Drowning. That's how he was going to go. A dry drowning delivered in the cocoon of his own useless body, his mind screaming for help as his bulkage lay dead in complete surrender. Through the haze of voices one became clearer. It broke through the shock, lack of comprehension and paralytic fear the gripped him. The younger voice. It was the female. The one that instantly morphed from clinically disinterested to juicily engaged. He couldn't see her, all he could see was the dark, but he was forcibly reminded of Janice in accounting. Everyone hated Janice in accounting. She gave busybodies a bad name and by the sounds of the air being sucked through gnashed teeth, clearly whoever was butchering him was her medical equivalent. Her words radiated with the apprehension of hearing first hand gossip. Even if she couldn't repeat it, she would know it.

"What do you mean, Doctor?"

The practiced surgical hands stilled for a moment and Tony felt another spasm of fear at the realisation that he could still really feel. He could still feel everything. Not as acutely, nowhere near. He didn't feel pain per se but he certainly knew some guy who'd never even bought him a double cheese burger had his hands all up in his business. And was just casually resting them there, inside him. Like one might lean against a country gate on a sunny Sunday evening. If he ever survived this, he was going to sue. This had to be the definition of negligent infliction of emotional distress. Why wasn't he sedated? Why wasn't he swimming in lala land where things like liver transplants, Gibbs and impromptu surgery weren't a thing?

He was suing.

If he wasn't dying of course.

"I was chatting with Dr Mensen over coffee and he was asking my advice on a troublesome patient, Agent Gibbs. You know I did a double fellowship in psych?" Tony didn't need to be visually alert to imagine the chest puffing out like a prized peacock. "So naturally he came to me. Turns out, the shooting that landed both these fellas in here is the least of Agent Gibbs' worries. He has pretty advanced liver cancer, possible metastasis. He's been refusing all treatment. For months by all accounts. Funny thing is, he had an excellent survival rate had he followed the prescribed course of treatment. But he refused point blank and now Mensen is wondering if he's dealing with a case of depression which would of course allow us to declare Agent Gibbs incompetent and with a court order, force treatment. He's too far along now for the chemical route pre op, he needs a mixture of chem and operative intervention before his name can go on the transplant list." The hands were moving again but Tony's mind and heart were under so much pressure he didn't feel it this time.

"He's a pretty hard match. Bottom twentieth percentile of match likelihood. Maybe that was a factor in his decision, but…even without a transplant he could have lived a much more comfortable life for a fairly long time on a chemical regimen alone. But he refused even the most basic of pain meds. Can you imagine that? Deliberately putting yourself in pain? The only meds he would take were the concoction that allowed him to appear lucid and mobile. It was all a front from what I can see from his chart. I know we have to respect the patient's wishes and everything but it's just so…wasteful. And now here we are and this fellow right in front of us presents an interesting conundrum. He's a match for Agent Gibbs. He could transplant a portion of his liver that would regenerate as a full organ for Agent Gibbs and repair as a full organ for Agent DiNozzo here." The nurse must've opened her mouth to interject suddenly because a delicately arrogant cough rang out in cessation.

"Hold on Gabrielle, I'm just getting to the good part."

Obedient silence descended as a poisonous panic continued to seep into Tony's main arteries.

His heart pounded so painfully he was sure it would stop. Almost prayed it would.

"We found out quite by chance that they were a match to each other. Like I said, I was consulting with Dr Mensen and he happened to mention that there appeared to be some sort of tension between Agent Gibbs and everyone else that accompanied the two men here. I believe there are two separate federal teams at play or some such. Apparently a nurse overheard some sort of confrontation between Agent Gibbs and some other Agent and reported back to Mensen. Here's the rub, the man never even told his closest colleagues that he was dying. Dying from stupidity, or arrogance or depression…who knows. Dying from his own personal choice anyway. There was this big blow up and it became quite clear that DiNozzo didn't even know Gibbs was sick but that they used to be real close. But not anymore. Soon after, Gibbs tries to off himself and then this guy goes into tachy and bottoms out on us. Weird right?"

He laughed as if that would accentuate just how very weird the whole situation was.

"So anyways, when I'm prepping to come in and save this guy I notice his blood type. AB positive. I remembered seeing the same on Gibbs' chart and being glad I didn't have the headache of trying to find a liver for him. Then the odds hit me and while the anaesthesiologist was prepping this fella, I ran through the differential with Mensen. Provided the tests that we would normally carry out would pan out, those two are a perfect match. So, long story short, a piece of this guy's liver would save Mensen's guy even with the delay in treatment. But, apparently they now hate each other and this DiNozzo guy is holier than Jesus with all these gunshots so surgery would be a hell'va complicated thing. Would most probably save Gibbs but could quite possibly kill DiNozzo." The nurse forced out the obligatory intake of breath, her eyes round as saucers. Her voice was high pitched and perfectly horrified.

"So…cliff note version. This Gibbs and DiNozzo were like besties and whatnot, but now they like totally hate each other? And Gibbs is dying from a treatable illness, told no one but now everyone knows. And DiNozzo could save him. But to do so would put his life on the line. But we also can't even tell him about it for him to make a call, because we'd be violating the privilege between you, Mensen and Gibbs?"

A grave nod was offered.

"In a nutshell."

When hospital Janice spoke again, her voice was thick with confusion. "But the rumour mill was that this DiNozzo dude threw himself in front of those bullets for this Gibbs dude? Everyone's talking about it, what with him being so handsome and all. Why would he jump in front of a gun for a man that he hates and who didn't even tell him that he was sick? Didn't even tell him the most important secret of his entire life? It doesn't make sense."

Another grave nod was offered.

"The mind is a complicated thing, human relationships even more so. As I'm double certified-"

"Yeah," hospital Janice interrupted, not interested in a self loving sonnet, "But shouldn't someone find a way to tell him? DiNozzo?" She pointed at the motionless figure before them, the rest of the surgical team indifferent to what was going on around them. "Don't you think that he has the right to know that the person he took bullets for could be saved? By him? Seems to me that whatever is going on between those two there's still some pretty strong feelings there. I think he'd want to know. There must be some way to let him know he could save his friends life?"

Several eyes were on hospital Janice, some rolling, some politely indifferent.

"There is no way."

The firm rebuff was unyielding. The hands were doing something complex now and the sensation was desperately unsettling but Tony couldn't even feel it. He was feeling so much. He was feeling too much to know what he was feeling. It was like being stuck in a motionless yet thunderous tornado and he couldn't even get out of his own way. "This man can never know, not unless Agent Gibbs is informed and chooses to relay that information himself. To do anything else would open the hospital to intense liability. Besides, we don't even know if Gibbs is going to survive his attempted OD." There was a deep silence then as Tony lay in the darkness. Never more alone, never more afraid, never more betrayed.

A door suddenly swooshed open and all heads turned to it in tandem.

Dr Mensen was harried, beads of stressed perspiration popping at the base of his temples. Keeping a safe distance away, his voice was muffled from behind his own surgical mask. The one that had been hovering over Gibbs, working diligently to keep him alive. "Dr Patterson?" he interrupted loudly, "What is the status of your patient?" A brief silence ensued as monitors were quickly analysed and natural intuition was utilised. "Pushing towards stable but not out of the woods yet. He had a tachy incident, we're just trying to get it under control." He frowned. "But his heart rate is still erratic. If I didn't know any better I'd say he was having a panic attack but he is of course sedated, so nothing is definite yet. Why?"

Dr Mensen swallowed and walked further into the room. "My patient, Gibbs? The complications from the OD are extensive. It's exacerbated his condition to an untold degree. His liver was already showing signs of severe compromise but it's totally shutting down now. Toxin levels are through the roof. Long story short, if he doesn't get a transplant donation in the next three to four days…he's going to die here. And you know what the biggest rub is?" He walked another inch into the room and looked down at Tony with a tortured expression, uncharacteristic for the usually reserved and detached doctor.

"I've just had a call. He knew. Gibbs? He knew."

He glanced down at the pounding chest and shook his head in frustration.

"He knew all along that DiNozzo was a perfect match. A perfect, one in a million, god damned match."

….

TBC

…