[Phoomph-Seven]
Gibbs found himself standing in front of another window and sipping coffee. He did not know why he was looking out the double paned glass, it wasn't like he could see the warm colors of the morning sky as the light chased away the night. Or watch sailors and civilians and other Navy personal drive on base to start their day. And he couldn't watch the ships in port raise the morning colors. Three things that he loved to watch out the panoramic windows was hidden behind a wall of fog. The only thing that told Gibbs that it was morning besides his watch and the office filling up with people was that the dark foggy night had turned into a white out. There wasn't much he could do until Abby finds a match to the only two leads that they had. Meaning he had to wait and he had begun to hate waiting as much as he hated spooks.
McGee and Ziva had gone to the cafeteria to get some breakfast as they waited for Abby's call. He glanced down at his watch, it was a little past five thirty, he had been up for at lest twenty four hours and half of that was worrying that something would happen. Getting fed up with waiting by a window; Gibbs headed towards the elevator and proceed to leave the base.
[Phoomph]
Nurses and doctors kept entering and leaving the room though out the early morning. Doctor Mallard had left forty five minutes after Agent Gibbs, mentioning something about his mother; leaving him alone, so to speak. Now Brad was trying to find something to do to stay awake. Tetris and everything else on his phone held no interest to him anymore. He turned his head to the window behind him to see the morning sky was still draped in fog. Suddenly his nose twitched as the aroma of fresh, real coffee filled the room. Brad looked back to the door and saw Agent Gibbs standing there with two cups of coffee. The Special Agent walked towards him and handed Brad one of the paper cups.
"Thanks." Brad said as he took a nice long sip from the black substance, he instantly felt more awake, from real coffee.
"How is he?" Gibbs asked quietly as he looked at his sleeping senior field agent.
"Doing fine, he's been sleeping most of the time. Have you found out who did this yet?"
"Still waiting for the DNA and finger prints."
"Oh." Silence fell between the two, Brad could tell that Gibbs wasn't much a talker and he himself was too tired to come up with any small talk that was appropriate in this situation. The quite room was broken when Brad let out a big yawn that he tried to cover up.
Gibbs looked at the man for a moment before speaking. "Go home, get some rest."
"As much as that sounds good, I can't."
"Why, your gut telling you to stay?" Gibbs couldn't help but say, and Brad though he heard a bit of humor in the man's voice.
"No," he said with a tired smile. "I road in the ambulance, so I have no vehicle to get home and I don't have my wallet on me to get a taxi."
"I'll drive you."
"That will work." Brad slowly stood up from the chair; his body ached from the hours of sitting in a cheep hospital chair. "Let me just quickly use the restroom before we go." He moved past Gibbs as he exited the room with a nod of acknowledgment from the Agent.
Just as Brad left the room, Gibbs saw movement on the bed and soon two tired green eyes were looking at him. "Hey boss." Tony slowly whispered.
"How you feeling DiNozzo?"
"Been…better." Tony fought to stay awake.
"I'm going to take Officer Erickson home, then I'll be right back."
"Who?"
"The man that saved your life." Gibbs watched Tony's face changed from a wrinkled confusion to a smooth confirmation.
It wasn't long until Brad popped his head back into the room. "Hey you're finally awake." The officer smiled as he moved closer to the bed.
"Thanks, to you, I guess." Tony barely said. The man did not look familiar at all and for some reason it was unsettling. Though everyone, even the doctors freak him out; he believed it was because he did not know what his attacker looked like. But the officer's voice was like a comfort from the back of his mind and the fact that he held the same white coffee cup that his boss had, Tony felt that uneasiness fade away.
"Well I don't want to keep you up. You need all the rest you can get."
"I'll be back as soon as I can." Gibbs assured his agent as the two men moved towards the door. It broke Gibbs' heart when he saw the pleading look in those green eyes asking him to stay, but he continued out the door any how.
[Phoomph]
Ziva put the phone back in the receiver as she just got off the phone with Gibbs. McGee looked up her questionably as Ziva stood up grabbing her gun and backpack. When they had came back from a quick breakfast they were not surprised to find Gibbs gone, thinking that he went for another coffee run.
"Gibbs wants me to take pictures of Tony's injuries and get the medical statement." She walked around her desk towards the elevator, but stopped just shy of the divider. "You might want to have something when Gibbs gets back. He doesn't sound happy."
"Right." McGee said to himself as Ziva continued to the elevator. "And there is no Tony to take the heat." The agent looked at the computer monitor in front of him and took a deep breath at the grainy picture. "I'm screwed."
Ziva felt very uncomfortable as she walked down the hospital hall. She did not know how her partner would look for one, but also if he was awake as she took the pictures, Ziva shook her head. That shouldn't bother her; there hasn't been any awkwardness between them so this shouldn't be a problem. However when she turned into the room, her heart stopped at the sight of Tony asleep in the bed. There was a nurse standing by the bed waiting for Ziva to make it farther into the room before speaking softly.
"Here is a copy of his medical statement." The nurse handed a blue folder to Ziva.
"Thank you. Can you remove the brace so I may take pictures for the record?" The Mossad Officer asked as she took the folder.
"Sure." As the nurse carefully took off the brace, Ziva turned around and placed her backpack on the plastic chair. She pulled out her camera and placed the folder in the bag. When she turned around she froze at the site of Tony's neck, she felt her eyes burn.
It felt forever, before her brain sent the command to her eyes to look away. But they just tore away from the flesh and moved to the camera. She would quickly focus the camera then shut her eyes as she took the picture. But that didn't stop each image to save itself in her brain then the memory card in the NCIS issued camera. She fought back tears, trying to tell herself that this wasn't her partner Tony DiNozzo, but some John Doe, just another sailor to another case. But each time she looked up from the neck to the sleeping face, she would feel the hot sting of tears threatening to flow. She had never seen Tony in a Hospital bed, not hooked up to all the machines or his face almost as pale as the fog outside.
After a dozen or so pictures, Ziva noticed that his eye lids started to slowly flutter. She turned off the camera and moved back to the chair. "You can put it back on now." She told the nurse, pointing to the neck brace.
As the nurse went over to tend to Tony, Ziva went back to packing up her backpack, trying to do so in a quick manner, not trusting herself to be around Tony if he should wake up. However as she flung the dark bag onto her shoulder, those fluttering eye lids finally opened and locked onto her. She cursed at herself; she should have told the nurse to wait until she left before putting the neck brace back on. Though when she looked at his face those images that she swore would never be deleted from her memory, faded away when a smile appeared on his pale face.
He slowly lifted his hand a foot off the sheeted bed and wiggled his finger back and forth as a wave. She couldn't help but smile back. "Hi Tony."
He opened his mouth to speak, no doubt to say some humorous remark on her visiting him, or more like a sexual comment like playing nurse. But when nothing came out and his face fell with frustration, it just confirmed her thoughts.
"Gibbs told me to come by and take some pictures for the record." She bluntly stated and couldn't believe that she said that to him when his eyes averted to the floor and a frown formed on his lips. She should have lied to him saying that she stopped by just to see how he was, give home some company. Even though he would know it was a lie, it would make him feel better. But no, she had to be calluses.
"I need to get going, Gibbs wants these pictures right away. I will try and stop by later if I can." His hand lifted again, but this time it rose just a few inches and his fingers were closed together and unmoving. She just left the room without another word. As she made her way to her car, the warm smile from Tony that she tried to hang onto disappeared and the images of his injuries came back to her mind and a tear fell down her face as she started the car.