Chapter 4

It took much too long to get out of Shenandoah and then to the hospital in Front Royal. Abby had started talking to Tim, trying to make him better with an uninterrupted flow of words. Gibbs tuned out whatever she was saying. The roads were bad. He needed to focus on them and keep himself from going too fast in his efforts to get help for Tim. The six miles they had to drive to get out of the park seemed interminable.

Finally, the sign telling them that they were getting out of Shenandoah National Park loomed up and they crawled past it. Then, past the entrance station and finally to the sign indicating that Front Royal lay to the right.

Grateful to be out of the park, Gibbs drove into the city but couldn't see the location of the hospital right away.

"Abby, call 911 and ask them to tell us how to get to the hospital."

"Gibbs, he's not conscious. He won't wake up."

"Call now, Abbs," Gibbs said. "That's what you need to do."

"Okay. Tim? I'm calling the hospital. We're going to get help for you."

No response, but Abby did as Gibbs had instructed.

"This is Abby. We found a friend in Shenandoah and he's been hurt and he's shaking. He's unconscious and I don't know if it's because of the head wound he has. We think he's hypothermic...maybe has frostbite. We need to get to the hospital. We're in Front Royal but we don't know where to go!"

She listened for a moment.

"What road are we on, Gibbs?"

Gibbs squinted, looking for a street sign.

"South Royal Avenue," he said.

Abby relayed the information and then listened again.

"Drive until you get to West 11th Street and turn left. The hospital is just south of it on Shenandoah Avenue...what a coincidence..."

"Yeah."

Abby got off the phone.

"They said they'd tell the ER people to be ready for us."

Gibbs didn't say anything else, choosing to focus on the road instead, trying not to worry about Tim's status when there was nothing he could do that he wasn't already doing. The car was sweltering hot because he'd turned the heat up as high as he could. Abby was trying her best to help Tim warm up.

After what seemed an eternity, he saw the necessary turn, and was surprised to hear Tim speak again, almost coherently...although he was still shivering uncontrollably.

"Where...did you come from?"

Abby laughed.

"I told you to call me when you got back, Tim. You didn't. So I came looking."

"Am...I dying?"

"No, Tim! You're going to be fine. The doctors will look you over and you'll be just great!"

"...b-b-but...the...tumor..."

That was worrying if Tim had lost that much time. It had been days since the verification that the growth had been benign.

"They took it out and you're fine, Tim. Don't you remember having surgery?"

"...no...bandage..."

"Well, you had it and you're fine."

"What...was I d-d-doing...then..."

"Seeing the park."

"Why?"

Gibbs pulled into the ER entrance.

"Stay in the car. We don't want him getting cold again."

"...still c-c-cold..."

Gibbs smiled. "We don't want you getting colder, then, McGee."

He got out and ran inside the doors. There was a doctor and nurse.

"My friend has hypothermia and maybe frostbite. He's out in my car. He needs help."

"You called 911?"

"Yes!"

"All right. Let's go."

The doctor and the nurse grabbed the gurney they had standing by and hurried out into the snow. Gibbs directed them to his car.

"Any other injuries that you know of?"

"He had surgery a few days ago," Abby said.

"For what?"

"He had a benign growth in his abdomen," Gibbs said. "But I think he got hit in the head. He's not remembering stuff that happened days ago."

"All right. Let's get him inside as quickly as we can."

Carefully, they pulled Tim out of the car and laid him out on the gurney and then moved him into the hospital. Gibbs and Abby tried to follow them.

"No. Please stay out here. Someone will come out later and tell you how he's doing."

Abby looked at Gibbs. Gibbs wanted nothing more than to force his way in but he reluctantly stood back. There was a window into the ER and they watched as they carefully removed Tim's clothes and started putting heat packs around him and then covered him with blankets. ...but when, they pulled off his shoes and socks...and began examining his hands...

"What's happened to his feet?" Abby whispered.

"Frostbite, probably."

Tim's feet were swollen and his toes had a blue-gray appearance. His hands were also swollen but didn't have the same discoloration. In the light, they could see Tim's ears were similarly swollen, but the very tips were more discolored than his toes.

"Oh, no...what will happen?"

"Depends on how bad it is." ...and really, Gibbs knew he couldn't say anything more with certainty. He was far from being an expert on this. Most of his military service had taken place in hot places, not cold places. He only knew the basics of treatment.

"He'll be okay, though, right?"

"I hope so."

Abby hugged him tightly.

"It's not fair that this should happen, Gibbs. Not after everything else he just went through."

Gibbs just stared as they wrapped Tim's extremities in gauze and splints and then got ready to move him out of the ER. Abby let Gibbs go and ran to the doctors.

"Where are you taking him?"

"To a room where we can continue the rewarming process. We just got word that there was a bad accident on the highway and we need the space. We've scheduled a CT and as soon as it opens, we'll move him in to make sure that there's no brain bleed. His loss of consciousness and amnesia could be the sign of a serious hemorrhage or it could just be the combination of the hypothermia and his injury. We need to know. We'll let you know when you can be with him again."

They pushed Tim on by and Abby looked at Gibbs.

"What if...that accident...what if...it was Tony and Ziva?"

"Call them."

Abby took out her phone, swallowed and then held it out to him.

"I can't! You do it."

Gibbs took the phone and dialed. It rang...and rang...and rang.

"Yeah, Abby? What is it? We haven't seen him. Actually, we haven't seen you guys either. What gives?"

"Tony, where are you?"

"Trying not to get stuck in a drift. It's really coming down. This road is terrible. I can see why they closed it. Where are you guys?"

"In the hospital in Front Royal."

"You found him?"

"Yeah."

"Where was he?"

"Walking in the road. He doesn't even remember having surgery...so he has no idea what happened to him."

"How bad?"

"Frostbite, hypothermia...bad knock on the head. Looks like he'll survive...just don't know what condition."

"Yikes...okay. In Front Royal?"

"Yeah."

"We'll be there...as soon as we can."

"Just be careful. Apparently, there's already been a bad accident."

"Will do. See ya, Boss."

Gibbs hung up.

"They're okay. They'll get here."

Abby nodded, clearly fretting.

"Let's see what we can do about McGee."

"Okay. Gibbs...what if we hadn't gone looking for him?"

"We did."

Gibbs didn't even want to imagine.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim awakened with a throbbing pain in his feet, an ache in his hands and, strangely, his ears. His feet were the worst, though.

"Hello?" he whimpered and tried to blink away the blurriness and the fog in his head. He just wanted someone to help him, to take away the pain.

"Tim? You're awake!" That was Abby's voice.

"What's going on?" he asked, tears sprang to his eyes as the throbbing in his feet grew worse. "What happened?"

"It's okay, Tim. I've pushed the call button. Someone will be here soon."

"Try to relax as much as you can, Tim. Don't tense your muscles."

"Why not? What's going on?"

Everything was so confused in his head that he couldn't think of why he hurt so much, what Gibbs and Abby had to do with it, and why Gibbs would tell him to stay still. He closed his eyes tightly.

"Everything hurts," he said.

"They're rewarming your hands and feet and legs, Tim. It's going to hurt, but it will get better."

Tim opened his tear-filled eyes and looked at Gibbs.

"What's going on?"

The door opened and in moments there was a doctor leaning over him.

"Hello, Mr. McGee. I'm Dr. Jamison. How are you feeling?"

"It hurts."

"Hands, feet, legs?"

Tim nodded.

"Any other pain?"

"That's all I can...can think about."

"I understand. We'll give you some pain relievers soon. I know that you're in a lot of pain, but can you tell me how your head feels? Any sharp pains or throbbing?"

Tim tried to think about it.

"It does...hurt some."

"Okay. You should start feeling some relief soon. Just stay still and we'll wait to see how it goes."

Tim nodded and closed his eyes tightly. He waited and waited for what seemed like forever but the pain definitely lessened rather dramatically all of a sudden.

"Feeling better, Mr. McGee?"

"Yes. What's going on?"

"Okay. What's the last thing you remember?"

Tim tried to think but he felt as though the fog in his head had increased as dramatically as his pain had lessened.

"I went to the doctor to...schedule the surgery..."

"Tim! That was more than two weeks ago!"

Tim opened his eyes and looked at Abby.

"Weeks?"

"Yes! You've had the surgery. You're fine!"

"No cancer?" Tim asked, finding it hard to follow the conversation.

"No!"

"Then...why was I...where I was?"

Abby seemed inordinately upset. "You were going out to see Shenandoah because you said you'd never really taken the time and it was supposed to be beautiful in the winter. You weren't coming back to work yet and so you wanted something to fill your time."

"I did?" Tim stared at the ceiling. That didn't fit with the vague memories he had of wondering around the park. Granted, nothing was making a whole lot of sense right now.

"Tim, you've got to remember all that!"

Tim looked at Abby and started feeling as distressed as she looked.

"I...I don't! Abby...I don't remember that...I..."

Gibbs pulled Abby back, whispered in her ear and then took her place beside Tim as Abby left the room.

"Boss...I..."

"Just calm down, Tim. It's okay. If you can't remember right now, it doesn't matter."

"But..."

"Stay calm. Does it still hurt?"

Tim thought about it. When he did, he noticed some pain...so he stopped thinking about it.

"Some."

"And your head is probably pretty foggy."

"Yeah."

"Then, don't worry about it."

"What's wrong with me, Boss?" Tim asked, trying to keep his mind on the situation at hand. "What happened?"

"We don't know it all yet. Your car is missing and you were wandering around in the park. You got hit on the head at some point, and you have frostbite."

"Frostbite?" That managed to penetrate the pleasant fog. Horrible images of black fingers and toes falling off washed through his mind. Tim started to sit up, but Gibbs held him down.

"Don't panic, McGee. They're treating you for it. You're going to be fine."

"Am I?"

"Yes. Are you still cold?"

"Yeah, a little."

"Are you tired?"

"Yes." Now that Gibbs had mentioned it, he was exhausted.

"Then, why don't you go to sleep. Someone will be here when you wake up."

"Okay."

Tim let his eyes close again and the fog in his brain cut him off from the waking world, protecting him in dreams.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Gibbs sat back as Tim fell asleep. Tim hadn't even noticed that he was in a whirlpool bath right now, not a hospital bed. The rewarming process could be (and obviously was in this case) very painful. The swelling had increased as Tim's extremities had warmed up. Blisters were forming on his hands. There were some on his ears as well. His legs were worse. His knees, for some reason, had the same blistering that his hands did, only over a larger area. Then, his feet. Tim hadn't been wearing shoes that were really great protection against the cold. They hadn't been waterproof and had been soaking...leading to the bad state of his feet. His feet were progressively worse towards the toes which looked almost frightening. Dr. Jamison had said that there was no guarantee that Tim would lose anything. Amputation wasn't undertaken lightly. The old saying was "Frostbite in January, amputate in July." They still followed that basic wisdom. It could take months for Tim to fully recover, but full recovery was always possible. Parts of his ears were worse than others. Dr. Jamison said that Tim must have been walking with his head as low as possible and that had protected the lobes to some degree, but the top tips had major discoloration.

Then, there was the fact that Tim had suffered from a severe concussion. The CT scan hadn't shown any serious bleeding, but there was some swelling and they were going to take another scan in the morning to make sure it wasn't getting worse.

Then, of course, was the hypothermia that they had addressed first. Tim had been in the second stage, and if he had been out in the storm for much longer, he would have died. All in all, Tim had been on the receiving end of a lot of hard knocks in the last few hours. He didn't need to be thinking about the fact that he couldn't remember more than a week of his life. He didn't need to be thinking about possibly losing some digits to frostbite. He didn't need to be worrying about anything. He just needed to recover.

"How much longer will he stay in the water?" he asked.

"We'll be getting him out right now, but we'll do this again every day while he's in the hospital. We'll also be putting dressing on all the thawed areas which we'll change regularly to make sure there's no infection."

"How long will it take to know what's going to happen?"

"Weeks, although he won't be in the hospital for all that time. We won't rush into anything, but it will take time for him to recover. His body was already recovering from the surgery you mentioned, plus that concussion. He has a lot to fight back against, but I think he can. One thing you might want to consider is...as soon as he's a bit more stable, moving him to a bigger hospital where they can do a better job taking care of him while he's recovering. We know how to deal with frostbite out here because it comes up more often than we'd like it to, but we don't have the facilities that someplace like WHC in DC or even Bethesda would have. It's not a requirement, but you may want to consider it."

"Okay."

It was something to think about, and Gibbs decided he'd take anything that would distract him from staring at Tim's hands and feet.