I felt like writing more so here is the next chapter. I need to give a special thanks to Crawcolady for allowing me to use part of Aloha NCIS as an idea for my story. I'll tell you which part at the end of the chapter so that I don't ruin the surprise. I hope you enjoy this chapter.
"Well… Where should I start?" Tim asked nervously.
"Just start at the beginning. We may want to move to actually be sitting on the couch rather than the floor." Tim nodded in agreement, while Vance stood and offered his hand to Tim. Tim looked up at Vance's face as he grabbed the offered hand and was hauled up.
"Thanks. Well I guess a good place to start is when I was fourteen." Tim paused to take a breath.
"Isn't that when the nightmares started?"
"Yes it is. I lived with my parents and my younger brother and sister." Tim took another deep breath while Vance tried to process the fact that he had a brother. He had known about the sister but he had never heard a mention of a brother. "My dad was in the Navy, still is, and was deployed for a few months. I was in boy scouts and had meetings on a weekly bases. My brother, Nick, was in the same troop as I was and my mother was taking us to the meeting for. We lived in Bethesda, Maryland but the meeting was in Northwestern DC. We were driving to the meeting and were stopped at a stop light when three men rushed the car with guns. They shot my mother in the head and my brother who was sitting shotgun in the chest. Then one of them shot me in the stomach. Once he shot me they all ran off. Some passersby called 911 and they got there in about five minutes. My mom was DOA, but they rushed my brother and me to the hospital. They lost me once on the way there and lost my brother twice, but were able to get us back. Once we got there we were both sent straight to surgery. My brother died in surgery. He had lost too much blood; apparently the bullet nicked an artery in his chest. I managed to make it, obviously. My bullet punctured a lung, put a hole in my intestine and stomach, and broke a rib because of how it hit. Both holes got patched up, the rib got reset, and the lung was healed. I was in the hospital for a week and a half before I got released. I had to go back a few days later for an infection though, which took another week to get over, then I was released again. Now, I only have nightmares to remind me of any of it." Tim finished with a deep breath that he released with a slight sob.
"My god Tim." Vance said, before leaning over and pulling Tim into a hug. "Did they ever catch the assailants or figure out why they did it?"
"My dad pissed someone off, causing him to lose their job and his wife to leave him with their kids, and they retaliated by hiring people to kill the family. They didn't figure out who the three were until they had killed another person. One of the three confessed being hired by the guy my dad pissed off. The three were sentenced to life without parole for three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. The guy who hired them was sentenced to two counts of being an accessory to murder and a few other charges like that."
"I'm so sorry you had to go through that. Did you have any lasting effects from the gunshot, other than the nightmares?"
"Yea. It can still be tender and it used to be hard to do anything athletic but that has dissipated over the years. Plus, it left a pretty bad scar, which people always cringe at, though it is better than the alternative." Tim laughed slightly, though it had no humor in it. "The bullet is still in there. They thought it was better to not remove it because it ended up near my spine."
"My god. Does any of your team know?"
"No and, just like with the nightmares, they don't need to know."
"Do you want to stop for the night or do you want to talk about some of your other scars?" Vance asked concerned for his agent and friend's mental health.
"We can continue. I'm going to skip over most of the other ones, but I'll tell you the easy ones to get out because they happened at work, just remember that you can't punish the others. Well one I have on my leg is from where I hit it when I was thrown around in the back of the van in the fallout from my book. Ziva was driving and since the back of the van doesn't have seatbelts, I got thrown into the wall of the van, which had the metal shelves for storing the crime scene supplies. One of the sharp edges of the shelves dug into my shin and broke the skin causing a pretty bad cut. When we got back the HQ, I went down to autopsy and had Ducky clean it and put butterfly bandages on it. It was bad enough to scar and did." Tim looked over at Vance and saw the anger in his gaze. He had never been gladder to not have that anger directed at him. The stories of Vance's temper were infamous. "I'm fine now, just another scar to add to the collection."
When Tim said that, Vance's eyes snapped to Tim. "You can't be serious! She hurt you badly and you seem fine with it! You should be furious. I'm guessing Gibbs never did anything about it. Please, tell me that is the worst injury you received on the job."
"No. He never found out about it, I don't think. And No, that's not the worst injury I've gotten from work."
"Well what is? Let me see the scars from that." said a still angry Vance.
"Uh… Are you sure? They're pretty bad…" said a very nervous and worried Tim.
"Yes. I am positive. I need to see what you have been through." Vance had not seen them when Ducky was looking at them because he was in the other room and did not want to intrude.
"Alright don't say I didn't warn you." Tim stood turned so his back was facing so that Vance didn't have to see the scars right away, though there were a fair number on his back too. He slowly unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off, first displaying his back to Vance, who was stunned by the sight of it. Tim then slowly turned so Vance could see his chest, though his face was beet red. Vance stared at the scars before rising haltingly. He made his way to where Tim was standing and stopped a foot from him. He raised his hand and gently traced the scars on the muscular chest.
"Many of these are a result of a bomb…" Tim whispered calmly. "We were standing by our car about twenty feet from the house getting ready to raid the house, when it blew. We were blown back and shrapnel pelted us. Tony was knock unconscious, Ziva had long cuts on her arm, and Gibbs had a few small cuts on his arms. Gibbs saw the state the other two were in, put them in the car, told me to secure the scene, and drove off. What he didn't see was that I had glass, chunks bricks, and pieces wood in chest and arms. I did my best to secure the scene and waited for help because the area didn't have cell service. After an hour, a state trooper showed up because he was doing his route and saw the house from the road. He hadn't seen me until he was at the house but immediately radioed for backup and an ambulance. He also had them call in Balboa's team. The ambulance took me to the hospital and spent the next few hours removing shrapnel from me. The next day, I called into work and spent the day resting and recovering. Gibbs never did find put this had happened."
"Which scars are from that?" Vance responded never taking his eyes off of Tim's chest.
Tim pointed to multiple jagged ones all over his chest. As Tim pointed Vance ran a finger over each one, trying to take in the magnitude of what he had just been told. Once Tim had pointed at the last one, he took a step back and began putting back on his shirt. The second Tim had stepped back, Vance copied him and went and sat back down on the couch. "How could this happen and no one know about it?" Vance said as he put his head in his hands
"It happened because I didn't want anyone to know about it." Tim responded simply before taking a seat once again.
Once he said that, Vance turned his head back to Tim. "Why didn't you want anyone to know?"
"Because they would have found out about the others and eventually everything else and I couldn't have them think I'm weak."
The part that Crawcolady allowed me to use as an inspiration was the part about the bomb. So thank you very much for that. I would like to apologize if Tim seemed a little heartless when talking about the past. It is just that it was if happened 14 years ago. It still affects him, he just was able to talk about it without breaking down. Also if Vance seems a little odd it is because he does care about Tim and likes him, just wait a bit longer and it will become more prevalent. Plus, he had thought that Tim had the best life in the MCRT and this shocked him and led him to act different. If you have any questions or concerns feel free to PM me or leave a review. Also don't always expect chapters quite this long.
