Chapter eight

By Monday morning, Ziva had been released from the hospital. Her face was still a patchwork of bruises, and the wound on the back of her head had been stitched together and was covered in gauze, but she was on her feet and back at NCIS.

“You really should take a day’s leave, my dear,” said Ducky, standing in front of her desk.

“I am fine, Doctor,” she said. “They woke me several times throughout the night, and I was not disoriented – so they discharged me. Is that not enough evidence?”

“I’m fairly certain they gave you instructions to go home and rest for the day,” Ducky said. “I once knew of a young lad who fell and hit his head, concussing himself rather badly – he refused to rest afterwards and—”

“Ziva!”

Abby came bounding into the bullpen, and threw her arms around Ziva. Gibbs noted that even Abby was starting to look quite haggard, despite her heavy makeup. There were lines that shouldn’t be on Abby’s face, and she looked pale, even for her.

Gibbs saw Ziva’s wince, but she hid before Abby drew back to look at her.

“I was so worried,” Abby said. “When McGee told me that you’d been hurt—he said you’d be fine, but I didn’t know and I had to see for myself and with Tony already—I just—I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Her voice broke several times as she spoke. Gibbs realized she was holding back tears. McGee, who’d been watching from his desk, stood and came over. He pulled Abby gently by the shoulder.

“Let’s give Ziva some room,” he said, voice soft.

Abby looked up at McGee, and she looked on the verge of saying something else – something scathing – but then her face crumbled and she buried her head in McGee’s shoulder, letting the tears fall in quiet sobs. McGee wrapped his arms around her.

Ducky patted her back as well, murmuring gently to her. Gibbs thought about standing up to console her as well, but he knew it would make little difference. There was only one person Abby really wanted right now, and he wasn’t there. He felt the stabs at his own heart at the thought, the thick feeling in his throat.

“I’m sorry,” Abby said after a few minutes, once her sobs had turned into hitched breathing, fresh tears still falling but quietly. “I shouldn’t have—”

McGee kissed her forehead, still holding her and looking like he definitely didn’t want to let go.

“It’s okay,” he said.

“Yes, yes,” Ducky said quietly. “It’s quite all right. It’s what we’re all feeling.”

Abby looked slightly doubtful. “I just want him back.”

McGee ran a hand over her cheek, fingers wiping away the tears. He surprised Gibbs by saying, “Yeah. We all do.”

Gibbs had never doubted the love his team had for each other. They had shown their bonds of trust and camaraderie on many occasions, and when one of them had been gone, for one reason or another, it had been noted. Tony when he’d been on sick leave after the plague, Kate when she’d died, and then all of them when Director Vance had split them up and sent them to the four corners of the earth. When McGee and Ziva had been returned but Tony’s desk still stood empty, his absence had been sorely noted.

Still, they had never been vocal about it. Tony’s relationship with McGee had always been one of Senior Field Agent versus the Probie, and the pranks pulled had been merciless. As McGee developed, as a field agent and as a human being, he managed to stand up more and more to Tony, their teasing getting more on the same level.

But Gibbs hadn’t once heard McGee say that he so much as liked Tony.

Abby sniffed, wiped away the last of her tears – her makeup was running down her cheeks – and pulled away from McGee. Gibbs chose that moment to snap at them.

“McGee, what happened with the bastard I shot yesterday?”

“Time for us to go, my dear,” Ducky said, and he and Abby walked out of the bullpen, leaving Gibbs with Ziva and McGee.

McGee returning to his computer to get a photo of the man on the plasma. “He, a Mr. Henry McCord, was treated for a gunshot wound to the shoulder at Bethesda. He’s still in recovery with guards posted outside the door. When he’s recovered enough, he’ll be transferred, to await trial for money laundering and assault. Maybe more; the LEOs are looking into it. He’s already been convicted and served time twice for battery and assault.”

Gibbs glanced at Ziva, who was looking blandly at the photo of her attacker.

“David,” he said. “What happened yesterday?”

She straightened. “I went there to interview Alan Richie. When I came inside and showed my badge, he turned hostile and refused to answer anything. I was going to leave, to report back to you, when something hard hit me over the head. It must have been McCord, coming from behind. I blacked out, and when I woke again, I was tied up in the room where you found me. They wanted to know what I knew.”

“About what?” McGee asked.

“As far as I could tell, a money laundry ring,” Ziva said.

She didn’t sound like herself. Gibbs knew she didn’t like perceiving herself as weak – no one did, but most especially not Ziva David, Mossad Officer. She also rarely got hurt. When she’d been undercover with Tony, he had taken the hits, and when the drugged up Corporal had taken a swing at her, she had been the one of them, other than Gibbs, who’d gotten the least hurt. Nearly getting murdered at Hoffman’s hand had shaken her to the core, and she had gotten hurt over the summer, at the end of the undercover mission that had ended with her getting blown up in a bar – perhaps she was truly starting to face her own mortality. It might be a good thing, as long as she didn’t start doubting herself, as she had with the Hoffman case.

“We’re going to let the LEOs take care of that,” Gibbs said. “There’s nothing for us.”

“I would like to know what happens with it,” Ziva said.

“You’ll know,” McGee said. “They’ll call you to the trial for your testimony.”

Ziva nodded, and then hid a wince at the pain the motion caused.

“Do we have any other suspects?” Gibbs asked.

“The serial killer?” McGee asked.

“No, McGee,” Gibbs snapped, “for the Easter Bunny.”

“Uh, um, sorry, boss,” McGee said. “There are a couple. Nothing that really stands out.”

“Go check them out,” Gibbs said. “Together. I don’t want either of you to go anywhere without backup right now, got it?”

McGee nodded. “Got it.”

Ziva stood, albeit gingerly. She wore a long-sleeved shirt, but Gibbs saw the bruises around her wrists, left by the tight rope that had bound her hands together.

They left, their pace a bit slower than usual. Gibbs didn’t growl at them for it.

He had already begun to worry about Tony’s absence when the man appeared. It was nearing eleven thirty, and Ziva and McGee had been gone for an hour and a half. Gibbs hadn’t seen Tony since the previous evening at Bethesda, which was the longest he’d gone without the ghost since he’d first appeared.

“Is Ziva all right?” he asked, before he’d even faded in completely.

Gibbs nodded, as inconspicuously as he could, just in case someone was watching him work on the computer. Vance had a tendency to watch him and his team on occasion, from the second floor. The directors of NCIS seemed to have the bad habit of poking their noses in where they didn’t belong, lately.

“Good,” Tony breathed. “I was worried. I mean, she looked okay last night, but—”

“You were there?” Gibbs asked, whispering very quietly. Tony picked the words up; his ghost had as good a hearing as the solid version.

“Yeah,” Tony said. “You were sleeping when I—you know, popped in. So I checked on the others, like you asked me to. Ziva was sleeping – they woke her up and asked her questions, and she was answering them just fine. Couldn’t see me anymore either. Then I went to Abby, and—she wasn’t alone.”

Gibbs’ gaze was on the computer, but his attention was on Tony. He frowned slightly in question at Tony’s words.

“McGee was there, boss,” Tony grinned. “All cuddled up with her in the coffin. Geek love all ‘round. Can you imagine what kind of IQ their kid’ll have? We’re talking genius. Nerdy genius, probably – although with Abby as a mom—”

Gibbs glanced up, the glare brief but enough to get the point across.

“Shutting up, boss,” Tony said, though he was still smiling. Gibbs had to admit that the idea of McGee and Abby finally finding their way back to each other was smile-worthy, but he’d never say so out loud, ever. Besides, it explained the easy comfort McGee had managed to give Abby earlier.

Gibbs stood, striding over to the back elevator. He had used the conference room enough times to know it was time to go some place else, or someone might get curious.

He flipped the emergency switch on the elevator, Tony materializing beside him.

“Guess you want to be able to talk, huh?” Tony asked.

Gibbs wanted to be able to do a lot more than that. He had lost count of how many times he’d imagined flipping the emergency switch with Tony in the elevator, to be able to push him against the wall and ravish him.

He pushed the thoughts aside; they didn’t help.

“Can you give me anything to work with?” he asked instead.

“I told you, it’s all fuzzy,” Tony said apologetically.

“You could tell when you were about to leave yesterday,” Gibbs said. “Just give me something.”

He didn’t like the pleading note in his own voice, but he couldn’t help it. They were nowhere, and they were running out of time. Within days, the body of Gregory Williams would show up, and Tony’s body could turn up at any given moment. It was just a phone call away; one dreaded, horrid phone call.

“The leaving thing—it’s just like something’s kind of dragging me away,” Tony said. “It pulls at me, and then it takes me. I just had to learn what it felt like. I’m new to the whole ghost thing too.”

Gibbs wanted to slam his fist into the wall of the elevator again. The last time, it had left a dent in the wall. This time he managed to restrain himself. God, they needed help. They needed help, they needed information, and they needed it all now. Gibbs needed to know more about Tony being a ghost, because perhaps that held clues that they could use. He didn’t even know where to start to look for such information.

“We need something, DiNozzo,” he said. “We’re running blind.”

“I wish I could help, boss—”

“Then help!” Gibbs exclaimed.

“How?” Tony snapped back, anger flaring in his eyes. “Tell me how, and I’ll help you, Gibbs. Just say the word. I’m the ghost here – I’m the one who’s missing and probably dead – do you really think I don’t want to help?”

He was yelling at the end of it, chest heaving, and Gibbs wondered if ghosts needed to breathe. They were standing close, inches apart, but Tony’s ghostly being emitted no warmth.

“Damn it, DiNozzo,” Gibbs swore, pulling back, fingers clenching into fists.

Tony’s shoulders slumped, and when he spoke again, it was barely more than a whisper. “I wish I could help, boss. I really do. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever wished for anything more in my life.”

He fell silent, and they looked at each other for several long moments. Gibbs couldn’t read Tony; a mess of emotions swirled in the hazel eyes – anger, despair, fear. Tony’s hope was waning, just as Gibbs’ was. The likelihood that they’d find Tony alive was so small by now it should be down to single digit percents.

“Sorry I failed, boss,” Tony said quietly. “I know you wouldn’t have been taken the way I did. You’d have realized someone was there. But I never had your instincts.”

Gibbs frowned. “You have better instincts than any other agent I’ve ever worked with.”

Tony’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Praise, boss? I must really be dead.”

“Don’t joke about it,” Gibbs snapped.

Tony held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry.”

They were silent for a few moments, the tension having lessened slightly.

“You should probably go back,” Tony said. “Someone else might want to use the elevator.”

“There are stairs,” Gibbs said.

“Yeah, well, people apparently like to be able to use the elevator,” Tony said, flashing a quick grin.

Gibbs flicked the switch. He knew people got pissed with him for using the elevator as a conference room, but people got pissed with him for so many things that it had never mattered.

“You sticking around?” Gibbs asked as the elevator began to move again.

“For now, I guess,” Tony said. “Can’t really tell until a few seconds before I leave.”

Gibbs nodded. “Go check on the Ziva and McGee.”

“One useful thing with this,” Tony said, smiling slightly one last time before fading out.

Gibbs wondered if he’d ever get used to that; it was so far beyond the rules of his reality. People were supposed to be either alive or dead, not anything in between, and especially not some partly opaque version of in between.

The doors opened at the level for Abby’s lab, and Gibbs decided that he might as well stop by. He found Abby by the computer, fingers flying across the keys.

“Abs?” he said, walking in.

“Gibbs!” she said. “I don’t have anything for you, I didn’t call you.”

“I know,” Gibbs said. “Just checking up on you.”

Abby smiled at that, but Gibbs noted that the smile was still watery. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close.

“Where’s Ziva?” she asked.

“Out,” Gibbs said. “Checking out a few galleries.”

“Not alone, right?” Abby asked, eyes widening. “Not after yesterday, you didn’t leave her alone, did you?”

Gibbs shook his head. “McGee’s with her.”

Abby took a deep breath. “Oh. Good.”

“What are you working on?” Gibbs asked.

“Another case,” Abby said. “Just trying to find as much information as I can on a specific kind of beetle that they found on the scene.”

Gibbs frowned. Abby was searching for information – something she was extremely good at. Abby knew a little bit of everything, she had an open mind, and if there was anyone Gibbs knew who could find things out, it was her.

Perhaps she was the place to start for him to find some of the information he needed.

“Abby,” he said.

“Yeah?”

He took a deep breath. “What do you know about ghosts?”

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