A/N: Hey peoples. Just want to apologize for the long update. I just got a new laptop but I have to wait for it to get fixed by the guy I'm buying it from first. It doesn't have word processor or anything yet but it will soon. In the mean time, I am using my friends laptop still and I actually had this chapter written out already but for some reason, every time I tried to log on to my account on this laptop, it lets me log on but I can't do anything. I can click on the tabs but like say I want to view my favorite stories. I click on favorites and it pops up but it doesn't let me view my stories I favorite. Same thing with publishing. I can't view my stories or publish anything. Yet for some reason it lets me do all of that on a different computer. So basically there are a lot of difficulties going on but hopefully by next month it should get better and easier to publish chapters. Thanks for your patience.

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NCIS OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT IS OBVIOUSLY NOT OWNED BY ME. DR. HITSUGAYA IS MINE BUT THE NAME I GOT FROM TOSHIRO HITSUGAYA FROM THE ANIME 'BLEACH'. Enjoy.

Chapter Seven: Not Your Fault

Tony swore as he glanced up into his rear view mirror, seeing the flashing blue and red lights. What did he do now? It couldn't be for speeding; not with Grandpa McSlowpoke in front of him. He almost never speeds, with the exception of that other time and Tony is right behind him. So, what could they want with him?

Tony pulled over to the side of the road, noticing Tim doing the same a few feet ahead. He watched in his rear view mirror as the cop got out of his car and approached his door. Tony pushed the button on his door and rolled down the window. "Can I help you, officer?" he asked with a grin.

"License and registration?" the officer asked, ignoring Tony's question.

Tony reached into his glove compartment and pulled out a stack of papers. Shifting through them, he pulled out his registration papers and handed them, with his license and work ID, to the man. "What's this about?" he asked again.

The man continued to ignore him, glancing at his ID and grinning. "Special Agent Anthony Dinozzo, of NCIS. You're a cop."

Tony grinned again. "Yeah, technically. An agent really, not necessarily a cop."

The officer shrugged. "A cop is a cop is a cop. That's all."

"Oh." Tony said. Okay, what's with this guy?

The officer glanced toward Tim's car. "That a friend of yours?"

"Yeah, I'm staying at his place until the issue with one of my ex's blows over. You know how that is."

"No." The man said.

"Oh. Well, it's kind of messy, see-" Tony started.

"I don't care." The officer snapped. "Tell your friend to go. There's no need for him here. I just need to check these real quick."

Tony glared at the man before pulling out his cell phone and dialing Tim's cell. "Hey, McGee, keep going. It's no big, I'm almost finished here."

"Okay." Tim said.

Tony hung up and watched as Tim drove away a few seconds later. "Happy?"

"Euphoric." He said.

'Yew-what?' Tony thought. 'Whatever. Wonder how those formal complaint things work? Maybe I can make one out for this jerk.' Tony glanced at the guys name tag as he walked back to his patrol car. 'T. Malloy. Malloy. Where have I heard that name before?' Suddenly Tony's eyes widened. 'T. Malloy. Tanya Malloy, dead police officer. She's dead. So who…? Oh, shit.'

Tony started to reach for his gun when another thought hit him. 'What if this is a trap? McGee!' Tony turned on the car and started to pull out before slamming on the breaks. A man stood in front of his car, wearing a white T-shirt with the words 'Down With America' across the top. The man lifted his hand and Tony got a glimpse of something long and metal before it was brought down on the hood of his car.

Tony reached down and grabbed his gun. As he straightened back up, his back windshield shattered and a sudden sharp pain in his shoulder had him gasping and clutching his shoulder. Quickly, he threw himself across the passenger seat as his front windshield shattered. What was happening? He didn't hear any gunshots; what was making his windshields break? It could be a silencer.

Before Tony could think anything else, his passenger side window shattered, making him throw his arms up over his head in an attempt to protect it from the falling glass. Quickly, he threw open his passenger door and dragged himself out. Using the car as a shield, Tony brought up his gun and fired behind him at the man with the gun. The man ducked and fired back. Tony ducked as the window in front of him shattered. 'My car.' Tony thought. 'Oh, there is definitely going to be hell to pay.'

Tony reached up to the newly-broken window and fired at the guy. As the guy ducked, Tony stood up, intent on firing again before the other guy got his bearings, and suddenly felt another sharp pain across his back. Crying out as pain followed the sounds of cracking ribs, Tony fell to the ground, landing on his hands and knees. Quickly, he whirled around and shot the man that had hit him. The bullet connected with the man's head, causing him to fall backwards to the ground. Tony gasped for air and turned to continue firing at the other man when another burst of pain erupted from his upper left thigh. Clutching his leg, he looked up to see the "officer" pointing his gun at him.

"You're the ones after McGee, aren't you?" he gasped out, still clutching his leg and gun.

"Don't know who that is. A cop is a cop. They're all the same." The man said. "And you, Cop, look like you're in a great deal of pain. Does that hurt?"

"A bit." Tony said.

The man sneered. "Does this?" Quickly, he shifted his gun's angle and fired.

Tony jerked and cried out again as another sharp pain burst from his left hip. Gasping for air, Tony asked, "Why are you doing this? What did cops ever do to you?"

The man glared at him and shot Tony's left arm, causing him to clamp his teeth shut before he could cry out again. He wasn't going to give this guy the satisfaction of knowing how much pain he was inflicting on him. "Cops ruin everything." The man said.

"But why leave McGee alive? Why didn't you kill him like the others?" Tony asked.

The man scoffed. "Ah, now I know who you're talking about." He shrugged. "Just for the fun of it. We were bored and wanted to see how long he would go before squealing to his little cop friends." Then as an afterthought, the man grinned nastily at him. "But don't worry. That'll change soon. Just like it will for you."

Tony saw the man aim his gun at his chest. Thinking rapidly, Tony glanced over the man's shoulder, thinking that this would be the perfect time for Gibbs to pop up and save the day. As he glanced over the guy's shoulder, he noticed the guy to the same. Without giving it another thought, Tony wildly raised his gun and fired.

The man froze before falling over onto Tony. Tony grunted in pain as the now dead man's weight hit his wounded leg. Taking a few moments to catch his breath and morn his ruined car, Tony shoved the man off him and pushed himself painfully to his feet. He had to get to Tim before those bastards did. He just hoped he got there in time.

Keeping his gun ready in his hand, Tony reached in his car for his cell phone, which he had dropped onto the seat in his haste to get out. He flipped open his phone to find the screen broken. Hoping it was nothing damaging, he dialed Tim's number. The phone remained silent. Cursing his lack of luck, he threw it back on the seat and turned.

Wincing, Tony reached down and grabbed the fake officer's gun, and his ID card, license and registration papers, and then, as an afterthought, took the name tag from the man's chest before starting his painful trek to Tim's apartment building.

* * *

Tony scanned the parking lot quickly before spotting Tim's car. Quickly he limped over and checked it out. The driver's side door was wide open with no one inside the car. Tony turned away from the vacant car and saw something lying on the ground near the back of the car next to Tim's. Quickly, Tony limped over to it and picked it up. It was a dark brown leather wallet. Flicking it open, Tony saw the driver's license say it was Tim's.

"McGee." Tony called quietly, weaving through the parked cars. When he reached the low wall at the end of the parking lot, he turned, planning on searching through the cars again, when something wet and shiny caught his attention as his gaze drifted past the space between the apartment building and the low wall.

Tony limped up to the puddle, and crouched down in front of it, wincing at the pain in his injured hip and thigh. Examining the thick dark puddle, Tony was, at first, unable to tell what it was in the dark. Then he reached down and dipped his fingers into the puddle and put them up to his eyes and was able to conclude that it was blood. Searching the rest of the area, Tony noticed that the blood was trailing away from the area and heading towards the front of the apartment building.

Following the trail, Tony made his way to the front doors and entered the building. He followed the trail to the elevators and carefully pushed the bloody 'up' button, making sure not to get too much of his own fingerprint on it. When he entered the elevator, he pushed the edge of the bloody button that he knew led to Tim's floor.

As the elevator doors opened, Tony's eyes followed the blood until it stopped just outside Tim's door at the end of the hall. Quickly, Tony left the elevator and approached Tim's door, gun ready. Seeing Tim's keys in the doorknob, Tony carefully pulled them out and opened the door as quietly as possible.

"Tim." Tony whispered when he saw Tim's bleeding body on the floor in front of the door. Quickly, Tony searched the rest of the apartment, going from room to room, making sure they were alone before grabbing Tim's home phone and a sheet from the hall closet before returning to his body. "Hang on, Tim, I'll get help." Tony promised, draping the sheet over Tim's naked body in an attempt to save him some of his dignity, not noticing that he had started calling Tim by his first name. Tony called the first person that came to his mind.

"Gibbs." Came his boss's voice.

"Boss, it's Tim he's hurt and I don't know what to do there's so much blood and he's not moving what do I do I –"

"Tony, calm down." Gibbs commanded. He was just getting ready to leave work for the night. He was able to make out bits of what Tony had been trying to say and had already grabbed his keys and bolted down the flight of stairs to the parking lot and his car. "Take a deep breath and start again. Slowly, this time."

Tony took a deep breath as instructed and tried again. "I was following Tim home and I got pulled over by a cop who turned out to not be a cop but was actually one of the guys who had attacked Tim and he was wearing Officer Malloy's name tag and I think her clothes too, which was how I noticed him but I had already told Tim to go ahead of me to the apartment, and I know I shouldn't have but I didn't think and then the guy started firing at me and I had to defend myself against him and the other guy with a bat or something and when I was finished I got here as quickly as I could but I was too late and Tim's bleeding and he's not moving, and, and –"

"Dinozzo!" Gibbs snapped as he barreled down the street towards Tim's apartment building.

"Sorry!" Tony gasped. "But, boss, what do I do?"

"I'm on my way, don't worry." Gibbs said. "Did you check for a pulse? And did you call an ambulance?"

Tony mentally slapped himself. "No, I didn't do either. I didn't think. The first thing I did was call you. I didn't even think of anything else. I'll check right now." Carefully Tony reached down and pressed his fingers to Tim's wrist, sighing in relief when he felt a slow pulse. "It's there but it's really slow."

"Okay I'm about a block away. Hang up and call an ambulance." Gibbs ordered before snapping his own phone shut and speeding towards the apartment building's parking lot.

Tony shut off his phone, waited a few seconds, and then called 911. "911 emergency." A woman's voice said.

"I need an ambulance down here right now. There's an NCIS agent lying on his apartment floor covered in blood and bruises and who knows what else wrong with him and I need to get him to a hospital immediately." Tony said in a rush.

"Okay, sir, just calm down. You failed to give us an address in that statement but we tracked the address through the phone." She said. "An ambulance is on its way there now. It should be reaching your location in ten minutes."

"Good. I gotta go." Tony said as Gibbs entered the apartment. Quickly he snapped his phone shut and waited for Gibbs to crouch beside him. "An ambulance is on its way. They said it should be here in about ten minutes or so."

Gibbs nodded but didn't say anything. Carefully he reached down and pressed his fingers to the side of Tim's neck. After feeling his slow pulse, Gibbs lifted up the sheet to see the damage.

Tony turned his head away when Gibbs lifted the sheet. "I'm sorry boss." Tony whispered, gazing down at Tim's bruised and bleeding face. "I know how much you hate sorrys but I can't help it. This is all my fault. I promised Tim I would protect him and keep him safe from those guys. And I failed him. He was counting on me and I let him down."

Gibbs glared at Tony and slapped the back of his head. "Tony, look at me." Tony looked up into his boss' face. "This is not your fault. You didn't do this to him, those bastards did. They tricked you two into separating and attacked you both individually."

Before Tony could argue further, a group of paramedics and police officers swarmed into the room. Tony and Gibbs stepped back to let the paramedics examine Tim's body. One of the officer's approached them and started asking questions. "Which of you found the body?"

"He's not dead, so don't call him 'the body'." Tony snapped. "He has a name."

"Tony." Gibbs said.

Tony glared at the guy before sighing. "Sorry. I found him." Quickly and with a nod from Gibbs, Tony explained everything to the officer, from Tim being targeted by the men who were responsible for the deaths of Officer Malloy, Lieutenant Leme, and ex-Marine Officer Reece, to the plan they had come up with to protect Tim, to Tony following Tim home and getting pulled over by one of the men who had attacked Tim, and finally ending with Tony finding Tim's body and calling Gibbs before calling for an ambulance. "Here." Tony said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out Officer Malloy's name tag and gun. "Thought you might want these back."

The officer took the name tag and gun from Tony with a sorrowful expression. "Thank you."

"Hang on." Gibbs called behind him as the paramedics started to roll Tim out the door on a gurney. Both paramedics paused and turned to him. "Take him with you. He needs to see a doctor as well." Gibbs said, pushing Tony towards them.

"Boss, I'm fine." Tony said, confused.

"You're not fine, Tony. Or did you forget that blood is dripping from your left leg, your left arm and your right shoulder?" Gibbs said.

Tony looked down at the wounds on his leg and then his arm and finally his shoulder. He had forgotten about them. Seeing Tim the way he was had completely shoved all other thoughts to the back of him mind. "But –"

"No buts, Dinozzo." Gibbs said firmly. He pointed to the door. "Go."

"Yes, boss." Tony said. As he headed for the door, Gibbs called.

"While you're on your way there, call Ziva and tell her to meet us at the hospital. I'll call Ducky and Abby." Gibbs said.

Tony was about to tell Gibbs that Tim hadn't wanted Abby to know about this but figuring it wasn't fair to her, he just nodded. "On it, boss. But I don't have a phone. Mine is broken in my mercilessly destroyed car."

Gibbs tossed him his. "Now go." Tony nodded and headed out the door after the paramedics. Then Gibbs turned back to the officer. "Do you have any more questions?"

The officer shook his head. "No, Agent Gibbs. But if you have any questions for us or need anything, please, don't hesitate to ask."

Gibbs nodded before turning on his heels and picking up the home phone Tony had left on the ground. Quickly, Gibbs called Ducky. "Ducky, head to the hospital. Tim's on his way there in an ambulance with Tony. Tony's fine but has a few injuries of his own. I'll explain when I get there." Then he hung up and dialed Abby's number.

"Hey, Tim." Abby said when she answered. Since Gibbs was using Tim's home phone, Abby had assumed it was him from the caller ID.

"Abby, it's Gibbs." He said. He had decided to call her last, knowing she would be more difficult to explain things to than Ducky. "I need you to listen very carefully to me and don't speak until I'm done. Tim's on his way to the hospital in an ambulance. Tony's with him and they should be getting there shortly. I need you to meet me at the hospital right now. I'll explain everything then, not now, there's no time. Understand?"

There was a pause, in which Gibbs could hear her stifle a sob. "Yes." She whispered.

After he hung up, Gibbs shut off the phone and headed out of the now empty apartment, locking the door on the way out. Then he headed down to the parking lot and into his car, heading for the hospital.

* * *

When Gibbs entered the hospital ten minutes later, it was to a hysterical Abby, a calm yet concerned Ducky, a nervous Palmer, and a dangerously narrow-eyed Ziva. As soon as he walked into the waiting room, he was bombarded with questions from all sides.

"What happened to Timmy?" Abby.

"Where was Tony?" Ziva.

"Is he okay?" Palmer.

"What's wrong with Tony?" Ducky.

"Gibbs!" Abby.

"Gibbs?" Ziva.

"Uh, sir?" Palmer.

"Jethro, are you alright?" Ducky.

"Will all of you just shut up and give me a minute?!" Gibbs shouted. Everyone paused, surprised that Gibbs snapped the way he did, and mumbling their apologies, even though they all know about Gibbs' rule about apologies. Whatever had happened to Tim must have been extremely bad if it made Gibbs so upset.

When it looked like he wasn't going to be further bombarded, he started explaining. "First off, I don't know all of the details about what happened. All I know is what I saw when I got to his apartment and what Tony told me. Wait!" he said, holding up a hand as Abby started to ask a question. "Tony is in with the doctor right now. As far as I saw, he has a few bullet wounds on his left leg, left arm and right shoulder. I'm telling you this right now; Tony was ambushed and tricked into separating from McGee. When he realized what was going on, he literally risked his life to get to McGee before they did, defending himself against two of those guys by himself. So when he gets back out here, I don't want to hear a word from any of you about McGee's condition being his fault. You all know damn well this will be eating at him enough as it is without any help from everyone else. Is that clear?"

"Of course." Ziva said with a nod. She knew how she would have felt if Tim had gotten hurt under her watch. She would have felt like the entire thing was her fault and that she had failed Tim. "You are right, it is not his fault."

"Absolutely not." Ducky said. "These men obviously know what they're doing and had planned on separating them to begin with. They obviously planned it to happen this way, so it really isn't his fault at all." Palmer nodded vigorously.

"That's right." Abby chimed in.

"Good." Gibbs said. "Now based on what Tony told me, one of the men had pulled Tony over, pretending to be Officer Malloy, and had convinced him to separate from McGee. Then a second guy appeared and started bashing his car in and at the same time, the "officer" started firing at him, forcing him to defend himself against them. When he finally got a chance, he hurried back to McGee's apartment building and followed the trail of blood all the way to the elevators and up to his apartment. Now, I'm only going to say that McGee was in pretty bad shape. I'm not going to lie, there was blood all over his body and cuts and bruises everywhere. And I'm betting he has more broken bones than he had before."

"What do you mean by 'before'?" Abby asked.

Everyone paused, avoiding her eyes, except Palmer, who looked just as confused. Finally, Gibbs explained to Abby what had happened the day Tim had showed up at work looking extremely tired and sick and how Tony had followed him into the bathroom when he had gotten sick and found out a lot of things about what was wrong with him. Then they had gone with Gibbs into the interrogation room and explained what had happened and they had come up with the plan to protect him. Then he explained about Tim taking them into the interrogation room a couple days later and showed them the mass amounts of bruises along his torso, leading up to the more recent events.

"I can't believe you guys didn't tell me!" Abby cried. "Why didn't you tell me what was going on? How could you guys?"

"McGee didn't want you to worry." Ziva explained. "He made us swear not to tell you for fear of you getting hurt. It was a big risk for him to even tell us."

"Exactly." Said a voice behind them. Everyone turned to see Tony being wheeled through a pair of double doors by a tall Asian man in a long white lab coat with short wavy black hair and oval-shaped black rimmed glasses.

"Tony!" shouted Abby, rushing towards him ahead of everyone else.

"Whoa, there." The doctor said, holding up a hand to stop Abby. He turned to the rest of the group. "He's still a bit groggy from the drugs and shouldn't be put under too much stress. I would recommend you keep the hugs and questions to a minimum, please. For his sake."

"Yeah, keep the bugs and questions to a min –mini –minimum." Tony stuttered.

"And he's still a bit loopy." The doctor added.

"My name is not Loopy." Tony said, scowling up at the doctor. "It's … it's … um…"

"Tony." Ziva said helpfully, an amused smile on her face at Tony's odd behavior.

"Yeah, that's it." Tony said with a goofy grin on his face. "That's me. Not this Loopy person. And as for you," he said to Abby. "Don't blame nothing on Tim. You don't know what he went through. I made him tell me. He was scared s-s-s-ssshitless when he realized I had been able to convince him into telling me more than he wanted to. He said he was told that if he telled us anything that he wasn't to say, they would do whatever they had done to him on Sunday to him and do it to the person he told. Meaning me and Gibbs and Ziva. Ducky found out cuz Mr. Gibbs couldn't keep his mouth shut and pulled him into the interrogation room when Tim was showing us he bruises. Bad Gibbs."

Ziva tried, and failed, to keep from laughing at Tony's 'honesty' to Gibbs that would, under different circumstances, get him fired faster than she could blink. Ducky smiled at Gibbs as Palmer looked away to keep Gibbs from seeing him smirk. Abby, however, frowned at him.

"Abby, it's not Tony's fault and it's not Tim's fault." Gibbs said. "Tony is, however, right in saying that you shouldn't blame Tim. You know how he is with keeping things from people if he thinks it would bother them or endanger them. Which is why he didn't tell you or Palmer. Hell, the director didn't even know."

"Okay." Abby said in a small voice. She knew that this was just how Tim was and to be honest, she was kind of flattered that Tim had tried to keep her safe by not telling her, even though she did feel a bit insulted.

Gibbs turned back to the doctor. "So how is he, Dr …?" he asked, nodding to Tony, who was playing with the wheels of the wheel chair.

"Dr. Hitsugaya." The doctor said, smiling down at Tony before looking back at Gibbs. "He's fine. He has a bullet wound on his upper left thigh, another on his left hip, and another on his left arm, just above the elbow. He also has a bullet wound on his right shoulder that went all the way through to the other side without doing any damage to the tendons there. We were able to remove all of the bullets, except for the right shoulder since that bullet is missing, and patched up the wounds without any problems. However, the biggest injury was his ribs."

"There's nothing wrong with me." Tony said. "I feel just good. I'm fine, see." Tony lurched out of his wheel chair and would have landed face first on the tiled floor if six pairs of hands hadn't kept him from falling. "Well, I was fine." Tony said as he was placed back in the wheel chair.

"His leg is going to keep him from walking on it for a while, so he will need crutches. The wheel chair is just until the drugs wear off." The doctor said.

"I'm not on drugs." Tony said. "Gibbs would kill me if I was."

"What was it about his ribs?" Ducky asked.

"Several of his ribs were broken from behind." Dr. Hitsugaya said, glancing down at the clipboard he had been carrying in his hand. "He has a rather nasty bruise across his back and several of the ribs underneath said bruise have been broken. Nothing too severe, but he will have to keep from doing anything laborious that would damage the muscles in his back."

Everyone nodded including Tony, who was only nodding because everyone else was doing it. "And what about Tim?" Abby asked.

"He's still in surgery." Dr. Hitsugaya stated sadly. He hesitated before looking into Gibbs' eyes. "Do you mind if I be completely honest instead of beating around the bush in a false attempt to make it sound less terrible than it actually is?"

"Please." Gibbs said with a nod. He hated it when doctors tried to make a bad situation better by taking forever to say it. The others nodded in agreement, though Abby was a little hesitant.

Dr. Hitsugaya nodded before continuing. "He wasn't looking so good. He ended up flat-lining once while we were examining him. It took several moments to resuscitate him. Afterwards we had to proceed with extreme caution in order to keep it from happening again during the surgery." Just then, a voice above their heads called out, "Dr. Hitsugaya, you are needed in surgery immediately. Dr. Hitsugaya, to surgery immediately."

"Excuse me." Dr. Hitsugaya quickly pushed the wheel chair to Ziva, who was closest, and quickly ran back down the hall and through the double doors leading to surgery.

A/N: so what did you guys think? Not bad? I made this one extra long just for my readers. Again, sorry I took so long but I will try to get this done. I have not given up on this, no matter how long it takes me to update. I also have a poll on my profile asking which of my three stories I should focus on writing first. Please let me know what you think. And don't forget to review! Bye.