AN: The Kiss Me, Probie regulars will recognize one bit of this from Cat's I Love You challenge last month.
Chapter 15
2300 Thursday
Within the hour, Tony was settled in ICU watching Tim. Sarah took the first 10-minute visit before heading back to stay with her parents for a while. He was sure she would eventually end up back in the waiting room with the others. As much as he knew she wanted to stay with Tim, he was glad to have some time alone with his partner. He needed time to try and figure out what was going on, how they had ended up here with Tim unconscious in ICU.
He sat beside the bed and held Tim's hand between his. He looked at his partner, lying in bed hooked up to tubes and covered in bandages. Tim's pale skin was shadowed around the eyes, his long eyelashes and baby face making him look barely out of his teens. His recent weight loss had given him a more angular look, but watching Tim now, Tony was reminded of the rookie he'd first met in Norfolk. As he shifted in the uncomfortable chair, muscles ached from the chase, and Tony felt every one of his 40 years.
"Never thought I'd be sitting here like this with you," he said, his voice quiet. "I'm the one who gets knocked out or infected with crazy diseases or beaten by dirtbags. Gibbs is the one who gets blown up or shot. You don't get hurt, not this kind of hurt." He swallowed, fighting past the lump in his throat. "You're going to be OK, Tim. We've got too much left to do; we've had too little time together to lose each other now. Brad's not saving me so I can be at your funeral."
He blinked until his eyes cleared, the unshed tears stinging slightly. "I know we run this risk, face it every time we step out the door in the morning. When Pacci died, that could have been one of us. When Cassidy and her team were killed, that could have been — should have been — us. When you pulled me off the parking garage, when Gibbs knocked you out of the way of that car a few weeks ago... Abby talks about fate and karma, so I can't believe we finally found each other, found what we needed in each other, just to have some idiot take it all away." His thumb rubbed small circles on the back of Tim's hand. "I love you, Timothy McGee. I'll love you for the rest of our lives, and that's going to be for a very long time if I have anything to say about it."
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2300 Thursday
Abby stood in the doorway of Tim's room and looked in at her two best friends. At Tony's words, she squeezed her eyes shut to hold back tears. It had just been one thing after another for them since they had gotten together. First rescuing Ziva, then Tony's lungs. They finally seemed to have that under control and were happy in their house, ready to share a life together, and now this. She wrapped her arms around her body, hugging herself since she hadn't brought Bert. She needed to bring Bert by if he was still here when they got shoveled out, needed Timmy to have that familiar stuffed face. Bert had been to the hospital dozens of times before, but usually he stood watch over Tony or Gibbs. Ziva had him for several days after returning from Somalia. But he'd never been pressed into service for Tim before. OK, yes, Tim was a field agent, and he could get hurt just like the others, but he never had, and she didn't know how to deal with it. And it didn't sound like Tony knew how to deal with it either.
She took a deep breath and walked in the room. Tony was here for Tim, and she needed to be here for Tony. She wrapped her arms around him, resting her chin on his shoulder.
"He's going to be OK, Tony," she said, forcing her voice not to quiver. "I didn't dream this time. I dreamed before Kate. Did I ever tell you that? I dreamed you had blood all over your face. You had just come back from the plague, and I was so worried something was going to happen to you. And I told Kate, and she said it was just a dream. And then she died, and Tim told me you had blood on your face. And now I tell all of you when I have a dream like that, but I didn't this time, so Timmy's going to be fine."
She ran out of breath and then realized she'd run out of words, and all she could do was hold Tony.
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0100 Friday
Gibbs stood in the doorway watching the two men he thought of as sons. Tony sat by Tim's bed talking to him, using words — the way Tony always did — to anchor himself. Tim was still unconscious, his fair skin ghostly in the lights of the ICU, his lashes and hair dark against it. Tony didn't look up, but Gibbs knew it wasn't because of his stealth. He could have clomped as loud as Abby in those things she called shoes, and Tony wouldn't have noticed. All his attention was focused on the man lying in bed.
"I should have known better, Tim," Tony said. "If I'd sent you to cover Carlisle from behind and I'd gone to back up Gibbs and Ziva, you wouldn't be lying here. You wouldn't have choked on that damn dust and almost let him get away."
Gibbs swallowed. How like Tony to blame himself, when nobody else did. Even Sean and Eileen weren't blaming anybody. Gibbs had always thought calling Kate's parents would be the hardest notification he'd do as team leader. But to walk into Sean's hospital room, to know Tim's parents well enough to consider them friends, and to have to tell them that Tim had been shot rescuing him while on a mission to find Sean's doctor — he hadn't been able to find the words.
Gibbs blinked and realized he was still standing in the doorway. He walked into the room and put a hand on Tony's shoulder. "It's not your fault, Tony. If you'd switched places, it would be you lying here. You're as close as we have to an indestructible agent, but even you aren't bulletproof."
Tony just looked up at him, eyes filled with raw pain. "Boss, it's just not right to see him lying here."
Gibbs sighed and hoped he was doing the right thing. The headslap was gentler than normal, but still made Tony wince.
"Tony, if Tim heard you saying that, he'd smack you, too. You know how hard he's worked to be more than a walking search engine, and part of being a field agent is accepting the risk that you might be injured. He's damn lucky that this is the first time he's been seriously hurt in six years. Even Ducky's been stabbed during that time." Gibbs kept his gaze on Tony's eyes until he could see it sink in.
"You're right, Boss. Doesn't make it any easier to see him lying here though." Tony sounded tired in a way Gibbs had never heard.
"No. No, it doesn't. But you can't take the blame on yourself. He won't want that."
Tony nodded, and Gibbs moved his other hand to Tony's shoulders and tried to rub away some of the tension. He stayed until his 10 minutes were up, then went back to the waiting room.
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0400 Friday
Vance approached McGee's room. It seemed wrong that the young agent was lying here, while his team waited for him to wake up. The McGee he knew was a confident field agent who was among the best in the world at solving crimes with technology. He had appreciated McGee's skills before DiNozzo's, but once he'd learned to see behind DiNozzo's mask, he had realized Gibbs' team was made up of four of the best in the country in their respective areas, all working together as a seamless unit.
Now, as he watched DiNozzo sitting there holding McGee's hand, he appreciated the senior field agent on a whole different level. He'd heard Gibbs' sitrep when he had arrived at the hospital. DiNozzo hadn't let his relationship with McGee distract him from taking down the suspect even after seeing that the junior agent was down. And watching his face now, Vance could appreciate what it had taken to do that. He tried to imagine keeping his head completely in agent-mode if Jackie had been the one bleeding out on the floor and couldn't. He hadn't been able to when Kai had Jackie at gunpoint back in the fall. So looking at DiNozzo's drawn face as he cradled McGee's limp hand between his own, Vance knew he was looking at a man who loved his partner every bit as much as he loved Jackie.
As he stepped closer, he could hear what DiNozzo was saying.
"I never thought it would be this hard, Tim. It's hard to believe that just yesterday we talked about one of us moving off the MCRT so we could start a family, and I said it should be me. We know if you move, you'll end up in CyberCrimes and you'll hate that. But now sitting here, watching you like this, I wish you would so you could stay safe." He started to speak and stopped, choked up. "Except I know you, and you like being a field agent too much. You're too good as a field agent to go back to the sub-basement. I want you to go back in the field, want you on my six, want to know you're on my six. The doctors won't say if that's possible, if your shoulder will recover enough." He swallowed, Adam's apple moving. "But they don't know you like I know you. You might be the only person I know as stubborn as Gibbs. You don't back down for anything or anyone. God knows I tried my best when you were a probie, but you took it all and kept coming back for more. You have to be OK, have to come back. Because as hard as it was to keep going after Kate died and when Ziva stayed in Israel, I don't think I could stay if you weren't there. If- When you make it though, make it back in the field, I'm going to ask Vance for the transfer to Cold Cases. Dwayne Wilson's been doing a good job over there, and he was a marine. He survived Gibbs when he spent a week with us, and he can handle having him as Boss. Vance can just switch us out. Because like I told Abby when she first found out we were together, I'd much rather work on another team and have you at home than not have you at all. Tim, you have to be OK."
Vance stepped back out of the doorway. He couldn't intrude. He wasn't family the way the rest of the team was, and DiNozzo needed his family around him now. As he walked down the hall, the senior agent's words circled in his brain. DiNozzo was right. McGee was too good an agent to be in CyberCrimes, but if he couldn't be cleared for field duty that was the only place in the agency for him until he had enough experience for a promotion to administration. And even if Gibbs agreed to let DiNozzo move to Cold Cases, that didn't mean it was the best use of DiNozzo's skills, not when he was on track to replace Gibbs when he hit mandatory retirement as a field agent in a couple of years. He nodded. He couldn't do anything to help McGee heal physically, but he could develop a plan to help both men get what they needed, whether McGee got cleared for the field or not. He was not losing either agent from NCIS if he had any say in it.
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0500 Friday
Ducky took advantage of his medical credentials to go back and check on Timothy. Though after listening to Abigail's description of the two men in the hospital room, he rather thought Anthony might be in greater need of his services than Timothy. If anything were to happen to Timothy, he rather feared Anthony would blame himself, much as he had done after Jennifer's death.
As the medical examiner approached the room, he was careful to move quietly, not wanting to disturb the agent who sat hunched over his partner's bed. He observed the readings on the various monitors and was pleased to see that they were no worse than when Timothy had first been moved into the ICU. His blood pressure was still low, and Ducky knew that the hospital staff planned to administer another infusion once they could get a few more donations.
Anthony was looking at Timothy, lines furrowed in his forehead. The agent's voice was too low for Ducky to make out words, but he could hear the love mixed with fear and hope in his friend's voice. The doctor in him knew that between the concussion, blood loss, and damage to his shoulder, Timothy was not yet out of the woods and would be out of the field for many months, if indeed he ever returned. And yet the psychologist in him knew that with Anthony at his side and the rest of their family behind him, Timothy would return. He only wished the voice in his head would stop pointing out that he had many more years experience as a doctor than as a psychologist.