Chapter Nine
Ziva hit her computer as it beeped loudly at her. She swore under her breath in Hebrew, causing McGee to look up at her from what he was doing.
“What seems to be the problem?” he asked her, getting up and heading towards her desk. The bull pen was quiet without Tony there to make sexist comments and Gibbs yelling at them to get back to work.
Since they were without their fearless leader and Tony, the Director had put them to work on paperwork and if they had time some cold cases, but it seemed that neither one could get their minds to focus on the job at hand, both too worried about Tony and hoping that Abby would come up with something.
“It’s smashed,” she told him, giving the monitor the evil eye.
“I think you mean, ‘crashed’,” McGee corrected. “You just need to restart it.” He leaned over her desk and pressed some buttons that would reboot the machine.
Ziva sighed heavily and sat back in her chair, “have you heard anything from the hospital?” she asked McGee.
“You know if I had, I would have told you.”
“I do not like waiting; maybe we should go to the hospital and see how he is for ourselves.”
“I don’t think Gibbs would appreciate that, besides Ducky’s with him now and he’ll tell us about anything that’s happened when he gets back. It’s not like Gibbs is keeping us in the dark on purpose.”
“I just wish we had something on his attacker, and then we could be tracking him down instead of doing all this paperwork.”
“I’ll call down to Abby, see if she’s got anything for us.”
“She would have called.”
“I know, but it gives me something to do.”
“I shall go back to beating my computer.”
“It should work fine after the reboot.” McGee gave her a small smile and decided that rather than phone he would go and see Abby because he was sure she was feeling as useless as they were and could do with some moral support.
He took the elevator to Abby’s lab and found her curled up in the corner cuddling Bert the farting hippo. “What’s wrong, Abs?” he asked her, crouching down to meet her eyes.
“I ran everything again and there was nothing.”
“What do you mean? Nothing?”
“I mean, no DNA matches, there were no skin cells under Tony’s fingernails, only the semen. The blood at the scene was Tony’s, the semen at the scene was the perpetrators and he’s not in the system and all I can think is that I’ve let Tony down somehow because he’s unconscious and I can’t find any evidence that tells us who attacked him.”
“Have you heard from the hospital?”
“No, Ducky said he was needed there and that he’d come and update me as to Tony’s condition when he got back, but it’s been hours and I haven’t heard from him.”
“It’s late, why don’t you try and get some sleep? Ducky probably won’t come back until morning.”
“I’m not leaving until Tony wakes up.” McGee sighed, the only reason he hadn’t gone home yet was for the same reason. Ziva wouldn’t leave until she’d heard from Ducky and it looked like Abby was feeling the same.
“Why don’t I call Ducky and see where he is?” McGee offered.
“He won’t have his cell on if he’s still at the hospital and you know Ducky, he won’t pick up if he’s driving.”
“If it rings then it means he’s making his way back here.”
“Or he’s going home.”
“If he promised he’d update you then I doubt he’ll wait until morning to come in.” McGee pulled Abby into a hug, ignoring Bert when he farted and she gave a small smile.
“Call him from your desk, Ziva could probably do with some company about now.”
“Okay,” McGee said, and they both got up and left the lab, heading to the bull pen.
Ziva was working her way through her paperwork - it may have been 3am, but she wasn’t tired, she doubted that even if she had been that she could have slept. She was too wired and anxious waiting for news on Tony’s condition. She looked up when she heard the elevator ding, hoping that Ducky would appear from behind its doors. He didn’t, it was McGee and Abby.
“Anything?” she asked Abby, who shook her head, her eyes sad.
“I ran everything again, but I came up with nothing. McGee’s going to ring Ducky to see if he’s on his way back here or still at the hospital with Gibbs and Tony,” Abby replied. Ziva nodded and turned her attention to McGee who was dialing the number for Ducky’s cell.
“No answer, but it rang so he’s obviously on his way back,” McGee told them after a few minutes. Before either one of them could say something, the elevator pinged again and out stepped Ducky.
“Ducky, I just tried to call you,” McGee said, smiling at the old M.E.
“Yes, my dear boy, I know. I thought I would wait for the elevator to stop before answering it because of the lack of a signal, but here you all are, looking mightly tired I might add,” Ducky replied, making his way into the bull pen. “Now, if you’ll all give me a moment, I shall update you on young Anthony’s condition.”
Abby, still cuddling Bert, perched herself on the edge of McGee’s desk, whilst McGee sat behind it and Ziva got up and stood in front of the plasma screen. Ducky leant against Gibbs’ desk. All of them wanted to know how Tony was and they waited patiently for the M.E. to start talking.
“I’m afraid they’ve had to start Tony on dialysis, his kidneys were failing. They don’t know the extent of the damage and how permanent it may be, but they’re doing tests. The good thing is the dialysis will have removed any of the Vicodin left in his blood so he should hopefully regain consciousness soon. He had an episode earlier where his heart stopped, but they were able to get it started again and he’s still on the ventilator and pacemaker. Jethro is staying with him and is doing better now that he’s had some more coffee and some sleep - which I suggest you all go home and do now. There is nothing you can do for Tony that you haven’t done already and the last thing we need right now is any of you getting sick from not taking care of yourselves. Tony will need us at full strength to catch his attacker, when he’s able to give us a description and also to help him recover from this,” Ducky told them all, looking stern as he mentioned that they should sleep.
“I am not leaving, I will sleep, but I am not leaving the office,” Ziva said, stubbornly.
“I’m not going if she’s staying,” piped up Abby, who gave Bert a squeeze causing the stuffed animal to fart again.
“I’d rather stay here, I’ve slept in the office before and I’d rather not be alone tonight,” McGee told Ducky.
Ducky sighed and rolled his eyes. “You’re all as bad as each other. So long as you sleep I see no reason why you can’t stay here. I would join you, but mother has probably scared the night nurse by now and my presence will be needed at home and I’m not as young as I once was, I find my bed is the only place I can get a good nights kip.”
He stood up and looked at his three colleagues. “I’ve told Jethro to call me if anything changes, and I will pass on any news I hear in the morning. Now sleep, all of you and I will see you tomorrow, er, later today.” With that, he headed back to the elevator and left, leaving Ziva, McGee and Abby alone in the office.
“Do you want to sleep up here with us?” McGee asked Abby.
“If that’s okay, there’s nothing running in the lab so it’s not like I’ll be needed down there until morning. I’ll sleep behind Gibbs’ desk, he won’t mind.”
Silence fell over the office as the three all found comfortable positions and each one drifted off to sleep. A prayer in each of their hearts that tomorrow brought better news for Tony.
~*~
Gibbs shifted in his seat, taking a gulp from yet another cup of coffee and watched Tony. The twitch, along with the rise and fall of his chest was comforting to watch - even if it was produced mechanically. Ducky had left for the office about 2:45am, leaving him alone with his thoughts and Tony.
When Shannon and Kelly had been killed, Gibbs had felt his heart break, felt that he could never love again and then Tony DiNozzo had walked into his life and although his heart had mended - not perfectly, it still had rough edges - he knew that if he risked all he had to be with Tony, he might end up regretting it, especially because as the more he got to know Tony, the more he realised he saw himself as God’s gift to women.
Maybe Ducky had been right about the way Tony viewed himself, maybe that had been the reason for his suicide attempt, maybe after the rape Tony saw himself as someone who could never be loved again and felt the only way to live without love was to give up completely. How Gibbs wished he’d said something before. Maybe he could have changed the way DiNozzo thought of himself. Still, there was time for that, or at least he hoped there was.
He sighed and took another gulp of coffee - it was going cold, but he knew that all he needed to do was buzz the nurse and she would get him a refill. He’d built up a relationship with the one who’d done Tony’s rape exam, she was happy to supply him with coffee because, as she said, he didn’t expect her to, he knew that there were other patients in the ICU, some just as sick as Tony, some closer to death than him and he knew that if he buzzed once they would come when they were free, if he buzzed more than that, they knew there was something wrong with Tony that their monitors weren’t picking up. It may not have been the ideal way to spend a night, but for now, it would do.
Gibbs got the shock of his life when he saw Tony buck up against the ventilator; the machine sounded an alarm - obviously not happy about whatever Tony was doing. He pressed the alarm twice and within seconds a nurse had joined him in Tony’s room.
“What’s he doing?” Gibbs asked, trying to keep the panic from his voice.
The nurse said nothing as she pressed some buttons on the ventilator to silence the alarm. “I need to call his doctor,” she finally said, not realising that her silence had been scaring Gibbs to death.
“What the hell is going on?” Gibbs demanded. He knew that he shouldn’t raise his voice to her, but she seemed to be totally oblivious to the fact that he thought Tony was dying, was slipping away from him and that there was nothing he could do about it.
She snapped her head up and looked at him, seeing his expression; she relaxed and looked him dead in the eye. She had kind eyes, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to panic you, Tony is bucking against the ventilator, it means he’s trying to breathe on his own. It’s a good sign. Tony is waking up.”
Author's Chapter Notes:
Who will catch DiNozzo when he falls?