Chapter 14

Two weeks went by and Tim continued improving in his ability to keep his mind in the present. He was still on edge around the ones he'd "killed" but with only a fraction of the intensity that had marked his first days. Agent Lovitz had come to ask him what he had seen, but Tim had been unable to say anything beyond that he'd heard something and turned around. The voices he'd heard had been either whispered or horribly amplified. He didn't think he'd be able to recognize it if he heard it. He had never seen anyone.

His insistence that the man who had taken him was the real serial killer from the case three years ago intensified as he seemed to rejoin the real world. He could offer only mixed memories of words spoken to him in the depths of his pain, but the certainty never faded, and Gibbs promised to look into it. The fact remained that all the evidence in the murder of Lt. Steiner had pointed to her boyfriend Jamison Madsen. The near-hysterical declarations of a victim of torture were not enough to reopen the case.

Even so, Tim's improvement was such that they tentatively began his physical therapy. The atrophying of his muscles hadn't progressed to the point of serious degeneration but it would take some work to get them back up to par. His bedsores continued to heal. They transferred him to a regular room, albeit still in the psych ward. Things should have been looking up...and they were in a lot of ways. It was just that everyone knew something was wrong...they just didn't know what it was. They didn't know what was causing their anxiety. Tim himself, to all intents and purposes, was getting better...but something was wrong. In unguarded moments, the expression on his face, the look in his eyes, told them that he was suffering...and not telling anyone what he was suffering or why.

Something was still wrong...

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

Once upon a time...

They weren't dead...yet. He was surprised but then, his captive had continually surprised him. To be honest, he hadn't been sure that he would even survive his three months of captivity. That was a large part of the reason for his release...release, not rescue. The need, the desire, to escalate had become too great and he knew that he would eventually kill his prisoner...and enjoy it far too much. That could not happen...not yet. There were things that needed to be done first. Oh, it would have been nice if he had played out the scene that had been so often shown to him, but then, he might need some encouragement in order to do so.

They would probably realize eventually, that there was no way that he had been seen by anyone except the one who had taken him. They were not completely stupid. It would be so obvious that the man who had called in was the same man they were seeking. He supposed he couldn't be too harsh. They were used to dealing with the common people, the ones who were tied down by their identities. They weren't accustomed to a man freed from his name, from the way society dictated what life was supposed to be like.

Then, his magnanimity left him in a wave of anger. That was no excuse for their thievery, for their attempts to steal those he had collected. They had no right. No right at all. They would understand that soon enough...when they were killed by one of their own. Then, he smiled...no, by one who used to be one of their own. They would see, in their final moments, that the man they thought was Timothy McGee, really belonged to him, not to them.

Once collected, he did not give them up.

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

"I don't know what it is, but I don't like it," Naomi said firmly, watching Tim from across the room. He was in the psych ward's common area, staring at the wall. "He's not okay."

"I agree," Sam said. "I feel almost as though he is worse off now than he was before."

"It's not uncommon for victims of torture to seem emotionless. It's a way for them to deal with the pain and the memory of it."

"But that's not the best way to go, is it?"

Dr. Sakota sighed. "It's hard to say. For some, yes, it is. For some people, the pain of remembering is so great that it is the only way for them to function."

"But they can't hold it back forever."

"No, it's true. They can't. That's why they continue to have therapy and continue to speak with people who are experts. It helps them address the trauma in ways that help them face what happened slowly, in manageable chunks."

"You said that works for some people," Naomi noted.

"Yes. Some. Not all. For others, hiding from the trauma causes it to fester, to get worse. At this point, I'm not sure which one describes your son. What I do know is that his body is healing and he is functioning well enough that he will be released and seen on an outpatient basis."

"I don't like the idea of him being...so...vulnerable, so open to...everything out there."

"He'll have to face the world outside this hospital eventually. If he leaves now, he'll have you all with him. That will help."

"But will it help enough?" Sam asked intently.

"Sometimes, Mr. McGee, you just have to try and see."

"And if that trying leads to his death? Will you simply say that it's a shame it didn't work out?"

"Sam!"

But Dr. Sakota smiled. "No, Mr. McGee. I won't say that. We do our best here. Sometimes, it's not enough, but other times it is. We will never give you less than our best...and I can't promise you more than that. I understand that this is hard for you, for all of you, but putting off the moment when he has to confront the world again will only make that confrontation more difficult when it does come."

Sam nodded and rolled over to Tim while Naomi stayed to talk to Dr. Sakota. Tim wasn't doing anything. He seemed to spend a lot of time just sitting around. He didn't feel the need to speak or move...and if he was even thinking, he wasn't telling anyone the nature of his thoughts.

"Hey, Tim."

Tim stirred. His tendency to stare straight ahead had not been removed and his eyes didn't shift from the wall in front of him as he spoke.

"Hi, Dad. Are you guys done talking about me yet?"

Sam smiled. "Your mother isn't."

"That's Mom for you. She really can't accept the wreck of her son."

"Not a wreck."

"Jury's still out on whether or not repairs can be made...but Dad, I'm a wreck and everyone knows it."

"I think you're being too hard on yourself."

"I think I'm being honest."

"You know, Churchill said..."

That brought a rare smile. "Dad...Churchill?"

"Smart guy, that Winston Churchill...and he wasn't a bad politician either."

The smile stayed. "What did he say?"

"'We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.'"

The smile disappeared. "I'm not seeing the means of inspiration from this, Dad."

"Neither am I at the moment, I'll admit."

"How long did it take you?"

"The amount of time it took for me to look into your eyes and see the suffering I was causing you."

Tim moved his eyes away from the wall and looked at Sam, looked searchingly into his eyes.

"I'm not seeing any meaning."

Sam reached out and squeezed his shoulder. "Give it time."

The smile came back briefly. "Syrus said that 'what we fear comes to pass more speedily than what we hope.'"

And the contest began.

"True, but didn't Edmund Burke say that 'no passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear?'"

"Emily Dickinson," Tim said, his eyes bleak.

"'One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.'"

Sam's hand tightened on Tim's shoulder, but he only continued. "Marcus Aurelius: 'If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.'"

"Virginia Woolf: 'The beauty of the world has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.'"

Sam was quiet for a long time, trying to think of something appropriate.

"Are you conceding?" Tim asked, silently begging him not to.

"William Faulkner: 'Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.'"

Tim swallowed. "What did Faulkner know?"

"Well, he certainly had a lot to say. Are you conceding?"

"I don't know if he's right. Nothing seems a lot better than pain."

"They're talking about releasing you. What do you think?"

"I don't know."

"You think you're ready?"

"I forget that I can move."

"What?"

Tim's face was back toward the wall. "When I sit in a chair...I forget that I can move. It's always a surprise that..." He stopped talking abruptly, his expression empty as it often did when he slipped back in time to his time in the chair. It was a terrifying moment. The only indication that something was really wrong was the sudden tightening of his fingers on the arms of the chair, turning his knuckles white.

Now, unfortunately used to Tim's flashbacks, Sam simply leaned forward and began talking to him, telling him he was safe, that he was not in that chair, that no one would hurt him. Tim came out of it after a minute, rubbing his hands nervously over the arms of the chair in which he was sitting and slumping lower.

"How long this time?" he asked, his voice resigned and tired.

"Only a couple of minutes."

He nodded and stared at the arms of the chair. "Faulkner didn't know anything. He had no idea. Nothing is better."

"Tim..."

"Nothing's better, Dad," Tim said and stood up in a jerky movement. His gait as he walked out of the common room had an awkwardness that couldn't be completely chalked up to his recovering leg muscles.

Sam watched him leave and ran his hands back and forth over the wheels of his chair, moving himself forward and backward in a nervous rocking motion.

"'Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.' Thomas Moore," he said to himself.

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

It was that night that the McGees requested to speak to Tim's coworkers, his friends, to bring up their worries.

"We can't move into Tim's apartment," Naomi said with a slight smile. "For one thing it's too small."

"And it's a walk up," Sam added. "I can't exactly do that."

"Sarah's offered to stay with him, but we can't ask that of her."

"Nor of any of you," Sam said, "but we don't think Tim should be left alone. Not with how he is right now. What we were hoping is for a solution that perhaps we haven't thought of as yet."

There was a long silence as the others looked at each other and thought.

"How does Tim feel about leaving?" Abby asked.

"He doesn't."

"What do you mean?"

Naomi sighed. "Tim's...kind of embraced apathy. He doesn't seem to care about anything because, according to Dr. Sakota, it holds off the moment when he has to really confront what happened to him. We could force it on him, but that would do more harm than good. I'm just afraid that when it does hit him...he won't be able to tolerate it alone. I don't want him to have to."

"I believe I may have...a temporary solution to this dilemma," Ducky said.

"What?"

"I think that it might be well if Timothy stayed with me for a while, a few weeks, a few days. Whatever works best. I have a large house which is mostly empty. In fact, if you wish, you both could stay there as well. I don't have a ramp, but the back door is only a single step and it would be easy enough to get a temporary wheelchair ramp installed."

"I could get the wood for one. It wouldn't take much," Gibbs offered.

"Oh, no. We couldn't impose," Naomi said instantly.

"No imposition at all. I have so much room. It felt empty when Mother was here. Please, I insist."

"Are you sure, Ducky?" Sam asked. "The time would be indefinite...at best."

"Yes, and I will be here still," Ducky said smiling. "Think of it this way. You will be saving money on a hotel. Timothy will be accessible to all of us, no matter his degree of apathy. We will all be able to fret over him to our hearts' content."

Sam and Naomi looked at each other, obviously tempted.

"I would love to have this house full...full as it has never been."

"That would be wonderful, Ducky," Sam said. "Honestly, I don't know what to say."

"I'm sure you'll think of something," Naomi said with a tolerant smile.

"I'll let you know."

"We'll run it past Tim in the morning. Even if he doesn't care now, he should at least have the option of saying no," Naomi said.

"I agree," Ducky said.

The plan was met with so much relief that it seemed as though the decision had already been made...and so it had. For, as Naomi predicted, Tim simply shrugged when the suggestion was put before him and didn't seem to care either way. So Tony and Ziva invaded his apartment and packed some of his things, meeting Ducky with the intent of setting up a room where Tim might feel safe...where he might be able to really rejoin the humanity he'd temporarily shunned.

They could only hope that he would embrace the opportunity.