Chapter 4

Down in the basement of NCIS, people were crowded together. There was a lot of noise. The tension was thick, and Gibbs and Ziva did their best to keep everyone calm. Every so often, something would start to shake and people would scream until they realized that the building wasn't moving.

It was reality.

After a while, Ziva sat down beside Gibbs and shook her head.

"Is this possible, Gibbs?" she asked.

"Is what possible?"

"What Tony said. About McGee...and all of this."

"Yes."

"But how?"

"Don't know that. Doesn't mean it's not happening."

Ducky wove his way through the crowd.

"Jethro...something is going on here. This isn't a strange series of earthquakes. Nothing is actually moving. And then...I saw the Anacostia. It's as if we've suddenly stepped out of reality and into fantasy."

"Yeah," Gibbs said.

Ducky raised an eyebrow, but before he could say anything else, the roaring from outside penetrated their sanctuary.

...but at the same time, it started becoming silent. Empty. Still.

"What's happening?" Ducky asked, but then, he didn't need to ask. He saw it.

Or rather, he didn't see what he should have seen. Spreading across the basement was...black. Not even black because black is a color. It was...nothing. Where it spread, there was nothing. The people who had been there...no longer there.

"What is–?" he asked and started to stand.

Gibbs stayed where he was, but he put out his hand to stop Ducky from moving away.

"There's nothing you can do, Duck. Nowhere you can go. Just sit."

Ducky looked at Gibbs.

"You know what this is?"

Gibbs nodded.

"What?"

Before he could answer, there was another shake, a loud roar and the nothing reached Ducky.

Ducky was no longer there.

Ziva gasped and scooted back, involuntarily.

"Gibbs..."

Reality was only right around them now. There was nothing else in the basement. There was nothing else.

Gibbs just smiled.

"We'll be–"

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim felt the void growing , swallowing up all in its path as reality continued to fracture and disappear. The sky was still that crazy, constantly-changing, psychedelic pattern, but even that would be gone soon. The more of reality that broke, the more would continue to break...and break...and break...

...until there was nothing left. Until Tim himself was alone with the shattered remnants that he had to put back together again.

Tony was watching from beside him. He had stopped expressing his horror, his shock, his fear. He just watched. He watched and trusted Tim to do things right.

Tim just wished he was as confident.

...and there was more to it. Tim hadn't said it, but he was also afraid of what would happen to him when this was over. If he did manage to create a stable reality, would he have any part of it or would he vanish from existence? A knower and a dreamer, one who shouldn't have the power he did. What would happen to him when the world was back to normal. Would he die? Would he never have existed in the first place?

All the thoughts kept running through his mind, but he didn't speak them aloud. He just guided and urged his dragons to continue to destroy. Because he had released them while in the dreamer state, they were insatiable. There was no limit to how much they could destroy, how much they could consume.

The void was spreading and Tim could feel it.

"How much longer?" Tony asked, his voice soft amidst the heaving waters of Chesapeake Bay.

"Not much," Tim said. "It'll take you, too, Tony."

"I was afraid of that. Will I feel it?"

"I don't know. You shouldn't. If I do things right, you shouldn't even notice...or if you do, it will only be for a second."

Tony looked away from the fracture and looked at Tim.

"Hey, McGee?"

"Yeah?"

"Will reality come back all at once or in pieces?"

"In pieces, but it'll be fast."

"Then...bring me back, first, okay?"

Tim smiled. "Why? You want to kibbitz my technique?"

Tony smiled, too. "No...I want to see it. I'm seeing it destroyed, bit by bit, because it has to be. I want to see it come back. Better than before."

"Maybe it won't be, Tony," Tim said. "I might do it all wrong!"

"You won't. I know you won't."

"I thought knowing was my job," Tim said.

"Maybe, but you also tend to undersell yourself," Tony said with a grin.

There was a loud roar and the water trembled violently and then spewed up toward the sky. Tim and Tony were both soaked to the skin.

Tony looked and saw Tim's dragons coming back. Behind them was...nothing.

"Tim..."

"They're coming," Tim said, nodding.

"Remember...me, first. I think I deserve it after everything you've put me through." He grinned.

"Put you through! It was your choice! Just because you're too nosy to stay out of it..."

The roar got louder and louder. There was no water around them anymore. The Chesapeake Bay had emptied, but they were still hovering in the air over the empty basin. Why not? It wasn't possible, but that was the point.

"Tony..."

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"For what?"

"Everything."

The dragons were getting closer. The roar made it impossible to hear anything, but somehow, they still managed it.

Closer.

"My pleasure, McGee," Tony said. He watched the dragons. "I really have to be part of it? You can't pull any strings?"

"Yeah. Nothing of reality can survive. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm sure it'll all be just..."

The fracture reached Tony.

The dragons, still hungry for more, reluctantly returned to Tim's hand and took up residence on his palm, waiting to be released again.

And Tim was alone.

No Tony. No Chesapeake Bay. No Greta. No Death.

Nothing.

Just him.

In a void.

Tim looked around...but there was nothing around to look at. There was nothing. Just him. Just him in a nothingness that, if he didn't rebuild it, would be open for all the horrors of fantasy to take over.

For an unknown length of time (because there was no time), Tim panicked. He was all alone in the void where reality had been before.

Then, he started to hear something.

Whispers.

Faint whispers.

And somehow, he could see.

What he could see terrified him.

He hadn't seen demons since he'd sealed off the demon world. But they weren't part of reality. They were beyond reality and so there they were.

"Let us in," they whispered seductively.

They wanted reality as much as Tim did...but for a different reason. They knew that if he made it right, they would be sealed out of it.

"Let us in," they said.

"No!"

"You can't do it. You can't keep us out! You will fail!"

Since that was what scared Tim the most anyway, the insidious whispers seemed to get inside him.

The dragons on his palm shivered in reaction to his fear.

"You will not be able to keep us away. You cannot even build what is needed! You will fail!"

Tim didn't know if he could or not.

He was ready to give up.

...and then, he thought of all the people waiting for him to do something, to fix it, to repair reality so that they could exist.

If I do nothing...

"Do nothing!"

Tim put out his hand and created his sanctuary. He needed to get away from the whispers. Right after it appeared, he leapt inside it. The whispers were cut off and he sighed with relief.

The waterfalls cut off the non-sound coming from the demons. He sat down beneath the tree in the center and leaned against the trunk, closing his eyes. He felt the urgency to do something, but at the same time, he was terrified of doing it wrong.

And right now, there was no one he could ask for help. There were no cheerleaders. There was no one to tell him he could do it. No one who could help him get it right. He had to do it right himself. He had to know that he could.

Tim took a breath.

Another breath.

Then, he started to think about reality, and suddenly, it came to him. He didn't have to create it all. He had to get it started, but reality could only take so many forms. He had to guide it, but it would happen once he let it.

Finally, Tim was getting it.

He got to his feet, banished the dream that was his hiding place and he struggled to ignore the renewed whisperings of the demons.

Tony might want to be first, but Tim wanted to let out a bit of reality first, to give him someplace to stand. He brought up his palm and whispered to the dragons. He didn't let them out all the way, but they came off in a small form and created a boundary that would keep out the demons. The boundary was a solid piece instead of the patch job he had made before. He was making a new reality, one solid bit that would expand...much like the universe.

After the boundary was set, there was a ground to stand on. Tim had to decide where he was. This would be the beginning of reestablishing reality. Everything would spread outward from this point. The dragons would take it out.

Someplace isolated so that when everything came back...when reality took root...when he destroyed the world that allowed him to exist.

No, I can't think about that. I can't worry about that.

He had been in Chesapeake Bay. Tim smiled a little and thought about Poplar Island. The southern tip where they were still bringing the dredging material to build up more of the island that had eroded away. It was likely to be empty of people. He closed his eyes and thought about Tony.

"...fine. You'll destroy stuff and fix stuff and everything will be just fine."

Tim smiled and looked at Tony.

"So? Are you–?" Tony asked. Then, he looked around. "You did. You already did, didn't you."

Tim nodded.

"What did you see?" Tim asked.

"Nothing. As far as I know, nothing happened."

"Good."

"Where are we?" Tony asked.

"Poplar Island."

"Why?"

"Isolation. While I'm bringing everything back."

Tony looked around and Tim did, too. The little sprit was all that he had brought back so far.

"There's...not much here, Tim."

Tim laughed a little. "I know. There will be."

"How?"

Tim swallowed and pushed away the fear he had. Another reason he had removed the link he had made with Tony was so that Tony would be entirely based in reality. No chance of getting taken out by what he was about to unleash. It wasn't that everything would be reality with no dreams. Dreams were important, but they wouldn't be reality. They would be dreams, ideas, fantasies, whatever. As they should be.

As I will be, Tim thought to himself.

But now...now, it was time to do what he was afraid to do. It was time to set aside his worries about his own fate and focus on making sure everyone else had an existence.

Bracing his tattooed hand, he brought up both of his arms, closed his eyes and silently called on the dragons. It was one of the last times they would exist.

They burst out of his hand, large, gleaming, powerful. They went off in three directions. Everywhere they went, reality burst into existence. Tim kept his hand up. His conception of reality was guiding them.

...and it would call them back.

...to the last part of metareality to be destroyed.

The knower.