The not-so-observant Marine

Chapter two

A/N: I'm going to keep the chapters short so I can update quicker.

Disclaimer: See previous chapter.

Gibbs gave DiNozzo a not-so-gentle shake in the hope it would rouse the young man, but he remained deathly still, his chest rising and falling with each stuttered breath.

"Boss, should I call Ducky?" Blackadder peered around the desk, frowning at the way Gibbs held DiNozzo with an unnatural, disturbing, amount of gentleness.

"Do I even need to ask, Agent Blackadder?!" Gibbs snapped as he shifted DiNozzo in his grip, so that he had one arm under the kids' knees and the other looped around his back. He then quickly, with his knees twanging in protest, lifted his newest agent into the air so he could lay him down in front of his desk.

Tony's own arms dangled uselessly over the sides as Gibbs settled him onto the carpet, taking the young man's head in his hands as he placed it softly upon the floor.

"Didn't I tell you to get Ducky?!" He barked with the intensity of a bear, his eyes flashing in anger as Blackadder stood gawping.

Then she was gone.

"Come on, DiNozzo, what the hell's wrong with you?" Gibbs whispered softly, without menace, his face mere inches from Tony's, who didn't respond.

Gibbs lay a hand on his agents chest, reassured by the beating of his heart, although Gibbs frowned at the accelerated pace. That could hardly be considered a good thing.

He felt, rather than saw, the gazes of other agents upon Tony's prone form as they congregated around the excitement like vultures around a carcass. They were saved from Gibbs' wrath by the arrival of Ducky, who shooed them away.

"Space, please."

"Duck!" Gibbs looked up in pure, unblemished relief.

"Jethro - " the older Scotsman expression had fallen into one of concern at the sight of Tony, "what on earth happened?"

"He just collapsed when he stood up from his desk," Gibbs replied quickly as pulled himself to his feet to allow Ducky to examine the kid.

His eyes never left DiNozzo's lax face.

Ducky, gloves on already, came forward and immediately began to inspect the prone form of the agent. He took his pen light and shined them into Tony's glazed, green eyes.

"Pupils equal, responsive..." Ducky then unbuttoned the Italians shirt and with his stethoscope, listened to his chest, "heart rates a little fast, his breathing is shallow. Was he feeling unwell at all, Jethro?"

"I don't know, Duck! I wasn't paying attention, I just - " Gibbs sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, " - he was late this morning and then we were just going over cold cases. He seemed alright."

"I heard him throwing up when I walked past the bathroom earlier." Blackadder said, coolly as she came out of the elevator.

Gibbs paused, and Ducky braced himself for the onslaught that was about to begin.

"You knew he was sick and you didn't say anything?" Gibbs tone was dangerously quiet as he took a small, threatening step towards his other, idiotic team member.

It was one thing for Tony to be stubborn, stupid enough to ignore his own illness.

But it was much, much worse for his colleague, the woman who was supposed to watch his six, to ignore it too.

Blackadder raised her head in something close to defiance, but the snarl in Gibbs' voice soon ended that.

"Well, he said he was fine - "

"And you believed him?!" Gibbs' voice broke into a yell, his ice blue eyes blazing with a cold fire, his fists clenched at his side, "I should -"

But the team leader was stopped from inflicting any damage on Blackadder by a sharp word from the medical examiner.

"Jethro!"

Gibbs paused, his breathing ragged yet eerily controlled.

"Get out of my sight, Blackadder."

She darted off, red hair bouncing, nose crinkled.

Gibbs swallowed heavily, and ran a hand through his short hair.

"I'm not sure how much longer I can put up with her, Duck."

"Never mind that right now. Our young Anthony appears to be coming back to us."

Gibbs spun around and dropped to his knees as the older men leaned over DiNozzo, who groaned and let his head roll side to side, his hands coming up towards his face so he could press his palms against his eyes.

"DiNozzo? You alright?" Gibbs muttered, watching in concern at the lines of pain around his agent's mouth and the way his teeth bit into his lip, "Tony?"

DiNozzo paused, his hands still shielding his eyes from the overhead lights of the office and he slowly, hesitantly, breathed outwards.

"Please, please, Gibbs – tell me I'm not lying on the office floor." The Italians voice was quiet, hoarse, but Gibbs found himself smirking in relief that Tony was still able to be his smart-mouthed self.

"Well, that's what you get for passing out. Would you prefer one of Ducky's autopsy tables?"

"DiNozzo's do not pass out." Tony managed to say that with a pathetic amount of determination.

"Except for when they do."

"I prefer to call it a brief lapse in consciousness."

"Oh, really? I –"

Ducky held up his hand, his lips perked slightly in amusement, "what we want to know, dear boy, is the reason for this 'brief lapse in consciousness', as you put i?"

Tony sighed and gingerly peeled his hands away, seemingly shrinking in on himself at the sight of the two older men staring down at him.

"Urm, well – "

"When you were going to tell me you're sick, DiNozzo?" The question sounded sharp and Tony winced at the rebuff, but he warmed slightly at the gruff note of concern he detected, and appreciated, in Gibbs' voice.

"I didn't think I was," Tony said, his mouth hanging open because he felt that Gibbs deserved a better answer than that.

Unfortunately, DiNozzo didn't have one.

"So a temperature of 102 degrees didn't strike you as odd?" Ducky raised an eyebrow, without being patronizing.

Tony stayed silent. The office floor was very uncomfortable, he noted.

Gibbs sighed heavily and began to converse overhead with Ducky, ignoring the agent between them.

"What's wrong with him, Duck?"

"Well, his blood pressure is rather low - "

"Hence the fainting – "

"Yes, and judging by the chapped lips, he's dehydrated, which was no doubt worsened by the fever. I'd bet his blood sugar is low, his hands are shaking."

DiNozzo frowned at this and instinctively pinned his arms to his side.

He felt awful.

"When did you last eat, Anthony?" Ducky queried, quietly upon seeing the increasing paleness of his friend.

Tony knew that question was coming.

"When did I last eat? Uh, well, that's a long, complicated matter – "

A sharp bark from Gibbs.

"DiNozzo!"

"Tuesday."

"Tuesday?!" Ducky grimaced, rather dramatically, "but it's Friday?!"

"It is?"

DiNozzo appeared to be losing track of the conversation by this point and closed his eyes in preparation for the head slap he fully expected to come.

Plus, it felt like his eyes were about the roll out of their sockets.

No head slap came and he tried not to die of shock when Gibbs rolled his own eyes and brushed Tony's dark hair quickly away from his sweaty forehead.

"You're an idiot, DiNozzo."

"Yes, boss. Absolutely, boss."

After that, Tony didn't pay much attention. He allowed the two men to take him by the arms and, rather embarrassingly, escort him to the elevator and down to autopsy.

He didn't even complain when he was made to sit on one of the autopsy tables, his legs dangling off the side. He took the pills Ducky gave him, drank the water, sat obediently still while Ducky finished his examination and declared that the Italian wasn't dying and that it was most likely a virus.

Well, that was something.

This seemed to satisfy Gibbs so he hooked a hand under DiNozzo's elbow to help him walk steadily from the room with a quick thank you and goodbye to the medical examiner.

"Where are we going, Boss?" Tony asked, fearfully, as they entered the elevator once again.

Tony wondered if the elevator floor always swayed this much.

"You are going to Abby's lab to sleep on her futon for a little while. I need coffee. You're giving me a headache." Gibbs replied in a clipped, yet warm tone.

"Oh, don't tell her I'm ill, she'll smother me to death, Gibbs."

"I'm not going to pretend you don't deserve it."

"You don't have a very good bedside manner do you, Boss?"

"That's why I became a Marine instead of a nurse, DiNozzo."

"Oh, God. Now I've got mental images of you in a nurse's outfit. As if my head didn't hurt enough already."

This time, Gibbs didn't hold back on the head slap.