Gibbs went to the sink after relieving himself, and washed his hands. It was only then that he realized the redness around his wrists from his struggling against the restraints. Then, as he looked in the mirror, he saw the tracks of blood from when he restrained Tony in the cell. The memory flashed fresh in his mind; the fear in his senior agent's eyes...the terrified screams as they'd shoved him back into that box...
He was pulled from his thoughts when he felt a hand on his arm, and he saw Ducky beside him in the mirror. "Timothy brought this by for you," he told him, and Gibbs looked down to see his overnight bag in Ducky's hand. "Anthony's as well. I put it in his room."
"They're done lookin' him over?" he asked as he took the bag and set it on the counter, opening it to fetch a clean shirt.
"Not quite, but they've readied his room. They're giving him an antibody called Fab. It should eliminate the PCP from his body." The bloody shirt was rolled up and shoved into the bag.
"They find anything we should be worried about?" he asked as he pulled a clean shirt over his head.
"They're running some tests to check for any heart damage," the doctor explained. "He's been fitted with a nasal cannula so that they can get his O2 levels up."
Gibbs narrowed his eyes, "Was there damage to his lungs?"
"Nothing that won't heal. His shallow breathing was most likely from shock. But that, and his heart rate, should improve once the PCP has been eliminated." He paused for a moment as Gibbs zipped the bag and picked it up, heading to leave the hospital restroom. "Jethro," he followed him, "I do wish you'd try and eat something. You were held there a better part of the day and I'm fairly certain you've eaten nothing since dinner yesterday evening."
"Not really hungry, Duck," he paused in his journey. "Where's his room?"
"This way," he led him up the hall. "And you may not feel hungry, given the circumstances, but I'm certain you're probably dehydrated. At least drink something."
"Coffee."
"If it were anyone else, I'd recommend against it," he smirked. "But seeing as you've only had the one today, it might be worse to refuse." Ducky stopped just outside the room and allowed Gibbs to enter. "I'll go to the cafeteria and get you some coffee. They should be bringing Anthony in soon."
Gibbs set his bag down on the floor beside the chair and looked around the room before sitting down. He took a deep breath, trying to will himself to relax; be patient. He scratched the back of his head, feeling restless, then stood again and began to pace the room. The restlessness, of course, was because he was trying desperately to keep the day's events from replaying in his mind.
He heard a sound in the hall before Tony was wheeled in on a hospital bed. Gibbs moved out of the way as they rolled the bed into position and locked the wheels. He watched as they set up the various tubes and IV lines, and a doctor approached him. "Agent Gibbs?" he asked, glancing down at the clipboard he held.
"Yeah."
"We have you listed as Agent DiNozzo's next of kin."
Gibbs nodded, "Did you find anything wrong with his heart?"
"We haven't detected any permanent damage in his heart or lungs," he told him. "He was extremely dehydrated though, so we have him on fluids. We've also got him on antibiotics and gave him an updated tetanus shot, in light of how he received the injuries on his torso. We cleaned and patched him up...the stitching they'd attempted to do, as I'm sure you're already aware, was crude, at best. And I'm going ahead to assume he pulled the stitches out himself, in accordance with the scratches all over his upper body. I've seen similar PCP-related incidents. The chemical should be out of his system completely, hopefully, by tomorrow morning if not sooner. In light of what happened, Agent Gibbs, I suggest he speak with a counselor at some point. We have one available here, if he chooses."
"I'll ask him about it once he's up," Gibbs told him. "How long will he need to stay here?" He knew his agent's feelings about hospitals.
"Well, I'd like to keep him here for at least 24 hours for observation. After that, if we do an examination and he seems to have no further complications, he can leave if he has someone to stay with him. The psychological trauma is what we're mostly concerned about." Gibbs nodded in agreement. "If you have any more questions, feel free to have me paged," the doctor said. "I'm Dr. Wheeler, by the way."
"Nice to meet you," Gibbs shook the offered hand.
"I'll be in a bit later to check on him," he took him with a brief, small smile before turning to walk out.
Gibbs turned to face Tony's bed again, appraising the sleeping agent. There was a single nurse left, adjusting the IV bags. Gibbs narrowed his eyes as he saw the restraints around Tony's wrists. Another memory flashed into his mind; Tony's body restrained on the metal table as electricity coursed cruelly through his body, then falling limp and lifeless...
"Why is he being restrained?" he asked the nurse as he approached the side of the bed.
She looked at him, "It's for his own good. He could wake up and hurt himself further."
"But he's sedated," he argued.
"Yes, he will be until morning," she replied.
"Then why can't we take them off? They're aware of what happened to him, right? He was restrained and tortured... I'll be here with him at all times..."
She considered his words carefully, glancing down at the patient for a moment before looking at him again. "You're the one who was with him?" she concluded. He nodded. "I'll talk to the doctor. I can't make that call, but I'm sure he'll allow it."
"Thank you," he told her before she turned to leave. He pulled the chair up closer to the bed and sat as he appraised his agent. They'd cleaned him up well. Tony looked much better than before he'd gone in with the doctors. Gibbs was grateful Tony was sedated, looking down once again to the restraints.
It was almost hard to believe it had been a couple of hours since he'd pulled him from the box for the last time. He wondered how much of that intense fear was from the drugs... how Tony would be when he finally woke from that nightmare.
"Agent Gibbs?" he looked up to see Dr. Wheeler as he entered the room again. Gibbs stood. "Gail told me you thought it best to remove the restraints. I agree, his waking and realizing he's tied down could cause further trauma. I'll allow the removal, but I'm gonna have to hold you to your promise that you'll be here with him, if not someone else, at all times. If you have to leave, even just to go to the restroom, you'll need to put them back on until you return. It's just a precaution, but I can't tell you how many people I've seen worsen their injuries during a PCP-related incident."
Ducky stood in the doorway for a moment before entering, "I assure you that either myself or Agent Gibbs will be here at all times," he told the doctor. Gibbs wasted no time removing the restraint on Tony's wrist on that side of the bed as the doctor removed the other.
Gibbs gave an appreciative nod to Wheeler as Ducky gave him his coffee. "Thanks, Doc," he told Wheeler before the man headed out once more. "Ducky, you don't have to stay," he told him as he sank back into the chair.
"On the contrary, I promised to keep an eye on the two of you tonight," he said as he pulled up a second chair beside Gibbs. "Tim and Ziva were very worried, Jethro." Gibbs turned to look at him. "They didn't stop for anything, even once, until they found you both. You should be proud of them."
"I am, Duck," he nodded before turning back to Tony.
"Of course, they did have help from Abigail in tracking your location. Not to mention the Director, and Fornell."
"Fornell?" Gibbs looked at him in question.
"The man who abducted you was on their watch list. Fornell went with Vance to investigate into the Griswald murder. Then he had two teams set up to assist in apprehending your captors."
"They take them all alive?" he asked.
"Griswald went down fighting," he told him. "Even when the rest of them surrendered."
"He was dying," Gibbs told him before looking back to his agent. "That's what he told me, anyway."
"Well...if that's true, I'll know tomorrow after I perform the autopsy." Ducky watched Gibbs as he looked over Tony. Worry was clearly written on his friend's face. He could only imagine the ordeal he'd witnessed; the helplessness he must have felt.
"Think he's gonna be okay?" Gibbs barely whispered. Ducky wasn't even sure if he'd meant to say it out loud.
"I take it you mean psychologically," the M.E said. Gibbs' eyes looked down for a moment before fixing back on Tony. "He's a strong lad, Jethro. He's come through some heavy things in his day, and never seemed one to be affected by it for long."
"I know what those drugs can do to people. But..." his voice dropped to a whisper, "I'd never seen him so terrified before, Duck."
"And that must've terrified you," he replied.
"That was Griswald's intention. He wanted to make me suffer by makin' DiNozzo suffer." His head dropped a bit as his eyes closed. "It's not fair," he shook his head.
Ducky put a hand on his shoulder, "It never is..."
11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111
McGee sat in front of his computer in his apartment. He was looking through the in-depth autopsy reports of Griswald's murder victims. Though he'd already seen them, it seemed he was looking at them in a different light; knowing Tony had gone through these same things and would be the sole survivor.
After a while, he had to close them. He'd had one too many shivers run down his spine and if he'd continued reading them, his chances of sleeping at all would be much lower than they already were. He stretched as he stood, then headed to grab a beer from the fridge. He'd called Abby earlier to let her know that Tony was doing okay, but Gibbs had ordered them all to go home. And that meant that Abby would have to hold off on visiting, which he knew would be hard for her, but he explained why. Reluctantly, she'd promised not to go. Tim was grateful, mostly because he really didn't feel like dealing with that tonight. Not after the day they'd all had. He was barely holding himself together.
McGee realized he'd somehow ended up standing in front of his typewriter, and he looked at it for a moment before decidedly sitting. He set his beer down and loaded a fresh piece of paper into the device and sat back a bit. He became lost in thought. Before he knew it, almost an hour had passed by without him even realizing... and he hadn't even touched the keys.
Pushing away from the chair, he headed toward his bed and laid down, staring blankly up at the ceiling. If he was going to space out, he might as well be comfortable while doing so. It wasn't long after, he succumbed to sleep...something he hadn't even realized his own body and mind had been so desperately craving after that day...
11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111
Ziva was a bit confused when she heard a knock at her door. She'd not been able to drift off to sleep as she'd been ordered. She'd been lying in bed, awake; restless as she thought about what they'd found... But who was at her door...she didn't know.
She slipped from the covers and threw on her robe as she made her way to the door, peeking through the peephole to see Abby pacing in front of it. Ziva opened the door, "What are you doing here, Abby?" she asked with a furrowed brow.
"I had to talk to someone, Ziva," she said as she entered the apartment and Ziva closed the door behind them. "Ducky and Gibbs are at the hospital and I was ordered not to go. McGee...well, he seemed kinda upset on the phone, so I didn't think it was such a good idea to ask him..."
"Ask him what?" she raised her brow.
Abby faced her and cocked her head. "What do you think?" she furrowed her brow. "I wanna know if Tony's okay..."
"Tony will be fine, Abby," she assured her.
"I know they said he'd be okay. But no one told me anything but that. I saw the Griswald murder file, Ziva. I know what they do to their victims. But what I don't know, is what the hell they did to Tony, because no one thinks I can handle hearing it, apparently!"
"Abby," Ziva stopped her fidgeting by putting her hands on the goth's shoulders. "According to what I overheard Gibbs tell Ducky, everything in those files happened to Tony. With, of course, the exception that he did not die."
Slowly, Abby nodded, acknowledging the explanation. Her eyes focused a bit elsewhere, but other than that, she seemed to be taking the news rather well. In fact, it unnerved Ziva in a way. "I knew you'd give it to me straight," she said. "Thank you for trusting me not to freak out." Ziva gave her a questioning look. "I prepared myself," she explained. "I knew the worst that could happen...and if he's alive, then that's...better at least, right? I mean...of course it is. Of course it's better." Ziva could tell that she was fighting very hard to keep control over her emotion, and it made her think back to all the times that Abby seemed to know exactly how Ziva was feeling deep inside, even though it was almost always buried beneath a calm exterior. So she did what Abby always did; she hugged her. And she felt Abby's resolve melt away immediately. "When you saw him, did he...did he look okay?" she asked; worry clear in her voice.
"No," the Israeli wouldn't lie to her. Not with this.
"No? But..." she pulled away to look at her face; eyes glassy and mirroring each other. "They said he was going to be fine..."
Ziva nodded, "He will be," she tried to give her a small smile, at least. "He will just need some time, I am certain. It was...difficult to seem him that way, but he is very strong, Abby. He needs us to see him strong."
Abby nodded slightly, acknowledging what she'd been told. "Is Gibbs okay?"
"He is unharmed," she told her.
"Yeah, McGee said that. But...did he seem okay? Like 'Gibbs-okay'...which is completely different than normal 'okay', because it's harder to tell if you don't really know what to look for-"
"I think he worried," she stopped her rambling. "Like the rest of us...but probably in a much different way."
"Well, yeah. He's probably feeling guilty and pissed off and all kinds of helpless. That's actually a lot of why I'm upset they won't let me go see them. I'm worried about him..."
"Gibbs will be okay. Once Tony has the opportunity to turn the blame around onto himself, as usual," she smirked in attempt to humor her friend into feeling a little better, and it seemed to have worked a little as she watched to corner of Abby's mouth turn up. "I am going to get something to drink. Would you like to stay a while? I can make something..."
"Do you have hot chocolate?" Abby asked with a hopeful look on her face. "It makes me feel better sometimes. It's like comfort food...except...well...it's a comfort beverage. And it's legal for me to drive home afterward, and all..."
11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111
tbc...
AN: been busy...but trying to make time to write. Back to Tony-stuff next chapter.