Author's Note: Thank you for all your reviews, keep them coming and I'll keep up my end of the deal. Not particularly happy with this chapter but there we go. Enjoy.
Tony paced the corridors doing anything he could to avoid eye contact with any of his colleagues. Ziva had been in surgery for over four hours now and he couldn't stop crying.
Gibbs had called an ambulance shortly after it happened, while McGee called Abby and Ducky, both of which arrived at the hospital soon after the others. No one had spoken since. Abby was crying when she'd arrived and was now sobbing quietly in McGee's arms, Gibbs' stoic demeanour cracked about an hour ago with one silent tear, he'd left to get coffee and hadn't been back.
"She'll be alright. This is Ziva we're talking about." McGee couldn't take the silence any longer. He wasn't sure if he'd said it to convince himself or the others. Tony ignored him and kept pacing, it was the only thing he could do.
It was another two hours before Gibbs returned, uncharacteristically bringing with him six drinks.
"You'll make a hole in the floor DiNozzo." For the first time since he got there, Tony looked up. "Come sit down." Gibbs passed his agent his drink and placed his hand briefly on his shoulder as he sat. "Any news?"
"I've asked the head nurse Jethro, she can only tell me that young Ziva's in surgery. No one knows anything else." Ducky answered when Tony failed to.
"She'll be alright though." McGee repeated his earlier statement much to the same reception. "She will won't she?"
"She'll be fine, Tim. She's tough." Gibbs replied in a way that all there would later agree properly showed his daddy side.
More than three hours had passed when Ziva's surgeon entered the waiting area and started to talk to Ducky. Once he had disappeared again, the Medical Examiner addressed the team.
"The bullet nicked her aorta on impact, ricocheted of her spine and imbedded itself in her superior vena cava... There were severe complications... She's lost a lot of blood." He struggled.
"Duck? Is she gonna be okay?"
"She's in a medically induced coma. They won't know until they bring her round but they won't even attempt to do that before Wednesday, they have to give her body time to heal." Abby wailed and buried her head in McGee's shirt while he stroked her head, tears falling down his cheeks.
"Duck, can she take visitors?" Gibbs asked his voice thick and gruff.
"One at a time and not for long apparently." Gibbs bent down until he was level with his senior field agent.
"Go to her Tony. Tell her she doesn't have my permission to die." With that, Tony stood from his seat and marched down the corridor to room 723. The room he'd seen so many times before, the room that now held everything he held dear.
