Chapter Four
Ziva pulled up outside Tony’s apartment and stopped the car but before she got out she looked over at McGee. “You have a key, yes?” she asked, suddenly realising that they had no way to get in and collect evidence now they were here.
“I don’t. I assumed you must have one when you said you’d drive,” McGee replied, looking sheepish.
“I shall pick the lock then,” Ziva told him. Normally, this would have been accompanied by a smile from Ziva but she couldn’t bring herself to do that - not with Tony lying in a coma having been attacked by somebody. Never mind what Gibbs would do to them when they got hold of whoever was responsible, the Mossad agent had a few of her own ideas, none of which were totally legal.
They both got out of the car and made their way to Tony’s apartment, while McGee kept watch, Ziva set about picking the lock. Both of them were mentally preparing themselves for what they might find inside. Neither wanted to find evidence that Tony had indeed been raped, but at the same time, they wanted the evidence so that they had some clue as to who they were looking for.
It took Ziva less than a minute to pick the lock and soon they were inside. They set down their bags and surveyed the scene in front of them. Both could tell that Gibbs and Ducky had left with Tony in a hurry. Not surprising considering the gravity of his condition.
“Which way is the bedroom?” Ziva asked McGee, knowing that he’d been to see Tony at home before. They both had in the previous week since his release from hospital following the gun shot, but Ziva had never ventured further than the living room, whereas McGee had seen Tony when he’d been recovering from plague and was stuck in bed.
“This way,” McGee told her, pointing to a hallway that led to three doors. One, Ziva assumed was the bathroom, one, the spare room and the other Tony’s bedroom. She followed McGee as he grabbed his backpack and the kit and walked down the hallway to the door on the end.
It wasn’t closed, the bedcovers were thrown across the bed, and it looked like they had left in a hurry. What caught McGee’s eye as he surveyed the room was the blood on the sheets. The thought of what it implied actually made him feel sick. That someone had raped Tony and that he’d laid there, taken an overdose and bled from his wounds onto the sheet.
He sighed and pulled on a pair of gloves before crossing the room, he started to get the sheet off the bed before Ziva, also having donned gloves, came to help him. She pulled out a brown paper bag that was used to transfer clothes and other materials with evidence on them to the lab.
Once they were sure they had everything they needed from the bedroom, they split up and started to look around the rest of the apartment for any clues that might lead them to the perpetrator. They looked for a long time, but found only clues that Tony had showered recently, and of course, the offending bottle of Vicodin that stared at them, mocking them. Ziva grabbed it and was about to put it out with the trash when McGee stopped her.
“They might need it at the hospital,” he said.
“Surely, they would have taken it with them if they did,” she replied.
“That’s true, maybe we should take them with us and have Abby check for fingerprints.”
“Why would we do that, McGee?”
“Maybe Tony didn’t take the pills willingly, maybe someone forced him to. Maybe he was attacked at home and they didn’t want him to report them,” McGee said, realising after he said it how stupid it sounded.
Ziva gave him a look and sighed again. “I do not think Tony could be overpowered in his own home. Not when he has a gun or his phone.”
“I know, but we should check anyway. Gibbs would kill us if we left something vital out just because it didn’t sound completely plausible.”
“You are right, we will take it to Abby.” She pulled a small, plastic bag from her kit and slid the empty pill bottle into it before adding it to the rest of the evidence they had collected. “We better get these to Abby, I am sure she is going stupid with nothing to do.”
McGee looked at her. “I think you mean crazy.”
“Well, I would not say Abby was crazy…”
“No, I mean, it’s not ‘going stupid’, it’s ‘going crazy’.”
“Ah, right. Well, we should get back to the office.”
“Sure.” They picked up their bags and headed back towards the front door, locking it behind them as they left.
Ziva once again drove, which left McGee a chance to digest all that he had been told since Ducky had arrived in the office that morning. Someone had attacked Tony, Tony had been violated in the worst possible way and then he’d tried to take his own life. He wondered if there would be any news of Tony’s condition once they got back. He assumed that Gibbs would be in contact with someone - Ducky, most likely - and he hoped that if it was him, he had the good sense to pass the information pertaining to Tony’s condition onto the rest of the team.
They arrived back at NCIS HQ and headed down to the lab to hand over the evidence to Abby so that she could start processing it and maybe make sense of it all.
She said nothing to either one of them as she took the evidence, signed and dated the log and then turned to her machines.
“I know you want to know if I have anything - his rape kit should be here in minutes, but I can’t work with you guys looking over my shoulder, so leave me to do my thing and I’ll give you the results as soon as I have them. Ducky said Gibbs wants to me to report to him at Bethesda, so I’ll do that and when I come back I’ll let you know what’s going on with Tony,” Abby told the two silent agents. They both nodded and left her to work, praying silently that she would have something and that Tony’s attacker would be in the system so all they would have to do was bring him down.
~*~
It was two hours before Abby had the results and was able to give her report to Gibbs. She had driven in with McGee that morning which was why she had asked him for a lift when she’d found out what had happened to Tony, but she knew that Gibbs would not want the whole team turning up to sit with him at Tony’s bedside so she called a cab, report in hand, and made her own way to Bethesda.
She made her way to the ICU, located on the third floor of the hospital. Ducky had told her what room Tony was in and so the need to ask anyone anything was non-existent, meaning she could continue to think positive thoughts and mentally prepare herself to what Tony would look like.
When she arrived at his room, she knocked on the door to let Gibbs know who it was, then opened it to find Tony unconscious on the bed, with tubes, IVs and machinery attached to him, with Gibbs sat to one side of him, holding his hand.
“Hey, bossman,” she said, keeping her voice low to hide the rush of emotions she was feeling.
“Hey, Abs. You got some news for me?” Gibbs asked, not moving from his spot. Before Abby arrived he had been talking to Dinozzo about all that was being done to catch his attacker, he didn’t know if the man could hear him and to be honest he didn’t really care, all that mattered was that he knew they were doing all they good to make this right again.
“But, of course.”
Gibbs looked at Abby sternly. “Well, I don’t have all day.”
“Yeah, sorry, it’s just…”
“I know seeing him like this is hard, but we have to do our jobs. We have to catch the bastard who put Tony here. So, spill.”
Normally when giving Gibbs a report, Abby would tell him all that she’d done to get the results she had, but she sensed that right now the timing wasn’t right for the run around so she decided to just give him the results flat out. “The blood on Tony’s sheets was his, same blood type at least ��" you’ll have to wait for DNA, I left it running. There were only Tony’s and what I can only assume is the pharmacy’s fingerprints on the bottle of Vicodin, of course I ran the unknown through AFIS just in case but I came up empty. The sperm they took from Tony was degraded because of time and I guess water - I think he must have showered at some point after the attack - but it was good enough for a DNA sample and again, no hits yet, but I left it running.”
“Why are you here then?”
“To give you my report.”
“That’s not a full report if some of the evidence is still running.”
“I know, but I brought my laptop and can set it up here while I wait for it to find a match,” Abby told him, producing a laptop from the bag she was carrying. “I just wanted to see him, Gibbs. Ducky told us there was no news and it’s been nearly sixteen hours since he took the overdose and I know they said it would be critical for a while, but I had to be here. Tony is family, y’know? I couldn’t wait in my lab while he is laying somewhere, possibly dying!”
“He is not going to die. I gave him a direct order, Abs and he will follow it or he’ll have me to contend with,” Gibbs replied, his voice stern. He turned to look at his agent, his appearance never changed every time he looked at him. He was still unconscious and in a coma, he was still attached to a pacemaker and a ventilator and he was still showing no signs that he even knew Gibbs and Abby were with him.
Abby sighed, blinking rapidly to try and stop the tears she could feel forming from escaping. She thought she could hide it, that Gibbs didn’t need to deal with her emotions right now, but as always the bossman was one ahead of her and before she could realise what he’d done, he was on his feet and enveloping her in a tight hug. “He’ll wake up, Abs. I can feel it in my gut and although the road to recovery is going to be long and hard, we’ll be there for him, ever step of the way. You know why?” he said, as he hugged the young forensic scientist.
“Because we’re family and family doesn’t leave no matter what,” Abby said.
“You hear that, Dinozzo, you’re stuck with us, so you rest for now and fight what you need to, but you come back to us, because we’re here to help you through it,” Gibbs told the still form that was Tony.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Who will catch DiNozzo when he falls?