The shots rang loudly in the narrow alleyway. Tony hissed sharply as the sound vibrated nastily between his outer and inner ear. He didn’t move, though, and stayed wedged between the trash bin and the wall. The shadows kept him from view, but the light coming off the street lamp pinned him in place as surely as the bastard shooting somewhere above him. The thing was, he’d been lucky to have found cover at all.

Contrary to every alley south of Niagara Falls, this one was amazingly bare and clean. No weeds growing from the cracks in the concrete, no piles of garbage adorning the narrow space either visually or olfactory. Oh no, it smelled fine - no urine, no decaying whatever, no rotting food. It was unnatural. He doubted even the rats dared to trespass this unholy ground. It also gave him limited options on where to play hidey-ho from a gun toting marine.

“McGee?” He scooted closer to the edge of the garbage bin, and glanced over to check the position of the shooter and nearly got a bullet to the head for his trouble. “What’s your position?”

“On the first floor and headed to the second.” McGee’s heavy breathing was loud over the radio. “Gibbs’s here yet?”

“Still stuck somewhere in traffic.” That had probably been the unluckiest thing that had happened to him since the plague. They’d found their man, but the man had also found them, him and his trusty rifle. “Watch your step up there. We don’t know if this guy had a chance to set up some booby traps.”

There was a pregnant pause then, “Didn’t know you cared.”

“I don’t.” He really needed to get a better fix on their suspect. “But Gibbs will have my head when he gets here and finds his probie full of holes or in multiple bits.” Not to mention what he would do to Tony’s other, more delicate anatomical parts.

Tony tried to peek over the top of the container and lost a nice chunk of hair in the process. Upon closer inspection - running fingers carefully through his hair - Tony only found a teeny tiny indentation in it, but nothing of catastrophic proportions. With some extra gel and the right do, it might not even be noticeable.

McGeek gave an audible swallow. Tony heard it as clearly as though he had been standing right next to him. “Do you know what floor he’s on?”

Of course if McGee had been standing next to him, Tony would had head slapped him right then. “And when exactly do you think I would had figured that out, McGoo, when he blew my brains out or when I magically kept him from shooting at me long enough to get a peek at his position?” Especially since he had Tony trapped somewhere in the middle of the alley with only a trash bin between him and literally biting the bullet.

“Okay, I’ll check them out on my way up.” Except that Tony didn’t know if they had that kind of time.

“No, go all the way up and make your way down.” It was time for a change of tactics. “I’m going to try and see if I can get the gunny to give his position away.”

“Tony -” He knew what McGee wanted to say before he said it, heard the words even when they weren’t formed and spoken aloud.

“Let me know when you reach the roof.” Tony ignored the lowly protests from his headset and checked his ammo. It wasn’t the best place to do it, but Tony needed to know how many rounds he had left. He couldn’t risk them running out at a critical moment. After all, he still needed to get the bastard, alive, preferably, though he doubted Gibbs would be overly disappointed if he didn’t. Maybe slap him around for a bit if Tony was still breathing when this was all over and probably even if he wasn’t.

The worst part of all this wasn’t that the entire situation had fast forwarded into fubar territory before Tony had so much as taken a peek at the alley. Things like that happened, it was a fact of life like Gibbs’ bad haircut, McGee’s cheerful geekiness, Abby’s Caff Pow’s addiction, Ziva’s slaughter of American idioms and Ducky’s reminiscent anecdotes. Any cop worth his shield expected it, anticipated it. Tony hadn’t and it could end up costing them.

Tony had five rounds left. It wasn’t great, but hopefully enough to get the job done. He was about to move when his vibrating phone nearly gave him a heart attack. While that would have solved oh so many of his problems at the moment, he supposed fate hated him enough not to give him an easy way out.

Tony flipped the phone open; he already knew who it was without having to check the caller ID, “Hey, Boss, how’s it hanging?” A bullet ricocheted from the bin to the wall, spraying little bits of bricks on Tony’s head.
“What’s your situation?” Gibbs asked briskly, lines of tension filtering through multiple cell towers and an ear piece.

Tony moved away from the wall and considered leaning against the bin, eyed the metal container - which much like the rest of the unnatural alley was freakishly clean - but decided against it. There was no telling if that aberration was transferable and he’d just bought the suit he had painstakingly chosen to wear today.

“Oh, you know, just pinned behind a trash bin while the gunny takes pot shots at me, though I gotta tell you, boss, I’ve seen sailors with better aim.” Two rounds shafted the ground, this time near the mouth of the alley. What the gunny hoped to accomplish by wasting his ammo was anybody’s guess. “I bet McGee could give him a run for his money.”

And speaking of which, “Tony, I found him. He’s on the third floor on the railing.” Ah McGee; gotta love a geek with a great sense of timing.

“What’s he doing, McGee?” A bullet wheezed past his head. Well that answered that question.

“Shooting at you,” McGee deadpanned.

“Smart ass,” Tony muttered before turning his attention back to Gibbs, “Boss, what’s your ETA?”

“We’re still thirty minutes out. Better not do anything to get yourselves killed before we get there, DiNozzo.”

“Ah, Boss, you really know how to make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.” Another bullet went flying over his head, missing him by a mile.

“Oh you’ll be feeling something, alright.” With that, the line went dead.
Despite the situation, Tony felt an involuntary smile nearly split his face. “McGee!”

The answer was instantaneous if a bit muffled, “Here.”

“Gibbs’s ETA is about 30.” There was another shot and damn it, how much ammo did that bastard have?

“Okay, what do you want me to do?” He could hear some shuffling across the radio.

“Just hold your position and keep on eye on the gunny. He makes a move, you let me know.” There was yet another shot, this one banging off the thin space between the wall and the container. That was beginning to annoy the hell out of him, and not just because it restricted his every movement to a series of carefully thought-out maneuvers.

Tony waited until the next round came, before dishing out one of his own. He only had a vague idea where the gunny was, even what McGee’s info. So he pointed his gun upward in the general vicinity of the third floor and fired, ducking back behind the trash bin.

“Nice shot, Tony.” McGee let out, “He’s moving away from the railing.”

Not necessarily what he was going for, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “Is he coming inside?”

“No, but it looks like he’s taking his rifle apart.” The gunny shot at him again, but this round didn’t have the kick or power behind it like the previous ones had. “He has a gun.”

“Jeez, thanks, McGoo, wouldn’t had been able to figure that out on my own!” He ducked instinctively when another round slammed on the tin, even though he was practically glued to the damn thing and there was no way the gunny could hit him at that angle. “What’s he doing now, McGee?”

“You mean other than shooting at you?”

He and McGee needed to have a serious little chat about when it was appropriate to sass his senior field agent. “Yes, McGee, other than shooting at me!”

“Hm.” There was more shuffling on the other side of the radio and then McGee said, “He’s packing away his rifle and Tony, he looks like he’s ready to take off. Oh, crap. NCIS, put your hands up!” And Tony had thought for one moment his day couldn’t get any worse.

Tony was breaking cover and walking backwards before his brain informed him what a very bad idea that was. The gunny was now facing McGee, his gun up and ready. Tony didn’t waste time and shot once, then twice before the gunny went down on the railing. He kept his gun trained on him.

From there, he saw McGee peek out of the window, gun first then at Tony. He nodded at McGee to go on and the probie went carefully over the windowsill, arm trained on the suspect. He knelt to what Tony assumed was to check the pulse then said over the radio, “He’s dead.”

Tony winced. Gibbs was going to kill him, then probably bite off McGee’s head as an after dinner mint. Well, his day had just gotten better.

“Um, Tony?”

“What, McGee?” Maybe he was wondering if he needed to get out of town before Gibbs showed up. Not that it would do McGoo any good. There wasn’t a place on earth where Gibbs wouldn’t be able to find him.

“Did the gunny have a scar on his left cheek?”

What? “No, he didn’t.” And some long honed instinct had him turning before the sound of a gun being cocked had him freezing in his tracks.

“It’s not him, Tony, it’s not him.” The voice was tiny in his ear, a pathetic second to the pounding of his heart and the blood rushing through his veins. His world narrowed to that single moment and that alleyway. The click that followed was like a bomb going off next to his head. A second later, a blast of heat on his back and the freakishly clean asphalt came up and met him face on.

*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*

Timothy tried not to stumble off the railing while pulling his gun out, aiming and shooting all in a matter of seconds. He knew that was all the time he had. The first two rounds missed spectacularly, but what they lacked in aim, they more than made up for in purpose. The man’s - the gunny’s - attention was diverted to McGee, and away from Tony, who was impossibly still. Tim saw the gun redirect, and he emptied the rest of his clip, managing to bring down the gunny before he could to get off a single shot.

Tim didn’t lower his gun even when the gunny fell and stayed down, despite knowing that his gun had no more rounds left. All he could see was the scene playing over and over, watching the gunny walk up behind Tony, whose own weapon was trained on the railing and the immediate danger as he saw it: two sharp bursts of light brighter than anything McGee had ever seen. The sound of those two shots were loud enough to deafen, bouncing all over the small, closed off space. He didn’t think he would ever be able to get that image from his mind. It was fused to his retina.

Tim moved then, probably a bad idea, but Tony wasn’t moving and he needed to be down there. He pulled out his phone with one hand and said, “Gibbs, Tony’s been hit, and the gunny wasn’t the gunny but then the gunny shot Tony and he’s not moving and the gunny and the not gunny are dead.”

He was out of breath when he reached the ground floor, and practically flew toward the alley. Tim didn’t think he’d ever run so fast in his life, except that time when Tony was hanging floors up in that parking garage.

He reached the alley, wanting badly to go to Tony first, check, see, but he went to the gunny, Gibbs’s - and ironically - Tony’s voice in his head, telling him to eliminate the threat first. So he went and cautiously - his gun held firmly on the downed body - checked for a pulse, then breathing. He found neither.

McGee didn’t waste any more time on him, instead practically leapt over the body and to Tony’s side. Once there, he hesitated, fingers twitching near Tony’s neck. He’s not moving, he thought. The noise coming from his phone seemed like miles away.

“McGee! What’s your status?” He blinked, and the world kinda shimmered and lost its focus. “McGee!”

“Boss, Tony’s down.” His voice came out sounding so remarkably thick he almost didn’t recognize it.

There was a pause then a quiet, “Is he alive?”

Tim stared at Tony’s back for a long moment. There was plenty of light and from this close up, he saw the darkness of Tony’s NCIS jacket, the holes where the rounds went in. His hands hovered over the jacket, “I don’t -” He choked, his breath left his chest at an unbearable rate, he was hot and cold at the same time, strangely his focus became the asphalt beneath them - and wow, that looked really clean.

“McGee, Ziva’s calling an ambulance,” Gibbs said calmly, and Tim should had done that, but Tony was lying so still and Tim had seen him fall. Gibbs said, “We’re almost there.”

Except that almost wasn’t there, in the alley, watching Tony be incredibly still but then his fingers were on Tony’s neck. He expected icy cold, had prepared for it, but instead he met warmth.

The world faded to that one instant. He didn’t notice the car skit toward the mouth of the alley, or Gibbs and Ziva rushing over to him, to them. An eternity passed, his fingers digging into Tony’s neck, and then he felt a throb, and another, and another, and McGee found breath rushing into him. With his proximity, he was finally able to note the short, sharp gasps coming from Tony. And when Gibbs crouched down next to him, he was able to croak out, “He’s alive.”

*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*

Tony was floating. Sometimes, there was a white light - maybe the white light - other times blurs of shadows. There were noises, voices, other things he couldn’t recognize. He didn’t know how long it took him for that disjointedness to fade, but when it did, the brightness nearly seared his eyes, or at least it felt like it did.

“Tony?”
He knew that voice.

“Ziva?” He tried to say, but all that came out was something sounding like a dead frog.

Something soft was placed on his cheek, but then there was darkness again; then light. And slowly, a beeping skimmed the edge of his consciousness, pulling him toward it. It became louder and more insistent.

“Anthony?” Rough, calloused fingers pressed against his eyelids, and Tony tried to move again as sharp, piercing whiteness burned all the way to his brain.

“Easy there, my boy.” He might have made some whiny noise at the back of his throat, because the pressure ceased, and something poked at his lips. He opened his mouth and that was all the invitation it needed to jump right into his mouth.

“There you go, Anthony.” It was a blessed, cool wetness; slowly dripping down his throat, soothing along the way. “The ice chip will help ease your throat.”

Tony sucked on it, swallowing the cold liquid. He was in heaven for exactly two minutes before the brief interruption in his breathing left him gasping for air. It was as though he was trying to get air through a coffee straw.

“Easy there,” Something was placed over his mouth and nose and then there was air; blessed, beautiful oxygen.

Tony’s lungs were on cloud nine, but after a while, the commodity of breathing wore off and the damned thing on his face began grating on his nerves. He tried to lift his hand to poke at it but his arm might as well been made of lead. It didn’t even budge.

As if anticipating his reaction, fingers closed lightly around his wrist. “Now, now, my boy, there is no need for that.”

Ah, another voice he recognized. “Ducky?” He no longer sounded like a dead frog, closer to a chain smoker’s with emphysema.

“Yes, Anthony, would you like another ice-chip?” Tony practically lapsed into an ecstasy induced coma. He really loved Ducky right now.

“Well, my boy, while the sentiment is appreciated, I’m afraid you are not quite my type.” Another chip was inserted into his mouth and Tony took it gratefully, “Not the right body parts, I’m afraid.”

Tony was sure there was something he should be saying to that, maybe some witty comment, but at the moment, he couldn’t find the energy to care.

“Now, Anthony, if you would please open your eyes for us.” Pressure on his eyelids had him turning his head instinctively, though he didn’t even managed to move an inch. That really sucked.

They might as well had shoved a ice pick in his brain, the sharp, piercing light burnt his retinas while his brain did the Macarena inside his head.
“Just a moment longer,” Ducky muttered, but a second would had been too long.

Then it was gone, and Tony was left with dark spots dancing on his vision. “There, now that wasn’t so bad.”

“Speak for yourself, Ducky,” He gasped out, “I may never get see another bikini clad woman for as long as I live.”

He considered glaring at Ducky as an added bonus, but the man had been friends with Gibbs for years. The attempt would had been lost on him.
Besides, there was something so incredibly wrong in being annoyed with Ducky. He was too much like the kindly uncle that gave treats and told awesome stories. Ducky cut dead people and went off on an anecdote tangent if given the chance; about the same thing in Tony’s book.

He shifted away from Ducky and felt something pull at his side. He tried again, and the feeling got sharper, much like the rest of his awareness the longer he remained awake.

“It’s a chest tube,” Ducky said as though reading his mind, “it’s removing any build up of fluids in your lung as well as any left over blood from the surgery.”

“Surgery?” He croaked, at least it was getting better, he didn’t feel like his vocal chords were being shredded when talked now.

“What is the last thing you remember?”

Not much, he though automatically, then flipped through his memory to seek out the relevant information. Not much really was it. “The case.” And that had been a bad one; four marines found literally slaughtered in a storage facility that held chemicals that could - and that was the operative word - be used to create biological weapons. Though they had no idea how the gunny had gotten five canisters out of the facility without being noticed, they’d been working nonstop to get a lead for three days.

“Yes, well, it appeared that the gunny had an accomplice who was in charged of handling the shipping of dangerous chemicals.” Well that explained a lot, “It was in the logs that we had not been able to find.”

He remembered that, too. One of the things Tony had been in charge of, the paperwork; mountains upon mountains of files and paperwork that would take years to go through it all.

“Anything else you might recall?”

Tony thought hard for a moment, “The alley was really clean,” he rasped, “no really, it was just so unnatural.”

His throat really hurt so he decided that maybe talking wasn’t such a good idea. “Yes, well, I would imagine it would have been quite a surprise to find one in such a state.” Ducky fatherly patted his hand.

Despite himself, Tony found his eyes closing, and when he next opened them, the room was dark and silent except for the incessant beeping. He let his eyes wonder around the room and found the blurry image of Abby curled up on a chair, with McGee sprawled up on another one right next to her. He blinked a couple of times to clear his eyes when a movement on the edge of his vision had him glancing at the foot of his bed.

“Boss?” His throat was a little better, going from vocal chords being ripped out to swallowing acid when he talked.

“You with it, Tony?”

Tony waved a hand, or tried to; it still weighted about a ton. It stayed put, much like the rest of his body, save his head. He settled for flickering his fingers and hoped it was enough to convey the message.

“Here,” More ice chips were offered and Tony would had thrown himself on the floor and kissed Gibbs’s feet except for the whole lead body thing, not to mention that hurt or not, Gibbs would had kicked his ass. The blissfully cold chips dripped down his throat. He was probably making some incredibly inappropriate sounds, but the sheer relief was practically orgasmic.

“Enjoying yourself there, Tony?”

He nodded; a jerky motion that nearly sent his head flying from his neck. “You make a good nursemaid, boss,” he muttered, low enough to spare his throat but loud enough for Gibbs’s freakishly good hearing to pick it up.

“Is that so?”

Whatever else he might had said was lost on him once his eyes closed without his consent. Then there was Abby, leaning over him much like Ducky had before - and how long ago had that been?

“Tony, you’re awake!” She was doing that bouncy thing of hers that had her pigtails dancing all over the place.

“How are you feeling?” Her face went from animated to somber like a flipped switch. Tony, used to her mercurial moods, still felt his head spinning, or maybe that was the drugs.

“Floaty,” His voice was better, not by much, but better than it had been. “Wobbly.”

“Well they have you on some pretty strong stuff. Ducky says you’ll feeling kinda out of it for a while.” Abby ran her fingers lightly over Tony’s forehead, something she’d done a handful of times. Tension he didn’t realize he had leeched out of him and before he knew it, his eyes closed.

It was night again, or late afternoon when he came to next. No one hovering over him, but McGee was sitting in a chair next to his bed in a similar position as he’d been - two days ago? One? Tony gave the room a quick once over, but no one else was there. The lights were off but the blinds were drawn to the side, letting in trickles of light from what he assumed were street lamps. It swallowed up the stars and moon, leaving only a very dark and very empty sky.

Next to him, McGee snorted, burred deeper into the chair - if that were possible. The probie looked practically welded to the thing and a rain coat - Armani and it looked like the probie was finally getting some taste - was pilled at the probie’s feet. Tony winced; Armani on a hospital floor was the equivalent of a nun at a strip bar. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

A pretty nurse snuck in - long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, very nicely shaped with plenty in all the right places - took one look at McGee and the incredible expensive coat. She pulled it up and tucked it gently around the probie. She then went over to some closet thing and pulled out a blanket, draping it over McGee, giving him a fond smile. Now, that’s just wrong, Tony thought. He was was, after all, the injured party here.
If anyone was going to get any amount of sympathy here it was going to be him.

Before Tony opened his mouth and said as much, the nurse glanced up, her pretty green eyes warm. “I’m glad to see you’re awake.”

She grabbed another blanket, tucking him in. If she wasn’t so hot, Tony might’ve protested. In sharp contrast to the gentle manner she’d used, she shone a bright light into his eyes, nearly splitting his head at the same time. “Are you in any pain?”

I am now, he thought, as she tried to burn his eyes right in their sockets. He gave a slight nod in response.

“Can you tell me where it hurts?” She probed his chest, which tingled but didn’t flare up in burst of white hot fire like he had expected.

“Head.” She grabbed his chart and scribbled down some information.
“Throat,” He added.

“Alright. We’ve been weaning you off the morphine and the local anesthetics, so you’re going to be feeling some discomfort.” Tony knew from experience that meant lots and lost of pain. “Whenever you start feeling pain, I want you to go ahead and use the call button, Dr. Bailey will be here in the morning for your check up.”

McGee made another grunting sound, shifting in the chair.

“He’s been here since you were brought in.” And there was something there.
Something in the way she kept looking between Tony and McGee, eyebrows raised, her small hands playing with a strand of hair, a nervous gesture.
Tony grinned internally, what a perfect way to get back at the probie without him knowing it.

He made a vague motion with his hands, eyes apologetic in a way they weren’t. The nurse’s look went from contemplative to knowing in a minute and she smiled indulgently at him, then at the probie. “Well, then, I’ll make sure to let Dr. Stevens know to include him in your updates.”

Oh, he certainly hoped she would.

“Thanks.” He gave her his most charming grins which she returned with a wistful glance at the probie before heading off.

By tomorrow morning, when the probie woke up, it would be all over the hospital and he couldn’t wait to see the look on McGee’s face when he realized the assumption that had been made.

*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*

Ziva brought McGee coffee, some donuts and a breakfast burrito from that place not far from the office Tony had introduced him to the week after Kate had died. Abby and Tony were regulars. So much so that they knew and everyone knew them by name. Gibbs stopped by sometimes when they went there after a particularly hard case, but for the most part, it was an Abby, McGee and Tony thing. Ziva never joined them, despite the fact that all three had invited her on more than one occasion. Abby had once said that it was because she didn’t want to intrude on what had become somewhat of a tradition. And Tony hadn’t said anything when McGee had mentioned it to him.

He grabbed the coffee, ignored the donuts in favor of the burrito. It was just the way he liked it, with a hot sauce milder than what was the norm for the small restaurant. It had been a concession that Rocio, the owner, had made when he had thrown up after eating their salsa for the first time. Neither Abby nor Tony ever had let him live that down.

“Has he woken up yet?” Ziva grabbed the other chair they’d snuck in the first day and swung it to Tony’s other side.

Tim swallowed a large bite out of his burrito with some difficulty, using his coffee to help the piece along its way. “Not yet.” The hot liquid scorched but McGee tried not to let it show. From triumphed grin Ziva gave him, he knew he hadn’t succeeded. “Amy says that he’ll probably sleep less now, what with them switching him from morphine to vicodin.”

“Amy? The nurse?” That’s right, McGee remembered, Ziva hadn’t been here as long as he had and she hadn’t gotten to first name basis with the staff.

“Yeah, the brunet with those weird white highlights.” He didn’t mention that she was especially pretty, with her caramel smile and chocolate eyes.
That was something Tony would do, and he wasn’t DiNozzo.

“Yes, I believe I saw her on my way here.” Ziva threw him one of her contemplative looks she usually reserved for Tony. “Has the doctor been to see him?”

“They are going to remove the chest tube today, and probably keep him overnight just in case, but if there aren’t any complications they’ll release him sometime tomorrow.” He took another bite out of his burrito.
Morning had started to fade, the room’s shadows becoming less pronounced.
“Ducky said Doctor Pitt is going to stop by to check Tony’s lungs later today.”

Ziva’s head jerked up, an unreadable expression on her face, “Tony has not shown any sign of illness.”

“Ducky says it’s just a precaution, with Tony’s medical history -” He didn’t need to mention the plague and how it had left Tony’s lungs scarred and weakened. McGee had often caught him taking some prescription meds when he thought no one was looking and getting regular checkups down at the morgue with Ducky.

"Yes.” The single word said more than a thousand could have but with Ziva, words became encased in layer upon layer of meaning.

From beyond the room, several nurses rushed by, a cart was wheeled somewhere down the hall, machines beeping steadily both inside and outside Tony’s room. McGee finished off his burrito and let the noises lull him.
Even with the coffee, the sleepless nights of the past few days were finally catching up with him. He must’ve closed his eyes at one point because suddenly Ziva was standing next to him, gently shaking his shoulder.

“I’m awake.” And now he was really starting to sound like DiNozzo.

Ziva merely gave him a pointed look, “Go home, McGee. Sleep, I will call you if anything changes.”

Tim shook his head. “It’s okay. I’ve gotten some sleep here.” Which was an exaggeration, he’d stolen a few winks here and there, nothing like the kind of rest he could have gotten in his own bed.

Ziva gave him another one of her looks, but before she could say anything another voice interceded.

“Are we having a slumber party?” It was raspy and barely audible.

“Tony!” He was up and at Tony’s side in an instant.

“How are you feeling?” Ziva had reached over and had Tony’s hand in hers. Tony’s hazy eyes drifted to their joined hands briefly but Ziva didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, she pretended not to.

“Hm, I think I’m a little woozy.” Not as much as he’d been the first two times he’d woken up. McGee remembered his babbling about pigs, bubbles and chains and not in that order. Sometimes getting a glimpse into what went on inside Tony’s head felt like taking a trip into Alice’s wonderland and not the Disney version. “But my head’s clearer.”

Which was a blessing all around. He didn’t know what more Tony had been mumbling about in his drug induced state, but if it was anything close to what McGee had suffered, he considered himself lucky to either be absent or asleep during most of them.

Tony eyed both of them. “So,” he rasped, fingers playing casually with the sheets.

“The doctor is pleased with your progress.” Ziva smiled at Tony, more to break the awkwardness of the moment than any other reason. Tony was incredibly pale; deep, dark crevices pooling under his eyes. It took Tim back through the years, with Kate and the quarantine and waiting to be told Tony was dead but working against everything to stop that from happening.

“You might be released tomorrow,” He blurred out, erasing those moments in time as easily as a computer file, “barring any complications.”

And Tim really wished he hadn’t said that last part, but instead of a scathing remark or darkening in mood from Tony, he nodded. “Was hoping it would be today.” Tony took in a deep breath and winced, Tony’s hand falling to his chest, a confused look crossing his face.

“The chest tube came out today,” Tim added, and there was something in the way Tony’s eyes suddenly lit up, the same way they did whenever Tony was up to something that usually ended with Tim’s hair an unflattering blue, or waste deep in sewage; never a good sign for him. No, that twinkle never boded well for him.

“Good morning.” Doctor Stevens said, suddenly appearing behind Tim like a wraith, taking years off his life. He walked in, barely glancing at the two of them before focusing entirely on Tony. “How are you feeling?” He shined a penlight into Tony’s eyes, despite his squirming and whining.

“Headache?”

Tony took enough time to actually glare petulantly at the doctor before he said, “Didn’t a minute ago.” His voice was still rough and he sounded like an old man, but the attitude was all Tony at his best, or worst, depending who was asked.

The doctor tried to pull the sheets down, but Tony, in one of his extremely rare modest streaks, grabbed at them and glared at Tim and Ziva until with a roll of her eyes she turned to the window and McGee stared at the wall like it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

There was a whimper, and a loud hiss, and the doctor hmed. “Alright, all done.”

When Tim looked back at Tony, he had gone from ghostly white to practically translucent. He was breathing so hard that the doctor had placed an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. Sweat was pouring down his face, and McGee saw that it clung to him on the shoulders and chest probably the back, too.

“Everything looks like its healing nicely.” The doctor wrote some things on the chart then turned to him, “I need to do some rounds but I’ll be back to check on Mr. DiNozzo later today. But barring any complications, I see no reason why you can’t take him home tomorrow.”

Tim nodded dutifully, “So tomorrow?”

The doctor smiled gently at him and Tim got a strange little twinge on his skin. “If everything keeps coming along as is, then yes, tomorrow, probably first thing, since I’m certain Mr. DiNozzo here is anxious to leave.”

Tony’s smile was more of a grimace, but it still had a spike of the typical DiNozzo charm and the doctor returned it without hesitance. “Well, you should get some rest. I’ll be pulling a double shift today, so if there’s anything you need, the nurses can page me.” That last part had been directed at him, and again he felt like there was something he was missing.

The doctor walked out with a smirk directed his way then at Tony before disappearing into the hallway. McGee didn’t have time to analyze the pricking at the back of his neck when the room erupted into a fit of breathy snickering. Ziva and Tony were eying him with twin grins plastered on their faces. Familiar glints directed his way.

“What?” But that just caused them to grin even more widely and Tim was left with the feeling that he had really missed something.

*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*

Tony used to find amusing people’s reactions whenever he told them he’d had the plague. Doctors especially were fun to watch when he added that they needed to contact his doctor, Brad Pit. They would get this look, like they were contemplating the fastest way they could get him to the psych ward. Though he never doubted for a moment they would lock him away unless he provided evidence of his passing acquaintance with the plague. Usually an x-ray gave them a nice little picture of his web infested lungs and then the fun would really start.

Tony didn’t find it funny anymore, especially since McGee had decided that he was related to Florence Nightingale and wouldn’t leave him alone for more than five minutes. He was seriously considering a restraining order just to be able to go to the bathroom without McGee standing guard outside his bathroom door - and not inside for which he should consider himself lucky - asking about every two minutes if he was okay. His privacy was already nonexistent what with his entourage’s siege of his apartment - he almost saw tears in Gibbs eyes at their sheer efficiency - but he drew the line at his bathroom. Not that counted for much with his stalker/personal nurse. At this point he would need a crowbar and a pack of C-4 to pry McGee off of him.

“Hey, Tony, do you want your pain medication? Doctor Stevenson said you needed to take them even if you didn’t feel you needed them.” Enter McGoo, carrying a nice little tray which he would had sworn before today that he didn’t own. It contained a bowl of the orgasmic soup Ziva had made that afternoon, the fresh bread they gotten from the family owned bakery down the street, and two glasses, one filled with orange juice and the other - yep, you guessed - water.

Tony had arranged his bedroom with a mountain of pillows propping him to ease the strain on his chest and Abby had tucked a blanket carefully around him before leaving. She’d also placed a pitcher of water on the nightstand along with a stack of his favorite magazines. He really, really loved that woman.

The tray was placed carefully on his nightstand. “You know, McGoo, you’re going to make someone a very nice wife someday.” And McGee did that thing when his face went all annoyance and long-suffering that he had mastered on his second year as Gibbs’s official probie.

Wordlessly, he was handed two vicodin which Tony swallowed with an deep rooted relief. Though he kept most of the inappropriate noises locked inside his throat. He was an ass, but even he had limits he wouldn’t cross.

McGee stood over him like a good little mother hen, waiting until Tony had swallowed. Tony even opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue to show that yes, he had actually taken the pills and he was not hiding them somewhere inside his mouth.

McGee, predictable as he was, rolled his eyes then placed - shoved - the bowl of soup into his hands, spoon and all.

Tony, because he was an ass, gave him a wide eyed look. “What, you’re not gonna feed me?”

McGee didn’t take the bait. Maybe he’d become immune by prolonged exposure to Tony’s assness and Gibbs’s bastard. In that case, Tony really needed to change strategies, one couldn’t have an unruffledable probie; it went against the laws of nature and humanity.

Tony grabbed the soup and yes, it was heaven but Tony had learned that anything Ziva made was close to perfection. “So, McGeek, when is the next changing of the guard?” He gulped down his food, which turned out to be a bad idea since it had left him more than a little breathless. His lungs were already burning as thought he’d swallowed creosote and a lit lighter down his throat.

It took a while before he regained some semblance of control over the air entering and exiting his body. And even longer for the dark spots that had popped out in his sight to fade completely. He hated this. He hated it as much as the first time it had happened, during his recovery from the plague, where he couldn’t do a whole lot of anything without getting winded. Even after, when he ran his normal ten miles, it would take him longer and leave him ready to collapse when before he would had barely broken a sweat.

Tony hadn’t realized he’d double over until he felt McGee’s hands on his back and his frantic voice buzzing in his ear.

“He just started wheezing. No, I tried but he’s not responding to me. I don’t think he passed out, hold on . . . Tony, can you hear me?”

“Stop shouting in my ear, probie.” It took a lot of effort just to get half those words out, the rest were nothing more than a hiss but it got the message across.

“He’s talking, yeah, that would be great, thanks, Ducky.” If he had the energy, Tony would have pushed McGee off of him. As it was, he was equal parts shaking and sweating. His body weighed more than it should. “Can you lean back, Tony?”

He tried for a glare, but his eyes wouldn’t focus long enough for him to aim it. With McGee’s help, he was able to lie back on his assortment of pillows - one great step for mankind, one pathetically giant leap for Anthony DiNozzo. Even that simple task left him gasping.

McGee, like the good nurse maid he’d transformed into, rearranged his pillows. All he needed to was to start fluffing them to make the mental image complete.

“Ducky said he was on his way.” Tony noticed now that he wasn’t suffocating to death, that the bowl that had been previously in his hands had somehow migrated to the nightstand.

“I’m fine,” he muttered, but his lungs were still fighting him. It would have been more convincing if it didn’t feel like he was going to drop dead any moment. “Just a little breathy.”

“Right,” and was that disbelief in the probie’s tone?

“Just need a minute.” More like five or ten, maybe half an hour at the least. He was still woozy from the meds. Even if he was only taking vicodin, it still left him feeling as if his head wasn’t exactly on right.

“Whatever you say, Tony.” Things were starting to fade, blurring.

“Just a couple of minutes -” But his body was weighing him down, pulling him under and upward until he was floating and the pain had faded.


*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*

Tim jerked awake. He was already on his feet and by the bed, shaking Tony’s sweaty shoulder before he was fully conscious. The moaning wasn’t all that loud. Mostly, it was breathy mummers but McGee had gotten remarkably good at waking up to even the slightest disturbance.

Three days straight of the night shift - and he knew that Ziva and Abby had cheated, not that he would say it to their faces, he wanted to keep all his limbs in place - had lightened his sleep. So far, Tony had kept a predictable schedule, forty to forty-five minutes into his sleep, the nightmares would start followed by flinging limbs and muttered nonsense. And it would only take shaking Tony’s shoulder to make him settle back down. That last part had been Abby’s discovery although she wouldn’t say how she had come into that particular knowledge. Tim knew better than to ask.

Timothy waited a beat, but when Tony didn’t show any sign of waking, he went back to his padded chair and curled up for the glimpses of sleep that were waiting for him.

The days had worn on everyone. Despite the division of labor, their daily routines had taken a toll. Tim hadn’t slept in his own bed for more than a couple of hours. Abby chugged down seven to eight Caff Pows a day and was so jittery she was practically vibrating. Ziva had lost the little grasp on the English language she’d had to the point they needed a dictionary to understand anything she was saying. Gibbs had been alternating between growling at everyone and patting them on the head. So far Ducky was the only one acting even remotely normal, or as normal as any of them got. He stopped by at least twice a day to check on Tony and was only a phone call away in case they needed anything.

Normally, this kind of care was reserved for the dying or someone who was at death’s door. Tony really wasn’t either, but with the attack he’d had on his first day out of the hospital, no one wanted to take the chance that something would happen and Tony wouldn’t be able to get help.

“Hey, McGee.” Tim nearly fell out of the chair, but he managed to recover his equilibrium at the last minute. Abby stood at the doorway to Tony’s room, looking far too chipper for it to be natural. She quietly, well, quietly for Abby slipped into the room and plucked herself on Tony’s bed with a kind of familiarity that had Tim reviewing the last few months of interaction between the two. She tucked Tony in thoroughly, stretching out next to him.

“How’s the Tony sitting?” The smile she gave him was too predatory. Tim could admit, at least to himself that sometimes with Abby, he felt like a mouse in the presence of a very large, very hungry cat. It was similar to the feeling he had with Tony and Gibbs.

“He’s fine.” Which was, in Tim’s opinion, what Abby really wanted to know. “Ziva said he took his pain pills before he fell asleep.” Code for Ziva had to essentially shove them down Tony’s throat.

Abby placed a palm on Tony’s brow. “He feels cold.” And hopped down from the bed, slipped into the hall, coming back with a thick, wool blanket and spreading it over Tony, before repositioning herself on the bed; all this and Tony didn’t so much as twitch. That’s what his meds did to him, made him sleep even if Tony insisted that he wasn’t tired. Privately, Tim thought that the doctor had read Tony right and knew if given the choice, Tony would toss the pills as soon as he had the chance of not getting caught. Reason number two for these 24 hour vigilances. There was a third one there, too, one that he didn’t want to dwell on.

Abby lied next to Tony, curled, propped up with one arm, looking as comfortable as only she could while literally being in bed with one of her friends. She was like that, Abby, comfortable in her own skin in ways Tim had never even thought possible; a force of nature that could destroy everything in her path but chose not to.

“You look beat,” she whispered, casual the same way she lied on the bed. The room was mostly dark, moonlight piercing through the blinds and casting Abby’s face into a myriad of shadows. Tony was a large lump of blankets behind her.

“The night shift three days in a row can do that.” Tim could almost feel the grin directed her way, a perfect Cheshire replica.

“I can make some coffee?” A peace offering, maybe, and Tim was exhausted to the point were he would happily delude himself into believing there was even a hint of remorse in her tone.

“I think Ziva made a pot before she left.” On second thought that had been, a quick glance at the nightstand’s clock, five hours ago. As though reading his mind, Abby grimaced, “Maybe you could make a new pot?”

Tim expected Abby to head off with her usual exuberance, but instead he found himself the center of an intense gaze. It was the one she gave him just before she dumped some innate, if accurate observation on him. He brazed himself for whatever little trinket would be thrown his way.

“Tony’s apartment’s really clean.”

That was not what he expected, but with Abby, there were no limits to where a conversation could lead. “Uh, yeah.”

“I mean, you should have seen it when he first moved in, not that I did, see it that is, he and I didn’t exactly get along back then. But it was a pig sty, I know because Gibbs once said so, well, not said, per say, more like he kinda grunted and then mentioned Tony, DiNozzo, and said something along the lines that he’d been in really disgusting places, but Tony’s place took the cake.”

McGee felt himself slipping into a state between lucidity and drooling comatose. He supposed this was what being high must be like, drifting between stages of awareness.

“Come to think of it, I didn’t even realize Tony’s carpet was a light brown, it really goes well with his pearl colored walls.”

“They look kinda white to me,” he found himself muttering before he’d thought about it.

Abby’s look turned into a glare. “That’s because you’re not looking very hard, McGee!” And then she went on as though she hadn’t just snapped at him for no good reason other than disagreeing with her. Sometimes Abby’s mood swings resembled psychotic episodes to a disturbing degree. “But yeah, I like his apartment now. You know he had a spare bedroom, that was full of stuff and I do mean stuff; boxes and boxes of stuff. He wouldn’t let anyone near them for some reason. It’s clear now, all he needs to do is a buy a bed, a desk, and a nightstand. I should take him shopping for one.”

Abby flipped over, staring at the ceiling, “I really like this bed. It’s soft but has great back support.”

He really wanted to ask how she knew that. How the she knew so much about Tony’s apartment. It was at the tip of his tongue, luckily Abby started talking again and his common sense prevailed so he kept his mouth firmly shut on the subject.

“The pillows are just as great. And his couches, you do like his couches, right, McGee?”

Perplexed, he looked over at Tony, who slept just as deeply as he had the past week. “Uh, yeah, I guess.” They really were quite comfortably. He shifted on his not so comfortable chair, his back muscles protesting from his tail bone to his neck.

“But you like the chairs better?”

“What?”

“Chairs, McGee, try to keep up. You’re always in one.”

McGee stared hard at the chair, then back at Abby as though by some force beyond his understanding, Abby might start making sense.

Abby sat up abruptly, crawling slowly toward him, like a giant cat bearing down on its prey. McGee, acting on both an instinct as old as time and a working knowledge of Abby at her worst, tried to scoot back, but the chair stalled his movement. Before he knew it, Abby was already at the edge of the bed, peering down at him as though contemplating which part of him to devour first.

“McGee!” she said it in a tone that made it seem like Tim was the one that wasn’t making sense - a bit of a whine with a touch of exasperation. “You’re clinging to Tony.”

“How does my liking chairs have anything to do with Tony?” Any attempt to understand anything said in the last half an hour was useless, not to mention futile. Abby was a universe all onto herself.

She plopped down, arms crossing over her chest and legs in a lotus position. “Listen, it’s not your fault, Tim,” she said almost gently.

“What’s not my fault?” Changing topics would probably have been a wiser tactic, but Tim could count on one hand the number of hours he’d slept in the last four days. And even before that, and Tony being in the hospital, there had been the case.

Abby sighed loudly, “Tony getting shot! It’s not your fault.”

“I didn’t think it was.” He needed coffee. There was no way he wanted to have this conversation without at least being able to comprehend part of it, though if he had a choice - and he didn’t - he wouldn’t be having this conversation at all.

“He doesn’t blame you, you know?”

Tim practically jumped up from his seat, “I think I’ll go and start up that pot right now.”

“Tim!”

“Don’t, Abby, okay, please just don’t.” He wanted so badly to leave this room, to leave this apartment, but he wasn’t going to run away from this, he couldn’t. “Tony got shot because of me, I should’ve done better, and I will, but I don’t expect Tony to forgive me. That’s not Tony. He never forgives and doesn’t forget and it’s fine. He’ll get even and hold it over my head for as long as he can, and that’s fine. I’m okay with that, things will go back to the way they were and that’ll be that.” He was already halfway through the doorway.

Abby sighed loudly, “You’re wrong, McGee, you’ll see.”

There was a note in her tone, a promise thrown out like a gauntlet. Tim felt a shiver run down his spine as he left the room and was swallowed up by the darkened apartment.

*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*

Tony was breathing hard by the time he made it from his car to the office and he’d parked right by the elevator. By some act of God, a parking space had been waiting for him when he made his usual rounds around the garage.
He allowed himself a moment, trying to steady his lungs into a semblance their normal rate of operation. As he’d come to expect, they fought him with every breath. It wasn’t even the worst part of his recent brush with death.

The whole taking in air became a huge nuisance when he had to consciously think about it every minute of every day. Or the fact that it hurt as much as anything every time he had to do it. Even getting the plague hadn’t been this painful. It felt like he was trying to breath through a straw with an ice chip in it and it really shouldn’t be taking this much effort to do.

The numbers flashed and he straightened just as the doors opened. A quick glance showed the troops hard at work. He stepped out and put on his best everything’s-alright-face. No one looked up from their respective work when he entered their little section of the bullpen. It wasn’t until he’d dropped his backpack on the floor, and himself on his chair that he drew attention.

“Tony!” McGee exclaimed. For a moment, Tony was afraid Tim was going to come over and start cleaning his desk or - heaven forbid - try to check his temperature.

“McGee,” he said as he pushed off from his desk, swirling to keep McGee in sight.

“You’re supposed to be at home, DiNozzo, resting.” Tony nearly jumped as Gibbs, per his usual, materialized out of thin air. His atypical coffee in hand, he sent a glare his way that added an extra chill to his bones, especially since he hadn’t even glimpsed his presence in the bullpen.
“I feel fine, Boss.” That would have been more convincing if his voice hadn’t decided to fail him at the last moment.

Gibbs’s glare went from icy to positively arctic. Penguins were probably making their way here seeking colder weather now that the ice caps were melting.

“You look like the stalking dead.”

“It’s the walking dead, Ziva, walking.” Tony didn’t take his eyes off McGee, though, no matter how tempting it was to send a glare of his own down Ziva’s way.

“Walking, then, though why would a corpse be walking? If anything, it should be lying dead. That would much more sense.”

Now, the temptation was getting to be too much. “Because a lying corpse would - you know what, never mind.”

McGee made a motion toward him and Tony nearly slid into the file cabinet and through the wall trying to keep the distance between them. He pointed a finger at McGee. “You, probie, stay right there.”

The probie, predictably, eyed Tony as though he was the one being stalked. And okay, maybe he wasn’t being stalked, not like Abby and her psycho ex of a few years ago. Now, that had been freaky; but if the probie tried to take his temperature, he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions.

“TONY!”

One minute he was sitting, calmly preparing to jump over his desk if McGee made any sudden moves, the next the breath was knocked out off him by a bullet known to those who love her as Abby.

“Abby,” he managed to gasp out. The black spots were back again, dancing gleefully as though mocking any attempts to vanish them.

When they started to fade, he was staring into the face of a very worried goth. “Oh God, Tony, I’m so sorry! Please, not be dead - you’re not dead, are you? Because that would be totally bad, really, really bad.”

“Abby,” he tried again, but this time it came out only as a squeak.

“It would help if you weren’t sitting on him, Abby,” Gibbs said, and right there and then, he really, really loved that man.

“Oh, right, sorry.”

A moment later, there was sweet, blessed air. He took in gulps of it. “You okay, Tony, do you want me to get Ducky?” Abby muttered, stocking his back. She really was heavier than she looked.

“He needs oxygen.” That was the probie, and Tony was so getting him for this.

Tony had been so focused on McGee avoidance that he’d completely missed the Abby missile as it had locked on its target and struck.

Sometime during all this, someone had called Ducky. As soon as Abby stepped away from Tony, Ducky was all stethoscope and annoying pen light. “You should not have come to work so soon, Anthony. Your body needs time to recover, and your lungs are not what they were before your bout with the plague. They, above all else, need rest.”

Tony tolerated the touch, the freezing stereoscope on his chest and back, even the obnoxious light in his eyes, but when Palmer handed Ducky an oxygen tank with mask attached, Tony pulled as far back as he could given the small space.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, just got a little winded.” He would had added that he would had been okay if Abby hadn’t tried to relocate his spleen, but Abby looked miserable enough. Besides, he could always milk this for all it was worth sometime in the foreseeable future.

Ducky took the hint and backed down, but still gave him that exasperated-kindly-grandfatherly look of his. Tony gave him his pitiful-sickly-kid look in return. He figured they would probably cancel each other out.
“Actually, Tony, it’s a good thing you’re here. We’d managed to find the missing canisters.” Hm, maybe McGee wasn’t so bad after all. That little tidbit of information had Ducky backing off and handing the oxygen mask and all his doodads back to an angsty Palmer.

“We might not have found them at all if the gunny’s dog had not started digging in the backyard.” Ziva had a very self-satisfied look on her face as though having a dog solve their case wasn’t just the most disgraceful thing that could happen to an investigator.

“Yeah, you should had seen it, Tony, Sparky -”

“Sparky?” Now there was an image. He could almost see it too; a buzz-cut marine barking orders and looming over an overly hyperactive terrier. Then he thought of Gibbs with McGee and ‘nuff said.

“The dog, but anyway, he just went off and dug up the whole yard. The forensics team barely had to do any digging to get the canisters out.” And Abby had gone from kicked puppy to jittery one in ten seconds flat, probably a new record for her. “I mean, seriously, who buries toxic chemicals in their backyards?”

“Um, the federal government?” McGee said.

“Major corporations?” Tony added. His breath was still a little thready.

Abby smirked widely. Before she could continue in her non-stop babbling, Gibbs slammed the phone on the receiver and got up in the typical urgency stance. “Just got off the phone with the naval yard.”

Now, Tony was the one who perked up. “New case?”

Maybe he sounded a tad too hopeful because Gibbs deigned him with his best glare. Tony’s eyebrows got a little singed - and he barked out his response without taking his eyes off him. “Not for you there isn’t it.”
Then he strode toward the elevators with a “McGee, David!”

Ziva gave him a triumphed look while McGee eyed him in a half worried/half exasperated sort of way before all three disappeared behind metal doors.
Then there were four.

“Well, my boy, we have a crime scene to get to.” Ducky patted Tony’s shoulder. He was about the only person other than Abby that Tony allowed to touch him with minimal fuss. “Mr. Palmer, ready the van if you please, and do try not to leave the gurney behind this time.”

Tony’s eyebrows arched. There was a story there that Tony was so going to coerce out of Palmer later on, but for now, he was just too tired to make any of the many, many jokes he could have at Palmer’s expense.

“Oh, yes, Dr. Mallard.” And Palmer too went away to a better place.
Tony almost picked up his cell to call his contacts at the Naval Yard to get the heads-up on the case, but then Gibbs would use his freaky powers of marine and find out that Tony had been striding where angels failed tread or something along those lines.

He was so distracted by thoughts of how to get the information without tripping Gibbs’ marine alert that he didn’t notice the pregnant silence to his immediate right. Out of the corner of his eye, he could practically see Abby vibrating in place. Eying him in that predatory way that never boded well for anyone in the near vicinity. Sadly enough, he was the only other person in the immediate vicinity.

Tony’s escape routes were neatly blocked. Palmer had left the oxygen tank between his desk and the cubicle wall, and Abby was stood at the other one. His only other option was jumping over the desk, but the computer was on it and any attempt in his current state might result in the crushing of generations of DiNozzo’s in one single swoop.

Tony opened his mouth to say something witty in a futile attempt to disarm the bomb that is Abby but instead what came out was, “Don’t you have something to do?”

He cringed when he went over that sentence in his head, not his best by miles, “Not really,” Abby said as she shrugged and leaned in until there were almost nose-to-nose.

“You know, Tony,” she said almost conversationally, but Tony wasn’t fooled one bit, “you really should let McGee off the hook.”

Tony leaned back in his chair to give himself some breathing room. “When did I have him on a hook?” Worms came to mind.

“He’s been really worried about you, you know?” And he did know, stalkers were demented people that felt justified to cram themselves into their victims’ lives. “Not that he would ever admit it, or anything like that, but he was.” Deluded; extremely deluded people.

“Yeah, Abby, I kinda got that.” He had considered adding extra locks to his door, too, and maybe getting some kind of attack dog, though his complex didn’t allow pets.

“I mean, if you really look at it, he did kinda save your life.”

“Abby ” So, alright, McGeek had prevented that second bullet from ripping through his skull. And he did get it. He really, really did. McGee had been like a limpet since Tony had woken up in the hospital. Tony understood that sense of responsibility, of guilt. He was still reeling from Jenny, and even after five months, there wasn’t a moment when his gut wouldn’t freeze up and clench painfully when he thought about that major fubar on his part.

“And he spent all his free time at your bedside, which is kinda sweet and if anything, you should be thanking him.”

“For getting me shot?” It was out before he managed to filter the thought through his brain first.

“Tony!” Abby said sharply, but there was an unholy grin on her face that ruined the whole effect.

“Fine, fine, I won’t hold it against him,” he tried to sound sincerely and abashed, but then he added with a grin, “too long.”

Abby smile widened, “That’s all I ask.”

Then something occurred to him. “In fact, maybe you do have a point. The probie did shoot the guy that shot me, even if he did it after the gunny had shot me.” Abby leaned back in, but this time, Tony followed suit.
“Abby, how would you like to help me give the probie the kind of thank you he deserves?”

“Oh?” Abby had a glint in her eyes that probably matched his. “What did you have in mind?”

*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*

Tim couldn’t wait for this day to end. He’d been forced not only to do his work, but Tony’s - since DiNozzo couldn’t take a hint and go back to his apartment to rest like his doctors had instructed. Gibbs had - after a lot of mopping and whining on Tony’s part - allowed Tony to help out on their current case. Two dead sailors, their wives in interrogation, and the don’t-ask-don’t-tell had been at the forefront of their case. Worst of all, Tony - who looked like he was ready to drop - had made the critical connection between the two sailors despite his bouts of sleepiness and drugged induced grogginess.

It was still early - having been out all night and well into morning on a stakeout with Gibbs. They had finally gotten a break when the two women, who apparently were in cahoots, tried to sneak back inside one of their houses. The day had barely just begun but Tim felt every one of their all-nighters of the last year.

He entered the bullpen, but no one was there yet. That probably shouldn’t have surprised him as much as it did. After all, they’d all spent most of the night dealing with two very angry wives. In fact, most of the desks in the office were empty, only with the occasional agent busy at work on their computers.

With a sigh, he plucked down at his own desk, dumping his backpack at the corner, but not before he checked his chair over carefully. The last two days Tony had been at work, he hadn’t made any attempts at getting back at him. Not that he was in much of a shape to try anything, but Tim wasn’t taking any chances. Tony held onto grudges like most people would hold on to a million dollars.

Tim looked for the usual suspects; he poked carefully at his keyboard for superglue, but it was clean. Next were his drawers, but no exploding anything came out of them; under his desk, beneath his monitor, at the sides of his desk; nothing at all. He even checked his pockets - though he was almost certain Tony hadn’t been anywhere near his jacket and he hadn’t taken it off except at the crime scene - Tony was nothing if not creative.
“Good morning, McGee,” Ziva came in looking rested and refreshed even though she’d been the one to process their suspects last night, and most likely hadn’t had the time to do anything more than take a quick shower. At least that was how it had been for Tim, and he had left before Ziva.
“Morning, Ziva,” he responded automatically.

The elevator dinged and Gibbs and Tony stepped off as soon as the doors opened. Gibbs’s brisk stride took him by Tim while on the way to his desk, a good morning thrown out like an afterthought. Tony, on the other hand, was dragging his feet with each step, collapsing on his chair like a marionette with his strings cut off.

Tim wanted to ask if he had taken some pain pills, but as soon as he opened his mouth, Tony’s eyes trained on him in a glare worthy of Gibbs. He’s been practicing, he thought as he turned on his computer. He needed to check on the bank statements of Petty Officer Mark, who the women had named as the man they had hired to kill their husbands.

It didn’t take long for his computer to boot up, but then he wished it hadn’t when a loud, blast of noise screeched out from his speakers. He jumped, his heart followed, nearly ripping through his chest in the process. Tim’s ears pounded with a rhythm lost in the chaos. His mind finally caught up to what was happening and his fingers flew over his keyboard just as Gibbs’s voice made a tiny ripple in his ear. Something about shutting the damn thing off though Tim’s fingers were already flying over the keyboard.

A few clicks was all it took to bring the sound down from a ear piercing level to a irritating noise and that was when Tim was able to distinguish the words within a solid beat:


I believe in miracles
Since you came along
You sexy thing

Where did you come from, babe?
How did you know I needed you?
How did you know I needed you so badly?
How did you know I give my heart gladly?
Yesterday I was of the lonely people
Now you lying crossed from me making love to me


He looked up out of some long honed instinct, toward the large screen next to Gibbs’s desk and felt his mouth slacken. And that was before a burning started out from the tip of his ears to his whole face.

There, in full view, was a slide show running on the screen. With pictures of him dropping something, covered in mud, lying on the ground, soaked, and it went on and on. One humiliating moment captured on film after another. A few more clicks, done more sharply than necessary, the screen darkened and the music stopped.

When he managed to tear himself from the large screen, he glanced around enough to note that everyone in the office was openly staring at him.
Gibbs was standing by his desk, staring at him with an unreadable expression on his face before sitting back down and once again focusing his attention on his paperwork as though nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.

Ziva was in front of the other screen, looking thoughtful in her own particular way. Ducky, Abby and Palmer, who had appeared out of nowhere, where crowing by Tony’s desk, with Tony staring blearily at Tim, head propped up with his elbow, a widening grin plastered all over his face.
Tim wished he’d called in sick today. He briefly considered going back to work at the basement, but he knew Tony would find a way to get him even there. There was no escaping a DiNozzo with a grudge.

The room went even quieter, if that were possibly, and McGee turned and froze. Director Vance was stalking into the bullpen, an intent expression on his face. He glanced at McGee thoughtfully then slid over to Gibbs’s desk, “I take it this happens all the time,” he commented with a casual air.

Gibbs didn’t even glance up, “Yep,” he said simply, and continued with whatever he was doing.

The Director didn’t seem to take it personally, just looked around the room contemplatively. He stuck a toothpick in his mouth and walked back to his office, shaking his head along the way.

Tim watched him go as his heart stopped trying to punch through his chest. “I can’t believe you did that!” he hissed over at Tony and his posse, who were all smiles; though Tony and Abby had a special glint in their eyes.
Before any of them had a chance to say anything, Gibbs’s head popped up and glared at all of them. “If you ladies are done,” Gibbs said. He didn’t need to finish that sentence, so he didn’t even bother.

Like rats they scattered, with Palmer saying, “I didn’t think it was that bad.” Then they were gone, leaving just the four of them and a heavy silence behind.

Tim purged the program - who had Abby written all over it - from his computer before getting the information he needed. But before he could get anything else done, something smacked him firmly on the head. He turned to the usual suspect, but Tony was already doing his own research on the computer and pretending he hadn’t just thrown a paper ball at Tim.

With a sigh, Tim turned back to his monitor only to have a second ball hit him in the head. This time, he didn’t bother turning, just kept typing even as the third and fourth balls hit him; followed by a fifth and sixth until a stern “DiNozzo!”

“Sorry, boss,” halted the assault on his person.

Tim was seriously considering asking for a transfer when something heavy landed on his lap. With a glare at Tony, Tim grabbed it, expecting another paper ball, but instead he got something long and shiny. He eyed it incredulously, glanced over at Tony, “Don’t let it go to your head, McGeek!” Tony said quietly, already focused on whatever it was he was doing on his computer.

“Uh, thanks, Tony.” He eyed the dark paper, still unsure of what was this supposed to be other than the obvious, but maybe sometimes, it really didn’t matter.

He glanced back over at Tony - engrossed in his work, or so he would have them believe; breathing, living, and here. Maybe it was that simple, so with an internal shrug, Tim ripped the paper and sank into chocolaty bliss. He supposed he could only hope that whatever Tony had put in the milkyway would wait until he’d a chance to grab more than a couple hours of sleep.