Act 4, Scene 7:
Trying to contain his trembling, McGee knocked on the door. He noticed with surprise that it was cracked and leaning on one hinge and there were sullen looking men lurking around the hallway outside of it. A few of them were nursing bruised jaws or painful ribs, and more than one spat out a curse on 'that she-devil'. McGee figured Ziva had been there… He tried to portray an image of control and authority as he rapped again on the wood, but couldn't help a sigh of relief when he heard the king call, "How now? What news?"
Squaring his shoulders, McGee strode into the room. "Letters, my lord, from Hamlet. These to your Majesty, this to the Queen."
"From Hamlet? Who brought them?" the King demanded.
McGee gestured through the door, a part of his mind wondering why the King was alone in the room without the Queen hanging on his arm or a guard lurking in the corner. Where was the Boss, anyways? "Sailors, my lord, they say…"
The King cut him off by snatching the letters from his hand. "Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us!" he ordered to McGee.
McGee turned to leave, but noticed with a gasp that Gibbs was curled up on the floor in the dark corner of the room. Realizing that the King had probably forgotten him the second he dismissed him, McGee threw himself to his knees and gently shook Gibbs' shoulder. "Boss? Boss? Can you hear me?" he whispered in growing terror.
Gibbs groaned and shifted, finally prying one eye open. "McGee?"
McGee helped him sit up against the wall. "Boss, what happened?"
"Laertes and a few buddies didn't want me to interrupt his tea party with the King," Gibbs got out, wincing as he cradled an arm around his stomach. Realizing the King was still talking to said Laertes, Gibbs forced his mind to clear. "Report, McGee!
"Boss, Prince Hamlet's back in Denmark. Horatio just went to find him. I had to deliver some letters from the Prince to the King, and they're reading them now."
"The ship came back?"
McGee shook his head and gave him a summary of the letter. "No, Boss; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are still on their way to England with the ship. The pirates let Prince Hamlet go, I'm assuming."
A roar from Laertes broke into their conversation. "But let him come! It warms the very sickness in my heart that I shall live and tell him to his teeth, 'Thus didst thou!' "
The King's voice grew conspiratorial. "If it be so, Laertes (as how should it be so? How otherwise?), will you be ruled by me?"
"The King's got a plan," McGee noted in a whisper.
"You think, McGee? He's masterminded this whole thing from the beginning."
Laertes' capitulation had a condition. "Ay, my lord, so you will not overrule me to a peace."
"To thine own peace," the King corrected. "If he be now returned, as checking at his voyage, and that he mans no more to undertake it, I will work him to an exploit, now ripe in my device, under the which he shall not choose but fall; and for his death no wind of blame shall breathe, but even his mother shall uncharged the practice and call it accident."
McGee and Gibbs shared a long glance. "Uh-oh," McGee whispered.
"Yeah," Gibbs had to agree.
Laertes' eyes were alight with vengeful glee. "My lord, I will be ruled, the rather if you could devise it so that I might be the organ!"
"Can we arrest someone for murder if they haven't actually committed it yet?" McGee whispered to Gibbs.
"Not and keep our heads," Gibbs grumbled back. "The only person who could issue a warrant for his arrest is Director Polonius."
"Oops," McGee gulped.
Gibb's returning nod was grim. They kept silent as they listened in growing horror to the plans being cooked up before them. The King informed Laertes that a passing gentleman of Normandy had been bragging to the Court of Laertes' skill with a sword, and how Hamlet had been wild with eagerness to fence against his old friend. The King then suggested that they set up the duel so Laertes could, like any loving son should do to get revenge for his father, run Hamlet through and kill him.
"I will do it, and for that purpose I'll anoint my sword. I bought an unction of a mountebank so mortal that, but dip a knife in it, where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare collected from all that simples that have virtue under the moon, can safe the thing from death that is but scratched withal. I'll touch my point with this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly, it may be death."
"Who picks up souvenirs like that?" McGee wondered. "And how do you get them past security? 'Anything to declare?' 'Yes, I have this mountebank of poison so deadly it'll kill at the slightest scratch!' I can see that getting past Customs!"
Gibbs would have chuckled, had his own ribs not been killing him.
"Let's further think of this," the King agreed, "Weigh what convenience both of time and means may fit us to our shape. If this should fail, and that our drift look through our bad performance, 'twere better not assayed. Therefore this project should have a back or second that might hold if this did blast in proof. Soft, let me see…" He mused for a moment, muttering, "we'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings… I have it! When in your motion you are hot and dry (as make your bouts more violent to that end) and that he calls for drink, I'll have prepared him a chalice for the nonce, whereupon but sipping, if he by chance escape your venomed stuck, our purpose may hold there…" He looked up as a scuffle was heard in the hallway. "But stay, what noise?"
The Queen rushed into the room, her gown tattered from where she'd ripped it in her haste. "One woe doth tread upon another's heel, so fast they follow. Your sister's drowned, Laertes."
"Wow, nothing like breaking the news gently," McGee snorted.
"Drowned? O, where?" Laertes wailed, dropping to his knees.
"There is a willow grows askant the brook that shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream," the Queen began.
Gibbs crawled toward the open door, gesturing for McGee to follow him silently. "C'mon, you find DiNozzo. I'll get Ducky. We got a floater!"