AN: My heart goes out to anyone who lost someone, or knows someone that was hurt in Boston this week. I really dislike how the government/law enforcement responded to all of this. I'm proud of the citizens of Boston, of what they did that day to help those in need.
*~.~*
Fornell had flown back to DC in order to make preparations for Gideon's arrival before the teams would get there with him. But upon trying to figure out the best solution for the unique case, he found it would be next to impossible to expose this without also exposing Tony. So now he was out in his vehicle dialing Gibbs' number.
After three rings, the other line picked up. "Yeah. Gibbs."
"Jethro, we might have a problem," he told him.
"Got one already," Gibbs replied.
"Oh yeah? Yours is probably better. Shoot."
"Had to shoot Gideon. He was doing something to Tony. Made him real sick. He's been out for over two hours, now."
"Gideon come around yet?"
"Oh yeah. Doesn't take him long to wake up from these things, so we've known from experience. But we've got him heavily sedated. Problem on that end, though, is that we're not gonna be able to explain all the blood in his cell."
"Well, therein lies my problem, Gibbs," Fornell told him. "There's no one to explain it to."
"What's that mean?"
"Means I dunno how we're gonna explain Gideon's...'special needs' without exposing Tony. And for that matter giving Gideon the ability to blackmail him; maybe even tell outta spite and put him in danger." There other line was silent for a few breaths.
"So...what do we do, Tobias?"
"Wish I knew," he replied. "It's why I'm calling. We've gotta find some place to hold him. Some place that can hold him and won't be susceptible to exposing this information to people who could leak it and bring it to public knowledge. Last thing we need is panic. And if people know about this stuff, they're gonna panic. And that'll be all kinds'a bad news for DiNutso."
All was quiet for a moment, and then Gibbs replied, "I might know a place we can take him..."
*~.~*
"I was never exactly prepared for this," McGee explained as he let the agents into his underground laboratory, flicking the lights on as he went. "But I did try and hypothesize how to contain him if I were to ever find him. And since the cell he was transported in seemed to stop his escape, I know this will."
It would've been impossible to get the cell down into the laboratory, they knew. But as McGee led them to the far side of the lab, they saw what he was talking about. It was a separate room, but it had a window looking into it. Within the room was what looked like a glass tank.
"You think that's good enough to hold him?" Morgan asked, skeptically. "That might've worked to hold Magneto, but there was an endless pit underneath it, if you forgot."
McGee smiled a little at the movie reference, and suddenly missed Tony, who was still passed out cold in the car. "It's not just ordinary glass," he told him.
"Is that...micro alloy made of palladium?" Reid looked more closely. "That stuff is expensive and not readily available to the public, or so I thought."
"I uh...it's not exactly mine," he replied. "I have some friends at Johns Hopkins who wanted me to come assist in an experiment involving the tank. Basically I'm storing it for them until further notice."
"And how is this supposed to contain him?" Gibbs asked. "It's glass. Strong glass, but how do we know he can't break out of it anyway?"
"He might be able to," McGee replied. "But there's a couple more elements to this cage. There's a hose above it connected to a water source. It's...kinda cruel and unusual if it turns out I'm wrong, but my theory is that if he doesn't have oxygen at all, he won't be able to heal himself. If he can, it'd mean waking up and drowning over and over. If that's the case, I'd rather hook him up to some kind of timed repetitive dosing of sedatives. Then at least he won't be aware of what's happening."
The agents were all silent for a long moment as they let the reality of what he was suggesting absorb. Gideon was a threat to anyone he came in contact with. But for the most part, he was a victim of mental illness. He wasn't a bad person for the sake of bringing harm to others. He literally felt he had no choice. But it didn't excuse his actions. It didn't excuse the fact that he'd taken countless lives, and there was no other way around it right now.
"Often times in cases of mental patients," Reid stated, "When they're hospitalized for the simple fact that they're a hazard to themselves and others, they're heavily medicated or sedated." The young man knew first-hand how they were treated, since his mother has been in a sanitarium for years now. "I feel like this is probably the best solution for the time being. There's no other facility capable of restraining him. Cruel and unusual, or not. We have to take into consideration that if we don't do this, more people will die..."
*~.~*
"It seems his vitals are all at normal levels," Ducky told Gibbs after examining Tony where he lay in the guest bed at the lead agent's house.
"This is the longest he's ever been out, Duck," Gibbs replied, worriedly. "He wasn't injured. Not anything we could see, anyway."
"For all intents and purposes, Anthony is comatose at the moment," Ducky replied. "All normal tests show that, anyway. And like you say, it was nothing you could see. However, that doesn't mean he wasn't injured. You said he was speaking to Gideon. Gideon was somehow communicating...telepathically to him. This part of the human brain isn't used, and yet Tony and Gideon seem to have tapped into it, but only with each other, unless he's hiding something," Ducky raised a brown. "It's possible that Gideon tried too much too fast; a desperate act to try and escape, and it was far too much for Tony's brain to handle. A brain injury could take exponentially longer to heal."
"A brain injury...Duck, that's what I'm afraid of. Gideon is the way he is because the brain doesn't heal back the way it's supposed to. Damaging him that way could mean..."
"Don't jump to conclusions, Jethro," Ducky interjected. "He'll be alright."
"You can't know that," he replied, quietly, as he shook his head.
"But I can believe it," the doctor told him with conviction. "Tony's been using parts of his brain none of us use, for a while now. He's overcome the healing process over time. That hasn't changed him. Not in the way its changed Gideon."
Gibbs' eye twitched with a realization. He'd never thought of the headaches and nosebleeds as Tony's head healing itself. He'd thought it was just a side effect of using the abilities. Suddenly it made a lot more sense why it got easier each time he used them. And Gibbs found himself running every event since the beginning through his head, trying to recall if there was anything different about Tony's reactions and thought process since before all of this happened.
"What happens if he wakes up and you're wrong?" Gibbs asked, almost whispering as if the hushing of the question lowered the possibility of it being...well, possible.
Ducky let out a quiet sigh. "As usual, worrying about such things before knowing the situation changes nothing. We shall cross that bridge, should we find ourselves before it, my friend." He looked back down to Tony's sleeping face. "And Anthony will have our complete support, no matter what happens."
*~.~*
"I have three separate web cams set up facing the cell," McGee told Ziva as he set up her computer to be connected to the feed. "Each of us will be able to monitor it at any point in time. Even from our phones. And I've made sure our access is private and secure. No one can trace where the feed is coming from, nor whomever is accessing it. Unless, of course, someone tries to hack into the feed from a source not our own."
"What will happen then?" Ziva asked after looking at the box on the screen that showed Gideon's upright body floating in the water-filled tank.
"Then, I'll be alerted immediately, and I'll switch everything so it's routing from a different designated server, changing all IP addresses and access points. I'll have to reconnect everyone again, but I doubt anyone will be able to get through the security protocols in place right now. No one even knows to look."
"And if he can somehow get out of the tank?"
"The system is set up to shut down everything if the tank is disturbed. It'd be like a very very small Fort Knox. And if he can get outta that, there's a tracking device under the skin on the back of his neck. With luck, he won't even notice it's there. Especially since it's already healed over."
"You have thought of everything," she looked at him proudly.
"I've had a long time to," he replied. Then he closed the laptop and turned in the chair to stand up. "I should go set up Tony's computer at Gibbs' house," he told her, "And see how he's doing."
"It has been nearly a day," Ziva calculated. "Gibbs said that he would let us know when Tony woke. He did not contact you, did he?"
"No, he hasn't," Ziva could tell he was concerned. "And I don't think Gibbs has slept much since we got back. If nothing else, I wanna just...keep watch so Gibbs can get some sleep."
"You believe he hasn't slept because he is worried about Tony?"
"He's worried about him waking up without anyone there to explain to him what's happened, I'm sure. Not that much has happened since he lost consciousness, but waking up this long after, in Gibbs' house after passing out several states away? It might be a little overwhelming."
"And have you slept, McGee?" she raised a brow. He narrowed his eyes at her for a moment. "I am simply suggesting that perhaps I should be the one to...take watch, so to speak. I am used to functioning on little sleep."
"We work for Gibbs. We're all used to no sleep."
"As is Gibbs," she retorted.
"Okay, so I just wanna check in on them," McGee admitted. "Is that so much to ask? I've gotta set up the computer, too. So..."
"I understand," she smiled.
*~.~*
By sundown McGee has Tony's computer up and running with the incoming web cam signal, and somehow ended up passed out on the couch instead of at Tony's bedside to take over for Gibbs. In reality, Gibbs had had no intention of leaving it himself. He could sleep just as easily in the chair as he could out on the couch or in his bed.
He'd just checked on McGee moments ago, before going back to the bedroom with a newspaper that was at least three days old. He'd not had the chance to read it yet. And just as he'd begun flipped pages, he saw movement out the corner of his eye. Gibbs looked over and noticed Tony's breathing had changed; became a bit less steady of a pattern, and his eyes were moving under the lids. That hadn't been happening before now.
Gibbs set down his paper, moving to sit on the edge of the bed, and he put a hand on the agent's forehead. "Tony?" he whispered. "You with me?" he asked. But Tony didn't show signs that he'd heard him. His eyes continued to move wildly beneath their lids. "What's goin' on with you, DiNozzo?" Gibbs sighed, worried about his senior field agent.
After a couple of event-less minutes, Gibbs returned to his chair and kept half an eye on Tony. He read some article on the fourth page, but was preoccupied with thoughts of what Tony might be dreaming about...
TBC...