Jeez Louise! Y'all were blowin up my inbox! Here's the next chapter as promised! Enjoy!

Chapter Five: Case Closed

"Call Abby again."

Ziva reached for her phone, but apparently Abby and Gibbs' synchronicity was working just fine even a good hour-and-a-half away from each other. As soon as Ziva touched her phone, it rang with Abby's picture coming up on the screen.

"They're moving," exclaimed Abby when Ziva answered. "They're on the highway. Actually, they aren't too far from you guys."

Ziva's head snapped up and she immediately spotted a car coming in their direction. They were the only two cars on the remote highway and at the speed they were approaching one another, Ziva quickly recognized the navy blue Charger coming their way.

"I see them," she said. "Thank you Abby!"

Gibbs stopped the car, parking it perpendicular to the road in the middle of the highway. The approaching Charger came to a halt, but rather jerkily, making Gibbs and Ziva wonder at the condition of the driver. Tony stumbled out and they ran over to him.

He was soaking wet and breathing heavily through chattering teeth. Blood spilled down the right side of his face from a gash on his temple. Leaning on the hood of the car for support, he drunkenly lifted an arm and pointed to the back.

"Tim—stabbed—." That was all he got out before a cough ripped from his throat. He slid down to the ground as Gibbs hurried to the back of the car. Throwing open the door, he found Tim wrapped in spare clothing and blankets, lying in the back seat.

"I'm calling 9-1-1," he yelled back to Ziva and Tony.

Ziva watched Tony relax into himself at Gibbs' voice. She thought he was actually falling asleep and she couldn't let that happen. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him hard.

"No, Tony, do not go to sleep. You need to stay awake!"

His eyes blearily opened up to hers. "What?" He started coughing again, wrapping his arms around himself. Ziva hit him on the arm to keep him awake.

"I will be right back," she said. She got up and ran to the sedan she and Gibbs had come in. In the trunk, she was able to find a few spare jackets and towels. She went back to Tony who was actually trying to stay awake. He was shaking now and she started pull on his shirt. She had no idea where his jacket was, but she saw it as one less cold piece of clothing to get through. She thought he had finally succumbed to unconsciousness as she pulled off his shirt, but he opened his eyes and smiled weakly at her.

"Really, Ziva? Already undressing me? We haven't even gone out on a date,"

She rolled her eyes playfully, but her eyes quickly went back to concern when he started coughing again. She put the dry jacket on him, and then started wrapping a scarf around his neck. His eye slipped shut as she took a towel to his face to wipe away the blood. She could hear the difficulty in his breathing and hoped that ambulance wasn't too far.

She took his hands into her own, worried when he didn't respond to her rubbing and blowing warmth into his fingers.

"Just hang on Tony," she whispered. "You both just hang on."

Meanwhile, Gibbs tended to Tim. While calling the ambulance, he had examined Tim's condition. The mystery of Tony's missing jacket was quickly solved when he found the dry garment on Tim. Before placing Tim in the back of the car, Tony had stripped away Tim's shirt. He had tied one towel around Tim's stomach in an effort to stop the bleeding from what looked like a knife wound. Gibbs counted one miracle upon seeing that it had worked and it didn't look like Tim had lost that much blood. Tony had stuffed some blankets in between the NCIS jacket and Tim's clammy chest, in hopes of preserving some warmth.

Gibbs began working on what Tony didn't. He pulled off Tim's shoes and socks in hopes of keeping Tim from losing some toes. He turned off the heat that was blasting in the car, knowing that when it got too hot it got dangerous for someone who was so cold. He didn't fault Tony, though, who was probably so cold, that he couldn't even feel the heat that was coming out of the vents.

When he had done everything he could think of, he was beside himself with impatience. His phone rang and he yanked it open, nearly breaking it in two.

"Gibbs," he spat.

"This is the 9-1-1 dispatcher you just called, sir," was the calm reply. "I wanted to let you know that the Navy is sending a helicopter to fly the agents to Bethesda. Since your destination is so remote, it would take too long for an ambulance to get out there."

Gibbs didn't hide the relief in his voice. "Thank you." He hung up, running a hand through his hair. Ziva hurried around the car to him. "How's DiNozzo?"

"He passed out," she said, worry clearly evident in her voice. "He could not stay awake. He was so cold."

Gibbs swallowed. He pointed into the car. "Keep McGee warm. A helicopter is on its way. I'll take care of DiNozzo." He walked around to the other side of the car, finding Tony slumped against the front wheel, head to the side. Gibbs ignored the rattled breathing for now and smacked across the cheek.

Tony woke up with a gasp, instantly going into a coughing fit. Gibbs pushed his shoulders back to Tony from curling in on himself and further cutting off his airways. When Tony finally stopped coughing, he looked up at Gibbs. Gibbs grabbed Tony's uninjured side of his face gently and kept him from falling sideways again.

"A 'cop is on its way, DiNozzo," said Gibbs. "And you and McGee can get warm again."

"Tim," said Tony. "Is he…?"

"He's doing as best he can for right now," said Gibbs. "You did good, Tony." He put his other hand on Tony's shoulder to keep him awake and steady for now. "I need you to tell me what happened."

Tony nodded and started rambling through chattering teeth. His words came out in fragments. "Got there…they weren't there. The Hughes weren't." Gibbs nodded his understanding. "Waited for them in the car. Tim said they…morning hike. Don't remember how long…waited. Hughes came back alone. The husband. Said his wife…still hiking. I don't where she is. Dead? Something wasn't right. Felt it. We told…what happened…son. He was acting. I knew it. Tim and I played along. Asked…usual questions. Hughes told us about a friend who…arguing with the kid. Wanted to…picture from the truck. I followed him. Thought he was gonna grab a gun or something. He slammed the car door into my face." Tony raised a shaky hand to his temple, but Gibbs pulled it away. "Stupid of me."

"We all get caught by surprise sometimes, DiNozzo," said Gibbs, trying to dissipate any guilt Tony felt. "When did you wake up?"

"Don't know how long. But when I did, Tim was falling. He fell on…ice and it broke. He went into the lake. It was shallow, thank God. There was a knife in him…came out when I pulled him out the lake. Got him to the car…got his clothes off. He was so cold and still. But he was breathing. So I just drove off. Hughes is dead. Tim must've shot him."

Gibbs nodded, squeezing Tony's shoulder. "He's gonna be okay, Tony. It wasn't your fault, all right?"

Tony didn't answer. Instead, his eyes started drooping. Gibbs shook Tony. "Hey! I said all right?"

Tony looked up at him with weary eyes. "Yeah, Boss. Whatever you say." He started coughing again, and Gibbs felt a chill go down his spine at the familiar sound. He put an arm around Tony's waist. "C'mon, let's get you back in the car where you get warmer."

Tony pushed himself up with Gibbs help and they made their way to the car where Ziva and Tim were. They found Ziva curled up against Tim's still body, with a blanket over both of them, trying to use her body heat to warm Tim up. Gibbs dumped Tony into the passenger seat and then went around to the driver's side. They closed all the doors to try and keep the cold out as best they could.

"Isn't that…violation of Rule 12, Ziva," muttered Tony as he pulled his scarf around his nose and mouth.

"You would not be saying that if you were Tim right now," was the quick reply.

"No," said Tony groggily. "I definitely wouldn't." He turned around in his seat so that he could properly see Tim. He reached out and grabbed Tim's hand. "You pull through…Probie. And when you do…never have to buy a Nutter Butter…the rest of your life."

Gibbs squeezed Tony's shoulder just as the precious sound of a helicopter arriving reached their ears.

()()()()()()()

Once Tim and Tony were in the air and on their way to the hospital, Gibbs let out a tired breath. It was after days like these when he seriously contemplated taking up Leon on those vacations he was always trying to force on him. He saw Ziva standing in the road with her eyes close, breathing deeply, her own way of pushing some emotions aside for the task at hand.

"Ziver," Gibbs called. Her eyes snapped open. "You take our car and follow me back to the campsite. On the way, call Ducky. Tell him to meet McGee and DiNozzo at Bethesda. And then tell him to send Palmer out to us. He can get the location from Abby. I'll call the local LEOs and Vance to let him know what's going on."

Ziva nodded and headed back to their car, while Gibbs went to the one the boys had been driving in. He had to take a moment and wiped away the bloody handprints from the steering wheel, wondering just whose blood he was wiping away or if it was mixture of both. This was precisely why he wanted to take this car. It was reeking with the coppery smell of blood and stench of lake water. Though he certainly believed Ziva would have handled it, he would still spare her from the act of driving around with it. In an effort to cleanse the car of the stench he even put down the windows, ignoring the freezing wind.

Ziva pulled in behind Gibbs at the camp site, but they parked far enough away from the scene so that their tire tracks wouldn't disturb any evidence. What they found was a mess of tracks, blood, and weapons, mostly all near the lake and truck.

Gibbs pointed out what he saw to back up what Tony had told him earlier. Ziva snapped photographs as he did.

The cracked passenger window that was also smeared with blood where Tony had been struck. The pool of blood in the snow, where his wound had bled out. The impression in the snow where his body had lain. Hughes' body and his abandoned gun on the ground beside him. Hughes' wounds in the side and the heart, where Tim had shot the murderer. The hole in the ice where Tim had fallen. The blood drops and foot prints and dragging marks left in the snow, leading from the lake to where tire tracks were. And the tire tracks indicating a quick departure of the car leaving the scene.

Gibbs then pointed out pieces of evidence Tony was unaware of, bringing some light upon what transpired while he was down. Gibbs told the story as he saw it.

"Casing for SIG P250 there," he said, pointing below the driver's side door. The door was still open. He pointed to the impressions in the snow. "McGee's weapon. He knelt here, took the shot, and hit Hughes in the side." Ziva snapped a photo of the casing. Gibbs followed Tim's foot prints around the car. They stopped in a wide stance over the impression left by Tony's body.

"He stood over Tony," said Ziva, pride evident in her voice. "He was protecting him."

"Atta boy, Tim," murmured Gibbs. "And then Hughes must've caught him by surprise with the knife. Tim kills him, but falls into the lake." He looked over to the hole in the ice. "DiNozzo said that the knife came out when he was puling McGee from the lake. We'll get it later."

Ziva looked around. "There was a wife, no? Where is she?"

Gibbs shook his head ever so slightly. "DiNozzo said Hughes came back without her. She really could be finishing up the hike, or Hughes killed her somewhere in the woods." He sighed. "We'll wait for the local LEOs before we send out a search party."

"Now we wait," asked Ziva.

"Yeah," murmured Gibbs, looking at the carnage around him. "Now we wait." He went silent, ever thankful that he had the best agents there ever were.

()()()()()()()

Ducky entered Bethesda arm-in-arm with Abby. He certainly wouldn't know if he looked away from the appendage. His arm could fall off and he would be none the wiser because of Abby's vice like grip that cut off both circulation and sensation. At least she was being quiet. She had gone still and silent on the way to the hospital after working herself into hysterics at the Yard. Not that Ducky blamed her. He knew how much she worried about everyone and how terrified she got when anyone was hurt even the slightest.

Put the words "Tim" and "Tony" and "injured" in a sentence, and worry was expected. Add "stabbing" into the mix and hysterics were a given.

Ducky was well-respected within the hospital for many things. So, he had no trouble getting the information he required to seek out their injured boys. Abby was clinging to him desperately, fighting her last nerve to just yell out their names in hopes that they would come to her. Ducky sighed with relief when he was greeted by an ER doctor who appeared to be waiting for him.

"Ah, Dr. Franklin," greeted Ducky, extending his unused hand to him. "I wish we could have caught up with one another at a better time. But as it is in this world, that is always wishful thinking."

"Unfortunately, Dr. Mallard," replied the younger man.

"Please, Samuel. My friends call me Ducky," said the M.E. "This is our forensic scientist, Abigail Sciuto, who is good friends with our injured agents."

"You're really young," accused Abby, her anxiety over the unknown condition of her friends driving her to leave her charming self behind at the Yard.

"Abigail," scolded Ducky. "This is Dr. Samuel Franklin. He went to medical school with Jimmy and is one of his friends."

That only smoothed down Abby's feathers the slightest. "Well, at least I know that Jimmy picks smart friends."

Ducky let out a nervous chuckle as his eyes went from Dr. Franklin to Abby. "You'll have to excuse Abigail. She is never herself when she's worried. Please, what can you tell us about Agents DiNozzo and McGee?"

"Well, I only tended to Agent DiNozzo who was suffering from a laceration on his right temple and the early stages of hypothermia. But he's already doing much better. We stitched up his head and got him warmed up. He was coughing a lot, and I did some chest x-rays. There wasn't anything to be concerned about, but I did prescribe antibiotics to combat any infection that might start from any water that got into his respiratory system."

Ducky nodded his approval while Abby exclaimed: "Lake water? What did they do?"

"Where is Agent DiNozzo," asked Ducky, ignoring her for the moment.

"In an exam room down the hall, filling out paperwork to discharge himself. I wasn't against it as long as he takes the prescriptions I gave him."

"I will make sure he does," promised Ducky. "Do you know anything about Agent McGee?"

Franklin shook his head. "I saw him come in and assess him. His doctor is Dr. James. You probably know him."

Ducky nodded. "Yes."

"Dr. James took Agent McGee to surgery to repair the tissue damaged by the knife," Franklin continued. He shot a wary look to Abby. "I gathered that it was deep. Agent DiNozzo kept asking questions so I went to find some answers. All I got was that the knife hit nothing vital."

Ducky and Abby released relieved sighs. "Thank you, Samuel," said Ducky. "If you could just point us in the right direction to find Agent DiNozzo, please."

"Sure, right this way."

He led them to one of the exam rooms where they found Tony dressed in a scrubs and a Navy sweatshirt with a few layers of socks on. He was sitting on the table, filling out paperwork with a shaky hand.

"Tony!"

He looked up just in time to catch Abby in a bone crushing hug. She stepped back after a moment. "You're cold!"

"That happens when you jump into a frozen lake, Abbs," he replied with a weak grin. He looked over her shoulder. "Hey Ducky."

"Hello, Anthony," replied the doctor. He took the paperwork from Tony's lap. "You have my permission to discharge yourself, but I think I'll help you complete this."

Tony smiled gratefully. "Thanks. Did you get any information about Tim?"

"No more than what you have," replied Ducky.

"What happened," asked Abby. But she didn't even give Tony a second to start talking before she dove into her own story. "Gibbs told Ziva to check out the parents and it turns out that the father was having an affair and the last phone call with his son was them arguing real bad. So, Gibbs got this terrible gut feeling and even I started feeling a little hinky about it all. We tried calling you guys like a million times but there wasn't any service. So Gibbs and Ziva decided they were going to drive out there. It's a good thing they did. You could've died!"

"I'm fine, Abby," said Tony. "Just a little cold and I have a head ache, but it's Tim that's hurt."

"What happened," asked Abby again.

"Abigail," said Ducky. "Please, be patient and let the man take a breath."

Abby blushed and gave Tony another hug. "I'm sorry! I was just killing me that we couldn't reach you guys even though we were sure you were walking right into a trap."

"I gathered that," said Tony.

"So! What happened?"

"Abigail, if you ask that one more time, I will forbid you from listening to the story," said Ducky. "And you will have to get it from their reports later."

Abby clamped her mouth shut and made a motion of locking it up and throwing away the key. Tony let out a smile before tiredly telling them what he knew.

"I guess we'll have to wait for Timothy to give us the rest," said Ducky, after Tony finished.

"Mhmm," agreed Abby through her shut mouth. But tears were glistening in her eyes.

Tony pulled her onto the exam table beside him and let her lean against his chest. "It's gonna be okay, Abby. You heard the doc. Tim is just gonna have this awesome, sexy scar afterwards."

Abby sniffled. "But hearing about some monster stabbing Timmy…that's just horrible!"

Tony looked down at her. "You know, this isn't very healthy of you. You need to come to terms with the fact that our jobs can be dangerous."

"Healthy of me," exclaimed Abby. "You guys are the ones that get shot and stabbed and nearly drown and get the plague and get locked in prisons with crazy women and end up in terrorist camps half way around the world and get kidnapped by drug cartels and go into comas and go on crazy secret missions and—". She stopped when Tony out a hand over her mouth.

"No need to remind me," he said.

"Right," she replied with a sheepish smile.

"You're all set, Anthony," said Ducky, clicking his pen shut. "Why don't I drive you home to get into your own clothes? Probably something warmer, eh?"

"Only if you promise to drive me straight back," said Tony, eyeing Ducky conspiratorially.

"I promise," said Ducky.

Tony and Abby stood up. "You'll be okay here by yourself while we're gone," asked Tony to Abby.

Abby nodded. "I'll call you if anything happens while you're gone."

Tony kissed her cheek. "Thanks, Abby. You're the best."

Abby smiled sweetly. "That's what they tell me."

"Just don't terrorize the staff too much," Tony said. "They'll have enough of that when Gibbs gets here."

()()()()()()()

When Gibbs and Ziva finally reached Bethesda, night was settling over the Eastern seaboard. They had been taking care of the trying case all day. Once the local LEOs had come to secure the area, they had gathered up the evidence and then went on a search party for Mrs. Hughes. They found her body in a fresh grave about a mile from the campsite. They helped Palmer get the bodies into the van so that he could bring them back to the Yard where he performed both autopsies over the course of the day. Ducky was quite proud of his protégé for handling everything without assistance.

Now, the older M.E. was greeting Gibbs and Ziva in the hallway of the hospital to update them. They were certainly tired, but Ducky knew that they wouldn't really rest until they had answers.

"They'll both be fine," he said. "Timothy woke up briefly after his surgery, but the drugs are doing their job. He's sleeping for now. The knife cut into his spleen and apparently was twisted. But, thanks to unbelievable medicine these days, they didn't have to remove it and were able to patch it up. He was lucky, though, because an inch higher and he would've been stabbed in the diaphragm. He certainly wouldn't have lived if that had happened. By the way, I opted not to tell Abigail that last bit, and I suggest you do the same. She's in there with them, right now."

"Them," asked Ziva. "I thought Tony was discharged."

"Ahh, yes," said Ducky. "Anthony is currently occupying the other bed in the room. The nurses are quite ticked off with him since they can no longer consider that a double room."

"Why don't they just kick him out," asked Gibbs with a wry grin.

"Because he fell asleep and now they've all agreed that he's better off that way," said Ducky. "Though, he does need to be woken up every now and then because of the concussion."

"Can we go in," asked Ziva.

"Yes, but let me tell Abigail that you are here," he said. "We have been pushing all the wrong buttons lately with the nurses. I don't think they would appreciate us crowding into that room with Timothy asleep."

"Sure, Duck," said Gibbs.

"She will be happy that you are here," said the M.E. as he walked back to the room.

Once alone in the almost quiet hallway, Gibbs and Ziva heard someone inquiring about a Timothy McGee at the nurse's station. They turned around just as the man looked over at them. He started walking over and extended his hand out to them.

"You must be Agent Gibbs," he said. "I'm John McGee, Timothy's father."

Gibbs looked the man dead in the eye as he returned the firm hand shake. Ziva smiled, wondering just how this was going to turn out.

The next chpater will be what we've all been waiting for! The Admiral vs. Team Gibbs.

I know, not as good as the Partiots vs Giants rematch in the Super Bowl, but hey! This'll cover us til football starts again.

Just warning you ahead of time, the next chpater might not come til Friday or Saturday. You see, there's this movie coming out at midninght tonight...THE HUNGER GAMES! And I'm going to go see it despite the fact that it's a school night. I know, I know but at least I don't drink on school nights like some people we know...(DiNozzo). Anywho, with that event, I might not finish the next chapter tomorrow since I'll be catching up on sleep and school. But I promise to have it up as soon as I can.

Thanks for the support. Constructive criticism is welcomed and appreciated.