Despite the interruption from Team Gibbs and the sizable gash in Victoria's wing, the party went off without a hitch. Nobody had really noticed that Apollo was gone, and when he returned he was only asked where Victoria and Timothy were.

It was easy enough to say that they were running an errand, and a once Victoria returned, fresh and clean, it was easy enough to say that Tim wasn't feeling well and had to lie down.

All of their friends took an immediate liking to McGee, and everyone enjoyed the party. When they were gone and the house was empty again, Apollo stood in the middle of the ballroom, under the dome and the large circular skylight, and sighed.

"That was a great party," Victoria assured him.

"It wasn't what I was expecting, that's for sure."

"So a couple of hunters showed up-"

"One almost killed you, Victoria!" he said, turning to her. She was leaning against one of the columns, and it was clear that she was exhausted.

"No, he didn't. And besides. Think of it this way...Now Tim knows who he is! Even if his life is a mess, it can be sorted out now."

Apollo looked around the room. "Where is he, anyway?"

"Out. Flying. Getting his thoughts in order."

"That's understandable. The amount of memory he is most likely regaining now will be staggering..." he looked at her. "You're changing the subject."

"No I'm not, you're the one who brought up Tim's memories."

The older man came up to her and kissed her cheek in a very fatherly way. "You two are my family. I can't afford to lose you."

Just then, they heard a door in the kitchen slam as Tim reentered the house. He stalked into the ballroom.

"What-" Apollo began to ask, but when he saw his son's expression, he put his hands up in a gesture of peace. "It's ok, go wash up and get some rest, we'll talk about it another time."

McGee nodded and silently turned to his room. The two flightlings listened as his door closed.

"And tomorrow we'll clean the house," Victoria said, looking around at the place. It wasn't a wreck, but the obvious after effects of a party were scattered around.

"Yes," Apollo said, and looked up at the skylight over their heads. "We should close this," he said. "In case those three come back."

He flipped a switch in the wall, and the window shut with a snap, locking the world out of their little haven.

...

It took three days for Tim to leave his room for something other than food or drink. His little family knew to leave him alone to his thoughts in this time, and instead cleaned, worked, and lived their lives in their normal routine.

When McGee finally did leave his room, he found Apollo in the library, at his desk.

Tim stared up at the loft, watching the older man's fascinating eyes as they flicked over some document in front of him. He didn't notice Tim at first, not until the young man cleared his throat.

"Oh! Sorry, Tim. It's good to see you out and about. How are you?"

"My memory returned," Tim said, both answering and avoiding the question.

Apollo nodded. "Victoria told me that you knew the hunters from the party."

"Yeah..."

Apollo put the papers back on the desk and stood, walking to the railing and leaning over to look at Tim.

"Would you like to talk about it?"

He nodded. "Is Victoria home?"

"She's in the kitchen. Why don't you go get her and bring her here?"

When Tim returned with Victoria in tow, they saw that Apollo had quickly started a fire in the large fireplace. It was summer; the fire was more to create a feeling of home or security than to provide warmth.

Apollo sat in one of the large chairs, as did Victoria. Tim preferred to stand- he was too nervous otherwise.

"It's a long story," he admitted, and launched into the tale of his life, with emphasis on his time at NCIS.

"I worked for Leroy Jethro Gibbs," he said, nodding sheepishly at Apollo. "And the two younger agents were Ziva David and Tony DiNozzo. I've spent almost a decade on the team."

They were quiet, intending to let him continue, but Tim mistook their silence for anger.

"I understand if you don't want me to stay here anymore."

"Why would we cast you out?" Apollo said in surprise.

"Because I worked with your enemy...I thought you hated him!"

"That's no reason for me to hate you, and I'm sure there's more to the story. Continue."

"...I don't think I would be able to convince you that they're good people," he said. "But they are." He then went on to explain the whole misunderstanding, how Tony and Ziva thought that Apollo had killed Tim, how Apollo thought that they were trying to kill Tim...

"They came here looking for revenge?" Victoria clarified, and Tim nodded.

"They hunt only evil flightlings. At least, that's what they told me."

"Do you trust them?" Apollo asked, staring into the fire.

"I don't know," Tim said in regret, shutting his eyes. "I don't know what happened while I was gone. They're not lying, but...I don't know..."

He sighed, opening his eyes and continuing with the story. "So it's my fault that they came here. That's why I thought you two might not want me around anymore."

"Timothy," Apollo admonished, standing up. "They came here after me, thinking I killed you. No matter what, this isn't your fault. I'm not entirely free of blame...hunters try to come after us every so often. I didn't warn you or prepare you for that eventuality. That's my fault, not yours."

"But why?"

Victoria looked at Apollo and nodded encouragingly. He took a deep breath and spoke. "Maybe you should sit. I believe its my turn to explain."

Tim obeyed, and listened closely.

"If I remember correctly, we told you the body slows its aging once one becomes a flightling." Tim nodded. "How old would you say that I am?"

"Uh...40?" Tim asked, and his father figure chuckled. "41?...42?"

"I became a flightling when I was thirty nine," Apollo said. "That was twenty seven years ago."

"Really?" Tim exclaimed. Victoria smiled, having heard this story before.

"Really. I don't age much. And you won't, either. Fifty years from now you'll both most likely look the same way you do now. Anyway, I became a flightling when visiting this house with my mother and my sister. I told you I spent most summers here."

"Yes."

"...I hadn't seen my father much in my life. He had a job with an American diplomat, and he was almost always gone. It was sad, sometimes, but it wasn't exactly a hard life. We lived very well..." He looked around his home. "When he was home, he didn't touch us. Ever. No contact was allowed with Father. That was the rule."

McGee frowned. Even his dad had patted him on the head when he was very young. "Why not?"

"Because my mother didn't want us to know about flightlings," he explained. "And my father was one. My mother carried the gene- she came from a long line of flightlings, but for some reason, had never changed. And she didn't want me- or my sister- to either."

Tim looked up at the painting of two children playing in a field of flowers. Apollo's mother had painted it.

"My mother was a kind woman. And she loved my father very much. She just didn't want our lives to be...well, let's just say that the existence of flightlings has only improved since then."

"Was your father ok with it?" Tim asked.

"Not turning us? It was his idea," Apollo explained. "It seems sad, but there were many other ways for him to show affection. He gave us gifts, spent time with us. He was actually a good man. But this is beside the point..."

Apollo's face darkened. "I hadn't seen him for a while when he met us here. He was agitated, and told us that there were people on their way. My sister and I were both adults, we both lived alone, and we hadn't seen either of our parents in a while. But he insisted that we all leave. And then, to protect us, he put a hand on both our heads."

"He turned you?"

"Yes, he wanted us to be able to protect ourselves. There were 'aquaintances' of his coming over. Coming for him."

"Why?"

"Being a diplomat got him some dangerous friends. And especially back then, flightlings came from long lines of power and wealth. Every time you made a friend, you made an enemy as well. I'm not sure why, but my father had upset some flightlings, and they were after him."

Victoria looked down, and Tim could tell that the next part of the story was going to be unpleasant. "What happened, Apollo?"

"...They did come. A small group of men...two or three...with a score to settle. That part was never actually explained to me; I will never know why they came, but they did.

My father took my mother away, to protect her; they escaped through a secret tunnel in the house- don't ask me, I don't know where it is... The idea was that we would follow as soon as we had locked up the house and sent away the servants. For their own safety, you know. When the house was empty, we got ready to leave, to get as far away as possible. We had no idea what was going on- we had both been changed into some creatures we didn't know existed. We were woozy, tired, overwhelmed. And we didn't move fast enough."

McGee leaned forward in his chair, enthralled.

"My sister's name was Maria. She was my twin...but I'm getting off topic. We heard banging at the front door. And suddenly it was forced open. You've seen those doors, its obvious that no human would be able to force open the lock with their bare hands. These weren't humans we were dealing with. They were flightlings. A group of them, actually, headed by Thaddeus D'Amico.

"Thad and several of his brothers stormed into the house, obviously ready for a fight that we couldn't put up. We just stared at them as they ran in. And then Thad spotted us..."

"Tell them about the D'Amicos first," Victoria advised.

"Alright. The D'Amico family is...was...based in Venice. Their home was there. They were a pure bred family- every single one of them was born a flightling, and they only married other flightlings...mated is the appropriate word, they didn't care much for human convention...the oldest man in the family was just over my age when we met them...that was Thaddeus."

"You knew them?"

"No, I had never met them before. I learned this all later. And I'll never know what my father did to antagonize them, I was always too afraid to ask."

"And obviously they didn't kill you."

"No, when they saw that we weren't my parents, and that we truly didn't know where our parents were...Thaddeus decided it would be a waste to kill us, especially Maria. My sister was very beautiful, and Thad had a weakness for beautiful women.

"So, he let us go. Actually, he put on a bravado of kindness and generosity, and invited us to stay in his home. It seems foolish that we accepted his invitation now, but you have to remember that we were exhausted, confused...I could barely see, everything hurt, and these men had wings. We had never seen those before...we didn't know at the time that we had them too."

Tim smiled wanly, understanding. He had felt the same things when he woke up for the first time as a flightling, in a strange place with people he didn't know.

"I could tell from the start that Thad wasn't to be trusted. He had the aura of one who had spent too much time in the shadows. His eyes darted all around- he clearly had many secrets...My sister was infatuated with him. He was awful, but she didn't believe me when I tried to warn her. Nevertheless, we spent all of our time together.

"My sister and Thad fell in love. Or, at least, he made her believe that he loved her. Anyway, she and I were close, and he was now part of her life, and so I spent even more time with him."

"What happened?"

"I became very interested in the way they lived. They were powerful, strong. They accomplished a lot. And they all were happy...and they knew how flightlings were supposed to act. Elizabeth and I knew nothing about how to...be flightlings. And they showed us. I quickly came to adore the life as much as my sister did. I began to consider Thad a friend, a comrade. We had exciting adventures and he showed us a way of life that was totally different than what we knew."

He trailed off, and Victoria stood and walked over to him, putting a hand on his arm. With her support, he continued.

"We were allowed to stay at Thaddeus' home indefinitely, which was in Venice. Eventually, he and Maria married, and I moved back here.

When they returned from their honeymoon, Maria seemed distant. She was removed...and when I first went to embrace her, she seemed tense and solid as stone."

His voice cracked a bit at the end, and he squeezed Victoria's arm, so she continued for him.

"Thad denied having done anything to her while they were gone. The next time Apollo saw Maria's wings, he knew something was wrong. They were a sickly gray color. Different from the white they used to be."

"She took a soul?" Tim asked quietly.

"Yes. And she liked it. A month after their marriage, she came to Apollo and told him that there were a few things they didn't know about flightlings. That they could live forever. That they could be even more powerful than she had believed- by stealing souls."

"She didn't present it that way," Apollo said, returning to the story. "Not at first. She just told me that we could be even stronger- we could be the exact same way that Thaddeus was...my sister felt that there difference between us and the D'Amico family... She said that difference had gone as soon as she'd consumed the energy of a human."

Shadows were beginning to creep around the windows of the library; night was falling. The fire created streaks of light and shadow that danced along Apollo's features.

"I didn't know what this meant, but Maria said she felt like she had been ill her whole life and was finally well, even though we both knew she had been a healthy person since birth. Then, to demonstrate, she bent a nearby fire poker in half."

"That doesn't seem too bad," McGee said. "I could do that now, and I've never taken a soul."

Apollo looked down. "It was steel."

Chills ran down Tim's spine. Steel, the one metal that for some reason they could not affect...was apparently powerless against a twisted flightling.

"The souls make you stronger?" he gulped.

"Stronger, healthier, faster...you can hear better, see even better than we can now...you are made immortal. You see, you an I will eventually die of age, even if our bodies don't appear to be old. But with the continuing power that souls bring, you will never age at all. You could live centuries if you wanted to."

"Consider souls the unicorn blood of our species," Victoria said, to which Tim smiled.

"Unicorn blood? Unicorns don't exist..." Apollo said in confusion.

"Harry Potter," Victoria giggled. "Anyway, continue with your story."

"Where was I...? Oh yes. Maria said that Thad had shown her a new way of living while on their honeymoon. And they wanted me to try it."

"Did you?" Tim asked, afraid of the answer.

"No, I didn't. You see, they wanted to officially initiate me into their circle. Make me a D'Amico, of sorts. To make it official, they wanted to have a little ceremony.

Back in Renaissance times, wealthy families had their own private chapels. The D'Amicos still had a chapel on their property by the time Maria and I met them...and that was only a couple decades ago.

They told me to come to their chapel, in Venice. When I arrived, they had lots of friends in the pews. And Maria and Thaddeus were waiting for me at the alter. A human was tied to it."

Victoria, to compose herself, walked to the window and stared out, her back to them.

"What did you do?" Tim asked.

"Before then, I hadn't known what they meant by taking the energy of a human. But when I got there, when I saw everything, I understood. And I refused."

Apollo took a deep breath. "Thad became angry. He called me weak, which was probably the nicest thing he called me that night. When I refused to...do it, he threatened to kill me. A fight broke out, and Maria tried to intervene for me."

Tim knew where this was going before Apollo was finished.

"She ended up dead. But Thaddeus hardly blinked an eye. He came after me, but I escaped. And I never saw him again. I tried to find my parents, and eventually succeeded. My father had died, god knows how, but my mother was alive, and she and I spent the rest of her life in this house. After she died, I moved to America, but eventually came back here. I made the right friends this time, and many years later I met Victoria. You know the rest of the story. "

Tears welled up in their father-figure's eyes, and Victoria hugged him. Tim put his hand on Apollo's shoulder.

"Apollo...all of that...it only proves you're a good person. Why do hunters come after you?"

"Timothy, I may not have killed anyone, but my time with the D'Amicos didn't leave me clean of conscience. I did a lot of terrible things, I'll admit. It was like being part of a motor cycle gang- literally, hell's angels. I personally didn't go as far as murder, but I associated with murderers. And I did everything else that one shouldn't do."

McGee didn't say anything, and Apollo chuckled gently.

"The point is, Timothy, that Leroy Jethro Gibbs isn't the only man with a conflicted past. I still detest the man, but I understand him. I'm not saying that what he does is 100 percent legitimate, but he isn't wrong to try and stop the more evil flightlings. He has made a lot of mistakes in his life, I'm sure, but associating with him won't make you any worse of a person than associating with me will."

"We don't hate you for knowing them, Tim," Victoria said. "We're just worried that they aren't as trustworthy now as you remember them to be. I don't want anything to happen to you."

Tim smiled. "At the very least, I can promise that I won't let anything happen to myself. Ok?"

She smiled back. "If you say so."