Unobeyed Orders

Sitting beside the bed, he softly encouraged each painful breath, each agonizing gulp for air that the younger agent took. This was not the first time that he had sat here like this but he knew it might be the last. This time he was aware that as hard as Tony tried, he might not be able to obey the softly spoken order to live.

He rubbed his tired eyes as he studied Tony's face in the soft fluorescent light, his thoughts traveling back to the last time he had sat here. That time, nearly four years ago, Tony had battled and beaten the plague; this time he knew that they might not be so lucky. This time there was no suicide switch in the organism that would stop the infection. This time the infection had reawakened and mutated within Tony's body- resistant to antibiotics, resistant to his own antibodies, resistant to everything the doctors had tried. This time the battle was lost before it had even began.

A soft, strangled cough drew him from his thoughts as the hand he held tightened infinitesimally around his own hand. He forced a mask of determination upon his face as the green eyes he knew so well opened and darted around in confusion until they finally settled on his face, searching for some reassurance. "You are going to make it, DiNozzo. You are not going to die!" He gruffly ordered, hoping the younger man missed the small cracking in his voice. "I have already lost Kate; I am not going to lose you. Do you understand?"

"I'm…sor..ry …B..Boss…" The softly spoken words were sighed in a final breath before the eternal moment of silence screamed at Gibbs that Tony had been unable to obey his final order. Leroy Jethro Gibbs did not need to hear the shrill alarm of the heart monitor a heartbeat later to tell him that Anthony DiNozzo was dead.

He closed his eyes and dropped his head onto the hand that he still held tightly in his own, unaware of the hot tears that wet his face as his tough Marine heart broke at the loss of an agent and his closest friend.

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