Chapter 14

"McGee, come on. It's time for your debriefing," Gibbs said sharply.

Tim forced a sigh. He didn't want to go through this, but he knew that it was required. Not having it might be suspicious for an attorney. That was the only reason he stood up and followed Gibbs. He did laugh at the fact that Gibbs literally led him all the way to the door, knocked for him and essentially forced him to go into the room.

"Thanks, Boss. I don't think I could have found my way on my own. It's a big building," he said sarcastically.

Thwack!

"Get in there, McGee."

Tim turned around. "What if I accused you of harassing your team members and told the person in the room that everything going wrong around here was your fault, not mine?"

Gibbs actually looked slightly confused, and Tim laughed at him...and at himself, truth be told.

"Not that anyone would believe that the great Leroy Jethro Gibbs ever does anything wrong. After all, light shines out of your every orifice, doesn't it." Then, Tim walked into the room and slammed the door behind him.

The sound of someone clearing her throat startled him, that same intense feeling of fear that gathered in his chest every time something unexpected happened.

"Agent McGee?"

Tim blinked once and then turned around, the long way, before he faced the no-nonsense-looking woman sitting at the table.

"Yes. That's me."

"Good. Why don't you have a seat?"

"Do I have to?" Tim said sharply.

"Not necessarily. It would probably be more comfortable for you, but if you'd rather stand, feel free."

"I already do," Tim said, but after a few seconds sat down at the table.

"Okay. Let's get started, shall we?"

"Do I have any choice?"

"Well, you didn't show up yesterday; so I'd assume that you do have some."

"I have things to do today. Is this part of the debriefing?"

"I'm Dr. Nielson. I'll be conducting this debriefing today," she said with a slight smile.

"Great. Let's get on with it."

"There are some formalities to get out of the way and then we'll get on with it."

"Like what?"

"First, I have to emphasize that this is confidential. What you say in here is not going to come back to haunt you later on. It's a chance to go through what happened in during the operation and your experiences while undercover. It is also to determine any future referrals which might be needed."

"Referrals? For what?"

"For therapy should I determine it is necessary. Most agents coming out of undercover need a few sessions with a licensed therapist to help them...normalize, get back into the flow of their lives."

"And if the agents don't agree?"

"Then, they'll have to present a very good case for why they don't agree. If they have just cause for protesting the recommendations, and Director Vance agrees, then the therapy requirement will be removed."

"Wait...requirement?"

"Yes. Should I recommend therapy, it will be a requirement for return to field duty."

Tim felt irritated at that. What right did she have to say what he had to do? ...but he didn't say anything aloud.

"Any other questions before we get going, Agent McGee?"

"No. No questions."

"All right. Let's get started, then. ...beginning with your chosen persona."

"What about it?"

"Let's just talk about Thomas Allen MacKay for a bit. How did you choose him?"

"I don't understand."

"You created this identity. You chose the name, the history...everything. How?"

"I picked a name that was close to my own. That's what everyone does. We had to have someone good with computers so that the group we were investigating would want to use me. I gave him a history a lot like mine...same basic education, but without the NCIS, obviously."

"And what about who he was. How did you decide what kind of a person he would be?"

Tim felt badgered by her questions. ...and he was angry that the only person to ask him this was the one who had to, not people who were supposed to care what the answers were. So...he lied. It's not like it mattered to Dr. Nielson.

"I chose a person who would be willing to break the law. Had to be. He had to be willing to engage with pretty much anyone. I practiced and that's it."

"That's it?"

"That's what I said."

"All right. How much time did it take before you were ready to actually go undercover?"

Tim was already past his point of tolerance, but as the questions kept coming, no matter how nicely asked, he got more and more upset, but he thought he hid it tolerably well. It wasn't like she cared anyway.

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

"Timmy, don't go!" Sarah begged.

Tim smiled and hugged his sister. "Don't worry, Sarah, I'll come back to visit."

"But I don't want you to go! MIT is really far away!"

"But I want to go, Sarah."

"Why?"

"So that I can go to school."

"You can go to school here!"

"No, I can't."

"Why not?"

Tim looked around to make sure their parents weren't there. No sign of adults.

"Because I don't have friends here, Sarah...and I can't have friends here. If I go to MIT, I can make friends."

"I'm your friend...aren't I?"

"You're my sister, Sarah. That's better than a friend...but I want friends, too. At college I can have friends. No one will be pushing me around there. We'll all be smart; so there's no reason for bullies!"

"Tim, are you ready?"

Tim looked up. "Yeah, Mom. I'm ready."

"You want to tell your father good-bye?"

Tim hesitated. They were still at an awkward stage...but...

"Yeah. I will."

Naomi followed him out of the room. When they were alone, she stopped him.

"Tim, remember that making friends takes effort on your part. You can't force people to like you."

"Don't you think they will?" Tim asked, suddenly worried.

"I think that if you let them see the wonderful son I know and love, they will...but you'll never be everyone's friend."

Tim sighed before heading into the study, feeling much older than his 16 years. "I'd settle for one, Mom."

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

"Do you think we did something wrong, Tony?" Ziva asked, looking speculatively up at the room where Tim was being debriefed.

"Wrong? In what context?" Tony asked, glaring at his monitor.

"This operation, McGee being undercover. Do you think we did wrong?"

"We treated him like we treat each other. Remember when we were assassins? You didn't have any problem with kneeing me in the groin."

"You were being disgusting."

"Well, I don't think we acted any differently with McGee."

Ziva looked at the data on her own screen. The gun they had recovered from the scene had Julia's fingerprints on it...but it had not been fired. That Tim was telling the truth about what had happened she believed...but what exactly had happened in that room? It seemed unlikely that Tim had told them everything. It was too simple.

"Perhaps we should have."

"He's an agent, Ziva. If he wants to do the job, he has to accept what it's like here."

"Yes, but is it the best way?"

"Did anyone coddle you?"

"No."

"No one coddled me when I was undercover. If McGee thinks he should have been, then he shouldn't have gone undercover in the first place."

"He did not choose to. Vance did."

"Yeah, but he was plenty eager to do it and you know it."

"Yes, that is true."

"This isn't our fault."

"I was not assigning blame. I was just trying to figure out what had caused such a change in McGee's behavior."

"He's trying to be tough, Ziva."

Ziva looked at Tony with an inscrutable expression.

"What?"

"You are worried about him, too."

Tony quickly shook his head. "No. I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"No. I'll worry about him if he's still like this after seeing a shrink. You know he'll have to. Everyone does. If that doesn't help, then I'll be worried. We have procedures for stuff like this."

Ziva nodded. What Tony said was true. Tim couldn't expect to be the exception to the rules of going undercover. She could wait and let people trained help him...and get him back to normal. That was how things worked. A few weeks of therapy and Tim would be back to normal.

Right?

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

"Is there anything else you'd like to tell me, Agent McGee?" Dr. Nielson asked.

"No. I didn't want to tell you anything."

"I appreciate you humoring me. I'll be giving my report to Director Vance."

"And?"

"And I'm going to recommend a few meetings with a therapist, someone who can help you work through all the stress of the operation."

"I don't need any of that! I'm fine. The operation is over and it was successful. Why won't anyone believe me?"

"I do believe you, but I also believe that you need some extra help. You're still very tense, Agent McGee."

"I've been interrogated by you for the last two hours. Why wouldn't I be?"

"You're free to go. I'll give my recommendations to Director Vance and he'll probably arrange for another time when we can go over the best course of action."

Tim didn't answer. Instead, he stood up and walked out, coming just shy of slamming the door behind him.

She smiled but at the same time was amazed at the contrast between Tim's previous psych evaluation and the sense she was getting from him here and now, i.e. someone on the verge of exploding. He didn't trust her and, in fact, seemed to view her with the utmost suspicion, as if he expected her to be working against him. He seemed to have suffered a complete personality shift, but she was willing to chalk a lot of it up to the strangely-thorough history of Thomas Allen MacKay. Tim had said as little as he possibly could in answer to everything she had asked.

It wasn't that she hadn't been greeted with suspicion before. Some people viewed debriefings as a way of assigning blame for anything that might have gone wrong, but based on what Ducky had told her in his impromptu sit-rep on her arrival this morning, it seemed that Tim had begun viewing everyone this way...and it wasn't his normal point of view. Every attempt to dig deeper had been firmly rebuffed. He had said only what was necessary to answer her questions. For someone who had been consistently profiled as having a more-or-less stable personality, he had changed...drastically. In layman's terms, Dr. Nielson would have described him as a loose cannon, an accident waiting to happen. There was an edge of anger in everything he said and did. It was obvious in his very demeanor.

She couldn't, in good conscience, hold back her recommendation. There was no way Tim McGee should be allowed to go back to work in his current state, if for no other reason than that he seemed to have no awareness of the extremity of his behavior. That was worrying.

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

Left alone again with his report, Tim made a lot of progress, but as he laid out everything he'd done, another moment of questioning came to him...the things he'd done while undercover... Were they justified?

Don't let their doubts get in your way. You did everything right. If they'd open their eyes, they'd see it too.

Even so...he knew more than ever that his decision was the right one...only one more day.

His phone rang.

"Agent McGee," he said.

"Agent McGee, Director Vance would like to speak with you."

"Now?"

"If you're available."

"Yes. I'll be right up."

He hung up the phone and thought about it. Now was as good a time as any...besides, he thought with a smile, it would give him the chance to set up the ultimate fall for Gibbs. Down he would tumble off that ridiculous pedestal. Everyone would know just how terrible he was.

Everyone.