When his call to Ducky went straight to voice mail, Gibbs didn't bother leaving a message. He ended the call and started to punch #4, speed dial number for McGee, then stopped.

Odds are against him surviving.

Ducky's text had been sent almost five hours ago. Five hours of Tony's life hanging precariously in the balance, the scales weighted against him. Tony was alive, he would beat the odds again and survive. Gibbs was less than fifteen minutes from the hospital. There was no point in calling to get information he'd have first hand that soon. Good news awaited him, he told himself. Tony was not dead, he would not die. And, if the unthinkable had happened, he'd postpone facing it as long as possible.

Gibbs pushed through the revolving glass door and rushed to the lobby's information counter.

"Anthony DiNozzo. Where is he?"

"Agent Gibbs?" the woman asked.

He nodded.

"Dr. Mallard is waiting on floor two, ICU."

Ducky was there as he exited the elevator.

"Jethro, finally."

"How is he?"

"Not well, I'm afraid. Unresponsive at the moment."

"Unresponsive?" Gibbs asked but dreaded clarification. "Unconscious, coma, brain damage?"

"Unresponsive." Ducky repeated. He began walking at a fast pace, forcing Gibbs to follow to hear him.

"Although it is possible his brain could be affected by blood loss, fever, sepsis or other further complications, there was no brain injury."

He stopped just before they reached the row of curtain-separated treatment spaces. He placed a hand under Jethro's elbow, gently pushing him towards the first room.

"Talk to him."

The sense of urgency in Mallard's voice scared him.

"Say goodbye, you mean?"

Ducky hesitated before answering.

"I have not, and I will not, lose hope that Anthony will survive. But, that is not the prevailing prognosis. I strongly urge you to take the opportunity to say whatever should be said."

"He's unconscious," Gibbs said. The thought of his last contact with Tony being the clash in the barn lot was unbearable. He desperately wanted to believe he'd have another chance to speak to him and make amends. But, he was afraid his old friend, aware of the falling-out between him and Dinozzo, was only giving him false hope, a placebo to ease his conscience.

"The sense of hearing is the last to go before the end'" Ducky said, "And, it's well-documented that unresponsive patients, even comatose, can oftentimes still hear and retain the memory of words spoken to them. I can't guarantee that he'll hear anything you say but there is a very real possibility he will. Take this chance, perhaps your last, to talk to him and believe he will hear you. For both your sakes."

Gibbs entered the treatment room and stood there silent a moment, listening to the hiss and soft thump of the ventilator and staring at Tony's lifeless form, still except for the barely discernible rise and fall of his chest beneath the white sheet. He had braced himself for the sight of a battered DiNozzo and was surprised that he didn't have the bruised and swollen look typical of a serious MVA. Instead, his face and shoulders were pale, only marred by a splotchy red wash that could have been a faint rash or fever- induced blush.

A plastic chair had been crammed into the small space between the curtain and bed. He sat in the chair, and took a deep breath to steady himself before he began to speak, his gaze on the machines helping DiNozzo to breathe.

"I went to Fornell. As soon as I left you, I went straight to Fornell and looked at the CD. Alan is in custody. You were right. I'm sorry, Tony. If I'd listened to you, maybe you wouldn't have been shot, maybe you wouldn't be lying here now."

He looked down to Tony's face, irrationally hoping for some response, some sign that he heard.

"It's not that I trusted him more or didn't believe you. It's that..."

He paused, realizing, when he tried to find words to explain, that he had no excuse. The justification he'd clung to was only a stubborn, false loyalty to a debt, not a man. No justification at all for not having Tony's six, for allowing any obligation, no matter the magnitude, to blind him, to stand by as DiNozzo was shot and almost killed.

He had failed DiNozzo just as he had failed Kelly and he might lose DiNozzo as he'd lost his daughter. He gripped the bed rail fighting against grief and guilt. He couldn't justify his actions, he had no excuse. But, he could try to explain.

"We were in D.C. for the day. Me, Alan, Kelly. We were both on leave and Alan was visiting and Shannon stayed home to cook a special dinner. Kelly was three years old. You have to watch them at that age, especially when you're out in public, you have to keep an eye on them. I knew that. But, some guy started a conversation with me about the Redskins. Kelly was right next to me pulling on my pants leg, going on about Pongo. She was crazy about that movie, 101 Dalmatians, always talking about it; Cruella DeVille was a bad woman, Pongo and Perdita."

"Alan had gone to a stand to buy her an ice cream cone. I wasn't paying any attention to her, I was too busy talking football with that guy. Then, somebody screamed and I looked and I saw..." He paused, even now that devastating split-second was agony to remember and re-live.

"I saw Kelly in the road, the front bumper of a green pickup and I knew I was about to see my baby die. But, in that same second, Alan was there. Scooped her up and tried to leap out of the way. He saved her, she got out of it just losing some skin, road burn on her arm. Alan saved her but he didn't clear the truck. Both legs were broken, the right one was shattered, he almost lost it."

"Turns out some guy was walking a dalmatian across the street. If I'd bothered to pay attention to her for one damn second, I'd have known that; could have walked her across to see it or told her no or noticed when she was running out into traffic. If not for Alan, she'd have died. I'd have lost her and it would have been my fault. He gave me almost half Kelly's lifetime."

A minute of silence passed. Gibbs sat there struggling to find a way to put feelings into words. He reached through the rail to grasp Tony's hand in his.

"Don't die, Tony. I-"

"Excuse us for about twenty minutes, please?"

Startled, Jethro let go of Tony's hand and looked up to see a nurse, another nurse behind her, standing a foot from him. He nodded and stood. As he walked away, he was both sorry and relieved he'd been interrupted. There was so much more that needed to be said but he was at a loss as how to say it. He walked to the end of the row of rooms and was met by Mallard. Ducky placed a hand on his back and gently steered him towards the elevators.

"They'll be a while, changing dressings and running tests. Judging from the bourbon vapor wafting from your pores, you drank your last night's supper and could do with some food. You'll have time to get a bite to eat while they're tending to Tony."

Although Gibbs hadn't eaten in over 24 hours, he had no appetite, his stomach rebelling, roiling from both emotion and hangover. He shook his head.

"A drink and some fresh air, then," Mallard insisted.

When they stopped by the hospital cafeteria, Gibbs ignored Ducky's suggestions of Gatorade, water or juice and his disapproving scowl when he instead chose a large cup of coffee. They went outside to sit on a wooden bench across from the hospital entrance. The coffee burned going down his acid-abused throat and spiked the churning queasiness in his gut but he stubbornly continued drinking, needing the caffeine.

Now that he had seen and spoken, however incompletely, to Tony, he wanted to know the details of the accident and DiNozzo's injuries. He hoped Tony hadn't been at fault, especially if any other victims were seriously hurt or worse.

"Was anybody else hurt?" Gibbs asked.

"Anyone else?"

"In the wreck. How'd it happen? Whose fault was it?"

"Ah," Ducky understood and shook his head. "Anthony wasn't injured in a motor vehicle accident, Jethro. It was an accidental mis-step, stumble; he was injured in a fall. A rat, of all things; his fears come to pass in a different way."

"You talked to him?"

"No. Due to his remote location, there was some delay getting to him. He was conscious for a while, talking to the dispatcher. But, he was out by the time help arrived and hasn't regained consciousness since."

"He was passing through a rural area; pulled into an abandoned lot to relieve himself. A rat ran across his shoe, startling him and causing him to back-peddle and lose his footing and fall back upon some metal farm implement. It was a penetrating wound, an impalement. He suffered a rather severe tear to his kidney, but that is repairable. It was the tiny nick to his bowel that triggered the sepsis that's the threat to his life."

"Good thing there's a definitive record of what happened. My preliminary findings, based on evidence presented, would have been different. Bruise in the mid right chest, a forceful backwards fall-I'd have said it was likely he was attacked and pushed back rather than lost his footing. My suspicions prompted Timothy to contact the sheriff's department. They explained that Anthony himself had told them what happened and supplied us a copy of the 911 call. Ever the investigator, Tony went so far as to ask to be certain that the call was taped, so he wouldn't leave an unsolved mystery behind."

He smiled a small smile.

"Even under such dire circumstances, he told the tale with typical DiNozzo hyperbole and panache. The rat, he said, was the size of..."

Mallard continued speaking but Gibbs heard no more until the grip on his shoulder and Ducky's concerned and insistent "Jethro!" cut through the different voice crying out from his memory.

"Boss..."

The call that had barely registered in his rage as he'd stormed across the barn lot, hardly heard as just another attempt to stop him, to hold him there.

No! It was an instinctive silent prayer, a desperate mental plea as the possibility, the realization crushed the air from his lungs. No, no, please, no...

With a trembling hand, he pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket.

"Jethro, are you alright?"

Gibbs ignored Mallard's question as he pushed through the list of voice mails to the unanswered call from DiNozzo, the last call received before he'd turned off his phone. He listened to the robotic recitation of the originating number, date and time; holding himself together by clinging to a fervent but faint hope. A hope shattered when he heard Tony's recorded last words to him.

"Boss, I'm hurt. Come back, please! I need help, Boss. Please!"