A/N: This is a sequel to my White Silent People. In that story, Tim was shot in the head and ended up suffering from a rare mental disorder called Cotard's Delusion wherein he thought he was dead. This story follows the events in that story and so Tim doesn't act the same as he did. I do recommend you read White Silent People first if you haven't because it's hard to describe the changes in Tim in brief. :)

Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS or its characters. I'm merely playing with them for free. I'm not making money. I also don't own the lyrics to "Carry On, Wayward Son" by Kansas.

Masquerading as a Man with a Reason
by Enthusiastic Fish

Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man, well
It surely means that I don't know
~ "Carry On, Wayward Son" by Kansas

Chapter 1

One year after White Silent People...

Sometimes, when he thought about it, Tony hated the way things were. He tried not to think about it very much because the way things were was a lot better than they could have been. Still...

He opened a door to a small, brightly-lit office. There wasn't much in it. A really nice computer setup, a bookshelf with a few programming and coding books on it...plus a couple of strange additions like a collection of great speeches from history.

And there was a man sitting at the computer, working. He didn't give any indication that he'd heard the door open, and to be honest, he probably hadn't. Tony stifled a sigh and walked over. He touched the man on the shoulder.

"Hey, Tim."

No response.

It was one of those days, then. Tony kept his hand on Tim's shoulder, but then reached out and turned off the monitor. Just the monitor.

Tim jumped, startled. He looked wildly around for a moment and then felt the hand on his shoulder. He turned and looked at Tony.

"Hi," Tony said. "You're into it, today."

Tim looked back at the monitor for a couple of seconds and then he sighed and nodded.

"Yeah. I guess so. What time is it?"

"Five-thirty. Time for dinner."

"Oh...where did the time go?"

"Where it always does."

"Yeah." Tim nodded in agreement. He had heard the underlying statement.

"You ready?"

"Yeah. You only turned off the monitor, right?"

"Of course."

Tim smiled, then, and for a moment, it was easy to forget how different he could be.

...until he noticed the scar on Tim's head, the place where he'd been shot, the wound that had come close to killing him, had left him temporarily convinced that he was dead, and had changed his personality just enough that he sometimes seemed like a stranger. A stranger they were all getting to know, but still a stranger in some respects.

Tim turned back to the computer, flicked on the monitor, saved his work and then logged off. He stood up and looked at Tony expectantly.

"Let's go, McGee," Tony said.

Together, they left the office, met up with Ziva, Abby and Jimmy and then walked out of the building to get dinner. This had become a routine, in part because Tim functioned better with routines, but also because they didn't want to let him become isolated in that little office.

Time had led to improvements in Tim's status. He was more physically fit. He could follow conversations so long as there weren't too many other distractions. He made jokes, could talk with people, and was himself.

...but he wasn't a field agent and all signs pointed to that remaining the case. It just didn't look like he'd ever recover to the point that he could manage that again. He hadn't brought it up in months and neither had anyone else. The lingering trauma of being shot was only part of the issue. The major factor was that he just couldn't remain aware of his surroundings enough. If they were in a shootout situation, Tim would not be able to keep track of everything around him. He would focus in on one thing, maybe two, and that would be to the exclusion of everything else.

The good thing about it was that Tim himself didn't seem overly bothered by the fact that he may never be back at his desk in the bullpen. Tony couldn't blame him. If one was afraid of being shot every time one picked up a gun, it would be hard to enjoy the occupation. Tim was still at NCIS. Vance had essentially created a job for him to do. It was a job that needed doing, but everyone knew that Tim's job hadn't existed before. Vance had considered just transferring Tim down to Cybercrimes, but the other people down there found Tim hard to work with, and Tim would get aggravated by them. He couldn't be what he had been before, a person able to adjust to the idiosyncrasies of others. His own idiosyncrasies made it too difficult.

As they headed to a place to eat, Tony looked at Tim again. Every so often he tried to analyze how much Tim had changed, how much he was still the same.

...and, in reality, Tim was a lot the same. The differences weren't apparent all the time, and it wasn't like Tim was really a totally different person. As he'd settled into his position, he'd relaxed a lot more and that had, to everyone's surprise, helped him regain some of his old personality.

"Is there something on my face, Tony?" Tim asked.

Tony realized that Tim was staring at him with a quizzical expression...and it looked so normal.

"No. Sorry, Probie."

"That's okay," Tim said in a tone that let Tony know he was very aware of the trend of Tony's thoughts. They didn't talk about it really...but it was always there.

"Where are we going to go?" Ziva asked.

Tim looked like he wanted to back out, but he never had yet. He recognized, like they all did, that he would be far too likely to stay in that room all day long without realizing he had if he didn't get out with them. In addition, they all enjoyed their time together. It was just that there was usually a little bit of awkwardness initially.

"I don't care," Tim said. "Wherever."

They left the Yard and came to an intersection, starting to chat more. Jimmy was telling them about a story Ducky had been relating during the most recent autopsy. Tim was paying attention. Abby reached out and put her hand on Tim's arm. He looked at her and then at the light and stopped walking. He hadn't noticed the light while Jimmy was talking.

They were used to that. They decided to go to a little café about half a mile from the Yard. It was a bit longer walk, but it was good to get Tim out of NCIS, and so they usually chose to walk unless the weather was bad.

"...and then, Dr. Mallard started to demonstrate the tango. I'm just glad he didn't choose to dance with me. He thinks that I should learn it and then use it to impress Breena...but I don't know why I'd have to. We're already married, and it hasn't even been a year! When I told him that..."

The light changed and Abby nudged Tim to walk. He hadn't noticed.

This was normal for them all now, but Tony had to admit that he noticed it a lot more than he wished he did. He wanted there to be some way for Tim to be completely how he used to be, but as time went on and he continued with the same challenges, it became more and more obvious that they would have to adjust to this different Tim. No one wanted to make a big deal out of it since Tim had struggled to accept these changes in himself for so long.

But still...

They got to the café and got a table. They always chose the quietest corner they could so that Tim didn't have to focus so much on on person at a time. He was much better, but in very busy places, his ability to follow conversations lessened. Too many stimuli.

The café wasn't too crowded as yet. Perfect. They ordered their meals and then started chatting.

"How long did it take you to break through those passwords on the Allen website?" Abby asked.

Tim took a breath and thought...because he just didn't pay attention to time, really. It was one of those things they were helping him with.

"About two minutes," he said finally.

"Two minutes?" Tony asked. "Man, I know that the FBI was working on it for two hours before they handed it over to us, and that was an entire team, not just one person."

Tim shrugged. "It wasn't that hard, really. Just needed to see what they'd done before. It didn't work. So I did something else. It worked."

That was another difference in Tim. He wasn't worried about proving himself or getting attention for what he could do. It was just...something he did well.

"Yeah, and who else could have come up with what you did, Agent McGee?" Abby said with a grin.

Tim smiled back at her.

"Anyone else with a hole in his head," he said, gesturing at this scar.

They all laughed...and that was a symbol of how far they'd come...that they could all laugh at a joke about Tim's injury. Given the fact that Tim himself had made the joke...well, no one else probably would dare to make the joke themselves...not yet.

"So...has Gibbs stopped trying to get control of the case?" Tim asked. "Or is having me successful in getting in making it NCIS?"

"Oh, he's not giving up," Tony said with a grin. "...but the FBI isn't, either."

"Fornell has been in meetings with Vance and Vance has been in MTAC nearly all day," Ziva added. "It is turning into a regular grunge match."

Jimmy started laughing.

"What?" Ziva asked.

"Grudge match," Tim said. "Grunge is either dirt or else a genre of music popular in the 90s."

"...characterized by the unkemp band members," Jimmy added. "I don't think that Agent Fornell counts."

"And neither does Vance," Tim said.

Ziva laughed.

"No, you are right. Grudge match."

"Who's going to win?" Abby asked. "Is Vance going to be on Gibbs' side?"

"The Navy connection is...not exactly...clear," Tony said. "He's hoping that all our work is going to at least let us keep involved. Allen called us, not the FBI, before he was killed."

A large group of people came in, talking loudly. Tim's attention was pulled away from his friends and onto them. He stared for a few seconds and then his brow furrowed.

"What is it, Tim?" Abby asked.

"I've seen them before."

"They look like college students," Jimmy said with a smile. "You trolling college campuses?"

Tim barely reacted to the joke. "Not them. Behind them. Two men. I've seen them before."

"Where?"

"Don't know. Around. Somewhere..."

Tim closed his eyes and took a deep breath, pulling his attention away from the group he didn't know and back to the people he'd come with. It was something that he had to practice, and he was getting better at it.

"Anyway...uh..." Tim paused, reconnecting with the previous conversation. "Since...Allen called NCIS, shouldn't that take precedence?"

Tony was relieved that Tim had been able to remember. It wasn't memory so much as connecting synapses again. Tim didn't get as frustrated about it, and if they didn't point it out, Tim was unlikely to notice it himself.

"Doesn't change the fact that Allen isn't part of the Navy and that there doesn't seem to be any Navy connection," Tony said.

"But you know Gibbs," Ziva said. "He will not accept that as an answer. There is some reason that Allen called us, not the FBI."

Tim nodded.

Their food arrived which pulled Tim's attention away from the conversation again. He could focus on both things at once if he had to, but when he was just hanging out, he didn't try as hard, and they didn't worry about it too much.

They were all used to it now.

The conversation was on hold for the moment. They shifted dishes around, laughing about the mix-ups, and then got to eating. For a few minutes, it was relatively quiet. They were all eating and enjoying their food. After that, they started talking again, but not about work. It was fun just to chat and enjoy time together. It was something they hadn't done as much before. Meals were taken more on the fly. One person was sent to grab the food and bring it back. That still happened when necessary, but with Tim no longer on the team, keeping up with him meant more effort. Tim had said that he didn't want to lose them as friends, and his explicit admission had led to them all evaluating the friendship that had always been based around the fact that they spent most of their time together. Once that was no longer the case, did they want to stay friends?

Yes.

They finished up and headed back to NCIS. As they walked on the sidewalk, Tim took a deep breath and looked up at the sky.

"Something exciting up there, Probie?" Tony asked.

Tim smiled. This was one of those moments when Tim seemed really different.

"Not to you, Tony," he said. "Just to me."

"Like what?" he asked.

"Just the sky. That's all."

"Okay, then."

Jimmy stopped Tim from walking when they got to the intersection. Tim stopped easily, pulling his eyes from the sky and back to the road. They got back to NCIS a few minutes later. Tim went back up to his office. Tony and Ziva went back to their desks to wait upon the resolution to the FBI-NCIS bickering. Abby went down to her lab and Jimmy down to Autopsy.

Tony sat down at his desk and looked back up to where Tim's office was. As happened off and on, he suddenly felt pensive.

"Tony, what is wrong?" Ziva asked.

"Just...thinking."

"It is better than it could have been," she said. "He is still here. He is still a lot the same."

"Most of the time. Sometimes, I wonder how things look to him. I think there's something different in how he sees the world now."

Ziva smiled. "He has always seen the world differently from you, Tony. It is just more obvious now."

"Yeah...I guess."

...and there was work to do.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim sat down at his desk. Before he went back to his work, he pulled open one of his drawers. It was a drawer that no one else opened. He didn't want anyone to know about this because he was almost positive they wouldn't understand...and he wasn't sure he could actually explain it. It was so clear to him but his view of the world was different from everyone else's now.

He took his gun out of the drawer. He probably shouldn't have it, but he did. He had taken it and hidden it in this drawer.

And now, he picked it up and pointed it at his own head. He stared at the barrel for a long moment...until he started shaking. Then, he quickly put it back in the drawer and hid it from view. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply until the shakes stopped.

Then, he opened his eyes, logged back on to his computer and got back to work.