McGee was frozen in fear for a moment... That moment was soon overcome by his sense of responsibility and he fished his phone out to call for an ambulance. He was only comprehending things in spurts. "This is Special Agent Timothy McGee with NCIS! I have an agent down! Requesting an ambulance..." He shouted the address to the dispatcher and explained what he'd discovered.
"Sir, can you tell us how many he might have taken?"
"I...I have no idea!" he told the woman on the line as he looked around the floor, still clinging to Tony. "They're all over the floor...I don't know how many he took..." She was speaking to him, but he couldn't hear her anymore. "I have to go... I have to do something...Have to help him." He ended the call and carried Tony to the bedroom. He laid him on the floor and, with a shaky hand, checked for a pulse.
When he found it, though very weak, he let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
He stood and went to the dresser to retrieve a pair of sweats and a tee shirt, then went back to Tony. He stripped the soaked clothes from his friend and redressed him in the dry items. Not knowing what else to do, he checked his pulse again. It seemed somehow weaker.
"Tony...please don't do this to me." His eyes welled up as he bent down and put his ear over Tony's mouth. He was barely breathing. "Come on, Tony!" he practically screamed as tears dripped from his eyes, and he slapped him hard across the face. But no reaction came. "Oh god...god, I'm sorry, Tony..." He picked him up again and held him as he sat there, waiting for the medics to arrive.
11 00 11 00 11
Abby and Jackson sat in the waiting area, Jack with a large coffee and Abby with a Caf-Pow. They were giving Ziva some time with Gibbs as Ducky explained what all had happened.
The E.R ambulance bay lit up, its red and white lights blinking through the doors and painting the walls inside. Moments later, several EMTs wheeled a gurney in through the double doors and down the hall. They could only see that they were working with a CPR bag over the patients face as they continued, meeting up with doctors. They shouted things to each other as they continued through other doors, disappearing from the haphazard glances of Abby and Jackson.
Their attention was pulled by the second opening of the ambulance bay doors. Through them came McGee, pale as a ghost, his arms wrapped around his middle with a shaky demeanor as he stared blankly at the floor ahead of him.
"McGee?" Abby stood and started toward him as Tim paused in place and turned his body to face her. But he didn't look up at her. "Tim, what's wrong?" she asked as she approached him. She reached a hand out to take his arm, and was shocked to realize he was shaking and cold to the touch. "McGee, what happened?" She took his face in her hands and forced him to look at her. Tears shone in his eyes. It broke her heart. "Oh, Timmy... Come sit." She pulled him to the chair she'd previously occupied and helped him to sit.
"What happened, Tim?" Jackson sat beside him, but McGee found it nearly impossible to begin.
Abby suddenly had a realization as she looked down the hall toward the double doors. "McGee, did you just ride here in that ambulance?" She looked at him again. He curled into himself and began to shake even more. "Oh god, Tim...who-who did they bring in just now? What happened?"
"Ma'am, I need to check him out." One of the medics that had brought the patient in was suddenly beside them. "I believe he's in shock."
"What happened?" Abby asked.
"I'm sorry, but I can't divulge that information at this time."
"Like hell you can't!" She pushed up to stand. "McGee is one of my best friends in the world! You need to tell me what happened to him!"
"Abs, please," McGee whimpered from his seat, and Abby immediately sank to her seat again. "I can't...can't say..."
"Tim?"
"Ma'am, please let me help him," the medic requested. She nodded, a bit dumbfounded. He moved to McGee and assisted him in standing. "Do you know the guy we brought in?" he asked her.
"What? Uh..." She blinked. "What was his name?"
"A uh...DiNozzo, I believe," he told her.
She paled. "Oh god...what happened to him?" Tears filled her eyes.
"I'm not at liberty to say, ma'am, but we're trying to reach his next of kin-"
"His next of kin is here," she told him, "In ICU, unconscious." She moved to help him to walk McGee to an exam room.
"Any immediate family nearby?"
"None," she said. "But we work with him. We're his family," she told him. "His physician is here in the hospital right now!" she exclaimed once it dawned on her. "Ducky...uh...Dr. Donald Mallard. He's in with another patient, Leroy Jethro Gibbs. I can go get him..."
Tbc...