Tony tapped his fingers rhythmically on the car door, waiting for the red light to turn green. He was about ready to smack McGee to stop his running commentary about the city. Soon they would cross the state line and he could…blather on about another city he knew nothing about. Tony was really regretting his decision to allow Sampson to accompany them to Our Lady of Peace Nursing Home in Baltimore – as if it had been his decision in the first place. Gibbs was probably sitting back, drinking coffee and perfectly happy to be sitting at his desk, waiting for Ducky or Abby to call him down to hear about…
"Our cases often take us across state lines and…"
"Out of DC!" Tony interrupted, gunning the engine off the line and beating the car next to him handily. "Not to mention that fact that Pax River is in Maryland and now we're…" he paused dramatically as they approached a welcome sign, "in Maryland again! Wow, this must be how the Pope feels when he runs to Rome for a gallon of milk!"
"Yeah, sorry for trying to help our new teammate get adjusted to…"
He cut McGee off again, "I think Sammy could learn everything you're telling him from the agency website, McGoogle. Did they give you an orientation spiel, Sammy? Maybe take you on a tour and recommend which classes most freshman take?"
In his peripheral vision, he could see McGee twisting around in his seat to face Sampson. "Don't take it personally. He's just in a bad mood because…"
"I'm not in a bad mood, Probie." He grinned and gave him an exaggerated wink. "You'd understand that no man could be in a bad mood if he'd done what I did last night."
McGee groaned in what Tony could only interpret as jealousy cleverly disguised as disgust. "How much longer until we get there?"
"About twenty minutes, which is hours shorter than…"
"Stop!"
Tony saw an opportunity for a quick change and said, "What? The drive to Baltimore is hours shorter than the one to Norfolk we had to make for that case when…do you not want me to talk about past cases? Because I thought we were trying to explain to our new teammate that we sometimes have to do a lot of traveling and…"
"Fine, I get it." McGee was still looking at him suspiciously, but lapsed into silence.
Sampson finally broke it, asking, "Agent DiNozzo, are you involved with Officer David?"
"Yeah, but Temperance Chastity Goodfaith McGee doesn't like to hear about it, in spite of the fact that he's included it in…"
"Tony!"
He grinned, made a hard left, causing McGee to have to catch himself to prevent being slammed against his door, and continued "…his MySpace page, which contains some pretty damn embarrassing stuff. I'm sure he'll be happy to friend you, Sammy, if you share his interests in online gaming and being the perfect son."
"How many times to I have to tell you that I only started that page to keep in touch with family?"
Tony rolled his eyes before looking into the review and addressing Sampson, "Why are you interested in my relationship with Ziva?"
"Oh, I didn't mean…I just thought…because…"
"Spit it out before I have to start calling you Stammer-y!"
"Sorry. I was just trying to ask if that means it's all right to date co-workers," he said very quickly.
Tony narrowed his eyes, staring into the mirror. "No, you can't date Ziva."
"I think he was asking a more general question, Tony," McGee said superciliously. "Right, Sampson?"
"Er, yes. I've never even seen Ziva, so…"
"Officer David," Tony corrected, still feeling a little paranoid. If she were going to leave him – which she wasn't – it wouldn't be for some snot-nosed little probie. Of course, this morning she'd left him for Jenny, but…oh. Oh! Oooooh!
"Officer David, right. And I wouldn't ever steal a woman from…"
He shook himself out of his fantasy long enough to interrupt Sampson, "Wouldn't or couldn't?"
"Tony…"
"Let him answer, Probie."
"No, Tony, we're here."
"Oh. Right." He looked up and saw that they were just about to pass the parking lot of the nursing facility. He made another McGee-slamming turn and parked in the first open spot he saw. "Okay. Sammy, when we get in there, you just stay quiet and let McGee and I ask all the questions." He walked confidently up the walkway, but stopped with his hand on the door handle. "Hey, why did you ask about dating co-workers?"
Sampson's ears reddened as he answered, "I just met someone in the elevator this morning."
Tony slapped him on the back. "Good luck with that." Ignoring McGee's surprised expression, he opened the door and waved both agents in ahead of himself.
It turned out to be a good decision, as they were immediately accosted by a white-haired woman in a flowery nightgown. "They keep telling me my grandkids wouldn't visit, but here you are! Here you are!" She was pinching Sampson and McGee's cheeks with a force Tony wouldn't have thought a person so frail and wrinkly possessed. "Oh, Reginald, you're such a handsome young man! And you, Herbert! My, you're so skinny, you should eat something!"
Tony slipped past with his cheeks unassailed and tapped on the shoulder of the first uniformed person he saw, a frazzled, middle-aged woman. "Hi, I'm Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, NCIS." He flashed his ID with a practiced wrist flick. "We're looking for some information on a patient here."
The woman looked at him blankly for a moment. "We?"
"Oh, my colleagues are a little too polite for their own good." He glanced over his shoulder and saw that both men were still captives. "She seemed to think…"
"Greta!" the uniformed woman shouted, bustling down the hall. "You get back to the day room and stop bothering these nice young men!"
"My grandkids finally came to visit!"
"You don't have any grandchildren, Greta." The nurse pulled Greta's hands off the agents' faces. "Leave these men alone and go back to the day room. The Price is Right is on."
Greta dutifully shuffled away, muttering to herself. The nurse led McGee and Sampson back to where Tony was standing. "I'm so very sorry for that. Alzheimer's , dementia, it never ends here. Now what can I help you with?"
Tony scrunched up his nose as a cart of food that smelled like death was wheeled past. "We need to speak with someone who can give us some information about Bridget Flannery. She was a patient here."
"Flannery, hmmm. Doesn't ring a bell." A commotion in a room on the right suddenly drew the nurse's attention. "If you just head down this hall, you'll see a sign for the administrative offices! They should be able to help you." She ducked into the room, saying, "Mr. Dowdy, please! Nothing is going to come through the television and attack you!"
Tony took a deep breath, which he regretted when the weird nursing home smell pervaded his senses, and looked at McGee and Sampson. "Right. Let's just find someone who can give us what we need and get out of this place. It makes me uncomfortable being around all these old people."
"Poor you," McGee muttered, rubbing his cheek.
Gibbs strode into Autopsy just in time to hear ducky say, "One would have thought you'd suffered enough, dear girl."
"What've you got, Duck?"
"Ah, Jethro. It appears our Cpl. Flannery was in none too enviable a state before she appeared on the Navy base. According to her medical records…"
"You got her records?"
"Of course. Once we had confirmed Tony and Ziva's identifications with the fingerprints…"
"Right. So how'd she die?"
"The ultimate cause? Mortar attack."
Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "In DC?"
"Well, I believe she was at a facility in Baltimore, but…"
"Are you making this more complicated than it needs to be?"
"Hm. There are some days when I'm sorely concerned for you imagination, Jethro. The fact of the matter is she was likely never going to recover from the injuries she sustained in Iraq. Her family refused to have her taken off life-support, in spite the fact that she had only minimal brainstem function and a highly questionable passed apnea test. At this point, it appears that someone simply pulled the plug, as it were."
Gibbs frowned. "How do you rule the cause of death in a case like this?"
"While it is true that she would still be technically alive if life-support were connected… I think perhaps this is something that's more of a legal issue than a medical one. Assuming that whoever pulled the plug was the same person who dumped her body at Patuxent River, he or she must have thought what they were doing was wrong and was seeking to cover it up."
"Big assumption, Doctor."
"And we know how you feel about that. I do think that…"
"Gibbs!" Abby bounced into the room, waving a file over her head. "You are not gonna believe what I just found!"
"Three extra Caf-Pows in your fridge?"
"Aw, Gibbs! You're making jokes." She wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders. "I thought you were going to be a in a bad mood with Director Shepard and Ziva gone and getting a new agent and…" She pulled back suddenly. "Oh no, I'm reminding you that you're in a bad mood, aren't I?"
"Fix it by telling me what you've got, Abs."
"Right. So Ducky sent me the blood and I tested for all the usual suspects, which were there, but then I found this." She triumphantly produced a piece of paper.
Gibbs took it from her hand and stared at it. "And this is?"
"It says right there!" She pointed to some mysterious number in a sea of other mysterious numbers. "Elevated hCG!"
Ducky gasped, but Gibbs remained annoyed. "Which means?"
"Comatose Bridget was pregnant, Gibbs."
