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Gibbs slowly stepped through the door, head moving from side to side, searching the front room for signs of life. The same voice called from somewhere up the stairs to his left.
"Hurry up Gibbs." the voice laughed.
"How do I know McGee's still alive?" he asked.
The voice sighed and movement could be heard from above him, then a cry of pain. Gibbs knew his agents voice, the pained quality becoming a too frequent occurrence.
The cry came again and Gibbs called up, "I get it, he's alive. What do I do?" he hated not being in charge, but if his continuing obedience saved McGee from anymore pain, then it was worth it.
"The stairs, walk up slowly with your hands behind your head."
Gibbs did as he was told.
The short walk up to the next floor was so slow, it was almost painful.
As he stepped out onto the landing, the voice came again, "down the hall to your right. It's the door at the end of the corridor."
Gibbs followed the passage and could see light flickering from under the closed door.
Hand outstretched to the doorknob, Gibbs felt the cold barrel of a gun pressed against his temple.
The gun pressed hard against Gibbs' head, "Move." he whispered in the agents ear.
The man's hand moved past Gibbs and opened the door, pushing the agent in ahead of him. Gibbs stumbled on the slightly uneven floorboards. Catching himself against the wooden table. He had time to look around properly as he slowly straightened.
The sight before him would haunt him for the rest of his life, however short that may now be.
On the table he was holding onto lay an assortment of knives, blades and whips. Torture devises arranged in lines, some clean and polished, others stained with gleaming red blood.
Gibbs looked up and the air was forcibly ripped from his lungs at the sight of his youngest agent.
McGee was tied to a hard backed wooden chair, hands bound to each of the chairs arms with rope that had dug into his skin, leaving his wrists raw and bloody. His hair was sticking up at odd angles, blood staining it a darker brown then normal. His shirt hung loosely from his frame, ripped and torn where knives had cut through and into the skin beneath. But what scared Gibbs the most was the amount of blood not only drying on his agent, but also pooling underneath him.
"Shit, McGee?" Gibbs asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
The gun was back, but this time it dug into his back, between his ribs.
"Sit," the voice hissed, pushing Gibbs forward to a chair in front of McGee.
Quickly moving forward, Gibbs sat in the chair and the man moved around and strapped Gibbs in. Thick rope wound around Gibbs' wrists and chest holding him in place. When he was tied up, the man patted Gibbs down. Searching for concealed weapons. Finding none, the man walked around and stood in front of Gibbs.
"You kept to the terms of our bargain. So will I, just not quite yet." a grin spread across the mans face.
Gibbs' heart beat just that much faster in his chest as the man made his way over to the wooden table and selected a small knife. Raising it, he inspected it in the light, letting it reflect off the shiny surface before replacing it on the table. Gibbs' sigh of relief was cut short as the man picked up a larger knife and turned away from the table to face McGee.
"Don't you dare hurt him!" Gibbs hissed.
The man turned to face Gibbs, the grin ever present, "And just what are you going to do about it, hmm?" the man turned back to McGee and ran the blade lovingly up McGee's already exposed chest. The cut it left wasn't deep enough too scar, but it hurt. Gibbs watched as McGee's face contorted in pain as the blade moved up and down in long strokes across Tim's chest.
Gibbs' mind was working on overtime. He knew the voice, the eyes, but couldn't remember from where. The man moved his head and Gibbs caught a glimpse of a scar on his temple, a straight line that ran from beside his eye and along into his hair.
Gibbs' intake of breath turned the man's head, "Michael?" Gibbs asked quietly.
The man's grin grew and he laughed, removing the blade from McGee's blood slicked skin "You finally remember me, Jethro. It took long enough."
Gibbs still couldn't believe it, "You're supposed to still be locked up." he whispered in disbelief.
"To bad for you, I'm not." Michael laughed. "Want to explain who I am to your agent, explain why I've been torturing him?"
Gibbs lowered his eyes too look into McGee's, the curiosity was obvious in the younger man's face, even through the obvious pain.
Gibbs sighed and told his younger agent the story. "This was before any of you joined my team…"
Michael King was the probie, the new kid on the block. It'd been that way most of his life. His father moved from one town to another with the navy.
Michael had joined NCIS a year previously and had been moved onto Gibbs' team soon after. The navy brat knew what it was to serve under a marine, and this was something Gibbs and Michael bonded over.
They worked together for over a year before it happened.
They knew who had killed the petty officer, now, all that was left was to find him. The case was a long and gruelling one. The killer had spent his time torturing and raping his victims before cutting their throats. But before they died, the killer had taken the victim's finger. A different finger from each victim.
Michael had tracked the guy to an abandoned house on the outskirts of town. The trip there had been made in silence. Gibbs driving, Michael sitting beside him, SWAT in a van behind.
"Next left, Boss." Michael informed Gibbs as they sped down the deserted dirt road. Gibbs made the turn, dust flying behind him as they drove an inhuman speeds.
They arrived at the house. It looked deserted, but the tire tracks in the dirt beside the house said differently.
Gibbs and Michael jumped out, guns raised and were hurrying towards the house before SWAT even had their doors open. Moving as one, Gibbs and Michael moved through the house, checking each room.
The house was empty, but the barn in the back corner of the yard had yet to be cleared. Gibbs and Michael met at the back door and rushed towards the barn.
That had been when all hell broke lose.
The automatic gunfire took both agents by surprise. Caught in the open they could do nothing but keep running.
Then Michael went down.
Gibbs watched as his subordinate, his team-mate, his friend, fell and blood began to cover the dry land. Gibbs made it to the barn unscathed. He turned back to see Michael laying out in the open, bleeding from a head wound. The only thought in Gibbs' head was that Michael was dead, that he had failed as a leader and friend and got one of his men killed.
Gibbs turned, pure rage flashed in his eyes. Rushing into the barn and up to the loft without a second though. The gunman didn't know what hit him. The man heard footsteps, turned, and three bullets hit his chest dead centre.
Gibbs just stared down at the gunman before him, feeling nothing.
A shout for an ambulance brought Gibbs back and he looked out the loft window and down on the scene playing out on the ground.
One of the SWAT members was holding cloth to the side of Michaels head, trying to stem the flow of blood. To Gibbs, that meant only one thing, that Michael was alive.
Gibbs rushed out of the barn and to his fallen friend. Taking over from the SWAT man, he pushed the cloth to Michael's head and whispering words of comfort and reassurance as the ambulance's sirens were first heard coming up the dirt road.
Gibbs turned his face away from both men standing before him. Tears pricking his eyes, his voice breaking at the last word. McGee could see the pain the story was causing Gibbs.
"I'll continue, shall I?" Michael asked. When he received no answer, Michael picked up where Gibbs had left off.
It was two weeks before Michael woke from the coma the bullet had sent him into. He woke to Gibbs sitting beside his bed, coffee in hand, reading a cold case file.
Michael opened his mouth to speak, but only a weak groan made it out.
Gibbs was on his feet in an instant. Placing a straw to Michael's lips, Gibbs pulled the cup away when Michael drank too quickly.
"That's enough." Gibbs whispered, "You don't want to throw this up."
Michael lay back in bed, his head throbbing in time with his heart beat.
"Wha…" Michael started.
"You were shot in the head at the farm, remember?"
Michael remembered the farm, remembered the trip there, and sweeping the house, then walking out to the bar then the shooting then…nothing.
Gibbs sat quietly as Michael tried to remember.
"The EMT's arrived and took you to hospital where they said you were in a coma. It's been two weeks and this is the first time you've woken."
Michael nodded slightly in understanding and tried to sit up, but nothing worked, noting moved. He began to panic.
Gibbs rested a hand on Michael's shoulder, "there were…complications." he whispered lamely. "The doctor will explain it all to you when he arrives.
McGee looked up at the man standing in front of him, Michael, then glanced over at a guilty looking Gibbs.
"What did the doctor say." no matter what this man had done to him, McGee couldn't help but feel sympathy for the ex-agent before him, and as the story continued, that sympathy only grew.
The doctor had come and gone, leaving Michael in a state of shock.
The bullet had caused permanent brain damage. The coma had been a by-product of that damage. Swelling to a large section of his brain had cut off oxygen to a large part of it, essentially leaving him partially brain dead.
He would have no self control. No control over how he expressed himself. He would most likely never regain complete movement in his left arm and his right would need extensive physical therapy to relearn even the most simple of tasks.
He cried that night. For the first time in years, he cried. Gibbs held him for a time but there was nothing the elder man could do.
Over the next few days, Michael yelled, screamed and cried more than he had in his entire life, and he couldn't stop it. He had no control over how he expressed himself.
Gibbs came by before and after work, told him all the scuttlebutt going around the office. But these meeting almost always ended in Gibbs being ushered out because Michael wouldn't stop yelling at him to leave.
They moved him into a nursing home three weeks later. Gibbs still came every day, but Michael refused to see him.
The nursing home couldn't care for Michael during his fits of anger so he was moved to a mental institute. Gibbs' visits became every second day, and still he wasn't allows in. Then once every week, then once every month, then they just stopped.
Michael still couldn't contain his anger, and the only way he could get through the day was drugged up to the eyeballs with anti-psychotics and a large range of sedatives.
It had taken Michael seven years to break out of the institute, and another month to find Gibbs and watch his new team.
McGee's eyes never left his boss. So he never saw the knife come from his left and imbed itself in his side.
This time he couldn't hold back the scream. Truth be told, he didn't try.
Gibbs looked up in time to watch Michael pull the knife from McGee's side and stab it in the other side, pulling it out slowly this time, twisting it slightly, ripping through flesh as blood seeped unhindered down his side's.
Blood coated the knife, McGee's tattered shirt and the floor around them. Darkness took McGee away. Pulling him under and into the turmoil of his own mind. Into the never ending nightmares that awaited the unconscious man.
Poor McGee! Hope it meet expectations. Again, all review are welcomed!
TBC