"Agent Gibbs, how is Tony?" Michele said as soon as he answered the phone.
"No hello?"
"Hello Agent Gibbs, how is Tony? Are you picking up the slack for his sarcasm?"
Gibbs shook his head, "Yeah maybe I am. Michele can we meet at Tony's apartment? He is not taking this very well."
"How not very well?"
"It's been a year give or take since his change and he was doing pretty good with that but even then he had problems. Now with this, he's feeling completely alone and it's seriously upsetting him."
Michele heard the concern and fear in the Agents voice. It shocked Michele because of all the times he had interacted with this group of people that Tony had as family this was the only time any of them had shown any emotion other than Abby and her obvious excitement and curiosity.
"We will have to show him he is not alone." Michele offered.
"Right now I think the only way to do that is if you can tell him some other hemophages is or was pregnant. But considering you said you checked every vial of Tony's blood, I'm going to say that you are all sterile like Tony thought."
"There was one girl a few years ago that changed while she was expecting."
"A girl, Michele opportune word there, Tony is not."
"I know Agent Gibbs."
"How was the baby?" Gibbs asked softly almost afraid to ask.
"Sylvia is fine. She has done very well. We watch to make sure she develops properly and to see if she has any hemophages traits. So far the only thing that shows in her is that she is mildly anemic and craves affection. But most toddlers crave affection."
"Does she have a normal life? She's not some…"
Michele interrupted Gibbs before he could voice his fears for a child Michele would be his, "We see Sylvia once a month right now because little ones change so fast normally. We want to see changes before they happen not after. She lives in an enclave because her mother chooses to. She has no partner, so her enclave acts as support system. But if her mother decided to move that would be fine. Agent Gibbs we are not as controlling as your family may fear. We understand you're, I will not say paranoia, but…"
"We are protective, yes."
"We are protective as well, but only in the best way. We are not going to steal Tony away from you to study him or anything like that. We would like to study his obviously to see why he is so different but only if he is willing."
"I need to get back to him when do you want to meet?"
"I could be there in about 2 hours, is that acceptable?"
"Yeah we're done for the day in about an hour."
"Till then."
Jethro walked back to the morgue to find Vance leaning near the outer doors.
"Leon."
"Gibbs, you want to tell me why Dinozzo is in Ducky's office looking like someone just told him his dog died?"
"Not feeling well." Gibbs said evasively.
"Is he relapsing?" Vance asked standing up straight.
"No Ducky thinks it's the stomach flu. Gonna take him home in a few. Might need a day or two to kick it and get back." Gibbs said with a shoulder shrug hoping Vance would but it.
"Have Ducky write up a leave slip, might throw one in for yourself as well, you look like your coming down with it as well."
Gibbs nodded and walked past Vance in to the autopsy room. He waited 'till he heard the elevator ding before he went in to Ducky's office.
Tony was still sitting on the couch but now his head was lying on Jimmy's lap and Jimmy was running his hand over Tony's hair. Jimmy looked up and smiled at Gibbs.
"What did he say?" Tony asked emotionlessly, the smile faded from Jimmy's face and a frown appeared.
"He said he could meet us in about 2 hours." Jethro thought about mentioning Vance but nixed the idea not wanting to add to Tony's stress. But the next statement showed it didn't matter, he already knew.
"Vance was here."
"What did he want?"
"Didn't say anything just walked in, saw me sitting on the couch, Jimmy sitting here with me and left."
"He was in the hall, told him you had the stomach flu."
"How are we going to hide my healed lungs when my next physical comes up?"
Jimmy smiled again, "Dr. Mallard already thought of that. We have several sets of your old x-rays, we will just use one each time, the scaring shouldn't change, so it won't matter that they are the same every year."
"Great now I have you falsifying reports, wonderful."
"Come on, Tony let's getting you to the apartment." Jethro said putting his hand in front of Tony's face.
Sighing Tony took the hand and got up swayed a little shook his head and said, "You're driving."
"You alright?" Jethro asked not able to keep the worry out of his voice.
"Yeah little light headed is all."
"Alright let's go, can you get away Jimmy or do you need to wait?"
"I'll leave a note for Dr. Mallard, under the circumstances I'm sure he will understand."
"Make it vague encase Leon comes back." Gibbs said while Jimmy was looking for paper and a pen.