"You stupid fuck!" Gibbs was down the stairs and making headway on an assault charge of his own before two of DC's finest stepped in. "You assault the fucking handicapped?"

"Agent Gibbs?" queried one of the paramedics stooped over DiNozzo.

Panting, Gibbs backed out of the cops' restraining hold. "He's got MS. He's legally blind and partially paralyzed."

"Oh, Christ," murmured one of the men in blue.

"So what the hell did you think you were doing?" Gibbs yelled. He felt a certain satisfaction when the assailant blanched under his gaze.

"Agent Gibbs," the youngest of the pair of EMTs shook Gibbs' shoulder, "I think we need you back here."

"Yeah ... right."

"Gibbs?"

Kate Todd had never seen Gibbs quite look like this – disheveled, a smear of blood streaking one cheek. She was even more shocked when he opened his arms to her, silently burying her face against the nape of his neck when she stepped up into the hug.

"Is Tony--?"

"Oh, God, Kate, no ... I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to think—"

"What happened?"

As if regaining his senses, Gibbs pulled away from her. He ran a still shaky hand through his hair. "I came back to find the front door open and this ... he had to weigh at least two hundred, Kate, and he just laid into him."

"Why?"

"I don't know why." Gibbs gave a swift kick to the plastic waiting room charge. "Goddamn it! I was only gone an hour."

"Anthony DiNozzo's family?"

"That would be me," acknowledged Gibbs, rising slowly from the chair. His knees ached. His neck ached. Hell, his whole body ached.

"You're his...brother?" presumed the physician.

"No, I'm his boss, but I have his power-of-attorney."

"He has no family?"

Gibbs restated his claim. "You're looking at them."

The doctor frowned. "Very well. Anthony was worked over pretty well, but we found no broken bones other than his septum. I want to keep him here a couple of days, though, to control the pain and watch his drug interactions. This may well aggravate his MS."

"Can we see him?"

"He's been sedated, but you're welcome to look in. We're just waiting for a room assignment."

DiNozzo was on a gurney, lined up in the ER hallway with the other waiting patients. They'd cleaned him up, noted Gibbs dully when he reached Tony's side. Kate watched numbly as Gibbs stroked a strong hand through light brown hair occasionally still stiff with blood and betadine.

Okay, so, too often DiNozzo was like the annoying little brother she'd never had and never wanted, but she'd always thought of him as a force, a non-too-subtle vital presence. You were always aware that Tony was there. But in the harsh hospital lighting, he looked frighteningly ethereal, his bruised skin translucent where it wasn't marred purple and black from the capillaries broken by the force of the assault. One bruise spread across the whole left side of his face, transversing a swollen, purpling cheekbone.

She hadn't realized she'd reached out until her fingertips met the cool skin of his cheek.