Chapter 7

Gibbs forced himself out of that mindset. He didn't know if Tim was dead. There was no reason to assume he was. He disconnected and tried calling again. He got the out of service sound. Again, fear twisted his gut.

"Abby...can you track a phone...if it's been destroyed?"

Abby sounded slightly huffy when she answered. "How destroyed are we talking about?"

"As in...it's never going to work again."

"Why?"

Gibbs faced Abby. "Just answer the question, Abby!"

"Why?" she asked, huffiness gone. "Why are you asking me?"

"I think McGee just got into an accident."

Abby stood up quickly, releasing Jethro...who managed to convey deep relief in being freed from her embrace.

"No. No, Gibbs. No, Tim did not just get in an accident...call him again."

"Abby, I just did."

"Call him again!"

"Abby, he won't answer. There's no signal."

Abby stared at Gibbs for a long moment and then she shook her head. "I can't find him, Gibbs," she whispered. "Not if the phone is destroyed. There needs to be a signal, even dormant. There's a slight chance that the GPS chip wasn't...messed up...but...but if the rest of the phone is... Where is he?" she asked, as a tear made a track down her cheek, dark with mascara.

"I don't know," Gibbs said, and although he didn't show it, that was the hardest thing he had to admit...that a member of his team was in peril and he had no idea where he was. "Let's try and find out." He held out a hand to her and she took it briefly before pulling him into a hug.

"What if he's–?"

"He's not," Gibbs said with more confidence than he felt. "Let's find him."

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

It was easier said than done. Gibbs called Tony and Ziva, neither of whom could tell Gibbs where Tim was likely to go. When he and Abby reached NCIS, Tony and Ziva were already there...impressive considering how close Gibbs was. They must not have gone home. Immediately, they began searching for some clue of where Tim could be, where he might have been headed. Gibbs could hardly put out a BOLO for the entire East Coast...well, he could. It wasn't like that wide a search hadn't been done before, but in this case, it seemed silly to do so. Tim wasn't likely to go traveling. ...but as soon as he'd thought that, Gibbs mentally crossed it out. Up until this evening, he wouldn't have thought Tim likely to become violent...for any reason. He called out the BOLO.

Unconsciously, his fingers probed the nick on his cheek. It wasn't serious. It had stopped bleeding after only a minute or two. There was a bruise forming but it was minor. It was what it illustrated that meant more. Tim had been pushed over the edge by his team, his friends. Gibbs remembered the sound of Tim's voice on the phone. It mirrored the anger, the...the hurt, Gibbs realized now. Tim had not only been angry with Gibbs. Something about these last few days had left him feeling...damaged by the team's interactions with him.

Why? What was different? Gibbs asked himself. He agreed with Tony's summation, but he also agreed that the reason why they had managed to push him so far was unclear.

Abby came up from her lab, glumly reporting that there was no way she could track Tim's phone. It must have been totally destroyed...in a really bad accident.

"How bad?" Tony asked.

Abby just glared at him and sat down at Tim's desk, absently fiddling with his keyboard.

"But where is he?" Ziva asked. "If he were in such a bad accident, why have we not heard anything?"

Tony silently pointed to the window but dropped his hand quickly when everyone noticed it was trembling slightly.

"It's raining cats and dogs out there. People who don't have to be outside aren't...and people who do aren't paying attention."

"To a car accident?"

They were dancing around the seriousness of whatever had happened to Tim. No one wanted to address it directly. They couldn't. Abby was the one who finally voiced what they were all thinking.

"What if he died? It will be like we killed Tim."

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

It was a very long night. No one even thought about leaving NCIS. They checked the BOLO every two minutes. Tony was hooked into emergency dispatch. Every time a call went out for a car accident, he would stiffen, only to relax in a combination of relief and disappointment. It wasn't Tim.

Finally, at around four in the morning, everyone dozed off. It was hard to stay awake, even as worried as they were. Even Gibbs fell asleep.

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

The phone rang at seven a.m. and Gibbs sat bolt upright.

"Gibbs, NCIS."

"Oh, Agent Gibbs, I'm so sorry to bother you on a Saturday morning, but I've been up all night and I'm getting worried. Tim's not answering his phone."

"Who is this?" Gibbs asked, not fully awake. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the others awaken and listen intently.

"This is Naomi McGee, Tim's mother. We met a couple of years ago. Tim gave us your number as emergency contact if it was needed. Is this a bad time?"

"No, Mrs. McGee. What can I do for you?"

"Well, I was so sure that Tim would be here by now. He was going to leave right after work, and I figured that you wouldn't hold him later unless it was absolutely necessary. Tim speaks so highly of you all. I was sure you'd understand."

Gibbs winced. "What do you mean, Mrs. McGee?"

"Well, I'm sure Tim told you about Sam."

"No. What is it?"

There was a long pause. "Tim never told you? I don't understand. He's described you all as his second family. I told him not to spread it around, but that's kind of a family joke. Sam likes to introduce himself to people and then whisper to them that he's paralyzed and that they shouldn't tell anyone else. Tim wouldn't tell most people, but the people he works with... Tim can be annoyingly reticent, but...but this is serious enough, I never thought..."

"What happened?"

"Sam, Tim's father, he had a DVT, threw the clot and...and he's been in the hospital ever since. Tim was so worried. He wanted to come right away, but...but he has a job to do and Sam would hate it if Tim used up his last leave days just to sit by his father's sickbed."

Gibbs rubbed a hand over his face. It made so much sense, now he thought of it. The last time Tim had quit NCIS had been over a family member. There was something about Tim and family. Family always came first...even ahead of the job he loved and the law he upheld. He couldn't fathom why Tim hadn't mentioned it to them, but he could at least see where the emotion had come from. A good half of it had probably been anxiety...and guilt. Guilt for the accident fifteen years ago and guilt about staying in DC, away from his family.

"Is he going to be all right?"

"Yes...eventually. It might be a while yet. Sam's had quite a few thromboses in the last few years and it has the doctors worried, but Sam is tough enough to buck the trends." The certainty in her voice faded a little. "He had another DVT once before. It nearly killed him. When the clot begins to move, everything happens so fast. That's why I assumed Tim would be here. Is he there? Can I speak to him?"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. McGee, but McGee isn't here. He...left last night. It was fairly late, though, and there was a big storm. Maybe he stopped somewhere." Gibbs felt the incredible irony in what he was saying. Darn right Tim had stopped. He just couldn't bring himself to add to Naomi's worry when he didn't even know how badly she should be worried.

"I don't think he would have stopped for anything, Agent Gibbs. It killed him to stay even the three days before the weekend."

"We'll look for him, Mrs. McGee. I promise."

"And you'll call if...when you find him?"

"Unless he gets to you first."

"Thank you, Agent Gibbs. It's hard enough worrying about Sam. Tim has always been...he's the oldest. He's the only boy. He takes his responsibilities to his family very seriously."

"I'll let you know when I find out."

"Thank you." There was a brief pause and a flurry of sound on the other end of the line. "Oh, no. I have to go, Agent Gibbs. Please call me." Then, the line went dead.

Gibbs wondered what could have just happened, but he was satisfied that he definitely couldn't do anything about people 600 miles away in Ohio. He looked around at the anxious faces.

"What was that, Boss?" Tony asked.

"McGee was probably headed to Ohio. His father has been in the hospital for the last four days."

There was dead silence, much like the silence left in the wake of Tim's departure. The significance of the date, the meaning behind Tim's behavior, it all crystalized into a horrible understanding and a realization that all of this could have been avoided...well, not all, but probably a great deal of it.

They didn't say it, but they thought it: If I had only known...

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

Vance ordered them all home two hours later. He was sympathetic to their worries but refused to allow them to stay any longer, pointing out that any results from the new BOLO would be forwarded to Gibbs. If they were going to fall asleep at their desks, they might as well fall asleep at home where the sleep could do them some good.

They tried to argue, but in the end, their exhaustion was their own worst enemy as none of them had the energy to continue fighting against Vance's edict. As they left NCIS, there was a strange sort of reticence to stay in each other's company. Their mutual feelings of guilt subconsciously conspired to make them wish for solitude.

So they looked at each other and awkwardly separated.

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

"Hello, may I speak to an Agent Gibbs?"

...and that was why Gibbs was alone when Maryland State Police called looking for Tim's boss.