A/N: Gibbs, McGee, Bishop, and Abby are all extremely OOC.

Dr. Brad Pitt and his nurse Emma Ingram stood over the hospital bed of Agent Tony DiNozzo. Neither wanted to load him onto the gurney and take him down to surgery. Both knew that no matter what the results showed the prognosis was not good. It had been a rough night for the NCIS agent. His blood-pressure was through the roof and his heart-rate was erratic. The right side of his body was paralyzed as a result of the stroke he had suffered the night before and he was at extreme risk for another one. Even a minor episode could prove fatal given his severely weakened state. He was now completely oxygen dependent and his kidney function was dangerously low. In short his body was failing him and cancer was probably the least of his concerns. Emma finished her evaluation and gently ran her hand down Tony's arm. As she had feared the news was far from good, it had been nothing but bad news since Tony was brought in the night before.

"How is he?" Dr. Pitt asked, though he already knew the answer.

"His vitals are terrible. Preforming the operation would be a violation of your Hippocratic Oath. He is not strong enough to come through. If by some miracle he comes back from this, the treatments would just be an extension and we both know that cancerous or benign this tumor is inoperable. We give him radiation it may shrink the tumor but we still couldn't remove it and not kill him in the process. No matter what he will be oxygen dependent and basically bed ridden for the rest of his life. I know I am the nurse and you are the doctor. I know that it is your call." Emma explained.

"I am not preforming the surgery, I am not going to let him die on a cold operating table to tell us something we have known since last night." Dr. Pitt replied.

"You know what that means." Emma sighed.

"I'll talk to his loved ones." Dr. Pitt sighed.

Ellen and Mack spent the night in the hospital. Mack had to leave for work around six-thirty but Ellen had remained in the waiting room. Tony was due to be taken back for his biopsy at any moment now and Ellen was not going to leave until she knew something. Until she could sit by his side and speak reassuringly to him in hopes of keeping his head together. Both Mack and her were racked with guilt about how Tony's illness had gone. She deeply regretted not taking him to the ER when he was so sick Friday night but as fragile as he was physically. He was still strong mentally and thus would have been able to refuse medical treatment. She could take him to the ER all she wanted but all had to do was answer a few competence questions and say that he did not want treatment and that would be that. He would be sent on his way and Ellen would be left helpless. Mack was beating himself up for not just driving Tony to the hospital the night before. Logically he knew that would have been the better option but when Tony was so sick and seemingly dying before his eyes. It took all he had to breathe for himself and give Tony the care he needed. Let alone think at all logically. Incidents like this were why people in the medical profession were barred from treating loved ones unless it were a life or death emergency. Which it had been last night and even then Mack had fucked up. Though both had strong suspicions that it was Tony's fellow agents who were at fault for his crisis.

"Ellen?" Dr. Pitt called.

"Are you done with the procedure already?" Ellen asked.

"I am not preforming the biopsy." Dr. Pitt explained.

"Why not?" Ellen asked.

"Tony is too sick for me to justify putting him through such a procedure. Last night was bad for him and he only has a four percent chance of surviving the pneumonia and infection. His organs are shutting down and we cannot get his fever down." Dr. Pitt explained.

"So what are we going to do?" Ellen asked.

"Keep him comfortable. That is all we can do." Dr. Pitt replied.

"I will call Mack." Ellen sniffed.

"OK and I am sorry. Tony is a good man. I hate that it has to end this way." Dr. Pitt apologized.

Gibbs looked up from his watch and scowled at the empty desk of his Senior Field Agent. He had called Tony and the others with the news of a case over an hour ago and Tony had still yet to show up. McGee and Bishop both lived further away from NCIS and they were already arrived and geared up. He wouldn't be so mad but this was Tony's third day in a row of being late. On top of the tardiness trend, McGee had told him that Tony had been definite and rude the day before. That Tony had pitched a huge fit about running laps. Going as far as punching him and shoving him to the ground and Bishop had backed him up. Informing him that Tony had called her the C word. When Tony finally did show up he was going to have a serious talk with his SFA and then march his ass up to the director's office. Finally he'd had enough. He flipped his phone open and dialed DiNozzo's number. His rage hit the roof when after four tries, a woman answered the phone.

Ellen had barely been able to get through calling Mack and breaking the news to him. She had called Jimmy but he had not picked up. Ellen assumed that he was either in church or sleeping in and left a message for him to call her back as soon as possible. She had just come back into the waiting room when she heard a phone ringing in her purse. She was confused until she remembered that Mack had taken Tony's phone in case somebody tried to reach him. Until now Tony had gone without so much as a spam email for boner pills. She withdrew the phone from her purse and was shocked to see that Gibbs had called not once but four times.

"Hello?"

"Who the hell is this?!"

"Ellen McKaran, Tony's neighbor."

"Oh yeah sure his neighbor. Look you tell that idiot to get his ass out of bed and to the office. He is too late to go to the field but he is going to have some serious punishment for three days of being late and the mistreatment of his fellow agents."

"Yeah I will tell him right

"You better!"

"You know you can relax. It might do you some good."

"I don't need Tony's latest floozy telling me what to do!"

Ellen was livid. She could not believe that Gibbs had treated Tony so poorly. He hadn't even asked if he was OK. He just started attacking him and assuming that she was nothing more than Tony's latest conquest. Tony didn't have the best history with woman but still it was wrong to assume that any woman he spoke with was nothing more than a floozy. He had no concern just anger. All this had happened after Ellen had been told that Tony was dying in the ICU. She was pissed and she wanted to know it. She wanted him to see the rage on her face and for him to know why exactly you did not fuck with Tony DiNozzo. Not when she was around anyway. She grabbed her purse, told a nurse to have Brad call her cell if anything happened, and stormed out of the hospital. Upon arriving at NCIS she told the security guard that she needed to speak with Jethro Gibbs right away. She was told that they were at a crime scene but an agent would escort her to him as soon as they arrived back. She was half asleep when Gibbs and his team returned two hours later. An agent escorted her to the bullpen and she stormed over to Gibbs's desk.

"May I help you?" Gibbs asked.

"That depends can you stop being an ass and tell your junior agents to stop being asses?" Ellen demanded.

"Excuse me?" Gibbs asked.

"I am Ellen, Tony's neighbor! His neighbor and nothing more!" Ellen spat.

"And Tony asked his pretty red headed neighbor to fight his battles for him." Gibbs remarked.

"Don't be so condescending. I have been married for twelve years to a paramedic who is twice the man you have morphed into." Ellen spat.

"Did you really come here just to insult me?!" Gibbs demanded.

"No! I came here to tell you that this morning when you were assuming that Tony was having sex with me. He was actually fighting for his life in a hospital bed. He has been in the ICU since last night. He has a massive tumor between his lungs and his fighting not only severe double pneumonia but also a raging infection and he has suffered eight strokes. One of which was massive. His organs are failing and his fever is not lowering. In short he is dying. Today you insulted a dying man." Ellen explained angrily.

"Tony's in the hospital?" Gibbs asked.

"Yes and none of you are allowed to see him. You have treated him horribly the past few months and the last thing he needs is more stress. Tony is dying but I want him to have as much good time as possible." Ellen explained.

"You have no rights! You have not authority! I am his Power of Attorney! If you made any medical decisions you have broken the law! I can and will have you tried and you will go to prison! Possibly for the rest of your life!" Gibbs spat.

"I have his Power of Attorney. He had it changed when you first started treating him like crap." Ellen explained.

"I would have been informed." Gibbs argued.

"He has no legal requirements to inform you of anything. I was informed and it was signed by Tony's lawyer." Ellen corrected.

"OK fine kill Tony so that I can feel bad. That is the mature thing to do." Gibbs spat.

"You are an immature ass and I don't ever want to see you again!" Ellen snapped.

A/N: Vance appears in the next chapter. How will he feel? New chapter will be up soon. Please review and thanks for reading.