Chapter Three

Gibbs was at war with himself.

The investigator in him was telling him to stay back, don't touch anything until Ducky said so, get a camera and take pictures, put on gloves before he did anything else. His mind was thinking about the evidence, the measurements, the sketches that would have to be done, the trace that would need to be collected. His eyes scanned every inch of the basement, from the blood on the floor, to Tony's shoes on the workbench, to the blood-coated tools in the toolbox.

The rest of him was screaming at him that it was his basement, his floor, his workbench, his tools. That it was Tony and nothing else mattered. That he had to stop thinking and processing like it was some random stranger. That he had to get over there and cut Tony the hell down.

'Move your ass, Gunny! Now!'

It was a short battle.

He did his best to avoid the blood, but there was so much of it, dark red puddles everywhere, and he knew that he contaminated some of it. He chastised himself for destroying evidence that they would need to nail the bastard who'd … but there were more important things to worry about.

His eyes and past experiences told him that it was over, that Tony was gone, and that his basement had just become the crime scene in a murder investigation. But the rest of him had to know for sure. He'd never believe it if he didn't find out for himself.

He lifted one shaking hand and pressed two fingers against the side of Tony's neck. He closed his eyes, held his breath, and concentrated. Then he spun around frantically to find Ducky, who was still standing on the steps with Gibbs' cell phone at his ear.

"He's alive!"

"Yes," Gibbs heard him say. "An ambulance to that address, immediately."

He left Ducky to finish his conversation, turned back around and moved his hand to the side of Tony's face. "Stay with me, DiNozzo," he said softly. "You do not have permission to go anywhere." He pulled his knife out of his pocket and reached for the rope that secured Tony's left wrist to the rafter.

He didn't give another thought to the crime scene he was destroying.

A hand on his arm stopped him. He didn't remember Ducky coming down the stairs, and he hadn't heard him dragging the chair across the floor, even though he'd obviously done both. But it didn't matter. There was only one thing that mattered.

"I have to get him down," he said, pulling his arm away from Ducky roughly, ignoring the desperation that tinged his own voice.

"Yes, we do." Gibbs was amazed at how calm his friend seemed. "But I should cut the ropes. That way you can …" No, Ducky wasn't as calm as he appeared on the outside. Gibbs could see it in his eyes, hear it in the way his voice caught in his throat. "You have to catch him," he said softly. "I'm not strong enough."

"Neither am I."

He didn't realize he'd actually said it out loud until Ducky squeezed his arm.

"Yes, you are," Ducky said. "And we're wasting time."

Gibbs put the knife in Ducky's outstretched palm and turned back to Tony. He wrapped one arm around him, braced his left arm with the other, and steadied himself to take the extra weight that was coming. He ignored the sticky wetness of Tony's back, pretended that it wasn't Tony's blood slowly coating his arms and soaking into the front of his shirt.

"Got you, Tony," he whispered. "I've got you."

"Be very careful of his leg," Ducky said. "We can't afford to let that screwdriver become dislodged."

Gibbs refused to look at the man in his arms as Ducky cut through the first rope and moved the chair to start on the second. He refused to let himself see any more damage than he already had. He refused to think about anything other than holding him up. If he dropped him, if he let him go, if he didn't catch him when he fell …

Then Tony was down, arms hanging limply at his sides, his body a dead weight in Gibbs' arms.

'Not a body!' he scolded himself. 'Not dead!'

Gibbs tightened his arms and tucked Tony's head against his shoulder. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the almost inaudible sounds of Tony's far-too-shallow breaths.

"Keep breathing," he whispered. "Don't stop."

"Blanket," Ducky said sharply.

"Under the stairs."

It took only seconds for Ducky to grab the blanket and spread it out. Then Gibbs was lowering Tony to the floor, ignoring the way his knees screamed at him, cradling the back of Tony's neck, keeping the younger man pressed tightly against his chest, pretending not to notice how unresisting and still and lifeless Tony's body was. Ducky helped as much as he could, straightening Tony's legs carefully so as to avoid jarring the screwdriver, then moving around to give extra support behind his shoulders.

Through it all, Tony didn't make a sound. He didn't open his eyes. He didn't so much as twitch.

The second they had him settled on the floor, Ducky handed Gibbs back his knife then took full command of the situation.

"Another blanket, Jethro."

Gibbs pushed up from the floor wordlessly and went to the stairs. Ducky kept talking as he busied himself checking Tony's vitals.

"His breathing is shallow and rapid, he's sweating, and he's very pale. If he's not already in hypovolemic shock, he's dangerously close to it. We have to keep him warm." He helped Gibbs spread the second blanket out and pulled it all the way to Tony's shoulders. "Elevate his feet, carefully."

Gibbs knelt down, cut the rope around Tony's ankles, and propped his feet on the bottom rung of the chair Ducky had used. Then he sat back on his heel, closed the knife, and rubbed his forehead. He neither noticed nor cared that his hand was covered in blood, that he was smearing it all over his face. "How much …?"

"Delayed capillary refill," Ducky said, cutting Gibbs off in mid-question. "His heart rate is far too high. The ligature mark on his neck is cause for concern, and there are petechiae around his mouth and eyes, but he is breathing. That screwdriver needs to be stabilized; I'll make certain that the paramedics do so. If I only had my bag, I could do so much more for the poor boy."

Gibbs shook his head. He couldn't listen to much more. He couldn't stand to hear Ducky talking about Tony the way he talked about the corpses on his autopsy table.

Ducky lifted the blanket so he could do a cursory examination of the cuts on Tony's bare chest. Gibbs had only taken a quick glance of his own before they cut him down, and as much as he'd gone out of his way to avoid doing more than that, he had to see exactly what damage had been done. Every last cut, every last bruise, every last drop of blood – he had to know them all, what they were, where they'd come from, and what they'd been caused by.

Someone was going to pay for all of it.

"I see at least twenty," Ducky finally said. "Three on the inside of his right arm, five on his left. There are several more on his chest, but the blood is making it hard to see …" He stopped long enough to take a deep breath. "I didn't see if he has any on his back."

"He does." Gibbs looked down at his own arms and hands and the blood that coated them. "Believe me."

Ducky nodded tensely as he pulled the blanket back up over Tony again and tucked it under his shoulders. "Controlled and precise strokes. They appear to be in groupings, perhaps in a pattern of sorts, which I have no doubt that you will figure out later." He managed a weak smile which Gibbs didn't return. "They're shallower than those suffered by Lance Corporal Brewer."

"Maximum pain and blood loss possible without death," Gibbs said softly. He looked at Tony's face, and immediately noticed that the gag was still in place. His skin crawled at the sight of it, and he opened his knife again. "Pain and fear and …"

"Torture."

Gibbs finished cutting through the gag, lifted Tony's head from the floor to remove it, then threw the offensive rag aside in revulsion. He used his thumb to gently wipe some of the blood away from the corners of Tony's mouth. His hands were shaking, and he willed them to still, but it did no good.

"With my tools," he whispered. "In my basement."

"Jethro." Ducky's voice held a warning, which Gibbs ignored.

"How much of his blood is on my floor, Duck?" He asked it without looking up, his voice growing louder and more insistent with every word. "How long was he here? How many times did he …?"

"Jethro!"

Gibbs finally raised his head.

"The ambulance will be here at any moment. You need to go upstairs and guide the EMTs down here."

"No," Gibbs said, shaking his head. "I'm not leaving him."

"You have to." Ducky's voice was low again, calm and soothing. Gibbs hated the way he was acting, hated that Ducky had to talk to him like that, but he couldn't seem to make himself stop. Ducky was holding his cell phone out to him, and he took it silently. "You have phone calls to make, and someone has to meet the paramedics at the door."

Gibbs looked away from Tony long enough to glance at the basement door, but he turned back quickly, indecision plain on his face.

"You found him in time," Ducky said. "And he won't be left alone. I'll take care of him for you, Jethro. I promise."

He was being ridiculous, and he knew it. He was Leroy Jethro "second-b-for-bastard" Gibbs, a battle-hardened Marine and a seasoned investigator. He'd lost team members before, lost men and women in battle, studied dead bodies for a living, and he knew what to do in a crisis. So why couldn't he make himself do it? Why couldn't he set his feelings aside and do what needed to be done? Why was he having so much trouble just going up the damn stairs to get the paramedics?

'Because it's one of your kids,' his mind supplied. 'Because it's Tony.'

"Jethro."

Gibbs swallowed hard, nodded, and squeezed Tony's arm one last time. "You better be here when I get back, DiNozzo," he said. "You just … you stay here."

Then he pushed himself to his feet, walked to the stairs, and ran up them without looking back.

He didn't see Ducky behind him, leaning down to place his hand gently against Tony's cheek. He didn't see the unshed tears in the older man's eyes or hear the words that he spoke.

"That is one order that I am in full agreement with, my dear boy, and I do expect you to follow it."

Tim saw the ambulance speeding away as he rounded the corner to Gibbs' house, and his car screeched to a halt in the space that it had just vacated. He barely waited for the tires to stop moving before he was out and running toward the open front door.

"Boss?" he called out as he entered the familiar house. Hearing no immediate response, he tried again. "Gibbs!"

The phone call had scared him. It wasn't that he'd been called at ten o'clock at night, because that happened all the time. And it wasn't that it had something to do with Tony, because that had happened before, too. The fact that he'd been summoned to Gibbs' house rather than the Navy Yard was more than a little alarming, but he'd recovered well.

No, it was the fact that Gibbs himself had sounded scared, almost frantic, almost desperate. His voice had been so quiet and shaky that Tim hadn't even understood everything he said. Gibbs never sounded like that - not when his stalker was trying to kill Abby, not when they'd lost Pacci, not even when Kate died. Combining the sound of his boss's voice with the late night phone call, the fact that something had happened to Tony, and the fact that it had happened at Gibbs' house resulted in only one possible reaction.

Tim McGee was terrified.

He rushed through the house and found Gibbs standing in the kitchen, in front of the basement door, staring down the stairs. He didn't look like he'd heard Tim at all.

"Boss?"

Gibbs turned toward him slowly, and Tim's heart plunged into his stomach. Gibbs was covered in blood – the front of his shirt and pant legs looked like they'd been soaked in it, and it was smeared on his face, in his hair, and on his hands. He bolted across the room, grabbed Gibbs' shoulders, and started patting him down, trying to find where it was coming from.

"Where are you hurt?" he demanded. "How bad is it? Why'd the ambulance leave without you? What happened?"

Gibbs grabbed his hands and pushed them away. "Get off me, McGee!"

Tim stood back and dropped his hands to his sides at once; this still wasn't the Gibbs he knew, but he was closer. "You're not hurt, are you, Boss?" he asked.

Gibbs shook his head, then looked down at himself. His eyes widened as though he were just noticing what his clothes looked like, and he started wiping at them absently.

"It's not mine," he said.

Tim swallowed. If the blood wasn't Gibbs', and whatever happened had something to do with Tony, then …

"Tony's?" he asked softly. Gibbs nodded, and Tim took a deep breath. "The ambulance that just left …?"

"Ducky went with him."

"What the hell happened?"

Gibbs looked up at him, looked him straight in the eyes, with an expression Tim had never seen on his face before. He couldn't even say what it was for sure. Horror? Fear? The only answer he got to his question was a shake of Gibbs' head, almost like whatever had happened, whatever he'd seen, he was completely unable to talk about it.

Tim shot a quick glance at the basement door, saw the bloody footprints on the floor leading away from it, and he knew where the answers to his questions were. He started forward, intent on finding out for himself, but Gibbs grabbed his arm and stopped him.

"Don't."

Tim shook his head. "I can handle it, Gibbs. Whatever it is."

Gibbs snorted, as if to say, 'No, you can't,' but out loud he said, "It's a crime scene, McGee. You can't go down there yet."

Tim tilted his head in confusion. "You don't want me to process it?"

"We can't," Gibbs said. He took a deep breath before continuing. "This time, he is a federal officer. FBI's jurisdiction."

"What?" Tim couldn't believe the rage that swelled up in him. "But it's Tony! I don't have to know what happened to know that he's hurt. Bad enough that he left here in an ambulance, and you're covered in his blood, and you're telling me we're not going to …?"

"Do you want the bastard to pay, Tim?" Gibbs' voice was low, dangerous. He'd heard it a hundred times before.

"Of course I do." He answered automatically, but it was true. He didn't have to know any details to know that. Someone had gone after his partner, his friend, and had hurt him. The how and why and how badly didn't matter.

No one messed with his team.

"Of course I do," he repeated, more emphatically than before.

"Then we don't touch it," Gibbs said. "Fornell's already on his way. It's his crime scene, and we stay out of it. We can watch, and we will." The last was said with emphasis and meaning, which Tim picked up on. "But that's it."

"Okay," Tim said, reluctantly but with understanding. He looked toward the basement door again, and he started to doubt that he wanted to go downstairs by himself, anyway.

Whatever had happened down there was bad enough that Gibbs was completely, well, un-Gibbs-like. The thought of what could do that was starting to scare him again, and with good reason. Jethro Gibbs' team was the third rail; no one touched them. If someone did, Gibbs reacted with anger and a single-minded desire for revenge. He didn't get scared. He didn't get desperate. He protected his team, his 'kids,' and he stood strong and defiant at their sides even as he moved heaven and hell to punish whoever had hurt them. Speaking of which …

"Why are you still here?"

"It's my house, McGee," Gibbs said. "Where else would I be?" He sighed deeply and leaned against the kitchen counter at his back. "I'm waiting for Tobias."

Tim shook his head and turned away quickly. No, that wasn't right. Maybe he couldn't fix what had happened to Tony, but he could fix that.

He'd been in the house often enough to know exactly where he was going. He was gone for less than two minutes, and Gibbs was still standing against the counter when he returned. Tim shoved the bundle he'd gathered from the bedroom into Gibbs' arms and stepped back.

"Get changed and go," he said. "I'll wait for Agent Fornell."

Gibbs stared down at the clothes in his hands, then looked back up at Tim in confusion.

"I can handle things here. There's somewhere else you need to be right now."

"McGee …"

Tim forced himself to smile, his way of trying to soothe Gibbs' obviously raw nerves. "I've got your six, Boss," he said softly. "Tony needs you to have his."

Five minutes later, Gibbs was standing in the front door, hair still wet from an incredibly quick shower, giving Tim one last round of instructions before he went.

"I've got it," he said. "Do you really want me to tell him who ...?"

"Why not?" Gibbs asked. "He needs a suspect, and we've got one for him."

"But we've got no proof it's him."

"Yet," Gibbs replied. "No proof yet. We will." He took two steps out the door but stopped on the porch, glanced back over his shoulder, and looked Tim directly in the eye. "I want DelMar, Tim," he said under his breath. "I want the son of a bitch."

Tim squared his shoulders and straightened his back. "If it's him, so do I."

Gibbs turned without another word and jogged to his car.

Tim stood in the open front door and watched the yellow Charger peel away from the curb and roar down the street. As he was turning to go back inside, he noticed for the first time that the door was hanging awkwardly on its hinges and the frame had been ripped partway away from the wall. He shook his head sadly and looked back toward the kitchen. As much as he knew that he'd have to go to the basement when Fornell arrived, and as close as he'd come to doing it when he first arrived, he didn't want to anymore.

He wanted to go with Gibbs. He wanted to see Tony. He wanted to be with Ducky when he called Palmer and Abby. But he had a job to do, and at that moment, he was the only member of his team who could do it.

He walked back into the kitchen, pressed his back against the wall, and slid to the floor. He sat there for a few moments, just staring at the open basement door, before he lifted his hand and ran his fingers through his hair. He rested his forehead against his arm and closed his eyes.

"God damn it, Tony," he whispered to himself.

He thought of his team again, of how upset Gibbs was and how upset Abby would be when she found out. Maybe he couldn't be with them at the hospital, but he didn't have to be alone. There was still one member of his team he could reach out to. It wasn't just for his own comfort, but for hers, and for everyone else's. If no one told her what had happened, she'd kill them all the moment she found out.

He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number almost without looking.

"Good morning, McGee." He had to smile at the sound of her voice, even if it fell away quickly. She obviously wasn't expecting bad news that early in the morning, and she was not going to take this well.

"Tony's hurt." Maybe he should have eased into it, asked her if she was enjoying her vacation, at least tried some small talk, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Besides, Ziva had never been one to insist on sugar-coating or dancing around the truth. She'd want to hear it as directly as possible.

"How badly?" The lightness of familiarity that had been in her voice when she first answered was gone, and in its place was the straight-forward, fact-seeking tone of an investigator. "What happened?"

"Bad," he said. "I didn't see him, but Gibbs was covered in his blood." The gasp on the other end of the line told him that was another one of those things he probably should have eased into, but there was no way to fix it.

"It's bad, Ziva. It's really, really bad."