Chapter 9: Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin.
Two months later...
Tim left NCIS alone, for once. Physically, he was pretty much fully recovered. It had taken time, but the stitches were out, the bruises had faded to yellow and he could roll onto his back without any problem. However, Tony was still hovering like a mother hen. People would stop to talk to him about everything that had happened. Balboa and Jensen kept asking him how he was doing. It was just more than he wanted to deal with.
Torrance would be coming back on desk duty about in about a week, and Gibbs was finally scheduled to come back to work in a limited fashion in the next couple of weeks and Tony had declared that this meant it was really over.
Tim couldn't think the same way. After all, fourteen people had been killed by Paul Ahrendson. The worst was that they couldn't even give a definitive reason why. Searches had revealed nothing more than casual contact with Amy Randall before her death. There was no sign of aberrant behavior before the killing spree had begun and nothing in his apartment to explain what he had thought about what he was doing. They only knew that he'd been careful in planning every step.
Tim had thrown away his copy of the book, not wanting to see it ever again. Not that it really helped. He still dreamed about it most nights. He couldn't help but feel that this whole thing had been a failure, his failure. Yes, they had caught him, but not through any real police work. It was only because he had decided to target a particular person. If he had chosen a random T name, he could have continued to get away with it, all the way to the end.
Zillah who drank too much gin.
Who knew how he would have done that.
Suddenly, Tim decided that he wanted a drink. He'd been trying to let himself just slowly deal with what had happened, but right now, he didn't want to deal with it at all. It took a lot of effort and he didn't enjoy it. He was just tired of dealing with it, and he happened to think that Zillah had the right idea. He'd never tried straight gin before.
There was a first time for everything. Decision made, he drove home, parked his car and then walked to a nearby bar. He turned off his phone for probably the first time in years, deciding that it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission. He didn't want to talk to anyone. He didn't want to have to go back into work for any reason. He would risk people getting mad at him for that. He'd never done it before. He hadn't heard his phone before but never intentionally. He sat down at the bar.
"What can I get you?"
"Gin."
"And?"
"And nothing. Just gin. The good stuff. On the rocks. That's it."
"Okay."
The bartender put the drink down and Tim sipped at it. It was surprisingly not bad. He kept drinking it and when he finished the first glass, he ordered another one. And then, another. And another.
"Drinking without me, Tim?"
Tim looked up.
"Tony, how did you know I was here?"
Tony sat down beside him.
"You weren't at your place. Your car was."
"And you just assumed I'd come to a bar? Why? I don't go to bars. That's you. I stay home. Alone. All alone. By myself."
"What are you drinking?"
"Gin."
Tony raised an eyebrow. Tim just shrugged. He'd had enough at this point that he didn't care what Tony thought about it. In fact, he rather thought that if he had one or two more, he wouldn't be thinking about anything at all. That was his goal and he'd almost reached it.
"How many is that?"
"Four. Soon to be five. Or is it five soon to be six? I can't remember."
"And when are you stopping?"
"When I'm stupid drunk."
"Why?"
"Because I'm tired of thinking. I always think and if I drink myself under the table, I won't have to think for the rest of the night. I'm pretty sure I'm almost there. I'm starting to slur."
"And how would you get home?"
Tim grinned. "I'd stagger."
"Come on, Tim. This isn't you."
"Yeah. It's you, but I decided that I wanted it. Why should you have all the fun of getting drunk and having a hangover?"
"I don't think of having a hangover as being fun, Tim."
Tim laughed. "Sure it is. You're so miserable you can't think of anything else."
"What's going on?"
Tim grimaced. Tony was ruining his pleasant buzz. He was being too serious. He signaled the bartender for another glass.
"To Zillah who drank too much gin," he said, raising his glass in the air.
Tony reached out and pressed the glass back to the bar.
"Tim."
Tim tried to lift the glass again, but Tony wasn't having it. Tim took a breath and stared at the glass.
"It's not really over for me," he said, finally. "I can't stop thinking about it. It's always there in the back of my mind. Fourteen people were killed by this guy. Fourteen. It was almost sixteen. Or seventeen or eighteen. We didn't really stop him. He slipped up. He was stupid. That's the only reason we got him. Fourteen people dead because we couldn't figure it out. A to T. That's how far he got. I spent so much time staring at that stupid book that I can't get the pictures out of my head. The pictures and the real thing, too. I can't stop thinking. But a couple more drinks and maybe I could stop thinking about it for a night. It would be a nice vacation. Jensen got a vacation. I can have a night."
He sat there staring at the glass, knowing that he shouldn't want to drink anymore. ...and also knowing that, in truth, he really didn't want to drink anymore. He just was doing it for lack of any better plan. Now that he was at least halfway to his ultimate goal, he felt like it would be a waste not to finish. He made another attempt to lift the glass, but Tony's hand hadn't moved away and he couldn't bring himself to make enough of an effort to get it up.
"As someone who has done exactly what you're trying to do, McGee, I have to tell you that it doesn't work. It really only makes things worse."
"Yeah, I figured that."
"Then, why do it?"
"Because I wanted to just be stupid and not think for while. Can't I do that? Even just once? I'm so tired of thinking. You get to do it all the time. Can't I have it just once?"
Tony raised an eyebrow at him. Tim thought about what he'd just slurred out and decided that it might have been a tad insulting. Oh, well.
He could see that Tony wasn't going to let him keep drinking, so he pulled out his wallet and paid for his last drink. Then, he got to his feet and started for the door, ready to stagger home as he had said he would.
Tony got up and transferred his grip from Tim's glass to his arm. In fact, the grip was less supporting than it was controlling. Once they got outside, Tim tried to pull his arm away.
"Look, Tony, you got your way. Now, let me go home!"
"No."
"Why? And why in the name of Ned did you think I would be at a bar? I'm never at bars alone. I only go out with other people. Why?"
"Because you're not over it."
"Yeah? And? What does that have to do with the price of eggs?"
"Eggs?"
"Anything."
"It has everything to do with it because you're not over it and you're not ready to be alone."
"I've already been alone. Lots of times. It's been weeks since all that ended."
"Yeah, and I'm sorry. I should have paid better attention."
Tim just laughed humorlessly.
"Yeah, good job, senior field agent. Look, I'm fine, Tony," Tim said, wobbling more than he would admit to. "I didn't drink as much as I wanted to, but I'm sure I'll still have the hangover tomorrow. Let go!"
"No," Tony said. "You're not spending tonight alone."
"Why are you being so annoyingly concerned?"
Tony smiled. "Because I'm the senior field agent."
"Let go."
"No."
"Then, what's going to happen?" Tim asked, sulkily.
"What's going to happen is that you're going to come with me and watch a stupid movie and fall asleep on my couch. Then, you're going to stop pretending that everything is fine and if you need help, you're going to tell me. All right?"
"No. That's not all right," Tim said. "Don't I get a say in this?"
"Not when you're stupid drunk."
"I'm not stupid drunk yet. I'm just... unintelligently drunk. I think I had at least two more before I'd be stupid drunk."
Tony let him go for a moment and looked him right in the eye.
"Be honest, Tim. Is this really what you want for yourself? Even temporarily?"
Tim sighed. "No."
"All right, then. You can think about what movie you want to see on the way to my place."
Tony dragged Tim to his car and drove them to his building. Then, he dragged Tim up the stairs to his apartment and forced him to sit down on the couch. As he sat there in an alcohol-induced fog, Tim let his mind wander, and to his disappointment, it settled on...
"'U is for Una who slipped down a drain. V is for Victor squashed under a train. W is for Winnie embedded in ice.'"
Tony came back into the room and sat down. Tim didn't look at him. He just stared at the ceiling and continued to recite the final letters.
"'X is for Xerxes devoured by mice. Y is for Yorick whose head was knocked in.'"
Then, he stopped and sighed.
"And?" Tony asked, after a few seconds. "What's the last one?"
"'Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin.'"
"Well, then, be smarter than Zillah. We're going to watch Condorman."
"I thought I got to pick."
"Not this time. Maybe next time."
Tony started the movie going and Tim found himself slumping lower and lower on the couch.
"Tony, why do people take something that is meant to be depressive when they're already depressed? What kind of sense does that make? Why would it make anyone feel better?"
"It doesn't. You're smart enough to know that already," Tony said. "Why did you?"
"I wanted to see if it would work."
"And?"
"And it doesn't. I still feel terrible."
"Could have told you that."
Tim just sat there and stared at the TV, not really hearing anything from the movie. Eventually, he wasn't seeing anything, either.
Because he fell asleep.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
There was a beam of light hitting him in the eye and going off like nuclear missile. He groaned and tried to block the light.
"Good morning to you, too. How's that hangover?"
Tim groaned at the voice and didn't answer. Mercifully, the light vanished.
After a few minutes, he felt like his head wouldn't explode if he opened his eyes. He tried it and sat up, still groaning.
"Still glad that you tried to drink yourself to death last night?"
"Shut up, Tony," Tim said.
"I'll take that as a no. You want to talk about it, now that you're sober?"
"No."
Tim leaned forward and closed his eyes.
"Hey, Tim. Come on. Why did this get to you so much? It's not like we haven't had some major scum to deal with before."
"I don't know," Tim admitted. "It was like...like I was failing somehow because I was the one who knew the book already. And there was nothing I could do to stop him. It was already too late. Maybe Gibbs wouldn't still be trying to get better if I had been able to think faster. Maybe someone else could have done better. And then, at the end of the day, there's still all these dead people. I can't stop thinking about them. And you don't have to tell me that it's not like that. I know."
There was a pause.
"Well, thanks for stepping on my line, McGee."
Tim laughed a little.
"I am trying to get over it."
"It's just not happening yet?"
"Yeah."
"Well, next time you feel that it's too overwhelming to think about, call me instead of going to a bar, okay? You just don't have the knack for getting stupid drunk."
"If you hadn't interrupted me, I would have made it."
"No. You'd probably be dead already. You were already stupid drunk last night when I got there, McGee, and the bad thing about being stupid drunk is that you can't tell anymore."
"And you're an expert because...?"
"Because I've done it. And you don't need to follow my example in this one thing."
Tim sighed.
"I know."
"Good. So lesson learned? No more stupid drinking?"
"Yeah."
"Good. Now, how are you feeling?"
"Terrible."
Tony chuckled. Tim resented him being so chipper.
"Good. Lesson learned. I'll make something that'll take the edge off the hangover. Won't cure it, but it'll be better."
Tim heard Tony get off the couch. He kept his eyes closed, waiting for the head-pounding, stomach-unsettling feeling to depart. It was a good thing that it was Sunday and he didn't have to go anywhere or do anything.
After a couple of minutes, he heard Tony come back.
"And Tim?"
"Yeah?"
"I know you said you know this already, but all this wasn't your fault. You gave us somewhere to start and without that, maybe he would have got all the way to Z. And then, who knows what he would have done next?"
Tim forced his eyes open and he looked at Tony. He had a glass of something and plate with toast on it. He handed them to Tim who looked at them for a long time.
"Thanks, Tony."
"You're welcome."
