Chapter 10

Three months later...

"So...how does that feel?" Nathan asked.

Tim stared down at himself, biting his lip anxiously.

"I don't know."

"You don't know? It's your body, Tim."

Tim continued to stare at the part of himself that seemed strangely divorced from the rest of him. It was a part that didn't obey his commands...or at least not quickly. Slowly, he sank down onto the bench and, for the first time since his breakdown in front of Gibbs, he began to cry. It wasn't hysterical weeping, rather a disconsolate sobbing.

Nathan's eyes widened in surprise and he sat down beside Tim in a hurry.

"Whoa, Tim, what's up?"

"It's not getting better. It's not getting any better. It's been this way for weeks and it's not getting better." Tim was slightly embarrassed by his reaction to what should have been a simple question about how he felt after another session, but his anxiety had been building with his growing fear of having plateaued in his healing. No getting any better. There was a lot less pain, but it was still there and his leg felt too weak, unstable. He still had to rely on a cane for assistance and he couldn't get back to his life, the life he wanted, no needed, so desperately. He couldn't get back to normalcy without getting back his formerly (mostly) fit status.

Fornell had not given him the full FBI file and, mostly out of fear of being discovered, either by the FBI or by Gibbs (who would probably ream him good), he hadn't done the kind of digging that would have been required had he tried to find it himself. Tim wasn't sure if that meant Fornell hadn't been able to get it to him or that he just had been lying to Tim when he came over. ...but if he'd been lying, why bother mentioning it in the first place? That made no sense either.

So, he had no progress with his leg and no progress with the case. Nothing was going right...and now, he was crying about it.

"Tim, does it still hurt?" Nathan asked.

Tim laughed bitterly. "Yes. It always hurts, not as bad, but I still can't walk on it right. It doesn't even feel like it's really part of me anymore. It's like this lump grafted onto my body and I can't..." He stopped talking and tried to stop the tears as well because it was really silly that he hadn't been able to deal with it in something like a rational manner.

"When was your last CT scan? Before or after that spill you had last month?"

Tim winced just thinking about it. He had fallen down the steps of his apartment building when his cane had slipped after a rainstorm. "Before."

"Not since then?"

Tim shook his head, wiping uselessly at the tears on his cheeks.

"I'm going to schedule one for you."

"Why? I didn't rebreak my pelvis. I think I'd notice if I had another fracture."

"Lie down," Nathan ordered.

Tim, too used to trusting Nathan and obeying his orders, lay down on the bench and winced as Nathan began to move his right leg up and down, feeling the bones and ligaments, instructing him to move his leg back and forth, up and down. A worry line creased his forehead.

"What's wrong?" Tim asked.

"I'm scheduling a CT scan, for today if I can."

"Why?" Tim sat up again.

"I don't know why I didn't insist on a CT last month. It would have been that much better."

"Nathan, what is it? Why do I need another CT?"

"I think you may have an acetabular fracture."

"What does that mean in plain English?"

"It means that the socket of your hip joint is cracked. It can't be too bad; otherwise, you wouldn't be able to move around at all without a lot more pain than you've indicated you feel. Probably the only reason you weren't feeling enough pain to think there was something else wrong is because you're already using a cane to bear some of your weight and you're still taking small doses of your pain medication. Stay right here."

Nathan walked away, leaving Tim fidgeting nervously. Another fracture? Another injury to heal? Something else to worry about? He didn't know anything about acetabular fractures, but he knew something about the hip joint. He knew people got their hips replaced when the joint was...broken or whatever. How come he hadn't thought to mention the lingering pain? Why hadn't he said something? By the time Nathan returned, Tim was well on his way to working himself into a depression about something else in his life going wrong.

"Okay, Tim, we lucked out and they had a cancellation and can put you through right now."

"How serious is this?" Tim asked.

"Depends," Nathan said without hedging. "We just need to get a look at your hip and then we can take whatever other steps are necessary."

Tim began to stand but Nathan held him down.

"No, you shouldn't be putting weight on your leg at all, not until we know for sure what the damage is."

"But I've been walking on it for over two weeks."

"Exactly. Just let me grab a wheelchair."

Tim chewed on his tongue nervously as Nathan brought over a wheelchair, something he'd hoped never to need again. Carefully, he transferred himself into it and felt himself growing more and more tense as they neared the CT scan room. What else could go wrong?

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Okay, Tim, that's it," the technician said encouragingly as she slid him out of the claustrophobic tube.

Tim nodded. There hadn't even been time to call anyone and tell them that there was another problem. He wished he had. It would have been nice to know that someone was out there waiting for him. He slowly got himself dressed and waited for the doctor and Nathan to come in and tell him what damage was done.

He didn't have long to wait.

The door opened.

"You want to call someone first, Tim?" Nathan asked.

"Do I need to?" Tim asked in return.

"Not necessarily," the doctor said with a smile.

"Okay. What is it?"

"You do have a minor acetabular fracture, probably caused by your fall."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that you are set back a bit in your rehabilitation but not permanently. In fact, this should be something of a relief to you since it means that your lingering difficulties were not entirely due to your initial fracture."

"But now there's another problem."

"Yes, but your fracture is very minor. Thank your lucky stars that you were still on a cane. We'll need you to go back to crutches for a few weeks and we'll run a few more tests to see if you'll need internal fixation."

"Again?"

"Yes."

Tim sighed. "Okay. So...what's the prognosis?"

"It varies. You'll be at a higher risk for arthritis in your hip later on in life and there are other possible complications."

"Such as?"

"Heterotropic ossification, necrosis on the femoral head. These are all things we will do our best to prevent because we know they are possible."

Tim nodded his head again, not knowing what else to do.

"You should call someone and ask them to pick you up. You shouldn't be driving anymore."

Tim tried to laugh. "You know, it's funny. I feel exactly the same as I did before I came to the hospital and yet suddenly, I'm not able to walk or drive again."

"Call one of your friends, Tim," Nathan urged.

"We'll need to take some x rays before you go but while there was space for the CT, we're facing a backlog on the x rays. It will be about an hour before you can go back."

Tim nodded again and reached for his phone. Nathan and the doctor left and Tim stared after them for a few seconds.

What am I going to say?

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Fornell sat impatiently in his car, coffee in hand, cursing the fact that he seemed to be picking up Gibbs' bad habits...like an addiction to coffee. It had taken a long time to get the permissions...or rather to get someone like Larson who knew when to look the other way while he appropriated the files on the investigation of the plane crash.

He looked at his watch. He was certain that Tim should have been back by now. It was possible he'd got the hour wrong, seeing as he hadn't actually asked for it.

To his surprise, two cars pulled up at the same time: Tim's fancy Porsche and one of the NCIS sedans. Tim got out of the sedan...on crutches. Gibbs got out of the driver's side and Tony got out of the Porsche. He couldn't hear the conversation, but Tim was shaking his head. Fornell debated just brazenly getting out of his car and joining the motley crew, but since he knew Gibbs wouldn't look too kindly on him feeding Tim information when he was still recovering, he decided against it. Fornell wanted Tim on the case. It was selfishness on his part but he had to admit that he rather thought it would help Tim more than it would hurt him.

So he waited as the three went up the stairs with some obvious protests from Tim as they went. Gibbs was being strangely solicitous of Tim and he could tell that Tony was hovering anxiously around him but trying not to look like he was. He wondered if the rest of the gang would show up...or rather when they'd show up.

Right as he thought it, two more cars pulled up.

"Hey, hey, the gang's all here," Fornell sang softly to himself, taking another sip and settling himself down for a long wait.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

It took a few hours, but Fornell hadn't survived in the FBI for as many years as he had by being impatient. Finally, they came out together, all talking together, obviously worried. One by one, or in pairs, they drove away and with a relieved sigh, Fornell got out of his car, pausing to toss his long-empty coffee cup into a trash can.

File in hand, he jogged up the steps and to Tim's door. He knocked politely and listened as some shuffling sounds indicated the approach. The door opened and Fornell was surprised to see obvious signs of tears on Tim's face although shock replaced any despair he might have been feeling before.

"Agent Fornell," he said. "What...?" Then, comprehension dawned. "It's been a while."

"Took longer than I thought it would. Since I'm not supposed to be investigating, they weren't all that keen on letting me see the file." He held it out.

Tim took it and gave a half smile. "Well, only half my life is failing, then," he said, almost to himself.

Fornell arched a questioning eyebrow.

"I might not get to this for a little while."

"Why not?" That was a surprise although Fornell felt he did a reasonable job in keeping the surprise out of his voice.

"I have an acetabular fracture that is going to require open reduction, internal fixation and that means I'll be laid up for a little while...in case you were wondering."

It was nice to see that he still had some snark in him, in spite of the tears in his eyes, but Fornell could see that he was devastated about it.

"And how long will that take?"

"Depends on how my body reacts to it, if I can recover, if the rehabilitation works, if there are no complications...which is unlikely." Tim set the file down and crutched to a chair before sitting down and staring at him. "Is there anything new in there you haven't told me?"

"Some."

"You going to tell me what else you were hiding?" Tim asked, his voice becoming a bit waspish.

"I wasn't hiding anything. This is new stuff since I was pulled off the case. I didn't know about it."

"Well?"

"Well, you can read the information yourself."

"What is it, Fornell?"

"You're not going to like it."

"And I'll like it better if I read it later than if you pay me the courtesy of telling me now?"

Fornell smiled. This was a different side to Tim, one he'd not really seen before. Too tired to care about respect or too worried to be afraid of something so prozaic as a single person?

"They've come to the conclusion that it's a crime of opportunity carried out by an intelligent but crazy man, that he witnessed the murder of the copilot and then used whatever skills he apparently had to..."

"You had better be joking."

"The evidence points to nothing else."

"And they want it to be just a fluke, not a planned attack?"

"You seem very sure that it is a planned attack."

Tim shifted on his chair and winced a little. "I've seen nothing to convince me otherwise."

"Well, you can look at that and draw your own conclusions."

"You still want to know when I do?" It was a challenge. The real question was are you going to toe the party line?

"I told you before. If there's something more to it, I want to be in on the takedown."

Tim nodded and shoved himself back upright, grabbing for his crutches. Slowly, he crutched to the counter, picked up the file and headed back to his room.

"You can show yourself out, I assume."

Fornell nodded, although Tim couldn't see him. "I can do that."

He left without a backward glance. Personally, he was more of Tim's mind than his superiors', but he had to bow to the evidence...or lack thereof. Tim, in his current state of medical leave, did not.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim tossed the file onto his bed and tried to ignore it...but he couldn't. He had to see what was there. Instead of going to bed as he had planned, he stayed up until the early hours of the morning reading through the evidence, the case, the conclusions. It was true, what Fornell had said. Most of the evidence pointed to something isolated, crazy...and meaningless. Most of it. Not all. There was nothing in there about his statement that the killer had been at the conference. He still remembered seeing him there. In fact, he hadn't been the first one to notice him. Keating had been. He had nudged Tim and said they had a shadow and maybe he was a fan of NCIS.

Why had his words been discounted? Why didn't the FBI care about what he had said? Was it really all a tactic for saving face?

Or is it just that you've become irrational and are seeing things that aren't there? a small voice inside him asked. Part of him knew that it was a distinct possibility, but he couldn't accept it. He wouldn't accept it...not until the evidence was incontrovertible...and this wasn't. It ignored his account and it didn't take into account what he had told them about the others.

"They're wrong," he said. "Wrong. Wrong. Wrong!"

But no matter how many times he said it, there was nothing to which he could point to say why he was so sure.