A/N: Hey everyone. The majority of the author's note will be at the bottom. Just want to say thanks for coming back to this for the next chapter. It's not as long as I want it to be but at least it's up. Enjoy!


Chapter Eight: Broken

About an hour later everyone, including a now non-drugged Tony, looked up as a tired looking Dr. Hitsugaya slowly walked through the double doors towards them. Gibbs and crew leaped up from their seats, or rolled up to him in Tony's case, as he approached and stopped in front of them. "How is he?" Gibbs asked, trying to keep the calm in his voice from changing to the worry he felt.

"May I speak honestly again?" Everyone nodded. Dr. Hitsugaya exhaled before continuing. "Not good. He's in critical condition. I'm just going to start from the top and work my way down." He glanced at his clipboard before looking back up at them. "He has a concussion, not to sever, but enough to keep him unconscious for quite awhile. He has large amounts of bruises all over his body, including his face. His right eye has completely swelled to the point where it has sealed itself shut. It'll take some time, how much I'm not yet sure, before the swelling goes down enough to see out of.

His lower lip has been sliced open and his nose broken. The break wasn't to sever, so we were able to set it right without any problems. They both should heal in no time, however his nose will be painful to breathe through and he will have to learn to breathe through his mouth for a while, which will cause his throat to dry up a lot. His lip has stitches but it shouldn't take long for them to dissolve."

Dr. Hitsugaya looked at his clipboard again. "It seems that several of his ribs were broken at one point or another but were never treated and so they healed improperly. We had to break those and set them right. However, the majority of those ribs were already broken again and one of them has punctured his left lung. We were able to put a patch over it to seal the hole; with time, the patch will fuse with the rest of the lung tissue, but until then, he will have to use a breathing tube to make sure he gets the proper amount of air needed.

His left arm is also broken in two places, both just above the elbow, and will need to be in a cast for three to four weeks. His legs are both broken; his left leg is broken above the knee and his right leg is broken on both the Tibia and Fibula, or the shin and calf bones. His right leg will be in a cast for five to six weeks at least, since it is the worst break out of all of them, and his left leg will be in a cast for as long as his left arm." The doctor paused and gave them all a grave look. "I don't know how else to tell you this next part, so I'm just going to be blunt; there were signs for us to do a rape kit and when we did, it came back positive."

No one knew what to say. Abby looked like she didn't know whether she wanted to cry or ask questions. Palmer looked like he was in shock, his mouth opening and closing silently. Ducky seemed to be struggling with what to say. Both Gibbs and Ziva were clenching and unclenching their fists, as though imagining the men who had hurt Tim being strangled that way. It was Tony who asked the first question.

"You mean they… raped him?" Tony asked, hoping he had misunderstood. He was disappointed, however, when the doctor nodded his head. Tony couldn't imagine Tim, his Probie, ever being able to go through that. There was no way Tim would be able stand that. But thinking back, it now made perfect sense as to why he acted so terrified these past few days. Tim had gone through it. He had experienced something so cruel and painful, Tony was surprised Tim hadn't gone into a state of depression or something. Tony wasn't sure he himself would be able to go through something like that and still be able to work. He definitely had to hand it to Tim; never again would he tell Tim he was weak or wimpy.

"That's not the worst of it." the doctor said, breaking Tony out of his thoughts. "Apparently he was raped repeatedly and with random blunt objects. We found traces of chipped metal and gravel inside him as well as a punctured colin and internal bleeding. Not only that, but we have reason to believe he was sexually tortured. We found burn marks along his inner thighs, especially along the area where the inner thigh meets the groin. He also had what looked to be barbed wire wrapped around his genitals, along with other excruciatingly painful things, some of it digging into his skin." Abby couldn't take anymore and sat down heavily in one of the chairs, sobbing. Ducky sat down next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, trying to soothe her.

"All of this will heal, but it's the mental wounds that I'm worried about. I've had a couple other rape victims who have all been emotionally and mentally scarred and one of them ended up in a psychiatric ward because she tried to commit suicide."

"No, way." Tony said, shaking his head. "Tim would never commit suicide. He wouldn't even think about that. No way."

"Absolutely not." Ducky said, agreeing with Tony. "Young Timothy knows better than that. He's an extremely intelligent young fellow. There's no way he would consider suicide."

"Especially since he knows what we will do to him if he does." Ziva said fiercely. "Although, I wouldn't mind reminding him if I have to."

The doctor nodded. "And on top of all of this, he also has a very high fever. A normal temperature is about 98° but he is at 105.3°. According to the tests we did, we were able to determine that he had started out with a mild fever a few days ago but because he never did anything for it, it got worse and worse. We are currently moving him to a part of the ICU where we keep the feverish patients, so they don't get the other patients sick or make themselves worse."

"C-can we see him?" Abby asked hopefully through her sobs, her mascara smudged under her eyes.

Dr. Hitsugaya shook his head. "No, I'm afraid not. He is highly contagious and can't have visitors until his fever breaks. It would be very dangerous for someone to go in and contaminate the air in the ward. You understand."

Abby, Ducky and Jimmy nodded their heads. Gibbs gave a single curt nod and Ziva stared at the floor, eyes narrowed. Tony looked past the doctor, staring at the double doors, as if hoping he could see Tim through them if he stared hard enough. To be honest, he wasn't sure he wanted to see him. The way the doctor described all of his injuries had Tony imagining the worst for Tim, seeing him torn up and bleeding; broken. That's how he was. No matter how hard he tried, all Tony could see was Tim, lying on the hospital bed, wires and tubes sticking out of him like some kind of science experiment scene in a sci-fi movie, bloody bandages and sheets pooled around him, his body torn and bruised; broken. He knew his mind was blowing it out of proportion, imagining the worst, since it couldn't actually see Tim, but he couldn't help the painful thuds that started beating at the inside of his chest.

"Tony?" Gibbs asked softly.

Tony snapped his eyes away from the doors and looked up at him. He didn't like the way Gibbs looked; he was worried, Tony could see it in his eyes, and that was not normal. Gibbs never let his emotions get away from him; never let his agents know just how upset he was by something, except for the occasion where he would become obsessed and enraged with finding a criminal they couldn't catch. But this wasn't like that. He looked worried. This was getting to everybody.

"Tony." Gibbs said again, this time a bit louder and stronger. "You alright; you keep spacing."

Tony blinked, mentally shaking his head clear. "Yeah, I'm fine. I was just thinking."

"Well, snap out of it; it's time to go. Everyone else is gone." Gibbs gestured to the now empty waiting room.

Tony looked around; he was right. Everyone had gone, including the doctor. When had he left? "Oh, sorry boss. Guess I got a bit distracted." Quickly, Tony tried, and failed, to turn his wheelchair around, his mind to distracted with the atrocious images to understand why his wheelchair wasn't moving. Sighing, Gibbs smacked Tony on the back of the head before leaning down and unlocking the wheels of the chair and wheeling Tony around and down the hall to the exit. "Thanks, Boss."

"Mhm." Gibbs mumbled.

A/N: Yay! I was finally able to update another chapter! *doing a little victory dance* If you read my earlier post with the explanations as to why I'm having so much trouble updating these chapters, I just want to say thanks for reading and understanding. If not, then I will just say that I am having difficulties with my real life as well as with my postings but rest assured that I will not, repeat: WILL NOT, drop this until I am completely done, no matter how long it takes to get these chapters done. DETERMINATION! So please bear with me.

The next chapter won't be up for some time, possibly two or three weeks, maybe four, but it will be updated. It will consist of Gibbs and team investigating Tim's case, pulling out all the stops and at the same time, visiting Tim in the hospital. Tobias is going to make an appearance! I understand if you are getting tired of waiting for these chapters, but it's not entirely my fault. If you are a writer, you know that it is excruciatingly hard to come up with good enough material to be considered a chapter. Even if you have a great scene in mind but no idea how to connect it to the story or whatever. Or you just have absolutely no idea what to write next. I believe these are all symptoms of an annoying disease called Writer's Block. Curse you, W.B.!

Anyways, thanks for sticking with me and all that. Please review and let me know what you think or if I'm wasting my time updating. Bye!