Rating: T

Disclaimer: I don't own them or stand to gain from any playing around with the characters.

A/N Thank you so much, to everyone who took the time to review and for all the alerts too. Lot56 I wasn't able to thank you by PM. As before this chapter is not beta'd so excuse the errors.

Couple of housekeeping issues LOL. In this chapter Tony sends out an SOS for backup. After some futile research I haven't been able to find his Badge number so I did what any self respecting fiction writer would do. I made it up!

Second issue, in communicating with the local LEOs using radio code, I discovered that there isn't one universal code after hanging out of some Cop message boards. How crazy is that. So I opted to use what seemed to be a reasonably common one but whether it is the same one that Baltimore and Virginia cops both use... well don't shoot me if it isn't correct.

Oh and final point. I should have said that this story takes place during season six.

Halloween Remembrance

Chapter 4

By the time Ducky and Jethro arrived back in Tony's room, they could hear their exuberant forensic scientist happily filling the silence, delivering a mile-a-minute monologue. Abby bounced from her Habitat for Humanity plans later in the month, to the exploits of the bunch of nuns she'd buddied up with, to Bert the Hippo's views on the latest gossip at the lab. All the while, Abby remained in a state of perpetual motion. She twirled, jiggled and bounced on her clunky platform boots which should have made her clumsy and awkward, yet she retained an air of grace, even if it was exhausting to watch her.

While Abby seemed to be incapable of remaining still or silent, nevertheless she was utterly focused on her friend. She alternated between long soothing strokes of his forearm to softly massaging his scalp. Between the cheery chatter and comforting touch, it appeared that her presence was grounding Tony and keeping any nightmares at bay. Ducky smiled approvingly at the young woman and handed over what he considered to be a highly toxic, overly caffeinated soft drink. He apologised that he hadn't been able to obtain her chosen poison – the cherry flavoured Caff-Pow.

"It's all cool Duckman, this will tide me over and keep me mellow," she chirruped while continuing her gentle coddling.

Ducky snorted gently and exchanged an amused glance with Jethro because mellow was not a description he would have ever associate with their young Goth. If this was Abby mellow, he'd hate to see her really hyped up. Mellow or not though, Abby was nothing if not highly perceptive and she started shooting penetrating looks at Gibbs and Ducky before finally speaking.

"Is something wrong with Tony? I mean, I know he was shot and all, but he's going to be okay, isn't he? Cuz there is some seriously bad energy in the room at the moment Guys.

Before either man could respond to her queries, she was off on an Abby tangent.

"Ducky... your chakras need some serious rebalancing and Bossman...don't even get me get me started on you... cuz yours are just so blocked that it would probably take a room full of Reiki Masters... plus some Rolfing Practitioners not to mention some aura cleansing too... to unblock your energy... have you ever thought about aromatherapy Gibbs... or I could get you a crystal to keep beside your bed...er boat to absorb the bad energy that you are giving off... but then you would need to cleanse the crystal regularly... and well you know that you wouldn't do it... well I know that you would mean to do it... but then you would forget or get called out on a case or McGee..."

Both men were listening in a state of befuddled astonishment at Abby's attack of verbal diarrhoea, when a groan from the bed interrupted her new-age ramblings. Another raspy groan was elicited before Tony spoke. "Breathe Abbs."

Immediately, all three visitors were refocused on the individual in the hospital bed. Ducky and Gibbs joined Abby clustered around his bed as he fought to open his eyes, clearly showing evidence of the narcotics that remained in his system. His pupils were dilated and his eyelids remained stubbornly at half mast. Gibbs and Ducky noted that with a return to consciousness, he was also experiencing the inevitable symptoms of nausea that frequently accompanied general anaesthetics. Something he was unfortunately, unusually sensitive to.

While Ducky reached for a dish that could be used to vomit into, Gibbs was dispatched to find Marion. They knew from experience that Tony would need to get some Compazine to ward off the cyclic vomiting, that was just around the corner. Meanwhile Abby was trying to coach him through the nausea, ironically reminding him to breathe, which made Ducky snort inelegantly.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Now that the nausea was under control Tony was sitting propped up while Abby was feeding him ice chips. Abby wasn't the only one who was perceptive when it came to reading her teammates. Even when recovering from surgery, he was aware that something was definitely hinky as the Goth would say. He examined the non verbal body language of his three visitors and could tell that something was seriously off with all three of them.

Abby seemed nervous. She kept stealing surreptitious glances at Ducky and Gibbs as if she was trying to figure something out, while Ducky seemed older, wearier and well...sad. Gibbs was trying to act normal but Tony was used to reading Gibbs so he could anticipate his behaviour and requests. Gibbs was giving off some very strong vibes that were making Tony feel bad.

Gibbs was angry about something and trying hard not to show it. He was also paradoxically trying to be nice, which Tony always found damned hinky and it made him feel uncomfortable and uncertain. There was another emotion going on with him too, which Tony wasn't quite able to identify but it made his gut churn nevertheless, as if it knew something that he didn't.

He got the anger! No doubt the Boss was pissed at him for getting shot. Gibbs was going to be down a member of the MCRT team and his senior field agent to boot. And the kicker was that Tony hadn't even been injured on the job for NCIS. So of course Gibbs was going to want to tear him a new one. Tony had to admit, that there were times even he bought into the whole trouble magnet thingy, that his boss often accused him of being. He hadn't deliberately gone looking for trouble, earlier that night.

Earlier that night

He'd finally been on his way home when he noticed a suspicious pair of males entering a convenience store. They were dressed as a zombie and a ghoul and carrying what sure looked like real machetes. Okay so it was Halloween and every man and his dog was dressed up in dumb-assed costumes and probably went shopping in convenience stores on Halloween. Yet for Tony, once a cop always a cop, and he knew that perps would take advantage of the holiday and being able to don anonymous costumes and stroll around with unconcealed weapons. He knew that perps thought that the Halloween holiday was an open invitation to be able to commit crimes without provoking the suspicions of Joe Citizens.

He wasn't sure why his cop radar had pinged as he drove past, when they entered the shop. Yet it did! All he knew was that the pair was up to no good and he had to stop and check it out. He'd called it in to a buddy on the Metro Police Department area command but was informed that all available units were busy; ETA for a squad car was approximately fifteen minutes, for a routine callout. There were several customers visible in the shop and Tony had a Gibbs sized gut ache that wouldn't be silenced. He grabbed his gun, badge and ID and sneaked into the store to check out his suspicions, regarding the Ghoul and the Zombie.

His gut had been working just fine unfortunately and the Ghoul was holding up, several customers at the point of a very sharp machete and an Smith & Wesson, demanding they hand over cash and valuables. They were in the candy and snack food aisle about half way down the shop. Meanwhile the Zombie was at the front counter, threatening the store owner with an unidentified hand gun. Tony could hear him, loudly ordering that the till be opened and the owner hand over the night's takings.

Neither perp had noticed Tony enter the store so after carefully assessing the situation, he knew that backup wasn't going to get there anytime soon. The way things stood, he needed back-up and he needed it ASAP. He backed out again very carefully, and grabbed his phone and typed a 911 text:

SA DiNozzo NCIS ID 689619

211 (armed robbery in progress)

10-13 (officer needs assistance)

store Cr North and 117 St

Cnfrm lctn via Cell GPS

Tony hit send, knowing that it would soon bring down a horde of unies as back up. No cop ever ignored an Officer Needs Assistance code. It was the quickest way of getting help, although Gibbs would no doubt be pissed he hadn't called him. Tony decided that he would just wait and watch, until they arrived.

That was, until he saw a previously unobserved shop assistant who evidently decided to save the day. He must have been out the back when the Zombie and the Ghoul had decided to hold up the store. Instead of calling the police, sitting on his butt and waiting for help to arrive, he was trying to play hero and sneak up behind the Ghoul, armed with a freaking baseball bat, no less! Tony couldn't help but groan softly at the stupidity of people who obviously watched, way too many Jean-Claude Van Damme movies.

As risky and crazy as it was to go in without back-up, Tony simply couldn't stand around and do nothing. Even when it went against SOP and every protocol, not to mention how he was going to get reamed out by the Boss. Not while a misguided civilian played at being a hero and got everyone else shot or killed.

So he cautiously re-entered the store and started to creep towards the Ghoul while keeping one wary eye on the Zombie, who was still arguing with the store owner. It seemed that there wasn't as much money in the till as the Zombie was expecting and he was accusing the owner of trying to hide money from , everything went pear shaped very quickly from that point.

One of the customers, who clearly couldn't act his way out of a paper bag, couldn't help betraying the would-be hero with the baseball bat. Instead of ignoring said WBH he alerted the Ghoul that someone was behind him, by staring wide eyed at him, as he came up behind the Ghoul. Not surprisingly, the Ghoul reacted by turning around and discovering the shop assistant, about to rearrange his brain cells with the baseball bat. The second customer, a guy with way more machismo than brains who Tony mentally nicknamed Lug-Head, took advantage of the distraction and launched himself at the Ghoul. What testosterone driven Lug-Head didn't factor into his decision to go for the Ghoul, was that the Zombie also had a gun and was about to shoot him in the back.

Mentally cursing dumbass civilians, Tony took off with an explosive dive, taking Lug-Head down in a perfect tackle. He knew even before he launched himself, that there was a good chance he was going to get shot by a zombie. God he loved Halloween! So as he hit the ground a second before the bullet slammed into his thigh, he fired his sig with a deadly accuracy to take out the Ghoul, permanently. Groaning as he twisted away from Lug-head, he rolled one eighty degrees, aimed and fired at the Zombie who was lining up for a second shot.

Rather than aiming at Tony which would have been smarter, the Zombie was lining up his revolver at WBH with the baseball bat. Tony fired off several shots, although his usual impeccable aim was off. Instead of delivering two kill shots he missed just enough, so that they would probably all end up testifying in court, at the Zombie's trial. Before he gave into the darkness that was calling his name, his last thought was that Gibbs was going to have his ass, for getting shot and screwing up a kill shot... twice! And he was going to be riding a desk...again.

By the time he regained consciousness, he was already halfway to the hospital. He also realised that Gibbs was probably on his way to the hospital too, even now. One of the LEOs at the scene would have definitely called him by now. DiNozzo was pretty well known and liked by the local Virginia PD and his boss was equally feared and respected. While the Unies and Dees would have drawn straws to see who got the short one, to make the call to inform Gibbs, they wouldn't have been game not to call either.

Luckily, it looked as if he was going to be capable of signing his own Informed Consent forms, for his surgery. So there was no need to have to have the conversation that he'd been putting off having with Gibbs for weeks. The talk 'I've replace you with Ducky as my Medical Proxy and Next of Kin' was one he wasn't exactly looking forward to having but knew that he would have to suck it up sooner or later. Hopefully he wouldn't have to have it tonight with a bullet lodged in his thigh, though.

Tony had been thinking about changing his proxy for a very long time now. His relationship with his mentor had changed a lot in the last couple of years and it hadn't been for the better. He had finally done the deed after the shambolic Domino affair, when Gibbs decision to deliberately lie to him, had been the final straw in his ability to trust his boss without reservation. Ducky on the other hand, had been there for him when no one else had been.

He had really been reluctant to put Ducky in the awkward position of taking Gibbs' place but he couldn't ask Abby to side with him. Wasn't even sure that she would have, because her Silver Fox was nothing short of perfect in her eyes but he knew that Ducky would do right by him. One thing was certain, Gibbs was going to go ballistic when he found out. Or maybe he would be relieved to be rid of the obligation. It wasn't as if they were all that close. Not any more anyway!

Next Chapter: Tony give a Sit Rep to his superiors and a new friend is watching his six.

A/N This chapter is a bit shorter than previous ones but I ended up splitting it in half because it was well over five thousand words. Next chapter up soon!