hi, gotta make this quick cuz my day starts in literally like 12 minutes and if i'm late my mom and sisters will kill me. last chapter the team found out that McGee is "older than Gibbs". here he and Sarah have a little heart-to-heart and then there's a little teaser


"Thackery?" Sarah called, once she was out of earshot. "Thack, where are you?"

Eventually, she found him sitting against an old, dual grave that was perched precariously over a man-made cliff. Below she could see the glory of Washington D.C. Above was one of the most beautiful sunsets a person could find that close to a large city: half of the sky was pink with the setting sun, and half was dark blue with twilight, with several stars visible. Tim was currently staring at them.

Sarah shook her head and dropped next to him. "Hey Thack," she said. "You ok?"

"No," he admitted. "And the name's Tim, Emily—I mean, Sarah."

"Not here," she insisted. "We're alone, back in the woods like we used to be. Remember all the times we used to race each other on the deer paths?" He smiled at the memory.

"'Course. You'd always pretend you were the Indian Princess Pocahontas."

"And you were John Smith with your big gun and metal helmet."

"You'd climb a tree to try and hide…"

"But you'd always find me…"

"Until the time that tree fell…"

"And you had to dig me out from under it. Then I'd try to give you a kiss for saving me and you'd…"

"Threaten to throw you in the pig sty at home if you got too close!" Both siblings burst into laughter, watching the growing number of stars. "Life was so much easier back then," McGee said. "And you could always see every star, no matter where you went."

"Even in…"

"New York," they both said. "Hey, Emily?" her brother asked.

"Yeah, Thack?"

"What's heaven like?"

She hesitated. "Thackery, you know I don't remember a lot of it."

"You were there for 300 years, you must remember something." She shrugged. "I remember every moment," he told her. "Every minute of living like something that people feared so much they'd kill it without a second thought. Every minute of worrying when someone would get enough courage to light that stupid candle." He turned to her. "You can't tell me it's just a big blank to you."

She shook her head slowly. "N-no…" She looked up. "All I remember is music… light… feeling like I could fly…" She smiled, closing her eyes. "I could always feel the sun on my face… and Mother and Father, and Elijah and everyone I knew were there… eventually… except for you." She turned to him. "I remember looking down, Thack… and feeling so sorry for you… because you stuck down there while the rest of us were having such a good time…" She smiled wanly. "I think we were the only people to ever cry in heaven."

"Do you miss it?" he wondered. "Would you go back?"

"Thackery Binx, what sort of a question is that?" she asked, slapping his arm. "Yes, of course I miss Mother and Father and everyone else, but I won't leave Earth without you this time. I won't wait any longer. I won't cry anymore in heaven, Thack, it's unnatural."

"What part about us is natural?" he had to ask, smirking. She had to admit he had a point. He sighed and looked down at the city. "But now… Emily, I can't not die anymore. Eventually, I will go … but as much as I miss everyone, I want to live out my life here, with NCIS. What's keeping you here?"

"You, silly."

"But I'll come eventually… either up or down, that is."

"Trust me, if you go down, I won't leave St. Peter alone until he brings you up," she promised. "And you could come at anytime. It could be tomorrow; it could be 50 years from now. I waited 300 years to see you, to talk to you again, Thackery. I'm not leaving until you do."

She crossed her arms stubbornly. McGee smiled and put his around her. "Alright. But you've got to promise me—if I go before you do, tell Mom and Dad the truth before you do. I want them to know that we're alright."

"I promise… even though they'll lock me in an asylum."

Her brother chuckled, and for the next few minute, they just looked at the stars—the same ones they'd watched from their thatched roof all those years ago—and fell asleep.

Which was how Abby found them when she came to check on them. Sarah was sleeping peacefully, her head on her brother's shoulder. Tim was snoring like a chainsaw, leaning back against a large gravestone with 2 names carved on it:

Here lye the bodys of William and Theresa Binx.

"Tim? Tim, wake up. The sun's down, it's time to wake up."

McGee pulled away. No, leave me be… mother, father…

"Mother?" Abby repeated, pulling away for a second. "Ok, Timmy, either you're really old or you're British. But come on, you've gotta get up, Winifred's on her way."

The name of the witch had him away in less than a second. McGee sat up, his hand going to the gun on his waist, eyes wide. "Winifred," he breathed, looking around.

The sun was still setting. Slowly, rays of sunlight disappeared in favor of the quieter beauty of the stars. Tim found himself staring at them for a second before he shook his head and looked back down.

Sarah was running back toward the graveyard through the woods. Abby knelt and helped Tim to his feet. "We were worried there for a sec," she said sternly. "You were dead to this world, Timmy."

She could've sworn he laughed right there. "Don't worry, Abs, I'm still alive," he assured her. "Now c'mon, we've gotta prepare."

Before she could protest, he had her by the hand and was pulling her through the forest with him. By the time she could protest, she didn't really want to.

- - - - -

Someone once said that the worst part about a battle is the time just before the other side attacks, when the ones fighting start imagining what could happen. During the battle is hard, but there are things to focus on, like surviving. During a rare pause in combat, the soldiers don't have time to imagine when they're rushing wounded to safe distances on their side and pulling dead back so that they would be able to be buried. After the battle, they've already known what happened and can thank God that what had gone through their minds before didn't happen.

But before is the worst. This is when the human mind travels through all the evils the human race can do to itself, and when a single person can't help but wonder how they're going to die in combat. And though they despise the idea, most minds linger on slow and painful.

As NCIS agents—and, in one case, a Salem PD police officer—they were mostly used to the before-battle lull. But Abby, Allison, and Dani weren't.

Especially Abby.

Currently, she was pacing around the two holes they'd dug, wringing her hands and almost literally making a rut in the ground. Combat boots can do that.

"What if she brings back everyone in this cemetery?" she asked. "You said she brought back her boyfriend, what's stopping her from bringing back all these people?"

"She doesn't know them," McGee replied, growing tired of all the zombie talk. "She knew Billy and that's a must in the bring-back-to-life spell." Everyone turned to him. "I got bored watching an empty cottage all those years," he shrugged. "I read the book."

"You read it?" Dani asked, shocked.

"Yeah, and trust me, that potion Max drank back in '93 is nothing compared to what some of the things in there are made of—heck, what they do."

"How?" Sarah asked, trying to imagine a cat flipping pages of a spell book.

"Wasn't easy, trust me," he replied. "Calm down, Abs, she won't bring up an army of zombies. Besides, they wouldn't hurt people trying to save kids."

"But what if she gets the book? What if she does it? What if…?" With every question she grew even more hysterical.

"Abby!" the team all yelled at once.

"You can't focus on the what ifs," Ziva said. "What will happen will happen. If the worst is what does, we shall simply keep fighting back with everything in our power, yes?"

"One thing we can't do it give up," Tony nodded.

Abby spun around, looking Gibbs directly in the eye. "Tell me that everything's going to alright," she ordered him.

"Can't do that, Abs," he said, trying to make her see reason.

"But you have to!" she insisted. "If you say it then it definitely be alright, because your always right, Gibbs, you always know when my lab's got something, or when Ducky does!" She hugged him tight. "I don't want to lose you—any of you! If one of you gets hurt, I'll never be able to…"

A pair of hands pulled her away from Gibbs. Abby found herself looking into a pair of green eyes, stern but warm and worried at the same time.

"Abby," McGee said, knowing he had her attention. "Stop thinking about the ifs. If that's all you do, you won't survive, and that's a promise. Focus on what you have to do now, and if there's nothing, just go over the defenses in your head, ok?"

"But…"

"No buts," he interrupted. "Look… take me for example. If all I did was focus on the 'if's—what if I hadn't stopped to talk to a friend of mine, what if I had paid more attention when my Father was telling me how to use a gun, what if I had thought to bring a gun—I would've given up a long time ago and we never would've met. Trust me, you don't want to think about those things. They're like a MOAS, Abs. They'll eat you from the inside out. You understand?" Abby nodded, her eyes wide. "Good." McGee let go of her shoulders and backed off, sitting back down against a Civil War headstone. He shut his eyes to the others' stares, leaning his head back.

"Whoa." Tony managed. "Never thought I'd see McGee do anything like that."

"The Sanderson sisters bring out a side of Tim people can live their entire lives without seeing," Sarah explained. "Winifred the most."

Another 5 minutes passed and finally, the sun disappeared. Dani and Sarahwere moved into the hole with the book. Abby called for a second to wake McGee from his resting place on the headstone.

"Tim?" she asked, shaking him gently. "Tim, wake up, it's… well, I can't say it's sunset, cuz it's been setting for like 20minutes, but… it's twilight. Wake up, Mcgee."

McGee blinked his eyes open and groaned. "Nice dream?" He nodded. "What was it?"

"I was back at home…" he replied, "My real home, with Mother and Father, except Mom and Dad—the McGees—and you guys and all the friends I had over the years were there. No one had ever heard of the Sanderson sisters." He chuckled. "I guess I was dreaming about heaven."

"Well, time for you to come out of heaven," she said, smiling apologetically. "The witch is on her way."

McGee stood immediately. "The book in the hole?" he asked. Abby nodded. "Why aren't you with it?"

"Because," she replied. "Two things. First," Abby pulled him into a massive hug. "I know you won't promise that you'll all be ok, but try not to die, ok?"

"I'll do my best. Second?"

"Second," she looked up at him. "I'm sorry about earlier. You were right, I shouldn't've freaked out…"

McGee put a finger to her mouth. "Wouldn't be you if you didn't," he assured her. "Sorry about yelling at you."

"I'll forgive you if you forgive me."

"Done."

Tim led her over to the hole, helping her down. "Just like last time, right?" Dani asked him.

"Yep," he smiled, "except no crawling out to help zombies this time, you hear me?"

Gibbs, Ziva, Tony, and McGee all piled into the other hole, to the north of the first. It was basic planning: the ones with weapons are in front and act as a barrier between the opponent and the target. Dani was given Gibbs's back-up Beretta at McGee's insistence, and everyone else various weapons from random hiding places on Ziva's person.

When Dani asked if she had a license for all of those, she simply snorted. "You can't make a ninja get a weapons license," Tony explained, "They can make one out of anything. Credit cards, paperclips…"

"Plastic spoons are a favorite of mine," Ziva added.

A few more hours passed with no one in sight. No one dared to move, barely to breathe, as time went on. The slim chance that Winifred might actually not find them by sunup made its presence known as time edged on.

At about 0430 hours—roughly half an hour until sunrise—their hopes were dashed.

"Boooooooook!"

Abby nearly screamed as the thing squirmed in her hands. Dani and Sarah helped her hold it down. High above and to the north of them, a vague figure of a woman on a vacuum flew across the moon.


yeah, i know, i'm horrible with my cliffhangers. i'll do another chapter tomorrow if i'm not swamped with homework, as some teachers love to do after a week off, and then i think there'll only be one or two more after that. can't guess, since i'm re-writing as i go.

PEACE~Tibki