"What the hell happened?" Gibbs asked, rounding the corner, weapon drawn.
What the hell had happened? McGee wondered. The entire situation had seemed like a blur. He had interrogated Rinnert with Colonel Mann, and he was a smug son of a bitch, just as he had been when he had bargained with Gibbs for a deal. Putting the DVD in had been such a rush for McGee, as he watched the man's shock at the footage of him incriminating himself. Rinnert had gotten angry, and directed it straight at McGee. He had ignored him and let him go on calling him every name in the book because it wasn't an unusual reaction. McGee simply sat there and smirked because the bastard was getting exactly what he deserved and he had given it to himself. It was only when Rinnert's foul tongue directed itself at Abby, did McGee have the problem.
It was after the point where McGee had come within inches of physically assaulting Rinnert, that the Colonel ended the interrogation. "Agent McGee!" she had yelled, as if she had some sort of authority over him. "We're done here." She had continued, and pointed towards the door. He left, but not before punching Rinnert squarely in the jaw.
Abby had been in the hallway when he exited. She was beaming, he recalled.
"Please tell me you didn't break any fingers on his face," she had said, taking his hand in hers to examine it.
"No, it's fine." McGee replied wincing.
"Nice, shot Probie. Didn't break any nails did you?" DiNozzo had joked. McGee had been about to shoot off a sarcastic reply, when he heard Rinnert yell.
"You bitch! You did this to me!"
He didn't know when he had seen the gun that Rinnert had grabbed off the Colonel's belt holster, only that he saw it. He didn't know when he threw Abby to the floor, only that he did it. And he didn't know how much time had elapsed between the shot that Rinnert had meant for Abby and the shot that he had fired from DiNozzo's gun. He only knew that Abby was over him, pressing her lab coat against his chest to stop the bleeding. And Rinnert was dead.
During the time that McGee had contemplated the situation, Ducky and Jimmy had arrived. He thought he had heard Tony say something about paramedics, but he couldn't really recall. Everything seemed so far away, so distant. His hand hurt and his chest was killing him. Breathing wasn't so easy anymore, and he heard Ducky telling him to hang on, that he would be all right.
He heard the paramedics coming, and the Director and Gibbs yelling at each other. He opened his eyes, as the EMTs were loading him onto a backboard. He heard Ducky giving some medical jargon that he hadn't understood except for "single gunshot wound to the chest." And as everything was happening around him, as the Director was reaming Colonel Mann for having a loaded weapon in an interrogation room, as Tony was assuring him that he would be fine, and as Ziva was agreeing with Tony, McGee had realized that one voice was absent from the group.
"Abby," he choked out. An overzealous EMT, immediately put an oxygen mask over his mouth, and he tried to remove it. He had to know she was all right.
"I'm here, Tim" he heard her say. She was crying, he could tell it. He didn't even need to see her, but he wanted to. And as if by magic, like the force that propelled Gibbs to her lab whenever she had evidence, she appeared right in front of him, with black mascara trailing down her cheeks, her eyes red and swollen.
He wanted to grab her and tell her he was all right. He wanted to dry her tears and hold her in his arms til her sobs subsided. But a single gunshot wound to the chest was preventing him from doing that. And he hated that once again, she was crying because of him.
He closed his eyes.
"That's good right Abs? I didn't leave anything out?" DiNozzo asked, when he finished reading the incident report aloud.
She paced back and forth nervously in front of his desk, unresponsive. So Tony got up and blocked her path.
"Abby," he repeated louder and a little more forcefully.
"What?" she asked, as if awoken from a trance.
"Did the incident report sound alright?" he questioned again.
"Yeah, it was fine," she replied and turned around to continue pacing.
"Then I'll just put this on the Director's desk and we can go," he said, as he started for the stairs.
"Go where?" she asked. Tony looked at her as if she had grown a second head and couldn't believe that he actually had to answer the question.
"To the hospital, to see Mcgee Abs."
At the sound of his name she tensed up. "I have work to do," she said, heading for the elevator down to her lab. Had Tony been a gambling man, and Abby a racehorse, he would have bet on her. He quickly caught up with her, as she pressed the button.
"Abby, what work do you have to do? Rinnert's dead." Tony explained, not sure what was going on in the goth's head.
"Crime scene analysis." She answered, as she pressed the button again.
"It's the hallway, and it's right there. Besides, you know what happened. There's nothing to analyze," he replied back.
"Ballistics then." She said. She was repeatedly pressing the down button.
"It was Colonel Mann's gun and my gun. You can have them both if you want to prove that they were the weapons, but"
She cut him off as the elevator doors open. "I'm not going Tony, just leave me alone!"
He didn't argue. He knew it was pointless, so instead he turned around and headed for the main elevator. The incident report could stay on his desk til he got back, since he knew the Director was at the hospital anyway. Everyone was at the hospital, except the one person who McGee probably wanted there the most.
And for the life of him, Tony DiNozzo couldn't figure out why.
Thanks for the reviews everyone, I'm so happy you are all enjoying it! Sorry this chapter was so short, but I promise there'll be another update soon. Stupid real life getting in the way of my fic writing...