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Chapter Eleven: Seven Hours

Tony sat in the waiting room in front of the emergency room at Bethesda, waiting for Gibbs to come out of surgery. It wasn't anything life threatening, but a surgery had been needed nevertheless, so Tony had decided to wait for Gibbs to wake up, as the loose ends to both the shooting and the murder had been tied up by Fox Jr.'s confession. He was still feeling confused, a little crushed by the earlier events, incredibly relieved that Gibbs was alive and would be fine in no time. But above all, he was feeling elated without a reasonable cause. Gibbs had been right. It wasn't too late. Tony still had no idea what Gibbs had meant exactly, but ever since he had said it, Tony couldn't help but shake the feeling that Gibbs knew what Tony was thinking. He was somehow sure that he knew that Tony had thought about him being the one and he didn't seem to be too repulsed by it either.

"Already heard something?" he was raised from his thoughts by Abby who came walking down the hallway, clutching her skull-shaped purse in her hands.

"No," Tony shook his head, absent-mindedly rubbing his shoulder. "But he should be out any minute now."

"You guys have to be more careful," Abby sighed as she sat down beside him. "You can't give me heart attacks like that all the time."

"Sorry," Tony replied, giving her a small smile, which felt a bit strained, even to him.

"Are you okay?" Abby asked, apparently sensing his uneasiness as she grabbed his hand. "You seem tense."

"You know how it goes," Tony shrugged. "Don't like it when he gets shot, either."

"Yeah," Abby replied and seemed like she wanted to say something, but then stopped for a second, staring blatantly at Tony's forearm. "When the hell did that happen?"

"What? Oh, the clock," Tony answered distractedly. "Just a couple of hours ago."

"You don't seem excited," the Goth all but accused him, though her tone was still friendly.

Tony looked at her, trying to figure out how to broach the subject that he thought that maybe, somehow Gibbs was the one. It still didn't make any sense to him at all. He didn't understand how the clock hadn't stopped thirteen years ago and why it kept jumping ahead now. But it was like he was feeling it in his bones that Gibbs was just it. That certainly didn't explain his uneasiness though. But there was still this little voice in the back of this head that kept telling him he was wrong, that kept telling him that he was a fool for believing - for hoping - that it would be Gibbs.

"Did you hurt yourself, too?" Abby interrupted his train of thought.

"Huh?"

"You keep rubbing your shoulder. Did you fall on it?"

"No," Tony replied somewhat confused as he hadn't even meant to do it.

But as he came to think about it, his arm did hurt a bit, but it was a pain as if he had injured himself weeks ago, as if it was only an echo of a former pain. Wait… what if… what if this was Gibbs' shoulder? What if he had felt his emotions all along? What if those dreamed up scenarios from Gibbs' childhood hadn't actually been dreamed up but real memories? What if…

"Tony?" Abby's voice dragged him back to reality once more. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yeah, it's just… Abs, I think… the clock's wrong… or there's something I don't understand about it."

"What is it?"

"Do you think I could have already met my someone and the clock just didn't register?"

"What do you mean?" Abby checked back, sitting up a bit straighter, her eyes boring into his now.

"I know it sounds crazy," Tony slowly said. "But I think that I've already met him, you know? Like I've met the person a really long time ago, but maybe he just hasn't showed his true colors to me or something. I don't know… do you think it could make sense?"

"I suppose so," Abby scrunched up her face, giving Tony's theory a thought. "Seems unlikely, but nothing about those clocks is likely either."

"Yeah," Tony trailed off as Gibbs' doctor walked towards him. "How's he doing?" he asked.

"Agent Gibbs is fine. We've just brought him to Room 203. As you're his proxy you can go see him. He'll be waking up soon."

"Thank you," Tony said and breathed out a sigh of relief. "Are you waiting here?" he asked, looking at Abby who was once again staring at him. "What?" he continued when Abby didn't answer his question.

"Since when have you been Gibbs' proxy?"

"I don't know?" Tony replied, finally catching up why she was looking at him like that. "Who else would be? His father's gone and all…"

"Who else would be?" Abby snorted, suddenly grinning broadly at him. "I don't know. Me, Ducky… Fornell?"

"Yeah, well. Don't know what the big deal is…?"

"It's not," Abby said, still grinning. "Just go in. I'm sure you want to be there when he wakes up."

"Okay…" Tony said slowly, getting up.

He was about to actually go towards Gibbs' room when Abby spoke up again.

"I really hope you're right about the clock thing, Tony," she wasn't grinning anymore, but looked genuinely worried about him now. "Just don't be too disappointed if you aren't."

Tony stared at her, wondering how in the world she suddenly seemed to know who he had been talking about. He thought about saying something, getting to know her opinion on the matter, but then decided against it. It would just get his hopes up and he didn't want to think about the possibility that it wasn't actually Gibbs with whom he was meant to be together. That he could meet someone else in less than seven hours. The sheer thought of it made him sick to his stomach, making him wonder why he hadn't considered the possibility of him and Gibbs together much, much earlier. How had he been so blind to see? How could he have waited so long to realize… all the time they could have spent together, even if he wasn't his destined partner. How could he have been so stupid?

He shook his head and himself out of his headspace. This shouldn't be his priority right now. Gibbs was just out of surgery, had been shot today and here he was, wondering about his goddamn love life.

He walked down the hallway, trying to clear his head off the clock and focus on the issue at hand, which was getting Gibbs out of the hospital as soon as possible. He knew that it wasn't likely that his boss could leave today or even the next, but he would surely try to persuade the doctors to do it. He was Gibbs after all and he hated lying around uselessly.

Tony quietly stepped into the room, careful of not waking the older man. Gibbs was looking a little pale as he was sleeping, but except for the bandage on his shoulder, he looked like every normal other day. Tony dragged a chair over to the bed and sat down, letting out a long sigh.

"Abby's right," he then whispered. "You can't keep doing this."

Gibbs, naturally, didn't answer, but Tony kept on talking anyway. "Thought, I lost you for a second there. But I should have known. It's you after all. You're not going to die at the hand of a 17 year old, are you?"

He fell silent for a few long minutes as he just looked at the older man, really looked at him for the first time in what felt like years. The lines on his forehead had deepened a bit over the years, his hair had turned a little greyer, but it hadn't diminished his looks at all. Tony only now realized that he had never looked at Gibbs like that, had never thought about Gibbs' appearance or what it did to him. He idly wondered if he ever would have if this – still somewhat crazy – thought about Gibbs being his soul mate hadn't been implemented into his brain, but then he decided it hardly even mattered. He was there now, thinking about it, hoping that his theory was right and praying that Gibbs wouldn't refute it.

"I really hope I haven't realized it too late and you're not it," Tony said out loud just when Gibbs' eyes started to open.

"I am…," Gibbs replied groggily, making Tony's heart stutter, but before he could say something, Gibbs had fallen asleep again.