Archive of Our Own

Gibbs frowned as he watched Tony laying in the hospital bed. He hated seeing his son in pain like this. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he was a valetudinarian right now, the doctors didn’t even know what was causing Tony’s illness.

He’d heard that they were bringing Dr. House in, which worried Gibbs. Even he knew that Dr. House was only brought in for the weird illnesses. Gibbs really hoped that Tony would be alright.

Having a different doctor every time he turned around was pissing Gibbs off. He was getting different answers about the treatment from each of them and Tony wasn’t improving in the slightest. Growing frustrated with the half truths and platitudes, Gibbs demanded to see Dr. House.

“You must save my son.”

“I would be doing that right now, if you hadn’t demanded to see me,” Dr. House retorted.

“Why is he getting worse then?”

“That’s the way it goes sometimes. The more symptoms we get the easier it is to narrow down what he has.”

“So you’re not treating him?” Gibbs growled.

“We’re taking educated guesses and seeing how he reacts to buy time for us to figure out what he actually has.”

“That’s not good enough,” Gibbs roared. “Get out of here. Don’t come back until you actually know what he has.”

“Gibbs,” Ducky placated.

Gibbs just shot Ducky a glare and picked up his son’s hand again. Gibbs tried to will Tony to get better. He hated being on this side of it. If he could, he’d be the one in the hospital bed.

Of course, he knew that Tony didn’t like it when Gibbs was the one in the hospital anymore than Gibbs liked Tony being in the hospital. He mainlined coffee as he sat by Tony’s bedside. He hated waiting. He wanted to be doing something, but there was nothing he could do to beat this.

No one knew why Tony had fallen ill, only that he’d come down with something really serious in the middle of the bullpen. They’d rushed him to Ducky who had taken one look at him and said he needed to go to Bethesda. Now, Gibbs was stuck waiting for his SFA to get better as there was no evidence he could chase down to find out who did this to Tony.

When Tony started getting better, Gibbs breathed a sigh of relief. He hoped that this meant they knew what Tony had. He sought out Dr. House again to find out if they had figured out what Tony had.

“No thanks are necessary,” Dr. House immediately announced when he saw Gibbs coming towards him.

”You know what he has then?”

“Didn’t they tell you?”

”Tell me what?”

Dr. House shook his head and launched into the explanation, “He has Marburg disease, but he’s responding well to one of the experimental treatments. I expect a full recovery.”

Gibbs held out his hand for a shake, appreciating the doctor’s straight to the point nature. “Congratulations on a job well done, then.”

Dr. House nodded in acknowledgement, briefly shaking hands before returning to whatever he was doing when Gibbs interrupted him. Gibbs returned to Tony’s room happy to see Tony being responsive and not trapped in fever dreams. Tony progressively improved and soon they were checking him out.

“You know I never met my doctor?”

“He seemed like a nice guy,” Gibbs grunted.

Ducky chuckled, “Only you would find Dr. House nice, Gibbs.”

Tony looked between the two of them in confusion.

Ducky caught Tony’s look and explained, “Most people describe Dr. House as cantankerous and lacking empathy.”

Tony grinned. “Sounds right up Gibbs’ alley,” he agreed.