Chapter 3

Gibbs was sat up in his Hospital bed, the gentle beeps of the machines provided the only sound in the room, that was until Tony walked through the doors.

"Boss, the Nurse said you're medication's due in two hours."

"Make it one!" Gibbs snapped.

"But Boss...Boss...Boss...Boss..."

The word 'Boss' echoed in his mind, Gibbs slowly started to open his eyes, finding himself in his own house, sitting on his own couch with Tony standing in front of him, holding out a glass of water in one hand and some pills in the other.

"It's time for your medication Boss." He said softly, passing the water and pills to Gibbs.

Gibbs wiped a hand down his face groggily and grabbed the water and pills off Tony, who sat down beside him with a heavy sigh.

Gibbs took his medication and looked at Tony who had his head in his palms, "Are you ok?" He got no answer, "DiNozzo?"

Tony let his hands drop, "Yeah." He replied, before feeling Gibbs' unconvinced stare, "I dozed off!" He blurted out guiltily, and turned to face Gibbs, "When I went back to the car, I dozed off, that's why it took me so long." He admitted, "I messed up Boss."

"Yeah, I kinda figured that was what happened." Gibbs noticed the look of surprise on Tony's face, then added, somewhat incredulously, "Wait, so that's what's been bothering you since we were rescued?"

"Oh, you noticed?" Tony replied, "And it doesn't bother you?"

"DiNozzo, you were suffering from Hypothermia and you were exhausted, it's surprising you even made it to the car." Gibbs could see that it wasn't making Tony feel any less guilty, "Hey, do I seem like the kind of person who gives out praise unnecessarily?"

"No. I mean, not that you don't give out a lot of praise Boss, because you do but..." Tony made a high pitched moan as Gibbs' hand connected with the back of his head, "Thank you."

"Yeah, well the praise I gave out when we were in the middle of nowhere wasn't unnecessary either."

A sheepish smile appeared on Tony's face, "I wasn't sure if I'd imagined that."

After they were rescued, Gibbs stayed in the Hospital for one week, whilst Tony stayed in there for two days. Whilst they were off work Ziva and McGee managed to apprehend the badguys. The murder turned out to be gang related.

Tony stayed at Gibbs' house for the first few day's after Gibbs' was released.

Whilst Gibbs recovered, Tony took over as Team Leader.

4 Weeks later...

There was a sense of excitement in the air, which was mostly radiating off Forensic Scientist Abby Scuito as she stared intently at the elevator doors.

Ziva, McGee and Ducky talked calmly, whilst Tony enjoyed his last few minutes as Team Leader.

The elevator dinged and Abby jumped up from the desk she was sitting on and charged towards it, "Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs!" She shouted, hugging him gently.

"Hey Abs." He looked to see the smiling faces of the rest of his team, "Hey." He smiled, happy to be back.

The End.

A/N - Thank you for reading, and for all the kind reviews.

Sorry the FanFiction was quite short, I wanted to practice writing in a genre that I'm not really used to.