'Well this wasn't the way I anticipated spending this evening' Tony eyed Ziva sitting on the opposite side of a sagging McGee, propping him up.
'Well it is hardly his fault he got drugged. He is just lucky it wasn't something more serious and it is just going to wear off."
"I think this offers a unique opportunity Ziva. Well he is chock full of what is essentially a truth serum. Isn't there anything you're curious about?"
'What are you proposing Tony?' Ziva eyed him suspicously.
'Well McGee here is always keeping secrets to himself. Maybe we should relieve him of a few?'
'I don't think he would like that Tony'
"Oh come on nothing serious now. How about his first time?"
'First time?'
'You know' He wiggled his eyebrows.
'He has refused to speak about it. It might be embarrassing for him.'
'Oh come on now Ziva the first time is always embarrassing and awkward that's the point! Beside he knows about ours, it doesn't seem fair that he wouldn't share.'
'Well I wish it to be noted that I think this is a bad idea. I don't think it is an appropriate way to alleviate your boredom"
"Oh come on now Ziva It won't do any harm. McGee's just a bit uptight about this sort of stuff."
Tony gently slapped McGee on his cheek and he awoke with a start and looked up at Tony blearily.
'Helllllllo Toneeeee" he smiled happily and drooled a little bit.
'Hey there buddy. How you feeling?'' McGee thought about this for a minute before answering, "Good, bad, queasy."
Tony smiled at the accuracy of the answer McGee was giving him even now.
"So while we are just sitting here waiting why don't you tell us about the first time you had sex McGee?" Tony tried to make his tone light and conversational as he was anticipating having to wheedle the information out his often reluctant friend but Tim just smiled brightly and sighed out her name.
'Isabella' Tim smiled and nodded a few times his head flopping forward, his eyes liquid.
Tony blinked 'Ok well that was easy. Tell me about her McGee'.
McGee shook his head 'I can't'
Tony pressed 'You can't because you don't want to or because …..
'She told me I couldn't'
'Isabella told you that you couldn't tell anyone?' Tim nodded again his eyes wandering aimlessly around the room they were in. Tony smiled imagining a girl, Tim's first sexual experience denying any suggestion that she had slept with him. Poor guy. Well he probably wasn't the first one that had happened too and he wouldn't be the last.
Tim unprompted this time turned to Tony, his eyes still unfocused and beamed a little sadly at him "I loved her Tony. I did. She was perfect' He turned to Ziva on the other side and insisted that she understood, meeting her warm eyes and holding her jaw with his hand so he could see into her face straight.
'Perfect. She was beautiful and clever and sexy and… did I tell you she was clever?' Ziva smiled and wiped away a bit of drool appearing at the side of his mouth as he held his head on one side squinting through one eye.
"She sounds lovely" Tim nodded enthusiastically and nearly fell forward until Tony and Ziva held him back up straight.
"I loved her" he sighed and he feel silent again.
Tony smiled. 'Of course you did McGee.' He should have known McGee would love his first. He didn't seem like the sort of guy who wanted to just get it over and done with some nameless stranger. No Tim would want it to be 'special'.
Tony, never one to let anything go continued 'So did you sneak her back to your place so you could ……… you know?'
Tim made a raspberry sound with his lips and flicked his hand away almost hitting Ziva in the face. "Why would I do that? No we always went back to her place."
"Always? So there was more than once?"
Tim nodded 'Ohhhhhhhh lots and lots she loved me too you see.'
Tony thought about this for a moment wondering why she would deny having slept with Tim if she supposedly loved him.
Tim started up again in a rambling manner 'Always her place. Better you see more room, more privacy, could shower and change.'
'Wow her parents must have been pretty liberal? Did you have to avoid them much?' Tony exchanged looks with Ziva who couldn't help but look interested.
Tim looked up puzzled 'Parents? Isabella didn't have any parents.'
Tony wondered if the drugs had caused him to completely hallucinate instead. 'McGee everyone has parents'
McGee shook his head 'Isabella didn't. He stated this as a fact. He pulled his curled hands up close to his face and badly mimed a sort of creeping movement. "I just had to watch out for Julie, sometimes when she came up the stairs."
"Julie was that Isabella's room mate?'
Tim shook his head wildly 'Nope. That was her daughter. She was a cheerleader." Tim smiled again "If I was very good Isabella would wear her cheerleading outfit for me. They were the same size."
Tony blinked for a minute and stared across at Ziva absorbing this information.
"Soooo Isabella had a daughter? Who was old enough to be cheerleader?" Tony's voice was doubtful as he considered this situation. McGee never lied and besides this was under the influence of drugs otherwise they would never be having this conversation.
"Yup she was in my class, she had a big boyfriend who used to shove me into the lockers' Tim laughter gurgled up in him. " He never knew I was sleeping with his girlfriends Mom!' He turned suddenly alarmed and shushed Tony and Ziva wildly.
"No one can know'
Tony was beginning to regret starting this conversation and considered that perhaps McGee had some good reasons for keeping his secrets. On the other hand it was like a bad car accident you didn't want to look but you had too.
"Why did she tell you that you couldn't say anything McGee?"
Tim looked across to him his eyes still watery, confused "She would have lost her job"
"Her job? Why would she lose her job McGee?"
Tim sighed and flopped his head around as if trying to settle the thoughts in his head into a logical order.
"Teachers aren't supposed to sleep with their students silly, even if they love them." His voice was young and yearning then he closed his expressive eyes and was silent.
Tony and Ziva stared across at each other. This was not what they had expected. McGee had had a sexual relationship with his teacher??
"He was put ahead of his class wasn't he?" Ziva enquired quietly remembering the dossiers she had prepared on the entire team before she had joined 'How old was he when this was going on?'
"McGee." Tony nudged him
"Humm" he leaned and sort of snuggled into Tony's shoulder
"How old were you when this was going on?"
"What?" McGee sounded confused again his thoughts having wandered far in the minute he had his eyes closed. 'Old when what?'
"Isabella, how old were you when you were sleeping together?"
"Too young" he sighed "She might have gone to jail, she made me promise never to tell and I never never ever ever have.' He smiled and then McGee looked at Tony alarmed.
"How do you know about Isabella? Who told you?"
Tony sighed and tucked Tim's head back against his shoulder. 'You did McGee'
'I did?' He turned to Ziva and Ziva nodded sadly.
'Oh' Tim was silent and Tony and Ziva sat there for a minute wondering quiet what to do next. Ignore it? Question further? Was it a probable molestation case they were talking about here?
The investigator in Tony kept tapping at Tony's head and Tony with a quick prayer that McGee might forgive him when this was all over started again.
"So Isabella was what sort of teacher McGee?"
"She was my accelerated learning teacher. She worked with the smart kids" Tony nodded, listening as McGee voice seemed to be slowly losing some of its slurred quality. He sighed again "I loved her and she loved me. For six months I had extra lessons at her place to get ready to go up a grade."
"But that wasn't all you did was it?" Tim shook his head and Tony was shocked to see a tear running down McGee's face.
"Then, then…. He gasped painfully and Tony with a look across to Ziva held him close
"She broke it off with you didn't she?"
"No not at first. Her husband came to the door. He didn't even realize. About us I mean. She told him I had been out door in the pool, but I had just come out of her shower"
"Husband? She was married??" Tony was shocked. He didn't know why this had surprised him so after all he had already learned but it was something he thought McGee would never do. Marriage was something valuable to a man like Timothy McGee and too cross it seemed indescribable.
Tim sniffed and crudely wiped the back of his hand across his nose "She was separated, he wasn't even around for the longest time then he started turning up again." Tim's voice was small and his uneven breathing became more noticeable." Then she started saying we couldn't see each other as much anymore."
Ziva was making soothing little sounds in the back of her throat and McGee seemed to settle down a little bit, his voice cracking, his eyes staring aimlessly across the room.
Tony listed the offenses, an older married woman in a position of authority with someone as trusting as a young Timothy McGee. He felt an anger building in him as he considered all the years McGee had held this secret tight, had never told anyone, had been tormented by it on his own.
It was so like Tim though to love someone so much through the years that a secret made in near childhood would be kept. And it would have been kept still if Tony hadn't childishly insisted on cruelly looking for information that could humiliate his friend. He hated himself at that moment precisely as his love and admiration for his true friend and team mate flared bright.
McGee seemed to be slowly regaining some of his mobility and started sitting up a little straighter. He seemed to want to keep talking and Tony and Ziva, their thoughts unspoken let him.
"When I went to the little ceremony…….. to the funeral…….I really wanted to talk to somebody, anybody. I didn't know what to do, what to feel but I couldn't say. I promised her."
"The funeral?" Tony's heart skipped a beat as he realized that this sad little story might not be over yet.
"Isabella miscarried. A son. He was going to be called Jacob."
Tim's quiet words reverberated around the room and Tony understood the pain behind Tim's words, behind the promise he made.
Ziva with a questioning look towards Tony leaned in and asked quietly.
"'Was he yours?"
"I don't know. He could have been mine or…. Or it could have been his"
There was no need to ask who the he was that Tim was referring to
"He would be 14 now if he had lived."
"And then what happened?"
Tim sighed his eyes full of unshed tears. "I went to collage. Worked hard. Didn't date much. Came to NCIS"
The three of them sat in silence considering their own thoughts for a moment.
Tony saw himself heading off to spring break parties, carefree and wild, looking forward to nothing more complex than drinking and chasing girls while Tim far younger than he watched the burial of his possible child alone from a distance, his heart breaking into tiny pieces for the woman he loved.
Ziva considered the quiet determined manner of the man she had gotten to know over the last three years. She was proud of how righteous and true he still was at heart. How he was still brave enough to risk love and have his heart shattered on life's rocky shore. She had known too many who had simply closed up their hearts from feeling the pain but also cutting themselves off from life.
"Thank you, Tony. Ziva"
"Thanks for what? We shouldn't have …...
Tim cut them off and looked at each one of them full in the face for a moment so they could see his expression free of the drugs that had started this confession.
His voice was quiet but determined while his downcast eyes were sad "Thank you for getting it out. Thank you for letting me get it out. It has been too long. It had been so long there seemed little point anymore in even mentioning it to anyone but now that I have told someone it feels good to be free of it."
Ziva started up again while Tony blinked rapidly and stared down at his fingers.
Tim held up his hand bringing back the silence "Apology accepted. I know you will not take advantage of me that way again. But I also know that you are my friends and you meant no harm."
Ziva nodded and the three sat there in silence for a moment longer until Tim nudged Tony in the shoulder.
"Want to get something to eat? Ziva you hungry? Because I'm starving"
Tony smiled up at his friend seeing how he was trying to show them that he was ok.
"Well since you were the one who was drugged you should be the one who gets to pick what we have for dinner"
"Pizza?"
Tony grinned. His favorite.
Ziva watched as Tony clapped McGee on the back and hauled him to his feet before enveloping him in a quick tight hug. Ziva smiled as the two men allowed the brief embrace before stepping back into their allocated roles.
"I swear McGee anytime you want to keep a secret I will never again question it." Tony nodded his head emphatically as the trio walked away.
Tim smiled a little sadly "You're just lucky you didn't ask me why I hate maggots so much."
