The first thing Tony observed as he entered Bethesda Naval Hospital was not the fact that Ziva was the only one present in the waiting room. It was not the smell of industrial strength cleanser that all hospitals seemed to have, a scent with which he had become oddly familiar. It was the chairs. Hospitals had such uncomfortable chairs in their waiting rooms. If the rooms were indeed meant for waiting, why not make something more comfortable? Instead this hospital, just like so many others held the same row of oddly designed plastic seats that looked like they had come out of a bastardized Ikea catalog.
He had sat in them after Gibbs accident. He had sat in them numerous times waiting for Jeanne and now he was about to plant himself in the crappy chairs once again to await news on whether his young partner would be all right. He hated those chairs. As his eyes moved from the unwelcoming furniture to Ziva, he realized that her mouth was moving and his preoccupation with the seats had caused him to completely miss what she was saying. So he did what could: he stared blankly.
"Tony! Have you heard anything that I just said?" Ziva asked, when he did not answer her question.
"No, what'd you say?" he asked.
"A lot. Did Abby not come with you?" she asked.
"She's in her lab. How's McGee?" Tony questioned, as he walked towards the uncomfortable looking chairs.
"I do not know. No one has been forthcoming with information, but Gibbs, Ducky and the Director just went to get a briefing from McGee's doctor. I think he is out of surgery now. Why is Abby at the lab? Am I missing something, Tony?" Ziva asked, the topic returning back to the missing forensic scientist. She knew that on occasion she would mix up an idiomatic expression, or say the wrong word, but she was completely puzzled on Abby's whereabouts.
Gibbs and Ducky returned just as Tony was struggling to find an answer.
"How's Probie boss?" he questioned. Gibbs face was cold as steel, completely expressionless, as it often was. After working with him for several years, Tony still hadn't been able to get a read on his expressions during a critical situation, like the one they were enduring.
"Stable, for now. Bullet missed all the major arteries, but he's got a punctured lung, which nearly killed him. EMTs put in a chest tube on the way here. He made it through surgery, though," the older man explained.
"Which is a very good sign," Ducky interrupted. Gibbs nodded in agreement, and in that one second Tony was able to get a quick read on his boss. Regardless of what he had said or what anyone else had seen, Tony knew from the slightest flash of emotion, that Gibbs was nervous. And DiNozzo knew that he had every reason to be. Stable was a vague and broad definition that was often tossed around like a safety net in hospitals. People could be "stable" one minute and have a heart attack or a stroke in the next. A "stable" individual could be in a coma without any warning. A "stable" person could even…
Jenny's voice pulled Tony back from the brink of his morose thoughts.
"McGee's family has been notified of his condition. His parents are on a cruise to the Bahamas, apparently it was an anniversary present he had bought them. I couldn't reach them, but Sarah is on her way."
"Good, good. Having people that care about him around will help speed his recovery, hopefully." Ducky chimed in.
Tony watched as Jenny scanned the waiting room, and knew what was coming as he caught Ziva's eyes.
"Speaking of people who care about him," Jenny prefaced. "Where's Abby?"
All eyes turned to Tony. "She's back at headquarters," he answered.
"Well, is she coming later?" Ducky probed.
"Don't think so. I offered her a ride and she was set on not coming. At all." Tony replied.
"That doesn't sound like Abby. When you were in the hospital," Jenny said, looking at Gibbs. "Wild dogs couldn't keep her away. She took a cab all the way there and I was afraid I was going to have call security every time visiting hours were over. Why would she not want to see McGee?"
"Survivors guilt?" Tony questioned, and immediately regretted his words. Ziva jumped on the mistake he had made and he almost laughed at the fact that she of all people was correcting him on linguistic mistake.
"He's not dead, Tony."
"No, but he is hurt. McGee took a bullet that was meant for Abby. She could be holding herself responsible, making her feel the same emotions that any survivor would feel. It's entirely plausible." Ducky deduced.
"I still think that it is ridiculous for her to not be here. He saved her life!" Ziva exclaimed, and Gibbs knew it was time to step in.
"Abby has her reasons, whatever they are. She'll come around."
Nearly two hours later, everyone, save for the Director was back at NCIS headquarters. Tony sat at his desk, neglecting paperwork. He was, for all intensive purposes, trying to get things done, but sideways glances towards McGee's empty desk kept reminding him of the day's events. One wayward glance caught Ziva's eye and she couldn't help but comment.
"You are thinking about McGee, aren't you Tony?" she asked.
"Kinda hard not to," Tony said. He let out a small chuckle. "Probie even surprised me today with that quick timing. Soon as Rinnert grabbed that gun, McGee had grabbed mine. The way he threw himself in front of Abby…it was really heroic."
"Well, that is what McGee is Tony. A hero. Even if some people cannot come to grips with that for themselves," Ziva said, the sentence dripping with judgment.
"You are thinking about Abby." Tony, said pointing out the obvious.
Ziva propelled herself out of her chair and into the middle of the bullpen. She needed to pace and she was thankful Gibbs had left to go get coffee. She knew he regarded Abby highly, and she wasn't in the mood for biting her tongue.
"How can I not? It's unbelievable to me that she would not even go see him! He is her friend. For god's sake Tony, he saved her life!" she practically yelled.
"Like Gibbs said, she'll come around." Tony repeated the boss's words. He wasn't about to get into an argument with a highly volatile Mossad agent trained in assassination.
"In Gibbs' eyes, she is the golden child who can do no wrong! She can get away with anything." Ziva spit back.
Tony was unnerved by her last comment. He understood that her anger was coming out of fear for McGee's life. Abby had once suggested that Ziva had no emotions, but Tony knew better. When she was scared, she got angry, exactly like she was doing now.
"Hey, she doesn't get away with anything and the reason she can do no wrong is because she never does anything wrong. This is Abby, we're talking about Ziva."
"And that is McGee lying in that bed. Someone needs to speak for him!"
She stormed off towards the elevator and he didn't bother trying to stop her. When Ziva's mind was made up, there was no changing it. So he let her go. He hoped that Ziva's anger would spark something in Abby and make her realize that McGee needed her.
He had shot him. Just like that. In little under ten seconds, McGee had ended someone's life. She knew her geek carried a gun, and she knew that he had been responsible for taking a life before. But never the life of someone she'd known and never in front of her.
Fred Rinnert was a scumbag and deep down Abby knew that if he hadn't died at the hands of an NCIS agent, he probably would have been killed in prison. Men like him could never survive that type of lifestyle but he didn't have to worry about that now. Now he was dead. At the hands of Timothy McGee. True to his word, McGee had gotten him, just like he promised her.
She'd been thinking about it for hours and no matter how hard she tried two distinct images wouldn't leave her mind. The first was Fred lying on the floor with the small trail of blood trickling down his shirt. Abby knew a good shot when she saw one, and the bullet that McGee had fired had been everything that one should be. It was the perfect kill shot.
The second and far more haunting image was of McGee's eyes fluttering closed after she had assured him that she was there, and that she was all right. It was as if it was all he needed know before…
Ziva took a deep breath as she entered the lab. She had counted to ten. She had inhaled and exhaled. She had done everything possible to calm herself down before talking to Abby. She had never let her fear go on display and she wasn't about to.
"Abby," she said as she entered, taking note of the fact that there was no music playing.
The younger woman perked up upon hearing her name.
"Oh, hey Ziva," Abby replied. She was thankful that someone, anyone had come to visit her and pull her out of her head.
"What are doing?" Ziva asked her, sincerely intrigued to know the answer. She took another deep breath, telling herself that Abby was probably going to become a basketcase wracked with emotion, if she wasn't already.
"Recalibrating my mass spec. It's been taking longer than usual to give me results," Abby replied, as she worked haphazardly on the device.
Ziva tried to stop herself from screaming at her. McGee was lying in a hospital bed after being shot trying to save her life and she repaid the favor by doing busywork.
"McGee is out of surgery. It went well," she said, hoping that perhaps an update in his condition or even the mention of his name might jar something in Abby. It seemed that she had been avoiding the subject at all costs.
"That's really good," she answered as she continued to fiddle with a phillips head screwdriver.
"That's it? That's really good? That's all you have to say?" Ziva wasn't subduing her judgment like she had hoped to.
Would you like me to say that I've been killing myself inside because McGee nearly died trying to save me? How about that I wish I was the one lying in the hospital bed instead of him? That I'd rather be dead than cause him pain? Do you want an in depth analysis of the guilt that I feel because I know he did this because he loves me? Even better, one man is dead because of me, is that something along the lines of what you were expecting Ziva?
"Um, what else would you like me to say?" Abby said.
Ziva's response echoed in the empty lab with the sound of her hand connecting solidly with Abby's cheek. She had bit her tongue for too long.
"When Gibbs was in a coma you did that to me and now I'm doing it to you. I don't know what the hell is the matter with you. He saved your life and you don't even have the decency to ask how he's doing? I don't know why it was different with Gibbs, but I always assumed that you cared about McGee. How could you abandon him like this? Now, now when he needs you…needs all of us the most?!"
"Ziva," Gibbs uttered sternly. Neither of the two women had even noticed that he had entered the lab.
"Gibbs, I was just…" Ziva began, knowing that she couldn't lie. He had probably heard everything or at least a good portion of it and she couldn't get away with saying that she was attempting "to comfort" Abby.
"Leaving," Gibbs said, ending her tirade on Abby.
Ziva swallowed hard and turned to Abby one last time before leaving. "Go see him, Abby. He needs you."
Abby's eyes had become red and swollen, and it didn't take Gibbs' instinctive gut to see that the dam was going to break any second.
She turned back to her mass spec and quietly said, "I'm sure you're here to tell me to go see him, too."
"Nope," was his simple response.
"He's really ok though? Ziva said the surgery went well." She questioned, sniffling slightly.
"He came through the surgery. Not outta the woods, yet Abs."
And the dam broke. Abby threw herself into his arms and sobbed. Everything that she'd been suppressing since McGee had been wheeled away on the stretcher came out at that very second.
"Gibbs, it's all my fault! Rinnert was trying to kill me and McGee stopped him. Why? Why did he stop him? Why didn't he just let him shoot me? Then none of this would be happening!"
Gibbs rocked her gently, once again playing the part of the caring nurturer. He would never admit that it was a role he cherished, especially in the current situation, but he did.
"You know he couldn't do that, Abby."
She pulled away from his embrace and paced before addressing him again.
"But why? And Rinnert's dead now because of me. Did he have to kill him? Why couldn't he have just shot him in the arm or leg or something? There's ways to take people down without killing them."
"Abby, what did I do in the marine corp.?" he asked her.
She knew exactly where he was going, but she followed since her brain hadn't been able to lead her there on its own. It was too wrought with emotion and guilt to let her see the obvious truth that was right in front of her the whole time.
"You were a sniper," she answered.
"And what is the one thing that matters the most?" he asked. She knew the answer but didn't speak. He then answered his own question.
"Hitting the target on the first shot. You don't miss. McGee was not trained to miss, Abby. He wasn't trained to take someone down and leave them alive. When you are at war, the only thing that matters is eliminating the threat. DiNozzo and Ziva wouldn't have left him alive either."
Abby didn't need to ask if he would have killed Rinnert. She already knew the answer.
The nurse observed the young woman as she made her way down the hallway. Her attire was disturbingly unique, black clothing accented with chains and buckles and large black platform boots with hot pink flames on the sides. And yet, she accented the malevolent looking outfit with her hair pulled into two high pigtails. She certainly didn't look like the type of woman who would be in or attached to anyone in the Navy, but her face was soft and gentle, even though she wore deep black lipstick that stained her lips to be the color of rare rubies.
"I'm sorry, ma'am. Can I help you?" the nurse asked, approaching with caution. She almost laughed at herself, referring to this woman as a "ma'am."
"I'm looking for Special Agent Timothy McGee, NCIS. He was shot today." Abby answered. She had figured that she would probably have been stopped since hospitals weren't often fond of visitors calling at 2 in the morning.
"Visiting hours ended…hours ago" the nurse replied, failing at her lack of a better, less repetitive word. "But they start at 10 tomorrow, I'm sure you can"
Abby cut her off.
"I know that they ended, but could you please make an exception. Just this once? I need to see him. He saved my life. I need to let him know that I'm ok," she pleaded.
The young nurse knew the rules, and having been on the job only a few months she went by the book. But something about this woman… the pleading in her eyes, the simple way she had asked, the sheer desperation to see the man who had saved her, made her bend them.
McGee's room was dark, except for the glow of the monitors that buzzed, hummed and beeped. Abby found nothing to be more obnoxious than the sound of a steady beep, but at that moment it was as pleasing to her ears as Brain Matter. The little beeps, steady as they were, repeated to her that he was alive. She approached his bed and stood over him. His extraordinarily expensive hair products had failed him at this point and a few strawberry blonde locks fell over his eye. Abby instinctively brushed them back and his eyes opened the minute he felt her touch.
"Abby," he whispered, and his eyes began to flutter shut once again.
She sat down on an uncomfortable chair and took his hand in hers.
"I'm here, Tim. I'm ok. Go back to sleep."
And he did.
Hope you all enjoyed it! There's more to come, don't worry. Ending here would be such a cop-out! Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, I'm really glad you all like it.