a/n - Wow, you guys liked that last chapter? Thanks for all the great reviews.

"Ducky… Ducky!" Before Gibbs could take a deep breath to yell a third time, he and McGee were surrounded. Familiar hands helped him ease the semi-conscious man to the floor. Most of them moved back to give Ducky and Palmer room to work, but Gibbs refused to budge. Palmer was at Tim's head, checking his pulse.

"It's fast, doctor, really fast." Gibbs watched as the assistant counted and calculated in his head. Over one hundred, close to one twenty." Palmer looked at Ducky, alarmed. "His neck veins are distended."

Ducky nodded, ripping McGee's shirt open and tugging at the new bulletproof vest underneath. "My medical bag is still in the lab." DiNozzo scrambled to his feet and ran for the door as Ducky tried to get Tim to respond. "Tim, Timothy, can you hear me?"

Behind them, Fornell's pacing increased as he considered the possibilities Moore had somehow found the young man. Myers was obviously thinking the same way. "We were so careful, how did Moore get to him? He didn't even eat anything that we weren't…" He spun and looked at Abby who was wringing her hands, watching them work on McGee. "You! What did you give him? You kept pushing that drink on him. God, how could I have been so stupid to let it happen. I let my guard down here because Tim was so sure he was safe here."

"It was just a Caf-Pow, honest." Abby looked first to Director Vance and then to Ziva, who had a strange look on her face as she stared back at Abby. Vance noticed Ziva's discomfort with the other women.

"Officer David, if you know of something, this is too important to hide any suspicions you may have."

Ziva shook her head regretfully as she stared at Abby. "I do not want to believe Abby is capable of hurting McGee, but very late last night I found her in the lab trying to track his cell phone location after Gibbs very specifically ordered her not to."

That was enough for Vance and he went to the door to call for a security detail. Security arrived followed by DiNozzo with Ducky's bag. Abby stood her ground as she pleaded with Vance. "Director Vance, you can't honestly think I'd hurt McGee. That… that would be like kicking a puppy and you know I'd never hurt a puppy and…"

"Miss Sciuto, did you or did you not attempt to track Agent McGee's cell signal last night?" She wouldn't look him in the eye and he'd had enough. "At the very least, you've undermined the security of a highly dangerous operation and threatened the life of the agent involved, and at the worst," he gave her a hard look, "you may be charged as an accessory to whatever terrorist acts Moore commits. Security will hold you in an interrogation room until I decide what to do with you." Abby looked to Gibbs for help but his focus was on McGee.

Gibbs rolled up his jacket and slid it under McGee's head as he silently watched Ducky examine him. Ducky lightly slapped Tim's face. "Timothy, I need you to stay awake for me. Are you having chest pains?" A weak nod was given as Tim's eyes fluttered open for a minute. Palmer leaned over to speak to Ducky, keeping his voice low, but Gibbs was able to hear him.

"His blood pressure's so low I can't get an accurate reading, and with the distended jugular veins, it could be a beck triad…."

"There's definite arrhythmia and muffled heart sounds. Good call, Mr. Palmer, let's get him up and see what effect that has on his blood pressure." Ducky looked up at Gibbs. "We need him upright and leaning forward, Jethro." Gibbs shifted position to support Tim in this new position. Fornell dropped to his knees behind him as he started to grill Ducky.

"Dr. Mallard, I need to know if McGee's been poisoned before we can call an ambulance."

"Fornell, he needs help now." For a moment, Ziva thought DiNozzo was going to charge at the FBI agent, but Vance stepped in.

"Explain yourself, Fornell."

Fornell intently watched McGee as he did just that. "The last time we thought we had a handle on nailing Moore, one of my guys collapsed during a lunch meeting. Something he had eaten sent him into full anaphylactic shock. His epi-pen malfunctioned."

Palmer shook his head. "Those things don't malfunction."

"Yeah, I know, but his did." Anyone looking at Fornell knew exactly what he suspected happened to that particular lifesaving device. "The ambulance got there really quick, and we were only minutes from the hospital. He should have been fine. He was DOA at the hospital and no one recognized the ambulance attendants and nobody's seen them since." Fornell stood and went toe-to-toe with Vance. "They got to Robbie in my office, Leon, in my office. If they've somehow managed to poison Tim…"

"Damn it." Today was a lousy day to quit chewing on toothpicks, Vance decided as he turned his attention to Ducky. "Do you know what's wrong with him yet, Dr. Mallard?"

Ducky was listening to Palmer as he rechecked McGee's blood pressure. "His pressure's back up some. It's still not great, but at least I can get an accurate reading." As soon as Palmer gave his report, Ducky's attention was on the muffled heartbeat he could hear through the stethoscope.

After leaning so far forward, McGee seemed more aware of his surroundings and was able to answer some questions from Ducky. The doctor didn't seem surprised that the chest pain was decreasing in the awkward position. After exchanging a few muttered words, Ducky stood up and Palmer exchanged positions with Gibbs. Ducky gathered them out of earshot of the ailing man.

"Well, Doctor?"

Ducky glanced at Vance before focusing on Gibbs and Fornell while the rest of them listened. "I'm afraid that Timothy is showing all the signs of cardiac tamponade. I suspect he started developing pericarditis over the last several days since the shooting and he's been pushing himself too hard."

"What exactly does that mean, Duck?" Gibbs kept glancing back at McGee. "How serious is it?"

"Very serious, I'm afraid. It appears that fluid or blood has been seeping into the sack that contains his heart. The build up is enough that his heart is literally being crushed by the increased pressure. If his heart functions are limited long enough, it could become life threatening. Agent Fornell, what kind of pain medication has he been on?"

Fornell quickly thought back. "Vicodin and some sort of muscle relaxant, but they really knocked him out and after the first day he would only take over the counter pain pills."

"All we had at the safe house was aspirin." Myers interrupted, guilt evident on his face. "He's been downing aspirin constantly and that's a blood thinner, isn't it?"

"Between the chest trauma from being shot and the lingering viral infection, he was a prime candidate for this sort of complication. The aspirin and that caffeine jolt from Abby's drink didn't help, but I'm afraid this was almost inevitable given the circumstances. Now we must find a way to get him safely to the hospital."

"We drive him ourselves." DiNozzo spoke like it was the most obvious solution, which Gibbs realized, it was.

"We'll use the coroner's van. I'll drive; Ducky and Palmer will be in the back with McGee. Everyone else in sedans, heavily armed. We take him to Bethesda." Once they had a plan it went quickly, even if McGee was uncomfortable being transported on one of the gurneys from autopsy he was too ill to complain.

The medical staff at Bethesda was used to handling VIP's and weren't fazed by the guards that accompanied this patient, but they did not allow any of them into the emergency room except Ducky and Palmer. Just to be safe, Gibbs slipped Ducky his back-up Beretta.

Frustrated, the group congregated in an out of the way corner where they could still see the doors to the exam room where McGee was being treated. DiNozzo immediately turned on Fornell. "This can't be right, McGee's dad couldn't have been one of the patients. He talks to his dad every week."

"I know."

"Well, if you know, then you'd know that his dad couldn't have been one of those abandoned patients in some nursing home someplace."

Fornell hoped Tim would forgive him for telling such details, learned during one of the long nights at the safe house, but his friends needed to understand what he'd been through. "He called his dad every Sunday night, right?"

DiNozzo nodded, alarmed by the fact that Fornell knew this and maybe what he was saying was true.

"When he was a kid, Sunday afternoons were for the guys. If his father wasn't deployed, they'd leave Mom and baby sister home and have some sort of an adventure, just the two of them. After Tim left home, it became a weekly phone call between them." Fornell had to stop and clear his throat before he could tell the rest. "His dad had been ill, slowly slipping into a vegetative state for some time. But every week, Tim would still call, and someone would hold the phone to his ear, in the hope that maybe his dad could still understand what he told him."

"He never said a word to any of us about his dad being sick." Tony's eyes were suspiciously bright as he stared at the ceiling. "God, I used to tease him about calling home so often."

"His father died the same night we were…"

"Hunting the child rapist." Fornell finished Ziva's sentence as she glanced at him before turning to Gibbs.

"Why did McGee not tell us, Gibbs? Why did he feel he had to go through it alone?"

"Because it was a case involving children and I was being an ass. I reamed him for being six minutes late. Six damn minutes late, in front of the entire bullpen and half a dozen Metro cops. The kid's too damn polite to shove my face in it."

The self-loathing he heard in his old friend's voice reminded Fornell why Tim had been so adamant about not telling his boss. "It wasn't about being polite…"

"Then what was it about, Tobias? You seem to know all about it, why wouldn't he get in my face and tell me what an ass I'd been? Why?"

Myers spoke up for the first time. "God, you really don't get it do you?"

"No, I don't, so why doesn't somebody just tell me?" By now, Gibbs was yelling. "All this time, why did he feel like he had to suffer in silence?"

Fornell shook his head, sadly. "He'd already lost one father, Jethro, he couldn't bear to hurt another."

His pacing suddenly stalled, Gibbs collapsed into the nearest chair while the rest of the group started arguing about how or when they should have known.

"That night, he got real stressed all of a sudden." DiNozzo rubbed hard at his face. "I started teasing him about it, like an idiot." Ziva was staring off into space next to him.

"I am no better, I was right there and did not see he was hurting. That makes me just as much of an idiot, does it not?"

Up until now, Vance had been silent, observing the interactions of the team he respected, but still didn't quite understand. "So, why cover for you? Why not just come to my office and ask for emergency leave?"

"You'd have wanted to know why he went to you before Gibbs, why his team didn't know about his dad. Probie wouldn't have done that, he'd have suffered in silence rather than hurt any of the team. We'd have had it coming, but he wouldn't have done it."

Gibbs wasn't really registering the conversations behind him as he turned back to Fornell. "You were able to help him, right? I'm not talking about the case, but the rest."

Fornell sat next to him and thumped his knee with a fist. "We may have been the kid's second string, but yeah, I took care of him like he was my own, Jethro. We all did."