Chapter 5
Jenny was worried about the two of them getting kicked out of the hospital because of Gibbs’ shouting. “Let’s go to the waiting room so we can talk in private, Jethro.” She grabbed him by the arm and led him toward the waiting room down the hall.
Gibbs went willingly, but said, “What if the doctor comes out to talk to me?”
“The doctors know to check the waiting room, Jethro. Now, come on.”
The two of them made it to the waiting room and Jenny closed the door behind them. There was no on else there because of the early hour. She turned to face Gibbs. “Now, tell me what happened.”
Gibbs explained the events from the time he woke up on the dock and finished with, “So, I kicked their asses outta the hospital. None of them deserve to be here.”
“Jethro, I just finished talking with four very worried people. You shouldn’t be so hard on them. You know they care about Tony.”
“Ducky’s his doctor and he knows that Tony’s lungs are compromised. He should’ve checked Tony out himself or made sure he was checked out by paramedics. At the very least, one of them should have called to check on him when he didn’t show up at the hospital.”
“I didn’t realize Tony’s lungs were that bad,” Jenny commented. “Maybe he doesn’t belong in the field.”
“They’re not bad enough to keep him out of the field,” Gibbs insisted. “He’s like an asthmatic, and NCIS has plenty of good agents with asthma. It doesn’t affect his ability to do his job. He just needs to carry a rescue inhaler. Only Ducky and I know about that. It isn’t part of the job description to jump into freezing cold water.”
“Are you going to blame me, too?” Jenny asked. “I’m the one who sent him after you.”
“Of course not! You were just doing your job.”
“Well, Tony was just doing his job. He knows the risks,” Jenny said. “And I don’t think the members of your team knew what exactly happened at the dock.”
“That doesn’t excuse them from not looking out for Tony, especially Ducky.”
“Jethro, I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but you were the one who took off without backup,” Jenny pointed out. “You should’ve known that Tony would have your six.”
“I didn’t ask him to jump in the river,” Gibbs protested.
“But he did, and if he hadn’t jumped in the river, you and Maddie Tylor would both be dead. Would that have been a better outcome?”
Gibbs glared at the director. Damn her for pointing that out. He didn’t want to admit to himself, or to anyone else for that matter, that he might be partially to blame for Tony’s present condition. He also didn’t want to think of the possibility that Kelly’s friend would be dead if Tony hadn’t jumped in the water to save him and Maddie, which had led to his sudden illness. So, he did what he always did when he didn’t want to talk about something; he turned and left the room.
Jenny knew better than to try to convince Gibbs that he was just as responsible for Tony’s condition as the rest of the team, Tony included, so she let him walk away. After a few minutes she left the waiting room to go look for Gibbs.
She found him outside the treatment room door where she’d found him the first time. She wisely didn’t bring up the subject they’d just been discussing. “Have you heard anything about his condition yet?”
Gibbs turned to face her. “Someone came out and got some equipment and went back in. Somebody else went in with one of those portable x-ray thingies. Then I spent half an hour filling out paperwork. Since I got back here, no one has told me a damn thing.”
“I’m sure they’re busy helping Tony right now, and someone will come and talk to you when they can.”
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After what seemed like hours, but in reality was only a few more minutes, a doctor came out of Tony’s treatment room to talk to his next of kin. As the doctor began saying things like ‘aspiration pneumonia’, ‘ARDS’ (acute respiratory distress syndrome), ‘anoxic brain injury’, and ‘mechanical ventilator’, Gibbs began to wish that he hadn’t kicked Ducky out of the hospital, as he made a pretty good translator for all things medical.
Other terms like ‘compromised lung function’ and ‘coma’ he knew of and were the two things the doctor mentioned that he did understand well.
From what Gibbs could gather from the doctor’s explanation, it seemed Tony had accidentally inhaled some dirty water when he’d jumped in the river, which had caused the rapid onset of pneumonia. The pneumonia led to the respiratory distress, which caused Tony’s collapse. There was no way to know for sure how long Tony had been without enough oxygen before he’d gotten medical treatment. It all boiled down to the fact that Tony was very sick, and it wasn’t at all clear whether he would live or not; if he did live, whether he would wake up from the coma or not; and if he did wake up, whether he would have brain damage or not.
Gibbs refused to entertain either the idea that Tony could die or that he might be impaired in any way when, not if, he woke up.
The doctor told them Tony would be taken to the ICU in a few minutes and then he told Gibbs and Jenny they could wait for him in the ICU waiting room. He explained that once Tony was settled, they could finally see him, and he would join them there.
Before the doctor left, Gibbs asked him to contact Dr. Pitt so he could come and take a look at Tony, because he was familiar with Tony’s history, and the doctor said he would arrange it. Gibbs was also more familiar with Dr. Pitt and knew the man would talk to him in a language he could understand, since Ducky wasn’t here to translate for him.
Gibbs and Jenny made their way to the ICU waiting room, and after about 15 minutes the doctor came to get them and he led them to Tony’s room. He told them what they could expect and then told them about the ICU rule that Tony was allowed a visitor once an hour for five minutes at a time.
Jenny could see from the look on Gibbs’ face that he was about ready to explode when he heard that information. “Don’t worry, Jethro, I’ll handle this.” She gave him a gentle shove towards Tony’s room.
Gibbs allowed himself to be pushed in the direction of Tony’s room because he wanted to see Tony more than he wanted to shout at the doctor, but that didn’t stop him from shooting a deadly glare over his shoulder at the doctor as he entered Tony’s ICU room.
He took in Tony’s appearance. His skin was nearly as white as the blanket that covered him. He was hooked up to a machine that was breathing for him and he had leads attached to his chest that led to a heart monitor, which beeped with reassuring regularity. There was a blood pressure cuff wrapped around one of his arms which began to inflate even as Gibbs stood there watching. A few IV bags hung from a pole at the head of the bed with tubing that led to a needle stuck in the back of his hand. All the equipment and medicine attached to Tony drove home to Gibbs just how sick Tony really was.
Gibbs felt his heart clench in his chest as he approached the younger man, momentarily afraid to touch him. He overcame that fear and took Tony’s hand in his. He leaned in close so he could speak directly into his ear, “Tony, I’m here and I’m not leaving. Don’t you dare die on me, you got that?”
Then he sat in the chair next to the bed and settled in for what he was sure was going to be a long wait, never letting go of Tony’s hand.
After a few minutes, Jenny entered the room and stopped when she was standing next to Gibbs. When he looked up at her she said, “Jethro, I’ve known you for a long time and I’ve never seen you act like this when a member of your team was injured or sick before. Care to tell me what’s different this time?”
TBC
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