CHAPTER 4

Tim blinked his eyes open only a few hours later. Rubbing his eyes, he slowly sat up and looked around. Nothing was out of place and everything was the same. Jethro lied at the end of the bed, watching him as he woke when Tim woke.

Absentmindedly, he got up and went to the bathroom, taking care of business before taking a shower. He worked on autopilot, a routine that he's had since he was a kid, as his mind whirled with formulas and math. Problems and patterns that needed to be deciphered.

Taking care of Jethro and leaving a message for the kid who usually took care of Jethro now and again, he headed out to go back to NCIS.

"Hey Agent McGee," Dave at the entrance said, "you're here early."

Blinking and focusing on Dave, he nodded. "Uh, yeah. Work."

"I hear ya. You have some days that the work won't leave you alone."

"Yeah. Thanks Dave," he said as he walked towards the elevator.

He was ready to head straight to the work room, his mind already reading with new possible answers that needed to be written out, when his hand hovered over the buttons. The last time he saw Clea, wasn't that long ago and she had been a breathing woman with brilliant ideas and plans. She was an inspired woman and he had tried to help her. Now, she was dead and he was trying to solve her puzzle.

Selecting a floor, he waited till the elevator stopped before stepping out and staring at the autopsy doors. Taking the last step needed for them to open, his eyes found the wall that held the bodies and hesitantly went in search for her.

He finally found her in the middle bottom drawer.

Staring at her cold lifeless body, he felt his knees tremble and slumped to the floor, his back to the chill metal of the drawers. Trying to catch his breath, he finally turned his head to look at Clea again and stared. He had seen plenty of dead bodies in all kinds of states; before autopsy, middle of autopsy, after autopsy, ready for burial. It was all the same to him really, his mind just cataloging the differences. But this was different.

He's met Clea, talked with her, even argued a time or two on some scientist's new theory or experiment. He wasn't friends with her, but he knew her, connected with her in a way that his team couldn't. She understood him and he understood her. They respected each other.

"We're a lot alike Clea," he said as he stared at her pale unmoving face. "You know that already, it's why you came to me for help. It's why we got a long so well. I just wish we could have had more time to actually become friends. I know how hard it is to, especially with our minds."

His eyes traced the faint markings on her skin.

"There was this saying that someone close to me used to say when I had…moments. 'The principal mark of a genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.' I know your obsession wasn't for perfecting your puzzle and your formula; it was to making a major breakthrough in your work. I know that. I just have to figure it out Clea."

He reached out to lightly touch her hair when her eyes blinked opened and she looked his way, smiling. "You'll figure it out Tim. I know you will."

"It won't be much longer. I'm almost through finishing it. I just need that final piece."

"'Persons of genius, and those who are most capable of art, are always most fond of nature: as such are chiefly sensible, that all art consists in the imitation and study of nature.'"

Tim smiled. "I don't think the pope was a big fan of science when he said that. More for geniuses in art."

"Our work is art."

"Agreed." He paused as he thought about a certain case before speaking. "There was, uh, this case we had," he suddenly confessed, needing to get it off his chest, "where we had to go visit and interview children who were prodigies on their own. The victim worked there. There was this one girl," he swallowed, "that painted this piece of art work. It was a puzzle inside itself and it was…a masterpiece. You would have appreciated it. Everyone saw just colors and squares, but the minute I saw it, I knew it was more. So did Gibbs, which was why he had it taken. But I never said anything," he admitted with a bit of shame. "I never told the team that I knew what it was and that I knew how to crack it. I just left it to Abby to solve on her computer so that I didn't get asked questions."

He pushed a lock of hair away from her forehead and finally said, "It hurts to hide at times."

"Timothy?"

Blinking, he snapped his hand back and turned to face Ducky who stood a few feet away, staring at him with his ever calm and assuring eyes. Looking back to the dead face of Clea, he stood back up and greeted, "Oh, hi Ducky."

"Hi."

"Sorry, I uh…"

"It's quite alright. How long have you been here?"

Looking at the clock he was surprised to see it had been a little over an hour since he entered autopsy. "Not long. Just wanted to see her one last time I guess."

Ducky stepped closer to stand on the other side of Clea. "Fascinating case I should say. Brilliant woman."

"You have no idea," he mumbled as he looked back down at Clea.

"We could study her brain for years and never know just what made her tick." Yeah, he understood that. It had been a running joke when he was younger. People signing him up for his body to be donated when he died so that they could figure out how he tick and just what it was that made him…come up with the things he did. "But I suppose that could be said for any one of us."

Absently nodding, he continued to stare at Clea.

"Young Abigail is fascinated with the case as well, she was here last night."

Yeah, he figured. Abby would feel "connected" to Clea. He wasn't knocking it—Abby was a smart woman and a little different and Clea was a brilliant woman—but she just didn't understand. Clea was all about science, it was how her mind worked. It was how Tim's mind worked. He saw everything in science and math; he just perfected the art of hiding it from others. Clea wouldn't let her emotions get the better of her while Abby was all about emotions and feelings, and frankly more about finding her killer. She was never going to crack it that way.

"…talking about the order in the chaos and the nature of things."

The symbol!

His hand snapped out to grab Ducky to get him to stop talking so he could think clearly.

The whiteboard and the notebook, the little scribbled symbol. It wasn't mathematical or scientific, or even just a doodle to make sure the marker or pen was working. It was important.

He needed to get to the work room.

"Thanks Ducky," he said with a small hug and then quickly made his way out of autopsy and to the stairs. He didn't want to wait for the elevator as people were going to start changing shifts and the elevator would be busy.

He ran up the stairs and to the right floor, walking into the interrogation room where all his work was and found his paper where the symbol was. He had recreated everything the day before with a little order of his own and he quickly found the symbol. Looking at the fanned marks, he called up the memory of the symbol in her journal where it was around the writing of her college mentor.

In the journal was about the bus line and how she rode it every day, and he remembered her talking about it. Their minds were chaotic at most times, and they needed an order or routine to keep focused and on task. He had told her his and then she told him hers. And riding the bus was one of the things she did.

He grabbed his laptop and found the time and place for where to start and hoped that he found what he needed.


Agent Cade stepped into the observation room while drinking some of his coffee and wasn't surprised to see McGee on the other side. David had let him know that he was there, but he was surprised to see how awake he was. He was hunched over the desk, writing down something, and when he looked closer, he was a little, twitchy.

He blinked a little irregularly and occasionally when he paused to think he would look off into space, lips moving as if talking, and then went back to writing. It was a little unnerving as he'd never seen Agent McGee like that before. Sure he'd seen the lips thing but that was when he was doing something complicated on the computer and talking himself through it.

The twitchiness was what had him a little worried.

How many hours did the young man sleep? Did he sleep at all?

Cade took a seat, drinking at his coffee. He didn't have to worry about Barrett calling for him and demanding he get to work since he had called her the night before to tell her that he needed the next few days off to watch McGee. She hadn't been the happiest about having one of her agents on a babysitting job, but he wouldn't budge.

He liked McGee and he owed one to Gibbs.

When he was younger—pointless saying littler since that was a long time ago—he used to live in Gibbs' neighborhood and almost got into some trouble that would have gotten him arrested. But Gibbs had gotten a hold of him before that happened and basically turned his life around. Gave him a goal and something to focus on, and now he worked in NCIS on a team that he was proud of. And right next to Gibbs.

He owed Gibbs.

He was brought out of his musings when Agent McGee stood from his desk and grabbed his bag, leaving through the door. Cade was ready to get up to follow when the door to the observation room opened and McGee stood there with a raised eyebrow.

"I know when someone's watching me and you've been watching me since yesterday. If you're ordered to follow me then you might as well ride along."

A little surprised, he only paused for a few seconds before standing up and followed Tim out. They made their way to the garage and McGee was again off in thought, twitching and mouthing his thoughts. Cade just stayed quiet and kept to himself, sending off a quick text to Gibbs that he was leaving the building with McGee.

"My car's a little small for you," McGee suddenly informed and Cade had to agree. It was the pain of being his size. He couldn't ride in the fantastic wonder of sport cars. So nodding to his own car, they made their way over and got in.

"Where to?"

Gibbs looked at his cell when a text came through and read that Cade was leaving with McGee. Seemed all those years on his team taught Tim when to know when he was being followed. 'Atta boy, Tim.'

But he was still worried. A call from Ducky told him that Tim had been down in autopsy, talking to Clea, and a talk with David at the front told him that Tim had come in real early in the morning. Earlier than Gibbs.

He was worried.

"McGee alright Boss?"

Looking up to Tony, he saw the same worry though Tony didn't know everything about what was going on with Tim. He just knew the small things from yesterday, but even those small things had been enough to worry Tony too.

"Yeah. So, what have we got?"

"From what Miss Ferris—Lieutenant Thorson's colleague—brought us yesterday, I found a calendar book and it turns out that Clea is supposed to have a final meeting with a Mr. K at a diner. Later this afternoon."

He looked to Ziva. "Say where?"

"Wiley's Café across town."

Nodding, he jerked his head. "Go. Find out if any of the workers have noticed her there before and this Mr. K."

"On it Boss."

"On it Gibbs."

He watched them go before putting down his pen and heading down to autopsy. He wanted to talk to Ducky.

"Ah Jethro, I was wondering when you would come visit."

"You expecting me?" he asked as he walked over to where Ducky was standing beside Lieutenant Thorson's body.

"Given the fact that I called you to let you know that our young Timothy was down here, I should say so."

Rolling his eyes, he glanced down at the young woman and asked, "How did he look?"

"…Troubled."

"Someone he knew died," he argued.

But Ducky shook his head. "Before I would have said so, but this new Timothy… This Timothy seems to work differently. He works with facts and facts alone. His mind has cataloged that Lieutenant Thorson has died and that his job is to crack this puzzle that she left behind. That is his goal and his focus. It's not to find who killed Miss Thorson like you all are and what most would do. He has left that job to you. No doubt that if he finds anything that should help he would supply it, like the coordinates on her arm, but he is set to find the answer to this code."

Gibbs stared at his friend and didn't know how to feel about what he heard. It wasn't the Agent Timothy McGee that he knew and trained.

"The code that needs to be cracked is what's troubling him. Not that a person he knew was murdered. What's more troubling Jethro is his little behavior. It's not unusual for us to talk to the dead, I do it myself as you know, and frankly, sometimes they talk back to us. And for Timothy, well, that seemed to be happening when I walked in and heard him talking to her as if having a conversation."

Ducky suddenly looked grave and that worried Gibbs, more than anything else he had heard. "Jethro, he seemed…twitchy. If I didn't know young Timothy, I would have thought he was on drugs."

Suddenly alert, he thought of the behavior that mirrored Lieutenant Thorson and worried Tim was poisoned. But why, how, and who would poison Tim? Whipping out his cell phone, he sent a text to Cade to keep an extra eye on Tim and not to let him out of his sight.

"Jethro, I think you ought to give Abby a visit. She too was down here last night talking to this young woman."

Yeah, he didn't doubt it.

Nodding, he gave his thanks and headed out and to Abby's lab. But it was empty. Frowning, he turned back to head out and try and find Abby, to make sure she was okay.

It wasn't long before he found her in the interrogation room Tim had been using to work. She was looking around with a small frown and sad eyes. "Abby?"

Jumping, she turned to look at him and waved her hand around at all the papers and writing. "Gibbs?"

"Tim's working on it."

"So am I but you don't see my lab looking like this."

He stepped more into the room, shutting the door, before looking around again at everything Tim had worked on in the previous day.

"Gibbs, I'm worried about him. Not once did he come visit me yesterday, asking for help or just to say hi. How does he have this whole history that we don't know? That I don't know? He tells me everything."

'Apparently not.'

Gibbs just answered, "I don't know yet Abs. We'll figure it out, but first we have to finish this case."

Abby nodded, again looking around, before walking over for a hug that Gibbs returned. "Promise me you'll make sure Timmy stays safe."

"Promise."


Gibbs was sitting at his desk a little over an hour later when his cell phone rang. "Gibbs."

"Gibbs! I lost him!"

"You what?" he demanded.

"I lost Tim," Cade huffed as he ran, Gibbs could hear the pounding of his feet. "I argued with him and he got on a bus. Before I could get on, the driver closed the doors and drove away."

Trying to stay calm, he ordered, "Get in your car and follow him."

"We've been riding buses for the past two hours, Gibbs. Tim could be on a whole new bus by the time I even get back to my car."

"Alright," he sighed. "We'll track him. You just get back here."

"Alright."

Hanging up he called Abby. "Abby, I need you to track McGee's cell phone."

Thankfully she did it right away instead of wasting time by freaking out. "I'm on it Bossman." He heard the clicking of the keys. "Bringing up the grid now… I can't find him," she moaned. "Gibbs, I'll keep trying to find him but McGee could disappear easily with the way he knows how computers work, so if he wanted to, he could make sure he isn't found till he wants to be found."

"Abby."

"But like I said, I'll keep trying."

Nodding, he said his thanks before hanging up and praying they found Tim soon. He didn't like the idea of him out there alone.


"How did you find me exactly?"

"I followed Clea's path. It only took eight buses and ten miles on foot."

Professor Redner handed over a tea mug that he graciously took. "If it was Clea, she had a reason."

Tim nodded. "I theorized that she was scared. She told me that she liked riding the bus; that it was what she did every day. But I think that she realized someone was following her so she lengthened it, made the rides loop around and go off so that she lost whoever it was and she could still get to you."

"The same person that hurt her?"

Blinking at the saddened look on his face, he gently nodded. "Yeah."

"I was worried something had happened," he said, shaking his head, "when she didn't show the other day."

"So…she was on her way to see you when she died."

Professor Redner looked down. "I can't believe that she's gone."

Tim watched the sadness pass through the man's eyes and suddenly wondered if this was a somewhat version of how Carter felt when Tim ended up in the hospital from the explosion in the lab. Carter was Tim's mentor, just as Professor Redner was Clea's.

"Well, she left her work behind obviously. And…I'm trying to figure it out." He walked over to his bag to pull out his own notebook that he put together of the work, sitting down in the chair. "See, Clea put her work into…a pattern. To protect it. And I just need that final piece because whatever it is, it got her killed." He passed the notebook to him when he took the seat beside him. "Do you recognize any of this?" he asked.

Professor Redner looked at the work and shook his head. "There's obviously a focus on hydrogen and carbon dioxide, which you've noticed, but the rest… No, I'm sorry."

Sighing, he took the notebook back and let his eyes and brain fill with the numbers and symbols again.

"Clea kept her projects secret, even from me. To be honest, if she would share it with anyone, it would have been you. She told me of the time she met you," he said with a small smile and Tim gave a small one back. "She even told me this latest one was inspired by you."

"Yeah," he mumbled as he remembered Miss Farris from the day before mentioning it. "If I can only remember what I did or said that was inspiration for something."

Professor Redner shook his head. "There's no telling."

Tim frowned as he continued to think, his mind running. "There had to be something. Oh, she wrote about a Mr. K."

Nodding, he said, "She mentioned him a few times, yes."

"Ever by name?"

"No. Sorry."

Sighing, he gave a tired nod. "It's alright. I just figured it had to be something. This last piece is missing and the last place I can think of is her mother, but she wouldn't keep a piece of her work that far away from her."

They sat in silence, both thinking, before Professor Redner stood and went to the other side of his lab desk. "You know, Clea gave me something a few years ago. We would read from it during her visits. It seemed to calm her." He came to sit back down and showed the book Leaves of Grass with Autobiography by Whitman. "Maybe it could do the same for you as you were alike."

He stared at the green book and when he realized Professor Redner was waiting for him, he clued in to what he meant. "Oh, no I couldn't take it. That was a gift."

"Science is poetry, Mister McGee. It's about making order—"

"From chaos," he interrupted, nodding his head. "Yeah, tell me about it. I do it all the time, especially in the past."

"Then it's in good hands. Besides, I'm sure Clea would have wanted you to enjoy it."

Knowing the older man wasn't going to take no for an answer, he took the book in his hands and set it on his lap.

"I'm glad Clea found a confidant in you when she couldn't come to me."

Tim softly smiled. "We geniuses have to stick together." The professor watched as he gently smoothed the cover of the book. "Geniuses are the lowest on the food chain when it comes to school, and that's even if they come along since geniuses are very few. Jocks and popular kids pick on the geeks, and the geeks who resent them for being smarter pick on the geniuses."

Tony's pranks and hazing was nothing compared to when he was little.

"So when a fellow genius came to me for help, to get out from under a bully that I used to know and partially work for, I gladly helped."

And he didn't regret it. Only that he couldn't help her more.


"We are not sure what to believe at this point."

Gibbs walked around the corner with Ziva and Tony as they explained their trip to the café.

"Meeting with Mr. K wasn't what we'd hoped for," Tony said.

"He never showed?"

"You could say that."

"The restaurant manager confirmed Lieutenant Thorson was there many times these past two weeks. Dates correspond to meetings found in her calendar. Look." Ziva handed the folder as he finished walking around his desk while Tony grabbed the video clicker.

"We got video footage."

Sighing as he looked at the facts, he ordered, "Let's see it," and watched as the video played.

Lieutenant Thorson sat in a booth in the corner, a cup of coffee in front of her. She was talking angrily. Alone. There was no one else with her.

"First I thought maybe she was on her phone," Tony said as he zoomed on her booth, "but manager says that she stays like this for about an hour every time."

Ziva added, "He kicked her out after a customer complained that she was getting too loud."

He continued to watch the woman argue with thin air and gently ordered them to turn it off as an image of his younger agent came to mind and he didn't like it. He looked over at Abby who was sitting at Tim's desk, watching sadly at the video. After Tim had disappeared, she had been working hard to try and find him and gave up trying to figure out the code.

"Gibbs, McGee turned his cell phone back on. I'm going to try and find him."

Tony turned to Agent Cade who had been silently watching and listening from beside Abby. "So, big Agent Cade couldn't even keep track of little Probie in the field."

"DiNozzo." He didn't want this now. He had a missing agent and a delusional victim that has sent them on a chase for a Mr. K that didn't exist.

Cade looked between the video and Tony. "Who's going to tell Agent McGee?"

"I nominate you big guy."

"DiNozzo," he snapped and watched Tony clench his jaw before walking over to his desk to sit. He knew Tony was worried about Tim, but his jokes weren't helping. "I'll do it," he said as he picked up the phone to just call Tim. That way was easiest to find him.

But Ziva spoke before he could. "Well, someone will have to and quickly."

He turned to watch McGee walk into the bullpen, ignoring Abby's question on if he was alright. "Boss," he smiled, "crazy day. You wouldn't believe where I've been. Wanna guess? No, okay."

"McGee."

"So I found Clea's college mentor, Professor Daniel Redner. We talked about poetry, he made tea—reminded me of Ducky. Hated he poetry, loved the tea. He makes great tea, not as good as Ducky."

"Stop."

"Anyway…where was I? Oh! Ye-yeah, he knows about Mr. K. Well, not his name per say, but he knew that C-Clea was very secretive about him, uh, uh, and her work, so that could mean she felt threatened by him. He may have the final piece. So we have to find Mr. K, Boss."

"TIM!"

Tim froze and stared at Gibbs. "You just said my name. You never call me by my first name."

Guilt went through him, along with worry he hadn't felt in a long time. Tim was all over the place, twitchy and stuttering. Tim hasn't stuttered since his early days and he didn't like seeing it back. Silently, he turned to the plasma and turned the video back on, letting it run to let Tim see.

After a while he stopped it and turned to Tim who continued to stare at the screen. "It's her delusion, Tim."

"I was wrong." His eyes flicked to his. "About you. You don't understand Gibbs. None of you understand." And shaking his head, he walked out of the bullpen and into the elevator.


Tim felt like hitting something. He had watched the video play, watched Clea rant and point before switching his eyes to see her yelling…at an empty booth. Clea was many things but she wasn't delusional. Mr. K was real and Tim knew it.

Just because she was a genius didn't make her crazy.

With clarity he remembered the way Gibbs looked at him during a case. Gibbs had taken Tim along with him, to another place that worked and challenged brilliant minds. The supervisor had stated that line Tim hated so much.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity.

The look Gibbs had thrown his way had hurt and brought back memories of when he was younger. He was not insane.

He opened the door to his apartment and took care of Jethro. Not much later, he had Jethro relaxed, he took a nice longer shower, and he had his work spread out before him. Hydrogen and carbon dioxide was the key to it all. It was the main focus of the problem. Seeing a certain formula, he took his pen to write it down but the papers slipped through his fingers and slid to the floor.

Sighing, he stared down at the papers and really didn't feel like bending over to get it. He was tired. Getting a nudge and whine from Jethro, he absently ran his fingers through the thick hair before blinking down at his hand.

Huh.

Turning his hand over, he looked at the formula again and picked up the pen. He needed to write it down anyway, why not?


A/N: PLEASE REVIEW! They're appreciated.