Author's note: This is a short little one shot written as an episode tag to 'Grace Period'. The back story of McGee's friendship with Jim Nelson and his reaction to his murder has always stuck in my mind, and I finally got this to sound the way I wanted it.
Disclaimer: All characters etc are property of Belisarius Productions, as always.
Rage.
Rage for his friend. Rage for Jim... and rage for Amy. It was barely two months since they'd gotten married. He'd been there for the beginning, watched Jim fall more and more in love with her, seen the quiet, bursting pride when he proposed and she'd said yes. And he'd never seen his friend so incredibly happy as he was the day they walked out of the church as husband and wife.
And now, it was gone. He knew he had to stay, knew he had to help find the bastard that did this, knew he had to help put him behind bars... or six feet under. It was the last thing he could do for his friend, and he'd do his best now and grieve later, because Jim deserved nothing less. He knew that if Gibbs hadn't requested the weekend off, and it was him lying on a metal slab in Ducky's cold storage, that Jim would do the same for him.
He knew that soon the Director would be making the call that every one dreaded receiving, and he wished that he could be there for Amy. God damn it, they were just getting started, they had everything to live for, and now it was gone, taken away by a coward in the guise of a martyr. He had to get up, had to move, had to find some way to lessen it somehow. Because being in the squad room made it feel like it was just another case, as if it wasn't the man that he owed his career to lying cold and lifeless a few floors below. And because every time Ziva hit the damn clicker she brought the photos of Jim, broken and bloodied, back onto the screen and he didn't want to remember his friend that way.
So he made his way downstairs to Abby's lab and settled down next to her refrigerator, content to watch her work, letting the unusual quiet soothe him until she noticed him with that strange, almost sixth sense she had. She of all people at Headquarters knew how close a friend Jim was; and the concern in her eyes and voice and the tenderness in her hug suppressed the rage and let the sorrow through. Until Gibbs and Cassidy came in, and he knew he had to leave because he just couldn't take any more knowledge of the how and why of Jim's death. Not just now. Not tonight.
Rage... and sorrow.
