A/N! EARTHQUAKE! ...My friggin' couch shook while I was writing this! 0.0 And my ceiling almost caved in -.- *coughs* But, I'm alive and whatnot :D so onto the story! R&R!
Four.
TIM LAUGHED.
"You should have seen her Tony, the nurse at the front desk was almost pale when she came back with a doctor, after Ziva 'talked' to her." he made imaginary quotes in the air.
The teen grinned weakly from his place on the bed. Abby had put down the railings, and scooted onto the hospital bed next to her friend; now his head lay on her shoulder, as she played with a lose string on his gown. "She still won't tell us what she said to get doctors to come and look at you so quickly." Abby pouted.
Ziva simply smiled. "That woman was being unreasonable. I made her see that."
"You and your ninja mind-games." Tony mummbled, clearly exhausted after surgery, still.
"Alright, I think we should all get out of the room and let the poor boy rest some; he has been through quite a lot." Ducky announced.
Everyone reluctantly(Abby being the most hesitant to leave)said their goodbyes and exited the room; Gibbs trailed behind them, and just when Tony thought he was leaving with them, the older man waved bye, and closed the door behind him, turning around and walking to sit back down, next to his hospital bed.
Tony blinked, "You're staying?" he asked cautiously, trying not to sound too hopeful.
"'Course DiNozzo," Gibbs said, as if it were a matter-of-fact. He leaned back against his seat, newspaper in front of him. "Palmer said you had appendicitis when you were seventeen, too."
Tony nodded, trying not to fall asleep on the spot. "Yeah, wasn't so lucky then." he grimaced at the unpleasant memory, his eyelids feeling heavy.
Gibbs noticed this. "Go to sleep Tony, I'll be right here when you wake up. Promise." he took the boys hand, the one that wasn't held down by an IV, in his hand, and squeezed reassuringly.
The words and the gesture made Tony feel more relaxed than he thought he'd ever been, and despite drawling out, "M'not tir'd Boss." he quickly fell into a deep, much needed slumber.
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Tony balanced a grape on his nose very talentedly, if he could say so himself, head tilted back, waiting for the fruit to fall into his mouth.
"DiNozzo!"
Tony fell off his chair with a surprised yelp.
Gibbs entered the kitchen, looking worried for a minute, as he helped his senior field agent up off the floor. "Why the hell aren't you in bed resting?" he demanded, once he saw that Tony wasn't injured.
The seventeen year-old honest to God whined, sounding every bit his age. "But Boooss! I'm bored! And you don't have a tv upstairs and you won't let me go downstairs to watch TV from the one you have in the basement, 'cause of some irrational fear I might fall down the stair-"
Gibbs looked at his pointedly.
"Gibbs, that was one time! And it was only 'cause Abby tackled me in our game of manhunt! Which I still say was against the rules-"
Gibbs sighed exasperatedly. "And I still say you shouldn't have been playing a kids game in my house." his tone suggested he still thought it was comical, to this day.
"Manhunt is not a kids' game. It is an intricate game which divides the strong from the weak! It's why Kate, McGee and Palmer didn't want to play, and it ended up being just me, Abbs, and Zee-vah, and we couldn't make teams." he explained, then jumped up suddenly, "I made dinner!" he announced. "You never eat at work when you stay late, so I figured you'd be hungry when you got back, and no Gibbs, bourbon does not make up for a missed meal."
Gibbs grinned as Tony sat him down, and started chastising him about skipping meals and how coffee and bourbon didn't equal breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as he got a couple of plastic containers from the fridge. It was close to nine, and he'd made the food at around eight, so he'd put it in the frigde, knowing Gibbs wouldn't be home 'till later. He took two plates from the cup board and served each plate their individual proportions from the containers, and put the first plate into the microwave to heat. After it dinged, he put in his plate and waited.
"And here I thought you lived off Chinese and pizza." Gibbs commented in jest, as he took the first bite, only to be pleasantly surprised, "Didn't know you could cook so damn well, DiNozzo." he complimented, as he dug in to the Italian dish.
Tony secretly beamed at the praise, taking his plate out of the microwave and sitting down next to his Boss to eat, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "So whad'ya do today? Like, did you guys get any new leads?" He asked, a little hesitantly.
Gibbs sighed. "No, we didn't, but Abby thinks she's making some progress with the chemical substance, so that's something."
Tony nodded. "That's good. Sooo, can I go-"
"No you cannot go back, DiNozzo. Doctors' orders. And try to follow them tomorrow, won't ya'? Bed rest means you hafta' be in an actual bed and resting, not on a chair trying to balance a grape on your nose."
Tony pouted. "But it's so boring Gibbs; and it doesn't even hurt all that much anymore! It's not like I'll tear my stitches by sitting in Ducks office looking through files and cold cases, Boss. Please, can I come back to work?" he pleaded, puppy eyes in effect.
The eyes were harder to resist on this smaller version of his senior field agent. Gibbs frowned. "Fine, DiNozzo, guess it can't hurt." he muttered. Plus, it would be better that Tony be sitting still in close-quarters with Duck looking over cold cases than running about his house whining and calling Abby and the rest of the team all day.
Tony smiled his megawatt smile and continued to eat, now with more gusto. Jethro shook his head; he found he really couldn't say no to the kid.
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"Tony!" Abby squeeled in delight, but kept herself from outright pouncing on her friend, aware of his still-healing stitches. Instead, she pinched his cheeks.
"Ouch, Abbs, not cool."
"I can't help myself! Have you looked in the mirror lately? I just want to eat you up! You're about as tall as Kate, as baby faced as McGee, and thin as Ziva! In short, you're adorable." she surmised with glee.
"Adorable? Handsome, Greek God, hot? Yes. Adorable? No, Abigail." he grimaced. "I'm seventeen, not seven." he snorted, peeking over her shoulder to see what she was working on.
"Umm," Abby paused, coughed. "Not for long..." she mummbled.
Tony quirked a brow, "No way, you found a way to turn me back to normal?"
Abby fidgeted in place. "Not exactly."
"Well spit it out Abbs, never known you to be so hesitant to speak." he joked light heartedly.
"Okay, okay." she took a deep breath. "Bossman told you already that yesterday I was starting to make some progress, right?" at his nod, she continued. "Well, it's not the good 'I might have found a cure' kind of progress.
"It's more like the...you're-slowly-but-surely-getting-younger-even-as-we-speak-kind of progress." she played with her pony tails nervously.
"Wait, what? I'm slowly but surely getting...?"
"Younger...like, I seriously have no idea at what rate the chemical is changing your body, all I know is that it is, and I'm not sure at what speed either or how long you'll be in each period of age, or like, if you skip years within days or weeks, and-" she paused, a striken look on her face. "That first case, with the Jane Doe, when she was subjected to the drug by Dr. Crazy, she grew older in a matter of minutes, and it got out of control and within an hour she was nearly a hundred years old and ended up...dead." she squeeked, tears starting to well in her eyes. "And, in your case, you only inhaled the chemical indirectly, yeah? So, I mean, I figure that's most likely why you're still seventeen and not like, a baby right now. But, eventually, you'll start to shrink until you're a tiny baby and after that...I-" Abby caught her breath, voice cracking a little. "I don't know what'll happen then." she wiped a few stray tears, her mascara running down her cheeks.
Tony hugged her quickly, shushing her, murmuring a few comforting words to her. "Abbs, don't worry. If anything, we have time to find the antidote, at least, yeah?"
Abby nodded into Tonys shirt, hunching over, now that he was so short and her high-heeled boots only managed to make her taller. "Mhmm." she sniffled. "I'll try my hardest Tony, we'll find that scrumbag and we'll find a cure and you won't...you'll be fine."
From the entrance to Abbys lair, Gibbs stood, petrified, heart sinking at the Goths' devastating words. Oh God. Tony, his senior field agent, his friend, his...the man he thought of as a son, could die.