Note: To the guest reviewer who said you wished I wrote for the show, I thank you. Best compliment I've ever received.

oOoOoOo

Warehouse

The EOD team sent in specialists. Precious, agonizing minutes ticked by as they needed to clear each floor to their satisfaction before letting anyone else enter. Gibbs knew this was standard operation procedure and understood its value. Still, he was on the verge of pulling his weapon and blazing in to search for his agents when the radio crackled and called for the medics.

The ambulance tore past him, and he saw EMTs rush into the building as the radio squawked that there were injured personnel on the fourth floor. Gibbs ran to the building and released a breath he did not realize he was holding. However, upon arriving, he was prevented from entering the building by an MP.

"That's my team," Gibbs insisted as he pointed aggressively at the entrance. "Those are my guys in there."

"I understand, sir, but we need to keep the stairs clear," the man replied holding out a restricting hand. "The structure isn't sound, and we need to get everyone out fast. No one else goes in. Those are my orders, sir."

Gibbs seethed as he stalked back to the ambulance and waited. He dialed Ducky's number instantly and gave him a series of orders that included contacting whoever at the hospital would give him answers quickly once the EMTs arrived with their charges. There was little chance, Gibbs knew, that his guys would be walking out of this one with just a couple scratches. All the window on the upper floor were obliterated by the blast. The crew inside had reported significant structure damage, and the chatter from McGee and Tony upon arriving initially spoke of thousands of candidates for flying shrapnel.

His next order was for Ducky to get to Abby and keep her from hearing the news from anyone else. Despite Gibb's order to base security and leaders to lockdown the base and not release any information at all, there was a chance that news crews would get wind of what happened. He didn't want Abby to learn of an explosion on the base from a TV report that wouldn't be accurate or sufficiently informative. Try as he might to treat all of his colleagues the same, he had a different level of worry for Abby because of her pregnancy. He knew it was chauvinistic, but it didn't matter. He had spoken to McGee about Abby's wellbeing several times, sensing more than normal worry from him and learned the additional complications and high-risk of a twin pregnancy. Pre-term labor, induced by stress, was near the top of the list. Gibbs knew Abby could worry better and more intensely than anyone he ever met. With the life of her husband and her close friend hanging in the balance already, he didn't want to add problems for her unborn children to the mess.

Gibbs also was concerned for Tony's father. DiNozzo Senior was not a young man and worried about his son a great deal more than he ever told Tony. Gibbs swiftly called Bishop and dispatched her to locate Tony's father. Gibbs vowed he would provide the man news as soon as the agents were brought out of the building.

When that happened a few minutes later, Gibbs's hopes that he might offer good news were not high.

oOoOoOo

Portsmith Medical Center

After securing the scene, anointing Cassie Yates as his surrogate agent-on-scene, getting a swift rundown of what appeared to have happened inside the building, and finally briefing Vance from the NCIS field office, Gibbs took off for the hospital. It had been more than two hours since his team was hauled away on stretchers, and the only good news he had on that front was that no one called him with an update to say they were dead.

It seemed the only good news of the day was about the bomb.

Or rather, the bombs.

His team had managed to diffuse the one they found, or short it out more precisely. Gibbs would wait for the full report from the forensics team on how they managed that with a Swiss Army knife and what amounted to two watch batteries. The explosion was small compared to what his agents had predicted and already the crime scene techs knew why: They diffused a large explosive device successfully. However, there was a smaller one, one they did not apparently know about, that was triggered. It appeared the second device was tripped by another timer linked to the first one. When the first one was dismantled, it told the second one to start counting; the estimate placed that timer at no more than 30 seconds.

His agents never had a chance to get out unscathed.

As Tony and McGee attempted to flee the scene, while thinking themselves unbelievably lucky for ducking the reaper's blade, they were just delaying a heart stopping moment. The only good news on that front was that evidence showed they were walking away from the bomb rather than into it. They had reached the stairs when the explosive force of the fireball threw them into the stairwell and dashed them into the walls. The metals walls surrounding the stairs offered some protection from the fire and the shrapnel, but they were burned, bloody and broken when carried from the scene.

Gibbs had heard frantic words like decreased breath sounds, heart palpitations, blood loss, protruding trauma, and possible internal bleeding shouted by EMTs as they had hurried to the ambulance.

Despite initial criticism from the EOD techs that the agents should have never attempted to diffuse the initial device, the later discovery of the second bomb changed that tune. As Gibbs tried to marshal the chaos of the scene while on the phone with Vance, the explosive specialists returned with revised findings and commended Gibbs's team for their quick thinking. They estimated that the unexploded device McGee and Tony diffused would have left a hole the size of tomorrow in area around that end of the pier, likely resulting in an unspeakable casualty tally between the security and NCIS personnel on scene and the proximity to the children's learning and development center next door. The second device, the one that did blow, was smaller and packed less punch. It was apparently a device that was to guarantee the full explosive power of the previous one—a secondary explosion to send any molten shrapnel flying to cause further casualties.

What Gibbs saw of his team when they were put into the ambulance haunted him as he stormed into the ER. It was approaching the two and a half hour mark since they were taken from the scene—nearly three hours since he first called Ducky, although it seemed only mere minutes had passed to him. With a murderous glare that demanded answers (good and helpful ones), Gibbs approached the front desk with his badge leading the way to cut through the "need to know" waltz that happened so often in these locations.

"Someone is going to tell me right now what's going on with two patients brought in here with injuries from an explosion," Gibbs said to the middle aged nurse in front of him. "And that someone better start talking. Now."

She opened her mouth, possibly to cry, but was saved the trouble when someone several inches short and 20 years old than her stepped in.

"Jethro," Ducky hurried to his side breathlessly. "I believe I can help you with that."

Gibbs looked startled upon hearing and seeing the medical examiner so far from the Navy Yard. He did not recall telling Ducky to make a trip to the hospital. Gibbs just wanted him to get answers and translate medical babble into English for him while doing damage control for those left behind in D.C.

"Duck," he turned intensely but gratefully to his colleague and friend. "What are you doing here?"

"Director Vance sent me," he explained. "I am not here to retrieve anyone for my table. I am here to retrieve evidence from the hospital personnel who are treating our patients as your team is decidedly unable to do so and the Norfolk agents are stretched too thin in dealing with the crime scene on the base. The Director wants everything about this event held closely and did not want to bring any else from out office into the know."

Gibbs grunted his displeasure and his agreement. Vance was swiftly clamping down on information, which meant he might have a clue on the identity of the mole. Since the first possibility of one hit the table, Gibb's gut told him it was someone in a support position—not an agent. What Vance's thoughts were, Gibbs did not know. What he did know was that a mole could be deadly, and it appeared the rodent in their midst was proving that. Finding that bastard (or the bitch, he corrected himself) was priority number two. Right now, he needed to know about his team.

"Where are DiNozzo and McGee?" Gibbs asked. "What's their condition?"

Ducky grasped him firmly on the arm and led him down a less crowded corridor then lowered his voice to expel any unnecessary drama and anxiety. Gibbs was an intense man and at no time did that verve grow stronger than when those he cared for were in danger.

"They're alive and still being treated by the trauma teams," Ducky explained. "Anthony has a linear skull fracture in the upper parietal region. He also sustained a compound fracture of the left clavicle. They got the bleeding from that under control and have just taken him into surgery. He needs a metal plate to secure the displaced bone so that it will heal properly. Due to the rupture of the bone through the skin, there was a great deal of blood loss along with the muscle, tendon and ligament involvement. That is in addition to multiple lacerations and some first, second, and even a few small third degree burns. I would estimate he is looking at an 8 to 12 week recovery before he can consider returning to work."

"A skull fracture, a broken collar bone, a few stitches and some burns?" Gibbs repeated and scrubbed a hand across his face.

Painful but survivable, Gibbs told himself with the first hints of grateful relief.

"Yes," Ducky explained. "The collar bone injury is the most serious of the lot. The skull fracture sounds terrible, but it is fortunately a linear break far from a suture so there is little chance of any complications. He will be in pain from the resulting concussion, but so far there is no evidence of significant edema. That is why they feel secure in doing the surgery now."

"I knew that hard head would come in handy someday," Gibbs muttered with some measure of relief.

He nodded and exhaled some of the fear he was holding. None of it was good news, but it certainly could be worse.

"What about McGee?" Gibbs asked, hoping this wasn't the part where worse news was delivered.

"They are still working on Timothy," Ducky sighed. "They were both thrown by the force of the blast. Where Anthony appear to have struck something vertical and flat—a wall perhaps—before tumbling down the stairs, Timothy was thrown into something less uniform. I would guess he struck something like a bar or a railing for the stairs. Part of his chest met the impediment while the rest of the ribcage was left unharmed. As such, he presented with classic blast and blunt force trauma injuries: two broken ribs in this instance that triggered a tension pneumothorax."

"A collapsed lung and a couple busted ribs," Gibbs translated. "That's not so bad, is it?"

"It could have been much worse, but the delay in getting to treatment after the blast was unfortunate if unavoidable," Ducky explained. "As I said, Anthony lost a good deal of blood; he was in shock upon arrival. Timothy's injuries compromised his respiratory integrity. The pressure in his chest cavity went unmitigated sufficiently long that his oxygen levels are down as is his blood pressure, both of which are exacerbated by the resulting tachycardia."

Low oxygen and fast heart rate, Gibbs nodded. Neither detail gave him enough to assess whether this was merely a painful situation or a dangerous one.

"How bad is it?" he asked.

Gibbs had experienced a collapsed lung before and while it wasn't pleasant it was something he walked away from in a matter of days. However, Ducky's expression seemed to indicate McGee would not be walking out of the ER bay anytime soon.

"Individually, the conditions can be easily remedied," Ducky said. "Combined, they pose the risk for serious complications. In worse case scenarios, they can progress, worsen, and cause death, but the doctors are not forecasting such a dire result at this time. Like Anthony, Timothy was actually quite lucky. His fractured ribs did not displace and therefore did not puncture the lung. His spleen is miraculously intact, and there is no evidence of internal bleeding. Right now, the main concern is alleviating the pressure in his chest cavity to allow his lung to re-inflate. The doctor has been attempting fine needle aspiration—that is, he is inserting a needle into Timothy's chest to remove the fluid and escaped air that has caused his lung to collapse. It is not a fast or easy process."

"But that will fix it?" Gibbs guessed.

"It is effective in up to 50 percent of cases," Ducky nodded.

"If it isn't?" Gibbs asked.

"They'll need to insert a chest tube, although they are hesitant to take that route unless absolutely necessary due to Timothy's cardiovascular surgery last year," Ducky revealed. "There is concern that if the pressure is not released in a controlled fashion that it could cause shifting and damage to the mediastinal organs—those that sit in the cavity between the sternum and the spinal column, such as the heart, esophagus, trachea, thymus and the aorta, which is a delicate area for all humans and perhaps more so for Timothy at the moment."

"Heart and the aorta?" Gibbs repeated as words like aortic arch and rupture echoed in his mind from a year earlier.

"They are aware of his cardiothoracic history and the tissue graft he received a year ago—his scars are hard to miss," Ducky assured him. "They are taking great precautions and proceeding in a methodical manner. They conducted an echocardiogram and have consulted with Dr. Westlake, his previous surgeon. She is in agreement with their course of treatment at this time and will be kept apprised as needed."

Ducky surveyed the agent's face and found angst and anger. He saw frustration and a sense of helplessness. He knew Gibbs would rather take the place of both of his agents in that moment and it galled him that there was nothing to do but wait.

"Jethro, I know all of this sounds overwhelmingly dark and dire, but there is great cause for hope," Ducky said encouragingly. "While your teams' injuries are serious, this is a level one trauma center. The medical personnel here are most capable at their jobs. Anthony will be in surgery for a little more than an hour. As for Timothy, they are working diligently and are giving him plenty of oxygen while administering medication to control the tachycardia. By the time Anthony is in recovery, Timothy may be out of the ER and admitted to a room for the night."

"Is McGee awake?" Gibbs asked.

"He was minimally conscious in the ambulance but has since been mildly sedated in order to facilitate the somewhat painful aspiration procedures they are performing," Ducky reported. "When he arrived, he was not oriented as to place or time, but he knew his name and date of birth. Asking more than that given the circumstances would be unrealistic as he has a significant concussion. Still, he was much luckier than Anthony by avoiding a skull fracture. Of the two of them, once they get Timothy's breathing under control, he will be in pain but it will be far less than what Anthony feels by morning."

"They're going to make it until morning?" Gibbs asked.

He feeling a lot like he had when Tony was exposed to the pneumonic plague. Even though they discovered the bug had a suicide gene, the worry was how much damage was done and whether complications would set in despite the biggest threat being taken off the table. Gibbs had lost other colleagues and put one member of his team in a body bag in the past. He wasn't prepared to do that again.

"Yes," Ducky said firmly. "They both will survive. I am virtually certain of it."

"Does Abby know?" Gibbs asked and saw the response on the medical examiner's face. "She's here, isn't she?"

"You could not have realistically expected her to remain in Washington while I traveled here," Ducky remarked sternly. "The last thing she needed to do was drive all this way on her own distraught and upset. Pregnancy is hardly a frailty, but it does present its own challenges. She has already been under considerable stress for the last few days, and I thought it best for her to come with me rather than get here on her own. Besides, she has every right to be here, and I don't think there was a force on the planet that would have stopped her. She is in the waiting room. I made her stop pacing in the hall while I came to find you. Eleanor has contacted Anthony's father. Mr. DiNozzo is in New York visiting friends and will be taking the train back to Washington tonight. I promised I will let him know as soon as Anthony is out of surgery."

Gibbs scrubbed a hand across his face. The news was better than he hoped but worse than he wanted. He would be working through the night in Norfolk to follow up on what was being pulled from the blast site. He suggested Ducky go down the street to reserve a room at the hotel around the corner as he would not be driving back that day. Spry though he might be, at his age driving 400 mile round trip in a single day was ill-advised.

"Oh, I didn't drive," Ducky replied. "I brought in a specialist to get Abigail and myself here swiftly. As for my lodgings, I have my room arranged. I also took the liberty of getting one for Abigail. It would be a good idea of you made sure she used it."

He then gestured to the waiting room. Gibbs took a deep breath and made his way in that direction.

oOoOoOo

Waiting Room

Abby stared unseeingly at the bland, beige, square tiles on the floor. She sat rigidly in the chair where Ducky left her after someone from the ER came out to speak to them and give her the welcomed if unhelpful news that her husband was alive but not ready to head home.

"Hey," Gibbs said taking a seat beside her.

Abby's bottom lip quivered as she saw him. She had kept her composure for the most part since Ducky brought the blood-chilling news of the explosion to her. The drive to Norfolk, one made in record time according to Ducky, was a blur to her as she recalled nothing after being brought to her house to grab a few necessary items prior to departing along the road south at an incredible speed. She had stared out the windows not taking in anything she saw as her fears, so similar to a year earlier, boiled in her stomach and struck her silent. Falling apart or flying apart both seemed like possibilities to her, but she knew she needed to hold herself together until she had the full story. After that, she would make phone calls for McGee's mother, sister, and grandmother.

And after that, she would give herself free reign to flip out and fall to pieces.

But upon seeing Gibbs, the flood of tears she had held back surged to the surface and burst over her lids as he put his arm around her. He kissed the side of her head and held her as she shook from her sobs.

"He's going to be okay," he said with more confidence that he felt. "They both are."

"Why did this happen?" she wept.

"Don't know yet," Gibbs said. "I don't want you worrying about that either. We've got people who will figure that out. How are you feeling?"

"I'm scared," she said tightly. "I know what the doctor said. I just wish they had a better update than critical but stable. I keep going to the desk to see if there is any change, but every time I do someone there asks me how far apart the contractions are. Today, my ego doesn't need to hear that I look nine months pregnant already. What's worse is that after they ask, I have to spend five minutes explaining to them that I'm not here to give birth and make them find someone who knows what's going on back there. I swear if it happens again, I'm going to tell them I'm not even pregnant and start to…"

Gibbs chuckled at the absurdity, cutting off her rant, as he gave her a one-armed hug. She fell silent and shuddered as she rested her head on his shoulder.

"Let them do their jobs," he told her. "Ducky says what the doctor is doing to fix McGee usually works, and if doesn't they'll try the other thing that does. I know waiting is hard, but McGee is going to walk out of this hospital sore but under his own power in a day or two."

She sniffled and nodded. Ducky had told her the same thing. It was the waiting that was agonizing. She was tired, beginning to feel queasy. She was too afraid something would happen if she left the waiting room to go find a vending machine to eat something to stave off her sick feelings. She wasn't sure if they were from an empty stomach or her anxiety. Either way, she was feeling as green as he walls in the waiting room.

"You are not staying here tonight," Gibbs commanded. "There's a hotel on the corner, and Ducky already got you a room. Going there to rest isn't a suggestion."

"I'm not leaving until I know Tim's okay—Tony, too," she insisted. "He's in surgery."

"I know," Gibbs said. "The doctors and nurses are here to take care of them. You're the only one who can take care of your two hitchhikers."

"I know, but…," she began.

"No buts, Abby," Gibbs said. "I mean it. As soon as they put McGee in a regular room, you are going to the hotel. Your babies need you now more than McGee does."

"They need me for me to know that their father is going to be around to meet them," her voice cracked as she tried to swallow a sob. "I still need to call his family."

"I'll take care of that," Gibbs offered. "We're keeping a tight hold on releasing any information right now so it's best not to talk to anyone right now."

"Why?" she sniffled. "Does this have to do with whatever happened at my house? Tim wouldn't tell me anything. We were supposed to talk tonight, but…"

Gibbs sighed and weighed his words carefully. He suspected he was the only person involved in the case at the moment who knew all the pieces and where they fit. It was a tricky situation telling Abby anything. The evidence they were collecting would go through her lab and her husband was one of the centerpieces of the investigation.

"It's an ongoing investigation," Gibbs said. "Need-to-know, Abby. Right now, you need to know that McGee will be okay and that you will be going to lay down pretty soon. As for the rest of it, I'll let you know when there is something I can tell you. Okay?"

Abby sniffled and nodded. She never liked the compartmentalized aspect of her job. Not knowing the whole picture made understanding the picture difficult; however, she also understood why withholding information was sometimes necessary. She just never liked it.

After a few moments or respectable contemplative silence, Gibbs began to shift into working mode again.

"Abby?" Gibbs asked in a calculated tone. "Which of your techs do you trust the most?"

"What?" she wiped her eyes and looked at him oddly. "With what? They are each qualified, but they each have their strengths."

Gibbs shook his head.

"Trust," he repeated. "If you had to trust one of them with your life, with McGee's and Tony's lives, to figure something out and keep it quiet. Who would you choose?"

The answer came to her in a snap and surprised her, but the rapidity of the response told her that was what her gut thought. Seeing as it was Gibbs asking, her gut was the leading authority on this. Others might pause and disagree with her choice. The one who came to mind was the most difficult personality and the least easy to like. He was the outsider, the one who came to NCIS from a college where he spent the first half of his career teaching forensics. He was not enamored with agents and actually disliked a few of them. He was not user friendly and bristled at most people. He was whiny and persnickety and edgy when things did not go according to a proscribed order. Almost no one liked working with him—not even Abby somedays—but at the end of the day she trusted him without question.

"Larry," she said.

She did not get a chance to ask further questions as Gibbs kissed her cheek and said Ducky would be in to sit with her in a moment.

oOoOoOo

MTAC

Vance stood in front of the big screen facing the lead agent at the Norfolk Field Office, Cassie Yates, and Gibbs. Both looked as weary as the director felt. He had spent an hour with Sec Nav explaining the need to not release any information regarding the explosion and what the agency hoped to gain for leverage by doing so. It was a gamble, but from what the forensic techs were telling him, it was a risk they needed to take.

"So we've seen this signature before," Yates remarked after Vance explained the findings on the bombs thus far. "It's Russian made?"

"More like a Russian made it," Vance said. "Yuri Brusilov is a former Captain in the Russian army—a leading member of their EOD equivalent. According to Interpol, he hung his shingle out for private contract work five years ago. He's a favorite among the cartels in South America for thinning out the competition."

"Doesn't tell us who bought or placed the devices," Gibbs said. "Whoever did it had access to the Norfolk base."

"That's a lot of people to check," Yates whistled lowly as she nodded.

There were over 1500 Navy personnel and more than 8,000 civilians who had some sort of access to the base at any given time.

"Well, at least one of them knew Lt. Commander Scott was using the warehouse space as his home base," Vance said. "The going theory right now is that the devices were placed there after he was taken into NCIS custody. That changes the motivation behind the explosion."

Gibbs sighed. Scott wasn't the target. He was not expected to return after his capture—either because he would be held in NCIS custody or the masterminds behind this had a plan to eliminate him while in custody.

"The explosions were either to destroy his base of operations and whatever evidence he collected or to kill whoever came to collect it," Yates offered.

"Or both," Gibbs said.

"I'm inclined to agree," Vance said.

"What's your feeling on going a step further?" Gibbs asked. "What if we let them believe they were successful for part of it and that we've got them on the other?"

Vance narrowed his eyes in confusion.

"You've lost me," he said.

"It's time to bring someone in for questioning," Gibbs said. "We know his weakness. We know this attack was probably aiming to hit whoever walked in rather than a specific person—but he doesn't have to know that. He also doesn't have to know we lost whatever evidence Lt. Commander Scott gathered. He's the weak link here. Time to exploit that."

"The first domino to topple," Vance nodded. "He may not be in this hemisphere, but even if he is, how to you propose getting him to come in without arousing suspicion?"

Gibbs smiled in a way that concerned him. It was never good when the man grinned.

"Haven't you ever gone deep sea fishing?" Gibbs asked cryptically rather than respond directly.

oOoOoOo

Portsmith Hospital—Room 312

McGee became aware of a voice, sorrowful but indecipherable, speaking somewhere near him. As he strained to listen more closely, as a sharp, piercing sensation along his chest slowly forced his eyes open. A cacophony of sounds assaulted his ears as they warped and blended together. When he finally pried his eyes open, he was breathless from the effort and the weight on his chest. He looked around the dim room and recognized nothing.

His head was hammering, his throat felt like he'd swallowed broken glass, and his vision was blurry. His head was filled with such confusion. As he tried to focus on the room, he determined it wasn't his bedroom (the precise details of which he was having a hard time remembering as it was). He thought he might have been shot. That seemed somehow familiar.

His next thought was of Abby; although, the precise reason for the thought was hazy. There was something about an argument floating just out of reach in his mind. He could vaguely recall something about him mentioning Burt and her getting angry that kept bobbing up in his thoughts.

Wait, he told himself, that wasn't recently. That was a long time ago. She's not with Burt. She's with me. We're married.

To reassure himself, he stroked his thumb along the underside of his ring finger to touch the wedding band.

Only, there was nothing there.

He raised his hand and squinted at it to verify, but found nothing on the digit except a large bruise.

His mind whirled frantically as his heart began to race.

You didn't imagine all that, he told himself slightly fearful that he had. It was real, not a dream. We're married and we're going to have a family. Right?

He tried to clear the cobwebs in his head but found just more darkness and confusion. When he tried to shake his head to toss out the panicky feelings, he found a new world of pain and nausea as everything spun around and tipped sideways. He became aware of a tube of some sort snaked along his face near his nose. Reflexively he tried to pull it out.

"McGee, be still," a voice said calmly as he felt a small but strong hand on his forearm stopping his efforts to remove the annoying tube. "You must leave that in place for now."

He dropped his hand and squinted into the darkness to find her face. He instantly knew the voice, slightly accented and rigidly commanding. He had not expected to hear it, but he felt a sense of instant calm upon registering it. Whatever had happened was bad, but he was not in fear for his safety. He obviously had one of the best damn bodyguards on the planet watching over him.

"Ziva," McGee said dryly with relief. "You're here."

"Of course," she replied. "Are you in pain?"

"Uh, yes or… no, I don't know," he said wearily. "What happened?"

"You were hurt," she said simply. "The details do not matter right now. You need to rest so that you will heal quickly."

McGee swallowed painfully as he tried for focus on her face but found he could not. The edges of his vision was too cloudy.

"Where am I?" he asked.

"In the hospital," Ziva replied unhelpfully.

"Is Abby here?" he wondered, feeling an ach in his chest, like some perfect dream was slipping away too fast.

"No," Ziva replied. "It is late. She is sleeping."

She offered the information to settle his mind. He was agitated and confused about where he was and why. Giving him reason to worry about his wife seemed ill-advised. Ziva figured telling him she was comfortably resting would settle him.

McGee heard the answer and crumbled. His head was so warped that he could not make sense of anything. Ziva, he thought, was in Israel. He did not recall going to Israel. He had a vague recollection of going overseas and ending up in a gun battle, but that seemed outlandish, like something out of book he might write.

Then again, he wondered, was any more outlandish than think he had married Abby and they were going to be parents?

The mist in his brain was growing thicker as the heartbreak he felt for the foolishness of his dream pressed down on him. He tried to make sense of where he was and why but the more he struggled to find the answer, the more confused and tired he felt. He had been with someone when he got hurt. He was sure of it. He just could not recall who. Seeing Ziva at his bedside made him wonder if it was Tony, but he did not see or hear Tony. The last time he recalled working with Ziva without Tony was when they were looking for Elan Bodner. That seemed to have been long ago, yet as the pull of unconsciousness yanked hard on McGee's thoughts he wondered if it was more recent than he realized.

As his eyes dropped shut again, Ziva stood over the bed for a few moments more. Her former teammate had an impressive black eye and several other smaller bruises along his cheek and chin. There were bandages on his arm covering several fresh burns and small stitched spots where razor sharp fragments of metal tore into his flesh during the blast. She pulled the curtain separating the two beds in the room and peered at the other occupant.

Tony was asleep as well. His slumber was medically induced from a shot of painkillers dripping at regular intervals into his IV. He, too, was a patchwork of scratches, bruises and burns. In addition to those, his arm was immobilized to keep him from pulling out the stitches from his surgery and to keep the area from being pulled apart yet again. His complexion was wan and dull from the blood loss and trauma he experienced. He looked frozen and feeble laying in the bed so motionless.

"It was very noble and very foolish what you did today," Ziva said softly to both men. "You are lucky you are in the hospital. Otherwise, I believe Gibbs would hit you both sufficiently hard to place you here himself."

She had been at the hospital within two hours of hearing the news. Ducky summoned her, pleading for assistance in getting Abby to Norfolk swiftly. The drive was easy. Two hundred miles of paved interstate was a simple drive; although, she admitted to herself she did most of it on auto pilot. Abby's dread was palpable in the car. Ziva could nearly taste it—along with her own bitter fear. They knew only that Tony and McGee were at ground zero when a bomb went off, and that they were alive when they reached the hospital. Anything more than that during the drive was pure speculation.

Upon arriving, they received the news of their conditions and their prognosis. While Ducky had tended to Abby, trying to make her sit and remain as calm as possible, Ziva had wandered away. Being so far from these people for so long had convinced her that she was an invincible nomad again—someone who needed no one and could live without close ties.

But she knew now that was a lie. There would always be a bond with these people—her team most especially. McGee was a dear friend, someone she contemplated losing a year earlier to great heartache. Tony was…

Tony.

Like herself, she had come to think of him as impervious to the dangers of the world. He was like Teflon. He could slid out of any sticky situation.

Or so she thought until that day.

What he was, she now realized, was simply lucky. A man, like many others, who was adept at assessing a situation and making the best of it. He was strong and capable and clever, but he was also mortal. If what Gibbs said the forensics report showed was accurate, two more seconds and two strides were the difference that day between Tony just needing surgery to fix a broken bone and Tony having his spine and kidneys shredded by shrapnel and dying almost instantly.

Her throat tightened as her heart clenched at the thought of how close he had come this time to…

"I should kill you myself," she said softly without the harsh sentiment the words indicated. "Life is not a movie, Tony. Danger is real and you will not always be so lucky."

That last part was what bothered her most. Sure, seeing him bruised and broken was difficult, but his pulse was steady and strong. The problem was that this could happen again. Considering the state of the world and the focus of his career, it was bound to happen again. The evils of the world far outnumbered the good in it. Her father taught her that. She never wanted to believe it, but looking at her teammate, her friend, her… partner laying in the bed ravaged by the vileness that walked the planet, she knew her father was right.

What she did not know was whether she could stick around to watch it continue. Being many hours away with no reason to see or speak to Tony made pushing him from her mind easier.

She sighed and pulled a chair closer to his bed, occasionally stealing a peek at McGee to verify he was sleeping once again. The anguish on Abby's face that day shook Ziva to her core. She knew the couple adored each other, but seeing the pain in her eyes at the mere thought that the man she loved was suffering struck Ziva silent. That was what love looked like; it was pain, a kind of pain you sought out and clung to because the only thing that hurt worse than feeling that pain was the terrible thought of not feeling it.

What worried her more than Abby's anxiety was her own. What she saw in Abby's expression, Ziva also felt in her own heart.

Of course, that fact alone gave her a host of other reasons to worry. She recalled that previously she needed to isolate herself in a desert to thrust Tony from her mind. She also knew that even the slightest reminder kept him beating strongly in her heart.

oOoOoOo

Squad Room

Bishop kept her head propped up on her elbow as her lids grew heavy. As the only member of the team at the Navy Yard, a lot of that day's legwork had fallen to her. It was hard enough being in four different places at once (the squad room to do the research Gibbs requested, the lab to check for results, the cyber unit to check on any updates they located while trawling for any uptick in chatter about Norfolk, and the director's office to brief him on all of that). She was about to fall headlong into a coma when someone placed a cup of coffee on her desk.

She was expecting to see Palmer but instead spied a middle aged man wearing a trench coat and going bald on the top.

"Agent Fornell," she blinked and shook herself awake. "Gibbs isn't here."

"I know," he said. "We just talked. I'm here to see you."

"Okay," she nodded. "What can I do for you?"

He smiled in a way that reminded her of Gibbs—the grin that worried everyone because you didn't know what it meant other than you weren't going to like what came next.

"Take a ride with me," the FBI agent said. "Did you eat dinner? I'm starving. Do you mind if we grab a bite along the way?"

As he spoke, he moved toward the elevator and motioned for her to follow. Puzzled but willing to cooperate, Bishop grabbed her bag and started after him. When she arrived, the elevator door had just opened.

"Have you ever been to Duval County, Florida?" he asked.

"Uh, no," she shook her head as they stepped into the elevator. "What's in Duval County?"

Fornell snorted his mirth as the doors slid closed and he continued to grin.

"For starters, there's Little Talbot Island State Park, the Timucaun Ecological and Historic Preserve, Pumpkin Hill Creek Preserve, Neptune Beach and, of course, the Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Shangri-La."

Bishop covered a yawn as she blinked in confusion.

"Roosevelt and Shangri-La?" she questioned. "I don't understand. Are you going to Florida? Because the last time I checked, FDR is dead and buried in New York, and Shangri-La isn't real."

Fornell chuckled and shook his head. He looked at her pityingly.

"I am going to Florida," he offered. "You happen to be coming with me. As for what's there and what's not, you need to do a little more homework. Your two partners might be laid up in the hospital, but I'd be willing to be they both know about the Roosevelt and Shangri-La."

Bishop scrunched her brow and tried to force out the cobwebs. Tony and McGee had drastically opposite fields of expertise and outside interests. Tony was intrigued by film, pop culture, sports, and jazz music. McGee was a science and technology junky with an abiding interest in online gaming. The one thing they had in common was their jobs. Therefore, if those clues were something both Tony and McGee knew, then it involved the office most likely. Before Bishop could root around in her mind further to find the connection, Fornell sighed and let her off the hook.

"They're aircraft carriers, Bishop," he said. "Both have at least two things in common that interest us tonight: First, both are moored at the home port of Mayport, Florida."

She nodded.

"Which is in Duval County," she guessed and received a smile in return.

"One is the current location and the other is the anticipated location of a man we are going to escort back with us," Fornell continued. "We are not arresting him. We are not detaining him, technically. We are going to convince him to help you with the investigation into the terrible tragedy that occurred today."

Her ears perked at the description. The blast was terrible, but from what she heard in her talks with those in Norfolk looking into the matter directly and from Ducky who was reporting her teammates were on the mend, the words everyone was using were miraculous and heroic. She told as much to Fornell.

"Uh huh," he nodded and grinned again. "Terrible tragedy. Agents' lives hanging by a thread, on the brink of death."

"But…," Bishop began only to receive a wag of Fornell's finger.

"From here on out, it is a tragedy and our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those two brave souls who are not expected to see the morning's light," he said in a convincingly solemn voice. "Don't worry. Gibbs is going to explain it all to you. He's meeting us in Jacksonville in the morning."

oOoOoOo

A/N: More to come.