Chapter 4:- Introspection

For Kate getting into the car took far too long. Both Ducky and Gibbs were too professional to just walk away. Dammit, she was too professional to just walk away. It was the first time she could ever remember cursing herself, her friend, her boss for being good at what they did. But she cursed them now. The handover to the locals was completed in record time. Another NCIS team detailed to come out and complete the collecting and cataloguing of evidence. The local coroner would handle the transfer of White's body to Ducky's lab. They were in the car within minutes, but it was still too long.

Ducky drove. She wished Gibbs were driving. It was another testament to her state of mind. Gibbs would have got them there quicker. It was worth the risk. Not that Ducky did a bad job. She was surprised at how fast even he was moving, but they still weren't there. Which meant that Tony was alone, and he could. . . .Ducky seemed worried that he might. . .she couldn't quite bring herself to complete the thought, the enormity of the concept of losing him too much to encompass in a single word, in such a small word.

Besides he couldn't, not now, not after they had found him alive. She had talked to him, held his hand in hers; everything should be all right now. After living for so many hours on the edge, knowing that he was with a killer, knowing that he might already be dead. It seemed unfair that with finding him the uncertainty hadn't ended, unfair that they could lose him even now.

She looked across at Ducky, and her intestines seemed to tie in an even tighter knot as her breath caught in her throat. The deep lines of concern and concentration furrowed his brow. He wasn't one for exaggeration. He knew exactly what could go wrong and he was worried, very worried.

Her eyes turned back to the road, they were moving quickly, but it seemed like they were standing still, the road stretched in front of her as emotion clouded her perception. She tried to mentally prepare herself for the worst, tried to give form to the fear she'd held onto for the last day, tried to consider the implications of losing him. She couldn't. He had become too much a part of her life, a part of her work, integral to the team that she now identified with so strongly, with a sense of belonging that she had never, in all of her years as an agent, felt before. It was impossible to imagine him not being there, impossible to imagine the team without him. She chastised herself for even trying. He was still alive; she couldn't give up hope, not unless. . .not until. . . She let out a deep sigh and tried once more to gain control of the spiralling emotions.

Gibbs turned at the sound of the deeply drawn breath beside him, took a moment to study Kate's reactions. That morning she had tried to get him to admit his concern for Tony by giving voice to it herself, but words were unnecessary now. He could see the fear in her eyes, could sense the emotion barely held in check. He idly wondered if he were so easy to read; was he managing to maintain the façade of practiced indifference, or were the chinks in his own defences beginning to show?

Training, long experience and far too much practice had allowed him to bury his concern deep, to remain focussed on the task at hand. Combat taught you that skill swiftly; if it didn't then you probably wouldn't live long enough to learn it. As long as you had a purpose, a focus for your attention, then the suppression of emotion came easily. . .well, maybe that was an exaggeration, there was always a cost, but at least it came. So, for as long as he was searching for Tony and, when he found him, for as long as he'd been needed to keep Tony calm, to keep Tony alive, the emotions had remained buried, tightly controlled, only venturing to the surface briefly on two occasions, with little evidence to the outside world.

The first had been when he'd lifted the tarpaulin at the cabin. If Kate had been watching him then she would have seen the fear, the concern, flash across his features. The blood stained clothing they had found spoke of violence, of death, and, for a split second, he was sure that he would reveal Dinozzo's corpse beneath the stained cloth. Only a swallow and a twitch of his jaw bore testament to the fear giving way to relief when there was only a motorbike beneath.

The second time had been in the car when he'd realised that he held the younger agent's life in his hand. On neither occasion had he allowed the feelings fully to the surface. He couldn't afford to then, but the time was approaching when he would be forced to confront his own emotional responses. To analyse his actions and he knew that there were questions he would have to answer. Tony had almost. . .could still die and, however you cut it, that was ultimately his responsibility.

NCISNCIS

Gibbs was out of the car before it came to a complete standstill, had entered the hospital with Kate and Ducky struggling to follow in his wake, and was standing at the reception desk with his ID out, before Kate even had time to acknowledge that they had arrived. She was unsure what was said, the exchange between Gibbs and the young nurse who answered his questions was a blur of tone and emotion that never seemed to actually form into words. She was cocooned in her own world of thought, relying on Gibbs to take charge, her own interactions with the outside world unnecessary. Gibbs would lead; all she had to do was follow.

Gibbs was authoritative, demanding, the nurse acquiescing to his stronger personality, providing him with the answers he needed, ineffectual in her efforts to block his actions, as he moved passed her and through the doors into the ER. There were other protesters to their passage, but all seemed to back away to let Gibbs through, until finally they pushed back the doors to the trauma room.

It was like Kate's hearing had been switched back on. The bulbs were suddenly brighter. Tony lay on the table, wires and tubes snaked from him, his eyes were closed, his skin pale, he looked somehow smaller than she thought he should be.

"What are you people doing in here?" The tone was angry, as three of the four people attending to Tony turned to look at them. Kate felt suddenly self-conscious.

"Special Agent Gibbs, NCIS," Gibbs held up his badge. "We're federal agents. . ."

Gibbs didn't get a chance to finish as the doctor interrupted angrily. "Well I can assure you there's no need to be in here guarding your prisoner. There's no chance he'll be escaping, he'll be lucky if we can keep him alive. So if you could just wait outside and give us a chance to. . ."

Gibbs was confused by the anger, by the comment, his gut tightened at the harsh confirmation that Tony might die, and he felt as well as heard Kate react just behind him.

"Doctor," his tone stopped her tirade as his eyes scanned for a name on her coat.

"Preston," she supplied.

"Dr. Preston, that man is not a prisoner, he's a federal agent. Special agent Anthony Dinozzo and he works for me." Gibbs stated, his tone surprisingly conciliatory. "I just. . .We just," he corrected himself, "want to know how he is?"

It was Dr. Preston's turn to look confused. "But I don't understand, the handcuffs," she turned to look back at Tony's wrist. "I just assumed. . ."

Gibbs followed her gaze, and to his horror realised that Tony still wore the metal bracelet around his wrist, the severed chain dangling. For a moment he couldn't believe that no one had noticed it, that no one had removed it. He looked at the people around the table then back at Dr Preston, all of these people thought that Tony was a criminal, the paramedics must have too, and there was something about that that was fundamentally wrong, that was painful. Gibbs strode over to the table, surprised by his own reaction as the emotional dam almost broke. If Tony was going to die, he was damn well not going to die in chains. He fumbled for his handcuff key in his pocket, gently taking hold of the cuff and turning it so as not to cause any further damage to the badly abraded wrist. "He was undercover," Gibbs explained. " handcuffed to. . ." 'Handcuffed to the man who did this to him' the thought completed as he pulled the cuff away, but the words did not. "He was undercover," Gibbs repeated, not prepared to analyse or explain further. He looked up, met the doctor's gaze. "How is he?" he asked.

Dr. Preston's expression softened, as she realised she was not talking to people who were indifferent to her patient, these were people who cared for him. She silently cursed herself for being so blunt. She glanced across at the monitor, gesturing for them to move out into the hall as her colleagues continued to work. "We're still having trouble stabilising his blood pressure and controlling the bleeding. He'll be going up to surgery in a few minutes," she explained, "and they'll try to repair the damage." She frowned, looking directly into Gibbs' eyes. "He was conscious when he came in, but it was almost as if he wasn't fighting it, like he'd given up." She paused, looked thoughtful for a moment. "I just assumed that it was because he knew that he had been caught, was going to jail. We see that a lot, it breeds despondency, but if he's a federal agent." She paused again, taking in Kate and Ducky's worried expressions before returning to Gibbs. "At least half of survival in cases like this is mental, and he didn't seem to. . "

"Can I talk to him before he goes to surgery?" Gibbs asked.

The doctor thought for only a moment. "I don't suppose it can hurt, but he keeps drifting in and out so he may not hear you."

Gibbs nodded and followed the doctor back into the room.

Kate watched as Gibbs leaned down, and, as she'd seen him do many times with suspects, he whispered something into Tony's ear. She doubted if anyone else in the room heard what he said. After a moment he stepped back and watched silently as the gurney was pushed quickly from the room.