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Lean on Me 1: Connections Summary: While waiting for news of Tony, Ziva learns the Rabbs'
history with Gibbs and Tony, while Harm and Gibbs renew their acquaintance. Greater Moncton International Airport Gibbs watched the ambulance pull off the runway. Before he could get into the police car to follow it, Harm and Mac came down the stairs from the cockpit of the airplane and intercepted him. "We'd like to come with you to the hospital," Harm told him. Mac squeezed Harm's hand in agreement. Gibbs simply nodded his head in assent. Lost in their thoughts, at first neither Gibbs nor Ziva said a word while the police car followed the ambulance with its flashing lights. Harm and Mac respected their silence, knowing there was little they could say to comfort them. Ziva's head was tumbling over with thoughts. Blaming herself for not taking the assignment, blaming Tony for getting himself injured, blaming Gibbs for letting Tony go on that flight, blaming Hassan for picking that flight to go from sympathizer and supporter to terrorist. Even though it seemed to take ages, they arrived at the hospital within ten minutes. The hospital staff whisked Tony away to the operating room, giving Ziva no opportunity to reassure herself that Tony would be fine. "Officer David?" and Ziva turned to see the woman who had come with them to the hospital was standing next to her. "I'm Sarah Mac-, I mean Rabb. Why don't we go to the waiting room? From my experience, we're going to have a while before we get any news on Agent DiNozzo." Somewhat dazed, she followed Mac. Harm and Gibbs were already in the waiting room, talking quietly. "How do you know Tony and Gibbs?" Ziva found her voice. Mac smiled. "That's a long story." "As you said, we may have a long wait ahead of us." "All right then ..." and Mac began her story. "It all started when your boss there arrested my husband for murder." "Murder?" "Luckily, he wasn't guilty." "You mean Gibbs was actually wrong?" Mac nodded. "Doesn't happen often, does it?" "How did that make you feel, Gibbs arresting your husband?" "Well, we weren't married then. Weren't even dating. But that's another long story that we don't need to go into right now," Mac chuckled. "And in the end, Agent Gibbs realized Harm had been set up and arrested the real murderer. In fact, if it hadn't been for Gibbs, Harm would probably have been put away for life, which would have made it difficult to get married." "So how did you end up on the same flight with Tony?" "Sheer chance." And Mac proceeded to tell her the details (as she knew them) from their aborted flight from Dulles. Meanwhile, Gibbs was debriefing Harm on the attempted hijacking of the flight. "I saw Agent DiNozzo at the gate and then again in the first class cabin, but I didn't recognize him. It wasn't until I came into the cockpit and he introduced himself." "Wait a minute, did you say DiNozzo was in first class?" When Harm nodded, Gibbs muttered, "If, no when he gets out of this, I'm going to kill him." Turning his attention back to Harm, he said, "So what did you see when you got to the cockpit?" After Harm finishing telling all he knew, he said, "Agent Gibbs, I should have checked out DiNozzo when I came into the cockpit. I saw that he was pale and sweaty; I should have guessed that he was injured. If I had known for sure, I would have -" Gibbs held up a hand. "No need to apologize. DiNozzo is can be a stubborn bastard." "He didn't want to let you down, Gibbs." Harm stood up. "Would you like some coffee? I think it's going to be a while." Gibbs nodded. After Harm left the waiting, Gibbs said under his breath, "Tony, you didn't let me down. I let you down." |