Chapter 10

"Abby, they said not to rush him," Tony chided, softly, trying not to awaken the other sleeping figures in the room.

"I'm not rushing. It's been two days. It's time for him to wake up," Abby retorted, her voice also muted. She sat beside the bed watching the steady rise and fall of Tim's chest, hearing the steady beeps indicating the continuation of life. Beneath the blanket and the hospital gown, she knew, was a host of bruises from all the bullets that had hit his vest. Also hidden by the blanket, Tim's legs were a network of bandages covering all his injuries. His arms, visible to the world at large, bore solemn testimony of Tim's mad dash across the warehouse. At least his heart was still beating.

"I... don't... want to..." The words were nearly unintelligible, hardly distinguishable from a soft whisper, but there was intent behind them.

Abby turned from Tony back to Tim, a smile on her face. "Please, Tim. It's time to wake up."

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Tim felt himself waking up, in spite of his firm belief that this would not be a good idea. He couldn't think of why that would be when he'd been so pleasantly numb and unconscious. The waking world would not be so kind.

"Tim? You there?"

Finally, Tim decided that opening his eyes would be okay. His eyelids didn't hurt at least. He saw Abby, her expression nearly ecstatic. Slowly, he shifted his gaze and saw Tony, sitting in a chair a little further away. His expression was one of feigned nonchalance, but his rigid posture indicated something else. Tim's eyes wandered a little further and he took in the presence of Ziva, asleep for the moment, although he wasn't sure how long that would last. Then, as he completed the circuit of the room, he saw Gibbs, standing at the window, looking at something beyond his sight. It was the most welcome view he'd had in a long while... no visions for the moment, just the present, the wonderful, uncorrupted present. Then, as he fully joined the real world, the pain hit him and he grimaced.

"Are you okay, Tim?" Abby asked, and then flushed as the sheer inanity of the question hit home. "Right, you're not okay. You've been shot too many times. Do you need a nurse? We should probably call your doctor or something and let them know that you're awake. I'm sure they'll want to run tests to make sure you're not going to die again. You died, Tim. Twice! I don't want you to do that again. You hear me? Not again..."

Abby continued to speak in that vein until, slowly, painfully, Tim lifted an arm and put his un-IV-ed hand over her mouth. She smiled sheepishly, knowing that her mouth had been running away with her.

"Shhh..." he managed and smiled. Then, exhausted by the effort, he dropped his arm back to the bed and closed his eyes, drifting away again, relishing the disconnect between the pain of reality and his consciousness.

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When he next woke up, after an indiscernible passage of time, he felt like opening his eyes wasn't so bad. He did so and saw that Ziva had taken Abby's place. Tony was in the same place he had been, but his head was tilted back and he was snoring. Gibbs was gone.

"You are back, McGee?" Ziva asked. She managed to look merely happy, but there was relief in her voice.

Tim nodded without speaking. He wasn't sure how coherent he really was and Ziva's expression was happy, but not without a tinge of concern.

"Do want me to get your doctor?" she asked.

Tim took a deep breath, winced and shook his head. "You... saw?" he asked, softly.

"Saw what?"

Nope, not clear. In his head, he said, You saw Mac and me on the video. You saw what he did. However, what came out was, "Me... the... video."

"Abby told us about it. Why didn't you?" Ziva asked.

Tim surprised her by letting out a wheezy chuckle. "Would... you... have believed... me?" He celebrated having managed to utter a sentence complete with subject and verb.

Ziva smiled. "No, you are right. I would not have believed. None of us would have. I'm not sure that I do even now."

Tim took a breath and marshaled his fuzzy thoughts. "On... my computer..."

"We read your note. That is the only reason I don't think you are crazy."

"That was... only supposed to be... if I... died."

"You did, McGee. You died twice. Abby told you," Ziva said.

"Not... permanently."

"Semantics."

"Important... semantics," Tim answered.

"Yes, very important," Ziva said quietly. "What happened?"

Tim closed his eyes again. He was getting tired. Too much talk, not enough sleep. He must have dozed because it seemed like no time had passed before someone was lifting one of his heavy lids and shining a penlight that seemed to penetrate directly to his brain. He groaned and tried to pull away.

"Your pupils are still a bit dilated, Agent McGee. We'll dial back your meds a little bit. How's the pain?"

Tim managed to opened his eyes again and mumbled some nonsensical syllables. The doctor merely looked at him with a trace of amusement.

"Yes, I think we need to lower the levels. You're a very lucky man, Agent McGee. I don't know too many people who would take all that punishment and stick around. Most would give up."

"Wish... I had..."

"I'm sure you will occasionally. For now, let's work on getting you back to full coherency."

Tim just sighed and closed his eyes.

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Of all the ways he might have picked for his next awakening, again, after an indiscernible period of time, being Gibbs-slapped was not what he would have chosen. His eyes flew open and he noticed right away that he felt both more alert and more conscious of every bullet wound. Gibbs was standing there looking ready to lecture him. The worst part was that he couldn't do anything to stop it... well, he never could stop Gibbs from lecturing him, but he couldn't even pretend to be okay because he sure didn't feel it.

"Are you out of your mind, McGee?" Gibbs asked. Strangely, he didn't sound angry. Tim couldn't decide what he sounded like, but it definitely wasn't anger.

"I don't think so, Boss," Tim answered and was happy to note that the words he thought of saying were the ones which came out of his mouth.

"Why didn't you tell anyone?"

Tim raised his eyebrows incredulously. "You would never have believed me, Boss. I didn't need to see the future to know that. You wouldn't have believed that I could see what was going to happen."

"How do you know?"

Tim shifted position and winced at the injudicious movement. So much for trying to look stern. "Boss, I wouldn't have believed me." He laughed a little. "At first, I didn't. I saw myself speaking and I thought I must be crazy. When I first... started to see, I didn't understand it. I couldn't."

"So, instead of trusting us..."

"It had nothing to do with trust," Tim said loudly and then had to stop for a second and get his breath back. "Do you think I wanted this to happen? Do you think I enjoyed seeing you all die over and over again?" Tim stopped and tried to hold back the tears that pricked his eyes. "I hated it. It nearly tore me apart because I knew that they weren't just recurring nightmares. I was seeing a possible future in which my actions or inactions led to your deaths!" Tim stopped again, having run out of breath.

"So, you really believe that it had to be you. That you saw the future and could change it."

"Not the future, Boss. I saw futures. I saw the possibilities that arose with every decision I made. I saw what could happen if I decided to drive a different route to work. I saw what happened if I chose to talk to Tony or ignore him. I saw every possible future at every moment. Do you know how many seconds each day we teeter on the brink of dying? I do now. I won't ever forget how close we all came."

"We would have died?"

"Yes. In every future, I couldn't see any but the one I chose that would end happily."

"And you were willing to kill yourself if you failed."

"I couldn't have stood it, Boss. I really couldn't. There would have been too much blame, too much guilt because I would have known that I had failed, even if no one did." He stared into Gibbs' eyes and realized that this situation was actually a lot like the time when Sarah had been under suspicion for murder. Gibbs had been angry, but it wasn't about what Tim had done. It was about him not trusting Gibbs to help. He could see with crystal clarity how Gibbs must have taken his actions. He could see the invisible connections between the two of them, how intertwined all their lives were. Suddenly, he could understand just what Timothy had been trying to explain underneath all the Stoicism. These complex connections, not just in this world, but between worlds as well, were what kept the worlds existing. A broken connection weakened the world and the whole network.

"McGee?"

Tim blinked and realized that he'd completely forgotten Gibbs was even there. Then, he realized that he'd also been actually seeing these things, not just thinking them. The visions... they were back, only changed, like they had been for Timothy.

"McGee?"

"I'm sorry, Boss," Tim said.

"For what?"

"For ignoring the connections." Tim considered what to do. He wasn't sure if he could stand up yet, and besides, he wasn't even in regular clothes. He didn't want these visions anymore. Changed as they were, he didn't want them.

"What connections?"

"The connections between all of us. There's something more I have to do."

"What?" Gibbs looked confused, and that gave Tim a moment of childish delight.

"Forge another link in the chain."

"McGee, could you please try and speak plainly?"

"Not yet, Boss. When I understand it... I will."

"Will you?" Gibbs' stern look was back.

"Yes. I promise," Tim said.

"Okay." Gibbs nodded and left.

Tim lay back and considered what he had to do. As he drifted off to sleep again, he saw in his mind's eye another McGee, sitting at a computer terminal, typing frantically. How little he knew that soon his biggest worry would be saving the cosmos, not just a fried hard drive.

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Later...

"McGee, this isn't going to work," Tony said. He leaned on a stool in Abby's lab and watched as Tim looked at his watch over and over.

"Yes, it will, Tony. I know what I have to do."

"Yeah, you're going to shoot laser beams into some... alternate... McGee's head."

"Sort of." Tim looked at the video again. So that was what had happened. Strange because it hadn't felt like heat. It had been... overwhelming. "Are you sure you want to watch me?"

"Yes. I want to see you disappear because that's a really neat trick."

"Hurry it up, Tim," Abby piped up.

Tim felt like he was supposed to be some sort of Houdini. However, he also knew that the jokes were as much a defense against this impossible world they now knew as a commentary on his coming departure. "Okay, okay. Just... be quiet alright? If I'm going to do this with an audience, I need to forget that you're here."

"Right, right."

Tim glared at Tony. "That means no talking, Tony." He looked at Ziva who was seated silently. She had said very little since they had come into the lab a few minutes ago. He had picked the lab because it was Abby's day off. Little did he know that she had been watching him ever since he'd come back to work.

Tony mimed locking his mouth shut and Tim had to bite back a heartfelt if only response. Instead, he closed his eyes and concentrated on the McGee he had been seeing. He was easy to find this time, in his little office at Norfolk. He had no team... yet, but Tim had seen what was coming for him and he knew that the moment was swiftly approaching when he would have a team. He concentrated more and felt the pulsing mind of that particular McGee. He knew the moment he had succeeded and opened his eyes.

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"Tim!" Abby screamed. She had been waiting for it. She knew it was coming, but deep down, she hadn't actually believed it was possible. One minute, Tim was there, his face twisted with concentration and the next he was gone.

Tony and Ziva stood and stared in shock as the space formerly occupied by Tim became empty.

"It's really true," Ziva whispered.

"Did you think he was lying, Ziva?" Gibbs said from behind them. He too stared at the spot where Tim had been standing, but his expression was one of expectation, not fear.

"Not... not really."

Gibbs smiled. "He'll be back. He has something to do."

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"You... no... how... this... not possible..." McGee spluttered. He shot out of his seat in his crowded office and knocked over a pile of paper as he backed into the wall.

"Not probable," Tim corrected. "But it is possible. You know about the probabilities regarding other worlds, other planes, alternate universes. Whatever you want to call them, collapse the wave function and call it certainty because that's what's going on."

McGee's eyes were wide as dinner plates. "How..."

"I can't tell you that because I don't understand it all myself, but there's something that has to be done."

"What?"

"I have to give you the future."

"What?"

"I have to give you the future."

"The future? As in seeing what's coming?"

Tim smiled. This McGee had not had the years of experience with Gibbs that he had. He was timid and frightened. "Well, sort of. You will see everything that's coming. Everything that can happen and everything that will happen. You will see it."

"I'm going crazy."

"No. This is very real." Tim leaned over and scribbled a note, stuffed it in an envelope, sealed it and handed it to McGee. "I am you in another plane. They call me Tim over there. What do they call you here?"

"McGee..." he said, then, a tentative smile crossed his face. "Most of the time, they just say 'hey you!'"

"Well, McGee. This is going to be a long and difficult road for you. I wouldn't do this if it wasn't necessary, but you have to save your team."

"I don't have a team. I just work in this dumpy little office."

"You will. Gibbs leads it and he'll come storming into your office and demand a lot of you, but the future will demand even more. You have it in you to do it... or you will." Tim smiled and took a step toward him. This time, McGee didn't back away, but he did stiffen. "I would like to say that I'm not going to hurt you, but considering my own experience, I know that's a lie. I can tell you that it's not permanent."

"What isn't?" McGee whispered.

"This." Tim brought up his hands and focused all his thoughts onto ridding himself of the infinite futures. Unlike the red shafts of light that had pierced his skull when Mac had done the transfer, Tim felt the visions leaving him in the form of a green diffuse light that enveloped McGee's head. His eyes widened more and more as the weight of what there was behind that light hit him full force. No vision would be as bad as the first infusion, but it was hard to explain all that. Timothy really was the best at it, teacher that he was.

Tim caught McGee as his legs buckled beneath him and eased him down onto the floor. He whispered, "You're not alone in this, McGee. We're all there. We'll be there for you." Then, he stood and walked to the door. He shouted into the hallway, taking one quick step out and back in. "We need some help in here!" Then, he closed his eyes again and focused. He heard a short gasp and smiled as he disappeared and reappeared back in Abby's lab.

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He opened his eyes and saw everyone standing there. Only Gibbs looked unsurprised.

"I told you that I wasn't crazy," Tim said, grinning now.

For some time, no one responded. What was there to say?

"That's it, then?" Gibbs asked.

"For now."

"What will happen, Tim?" Abby asked.

"I don't know, Abby. But right now, not knowing is pretty nice."

The End... at least in this universe...