A/N: I want to thank everyone who reviewed last chapter, and especially thank you all for your kind words. This chapter is a bit of a filler chapter, to be honest, but necessary in order to continue with the rest. I hope you like it.

Chapter 4

Four more days passed, and Tony still showed no signs of waking up anytime soon. Meanwhile, Gibbs had been constantly having to deal with phone calls of his team members, all wanting to know how Tony was doing, none with any further information or leads as to how the case was developing. And on top of that, Vance had been on his case 24/7 since they had found Tony. He constantly asked Gibbs when he would return to work and what was happening with the case; Gibbs couldn't give any conclusive answers to either of those questions.

Abby had left a little while ago, after a quick visit to Tony and handing over some provisions to Gibbs, who refused to leave his son's side. Ducky had actually had to force him to take a shower, after the staff gave permission for Gibbs to use their private facilities. The only reason Gibbs had taken the shower, was because Ducky had threatened to have him kicked out if he didn't start taking care of himself, stating that Tony would need him healthy and rested once he woke up.

Gibbs was beyond frustrated with the lack of progress their team was making in attempting to locate DiNozzo Senior. For a group of people who could find anyone on the planet, they had seemingly become useless in locating this one man. As it appeared, DiNozzo senior had seemingly dropped off the face of the earth recently. The last trail they could find on him was two months old, several weeks before Tony had been taken. Just that one fact confirmed it for Gibbs that that man was indeed involved in some way with Tony's abduction and subsequent near-death experience.

As Gibbs mulled over everything in his head, he slowly drifted into a fitful sleep, still holding onto Tony's hand for dear life.

Several hours passed as one Agent slept a normal sleep, and the other agent slept, perhaps an eternal sleep. However, something or someone stirred, almost instantly awakening the older Agent of the pair as he looked around the room sharply for any sign of what had awoken him.

Something stirred slightly in Gibbs' hand, and as he looked down, he saw that Tony's fingers were moving, slowly and stiffly, but moving nonetheless. He took his eyes of the hand in his and focused them on Tony's face, willing his boy to open his sparkling green eyes at last.

It took several more minutes, in which Tony began to move his body more and more, until the eyes finally and wearily opened. Blinking once, twice, three times, Tony groggily focused his gaze on Gibbs, on his boss, who he felt was holding his hand. He was in pain, more pain than he'd ever been in his life except for when he had the plague, and confused as to what was happening. Everything was so muddled in his brain, a series of blurry images he couldn't make heads or tails of. The last thing he remembered with clarity was working on the Acton case. The rest was just one big blur.

Gibbs sighed with relief when Tony opened his eyes. He had never once doubted that Tony would wake up; his boy was strong, stronger than most people even and wouldn't let something like this just kill him. He saw the pain and confusion in Tony's eyes as they connected with his, and his heart went out to his son who had been through too much already in his short life.

"Welcome back," Gibbs said, his voice gruff and laden with emotions he normally didn't let shine through. He gently squeezed Tony's hand, as if to emphasize how happy he was to have him back. Tony tried to say something, but the only thing that came out was a rough rasp followed by a short coughing fit. Gibbs helped him drink some water to sooth his sore throat. Tony drank it all up, slowly but greedily, surprised by how thirsty he truly was. A few minutes later, Gibbs set the cup down and Tony tried to speak again.

"Wh-what happened?" He asked. His voice was rough and scratchy, and it hurt to speak. He wondered if he had been screaming or yelling a lot for his voice to feel and sound like this.

"What do you remember?" Gibbs countered. He had been informed by Ducky that Tony may have some memory loss when he awoke, on account of the large amount of Rohypnol in his system. If that was the case, they weren't sure if Tony would regain the memories he lost or not. It could happened, but they just had no way of knowing. On one hand, Gibbs wanted Tony to never remember what had happened to him during his week of captivity, especially if it had been at the hands of his father, because he wasn't sure his son would be able to recover from that. On the other hand, he needed Tony to remember so they could catch the bastard(s) who'd done this to him. Either way, it was a lose-lose situation for Gibbs.

Tony frowned, trying to find an answer to Gibbs' question. Eventually, he just shrugged, "I'm not sure. I remember working on the Acton case, but after that everything is so muddled, like someone scrambled my brain. I don't know, I'm tired," He said.

Gibbs nodded in resignation; the Acton case had taken place nearly 5 weeks before, so there was definitely memory loss. Though, it seemed Tony knew there was something missing, judging by his description of everything being muddled after that. So, perhaps Tony would remember, perhaps he wouldn't. They would deal with it as it came. Either way, nothing in this world would stop Gibbs from finding the ones responsible for this and bringing them to justice – either it would be justice in the sense of prison time, or it would be Gibbs' kind of justice, but there would be justice regardless.

"Sleep, Tony. We'll talk later," He said, seeing how tired his son was. It always struck him as strange how someone who slept for days or weeks or even more could still be tired after they awoke, but he had been informed such a thing would be normal, especially with the kind of injuries Tony had sustained.

Tony nodded slightly, already drifting back into sleep. Once asleep, Gibbs pressed the red button to get the nurses in here and inform them that his son had awoken at last, even if only very briefly. He gazed at his son, marveling at his amazing strength and testament of character, vowing he would always protect him from here on out.