DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING!
~NCIS~
"You got anything yet?" Tobias asked as he sat the tall cup of black coffee on his senior agent's desk. With the leak in their agency, Tobias had debated whether or not it would be wise to try to access the files they needed from their office, but the truth of the matter was, neither of them were good enough with a computer to get in from anywhere else.
Ron slammed a hand down on his keyboard in frustration. "No!"He exclaimed furiously. "Apparently I don't have high enough clearance to get to the truth of the projects that Tim's father is or has been involved in and I don't have the skills to hack my way in." He picked up the cup and took a long drink from it.
Tobias perched on the agent's desk and thought a minute. "Okay. Give it another hour. Find what you can. Then head to the hospital with what you got and give it to Courtney to see what she can do with it." Tobias gave his agent a sharp look. Ron had been up and on the go for over thirty hours. Needless to say he was looking a little worse for wear. "Then go home and get some sleep. I'll call when I've got something." There was no need to instruct Ron to have Courtney call him first. They both knew when she got into the classified files, her first call would be to Tobias.
Ron took another drink of his coffee before sitting it down. "Where are you going to go?" He was a little uneasy with letting his boss out of his sight. It wasn't just Tim that someone was trying to get rid of, even if that someone would have gotten rid of Tobias another way.
Tobias slumped tiredly and sighed. "It's time to I talked to Gibbs." He just had no idea what to tell him when he did talk to him. "Then I'll be with the kid." He knew that Gibbs would have posted another security detail, but Tobias wasn't sure that they would be able to trust the NCIS agents, considering that they suspected Vance was part of the conspiracy to kill Tim. With the images of Tim's x-rays and Ducky's explanation of them still in his head, he needed to be there.
Ron looked at Tobias with concern. "You need to go home to, Tobias." The dark circles under his eyes were casting shadows over the rest of his lined face making him look older then he really was.
Tobias rubbed a hand over his burning eyes. "I'll get all the rest I need when this is over." And he would. This was it for him. He didn't have the heart to continue anymore once Tim was safe.
Something in Tobias' voice disturbed him, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. He looked at his Team Leader and wondered what was going through his head.
"I'm going to call in some favors and get the gossip on the McGees. I might be able to get the unofficial version of some of those projects, too." There was still something tingling at the back of his mind. He had an old friend from his probie days that had just retired after thirty years in the Navy who owed him and he intended to collect. He had checked the records—another favor that had been called in—and Rich had served with Admiral McGee. Rich had always been something of a busybody—DiNozzo reminded him of Rich at times. If there was anything to know that wasn't in the records then he would probably know it and if he didn't then Rich would know who would know it.
~NCIS~
Gibbs stalked through the hospital corridors, nurses and some doctors moving out of his way. He hadn't got his answers out of Vance so he was determined to get them from his agent. Before leaving he had made arrangements with Balboa's team to relieve Tony and Ziva on protection detail. It wasn't exactly how it was supposed to be done. It was actually Vance who was supposed to give out protection assignments, but Gibbs knew that he could trust Balboa and his people and he couldn't say the same for Vance. Whoever Vance might have chosen would have been loyal to him. The infamous Gibbs' gut was tingling. It was saying that there was more going on here then just an operation gone bad and it had been saying it ever sense he'd read that file and talked to Vance. He turned the corner and froze for a second when he saw the four people that stood outside Tim's room. It didn't surprise him that his two agents hadn't left yet. He continued the short distance to Tim's room.
"Leave." He barked out to Tony and Ziva. "Be back in twelve hours." He didn't even brake stride before entering Tim's room, only to come up short at seeing Tobias sitting in a chair pulled close to Tim's side, facing the door, his hand on his sidearm.
"Something you need to tell me, Tobias?" Gibbs growled, his eyes on the hand that hadn't yet left his gun. He knew that Tim was in danger!
Tobias looked at Gibbs an expression on his face that Gibbs couldn't identify.
"Did you know he was abused, Jethro?" He asked as he turned his head to look at the sleeping man on the bed. For some reason, even though he knew it was irrational, Tobias felt a sense of betrayal that his friend hadn't told him about Tim's past. "And why in the world is this kid working as a computer tech!" He bit out furiously. "With a mind like his, he could be doing just about anything and you have him running credit checks and hacking phone records!" He exclaimed, incredulously.
Gibbs blinked. "What the hell are you talking about, Tobias!" Gibbs exclaimed impatiently. Tobias had been avoiding his calls all day and now that they were in the same place, he wasn't making sense.
Tobias held out a file to his friend. "I'm talking about this!" He said through clenched teeth.
"What is this?" Gibbs asked as he flipped open the file. His brows drew together as he turned through the pages. "Why are you back-grounding my agent, Tobias?" Gibbs asked furiously.
Tobias didn't say anything just raised one silver eyebrow at him and reached out to turn to a certain page.
Gibbs read the page that Tobias turned to, an eyebrow raising of his own as he kept on skimming unto the next page. When he had finished, he closed the file and through it into his friend's lap. "I already know about McGee's accident, Tobias. He told Tony his first year on the team! What would that have to do with anything anyway?"
Tim was wondering the same thing. He had woken up sometime after their conversation had started. He had kept his breathing regulated and stayed still so that he could find out how much they knew. It was one of the first things that Trent had taught him. When waking in hostile territory, stay as you are until you know the lay of the land, while gathering as much information as you can. It might also delay torture. Torturers want their prey to be awake so that they can take pleasure in their work. They were sadistic like that. Memories threatened to overwhelm him but Tim managed to push them back under his control and tuned back into the conversation.
Tobias reached out again and flipped a few pages until he came to the listed injuries. He settled back into his chair and waited, knowing that his friend would come to the same conclusion.
Gibbs had seen enough accident reports and medical files to see what had Tobias in such a state. His eyes zeroed in on Tobias, silently asking a question.
The FBI agent nodded. "I took it to your ME, Jethro. Confirmed what I already knew. Explained some of the injuries. Says there are a lot more." Tobias shook his head. "But I didn't want to know anymore."
Gibbs clenched his hands into fists, crumbling the file as he did. He wanted to know more. He wanted to know how much the person who did this to his agent needed to suffer before he died. His eyes widened as a thought occurred to him.
"He lied." Gibbs breathed softly, his eyes flying to his agent. "Tim lied!" Gibbs clenched his hands tighter. "There are no way he got these injuries by wrecking his car!" His eyes narrowed as he watched his junior agent start on the bed and then pinch his lips together.
Tim forced the groan of pain to stay in his throat as he kept his breathing even, hoping that the two men wouldn't notice his movement. Gibbs was wrong. He hadn't actually lied. Not really. He had crashed his car. And on his sixteenth birthday, just like he had told Tony. And he had been in traction—again, just as he had told Tony. But he never come out and said that he had been in traction because of the accident. Tony had just assumed that. Another thing that Trent had taught him—if you know how to omit and imply you don't need to actually know how to lie.
Gibbs debated for a minute whether or not to call his agent out on pretending to be asleep, but he decided to wait and see how far Tim was willing to go with it. "Who?" He barked at Tobias.
"Did you know that he has spoken to his parents only once in the last seven years? Tim's mother told Ron that they just ran out of things to say. Sarah McGee said that 'he is brilliant in ways that most other people can't even begin to comprehend. My parents don't understand that kind of intelligence. They don't understand him.'" Tobias didn't say anything else.
Tim's breath stilled and he could have easily rung his sister's neck! Not only had she let loose something she had sworn she would never talk about, now she had Tobias thinking that he had been abused! While Trent would ague the point, that simply wasn't true. They had never laid a hand on him. All they did was step back and watch as other people did it.
"His parents?"
Tobias shrugged. "Hell,I don't know." He said, shaking his head. "It's very likely."
Gibbs' rage simmered as he thought about what he had learned. "What did you mean about—" Gibbs broke off as Tobias reached out and unclenched the hand that held the file. He watched as Tobias pulled out a sheaf of papers and handed them to him. He didn't understand what he was looking at until he came to the end. When he did he felt like he needed to sit down before he fell down, he was so shocked. Gibbs had done his homework when he had first scouted Tim for his team. Looked into his degrees and into what kind of man he was. He had discovered that his future agent was a smart but insecure and socially awkward man, who everyone liked but thought was reclusive. He had seen the potential shining the first time he had ever looked into those clear green eyes and hadn't dug any deeper then what was on the surface, trusting his gut instead. His gut had never let him down and it had told him that Tim would be an asset to his team.
Tobias noticed his reaction. "You didn't know."
Gibbs gave a harsh laugh. "That I have an agent that could give the guy that invented the atomic bomb a run for his money in the brains department?" He asked sarcasticly. "I think its safe to say no, I didn't know."
Tobias watched as he turned icy, rage-filled blue eyes on his agent. Gibbs was already this mad and Tobias hadn't even gotten around to telling him about the set-up or anything pertaining to it. There was going to be quite an explosion when he found out the truth about that assigment.
~NCIS~
After showering and brewing a pot of coffee, Courtney had settled down with her computer. She wasn't in Tim's league when it came to breaking code and hacking systems, but she could handle her own with most systems. The further she got into the classified projects that Tim's dad had been or were involved in, the more she wished she couldn't. When she had cracked the last file she sat back against her hunter green sofa, a pale ivory hand covering her full mouth. She stared at her computer screen in horror. "Oh, Tim..." She said softly in the stillness of her townhouse. "Tim."
