Disclaimer: same as Chapter 1.

Author's notes:

- Jane Eyre is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855), published in 1847.


Chapter 7: A reflection

Night had fallen over DC and Leroy Jethro Gibbs was in the basement of his house, sanding the hull of the brand-new boat he was finishing building. After the tragic loss of his family, followed with three failed marriages, he had picked up woodworking as a hobby to avoid the entrapment of solitude. At the beginning, he had made toys but they had reminded him too much of Kelly, his adored little girl, so he had given the whole lot to charities before switching for boats – a much more difficult construction to master. Many attempts had been abandoned, smashed out of frustration, yelled at and re-started before the former Marine had finally comprehended the various ins and outs of naval engineering. But spending hours in this basement with a bottle of Jack Daniel's as sole companion had helped Gibbs in dealing not only with his loneliness, but also with the stress and struggles caused by his job at NCIS.

Gibbs had struggled in finding the right equilibrium in his team almost as much as he had with boat building. The recruitment had been slow since a lot of people at NCIS disapproved of his drill sergeant attitude and many agents had thrown the towel after one week under his command. Gibbs had then concluded that only the resilient could work with him and, over the years, he had found those rare persons: Kate Todd, ex-Secret Services, tough-as-nails and good fighter; Tony DiNozzo, cocky cop recruited after a fight in a Baltimore street; Abby Sciuto, forensics expert with a "little Goth girl lost" attitude; Ziva David, crack shot and no-nonsense woman; Ducky, the only ME able to rein in Gibbs' notorious impatience; Jimmy Palmer, Ducky's shy and tenacious assistant…

Gibbs would have been contented with these teammates but, over the years, he had had to admit his personal nemesis (computers) was taking over the world. Nothing escaped the Internet and millions of data were recorded in those damn keyboard-maneuvered machines; it would have been folly to deprive oneself of mines of information, especially when dealing with murder cases requiring quick deductions and prompt arrests. However, Gibbs was a complete flop about computers – he was able to send e-mails and type with two fingers, but that was the end of it. Fighting the numeric revolution was useless and Gibbs had admitted needing a computer expert, someone who could actually find clues in this confusing universe made of zeroes and ones.

That was when Timothy McGee had stepped in their lives.

The smoothing plane made a loud noise after Gibbs had made a furious movement; as a result, the wood was damaged, making the NCIS Team Leader curse loudly and violently. He usually avoided verbal anger at work, preferring head-slaps to express his frustrations but, in the safe space of his basement, he could yell his head off without having any witnesses around.

Gibbs inspected the damage and made a face: the damage on the hull was important and it would need a clear head to fix it, something Gibbs didn't have for the moment. His evening of woodworking was ruined so the only option left was to drown his worries in Jack Daniels. Gibbs poured himself a glass and looked somberly at the ruined hull as the difficult events of the day came back to his mind, starting with the confrontation in Vance's office:

"McGee doesn't belong to you, Gibbs."

"I asked Agent McGee to go in a war zone and he accepted right away."

"He's way more than a computer tech, if you had ever bothered to find out!"

"Some people don't realize they've been granted a blessing until it's too late."

Then, McGee's statement in the conference room came back to haunt him:

"Trusting you is like trying to walk on quicksand, Tony."

"Your crime-solving rate is all what matters to you, Boss? Oh well, I should have guessed."

"I know what I'm not: golden boy, favorite or adopted child. I'm a tool, and that's it: only a mere tool to be used and then discarded once the need is over."

Gibbs tightened his hold on his glass, at the risk of shattering it under the pressure of his hand. Good grief, what had happened today? His team had been torn apart and he had been absolutely powerless to prevent it. But never, not even in his worst nightmares, would Gibbs have imagined McGee leaving for a war zone, with only sad words for his co-workers as a departing gift!

Timothy (no middle name) McGee, the computer wizard he had pulled out of Norfolk and gave him a chance to work for the uncompromising Leroy Jethro Gibbs: the kid had been greener than grass at the time and it had made him the perfect victim for Tony's and Kate's mean pranks. Also, he had been systematically volunteered for grunt work in the field, his prowess with computers constantly mocked. Gibbs hadn't done anything about it, either; he figured that if McGee couldn't resist the stress, then he couldn't work for him and it would be the end of it. Rumors had spread through NCIS like wildfire, with the other agents stating that "the quiet, sensible McGee kid" wouldn't last six months under Gibbs' fierce dressage. But, astonishingly, Tim had lasted for eight years, making a lot of people lose betting money.

Gibbs had thought he had built the perfect team like a hull made of wooden planks from various origins, giving it an unsurpassed resistance to pressure but the morning's confrontation had made his boat break up in a suffocating cloud of sawdust. McGee's words had expressed a lot of repressed pain and, what was much worse, complete distrust towards his Leader and the Senior Agent. This revelation had been a hard blow for Gibbs, who abhorred failure above everything and he had to admit –only in the tranquility of his basement – that Tim's departure was capsizing them all. His team wasn't the bonded group he had imagined; one member had been suffering in silence for years from their callousness, isolating McGee from the others until he hadn't been able to stand it any longer, and Gibbs had been too blinded by his pride to notice anything.

He had taken McGee for granted and it had been a terrible mistake.

Abby's scene at the bullpen hadn't helped, either; her misplaced outrage about Jethro the German shepherd had somehow proved to McGee of his second-class status not only within his team, but also to his former lover. No wonder why the young man only had painful words for the Lab Rat before leaving the bullpen:

"Go back to your lab, Abby. You've already made a perfect fool out of yourself so try to not worsen the situation any further."

"Your recent Humane Society Drama Queen act has proved once again that you care more for a dog than for me."

"The only thing I regret is having wasted time thinking you would eventually treat me like a human being instead of your doormat."

Underestimated since Day One by his co-workers, receiving only indifference from his Team Leader, why would have Tim stayed in NCIS? A few words of well-deserved praise would have made all the difference in the world but this idea had never crossed the mind of the infallible, over-confident and playing-favorite Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

Well, playing-favorite had certainly bit Gibbs on the bottom with a vengeance this morning: he had to deal with a hysterical Abby right after she had walked out of Vance's office, and then throughout the cleaning up of her lab. Abby had wailed the whole time for being separated from her beloved technological "babies", screaming at the unfairness of her punishment and how NCIS would fall during her absence, stating no agent was able to conduct an investigation without her expertise and they would beg her to come back after a week. She also didn't miss the occasion to place the blame of her predicament on McGee's shoulders, loud enough for the whole bullpen to hear. As on cue, the other NCIS agents had added their own comments about the situation just as a tearful Abby was escorted outside by security:

"Unbelievable!"

"See? I told you Sciuto would make a scandal!"

"No wonders here, considering the number of Caf-Pows she slurps on all day…"

"Vance suspended her for six weeks, you say?"

"Yeah, he didn't appreciate the scene she made earlier… Oh well, she had it coming."

"And she's blaming McGee for her suspension? Some nerve!"

"Bah! Daddy Gibbs will fix up her mess, as usual."

"Are there no adults in Gibbs' team?"

"Only one, and he's leaving for Afghanistan."

Those comments had thrown shame all over Team Gibbs and it had made the ex-Marine so angry he could barely see straight. He had left NCIS to drive Abby home, and then he had to console her for the rest of the day. After hours of weeping, she had finally calmed down and Gibbs had made her a small supper which she had picked at before going to bed, half-reassured by the older man's promises that he would plead her cause to Director Vance. Watching Abby so broken had fuelled Gibbs' ire to the maximum and only hours of sanding in his basement had prevented him to drive up to McGee's place and punch the young man on the face.

The ex-Marine suddenly threw his glass against the nearest wall, making it explode in large shards as a geyser of Jack Daniel's splattered all over the painted concrete.

"Why didn't you tell me, McGee? Why didn't you come over to my house and discuss it? WHY DID YOU KEEP QUIET ALL THESE YEARS?" asked Gibbs with a roar.

Only silence greeted him, but the answers weren't hard to find: McGee hadn't told him anything because he knew it would have been a lost cause. Gibbs wouldn't have admitted Tony crossed the line way too often and he would never have taken measures to correct the situation. Ziva, just like Kate did before, would be peacekeeper between the two men whereas this role was supposed to be played by a leader, the one setting an example; instead, Gibbs had let the abuse to go on, comforting Tony in his "golden boy" position while McGee had been left in the dust. Besides, Tim wasn't the kind to complain and he had an undying faith in human nature: he had thought against all odds his hard work would earn him the respect of his teammates… But then, he had grown tired of waiting. Courage, like patience, had its limits.

"DAMN YOU, McGEE!" yelled the said Gibbs at the top of his lungs.

The ex-Marine then slowly sank on the ground, his back supported by the workbench. He stared at the whisky slowly running down from the wall to the floor, falling on heavy drops on the glass scattered all over the floor.

Gosh, was it ever easy to place the blame on McGee! But deep down, Gibbs knew he was sole responsible for the whole situation; he had ignored Rule no. 51, the one he had never mentioned to his subordinates because it would ruin no. 6, his personal motto: "Apologizing is a sign of weakness." Rule 51 was a big, dark secret that Gibbs had kept hidden inside his mind, acting similarly to M. Rochester locking away his maddened wife in the upstairs bedroom of Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre. But, just like in the book, the prisoner would sometimes escape and cause a major mayhem – and Rule 51 was running havoc in Gibbs' brains, destroying his self-confidence by showing him the errors of his ways but it was too late… much too late.

Rule no. 51: "Sometimes, you're wrong".

Gibbs' pride had made him forget about this and McGee would pay a high price for his Team Leader's failures. God knows what kind of perils would befall on the kid while in Afghanistan: it was a war zone where danger was lurking everywhere and being involved on a secret project wouldn't help, either. Wars attracted spies like flies on honey and Gibbs knew it would be a matter of time before information about a genius working on a computer program would reach hostile ears. And then, what would become of McGee? Would he be shot at to prevent him from succeeding? Or maybe rebels would kidnap him and turn his knowledge against US troops after the young man would have been tortured within an inch of his life, all this because Gibbs had spectacularly failed as a boss, a leader and a human being.

"And damn me, too," concluded the older man.


Tim McGee shut down his office computer with a sigh of relief. It was past midnight and he had just finished clearing his electronic files. He would finally be allowed to go home and have a good sleep after such an exhausting day!

After Ducky had left, Tim had glanced through the doctor's notebook and he would have started reading it on the spot if he hadn't been interrupted by the doorbell – it had been the delivery man from Mr. Tong's, and McGee had a hard time to stop the German shepherd from jumping at the poor guy in his eagerness to grab a bite of Chinese food. Dinner had been eaten in front of the TV and then Tim had left for NCIS, while Jet was comfortably settled in the living room with a movie about a stray dog becoming the partner of a down-his-luck cop having trouble with both his colleagues and gangsters stealing diamonds in Beverly Hills.

Tim smiled at the thought of his dog being engrossed by a canine movie star, but his green gaze saddened as he looked around the bullpen: the place was silent and deserted, as expected in this hour of the night, and yet the young man could "see" with his mind's eye the story behind every detail of the room. The strain on the floor near Gibbs' desk, a testimony of a coffee cup toppling over after a certain Team Leader had slammed a drawer too violently. The flat TVs mounted on the walls, displaying endless information. Tony's wastebasket, always stuffed with pizza boxes and hamburger wrappings. The staircases heading for the Multiple Threat Alert Center (MTAC) and the Director's office; the plasma screen; the elevator, which Gibbs occasionally used as a private conference room after having switched on the cabin's emergency button. Ziva's desk, formerly Kate's before she had been shot in the head by double agent Ari Haswari, Ziva's half-brother…

The souvenir of this tragedy interrupted Tim's moment of nostalgia and made him search through one of his desk's drawers. Its contents were neatly arranged, since the young man liked tidiness – a trait that had earned him Tony's mockeries since, according to the Senior Agent, being organized wasn't a masculine quality – and it didn't take him long to take out an item he had stashed beneath notebooks.

It was a thank-you card.

A classic one, too: the front was showing a photograph of a sailboat on a glassy sea, heading towards the sunset while birds were flying in the gold-and-blue sky. The caption simply read "Thank you" in dark blue calligraphic letters and the whole image gave an impression of tranquility, peace after the storm, the renewal of hope after a great torment.

But Tim knew it wasn't the case. He didn't bother to open the card because he was the one who had penned the message inside, and every word had stabbed him in the heart more painfully than a stiletto blade. He had written:

"Detested terrorist,

According to my boss and Tony, I owe you a card to thank you for shooting dead Kate, my colleague, after having failed to kill me. Forensic evidences have proven you were shooting at me while I was posted in the street, and only the fact I was shielded by a car saved me from your bullets. Thus, you wanted a consolation prize and you murdered Kate. The fact she was a woman didn't stop you; you were thirsty for blood and anyone would have fitted the bill, which is behavior expected from a coward.

Paying my respects to Kate at the morgue has been the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. It was awful to see her lying so still on a cold stab, while just an hour before she had been so full of life. Kate was my heroine and her presence has helped me a lot to deal with Tony's daily taunts and Gibbs' disdain.

Now she's gone, and I have been told twice that I should express my gratitude towards you. But gratitude for what? For murdering my friend, for failing to kill me, for making me suffocate in survivor's guilt? I will have to look at Kate's empty desk every day while Gibbs and Tony will remind me that I should have been killed instead of her. Kate's death is a terrible loss while mine would have been a small matter. Secret Services' agents are much more difficult to replace than computer geeks.

So, detested terrorist, here's my card to you but you won't find any kind words in it. I am not grateful towards people who gun down my friends. One may argue that Gibbs and Tony both said this stupid remark about a thank-you card as a way to cope with grief but right now, I don't care. Mind you, they don't care about my feelings, either.

My only wish is that one day I will be the one slapping the cuffs on you in memory of Caitlin "Kate" Todd.

If I sound bitter, it's because I am.

Sincerely,

Special Agent Timothy McGee."

A tear escaped from Tim's emerald eyes to fall on his desk. Even after all these years, he still hadn't recovered from Kate's death. The shock of her murder, combined with the terrible realization that he had been so close to death, had lead him to seek help since he couldn't have obtained any kind of moral support from his teammates. McGee had kept those sessions with Dr. Markham a secret, of course; the mere mention of therapy would have earned him another round of "McCoward" nicknames from Tony and a contemptuous glare from Gibbs. So Tim had dealt with his problems on his own, as usual. Thankfully, Dr. Markham had done a good job curing him of his guilt and the young man had been able to welcome Ziva in the team with a sincere smile and a honest heart.

The card had become useless; it was just a piece of strong paper adorned with a photo and filled with angry words. Tim wanted to leave a clean slate before his mission to Afghanistan so there was no sense in keeping it. A flick of the wrist made the card fall into the wastebasket; it would be disappear with the rest of the trash tomorrow morning, its very existence erased from McGee's souvenirs.

Satisfied, Tim grabbed his jacket and backpack, switched off his desk lamp and headed for the elevator, looking forward to sleep in his comfy bed while he could still do it. Within minutes, he had reached the underground parking and drove away from NCIS in his Porsche, heading for home and rest.

But McGee had been wrong thinking the bullpen had been deserted: unknowingly to him, Leon Vance had observed him the whole time he had been at his desk, and the Agency Director had waited for him to leave before fishing the thank-you card out of the wastebasket.

TBC…