NCIS imagines

Work injuries

Crutches were the devil's spawn. How I ended up on then? Completely ridiculous, but I knew it would happen eventually.

Earlier that day...

"Stop! Federal agents!" I hollered after the man running from us. I pulled my gun, sighing, and took off after him with Jethro and Ziva. Typical foot chase.

What I didn't realize about the ground we were running on at first was that there were a fair amount of rocks and holes big enough for a person to get their foot stuck. They weren't that deep, though. And me, being the klutz that I was, managed to get my right foot stuck in one such hole. Perfect size for my hiking boot, unfortunately.

Swearing loudly, something I picked up in my former life as a restaurant cook, I toppled over, managing to toss my Sig just in front of me as I fell. There was a crack about mid fall, and I knew it was going to hurt like the blazes.

"Mae!" Jethro called. He hadn't been too far in front of me, and heard the entire thing.

"Go! Go! Help me after you get him!" I yelled, waving him off to help Ziva.

Growling in agony, I managed to flip over to my back and poked my knee gently. Yup. That hurt. Suspecting my ankle went, too, I prodded a couple spots there, too, and more pain shot through my whole leg.

A couple minutes later, once the suspect was in cuffs and driven off by Metro police, my husband ran over to me, worried and upset. I had stayed put, not wanting to aggravate the injuries even more.

Grabbing the Sig at my head, Jethro handed it to me, and I holstered it. "Ziva, come help."

Once the two of them had me standing, we made our way slowly to the car. Momentarily forgetting what just happened, I put my weight onto my right leg. Crying out, I nearly dropped to my good knee because it hurt so much.

"Come on, Mae. Almost there. We're going to the hospital," Jethro said softly, supporting most of my weight. Thank goodness for my man.

The ride to the hospital felt like it took forever, but I was wrapped up in replaying what caused the ow in my leg. Leaning back into the leather seat, I closed my eyes and tried to focus on something else.

Once where we were heading, Ziva went in to request a wheelchair, and w nurse came out with one.

"What do we have here?"

"Caught my foot in a hole and went down hard," I grunted as I got out of the car and plopped down into my new seat.

"What?"

Pulling my shield and ID out of my pocket, I showed the nurse. "Chasing a suspect. Metro has him."

She understood, and wheeled me inside. I let Jethro take care of the paperwork, as I was shaking too hard to hold a pen, much less use it. My chicken scratch was bad enough as it was.

By the time the paperwork was all finished with, and they started taking me for X-rays to see how badly I was injured, the pain was excruciating. So much so that I was crying, which rarely happened.

"Ziva, call DiNozzo. Let him know where we are. If you want, take the car back to the Navy Yard. I'll have someone come get us when this all over."

A couple seconds later, Jethro caught up with the nurse and I, using his influence as a federal officer to get her to let him stay with me. I was happy about that.

Half an hour later, I was drugged enough that I could barely feel anything mildly painful. Which also meant the old injuries to my wrists didn't hurt. I had twisted them a few years back and they acted up whenever the weather got bad.

The doctor came in and pulled the X-rays up on the monitor. Half asleep, Jethro pulled me up so I could see what I did.

"Alright, well, you have some breaks in your ankle, and your knee was badly twisted. You'll need minor surgery to correct the ankle."

Groaning, I said, "I was just out for a while on maternity leave. How much time will can I be out of work before Vance fires me?"

"Vance?"

"NCIS director," Jethro said, saving the day. He let me relax and talked to the doctor, getting the information we needed.

Once he left, my husband came over and explained what needed to be done. "They can take you in for surgery tonight. You'll be out of work for a few weeks from that, and then at least 4 months of rehab. I'll talk to Vance."

So. That's how I ended up on crutches for weeks.