Chapter 8: Fault
There was something strange going on. Tim could have sworn he was lying on the floor...but he had no memory of how he had gotten there. His legs and arms felt extremely heavy, like there were weights on them. When he tried to open his eyes, the room started spinning. What happened?
"McGee? Can you hear me?"
Tim thought about that. Yes, he could hear...whoever it was...but he wasn't sure he wanted to answer.
"Good gracious. What happened?"
"I don't know, Duck. He was talking on the phone and then he was on the ground."
"To whom was he speaking?"
"Don't know that either. Blocked caller. Hung up as soon as I started talking."
Caller. Phone. Sharp! Tim opened his eyes and started trying to sit up.
"Hold it right there, Timothy. You're in no shape to be moving so quickly."
"No, I have to go. Ducky, please. I have to go," Tim insisted. Sharp knew who he was. He would know about Joan and about Sarah. He would know everything. How had he known? Then, suddenly, Tim knew and he hated himself. He hated every inch of himself. "Oh my gosh. This is all my fault. It's my fault." He didn't hear anything from anyone else. He felt tears on his face and wondered when he had started crying.
"McGee, calm down. What's your fault? Where do you have to go?"
Tim looked up at Gibbs and struggled to sit up again. "Where's my phone? I need my phone."
Gibbs knelt down and held it out. "Tim, what's wrong?"
Tim paid him no heed. Instead, he dialed. "Mom. He knows."
"What?"
Tim tried to pull himself out of Ducky's grip, but he was too weak. He felt as though he'd just run a marathon in ten minutes...or less.
"He knows. You have to get out. Now."
"How could he?"
"It's me. It's my fault. Mom, it's all my fault."
"What do you mean, Tim?"
"My books. He must have read them."
There was a dreadful silence. "Tim...why didn't I think of that?"
"Why didn't I? What have I done, Mom?"
"How do you know that he knows?"
"He called me. Just now."
"The U.S. Marshalls are already on their way over here and there are some going to get Sarah...and you."
"No."
"Tim, now is not the time to be a hero. We have to hide."
"I can't, Mom. This is my fault. What about Nick? What about the others?"
"Tim! Listen to me. Let the Marshalls do their job."
"It's my job, too, Mom. I won't give it up. That's not what I do."
"Tim!"
Tim hung up the phone. "I have to go," he said again.
"You're not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on, McGee," Gibbs said.
"No! I have to go." Tim surged to his feet in a burst of energy, but was prevented from leaving by Gibbs...again. "Boss, I have to. I can't stay."
"Why?"
Tim was still panicked. The one situation he had hoped would never occur was now happening.
"Because this is all my fault. Why did I use that name? There are hundreds, thousands of other names I could have chosen. Why did I use that one? I could have killed my family. I spent my entire life trying to protect them and just because I was so stupid..."
"McGee!" Gibbs smacked Tim on the head. Tim barely noticed. "You're not making any sense. What is going on?"
"Nothing."
Tony actually snorted. "Right, McGee. You're about two seconds away from a meltdown and nothing is going on?"
"You're not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on, McGee. Is this about the polygraph?"
"No."
"Is it about what you wouldn't tell me on Friday?"
Friday? Was it really so recent? "Yes."
Tim was taking heaving breaths, but he finally looked at Gibbs and started talking. It wasn't a calm explanation like he had done for Jim. It was spoken quickly, in a panic, in desperation.
"My name's not McGee. I was born in Chicago, and my name was Toby McGregor."
"You mean–?" Tony asked.
Tim didn't hear. "My father beat me...and my mother. He was a drug dealer. I was ten when he was going to sell me to his buyers...to Alexander Sharp."
"That guy who just escaped from prison?"
"I testified against him when I was thirteen, and again at his appeal a year later. I've been in the Witness Protection Program since I was ten. And...now..." Tim began pacing back and forth. "Now, because I'm an idiot, because I didn't bother to think for two seconds...now, he knows where I am. He knows who I am. He knows about my family. I might as well have pulled the trigger myself. What was I thinking?" Tim stopped. "Oh, no. What about Nick? What if he goes after him, too? What have I done? He would have watched the news. He would have. He wouldn't miss that." Forgotten was the need for silence, the need for calm and order. Tim had never shown such a lack of control before...but all he was thinking about was the fact that his actions could kill everyone he loved.
"My dad was right. I am too stupid to live," Tim spat out. Tears were still pouring down his cheeks, but he didn't notice them. He didn't notice that Ziva was watching him in surprise, that Ducky was trying to calm him down enough to get the pressure cuff off his arm, that Gibbs was saying something, that Tony had his hands out...ready to catch him if he collapsed again. All he noticed was the consequences of what he had done. "I never thought...I can't believe..."
Gibbs grabbed him by the shoulders. "McGee! Stop!"
Tim was still babbling even as he stopped moving. "No, I have to go!"
"Where?"
Tim stared at him for a few seconds. "I...I d-d-don't know," he stuttered. His shoulders hunched and his head dropped. He began to sob. "I don't know."
"McGee! You need to calm down! Just stop."
"Boss...I've killed them," Tim wept. He brought a fist up to his head.
"Tim, no one has died."
"Everyone who knows dies," Tim whispered through his tears. "I was going to tell Erin. She died. Kate died. I told Jim. He died. I was going to tell Abby. She almost died. If I stay here, you'll die, too."
"No, Tim. You didn't kill them. It had nothing to do with you. You need to start thinking."
It was silent in the hallway. No one spoke. The only sound was Tim trying to calm down. He didn't feel like an agent. He felt like a child with the monsters after him again. Gibbs was still holding him by the shoulders. Tim suddenly noticed that he had, at some point, dropped his fist from his head and now his left hand was holding his right wrist in a tight grip. Gibbs shook him gently.
"Tim, just calm down. Okay? Take a deep breath and calm down. If we're going to get this guy, we need to know what you know."
"W-We?" Tim stammered.
"Yes. We. Now, first, who's Nick?"
Tim was still nearly hyperventilating, but his breathing was slowing down.
"Who is Nick, McGee?"
"Nicholas Carson," Tim whispered. "He...the night my dad died, there was a drug bust on our house. He saved me. He's a police officer in Chicago."
"What happened? What happened that night, Tim?" Gibbs asked softly.
Unconsciously, Tim's voice became almost childlike, less refined than it usually was. "Daddy beat Momma again, like he always did. I was hiding with Sal–I mean with Sarah in the closet like always. We tried so hard to keep Daddy from hitting her. When she was too loud, I'd make more noise so that he would hit me instead," Tim said. He wasn't looking at anyone. He wasn't seeing anything except for the body of his father from so many years ago. "He found the...the chalkboard I'd made. I wanted to go to school so bad. Kids there seemed happy...but Daddy always said that I was too dumb, that I couldn't do anything right. He found the chalkboard and he hit me with it." Tim didn't see the others wince, didn't see the shock on their faces as the assumptions they'd all made about Tim's life evaporated to nothing. "After Momma and me cleaned up, he made me stay downstairs. I didn't know why, but he did. It turned out that he planned to sell me to Sharp. I didn't understand it back then, but I know more or less what I could expect now. They didn't like the price Daddy was demanding; so they shot him. When that happened, the police moved in. Sharp grabbed me and was going to kill me. He probably would have, but Momma heard everything and ran down the stairs screaming. It distracted him long enough for Nick to shoot him...but he didn't kill him. Sharp fell on me, but as they took him away he..." Tim stopped. He could see Sharp's eyes on him. He could feel the same fear. It still haunted his dreams even now.
"What, McGee?" Gibbs asked. He was still holding onto Tim's shoulders.
"He said, 'You're mine. Never forget that.' He said it at the trial, too. Just now...on the phone, he said it again."
"That was Sharp on the phone?"
Tim nodded. "He's going to come after me."
"Are you sure of that?"
"He sees me as his. I belong to him. He paid for me. It's not me as a witness anymore. He was convicted. He lost his appeal. It's been twenty years. There's not much for him to do, but he wants me. I don't know what he's willing to do to get to me, though."
"What about the Marshalls?"
"They're getting Sarah and my mom."
"What about you?"
Tim looked up for the first time since he'd started to explain. "No. I can't go with them."
"Why not?"
"Don't you see? This is my life. I have everything I've ever wanted. I went to school. I'm doing what I love to do, what I've wanted to do ever since I first talked to Nick. I have friends. I can't give this up. I won't give this up, not to him. It's taken me so long to get past what happened. I still have nightmares about Sharp, about my father." Tim absently wiped away the tears. "I can't give in to those nightmares. I won't. Besides, this is my fault."
"No, it's not."
"Yes. It is. Do you think that Sharp would have known where to look if he hadn't seen the character of Toby McGregor in my book? This is my fault. I should just go."
"Where, McGee?"
"I don't know. Somewhere. Anywhere. ...nowhere. I have to stop him, Boss."
"Why?"
"Because...I made the decision the night my father died that I was going to help people. I was not going to be my father."
"You're not, McGee."
Tim pulled away and turned toward the windows. "I look like my father. Did you know that? I look just like him. His height, his face. I look like him. I never wanted to be him. I never wanted to...to hurt the people who...who only wanted him to love them. Now...I've brought it all down on them...just because I used the name. I was named after my father. Tobias Allen McGregor. I was trying to...make the name something better. ...and all I did was leave a road map for the people who want us dead."
The silence was deafening. Tim had transformed from the quintessential computer geek to a stranger...and it had happened in an instant...but in a way, it made sense. It made more sense than the past they had thought he had. His anxiety, his social awkwardness, his whole personality made more sense with this background.
"McGee, are you sure he'll come after you?"
"Yes."
"Okay, then we need to know everything we can about his movements, about his contacts. Everything," Gibbs said. "Tony..."
"I still have some contacts in Illinois. I'll see what I can dig up," Tony said.
"Ziva, I want you to physically verify that Sarah is with the U.S. Marshalls. Whatever it takes."
"Yes, Gibbs."
"McGee, get me everything you can on Sharp. I want to see his file." Everyone else went into action, but Tim still stood there, frozen, the blood pressure cuff still dangling from his arm.
"McGee!"
"Boss?" Tim said, his voice trembling. "Maybe I should have arrested myself."
"What?"
"You said that there's no middle ground. That I have to either put on the cuffs or find the person responsible." Tim turned around. "I am responsible. This time...if anything happens...if anything happens to anyone...it will be my fault. I should be arrested for it."
"Timothy, may I remove this?" Ducky said, finally getting close enough to remove the cuff.
Tim looked down at his arm. "Oh...of course."
Ducky removed it and patted him on the shoulder. "You are a good man, Timothy McGee."
Tim closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Boss...I don't want to be my father...not even unintentionally."
"McGee..."
"I mean, you say there's a choice, but what if there's not?"
"There is, McGee. You always have a choice," Gibbs said. "And right now, you have a choice to make. Either you can run off and try and do this on your own...or you can stay here and work with us, with your team, your friends, and try to get this guy. Which is it going to be?"
Tim looked from Gibbs to Tony to Ducky. Ziva was already gone.
"We won't you down."
"What if I let you down?"
"You haven't yet," Gibbs said. "Which do you choose?"
Another deep breath. "You want Sharp's file?" he asked, finally.
"And anything else we might need to track him down."
"Okay, Boss." Tim walked slowly to his computer and sat down to work.
