Chapter Eleven

Crossroads

His fingers gripped the steering wheel with all the force of a man gone insane, those fierce blue eyes honed in on the road before him as he struggled with himself to make it to his agent on time. In the back of his mind he feared the worse, that DiNozzo was dead and all he would find was a cold lump of flesh where a man used to be. He growled at his own thoughts and his knuckles whitened at the newly applied pressure to the leather wheel, one sharp turn after the next and he finally found himself standing before the bay door of the abandoned warehouse that no one wished to touch.

His leathery hands gripped the gun with immeasurable force as he slowly lifted the bay door, sliding in just as quietly as before. Those fierce eyes flicked over the surroundings, his head canting from side to side at even the mention of noise. He could hear the ambulance in the distance and sighed just slightly out of relief, his fingers pushed against a door and a small yet lively room met his gaze. Instantly his gun lowered, the sight before him almost as incredulous as his imagination had wandered.

A thin membrane of water soaked into the concrete of this room, long chains draping from the ceiling and walls. Chains meant to secure people as they were slowly mutilated, there was a small pound of flesh in one of the corners. The wall stained red, two round eyes laying upon the wet concrete staring blankly at their own reflection. They were dark eyes...they were like his eyes... Gibbs' mind wandered once more and he shook the thoughts away, he couldn't think that way Tony was alive and he knew it.

His eyes closed as the small generator and two metal rods came into his line of vision, he also saw the blood soaked metal sponge that scent a shiver up his spine. The FBI agent had lost his eyes, he remembered that but electrocuted and skinned, definitely not. That left only one man...Tony.

Panic set into Gibbs' eyes for only a moment before he wheeled around and the door behind him came into sight. Ziva said the water room was directly across the hall from the room they had been in, and he could smell the death upon the door. Rust covered the sliding, blood colored rust at that an omen that Gibbs could not ignore as he slid the metal doors against each other sparks emitting from them before he entered the dark place.

Slowly his eyes adjusted to the blank void that this room presented itself as, he cast his eyes downward as he moved further in. The mass of a body before him turning his beating heart into a solid rock, he crouched next to the form. A bone protruding from it's...his shoulder, blood dried about the body that was curled into a ball facing the door. Pale pain lines had long since relaxed on the blank face of Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. He felt the vomit run along his throat, and slowly lax back down into his stomach as he fanned his fingers over the young man's face.

Gibbs lowered his eyes, his gaze falling on the dried pool of blood surrounding his agent, it wasn't quite big enough for the young man to have died of blood loss. But the pure trauma that he had endured could have been enough to kill him. There was just too many unknown for Gibbs, and so he backed away, his body moving slowly as he head towards the metal doors. His slow backing became a full run as soon as his shoes touched the concrete that laid in the light. The need to vomit overriding his sense of duty as he raced out of the building only to drop to his knees beside the door.

The heaving racked his body, doubling over from the pain of the release. Blood edged the corners of his mouth and his body shook violently as he tried to regain his composure. The ambulance had pulled up, two men going inside with their gear and a gurney, but that didn't register in his mind at all. The only thing he could see was that blank face, that dead face. The face of the young man that had admired him, yet the face of the man that he had failed by not protecting him.

Vomit racked his body once more, this time throwing him forward until he was laying upon his side. His aged fingers gripped at his abdomen, two hands falling on his shoulder and slowly pulling him up to lean against them. It was Tobias, that much he knew, but the words that flowed from Tobias' mouth made no sense. They were foggy and sounded more like a broken speaker than anything, and then his eyes laid sight upon the paramedics.

They were working, their legs moving quicker than his own had when he ran from the building. They were shouting to each other, one pumping the ambu bag like mad as they lifted the gurney into the back of the ambulance. They had found one alive...alive? And then it all hit him, his pale face, that blank look, he wasn't dead he was unconscious.

"I...Idiot..." He murmured into Tobias' coat as he tried to pull himself up, Tobias' hands aiding him. "Car...now."

"Easy Jethro, take it easy." Fornell helped him up, and to the car, vomit still clinging to the form of Gibbs. He was weak, he felt it in his entire body, weak enough to not be able to see the life in DiNozzo even when it was staring him in the face.

The car ride was silent, Gibbs brooding over his own thoughts as Tobias fought to keep the thought of calling his own agent's family. Both were so far from the car that they doubted each other really existed in the present state, even though they could physically feel one another. The trip was a blur to Gibbs, street light after street light burning into his soul and piercing that dark void of emotion he kept pent up. He couldn't bare the thought of losing an agent, especially one that he had failed to protect on any level.

The doors to the hospital Emergency Room slid open, the whoosh of air echoing gently as he entered. "Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, just brought in."

The nurse glared at the impatient gaze of the one with blue eyes, her voice squeaking a bit as she responded. "Operating at the moment sir..." She trailed off grabbing a few folders and disappearing behind the corner of the station there.

"Tobias, get Ducky here. I'll need him."

"That is nice to know Jethro, but I came here with Miss David. She is in operating as well, seems she has some internal damage she neglected mentioning." His face turned grave however as he saw the vomit clinging to Gibbs. "Jethro...how bad was Anthony when you saw him?"

"Bad enough for me to think he was dead Duck."

"I figured as much...oh dear Jethro I am worried about our young Anthony. He did not look well at all when they brought him in."

"Duck, find out about him and Ziva. I need to know..."

"I understand Jethro...let me scrub up. Tobias keep him company, and don't walk holes in the floor of the waiting room alright? Abigail is in there now, she needs company herself."