Being in the waiting room of the ER was awful. At least when he was in the ambulance he could see her, he knew for a fact that she was still alive. But as soon as they had wheeled her through those doors labeled "hospital personnel only" he hadn't seen or heard anything of her. All he could do was hope that she would make it through this, she had to live.
"Tony, what the hell happened?" Gibbs asked in that no nonsense way of his.
The last thing Tony wanted to do was explain to anyone, least of all his boss, what had happened because fortunately for the bastard responsible for all of this, he really had no idea.
"Well Boss, we tracked Eli to the synagogue despite some wily efforts by our friendly neighborhood Mossad officers to shake us, one of whom is probably in autopsy by now and the other is no where to be found. When we got there Ziva told me that she needed to go in alone. I argued with her but there were no immediate signs of danger and there was something in her eyes boss, I had to agree. I told her I would wait outside but if there was any sign of trouble that I was coming in. So she went in and I waited in the car, I started getting antsy after about 30 minutes and that is when it happened. The bomb went off. I think you can figure out the rest from there."
"OK, Tony" Gibbs said.
"What do you mean OK, Boss?" Tony asked angrily, "I never should have let her go in there alone, this should never have happened and I let it. This is all my fault"
"This is not your fault Tony, you didn't do anything wrong. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself." Gibbs replied matter of factly and giving him a much needed slap to the back of the head.
"Thanks Boss" Tony said, "I needed that."
"No problem, now you stay here and wait for Ziva to get out of surgery. Keep me updated, I need to know what the doctors say." Gibbs ordered.
"Of course Boss" Tony replied his eyes regaining that glazed look. He just couldn't help but wonder what was going to happen.
" Tony, snap out of it. She's a fighter, she'll be fine." Gibbs reassured him with a soft touch on his shoulder. But something in Gibbs voice gave away that maybe he didn't even believe what he said.
Gibbs slowly turned and walked toward the elevator in the hospital.
"Damn it" Gibbs thought to himself. Having Director Vance in the hospital was enough to put him on edge but now one of his best agents and her father were following suit. He should have known something like this would have happened. Every time Eli David entered the picture, bad things always followed. He couldn't stop wondering what had happened inside that synagogue. Who had detonated the bomb? What was the point of all this destruction? Who was going to pay for all this? Gibbs couldn't rest until he had the answers to all these questions so he headed back to NCIS to work with what remained of his team to try and figure this mess out. It was all he could do right now to help Ziva and the Director.
