CHAPTER 4

As soon as he was clear of the elevator, Tony slipped down the hallway towards an out-of-the way men's room. On the way there, he raided the big first-aid kit kept in the supply closet without arousing suspicion. There weren't many people in the office and those who were there had their eyes glued to their computer screens.

Tony locked the door, glad that Ziva was out of town, otherwise she'd be breaking in to see what he was up to.

The knife wound along his ribs was sore as hell; his left arm rubbed against it no matter how hard he tried to avoid contact. Taking off the NCIS field jacket and his suit coat, too, left Tony feeling shaky. His shirt, wet with blood, was sticking to his side, so he carefully peeled it off and inspected his injury. He wasn't squeamish as a rule, not like Probie was, but it was a mess. The cut was still bleeding despite being plastered with about a dozen super-jumbo band-aids. The blood had run down his pants and had soaked through to his skin along his hip. The smell was starting to get to him and he hoped he wasn't going to puke.

All Tony wanted to do was to head home, have a stiff drink and splay out on the couch. Unfortunately, now he'd taken a good look at the laceration, he had a sinking feeling that relaxing at home – well, at Palmer's home – was not how he was going to be spending his evening. It was a long gash across his ribs under his left arm, and just twisting a little to see how much damage there was made blood gush out of the gaping edges of the wound. Tony felt light-headed just looking at it. There was no way around it, he had to seek medical help. Not yet though.

Tony made good use of several large packets of gauze and applied his own version of a pressure bandage to his injured left side, securing it to his skin with duct tape he'd borrowed from a handy janitorial cart.

The NCIS jacket Tony was wearing had a long slice through the cloth, and was beyond help. So was his designer suit jacket and although it hurt him to do so, Tony removed his wallet and keys and stuffed the jacket into a trashcan. His shirt was bloodied but if could get his hands on a clean, undamaged field jacket, he could cover it up and nobody would be any the wiser.

Tony stuck his head out the men's room door and made sure there wasn't anyone around before he slunk towards the bullpen, keeping a sharp eye out for his boss. Peering around a corner, he checked to see if Gibbs was at his desk, but there was no sign of him. Of course, not knowing where Gibbs was lurking was dangerous because the man had a habit of appearing out of thin air. Still, Tony knew he had to get back to the bullpen to face Gibbs and to give him a full report at some point. Well, the report was going to leave out the fact that he'd been injured.

Just as he'd hoped, someone had left a field jacket draped over a chair in the first cubicle he passed by. Tony snatched it up and traded it for his own. That one was relegated to another trashcan. There wasn't anything he could do about his pants, which were bloodstained all down his left thigh, but they were a dark material and the jacket was just about long enough to cover it up.

When Tony was ready to face Gibbs, or as ready as he'd ever be, he strode purposefully into the bullpen. Only Gibbs was not there. Tony had a good look around the office, expecting to see his boss coming down from MTAC, or popping up from behind one of the dividing walls. No Gibbs. Huh. "Hey Liz, do you know where Gibbs is?" Tony asked an agent working in a neighboring cubicle.

The woman's face darkened. "He's gone for the day." She didn't add 'thank goodness' but it was apparent that's what she was thinking. "He was on the phone with a lawyer, something about his ex-wife."

"Not too happy, huh?"

"Is he ever?" she asked sourly, and went back to work.

Well, sure Gibbs was happy…sometimes…like when they caught a criminal after a tough case, or when he was working on his boat, or when the Nationals won. He seemed happy enough when Tony shared a steak and a beer with him. Or, Tony amended, when he used to join Gibbs for a steak at his house. That was before the team had been spilt up because Tony had allowed their director to be killed. Okay, so nobody had said as much to his face, but Tony knew that he'd failed his entire team as well as Director Shepard. It didn't matter that she'd ordered him to stop following her; it had been his job to keep her safe, his number one priority. Her safety had eclipsed her need for privacy and Tony had known that, and yet when she'd told him to back off he had done exactly what she asked.

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They weren't like a family any more, Abby had complained when Tony had gone down to her lab a few days earlier. "Gibbs is doing his prickly porcupine act. You know, when he's hurt and retreats behind those quills. Or maybe he's a turtle? Anyway, it's all the fault of that Senator Kiley and his wife. Gibbs believed they were friends, Tony. Friends! And they turned on him! Turned on Gibbs! I mean, who in their right mind would do that? You can fix him, Tony, like you did before, when he lost his memory. I know you can."

"I never fixed him, Abby," Tony had protested. It did seem as though they had taken a big step back, with Gibbs being reticent, biting off everyone's head, acting like it was him against the world.

"You were there when he needed someone constant, someone smart and funny."

"As if he ever liked my humor," Tony had said with a snort. "He just needed someone to remind him who he was."

She'd snorted. "He likes a lot more than just your sense of humor, Tony, and if you don't know that by now, then you're not much of a detective."

Tony wasn't so sure how much Gibbs liked him any more but he hadn't said as much to Abby.

She had looked at him with worry in her eyes and said, "Gibbs understands that you were following Director Shepard's direct orders, Tony. It was her choice, taking control of when and where she died."

"Then why is he still holding it against me?" Tony had demanded.

Abby had launched herself at Tony and hugged him in her usual way, and then she'd stepped back and punched him in the arm. "Snap out of it! Gibbs is not holding anything against you," she'd declared.

"Ow! What'd you do that for? I thought girls were supposed to hit like…well, like girls. And how do you know he isn't holding it against me? If I was him, I'd hold it against me. Or hold it against him. Which is it? You know what I mean. Good use of a Moonstruck line, by the way."

Abby had insisted, "Gibbs needs someone to stand up to him, Tony, and that someone is you. So stop beating yourself up about a situation that you were manipulated into. I know you, and you always try to do the right thing, and you did what you thought was best, given the circumstances. You and Ziva turned around and went to back the director up, and that's what counts."

"I think it would have counted for a lot more if we'd been there a few minutes earlier, Abby," Tony had replied dryly. He had held up a hand to stop her from saying anything else. "Anyway, I'm done beating myself up about it. I'm going to feel the weight of guilt all my life, but I'm not going to let it drag me down. Jenny always followed her own agenda without caring about the fallout. Believe me, I know."

"I know you do and I'm so sorry, Tony," Abby had said sympathetically. "But now you have to concentrate on Gibbs. You need to find out what's making him Grouch-Gibbs."

Tony had raised his eyebrows. "And then what?"

"And then you remind him who's on his side, who has always been right there for him. He needs a slap upside the head, Tony, and you're the only one that can give it to him."

Tony had immediately protested, "I am not hitting Gibbs, not even for a good cause, Abby."

"A figurative slap, dummy. A wake-up call. Go," she'd said, pushing him towards the door. "Go and wake him up."

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On Tony's first night home, when he was trying to get comfortable on Jimmy Palmer's not-so-comfortable convertible couch, he thought back to the morning four months ago when he'd shipped out on the Reagan.

He never saw it coming, being ordered to take an Agent Afloat position immediately after Jenny's funeral. He accepted his punishment without any protest and shipped out the next day. One thing about Tony, he was adept at changing to suit the situation, which made him so good undercover, but being cut off from his friends who were his support system was harder than he had expected it to be.

There was a lot to learn aboard the ship, but at least the crash course of being the sole special agent on a huge ship took his mind off everything he'd left behind. Or at least it did when he was busy. At night though, he was flooded by guilt and plagued by second guesses. But then he thought about Gibbs' last words to him, just before he shipped out: "You'll do fine, DiNozzo." Typical curt Gibbs-speak but all the same, it had been strangely comforting.

In truth, Tony hadn't been expecting Gibbs to say anything to him, much less see him off at the pier, but Gibbs's eyes had shown compassion even though his expression had been stern. It was so odd, so not-Gibbs, especially after his anger about Jenny's death and the circumstances leading up to it, but Tony didn't have time to figure it out before he was aboard and the USS Ronald Reagan was preparing to shove off. Tony fought for a position at the rail just so he could see Gibbs one last time. Gibbs stood on the pier, straight-backed with one hand raised in farewell.

It was tough the first few days on board, but then Tony told himself to stop feeling sorry for himself and got into the swing of things. He was conscientious and did his job well, but as the one-month mark approached, he'd had enough of shipboard life and really wanted out.

It never occurred to him that he'd have to do the whole two years but as time passed by he began to wonder. He had expected, he had believed, that Gibbs would get him the hell off the ship after a couple of weeks, tops. Apparently not.

Tony lay in bed in Palmer's small living room, laughing humorlessly about how naive he'd been. Apparently Gibbs wasn't the only one who needed a wake-up call.

When he was transferred to the Seahawk, and his incarceration aboard the ship extended to two and then three months, Tony came to realize that he wasn't going to be rescued. The truth came as a bit of a shock. Either Gibbs didn't have the kind of power everyone thought he had – Tony included – or he simply didn't want Tony back. Tony was afraid that it was a bit of both.

He'd pretty much given up when, to his surprise, Gibbs appeared in Cartagena, smiling broadly at being able to surprise Tony. Next thing Tony knew, he got sprung and was flying back to DC on a commercial flight with Gibbs and Ziva in the next row of seats.

Sighing, Tony rolled onto his side and punched his pillows into a better shape. Even if the mattress of Jimmy's pullout was thin and the sheets weren't a high thread count, this was heaven compared to any shipboard bunk. Now that he was back on terra firma, Tony was determined not to do anything that would rock the boat. He'd rather transfer to NCIS-fucking-Alaska than get stuck on a ship again.

Gibbs had barely spoken to Tony since he'd been back. They never had a chance that first night, with Abby hogging the conversation and telling Tony everything that had happened during his four-month absence, which Tony already knew because he and Abby had kept up a constant stream of emails all the time he'd been away.

Tony had figured that his boss would say something, anything, the next day, but although they worked together, Gibbs never opened his mouth except to demand his key and to bark orders. It didn't take a rocket scientist for Tony to see that things were no longer the same between them. Gibbs was still angry and was punishing him for getting Jenny killed. Okay, he'd accept the blame. He had already done so. Now he'd work his tail off, and follow all the rules if only it meant he could stay on Gibbs' team.

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Tony sat at his desk, careful of his injured side, which was hurting more with every passing minute. First, he had to phone Gibbs to bring him up to speed on the Hannaford case. Of course, no way was he going to tell his boss about his injury. Admitting to Gibbs that he'd messed up by misjudging a suspect was not an option. Instead Tony called Gibbs and gave him a brief rundown about how Lieutenant Hannaford's apartment had been squeaky clean.

"Too clean?" asked Gibbs, his suspicion coming clearly over the phone.

"No, just didn't look lived-in. He was career Navy. Just kept the apartment for when he was ashore, I'd say. Balboa and I got a laptop and some other things for Abby to look through, but I don't think she'll find anything to suggest foul play."

Gibbs just about snarled, "You a psychic now, DiNozzo?"

"Just speaking from experience. You know, the old gut." Tony could hear the sound of tires squealing and a horn blared and receded with a wail. He asked the obvious. "You driving, Boss?"

"I'm on my way to a lawyer, dealing with some legal crap. Just write up your report, DiNozzo, and I'll look at it as soon as I'm done with this," Gibbs barked over the phone. "Unless, after four months at sea you forget what the procedure is."

Tony pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it for a couple of seconds. With all the patience he could muster, he said, "On it, Boss. I'll make sure everything is shipshape."

Tony was about to hang up when Gibbs asked, "Is there something else I should know?"

Tony cringed and tried not to sound guilty when he asked, "Um, like what?"

"How the hell would I know?"

"No, nothing else, Boss." Luckily, Gibbs hung up before his usually sharp senses caught on that Tony wasn't telling him the complete story. Tony relaxed a bit. Now all he had to do now was type up his report and head home to lick his wounds.

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At some point Gibbs would figure out that his lead agent had been hurt, but in the meantime Tony wasn't about to supply any information that he didn't have to. Being bullied into getting medical care was not at the top of the list of Tony's favorite things to do. To be fair, Gibbs used tough love to keep his agents safe and in top form. Injuries not only affected his people's performances out in the field, and could easily endanger other agents, but they reduced the high rate of solved cases. Gibbs took it very personally if a criminal escaped prosecution for any reason at all, so messing up was not an option.

It seemed to Tony that he had been on the receiving end of an awful lot of sharp weapons over the past few years. His injuries, if one tallied them up, formed quite an impressive list. Tony shrugged them off rather than dwell on them. He always bounced back and individually they seemed less significant than en masse, with a few exceptions. There was the whole Y. pestis thing, that bout of pneumonia after an unscheduled dip in the Anacostia, and a six-hour coma – the result of breaking up a fight and being thrown against a bulkhead – when he was aboard the USS Seahawk which, for some reason, Gibbs had not yet found out about.

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Once he'd finished his paperwork, Tony emailed copies to Gibbs and to Balboa, who Tony could see was still at his desk, talking on the phone. He printed out a hard copy for Gibbs because he didn't always read all his emails, and then, when Tony couldn't put it off any longer he finally admitted to himself that he had to get someone to tend to his wound. Apart from the mounting pain, he was feeling lightheaded and generally lousy.

Gingerly, Tony rose and made his way down to autopsy, knowing that Ducky would fix him up. Of course the good doctor's help would come with a price including a lot of stern looks and a bucket-load of advice, and a rambling tale beginning with 'when I was a lad.'

Worse of all, Ducky was going to tell Gibbs about it. Tony hoped he could coerce Ducky to hold off until Monday.

All he needed was a good night's sleep and, if he was lucky, they wouldn't get called in on a case this weekend. Tony tended to heal fast so by the time he strolled in on Monday morning, he'd be feeling a lot better and ready to face the wrath of Gibbs. Plus McGee should be back at work by then and he'd take on some of the workload. Who knows how long Ziva would be overseas this time. Anyway, this was where rule number 18 came in: It's better to seek forgiveness than ask permission.

Tony expected Ducky to be still working, but the lights were dimmed when he walked into autopsy. Apparently the ME had gone home. Palmer would have left already if he was going home to prepare dinner, as planned. Tony stopped a couple of feet inside the large, cold autopsy room, feeling somewhat abandoned. Now what? Imagine, the one time he was actually going to ask for help, there was nobody home. Suddenly he felt very weary and just wanted to lay his head down for a while. The metal autopsy tables almost looked good enough to catch some Zs upon. Almost, but not quite. They were a graphic reminder as to how close he'd come to taking a permanent nap.

He leaned against one of the metal tables while he wondered if there was anyone else could he turn to. Abby would be able to stitch up a wound if she could keep her mind focused on the job but if he knew her, she would blurt out all the gory details to Gibbs the first time he looked at her.

Ziva…she would sew him up if she were there, and she would relish the opportunity to remind Tony how she never would have been sliced by a drugged-up thief. Ziva would have kept it a secret if he had asked her though. Problem was, Tony would most likely have had to offer her something in return, and God knows what she'd have wanted out of him. Plus she'd have something to hold over him. Handing Ziva anything that could be used as leverage later on was a bad idea.

McGee? No, he wasn't even going to go there. He'd faint at the sight of the blood and then he'd let it slip to Abby, and she'd let the cat out of the bag without meaning to.

Tony started to mentally flip the pages in his little black book. There had to be a nurse in there somewhere. What was the name of that woman he'd dated a couple of times? She worked at some kind of clinic. Marianne. Marianne something…but why did he keep picturing fluffy white poodles when he brought up her name? Oh yeah, she worked at a veterinarian's office. Sure, she would help him out.

Tony took a deep breath and winced at the pull on his wound. Shit, now he had to gather his strength, walk all the way out to his car, and drive himself to the emergency room to get stitched up. He knew he should. He really should. It was just that he hated hospitals. The smell reminded him of something from his childhood. Something bad. He'd never been able to pinpoint exactly what caused him to break out in a cold sweat, and why a feeling of helplessness overwhelmed him the moment he set foot inside any kind of health care center. Tony hadn't tried very hard to discover the root of his discomfort because he really, really didn't want to know what was lurking in the dark recesses of his memory. There was no benefit in looking too deeply at that phase of his life. It was so long ago it seemed to belong to another person.

Just as Tony was about to turn and leave, Palmer came out of the storeroom, his arms full of boxes of medical supplies. Jimmy stopped short at the sight of Tony. "I didn't know you were still here. Dr. Mallard left me to restock but I'm almost done. I'm heading home to start cooking dinner in a couple of minutes." He juggled the supplies he'd been restocking and managed to drop a few on his way over to the nearest autopsy table.

Tony instinctively bent over to pick up a box of latex gloves that had tumbled near his feet, and a sharp pain seared along his ribs. He let out a hiss between clenched teeth, swore under his breath, and groped for something – anything – to cling to. Jimmy's hand was on his elbow, guiding him towards a nearby chair, which Tony found almost as embarrassing as the faintness that made him gladly accept the support.

The young medical assistant's eyes expressed concern. "Tony? Sit right here. Take a couple of deep breaths…that's it. What's going on?"

Tony looked vaguely around the autopsy room. "Um, I just needed…I wanted Ducky to…" He inhaled a few shallow breaths and said, "Never mind. D'you know if Abby's still working?"

"She went bowling."

This was a stupid idea. He'd just deal with it himself. Plenty of tape and no sudden movements and he'd be fine. Hell, who was he kidding? He was still bleeding and the jabs of pain whenever he moved were acute enough to take his breath away.

Before Tony could rise from the chair Jimmy crouched down in front of him, his hands gripping Tony's knees. "I can see you're hurting, Tony. Let me help you," Jimmy offered.

Tony was about to deny that he needed any help, but then he came to his senses. His shirt was sticking to his ribs, damp with fresh blood; the bandage he'd applied in the men's room didn't seem to be stemming the flow as well as he'd expected. Every time he moved, his entire side felt as raw as if it were being scrubbed with heavy-grit sandpaper; if he raised his left arm even a little there was a piercing pain along his ribs that made him break out in a cold sweat. But right in front of him was Jimmy Palmer, concerned and capable, with a cabinet full of medical supplies nearby. Maybe he didn't need Marianne after all. Jimmy could do it, and he'd keep quiet about it, too.

"Okay," said Tony. He carefully lifted his left arm away from his body and indicated the area where he'd been wounded. "Need stitches," he said ruefully, trying not to pay too much attention to the horrible feeling that the edges of his wound were gaping like a slowly opening zip-lock bag.

Jimmy pulled back Tony's jacket, and the bloodstained and slashed shirt, then carefully peeled back a corner of the makeshift bandage underneath. As soon as he saw the laceration Jimmy said, in a voice that oozed the type of professional calm best saved for mental patients and idiots who were bleeding all over the autopsy floor, "Tony. Listen to me. We are going to stand up and then I will take you to the emergency room–."

Before Jimmy had a chance to finish his sentence Tony was up on his feet, almost shouting, "No!" He stumbled for the exit, wondering how the hell his strength had drained away so quickly and why the metallic surfaces of the morgue were shimmering in that weird, funhouse-mirror sort of way. "Can't…won't…no hospital."

Jimmy said quickly, "Wait! Wait…look…I shouldn't…okay, okay! I…I guess I could give you sutures. Come back and let me look at it, Tony."

Tony halted in his tracks and turned slowly. The room didn't sway quite so much if he planted his feet wide and stood perfectly still. He eyed Palmer with suspicion. "You've done this before, right?"

"Of course I've sutured patients before." Jimmy smiled, his gray eyes innocent behind his eyeglasses.

"Live patients?"

Jimmy nodded with a bright smile. "Most of them have even survived," he said in an attempt at humor.

Tony released a huff of breath and said wearily, "Look, I don't want to get you in any trouble, Jimmy."

"But you came down here to ask Dr. Mallard to treat you, didn't you?"

Tony didn't have the energy to point out that Ducky had the credentials to perform an after-hours medical procedure and that if Palmer were caught there'd be hell to pay for him practicing medicine without a license.

Jimmy's chin came up. "Oh, you don't trust me."

"C'mon, Black Lung," Tony said, using his nickname for Palmer and making him smile. "I do, I do trust you, and you know you're an important part of my team." He had been, too, ever since Gibbs had gone on hiatus a couple of years back. Jimmy had proven, time and again, that he was a good listener and he'd helped Tony out by just being there, by being a sounding board. By that point, Tony would have been willing to ask a Girl Scout to sew him up with a carpet needle. He almost smiled when he pictured a little girl being awarded a merit badge for repairing a wounded NCIS field agent.

"Tony?" Jimmy prompted.

"Yeah, I trust you, Jimmy." Tony winced in anticipation. "Is this gonna hurt?"

Jimmy pulled a face and said apologetically, "You sure you don't want me to take you to the ER?"

Tony shook his head. "Just do it."

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