Chapter Twenty-Seven
After working at it for several hours, they managed to narrow down the list of potential suspects to five. Two were Petty Officers that had had contacts involved in a drug bust two weeks before Tony was shot. Two were Marines who had been material witnesses to a murder a week before Tony was shot and one was a civilian who had been involved in the case where Tony was shot. McGee thought that the last one was the most likely candidate as he must have known that when the deal went down, Tony had been injured.
It was decided that Ziva would call Gibbs while McGee arranged the warrants for DNA samples from all five suspects. She dialed the number for Bethesda.
“Good Evening, Bethesda Naval Hospital, how may I direct your call?” the voice said, when it picked up.
“Good Evening, I need to speak to someone in the ICU, please,” Ziva replied. Being as polite as possible so that no one inhibited her quest to speak with Gibbs.
“I’ll just put you through.” There was a beep, then silence before the phone started to ring again.
“Good Evening, ICU, how may I help you?” a voice finally said.
“Hello, I need to speak to Special Agent Gibbs, he is with a patient, Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo,” Ziva explained.
“One moment, I’ll just get him for you. Can I ask who’s calling?”
“Officer David.”
“Thank you.”
Once again there was silence on the end of the telephone while Ziva waited for Gibbs to come to the phone. “Gibbs,” was all he said when he did.
“Gibbs, it is Ziva.”
“I know that Ziva, they told me who was on the phone, why are you calling?”
“We’ve managed to narrow down the suspect list to five possibles, two Petty Officers, two Marines and a civilian. All have been involved with cases that Tony was active in. McGee is getting a warrant so we can collect DNA from them and test it against the DNA from Tony’s rape kit.”
“Good work. If you have any trouble, you call me and I’ll come and deal with it.”
“I doubt we will, we will have warrants to back us up and anyone who does not wish to give us DNA will only be doing so because they have something to hide and I am sure with a little gentle persuasion, I can convince them to part with a sample.”
“Just remember that whatever you do has to hold up in court. I don’t want Tony’s attacker getting off on a technicality.”
“Of course, Gibbs. How is Tony?”
“It looks like he’ll be having surgery tomorrow morning. The doctor is worried about the latest EKG results.”
“Pass on our love.”
“Will do. I have to go back to him now.” Gibbs hung up then, not waiting for Ziva’s reply. She stared at the phone for a while, and then replaced the receiver. She cared for Tony in her own way and was worried about him - nothing had gone right for him since the night of his attack.
First, the rape, then the overdose, which caused the seizure disorder and now the need for a permanent pacemaker. She said a silent prayer in Hebrew that once he came through the surgery, his recovery would be fast and without setbacks.
~*~
Gibbs hurried back to Tony’s room, he hadn’t wanted to leave the man’s side when the nurse had said there was a phone call for him, but when she’d told him who it was he’d known he had to take it and he was glad he had. His team were getting closer and closer to finding whoever did this to Tony and that made him feel slightly better.
He just wished that Tony was looking better, feeling better than he was right now. It had all started just after he’d woken up from his nap to find Tony gasping for breath, he’d called the nurse who in turn had called Dr. Foster who had ordered an EKG.
That had shown that Tony’s heart was not beating properly even with the help of the external pacemaker, which meant that they had to fit the permanent one soon. Dr. Foster had made some calls and arranged for Tony to go down to surgery tomorrow morning at 5am, it was likely he would return to the ICU afterwards and be watched for a few hours before they made the decision on whether or not he was stable enough to be moved into a private room.
Gibbs wanted him in a private room, that way he would know that Tony was recovering from the overdose. The whole time he’d been in the ICU everything seemed to have gone wrong. He’d developed brain damage, he’d damaged his heart. All things that were a direct result of the Vicodin overdose, but Gibbs didn’t blame Tony for that, he blamed his attacker for pushing Tony over the edge.
Tony was now receiving his third dialysis treatment, which would do the job of his kidneys, which thankfully were showing signs of recovering from the massive amount of Vicodin that had been in his system. Dr. Foster had said that it was likely he would only need a couple more treatments and then they could stop and see how his kidneys coped, but the fact that between treatments Tony was producing urine on his own - and enough for them to be pleased about too - was a sign that his kidneys were not damaged permanently.
Dr. Foster was doing a second EKG on Tony when Gibbs entered the room. Tony was asleep, he usually slept through the dialysis treatments, for which Gibbs was thankful. He couldn’t imagine it was very comfortable having a tube in your carotid artery.
He waited until the doctor was finished before saying anything. “How’s it looking?”
“Not too good, I’m afraid. His heart is struggling to do its job alongside the pacemaker, which is only ever used for short term situations. He really needs to have a permanent one placed directly in his heart which should relieve some of the stress placed on the organ at the moment,” the doctor explained.
“Are you going to move the surgery forward?”
“I’m not sure, I’ll consult with a cardiologist and get him to have a look at Tony’s vitals and EKG’s since this started and see what he says. It’s not a problem if we do need to move it forward, I’ve notified the emergency team that I may have a case for them tonight so they’re prepared.”
Gibbs checked his watch, it was just after eight at night, which meant there were nine hours until Tony’s allotted surgery time. Could the man wait that long?
“When will you know?” Gibbs asked, worried for his partner. He wished that this hadn’t happened, and for the hundredth time that if it had, that Tony had called him, then all of this could have been avoided and he could be at home with his partner, making love to him slowly. He pushed those thoughts from his head, he couldn’t think about that, not now, not while Tony was so sick.
“I’ll call the consult now. I don’t want to leave it any longer. His EKG shows declined function from the last one and I don’t want to risk Tony going into full arrest. I’ll be back shortly,” Dr. Foster said, leaving the room with the strip of paper and heading to the nurses’ station to make his phone call.
Gibbs took his usual place, in the seat by Tony’s side. He’d learnt a lot about himself and the man lying next to him in the past forty-eight hours. He’d never thought that they would get together, that he’d be able to kiss and hold Tony in a way only a lover does, but here he was, in a relationship, with a co-worker and nobody seemed to care. It wasn’t like it had been in the Marines where there was a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. He’d never let on to anyone, but Shannon that he was bisexual and together they used to rate men. After she died he’d never felt close enough to any of his other wives to share that piece of information with them - something he was glad about come the divorce.
When he’d met Shannon, he’d told himself that he would never love anyone as much and as deeply as he’d loved her; it had felt like they were soul mates, destined to be together for the rest of their lives. Leaving them for active duty meant there was always a chance that he wouldn’t come back, but he’d never imagined that he’d come home to them not being there. He’d been right in a way though, because every one of his wives after her, he’d never felt the same connection, never felt as much or as deeply in love with them as he had with her and he felt like he was missing out on something so special, but that he’d missed his chance to live with it because Shannon had died with Kelly because he hadn’t been home to protect them.
When he met Tony and his feelings for him started to grow, he felt the same spark that he had felt with Shannon, and fell in love with the man from a distance - as much and as deeply as he had with her. Now though, he was being given the chance to live knowing that love, sharing that love with someone who, hopefully, felt the same way. Maybe people who said there was only one person for everyone in the world was wrong, because he’d found his soul mate in Shannon and after she’d been taken from him he’d never thought he’d feel the same way about anyone ever again, but here he was, revisiting those feelings with Tony - it was like finding your soul mate all over again.
Tony’s green eyes were looking at him when he went to look at his face. He was pale and sweating, the oxygen mask plastered to his face as he tried to take deep breaths but failed.
“What’s…going…on?” he asked, through gasps.
Gibbs took Tony’s hand and gave it a little squeeze. “The external pacemaker isn’t working as well as it should, you need one in your heart - a permanent one - Dr. Foster thought you could wait until morning, but it doesn’t look like that’ll be the case so he’s arranging the surgery now. Don’t worry, Tony, I’m here and I won’t leave you, I promise.”
“Sur..ger..y?”
“To have the pacemaker fitted, remember? We talked about it before they connected you to the dialysis machine.”
Tony tried to nod, then changed his mind when it jarred the tube in his neck. Gibbs hating seeing him like this and debated whether he should tell him what Ziva had said, after a moment’s thought, he decided it would give Tony some hope during his upcoming surgery.
“The team managed to narrow it down to five suspects, two Petty Officers, two Marines and a civilian, all related to recent cases. They’ve got warrants to collect their DNA and whoever matches is going down, I promise you that, Tony. You just concentrate on getting better,” Gibbs told him.
“I…remember…wasn’t…a…civi…lian,” Tony said, still gasping for every breath. Gibbs looked up to see Dr. Foster still on the phone and debating going out and getting him because it seemed to him that Tony was getting worse with every second that passed and the surgery could not wait any longer.
“How do you know?” Gibbs asked, trying to concentrate on what Tony was telling him.
“Was…in…uni…form,” Tony gasped out, before shutting his eyes.
“Tony, stay with me!” Gibbs half-shouted, shaking him a little. Tony opened his eyes and gave Gibbs a smile.
“Feels…like…chest…crushed…can’t…breathe.”
“It’s okay, Tony, I’m going to get the doctor.” Gibbs got up and headed to the door, opened it and yelled that Dr. Foster should get his ass in here before Tony coded. The doctor hung up the phone and quickly headed to Tony’s room.
Gibbs took his seat by Tony’s side as the doctor rang yet another EKG and upped the flow of oxygen.
“Pro…mise…me…you…inter…view…him,” Tony said to Gibbs. “Promise.”
“I will, I’ll do it while you’re in surgery, I promise Tony. Just stay with us.”
Dr. Foster’s face looked grim as he listened to Tony’s chest and checked the monitor. “He’s bradycardic despite the external pacemaker, press that buzzer twice and move out of the way,” he said to Gibbs, who did as he was told.
He stood back as nurses appeared from nowhere, watched as they put Tony to sleep and once again put a tube in his trachea so that they could breathe for him. The brakes were taken off the bed and porters appeared to push Tony out of the room, whilst another team of nurses pushed the dialysis machine and another kept breathing for Tony.
Dr. Foster looked at Gibbs, “I don’t have time to explain now, we have to get Tony to surgery and on bypass so we can give him a pacemaker. There’s a chance he won’t survive if we leave it any longer. You can wait here for him, but it’s going to be a while, probably won’t finish until the early hours of the morning,” he told Gibbs.
“Fine, just go!” Gibbs replied, more interested in the doctor following the bed than explaining things to him that could be explained once Tony was out of danger.
Once the ICU fell silent, Gibbs sank back into his chair and put his head in his hands, he couldn’t wait here for news, he was needed back at NCIS because Tony wanted him to be the one to interview the bastard responsible for this. He was going to keep that promise, so he stood up, told the nurses to call him the second there was news and headed out of the hospital.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Who will catch DiNozzo when he falls?