On Monday morning he comes back into the office but Gibbs sends him straight down to Ducky. Ducky clucks and tells stories and takes his blood pressure and temperature. He checks the wound and rebandages it, warning Tony against using the arm for anything; no lifting, no carrying, no writing, then tightens the sling to make sure Tony won’t. Tony returns reluctantly to the bullpen to begin four long weeks of desk duty.

He sits down at his desk. Gibbs walks over, scrutinizing him and it’s the first time he’s really spent with Gibbs in a week. Since he was shot.

The team stood around the car parked a few houses down from their suspect’s, strapping on the protection vests.

“DiNozzo, McGee take the back. David, you’re with me.” Gibbs said as they approached. All three nodded, McGee following Tony around to the back of the one-storey house. They heard the crash as Gibbs kicked in the door and Tony followed suit, charging through the back door. He and McGee split up, clearing the back of the house. He heard McGee’s ‘clear!’ from the spare bedroom and headed into the main bedroom. To be met with their suspect, his face identical to the one in the file photo.

“NCIS, freeze!” Tony yelled, gun poised in front of him. The man stopped, then whipped out a pistol from the back of his pants, pointing it straight at Tony.

“Don’t think so,” he replied, firing several times before Tony could react. Two went wide but one hit Tony’s arm, throwing him down onto his back. He climbed up onto his knees but it was too late; the man, still holding the gun, leapt out of the open window, running barefoot down the driveway.

“Tony!” McGee skidded into the room, eyes widening in concern. Gibbs and Ziva quickly followed as they heard the tyres screeching down the road.

“Damn it!” Gibbs yelled in frustration. “You okay DiNozzo?”

“Sure boss.” Tony reached for his upper arm, surprised when his hand came back slicked in warm blood. His vision began to waver into darkness and the last thing he heard was Gibbs yelling for paramedics.

Then he woke up, alone, in a hospital bed, head fuzzy with pain meds and a thick white bandage and sling on his right arm. He didn’t hear anything from them until the cell phone his nurses had neglected to switch off buzzed and it was McGee, telling him Amy White was dead.

“DiNozzo!” A swift slap to the back of the head brings him back to the present. Gibbs is staring at him as if he knows what’s running through Tony’s mind.

Gibbs puts both hands on the edge of his desk, leaning forward into Tony’s face.

“NCIS agents do not shoot first.” he says, only loudly enough for Tony to hear. Tony stares back, startled to see compassion, not hatred filling the older man’s blue eyes. Then Gibbs leaves, presumably in search of coffee.

After Gibbs’ incident with the airport last week, the team is taken off active field duty so they begin the arduous task of perusing the cold case files. With four sets of eyes (well three sets really because Gibbs is ‘supervising’), they quickly develop a possible lead. Gibbs sends Ziva and McGee out to investigate, while he has a meeting scheduled with the director to go over the paperwork he has neglected for the past eight months.

Tony takes advantage of the distractions by slipping out of the squad room to visit Abby. She is spinning in circles on her desk chair when he walks in and by the time she stumbles off, dizzy and giggling, she has to lean on him for support. He smiles and takes her by the shoulder, leading her over to a slightly more stationary chair. Once her double/triple/quadruple vision clears and she can walk in a straight line without collapsing, she takes a good look at Tony.

“You look better.” She decides, reaching for the Caff-Pow.

He raises an eyebrow. “Thanks. I’m all cleared for some intense desk jockeying.”

“No,” she shakes her head. “I mean, you look different. More like yourself. Did you talk to Gibbs?”

He nods and she is pleased, then fixes her eyes on him again. She notices the stiffness with which he carries himself, the way he favours his left side (although the latter point is not surprising since he is wearing a sling on his right arm), the teeny lines around his eyes that only she knows to look for.

“You haven’t been taking your pills,” she says. It isn’t a question. He concedes with a sigh and she smiles knowingly, reaching into the top drawer of her desk and handing him a bottle. He reads the fine print on the label.

“These are mine.”

“I got another prescription filled. I know you, and so I know that your pills are probably disintegrating in the sewers as we speak.”

He can’t open the bottle one-handed, not that he minds, but she takes it and shakes two pills into his hand. He glares at her and dry-swallows them.

“They make me sleepy.”

She holds out her Caff-Pow in reply, but he shudders, squeezes her hand and leaves.

That night she meets him in the bullpen. With his right hand out of commission, driving a shift-stick is out of the question. Abby lives closer to Tony than anyone else on the team, so she gives him lifts. They both start early and work late, so it’s not an inconvenience for either of them. Stuck on desk duty, the work load is considerably smaller, but Tony has been reduced to typing with one finger, as opposed to his usual two and typing takes twice as long.

He’s the last one there and when he sees Abby step out of the elevator, he closes the folder he was reading from, stacking the papers on his desk into some semblance of a pile. Abby grabs his backpack, jangles her car-keys and skips back to the elevator, Tony chasing after her.

They decide on Thai for dinner, and because Tony’s place is closest, they both go there. Abby grins as they walk in the door; the apartment is just as messy as it was on Saturday morning when she left. Thankfully the ice-cream cartons, which they forgot to put in the freezer on Friday night, have been thrown out, but apart from that it’s as if she never left, teetering stacks of DVDs and dirty magazines (with the odd National Geographic and forensic journal in the mix) scattered across the table. His bedroom is tastefully decorated with odd socks, discarded ties and crumpled shirts swept into the bottom of the closet.

It’s not normally like this, for a male Tony is usually pretty tidy. But she’ll let it slide, he’s had things on his mind. More than just the gunshot wound, although she agrees with him on that, the pain meds and antibiotics do screw with your body. She’s encouraged when Tony wrinkles his nose at the mess, throwing open a window to air the place out.

Gibbs talking to Tony has helped more than she had hoped. The silver fox has more influence over his senior field agent than anybody realizes.

They phone in the order for Thai and settle down to watch a game show. It’s become an increasingly frequent hobby of theirs, a battle of the wits and sexes at least once a week when work allows. Tony’s limitless supply of movie trivia versus Abby’s science background. She may have more degrees, but she knows better than to underestimate her opponent. Gibbs would be proud.

Sure enough, scores are tied by the final round. It comes down to the bonus question. Winner takes all. Loser pays for dinner. And… it’s a movie question. Of course. Abby pouts while Tony answers it instantly, leaning back on the couch to revel in his success. As if on cue, the doorbell rings and she punches him on his good arm, reaching for her purse.

Carrying the plastic bag of goodies back to the couch, she leans into her friend, grinning when he shifts across so she can snuggle into him. His GS wound will heal, she knows, and so will he with time. The scars will fade both physically and mentally, although they will never disappear. This event will linger in his memory, next to Kate and Jeffery White and Chris Pacci and Paula Cassidy and Jeanne Benoit and his father and everything and everyone else that has caused Tony pain throughout his life.

They are his crosses to bear, but no matter how hard he tries to push her away, she will never leave him to deal with them by himself. And he does the same for her.

Teamwork. Progress. Friendship. Love.

Whatever.

That’s how it works. That’s how they work.

Fin.

Thanks for the reviews. Happy New Year!