Gibbs stood frozen for a second before his brain registered what had happened and he jumped into action.

In less than a second he was kneeling next to his fallen agent and was pulling the limp body to his arms.

"DiNozzo? Can you hear me?" He slapped one pale cheek lightly and was rewarded with a groan and uncoordinated attempt from the man in his arms to slap the hand away.

"Open your eyes Tony." Gibbs put a note of steel into the command and he grinned when the brown eyes opened to slits and looked up at him.

"That's it Tony, how are you feeling?"

"Confused" The younger man answered honestly before his eyes widened and his body tensed as recollection returned and he realized that he'd passed out.

Gibbs saw the change in the younger man's demeanor and let out a frustrated breath. He needed to get the younger man off the cold elevator floor and move this conversation to somewhere more comfortable.

"You okay to stand up?"

At the question Tony really took in his surroundings and he felt embarrassment at having fainted before a more pleasant feeling filled his mind as he realized that there were arms holding him up. Gibbs' arms, wrapped around his torso.

The feeling was so nice that Tony just let his body relax and enjoyed the feeling of being safely wrapped in the warm embrace.

He must have dozed as he was next aware of a voice calling his name and there was a sense of urgency in the tone.

"'m up" he mumbled to the owner of the loud voice.

"Good, because I was ten seconds from calling Ducky back to work to check on you. And I am not going to carry you out of here." Gibbs' voice was gruff, but inside he was sighing with relief. He had been worried sick when the younger man just continued to lean on him with his eyes closed for a while as he tried to rouse him. Maybe he really should get Ducky to come back.

Though the words alone seemed to have gotten some life back to the Italian as the mere mentioning of the ME's name caused him to pull back slightly and lock clear brown eyes with Gibbs' blue counterparts.

"You don't need to do that Boss, I'm fine." To illustrate his point, the younger man regretfully pulled back completely from the warm arms and slowly stood up with minimal swaying. The fact that he used the wall as a support both getting to his feet and staying on them, well that fell under the heading of semantics.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at him and Tony really should have known he was the kind of guy to appreciate those pesky semantics.

The older man shook his head at the stubborn agent but decided to let it go. It didn't make much difference anyway if he called Ducky, the ME would just take Tony's temperature and blood pressure, then get him to eat something to get his sugar levels up and then put him to bed. And Gibbs was more than capable of handling all of the above, and as it were, he wasn't going to let Tony out of his sight until he was sure there was nothing more sinister going on with his agent's health.

The fact that he got to spent some more time with the other agent was just an added bonus. Even if it was that the younger man only saw him as a boss and a friend. The little part of his mind that had been screaming at him more and more lately told him that maybe there would be a chance to hold the younger man again soon.

Turned out, that opportunity presented itself sooner than the voice could have predicted.

As the elevator set to motion again and a second later it's doors opened with a ding, Gibbs motioned for Tony to precede him out.

DiNozzo just huffed a slightly annoyed breath and with the wall steadying him, he made his way to the doors. He looked out at the garage and realized that in order to get to his car he'd have to let go of the elevator wall.

He swallowed hard and tried to steady his spinning head and rubbery legs and took a step out of the elevator.

Luckily Gibbs had been watching him like a hawk and as soon as he saw what was about to happen, stepped forward and wrapped his arms around the other man just as his legs seemed to disappear from under him.

"Still insist you're fine?" There wasn't any humor in the tone but Tony was sure if he'd bother to look, there would be a twinkle of amusement in the blue eyes.

Tony didn't answer, he didn't need to since the embarrassed groan probably told Gibbs all he needed to know.

"That's what I thought. Just lean on me DiNozzo." with that Gibbs adjusted his grip so that he had one arm wrapped around the younger man's waist and the other pulled Tony's arm to rest across his shoulders.

He lead the younger man towards his car and it took a while for it to register to Tony that his car was in the other direction.

"Hey, My car's over there." He pointed out to where he'd left his beloved ride, but Gibbs showed no sign of turning to that direction or letting him go so he'd get there by himself. Not that he'd probably get there since his Blood sugar levels were probably somewhere in the basement after not eating properly for weeks and not eating at all for- well it doesn't really matter when he last managed to eat and keep it down.

The snort coming from the man who had assigned himself as his personal walking aid, brought Tony's musings to a stop and he redirected his attention to the ex-marine hauling him towards the car.

"If you really think I'm gonna let you drive when you can't even stand, you really must be sicker than you look."

Tony furrowed his brow at that. Gibbs thought he was sick? Well he was kinda lovesick but that sounded pathetic and girly and he really really didn't want to sound pathetic when he was feeling like that already. And maybe he should stop his mind from wandering and try to stick to here and now. Though then he'd probably end up thinking the revelation from Gibbs and he really wasn't up to it at the moment so.

"When was the last time you ate Tony?" Tony looked at Gibbs and frowned as the older man seemed kinda upset at not having asked that earlier, but DiNozzo would have preferred the question to remain unasked.

But since he did ask, he decided to give the answer that had satisfied his own mind just a few minutes earlier.

As they reached the car and Gibbs unlocked the doors and helped Tony to get settled in the passengers seat, Tony finally gave his answer. "Doesn't really matter."

From the look in the blue eyes that snapped sharply to regard his own brown ones, the Italian gathered that Gibbs might not be as satisfied with the answer as he himself had been.

It was the damn semantics again.

TBC...

A/N: Okay so I'm not really happy how that turned out, but I did have fun writing it :D Though again it took three rewrites to get this into a postable condition so there were some very very weird stuff there at times... ;) Okay anyways, I promise there will be more interesting stuff in the next chapter and I have been writing kinda tony- centricly and kinda from his POV, but The next chapter will reveal what Gibbs really thinks of all of this, so stay tuned :)

The next chapter will be up most likely Sunday evening/night.