NCIS: Live For Ten (2/9)
All disclaimers, notes, warnings and summary are in the Master post: Live For Ten
Chapter Three
Gibbs was at war with himself.
The investigator in him was telling him to stay back, don't touch anything until Ducky said so, get a camera and take pictures, put on gloves before he did anything else. His mind was thinking about the evidence, the measurements, the sketches that would have to be done, the trace that would need to be collected. His eyes scanned every inch of the basement, from the blood on the floor, to Tony's shoes on the workbench, to the blood-coated tools in the toolbox.
The rest of him was screaming at him that it was his basement, his floor, his workbench, his tools. That it was Tony and nothing else mattered. That he had to stop thinking and processing like it was some random stranger. That he had to get over there and cut Tony the hell down.
'Move your ass, Gunny! Now!'
It was a short battle.
He did his best to avoid the blood, but there was so much of it, dark red puddles everywhere, and he knew that he contaminated some of it. He chastised himself for destroying evidence that they would need to nail the bastard who'd … but there were more important things to worry about.
His eyes and past experiences told him that it was over, that Tony was gone, and that his basement had just become the crime scene in a murder investigation. But the rest of him had to know for sure. He'd never believe it if he didn't find out for himself.
He lifted one shaking hand and pressed two fingers against the side of Tony's neck. He closed his eyes, held his breath, and concentrated. Then he spun around frantically to find Ducky, who was still standing on the steps with Gibbs' cell phone at his ear.
"He's alive!"
"Yes," Gibbs heard him say. "An ambulance to that address, immediately."
He left Ducky to finish his conversation, turned back around and moved his hand to the side of Tony's face. "Stay with me, DiNozzo," he said softly. "You do not have permission to go anywhere." He pulled his knife out of his pocket and reached for the rope that secured Tony's left wrist to the rafter.
He didn't give another thought to the crime scene he was destroying.
A hand on his arm stopped him. He didn't remember Ducky coming down the stairs, and he hadn't heard him dragging the chair across the floor, even though he'd obviously done both. But it didn't matter. There was only one thing that mattered.
"I have to get him down," he said, pulling his arm away from Ducky roughly, ignoring the desperation that tinged his own voice.
"Yes, we do." Gibbs was amazed at how calm his friend seemed. "But I should cut the ropes. That way you can …" No, Ducky wasn't as calm as he appeared on the outside. Gibbs could see it in his eyes, hear it in the way his voice caught in his throat. "You have to catch him," he said softly. "I'm not strong enough."
"Neither am I."
He didn't realize he'd actually said it out loud until Ducky squeezed his arm.
"Yes, you are," Ducky said. "And we're wasting time."
Gibbs put the knife in Ducky's outstretched palm and turned back to Tony. He wrapped one arm around him, braced his left arm with the other, and steadied himself to take the extra weight that was coming. He ignored the sticky wetness of Tony's back, pretended that it wasn't Tony's blood slowly coating his arms and soaking into the front of his shirt.
"Got you, Tony," he whispered. "I've got you."
"Be very careful of his leg," Ducky said. "We can't afford to let that screwdriver become dislodged."
Gibbs refused to look at the man in his arms as Ducky cut through the first rope and moved the chair to start on the second. He refused to let himself see any more damage than he already had. He refused to think about anything other than holding him up. If he dropped him, if he let him go, if he didn't catch him when he fell …
Then Tony was down, arms hanging limply at his sides, his body a dead weight in Gibbs' arms.
'Not a body!' he scolded himself. 'Not dead!'
Gibbs tightened his arms and tucked Tony's head against his shoulder. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the almost inaudible sounds of Tony's far-too-shallow breaths.
"Keep breathing," he whispered. "Don't stop."
"Blanket," Ducky said sharply.
"Under the stairs."
It took only seconds for Ducky to grab the blanket and spread it out. Then Gibbs was lowering Tony to the floor, ignoring the way his knees screamed at him, cradling the back of Tony's neck, keeping the younger man pressed tightly against his chest, pretending not to notice how unresisting and still and lifeless Tony's body was. Ducky helped as much as he could, straightening Tony's legs carefully so as to avoid jarring the screwdriver, then moving around to give extra support behind his shoulders.
Through it all, Tony didn't make a sound. He didn't open his eyes. He didn't so much as twitch.
The second they had him settled on the floor, Ducky handed Gibbs back his knife then took full command of the situation.
"Another blanket, Jethro."
Gibbs pushed up from the floor wordlessly and went to the stairs. Ducky kept talking as he busied himself checking Tony's vitals.
"His breathing is shallow and rapid, he's sweating, and he's very pale. If he's not already in hypovolemic shock, he's dangerously close to it. We have to keep him warm." He helped Gibbs spread the second blanket out and pulled it all the way to Tony's shoulders. "Elevate his feet, carefully."
Gibbs knelt down, cut the rope around Tony's ankles, and propped his feet on the bottom rung of the chair Ducky had used. Then he sat back on his heel, closed the knife, and rubbed his forehead. He neither noticed nor cared that his hand was covered in blood, that he was smearing it all over his face. "How much …?"
"Delayed capillary refill," Ducky said, cutting Gibbs off in mid-question. "His heart rate is far too high. The ligature mark on his neck is cause for concern, and there are petechiae around his mouth and eyes, but he is breathing. That screwdriver needs to be stabilized; I'll make certain that the paramedics do so. If I only had my bag, I could do so much more for the poor boy."
Gibbs shook his head. He couldn't listen to much more. He couldn't stand to hear Ducky talking about Tony the way he talked about the corpses on his autopsy table.
Ducky lifted the blanket so he could do a cursory examination of the cuts on Tony's bare chest. Gibbs had only taken a quick glance of his own before they cut him down, and as much as he'd gone out of his way to avoid doing more than that, he had to see exactly what damage had been done. Every last cut, every last bruise, every last drop of blood - he had to know them all, what they were, where they'd come from, and what they'd been caused by.
Someone was going to pay for all of it.
"I see at least twenty," Ducky finally said. "Three on the inside of his right arm, five on his left. There are several more on his chest, but the blood is making it hard to see …" He stopped long enough to take a deep breath. "I didn't see if he has any on his back."
"He does." Gibbs looked down at his own arms and hands and the blood that coated them. "Believe me."
Ducky nodded tensely as he pulled the blanket back up over Tony again and tucked it under his shoulders. "Controlled and precise strokes. They appear to be in groupings, perhaps in a pattern of sorts, which I have no doubt that you will figure out later." He managed a weak smile which Gibbs didn't return. "They're shallower than those suffered by Lance Corporal Brewer."
"Maximum pain and blood loss possible without death," Gibbs said softly. He looked at Tony's face, and immediately noticed that the gag was still in place. His skin crawled at the sight of it, and he opened his knife again. "Pain and fear and …"
"Torture."
Gibbs finished cutting through the gag, lifted Tony's head from the floor to remove it, then threw the offensive rag aside in revulsion. He used his thumb to gently wipe some of the blood away from the corners of Tony's mouth. His hands were shaking, and he willed them to still, but it did no good.
"With my tools," he whispered. "In my basement."
"Jethro." Ducky's voice held a warning, which Gibbs ignored.
"How much of his blood is on my floor, Duck?" He asked it without looking up, his voice growing louder and more insistent with every word. "How long was he here? How many times did he …?"
"Jethro!"
Gibbs finally raised his head.
"The ambulance will be here at any moment. You need to go upstairs and guide the EMTs down here."
"No," Gibbs said, shaking his head. "I'm not leaving him."
"You have to." Ducky's voice was low again, calm and soothing. Gibbs hated the way he was acting, hated that Ducky had to talk to him like that, but he couldn't seem to make himself stop. Ducky was holding his cell phone out to him, and he took it silently. "You have phone calls to make, and someone has to meet the paramedics at the door."
Gibbs looked away from Tony long enough to glance at the basement door, but he turned back quickly, indecision plain on his face.
"You found him in time," Ducky said. "And he won't be left alone. I'll take care of him for you, Jethro. I promise."
He was being ridiculous, and he knew it. He was Leroy Jethro "second-b-for-bastard" Gibbs, a battle-hardened Marine and a seasoned investigator. He'd lost team members before, lost men and women in battle, studied dead bodies for a living, and he knew what to do in a crisis. So why couldn't he make himself do it? Why couldn't he set his feelings aside and do what needed to be done? Why was he having so much trouble just going up the damn stairs to get the paramedics?
'Because it's one of your kids,' his mind supplied. 'Because it's Tony.'
"Jethro."
Gibbs swallowed hard, nodded, and squeezed Tony's arm one last time. "You better be here when I get back, DiNozzo," he said. "You just … you stay here."
Then he pushed himself to his feet, walked to the stairs, and ran up them without looking back.
He didn't see Ducky behind him, leaning down to place his hand gently against Tony's cheek. He didn't see the unshed tears in the older man's eyes or hear the words that he spoke.
"That is one order that I am in full agreement with, my dear boy, and I do expect you to follow it."
Tim saw the ambulance speeding away as he rounded the corner to Gibbs' house, and his car screeched to a halt in the space that it had just vacated. He barely waited for the tires to stop moving before he was out and running toward the open front door.
"Boss?" he called out as he entered the familiar house. Hearing no immediate response, he tried again. "Gibbs!"
The phone call had scared him. It wasn't that he'd been called at ten o'clock at night, because that happened all the time. And it wasn't that it had something to do with Tony, because that had happened before, too. The fact that he'd been summoned to Gibbs' house rather than the Navy Yard was more than a little alarming, but he'd recovered well.
No, it was the fact that Gibbs himself had sounded scared, almost frantic, almost desperate. His voice had been so quiet and shaky that Tim hadn't even understood everything he said. Gibbs never sounded like that - not when his stalker was trying to kill Abby, not when they'd lost Pacci, not even when Kate died. Combining the sound of his boss's voice with the late night phone call, the fact that something had happened to Tony, and the fact that it had happened at Gibbs' house resulted in only one possible reaction.
Tim McGee was terrified.
He rushed through the house and found Gibbs standing in the kitchen, in front of the basement door, staring down the stairs. He didn't look like he'd heard Tim at all.
"Boss?"
Gibbs turned toward him slowly, and Tim's heart plunged into his stomach. Gibbs was covered in blood - the front of his shirt and pant legs looked like they'd been soaked in it, and it was smeared on his face, in his hair, and on his hands. He bolted across the room, grabbed Gibbs' shoulders, and started patting him down, trying to find where it was coming from.
"Where are you hurt?" he demanded. "How bad is it? Why'd the ambulance leave without you? What happened?"
Gibbs grabbed his hands and pushed them away. "Get off me, McGee!"
Tim stood back and dropped his hands to his sides at once; this still wasn't the Gibbs he knew, but he was closer. "You're not hurt, are you, Boss?" he asked.
Gibbs shook his head, then looked down at himself. His eyes widened as though he were just noticing what his clothes looked like, and he started wiping at them absently.
"It's not mine," he said.
Tim swallowed. If the blood wasn't Gibbs', and whatever happened had something to do with Tony, then …
"Tony's?" he asked softly. Gibbs nodded, and Tim took a deep breath. "The ambulance that just left …?"
"Ducky went with him."
"What the hell happened?"
Gibbs looked up at him, looked him straight in the eyes, with an expression Tim had never seen on his face before. He couldn't even say what it was for sure. Horror? Fear? The only answer he got to his question was a shake of Gibbs' head, almost like whatever had happened, whatever he'd seen, he was completely unable to talk about it.
Tim shot a quick glance at the basement door, saw the bloody footprints on the floor leading away from it, and he knew where the answers to his questions were. He started forward, intent on finding out for himself, but Gibbs grabbed his arm and stopped him.
"Don't."
Tim shook his head. "I can handle it, Gibbs. Whatever it is."
Gibbs snorted, as if to say, 'No, you can't,' but out loud he said, "It's a crime scene, McGee. You can't go down there yet."
Tim tilted his head in confusion. "You don't want me to process it?"
"We can't," Gibbs said. He took a deep breath before continuing. "This time, he is a federal officer. FBI's jurisdiction."
"What?" Tim couldn't believe the rage that swelled up in him. "But it's Tony! I don't have to know what happened to know that he's hurt. Bad enough that he left here in an ambulance, and you're covered in his blood, and you're telling me we're not going to …?"
"Do you want the bastard to pay, Tim?" Gibbs' voice was low, dangerous. He'd heard it a hundred times before.
"Of course I do." He answered automatically, but it was true. He didn't have to know any details to know that. Someone had gone after his partner, his friend, and had hurt him. The how and why and how badly didn't matter.
No one messed with his team.
"Of course I do," he repeated, more emphatically than before.
"Then we don't touch it," Gibbs said. "Fornell's already on his way. It's his crime scene, and we stay out of it. We can watch, and we will." The last was said with emphasis and meaning, which Tim picked up on. "But that's it."
"Okay," Tim said, reluctantly but with understanding. He looked toward the basement door again, and he started to doubt that he wanted to go downstairs by himself, anyway.
Whatever had happened down there was bad enough that Gibbs was completely, well, un-Gibbs-like. The thought of what could do that was starting to scare him again, and with good reason. Jethro Gibbs' team was the third rail; no one touched them. If someone did, Gibbs reacted with anger and a single-minded desire for revenge. He didn't get scared. He didn't get desperate. He protected his team, his 'kids,' and he stood strong and defiant at their sides even as he moved heaven and hell to punish whoever had hurt them. Speaking of which …
"Why are you still here?"
"It's my house, McGee," Gibbs said. "Where else would I be?" He sighed deeply and leaned against the kitchen counter at his back. "I'm waiting for Tobias."
Tim shook his head and turned away quickly. No, that wasn't right. Maybe he couldn't fix what had happened to Tony, but he could fix that.
He'd been in the house often enough to know exactly where he was going. He was gone for less than two minutes, and Gibbs was still standing against the counter when he returned. Tim shoved the bundle he'd gathered from the bedroom into Gibbs' arms and stepped back.
"Get changed and go," he said. "I'll wait for Agent Fornell."
Gibbs stared down at the clothes in his hands, then looked back up at Tim in confusion.
"I can handle things here. There's somewhere else you need to be right now."
"McGee …"
Tim forced himself to smile, his way of trying to soothe Gibbs' obviously raw nerves. "I've got your six, Boss," he said softly. "Tony needs you to have his."
Five minutes later, Gibbs was standing in the front door, hair still wet from an incredibly quick shower, giving Tim one last round of instructions before he went.
"I've got it," he said. "Do you really want me to tell him who ...?"
"Why not?" Gibbs asked. "He needs a suspect, and we've got one for him."
"But we've got no proof it's him."
"Yet," Gibbs replied. "No proof yet. We will." He took two steps out the door but stopped on the porch, glanced back over his shoulder, and looked Tim directly in the eye. "I want DelMar, Tim," he said under his breath. "I want the son of a bitch."
Tim squared his shoulders and straightened his back. "If it's him, so do I."
Gibbs turned without another word and jogged to his car.
Tim stood in the open front door and watched the yellow Challenger peel away from the curb and roar down the street. As he was turning to go back inside, he noticed for the first time that the door was hanging awkwardly on its hinges and the frame had been ripped partway away from the wall. He shook his head sadly and looked back toward the kitchen. As much as he knew that he'd have to go to the basement when Fornell arrived, and as close as he'd come to doing it when he first arrived, he didn't want to anymore.
He wanted to go with Gibbs. He wanted to see Tony. He wanted to be with Ducky when he called Palmer and Abby. But he had a job to do, and at that moment, he was the only member of his team who could do it.
He walked back into the kitchen, pressed his back against the wall, and slid to the floor. He sat there for a few moments, just staring at the open basement door, before he lifted his hand and ran his fingers through his hair. He rested his forehead against his arm and closed his eyes.
"God damn it, Tony," he whispered to himself.
He thought of his team again, of how upset Gibbs was and how upset Abby would be when she found out. Maybe he couldn't be with them at the hospital, but he didn't have to be alone. There was still one member of his team he could reach out to. It wasn't just for his own comfort, but for hers, and for everyone else's. If no one told her what had happened, she'd kill them all the moment she found out.
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number almost without looking.
"Good morning, McGee." He had to smile at the sound of her voice, even if it fell away quickly. She obviously wasn't expecting bad news that early in the morning, and she was not going to take this well.
"Tony's hurt." Maybe he should have eased into it, asked her if she was enjoying her vacation, at least tried some small talk, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Besides, Ziva had never been one to insist on sugar-coating or dancing around the truth. She'd want to hear it as directly as possible.
"How badly?" The lightness of familiarity that had been in her voice when she first answered was gone, and in its place was the straight-forward, fact-seeking tone of an investigator. "What happened?"
"Bad," he said. "I didn't see him, but Gibbs was covered in his blood." The gasp on the other end of the line told him that was another one of those things he probably should have eased into, but there was no way to fix it.
"It's bad, Ziva. It's really, really bad."
Chapter Four
The conversation with Ziva was short, and she'd hung up with a promise that she was coming back. He'd half-heartedly tried to talk her out of it, a token protest that neither of them believed. He'd known from the moment he started dialing that she'd be on her way home as soon as she heard what had happened. She needed to be there just as badly as they needed her to be.
He was still sitting against the kitchen wall when Fornell walked through the door ten minutes later. He didn't stand up and greet him, because that would put him that much closer to going into the basement. He'd been mentally preparing himself for the worst since he'd gotten off the phone, but he still wasn't ready.
"Gibbs?" Fornell called out from the living room. "Jethro?"
Tim sighed. He was going to have to deal with Fornell sooner or later, and he was going to have to go down in that basement. Avoiding it wasn't doing anything but delaying the inevitable.
"In here, Agent Fornell."
Fornell walked into the kitchen quickly and looked down at him. "McGee," he said in surprise. "What are you doing here? Where's Gibbs?"
"At the hospital with Tony." He took another deep breath and pushed himself to his feet.
Fornell's expression softened. "How is DiNozzo?" he asked sincerely.
"Alive, last I knew," Tim said. "That was about twenty minutes ago."
Fornell was shocked, and it showed plainly on his face. "All you know is that he's alive?"
Tim shrugged and walked across the room, carefully avoiding the bloody shoe prints and stopping in the same place Gibbs had stood before. He stared down the stairs with the same far-away look in his eyes. "From what I gather, we're lucky to have that much."
"From what you gather?" Fornell stepped closer to him. "You mean you don't know?"
Tim shook his head silently.
"Gibbs didn't tell you what happened?"
Another negative. "Did he tell you?" Tim asked without looking at him.
"Not a damn thing," Fornell admitted with a huff. "All I got was, 'Someone tried to kill DiNozzo. Get your ass over here.'"
Tim had to smile at that, at least a little. "That's more than I got." He looked up and around, noticing for the first time that Fornell was alone. "Where's your team?"
Fornell walked to the basement door but stopped just short of going through it. "Four best agents I've got are on their way. They'll be here soon." He glanced across his shoulder at Tim and gestured at the stairs. "You been down yet?"
Tim shook his head. "Don't really want to, either."
"Do you know what's down there?"
"No idea. It's bad, though. Gibbs had Tony's blood all over him."
Fornell perked up a bit at that, and Tim smirked.
"He showered and changed before he left," he said. "They're in that bag on the table." Fornell glanced back into the dining room as Tim talked. "We knew you'd need them."
"How many people do we have to exclude?"
"Should be four, not counting Tony. Gibbs, Ducky, and two EMTs."
Fornell turned back to face him. "He's damn lucky they found him, huh?"
"Lucky," Tim said with a snort. "Yeah. That's what he is." He sighed and pushed himself away from the counter. "Let's get this over with." He stepped forward, but Fornell's hand on his chest stopped him.
"Bloody footprints on the floor, DiNozzo's blood all over Gibbs, and don't tell me you didn't notice how freaked out your boss is."
Tim nodded slowly.
"Are you ready for this, McGee?"
"No," he answered honestly. "But I don't think it really matters. Do you?"
Fornell nodded and stepped back. Tim gestured at the door.
"After you, Agent Fornell. It's your crime scene."
Fornell's expression was one of pleasant surprise. "It is? Really? You're not going to fight for it?"
Fornell started down the stairs, and Tim followed just a few steps behind. Both were careful to avoid the remains of the footprints that hadn't been destroyed in the rush to get Tony to the hospital.
"By the book," Tim said. "FBI's jurisdiction. Gibbs wants this guy, no mistakes."
"Then why are you here?" Fornell stopped on the stairs and turned to face him.
Tim tilted his head and raised his eyebrows.
"Oh," Fornell said in understanding. "You're babysitting?"
"I'm observing," Tim insisted.
Fornell smirked and started walking again. "I've been doing this for a long time, McGee," he said. "I'm not some damn probie who's going to puke at the sight of blood, and I know what I'm doing. I'm not going to screw it up."
Tim opened his mouth to answer, but the sight of the basement froze the words in his throat.
"Good God."
Fornell stood stock still after his breathless exclamation, so Tim moved past him silently and continued down the stairs. He didn't know what he'd say if he opened his mouth, wasn't really sure that he'd be able to speak at all, so he didn't even try. He scanned the room as objectively as he could, but he knew it was hopeless. No matter how much he'd grown as an investigator, no matter how desensitized to blood and violence he thought he'd become, he still had to fight to hold down the bile rising in his throat.
"You're sure he was alive when he left here?" The skepticism and doubt in Fornell's voice were obvious.
Tim nodded wordlessly as Fornell walked up beside him.
"We're going to find out who did this, McGee."
A sense of deja vu washed across him, and for a second, he was standing in Rob Brewer's garage. He looked at the blood-splattered tools in the toolbox, but instead of Jack Kale's, they were Gibbs'. He heard Brewer's neighbor, the way her voice shook when she talked to them, but then it was Gibbs on the phone, his voice every bit as shaky. He heard himself joking with Palmer about who was going to cut and who was going to catch, and couldn't even imagine Ducky and Gibbs having that conversation about Tony. His heart pounded in his chest, and he blinked, shook his head, and swallowed hard.
"Stefano DelMar."
Fornell turned toward him in surprise. "What? Azari's bodyguard?" Tim nodded again. "Why do you think it's him?"
"Long story," Tim said. The look on Fornell's face said that he needed more than that. "He's tried to kill Tony before."
"When?"
"Baltimore. Ten years ago." Tim couldn't stop staring at the toolbox, couldn't help but take note of which tools were covered in blood, which ones he'd given Gibbs as gifts, which ones Tony had … He swallowed again. "We just started looking into him as a suspect in the Brewer and Strauss murders. I'll give you what we have so far."
Fornell pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket and put them on as he walked deeper into the basement, leaving Tim standing at the bottom of the stairs. "I'll be able to access Gibbs' and Dr. Mallard's fingerprints to exclude them," he said. He stepped up to the toolbox and looked down at it. "I'll need their shoes, though. Did Gibbs leave his in the bag?"
Tim didn't answer. His eyes were moving around the room slowly, and his brain was trying to process it all at once. The puddles of blood on the floor, the remains of the ropes that hung from the ceiling beams, Tony's shoes sitting on the end of Gibbs' workbench …
"McGee?"
The blankets that Gibbs sometimes slept under, blood-splattered, laying on the floor soaking up even more. The wheel tracks the stretcher had left behind in the partially congealed blood. The ghostly, imagined echoes of Tony's screams, bouncing back and forth between walls that had absorbed them all when no one else had heard him …
"McGee? You all right over there?"
The screwdriver set he'd given Gibbs for Christmas the year before, open on the floor, with one screwdriver missing. The antique handsaw that Tony had spent months trying to find - the one he almost hadn't given him because it hadn't been delivered until just before Father's Day - the blade splashed with varying shades of bright red and dark brown, sitting atop the toolbox. The wooden-handled chisels that Abby had given him for his birthday, the hammer that Ziva had given him for the last Marine Corps birthday, the hand plane that Ducky had given him just because. All of them scattered around the spot where Tony had been tortured, all of them spattered and soaked and stained with blood.
Tony's blood.
"Hey!" Suddenly, Fornell was directly in front of him, both hands on his shoulders, shaking him lightly. "Look at me, Tim." He blinked and made his eyes focus on the familiar face. "Are you okay?"
He took a deep breath and forced himself to acknowledge Fornell's concern with a nod.
"You sure? You're not gonna pass out on me, are you?"
He shook his head, and glanced past Fornell to take in the scene one more time. He still couldn't look away, but it didn't have the same effect on him it had only seconds before. He felt his resolve harden, and he straightened his shoulders. For maybe the first time in his life, Tim understood why Gibbs got the way he did when someone threatened the people he cared about, understood the kind of protectiveness that could fuel single-minded obsession, understood what it felt like to have nothing but hatred and a need for revenge coursing through his veins.
Yes, that was Tony's blood on the floor, and the man who put it there was going to pay for every single drop of it.
"We want the bastard, Fornell," he finally said, his voice as low and dangerous as Gibbs' had ever been. Fornell let his hands fall to his sides and took a step back when Tim locked narrowed, hatred-filled eyes on him.
"Do not screw this up."
Tony had finally woken up in the ambulance. It made Gibbs feel somewhat better to know that he'd done it on his own, but according to Ducky, it hadn't been good. He'd fought and struggled with everything he had to get away from the unfamiliar hands, but he was too weak. He'd thrown his head back, and closed his eyes, and screamed.
He'd screamed Gibbs' name. Cried out for Gibbs to help him, to save him, to make it stop, to be there. And he hadn't been.
Again.
It was the one thing that he'd allowed to dominate his thoughts for the past two hours. Focusing on what he hadn't been witness to was keeping his mind from wandering back to the basement, to what he'd seen and what he'd done. What he hadn't done. What he'd allowed to happen.
"Stop that, Jethro." Ducky chided him softly from the chair across from him.
"Stop what?"
"Thinking whatever it is you're thinking." Ducky took a sip of the tea he'd gotten from the vending machine across the hall and made a face. "I will never understand why you Americans insist on calling this disgusting liquid tea. Real tea could not possibly come from a metal box, because it requires …"
"Ducky, please," Gibbs said softly as he closed his eyes. "Not right now."
Ducky nodded. "Of course. My apologies." He stood up, moved to the chair at Gibbs' side, and sat down again. "But my point stands. What happened is bad enough. You wallowing in your imagined missteps isn't making anything better."
"Wallowing, Duck?" he asked, incredulous. "Is that what I'm doing? Wallowing?"
"Is there another word for it?"
Silence descended around them, heavy with words unspoken, until Gibbs broke it again. "I wasn't there."
"But you were, Jethro. When it mattered the most, you were there."
"No, I wasn't!" Gibbs pushed himself out of his chair and crossed the room to the window. "Because if I'd been there, he wouldn't be here."
"You didn't know," Ducky pointed out. "You were at the office, and as far as you knew, Tony was at his apartment. You didn't know what was happening to him."
"I should have."
"How? Are you meant to read minds now?" Ducky sighed. "You found him in time. You saved his life."
"You found him," he argued. "And you saved him. Not me."
Ducky sat up straighter in his chair. "This is what's bothering you?" He sounded angry, and Gibbs didn't blame him. He was angry with himself, too. "Anthony was very near to dying when we walked into that basement, might still well be for all we know, and you're upset because you think you lost some kind of competition?"
"No!" He stared out the window, at the lights of the city below. "I don't know who the person in that basement with you was, Duck, but it sure as hell wasn't me. I was going to cut him down myself, and what? Let him fall? I argued with you about getting the paramedics. I wasn't thinking; I couldn't function. I froze up. I contaminated the crime scene …"
"You were quite rightly upset." Ducky's voice had softened considerably. "As was I. But I do not believe for a moment that you did anything wrong. Anthony's life is more important than any crime scene."
"What if I destroyed the one piece of evidence we needed to convict DelMar? What if I'm the reason we can't get him?"
"Let me worry about that part, Gibbs." Gibbs and Ducky turned toward the door and the two people standing in it. "You worry about DiNozzo."
"Agent Fornell," Ducky said, rising to his feet to greet the new arrivals. "Timothy."
"Hey, Ducky," Tim said in return. He turned his full attention to Gibbs. "How is he?"
"Still in surgery." Gibbs stepped forward and shook Fornell's hand, then looked at Tim. He could see the rawness of pain and anger in the younger agent's eyes, the devastation that he was trying to hide, and he squeezed his upper arm. It wasn't just Tony that he'd abandoned; he'd checked out on Tim, too. Walking into the basement would have been hell, and no one knew that better than he did. He never should have let him go down there unprepared.
"You okay, Tim?"
"Surgery?" Tim's eyes widened. If he'd heard the question he'd been asked, he gave no sign of it. "For what?"
"For their ease and his comfort," Ducky said. "Treatment for his wounds would require a great number of sutures and the rapid infusion of several units of blood. The operating theater is best equipped to perform both of those procedures, in addition to giving them access to anesthesia, which became necessary once he regained consciousness."
"He was awake?" Another new voice, one immediately known to everyone in the room. "That's a good sign, isn't it? He's going to be okay, right? Tell me he's going to be okay, Gibbs."
Gibbs held his arms out to Abby as she crossed the room to him. He wrapped them around her and glanced across her shoulder at the man who'd walked through the door behind her.
"I'm sorry, Agent Gibbs. She insisted on coming. If I hadn't picked her up, she'd have driven herself, and I didn't think …"
"It's okay, Palmer," Gibbs said.
Abby stepped back, grabbed one of Gibbs' hands in both of hers, and looked him in the eye. "You haven't told me yet. Tell me he's going to be all right."
He wanted to answer her. There was nothing he wanted to do more than reassure her that Tony was going to be fine, but he couldn't, because he didn't know. He didn't know if they'd been able to stop the blood loss in time, didn't know if they were replacing it fast enough, didn't know if he had any other injuries that they didn't know about yet. He didn't know what was under the bruises on his chest and head, didn't know if his throat had swollen closed or if he was still breathing on his own, didn't know if his heart was still beating.
He didn't know anything except that his shower hadn't gotten all of Tony's blood out from under his fingernails, and that with Abby holding his hand, he was suddenly aware of just how much of it was still there.
Ducky noticed his difficulty and stepped forward. "Abigail," he said gently. "Anthony's condition is very serious, and I'm afraid that we do not yet know the full extent of it. But he is in the very best of hands right now, and I'm certain the doctor will be along any moment."
"Okay," she said. She let go of Gibbs' hand reluctantly and stepped away. "Okay."
It was plain that Abby was anything but okay, and everyone in the waiting room knew it. Tim ran his hand up and down her back, Palmer rubbed her arm, and Ducky reached for her hand. None of them were okay, either, and it showed. And Gibbs couldn't do anything to help them. None of them. No matter how much he wanted to. Because the truth was that he was the least okay person in the room. He turned away from them and looked out the window again.
"Gibbs?"
He'd forgotten that Fornell was there. He turned at the summons, saw the notepad in the FBI agent's hand, and sighed.
"Now?" he asked tiredly. "Really? It can't wait?"
Fornell shook his head sadly. "You know it can't. I need it while it's still fresh in your mind."
"I'm never going to forget it, Tobias," he insisted. "Ask me tomorrow, or next week, or next year. It'll still be there."
Abby's eyes started filling with tears, and Palmer and Tim stared at him in open shock. Gibbs sighed deeply and looked down at his hands again. Ducky seemed to be the only one unaffected by the uncharacteristically candid declaration. "Abigail, Mr. Palmer, would you accompany me to the cafeteria?" he asked, leading them toward the door as he did. "I missed dinner this evening, and I'm afraid this old body is beginning to feel the effects."
They both nodded and went with him silently. He looked back over his shoulder, and Gibbs forced himself to give the older man a tight smile of gratitude.
"Timothy? Will you be coming with us?"
Tim looked back and forth between Ducky and Gibbs, almost as though he was considering it, but he shook his head. "I'll be down in a bit, Ducky. Think I'm gonna stay here for a while."
"I'll be wanting to talk to you, too, Dr. Mallard," Fornell said.
"Very well," Ducky said. "You know where I'll be when you need me."
Gibbs didn't know if those words were meant for Fornell or him. He didn't know if Tim was staying because he'd ordered him to supervise the investigation or because he didn't think Gibbs could handle the questioning alone. Normally, he'd have been angry about those two things; at that moment, he really didn't care.
As soon as the other three were gone from the door, Fornell turned to face him. "You want to sit down?"
"Why?" he asked. "Is it going to make it any easier?"
Fornell shook his head, and Tim spoke up. "Boss, please. You know this has to happen. You're the best witness he's got. If you really want to get DelMar …"
"I'll stand," he said, cutting off Tim's speech. It wasn't like he hadn't heard it a hundred times, hadn't said it to a thousand witnesses himself. "I'm fine." He took a deep breath and leaned back against the windowsill. Tim and Fornell both turned chairs to face him and sat down. "What'd you get at the house?"
"A lot," Fornell said. "We had to collect most of your tools. I'm sorry about that, but we'll get them back to you as soon as we can."
"Take them all if you think it'll help," he said. "Keep them. I don't think I'll use them again anyway."
"The blood evidence goes without saying." Fornell continued on like Gibbs hadn't interrupted. "We sampled everything, took pictures of all the footprints, both upstairs and down. We dusted for fingerprints, but I've got a feeling all of them are going to be eliminated once we cross-check them against your team."
"Probably," Gibbs admitted.
"DiNozzo's shoes and jacket, the rope from the ceiling and what was left on the floor. Agent McGee tells me that it might be the same rope used on Brewer and Strauss."
Gibbs looked at Tim. "Mold?"
Tim nodded quickly. "Looked like it. The lab will tell us for sure."
"Abby will," Gibbs said. Fornell tilted his head, and Gibbs locked eyes with him. "She's the best forensic scientist in D.C., Tobias, and you know it. Besides, she already knows what she's looking for."
"You think she can handle it? With DiNozzo being the …"
"She's stronger than you give her credit for," Tim put in. "And she'll be really mad if you don't send it to her. Really, really mad."
Fornell nodded. "Okay, so the interview …"
"Did you find the gag?" Gibbs asked suddenly. He wasn't trying to postpone the questions, not really. At least, that's what he told himself. "Because I threw it, but I don't know where it ended up."
"We found it," Fornell said.
"I stepped in the blood."
'Focus on the details. Don't look at the bigger picture.'
"I left my shoes in the bag with my clothes."
"We've got them."
"Ducky cut the rope with my knife." He patted himself down quickly, ashamed that he had no conscious memory of where it had gone. "I don't have it. I must have left it in my pocket."
"We've got it, Gibbs," Fornell insisted.
"They got everything, Boss," Tim added. "I promise."
"Everything but the witness statements."
He took a deep breath and crossed his arms. Why was he trying so hard to put this off? If they were going to catch DelMar, they needed every piece of evidence they could get. What he'd seen was an important part of that, and he knew it. What the hell was wrong with him?
"Okay," he finally said.
'You can do this, Gunny.'
He cleared his throat and wiped at the sweat he felt starting to form on his forehead. "Let's go."
"Okay. So when did you know that someone was in your house?" It was a good first question, easy to answer.
"When I turned the corner and DiNozzo's car was there. Oh, did you …?"
"It's on a truck, and it'll be on its way to your evidence garage within the hour," Fornell said. "Can we stay on focus here, Gibbs?"
'Suck it up, Marine. You're not the one who's hurt. You can do this.'
He closed his eyes and made himself go back there. Made himself think of all the things he'd been trying to forget. He could see it all, everything, against the backs of his eyelids. Every detail, just as it had been - the crooked door, the dark house, the sound of running feet, the bloody footprints, the open basement door, the blood, the rope, and DiNozzo … DiNozzo …
'Tony …'
"I can't do this," he whispered. No one was more surprised by the words than he was, but once he'd said them, he didn't want to take them back. "Not right now, Tobias. I can't." He pushed away from the window and crossed the room. "At least wait until he's out of surgery. At least wait until we know …"
"No." Fornell jumped up and put himself between Gibbs and the door. "I need to know what you saw. And I know it sucks, but we do this to people every day. Are you telling me you're a worse witness than they are?"
"I'm telling you that I can't do this right now." He forced the words out through clenched teeth. He needed some time to catch his breath; that was all. Why was it so hard to just breathe?
"I could do what you did to Jack Kale. Remember that, Gibbs? You need me to remind you that he was tortured with your …?"
"Don't."
There was a threat there, even if he didn't know what he'd do if Fornell kept going. Yes, he remembered what he'd done to Jack Kale, and he already hated himself for doing it. It had never occurred to him what his words would do to an innocent man, the pain they would cause to a victim's friend, until he realized that those same words could be used against him.
"Do you want me to catch this guy or not?"
"Of course I do!"
"Then talk to me." Fornell's voice was sympathetic but insistent. "Tell me what you saw when you walked down the stairs."
"You know what I saw."
"No, Boss, we don't," Tim said softly. He stood and walked toward them. "We can imagine what you saw. We can guess what you saw. But we don't know, and we really need to."
"Look, if you can't describe it, then draw it." Fornell held his notepad and pencil out. "You know that basement better than anyone. You know the measurements, and you know how to sketch a crime scene. Draw it for me."
"I'm not sketching anything." Gibbs pushed the notepad away from him. "I'm not drawing him like that."
"Like what?" Fornell asked. "Where was he? Where was DiNozzo when you came down those stairs?"
"He was …" He wanted to answer them; he did. He just couldn't get the words past his lips. He shook his head and turned away again, rubbing at the sudden ache in his chest.
"Gibbs." It was Tim this time, stepping around him, cutting off his escape. "He'd want you to do this, and you know he would. Until he wakes up again …"
'If he wakes up again.'
"You're the best chance we've got of catching this son of a bitch, but you have to talk to us. You have to tell us what you saw."
"They crucified him!"
The words exploded from his mouth, and the horror of them spread through him. That was what he'd been trying to avoid doing, and damn them for making him. He stepped toward Tim in anger, and to his credit, Tim didn't back away.
But the dam had finally broken. All of the emotions he'd tried so hard not to feel, all of the images that he'd tried so hard to block out of his mind, they were all pouring out of him faster and with more violence than he'd expected. There was no going back now, no pushing them away again. He couldn't deny the truth about any of it, not anymore, and he couldn't stop it.
"Is that what you want to hear, McGee?" he demanded. "I thought he was dead! I was supposed to have his six, I always say I do, but I didn't. And he was hanging there, covered in blood, and I swear to God, I didn't think he was breathing. They tortured him, cut him up and left him there, and when I got there - when I finally got there - I froze up. I just stood there. If it hadn't been for Ducky, I'd still be standing there! Is that what you needed to know?”ac
He saw the tears in Tim's eyes, and he knew that he was hurting him again, but even that wasn't enough to stop him.
"I screwed up, and I almost watched him die!"
His vision flashed red and then white, his knees buckled, and he stumbled. Someone grabbed his arms and helped him sit down. Something was squeezing his chest, and he couldn't breathe. Something was wrong with his heart - it was beating too fast and it hurt. Someone pushed his head down, and someone yelled for Ducky, but he didn't care. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.
He'd left Tony behind. He'd given him up for dead.
And he might have to do it again.
Part Three
Chapter Three
Gibbs was at war with himself.
The investigator in him was telling him to stay back, don't touch anything until Ducky said so, get a camera and take pictures, put on gloves before he did anything else. His mind was thinking about the evidence, the measurements, the sketches that would have to be done, the trace that would need to be collected. His eyes scanned every inch of the basement, from the blood on the floor, to Tony's shoes on the workbench, to the blood-coated tools in the toolbox.
The rest of him was screaming at him that it was his basement, his floor, his workbench, his tools. That it was Tony and nothing else mattered. That he had to stop thinking and processing like it was some random stranger. That he had to get over there and cut Tony the hell down.
'Move your ass, Gunny! Now!'
It was a short battle.
He did his best to avoid the blood, but there was so much of it, dark red puddles everywhere, and he knew that he contaminated some of it. He chastised himself for destroying evidence that they would need to nail the bastard who'd … but there were more important things to worry about.
His eyes and past experiences told him that it was over, that Tony was gone, and that his basement had just become the crime scene in a murder investigation. But the rest of him had to know for sure. He'd never believe it if he didn't find out for himself.
He lifted one shaking hand and pressed two fingers against the side of Tony's neck. He closed his eyes, held his breath, and concentrated. Then he spun around frantically to find Ducky, who was still standing on the steps with Gibbs' cell phone at his ear.
"He's alive!"
"Yes," Gibbs heard him say. "An ambulance to that address, immediately."
He left Ducky to finish his conversation, turned back around and moved his hand to the side of Tony's face. "Stay with me, DiNozzo," he said softly. "You do not have permission to go anywhere." He pulled his knife out of his pocket and reached for the rope that secured Tony's left wrist to the rafter.
He didn't give another thought to the crime scene he was destroying.
A hand on his arm stopped him. He didn't remember Ducky coming down the stairs, and he hadn't heard him dragging the chair across the floor, even though he'd obviously done both. But it didn't matter. There was only one thing that mattered.
"I have to get him down," he said, pulling his arm away from Ducky roughly, ignoring the desperation that tinged his own voice.
"Yes, we do." Gibbs was amazed at how calm his friend seemed. "But I should cut the ropes. That way you can …" No, Ducky wasn't as calm as he appeared on the outside. Gibbs could see it in his eyes, hear it in the way his voice caught in his throat. "You have to catch him," he said softly. "I'm not strong enough."
"Neither am I."
He didn't realize he'd actually said it out loud until Ducky squeezed his arm.
"Yes, you are," Ducky said. "And we're wasting time."
Gibbs put the knife in Ducky's outstretched palm and turned back to Tony. He wrapped one arm around him, braced his left arm with the other, and steadied himself to take the extra weight that was coming. He ignored the sticky wetness of Tony's back, pretended that it wasn't Tony's blood slowly coating his arms and soaking into the front of his shirt.
"Got you, Tony," he whispered. "I've got you."
"Be very careful of his leg," Ducky said. "We can't afford to let that screwdriver become dislodged."
Gibbs refused to look at the man in his arms as Ducky cut through the first rope and moved the chair to start on the second. He refused to let himself see any more damage than he already had. He refused to think about anything other than holding him up. If he dropped him, if he let him go, if he didn't catch him when he fell …
Then Tony was down, arms hanging limply at his sides, his body a dead weight in Gibbs' arms.
'Not a body!' he scolded himself. 'Not dead!'
Gibbs tightened his arms and tucked Tony's head against his shoulder. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the almost inaudible sounds of Tony's far-too-shallow breaths.
"Keep breathing," he whispered. "Don't stop."
"Blanket," Ducky said sharply.
"Under the stairs."
It took only seconds for Ducky to grab the blanket and spread it out. Then Gibbs was lowering Tony to the floor, ignoring the way his knees screamed at him, cradling the back of Tony's neck, keeping the younger man pressed tightly against his chest, pretending not to notice how unresisting and still and lifeless Tony's body was. Ducky helped as much as he could, straightening Tony's legs carefully so as to avoid jarring the screwdriver, then moving around to give extra support behind his shoulders.
Through it all, Tony didn't make a sound. He didn't open his eyes. He didn't so much as twitch.
The second they had him settled on the floor, Ducky handed Gibbs back his knife then took full command of the situation.
"Another blanket, Jethro."
Gibbs pushed up from the floor wordlessly and went to the stairs. Ducky kept talking as he busied himself checking Tony's vitals.
"His breathing is shallow and rapid, he's sweating, and he's very pale. If he's not already in hypovolemic shock, he's dangerously close to it. We have to keep him warm." He helped Gibbs spread the second blanket out and pulled it all the way to Tony's shoulders. "Elevate his feet, carefully."
Gibbs knelt down, cut the rope around Tony's ankles, and propped his feet on the bottom rung of the chair Ducky had used. Then he sat back on his heel, closed the knife, and rubbed his forehead. He neither noticed nor cared that his hand was covered in blood, that he was smearing it all over his face. "How much …?"
"Delayed capillary refill," Ducky said, cutting Gibbs off in mid-question. "His heart rate is far too high. The ligature mark on his neck is cause for concern, and there are petechiae around his mouth and eyes, but he is breathing. That screwdriver needs to be stabilized; I'll make certain that the paramedics do so. If I only had my bag, I could do so much more for the poor boy."
Gibbs shook his head. He couldn't listen to much more. He couldn't stand to hear Ducky talking about Tony the way he talked about the corpses on his autopsy table.
Ducky lifted the blanket so he could do a cursory examination of the cuts on Tony's bare chest. Gibbs had only taken a quick glance of his own before they cut him down, and as much as he'd gone out of his way to avoid doing more than that, he had to see exactly what damage had been done. Every last cut, every last bruise, every last drop of blood - he had to know them all, what they were, where they'd come from, and what they'd been caused by.
Someone was going to pay for all of it.
"I see at least twenty," Ducky finally said. "Three on the inside of his right arm, five on his left. There are several more on his chest, but the blood is making it hard to see …" He stopped long enough to take a deep breath. "I didn't see if he has any on his back."
"He does." Gibbs looked down at his own arms and hands and the blood that coated them. "Believe me."
Ducky nodded tensely as he pulled the blanket back up over Tony again and tucked it under his shoulders. "Controlled and precise strokes. They appear to be in groupings, perhaps in a pattern of sorts, which I have no doubt that you will figure out later." He managed a weak smile which Gibbs didn't return. "They're shallower than those suffered by Lance Corporal Brewer."
"Maximum pain and blood loss possible without death," Gibbs said softly. He looked at Tony's face, and immediately noticed that the gag was still in place. His skin crawled at the sight of it, and he opened his knife again. "Pain and fear and …"
"Torture."
Gibbs finished cutting through the gag, lifted Tony's head from the floor to remove it, then threw the offensive rag aside in revulsion. He used his thumb to gently wipe some of the blood away from the corners of Tony's mouth. His hands were shaking, and he willed them to still, but it did no good.
"With my tools," he whispered. "In my basement."
"Jethro." Ducky's voice held a warning, which Gibbs ignored.
"How much of his blood is on my floor, Duck?" He asked it without looking up, his voice growing louder and more insistent with every word. "How long was he here? How many times did he …?"
"Jethro!"
Gibbs finally raised his head.
"The ambulance will be here at any moment. You need to go upstairs and guide the EMTs down here."
"No," Gibbs said, shaking his head. "I'm not leaving him."
"You have to." Ducky's voice was low again, calm and soothing. Gibbs hated the way he was acting, hated that Ducky had to talk to him like that, but he couldn't seem to make himself stop. Ducky was holding his cell phone out to him, and he took it silently. "You have phone calls to make, and someone has to meet the paramedics at the door."
Gibbs looked away from Tony long enough to glance at the basement door, but he turned back quickly, indecision plain on his face.
"You found him in time," Ducky said. "And he won't be left alone. I'll take care of him for you, Jethro. I promise."
He was being ridiculous, and he knew it. He was Leroy Jethro "second-b-for-bastard" Gibbs, a battle-hardened Marine and a seasoned investigator. He'd lost team members before, lost men and women in battle, studied dead bodies for a living, and he knew what to do in a crisis. So why couldn't he make himself do it? Why couldn't he set his feelings aside and do what needed to be done? Why was he having so much trouble just going up the damn stairs to get the paramedics?
'Because it's one of your kids,' his mind supplied. 'Because it's Tony.'
"Jethro."
Gibbs swallowed hard, nodded, and squeezed Tony's arm one last time. "You better be here when I get back, DiNozzo," he said. "You just … you stay here."
Then he pushed himself to his feet, walked to the stairs, and ran up them without looking back.
He didn't see Ducky behind him, leaning down to place his hand gently against Tony's cheek. He didn't see the unshed tears in the older man's eyes or hear the words that he spoke.
"That is one order that I am in full agreement with, my dear boy, and I do expect you to follow it."
Tim saw the ambulance speeding away as he rounded the corner to Gibbs' house, and his car screeched to a halt in the space that it had just vacated. He barely waited for the tires to stop moving before he was out and running toward the open front door.
"Boss?" he called out as he entered the familiar house. Hearing no immediate response, he tried again. "Gibbs!"
The phone call had scared him. It wasn't that he'd been called at ten o'clock at night, because that happened all the time. And it wasn't that it had something to do with Tony, because that had happened before, too. The fact that he'd been summoned to Gibbs' house rather than the Navy Yard was more than a little alarming, but he'd recovered well.
No, it was the fact that Gibbs himself had sounded scared, almost frantic, almost desperate. His voice had been so quiet and shaky that Tim hadn't even understood everything he said. Gibbs never sounded like that - not when his stalker was trying to kill Abby, not when they'd lost Pacci, not even when Kate died. Combining the sound of his boss's voice with the late night phone call, the fact that something had happened to Tony, and the fact that it had happened at Gibbs' house resulted in only one possible reaction.
Tim McGee was terrified.
He rushed through the house and found Gibbs standing in the kitchen, in front of the basement door, staring down the stairs. He didn't look like he'd heard Tim at all.
"Boss?"
Gibbs turned toward him slowly, and Tim's heart plunged into his stomach. Gibbs was covered in blood - the front of his shirt and pant legs looked like they'd been soaked in it, and it was smeared on his face, in his hair, and on his hands. He bolted across the room, grabbed Gibbs' shoulders, and started patting him down, trying to find where it was coming from.
"Where are you hurt?" he demanded. "How bad is it? Why'd the ambulance leave without you? What happened?"
Gibbs grabbed his hands and pushed them away. "Get off me, McGee!"
Tim stood back and dropped his hands to his sides at once; this still wasn't the Gibbs he knew, but he was closer. "You're not hurt, are you, Boss?" he asked.
Gibbs shook his head, then looked down at himself. His eyes widened as though he were just noticing what his clothes looked like, and he started wiping at them absently.
"It's not mine," he said.
Tim swallowed. If the blood wasn't Gibbs', and whatever happened had something to do with Tony, then …
"Tony's?" he asked softly. Gibbs nodded, and Tim took a deep breath. "The ambulance that just left …?"
"Ducky went with him."
"What the hell happened?"
Gibbs looked up at him, looked him straight in the eyes, with an expression Tim had never seen on his face before. He couldn't even say what it was for sure. Horror? Fear? The only answer he got to his question was a shake of Gibbs' head, almost like whatever had happened, whatever he'd seen, he was completely unable to talk about it.
Tim shot a quick glance at the basement door, saw the bloody footprints on the floor leading away from it, and he knew where the answers to his questions were. He started forward, intent on finding out for himself, but Gibbs grabbed his arm and stopped him.
"Don't."
Tim shook his head. "I can handle it, Gibbs. Whatever it is."
Gibbs snorted, as if to say, 'No, you can't,' but out loud he said, "It's a crime scene, McGee. You can't go down there yet."
Tim tilted his head in confusion. "You don't want me to process it?"
"We can't," Gibbs said. He took a deep breath before continuing. "This time, he is a federal officer. FBI's jurisdiction."
"What?" Tim couldn't believe the rage that swelled up in him. "But it's Tony! I don't have to know what happened to know that he's hurt. Bad enough that he left here in an ambulance, and you're covered in his blood, and you're telling me we're not going to …?"
"Do you want the bastard to pay, Tim?" Gibbs' voice was low, dangerous. He'd heard it a hundred times before.
"Of course I do." He answered automatically, but it was true. He didn't have to know any details to know that. Someone had gone after his partner, his friend, and had hurt him. The how and why and how badly didn't matter.
No one messed with his team.
"Of course I do," he repeated, more emphatically than before.
"Then we don't touch it," Gibbs said. "Fornell's already on his way. It's his crime scene, and we stay out of it. We can watch, and we will." The last was said with emphasis and meaning, which Tim picked up on. "But that's it."
"Okay," Tim said, reluctantly but with understanding. He looked toward the basement door again, and he started to doubt that he wanted to go downstairs by himself, anyway.
Whatever had happened down there was bad enough that Gibbs was completely, well, un-Gibbs-like. The thought of what could do that was starting to scare him again, and with good reason. Jethro Gibbs' team was the third rail; no one touched them. If someone did, Gibbs reacted with anger and a single-minded desire for revenge. He didn't get scared. He didn't get desperate. He protected his team, his 'kids,' and he stood strong and defiant at their sides even as he moved heaven and hell to punish whoever had hurt them. Speaking of which …
"Why are you still here?"
"It's my house, McGee," Gibbs said. "Where else would I be?" He sighed deeply and leaned against the kitchen counter at his back. "I'm waiting for Tobias."
Tim shook his head and turned away quickly. No, that wasn't right. Maybe he couldn't fix what had happened to Tony, but he could fix that.
He'd been in the house often enough to know exactly where he was going. He was gone for less than two minutes, and Gibbs was still standing against the counter when he returned. Tim shoved the bundle he'd gathered from the bedroom into Gibbs' arms and stepped back.
"Get changed and go," he said. "I'll wait for Agent Fornell."
Gibbs stared down at the clothes in his hands, then looked back up at Tim in confusion.
"I can handle things here. There's somewhere else you need to be right now."
"McGee …"
Tim forced himself to smile, his way of trying to soothe Gibbs' obviously raw nerves. "I've got your six, Boss," he said softly. "Tony needs you to have his."
Five minutes later, Gibbs was standing in the front door, hair still wet from an incredibly quick shower, giving Tim one last round of instructions before he went.
"I've got it," he said. "Do you really want me to tell him who ...?"
"Why not?" Gibbs asked. "He needs a suspect, and we've got one for him."
"But we've got no proof it's him."
"Yet," Gibbs replied. "No proof yet. We will." He took two steps out the door but stopped on the porch, glanced back over his shoulder, and looked Tim directly in the eye. "I want DelMar, Tim," he said under his breath. "I want the son of a bitch."
Tim squared his shoulders and straightened his back. "If it's him, so do I."
Gibbs turned without another word and jogged to his car.
Tim stood in the open front door and watched the yellow Challenger peel away from the curb and roar down the street. As he was turning to go back inside, he noticed for the first time that the door was hanging awkwardly on its hinges and the frame had been ripped partway away from the wall. He shook his head sadly and looked back toward the kitchen. As much as he knew that he'd have to go to the basement when Fornell arrived, and as close as he'd come to doing it when he first arrived, he didn't want to anymore.
He wanted to go with Gibbs. He wanted to see Tony. He wanted to be with Ducky when he called Palmer and Abby. But he had a job to do, and at that moment, he was the only member of his team who could do it.
He walked back into the kitchen, pressed his back against the wall, and slid to the floor. He sat there for a few moments, just staring at the open basement door, before he lifted his hand and ran his fingers through his hair. He rested his forehead against his arm and closed his eyes.
"God damn it, Tony," he whispered to himself.
He thought of his team again, of how upset Gibbs was and how upset Abby would be when she found out. Maybe he couldn't be with them at the hospital, but he didn't have to be alone. There was still one member of his team he could reach out to. It wasn't just for his own comfort, but for hers, and for everyone else's. If no one told her what had happened, she'd kill them all the moment she found out.
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number almost without looking.
"Good morning, McGee." He had to smile at the sound of her voice, even if it fell away quickly. She obviously wasn't expecting bad news that early in the morning, and she was not going to take this well.
"Tony's hurt." Maybe he should have eased into it, asked her if she was enjoying her vacation, at least tried some small talk, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Besides, Ziva had never been one to insist on sugar-coating or dancing around the truth. She'd want to hear it as directly as possible.
"How badly?" The lightness of familiarity that had been in her voice when she first answered was gone, and in its place was the straight-forward, fact-seeking tone of an investigator. "What happened?"
"Bad," he said. "I didn't see him, but Gibbs was covered in his blood." The gasp on the other end of the line told him that was another one of those things he probably should have eased into, but there was no way to fix it.
"It's bad, Ziva. It's really, really bad."
Chapter Four
The conversation with Ziva was short, and she'd hung up with a promise that she was coming back. He'd half-heartedly tried to talk her out of it, a token protest that neither of them believed. He'd known from the moment he started dialing that she'd be on her way home as soon as she heard what had happened. She needed to be there just as badly as they needed her to be.
He was still sitting against the kitchen wall when Fornell walked through the door ten minutes later. He didn't stand up and greet him, because that would put him that much closer to going into the basement. He'd been mentally preparing himself for the worst since he'd gotten off the phone, but he still wasn't ready.
"Gibbs?" Fornell called out from the living room. "Jethro?"
Tim sighed. He was going to have to deal with Fornell sooner or later, and he was going to have to go down in that basement. Avoiding it wasn't doing anything but delaying the inevitable.
"In here, Agent Fornell."
Fornell walked into the kitchen quickly and looked down at him. "McGee," he said in surprise. "What are you doing here? Where's Gibbs?"
"At the hospital with Tony." He took another deep breath and pushed himself to his feet.
Fornell's expression softened. "How is DiNozzo?" he asked sincerely.
"Alive, last I knew," Tim said. "That was about twenty minutes ago."
Fornell was shocked, and it showed plainly on his face. "All you know is that he's alive?"
Tim shrugged and walked across the room, carefully avoiding the bloody shoe prints and stopping in the same place Gibbs had stood before. He stared down the stairs with the same far-away look in his eyes. "From what I gather, we're lucky to have that much."
"From what you gather?" Fornell stepped closer to him. "You mean you don't know?"
Tim shook his head silently.
"Gibbs didn't tell you what happened?"
Another negative. "Did he tell you?" Tim asked without looking at him.
"Not a damn thing," Fornell admitted with a huff. "All I got was, 'Someone tried to kill DiNozzo. Get your ass over here.'"
Tim had to smile at that, at least a little. "That's more than I got." He looked up and around, noticing for the first time that Fornell was alone. "Where's your team?"
Fornell walked to the basement door but stopped just short of going through it. "Four best agents I've got are on their way. They'll be here soon." He glanced across his shoulder at Tim and gestured at the stairs. "You been down yet?"
Tim shook his head. "Don't really want to, either."
"Do you know what's down there?"
"No idea. It's bad, though. Gibbs had Tony's blood all over him."
Fornell perked up a bit at that, and Tim smirked.
"He showered and changed before he left," he said. "They're in that bag on the table." Fornell glanced back into the dining room as Tim talked. "We knew you'd need them."
"How many people do we have to exclude?"
"Should be four, not counting Tony. Gibbs, Ducky, and two EMTs."
Fornell turned back to face him. "He's damn lucky they found him, huh?"
"Lucky," Tim said with a snort. "Yeah. That's what he is." He sighed and pushed himself away from the counter. "Let's get this over with." He stepped forward, but Fornell's hand on his chest stopped him.
"Bloody footprints on the floor, DiNozzo's blood all over Gibbs, and don't tell me you didn't notice how freaked out your boss is."
Tim nodded slowly.
"Are you ready for this, McGee?"
"No," he answered honestly. "But I don't think it really matters. Do you?"
Fornell nodded and stepped back. Tim gestured at the door.
"After you, Agent Fornell. It's your crime scene."
Fornell's expression was one of pleasant surprise. "It is? Really? You're not going to fight for it?"
Fornell started down the stairs, and Tim followed just a few steps behind. Both were careful to avoid the remains of the footprints that hadn't been destroyed in the rush to get Tony to the hospital.
"By the book," Tim said. "FBI's jurisdiction. Gibbs wants this guy, no mistakes."
"Then why are you here?" Fornell stopped on the stairs and turned to face him.
Tim tilted his head and raised his eyebrows.
"Oh," Fornell said in understanding. "You're babysitting?"
"I'm observing," Tim insisted.
Fornell smirked and started walking again. "I've been doing this for a long time, McGee," he said. "I'm not some damn probie who's going to puke at the sight of blood, and I know what I'm doing. I'm not going to screw it up."
Tim opened his mouth to answer, but the sight of the basement froze the words in his throat.
"Good God."
Fornell stood stock still after his breathless exclamation, so Tim moved past him silently and continued down the stairs. He didn't know what he'd say if he opened his mouth, wasn't really sure that he'd be able to speak at all, so he didn't even try. He scanned the room as objectively as he could, but he knew it was hopeless. No matter how much he'd grown as an investigator, no matter how desensitized to blood and violence he thought he'd become, he still had to fight to hold down the bile rising in his throat.
"You're sure he was alive when he left here?" The skepticism and doubt in Fornell's voice were obvious.
Tim nodded wordlessly as Fornell walked up beside him.
"We're going to find out who did this, McGee."
A sense of deja vu washed across him, and for a second, he was standing in Rob Brewer's garage. He looked at the blood-splattered tools in the toolbox, but instead of Jack Kale's, they were Gibbs'. He heard Brewer's neighbor, the way her voice shook when she talked to them, but then it was Gibbs on the phone, his voice every bit as shaky. He heard himself joking with Palmer about who was going to cut and who was going to catch, and couldn't even imagine Ducky and Gibbs having that conversation about Tony. His heart pounded in his chest, and he blinked, shook his head, and swallowed hard.
"Stefano DelMar."
Fornell turned toward him in surprise. "What? Azari's bodyguard?" Tim nodded again. "Why do you think it's him?"
"Long story," Tim said. The look on Fornell's face said that he needed more than that. "He's tried to kill Tony before."
"When?"
"Baltimore. Ten years ago." Tim couldn't stop staring at the toolbox, couldn't help but take note of which tools were covered in blood, which ones he'd given Gibbs as gifts, which ones Tony had … He swallowed again. "We just started looking into him as a suspect in the Brewer and Strauss murders. I'll give you what we have so far."
Fornell pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket and put them on as he walked deeper into the basement, leaving Tim standing at the bottom of the stairs. "I'll be able to access Gibbs' and Dr. Mallard's fingerprints to exclude them," he said. He stepped up to the toolbox and looked down at it. "I'll need their shoes, though. Did Gibbs leave his in the bag?"
Tim didn't answer. His eyes were moving around the room slowly, and his brain was trying to process it all at once. The puddles of blood on the floor, the remains of the ropes that hung from the ceiling beams, Tony's shoes sitting on the end of Gibbs' workbench …
"McGee?"
The blankets that Gibbs sometimes slept under, blood-splattered, laying on the floor soaking up even more. The wheel tracks the stretcher had left behind in the partially congealed blood. The ghostly, imagined echoes of Tony's screams, bouncing back and forth between walls that had absorbed them all when no one else had heard him …
"McGee? You all right over there?"
The screwdriver set he'd given Gibbs for Christmas the year before, open on the floor, with one screwdriver missing. The antique handsaw that Tony had spent months trying to find - the one he almost hadn't given him because it hadn't been delivered until just before Father's Day - the blade splashed with varying shades of bright red and dark brown, sitting atop the toolbox. The wooden-handled chisels that Abby had given him for his birthday, the hammer that Ziva had given him for the last Marine Corps birthday, the hand plane that Ducky had given him just because. All of them scattered around the spot where Tony had been tortured, all of them spattered and soaked and stained with blood.
Tony's blood.
"Hey!" Suddenly, Fornell was directly in front of him, both hands on his shoulders, shaking him lightly. "Look at me, Tim." He blinked and made his eyes focus on the familiar face. "Are you okay?"
He took a deep breath and forced himself to acknowledge Fornell's concern with a nod.
"You sure? You're not gonna pass out on me, are you?"
He shook his head, and glanced past Fornell to take in the scene one more time. He still couldn't look away, but it didn't have the same effect on him it had only seconds before. He felt his resolve harden, and he straightened his shoulders. For maybe the first time in his life, Tim understood why Gibbs got the way he did when someone threatened the people he cared about, understood the kind of protectiveness that could fuel single-minded obsession, understood what it felt like to have nothing but hatred and a need for revenge coursing through his veins.
Yes, that was Tony's blood on the floor, and the man who put it there was going to pay for every single drop of it.
"We want the bastard, Fornell," he finally said, his voice as low and dangerous as Gibbs' had ever been. Fornell let his hands fall to his sides and took a step back when Tim locked narrowed, hatred-filled eyes on him.
"Do not screw this up."
Tony had finally woken up in the ambulance. It made Gibbs feel somewhat better to know that he'd done it on his own, but according to Ducky, it hadn't been good. He'd fought and struggled with everything he had to get away from the unfamiliar hands, but he was too weak. He'd thrown his head back, and closed his eyes, and screamed.
He'd screamed Gibbs' name. Cried out for Gibbs to help him, to save him, to make it stop, to be there. And he hadn't been.
Again.
It was the one thing that he'd allowed to dominate his thoughts for the past two hours. Focusing on what he hadn't been witness to was keeping his mind from wandering back to the basement, to what he'd seen and what he'd done. What he hadn't done. What he'd allowed to happen.
"Stop that, Jethro." Ducky chided him softly from the chair across from him.
"Stop what?"
"Thinking whatever it is you're thinking." Ducky took a sip of the tea he'd gotten from the vending machine across the hall and made a face. "I will never understand why you Americans insist on calling this disgusting liquid tea. Real tea could not possibly come from a metal box, because it requires …"
"Ducky, please," Gibbs said softly as he closed his eyes. "Not right now."
Ducky nodded. "Of course. My apologies." He stood up, moved to the chair at Gibbs' side, and sat down again. "But my point stands. What happened is bad enough. You wallowing in your imagined missteps isn't making anything better."
"Wallowing, Duck?" he asked, incredulous. "Is that what I'm doing? Wallowing?"
"Is there another word for it?"
Silence descended around them, heavy with words unspoken, until Gibbs broke it again. "I wasn't there."
"But you were, Jethro. When it mattered the most, you were there."
"No, I wasn't!" Gibbs pushed himself out of his chair and crossed the room to the window. "Because if I'd been there, he wouldn't be here."
"You didn't know," Ducky pointed out. "You were at the office, and as far as you knew, Tony was at his apartment. You didn't know what was happening to him."
"I should have."
"How? Are you meant to read minds now?" Ducky sighed. "You found him in time. You saved his life."
"You found him," he argued. "And you saved him. Not me."
Ducky sat up straighter in his chair. "This is what's bothering you?" He sounded angry, and Gibbs didn't blame him. He was angry with himself, too. "Anthony was very near to dying when we walked into that basement, might still well be for all we know, and you're upset because you think you lost some kind of competition?"
"No!" He stared out the window, at the lights of the city below. "I don't know who the person in that basement with you was, Duck, but it sure as hell wasn't me. I was going to cut him down myself, and what? Let him fall? I argued with you about getting the paramedics. I wasn't thinking; I couldn't function. I froze up. I contaminated the crime scene …"
"You were quite rightly upset." Ducky's voice had softened considerably. "As was I. But I do not believe for a moment that you did anything wrong. Anthony's life is more important than any crime scene."
"What if I destroyed the one piece of evidence we needed to convict DelMar? What if I'm the reason we can't get him?"
"Let me worry about that part, Gibbs." Gibbs and Ducky turned toward the door and the two people standing in it. "You worry about DiNozzo."
"Agent Fornell," Ducky said, rising to his feet to greet the new arrivals. "Timothy."
"Hey, Ducky," Tim said in return. He turned his full attention to Gibbs. "How is he?"
"Still in surgery." Gibbs stepped forward and shook Fornell's hand, then looked at Tim. He could see the rawness of pain and anger in the younger agent's eyes, the devastation that he was trying to hide, and he squeezed his upper arm. It wasn't just Tony that he'd abandoned; he'd checked out on Tim, too. Walking into the basement would have been hell, and no one knew that better than he did. He never should have let him go down there unprepared.
"You okay, Tim?"
"Surgery?" Tim's eyes widened. If he'd heard the question he'd been asked, he gave no sign of it. "For what?"
"For their ease and his comfort," Ducky said. "Treatment for his wounds would require a great number of sutures and the rapid infusion of several units of blood. The operating theater is best equipped to perform both of those procedures, in addition to giving them access to anesthesia, which became necessary once he regained consciousness."
"He was awake?" Another new voice, one immediately known to everyone in the room. "That's a good sign, isn't it? He's going to be okay, right? Tell me he's going to be okay, Gibbs."
Gibbs held his arms out to Abby as she crossed the room to him. He wrapped them around her and glanced across her shoulder at the man who'd walked through the door behind her.
"I'm sorry, Agent Gibbs. She insisted on coming. If I hadn't picked her up, she'd have driven herself, and I didn't think …"
"It's okay, Palmer," Gibbs said.
Abby stepped back, grabbed one of Gibbs' hands in both of hers, and looked him in the eye. "You haven't told me yet. Tell me he's going to be all right."
He wanted to answer her. There was nothing he wanted to do more than reassure her that Tony was going to be fine, but he couldn't, because he didn't know. He didn't know if they'd been able to stop the blood loss in time, didn't know if they were replacing it fast enough, didn't know if he had any other injuries that they didn't know about yet. He didn't know what was under the bruises on his chest and head, didn't know if his throat had swollen closed or if he was still breathing on his own, didn't know if his heart was still beating.
He didn't know anything except that his shower hadn't gotten all of Tony's blood out from under his fingernails, and that with Abby holding his hand, he was suddenly aware of just how much of it was still there.
Ducky noticed his difficulty and stepped forward. "Abigail," he said gently. "Anthony's condition is very serious, and I'm afraid that we do not yet know the full extent of it. But he is in the very best of hands right now, and I'm certain the doctor will be along any moment."
"Okay," she said. She let go of Gibbs' hand reluctantly and stepped away. "Okay."
It was plain that Abby was anything but okay, and everyone in the waiting room knew it. Tim ran his hand up and down her back, Palmer rubbed her arm, and Ducky reached for her hand. None of them were okay, either, and it showed. And Gibbs couldn't do anything to help them. None of them. No matter how much he wanted to. Because the truth was that he was the least okay person in the room. He turned away from them and looked out the window again.
"Gibbs?"
He'd forgotten that Fornell was there. He turned at the summons, saw the notepad in the FBI agent's hand, and sighed.
"Now?" he asked tiredly. "Really? It can't wait?"
Fornell shook his head sadly. "You know it can't. I need it while it's still fresh in your mind."
"I'm never going to forget it, Tobias," he insisted. "Ask me tomorrow, or next week, or next year. It'll still be there."
Abby's eyes started filling with tears, and Palmer and Tim stared at him in open shock. Gibbs sighed deeply and looked down at his hands again. Ducky seemed to be the only one unaffected by the uncharacteristically candid declaration. "Abigail, Mr. Palmer, would you accompany me to the cafeteria?" he asked, leading them toward the door as he did. "I missed dinner this evening, and I'm afraid this old body is beginning to feel the effects."
They both nodded and went with him silently. He looked back over his shoulder, and Gibbs forced himself to give the older man a tight smile of gratitude.
"Timothy? Will you be coming with us?"
Tim looked back and forth between Ducky and Gibbs, almost as though he was considering it, but he shook his head. "I'll be down in a bit, Ducky. Think I'm gonna stay here for a while."
"I'll be wanting to talk to you, too, Dr. Mallard," Fornell said.
"Very well," Ducky said. "You know where I'll be when you need me."
Gibbs didn't know if those words were meant for Fornell or him. He didn't know if Tim was staying because he'd ordered him to supervise the investigation or because he didn't think Gibbs could handle the questioning alone. Normally, he'd have been angry about those two things; at that moment, he really didn't care.
As soon as the other three were gone from the door, Fornell turned to face him. "You want to sit down?"
"Why?" he asked. "Is it going to make it any easier?"
Fornell shook his head, and Tim spoke up. "Boss, please. You know this has to happen. You're the best witness he's got. If you really want to get DelMar …"
"I'll stand," he said, cutting off Tim's speech. It wasn't like he hadn't heard it a hundred times, hadn't said it to a thousand witnesses himself. "I'm fine." He took a deep breath and leaned back against the windowsill. Tim and Fornell both turned chairs to face him and sat down. "What'd you get at the house?"
"A lot," Fornell said. "We had to collect most of your tools. I'm sorry about that, but we'll get them back to you as soon as we can."
"Take them all if you think it'll help," he said. "Keep them. I don't think I'll use them again anyway."
"The blood evidence goes without saying." Fornell continued on like Gibbs hadn't interrupted. "We sampled everything, took pictures of all the footprints, both upstairs and down. We dusted for fingerprints, but I've got a feeling all of them are going to be eliminated once we cross-check them against your team."
"Probably," Gibbs admitted.
"DiNozzo's shoes and jacket, the rope from the ceiling and what was left on the floor. Agent McGee tells me that it might be the same rope used on Brewer and Strauss."
Gibbs looked at Tim. "Mold?"
Tim nodded quickly. "Looked like it. The lab will tell us for sure."
"Abby will," Gibbs said. Fornell tilted his head, and Gibbs locked eyes with him. "She's the best forensic scientist in D.C., Tobias, and you know it. Besides, she already knows what she's looking for."
"You think she can handle it? With DiNozzo being the …"
"She's stronger than you give her credit for," Tim put in. "And she'll be really mad if you don't send it to her. Really, really mad."
Fornell nodded. "Okay, so the interview …"
"Did you find the gag?" Gibbs asked suddenly. He wasn't trying to postpone the questions, not really. At least, that's what he told himself. "Because I threw it, but I don't know where it ended up."
"We found it," Fornell said.
"I stepped in the blood."
'Focus on the details. Don't look at the bigger picture.'
"I left my shoes in the bag with my clothes."
"We've got them."
"Ducky cut the rope with my knife." He patted himself down quickly, ashamed that he had no conscious memory of where it had gone. "I don't have it. I must have left it in my pocket."
"We've got it, Gibbs," Fornell insisted.
"They got everything, Boss," Tim added. "I promise."
"Everything but the witness statements."
He took a deep breath and crossed his arms. Why was he trying so hard to put this off? If they were going to catch DelMar, they needed every piece of evidence they could get. What he'd seen was an important part of that, and he knew it. What the hell was wrong with him?
"Okay," he finally said.
'You can do this, Gunny.'
He cleared his throat and wiped at the sweat he felt starting to form on his forehead. "Let's go."
"Okay. So when did you know that someone was in your house?" It was a good first question, easy to answer.
"When I turned the corner and DiNozzo's car was there. Oh, did you …?"
"It's on a truck, and it'll be on its way to your evidence garage within the hour," Fornell said. "Can we stay on focus here, Gibbs?"
'Suck it up, Marine. You're not the one who's hurt. You can do this.'
He closed his eyes and made himself go back there. Made himself think of all the things he'd been trying to forget. He could see it all, everything, against the backs of his eyelids. Every detail, just as it had been - the crooked door, the dark house, the sound of running feet, the bloody footprints, the open basement door, the blood, the rope, and DiNozzo … DiNozzo …
'Tony …'
"I can't do this," he whispered. No one was more surprised by the words than he was, but once he'd said them, he didn't want to take them back. "Not right now, Tobias. I can't." He pushed away from the window and crossed the room. "At least wait until he's out of surgery. At least wait until we know …"
"No." Fornell jumped up and put himself between Gibbs and the door. "I need to know what you saw. And I know it sucks, but we do this to people every day. Are you telling me you're a worse witness than they are?"
"I'm telling you that I can't do this right now." He forced the words out through clenched teeth. He needed some time to catch his breath; that was all. Why was it so hard to just breathe?
"I could do what you did to Jack Kale. Remember that, Gibbs? You need me to remind you that he was tortured with your …?"
"Don't."
There was a threat there, even if he didn't know what he'd do if Fornell kept going. Yes, he remembered what he'd done to Jack Kale, and he already hated himself for doing it. It had never occurred to him what his words would do to an innocent man, the pain they would cause to a victim's friend, until he realized that those same words could be used against him.
"Do you want me to catch this guy or not?"
"Of course I do!"
"Then talk to me." Fornell's voice was sympathetic but insistent. "Tell me what you saw when you walked down the stairs."
"You know what I saw."
"No, Boss, we don't," Tim said softly. He stood and walked toward them. "We can imagine what you saw. We can guess what you saw. But we don't know, and we really need to."
"Look, if you can't describe it, then draw it." Fornell held his notepad and pencil out. "You know that basement better than anyone. You know the measurements, and you know how to sketch a crime scene. Draw it for me."
"I'm not sketching anything." Gibbs pushed the notepad away from him. "I'm not drawing him like that."
"Like what?" Fornell asked. "Where was he? Where was DiNozzo when you came down those stairs?"
"He was …" He wanted to answer them; he did. He just couldn't get the words past his lips. He shook his head and turned away again, rubbing at the sudden ache in his chest.
"Gibbs." It was Tim this time, stepping around him, cutting off his escape. "He'd want you to do this, and you know he would. Until he wakes up again …"
'If he wakes up again.'
"You're the best chance we've got of catching this son of a bitch, but you have to talk to us. You have to tell us what you saw."
"They crucified him!"
The words exploded from his mouth, and the horror of them spread through him. That was what he'd been trying to avoid doing, and damn them for making him. He stepped toward Tim in anger, and to his credit, Tim didn't back away.
But the dam had finally broken. All of the emotions he'd tried so hard not to feel, all of the images that he'd tried so hard to block out of his mind, they were all pouring out of him faster and with more violence than he'd expected. There was no going back now, no pushing them away again. He couldn't deny the truth about any of it, not anymore, and he couldn't stop it.
"Is that what you want to hear, McGee?" he demanded. "I thought he was dead! I was supposed to have his six, I always say I do, but I didn't. And he was hanging there, covered in blood, and I swear to God, I didn't think he was breathing. They tortured him, cut him up and left him there, and when I got there - when I finally got there - I froze up. I just stood there. If it hadn't been for Ducky, I'd still be standing there! Is that what you needed to know?”ac
He saw the tears in Tim's eyes, and he knew that he was hurting him again, but even that wasn't enough to stop him.
"I screwed up, and I almost watched him die!"
His vision flashed red and then white, his knees buckled, and he stumbled. Someone grabbed his arms and helped him sit down. Something was squeezing his chest, and he couldn't breathe. Something was wrong with his heart - it was beating too fast and it hurt. Someone pushed his head down, and someone yelled for Ducky, but he didn't care. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.
He'd left Tony behind. He'd given him up for dead.
And he might have to do it again.
Part Three