A/N: Another product of an overactive imagination here. This will be continued, but I don't know when. It could be a while.
Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS or any of the characters. I wrote this story, though. No suing necessary – I don't claim ownership of anything except this.
*NCIS*
He couldn't take it. Everything seemed so normal and yet so different. None of it was cohesive with the turmoil inside.
So he left.
He went to the one place he knew that no one else would be. He didn't know if it was a good idea or not, but he would see.
He was right. It was empty. All his partner's things were just as he had left them the day he died. A death he didn't deserve.
It was too quiet. No comforting clack of computer keys, or sad sigh he had heard so many times as a result of too many sleepless nights and sick monsters prowling the city. Everything had changed in the course of 24 hours. Once again, he was reminded how quickly the things you take for granted can be stolen from you.
He wandered aimlessly through the apartment, trailing his hand along his friend's belongings. The pain in his chest became so intense that he sank down onto the bed, remembering every insult, every comeback, every word he couldn't ever take back. Every argument they'd had when they forgot how short life is.
Shorter for some than for others.
Why was he still alive? He hadn't exactly been the model of perfect behavior. Why had so many people better than him died first? Why did he have to endure watching everyone he cared about disappear?
There was only one reason he could think of. Punishment.
Everyone had told him not to blame himself. He knew that there wasn't anything he could have done as far as the case; but mentally, he may as well have shot him himself.
He realized the moment that he saw his partner dead on the cold cement floor that there wasn't any coming back from this. Not like last time. He knew he would destroy himself over this.
He had failed.
The body had been released from Autopsy. Ducky said it had been one of the hardest he'd ever done. The funeral was tomorrow. His partner's father would be there, he knew. He didn't know if he could face that.
He wasn't afraid of anger. He had already been informed that no blame had been placed on anyone but the man who pulled the trigger. What he was afraid of was the physical similarity. Of looking into the same eyes of the man he'd worked with for years.
Most of all, he was afraid of looking into the casket and seeing the friend he didn't appreciate enough, preparing to be put six feet underground. Afraid of the eyelids that would never open again.
Nothing would change what had happened, he knew that. He knew better than to think it was all a bad dream. But he desperately wished it was.
Sitting there on the bed, he recalled every moment he had ever been with his partner. The times he had tried to comfort, but failed. The times he needed comfort, and knew he could always turn to the man behind the desk next to him.
When it became too much, he broke down and cried into his hands. He was too grieved to be ashamed. He wished he could have cried himself to sleep, but sleep wouldn't come to rescue him from the agony.
Because, no matter what happened tomorrow, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Timothy McGee would never return home.
*NCIS*
A/N: I know, another Tim tragedy story. What can I say, I love him too much to want him to be happy. lol Actually, if they did half the things I do to him on the show, I would be seriously upset. I do want him to be happy. I'm just too creatively depressed to write him that way. In real life, though, I'm actually a very happy person.
PLEASE review. I'm starting to get even more insecure about my writing. Reviews not only make my day, but they really do inspire me and persuade me to write more. :)