A/N. Thanks again for all the reviews, alerts, etc. I'd have replied personally, but in-between work, nights out, etc., I thought you'd be more appreciative of another chapter instead. Here's another quick one before I head out to the pub for some six-nations watching this afternoon. More in a couple of days. Hope you all enjoy!
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Gibbs had been drifting in and out of consciousness for a while when he became aware of the pained movements of his young colleague making his way across the floor. The younger man was breathing hard, and Gibbs had to wonder whether DiNozzo was even going to make it to this side of the room before he passed out. Gibbs forced himself to focus on staying awake and tried not to move. Ugh. Everything hurt. He felt like he'd just spent a week drinking bourbon and sleeping on the floor of his basement, and DiNozzo sounded even worse than he felt. If only Ducky were here. No, scratch that. He was extremely glad that Ducky was warm, safe and miles away, but it would have been good to have someone here who could clean up his gunshot wound, treat DiNozzo's concussion and give him some idea what the hell this vitamin A overdose was going to do to their bodies. He had to admit, the mission was thus far not exactly going to plan.
Do the protection detail, the director had said. Investigate. Find the missing link. Well, he had found it all right, but getting poisoned, shot and kidnapped had not exactly been part of his game plan. If only the director had given in and allowed him a little more backup. One man, the director had said. Gibbs had chosen DiNozzo. He knew there were plenty of far more experienced agents at NCIS, but Gibbs was beginning to learn that DiNozzo was one of the best he had ever worked with. A little smoothing out in some areas, and sharpening up in others, and DiNozzo was going to shape up to be a damned fine agent. If Gibbs didn't get him killed first, that was. Speaking of DiNozzo, the proximity of the loud, laboured breathing signalled that the younger man had finally reached him. Gibbs, forced himself to open his eyes, forcing back a wave of nausea as the room above swam around his head. He eventually got himself sufficiently under control to focus on DiNozzo. The junior agent looked even worse than he sounded. He was visibly trembling and gasping for breath, his face chalk-white, except for the blood from his head wound, which had trickled across his face. The contrast of the dark rust against his pale skin made him look even more like he had just attended his own post-mortem. Despite all this, he was determinedly reaching for Gibbs' torso. Gibbs reached out and took hold of Tony's wrist. The lack of strength in the normally athletic man's arms took him even more by surprise. In his current state, the younger man was likely to do more harm than good. Gibbs continued to stare at his dishevelled agent until Tony's eyes came to rest on his.
'I know…you don't normally… go this far… on a first date,' the junior agent gasped, incredibly still smiling despite the situation, 'but you have got to… let me… take a look at that.'
Gibbs snorted. He admitted again to himself that he was impressed by the younger man's spirit, and was again glad he had chosen DiNozzo as his partner on this mission. He pulled himself to a sitting position, ignoring the agonising pain shooting down his side. In doing so, he deliberately removed the wound from the younger agent's reach and came to rest on the floor beside him.
'No offence, DiNozzo,' he rasped, 'but I don't think you're in any state to be performing surgery. You're suffering from the effects of a vitamin A overdose and probably a pretty nasty concussion too.'
'Vitamin A, huh? That's good.' Gibbs let out a breath.
'Make that definitely concussed,' he corrected. 'I could have sworn you just said that was good.'
'Vitamin A,' Tony began, breathing more easily now he had stopped moving, 'is a fat soluble vitamin stored in the liver. When the liver's maximum storage capacity is reached, any excess vitamin A in the system causes toxic effects. Acute toxicity is manifested by headache, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, blurred vision, peeling skin and loss of muscular coordination. Irritability's another symptom, but with some people, well, it's difficult to tell the difference,' Tony smirked at the older man. ' It's uncommon in the general population but occurs more frequently in athletes who take too many dietary supplements. The good thing is, recommended treatment is to stop taking the vitamin A. Since we're not dead yet, chances are the symptoms will go away on their own in the next forty-eight hours, so long as we avoid any more vitamin A intake. Given that the only thing we have access to right now is water, I'm guessing that won't be a problem. So long as we don't drink any more of evil Mrs Doyle's special brew, we should be absolutely fine. Well, apart from the fact that you have a hole in your side, and I have the entire cast of Fame performing on my head, that is. Fine is a relative thing.'
Gibbs could only stare at his junior agent, who grinned back.
'Phys-Ed major, remember?' he was reminded. Gibbs closed his eyes.
'I thought for a moment that you'd been spending far too much time with Ducky. Remind me again what the symptoms of concussion are?'
'Um…headache, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, blurred vision…uh, pretty much the same, boss…' Gibbs groaned. He would have no way of ascertaining exactly how bad his junior agent's head injuries were. He was going to have to watch him very closely from now on. It was time for Gibbs to take charge.
'DiNozzo, let me take a look at your head,' he ordered. The younger man winced.
'I'd rather you didn't boss. You might jump to the wrong conclusions and end up getting me sectioned.' Gibbs rolled his eyes, wincing when even that tiny action caused the pain in his side to re-ignite.
'That's an order, DiNozzo!' he growled.
'Hmmm, irritability…' DiNozzo muttered, turning to allow his boss access to the back of his head. Had he not been injured, Gibbs would have been sorely tempted to repeat the earlier headslap. He examined the wound as gently as he could, but even so, he could hear the pain in DiNozzo's voice as he attempted to provide a distraction.
'Y'know, there's got to be an A-team episode that covers this. There's the one where BA and Hannibal get poisoned by the milk, but I'm not really seeing myself in the BA role. There's the one where Murdock gets shot, but in that episode he doesn't ignore his wound and set about giving orders to the rest of the team, and anyway, you'd be no good as Murdock – you'd have to be Hannibal. I see myself more along the lines of Faceman, with a little of Murdock thrown in for good measure, but…ouch!!' Tony flinched away as Gibbs' hand came to rest on the point of the gun's impact.
'Damn,' Gibbs muttered. 'Hold still Tony,' he ordered, his tone betraying the concern he refused to voice, 'I've got to check.' He ran his fingers slowly over the wound and pushed gently. He could see the effort it was taking the younger man not to cry out as he did so. 'Damn,' he muttered again. It was impossible to be sure with the level of swelling, but Gibbs thought he could feel the bone moving beneath his fingers. In all probability, Tony's skull had been fractured by the earlier blow. How severely, and how it was likely to affect him, only time would tell. They needed to get out of here as soon as possible, but with both of them incapacitated, that was going to be easier said than done. What he needed, was a plan…