a/n - Sorry for the delay. Monday got to be super busy and the answers I needed about some of the dosages were delayed because of the holiday weekend. Thanks everyone for the good thoughts for my son. Our family had a wonderful time with him. I have some notes about the chapter, but I'll put them at the bottom, as to not influence your reading ;)
"He's in v-fib."
"Pressure?"
"Can't get a reading."
"Get him on the rapid infuser and start a central line."
"Abdomen is rigid."
"All right, type and cross match him. Get me a CBC and grab a quick blood gas. Hell, run the whole panel and hang two units of O negative."
"Got it."
"Epinephrine, 1mg, IV push."
"Charging."
"Epinephrine in."
"360, clear!"
"No inversion. Again."
"Charging."
"360 joules. Clear!"
"Nothing, Again."
"Charging."
360, clear!"
"Damn, still nothing, Push lidocaine, resume CPR."
"Blood's in."
"Push it, that heart's got to have something to pump."
"Hit him again."
"Charging."
-NCIS-
Tim woke up with a gasp and struggled to sit up. Ropes held him in place and he fell back in frustration. As he tried to tug his arms free, a voice came from behind him.
"Looks like you got yourself in a bit of a bind there, Timmy, my boy."
"What? Who are you?" Still unable to sit up, he tried rolling over, but that didn't get him very far either. "Why are you doing this?"
"It's not me that tied you up. You're a smart lad, use that head of yours."
The voice and the words sounded vaguely familiar and Tim stopped struggling. Calming himself, he studied the tangled length of cord he was shackled with. He remembered a lesson from his grandfather many years ago about following trouble back to its source.
There were a dozen ends to the tangle of rope and he studied each one, backtracking it through the loops and turns. Once he determined the path of each rope, he mentally tossed it aside and went on to the next one. He went through each one, until he had the entire knot sorted and memorized. Confident now, Tim pulled one small piece of rope that was off to the side and the entire knot melted away.
Staring at the now blank floor, Tim rolled to his side and climbed off the floor. He knew he should hurt, but it was such a relief that he couldn't bring himself to worry about that yet. Instead he looked around, hoping to find his mysterious benefactor.
White as far as the eye could see, Tim turned slowly, taking it all in. The white tile floor appeared to be endless, meeting up with the white horizon somewhere beyond his sight. Continuing to turn, he jumped at the appearance of an old man sitting with his back to Tim, his beach chair surrounded by piles of sand and wearing a wide brimmed straw hat.
Nervous and with a growing feeling of dread, Tim circled around to approach the man from the side, waiting to see when he would be noticed.
"I can hear you thinking from here."
"Grandpa?" Tim moved closer as the old man looked up at him, his hat falling away and disappearing just like the ropes. "This can't be."
"How about fishing with the old man one last time? What do you say, Timothy?" He handed Tim a stick with a fishing line and when Tim looked down there was a bucket at his grandfather's feet.
Tim squatted down, letting the line drop into the water. "Am I dead?"
Harlan McGee ignored the question as he watched his own line bob up and down in the water. "Do you remember the time you came to live with us? You were eight and..."
"The doctors put Mom on total bed rest so she wouldn't lose Sarah and Grandma Cooper thought I'd be in the way. Yeah, I remember."
"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe..."
The old man smiled and waited to see if Tim would quote the rest. Tim had to think for a minute, but then it came back to him.
"All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."
He shook his head as the memories became clearer. "Penny made me memorize that poem and we read something from Lewis Carroll every night. Dad was furious when he found out, said I was wasting my time on meaningless drivel."
His grandfather nodded with a sad smile. "My son never understood the differences between the two of you. Neither did you. I suppose part of that is my fault. I pushed you to want to be just like your father, like me, and that was a mistake."
"Every little boy wants to grow up to be just like his dad."
"Now, Timmy, in your line of work, I think you've seen plenty of times that's not always the case."
"That's different, Grandpa. Dad wasn't a criminal, he didn't beat me, he didn't abandon me."
The elderly man studied him closely. "The law doesn't cover everything, you can hurt a child without ever laying a hand on him and sometimes a crowded room is the loneliest place in the world. You're two very different people and there's nothing wrong with that."
"Then why couldn't he see it that way?" Tim froze, shocked at himself for shouting at his grandfather. Instead of answering, the old man turned his attention back to his pole and the fish he was pulling out of the bucket.
-NCIS-
"Clear!"
"Damn it, he's still in v-fib. Resume CPR."
"Epinephrine, 1mg IV push, again."
"Second dose, Epinephrine's in."
"Charging."
-NCIS-
"What was your father like as a child, you ever wonder?"
Tim stared at the fish his grandfather tossed into the sand, watching it sink and vanish. "I don't know; hardworking, I guess. At least that was the impression I always got."
"That's what he wanted you to think. A holy terror, that boy was. Needed the firm hand and the discipline of a military upbringing to keep him out of jail."
"Really?" Despite the strangeness of the conversation, Tim felt the side of his mouth twitch at the thought of his father being an unruly troublemaker.
Harlan baited his hook with a tea bag and tossed it back into the bucket. "Yep. He needed the rules and the order to control the chaos of his own life, never learned to look at the cause of the chaos, though. Rules and regulations, that made him a good officer and a good man, but he'll never be a great man because he can't see beyond the rules, past the little box he lives in."
When Tim was a child, he often didn't fully understand his grandfather's stories and would become impatient. This time he settled in to wait. Harlan nodded approvingly and handed him a bag. Tim opened it and found the horehound candy he'd loved as a child. He popped one in his mouth and offered the bag back to his grandfather. Harlan shook his head as he resumed his tale.
"When you stay in the box, you're good at following order. The safety of the box also gives you the security of giving orders. A lot of officers spend their whole careers in the box. It makes for great pencil pushers, but not for great men. Heroes break through the box, they do what's necessary, damn the consequences.
"Your dad needs the box, needs those walls to feel safe. I thought I did, too, until it was too late. I missed too much, Timothy, just like your father is now. Maybe he'll learn, maybe he won't, but either way, it's not your fault."
"I know that." Tim stared into the bucket, not seeing any fish.
"Do you? Then why does he get to you?"
"I just wanted his approval. Is that so bad?"
"I don't know, is it?" Harlan tugged on his pole, pulling another fish out of the bucket.
Frustrated, Tim tossed his makeshift fishing pole to the side as he stood and started pacing. "I don't understand. Why am I here? If I'm dead, then what's the point? I won't be able to fix anything with my dad, even if I knew how."
"Is that what you want to do? To fix things with your father?"
Tim opened his mouth, then froze, sensing that there was much more to the question. His grandfather nodded in approval and Tim thought before carefully answering. "It won't really change anything because I'm my own person. His approval won't change anything about me, only his perception of me."
The fishing pole gone from his hands, Harlan slowly began to clap. "In the end, you can only be responsible for your own actions. It's a hard lesson to learn, took a long time for your grandmother to beat that into my head."
-NCIS-
"Doctor?"
"I'm not losing another one. Again, Epinephrine, 1mg IV push. Come on, kid. I know you've got more fight in you than this."
"Resuming CPR"
"Charging."
-NCIS-
"So, you're really not disappointed that I didn't follow you and Dad?"
Harlan tapped a familiar pipe against his teeth as he thought about the question. "When you were younger, I was so busy agreeing with your father about your path, I never noticed that you were just like your grandmother. You live for the challenge. "
Tim smiled at the mention of Penny. "I'm like her?"
"Always pushing, always exploring, never satisfied." Harlan smiled at the memory. "Do you remember her favorite quote from Alice in Wonderland?
Tim frowned as he thought back. There were several passages that she'd felt important enough stick up on the refrigerator, right next to the drawings Tim would make for her, but there was one that she often quoted for her self. "'I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.' She always said a person who doesn't grow, dies."
"Stagnating the soul, she'd always tell me, and she was right."
The question that his grandfather had been ignoring kept coming back to Tim's mind. "Do I get to keep growing, or is this where I stop?"
Harlan gave him a quote of his own. "Remember this one? 'Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop.' The question is, are you at the end? You're at a crossroads, Timothy and only you can decide if this is the end or just a pause along the way. I'll be honest, son, it won't be easy if you go back."
Tim could only imagine the pain he'd face if he went back. "Do you know which quote was my favorite?"
When his grandfather shook his head, Tim closed his eyes and remembered. "One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others." He opened his eyes, hoping to see understanding. "I have to go back, Grandpa, I'm not done with what I need to do."
The hat was back on his grandfather's head, the fishing pole in his hands. "I'm in no rush, Timothy. Tell your grandmother that she's still my number one girl."
"I will." Tim looked down as a new set of ropes began curling up his legs. "Umm, Grandpa?"
Harlan didn't look up as he reeled in another fish. "Remember, don't pull the rope, boy, until you've memorized all the booby-traps." As the ropes covered his face, cutting off his air, he heard one last piece of advice from the eccentric old man. "A father's guilt can only make things worse. Remember that, Timothy, if you and your friends are going to survive."
-NCIS-
"360, clear!"
"Damn it, still nothing. Again."
Doctor, maybe..."
"No. Again."
"Charging."
"360 joules. Clear."
"Yes! We've got a sinus rhythm."
Quotes taken from the assorted works of Lewis Carroll.
a/n2 - Yeah, a very different chapter, very symbolic rather than literal. However, there are a ton of clues in it about much more than just McGee's father. A lot more. Fathers, their children (especially sons), chances taken and chances missed will be a theme that will weave through much of the story. With as many father issues that our team has, and Dearing as a father driven insane by what happened to his son, it seemed very appropriate.
In fact, if you look close enough, you'll see the final clue as to what pushed Dearing over the edge. Did you see it? I feel the breeze as hundreds of computers quickly scroll up. :)
