Chapter 21

Abby's eyes fluttered open as she fought the scream welling in her chest from her nightmare. Heart racing with remnants of fear from the dream, she slowly disentangled herself from Ziva as she made to get up.

The scene that greeted her upon gently moving off the bed and standing up made her almost forget about the nightmare she had just had, almost.

Abby's heart fluttered for an entirely different purpose as she realized Tony must have woken while she was sleeping. He was rolled over on his side, arm out towards where she and Ziva were sleeping and hand relaxed across Ziva's hip.

When Abby stood up, no longer supporting Ziva from behind, she watch as her friend rolled to her back, hand sliding from where it had been on Tony's upper arm to his forearm.

Her fingers moved across Tony's arm. Even in sleep it was as if the fingers were trying to adjust to the change from smooth skin to the tickle of little hairs and settled after a brief moment.

As Ziva shifted to her back, Tony's hand slid off her hip, but he adjusted it, splaying his fingers across Ziva's stomach, her shirt blocking his digits. He seemed to register the change from skin to fabric in his sleep and his fingers brushed gently back and forth twice before all 5 digits were on bare skin, thumb moving absently for another moment before he seemed to slip back to a full deep sleep.

Abby was pretty sure they would both kill her upon waking in this position, but she just shrugged, it was kinda cute. She had never figured either one as a cuddler, but as a scientist she had to accept the facts in evidence.

If it weren't for the 2-inch gap between the hospital beds, she was sure they would probably have gravitated the whole way into each others arms.

She had always thought their bickering was already like an old married couple, the cute type that had been together for 50 years and still smiled into the others eyes like they were teenagers on a first date. But she knew neither was really interested in the other on more personal levels, for oh so many reasons. She had nudged and hinted once, OK half a dozen times or so, but they were both adamant.

Which is why waking up actually in the type of precarious position a bed with no gaps would have caused would clearly end with her even more dead than she was already going to be for pushing the two beds this close.

Abby's eyes flickered back as the movement of Tony's hand started again before stilling and she had the sudden thought of angry crescent shapes in skin on Tim's hand earlier.

She reached for her phone, knowing she couldn't call him because of the impending op, but feeling it in her hand and willing it to ring. She had just grabbed her Caf-Pow!, now well past warm when the phone in her hand lit up and sang out. The sudden noise surprised her enough that she almost dropped the drink. She answered the phone quickly saying "Hang on." and watch as Tony and Ziva's hands both stroked across the others skin before settling again.

She stepped out into the hall and told McGee to go on. He sounded out of breath and there was a strained note in his voice "We're on our way back to the hospital. We got them, Abby. We got the bastards."

"What aren't you telling me."

Tim's breathing was heavy in her ear and she starting talking absently about crank phone calls with heavy breathing, but then Gibbs came on the line and she was surprised out of the errant thought.

"He can't talk right now."

Her heart was thudding in her chest, but she couldn't get any words out. Not Tim, too. "What's going on, Gibbs."

"Everything is fine." his calm tone reassured her, because Gibbs knew better than to lie to her, especially about something important. "How are Tony and Ziva?"

Abby felt herself relax against the wall outside their room. If Gibbs was asking about the others he wasn't in any kind of life or death situation with McGee. "Tony woke up."

"What's the damage?"

She heard the tightness in his voice, the tension of the moment seemed to seep straight through the phone lines, "I don't know, but he was awake and now he's asleep again."

"What do you mean you don't know? Did he say anything, how's his memory?"

"I don't know, I wasn't awake when he woke up. I know he did, because coma people don't roll around in their sleep."

"It's alright, Abby, we'll work it out when we get there."

"How long?"

"Should be there in five." just the barest facts and nothing more. She knew he was hiding something.

"Tell me what's going on, Gibbs."

There was a long silence and she could imaging the two men on the other side of the line having a silent conversation, so she just waited for them to come to some kind of agreement.

"Meet us in Emergency."

This time the drink fell out of her hands, visions of the dream coming back to her before she could register that she really had spoken with McGee just a moment before so he couldn't be dead, not possible.

Then the drink hit the ground and sticky mess splattered all over the ground as the contents of the cup burst free.

A couple of nurses, hearing the commotion rushed in her direction before setting up a perimeter of orange cones and calling maintenance to come clean up the spill.

Hand shaking, Abby finished the call and headed downstairs. She was waiting outside when Gibbs pulled up and she saw Tim's face immediately. He was literally covered in blood.

It didn't look like it was spilling out of him at a very quick rate, but nonetheless it was leaving a mess across his face and shirt, leaving her to wonder why neither had bothered to do anything to stop the bleeding.

"What the hell are you thinking?" she asked as she grabbed a handkerchief from her pocket, pressing it against the largest gash along his forehead.

"Tried, Abs." Gibbs said with a shrug.

"I'm fine, Abby, it's just a couple of scratches." he had that smile in his voice that said he would be humoring her the overprotective mother hen clucking, but it was not necessary.

She gave him a glare as she applied more pressure than needed to the wound, and watched him wince. "If you could see yourself, you'd disagree."

She turned on her heel and led the way back into the hospital emergency room, her brain vaguely registering that Tim took the kerchief to hold on his head with his non-dominant left hand while his right arm was pulled protectively into his chest..

As she and McGee sat in the plastic chairs to wait for Tim to be called back from the waiting room, Gibbs hovered.

"You gonna be alright, Tim?"

"Yeah, go ahead, Boss."

Gibbs looked to Abby and it took her a moment to realize he wanted to know where to find his other agents.

She gave him the room number, but it wasn't until he was gone that she realized she probably should have told him what to expect and explained her hand in the situation, but it was too late and she felt herself sliding down in her seat as if she were trying to hide inside the sturdy plastic.

Tim was looking at her for a moment, intently and waiting for her to reveal what she had done to try to hide with a guilty look on her face. Fortunately before he actually asked and she had to explain a nurse called him in to a room.

Tim answered the nurse's questions about symptoms and injuries, explaining what happened as Abby sat there next to him, struck into silence as he explained. Multiple gunshots, splintered wood embedded in his flesh and what he suspected was a broken hand. But it wasn't the revelation of each injury that had her watching him with extreme pride and a hint of wonder, it was the sequence of events.

The nurse asked him to get changed into a hospital gown and she would be back shortly. Abby was going to leave him, but noticed after the windbreaker slipped off and to the ground that he was struggling with the remaining garments.

Abby moved to him immediately and, ignoring the hesitation in Tim's eyes she carefully went to work. She pulled the Velcro tabs securing his vest and carefully maneuvered it off his injured body.

She went to work on the buttons of his shirt, making sure the two at his cuffs were undone before slipping the shirt carefully off his shoulders and down past his hands.

Tim winced as the fabric moved across his injured hand and Abby couldn't stop her own grimace. She hated being the one to hurt him. Perhaps she should just cut the clothes off, so she didn't have to contend with his injuries.

She had, apparently, been standing there in silence for too long, because Tim gave her a little smile and raised his arms in the air to signal her to remove his undershirt. She complied on instinct, fingers gingerly grabbing the hem of his shirt and carefully moving the fabric up and over his head. She watched intently to make sure his broken hand made it through the hole of the shirt without much jarring.

Once her eyes settled on his torso, she couldn't stop the gasp that spilled from her mouth or the tears that instantly sprang to her eyes. Her vision, blurred by the fresh tears, couldn't take in his injuries anymore, but the second she had spotted them they were burned into her brain.

She blinked back the tears, setting her shoulders with determination she re-examined the injuries, trying to pull in her analytical brain and block out, as much as she could, who this was that she was examining.

There were four distinct welts on his skin, each red and raised, about the size of a quarter. What was most alarming, however was that each of the welts had a bruise formulating between the size of a baseball and a softball. The one low on his chest, left of center in the softer tissue of his abdomen had a softball sized bruise forming and just above and to the right of that was another, the following two were also above and to the right of the last.

"They had automatic weapons?"

Tim nodded, not sure what she was seeing as the tears dissipated from her eyes and she fixed him with a look as her scientist brain kicked into full gear.

"The shooter was not used to the weapon, not sure of or comfortable with firing it."

"They looked really comfortable from where I was standing."

Abby just shook her head. "This angle looks like the kick of the weapon brought their aim up slightly each time a bullet fired."

She made a little gun out of her hands and pointed to each shot. "These are almost straight up your body, it wasn't a normal spraying of bullets by anyone comfortable with their automatic weapon, each shot higher than the last."

Abby pointed at the last shot, her hand shaking ever so slightly until Tim capture the shaking digits in his good hand and gave a gentle squeeze.

"I'm okay, Abby."

She leaned forward and gently kissed above the highest welt, the one that was near his collar bone and when she spoke she found she couldn't look up from that spot. "A quarter inch, Timmy."

He looked at her with a puzzled expression, but she really didn't want to say what was swirling in her mind, so she broke out old faithful. The look she would always give Tim to get him to stop trying to pry information out of her.

He didn't relent or back down and she noted a new sense of settled resolve and determination. Apparently, after going all Rambo, he was no longer afraid of speaking his mind or pushing the issues with her.

She ducked her head and whispered, "A quarter inch to the left and you would have bled out in two minutes."

xoxo

Gibbs was glad that Abby had stayed with Tim. He already felt terrible leaving his agents alone in the hospital with only one person to take turns visiting with them. He didn't want to do that to McGee, too.

Gibbs knew first hand that neither Tony nor Ziva appreciated being stuck in bed, and would already be growing tired of distracting themselves when there was so little to do in a hospital. He would be surprised if they weren't already climbing the walls.

Having to share the distracting attention of a single person had to be frustrating both of them and he was ready to tell them that someone would be able to stay with them at all times now that they had mostly wrapped up the case.

There were still some finishing touches and an interrogation to run, but they had caught the little bastards and now they could take turns making rounds between here and the police department.

Gibbs was lost in thought as he reached the room number Abby had given him. He wondered absently which one's room this was. Knowing Abby it was whoever she had left most recently, she was more than a little distracted with McGee at the moment.

Gibbs turned the door handle and walked into the dimly lit room. What he was expecting was anything but what he actually saw on stepping fully into the room.

His two agents were lying on their own hospital beds, but the two were pushed together, making them more like a single large bed. A single large bed that they were both snuggled together on.

Ziva's hand was on Tony's arm, Tony's arm around Ziva, resting with way too much familiarity and comfort across bare skin on the female agent's stomach.

Gibbs took in the scene in a fraction of a second and his stern voice as he snapped, "What the hell is this?" set off a chain reaction.

As he watched the two agent's eyes popped open.

From their positions on the bed, facing each other, their eyes locked for a fraction of a second as if both trying to figure out what had startled them awake.

As if realizing at the exact same moment they both quickly pulled back their hands from each other and immediately sat to greet their boss, who was standing angrily near the feet of their beds.

It all happened in the space of seconds and then, as if choreographed, each let loose a strangled cry as extreme pain shadowed their faces and they fell back against their pillows with twin groans of anguish.

Gibbs noted the rapid beating their hearts registered on the machines they were each hooked to and the ragged breathing meant to control the pain each was feeling.

Ah, Hell. He thought, as he turned back around and stormed out of the room.

xoxo

A/N: I may have jumped the gun on saying only a couple chapters left. Looks like there will be a couple more than that, because I have some case stuff, some down time and to get them all back to the bullpen so I can put them all back where I got them from..

Haven't heard too much from you guys lately, wondering if there are more then 2 people still reading or even enjoying this? I hope so. Wouldn't want to disappoint.