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In 1948 in Geneva a modern version of the oath was drawn up by the World Medical Association.
At the time of being admitted a member of the medical profession:

I solemnly pledge myself to consecrate my life to the service of humanity;
I will give my teachers the respect and gratitude which is their due;
I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity;
The health of my patient will be my first consideration;
I will respect the secrets which are confided in me, even after the patient has died;
I will maintain by all the means in my power, the honour and the noble traditions of the medical profession;
My colleagues will be my brothers;
I will not permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics or social standing to intervene between my duty and my patients.

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"Come on, Duck, we have to go." I laughed while my lover made attempts to keep me on the bed. "We have a plane to catch."
"But dear Jethro, do we really have to leave?" Ducky was finally successful in pinning me down to the bed - because I let him - and he sat down on top of me, smiling victorious.

Our annual trip to England was always something that both Ducky and I looked forward to. Sure, Ducky had to go to some sort of conference in London every time, but that gave us the chance too, to see some sights and stay at a nice hotel. Our long walks in Hyde Park, talking about absolutely nothing and not about our work was uplifting, and even Ducky’s stories about his years in London and his experiences there didn’t bother me, we had all the time in the world. We had gone to dinner at Piccadilly Circus and the neon lights looked better than they did on Broadway.
But, it was only for the weekend and to all things came an end. Of course, Ducky would have liked to have it last longer and I wouldn’t have minded either, but work was calling. We both knew that next year, we would come back.

"My dearest Jethro…" Ducky sighed happily when he had unbuttoned my shirt for the second time since I got dressed an hour ago. He was still sitting on top of me - because I let him - and he was drawing circles on my chest with his index finger. Ducky, unlike me, wasn’t dressed yet at all and our plane would leave in 3 hours from now. He looked at me with begging, playful eyes. He was begging for more, but I didn’t want him to get away with a quickie… he deserved better.
"Duck…" I said with a hoarse throat. "You really should get dressed." Any other man who would be sitting on top of me would have been thrown off with force. I couldn’t do that to Ducky. I never did. I managed to get my arms away from under Ducky’s hands and kindly pushed him to the empty spot next to me. I rolled over to gently pin him down and kissed him tenderly. "Get dressed." I whispered in his ear and got off of him to once again close my shirt.

In the elevator down Ducky just pushed the emergency stop button and came on to me again. I really didn’t mind… well not really. We had a plane to catch. Timing is everything. "Duck…"
"Ah come on, Jethro." Ducky teased.
"Duuuuck…" I nagged and grabbed his hands as they were making attempts to open my coat. "No." I really didn’t mind Ducky being like this and I felt sorry that I had to stop him, but I hadn’t seen my boat in 3 days and wanted to work on it, probably after satisfying Ducky in the privacy of our own bedroom. Ducky was cute when frisky. A certain spark in his eyes made him look so much younger too. Not that I cared that he was older, it was an observation. I knew that if I let Ducky have his way, we would miss our plane and we would have to wait for ages at the airport. That was not going to happen. I hit the emergency button and the elevator went down again. When I looked at Ducky he was fake pouting. "No Duck, not going to happen." I said sternly and hoped that my body would believe it.

To my surprise, Ducky behaved in the underground. Well he had little choice since the tube was over crowded and we had to change a few times to arrive at Heathrow. I had made a mental note to tell myself not to feed coffee to Ducky but tea. Otherwise I’d know what the flight would be like and we would end up in the head making out which doesn’t fit a gentleman like Ducky at all. I would keep him away from anything sweet, like chocolate and ice cream. I would buy a book for him just to keep him occupied, not a romantic book, a scientific book perhaps. And I would buy a hammer to knock myself out so I wouldn’t think about Ducky and his extraordinary hands.
After we checked in and got our orders to wait at our gate, I took the time to observe our fellow passengers. I did it on our way to England as well and they were all boring people. I sensed it was different this time. There was one person in particular that drew my attention, a pregnant lady. She had a huge stomach and she looked like she was almost due to go into labour, but since flight regulations state that no one’s allowed to fly when they’re over 8 months pregnant I guessed she was due in about 2 months. Safe to say, she wasn’t going into labour soon, but you’d never know. For some reason there were a lot of older people travelling to Washington too. Ducky had already started to talk to them and I watched him from a distance. He seemed like he was having fun. There were 2 guys who just couldn’t leave their cell phone alone and were receiving and sending text messages all the time. They looked nervous, but not nervous as in it was their first flight. I could have told Ducky, and he would say that it was all in my head and that I shouldn’t be so suspicious so I shrugged off the idea of them being not quite right and focused my attention back to Ducky.
Ducky was sipping tea as wanted, and I was drinking my coffee as needed. The English people just didn’t know how to make coffee but they did have a Starbucks. Starbucks saved my life in England every year.

Ducky insisted when we boarded the plane that I would sit next to the window as he sat next to it on our way to the UK. That was not the only reason, because the people he was talking to earlier just happened to be some really old acquaintances of his and they were sitting across the path. So much for buying a book for Ducky…
I liked to fly. It reminded me of my time when I was a marine. Though we wouldn’t sit as comfortable as I did in this Boeing 747 but it was always a lot of fun. It was a pretty boring flight though as it was a standard flight and the dinner was nice. It was rice with something that looked like chicken. Chinese food is always good.
It was when the stewards collected all of our dinner plates that things started to go wrong. Or I sensed that something was going on and Ducky didn’t even notice it, he was too busy talking to his old friends. At least he wasn’t thinking about making out… I noticed that something wasn’t going quite right when the 2 men I had observed on the airport had scattered around the plane. One was in the front now and the other one had gone to the back, they were acting more nervously and a headache was forming in my head, meaning that something wasn’t going well or that I had a hangover. I know I didn’t have the latter.
The man at the front walked towards the cockpit and knocked on the door. That was obviously a signal for the pilot, who was probably the one they were text messaging with at the airport. This meant that the pilot was going to in a hell of a lot of trouble when he landed. When he got back to his previous position he spoke up, quite calmly.
"Everyone listen up! As from now, you’re my hostages. Stay calm, and you will not be harmed."
"You’re joking." One of the passengers, a bald man wearing glasses and a checkerd dinner jacket. said
"Do I look like I’m joking old man?" Hijacker #1 yelled at him, lunging towards the man with a knife in his hand.
"Jethro?" Ducky turned to me and spoke softly, revealing that this had gotten him nervous.
"I know Duck. Just stay calm." I stroked his leg for a bit and not keeping my eye off #1. He looked and acted like he was in charge, #2 looked a bit easier to take on without the advantage of having a gun in the safety of my hands.
The flight plan on the TV showed that we were 5 hours away from Washington D.C. I already knew that those hours were going to be the hardest and longest 5 hours of my life. I didn’t want to attack those men for no reason, even though my head suggested another option and take them both on. This was a crowded plane with mostly older people and I was not going to do anything unless one of the hijackers was going to harm the other passengers. Plus, Ducky was with me. He needed to stay calm too and probably wouldn’t do that when I was going after the hijackers. Hijacker #1 had ordered the stewards to go to and sit first class and shut up, leave everything behind and he also told them that the pilot cut off all unnecessary communication options. For all I could see was that the hijackers didn’t have any other weapons than knifes on them which was on one hand comforting, but on the other hand pretty disturbing. This means that at least one of them has had a fair share of some sort of combat training.

Passengers were starting to get restless after an hour. The man sitting next to the pregnant woman was talking to #1 and insulting him, challenging him. The man was young and probably responded to his adrenaline that was pumping through his veins. Ducky noticed it too. "This can only go well for a short period of time, Jethro." He whispered to me.
Ever since Ari held Ducky hostage in Autopsy and invited him for a chat in his Aston Martin Ducky had realized that he was indeed getting older and that he had to take better care of himself instead of being heroic.
But Ducky was right, #1 hit the man next to the pregnant girl in the face which made the girl scream. Another man at the back probably thought that #1 was hitting the girl and attacked push-over #2 with a knife he had gotten off the dinner trolley and hurt him pretty bad. "Steve! Help!" #2 cried out while trying to fight off his attacker. He wasn’t that successful in doing so and got stabbed a few times in his side and it didn’t look pretty. Ducky was almost clinging on to the seat of the chair and almost broke my hand while he squeezed in it. For an older man he sure was strong. At least I knew the first name of hijacker #1 now, could be an advantage.
"Don’t make me take care of him Jethro… I don’t think I can."
I looked at Ducky, fear was written all over his face, it was not how I knew him. "Come on Duck, you’ve been in worst situations like this." I tried to reassure him. "Besides, I don’t think they know that there’s a doctor on board."
"It’s not that. It’s the oath." Ducky said a little more together. "I *have* to help him. Whether I’m nervous, scared or feeling okay. I have to help that man."
"Duck…"
"Why do you think I carry my doctor’s bag for hand luggage Jethro?"
Ducky’s talking kept my mind of the hijackers for a moment, and when I turned to see how #2 was doing, #1, Steve, had already attacked his partner’s assailant.
"Fine, but I don’t agree with you." I got up and got his bag out of the compartment above us. "Don’t do anything stupid."
I watched Ducky walk towards the hijackers and my mind was racing. He was walking towards danger, no matter how scared he was, the oath was important to a doctor and certainly to Ducky. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I observed Ducky from a distance when he assessed #2’s wounds and how he was talking to no one in particular to calm his nerves. Steve was worried, I could see that, and it was just a matter of time until this man was on the edge and pretty certain to become trigger happy. That next passenger could be Ducky and if he would attack Ducky, I could take him. Certainly now his accomplice was down.
I walked to the pregnant girl who had started to cry and tried to calm her down as the man sitting next to her was getting nervous. I squatted down in front of her and looked at her. She looked at me and stopped crying instantly. "I’m Julie." She sobbed. "I think my water broke."
When I looked at the ground I nodded as an affirmation. "My name is Gibbs, and I think it did." I said calmly. "You need to calm down Julie, can you do that?"
She nodded as an answer and I got up to have a look at Ducky who was looking rather worried at his patient.
"Hey you!" Steve, #1, yelled at me.
"Well I’m sorry but her water broke." I yelled back at him, annoyingly, loud enough for Ducky’s old ears to hear it too.
"Let her stay calm Jethro, I’ll be with you in a moment." Ducky said, though his voice had a hint of worry-ness in it as well. He not only looked worried, he really was anxious.
"Fine, you relax too Duck." I got the man who sat next to Julie out of his chair and put him in mine, and then sat down next to Julie.
I talked to Julie for a while and she was calming down but said that she felt contractions coming up. Clumsy me wanted Ducky to come over here *now* and check the poor girl out and ease my nervousness. I looked at the TV, still 2 hours before we would land in Washington and still there hadn’t been anything done to those hijackers. #2 was obviously getting worse and #1 had become a walking time bomb that was near to exploding.
Julie however, didn’t allow me to leave anymore and that wasn’t good. "Duuuck! Need you here!" I yelled.
"Shut up!" Steve yelled. "He’s with Ian now and he’s priority!"
"DUCKY!"
Ducky slowly got up, leaning on #2, Ian, which made Ian scream in agony. I saw that #1 lost his self control and started to assault Ducky. In a reflex, I ran through the path of the plane, seeing how Steve bashed Ducky and threw him on the floor. I didn’t see whether or not Ducky hit his head, but I knew that I had to take Steve down for the safety of other passengers and to release my anger with him for hurting Ducky. I lunged myself at him, pinning him down to the floor and hit him until I was sure he was knocked out.
When I turned to Ducky, he was trying to sit up straight. By instinct I pulled him up and didn’t let him go until I was sure he was steady on his feet. He looked terrible. His face was all beaten up and he had a head wound. "You alright Duck?"
"No…" he motioned to an empty chair and I helped him to sit down. "I’m getting too old for this Jethro." He said weakly.
"I know Duck…" I softly stroked his hair out of his face. "I’m sorry."
"It’s not your fault, my dear." He snorted a bit. "Now, you go and help that pregnant girl."
"Me? Duck…" I sighed. "I can’t do that."
"Well she’s not in labour isn’t she?"
"Yes, she is."
"Oh dear…" Ducky fell silent for a moment and then nodded slowly. "Give her alcohol. A lot of it. Get her drunk. It will stop the contractions… or delay them I hope."
"You hope?!"
"Jethro, I have a concussion… I remember seeing it on Quantum Leap."
"Ducky…"
"Jethro, I will be fine. Just calm that girl down and stop the baby from coming because we’re in the air and I can’t help you right now." Ducky said in one breath. He sounded a little annoyed and he looked at me with pleading eyes, eyes that told me to let him be for a while.
"Okay… just don’t pass out." I softly planted a kiss on his forehead and asked one of the stewards to keep an eye on the two hijackers while I ordered the other one to fetch all the alcoholic drinks in the plane. Feeding Julie all the alcohol on board didn’t sound like a good idea, it sounded crazy, but crazy plans might turn out the right way and Ducky was after all the doctor, concussed or not.
I kept feeding Julie all sorts of alcohol, and made her drink rapidly so it would be quicker absorbed in the blood stream and as a result she was wasted sooner.
By the time we landed in Washington, the rest of the passengers had calmed down but were obviously all upset, I had hit hijacker #1 once again to knock him out and Julie was singing Christmas carols while it wasn’t even near Christmas yet. Since the pilot - and probably co-pilot as well - was working together with the hijackers I couldn’t ask him if he could send ambulances and the police to the arrival gate, so when the plane opened, the ground stewards were shocked. I rumbled through my hand luggage and found my badge. "Gibbs, NCIS, get the paramedics and the police." I turned around and sat down next to Ducky who had his eyes closed. "I’m really sorry Duck."
"It’s not your fault, my love." Ducky smiled lightly. "Just restrain me whenever I want to do something like this again."

I stayed with Ducky in the hospital for a few days in a row, occasionally leaving for my dose of caffeine and to report to the police, but other than that, I didn’t leave his side. He was sleeping most of the time but he was still a wonderful sight to look at. His face was purple and blue and he had a huge band aid on his head. Ducky had been right, he was concussed. Abby had scolded me, hit me and had yelled at me asking me how I could have let Ducky help the wounded hijacker. Ducky had saved me by waking up from the noise and telling Abby that it was his own fault and that she should be mad at him.
I still felt guilty though. Ducky repeated time after time again that it wasn’t my fault that he got hurt and that I should wipe that guilty look off my face. But I couldn’t. *My* Ducky got hurt. Mine. And it was my fault. I could have attacked the hijackers earlier. They could have fought back more easily but that would make me get hurt, not Ducky. Not my sweet Duck.

I had taken him home a few days later, making him comfortable on the bed with a lot of pillows and even dragged the TV up to the bedroom so that Ducky wouldn’t get bored. I was afraid to hurt him while sleeping so I had spent the nights on the couch or on top of my boat in the basement. The only thing that I could use to let my frustrations go let my mind wander.
Ducky repeatedly asked me to sleep in the bed, but I couldn’t.
"Goodnight Duck." I said while I got up from the bedside.
"Jethro?" Ducky got up and grabbed my arm. "You’re not going anywhere." He pulled me on the bed and made me lay down with him, hold him in my arms. "You can’t hurt me." He whispered.
"Yes I can…" I said while I snuggled up and laid my chin on top of his shoulder. I could smell him, his cologne, his … well everything. I softly kissed him in his neck. "I love you Duck."
Ducky turned around and put his arms around me. "I am feeling better you know…" he said playful and kissed me tenderly. "You can’t hurt me, you won’t. It was not your fault…" he smiled and sat up. "And we still have some unfinished business to attend to." He grinned.
"Duck…"
"Jethro." Ducky started to unbutton my shirt. "Keep this up and I’ll have to get the vacuum cleaner to get the sawdust out of your brains."
"Ducky…" I sighed happily when his hands touched my chest. "I really really love you."
"And I love you too Jethro."