking up.' Tony thought to himself as he gave Abby another hug. He didn't want to tell her that he was afraid of the same thing.

"Gibbs'll be fine Abbs. He's not in a coma, he was awake earlier, he's just resting now."

Which was kind of true. Gibbs had been awake earlier, or his eyes were at least open and moving. Gibbs had opened his eyes while he and Ducky were helping the medics secure him to the backboard but despite repeated attempts he never responded to anyone, never made a sound or twitched a finger. Ducky seemed to take it all in stride, continuing to talk to Gibbs on the way back to the house and the awaiting ambulance.

Tony on the other hand, was internally freaking out, only the need to find the bastard that did this had kept him from losing it. Stan and his senior agent, Charlie Jones, found the bastard all right, holed up in some brush a hundred yards away from where they found Gibbs. Tony watched as Stan and Charlie made it back to the house, Corporal Ashley 'yes I am a guy' Jacobson hopping on one foot between them, his left knee dislocated thanks to one Leroy Jethro Gibbs, if the boot print on the Corporal Jacobson's pants was anything to go by.

"You had better not be sugar coating things."

"I'm not Abby. Gibbs will be fine, cranky and sore as hell but fine. An impressive gash on his head that needed a few stitches, moderate concussion, lots of bruising but no internal bleeding, and his arm will need surgery, but they are waiting a little longer before taking him to surgery." Tony sighed and ran a hand down his face. "I'm sure he'll be awake and growling at both of us for standing around and gawking at him in no time."

"Gibbs doesn't growl Tony." Abby told him, her voice almost back to its usual happy tone.

Tony scoffed. "Maybe not at you, but the rest of us, he growls."

"You know his bark and growl are worse than his bite. He likes you guys." Abby patted his arm then drifted the few feet to the head of Gibbs' bed. She spoke to him, low enough that Tony could not make out what she was saying, then kissed cheek before walking back over to Tony and started to dig around in her bag.

"Here," Abby held out a white paper sack and a bottle of juice. "Sister Rosita sent it for you when I stopped by on my way over here. I told her that Gibbs was hurt and that you were still here, because you know you always have Gibbs' six, even when he's being insufferable. And she wanted to make sure that you would have something to eat, and I guarantee you that the sandwich and brownie are like a million times better than anything in the vending machines or cafeteria. And you need to eat Tony, keep up your strength because who else will rein Gibbs in when he comes back to work too soon."

Ducking his head, Tony smiled and gave Abby a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you, and thank you to Sister Rosita and the rest of the nuns as well."

"You are welcome!" Abby gave him a smile before turning to look back at Gibbs and frowning a little. "I wish I could stay with you, but I have to get to the lab. There's all the evidence that you and Stan's team collected and the photos that need to be analyzed and I want to make sure everything is perfect! There's no way bad forensics will let that man get away with hurting Gibbs."

"I'll tell Gibbs that you were here, and I'll be sure to bring you a Caff-Pow! when I come in to HQ later."

"You're the best Tony." Abby gave him another hug before she left.

Tony retook his seat next to the bed pulling the table over for his sandwich and brownie. He took a few bites of the sandwich before breaking off a small piece of the brownie and popping it in his mouth. Leaning back as he chewed he had to agreed with Abby, it was a million times better than any of the food at the hospital. Swallowing he reached for his drink, taking a healthy slug before looking back over at Gibbs.

"You better not make a liar out of me boss."

Ducky was the lone rider in the elevator when the doors opened on the fifth floor. It was late afternoon and the floor was quiet as he stepped off and made his way over to the nurses station. He had wanted to be there this morning, before Jethro went into surgery, but Agent Balboa's team had caught a hot case and he was needed in autopsy. Mr. Palmer was not quite ready to fly solo yet, and Dr. James Matthews, who worked part-time, was not available.

Stepping up to the nurses station, Ducky smiled and waited for the young lady to finish her phone call. While he had spoken very briefly on the phone with the surgeon's resident earlier, Ducky was keen to see if there were notes in Jethro's file yet. He talked with the nurses briefly while looking over Jethro's chart, pleased to see that his friend had eaten some food at lunch and was starting to drink more water. He bid them good bye and continued down the hall to Jethro's room.

Ducky pushed open the door, walking over to the chair in the corner and moved it closer, draping his overcoat across the back. Jethro had woken up several times over the past two days, each time more coherent than the first, and had put any fears to rest that he had lost his memory again.

"Ahh, Jethro, you do look better today." He looked over his friend before sitting down, taking in the relaxed features of sleep. The bruises had reached their peak color wise, and would soon start to fade. The bandage covering the gash on his head was smaller, the swelling in his face had decreased; overall he looked like he was on the mend.

"I do apologize for not being here this morning, but Agent Balboa landed a case and Dr. Matthews is still out of town. I fear it will not be long before Mr. Palmer is up to doing more on his own, though he still has much to learn. I saw Dr. Baker's notes about surgery this morning." Ducky paused to scrutinize Jethro's right arm, taking in the metal pins that protruded and attached to the fixation bar, the discolored skin shiny and stretched due to swelling.

"Yes, his notes say that everything went well. He did have to use an external fixator, but he felt you would have a better outcome. You'll be back to working on your boat soon enough. Meanwhile, you will have plenty of time to get caught up on some reading. Cecilia at the library said they had not seen you in some time, and your books you had on hold were going to be re-shelved had I not picked them up on the way here. I left them on your coffee table and brought the two you had there. I know how you like to finish a book before starting another one. Though, I do implore you to find a new way to mark your pages. Really Jethro must you dog ear the corners, it's not like you don't have enough gum wrappers you could be using instead."

The door opened and Gene, one of the nurses, stepped in, smiling as he made his way over. Moving away from the bed Ducky smiled back and waited as Gene checked vital signs, IV and the swelling in Jethro's fingers. The entire time he worked, Gene repeatedly tried to get a response from Jethro but was unsuccessful.

"Tell me Dr. Mallard, has he always been this difficult?" Gene smiled again as he made his chart notations.

Ducky shook his head. "I'm afraid so. However, that stubborn streak has served him well on numerous occasions."

'Also to his detriment.' Ducky kept that thought to himself. Jethro would sink his teeth into a case and hold on tight, no matter how wild the ride might be. There was a litany of cases that Ducky could cite as an example; Jethro's quest to find and kill Ari after Caitlin was shot and his pursuit of serial killer Kyle Boone were the most prominent ones that sprung to his mind. Jethro had changed a lot in the length of time that Ducky had known him. Then again, everyone changed over time; Ducky, was certainly not the same man that shoved the French cop off the cliff. Jethro was not the same young man, who joined the Marines & married Shannon, and he definitely was not the same agent that first captured Kyle Boone. While life was usually a gradual process, people coming out smoothly sculpted by their life experiences, some people, like Jethro, came out rougher, their edges cracked and splintered.

"Well, from the look of it seems like it's served him well this time. I heard that Agent Gibbs here did some rather impressive damage to his assailant's knee, he won't be walking on it anytime soon." Gene sounded impressed. "You have a good evening Dr. Mallard, I leave at four and Steph will be on shift this evening."

Ducky laid a careful eye on his friend looking for any sign that he was actually awake. Given that Jethro had not even twitched when Gene took his blood pressure — something which Jethro normally detested — Ducky was fairly certain that he was deeply asleep but, one should never assume, always double check. Most definitely asleep. That was fine, after all it's what he needed, Ducky could wait him out. Jennifer had once said that Jethro kept to his own time table and there could be no denying that. He had known Jethro for too many years to offer up any contradictory evidence that he operated on anyone else's time schedule, especially not in medical realm. No, Jethro always seemed to do the opposite of what was expected.

He'd been there more than once as Jethro woke up violently from anesthesia, or came around unexpectedly, scaring the staff in an ER. For a man that did not like surprises he was full of them. Jethro had actually been married four times! His first wife and daughter killed while he was in Kuwait. Ducky would never be able to forget the look on Jethro's face when he woke up from the coma after the explosion on the Bakir Kamir; such pure anguish.

"At least we do not have to worry about that this time eh Jethro." Ducky spoke his musing aloud. Jethro had woken up several times over the past two days, each time more coherent than the first, and had put any fears to rest that he had lost his memory again.

Settling back in the chair, Ducky picked up one of the books he had retrieved from the coffee table in Gibbs' living room. Gibbs was an avid reader, one look around his living room, could tell you that. Books were stuffed into the overflowing built in shelves on either side of the fireplace and stacked along the mantel. And the variety of subjects and genres was mind boggling. The book that Ducky held in his hands, Robert Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land, really threw him for a loop. He had a hard time picturing Jethro reading science fiction.

"But, you are a man of more questions than answers my good friend. I do remember that this book caused quite the uproar when it came out. Did you know that one of the working titles for the book was The Heretic. Fitting since there were several reviews describing it as heretical rubbish. I'm a sure that you have made the connection between the title and Exodus 2:22. 'And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land."

Something, a flicker of movement and a muffled groan, caught Ducky's attention. Setting the book on the floor by his feet, Ducky leaned forward in his chair, running an experienced eye over his close friend. Jethro's face was pinched, brows knitted together and eyes tightly, but not clenched, shut, this usually meant he was in some discomfort but not severe pain. The fingers on his left hand flexing curling inward to form a fist before stretching back again. Ducky heard the click and snap of the joints in Jethro's left leg, and gave a small shudder. There weren't many things that could make him shudder but the particular sound that Jethro's ankle and knee made was one of them.

"Jethro?"

Jethro's head rolled in Ducky's direction but his eyes did not open. His face was still pinched as he continued to shift about restlessly. Fidget, a behavior that Ducky did not usually associates with snipers, but Jethro was always moving in some way or another.

"Oh come on now. I'm much too old to be waiting for you to finish playing opossum." He kept his voice low, not wanting to startle to younger man, but also knowing that it would help him wake up. "Of course to do so properly you would not be such an izgő-mozgó! That book of Hungarian Phrases you gave me last year before my trip to Budapest came in handy, though I pointedly ignored your notes to some of the more questionable ones. If your team only knew the extent of your sense of humor." Ducky shook his head in amusement. "My Uncle Maurice, Mother often says that I take after him, he was a font of idioms and proverbs from other languages. Despite that, and him speaking several languages fluently, he would say you are a right flibbity jibbit. I, however, am quite fond of the Yiddish Shpilkes, which loses something in the translation but roughly means that you have ants in your pants."

"Not wearing any pants." Jethro's answer was subdued as his eyes finally slid open halfway, the blue irises still a bit cloudy from the recent anesthesia and pain medication.

"Crumbs in the bedsheets then?" Ducky smiled. "Good Afternoon Jethro. How are you feeling?"

"Hmmm." He blinked several times, bringing his left hand up to clumsily rub at his face "A bit fuzzy. Tired. Thirsty."

"Yes, that is to be expected." Ducky passed Gibbs a cup of water, keeping a steadying hand underneath it. "It will take a while for the after affects of the anesthetic to wear off. I spoke with Dr. Benton, the resident, this morning on the phone after surgery and read Dr. Baker's notes this afternoon. They were pleased with surgery, and expect to be able to remove those rather nasty looking pins in six to eight weeks."

"Pins?" Jethro's eyes went wide and he rolled his head over to look at his arm. He poked around the pins a few times and there was a small waggle of fingers, before turning his attention back to Ducky with a confused look on his face. "Looks like it should hurt?"

Ducky didn't bother hiding his amusement. "It's numb right now, I'm sure it will make it self known later on."

"Can't wait." Jethro's reply was lost in a groan that morphed into a yawn. "Coffee?"

"Hold down dinner tonight, and I will bring you coffee tomorrow. You'll thank me if you…" Ducky was interrupted by a knock on the door and the curtain being pushed aside. "Oh, hello there."

"Good afternoon Dr. Mallard, Agent Gibbs, good to see you finally awake." Stephanie, the same nurse that was on shift the previous evening, walked over to Jethro's bed, placing a plastic caddy of supplies on the bed by his legs. "My name is Steph, and you're stuck with me interrupting you for the next 8 hours."

"If your name is Steph," There was a pause as Jethro yawned yet again, "why does your badge say 'Teoh'?"

"It's a long story, and I'll tell you after I clean the pin sites and all this other poking and prodding is over with."

Ducky chuckled as he gathered his coat and hat, placing Stranger In a Strange Land with the other book. Jethro was in good hands and he really should be getting home to Mother.

"All right Jethro, I shall leave you in Stephanie's more than capable hands. Abby said she was coming by after work, so I will see you in the morning."

There was a soulful look on his friend's face. "With coffee?"

"Really, Jethro? Perhaps it's time that you review your 'addiction' to this beverage." Ducky patted his friends leg as he walked around the bed toward the door. "But yes, I'll bring you coffee. And Jethro, as much as I have missed having time to simply sit and read a book, I do wish you would stop providing it to me in such a fashion."