Chapter 21: Blood

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole. ~Roger Caras

Their arrival at McGee's apartment building was a repeat of their arrival at the vet's office, with the same red and blue strobe lights welcoming them. The only difference this time was that instead of McGee jumping out of the car it was Grace who did it.

The two agents hurried after the redhead who navigated between the officers, finally settling on a fast pace towards the small apartment at the end of the corridor where two uniforms were talking with a balding man in a gray sweater standing by the threshold.

"Mr. Robbins," McGee called out, receiving a thankful glance from his landlord who gestured at him.

"That's Timothy. He's the one who lives here." Mr. Robbins said to the cops as stretched his hand towards Timothy, who grasped them in a firm handshake as soon he was in touching distance. "I'm so glad you came. This is a horrible, horrible thing to happen."

"Have you seen anything?" McGee asked, throwing a concerned glance at Gibbs who took the two LEOs a couple of steps away so he could talk to them, soon turning his attention back to his landlord as he started talking.

"Seen anything? No. But I have good ears and it was a huge noise. At first I thought it was a car engine coughing but then the sound repeated over and over. I knew then that something awful had happened. It took me a couple of minutes to calm down Marie and get my baseball bat and…"

McGee threw a concerned glance to Grace who was eager to get going, but they needed clearance from the cops before going into the crime scene. Finally Gibbs finished talking to the cops and approached the couple, gesturing with his head that they could go in.

Grace immediately threw a tense smile to Mr. Robbins and pushed McGee towards the door.

"It's going to be a mess, Doc. Can you handle some blood?" Gibbs asked the redhead as they entered the room, noticing the broken lock and the bullet hole on the wood at the same height of the peephole, the velocity splatter on the kitchen counter, floor and walls, all that crowned with a large pool of blood coming from the dead dog sitter on the floor.

Thanks to small mercies, her body had been covered with a white sheet.

"I'm a doctor, Agent Gibbs. Either human or animal, blood is blood." Grace looked around, noticing the lack of whimpering that she had come to associate with the puppies, yet there was a faint crying coming from the bedroom that raised her curiosity.

McGee took the lead and went around the body, feeling a wave of despair at the meaningless loss of life. He approached one uniformed man who was standing right in the middle of his living room with a small notebook in his hand. He found nothing out of ordinary in his kitchen and kept walking.

"Sir, where is…"

A small whimper caught his attention, making him look towards the corner where the dog bed had been that morning. The scene broke his heart in seconds, his spontaneous cry becoming impossible to hold back.

"JETHRO!"

His shout brought Grace to his side and the young vet gasped at the sight of the poor animal before her eyes. Jethro had blood all over his mouth, probably from one of his attackers, as well as some cuts and bruises around his neck and head. There was a slow bleeding wound in his chest from a bullet hole, his breaths coming in little pain filled gasps.

"Oh, Jethro!" She murmured, before going to McGee's side and kneeling before the broken animal who tried in vain to move towards his owner, wailing in pain at each try.

McGee closed his eyes as he gently touched the bleeding head of the dog, feeling stubborn tears filling his eyes. The traces on the floor said a very bloody battle had taken place, with Jethro trying to defend his femme and her litter, but his sharp teeth were no match to the bite of bullets. As the dog figure out he couldn't win in frontal attack, he dragged himself to place his body between Freckles and the litter, but whoever attacked him stepped on the pools of dog blood and took them all. Shaking in rage and shock, McGee barely acknowledged Grace as she started her job, checking the seriousness of the injuries.

"He didn't let anyone touch him, so we chose to ask your landlord to call you," the officer said, seeing the strong emotion gripping the young agent. "Your dog sitter was dead on sight. Bullet straight into her brains. But the kid survived."

"Kid?" Gibbs asked, his gaze leaving the couple and the fatally wound dog to pierce the officer.

The officer lifted his eyebrow, silently pointing to the soft sound of crying coming to the bedroom. Gibbs immediately marched towards it, eager to get back to the job.

"One of my men is with her!" The officer shouted, his gaze coming back to the lady checking the dog on the floor. "Ah… ma'am, maybe you should let someone do that…"

"No! I'm his doctor." Grace turned to McGee, grabbing a good bunch of gaze and pushing it against the bleeding wound on Jethro's chest. "Timothy, baby. I need you here."

"Oh, God!"

"TIM!"

He turned tortured eyes at her, finally able to listen to hear between the waves of self recrimination bombarding his mind.

"Yeah…"

"Listen to me. He is going to survive, okay?" McGee bit his lower lip, struggling to put his emotions on hold. Grace continued, "I need you to go the bathroom and bring me as many old towels as possible. We need to move him, but I can't raise him on my own, so we will improvise a stretcher."

"Ma'am, with all due respect, you are messing up my crime scene." Said the officer, just to receive a fierce glare from the vet who immediately dug around her bag for some painkillers. She kept a shaking hand holding the gauze against the wound as she ripped the cap of the medicine with her teeth. Spitting it out, she told the cop. "I may be messing your crime scene but I'm saving your only witness to the crime, sir."

"I have another witness."

"Who is too traumatized to say anything, for sure. Your witness may be able to identify the criminal. Mine can track him down."

McGee numbly moved to his bedroom, just pausing at the threshold to look at Gibbs gently talking to a four year old loudly sobbing in the arms of another officer. Gibbs gave him a silent nod, indicating that all was under control, so McGee stumbled into his bathroom and grabbed the whole pile of clean towels in his cupboard, rushing back towards the living room and kneeling beside Grace and Jethro.

"Here." Grace took one of his hands and forced him to hold the gauze in place, as she took the fist towel and opened it, placing it beside the dog and immediately drenching it in blood.

"Grace?"

"Help me move him, will ya?" Both took position at one extremity of the dog and put their hands under his shaking frame. "one, two, three… GO!" Both moved the dog in one fluid way to the open towel, placing him in the middle of it.

They took the edges of the towel as if it was a stretcher and with a coordinated move lifted the whimpering dog to the kitchen counter, splashing the cups and spice holders on the floor, uncaring to the mess they've just made.

"Now what?" McGee asked, gasping as new blood started to seep from Jethro's wounds.

Grace slapped on latex gloves, opening a small kit with several surgery scalpels on one the high chairs of the counter and put a small surgery mask over her mouth and nose. She grabbed a small bag with some kind of clear liquid and slapped it on McGee's hand, attaching a thin plastic tube to it and unfurling it until it could reach the dog on the counter.

"Just hold that high and let me do my job." With a small needle, she found Jethro's vein in his front paw and connected the plastic tube in the line, immediately starting a delicate operation in the improvised surgery room in McGee's kitchen.