Chapter 7

"Well then why did you run?" Tony hissed impatiently to the unshaven man who was sitting on the opposite side of the interrogation room table. He knew Ziva would be enjoying this spectacle from her spot behind the two-way mirror, away from the smell of stale ale and urine, and that made the whole thing even more irritating. Tony only wished he hadn't agreed to a 'best out of three' coin toss.

"Because that old guy was chasing me." The man, who had told them that his name was Jonathan Irvine, was wearing an unclean yellow plaid shirt, which was opened, with torn denim cut off shorts and green faded low top sneakers with holes in them.

"And what about the bat you were carrying?" Tony asked. Gibbs had spotted Irvine fleeing the scene with a baseball bat in his hand, it didn't take long for the 'old guy' to capture the suspect and 'cuff him. Unsurprisingly Irvines attempt to dispose of the bat by dropping it on the sand in plain sight had failed.

He sat back in his chair, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Tony opened up the file that he had and pushed a photograph of the bat towards Irvine, telling him that it had his fingerprints all over it. The man suddenly looked very agitated, shuffling forward on his chair and clasping his hands together on the table. According to Irvine he had never even seen Jesse and knew nothing of his attack, he told Tony that the only reason he was running with the bat was because 'some guy' gave it to him, along with fifty bucks and told him to run across the beach with it. Tony then asked Irvine what the man he was referring to looked like, when Irvine told the Special Agent that he was taking more notice of the money than the actual man Tony told him to try and remember, although he quickly regretted not taking the suspects first answer.

"OK, well he was about your height, but smaller, not too small though, and he was wearing black pants, or were they green?"

Tony rested his head on his hand and sighed as he listened to the man ramble on unhelpfully, after a while he just stood up and headed towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Irvine asked.

"To find a shower," He answered, looking Irvine up and down, "I have a sudden urge to wash."


Gibbs closed his cell phone, Tony had just called to tell him what had happened in the interrogation room; he was waiting in Community General Hospital along with McGee and Steve for any news on Jesse.

McGee couldn't help but feel guilty, and the fact that Gibbs had hardly spoken to him since it happened made him feel even worse, he looked over at Gibbs, "Boss, this is all my fault."

"It's not just your fault McGee." Gibbs replied.

McGee was a little surprised that Gibbs' wanted to share the blame, "Boss no, you can't blame yourself, how you was supposed known what that beeping noise meant?"

Gibbs turned to McGee, his face void of all emotion, "I was talking about Dr Travis." He lied, turning away from McGee before the inevitable grin made it's way to his face as he listened to his Junior Field Agent trying to dig himself out of a hole.

"How is he?" Steve asked when he saw Mark.

"Jesse has a concussion, he's feeling a little confused but he should be fine."

"Is he up to answering some questions Doc?"

Mark smiled at Gibbs, "I don't see why not, although I'm not sure how helpful he'll be right now, he's already told me three times that he likes my tie."

McGee gave Mark a confused look as the Doctor lead them into Jesse's room, "But you're not wearing a tie."

It was obvious from Gibbs' first question that Mark was right, Jesse had no memory of the attack, all he could remember was that he was heading out of the Beach House to get his surfboard. In fact he became more concerned about his surfboard than anything else.


Tony cringed in sympathy when he saw Jesse's face, "That's quite a bruise you've got there."

Jesse looked over at Mark, "I thought you said it didn't look that bad."

"It didn't, when I said it." Mark passed him an ice pack, "I told you to keep this on it."

"But it's cold." Jesse frowned as he placed the ice pack over his left temple.

Ziva and McGee stood guard on each side of the door, their boss not wanting to take anymore chances. Gibbs and Steve walked past them both and back into Jesse's room, the NCIS Special Agent had been filling the Lieutenant in on what Tony and Ziva had found out back at the Police Station. Irvine had no connection whatsoever to Samuals or the young Doctor, and Ziva believed he was telling the truth, which meant whoever attacked Jesse was still out there. Before Tony and Ziva had arrived at the Hospital Gibbs had took Mark outside to discuss what would be best for Jesse's safety.

Gibbs sat at the edge of Jesse's bed, "We don't think it's safe for you here, not right now." He told the young Doctor softly.

"Where else can I go?"

"Well, I do have one place in mind," Gibbs looked over at Mark who seemed quite reluctant, "But it's dangerous for you also."

"I don't understand," Jesse replied uneasily, "Where are you taking me?"

"To NCIS," Gibbs answered, "I talked it over with Dr Sloan and we weighed up the threat to you here with the danger of you getting on a plane with a concussion, the plane seemed like the safer option, but it's your decision, we'll do whatever you want."

"I'll go to NCIS." There was the slightest hint of excitement in Jesse's voice.

Gibbs smiled, but told him to think it over some more, although he knew there was little chance of Jesse changing his mind. Gibbs and Tony left the room to let the young Doctor rest.

"So I guess you're heading back to NCIS Boss?" Tony asked.

"No."

Tony looked at Gibbs, "McGee?"

"Nope."

"Ziva?" Tony frowned when Gibbs shook his head, "But Boss, I should stay here and help out with the investigation."

"It's an important task, and you are the Senior Field Agent, DiNozzo." Gibbs kept a straight face, "You know, like you keep telling everybody."

"But Boss I," He looked at Ziva and McGee who were obviously trying not to laugh, then turned back to Gibbs, "I think travelling by plane is a bad idea, we should keep him here."

"Well we can't turn back now, he's already excited, unless you wanna be the one to tell him we've had a change of heart Tony?" McGee grinned.


Jesse couldn't help feeling ashamed the next morning, he'd been horrible to Amanda through the night. All she was doing was her job and he'd snapped at her more than once. She needed to check up on him every two hours to ask him a simple question, like 'what's your name' or 'what's today's date' and that was making Jesse feel very irritated, especially since it seemed that every time he started to drift off she'd disturb him again.

Amanda had been amused by the whole thing, it was like Jesse was competing with Mark for the worst patient award, and turning out to be a pretty good contender too. One thing Amanda wasn't happy about however was the flight Jesse would be taking with Tony to Washington DC later on in the day. She thought it was a bad decision, but like Mark said it was the lesser of two evils, and also Jesse's decision and they both knew how much the young Doctor wanted to see the NCIS building.

It was early afternoon now and Jesse was staring, unimpressed, at a tray of food that a nurse had just given him. Steve, who was now the only other person in the room since the nurse had left, watched with a frown as the young Doctor uncharacteristically made no attempts to eat the food, "Aren't you hungry Jess?"

"Of course I am." He peeked under one of the food covers, a look of distaste on his face, "I just don't like hospital food"

Steve looked suitably shocked, "How can you not like this stuff." He grabbed a fork, "It's great."

Jesse scrunched up his nose in disgust as he watched the Lieutenant dig in to the so-called food that was on the plate, "OK, now I'm not hungry."

They suddenly heard a commotion outside and Steve got up to see what was happening, as he opened the door he saw his Father rushing down the corridor, "What's going on?"

Mark turned to Steve, "Bus crash, patients should be arriving in about ten minutes."