A/N: Yay, another chapter! This one took a bit longer sorry guys. But it's getting there!

Thanks goes to Trina109 for beta-ing, as always :)

Gibbs rubbed his tired eyes and looked around the dingy hospital waiting room. Abby had been politely but firmly removed from the waiting room earlier to be checked over- she was still a patient, after all- but had found her way back even more quickly than Gibbs had anticipated. She was asleep now, her head on Luca's shoulder. The wait had taken its toll on everyone. Maureen McGee, especially, was looking more pale and worn with each passing hour. He got up and took a seat beside her, touching her lightly on the shoulder as he did so.

"How're you holding up?" he asked quietly.

She gave him a wan smile, which quickly wavered and disappeared.

"It's the waiting that's the hardest, Agent Gibbs. The waiting and the not knowing."

"Your son is a lot tougher than most people realise. He'll pull through this."

This time her smile was a little brighter. Obviously reassured, she excused herself to check on Sarah. Gibbs tilted his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. If only someone could reassure him that easily.

...

The sound of the waiting room door opening woke Abby. She sat up gingerly, looking around to see who had entered. As she hoped, it was Dr Simonsen. She poked Luca in the ribs, waking him, then gently shook Sarah's shoulder. Sarah looked around blearily, then sat up straight when she saw the doctor.

"He's in recovery."

At the doctor's words, Abby released the breath she didn't realise she was holding.

"The operation went well, no complications. However, his condition is still very grave. If the brain continues to swell-"

"Then he still might die?" Abby almost didn't recognise her own voice.

The doctor looked at her sympathetically. "It's a possibility, yes. As soon as he's out of recovery, he'll be taken back to ICU. At the moment, he's heavily sedated and the seizures have stopped. Hopefully the swelling will ease and we'll be able to lighten the sedation he's under."

"If the swelling doesn't go down?"

This time the question came from Maureen McGee.

"If it doesn't ease, then we can try to control it with medication. I'd be reluctant to operate again in the next little while. Apart from his physical condition at the moment, there is only so much skull we can remove safely."

Abby saw Maureen go white and moved forward, putting an arm over her shoulders. She didn't know this woman well- they'd only just met- but she was part of Tim's family. Right now they needed all the support they could get.

...

Gibbs stifled a weary sigh as he entered the bullpen. It had been a long night. He'd tried to send Tony and Ziva home but they'd refused, so he'd sent them to talk to the agents that had worked with Shapko, to see if any of them had noticed anything unusual in the short time he'd been in DC.

He didn't like leaving the hospital while McGee's condition was so poor, but McGee wasn't alone. Abby was there with him still, as well as his parents and sister. The best thing they could do for McGee at the moment was make sure that Novikova's group was put out of action.

Across the bullpen, Cooper had fallen asleep at the desk next to McGee's. Gibbs went down the hall to the break room and collected a Caf- Pow!, depositing it on the desk next to Cooper's head and startling him awake.

"Cooper. Whaddya got?"

"Sir! Agent Gibbs! I must've fallen asleep, I'm so sorry-"

Gibbs cut him off. "What did you find, Cooper?"

Copper shook his head a little, as if he was trying to clear it. "Ahh, right. Shapko received regular payments from a bank account in Zurich roughly every 2 weeks. The amounts vary from $2000 all the way up to $15000. I traced the Zurich account back to an Anatoly Demidov."

"Novikova's henchman. That's good work, Cooper."

He went back to his desk, checking his emails. Palmer had identified the drugs in Shapko's system as a mixture of heroin and morphine. He'd noted that the heroin was only in trace amounts, but the morphine was well over the lethal dose. He picked his coffee up off the desk and headed towards the back elevator. Cooper stopped him.

"Sir? Um, Agent Gibbs?"

Gibbs looked at the young Cybercrimes agent.

"Cooper, stop calling me sir."

"Sorry, Agent Gibbs. I just wanted to ask, how is Agent McGee? I tried to go to the hospital but they wouldn't let me in to see him."

Gibbs wasn't sure how to tell this young, eager agent that the agent he evidently idolised was only just clinging to life. The split second's hesitation spoke volumes to the younger man, however. His shoulders slumped.

"McGee's a fighter, Cooper."

"Thanks, Agent Gibbs."

...

He walked into Autopsy, looking for Dr Hampton.

"Jordan? You down here?"

She stepped out from behind the partially opened silver door.

"Gibbs. If you're looking for Dr Mallard, he's gone home."

"Yeah, I know. Just got a question for you, Doc."

"Fire away."

"If someone was using heroin, how likely are they to start using morphine instead?"

"That depends. Sometimes morphine can be easier to get."

"Supply wasn't an issue, Doc."

"Then I would say extremely unlikely. Are we talking about Shapko here?"

"Palmer says cause of death was a massive morphine overdose."

"Then it sounds like your agent Shapko was murdered."

...

Gibbs strode back into the bullpen. Tony looked up from his desk

"Boss. The other agents working with Shapko said he was a little strange-"

Gibbs cut him off. "Shapko was murdered."

"But how? Novikova is dead and we have Demidov in custody."

"There had to be someone else. Why else try to take out Abby and McGee at once? They'd had them for days and hadn't gotten anything. They knew we were coming. Cooper. Check the phone records for both Novikova and Demidov's burn phones. Trace all of their incoming calls for two days ago. I want to know who tipped them off."

Cooper nodded and started typing. A few moments later his head came up, his face filled with confusion.

"Gibbs, there's only one call to either phone. It came- it came from the base commander's office at Norfolk."