Gibbs rarely felt as helpless as he did right now. He sat in the ambulance, hunched over with his elbows on his knees, watching as the paramedics made sure that McGee was okay. Ducky was riding with Tony, Ziva following behind, Abby presumably already at the hospital. When had things gone so wrong?
"Looks like we've got a fracture to the left wrist," one medic said, interrupting his musings, and Gibbs saw Tim look at him in confusion.
"That can't be right, I would've known," he mumbled, and the paramedic shook his head.
"You had a lot of adrenaline going there," he explained. "You'll probably be feeling it before too long." McGee lapsed back into silence, staring at the ceiling, and Gibbs could tell by his face that something was bothering him.
"McGee? What's wrong?" Gibbs asked, and he wasn't too surprised to see tears in the agent's eyes when he turned to look at him.
"My fault," he muttered, returning his gaze to the ceiling.
"No it wasn't," Gibbs said firmly. "Not at all." McGee shook his head, drips of salty water trickling down his face, mixing with the blood still flowing from his head.
"Gibbs, Tony…" McGee's voice trailed off and Gibbs knew that he was still blaming himself. "Why aren't you with him?" Gibbs looked at him questioningly, and McGee looked away. "He's hurt worse than me."
"Tony's going to be fine," Gibbs said with as much conviction as he could muster. "Ducky can tell us what's going on with him, that's why he's riding with Tony. Besides, you need someone to ride with you too." There was a pause, and Gibbs continued. "And I mean what I said to you, Tim. None of this was your fault. You'd best get that out of your head if you don't want me to smack it." McGee nodded, closing his eyes in a wince as one of the medics stuck a needle in his arm. Gibbs raised an eyebrow at the medic.
"Pain meds," he explained. "He'll need to get checked out pretty thouroughly at the hospital, but at this point my guess would be a grade 3 concussion." Gibbs nodded. He had pretty much suspected as much.
"Boss," McGee moaned, and Gibbs turned his attention back to the agent. "'M gonna be sick." A medic quickly produced a bowl and Gibbs held it while Tim heaved into it. Awkwardly, he reached a hand out and set it on McGee's back, feeling the agent relax under his touch.
"It's okay, Tim," he said quietly, and he wasn't entirely sure how to react when he could feel Tim's body shaking with sobs. Then they were at the hospital and McGee was being pulled away, and Gibbs was hurrying out of the back to find Ducky. Ziva came in right behind him, wearing a look of panic that Gibbs was unaccustomed to seeing on her. Abby ran up to them as soon as they walked in.
"Report, Ducky," he said tersely as soon as he saw the doctor. Ducky looked even older than normal, worry evident on his face.
"It isn't good, Jethro," he said quietly, and Gibbs felt his stomach drop. "Anthony's blood pressure is dangerously low, they think there might be damage to his liver." Ducky paused, let the news sink in, dropping his eyes to avoid seeing the anguish evident in Gibbs' face. Ziva remained stoicly emotionless, refusing to give anything away, rubbing Abby's shoulder as Abby sobbed uncontrollably.
"What do you think, Duck?" He asked quietly, rubbing a hand over his eyes in exhaustion. Ducky hesitated before answering.
"I think it's going to be close, Jethro. But I also think that Anthony is rather hardy and if anyone can get through this, it's him." Gibbs nodded, noticing that Ducky hadn't started rambling about how this reminded him of some other time, and his worry increased a notch. Abby had buried her face in Ziva's chest by this point, and Ziva had her eyes closed as she rubbed Abby's back. Gibbs couldn't stay here. He had to know what was going on.
"Where is he?" Jethro barked out, and Ducky shook his head.
"He's in Trauma 2, Jethro, but you really shouldn't-" Gibbs was already stalking towards the room, Ducky's voice trailing off behind him. He opened the doors more quietly than he really wanted to, wanted to slam them open and announce his presence and scare the crap out of DiNozzo and make him obey, but instead he opened them quietly, entered the room as if he were sneaking in, stood quietly at the wall and out of the way while they worked on his senior agent –practically a son to him, now- trying to keep him alive. As he stood there, blood everywhere, hurried voices, sounds of machines and panic, he wanted desperately to head smack DiNozzo, wondered if that was weird, realized that it was his way of saying that DiNozzo meant something to him, was important, and he needed the contact.
"You aren't supposed to be in here," a nurse stated accusingly, and Gibbs just stared at her. She maintained eye contact for a moment before breaking it off, looking at the floor.
"Fine, just stay out of the way." Gibbs didn't acknowledge her again, focused his attention back on Tony. There was so much blood…and the metal shard sticking out of his side nearly made Gibbs physically ill to look at. Gibbs heard a commotion from the room next door, separated by a door with a window, and he could see that McGee was giving his doctors trouble. Gibbs stood up to go speak to the agent when an alarm went off, one that Gibbs knew all too well, watching in growing horror as someone started pumping his senior agent's chest. He cast one guilty look towards Tim, fighting harder now than before, and turned back to Tony. He couldn't leave now. He couldn't.
Ziva could hear the yelling from McGee's room, though she couldn't understand much of it. She was actually quite surprised that Tim would be shouting like he was, as he was generally mild mannered, but she supposed that with the stress of the day's events and the concussion, he had a right to be irritable. Abby and Ducky were staring at the door too, clearly as surprised by the outburst as she was.
"Miss? Are you here with Agent McGee?" A frazzled nurse asked, stepping out of the room Tim was in.
"Yes, I am," Ziva answered quickly.
"Could you come talk to him? We need him to calm down, rather not give him a sedative, but it's heading that way." Ziva nodded, followed them into the room, where Tim was struggling against the doctors to sit up.
"Tim! What are you doing?" Ziva demanded as she approached him. Tim gaped when he saw her.
"They won't let me see Tony!" He shouted, and Ziva realized that through the window, she could see everything happening in DiNozzo's room. Oh no…They were shocking him. Ziva shook her head, turned back to McGee, hands trembling as she tried to forget what she'd just seen.
"McGee, you need to calm down. Tony…Tony will be okay." She hated herself for lying, he was in the other room, dying on the table, "You need to take care of yourself, Tim. Once you get out of here, you can see him, right? And he wouldn't want you to be making trouble for the people who are trying to help you." She hoped, prayed, that she wouldn't have to tell him that Tony was dead when he asked to see him as she'd promised, wanted to sneak a glance into his room while at the same time, absolutely not wanting to know. She smiled at Tim, a forced, fake smile, but he seemed to take comfort from it, finally allowing himself to calm down.
"You'll tell me if you know anything about Tony?" He asked quietly, turning pleading eyes to her, and Ziva felt it like a blow to the gut.
"Of course," she said, hating herself for it. Then again, she didn't really know anything. After all, it was Tony. He'd be okay.
A/N: Thanks again for all of the good reviews, I really appreciate them. :)