Chapter 4

It took him a few minutest, but Jethro finally got things straightened around so that he could leave NCIS Headquarters. If there was a part of him that felt strange leaving behind a case, and his team, he firmly ignored it. After all, it was his team that he was worried about.

He had headed up to his director first, although cluing Jenny in on the situation hadn't been his intention. With more command than request, he finally got his hands on Abby's personnel file. It would contain any medical information that they had on her, such as medications and general history. He imagined it would be helpful.

Next was to pass over the case. He did so with a minimum of words to a baffled Tony and a frightened looking McGee. He hadn't hung around long enough to answer questions, and he didn't offer explanations beyond Abby being sick, and him following her to the hospital. Something told him that his cell phone would be ringing off the hook before he made it out of the building, so he stuck it in his drawer as he grabbed his badge. His gun he left; it would be too much trouble with hospital security. The badge might open doors, however, and he would take what he could get.

Traffic did not allow him to drive the twenty miles to Bethesda at the speed he would have liked. Frankly, a small jet would not have been fast enough for him in his present mood. Rush hour traffic – an oxymoron if he'd ever heard one – kept him at a ridiculously stately pace as he maneuvered around the loop and managed to take the off ramp towards the National Navy Medical Center, his patience was at an end and he was wishing that he'd brought his cell. Hell, what if Ducky was trying to call him right now? There were disadvantages to impulsivity. He flashed a DOD identification card at the main gate, and negotiated the maze of streets that led to the hospital.

By the time he was parked and entering through the Emergency entrance, he was ready to murder the first person he came into contact with. Thankfully, his gun was sitting beside his cell phone in the top drawer of his desk nearly twenty miles away.

"Scuito," he said quickly to the slight, blond woman sitting at the reception desk. He had Abby's record tucked under his arm and nothing left in the way of tolerance. "Abigail Scuito. She came in by ambulance."

"Are you a family member?" the woman asked.

God, he should have known it would come to this. "Her father," he lied quickly. He could play a roll when he needed to, and honesty wasn't a priority at the moment. "I brought some records for the doctor," he added, hoping it would convince her. At this moment, being family was more likely to get him cooperation than being a government agent.

The woman gave him an assessing look, and then finally began tapping away at her computer keyboard. "Can you spell that name?"

"Sierra, Charlie, Uniform, Indigo, Tango, Oscar," he rattled off. The secretary – or whatever she was – didn't appear to notice the seemingly irrelevant words. But then, this was a Navy Hospital, and she had mostly likely heard it all before.

"I have her in CT," she said as she glanced up. "But she should be back in a bit. I don't see an admission order. She's in bay two, and she already has someone with her. There isn't a lot of room in the bays. If you'll just have a seat over by the…"

She didn't finish her sentence before he had turned and headed for the large, metal double doors. With a sigh, she pressed the button beneath her desk to release the doors with a buzz. He stormed through them and stopped short, having no clue where "bay two" might be.

"May I help you?"

The man was young – God, they were all so young – and sported green scrubs with no lab coat. Likely, not a doctor. "Bay two," Gibbs said without preamble.

A brief nod, no conversation, and he was following the corpsman down the hall and into a large room which was divided into sections by curtains. Some were drawn closed around patients, and others were not. He made his way behind the man to the desk at the end of the room. "Patient name?" he asked.

"Scuito. I think she's in CT."

The man nodded. "She is. You can wait over here.

Gibbs was led to an empty cubicle with the curtains closed about half way. When the corpsman had left, he sat down on the round, rolling chair that was next to a very large oxygen tank.

He had quite a wait. He checked his watch eleven times over the next twenty minutes, resisting the urge to ask at the desk just what was going on. Ducky was with her, he reminded himself. If Ducky wasn't here, he was with her. Gibbs held onto that mantra as minute drug into minute. He was oblivious to the movement around him, the occasional groan of pain or muttered conversation between doctors and patients. God, he really hated hospitals.

"Jethro!"

The voice was a welcome salve to his mood. "How is she?" he asked immediately. "Where…"

"Jethro, she's fine," Ducky told him in a firm if rushed manner. The confidence in that voice soothed his temper and his nerves. "The neurologist wanted a CT scan to be sure that she hadn't sustained a head injury. The results were normal. I haven't spoken to him, but I watched as they did the scan and I didn't see any abnormality. She's more alert than she was, although no more cooperative. I haven't known a patient to be so difficult since… well, since you," the doctor said pointedly.

"What's wrong with her?" Gibbs asked, sinking back down onto the stool he had so quickly vacated when he had heard Ducky's voice.

"At this point, I can only tell you what's not wrong with her," the doctor said. "There's no head injury, nor evidence of seizures; they did an EEG when we first arrived. Her blood work is borderline normal, although everything seems to be a little on the low side. She is becoming more alert and coherent with time, and apparently her crisis is passing. I'm sure the doctors have several more tests to perform, but thus far I agree with their assessment and plan of action."

"Which is?" Gibbs asked.

"She will most likely be admitted for twenty-four hours," the doctor answered. "She will be monitored, and if she has no further difficulty than she will be discharged."

"When they don't know what was wrong with her?" Gibbs questioned.

Ducky took a breath, lifted one shoulder, and looked as though he were ready to begin one of his longer explanations. Thankfully, the corpsman chose that moment to roll Abby into the room.

Gibbs didn't like the look of her. She was ghostly pale, still wearing oxygen – although they had switched from a mask to a nasal cannula – and she had an IV in each arm. Her eyes were closed, but he didn't think she was asleep. Once they had her at a stop and were fussing to transfer lines from the portable to the wall-mounted units, those eyes began to flutter. Her smile was small, and looked like it was a lot of effort.

"It's Gibbs," she said, her voice slightly slurred. "Ducky, it's Gibbs."

"I know, Abigail," the doctor said, stepping towards her and taking her hand gingerly, avoiding the IV that was sticking out of it.

"Hey, Gibbs," she said, her voice slurring again, as though she were drunk. "What're you doing here?" She looked around a moment, appearing to have difficulty focusing on anything. "Where is here?" she added.

Gibbs had only seen her like this once before, following a quarter bottle of Jack Daniels on one of the worst nights of his life, and he didn't like the reminder. Then, he'd found it as amusing as upsetting. He had known what was causing it, and he'd known it was temporary. Now…

Her hand flopped around, lifting insufficiently to reach over the rail of the gurney, and nearly dislodging the IV that was placed there. He reached forward to take her hand as she attempted to raise it – just as unsuccessfully – for a second time. "Gibbs," she slurred, and her eyes fluttered closed.

"She wasn't this bad before," Gibbs told Ducky in a loud whisper. "What the hell happened?"

"She was rather combative as we attempted the CT," he explained. "I'm afraid they gave her a mild sedative. They didn't want her unconscious, as we need to continue to assess her neurological state, but I'm afraid she's reacting rather… strongly to the medication."

"She's stoned out of her gord," Gibbs muttered, not liking it at all. He was half afraid that this wasn't even the medication, and that they'd miss some symptom by assuming it was.

"It's a short acting medication, Jethro," Ducky assured her. "In twenty minutes it will be out of her system and she'll likely not even remember the scan or its aftermath."

Gibbs was mildly placated, but still not happy. "So if you don't know what it is, then what's it not?" he asked, returning to the conversation that they had been having before her return. Abby kept a slightly goofy grin on her face, holding onto each of them with a hand, and her head bounced back and forth depending on who was speaking. Gibbs was reminded of a slightly Goth bobble-head doll.

"Protein levels in the urine were normal, as were her pancreatic enzymes, so diabetes is unlikely. Her thyroid and liver function tests also came back normal – or nearly so – so they have ruled out multiple conditions that way. She's not running a fever and the head CT was fine, so encephalitis is unlikely. She has no known history of epilepsy, and no evidence of anticonvulsant drugs in her system, so seizures have also been ruled out. Cardiac function appears normal on both the EKG and echocardiogram, and she had normal levels of cardiac enzymes. The majority of the more dangerous conditions have been eliminated."

"What wasn't normal?" Gibbs asked. "You said she had mostly normal results. What was off?"

"Blood sugar was a little low," Ducky answered thoughtfully. "That could be a result of poor eating habits. Our Abby has never been what I'd consider a health-food fanatic."

"What else?"

"Oxygen saturation was slightly low," he continued. "That could be a result of a number of things, from shallow breathing to pneumonia. There isn't any sign of either. Her heart rate is slightly elevated for a woman her age, but not dangerously so. Given her choice of beverage and normal caffeine intake, the elevation isn't terribly surprising."

"So what is it?" Gibbs asked in frustration.

"That's what we're trying to find out." The voice was both deep and no-nonsense.

Gibbs turned to see the doctor – if the white lab coat and stethoscope were any indication – who was thankfully more than twelve years of age. In fact, the graying temples and wrinkles gave any idea, the man was probably nearing retirement. He wasn't Navy, Gibbs realized. The silver eagles on the man's blue uniform, visible where the stethoscope had nudged the lab coat aside, indicated that he was a full-bird, Air Force Colonel. Gibbs was just glad that he wasn't a first year intern.

"Mind if I pick up where you left off?" the doctor asked, and Gibbs had the impression that Ducky was slightly uncomfortable as he gave a slight blush. Gibbs wondered how long the doctor had been listening to them.

"Certainly," he muttered.

"As Dr. Mallard was saying," the doctor – his name tag said Hucker – began, "there doesn't appear to be any acute reason for the disorientation and confusion she presented with. She was slightly dehydrated and the fluids seem to have done a great deal to improve her level of consciousness. Nevertheless, her reflexes are slow and her grips are weak, if equal. I'm not convinced – regardless of the results of the CT scan – that there isn't something neurological happening. Complex partial seizures are insidious, and we can't diagnose one unless she actually has one with the EEG leads in place."

"So what do we do, Dr. Hucker?" Gibbs asked.

"I tend to err on the side of caution," he answered, giving Ducky a small smile. "And I think that admitting her is the safest option. I'd like to observe her until her level of consciousness and general reflexes appear more normal and we're sure that she's able to eat, drink, walk, and manage all the other things that seemed beyond her when you brought her in."

"How long?" Ducky asked before Gibbs had the chance.

"I think your estimate of twenty-four hours is a good start," he answered. "If we don't see what we're looking for by then, we'll reevaluate."

Gibbs nodded along with Ducky. He didn't like it, and he absolutely hated hospitals, but he'd put up with it for Abby.