A/N: Thank you all so much once again for reading. I'm so surprised and excited that you're all enjoying it so much!
"Oh shit. " shit shit shit shit
"What?"
He wasn't even sure what it was, this piece of something crushing her. What he did know was that he could feel a pool of her blood on the floor of the elevator.
"I hate to break it to you, but you might be stuck there for a while."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean this thing that's crushing you sliced into your leg."
"Well what is it? What can you see?"
"I can't see anything! If you hadn't noticed, we're in the dark!"
"You know that is not what I meant. How bad is it?"
"I don't know. All I know is that it's large and there's a pool of blood on the floor."
"Can you move it?"
"I...I don't know if we should."
"Is it really that bad? You think if we move it I will bleed out?" She asked, voice shaking ever so slightly.
"I'm not willing to take the chance. You're still bleeding, and we don't know how long we'll be stuck in here."
"So we do nothing?"
"I don't think there's anything we can do at this point. We could move it so you could move but you could bleed out."
"Not if we can make a tourniquet."
"I'm not going to do that. If we cut the blood flow off for too long you could lose your leg."
"I might lose it now. At least if I am able to get up we may be able to find a way out of here."
"OR you could just stay put because if you're still bleeding it means you still have at least some blood flow to your leg."
"Tony, we have to find a way out. I cannot do that if I cannot move."
"There may be nothing we can do. We're probably trapped between floors, and forget climbing out because if this thing is a piece of the elevator we're not going to have anything to hold on to."
"So we just wait to be rescued?"
Tony sighed loudly "Looks like it."
"I am not very good at that."
"Neither am I."
They sat quietly trying to think of any better solution than sitting on the floor of the elevator and doing nothing. Their resounding silence a few moments later wasn't reassuring for either of them. Tony, still crouching in the debris was the first to speak again.
"Well we might as well get comfortable."
"How could we possibly be comfortable in this situation. We cannot even tell what is around us, I cannot move...what do you expect us to do?"
"Well I was thinking I would just sit up near your head. I think that's the only place I'll have room."
"Fine."
"Well don't sound too enthused. I was just thinking it would be better for us if we could you know, talk without straining ourselves."
"Talk?"
"Yeah, if that's okay with you," he said gently sitting down beside her, settling himself in with his back resting on the wall.
"What do you want to talk about?"
"I dunno...I just thought it would make the wait a little more bearable."
"Well as long as I do not have to listen to the summary of every movie this reminds you of..."
"No, I wouldn't do that to you."
They paused for a moment, wondering if they wanted to breach serious topics so early in their captivity.
Tony spoke up first. "Have you ever played 20 questions?"
Gibbs and Abby walked carefully out into what had become the emergency medical ward. Immediately Abby was ushered away by EMT's who just as Gibbs not long before, believed she was covered nearly head to toe in blood. Another young male medic rushed up to Gibbs.
"Sir, are you hurt?"
"I was just in an explosion." he said as they made their way towards an ambulance.
"I'm sorry, sir. Where are your injuries?" he asked as Gibbs sat on the floor of the bus.
'Well, concussion." Before the whole word was out of his mouth, the medic was flashing a tiny flashlight in front of his eyes. Gibbs batted him away with his good hand.
"I need you to relocate my shoulder."
"Sir, I'm going to need to take you to the hospital for that."
"No, you do not. Just shove it back in."
'You don't understand, protocol is that I take you to the hospital."
"Does it look like anything happening here is by the book? My people are still in that building, and I need to find them, so please relocate my shoulder."
"I'll need to give you a pain killer."
"Nope. Just do it."
"Sir, I strongly discourage..."
"I've done this before. In Desert Storm. I know what I'm getting myself into. Just do it."
The young EMT nodded, clearly not expecting so much resistance from an accident victim.
Just as the EMT was getting ready, "Hold on just one second." Gibbs' head lolled back in frustration. He knew that voice. Vance, he thought.
"Give us a minute," he said to the EMT. He nodded and left to tend to other patients. "Go to the hospital, Gibbs."
"Leon, you know damn well I'm not going to do that."
"We don't even know the extent of the damage. We don't know if there's even anyone left inside."
"If Abby and I were in there, there's a damn good chance other people are trapped in there. And where is the rest of my team?"
"No one's seen them yet." Gibbs gave him a glare that screamed "You've got to be kidding me." He motioned to get up.
"You can't go back in after them." Vance said, firmly.
"If I don't, who is?" Gibbs asked, his voice rising with every syllable.
"The emergency crews. The bomb squad has to clear the building before anyone is allowed in."
"There are people in there whether they are allowed to be or not. The least I can do is go in and make sure my team is safe."
"Gibbs, you have to look at this objectively, there could be another bomb."
"There isn't."
"You don't know that."
"He's already made his point! He's already blown up the people he feels are responsible for his son's death. That's it. If he's going to attack again, it's not going to be now."
"I can't risk anyone else going in there and"
"What? Dying? Guess what, there are people dead inside, and there could be more if I don't go in there and find them. "
"Fine. But know that if you get yourself in a bind, I'm not coming in after you. I wouldn't take a bullet for you either, Jethro."
Gibbs nodded solemnly. Vance waved the EMT back over, who instructed him to lie down. Gibbs lay down on the floor of the ambulance as the EMT rotated his arm up and out to get the joint back in place. Gibbs felt a pop and instantaneous relief. The EMT motioned to a sling.
"Nope." Gibbs said. The EMT relented easily this time around.
"I'm just going to need you to sign a form saying that you freely acted against medical advise."
Gibbs nodded and signed the form quickly. He headed back towards the building when he ran into Abby.
"Gibbs!" They said that they want to bring me to the hospital to get my stitches."
"Okay, so go get yourself stitched up."
"Well what about you?
"What about me?"
"What are you going to do?" She asked
"I'm gonna go back in and find the rest of my team."
"You can't! It's too dangerous!"
"Abby, you know as well as I do that the emergency teams won't be allowed in the building until the bomb squad clears it. We don't know how much longer that's going to be."
"Well then I'm coming with you."
"No. I need you to stay here."
"I want to help you find them!"
"You really want to help?"
"Of course, they're my family."
"Then I need you to stay here. It'll be easier for me in there if I know you're safe out here."
"But what if you need help?"
"Then I'll figure it out."
"Gibbs"
"They put my shoulder back in place. I'll be fine."
She stared right at him, tears quickly forming in her eyes.
He gently cupped her face with his hand. "I'll get them out, Abs. I promise."
With that she threw herself at him in what could possibly be the tightest hug he'd ever experienced. He cringed inwardly as she ripped open a couple of the wounds on his back, but hugged her right back. "I promise." he whispered.
It took a few moments of reassurance for Abby to let go. She pulled away slowly, tears forming in her eyes again.
"I'll get em back, Abs." She only nodded in reply. She turned away and made her way back to the EMT who was waiting to take her away from the scene. Gibbs turned away and set off towards the receiving entrance.
"Gibbs!" he heard somewhere behind him. He turned back to the chaos only to see Fornell emerging from the crowd.
"Tobias?" Gibbs said moving to meet Fornell in the middle.
"Heard the explosion from the Pentagon. You guys are all over ZNN." he said as he came to a stop in front of Gibbs.
"I didn't think they were letting anyone near the yard."
"Turns out my badge gets me further than yours does." Gibbs chuckled contemptuously in response.
"So what are you doing here?"
"Came to help facilitate the search for survivors. Looks like your comm units are down."
"They clear the building?"
"No, bomb squad is still all over it."
"Damn"
"How'd your team make out?"
"Duck and Palmer are in Florida, Abby and I were trapped inside during the explosion, just made it out, the other three are still inside somewhere."
"And you're going on a vigilante mission to find them?"
"When you say it like that it sounds bad."
"It is bad."
"Still not gonna stop me from doing it."
"I know. At least let me hook you up with a radio. Let us know every time you find someone. It'll help us get the crews in faster."
"Yeah."
Fornell pulled out a fairly large radio.
"What, no earwig?"
"Nah. We can't be giving out our best stuff to an agency that just got themselves blown up."
Gibbs shot him an irritated look.
"Hey, Director's words, not mine."
Gibbs saluted Fornell with the radio and disappeared into the building. First stop: the bullpen.
McGee was frustrated. There was nothing but blackness around him, nothing but heaviness and fatigue. There was nothing he could do. He didn't know where he was, or why he was in such a state. He wanted to move. He wanted to see or smell or breathe. He just wanted there to be something, anything to indicate what the hell was going on, or to tell him whether or not he was even still alive.
But there was nothing.
Charging...
CLEAR
His entire body was tense. His vertebrae ground together as he arched up towards the one thing giving him life. He collapsed on the table with a powerful thunk.
"No response. Go again."
Charging...
CLEAR
His body shook with tension as the electricity made its way through his nerves and muscles and nearly cracked his bones. The shock released him and he dropped once again.
"Still nothing. One more."
Charging...
CLEAR
Once more his body arced painfully off the table, the shocks jolting his entire being to attention.
Beep...beep...beep
The breath rushed back into his lungs, the color back to his cheeks, the pain of violent medical intervention into his mind, and the full weight of misery and despair back into his heart.
They pressed an oxygen mask to his face, sighing in relief. He was alive.