"Come on!"

"Get him!"

"Kill him! Kill him!"

"Shouldn't have messed with him, you idiot!"

Seeing and hearing the fight, eight guards started running towards where it was happening, in the middle of the exercise yard.

"You think… that's funny?" The man yelled, throwing punched between every few words, "You think… it's just a… funny little joke?.. It's not… funny now… is it?.. You freak!"

The guards arrived and started pulling the two men apart… Well, really only pulling one- seeing that the other was one punch away from being unconscious.

"Get him out of here!" One guard yelled to the others, "Put him in lockdown! And get this prisoner a doctor!"


"How long this time?"

"Forty-eight hours."

They slammed the door, leaving Tim alone in solitary.

"Forty-eight hours," Tim repeated, "Good job, McGee."

He sat down on the floor and looked at his bruised and bleeding knuckles. They should hurt- he had just punched a man in the face over twenty times- but he didn't feel any pain. He did, however, feel satisfied- slightly smiling as he stared at his banged up hands.

"That idiot deserved it."


Ten minutes earlier…

Tim was lifting weights, just minding his own business, when Rick Florez came by. Rick was a real killer, found after murdering four young women in their early twenties. He'd been in prison for two years now… and had one hundred and ninety more to go.

In the six months that Tim had been at Cumberland, Rick was his biggest problem… and also his biggest motivation. If it wasn't for Rick, Tim never would have started lifting weights… or learned how to beat the crap out of people.

"Hello, Timmy."

"Get out of my face," Tim replied, adding some choice words onto the end of his sentence.

"Oh, big talk from the federal agent. That's cute."

Tim dropped his weights and got up off of the bench. He got up close to Rick, "I swear, if you don't get out of my face, you'll wish you were never in front of it." He had no patience when it came to Rick… or ninety percent of the prisoners here.

"Now I'm scared," Rick replied with a laugh. He stepped closer to Tim, "Is that how you talked when you were raping that little girl? I bet you enjoyed it. That's probably why you became a cop… so you could get off on listening to victims' stories."

Tim clenched his jaw. He drew back with his fist and quickly swung forward, taking Rick to the ground. It could have stopped there, but Tim didn't want it to. He got down top of Rick and continued punching…


Gibbs sat in his basement. It had been exactly three months since he had seen his youngest agent. Three months since he made that final visit, which he could never forget… but wished, more than anything, that he could.

Three months earlier…

Tim sat down across from Gibbs. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Gibbs looked Tim up and down, like a father checking to see if his son was okay… Tim wasn't.

He had dark circles under his eyes, and he was skinnier than Gibbs had ever seen him before. His face was sunken in and, if Gibbs could have seen his stomach and chest area, he would have seen Tim's ribs protruding.

"McG-"

"Why are you here?" Tim asked, his voice hard.

"To talk to you, Tim."

"About?"

"How are you?" Gibbs asked, regretting the question almost immediately.

Tim snorted, "How am I?.. That is the question. I'm great. Never better. Thank you so much for asking," He replied sarcastically.

Gibbs sighed. Just looking into Tim's sad eyes made him depressed, but hearing Tim talk was even worse.

"Tim-"

"Have you found the person? The right person?"

"No."

"Any new evidence?"

"No."

"Anything to prove my innocence?"

"No, Tim."

"Then why are you here?"

"Why do you think, McGee?" Gibbs replied, becoming annoyed, "I care about you and I wanted to check on you! You're a part of my team."

Tim shook his head, "No. I'm not a part of that team anymore."

"Why would you say that?"

"Look at me, Gibbs! I am a mess! I'm not the same person I used to be and I never will be. I'm not an agent anymore. I'm not anything anymore… besides a rapist and killer."

Gibbs leaned in closer to Tim, "You ever say that again and I swear I will shoot you."

"Please do. I would rather enjoy that right now. It's about the only thing that hasn't happened to me in the past three months."

Gibbs didn't respond… He wasn't even sure what to say.

Tim laughed, "Never thought you'd be speechless," He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, "Listen Gibbs, don't come back here unless you have news for me. I don't wanna see you, Tony, Ziva, Ducky or Abby. Tell them that. Don't. come. back." With that said, Tim got up and a guard escorted him back to his cell.

Gibbs left… and never came back.

Gibbs was pulled out of his thoughts with the sound of footsteps on his stairs.

He looked over to see Abby there. She stopped when she reached the bottom step and she stared at Gibbs.

"You okay?" Gibbs asked.

Abby shook her head, "No."

"Wanna talk about it?"

"Yes."

Gibbs nodded toward a chair that was across from him, on the other side of wooden coffee table he was working on, "Sit."

Abby walked over to the chair and sat down. Gibbs didn't push her to talk. He knew she'd start the conversation when she was ready.

She was quiet for about a minute, just looking down at the table.

Finally she looked up at him, "I was thinking about Tim."

"Not alone there."

"You too?"

Gibbs nodded.

Abby sighed in relief, "I wanna see him, Gibbs."

"He doesn't want you to see him, Abby."

"I know, but… but why?"

"Because… He's not the same anymore, Abbs."

"I know that too. I visited him a few times until you… you told us what he told you... Did you get his file?"

"Abbs…"

"You did, didn't you?"

Gibbs shook his head, "You don't want to see it, Abby."

"Yes, I do."

"No, you don't."

"Gibbs, please! I need to know what's happening with Timmy. Please!"

Gibbs took in a deep breath. This was against his better judgment, but if she wanted to know as bad as he had wanted to know… there was not a thing that could stop her from seeing the file. He got up and walked over to his desk area, opening the drawer and pulled out a file.

He walked back over to her, "Abby, there are some things in there that you aren't going to like… You understand that, right?"

She nodded, "I understand."

Gibbs handed over the file, then went to his seat and sat back down.

Abby paused for a moment, just staring down at the file, then she opened it and began reading.

Her eyebrows furrowed, "He was hospitalized five times! Twice for being beaten by multiple prisoners…" Her eyes widened, "Once for being stabbed in the leg!" She looked up at Gibbs and he nodded.

"Someone broke off the end of their toothbrush… Didn't do much damage though."

Abby looked down and continued reading, "Once for being bitten by another inmate… And," Her face paled, "Oh my God." She thought she was going to vomit.

Gibbs could see the look on her face, and he felt the need to explain, "His, now former, cellmate said he wanted to give Tim a taste of his own medicine."

"That's disgusting! Gibbs, why wasn't he put in PC unit?"

"Judge Fallon. He's got something against Tim, or law enforcement in general… He won't allow it."

"What about some other judge? There's more then one."

"Shawn's tried everything he could. Right now, until after trial, there's nothing anyone can do."

"And there's still no set trial date yet."

Gibbs crossed his arms, "Nope. Prosecution wants as much against Tim as possible, therefore they're waiting until Greg processes everything found in that alley."

"Well, it's taken a while, but he is almost done. He's ran twenty to fifty tests on every piece of garbage found in the dumpster… He's done a pretty good job too."

"He hasn't found anything to clear McGee yet."

Abby sighed, "No, but he hasn't found anything new to convict him either…" She looked back down at the file and her eyebrows raised, "He's started fights?"

"Four of them in the past two months."

"He has definitely changed." Abby stood up and set the file down, "Gibbs, the last bit of good news we got was when I found the hacker six months ago! And that turned out to just be some stupid genius who thought it would be cool to hack into a federal agency… Something's gotta give, Gibbs!"

Just then, Abby's cell phone rang.

"It's Greg," She said, looking at the caller ID. She answered, "Hello."

"Abby, get to NCIS now!"

"Why?"

"Because I'm here and I have to show you something."

"We were given a mandatory day off, Greg. Why are you there?"

"It doesn't matter! Get. here. now!"

"Okay, jeez!"

Abby hung up.

"What is it?" Gibbs asked.

She shrugged, "I don't know… but hopefully it's something giving."


I was supposed to update Haunted today, but this whole chapter popped in my head and- seeing how difficult it has been for me and this story to get along well- I had to write it out. I hope you guys liked it :) Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Also, I wrote Abby a little different than I usually do. I might have been the only one to notice, but if I'm not, I hope it's not out of character. I just think that after six months of what they've all been through, they'd all be a little different.

And PC stands for Protective Custody.