Gibbs blinked rapidly as his pulse quickened. Gazing at McGee out of blurry eyes, he shook his head, but quickly stopped when a searing pain shot through his throbbing skull. "What?" he mumbled sluggishly, "What are you talking about? Will you tell me what happened for the love of…" he trailed off, seeing Abby approach the bed further. "Abbs," he rasped, sitting up straighter, "What happened?"

Before she could answer, Tim had interjected angrily.

"Tony took a damned bullet for you, that's what happened."

A cloak of muteness was thrown over the room. Even the machines seemed to beep more quietly in a sort of sombre recognition of the answer given. Gibbs swallowed unnecessarily, aggravating his already red raw throat. The buzzing in his ears was soaring to crescendo pitch, hammering brutishly at his ear drums. He blinked rather gormlessly at his agent, struggling to comprehend. One swift look at Abby's paler than pale face let him know he hadn't misunderstood. Dizziness threatened to overtake him as he opened his mouth slowly, his heart racing, sending his monitoring machines into overdrive.

"He…what?"

Abby whimpered at the sound of the man's voice. It was nothing like its usual gruff and to the point self. It was the same voice he'd used when that liner had blown up, before he'd taken off to Mexico all those years ago. It was the same voice he'd used when they lost Kate, the same one he'd used when they couldn't save Jenny. Tim however, seemed absolutely unconcerned about the change in Gibbs' voice, as his gaze narrowed. He couldn't explain where his sudden anger was stemming from, but he couldn't control it.

He didn't even want to control it.

"I said," he spat, "That Tony, the guy you've treated like shit for the last two years, threw himself in front of a bullet to save your sorry ass." Seeing Gibbs' look of utter confusion served only to send his teeth crunching together in noisy ire. "There were two armed gang runners still on scene, hiding. We didn't find them in our initial sweep, because they were was a concealed hallway behind the plasterboard in the main hall. They couldn't get out, and we couldn't see them. They knew we were going to do a full search, so they had to make a break for it."

He paused as the smell of scorched gunpowder seemed to assail his nostrils with a phantom acidity.

"So they did, when our backs were turned. Tony's man was talking to me, and Bishop, Ducky and Palmer were collecting samples. Murphy, that's Tony's guy by the way, in case you were too arrogant for introductions, saw them first. Raised the alarm. They were headed in your direction, trying to get down the side alley that spills into the main feeder for the city's back alley entrance to the subway system. We…"

He broke off, pain splashing across his face as both Gibbs and Abby whitened at his words.

"We tried to warn you two. But you were too busy with your…with whatever the hell it is with you two these days. You didn't hear us, you didn't turn. They were headed straight for you, because you were right by that damned alley. One of them, definitely not the brains of the operation, saw your guns in your holsters and drew. We shouted at you again, but you and Tony looked like you were about to fucking fight each other."

He broke off once more as rage was beginning to overtake him.

"You were blocking their entrance. They needed you out of their way, and neither of you were moving. They got closer and closer, we couldn't catch up, they had too much of a head start. We couldn't fire; you were all too close together. There was nothing…nothing we could do…"

Memories, both chaotic and dull, were beginning to trickle back into Gibbs' brain as he stared silently. He was too engrossed in the recounting of the tale to truly notice the anger festering and darkening in Tim's eyes. He was too stunned to notice the rapidly nervous looks that Abby was exchanging between both he and Gibbs, her heart both sinking and racing at the unusual fire she could see in Tim.

"There was nothing that we could do in that moment," the younger agent continued, his voice low and bitter. "They got closer, and you still weren't moving. Your back was to them, but Tony was facing them. He didn't hear our warnings, but he caught their movement out of the corner of his eye. It was all over so fast. He didn't even have time to think it through. Surely…surely if he'd time to think it through he would have let you go to hell for the way you've treated him…."

He rubbed a hand through his hair, bunching the sandy locks in his hands in irritation and misery.

"But he didn't, did he? Have time to think? Because if he did, he would have just let you die, he-"

"Tim," Abby squeaked in interjection for the first time, horror splashed across her face. "Don't say that. Don't say things like that." She turned to look at an ashen Gibbs with a wildly shaking head. "Don't listen," she urged the eldest of the three, "He's just…upset. He doesn't know what he's saying." She turned back to Tim, tears shining in her wide eyes. "Right?"

For the first time that he could remember, McGee couldn't say the thing she needed to hear.

"No, Abby," he flatly contradicted, "I do know what I'm saying." Turning back to Gibbs, he quirked a brow. "Tony saw them coming. He saw them raise their guns; he knew he had a second. No more, no less, a second. He could jump out of the way, or he could shove you out of the way. There wasn't time for both. There might have been, had…things between you two been as they were. But I think we all know what would have happened if he had tried to drag both of you to the ground. You would have thought he was starting a brawl with you, right? You would have resisted, and you would both be dead."

Pure, unadulterated rage was shining in the brown eyes now.

"So, he chose you. After all you've put him through since you came back from that shooting, he chose you. And I guess, after all I didn't do for him, he still chose me. Still tried to be in my life, in all our lives. I should have done something, said something, and I didn't. And I accept that, that's on me. And still, he chose to stick around for me, for us. Don't ask me why, because I don't know. I don't know why he would do that. I definitely don't know why he would choose to take a bullet to the chest and a bullet to the shoulder for you. I don't know why he's not sitting up and talking right now, and you are. I don't know how he could possibly still have your six after you abandoned his, for no reason."

He raised a brow that seemed to quiver with the rage that was coursing through his body.

"I don't know why you're alive and he's-"

A voice at the door cut him smartly off as all three heads swivelled vigorously to the source.

"Right here."

….

TBC

….