Drowning

Hi! Thanks for your patience while I've been away. Just trying to get back into the swing of things. Zan.

Chapter 14

Dr. Brad Pitt was concerned about his patient. Usually the cause of his concern about Tony Dinozzo was the special agent's unwillingness to take his own health seriously. Even when the man was pretty much on his last legs in an isolation ward, he had continued flirting with the nurse and making references to movies. Now, Tony was quiet, co-operative and raising no objections to being examined and X-rayed. Even while he was having blood drawn, Tony made no comment. It was frankly unnerving.

'No Dracula impersonations this time, Tony?' asked Pitt as the nurse left to take the blood samples to the lab.

'Huh?' was the reply. It was as if Tony had been a million miles away.

'Are you sure you didn't hit your head during the accident?' asked Pitt as he peered at Tony's pale forehead for any sign of a bump. 'No offence, but you usually have all the symptoms of verbal diarrhea when you come in here for treatment.'

Tony sighed, sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, coughing a little as he did so.

'Sorry doc,' he said quietly, in a manner that did nothing to ease Brad's concern. 'Are you sure you can't ring someone to see how Gibbs is doing?'

'I told you, it doesn't work that way,' Brad told him, inwardly relieved that Tony's lack of animation was probably the result of concern for his boss rather than a serious malaise. The relationship between Gibbs and Dinozzo was often characterized by a lot of barked orders and one-upmanship, but Brad had seen the deep concern they had for each other.

'But he'd be out of surgery by now, wouldn't he?' persisted Tony. 'And if anything had gone wrong, they would have come and told me, wouldn't they? I mean, he looked pretty bad in the ambulance. And he bled a lot while we were still in the car.'

Brad noticed the way Tony was rubbing his hands together as he spoke. Tony had tried to stop Gibbs from bleeding. It made sense that he would have had Gibbs' blood on his own hands.

Just as Brad was about to try and reassure Tony further, the door to the examination room opened.

'Ducky –' began Tony, his face tense with dread at what the ME was going to report.

'My dear boy, Gibbs is going to be fine!' said Ducky as he approached the bed. 'The surgeon removed the bullet that was lodged just below the clavicle. He came out of surgery fifteen minutes ago. No doubt he'll have the mother of all headaches when he wakes up given the knock he received in the crash, but he'll be up and about in no time.'

Tony let go of all the breath that he hadn't realized he was holding and ran a shaky hand through his hair. Gibbs was going to be alright. At that moment, nothing else mattered.

'Now, what about you?' asked Ducky, casting a meaningful look in Brad's direction.

'I'm fine,' was Tony's automatic response. 'Dr. Pitt's just running some tests to confirm it.'

'Yeah, he's fine,' said Brad, with a deadpan face. 'That's why he's been coughing up mucus and doing a Lady McBeth impersonation.'

'Hey!' objected Tony. 'I make the movie references around here!'

'Actually, it was a play in its purest form,' Ducky corrected him before turning his attention to the doctor.

'Are you concerned about serious respiratory illness?' Ducky asked.

'Perhaps,' said Brad. 'He had that near drowning only a few days ago, and he seems quite run down.'

'I am actually still in the room, you know,' said Tony, testily. Now he knew that Gibbs was going to be fine, his natural aversion to hospitals had returned to its usual prominence in his mind.

'What do you recommend?' Ducky asked Brad.

'I'd like to keep him overnight,' said Brad. 'In the morning I'll have all of the test results and we can make a decision then.'

'Oh come on!' protested Tony. 'Gibbs is out of action. Someone tried to kill us both. We still have a missing officer. And I'm fine! There's no reason for me to stay here overnight.'

'Could you excuse us?' Ducky asked Brad in his politest of tones.

When Dr. Pitt had left them and the door was closed, Ducky made himself comfortable in the chair and took a few moments to choose his words carefully.

'Some time ago,' he began, 'I knew an agent who was gaining a fine reputation for getting results. He would not rest until he had solved the case and put the bad guy in a cell, or on one of my tables. He had remarkable stamina and considerable drive, even then.'

'That's great Ducky, but….' Tony began, before being silenced by Ducky's raised finger.

'He sprained an ankle, not too badly,' continued Ducky. 'He allowed me to examine it, which was a small saving grace I suppose, but he refused to get medical attention or stay off it for the week I suggested because there were criminals to catch and cases to solve.'

'Is there a point, Duck?' asked Tony. 'I really want to get out of here so I can go and see how Gibbs is doing.'

'The point,' said Ducky as he stood up and made his way over to Tony, 'is that his injured ankle became so inflamed, that agent had to eventually have surgery and do desk duty for three months. All because he wouldn't have what was a minor injury tended to properly. Whether you like it or not, Anthony, your lungs were irreversibly compromised by a serious disease. If Dr. Pitt says you need to stay in hospital for one night, you will. Otherwise, you run the real risk of that one night turning into six months or something much worse. And I shall never hear the end of it from Gibbs if he finds out that I let you leave against Dr. Pitt's advice.'

'Okay,' grumbled Tony, looking down at the floor. He knew when he was outnumbered. Besides, he wasn't going to admit it to Ducky, but now that the adrenalin had left his body, his chest was feeling tight and fatigue was creeping down his legs. He looked up when he felt Ducky's hand on his arm.

'The surgeon told me that the blood Gibbs lost was not very great considering the nature of the injury', Ducky told him. 'He said that it appeared he had been given some excellent first aid. I told him that I was not surprised. You did very well, my boy.'

'Thanks Duck,' said Tony. It was good to know he'd done something right. He just hoped the event wasn't going to add itself to the growing list of moments that kept him awake at night.

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