A/N: This is a sequel of sorts to my oneshot Call of the Sea. As if I didn't have enough stories featuring selkies already. In Call of the Sea, we found that Tim was a selkie. This story fills in Tim's background and then extends the story still further. You don't have to read Call of the Sea in order to understand what's happening here, but it might help. It may seem like a death fic in the first chapter. I promise. It's not. (NOTE: This is not a sequel to Far Frae Ev'ry Strand in which Tim was simply descended from the selkies, and I treat the selkies slightly differently in this story than I did in that one.) Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. It's a combination of a casefile and fantasy, although I do try to make the fantasy as firmly grounded in the NCIS universe as I can.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the NCIS characters and I'm making no money off this story. You can, however, blame me for the modifications I've made to some of the selkie legends.
On My Journey Home
by Enthusiastic Fish
Chapter 1
The incoming tide brought the seals upon an empty beach. Finding the secluded places was growing more difficult but they had managed to adapt to the changing world. Adapt or perish.
No one about.
A small group of the seals peeled away from the others. Their skins fell away, leaving seeming humans in their place. One of the boys instantly stalked away from the others, clearly unhappy. The adults looked at each other and then a male followed after the boy. He didn't catch up. He simply followed until the repressed anger, so common in this one, spent itself. It brought them to a small cliff, far from the others. The boy tossed a couple of rocks toward the ocean, but without anger.
"It was not your time. You are young," the male said calmly.
"I am old enough to answer a call!"
"No." It was a firm denial. Absolute certainty.
"Why? I heard it! It was a call to me!"
"You are not ready for what a call may require."
"She was young! Like me!"
"Yes."
The boy sighed. It wasn't that he was unaware of the truth, but they all had heard it, and it had been full of pain. The kind of pain they could not heal. It was hard to ignore a call and it was the first time he had been of an age to hear, understand...and answer.
"Why can we hear if we do not answer?"
"It is our nature. In older times, it was a way of increasing our numbers. Now, we return what the human race has given to us. Life."
"But we do not answer."
"We answer when help can be given; if not, it will harm more than help. It is a lesson we have learned."
The boy sat down and stared out at the ocean. The man sat beside him.
"Her pain hurt me."
"Yes."
"Why do humans feel such pain? We do not."
"We do."
"When?"
"Pray you never know. Separation from the sea is all that could cause such pain."
"But why? We look so much like them!"
"We are not humans. They feel what we never will feel. Be glad of it. Pity them for what they feel and try to ease that pain when you can...but only when you can. That is what you must learn before you may answer a call."
The boy nodded reluctantly.
"You must learn."
"I understand."
"Good. Come now. It will not do to be here for too long."
The boy nodded. They both got to their feet and left the cliff.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
"Mr. and Mrs. McGee?"
Justin and Leanna McGee quickly got to their feet. They'd been waiting for hours for news. Sarah had been taken by their neighbors to (hopefully) sleep. She had resisted, but if the worst happened, they wanted to know first and tell her later.
"Please, sit down," the doctor said. He was very grave.
Leanna took hold of Justin's hand and gripped it tightly. It was a testament to his own fear that he returned the gesture.
"What's happened to Tim?" Leanna asked.
"The car accident...did a lot of damage."
"Stop delaying," Justin said brusquely. "Just tell us."
"Your son is in a coma. He suffered massive head trauma from the impact. We had to remove his spleen. It's been touch-and-go so far...and that likely won't change in the near future. It's a miracle he's survived this long."
"What does that mean?" Leanna asked.
"I don't think your son is going to come out of the coma. Ever."
Leanna started to cry. Justin put his arms around her.
"Can we see him?" he asked, his voice rough with emotion.
"Of course. Come on back."
Together, they went back to the ICU and got their first look at their son. His face was swollen and stitched and bandaged. A ventilator kept his lungs functioning. Monitors tracked his brain waves, his heart beat. In short, he was almost beyond recognition.
They stood there, staring at him, their son who had shown so much promise.
"He'll never wake up?" Leanna whispered.
"There's always a chance," the doctor said.
"But not much of one?"
"No. I'm sorry. If there's a drastic turnaround in the next few days, his odds will dramatically improve. Otherwise..."
He didn't need to finish. Timothy McGee's parents stood in the room and looked at the wreckage of so many hopes and dreams.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
A time later...
A seal came out of the water. In moments, a young man was standing where the seal had been. He held a gray skin in his hands. He stood awkwardly for a moment. Unsure, but he closed his eyes and felt the call again. He turned and walked down the beach. Far off, he could see a solitary figure. She was the source of the call. He felt no particular pain from her, but the call could not be denied. Perhaps she was simply crying from loneliness. One he had helped before had been wanting someone to see her and listen to her in the sunset of her life. Not pain, but a hurt of a different kind. One he did not really understand, but was learning how to address.
He walked toward the caller, stowing his skin securely before he reached her.
"Hello," he said. "May I join you?"
The woman was older than he, but she smiled and nodded.
"Why did you come?" she asked.
"You looked like you might want company," he said.
"I think I did."
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Six months later...
How did one say goodbye? Sarah didn't know. What she knew was that, for some reason, her brother was about to die and they all knew exactly when it would happen.
Tim had never come out of the coma. He couldn't even breathe on his own. The doctors had said that he was brain dead. So now they were getting ready to let the rest of him die, too. ...and she had to say goodbye to her brother who was dead already...but not completely. Not yet.
"Okay, Sarah. Come on."
Sarah walked into the hospital room...holding her mother's hand. She was trying to be grown-up about this, but coming in here was different today. It wasn't that Tim frightened her. She'd been here every day for the last six months. Tim never woke up. She wasn't afraid of seeing him anymore. She leaned over the bed, looked back at her parents and then took a breath.
"Goodbye, Tim. I love you." Then, she hugged her brother who was about to die...and watched her parents also bid him farewell.
"Sarah, it's time now," Leanna said.
"I'm going to stay."
"Are you sure, honey? You don't have to."
"Yes."
"All right."
Together, the McGee family watched as their numbers slowly dwindled from four to three...as Tim's heart finally stopped beating, his lungs stopped functioning.
...and he died.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
A time later...
"No! Please!" he begged. "Do not leave me here alone!"
"I am sorry. You know the law. You cannot come with us, not anywhere. You must either find it again or make your way in the human world. There is no other choice."
It was not said callously, nor with any degree of accusation. Indeed, there was a feeling of pity with the words. But it was inexorable. No, he could not go with them. Even if he had been able to keep up in his human form, his presence would increase the risk of discovery.
He was to be left behind. He spun around and ran from the others, back to the place where she had betrayed him...back to that beach.
She was there, smiling as she had smiled when she had so calmly betrayed and destroyed him.
"I knew you'd come back," she said.
"Give it back to me," he pled. "Please! It is of no use to you! It is mine!"
Her smile didn't fade. If anything, it widened.
"Not anymore."
"I only came because I wanted to help you. I only stayed because I cared about you!"
"You did help me...and I'm grateful. I'll let you know if I need you again."
"Where is it? You are taking my life from me! Do you care nothing for that?"
"If you can find it, you can take it back."
He grabbed her arm roughly, desperate enough to force her. She only laughed.
"We're not alone on the beach today. If I start screaming for help, real people will come."
He looked beyond her to the populated beach...and he let her go, watching hopelessly as she walked away from him. Defeated, he stumbled away in the opposite direction, into the ocean, almost too far, but then he struggled back to the shore. What could he do now? He didn't know how to drown.
Instead, he sat down on the wet sand and just stared at his home. So close and yet impossibly far from him.
He didn't move at all for hours. Not even when the rain started. Water wasn't a hazard, no matter its origin.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Two months later...
"I don't want to go on vacation!"
"Sarah, Tim wouldn't have wanted us to sit around like this."
"How do you know?" she shouted. "Tim's dead! He didn't even get to tell us! He was dead in the hospital for months before you finally killed him!"
Leanna knelt down in front of her raging daughter and hugged her. Almost instantly, the fury vanished and Sarah started crying.
"It's all right, dear. It's all right."
"I didn't want Tim to die!"
"Neither did I, honey. No one did. ...but we have to try living our lives, and part of that is a family trip. We're not going far, just to the beach for a few days. Okay?"
"Okay. I'm sorry."
"I know."
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
A time later...
He still sat on the beach, his knees drawn tightly to his chest. Not noticing anyone else and being noticed by no one.
Almost...
He felt the pain, a pain akin to his own. It was the pain of irrevocable loss. It momentarily drew his attention away from mourning. The urge to touch and heal that loss came over him again.
He looked to the side and saw three humans. Two adults and one female child. The pain came from all of them.
No matter. He could give them nothing. They were humans like the one who had destroyed him. He had considered trying to follow her, but he couldn't bring himself to do it...and she had threatened to destroy his skin if he came after her. That would end any chance he had of getting home again. He turned back to the sea. So close and yet so far. He was sitting close enough that the tide soaked him every time it came up the sand. He didn't care.
Then, after a time, he realized someone was looking at him. He glanced over. It was the female child. She walked close and knelt in the sand.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
He looked at her and then back at the sea without answering. To his surprise, she didn't leave.
"My brother died. You look a lot like him."
"I am not him," he said, his voice rough from disuse.
"I know. We buried him. I watched him die. Where's your family?"
"Family?"
"Yes. Your parents, brothers, sisters...the people who grow up with you."
The pain that came from her innocent question was like a dagger through his heart. It hurt him so much that he began to cry. Sobbing, he started to crawl forward. It had been days since he'd eaten and he had no strength left to stand.
"Dad!" she shouted. "Dad! Help!"
Her hands were on his arms, trying to keep him from crawling into the ocean. He tried to shake her away...but then, her small hands were joined by other hands. Larger hands. Stronger hands.
"What's going on, Sarah?"
"He's crying, Dad! He's sad! ...and he looks like Tim!"
"Justin...he does."
"What's your name, son?"
He stopped his pitiful struggles and looked at the three humans.
"What's your name?" the child asked.
He sniffled. "Why are you here?" he asked. "What do you want with me?"
"We want to talk to you! I'm Sarah. What's your name?"
He looked at her uncomprehendingly. "I have nothing. I do not know what you mean." The tears returned as he remembered all he'd lost.
"Did your family die?" Sarah asked.
"No. I did," he said. "Go and leave. I must be here."
"Why?"
"There is nothing else for me," he said. "I cannot help you. Go away."
"Help us? Why would you think you had to?" the woman asked. "Can we help you?"
He looked around at them unbelievingly. They were humans. They did not help. They were the ones needing the help.
"Is there anywhere we can take you?" the man asked.
"No. Nowhere. No. You cannot help me. Your kind could not help my kind. That is not the way of things."
The woman knelt down in front of him and looked at him with an expression he'd never seen before. He could not even put a label to it.
"What happened to you?" she asked.
Somehow, the way she spoke, the look in her eyes...they made him want to tell her. He started to cry.
"I wanted to help her and she only wanted to hurt me! And when she did, I was left alone! They had to go and I had to stay behind! I have nothing!"
"Who hurt you?"
"One of your kind," he said.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"You! Your kind! Humans! She was your kind! My kind would not hurt me like this!"
Her eyes moved away from him for a moment and then back again.
"What is your kind?"
"We who live in the sea. We who dwell in both worlds and have our place. I can never go back. She stole my skin from me! All I have is what I am...and that is nothing!"
"Leanna..."
He closed his eyes and started to sob, rocking back and forth on the sand. These humans could not help him. What he had seen in her eyes would not help him. There was no help. None. He was alone.
And then, he suddenly felt a strange sensation. The woman put her arms around him and began to rock with him...only her rocking slowed his down. She ran a calming hand over his shoulder and told him it would all be all right. How could she say such a thing? He didn't understand...but at the same time, he didn't want her to stop.
"You don't have a name?"
"I...I do not know what that is," he choked out through his tears.
"A name...something people call you. My daughter is Sarah. I am Leanna. My husband is Justin."
"Her brother?"
"He was Tim."
For a few seconds, no one spoke.
"Would you like to come with us?"
"Where?"
"To eat, for now. You look much too thin."
He looked at himself and then at them.
"But why? What use is there?"
The woman...Leanna...leaned forward and smiled at him.
"There is always some use to living. Always." She got to her feet and held out her hand. "Will you come?"
He looked at her, at Sarah, at Justin.
"Is it better than being here?" he asked.
"Yes. Much better," Leanna said.
Finally, he nodded and got to his unsteady feet.