By the time Gibbs got Tony in the car to go to the hospital, his skin was hot and slick to the touch, dripping with sweat. Gibbs hadn't seen Tony this sick since when he had contracted the Black Plague and that had been years ago. Though he hadn't allowed himself to show it then, Gibbs had worried about Tony during that whole disaster. He had made himself sick then and already he could feel his stomach muscles clench with worry and the need to vomit was becoming harder to control just as it had been back then. He swallowed hard and forced his feelings aside. This wasn't about him right now. It was about making sure that Tony was okay.

Pulling into the Emergency Room drive, Gibbs parked the car and quickly got out of the car. Running around to the passenger side, he opened the door. "Tony, slip your arm around my waist and I'll pull you up."

Tony balked. "I can get out of the car by myself. I don't need your help."

"Yes, you do. Quit being so damn stubborn and pigheaded."

Tony's green eyes flashed with anger, but when he saw the worry in Gibbs' own baby blues, he sighed, and just like that the anger was gone. Damn it. Why does he have to have this effect on me? "Okay." Taking a deep breath in which Tony hoped Gibbs would take as him readying himself to pull himself to his feet, he slipped his left arm around Gibbs slender waist. Though the touch was innocent, Tony's heart began to beat erratically as his fingers squeezed Gibbs' hip and he was pulled to his side.

"You ready?"

Unable to speak at first, not just because of the pain in which was coursing through his body but also because of how near he was to Gibbs, Tony nodded. "Yep."

Making sure that his right hand was no where near Tony's appendix, Gibbs laid it on his hip instead and then grabbed hold of Tony's left hand which was latched onto his own hip. "Alright, slow and steady."

At the painfully slow pace in which they were going, Tony was surprised they ever made it inside the hospital and to the nurse's station, but they did. What shocked him even more though was just how worn out he was. Unable to stop himself, not even having the energy to try, Tony slumped further into Gibbs' body, using him for more than just physical support.

Only taking his hand off of Tony's long enough to slam it down on the counter in front of him to get the nurse's attention, he quickly placed his hand back where it had been before, and barked: "Emergency! Possible appendicitis!"

The annoyance in the young nurse's eyes quickly faded when she took stock of Tony. His Ohio State University t-shirt was soaked with sweat, his hair plastered to his forehead, and his eyes rimmed red. Jumping from her seat, she ran around the counter, grabbing a hold of a wheelchair. "Here you are. Help sit him down in this, nice and easy now, nice and easy. I'm going to page for Dr. Hepburn."

While the nurse ran back around behind the counter to page for the doctor, Gibbs gently eased Tony in the wheelchair. Not knowing what else to do, he pushed the sweat-slicked hair back from Tony's forehead.

"Gibbs," Tony moaned.

"Yeah, Tony?" The use of Tony's first name slipped off his tongue before he had even had time to think about it. He mentally head slapped himself for it.

The ghost of a DiNozzo smile played with Tony's lips. "I just wanted to say thank you for this."

A nod. "No problem."

"But it is. Not everyone would do this kind of thing, you know? It takes someone special to do something like this. It takes someone who cares. I haven't had too many of those kind of people in my life . . . the kind that cares." Tony bit down on the inside of his cheek to stop himself from continuing. God, he thought, I really am sick. That's the only reason why I'd be allowing myself to act like a love starved puppy. "Of course, if I weren't me, I'd probably not care too much either."

Palming the side of Tony's face, Gibbs slowly massaged his temple with his thumb. "Ah, you're not too bad. You're a good man, Tony, and anyone who's stupid enough not to care about you, well, I wouldn't even trust them enough to wipe their own ass." He paused, waiting for the smile that he was sure he would get, and only when he got it did he continue. "You have people that care about you, Tony. Abby, Ziva, McGee, Ducky, Palmer . . . and the list goes on."

"And you?"

Gibbs took a deep breath and let it out slowly. If you only knew how much. "And me. Most definitely me."

Tony slowly opened his eyes at the tone of Gibbs voice. Green eyes stared into blue and Tony wondered just what Gibbs was thinking. Most of the time he could read him very well, probably better than most, but at the moment it was as though he was staring at a brick wall.

"Is this our appendicitis case?"

Gibbs turned at the voice behind him. A young woman dressed in a doctor's white lab coat and scrubs with long and thick and wavy locks of red hair stood with her arms crossed over her chest. Her face was sharp and angular, like a pixie, but the green pools which were her eyes were warm and filled with a doctor's concern.

The nurse spoke, "Yes, Dr. Hepburn, this is the patient. It appears as though he was got here just in time."

"I should say so," Dr. Hepburn muttered as she quickly stepped toward Tony. "What is your name?"

"Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo," Gibbs asserted.

Dr. Hepburn didn't even bother to glance in Gibbs' direction. "Well, Agent DiNozzo, may I please check over you real quick just to make sure that this is a case of appendicitis?"

Too tired to say anything more, Tony nodded.

With the efficient skill of a doctor, Dr. Hepburn quickly made about looking Tony over. "Agent DiNozzo, if you do have appendicitis this will most likely hurt. And it will hurt a lot. Are you ready?"

Again, Tony just nodded.

Gently, Dr. Hepburn placed her hand on Tony's abdomen, pushing it slightly, applying no more pressure than needed, and let go. At the sound of Tony's groan, Gibbs clenched his jaw tightly shut. He knew that the doctor was only doing what she was supposed to, but as he watched Tony's nostrils flare as he tried to get a hold off his erratic breathing and his body jerk in pain, Gibbs felt like snapping at her.

"Alright, Agent DiNozzo, I hate to tell you this but you definitely have appendicitis and you're going to have to have immediate surgery." Dr. Hepburn straightened and looked at the nurse. "Vanessa, get Agent DiNozzo prepped for surgery and wheel him back to any open operating room."

With a quick nod, Vanessa quickly grabbed the back of Tony's wheelchair and sprinted away.

Dr. Hepburn turned to follow, completely forgetting about Gibbs, but before she could also sprint away, he grabbed her by the arm and jerked her back around to face him. "Is he going to be alright?"

The doctor's sharp green eyes looked Gibbs up and down. His whole being, the way he looked at her, and the way he asked the question, demanded for her to tell him the truth. Not some half ass truth that doctors always give to try and calm the patient's loved ones, but the truth no matter how horrible the outcome would most likely be. "May I ask what you are to Agent DiNozzo?"

"His boss." A pause. "And his friend. Now, is he going to be alright?"

Dr. Hepburn sighed. "He should be. It appears as though you got him here just in time. How did you know that he had appendicitis?"

Gibbs changed his stance from the offensive to the defensive. "He got roughed up at work today. Nothing different from what he, or any agent, usually gets, but another agent told me that Tony wasn't taking it as well as he normally does; said there was something off about how he acted. I went to his apartment to check on him, and I could tell as soon as he opened the door that there was something wrong with him, and then when I checked him for any internal injuries and my fingers grazed the spot where the appendix is, he looked like death warmed over."

"It's a good thing that you went to check on him. If you hadn't brought him in, I surmise by the way he reacted to when I applied pressure to his abdomen, he wouldn't have been alive by this time tomorrow."

The sudden urge to vomit once again attacked Gibbs' senses and once more it took all of his will power to force it down. "Thank you for your honesty. Please, keep me informed."

"I will." And with that, Dr. Hepburn turned and sprinted up the hallway in the direction in which the nurse had taken Tony.

For a few moments, Gibbs' stared after the doctor, but then went to take a seat in one of the chairs that lined the wall. Flopping down, he spread his legs out as he laid his head back and ran his hands up and down his face.

Thank you, he thought. Gibbs didn't especially believe in any one religion because who was it for him to say that one religion's beliefs were right and all the others wrong. So, when he gave his thanks, he did so to any other worldly divinity who could be listening.

He lasted all of thirty minutes before he could no longer take waiting alone. Reaching into his front pocket, he pulled out his cell phone. He only had to go through three rings before the phone was picked up and on the other line he heard, "Gibbs?"

"Hey, could you come to the hospital?" He paused and breathed in deeply. "It's about Tony . . ."

Ten minutes later, Abby burst through the Emergency Room doors, her pigtails swinging wildly, as she turned her head back and forth in search of Gibbs. When she finally spotted him, she ran to him. "Gibbs!"

Jerking his head off his chest, he had just enough time to stand only to be thrown back into the chair as Abby threw herself into his arms, falling into his lap, and holding tightly to his neck.

As was always the case with Abby when she gave hugs, she squeezed hard and didn't let go until she was warned that her victim couldn't breathe. As Gibbs was doing now. "Abs. Abs, uncle. Mercy." Because she was scared, she refused to let go. "Abs!"

Sighing, she squeezed Gibbs closer for a second more and finally let go. Gibbs quickly filled his lungs with air least she decided to attack again.

"Is he going to be okay?"

Now that he had someone else to focus on beside himself, to thank of someone else's feelings other then his own, he rubbed small circles at the small of Abby's back with the heel of his hand. "The doctor says that he got here just in time."

Abby nodded, biting her bottom lip. "How long has it been since he left?"

"Little over an hour."

Another nod. And then, though he should have known it was coming, Gibbs was caught off guard as Abby punched him hard in the shoulder. "What took you so long to call me?"

Glaring, Gibbs rubbed the spot on his shoulder where Abby had mercilessly punched him. "I'm sorry Abby. I had a lot on my mind."

Hugging him again, but this time much more gentle than before, she sighed. "I'm sorry."

For a few minutes, they sat like this, Abby in Gibbs' lap and her head on his shoulder, and with Gibbs absentmindedly rubbing circles into the small of her back, knowing that she needed the constant contact to keep her at ease. During that time they said nothing, but then Abby finally asked the question that had been plaguing her mind since he had called her, and the one which Gibbs knew that eventually she would ask.

"How are you handling this?"

"I'm fine."

"Don't lie to me, Gibbs. I know you too well for you to lie to me." She looked up into his eyes, but he refused to meet her gaze. "I also know how much you care for Tony." For a brief moment, she wondered if she should continue. Deciding that yes, she should, she said, "And since I know that it's more than just a friend worrying for a friend, and much more than a boss caring for his employee, you should tell me how you are really feeling. I know your secret Gibbs. You can't lie to me and tell me that you are fine when the man that you are in love with is having major surgery and if it hadn't been for McGee telling you that Tony was acting funny and you hadn't decided to check on him, he would most likely be dead." She paused only long enough for everything that she had said to sink in. "So tell me the truth."

Gibbs sighed and ran his left hand down his face. Too exhausted with worry, he gave Abby just what she wanted: the truth.

"I'm scared shitless, Abby. Appendicitis is serious, but no where near as serious as the Plague. And, yet, for some reason I'm more worried about him now than I was when he had the Black Plague. I was worried about him then, too, but this time . . . it's different."

"It's different this time because back then you were able to do something. You were able to act. Now, all you can do is wait. That's always the hardest part for the loved ones to do."

Gibbs nodded. "If only I knew how everything was going. If he's okay . . ."

"He will be."

After another hour's wait, Gibbs thought he was going to go crazy. Abby had moved from sitting in his lap to a couch and laid curled up in the fetal position, asleep. He had already gone through three cups of coffee, paced the floor until he was sure if he continued anymore he was going to run holes through his shoes, had returned to sitting in the chair, staring in the direction in which they had taken Tony. His body cried out for sleep, it had been a long and rough day at work, but his mind refused to shut down for even ten minutes.

All he could think about was Tony.

Forty more minutes had passed before he saw Dr. Hepburn slowly making her way toward him. He jumped from the chair and met her halfway.

"How is he?"

Dr. Hepburn smiled. "He's fine. Just fine. You got him here just in time. His appendix had swelled up to about the size in diameter to a golf ball. Had it gotten any bigger than that, it would have burst, and the sepsis, which is the poisonous infection found in the appendix, would have been released and killed him. But, as I said, you got him here in time and he's going to be okay. Extremely sore, but okay."

The world having been lifted from his shoulders, Gibbs returned the doctor's smile. "When can I see him?"

"You can see him for a few minutes now, if you wish. He's knocked out on pain medication so it's doubtful he'll wake up, but if he does, don't excite him in any way. He's in room 207."

Dr. Hepburn turned to leave, but stopped when she felt Gibbs' hand on her arm. She turned back to face him. "Thank you," Gibbs murmured softly.

"You're welcome." And with that she turned and walked away.

Looking back at Abby, Gibbs wondered if he should bother waking her up, but knew if he didn't she would kill him. Crouching down in front of her, he gently shook her. "Abs? Abs, wake up."

Abby's eyes fluttered open and she smiled when she saw Gibbs. "He's okay?"

Gibbs nodded. "Dr. Hepburn said I could go see him for a few minutes. Would you like to come with me?"

Abby stared at him for a moment, not saying anything. She felt for Gibbs. He was in love with a man who he felt he could never have because Tony was Tony. He needed those few minutes with Tony by himself and she wasn't about to obtrude on them. Pushing herself up, she stretched her arms and turned it into a hug. "No," she whispered in his ear. "You go check on him. I'll come tomorrow and see him."

Gibbs sighed. He knew exactly what Abby was doing, and she knew that he was doing it for him, and it made him love her even more. He kissed her gently on the cheek. "Thank you, Abs. Be careful on the way home."

"I will."

She watched as Gibbs stood and walked down the corridor in the direction that she assumed Tony's room was located. She didn't move to leave until she could no longer see him. "Poor Gibbs," she murmured as she stood and walked out the hospital doors. "Life hasn't been fair to you."

Why does love have to be so hard, she thought. Why can't it ever be simple? She thought about it for a moment. Only God knows why.