Chapter 2: Have You Got My Back.

Gibbs was speaking to the police sergeant who was currently the highest ranking of the local law enforcement that had arrived to help secure the scene. He was briefing him on what was expected, his back to the car, when Kate's agitated call cut short the exchange. He turned abruptly, catching the merest glimpse of Kate as she ducked back down. He stared, his brain processing the implications of her actions and the meaning of her comment. Damn! Tony was hurt and he had missed it. He should have known. . . . No, he wouldn't allow himself to get away with that, he did know that something was wrong; he just hadn't wanted to believe it. The relief at seeing Tony alive had obliterated all other considerations. He moved hurriedly across and yanked open the passenger door.

Kate was trying hard to get Tony's attention but he was still worryingly unresponsive. "Tony?"

No reaction.

"Tony you've been hurt." Kate tried unsuccessfully to make eye contact, moving her head into Tony's line of sight. "Can you tell us what happened?"

Gibbs began to climb into the car and froze, a softly spoken expletive dropping from suddenly dry lips. From this side the open wound could be clearly seen, a gash cut deep into the side of Tony's neck, following the collar line. Blood soaked the side of his shirt, streaking down the light-coloured fabric of the bench seat between them. Why the hell had Tony told him he wasn't hurt? Why hadn't he checked?

Tony still showed no sign that he had heard Kate. She looked up worriedly.

Gibbs met her gaze, forced to acknowledge the truth of the situation.

Shooting White had pushed Tony over the edge, over the line that his own moral code, his own psyche, could deal with. He had seen this happen before, in combat, in peacetime, it didn't matter. It was the response to an intense psychological ordeal, and the trigger depended solely on the individual. Sometimes the mind just hit the point of overload; sometimes there was no turning back. Something in what Tony had experienced had caused him to hit that point. Gibbs stared at him. How close had Tony come to dying? How close had he been to failing in his assertion that he wasn't going to let Tony screw up his record of not losing an agent undercover? Tony seemed oblivious to his surroundings, oblivious to the fact that he was hurt. Why had he formed such an attachment to White that killing him had triggered this sort of response? The questions tripped over each other, stealing his focus.

It took him a moment to realise that Kate was talking to him. "How bad is it?" she asked.

"He's lost a lot of blood," he stated, "I need something to put pressure on the wound."

Kate pulled off her scarf and handed it to him. He took it and pressed the cloth onto Tony's neck, trying hard to get an angle that would push the skin together, but it was in an awkward position; he pressed harder, knowing that he was causing pain, but he had no choice, he had to try to stop the blood loss.

To this point Tony had been completely unaware of the pain. His mind fighting an internal battle, as he struggled to come to terms with what he had been forced to do; it had been too close, too personal. He had allowed his emotions to take over, never a good idea, and, under the enforced, intense closeness of the last two days, almost fatal. He had told Jeffrey that he had his back. Not just empty words to someone in his profession. It was a phrase, an assertion you had to believe in, you for your partner, your partner for you. Your life, their life, literally depended on it. When you said it you had to mean it, and he had. When he'd said it to Jeffrey he had meant it, and then. . .then he'd shot him, killed him, killed his partner, his friend. . .no. . .that wasn't right; Jeffrey was a criminal, a thief, probably a murderer. . .but they'd been so close, Jeffrey was so vulnerable, just like. . .

Reality broke through in intermittent flashes. His thoughts painfully slow or lightning fast as he responded. He saw Gibbs, verbalised his thoughts, then Gibbs was gone and Kate was there, or maybe it had been Kate all along, he wasn't sure. He wasn't capable of more than stating the thought in his mind at that time, snatching the different memories and emotions as they drifted past.

Then there was the pain, sharp lancing pain. Someone was stabbing something into the side of his neck, pressing hard. He let out a startled moan, clamping his teeth together, whilst simultaneously trying to suck a deep breath though them; his eyes closed tightly as his stomach flipped. The wave of nausea, washed over him and he had to swallow hard.

He forced his eyes to open, expecting to see White staring down at him, knife in hand, telling him. 'Everything was going to be better now.' Instead he saw Gibbs. Gibbs was hurting him? Why would. . .?

"Gibbs I. . ." he drew in another deep breath. "Did I screw it up?"

Kate winced, the voice sounded so weak, so insecure, it was doubly unsettling coming from her normally brash partner. She looked across at Gibbs, catching for the briefest of moments the vulnerability in his own reaction before he covered it. Whether he was prepared to admit it aloud or not Gibbs was as worried as she was.

"No, Dinozzo, you did not screw it up." Gibbs stated firmly.

Tony gave a short sigh of relief, some of the tension relaxing from his muscles. That was good; he hadn't let Gibbs down, then why. . .? He tried to turn his head to see if it really was Gibbs that was causing the intense pain stabbing into his neck. The action was a mistake; a white flash of pain wiped all thoughts. He closed his eyes against a bright intensity that wasn't there, his breathing speeding up as tensing muscles drew more oxygen, but the short shallow breaths did no good, triggering a panic response that would have started a downwards spiral; except for the calm cool voice, close to his ear, telling him to relax, telling him to ride it out, to breathe slowly, deeply. He obeyed the quiet commanding tones, drawing in deep breaths until he could open his eyes again, as the pain settled to more manageable levels.

"That's good Tony," Gibbs stated. "Stay with us now."

He felt someone squeeze his hand and turned his gaze to meet Kate's. She smiled at him, but she wasn't fooling him, he could see the deep lines of concern that furrowed her brow, could see it in her eyes. "Hey Kate," he said, forcing his own tired smile. "You were worried about me weren't ya?"

Relief flooded through Kate at the normalcy of the question, for a moment she had her partner back. "Not for a second," she lied unconvincingly. "To be worried would imply that I care Tony." She forced a lightness into her tone, desperately needing the reassuring banter that would signal that her partner was all right.

Tony closed his eyes and swallowed, opening them again. "Oh you care Kate, I know." There was the briefest of pauses. "You've always got my back."

The words hit Kate hard; this time she hadn't. This time they had lost him. For almost a day they had always been one step behind. They had put him with, no, chained him to, a serial killer, leaving him alone and vulnerable. They hadn't had his back at all. She tried to word a reply, tried to stop the tears that were welling in her eyes, even as she watched his eyes cloud with confusion again. The moment of lucidity lost to whatever physical and mental pain it was that kept dragging him away from them.

Gibbs had pulled out his cell again, struggling to open it, and hit the speed dial with one hand, as he kept pressure on the wound with the other. "Abby, find out what's holding up that ambulance." He stated tersely.

If it had been anyone other than Gibbs, Abby might have picked up from the tightly controlled tone that there was something wrong, but this was Gibbs.

"Sure thing," she said, moving to her keyboard and beginning to type. "OK, it looks like there was a big MVA on the freeway just south of you, multiple trauma's, most of the units are tied up with that. You were lucky to get the police out to you as quickly as they did, if they hadn't just been on change of shift. . .

"Abby," Gibbs interrupted. "White managed to cut Tony, he's losing blood from a neck wound."

"But I thought you said. . ." Abby began confusion and concern registering equally in her tone

"Abby!"

"OK," she typed frantically, "I'm increasing the priority of the call as we speak Gibbs, but you could still have a wait on your hands." She paused, momentarily afraid to ask the question. "Can Tony make it?"

"He'll make it," Gibbs asserted, looking down at the younger agent who was getting paler by the minute. "Just get them here."