Chapter seven

The area, rundown but filled with little shops and galleries with cheap art, was a maze. They managed to get through it quickly enough because Gibbs swerved between the other cars without ever moving his foot to the brake. Upon reaching Richie’s gallery, Gibbs parked the car illegally, not caring even a little bit.

Guns drawn, they went into the little gallery. It was more like a shop, with posters and paintings mixed and mashed. There were no customers, for which Gibbs was glad.

Behind the counter, there was a narrow corridor to a little room, and to the right, there was a staircase.

“Up there,” Tony said.

Still, they had to clear the room, and only once that was done – there was no one in there either – did Gibbs and McGee, with Tony already ahead of them, move up the stairs. They were met with a door, which Tony floated right through.

The sound of a man yelling floated through the door. Gibbs heard someone groan.

Tony came back out.

“Two men, one on the right with a gun, one hitting Ziva,” he said.

Gibbs nodded to McGee to stand on the other side of the door. He saw McGee swallow and focus, and he knew he’d rather have Tony as backup, but there was little to do about that. Besides, Tony was doing good for being incorporeal.

He kicked the door open with one efficient foot, and both men inside jumped and leveled their guns at Gibbs and McGee. Without having to think much, Gibbs put a bullet through the man on the right’s shoulder, and he dropped his gun on the floor, screaming. Another shot rang off, and the one that had been hitting Ziva fell to the floor, a pool of blood spreading from a chest wound. Guttural noises came from the man, drawn-out seconds passing before he stilled.

“He was going to shoot you, boss,” McGee breathed, gun still trained on the man.

“You did good, McGee,” Gibbs said.

He hurried inside, gun still pointed at the one he’d shot, and Gibbs cuffed the bastard tightly. No matter how much he needed to tend to Ziva, he first needed to make sure they were safe and secure, that both men were down for the count, and that there were no others in the room, coming to surprise them. With two fingers to the man McGee had shot’s neck, he concluded the man was seconds away from death. He wasn’t breathing anymore, and the large pool of blood empathized the fact.

“Call for backup,” he instructed McGee. “And get an ambulance here.”

“Gibbs?” Ziva’s voice floated across the room.

“This place is clear,” Tony said, floating over after having done a quick sweep.

Gibbs took his word for it; he would have done so if Tony had been corporeal, so why not when he wasn’t?

He kneeled in front of Ziva. Her hands were tied behind her back, and he undid them by cutting through the rope with his knife. She was conscious and breathing, but bleeding from a wound on the back of her head. Her face was a mess of bruises, her lip split.

“It was not him,” she said softly. “He did other things—I believe he murdered a woman. I should work, Gibbs—I need to—”

She didn’t seem completely coherent, which wasn’t unexpected with the combination of a hit to the head and blood loss. Even with her training, which had most likely included lessons on getting through torture, she wasn’t immune to her body’s reactions upon getting hurt.

“You did fine, Officer David,” Gibbs said. “Now just sit still and stay awake, and the ambulance will be here soon.”

“Ambulance on its way, ETA is two minutes,” McGee said, looking worried. “Is she okay?”

Gibbs didn’t get a chance to answer, because Ziva lifted her head and looked up. Her face wrinkled in a frown.

“Tony?”

She was staring at the space just behind Gibbs. Tony was standing there, his face the picture of surprise, his mouth hanging open. Gibbs glanced at him very briefly, pretending not to see anything, for McGee’s benefit.

Tony floated forward and kneeled by Ziva.

She reached out, but her hand went straight through him.

The EMTs rushed in at that moment, gurneys carried between them. The perpetrator that Gibbs had shot would need to go to the hospital as well, though he’d go with his hands cuffed and a police officer by his side at all times.

When they attempted to move Ziva onto the stretcher, she protested.

“I do not need that,” she mumbled. “I am fine.”

“Ma’am—you’re bleeding,” began one of the EMTs, but Ziva didn’t listen. She just kept protesting, weakly fighting off the personnel.

“Come on, Ziva,” Tony said. “It’s for your own good. Just go with them.”

She frowned at him, a deep grimace beneath the layers of bruises that were starting to turn blue.

“Tony,” she said.

“I’ll stay with you, if you don’t talk about me, okay?” Tony said.

Gibbs watched them interact, trying to focus on Ziva so that McGee and the EMTs didn’t start to wonder.

“Who’s Tony, sir?” asked one of the EMTs, looking around.

“Uh, team mate,” McGee responded, when Gibbs didn’t. “He’s missing.”

“Well, ma’am,” said the EMT, “we really need to get you to the hospital.”

Tony smiled encouragingly at Ziva. “I’m coming with you, and I hate hospitals, so you should go there just to annoy me.”

She smiled weakly at that, and finally gave up her fight against the EMTs. Gibbs listened as Tony kept instructing her not to talk about him, even as they took her down the stairs and out to the waiting ambulance.

The local LEOs took care of the dead body, although Gibbs knew there’d be paper work for both McGee and himself because of the shots fired. There was always paperwork.

He flipped his phone open and hit speed dial number four. Ducky answered on the second ring.

“Ziva’s going to Bethesda,” he said without preamble.

“Oh dear,” Ducky said. “What happened?”

“She was following a lead,” Gibbs said. “Stumbled across something else.”

“She didn’t have backup?” Ducky asked.

“No,” Gibbs said, snapping even though he knew it was far from Ducky’s fault that Ziva had gotten into the situation.

He heard Ducky sigh. “I’ll meet you at Bethesda.”

Gibbs hung up, slipping the phone back into his pocket.

“McGee!”

McGee looked up from talking to one of the police officers. He came over, looking pale and anxious. The shadows of tiredness had increased.

“We’re going to Bethesda,” Gibbs said. “This isn’t our case.”

One was dead an the other one was injured – as far as Gibbs was concerned, he didn’t care much about what crimes they had committed. He’d ask Abby to run their names and fingerprints through the databases to see if he got any hits, but he knew he had to focus on getting his team back, rather than run off on some stray case.

He drove almost as fast to the hospital as he had driven to Richie’s gallery.

“She has a concussion,” Ducky said once they were all in the hospital’s waiting area. “They’re keeping her overnight for observation, but she should be fine. They did a head CT and found no bleeding.”

“She was confused,” Gibbs said.

“That is to be expected,” Ducky said. “Disorientation, confusion and dizziness are all associated with concussions. She will need rest, but she’ll be fine, I assure you.”

Gibbs paced back and forth. He couldn’t settle – hatred towards himself for his failures grew within. Past failures welled up, and he saw Shannon and Kelly flashing before his eyes, smiles and giggles turning into blood and death. He remembered Tony’s blue lips as he struggled to breathe in the isolation chamber of Bethesda, life hanging by a thread. He remembered the feeling of Kate’s warm blood on him, his own body growing cold even as she fell to the ground, moving in slow motion. He saw Jenny’s broken body, red hair and red blood.

He saw hazel eyes staring sightlessly at him from a limp body, imagination supplying him with the image of what Tony would look like when they finally found him.

“Jethro,” said Ducky, a hand landing on Gibbs’ arm. “This isn’t your fault.”

Gibbs didn’t respond, the sound escaping him more of a snarl than anything civilized. Ducky drew back, frowning deeply at him.

“I’ll go check if we can see her yet,” Ducky said softly, although his gaze was disapproving.

Gibbs continued to pace, the room feeling entirely too small. McGee sat on one of the plastic chairs, appearing uncomfortable and trying not to look at Gibbs at all. McGee’s face was as white as the walls behind him, and even from a distance, Gibbs could see his hands shaking. Gibbs wondered if he felt guilty as well.

“They’ve bandaged her up good,” Tony said, appearing in front of Gibbs. He looked drawn, with lines of anxiety creasing around his eyes and mouth.

Gibbs gave a very small nod, continuing to pace. He couldn’t respond, not here, where McGee sat a few feet away, other visitors sat waiting for news, and doctors and nurses passed.

“She saw me, boss,” Tony said, quietly. “She could see me. Hear me. She looked right at me and talked to me. And then after a while, she just—couldn’t anymore.”

He sounded desolate, as though he’d lost something. Gibbs supposed he had – Ziva being able to see him, if only briefly, was dangling more of the world that he couldn’t interact with in front of him.

Ducky returned. “We may see her for a few minutes. She’s been medicated, and will likely fall asleep soon.”

“Where?” Gibbs asked.

“Room three-sixty-four,” Ducky said.

Gibbs passed him, nodding his thanks, and possibly including a bit of an apology in his stance. He heard McGee shuffle to stand and walk behind him, but didn’t wait for him to catch up.

As Tony had said, Ziva had been bandaged. There was gauze covering half her face, and the other half was bruised and blue. She looked groggy, not quite aware of her surroundings. It was highly unusual to see her this way; her Mossad training hardly ever allowed her to relax.

Tony had already moved to stand beside her. She turned her head to look at Gibbs as he came in, but he noticed that she’d been looking at Tony before.

“Gibbs,” she said, her voice thick.

Gibbs could see that she was fighting to keep her eyes open. He reached out and squeezed her shoulder in reassurance.

“Relax,” he said. “We’ve got you.”

She frowned, grimacing at the pain it brought on. “We?”

She looked to the other side, gaze traveling over Tony. Tony in turn looked nervous beneath the intensity of her eyes. Finally, without turning back to Gibbs, she allowed her eyelids to drift shut, and within moments, she was sleeping.

Gibbs heard McGee standing in the doorway.

“Find out what’s happening to the bastard I shot,” Gibbs said, without turning around. “I want him locked up.”

“Y-yes, boss,” McGee said.

The look on McGee’s face made Gibbs’ stop short. He didn’t praise his agents very often, but McGee looked on the verge of falling apart. Gibbs had to remind himself that McGee wasn’t like the rest of them – he didn’t kill and shrug it off.

“McGee,” he said, and McGee raised his gaze.

“Yeah, boss?” McGee said softly.

“You did good today,” Gibbs said. “You did exactly what you were supposed to.”

He wished it wasn’t so hard to say the words; sometimes, he wanted to be able to give support as easily as he could give someone a dressing down.

But the words seemed to work as they were intended – McGee’s shoulders relaxed just slightly, and some of the anguish faded.

“Thank you, boss,” McGee said.

He left, the door shutting behind him. Gibbs sat down heavily in the chair, the adrenaline leaving him.

“She told me part of her Mossad training was to be open to things she couldn’t see, or even understand,” Tony said. “Back on the Chimera. When we thought there were ghosts.”

Gibbs remembered, even though Ziva had said little out loud about it when he was present. She obviously knew what he thought of supernatural explanations, and had kept them to a minimum. He wondered what he would have thought about the situation on the Chimera now, with the ghost of Tony standing right across from him. Though he didn’t like it, he might have to be more open minded now.

“I scoffed at her when she said it,” Tony continued, a rueful smile on his lips. “Things have changed since.”

“Yeah,” Gibbs said, finally in closed off enough quarters to be able to respond to Tony.

“At least I was of some use today,” Tony sighed. “This incorporeal thing is kind of annoying, but—well, walking through walls—practical on occasion.”

“Yeah,” Gibbs said again. He couldn’t find the words, didn’t know what to say. Today, Tony’s ghostly abilities had proven very useful, but Gibbs would give pretty much anything to have him back to normal.

“You’ll find me, boss,” Tony said quietly.

“Didn’t say anything,” Gibbs said.

“Didn’t have to,” Tony replied. There was a tiny smile at the corner of his mouth, but although Tony’s eyes were filled with trust, there was little hope in them. The two obviously battled for dominance in Tony’s head – his confidence that Gibbs could do anything, which didn’t seem to have diminished at all since Tony started working at NCIS nearly eight years ago, versus the knowledge that the longer a person was missing, the more likely it was that he or she would turn up dead. Besides, he was a ghost. It seemed kind of a requisite for him to be dead for that to happen.

Gibbs exhaled in a sigh, gaze passing over Ziva, resting peacefully, to Tony, who looked distraught rather than calm.

“Don’t send them out without backup again, boss,” Tony said softly, his eyes too trained on Ziva.

“Don’t intend to,” Gibbs said. “When you’re here, I want you to regularly check up on everyone on the team.”

Tony nodded. “No problem. As long as those are the only ones I should check.”

“What?” Gibbs asked, brow furrowing.

Tony gave a very small shrug. “I tried to go see my dad. You know, no traveling cost, wouldn’t have to deal with actually talking to him and listen to how much of a failure he thinks I am—I just thought I’d see him.”

He trailed off, and Gibbs raised an eyebrow in question, silently communicating him to continue.

“I couldn’t get to him,” Tony said. “I just kind of bounced back, like when I tried to find my body.”

“He wasn’t just too far away?” Gibbs asked. This was yet a new curveball in the rules and regulations of ghosts. Gibbs liked rules, especially his own, and he liked breaking others’ rules, but for that, he needed to know them. In this case, he didn’t.

“No, I don’t think so,” Tony said. “After that, I tried just going to see a friend of mine in town. Didn’t work.”

“So who can you go to?” Gibbs asked.

“You, obviously,” Tony said. “Ziva, McGee, Abby, and Ducky. I tried Palmer too, and I managed for a really short time, but he seems to be the outer limit to this thing.”

“But you could go to your apartment?” Gibbs asked.

Tony nodded. “My apartment and headquarters, even without any of you there. But those are the only places, otherwise I’m bound to you guys.”

Gibbs sighed. “I need a rulebook.”

“You and me both,” Tony said, smiling slightly. “And I’m still waiting for the superpowers to kick in. I mean, what’s the use of being a ghost if I don’t have superpowers? I’d really like some x-ray vision, or maybe super strength—”

“DiNozzo,” Gibbs snapped.

Tony grinned. “What kind of super power would you like?”

“The ability to slap incorporeal smartasses,” Gibbs muttered.

Tony chuckled. “I’m sure you’d like that, but I’m taking advantage of this.”

“I noticed,” Gibbs said.

Tony grimaced suddenly, as though something was hurting him. He looked up at Gibbs.

“Back later,” he said, and then he was gone, the room suddenly empty.

Gibbs forced away the dull ache Tony’s sudden departures always left. It felt like he had failed a little each time; each time Tony disappeared was another few hours spent without finding him, without getting necessary answers. They needed answers – more answers, better answers, than what they had.

Gibbs stood, gazing out the window at the darkening skies outside. The sun stood low, and watching Ziva in silence, Gibbs felt as though the dark shadows were eating away at the light. They were being swallowed whole by something larger, and he hated the helpless feeling that swept over him with the knowledge that he had failed to protect two of his team members.

He closed his eyes briefly and then left, leaving Ziva to rest and get well.

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