CHAPTER SEVEN

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!"

Tim McGee looked over the top of his computer screen at Tony. He raised his eyebrows as his colleague searched through his drawers frantically. He bit back a smile as Tony began cursing foully in Italian when he couldn't find what he was looking for. Still watching the free entertainment Tony was providing him with; Tim reached down into his laptop bag and felt around.

This had only happened twice in the three months since they had found out about Tony's epilepsy. But, as McGee knew well, it happened to everyone. Tony had forgotten to take his medication before he left and only realized when he showed up to work that morning. The first time it had happened, McGee had given Tony some of the medication (the two were on the same kind) he kept stashed in his desk and quietly suggested he do the same thing.

Curling his hand around his sheet of the medication that he knew Tony was looking for; McGee pulled it out of the bag and lobbed it at his colleague's head. The silvery sheet containing the purple pills the two epileptics referred to as 'the horse tablets' sailed through the air and hit Tony in the temple. McGee couldn't help it; he cracked up laughing at the look of surprise on Tony's face. Tony threw McGee a mock glare which then turned into a sheepish grin, and nodded his thanks to the younger agent.

Gibbs watched the entire exchange from his desk. He shook his head at the friendly bickering between the two, and then winced internally as he remembered the things he had said to, and about, both men in the hospital. Talk about 'open mouth, insert foot'. It was hard to believe just how wrong he had been about the two men. He smiled to himself as he remembered the 'talks' each incredibly protective member of his team had given him prior to McGee and Dinozzo's return to the office.

"Bossman," Abby stated calmly as the normally perky Goth labrat stared down at him from her position above his desk.

"Abs," Gibbs replied, wondering what he'd done this time.

"You do realize that you are mostly to blame for McGee's latest seizure, don't you?"

Gibbs blanched internally, ok, that's what he'd done this time.

"I know, Abs, I already spoke to him in the hospital. I apologized, he accepted my apology."

"I know, Gibbs. But the thing is, you were ignorant and instead of asking questions and enlightening yourself on the subject, you reacted in a way that makes you no better than the people who were claiming that Tony had been possessed by demon spirits."

"Thank you, Abs."

"No problem, Bossman, just don't do it again. Or I won't reboot your PDA again. EVER."

Gibbs' glance flickered over to Kate's desk. Her 'talk' had been by far the most… well… enlightening, one could say. He grinned to himself; the former Secret Service Agent hadn't even waited until they'd left the hospital before ripping him a new one.

"Gibbs," the word was almost barked at him by the former Secret Service Agent.

"Kate," he'd responded, with a reasonably good idea of what was to come.

Kate's voice softened slightly, "Gibbs, did you know I had a brother?"

Whatever Gibbs was expecting her to say, it certainly wasn't that.

"No."

"Well, I did. Evan Michael Todd. He died when he was just six years old."

"I'm sorry for your loss, Kate."

"Don't give me that crap, Gibbs, just listen; I'm trying to make a point," Kate paused, seemingly collecting her thoughts; "I was 15 when Evan died. For the few weeks leading up to his death, he'd been a bit vague and spacey, but my mom had just chalked it up to it being so damn hot. But the day he died he'd been his usual bright, cheerful self. So mom let me take him swimming. We'd been at the pool about half an hour when Evan had a seizure in the water. I tried to help him, but his thrashing kept knocking me under. He drowned before we could get him out. He was epileptic. We didn't even know what that was, let alone that Evan had it."

Gibbs stayed quiet, shocked into silence by Kate's story.

"I couldn't help my baby brother, Gibbs, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna sit back and watch you or anyone else destroy Tony's and Tim's careers because they're epileptic."

Without another word, Special Agent Caitlin Todd stalked through the car park, got into her car and drove away, leaving Gibbs standing stunned in the middle of the parking lot.

"Um, Agent Gibbs? Sir?" the hesitant voice of Jimmy Palmer, Ducky's bespectacled lab assistant, interrupted his thoughts. Gibbs shook himself back into reality and looked at Palmer.

"Um, I have the results from the post-mortem in the Hauser case. If you could sign here and here, please?"

Gibbs signed the evidence forms, taking his copy, before sending Ducky's assistant back down to the morgue. Placing the forms on his desk, his thoughts turned to the 'talk' the doctor himself had given him.

"Well, Jethro, you have dug yourself a rather large hole this time haven't you?"

"Don't Ducky, I've already had Kate and Abby tear me a new one."

The British Medical Examiner snorted with laughter at the mental picture of the normally formidable NCIS Special Agent being cowed into submission by the two women he worked with. He met the stony glare Gibbs gave him with a calmly raised eyebrow and continued speaking.

"What do you intend to do about McGee and Dinozzo?"

"I don't know. Can they be field agents with epilepsy? Can they safely control a weapon with epilepsy?"

"Jethro, young Timothy has dealt with his epilepsy since he was sixteen. You didn't even think it was a possibility until he lost his temper with you in the hospital. He'd been a field agent for almost eighteen months and passed his rifle range test with flying colours every time."

"I know, Duck, but…"

"But, what, Jethro?"

"What if one of them has a seizure in the middle of a case? Or what if one of them gets hurt because a suspect takes advantage of the seizures?"

"What if the next cup of coffee you buy has been laced with poison and YOU go into convulsions?" the doctor retaliated, "We would deal with it, Jethro. We just have to make sure that the triggers for Anthony and Timothy's seizures are removed as best we can. That means requisitioning a glare screen for Anthony's computer and making sure he always has those special order sunglasses he goes on about. It also means cutting young Timothy some slack and not giving him a reason to lose his temper like he did in the hospital."

Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs sighed. His office had pretty much gone back to normal now. It had been awkward for the first few weeks after they came back. Gibbs couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt every time he had seen the bruises healing on McGee's face or had caught Tony reaching up to scratch the still-pink scar tissue above his eye. But that had faded, and was now replaced with a quiet camaraderie between the two epileptics and a sense of fierce protectiveness from the rest of the team, himself included.