Chapter 25:
Gibbs had been dozing when movement and groans coming from the occupant in the bed that he sat by suddenly awakened him. Stretching out from the slouch position he had gotten into while sleeping, he stood and moved closer to the bed. Unfortunately it seemed that any pain medication Tony had received was starting to wear off as he gasped and tried to shift into a more comfortable position.
"Tony?" Gibbs whispered softly, not wanting to startle Tony, who turned his head towards the sound of his voice. Slowly, Tony started to open his eyes. After blinking several times to clear his eyesight, he finally managed to focus on his boss.
"Hey, you with me Dinozzo?" Gibbs asked quietly.
"Ugh, if you mean by in the hospital, then no," Tony groaned out in response.
Gibbs chuckled. "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you're in the hospital."
Tony groaned again and took another look at Gibbs' face. "Why am I the only one lying in a hospital bed?"
"Because you're the only one who lost consciousness," Gibbs replied as he reached out and pressed the call button on the side of the bed. A moment later a nurse came in and noticed that her patient was awake.
"Glad to see you back with us, Mr. Dinozzo. How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Like I've got a piece of glass stuck in my side," Tony answered with a grimace.
The nurse nodded her head as she said, "I bet it does. I'll be right back with something to help with that." She left and returned quickly with a needle.
"Please don't tell me you have to give me a shot," Tony groaned.
She chuckled. "In this instance you are lucky. I'll only be injecting this into your IV. Let me know if you need anything else, and be sure to get some rest." Then she left the two agents alone.
"So what have I missed?" Tony asked as he moved to lie on his right side to face Gibbs.
"Not much. McGee and Ziva stayed at the campsite with Fornell gathering evidence," Gibbs told him. "Still waiting for a report."
"Thought you would have been interrogating Myers," Tony stated with a small grin.
"It won't kill him to wait a few hours in lock-up," Gibbs said.
"Uh huh," Tony said. "And the fact that you might run in to Abby has nothing to do with it?"
"I am not afraid of Abby," Gibbs said firmly.
"Not now you're not," Tony replied with a sigh of relief. "Take it from me, you will be."
"Pain meds kick in yet?" Gibbs asked.
"Yeah," Tony answered. "So how long am I gonna have to stay here?"
"At least until the infection in your side clears up, so about a couple of days," Gibbs told him.
Tony groaned. "Is there anyway you could…"
"No," Gibbs interrupted Tony before he could finish, anticipating what it was he was going to ask.
"But you didn't even hear what I was going to ask," Tony protested.
"I know you well enough that I didn't have to," Gibbs said. "The answer is no."
"But…"
"No."
"Come on…"
"I said no Dinozzo," Gibbs said in an authoritative tone. "You are warning me to be afraid of Abby now, if I try to get you out of the hospital there is no doubt in my mind that both her AND Ducky will be out to get me. I will not risk their wrath anymore than necessary."
Tony sighed and said quietly, "I hate hospitals."
"I know, Tony, I know. I promise I'll get you out of here as soon as the doctors clear you," Gibbs reassured the younger man.
"Can you at least bring me some decent food later? Hospital food is gonna kill me," Tony asked.
Gibbs gave Tony a smile as he said, "I'm sure I can sneak something in."
"Thanks," Tony smiled back before a look of confusion came over his face. "So why are you still here? I know doctors won't keep you here for observation for a broken nose, you don't have to be here. You hate hospitals."
"Who says I need a medical reason to stay?" Gibbs replied. "I wanted to make sure you were ok."
"I forgot, you don't trust doctors," Tony teased.
"I trust Ducky," Gibbs pointed out.
"No offense to Ducky, but he's a medical examiner boss," Tony said. "His specialty is with corpses."
"And the fact that I trust him more than the doctors here should tell you something," Gibbs said. "Besides, if I wasn't here who would you ask to bring you food?"
Before Tony could respond another voice entered the room from the doorway. "He wouldn't need to ask anyone because I always bring him food," Abby said as she came into the room carrying a large brown paper bag and a carry-out cup holder tray holding a large cup of coffee, a Caff-POW! and a bottle of water.
"You must be psychic, Abs," Tony said with a grin as he eyed the paper bag.
"No. Its just routine for you anymore Tony," Abby said as she glared at him. "Honestly, I am beginning to wonder if it's even possible for you to go a month without being in the hospital!"
"Hey! I haven't been in the hospital in over a month!" Tony argued.
"Only because you signed a waver the paramedics had even though it was against their better judgement," Abby retorted.
"He just woke up Abs, think you could tone it down a bit?" Gibbs said. The look Tony gave him suddenly made him wish he hadn't said anything at all.
"You're one to talk! Where do you think he gets it from?" Abby said as she turned her attack to Gibbs. "Honestly, look at you! Do you even know how to avoid a punch?"
"Hey, now wait a minute…" Gibbs started.
"No, you wait! This isn't the first time I've seen you do this," Abby continued to rant. "You practically beg to be punched just so you have an excuse to fight back. And then you refuse to have a doctor look you over."
"I do not beg…"
"Whatever. I swear you two are magnets for attracting all sorts of trouble," Abby proceeded.
"What does that mean?" Gibbs asked as Abby paused to catch her breath.
"It means when I compare your file and Tony's its scary how similar they are," Abby said as she powered up for another round. "Although I have to admit I am not sure who is influencing who as far as the trouble part goes."
"Wouldn't be the first time someone told me I was a bad influence," Tony said.
"Don't even go there Tony, I'm warning you, I can leave and take this food with me" Abby threatened and Tony replied by raising his hands in surrender.
"Are you done yet?" Gibbs asked as he eyed the large cup of coffee that Abby still held hostage.
Noticing where Gibbs' attention had gone, Abby let out a long breath. "For now, I suppose I can be," and she moved to stand next to Gibbs so he could remove the coffee from her possession.
"What's in the bag?" Tony asked as he moved to sit up but stopped and winced in pain.
"Food of course, silly. And be careful! The last thing you need is to pull your stitches out," Abby lectured. "Gibbs, help him sit up."
Gibbs quickly sat his coffee down and moved to help Tony sit up in a more comfortable position before Abby was given another reason to yell at him. As he did so he noticed the smirk on Tony's face that said 'I told you so' and Gibbs just rolled his eyes in amusement.
A few minutes later and everyone was sitting comfortably eating as Abby updated the two men on what was going on with the investigation.
"Fornell got a possible location on where the dealers might have set up shop along the tracks, so McGee and Ziva went with him on the bust," Abby informed them.
Tony's eyes widened. "They went without Gibbs?"
"I told them not to let Fornell do anything without them before I came here," Gibbs said. "If I had them wait for me by the time we all got there Fornell would have had all the fun."
"Besides, Fornell already agreed that Gibbs could interrogate Myers," Abby said. "It isn't like Gibbs has nothing to look forward to."
"Yeah, but since when is Gibbs not at a bust?" Tony wondered as he looked between the two.
"I thought it best to get some rest before we finished up with this case," Gibbs said too casually, which caused Tony and Abby to give him suspicious looks.
"Ducky threaten you or something?" Tony asked with a grin.
"Or did you go too long without coffee that your brain was beginning to cease to function normally?" Abby teased, grinning as well.
"Probably a bit of both," Tony concluded.
"I agree," Abby said. "Neither one alone is powerful enough, although I think that depends on how long he goes without coffee."
Gibbs glared at the two, not wanting to admit that they were right. "Do you really want to see what happens when I go without coffee Abby? Would you really want me in your lab?"
"Um, no not really. Good point," Abby said after considering Gibbs' words. Gibbs around technology filled with coffee was dangerous enough, without coffee was another matter entirely.
"Yeah, that's what I thought," Gibbs said as he watched several expressions go across Abby's face.
"Well, now you're all re-fueled so go have fun with Myers, Tony needs his rest!" Abby ordered Gibbs before turning to Tony saying, "And I don't want to hear it buster! You need your rest and if you don't do it willingly I will get a nurse to inject you with some nice drugs to make you all loopy."
"Better do as the lady says," Gibbs said as he stood up.
"You'll be by later to give me an update right?" Tony asked, worried about being left out of the loop.
"You bet. Get some rest," Gibbs said before heading to the door. "Keep him out of trouble, will you Abby?"
"Always," Abby replied with a wave of her hand as Gibbs left the two of them alone.
"So did you have fun?" Tony asked Abby.
"What?"
"Yelling at Gibbs like that. Not many people can do that and live to tell the tale."
Abby rolled her eyes. "He had it coming. So, how did things go, you know, before you took you're swim?"
Tony laughed, knowing full well that that question was coming. "Didn't you just tell Gibbs that I needed to rest?"
"That was just to get him out of here so we could talk, so don't try to change the subject," Abby pressed him.
"Things went ok," Tony said. "Actually, they went better then I thought they would."
"How do you mean?" Abby asked, a hint of concern in her voice. "You thought things would go bad?"
"I dunno, I guess for some reason I thought it was going to be harder with the whole father/son role playing act, but it was actually easier than I anticipated."
Abby shook her head. "You always expect the worst, you really need to stop doing that you know."
"Yeah, well its not like I've had a lot of practice in that area you know," Tony snapped back, then let out a deep breath. "Sorry, you didn't deserve that."
"Its ok," Abby said understandingly. They both sat in silence for a few minutes before Abby cautiously pressed forward. "So, you and Gibbs had a lot of time to kill in between stuff, huh?"
"Yeah. I thought driving in that traffic was going to be the death of me and the other drivers, but it turned out surprisingly well."
"You keep saying stuff like that. Care to go into more detail?"
"Well, we talked. Or rather, I talked and Gibbs listened and asked questions," Tony told her.
"Wait a minute, it wasn't like an interrogation or something was it?" Abby asked mildly surprised and a bit suspicious. She knew for a fact that it wasn't often that Gibbs simply 'talked' to people; even those that he knew pretty well.
Tony laughed at the expression of wonder on Abby's face. "No, it wasn't like that. I sort of let it slip that I used to work in an auto shop during college and that just led to more questions about my other previous occupations. He was actually interested."
"You told him about your other jobs? All of them?" Abby asked, then watched as Tony nodded his head in response. She pondered on that for a moment before saying, "Wow. So, how much detail did you go into?"
"Enough. It was just the jobs that I had while I was in college, so there wasn't really a lot of detail to go into," Tony said with a shrug.
"Bet you surprised Gibbs with a few of those jobs," Abby said with a grin.
Tony snickered. "Maybe. He isn't exactly the easiest person to surprise you know."
"That I do. So is that all you two talked about?" Abby got the feeling that there might be more, but if Tony didn't want to talk about it, she wouldn't push him to do so.
Tony was quiet for a moment before he said, "I told him about Al."
Abby reached over and squeezed his hand. Tony had talked to her about Al before, so she knew how difficult of a subject it was for him. "You should talk about him more. I know plenty of people who wonder how you fell into the investigative business."
Tony gave a small laugh before yawning. "Really? Who?"
Abby smiled and leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek. "I'll tell you later. You better get some sleep before a nurse comes in during rounds and I get thrown out."
Tony yawned again before saying, "Like anyone could actually throw you out if you didn't want them to, Abs."
"True, but that's our little secret. Now sleep. The sooner you do the sooner you will get better and be able to leave."
"Sounds like a plan," Tony murmured. "Thanks for the food Abby."
"Your welcome," Abby whispered back as she settled into her chair to watch over Tony as he slept. 'Gibbs, you've done more good than you know,' Abby thought to herself with a smile.
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Gibbs took a taxi back to the office, not wanting to wait around for someone to come and pick him up. He had called Ducky ahead of time to let the doctor know he was on his way back. By the time he stepped into the bullpen Ducky was there waiting for him.
"So I see you survived Abby's dressing down. How is Anthony doing?" Ducky asked in amusement.
"Tony's not happy about being stuck in the hospital, especially while the case is still open. Afraid he'll be left out of the loop," Gibbs replied, choosing to ignore Ducky's comment about Abby.
"Well that's no surprise. Honestly you shouldn't be here either, Jethro. You look like you could use a good night's rest," Ducky said. "I'd be more than happy to take you home…"
"Thanks Ducky, but I've got other plans," Gibbs interrupted him.
"You're not seriously going to deal with Myers now, are you?" Ducky inquired.
"You bet I am," Gibbs said with purpose. "I think he's waited in lock-up long enough."
Chapter End Notes:
I have recently received a few emails concerning whether or not this story is still alive lol. Yes it is! Thank you for giving me a nudge (ksl!) to write more! Been very busy with the end of school and work, but I have not forgotten about this story. As always please review and thanks again for continuing to read!