a/n - Aren't you glad I'm picking up steam with this one?

The building was almost empty that late at night, but the few remaining agents scattered as Gibbs charged down the stairs, Vance at his heels. "Tim? Tim, my God, what happened?" He skidded to a stop and dropped to his knees next to the prone figure as Abby tried to explain.

"I heard my office door open and he was stumbling and then just went down."

Gibbs' focus returned to McGee, brushing his hair back as he leaned closer. The younger man was blinking rapidly, his left eyelid not completely opening. "J'ro, tat... you?"

Ducky and Palmer's arrival followed by Tony and Ziva went unnoticed by the two on the floor. The Medical Examiner saw the muscular weakness and heard the struggle to speak and sprung into action, "Tony, call for an ambulance immediately. Jethro, let me take a look at him."

While Tony made the call, Vance called the main gate to clear the way.

Gibbs finally noticed Ducky next to him. "What's happening to him, Duck?"

As he quickly examined McGee, Ducky tried to keep the alarm out of his voice. "I'm not sure yet. Can you tell me what led up to this? Abby said he was suffering from a migraine? Did he take his prescription? How many?"

"I don't know when it started, but he broke down and took his first pill late this afternoon. He's taken three, he said that's all he could take. Why isn't it helping?"

Ducky didn't want to say what he was thinking, not to the man who had finally opened his heart again. Unfortunately, for a migraine sufferer to suddenly have such a horrific attack that the medication did not touch, there was one likely diagnosis. The fact that Tim was still recovering from the explosion increased the chances.

"Ducky?"

Silently, he took the blood pressure cuff that Jimmy held out and wrapped it around McGee's arm. It took three attempts before he had it tight enough to get an accurate reading of the dangerously high pressure.

Jimmy was leaning over his shoulder, watching the gauge, and couldn't keep the alarm out of his voice. "Dr. Mallard..."

"I know, my boy." Ducky turned his attention back to his patient as he grasped both of Tim's hands. "Timothy, I need you to squeeze my hands. Can you do that? That's it, squeeze my hands." He sent up a prayer that Gibbs couldn't see how much weaker one hand was. Ducky wasn't completely successful in hiding the results, but the arrival of the paramedics delayed the confrontation.

Once his findings were reported to the paramedics and they were preparing Tim for transport, Ducky had no choice but to face his friend. Gibbs looked like he'd aged ten years since that morning. "Duck, this isn't a normal migraine, is it?"

Sighing, he shook his head. "I'm afraid not. If it were, no matter how severe, the medication would have taken care of it and he'd be resting comfortably now. Three doses would knock out an elephant."

"Then what's happening to him?"

"I'm afraid..." Ducky looked heartbroken at what he was about to say. "I'm afraid Timothy may have suffered a more serious head injury than we first suspected when his monitor exploded. A small area of damage that has gotten progressively worse."

Tony was standing behind Gibbs, staring at the Medical Examiner in horror. "You mean like an aneurysm?"

"An injury or a naturally occurring weakness in a cerebral artery, the results are virtually the same, Tony."

"Will he..." Tony's voice trailed off, not wanting to verbalize the question in front of Gibbs.

Ducky understood the root of Tony's fear. "We've made a lot of progress in treating such things over the years, Anthony. Don't give up on him yet. Now, Mr. Palmer will follow along and keep all of you apprised of Timothy's condition. I know that Jethro would want you to continue to sort out the case. If that woman is responsible for the explosion, she needs to be punished."

When Gibbs insisted on riding in the ambulance, Ducky steered him to the passenger door. "I will be in the back with Timothy, monitoring his condition, Jethro. We need room to work." He was only vaguely aware of Tony fastening the seat belt for him, all of his attention was on the Tim as the second paramedic and Ducky took care of him.

Tony stood where he was, watching the ambulance until it turned the corner, seemingly lost. Abby and Ziva joined him while Vance stayed further back. Abby wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder. "You heard the Duckman, Tony. McGee's going to be okay, you'll see."

"My mom died of a brain aneurysm, Abs. I remember it like it was yesterday, and I remember how it changed my father. When Mom was alive, he was a great guy, the kind of dad you were proud of, and then..."

He didn't need to fill in the blanks, they'd all met the senior DiNozzo. Understanding his fears, Ziva mirrored Abby on his other side. "That will not happen, to either one of them. We will not let it. Now come, let us seal the coffin on Rebecca so there is one less thing for Gibbs to worry about."

Despite his worry, Tony smiled as he explained. "It's put a nail in the coffin, Ziva." Despite his worry, Tony smiled as he explained.

"Does not nailing it shut, seal it?"

Tony opened his mouth, then closed it. Finally he turned to Abby. "You want to explain that one, Abs?"

-NCIS-

"Sarah, Sarah needs to be called" It was the first thing Gibbs had said since they watched the stretcher being wheeled into a room.

Still nervous around the other man, Jimmy jumped slightly. "I'm sure Tony and Director Vance are taking care of it... but I'll double check, sir." It was a testament to Gibbs' worry that he didn't comment on the title.

Jimmy stepped away and made a quick call before returning. "Tony said that Director Vance already sent a car to pick up Sarah, so she should be here soon."

True to his word, within the hour Agent Balboa arrived with both Sarah and Abby. He nodded to Gibbs, then backed away as to not intrude. Sarah immediately went to Gibbs, burying her face in his shirt. "I'm so scared."

"I know." Gibbs wrapped his arm around her and looked up at the other arrival.

Abby stood a few feet away, bouncing the toe of her boot against the floor as she chewed her lip and explained her presence. "Tony and Ziva are working to tie Rebecca into the explosion and I didn't want Sarah to be picked up by a stranger." What she wasn't saying was clearly written on her face. I'm scared too, please don't send me away.

Gibbs gave a slight nod and held out his other arm. Abby immediately dove in and the three of them clung to each other. Seeing the situation resolve, Balboa quietly slipped out.

They were still like that twenty minutes later when Ducky walked out with one of the same doctors that had treated McGee earlier. Gibbs was the first to spot them. "Ducky, how is he? What's happening?"

"Jethro, Dr. Silbey and I both agrees that an aneurysm is the most likely diagnosis. The CAT scan was inconclusive and the lumbar puncture showed no blood in the spinal fluid. That along with his symptoms suggests that it has not ruptured yet."

Gibbs clung to that sliver of hope. "That's good, right?"

"I do hope so. Timothy is being prepped now for a cerebral angiography."

"What exactly does that entail?" Gibbs understood the term in a general sense, but wanted to know more, not only for himself, but for Sarah's sake. He could tell my her stillness that Abby was well aware of the procedure Ducky mentioned.

"A catheter will be inserted into his femoral artery and they will thread that up to his brain and then inject dye into an artery. That should allow us to see any bulge or abnormality in the vascular structure of his brain."

Abby wasn't convinced. "What about a CTA? Doesn't that have a better chance of finding the problem?"

Dr. Silbey broke in. "Agent McGee is an excellent candidate for Endovascular Coiling, but only if we find the aneurysm quickly considering the rapid escalation of his symptoms. With the catheter already in place in his leg, we can go directly to the second procedure as soon as the damaged vessel is located. It's unusual to combine procedures this way, but I'm afraid even a few hour delay might be too much."

Ducky could see the questions forming the moment Dr. Silbey mentioned the alternative treatment method. "Jethro, we need to get back in there, but I promise I will come out and explain more about the treatment as soon as Dr. Silbey has located the damage."

Gibbs studied his old friend's face. "I trust you, Duck. Just take care of him He's..."

"I know, Jethro. I know."

-NCIS-

Now that they had a timeline, Ziva and Tony started reviewing the video tapes with a new purpose. Ziva found her first clue timestamped just a few hours after she'd picked up a drunken Tony from the bar the night he'd discovered the couple. Rebecca, still dressed in clubbing clothes, walked through the squad room, pausing to study the monitor on McGee's desk before leaving again.

Vance arrived just in time to see the action on the tape. "She had to know what kind of monitor she was replacing."

"Yeah," Tony agreed, thinking outloud. "She really planned this out, but I don't see her as the type to actually get her hands dirty sabotaging it herself."

"You are right, besides, she might break a nail."

The two men both smirked slightly. Ziva never had patience for high maintenance women on the best of days. She continued, not noticing their expressions. "So where does a legal department pencil pusher find someone with enough knowledge to turn a computer monitor into a bomb?"

Vance stiffened up. "The legal department has access to every file on every suspect this agency investigates."

"Damn."

"That could be hundreds of suspects in this office alone." Ziva shook her head. "We need a way to narrow it down."

Tony snapped his fingers as he leaned forward. "What's in it for the suspect? She had to offer him something, so..."

Vance followed the thought. "Who better to screw up a case than someone in legal? I'll see which case records she's pulled lately."

While they had talked, the videos had continued to run and a flash of movement on his computer screen caught DiNozzo's attention. "Whoa, whoa, whoa." He grabbed the mouse and backed the video up as Ziva and Vance came closer.

"Did you find something else?" Ziva watched for a moment, until she saw that whatever Rebecca was doing on the floor behind McGee's desk was blocked from view. "Tony, what is the time stamp?" As soon as he read it off the corner of the screen, she pulled up the footage from the secret camera they'd installed.

"Anything?"

Ziva squinted at the screen. "She moved his backpack."

"Put it up on the plasma." Vance stepped closer to the large wall-mounted screen as she transferred the images. Once it was up and Tony joined the Director, Ziva moved to McGee's desk and began to look around. It wasn't until she was on her hands and knees that she noticed the small two-toned object wedged between the leg of the desk and the bottom of the partition.

Tony heard her curse in Hebrew and turned away from the screen. "What'd you find?"

"I believe it is one of McGee's migraine pills. He keeps a bottle in his backpack."

Before any of them could wrap their minds around why she would have spilled his medication, one of the agents assigned to watch Rebecca in the holding cell came in, looking worried. "Director Vance? Rebecca Warren just overheard someone talking about Agent McGee being rushed to the hospital and now she's laughing about..." He frowned slightly as he remembered her exact words. "Timmy has a headache that his fag boyfriend can't kiss and make all better."

"That little..."

"The thing is, Sir," he rushed on, cutting off DiNozzo's rant. "Nobody told her what was wrong with McGee, so how'd she know..."

Vance's eyes widened as he reached for his phone. "David, get that pill down to Abby's lab, NOW."

Tony shook his head. "Abby's at the hospital."

The Director's call was being answered as he nodded to Tony. "Mr. Palmer, listen carefully. It appears that Rebecca Warren may have tampered with McGee's medication. I need you to get Miss Sciuto back here as quickly as possible."