The world appears through thin slits, all bright lights and foreign noises. I can feel the drug they've given me pulsing through my veins and I desperately try to remember if I've been captured or whether I know where I am in some deep dark recess of my psyche.
I shut my eyes again and listen intently for a noise I recognize. There is movement to my left, I hear shuffling. Deep in my mind a memory screams through the silence. Shot in the arm, in Gibbs' car, Hospital.
My eyes flick open at my command and adjust to the light above my bed. I stare at the ceiling for less then a second before I remember the noise at my side and turn my head wearily towards it.
"Please tell me it's still Monday night." I practically beg him, my voice is raspy and my throat is dry.
He smiles at me over his coffee. "Welcome back." Gibbs stands up from his chair and lowers his coffee. It's really good to see his face, feels like I've been asleep for days.
"It's Tuesday, fourteen hundred hours." He informs me. I try to prop myself up but I cant bend either of my elbows so I fall back onto the pillows. My left arm is held fast and throbs like crazy and my right arm is full of needles. My eyes flick over the machines and drips I'm hooked up to. He hands me a cup of water but I give him a frustrated look, "I can't bend my arms." I say pathetically.
So he brings the cup to my lips and I take a huge gulp. And nod my head at him to put the cup back down. I lick the excess water from my lips.
"All this for a flesh wound?" I ask incredulously. Looking at the needles protruding from my flesh I remember an important fact about the night before, and now I understand why my knees hurt.
"I hope I didn't injure any of the nurses." I say apologetically as he helps me sit up, realizing what I was trying to do before.
"No, you only hurt yourself." A hint of a smile I think is in his voice. Laughing at my fighting spirit not at my pain.
Then he stands over me with his coffee, not moving or blinking. I give him a puzzled glance and enquire as to whether my room has cable. That merits a slight smile from the boss.
"So did you get what you needed last night?" I ask him, really wanting to know what the director had said about me being shot on a mission that was unapproved. At least, I think it was unapproved. It wasn't the kind of thing I can see Director Shepherd going for.
"Yes." He says grimly. "But I also had one of my team injured. Thought you weren't going to make it for a second there." I detect sarcasm in his last statement and I fake a glare at him.
"You up to telling me what happened?" He asks.
"Sure." I don't want to be treated like an invalid; I'm already annoyed at needing his help. I describe my journey to the forest to him, "Then a man came out of the trees and but a gun to my neck," I show him where, there's a definite bruise there too. "He told me to drop my weapon, which I did, and when he pushed me forward to walk ahead of him I pretended to trip." I continued with my recollection of events. Gibbs nodded as I spoke.
I gave him a brief description of the man I killed and I mentally added the man to the number of people I've killed in my lifetime.
One hundred and Twenty-three. I sigh inwardly, no one but me knows that number. Before I joined NCIS I was an assassin, so the bodies seem to pile up even when you're young. I wonder if Gibbs has any idea about my past.
Gibbs is still standing there watching me think. "That's it." I say as though he doesn't know, because he's looking at me weird.
He lays a hand on my shoulder and I look at it severely and then into his face, which is unexpectedly, close to mine. I draw back. He's still not saying anything, and I know he does that to make the person sweat about what he's thinking and what he's about to say. So, I am wondering what on earth could have gotten into him, and I cannot for the life of me read his face. I speculate as to what the appropriate way to respond to this close proximity is.
I decide that silent patience is the answer to my own question and so I stare back into his unblinking eyes, mirroring his expression.
Finally he breaks the silence, "You had me worried." That's a bit dramatic so I laugh softly. "It would take a lot more then a flesh wound to get rid of me Boss." I purposely say boss to remind him of our working relationship only because I'm unnerved by his being so close to me.
He stays where he is for a few moments more before standing up straight. I know he did that so that his authority would be known, it's what he does. "Don't worry me like that again." He says characteristically as though he can order me not to worry him, as though it's a perfectly natural request.
"So how long til I can get out of here?" I wave my needled arm at the machines. He takes a gulp of his coffee before he answers me. "The doctor says a couple of hours."
Sigh. This is going to be so boring! I want to get back to work, get back to my desk and do something constructive. "Can't you get me out of here now?"
His eyes widen, feigning surprise at the question but I know he knows what I'm thinking. He tilts his head and returns to his chair. "The doctor will be back in a minute" he says enjoying my inability to move and the expression of distaste on my face.