A/N: I am so pleased with all the feedback I have gotten. I want to say a few things here; First of all, Kudos goes to Pancho1993 for proof reading this, hopefully there isn't going to be any mistakes. To the guest reviewer who called themselves NCIS Fan; Thanks for your critism and pointing out the darkness and the sideswipe, to answer about the tarmac on the aircraft carrier I'm not sure it is possibly some similar kind of high grade material that they use. It is my birthday today so even more reviews would be greatly accepted with chocolate cake.
As I forgot to do this on the first chapter I will now; DISCLAIMER: I do not own NCIS unfortunately. I am merely borrowing the characters and will return them in a worse condition than I got them.
Gibbs looked down at his watch and noted that it had been hours since he had last seen his senior agent. He knew that he had made the right decision about Tony the minute he had seen Tony's eyes light up against all the hurt and fear the second he heard about the son he had just fathered. He altered between sitting and staring at the double doors that held DiNozzo behind and pacing the length of the waiting area. He knew that Ducky at some point had come in to check on the progress because when he did he had brought a coffee that was left to cool on the table next to the chair that Gibbs had taken up residence in.
He watched as various Doctors and nurses came and go without giving him any news on the agent whom was more like a son to him than just a co worker. He never thought that he could let someone worm their way into his heart like that since Shannon and Kelly. He had just swapped from pacing the floor to sitting down on the uncomfortable hospital chairs when he heard the unmistakeable sound of heavy boots clomping heavily against the lino floor. He looked over to Abby who had tears streaking down her porcelain like face; he sighed heavily and opened his arms for Abby to wrap herself in.
"Why didn't you tell me?" She hiccupped softly and buried her face into Gibbs' neck. "Why didn't you call me?"
Gibbs was silent for a while before replying, "I didn't have time Abby, I just grabbed Ducky and brought him here then I went off to Tony." He leaned his chin on the top of her head. "There just wasn't any time to call anyone."
"So what? You just didn't call anyone whilst Ziva died in the OR, whilst Tony's leg was being amputated? Don't you think that we, Ziva's and Tony's friends would like to know when they're dying?" The gothic woman seethed and pounded her fist into Gibbs' shoulder.
"Abby, Abs. There wasn't time, I promise you that. When I got the call from Ducky saying Ziva had died; I was also receiving news that the rescue crew was looking at the amputation. I had to make the decision and I don't regret it one bit, but Tony won't see it that way." Gibbs placated and sighed softly.
Abby bumped her fist into his shoulder harder and glared at the older Marine. "He will. Tony isn't a person for holding grudges. Maybe not now but someday he'll see that you were just thinking about little DiNozzo."
Gibbs looked at her sharply before asking, "How did you know about the baby?"
"Ducky told me when he called to say that you might want some company waiting for Tony to come out of surgery." She answered bluntly before smiling sadly at the already harsh life the child had been subjected to within its first few waking hours. "He's six inches long, a little small but not much and weighs a pound; NICU's got him on a ventilator because his lungs are still under developed to take that amount of strain. Ducky said he was going back to see baby DiNozzo after he told the Director about Ziva, so Vance could notify Eli about her."
Silence fell on the two as they thought back to when they first met Eli David. At first he seemed like if he didn't get his own way he would do anything to make it happen, but as the love between the two younger agents grew, they saw a side of Eli that no one had ever saw in Mossad. He was accepting and understanding of Tony and even gave him his own blessing to marry her which everyone thought would be a big no, no in Eli's books. When Ziva announced the pregnancy to her father, the older man was delighted and helped the couple find a nice expensive house in the DC area that was close to schools that trips would be made to everyday in the distant future.
"Abs, Abby. You've gotta move; my legs are going numb." Gibbs whispered and watched as Abby bolted up off his lap and sat down into the chair next to him.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to." She muttered back and looked mournfully at the double doors in front of them. "Why isn't there any news about Tony? Someone should have come out by now. Something's gone wrong hasn't it?" She started to ramble because of the nerves that built up within her.
"No news is a good thing." Gibbs replied back "It means that they're still working on him and he's fighting."
"I know, I know that Gibbs. I just...I don't like being left in the dark about stuff like this when it comes down to my family." She retorted and folded her arms over her chest.
The double doors that they had both stared at a few minutes ago opened to reveal a rather frazzled looking surgeon. His hair was still hidden by the cap he had worn in the surgery but he had taken off the surgical gown to reveal the pale blue scrubs underneath. "Agent DiNozzo's family." His voice wary from the long surgery and of the tiredness he suddenly felt from being on duty for thirteen hours. Gibbs and Abby shot up from their seats and pounced on the surgeon, eagerly wanting news on their friend.
"Gibbs, Tony's next of kin and this is Abby Scuito; Tony's friend." Gibbs introduced gruffly. "Is everything alright with DiNozzo?"
"First of all I'm Doctor Steven O'Malley. Agent DiNozzo came through the surgery fine; the reason why it took so long was because as well as cleaning up and suturing the amputation site we found that he had a small laceration to his liver that was slowly bleeding so instead of finishing and doing another surgery on him in a few days we decided to do it then. We suspect that his right ankle is broken or fractured, he might not have felt this because of the trauma to his left leg; once he's awake in recovery he'll be taken up to Radiology to see what the damage is there." O'Malley took a deep breath in before continuing. "Before we started the surgery we noticed that Agent DiNozzo had a collapsed lung but we were able to fix that by placing a chest tube which will help the lung re-inflate over the next day or two."
"Is that why he had the pain in his chest whilst he was in the wreck?" Gibbs asked curiously.
"Most likely, yes, it would have been. We won't know for sure until he comes around from the anaesthesia and tell us if the pain is still there or not. Hopefully he'll be awake in the next half hour to a hour and be out of recovery and into HDU, within two hours, once we know that there isn't anything else surgical that has arisen."
"Hopefully?" Abby repeated the word that gave her some doubt in her mind and squinted at the doctor.
"Yes, Miss Scuito, hopefully. With any surgery there is always the risk of the person not waking up from the anaesthesia for some reason. However I do not think that Agent DiNozzo is going to be one of those who don't as he fought to get here to the hospital from the accident. He is a remarkably strong man looking at his medical records, so I see no problem that he'll be out of here within a couple of months, hopefully with his son as well." The doctor replied back soothingly. "I've asked for a Doctor Pitt to be consulting on this case given Agent DiNozzo's unique lung history and also because of the collapsed lung. Is there anything else I can help you with?"
"Can I go see him now, so he's not alone when he wakes up?" Gibbs asked kindly, which was unheard of from him.
"Seen as though you're his next of kin and under these circumstances, yes, I'll get a nurse to come and fetch you in a few minutes to take you." Steven answered the question. "If you don't mind I've got some patients to check up on." He excused himself from the pair and headed back through the double doors.
Gibbs turned sideways to Abby and looked at the saddened expression on her face. He gathered her up into another hug. "I know this is hard at this moment Abby, but what I need you to do is go update Ducky, so I can call him if I need to know anything as well as to go back to the Navy yard and update Vance, because I'm sure that Ducky has told him. I also want you to look into any surveillance videos near the area of Tony's crash, see if you can piece together what happened, and try to get his car towed to NCIS to help with a reconstruction if you need to."
Abby nodded softly and wiped away tears that had started to form up in her red rimmed eyes. "I'll get McGee to help me with it. He's good at looking through tapes. Do you want anyone to come with you to see Tony?"
"No, not yet Abs. I'm sure Tony wouldn't want you to see him groggy from the surgery with his emotions clear on his face. If he wants any visitors when he's feeling better I'll call you and I promise you that you'll be the first person who gets to see him." Gibbs replied and watched the younger woman extract herself from the hug.
"Tell him, I'm glad he's still with us Gibbs." She asked and waited for Gibbs to nod back before turning on her heel and swiftly walking out of the waiting room.
"Mr Gibbs?" A small feminine voice spoke within the suddenly too quiet room. Gibbs looked around and saw that he was the only one left there waiting, he looked down at his watch and noticed that it was almost midnight. He ran a hand through his hair and breathed a long sigh of relieve that this horrible day was almost over.
"Yeah?" He replied to the short, blonde haired woman that was standing in front of him. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun that gave her a look of importance and no nonsense attitude, the pale scrubs she wore contrasted with her skin making it look as though she had olive skin.
"I'm Beth, one of the nurses that are looking after Agent DiNozzo during his stay in Recovery. Normally we wouldn't allow anyone to come back here but you're lucky." She spoke determinedly and set off towards the double doors, leaving Gibbs to quickly follow behind.
"I wouldn't call my agent being in hospital with half a leg missing, having to grieve for his wife and look forward to raising a premature baby lucky, nurse." Gibbs growled back to the statement.
"You're right, my bad. Normally I only have to treat people that are asleep or too hopped up on pain killers that they're not even sure of the day." Beth replied and walked into the Recovery suite. "He's in bed four; just press the call button when he's awake." With that she walked off to the nurses' station.
"It wouldn't hurt for you to learn some bedside manners." Gibbs muttered under his breath and stalked towards his too still for his liking agent. He gave Tony a cursory glance from head to toe and gulped at the unnatural emptiness underneath the blanket where his leg was. "Hey DiNozzo, I know you like it there in no man's land at the moment but you've got to come back to me and your baby. You're not finished in this world yet and won't be for a long time. So say whatever you need to say to Ziva and come back." He whispered softly as he leaned down so his mouth was next to Tony's ear. "I promise you, you are not alone in this, we will help you."
He turned and sat down in the chair next to the bed but grasped Tony's hand lightly within his. He closed his eyes for a second to try to blink away the tiredness that clawed at him but managed to doze off.
Almost an hour later he was awoken by the slight jerk of the hand he held and the increase of pressure on his hand. He looked bleakly at DiNozzo before finally recognizing that the younger man's haunted eyes were gazed upon him. He stood up, reached over and pressed the call button.
"It's okay DiNozzo, I'm here. Do you know where you are?" Gibbs asked while he waited for Beth to amble her way into the cubical.
Tony looked around blankly for a second before replying, "'ospital?" His voice slurred and croaky from the lingering effects of the anaesthesia, he gaze shifted back to Gibbs.
"That's right; do you remember what brought you here?" Gibbs' voice was gentle and kind, one that was normally used for victims that he had to interview, instead of the gruff voice that he normally used with Tony.
Tony was silent for a few minutes, trying to rack his brain for the reason. "'Reck?" He searched Gibbs' crystal blue eyes for confirmation, when he saw the man's eyes he nodded lightly, trying not to exacerbate the marching band that had taken up residence within his skull. "Hurts." He whispered and wriggled slightly on the bed.
"I know, you had a small laceration on your liver so they decided to do that surgery at the same time as finishing up your leg, they figured out that it'll be easier to do it then rather than having to put you under a second time." Gibbs explained and pushed the call button a second time. "A nurse is going to come soon and fix you up with some more of the good stuff okay?"
Tony nodded softly and shifted his gaze up to the ceiling, his mind replayed the last few seconds of happiness he had experienced before the crash.
He turned his head and looked briefly at Ziva in the passenger seat whilst waiting for the traffic lights to change.
"What?" Ziva snapped in frustration that her back was started to hurt as well as her ankles from all the walking around they did.
"Just thinking about when we get home. Hot chocolate, a bubble bath and bed." He replied huskily and turned his gaze back onto the traffic signals.
"You're pampering me too much Tony. If you didn't tell Gibbs I would still be out in the field like I wanted to."
"Yeah well, sorry if you don't see it my way but I want my son to be fine in there; I don't want him being shot at before he's even born."
"Mr Gibbs? You pressed the call button?" Tony heard the nurse ask and looked over to the woman, his pain and emotions too high to put up his usual antics of trying to flirt with her.
"Yeah, Tony's woke up and he says he's in a bit of pain." Gibbs replied back but never released the hold he had on Tony's hand.
Beth walked up to the bed, stopping so she could easily be seen within Tony's sight but could also look at the monitors that slowly beeped away. "Mr DiNozzo, I heard that you were experiencing some pain, can you tell me where it is?" She asked and noted down on the chart she had picked up from the side of the bed.
"Chest, side 'nd leg." He replied bluntly without taking a pause to think about it.
"Well, that's going to be expected with your leg, they've had to shorten your femur by a few inches so in the future you'll be able to use a prosthetic to get around on. Your side will be because of the incision site they had to do to fix the laceration and your chest will be because you have a chest tube there to help your lung re-inflate after it collapsed. Can you tell me on a scale of one to ten how bad it is?" The nurse retorted back with no emotion within her voice.
"Eight." Tony whispered and closed his eyes to stop the tears that he felt forming up in his eyes from escaping down his cheeks.
"Right, I'll go get some more morphine for you and we'll get that sorted out." She replied back and quickly left the room.
Vance sat back in his chair and sighed deeply, he hated long nights like this that kept him away from his wife and children. He hated this part of his job where he had to make calls of remorse to the family that was left behind. Despite the circumstances being different in the fact that Ziva didn't die by a bullet on duty she was still an NCIS agent it still fell down to him to call his long time friend about the passing of his daughter.
He stared at the open file in front of him that held the number to Director David's personal line, up until this day he had never needed to use. He looked at the differently set clocks on the wall and noted that it was almost seven am in Israel. He hated to start of the man's day off like this but he had to before he found out through the media. He picked up the desk phone and dialled in the number.
"Shalom Eli." He greeted when the Israeli picked up, trying to keep it light hearted before he had to get to the news.
"Leon, Not that I don't mind talking to you but I'm sure you have more pressing matters than speaking with me."
"It's about Ziva." Leon sighed and leaned back in his chair. "She was in a car crash earlier; they managed to get her out and to an OR but... She died on the table, we don't know the official cause is yet but it looks like it was internal bleeding from the crash. I'm sorry Eli."
There was silence between the two friends for a while, before Eli spoke again, his voice was now void of any emotion. "The baby? Did they save the baby?"
"Yes, they did, but he's got a long hard road ahead of him to survive this. He's currently in the NICU at Bethesda."
"What about Meatball?"
"Agent DiNozzo was in the car with Ziva, and the last update that I had about him was that in order to get him out of the wreck they were amputating his left leg. I'm not sure if he's been told that he has a son yet, but I'm sure if you come over for a while he'll be happy to see you. I can't imagine the situation that he is in at the moment."
"I'll be on the next flight out once I brief my deputy. Do you know what caused the accident?"
"No, not yet. DCPD claimed it first since it was looking just like a car accident but once they learned that two federal agents were involved they called in the FBI but I'm sure that Gibbs has asked Miss Scuito and McGee to look at it themselves to make sure everyone is doing a good job."
"I've heard nothing about the driver and passengers in the other car, but then again they'll be too bothered to save their lives rather than thinking about what happened."
"Leon, I know you will want everything to go legally, but if it doesn't happen, I give you my personal promise that we will make the people responsible pay. Go home to Jackie and the kids, it must be late there. I'll see you soon." Eli replied and disconnected the call between the two.
Vance put the receiver back and sighed. He really wanted to follow what Eli had said but he knew that he wouldn't be able to get any sleep until he found out the reason. He picked up the receiver again and dialled the familiar number to the FBI director.
"Frank, the car crash you took of DCPD earlier today because two of my agents were involved, do you have any leads on how it happened?" Leon asked calmly.
"You're calling me at midnight when I want to get a few hours of sleep for a case? Hell Leon, I know some of your agents are hard asses and don't need sleep but I thought you did."
"I can't sleep until I manage to get some closure to all of this; you know how it is when it's one of your own." Vance replied.
"Are you sure you want to know?" The man was greeted with silence coming from Vance's end of the line. "Fine then; it looks like the driver of the other car was high on Meth and twice over the limit. From what I could tell is that he was too impaired that he thought he was going 30 when he was doing 100 and he thought that red meant green. For your agents I think they were just simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"What about the other passengers in the car? Were they all high?" Leon asked softly.
"Yeah, they were. They've all been treated at hospital and everything; they've come out of this with just broken bones and concussions; As well as charges for various things, the driver more than the others."
"How old was the driver?"
"Twenty. Up until this he was in College working on a law degree to become a Judge. I think he's just realising how much he has messed everything up."
"Yeah, well instead of helping out at the DA's office next fall he's going to be in prison serving twenty to life. Thanks anyway Frank; call me in the morning if you have anything else on the case."
"Will do; also give Agent DiNozzo my sympathy's as well as the agency's. I know some of my people are planning something but I've been told its top secret, it's been mainly led by Fornell and Sacks. Oh and also the media has gotten wind of what's happened so don't be surprised when it's plastered all over the television tomorrow and there's reporters camped outside NCIS and Bethesda."
"Thank for the heads up Frank, I'll set up a small press conference when they arrive and also get Gibbs to let me know what I can say about DiNozzo, because knowing him he'll want everything to be kept quiet but I don't think that's going to happen."
"Me neither, now I'm going back to sleep, I'll talk to you tomorrow." Frank replied and roughly hung up the phone.
Vance placed the phone down for a second time, finally grabbing a few things for home and headed out of his office; at this time of night it wasn't unusual for most of the desks to be empty, seen as though three quarters of the agents within the DC office worked local cases that didn't require for them to link up with another time zone.
Hums happy birthday song to myself